I know I’m running a little late on Dorinda’s open call for Open Salon interviews, but I chose to interview William Morley after reading his recent post about how after a difficult breakup, his Facebook status updates became his chief mode of creativity while living and teaching in South Korea. I lived in South Korea for nearly two years in the late 1990’s and it was fun to reminisce with someone about a period of my life and a geography that not a lot of people I know can relate to.

Warning, I caught up with him on Facebook at 9:00 a.m. my time, and 1:00 a.m. his time due to the 13 hour time difference so please pardon any grogginess at least on my end. Other than a few clarifications in spelling and punctuation, this is nearly verbatim.

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WM: So, I’ve got some questions lined up. Can I fire away?

DF: Of course.

WM: Ok. Actually don’t have any questions lined up. Didn’t think you’d call me on that but I will come up with some, no worries!

DF: Shoot. I was excited that one of us was prepared.

WM: Well, if we blow it it can be our little secret.

DF: Most important thing first, what’s your favorite type of kimchi?

WM: Kimchi jim, no doubt.

DF: I’ve forgotten that one.

WM: Steamed with some pork. I don’t really like my kimchi cold.

DF: Hot kimchi?

WM: It’s damn tasty. You know it took me several years to embrace that corpse of a cabbage known as kimchi, but lately I can’t live without it.

DF: For some reason I never liked the cabbage kind but I like all the other vegetables especially cucumber.

WM: I had a friend over last night trying to explain that kimchi was unhealthy because of the sodium content with the way it’s prepared. He was eating McDonalds and lecturing on my Korean diet.

DF: Nice. Do you eat kimchi for breakfast (that’s the real test) and what’s your favorite Korean band?

WM: Ah. Most pickled stuff I can do without. I like kimchi chi-gae too, the spicy soup with tofu etc. Good stuff. I don’t go near kimchi until the afternoon at least. I’m still a weigook-in [foreinger] my favorite Korean band would be the band I’m in. We have one Korean member, so it counts. Maybe you could help me select our name. It’s still up in the air.

DF: That’s impressive. Now I wish for a link.

WM: What do you prefer, “Escape From Panda Island” or “the Mothertongues”?

DF: I’m thinking.

WM: or “Funeral Confetti” that’s on the list too.

DF: I like them all. Is Panda Island a real place? It’s not Jeju Island? I always wanted to see the female divers but I never did see them.

WM: Well, Panda Island. I’m not sure how to explain that. It started over a debate about the Chinese government using pandas as propaganda and it ended up as escape.

DF: How does the Chinese government use the panda as propaganda? The image or the real bear?

WM: Ah. Yeah, I hear they’re amazing. I haven’t made it to Jeju yet, but it’s on my summer itinerary. I think for the panda discussion to continue we’d both need a bit of alcohol.

DF: I have a friend who worked for a newspaper in Beijing. On her resume she called herself a propagandist.

WM: Nice. That’s a good one!

DF: Of course our government has a few of those too. Yes but it’s a little early for alcohol here. What’s the best place you’ve visited?

WM: In Korea?

DF: Sure.

WM: Well, the places that mean the most here wouldn’t be too glamorous. I’ve been here for a bit, so it’s hard to think of it like that. But I would say my experience on a little island for a Buddhist monastery stay was interesting and memorable. I was a bad Buddhist.

DF: How long have you been there, by the way, and what sort of bad Buddhist?

WM: I remember particularly irritating most of the other guests during meditation time because my legs kept falling asleep so I fidgeted alot. And after meditation I remarked about the intense dream had, which I guess was not the objective after all. I’ve been here for about three years

DF: So you are fluent in Korean?

WM: Well I can get by in day to day type stuff. Ordering food, simple conversation. I don’t think fluency is an option. You were here too?

DF: Yes. I found it frustrating that when I did speak Korean even if my pronunciation was a little bit off no one could understand a single word. I had a traumatic experience trying to discuss Tae Kwan Do once.

WM: It’s hilarious at times . You could say something spot on to a taxi driver and give a big “huhhh?” and then a Korean counterpart says it and you get, “ok ok ok.”

DF: But why do you say fluency is not an option. Did you say that you translate Korean poetry? That takes sophistication.

