by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
This summer marks the 20th anniversary of my first journey to Asia. There is a Before Asia me and an an After Asia me, for better or worse. Now, at the moment, the likelihood of me EVER returning to Asia — or even leaving the country — is quite remote.
Me, with my students in the summer of 2004.
I’m very, very, very, very poor.
But things are known to change in a heartbeat and, who knows, I might find myself with a little extra money at some point before I die and, as such, I could journey back to Asia for a visit. At this point, I think I would probably go to Japan, then South Korea, then Southeast Asia then come home.
The entire trip would be no more than maybe three weeks.
My biggest concern will be, of course, that I’ll be walking around, say, Seoul, and some Korean who remembers me from back in the day will all but demand I stay in country to, I don’t know, train LLMs for Samsung or something. That’s how things work in South Korea as an expat.
I don’t know what I would do in such a situation.
A lot would depend on HOW I got the money to return to Asia. If I blew up with my novel money, then I think I would politely just move on along. But if, say, something like the North Korean had collapsed and I was on my way to teach ESL there, then, yeah, I might stop in Seoul instead of finishing my journey to the former DPRK.
Anyway, all of this is just a bunch of daydreaming at the moment. There’s no reason to think I will sell my novel — even if I stick the landing — anytime soon. I could be in my mid-to-late 50s by the time I’m a published author, the way things are going.
But I have to admit that I continue to, on occasion, idly daydream about a return to Asia.
