Best and Worst of Travel: Korea’s Southeast Coast
Never underestimate how a new language could change your life
Nothing motivates you to learn a language like being publicly insulted in words you don’t understand.
One of my close friends and I had gotten a group together to travel from Seoul to Busan, three hours away by bullet train. In July of 2015, we hit the beach in Busan and explored the city as much as we could for a weekend before having to travel back for work. My friend and I loved Busan so much that we knew we had to make one last trip out before we left Korea.
The following summer, we found ourselves walking into a small village just a few blocks from the beach. An arch over the alley read “CHINATOWN.” We walked through the arch and into the alley, finding that everything that could be read (street signs, stores, banners, posters, etc.) were all written in Russian. It was like walking into a different universe.
Imagine: Korea, Chinatown, mostly Russian language, on what is rumored to be called Texas Street.
We sat in a restaurant and had an amazing meal, from a Russian menu of course, and had a few drinks. Feeling a little drunk, excited and curious about our environment, we hit the streets again to navigate back to the Korean world.
At one point we were standing on a street corner, looking like a couple of lost vagabonds in arguably the strangest part of the world I had ever been. Approaching us was a short man with a ponytail and a beard, a big pot belly and a Metallica T-shirt. He looked like he traveled from 1985 just to send me a message that would literally change my life. Casually strolling by, never stopping before or after seeing us, he said directly to us:
“Americanskiye pizdiy… HEHEHE”
Bro…? Wtf did he just say? We were just drunk and confused enough to feel hot-blooded over this, and just sober enough to let it go. It was so clear that he had said something provoking and yet totally unclear what he said. But the anger turned into curiosity, and I couldn’t let it go until I knew. We asked around a few times with minimal responses, most people having no understanding of English in the first place, and no interest in interacting with us regardless.
I found out what it meant through trial-and-error google translate, and I’m sure it won’t surprise you. I’m sure deep down I knew what he said anyway. Let’s go with a spicy version of ‘American cats.’
As the trip went by, we had a few laughs about it, but I was kind of fascinated with how tough he sounded when he said it for such a dorky-looking old man. When we got home I played around with learning Russian for a few months, mostly out of curiosity and because I had too much time. In a short time I made some progress, but before long I was heading back to the US, and my studies came to a halt for almost 3 years.
You really never know when learning a language will benefit you. My Russian wife and I met at Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. In the first few weeks of noticing her, I had never actually ever heard her speak English. Eventually I struck up conversations with her, but part of what made me nervous was that I had basically forgotten all the Russian I had learned. On our first date, I decided to fill her in on my little “Korean” hobby anyway. I stumbled through some phrases and proved that I remembered how to read, thinking this might be a nice way to “stand out.” I guess she was impressed.
So what is the story behind Korea’s Russian Chinatown? It’s complicated.
Japan’s occupation of Korea in the early 1900s led to many Koreans fleeing to Vladivostok, Russia and other regions of the Far East to find refuge. Many Koreans were granted citizenship of the Soviet Union during this period. Joseph Stalin, unsurprisingly, was a bit racist. Once in power, he asserted that the Korean residents (many of which were Soviet citizens) were Japanese sympathizers or spies. In his view, the Koreans therefore must be deported, since Japan’s Red Army was the USSR’s sworn enemy during that time. What he got critically wrong was that the Korean population was completely against the Japanese occupation, and likely would have fought for their homeland given the proper support.
Stalin deported these Korean families to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan where many remained until the Soviet Union collapsed, at which point many of these Russian-speaking Koreans returned to Korea. I suspect some of these multi-cultural families settled in Busan, Korea, the strangest place to this day I have ever been.