Author: Brand Smit

Wednesday, 25 March 1998

In the first three years following my graduation, I struggled with the idea of commitment. I had no clue to what I should commit myself. I was also reluctant to devote myself to something or commit to it if there were a vague possibility of failure.

If you don’t have a focus point in your life, something you’re committed to, you are intensely aware of the effect this state of affairs has on your sense of well-being. Shortly after graduating from university (which left me with a small mountain of debt), I went to Europe for a few weeks (more debt). Whatever I tried to achieve with the trip, it did not succeed. Then I spent more than a year wandering between places in the hope that “something will happen” that could give me direction – in the hope that I might find something to which I can commit myself.

Eventually, I found myself in another foreign country, still looking for something to fill the void left by my lack of commitment. Or maybe I thought the mere fact that I was living abroad, away from the hassle of student loan creditors, away from even family and friends, would be enough – for the time being.

Alas, escaping does not work if you cannot escape from yourself. In my case, I could not escape the feeling that I don’t belong. If you’re not committed to something or someone, you’re not going to feel as if you belong. And if you don’t feel as if you belong, you will experience what some academics call existential angst.

You can keep yourself busy for a while with a variety of things to make up for the lack of commitment in your life, but once the effect of these measures begins to fade, or if you get bored with it, you’re back at square one.

To what do people commit themselves? They commit to a religious entity, an idea, a dream, an ideal, or to someone else, a group or even a subculture. That to which I want to devote myself ought to be meaningful enough to keep my attention and to take hold of my imagination. It will also help if this focus point is of such a nature that, by keeping myself busy with it, I can provide for my daily needs.

I’m a dreamer, but I am also realistic. I have seen enough, and I’ve experienced enough to know what kind of life awaits you if you are not free; if you are not in a position to make choices and act on them. I know what it feels like to wonder when you’re going to get evicted from your rental home, or to wonder when you’ll again sit down to a proper home-cooked meal, or to wonder if the next knock on the door will be the repo man. I know what it feels like to have dreams, but to not know whether a fraction of it will ever come true.

I can thus with a fair amount of certainty say that I am committed to the idea of freedom – freedom from debt bondage, and freedom from poverty. I can go further and say that I am dedicated to reaching a point where I will have options, and access to the necessary resources to act on choices made; also to having the ability to give more than I ask. It only makes sense to then also commit myself to a path that would lead to financial wealth – not as an end destination, but as a path to freedom.

Where is a better place to commit myself to the above-mentioned ideals than the piece of earth where I was born and where my deepest roots still lie?

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Tuesday, 24 March 1998

Everything I’ve always said about freedom, financial debt, my own ideals, my aspirations, my dreams, achieving my potential, living as I’d like to live, crystallise around a single, essential prerequisite. I have seen enough, experienced enough, and read and heard enough to understand how important power is: The power to make choices and act on those choices. “Kto kgo?” asked Lenin. “Who (masters) whom?”

If you don’t want to play the role of the servant, the debtor, the person in self-imposed economic exile, for the rest of your life, stop running and start working, purposefully, effectively, with a single goal in mind: to acquire what will make you free – from creditors, bailiffs, poverty, and an insignificant existence, and free of economic masters who want to rule your life.

If I want to survive, in the first place, and then be able to get more out of life than mere survival, and to have the ability to exercise my choices, I’d have to work on obtaining the one resource that will make these things possible for me: financial prosperity. That’s all that remains.

Easier said than done? Not if it has taken your entire life so far, years of poverty, shame, embarrassment, and frustration to get to the point where you realise that this is the primary means to so much you hope to achieve.

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Wednesday, 18 March 1998

I recently became acutely aware, once again, of certain patterns in my life: my parents’ financial situation, my own financial history, my increasing paranoia about the harassment and possibly prosecution I am facing because of unpaid debt.*

A different idea nevertheless struck me like a bolt of lightning out of the clear blue sky: The last seven or eight years I have had some exceptional opportunities to understand things. This includes theology, history, politics, psychology and most recently, economics.

If I wanted to make a case about my unenviable personal experiences of financial difficulty, the legal troubles one faces because of debt, and the effects these things have on your self-esteem and confidence, I wouldn’t have to spend a lot of time arguing the case. But I can certainly also make an alternative case about the opportunities that I’ve had so far, and still have, to understand things.

———–

* By this date, I had learned from the bank that held my student loan that I had to start paying back my loan fairly rapidly if I wanted to avoid some very unpleasant consequences.

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Sunday, 15 March 1998

I sometimes see myself as a former monk who’s lost his faith – or one whose religion has lost him, and who is now searching for a meaningful existence in secular life.

I am, however, not yet fully immersed in this “new” life. I’m unfamiliar, even uncomfortable, with some of the ways of this world, especially compared to people who have lived their entire adult lives in secular society.

* * *

Compared to most people I know here, I’m not a big success as a so-called backpack traveller. As they travel from one country to another, discovering interesting places first-hand, I prefer to set up camp in one place for a while and work my way through a pack of newspapers on a Sunday afternoon.

A little pathetic, maybe? Why? There’ll always be people who have done more than you, who have seen more than you, who have met more and crazier people than you, and who have done more and stranger things in more countries, and in more exotic countries than you.

