I recently stepped off the boat (ahem: plane) into our concrete paradise, Pusan. I noticed the plane didn't exactly land in a grassy knoll, nor did I expect it to. However, after 2 days of trying to figure out what exactly is so different about this city, I think I got it: There is no greenery anywhere! Not a twig, not a branch, not a blade (of grass).

I live in Kaegum Chugong (chew gum), where, if I sleepwalk, I am on the freeway riding into Seomyeon(downtown) with the rest of the commuters. No grass there. I walk a very cemented bridge to work everyday, which has a driving range nearby. If I squint my eyes at the green netting it looks like grass, but as I reach the end of the bridge, I'd have to close my eyes and sniff glue in order to truly believe there's living greenery there.

Once, when I opened our spare fridge, I thought I had found my field of green, but it turned out to be some old maggoty food. I had to fight with the director to get that fridge removed. So the question remains where do they hide the grassy parks? At first I thought "nowhere", but then, driving to and from immigration several times with my boss, I found it: Samsung Insurance! That's right, outside of corporate Korea is where the deer run free and one can wander sockless right through the door of one of the world's largest electronics manufacturers' satellite companies.

"What to do?", I asked myself. "I need things to insure, but what?", I pondered, (since I own nothing). I decided to conduct my classes at Samsung Park, for inspiration. The kids loved it. Everyday we would speak in English about items worthy of insuring. First, I explained to them what insurance was, then what items were, then how they could identify a multinational corporation by the quality of the frontal shrubbery. By then, the suits were all gathered at their windows watching us. The kids and I agreed that a good suit almost always comes with a nice shrub. Eventually, the suits grew inpatient, denied my request to insure all English adjectives beginning with the letter "Q", (they said "that's more of an intellectual property issue"), then kindly directed me to their IP and patents branch. The End

....and that's a colorful picture of my search for grass.

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