The Slow Befuddled Spiral of a Trilingual M.C., Part Two

I received a Kakao Talk (it’s a Korean app) message from Michael Jun in early October.
“Can you help me on the 22nd?”
I lobbed, “What kind of help?”
He sliced, “Any schedule on the 22nd?”

This exchange encapsulates the precision of our mobile communications. I try not to speak on the phone too much, because it’s difficult for me to understand accented English. Eventually, he got around to asking me to co-M.C. the music festival. I was wary. I was a classical radio guy in Oklahoma. Not a big-time public speaker. I rarely even saw my boss at KCSC, let alone listeners.

But, we agreed to meet in Itaewon ten days before the show. Again at Holly’s after Indian food. I didn’t want to decline his request, but I was kind of looking for a reason to. A Korean friend did some online research to make sure I wasn’t being recruited into Shincheonji or the Moonies. (I had been accosted/recruited before, outside a grocery store, by two women who wanted to take me to a “cultural event,” but we had to leave immediately. They told me to bring the groceries. No time to take them home.) Mr. Jun is a nice man and definitely NOT in a cult.

At Holly’s, the purpose of the festival was revealed: to remember the lives lost in the Itaewon tragedy. “They’re speaking to us,” Mr. Jun must have said to me ten times that day. Was it a fundraiser? A contest? He didn’t give a clear answer. The tragedy in the neighborhood was still with him. “God sent you,” he told me a couple of times, and I agreed that yes, God does seem to have a sense of humor.

I asked to meet the co-M.C. “She’s not here. She lives in Peru. She comes later.” Oh, and it turns out that she’s a Korean who speaks fluent Spanish - a perfect pairing for me, an English speaker who is rather faulty in both of her languages.

Could I see the script or schedule? “Not ready yet.”

He guided me on an impromptu neighborhood walk, starting with a formal wear shop, where I expected to see how I measured up. All that happened there was the proprietor gave us bottles of vitamin drinks and insisted on taking us to a Korean fast-food joint a couple of doors down to buy us food, despite my protestations of a gut full of sambar and onion bhaji. (She left her shop unlocked/unmanned for a good twenty minutes.) Mr. Jun ate jajangmyeon like a starving man. When the lady left us and went back to her shop, I shoved the food in a go box.

He took me to a tiny nearby house, supposedly bought and furnished by a charity. It was implied the performers would be housed and fed by volunteers in this tiny house, but it wasn’t to be, and that’s a good thing. He gave me a sublingual pill of pure salt he found in a bottle there to prevent illness, all the while coughing like a consumptive. “I never get sick," he told me two or three times, as it started to rain. There were plenty of ownerless umbrellas in front of that house.

So, I left Seoul that day with about the same information as I had before. The main difference was that I was now officially the co-M.C., the co-M.C.-elect or somesuch.

Over the next few days he sent me a lot of links about the event, but they were just still photos and pictures of the logo. As John Lennon once said, “Most peculiar, mama!”

Let’s finish this in part three. In this TikTok age, you should be back-patted for going this far.