The Spider Lessons - part 1

Coming home from work two months ago I came upon a large spider waiting to cross a street intersection, like I was.  The intersection was only a few yards long, which is nothing for me, but for the spider…well, it would need a miracle to make it across alive.  This poor guy doesn’t have a snow ball’s chance in hell, I thought, I wonder if I should just crush it now and put it out of its misery?  I didn’t smash the spider.  Instead I reserved a marginal amount of hope that the arachnid might make it across—and off it dashed.  Crossing one white line, then another, no cars in sight—Wow, this guy might make it.  But as predicted: Headlights appeared, the spider hesitated, and right before the “walk” sign lit up the spider was smashed, twice, by a Hyundai.  The lesson learned when passing the dead spider: Rush into things and you’ll end up like this guy: crushed. 

                The spider pancake only reinforced a similar lesson learned earlier that day; ironically the source of that initial lesson was also a spider.  It all began with a miscommunication between my boss, Marlene, and I.  (Marlene is the academic director at my hagwon.  She is responsible for all of the English teachers—solely responsible for them.  So, if I screw up than she’s the one that gives me the tongue lashing, but then she gets the same from our director, Myrtle.  Consequently, it behooves her to make sure all of us foreign teachers are performing well.) 

Marlene had told me the day before, “Come to work, tomorrow, at 1:50pm.”

She said 1-5-0, but I heard 1-1-5, so I arrived promptly at the hagwon at 1:15.  This was when I was still training, so when I arrived I went straight up to Marlene and looked at her with a hopeful expression saying, “alright lady, let’s start this!” and she looked back at me confused, with an expression like, “Already?  This kid’s gonna to be a pain in my ass.”

She looked at me strangely and explained the miscommunication, but everything was okay because I’m still new, and I was early after all—not late.  However, now I had some time to kill, 35 minutes exactly.  I could’ve gotten something to eat but at that point I couldn’t read or understand Korean, so eating was out of the question.  (It’s the new Korean-diet-fad: you don’t eat, because you can’t order food.  How stimulating!)

It was humid and hot that day, so walking anywhere was out of the question also.  Resolved to stay cool and adhere to my new Korean-diet, I marched up to the roof deck of the hagwon.  I sat under the shade of a small wooden canopy. 

(NOTE: I worked at a Target near my parents’ house, when I was 18, one summer when I came home from college.  During my 15-minute breaks, my co-workers and I would sit inside a similar style canopy.  They called this kind of canopy the “butt hut”: where everyone went to smoke and then casually toss their finished cigarettes on the ground.)

I sat in the shade waiting for the 35 minutes to expire.  It was just me and the “butt hut”.  Surveying my surroundings I noticed that whoever designed the top-level deck had the intention of making it like a Zen garden, but stopped taking care of it: the floor’s paint was chipping away because of sitting water, near the edges of the building were plants & bushes overgrown with weeds, there was a dismal pond on one side of the “butt hut” that had grimy fish constantly avoiding human eyes, an ever-flowing wheel of water and a mini-fountain propelling spurts of the muck into the air.  Inside the “butt hut” there were three wooden benches, a dusty green couch (I never sit on it) and two more benches, in the middle, acting as a make-shift coffee table or footrest.  There were also two tin cans nearby used for ashing cigarettes; the cigarette butts, of course, often missed the tin cans and ended up on the floor.  And the wooden canopy covered it all to properly complete my hagwon’s version of the “butt hut”.

While under the shade of the “butt hut” I told myself that I should embrace my surroundings—this was my first meditative moment in Korea.  Despite the intolerable heat and the perpetual whirring of the air conditioning units behind me, I tried to find some peace of mind …

A soft breeze rolled in and out of the “butt hut” so eventually I stopped sweating.  For a moment it was comfortable and I thought about what my upcoming year here would be like.  Will I eventually learn Korean?  Will I like it here?  Will I make friends?  When does this humidity end?  At one point a white crane flew by on my right, I felt hope.  Then I noticed large black ants on the floor searching for nourishment in the tin cans, I felt empty.  Nothing for you in there, I thought, just empty cups of coffee and a couple cigarette butts—hardly a nourishing diet even for an ant. 

I looked around some more and near my left foot I noticed a large rust-colored bug.  My initial impulse, to smash the bug, dissipated and the rust-colored bug trotted away, perhaps sensing my urge to crush it.  With the humidity returning and the rust-colored bug on the retreat I pulled out my Sansa music player—the Ready to Die album by Notorious B.I.G. was the obvious choice.  The thug tunes enveloped me and I started singing along.  I was nostalgic of the past and home as I sweated sitting in the “butt hut”.

In the corner of my eye I noticed the rust-colored bug was further away from me now.  A pair of Korean men joined me on the roof.  I stopped the Notorious B.I.G. sing-a-long, nodded as they did, and watched as the older one explained to the younger one the deficiencies of the roof: the weeds, the murky water in the pond, etc.  About damn time, I thought, I’m glad someone’s trying to get this place back into some kind of order.  Maybe the younger guy’s going to clean this place up?  The pair took off after the older one commented to me how hot it was—whatever, I’m staying here.  I’m trying to adapt…

I turned my attention back to the rust-colored bug and to my surprise it was elevated off the ground hopelessly stuck in a spider’s web.  A small spider descended to greet its guest and next meal.  Slowly the spider wrapped its web around the doomed rust-colored bug.  Who am I?  I wondered.  Am I the spider, patient and fortunate, or am I the bug?  Hasty and doomed.   And as I walked down the stairs, away from “the butt hutt,” I was struck with the first spider lesson that would be buttressed later at the street intersection: Be patient, you won’t regret it.  Watch out for spiders.