Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Hanson]

The following story is set in France, but could easily happen in Korea. I just read this story last month and I just can't stop thinking about it. I thought I'd share it here.

So if you have a few minutes - enjoy a good read!

The Foreigner

A Short Story by Francis Steegmuller

If it hadn��t been raining as I came out of the cinema, I should have walked home: my apartment was nearby and the route anything but complicated – straight down the boulevard, crossing two streets and turning right on the third, Rue de Grenelle, for about half a block. As it was, however, I hailed a taxi, and it was scarcely a moment before I realized that its driver, a ruddy-faced old man, was in the midst of an attack of perversity and nerves. ��No! No!�� I cried, as he started to turn up the first street, the Rue St. Dominique. ��Two more blocks!�� He muttered something, swung down the boulevard again, and then in a moment he was turning up the second street, the Rue Las Cases. ��No! No!�� I cried again. ��The next one, please! The next street is mine! The Rue de Grenelle!�� At this he turned around and gave me a baleful stare; then he spurted ahead, didn��t turn up my street at all, and continued rapidly down the boulevard, as though forever. ��But now you have passed it!�� I cried. ��You should have turned to the right, as I said! Please turn around and drive up the Rue de Grenelle to Number 36.��
To my horror, the old man made a noise like a snarl. Spinning his car around in a U turn on the slippery pavement, he speeded back, crossed the boulevard, and stopped at the corner of my street with a jerk. ��Get out!�� he almost screamed, his face crimson with rage. ��Get out of my automobile at once! I refuse absolutely to drive you any further! Three times you have treated me like an idiot! Three times you have grossly insulted me! My automobile is not for foreigners, I tell you! Get out at once!��
��In this rain?�� I cried, indignantly. ��I shall do nothing of the kind. I did not insult you even once, Monsieur, let alone three times. You know quite well I did nothing but urge you, in vain, to drive me home. Now kindly do so. I shall give you a good pourboire,�� I added, more amiably, ��and we shall take leave of each other in a friendly fashion.��
He barely waited for me to finish. ��Get out!�� he cried. ��Get out, I tell you! You have insulted me too often, and you will get out!��
I glanced at the rain. ��Indeed I will not,�� I said.
His manner calmed ominously. ��Either you will leave my taxi,�� he said in an even, hoarse tome, ��or I shall drive you to the commissariat of police, where I shall demand the recompense due me for such insults as yours. Choose!��
��In such weather as this,�� I replied, ��I have no choice. To the commissariat, by all means.�� And there we went.

The commissariat, only a few doors from mine, was not unfamiliar to me. I had been there several times before, on less quarrelsome matters, and as the driver and I entered the bare room side by side, the commissaire, sitting in lonely authority behind his desk, greeted me as an acquaintance. ��Good afternoon, Monsieur,�� he said, calling me by name. ��I can help you? What is it you wish?��
But the old man, to whom the commissaire had barely nodded, gave me no chance to speak. ��It is I who wish!�� he cried. ��It is I who wish to complain against this foreigner! Three times he has treated me like an idiot, Monsieur! Three times he has insulted me grossly! I demand justice, Monsieur!��
The commissaire stared at him, his face expressionless; I felt that he, like me, was wondering in just what condition the old man was; then, turning to me, he asked me if I would have the kindness to make my deposition. He took up a pen, opened a large blank book, and as I spoke, took down my story in a flowing, plumy hand. The giving of my address to the driver, the two incorrect turns, the mutterings, the missing of my street, the rage, the ultimatum; all the commissaire inscribed imperishably in whatever the French call the Spencerian style; once or twice he interrupted me to reprimand the driver, who muttered beside me at various portions of my testimony. When I had finished, the commissaire continued to write for a moment, ended with a particularly fancy flourish, blotted his last line, and thanked me. Then he turned to the driver. ��And now you,�� he said gruffly. ��You depose, too, so that I may make up my mind on this perplexing question.��
The old man, however, had no deposition to make. ��Three times!�� was still all he could say, in his thick, angry voice, gesticulating at the commissaire and glaring at me. ��Three times, Monsieur! Three times treated like an idiot, and three times grossly insulted! By this foreigner! It is not to be borne, Monsieur!��
The commissaire looked up crossly from his notebook, where these accusations had been duly inscribed. ��But the circumstances? Describe in detail what took place while you were with this gentleman. If the circumstances which he has related are not true,�� he said, casting me a glance of apology, ��correct them.��
But once again ��Three times!�� was all my accuser could say, and the commissaire laid down his pen rather briskly. ��It is entirely clear,�� he said in a very definitive tone, ��that it is you, Monsieur, who are the injured party in this affair, and I shall be happy to indicate my decision by requiring this person to drive you to your door without charge. If Monsieur will now have the goodness to grant me the favor of a brief glance at his papers – a formality required by law in such cases as these – I shall dispose of the matter at once. Your carte d��identite, Monsieur, if you please.��

