A Fire

The weekend came, and it made an entrance.

A handful of us decided to get dinner, maybe BBQ, after work. It was Friday. We were paid on Tuesday. It seemed like the thing to do.

After dropping our bags and meeting up on the street, we started making for one of our favorite places. We talked. We joked. Someone was saying something inconsequential when I heard Lauren gasp.

Directly across the street, in the garage of a building (all the buildings on our street are at least 10 stories high), there’s fire dripping from the ceiling. Fire and sparks.

It was coming down in a line. Later we would say it might have been running the line of a wire, but who knows. At the time it looks though someone has spilled a corrosive liquid and it’s dripping through the floor and into the garage below. Cars are getting a light shower of fire and ash.

“Oh my god,” someone says.

“That’s a fire!” Someone exclaims dumbly.

And I felt dumb too. Maybe we all did. The foot traffic flows steadily around 8 or so (right about now), and people are stopping on the street and staring. Some have their phones out. I hope to God that they were calling someone. 1-1-9 is the number for emergency services/dispatch here.

Looking back now I guess I should have been shaking the three Korean guys with phones (I don’t cell service here) next to me and getting them to do it. Looking back I should have been doing any number of things. There were people in the building. I could see them sitting at desks. All the light were on. It didn’t look as if any alarms were going off. There were no screams or sirens or bells.

That’s the weirdest thing, maybe. No one screamed. No one shouted. It was like every single one of us, all thirty some-odd people stopped on the street was just looking on with our mouths open thinking, “Is this really happening?”

I’m embarrassed by that now.

In hindsight I think that I should have been chucking rocks at windows to alert the people inside. No less than five of them were staring at computer screens. I should have been doing something.

Looking back on it now, it makes me wonder if that was of THOSE moments. Those trying, tempering moments that test you or, worse, just show you what color your blood is. I stood and watched with my gob open.

I’ll say in advance that no one was killed. Over 100 people went to the hospital, but no more than 15 were listed with injuries.

Knowing that, I’ll look back on this and think that it might have been one of those moments, or perhaps it was a rare dress rehearsal. I’m not exactly sure what it is I should have done, but I can tell you that standing there watching and doing nothing didn’t seem right. I can tell you that watching the flames crawl across the ceiling and grow until they were roaring out of the garage, and hoping to God that someone with a phone had called the fire dept. didn’t feel right.

Within 45 seconds the fire was large enough that everyone across the street was taking unconscious steps backwards. My face felt about like it does when I’m standing about a foot from a campfire. Near-seared.

And God did it grow fast.

I had some Korean guy by the arm and was pulling him back. Someone had my arm and was doing the same. The guy looked back at me, and I realized what I was doing and dropped his arm.

Andrew said something about there being explosions. Maria said something about the building being full of people (and it was).

We turned and walked quickly through the belly of the building we were under and made for the interior square of the block. More people were streaming past us going the other direction.

No one’s really talking, maybe under their breath, but nothing consequential is being said. I guess we were in shock.

We exit into the square (which is mostly serene) and walk on the way we were going, thinking I guess that if it blew we wanted to have a row of buildings in between us and the blast. That seems a little Hollywood now, having seen the fire, but what do I know about building sized fires?

Maria says she doesn’t want to see it, so she and I stay down the street and around the corner from the fire. I can see a clear reflection of it raging on though in the glass windows of a tall building on the next street over (that’s on the complete opposite side of the block the fire is on, mind you.) The flames are that tall.

High, orange flames waving like the arms of one of those dancing balloon men you see in front of car dealerships. For me to see the fire in the windows of the skyscraper means that the whole building had already gone up.

That might have taken two minutes from when I saw the flames dripping in the garage. It was probably less. What the hell? Flames 10-15 stories high and reaching up 15 feet more into the sky.

I could feel it. Around the corner and down the street I could feel the heat.

Still there are no screams. No sirens. I’m new to cities, and I’m new to fires, but you would think it would be louder, right?

We’re thinking, “Where are the firetrucks?” The entire building is in flames, a building sized fire, and the street is pretty much silent. It might not even be happening except that people are pooling in a wide semi-circle in the street, staring at the flames like teenagers at a bon-fire.

Maria’s talking about the people in the building. I’m not talking about much and just watching the flames in the reflection of the skyscraper and wondering why it’s so damn quiet.

We walk down the street away from the fire some more. We meet back up with our group of friends/co-workers. Those of us that are talking are swearing and asking where the fire-department is.

