Jeju's Moving Season

Moving is always an experience of mixed emotion. Excited to leave the old for the new, overwhelmed by years accumulated necessities and junk, nervous about finding just the right place, and exhausted by all the newspaper/internet checking and rechecking, phone calling, and finger crossing. In my decade away from my parents home, I've moved in and out of various apartments, houses and countries. Despite all that moving, most of my experiences have been relatively stress-free. From University housing, to housing with friends, in their basements and extra-rooms, to free accommodation provided by my Korean employer, moving, for me, has never been more than packing boxes, piling up a car load or two, and unloading at the new home. More simply, and just as often, I've packed up a mere two 32 kg or less airline-approved bags, jumped on an airplane and unloaded just a year's worth of clothes and memorables.

Now, however, I can join in those cocktail conversations about how stressfully entertaining moving house can truly be. Certainly, the stress (and entertainment) of my recent experience must greatly be attributed to this hilarious island, Jeju Do, its traditions, and my inability to speak much Korean.

Jeju Island has a moving season that, I've been told, is unique to the island's culture. The mythology claims that during two very cold weeks in January, Jeju gods are required to head to the heavens for new worldly job assignments. (I must add a side note here, the yearly resigning of jobs is not a mythology exclusive occurrence, as all earthly public positions from administrator to teacher must change every two years to provide that 'we are one' sameness for which Korea so desperately strives.) During the two-week, god job-resigning meeting, Jeju folk are free to move apartments and homes without upsetting the gods that protect the neighborhoods, as the gods are too busy pay much attention at that time. What is more, when the gods tumble down from their yearly meeting, as newbies to their fresh positions, they will not notice that all the humans have switched apartments, and therefore cannot be angered about what they do not know.

Of course, the mythology behind the reasoning for a winter, two-week moving season is folklore to smile about, culture to think sweet, even something unique to tell your western, untraveled friends and family. Local Jeju people, for the most part, also don't fully believe in this myth, and the system based upon the fable is upheld purely out of a respect for tradition. But the practical application of an unwillingness to abandon this sweet sounding tradition makes one want to cry more than smile and write home about it!

Since my move occurred during one of the 50 weeks not included in Jeju's moving season, I can only imagine the hectic running around of hundreds of families, university students, singles, and so forth, ringing each other, checking out new apartments, making a decision, hiring a moving van from a company that employs a mere handful of workers year round, though must hire heaps of seasonal inexperienced employees during these two frigid weeks. A Korean friend of mine, who helped with out with my move, told me that during her various moving-season moves, she remembers holding the newspaper, hands shaking, sitting inside her cold car, making phone calls, and waiting outside apartments for the current resident to allow her to have a look at the prospective new home. When we sat in the park, just a few hot Tuesdays ago, she looked up and the blue sky and said, "Hmm, yep, it's much better to do this in the summer time! Well, it would be better, if there were any apartments available!"

Available, affordable apartments outside the moving season are a rarity. And as is the case with all sought after rarities, you have to be quick the grab it. My first day of apartment hunting, was embarrassingly uninformed. I was instructed to grab one of each of the two classified papers printed in Jeju. Although there are little labeled plastic holders for the classifieds on nearly every street corner, inside most apartment building complexes and outside most convenient stores, if you fail to stroll the streets before 8:00am, chances are these abundant little labeled plastic holders are empty. Somehow, however, on Day One of my apartment search, I managed to get hold of one of the two Jeju classified papers at 9:00am. When I finally asked one of my co-workers to help me read through the possible new homes, she found only three places that were in the right price range and location. When we called that afternoon, two of the three had been spoken for, and the third was an apartment located above a daily, local, fish-smelling market. Tomorrow, I thought, I'll call earlier.

The next day, Saturday, I woke up early, grabbed the paper, and headed to a Korean friend's place at 10:00am. She looked through the paper, and found a mere two apartments within our range. Our repeated calls to one of the numbers was never answered, so we assumed that someone snagged that apartment already, and the other was gone before we called as well. So we chatted for a while to this Korean friend and she taught us a little on how to read the classified sections. She told us many names of good neighborhoods (dongs) in the area we were looking. She showed us to look in the rental section of the paper (im dae) as opposed to the buying section (mae mae). She told us how to approximate the Korean room measuring unit (pyeong), we were looking for a 20-25 pyeong apartment. She showed us how to look for 2 bedroom apartments (2 bang), with a living room (goh shil), and kitchen (bu oek), and she sent us on our way, to search for huge apartment complexes hoping to see big signs hanging from them that say IM DAE (For Rent). When we left her building, we saw a such a sign, IM DAE writen in red bold letters, hanging from her amazing apartment building, so Ju Ryeong came downstairs and rang the number. It, like all other IM DAE signs we found later, was advertising FOR RENT office space (apparently, the Jeju gods do not fire up about businesses swapping location on their watches). After a full day of motoring biking around the city, awkwardly yet gently trying to wake various sleeping apartment-office workers to ask if they had rooms to rent at the moment, and cordially being denied each time, we gave up for the day and thought, we'll try earlier on Monday.

