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By Yi Woo-won
In early spring of 1995, I went to Japan on a package tour. It was my first trip to the neighboring country, from which our nation was liberated from occupation in 1945. I had multiple, mixed emotions about the country of my childhood, although I was thrilled at the prospect of looking around the country. Our destination was Beppu, a geothermal city in Kyushu. I was with my wife, my eldest daughter, her husband and their little son. The total number of our party was nine including another family of three and another Korean woman who was our guide.
When the plane landed at Oita International Airport after a little less than an hour's flight, we headed for Beppu city in two taxis. For the first time in my life, I was riding in a vehicle which was traveling on the left side of the highway. I was under the illusion that our car was going to crash head-on with the oncoming vehicles and it scared me stiff all the way.
When we arrived on the outskirts of the city, our guide led us to the steaming mountain park with geysers and natural hot ponds. Each of the spots had unearthly, weird names in Japanese such as "jikoku" or "hell" and "umijikoku" or "sea hell." Gazing at the ceaseless emanations of steam and gases from the depths of the earth, I thought the earth was not only alive but it was actually expressing its feelings violently.
It was getting dark and we boarded the bus to go for a bath at a hot spring, the main attraction of the day. We walked into a public bathhouse of an aged wooden structure. The dressing room was packed with many people, of whom more than a half seemed to be Korean. Their loud talking in Korean made me forget I was in Japan. While crossing the gravel yard to go for a warm-sand bath, I suddenly realized I was wearing only a of Japanese yukata (a bathrobe). The sand bath was so comfortable and relaxing that I was momentarily enjoying a snooze, when I was startled to hear a woman's voice nearby. She was lying alongside me only a yard away. It was a unisex bathhouse.
Everything went smoothly and enjoyably after that, including a hearty buffet dinner in town. We were now anticipating a good night's rest in a deluxe hotel after a long day. However, our bus kept running on a quiet, rural road for over an hour and stopped finally in front of a small two-story wooden building. We thought something was wrong. It was not a hotel. It was a cheap, traditional Japanese ryokan in the country ― an obvious breach of contract. We were angry because we were scheduled to stay at the Suginoi, a renowned five-star hotel in downtown Beppu. The guide's excuse was that there were no rooms in the hotel, but it was impossible. Thus, an argument ensued between the guide and female members of our party.
It was after one o'clock in the morning and the disagreement still unsettled. Finally, I walked over to the manager of the ryokan who had been watching the unintelligible dispute for almost two hours. I apologized to him for the disturbance and explained to him what it was all about. Then I politely asked him if he could possibly find a more appropriate ryokan for us in the region. To my surprise, he was very polite and sympathetic to me after hearing all the details. He said he would see what he could do and started making phone calls. He walked to me a little while later, saying he had found a place and offered to take us there in his vehicle. We were deeply grateful to him for his kindness and felt terribly sorry for his trouble driving us in the wee hours of the morning.
The new place he had found wasn't fancy, but it was an elegant-looking, charming, little ryokan, much better than we had expected. He smiled when everybody seemed satisfied with it. Then he raised his hand to say goodbye. We all thanked him profusely and I stood there waving to him, a truly selfless manager with extraordinary personality.
Yi Woo-won (yiwoowon1988@gmail.com) lives in Waegwan, North Gyeongsang Province, and has been writing since 1986.
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