Dream #3 - International

The strangest thing about this dream is that it seems so normal in comparison to my other dreams. It was followed by another in the same vein which I will not relate.

I'd agreed to take the job in Korea teaching English. My liaison had met me at the airport and dropped me off at my lodgings. I had expected an apartment of my own but I'd heard about the dodgy ethics of the school board. So I wasn't surprised when my lodging turned out to be some kind hallway. I'd make the most of it. The room was painted white with the odd column or cupboard in pink or yellow. I'd tuck my bed in the corner normally but the corners here had shelves and cupboards so I put it on an angle nearly blocking the door reminiscent of the apartment I'd left back in Canada. I couldn't say why I put it there since the hallway was quite wide and long. I guess my minimalist tendency made me keep all my possessions together in a tight little space. An open doorway connected my place to another hall painted burnt red. I peeked through the gap and could see down near the end of the hallway in an alcove an Asian woman peeling off a black and white striped one piece bathing suit. Though I could see her only from the side, she was beautiful and I was entranced. However, before I could linger, my liaison rung the bell calling me from my reverie. We went to the school and sat in a narrow room side by side across a small table from a few bureaucrats in sharp black suits. They'd have to climb over the table or move the frond plant and climb out the window behind them to escape their room. One of them, an older man with pepper hair cut similar to my own informed my liaison in Korean that the school had no record of me. The government had approved my visa but had not actually found me a position to work. In their particularly quirky way, they decided they were in need of a physics teacher and I could fill the part despite not having ever taken a physics class or speaking Korean. I shrugged and said "whatever."

I left my aide and began to wander the streets, vaguely aware that in a dark bar with neon lights and a patio that resembles a redneck's backyard there was a group of people waiting for me. Where everybody knows your name. But it was daylight still and the bar was only a premonition of the evening. I walked the streets and was surprised by how western the suburbs were. I'd pictured modern skyscrapers of uniform grey concrete and shape connected with winding paths through green parks punctured by red banners and pink paper lanterns. Instead what I'd found was any suburb of any city anywhere else. Red brick townhouses with cement stoops, French windows and tiny gardens decorated with gnomes and wheelbarrows overflowing with wild flowers. Grass growing from cracks in the sidewalk. A pair of sneakers hanging from telephone wires. My dog, Lily, barked and the streetsweeper went by again.