Maybe thirty seconds later we hear the first sirens down the street and a small firetruck wheels around the block. Then a police car. Then an ambulance.

The flames have already died down so that I can’t see them in the windows of the skyscraper. We walk around the corner to look down the side of the block were the fire is and see that it’s largely died down on the initial building and has caught the one next to it.

You can hear and see glass and things shattering and falling to the street below.

It’s crazy how many people are on the street watching, and how close they are.

The firefighters are hosing down both buildings. It’s good that there’s only two buildings on fire because I can only see two streams of water (and they look pitiful next to the mass of the buildings) arcing up to the flames.

More trucks come. More ambulances.

Jerrica, a coworker of ours, lives in the building right next to the one that is currently a black, smoldering husk. She was out shopping when the fire started. She’s with us now and looking white as a sheet.

Things look like they’re getting better, and we see the flashlights of the firefighters lancing around inside the building. I don’t guess they’re looking for coats and watches.

More gawkers show up, including one teenage boy braying out stupid laughter and yelling that “it’s a REAL fire!” He spoke pretty good English and I don’t doubt that every one of us thought about giving him a tongue-lashing (and maybe a little more), but he moved on towards the fire and we settled for glares. I’ll add that to my list of things to regret in hindsight, as the juvenile callousness of it strikes me raw still.

But then, what was I doing that was helping? I was standing on the same street as the teen, more composed or not, and I was doing the people in that building the exact same amount of good.

What’s more, I had been there when the fire was a shower of flame and sparks in the garage. I might have had a chance to have done something. What, I don’t know, but more than stand like an idiot in the street.

I didn’t want to be one of rubberneckers anymore. I wasn't helping anything, and it feels wrong at some point to watch a catastrophe – vulture-ish. Sheep-ish. Whatever, it doesn’t feel good. It seemed that everyone felt the same way, so we moved on.

A few seconds later, we’re making our way down the street, and a family of three (a Mom and her two sons) are next to us. The boy is coughing like he has a lung or two full of smoke and the mom is speaking to a nearby policeman rapidly.

I’m thinking: How the heck did he get out, and in silence? Where was the evacuation? Out the other side of the building?

The kid coughing is high school aged. Daniel gleans that the building on fire (the initial one) was a math and engineering hagwan (private school), not unlike the one we work at. It lets out late, so you can be sure it was full of kids like the one coughing his face red in front of me.

It’s good to see that he’s unburnt. He seems shaken up, but ok. I guess he’ll be one of the hundred or so to go the hospital and leave the same night.

Lauren gets news on her phone that no one was killed (or so we think).

I’m thinking it’s incredible that within thirty minutes we can get a full casualty report via the internet. It can already be up on someone’s wall getting emoticons and likes before yon coughing kid has made his way to the next block.

That’s something.

So we walk on. No one’s really vocal about BBQ anymore. We go for burgers.

On the street are oblivious passersby laughing with their mouths open and having a good ole time on Friday night, and I guess why shouldn’t they?

It’s a little weird, and no one knows what to say really.

The tavern we go to is warm and lively– it’s called Travelers, and is known as a foreigner bar. Duh. They have a food challenge.

The challenge is a burger (a great burger) made up of four half-pound beef patties (rare in Korea), 8 slices of bacon (also rare), and 4 slices of cheese (even rarer), next to a mound of potato wedges with chili poured over them. There was a pickle involved too, if I remember correctly.

It might seem like a weird time to do the challenge, given the context, but I think it was the right move. We knew then that no one had been killed, but there was still an off-ness to things. I think we were all unsettled. The challenge gave us something else to think about.

I could write a good deal about it (or play it up a great deal, at least), but after writing about the fire, I don’t much feel like it. Ask me about the burger in person sometime and I promise to ham it up proper. I’ll spin you a yarn.

Suffice it to say that we handled it (Andrew, Daniel and I) in short order.

We played a few games of darts afterwards and had some drinks and laughs, and by the end of the night we were comparing food babies and having a good time. Not that I doubt that everyone spent some time that night thinking on what we had seen, especially when we finally got back to our beds.

I certainly thought about it.

I guess it turned out as well as it could have, considering. I’ll be reading up on what can be done in the future. What I’ve found pretty much amounts to: 1. Call the fire department. 2. Get out of the way.

I don’t know what I was expecting to find.

It was a wild thing to see that building go up so fast. I mean, SO fast. It was scary, yeah, but more so, it was shocking. The shock and the feeling of helplessness – of not being able to do a single thing to help. I felt very young. I think that's what I’ll remember the most.