I shouldn’t try to follow in other people’s footsteps just because I think my way of living is less impressive than theirs.

Stop competing with other people, I say. Do what you find suitable for yourself and what you like. If not for a better reason, do it because then you won’t have to measure yourself up to other people and in the process finding yourself too light, while that criterion is only one out of a million.

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Background:

1. EPIK was the government organisation that recruited English teachers for public schools in Korea. Nationality was of paramount importance; South Africans did not qualify. I knew that before applying, but I still took a chance.

2. The hot water system in Korea works with oil that needs to be refilled every few weeks. Mrs Kim – the homeowner – and I made turns paying for the oil.

———–

Tuesday, 24 February 1998

On Monday, 16 February, I called the EPIK office. The woman categorically declared that I was not acceptable to the program. I was slightly relieved.

On Thursday, 19 February, Mr John Lee from Top Language Institute paid a visit to my school to inform me that I will work for him two hours a day starting from March. I wondered about the compensation, seeing that by March I would strictly be owing my school two hours a day.

On Sunday, 22 February, I had a great day in Seoul with two other expats. We visited the one place in Korea I would have regretted not visiting – the DMZ [Demilitarised Zone] between North and South Korea.

Yesterday, Monday, 23 February, I was in an antagonistic mood. I didn’t have any hot water – again, and I wanted to know about the Top affair. I decided to talk directly with Mrs Kim. She said “if I wanted” I could work for Top for two hours a day; it’s “okay” with her. I asked how much I would get for the classes. She replied, ₩200,000 [$200] per month. That is ₩200,000 for forty hours, which works out at ₩5,000 [$5] per hour. I told her: “I happen to know Mr Lee pays ₩15,000 per hour. What’s happening to the other ₩10,000?” I calculated that the deal is worth ₩600,000 per month (according to how much Lee pays his other teachers), of which I will only be getting ₩200,000. The table is set. I’m pissed off.

To crown everything, I’m told it’s my turn to pay for the oil. The amount is a staggering ₩189,000 [$189]!

Last night I told [Mrs Kim’s son] I felt insulted about the ₩5,000 per hour I was offered and that I wasn’t cheap labour. He said I shouldn’t be angry with them about the oil, it’s not their fault. I replied – very politely – that I wasn’t angry with him, but he should also not be angry with me if I said at some point that the situation has made it impossible for me to stay in Korea.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been feeling worn out, like I felt last May when I said I was running on empty. My throat tightens when I think about staying here for another more than four months. The economic crisis has caused my salary to lose 60% of its dollar value … the hot water crisis … the impersonal [long-drop outside, next to the gate] … the knowledge that I’m still a cheap bargain for […] Foreign Language Institute.

* * *

Yesterday afternoon, Monday, 23 February, on my way to my afternoon shift, I reckoned I had had enough. I’m going to stay until the end of March, I thought, but I won’t go back to South Africa … I’m going to Europe.

The idea blows like a whirlwind through the next few days. I wondered again if making it until the end of June wasn’t possible after all.

I realise, though, that my plan is about more than just that. It’s starting to make more and more sense. Maybe I can “make” it until June, but the idea is increasingly taking shape as more than just an emotional response. It is increasingly becoming the best plan considering all the relevant factors, regardless of whether I can make it until the end of June, and regardless of whether I hate Korea or if I’m just tired of her.

It goes back further than the hot water system, my leaky taps, the shitter at the front gate, the spit-dripping men, the ugly buildings, children pointing at you in public, and the breathtakingly beautiful women.

It goes back to a warm summer evening in December 1995 – alone in Stellenbosch, in an unfurnished apartment of which the rent was in arrears, and me standing on the balcony listening to Gary Moore on my Walkman singing “One day the sun will shine on you”.

Sunday, 8 March 1998

Okay, back to the plan, but everything is already in operation. I resigned on Tuesday, March 3rd at ten to eleven in the evening.

Why? I quote from notes written on 27 February: “It’s about Korea, but it’s more about the place where I work than about the country. It’s also more about Europe than it is about Korea and the place where I work. More than that, it’s about an opportunity – available to me right now. I’m afraid if I do survive here until the end of June against all expectations, I’ll find myself back in South Africa within a week or two with no definite plans or prospects.”

In the meantime, I was informed that I couldn’t fly to Europe directly,* but I went ahead with my resignation anyway. I will stay until the end of April; my relationship with Mrs Kim stays intact, with full salary and ₩200,000 bonus. Then I’ll fly back to South Africa; which gives me another two months to sort out my plans and prospects.

———–

* I had a return ticket to Johannesburg from the previous year. Singapore Airlines had initially said it was possible to change the final destination, but a problem with the issuing of the ticket the previous year resulted in them not being able to change it after all.

Tuesday, 10 March 1998

If I wait until I’ve argued and contemplated a plan flawlessly, I’ll wait a long time. The best advice I can give myself is to make a decision, to execute the decision to the best of my ability, and to accept the consequences whatever they may be.

This is where the greatest risk, and the greatest adventure lie – in the execution of a decision once you’re willing to bear the consequences. I am ready.

* * *

Never underestimate the magnificence of the first step of a thousand mile journey.

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