The Skin You're In

The following is an essay about my first trip to the spa. I've been working on since September and I just finished it tonight. I hope you enjoy.

Lathered in baby oil, sloughing skin like a boiled peach, I closed my eyes and focused my attention on the situation at hand: I'm laying on a massage table, completely naked, with an equally exposed old woman polishing my newest layer of skin. How did I get here?

Tap, tap. It’s time to turn over.

The locker room was empty, save a couple of young girls dressing themselves with their clothing remains. I had never been to a public bath before, and to be honest, had no real interest in frequenting them. "Public” and "bath” are two words I never intended to use in the same sentence. I had heard horror stories about western men being gawked at, about women being victim of the ever-wandering hand, and children who like to examine your hardware under water with goggles. I had several reasons to throw in the towel —literally —and walk away from the public bath.

However, despite my misgivings and resolve to go my own way, I found myself following the crowd —yet another victim of peer pressure. Courtney and Jill, my two ex-pat friends, really wanted to visit the bath (only Jill had gone before), and instead of volunteering to play the "outsider” role, I made a conscious decision to just deal with the inevitable: I was going to be a tourist attraction regardless of where I was or what I was (or wasn't) wearing. Might as well get it over with.

Thus, I was pleasantly surprised when the place was empty and was doubly surprised at how simple it was to take off my clothes. I didn’t think about who was watching. I didn’t think about the vulnerability it takes to bear it all for strangers. I didn’t think about how I look with no clothes on. All I thought about was the task at hand: get your clothes off and get in the pool as fast as you can. Whoever coined the term "Mind over Matter” should be sainted.

Tap, tap. It 's time to turn over.

I woke up once again to find my right side had gone numb sometime during the night. It was 3:50 AM and I was the only person awake. Courtney was sleeping on the pad next to mine, wood brick (a.k.a. pillow) in hand. Rubbing my eyes and wiping out the eye boogers, I looked around at the floor we slept on. There was at least 40 other Koreans sleeping with us. One man directly in front of us was snoring loudly; a boy and girl on the other side of the staircase were locked arm in arm in a rare yet unintentional public display of affection. The TV was still booming from a Korean action movie a couple boys were watching last night —they had apparently fallen asleep some time ago.

It was the first day of Chusok. I couldn’t believe so many Koreans were here and not at home with their families, and yet somehow it made sense. It certainly wasn't your usual Chusok. Instead of tending the graves of dead ancestors, we were tending the weeks and months of sleepless nights. Instead of communing over a bowl of Aunt Eun Jeong 's kimchee with relatives we only see once a year, we were breaking bread (or ramen) with strangers we'll only see once in our lives. Instead of donning the traditional Korean attire, we were swallowed up in the oversized pink and white spa uniforms. Instead of bragging about new jobs, new children or new marriages, we were each confined to our own little world of being, simply coexisting among others doing just the same thing. We were a clan of travel-laden vagabonds seeking restoration, a pack of bears looking for a good hideaway during winter 's long hiatus, the temporarily homeless grateful for a clean set of clothes, a warm floor to sleep on and some clean water to drink.

But as I walked back to corner of the floor with an extra floor pad in hand, I realized what was perhaps the most important piece of the puzzling image before me: this year, we were each other’s family.

Tap, tap. It’s time to turn over.

I let my left toe sample the boiling water first, then the whole foot which was closely followed by the right and the rest of my body. As I sank beneath the bubbling cauldron of green water, I settled down next to a Korean woman and her two daughters. She seemed kind and smiled. The baby in her arms stared at me like a big tub of ice cream, the older daughter cranked her head to the left and then to the right, crossing her eyes and bouncing up and down, obviously begging for attention. The mother pushed the little girl towards me and muttered something in Korean, to which the girl exchanged her goofy eyes for a big, full teeth, smile.

"Where are you from?" she asked.
"I 'm from Seattle, in America. How old are you?" I responded.
She looked at her mother who nodded with approval, and responded with, "I'm five!"
"Wow, you’re a big girl!" I exclaimed and she fluttered away, climbing out of our hot tub and into the next, her black locks of hair bounding behind her.
"You’re children are beautiful," I said to the woman next to me. I figured that since she urged her daughter to speak English then she probably did herself. Besides, my general experience in Seoul had been that most people spoke English anyway.
"Thank you. She is in kindergarten and learning English. I speak some too, "She said, but her some was actually quite a bit.
"I 'm Kortney." I held out my hand to shake hers and she did so as well.
"I 'm Shin."