WM: That was certainly a team effort. To translate on my own would take more patience and talented than I’ve been afforded. I guess it depends on the meaning of fluency. For something like literature. To be fluent enough to produce art in two languages. There aren’t too many Nabokov’s out there.

DF: I’m impressed that you can translate poetry at all. I never got that far. But yes, fluency is a big word.

WM: The translation was one of the funnier episodes in Korea. My partner and I won this contest and they invited us to an award ceremony lunch thing. I ended up getting into a verbal spat with one of the editors of the paper who bestowed the award and stormed off. It was quite the scene.

DF: Why did he storm off?

WM: The Korea Times has an annual translation content, so we won that. But, no, I stormed off. Well, first they printed the poems in the paper absolutely littered with mistakes.

DF: Such as?

WM: Well, misspellings, punctuation out of nowhere - just a totally marred version of what we submitted. Also, they had little trophies, but only one trophy for the two of us. And when I asked if we could have another this editor said I could buy one.

DF: I love that. How much would the second trophy have cost?

WM: Mind you this is at a lunch in a nice hotel being held for us. So I lost my temper. I believe I said “you’re just pissing all over this whole ceremony then, eh?” That was the climax. Eventually we made up. Oh, like $50. It was the principle of thing that upset me.

DF: I understand. Have you ever gotten lost in Korea?

WM: Not recently, but I have gotten tangled up in Seoul a few times.

DF: In the little sidestreets that don’t have names?

WM: Usually it’s pretty easy to find some sort of public transportation to remedy that.

DF: True. Have you ever fallen asleep on the subway?

WM: Yeah. But that’s [the sidestreets] getting lost on purpose for the fun of being lost. That’s enjoyable. I’ve had some people fall asleep on me, but I haven’t dosed off myself. Though buses put me right out. Do you mind if I smoke?

DF: Go right ahead. This is is almost like talking, but then so not quite like talking. I forgot to ask some basic things. Like that you teach now? At a university?

WM: I teach, yes. I’m at an academy right now which is a very dignified position here in Korea.

DF: What’s the best piece of information you’ve learned from a student? (Dignity is good).

WM: That I bear a striking resemblance to King Kong.

DF: King kong?? Wow. I had it easier than that. Though all the foreigners I knew had a celebrity analogue. My friend Mark was always Bruce Willis for his lack of hair. Your best teaching moment?

WM: We’re not having too many academic discussions, me and the students. It’s a bit of a gong-show. But they hit me with adorable stuff now and again, so I love em.

DF: Give one adorable thing, please.

WM: Last Friday a kid was trying to tell me a story but I was in a hurry so I sorta cut her off. A few minutes passed with her sitting stoically, thinking and then she raised her hand and said “Teacher...you eat my say!” I was like awwww I’m sorry!

DF: That’s beautiful!

WM: Yeah. It was true. I totally ate her say and she called me on it

DF: What’s been your funniest or worst language barrier moment? Other than the poetry contest?

WM: Those happen frequently and become a sorta norm. I tell you a good one that happened to my friend recently. He’s married to a very nice Korean women - anywho, he was talking to her on the phone and mentioned that he was gonna buy a Wii with his friend - a Wii being a nintendo system. She thought has saying weed and she really freaked out on him. Tears may have been involved.

DF: Tears.

WM: Yeah, she was really upset. But they laughed about it eventually. Weed is of course on par with crack cocaine here as a no no.

DF: What’s favorite mixed drink with soju?

WM: Soju really repulses me. I stick with wine or beer when I can. Occasionally I’ll some soju with cider (cider being like sprite, not the apple stuff).

DF: And your favorite bar food? Do they still make you order huge platters of food with drinks? I seem to remember something called flute [a fruit and mayonnaise concoction]?

WM: Ah, anju. Bar food. Hmm. I have favorites to avoid, but no eat - - - a while back we ordered the “nachos” with our beer. Stale chips smeared with ketchup and cheese-whiz. For real. I usually just eat the little rice popcorn type stuff with beer.

DF: I never ended up with that one. But I do remember someone bringing us a small dish of unfrozen corn and proudly saying that it was “Green Giant.”

WM: Nice. It’s all about the branding. How long were you in Korea for?

DF: About two years. But I spent some time in between traveling in SE Asia and China. Have you been to other nearby countries as well?

