The Flower Blooms

14. 꽃이피네

14. The Flower Blooms

Yu Hui Jung

It was the evening after everyone had finished compiling their month-end performance figures. All the workers’ shoulders, already slumping from the recession, only sagged further. Mr. Kim called up the other Mr. Kim and told him to call Joy at the “entertainment service” to wrangle up some girls and have them wait up for us.

“All right! Time to get a drink!”

Helpless in the face of Mr. Kim’s exhortation, my coworkers and I trudged our way along the twilit sidewalks. We climbed the stairs of a building with a flashing neon sign that read “Pattaya,” walked along a darkened hallway, and opened the door to our designated room.

First the drinks arrived, along with assorted snacks to eat with them. Then came the hostesses that Joy had brought over. My colleagues and I each picked one to sit down next to us as we took turns drinking and idly joking around. I was seated in the corner of the long sofa, at a loss for words at the strange atmosphere.

The young woman sitting next to me asked if it was all right if she didn’t drink. I said it was fine. She had already drunk quite a bit at one of the other places, and I had no intention of forcing any more alcohol on her. She must have been exhausted, because she rested her head against my shoulder and quickly dozed off.

As the alcohol really started to kick in, Mr. Kim suddenly climbed up on the big table in the center of the room. He took out his wallet, grabbed a handful of 10,000-won notes (around nine dollars each), and flung the bills into the air in a broad, sweeping gesture.

In the darkness under the psychedelic lights, the notes drifted down to the ground. The scantily clad women shouted and tussled as they tried to grab the fluttering bills. Looking down exultantly over the scene from atop the table, Mr. Kim yelled out to his employees.

“You guys are kings right now! Everyone have fun and forget your stress!”

The general excitement only intensified with the singing and dancing that followed. But my alcohol-soaked body and mind felt like they were in tatters, careening toward the netherworld.

“Who are these people around me and why in the world am I here? What should I do?”

I did not have the courage to simply walk out, nor was I able to join in and surrender to the wild atmosphere. Feeling dejected, I simply sat and drank.

At some point, one of the women, all of them singing and dancing, noticed one of my coworkers filming with his phone. Startled, she waved her hand and shouted at him to stop recording. Some burly men appeared out of nowhere and forced him to stop.

Not long after, our allotted time for “merriment” was over. I’m not sure why, but the woman in the seat next to me reached out her hand to ask for my business card as we were collecting our clothes and bags. I shook my head.

I wanted to erase the entire night from my head: the fluttering desire beneath the red and blue lights, the cries of people falling to the ground and groping around for banknotes, the arrogant scorn of Mr. Kim as he looked down over everyone—and myself, sitting there helpless to do anything about it.

But like splinters that only penetrate deeper as you try to pull them out, the feelings only burrowed further inside me as I tried to shake them off—all the sadness, anger, frustration, and compassion of that day constantly circled my brain and tormented me.

That midnight horror show would stay with me for a long time even after I left the nine-to-five life behind and began to wander in search of something else.

After a few years of such roaming, I ended up following the path of the seeker of truth. But the path that I found did not contain the sort of teaching that tells you to hide away in the mountains and shun or escape worldly things.

Rather, it was a path of proceeding intently toward a true life one step at a time, wrestling all the while with all the human feelings we find in the streets, the right and wrong, the beneficial and harmful. And so the pain of that night became a living hwadu that serves at times to awaken me as I live in the moment.

The “me” of that night has passed down a legacy to the “me” of today—a hand that extends an umbrella to those drenched with rain, never forgetting the shadows of life that hang over people’s faces even in the bright sunshine. The flower that moved me from the depths of despair to become a disciple of the Buddha has become the flower of heaven.

Blossoms of peace, blossoms of light, all the flowers of heaven in bloom.

Here and there, everywhere all the world a blossom in light.

One day peace will come, the future will bring peace, someday the whole world will be in peace.

—Blossom, Blossom, Hymn no 168.