Tent City

We arrived at the beach on the east coast of Korea at eleven at night, and it looked like we had entered a refugee camp without the foreign aid workers.  As far as you could see, there were tents.

We found a place without any immediate neighbours and pitched our ten-man tent, which was one of the bigger ones on the sand.  You would not think that a tent lends itself to any claim of status but on this beach, it did.  The last time we came we pitched a two-man tent that was about as good as Bear Grylls could put together with branches, in the woods.  On that occasion people with easy chairs, lamps hung up over their heads and mattresses filled with air, had looked on disparagingly.

This time we had come prepared.  Our tent was the big daddy of tents and I looked about with a pride that did not last long, for true respect required more than a tent.  What you needed was something to go with it, like say, a table and a few chairs and a canopy.  In essence, creature comforts.  What we had was a big empty pavilion, the Lawrence of Arabia special that would have been ready if everyone came over for an illegal card game.  What they had were cosy chalets.  

Everyone is nosy when they get to tent city, as they are in any neighbourhood.  Its just more pronounced.  Imagine that your neighbour has knocked down his house and a new person has moved in and is putting up a new one, which is only a few feet away from your window.  This will occupy your consciousness.  "Who are these people?" You will ask yourself, "What kind of people would use this kind of orange brick?"  

As we set our own tent up, some older people ambled by, stopping to admire us try.  At 2 am some neighbors moved in next to us and we became the nosy.  I watched them, content that they had an average-looking tent.  But they continued working, and by the time they had finished, some new wings had been added and they had something much more majestic.  I was about to go over and say, "Ok, ok, you've made your point.  That's enough," but fortunately, they had stopped.

On the other side, somebody had a cage inside their tent, inside which was a dog.  It didn't bark all night.  I wondered about the protocol if the dog needed to relieve itself.  On the street you had better pick it up or you might get shamed by a kid with a phone camera.  But out here, the dog could cover things up with sand and if he failed to do so, you could.

The tent people got up early.  At six in the morning the place was buzzing with activity.  Food was being prepared, throats were in the early stages of being cleared, and stiff muscles were getting massaged by fists.  I thought it was about nine so I go up.  A while later, too late to try and catch some more zzzs, I noticed that it was only six.