Thus began my first truly Korean conversation —I wasn't treated like a "gook” (foreigner), I was treated like an equal, a Korean. For the next hour, I was allowed unprecedented access into the life of one Korean woman, to share in her struggles, and sympathize with her concerns. Her mother —the lady who runs the concessions counter —is a widow and Shin, along with her family and her two sister’s family, was in Seoul to spend Chusok with the old woman. (Korean tradition states that families will travel to the oldest male relative on the husband’s side for Chusok gatherings. In fact, once a woman marries she has practically left her family all together and may only see her parents or siblings occasionally.) As she told me this, two older women with two children each smiled and waved at me from across the room —they were showing off at one of the many vanities.

She told me about her struggle with postpartum depression, which ultimately left her bed ridden for six months. She had to quite her career as a tourist aid because she couldn’t find the energy to go to work anymore. Her husband had no idea what to do with her but began working two jobs in order to support the family and care for their newest addition.

She smiled at the little baby on her lap. "I've been feeling better over the last three months. My baby is 9 months old now and I hope to start working again soon. We really need two incomes. "

She was also worried about the sex of their second child. The nuclear Korean family is primarily comprised of one father, one mother, and two children —a boy and a girl. Since male children are expected to care for their aging parents and female children essentially leave the family for a new one, Korean families suffer a great loss when they are unable to bear male children. Since she had now given birth to two girls, she knew she would have to bear another child and this played a major role in her depression. Could her family financially sustain the birth of another child? How long should they wait? What if they have another girl? How many more children can they have before the efforts to produce a son are abandoned?

"I love my girls. I was thinking about going back to university and trying to get my TEFL certificate in elementary education so I can spend time with them at school. My husband is really supportive and knows that the financial sacrifice for my education is worth it. "
"I think you'll make a great teacher. Your English is so good! “I said.
"Oh, thank you!” Just then, the old woman from the women’s locker room counter came to the tub smiling and patting the woman on the shoulder. "This is my mother. She wishes to say hello." She had smiled at me many times as I patted my way through the locker room in nothing but the skin on my back. “I have to go now, but remember, there is only 30 minutes left before the pools close for cleaning.”
"Thanks. It was so nice to meet you! "
"Thank you. Have a nice stay in Seoul, " and then she disappeared, mother and children in tow, behind a column of lockers.

I dunked my head under the water, trying to get my hair out of my face, but it seems as though something more had transpired in that moment and the hour leading up to it. Like a Christian convert, first explained the gospel and then baptized—born again into the citizenship of heaven, I had officially become part of Korea; I was first befriended by one completely honest woman and then dipped beneath the bath tub waters, emerging with a new place in the world—I was finally Korean.

Tap, tap. It 's time to turn over.

This time I rolled over to face the ceiling. With my eyes closed I concentrated on keeping myself on the table and not sliding off to the floor. White knuckled (both my fingers and toes), I held on to the plastic covered table as the old woman gave my body one last up and down push of her hands. A couple seconds passed and I relaxed my grip. I can’t believe I just sat through this whole massage/scrub.

I wiggled my body a little, switching my focus to the small balls of shredded skin under my arms and legs. I felt like my body had been covered in wet toilet paper.

Whoosh!

I had opened my eyes for a second to see where the old woman had gone and opened just in time to see a bucket full of hot water come flying through the air at me. The toilet paper skin slid off the table and swirled on the floor while I latched my fingers onto the sides of the table.

Whoosh!

Another bucket was sent my way and I was drowning on dry land. I shook my head and squinched my eyes. Ack! I think some baby oil got in my eye!

The woman tapped me again and I struggled not to slide off under the weight of her hand. With one eye closed, I peeked through the other, finding the naked woman standing over me, pointing to the showers.

I slowly loosened my grip but quickly tumbled off the table, slipping a little on the oily floor as I tried to stand up. I bowed, said thank you, and then marched over to the showers.

Maybe I wasn’t quite as beautiful as the butterfly which emerges from the cocoon, but I certainly a new creature. I had walked in to the spa that night thinking that I was going to take a private bath, get warm, drink some water, and settle down for a nice nap. I had no intentions to be so vulnerable and exposed when I entered the door but in many ways I was grateful for the opportunity. It seemed to me that perhaps over the past couple years I’ve built up a few layers of “skin:” some misguided notions about identity, culture, vulnerability, ageism, and family. Thankfully, someone was there to pull those layers off.

Rattlesnakes shed their skin and gain a new rattler with each period of growth; I like to think that I shed my clothes and gained a whole perspective.