I’m just glad everyone is mostly ok.

I spoke to a Korean man in a store this morning about it. His shop is directly across from the burnt buildings (both now black husks). He didn’t say much. Just pursed his lips and shook his head. I guess that’s about how I feel to.  

Here's a video of the fire for those who care to see. I'm not sure who took it. Someone in the Facebook group for foreigners in this area.  ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhEXzeEBSo8

The original building Saturday morning

Singing (and Dancing) for our Supper

The first snow has fallen. The sidewalks are coated with ice some mornings. The air comes with a bite. Winter’s arrived in the ROK. The winters here come down from Siberia, and while I’ve certainly been colder, the dry-cold is something new. Before coming to Korea, I’d never had a nosebleed. Not from southern winters or Colorado elevation or anything else. I’ve had several over the past few weeks. I guess just from the walk to work in the morning. Strange.

Christmas is also getting closer, which means that soon I’ll see my mom and sister, which is exciting! I’ve been planning a good bit for that. It’s Mom’s first time out of the country, so I want to do it big.

Christmas also means that KCTY is gearing up for our annual Christmas celebration. This is something that most private academies do, it seems. When I was researching schools to work at, most of the blogs and forum rants/raves were concerning Christmas celebrations. I’m not planning on tearing off a rant, but I can see why there are so many to be found. It’s a stressful time.

This is where I work right now.

Private academies (hagwans, as they’re called here) work on a monthly basis. We have semesters, yeah, but every student pays tuition on a monthly basis, so they can choose to stay or go at pretty much any point. That being the case, anything that our parents (our clients) see, like homework, is extremely important. This is also true for the kind of feedback our students give their parents, and it is doubly true for anytime parents come into the school – that’s pretty much mission-critical, danger-close, crunch time. And on top of these facts, the Christmas celebration has a history of expectation.

It’s a big deal.

The smallest kindergartners recite a poem and sing a Christmas song (complete with a choreographed dance). My kids -- the older kindergartners (around age 7) each have to stand in front of their parents/school staff and give a “Christmas speech”, before they also sing and dance. And when I say sing and dance, I mean my Korean teacher has choreographed a full routine (involving jazz hands and imaginary top hats) to Frosty the Snowman. Eat your heart out Brittany Spears. 

As if their day wasn’t going to be hard enough, I’m also required to sing and dance with them.

When you put the celebration in the context of a client quality control check (which it most certainly is), it feels a little less like putting on a goofy, kindergarten Christmas show, and more like (literally) singing and dancing for your supper. My senses tell me that my class of seven-year-olds’ performance at the celebration (and my own performance) will have a substantial impact on how the administration views my professional standing.

And that’s pretty funny, when you think about it. Sort of.

Like I said, it’s a high tension time. I’m drilling the kids on their speeches incessantly. I made them write three drafts (this thing is 1-2 pages in their slightly oversized child-scrawl), which I edited at each step. After that, I’ve typed them all up and spot-cleaned them.

My Korean teacher (the woman who minds the kids while I’m planning or at lunch) asked me today to work with the kids more on their speeches as “their pronunciations still sound Korean.”

It amazes me how much these kids do. They’re six, and they’re fluent in two languages, writing more (with fewer complaints), and editing at a higher level than a good many high schoolers that I’ve taught. Still, I’ll be damned if a few of these six-year-olds who are reciting pages of Christmas speech from memory in their second language don’t have a bit of an accent. A few say hot cocoa like “hot co-co-ah”.

I don’t know why they even bother trying, honestly. Amateurs.

A few of the kids are having trouble memorizing all of the speech, on account of they only have my two 40 minute blocks a day to practice. And that’s not even really the case because we still have our normal workload of reading and writing to attend to. I suggested that the kids take copies of their speeches home to practice, but that was vetoed on grounds that it would ruin their parent’s surprise at the celebration.

But we make do. It’s a little tense, but we’re hanging in there. The admins and Korean teachers prod a lot and try to play up the celebration’s importance, and why wouldn’t they? It’s essentially an audit.

The kids don’t really seem phased by all that’s getting thrown at them (which is comforting seeing as how much their temerity affects my relationship with the administration). I guess they’re just used to it all.

At sound point I have to learn our dance routine. Hoping my mom doesn't make it here in time to watch all of this, though given that she would be standing beside the parents of my kindergartners, that would be pretty funny. 

So, in the end, maybe I ranted a little bit. Thanks to those of you who stuck with this past the nosebleed part. The work is busy, but that’s a good thing.