WM: I lived in Hong Kong for a year before Korea. I’ve been to Thailand and Shanghai as well, though I’ve never done the backpacking thing. I live vicariously through my friends for that. 

DF: When I was in Korea I actually felt like I was forgetting some English words and phrases at one point. It took me a long time once to remember the word ‘organic’ and the phrase ‘economy of space’ it took me months to recollect. Have you ever forgotten any words or phrases like this?

WM: I think some things are forgotten by necessity for communication’s sake. As well as accent wise. Now it’s an event when my Boston accent comes out. But it’s hard to say what I’ve forgotten cause I can’t remember it.  Did you post a poem on open salon?

DF: Good point. Poetry on open salon. I did post one thing that sort of turned into a poem. It’s funny I actually went to graduate school to study poetry after I came back from Korea, but for no reason that I can fully understand, it made me not want to write poetry. I guess you can consider it a warning. Or “people” not necessarily you specifically can. Some people do study poetry in graduate school and dedicate their lives to it after.

WM: Hmm. It is both a dream and nightmare of mine to study poetry in grad school, but I think I’ll continue my private studies.

DF: Maybe it all depends on who you meet and how you connect with them. I do have friends from that period who mean everything to me in terms of other sorts of writing. But you can meet these sorts of people elsewhere as well. Even maybe on open salon. (My friends and I who met in grad school sometimes refer to one another as $10,000 friends.)

WM: Right. I find the characters I meet here in Korea quite inspiring, even though they’re a bit odd at times.

DF: Sorry. I just realized the time. Are you exhausted? Good thing you had the cigarette.

WM: I’m all good. Don’t worry about it!

DF: If you were to one day have all of your writing ambitions realized what would that look like?

WM: Well, I’d certainly be dead for starters.

DF: Just to enhance your literary reputation?

WM: No, wait. I’m not that romantic

DF: Good! And before I forget to ask, how was it pregrinating all over Shanghai with Miss Dumpling?

WM: Well, that’s an interesting question. To pose it like that. Then you have to question to whole notion of success and what that amounts to. I’ve had a conviction for the past 5 years or so. Not something I readily talk about or even admit to myself. My family was not very artsy and my parents have sometimes questioned those tendencies I have to forgo the lucrative for the creative - oh shit, Miss Dumpling. Never mind the introspection. It was outrageous. Shanghai was a great way to spend a long weekend, though I wouldn’t last there much longer.

DF: I ruined an introspective moment.

WM: As you should have! I’d like to write the great Korean novel. The great American novel is cliche.

DF: I know what you mean though about success and I only ask because I have mixed feelings about what that would look like for me either. The great Korean novel sounds fun. Do you think someone might make you pay for your own trophy though if you succeed?

WM: That would not surprise me in the least. I can’t take my success without a bit of bitterness. That would be unimaginable. I just want to be validated by Oprah really. I mean, that’s what it’s all about, right? Sorry, my friend and I are big Cormac McCarthy fans and we recently watched her interview with him while groaning in harmony. She’s cool though.

DF: Why were you groaning? Oh. Oprah’s book club. Gotcha.

WM: Well, I’d have to go back and check the interview for quotes - but - yeah, you got me.

DF: Shall we call it a night/morning?

WM: This has been fun.  And we’re not total strangers anymore. Thank you.

DF: I can always ask the actor studio questions if you want to answer them.

WM: Haha, nah that’s ok.

DF: One last question though?

WM: Sure.

DF: What is the propaganda from China that you were referring to with the panda? That’s the thing I wish I’d asked more about earlier.

WM: Oh, that’s just in jest. I don’t think there’s any panda-conspiracies floating about. When we talk about countries with talk in enormous vagaries most of the time, and the panda is a wonderful symbol for China juxtaposed against the darker side of its politics/history etc. The cuddly face of the regime. But nah, don’t take seriously! The panda thing touched a nerve...?

DF: Okay. I just wondered if I was missing something. Thanks for clarifying. And thanks for this fun discussion. I could just see it as a very real conspiracy. Maybe kidnappings of pandas.

WM: Thank you. Oh, right. Yeah, you never know.

DF: Merci beaucoup & goodnight!

WM: Good morning!