Waffle University Alumni Association

6 May, 2023 | Seoul, South Korea

Today was a rest/write day and, I have to say, I needed it. Before this, the longest I have been on the road was perhaps four weeks. Now closing in on eight (8!), I started to exhibit signs of fatigue.

This mainly came in the form of a general frustration with Seoul, particularly after trying to find a highly recommended traditional Korean spa called Dragon Hill. Both the New York Times and Lonely Planet touted this place, and after a long bus ride that shifted rapidly between immobilization in traffic to insanely aggressive acceleration1, I discovered it has been permanently closed since COVID started - a fact wholly absent from their website.

No matter. I went back to my room, wrote a bunch, and then my day turned around when I meet up with Louis for dinner.

Oh yeah, what happened to your Seoul travel companion, you might ask? Louis rolled out of Seoul for a while, to the more rural areas of central South Korea on a temple stay. For those unfamiliar: some Buddhist temples invite outsiders to stay with them, often at a considerable discount compared to other accommodations, and invite those staying to voluntarily pray/work with them.

Despite his nominal Catholicism, Louis described some great soreness from praying in what sounded like a stress position for many hours. Further, his adventure was completely absent of meat, so he was deeply invested in the idea of visiting a Korean BBQ place.

After a few drinks during dinner, we started discussing politics and I am not pleased to report that the current moral panic around trans people - created whole cloth by reactionary conservatives and taken up by useful-idiot liberals - has wormed its misinformation into his circles.

“No one is cutting off kids’ dicks in the US,” I found myself having to say at a nice restaurant, “they can barely get or afford treatment at all. The dumbest and most bigoted motherfuckers on the planet are using unverified anecdotes as a political wedge issue that also seeks to divide and go after all LGBTQ people; and they aren’t even coy about that part.”

This is a good example of how some outright fabrications can penetrate into the mainstream, but the subsequent debunking never gets the same airtime or establishment. Louis is a good intelligent guy, but none of us are immune to propaganda - I’ve definitely been had before. I suspect we all have. Eternal vigilance and skepticism, particularly of the powerful, are necessary.

Seeking a change of conversation and venue, we headed to probably the worst rated gay bar in the city.

They set us up at a table with another english speaker - a cute 34 year old nerd named Kyle from the Philippines who was waiting for the drag show next door to start. Sadly, it wasn’t long until I had to part ways again with Louis. His flight home was relatively early and he had not yet packed. It was sad to see him go. Kyle was surprised as he was certain we were a couple.

I was not flying home tomorrow, so I was happy to accompany Kyle to the drag show.

I’ll admit I had not gone out of my way to go to many drag shows this trip - there was one that was part of the LGBTQ night in Santiago, and an incidental one on Sydney’s  Oxford Street. I would say the performance was quite lovely, but the company was what made it the best time I have had at one of these events in recent memory.