one man’s trash..

.. is sometimes the same man’s treasure.

Last night (my last night in Korea) found me bent at the waist, hanging on the edge (half in, half out) of the huge industrial bin outside my apartment.

Just another night, really.

Actually, my friends and I had been looking at my passport and realising that although immigration had updated my alien registration card with my extended visa period, nothing was done officially to my passport, which still says I had to leave Korea by the end of December. Not good. When they pointed this out to me last night, I felt sick. Not again, I thought! Not like last time when I left Korea (having been told by my school that everything is okay with both my visa and my son’s visa) and I was stopped at check-in, sent to immigration, waiting around for ages, crying in line as my departure time almost came and went, being made to pay a couple of hundred dollars, then literally running all the way to my plane in the nick of time.  Not again, I was thinking.

Then.. kaching! Brilliant idea came to me. I had, not so brilliantly, just that very day chucked out the two government warning letters about my visa stay ending on 28th February. The letter says, and I quote, "Please note that overstaying, which means violating the Immigration Law, will not enable you to escape any punishment."  Scary stuff.  So you can imagine I was justifiably panicking last night when my friends said it looked like I could have a problem with my passport, even though I’d done everything correctly and they had in fact extended my visa and I’d paid for it and they’d updated that information on my alien registration card.

So, as I was saying.. kaching! I remembered I’d just chucked out the warning letter stating that my visa was until end of February, and I was in fact  legally here. So just as the pizza arrived, I went running out to the industrial bin (saying annyong to the pizza guy as I sprinted past) and, in the full beam of the pizza man’s headlights, jumped up so I was hanging half in half out of this bin. And it smelt bad. I mean, real bad. And I was groping and pulling and squinting and smelling and peering and searching. I felt dirty. I felt cheap. People were walking past. Probably thinking, "oh that poor foreigner, foraging for food."  

Finally, just as a small group of Koreans walked past giving me strange looks as I stood ripping open a garbage bag and shoving my hand around inside it, I looked over at the man and said, "It’s okay. It’s my rubbish. My suregi. Mine. Mwu hah hahah .. it’s mine. All mine!!"

I found the two immigration letters. I ran back inside my apartment crying, "I feel defiled!!" But I was waving those babies around in the air like Charlie’s golden tickets.

It was a Willie Wonka moment.

And so I’m leaving Korea in about three hours. It’s now 5.50am.

With my rescued-from-the-garbage immigration letter treasure, just let the buggars try to stop me this time!

And.. I’m spent.

jujuQueen out.