The Locked-Up Library

Usually, a trip to the library brings me joy. This has not been the case for the past two-and-a-half years that I've been in Korea. In fact, the two libraries with which I've had the closest encounters bring me the opposite of joy; I want to lie down on the floor and have a tantrum.

The library here at my university is an impressive, though slightly awkward-looking, many-storied structure. After a couple of visits early on, now it gets scarcely more than a passing glower from me. I wrote about this in an earlier blog entry: There is an English-language book section, and it is categorized using the Dewey Decimal system, but the books stop at 799. Same on the Korean-language side. That means no literature, no history, no biography and no fiction, and that means no visits from Bybee.

Recently I've picked up an extra teaching gig at a local middle school, teaching English two afternoons a week to students in an after-school program for low-income children. My co-worker, Newfie, had the same gig last year. When he told me that we teach the classes in the library, I couldn't help but feel a little giddy.

The library at the middle school is a spacious, sunlight-filled room with long rows of tables and chairs. The librarian's desk is at the far end of the room. Behind her desk is a smallish, glassed-in room full of books. I wanted to get at the books. Of course, most of them are in Korean, but I just wanted to browse in the stacks and inhale the co-mingled smell of books and dust that I love so much.

The librarian, who is there until 4:30, always keeps a safe distance from me. I'm a foreigner. She has no English. I might try to talk to her. The horror! (As my father would have said, I really should shit-can the sarcasm because actually, it is worrisome for her.) Many Koreans feel that if they can't communicate in *perfect* English, it's their fault, so they keep a wary eye out when foreigners are about and make themselves as unobtrusive as possible.

Since the librarian's eyebrows fly up in alarm when I get within 15 meters of her desk, I decided that I wouldn't bother her by indicating that I'd like to quickly browse the stacks before the lesson. I decided that I'd wait until she was gone and I'd wander around in the book room after finishing with my class at five-thirty.

A few days ago, my students and I were doing some conversational laps with the present progressive, when I heard the librarian shut down her computer. She was done for the day! Great! I paid no more attention to her as she bustled around with her last-minute tasks.

One hour later, I was done, and had finished hugging all the middle-school girls goodbye, and was humming "...ain't nothin' gonna break my stride..." as I headed for the book room door.

Gasp. The door between me and those books was locked! A huge combination lock secured the door! I pulled on it several times ineffectually. "Whoever heard of locking up the books?" I demanded. Silence.

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I had a sudden and unwelcome vision of myself picking up something heavy and hurling it through the glass, so I quickly packed up my teacher bag and walked out. More smiling middle-school girls waited for me at the entrance. I tried to smile and speak normally, but my face felt stiff.

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Cultural awareness. Cultural sensitivity. Some days, it's a lot more effort to summon them.