Dreaming of Korea

I had a dream I went back to Korea for a photography job. I met up with a flickr friend of mine (who was writing a story for his newspaper) and we took a trip to back to Uijeongbu which is north of Seoul. We rode in a blue van. On the way to Uijeongbu, we took a detour off of highway 1 into a very green valley. In this green valley was what seemed like the entire Korean Army. There were missiles and bombs everywhere. The van stopped and so a my flickr friend and I decided to get out and mingle with the Korean soldiers to find out what was going on. I came across Korean soldiers wearing tan uniforms that had very white skin, blue eyes, and blonde hair. If it wasn't for their features, their somewhat round faces, typical almond shaped eyes, I would have mistaken them for white men. I asked them if they wouldn't mind if I took pictures of them and they allowed me to.

After we left the camp we drove through some mountains on a windy road and stopped just before we disappeared around a bend overlooking the valley and the Korean Army. I got out of the van and took a couple of pictures and came across single family homes. They looked like the very homes they are building all around the Antelope Valley in California. The neighborhood was quite exept for a young boy practicing his soccer moves. My friend and I got out of the van and walked over to one of the houses and looked inside. The house was empty. I turned around to take a picture of the row of houses. I then tried to take a picture of the boy. He looked me and scowled and kicked his soccar ball voilently in my direction and the ball went so high up in the sky it looked like it disappeared into the heavens. But the ball came back to earth and bounced into the backyard of the house I was standing in front of.

Then I decided to leave and when I went back to the van it was already running and it was parked in the middle of the street. In front of the van, was another vehicle with a Korean man in the driver's seat. He was smoking a cigarette and looking out his rear view mirror at me. He was staring at me and when I made eye contact with him, he frowned and threw his cigarette into the street.

I got into the van and drove down the hill to a busy street. I stopped at a red light and all the Koreans in their cars we looking at me and frowning at me and pointing their fingers. I was so scared.

Then I woke up. It wasn't the best dream. What bothered me the most about the dream was how large the Army was and that they had soldiers that could have almost passed for white men. On top of that all the bombs and missiles. And then the hatred I felt when they looked at me. I hope this isn't a dream something bad is going to happen over there.