Like a plummet, my heart sank. In my mind��s eye I saw the desk in my study, and lying on it, forgotten, the identification card which foreign residents are required by French law to carry at all times. ��Due to the penetrating rain, Monsieur,�� it hastily occurred to me as the only thing to say, ��I have left my card at home, lest the moisture of the weather permeate it, and perhaps destroy it completely. In the morning I can easily bring it to you, Monsieur, and I hope that this will satisfy your requirements, which I realize are strict and necessary."
But I had done the unforgivable, and everything was changed and over with. ��That will not satisfy the requirements,�� the commissaire said sternly, his face like stone. ��It is true that you will bring your card here tomorrow morning, but in view of the present circumstance I am forced to alter my judgment in this affair. Due to the fact that it is raining, I shall request this gentleman to drive you to your door, but I shall require you to pay him not only for the entire journey from beginning to end but also for the time which he has lost by coming to this bureau. I assume, Monsieur,�� he said to the old man, ��that you have left your meter running?��
The driver nodded, and the commissaire rose. ��Then au revoir, Monsieurs,�� he said, unsmiling. ��Monsieur will not forget tomorrow morning,�� and side by side, as we had entered, we left the commissariat. I had seen a gleam come from my accuser��s eyes when the judgment had been reversed, but apart from that he had given no signs of triumph, and he continued to give none: he drove me home without a word. It was only when we arrived, and I handed him the exact fare, carefully counted out, that he spoke. ��Monsieur has no doubt forgotten his promise of a good pourboire, that we might part in friendly fashion?�� he said.

[Ya-ta Boy]

Question: How long ago was this story written? And where is the author from? The language seems very odd.

[Tiberious aka Sparkles]

Whenever I think about literature reminiscent of life in Korea, I think of Dostoyevsky's 'The House of the Dead'.

No, I'm serious.

Sparkles*_*

[Hanson]

[schwa]

I like the genre. Heres another with an expat theme that I assigned as homework this week in my teacher training workshop.

"A VERY SHORT STORY"
Ernest Hemingway

One hot evening in Padua they carried him up onto the roof and he could look out over the top of the town. There were chimney swifts in the sky. After a while it got dark and the searchlights came out. The others went down and took the bottles with them. He and Luz could hear them below on the balcony. Luz sat on the bed. She was cool and fresh in the hot night.

Luz stayed on night duty for three months. They were glad to let her. When they operated on him she prepared him for the operating table; and they had a joke about friend or enema. He went under the anaesthetic holding tight on to himself so he would not blab about anything during the silly, talky time. After he got on crutches he used to take the temperatures so Luz would not have to get up from the bed. There were only a few patients, and they all knew about it. They all liked Luz. As he walked back along the halls he thought of Luz in his bed.

Before he went back to the front they went into the Duomo and prayed. It was dim and quiet, and there were other people praying. They wanted to get married, but there was not enough time for the banns, and neither of them had birth certificates. They felt as though they were married, but they wanted everyone to know about it, and to make it so they could not lose it.

Luz wrote him many letters that he never got until after the armistice. Fifteen came in a bunch to the front and he sorted them by the dates and read them all straight through. They were all about the hospital, and how much she loved him and how it was impossible to get along without him and how terrible it was missing him at night.

After the armistice they agreed he should go home to get a job so they might be married. Luz would not come home until he had a good job and could come to New York to meet her. It was understood he would not drink, and he did not want to see his friends or anyone in the States. Only to get a job and be married. On the train from Padua to Milan they quarreled about her not being willing to come home at once. When they had to say good-bye, in the station at Milan, they kissed good-bye, but were not finished with the quarrel. He felt sick about saying good-bye like that.

He went to America on a boat from Genoa. Luz went back to Pordonone to open a hospital. It was lonely and rainy there, and there was a battalion of arditi quartered in the town. Living in the muddy, rainy town in the winter, the major of the battalion made love to Luz, and she had never known Italians before, and finally wrote to the States that theirs had only been a boy and girl affair. She was sorry, and she knew he would probably not be able to understand, but might some day forgive her, and be grateful to her, and she expected, absolutely unexpectedly, to be married in the spring. She loved him as always, but she realized now it was only a boy and girl love. She hoped he would have a great career, and believed in him absolutely. She knew it was for the best.

The major did not marry her in the spring, or any other time. Luz never got an answer to the letter to Chicago about it. A short time after he contracted gonorrhea from a sales girl in a loop department store while riding in a taxicab through Lincoln Park.

[Ya-ta Boy]

[Hanson]

I'm really getting into the short stories these days. My favorite all-time is The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. Edgar Allen Poe has a few that I've really liked, like The Pit and the Pendulum, and Black Cat.

Schwa - Can't say I liked the Hemingway story you posted. Kinda anti-climactic and ends too abruptly. I don't see what all the fuss over Hemingway is to begin with, but then again, I haven't read him much.

Then there are short stories like Only the Dead Know Brooklyn by Thomas Wolfe, where the first sentence of the story goes: 'Dere's no guy livin' dat knows Brooklyn t'roo an' t'roo, because it'd take a guy a lifetime just to find his way aroun' duh f------ town.' Awesome stuff!

List your favorites here...

[manlyboy]

[jajdude]

I was thinking that reminded me of Poe. Or maybe Guy de Maupassant (spelling?)
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Truly some taxi drivers are not easy to deal with. I don't blame them so much. But the lack of street names here doesn't help. And sometimes you know the guy has been driving in the same area/town for years, but still cannot seem to find a place many people go. Being a foreigner with less than decent Korean ability can only make the journey a challenge at times. Sometimes I just direct the driver to a landmark everyone knows, and then walk 10 or 15 minutes.