I hate these days where I wake up to the rain and have a headache. What is worse is that I know why I have a headache, and it has nothing to do with soju.
Removing mold from a Korean apartment is quite the undertaking, as mold in Korea grows with a vengeance. Imagine New Orleans post-Katrina and you’ll get the idea. Mold never goes away here. It lies still and waits for opportunity before rising and spreading and striking and suffocating.
Until recently, most Koreans were indifferent to the miracle of bleach. Many thought it would kill the environment. As an American clean freak I have felt compelled to educate my friends on the use of this chemical, while at the same time educating myself on how to properly use it on concrete walls covered with wallpaper in the right amount so as to avoid making the place unlivable for a weekend.
Logic and science dictate that mold only grows in warm, damp areas where the air is still and there is something organic to eat. Apparently logic and science haven’t visited my Korean apartment, where a fan pointed directly at concrete walls does nothing but anger the beast.
Since my arrival my life has been one where I’m constantly fighting some kind of illness caused by something in the air or water. The mold isn’t the only thing that will bring you down in Korea. There’s always the “yellow dust” that blows over from industrial China. Not to mention the government’s hypocritical stance of simultaneously touting environmentalism while failing to implement modern controls on automobile emissions…or better yet emissions controls on those factories to the north of my neighborhood, Songgang-dong.
It isn’t all bad I suppose. It is a matter of perspective. This is a chunk of granite that has been Asia’s whipping post for over a thousand years. They are trying here. Trying to make money. Trying to educate their kids. Trying to become more relevant. It is working. Slowly. Maybe the next generation will step into the first world.
In the mean time what they should be trying to do is to figure out how to build better buildings that don’t grow mold so guys like me who are trying to enjoy a different culture don’t feel like hell on rainy days because of that black crap growing in the corner of the apartment.
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