On Monday, I awoke at 7am sharp, grabbed the classifieds just by our building, and checked the papers for the few things I knew to look for. We went into work at 9am, and delicately propositioned a Korean-American co-worker and friend of mine to help with that day's house hunting. She obliged, despite her very "I can't believe it's already Monday...I had a really big weekend" look plastered on her face. We made a few phone calls, and set on our way to check out three prospective places. The first place we visited was literally sinking into the ground and I couldn't bare to even have a look inside. The next place was in a perfect location, just a few blocks from my work, but the owner wanted a ridiculous amount of damage-deposit money, because he had be burned in the past by tenants. But my partner and I were just not willing to dish out the equivalent of $20,000 for a deposit on a year's rent to a little apartment in Korea. We rang the last potential new home phone-number, and the fella explained that he was working all day, but we could stop by at 6pm tonight. I finished work at 6, called another friend, who said she'd be ready to help us at 6:20 to check out the apartment. We met up, she called the fella back at 6:22 and the apartment was GONE, just like that. So I thought, I'll try earlier tomorrow.

On Tuesday I awoke at 7am, as did my Korean friend, she checked the classifieds website, I grabbed the papers, we circled and the discussed the one place that fit our agenda. It's description was telling enough, but we were desperate. So despite the fact that it listed only 2 rooms (2 bang) and no kitchen, no living room, and no bathroom, and that it was only approximately $1000 for 6 months of rent, didn't deter us from checking it out. We rang the number, drove to the explained address, walked through the old, yet somehow elegant gate, took note of the various pieces of ruined, ugly furniture spread across the front patio, and looked at the huge, Korean-style, low roofed house before us. Our Korean friend rang the number again and explained that we'd arrived. She hung up the phone and pointed to the small, added-on section of the house, seemingly put together with bits of junk metal. My partner walked into the place, looked into the dirty rooms, and said, "Yep, Du Bang" (2 rooms)!

We then decided that we should expand our desired living location to include the new part of Jeju City as well. So Hoony, my Korean friend and I, drove to Shin Jeju (New Jeju) and called a few more numbers listed in the classifieds that sounded reasonable. The first place we checked out, was being visited by two other women as well, who, upon seeing us, booked it into the apartment before us. When Hoony, the experienced house hunter, saw that these women may beat us to the punch, she grabbed my arm and whispered RUN! All that excitement, and the place was only okay. Neither sets of marathoners signed-on to make this small, 1st floor apartment their new home. Hoony and I walked to a nearby park, opened the classifieds once again and rang the last possible number, the frantic voice on the other end said that he was on his way home right then, but he needed to call back 5 other possible tenants who'd rang out of interest earlier in the morning. He was instructing all house hunters to be at his place at 10am, the first to come, the first to want, the first to serve. Hoony and I checked our watches, it was 9am, we had an hour to grab some coffees, find his place, cross our fingers, and out run the other high-heeled house hunters!

We headed to Tom&Tom's Coffee, ordered a few things for breakfast, and waited in nervous anxst. Even though Hoony was only helping me, and not actually looking for an apartment, I could feel that she was just as nervous as I was. She was worried, checking and rechecking the paper and her watch. After we waited a little more than 5 minutes for our breakfast, she decided to call the fella heading to his apartment just one more time. He quickly admitted that he'd overestimated his time arrival, and confessed that he'd be home in just 10 minutes, and that if we wanted to be the first ones there, we should go NOW! Hoony hung up the phone, we changed our 'for here' order to takeaway, grabbed our coffees and ran! Hoony explained on the way over there that if I really wanted the place, I should probably have cash in hand, ready to make my deposit straightaway, to make sure I was one step ahead of everyone else.

But I didn't want to take out all that money, run faster than high-heeled marathoners and slam down money in the face of the current tenant. I wanted to walk slowly into a dreamy, open, two-balconed, fully furnished, clean, quaint, cute apartment that sat above a sweet coffee shop where I could buy the cheapest, tastiest coffee in town. But I'm in Korea, not Europe, and that dream was quickly stamped out as we hastily banged on the apartment door. No answer. More banging. No answer. Hoony called the number again. It was BUSY...crap, BUSY numbers in house hunting mean taken apartments! More door banging. Finally, we heard the sound of someone stirring. The door opened as a very sleepy, very confused middle school student appeared and in a weak scratchy voice asked 'Annyeong Hasaeyo?' (Hello?). Hoony explained our visit, the sleepy middle schooler invited us in, and after all that excitement and spilled coffee, the place was well, dirty and old and plain and poorly lit, and inside a huge block of buildings full of the exact same tiny box apartments. The view from the balcony was just massive identical apartment building after massive identical apartment building, and I couldn't live here.

Oh the pain of failure after such excitement, like buying, setting up and lighting boxes of sweet sparkling fireworks, only to witness a small bottle rocket buzz quickly into the air, make a little white burst and fizzle into nothingness again.

Hoony reassured me that she'd help me other days, that we'd find something eventually. And were my Korean language abilities better, I don't think I would have been so disappointed that Tuesday morning. But I'm not the type of person accustomed to asking and re-asking for help. But out of season house-hunting, according to Hoony, is like war, and you need the best equipment to succeed. House hunting necessitated a Korean friend to help, and Hoony was already friend 3, soon we'd have to recycle our 'help us find a apartment' request among our Korean speaking friends. And I just felt we could become an imposition, an annoyance to our helpful friends, and dammit, I wanted house!

I remembered that my co-worker, who's contract finished just days later, lived in an awesome loft, studio apartment in Shin Jeju. So I suggested to Hoony that we head that way, and see if they'd all ready rented out my soon-to-depart co-worker's place. Unbelievably, they had 2 free rooms, right then and there. We took the elevator the the 10th floor, checked out the new place. Hoony jumped when she saw the place! It was perfect, just a bit smaller than what we'd originally hoped for, but spacious nevertheless, partially furnished, with huge windows facing east to let in that sweet morning sun.

The hunt was over, I don't know who or what I was competing against but I'm sure that I won!