곱창, Gopchang, Cow Guts--call it what you will

Often when one is preparing to leave a place for good, they experience a shift in what I can only call 'presence.' It seems in a person's last few months or weeks in a place, they experience a rush of opportunity. They make friends where it has been difficult to meet people. They interact with neighbors who had previously never stopped to say hello. This is where I am in Seoul, and this may be how I was lucky enough to experience 곱창 (Gopchang).

An acquaintance of mine, who left town in August, was the first to tell me about Gopchang. In short, it is a traditional Korean dish of grilled cow intestines, stomach and heart. At greater length, please see Diana's article about the history and the more recent rise in popularity of Gopchang. I had been curious to try the cuisine as soon as I heard about it, but I knew I would need a Korean to accompany me. As it happens, I recently met SoYoung at a neighborhood restaurant and we have been meeting for dinner once a week since. She also loves Gopchang.

Let me explain why I needed a Korean to introduce me to this treat. First, I don't speak Korean and so I can't say things like "Yes, I am a foreigner, but I want to try Gopchang and I don't want you to hold back. I want the spicy sauce and I want the guts. All of them. Yes, I know I'm a foreigner, but I'd like you to look beyond that. I'm here for the experience. Yes, I know it's spicy, but I like spicy..." Second, I think I needed someone who knew her way around to find the place. Third, well this sort of goes back to the part where I can't speak Korean, because I can't understand it, either. I needed someone to tell me what I was eating--is this small intestine or stomach? How can you tell? I think you get the idea.

We set a time and place to meet and walked from the subway station to a small, out of the way locale. The woman who owned the place was proud of her excellently sourced cow parts.

A warning that I received multiple times was that the place was very small and very greasy. Sure enough, the walls, floor, and ceiling were covered with grime from what was surely weeks or months of grilling splattering innards. But the tables and chairs were clean. I am not sure I would expect anything other than what I found. We were greeted by the owners and by a massive burner in the center of the table. This was no usual kalbi (barbecue) grill.

I was soon warned that the sauce seen below the burner in this picture was spicy (see, I told you). By the end of the evening the owner was telling SoYoung that I was more Korean than she because I consumed more of the sauce than she did. For the record, the sauce was delicious!

This is the first tray of entrails (small intestine, large intestine, and heart with onions and potatoes thrown in--for texture?) and you can see the grease beginning to spit over onto the table. Gopchang is eaten much in the way kalbi is consumed. Samjang (traditional meat dipping sauce), panchan (traditional side dishes), salt, and cabbage are served for wrapping the grilled items, or you can put them right in your mouth and start chewing. Variety is what makes life sweet (or spicy).
When we were partly through our first tray of scrumptious delicacies, SoYoung informed me that the owner had selected only some parts of the digestive system to share with me, assuming that, as a foreigner, I wouldn't like other options. This would not do, I replied. We asked that she not hold back for round two.

I will never know if she did hold some things back, but in this round plenty of pieces of gray and wrinkly stomach were included (seen above).

Finally, the grease is sopped up with fried rice, mixed here with seaweed and kimchi. This may have been the most texture-laden meal I've had in Korea or anywhere. It was delicious and well worth the experience. But our evening adventure didn't stop here.

Down the road a bit was a little place serving 계란 마리 김밥 (egg wrapped kimbap), another special treat I hadn't tasted before. We were more than fulfilled by dinner, so we took some to go and breakfast couldn't have been better the next morning. I've included a photo here to give you an idea of what it is like (sorry, not my photo:) :
The evening ended with a walk home after a quick visit to a local temple. The lanterns were welcoming and the fact that there were no other people in the golden room of the temple made it the quietest place I've experienced in Seoul--I could have stayed for hours.

The walk helped to settle dinner and gave me time to ponder what seems to be my new situation in Seoul. Somehow my guard has fallen just enough to allow strangers to converse with me in diners (that is how SoYoung and I met). I am just open enough to share more personal aspects of my life with other friends with whom I had previously been more guarded. I am relaxed enough to appreciate people's reactions to my winter hat (and to me in general). I am aware enough to stop to greet the butcher or the man who sells bananas to me in the market. My presence is simply more present, as if I no longer have to save my energy for basic survival here. How interesting that a pause in surviving and lead to living.

An Accidental Visit to the Chicken Museum

Seoul, like many international cities, is littered with museums; they are cultural, historical and even eclectic in nature and presentation. They are world-renowned (for example, the National Museum of Korea), they are cultural (e.g. the Kimchi Field Museum), and they are obscure (like the Seoul Museum of Chicken Art). I typically appreciate national museums for their historical and cultural treasures, but I often can't be bothered by many others. Sometimes, however, the universe makes it so that you don't have a choice. If it is meant to be that you are to tour the Museum of Chicken Art, then you are to take the tour. And you will gain something from the experience, too.

For several weeks I had been waiting for December 4th to come around so I could take the afternoon off work and sit in on the English language lecture at the Anguk Zen Center in northern Seoul. It is uncommon for me to leave work early and I felt like a bit of a truant as I took the subway to Anguk Station. I had a page from Groove magazine in my pocket. On it was an advertisement and map to the center. In my anticipation of this day, I had folded and unfolded the page so often that the seams were flimsy, and seemingly delicate.

I followed the map out exit 2 and up the road, passed the middle school on my right, across the intersection, and passed the Catholic church on my left. The neighborhood was lovely. It was quieter than other neighborhoods and little shops sold scarves and sweaters, trendy clothes and handmade and locally designed pottery. I thought of my mom because she would have appreciated this part of the city and because we didn't venture here while she was visiting. It was my mom who found the magazine advertisement now crumpling in my hand.

Visiting a new part of a city you know a bit about is always a special experience. It's full of "Huh, I had no idea," surprises. I had no idea ceramics could be so beautiful and that they were so plentiful in Seoul. I had no idea there was a road that felt to me so much like home. I had no idea that there were so many Catholic nuns in Seoul. I had a vague idea that the Chicken Museum was in this area, so it wasn't a great surprise when I passed by the first time.

As it turns out, the building in which the Anguk Zen Center resides (or resided?) has no sign or placard identifying it to be the Zen Center. I only now this now because I found a picture of it online. Last Saturday I walked passed this building two of three times and asked employees in the neighboring ceramics shop if they had heard of the place or if they might know where it is. Nothing.

It is not uncommon that something advertised in Seoul is no longer there. Restaurants, service businesses, and institutes are known to disappear or relocate with little or no notice at all. So I easily decided to do something else with my day. I started walking in the direction from which I came, and that is wen I passed the Chicken museum again.

I stood outside of the building for several seconds, wondering why one might create a museum for chickens. I am sure every creature under the sun is worthy of a museum all its own, but chicken art simply sounds funny in my mind and off my tongue. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to answer my question. I was meant to learn about chickens on this very day.

The entrance fee is 3,000 won for adults, and I was greeted upon entering the first gallery, and escorted upstairs to the second gallery--this is where the tour begins. I was then greeted by the curator, who led me through the museum. This was fine. I should feel honored--I do a little bit-- that the curator spent this time with me, but his English was difficult to understand and I think he only told me what was written on the poster boards next to each exhibit. He sort of rushed me through the many sculptures of chicken heads and paintings of chickens and peonies, cedar trees, and other representative foliage. I may have liked to take more time taking in all of the chicken history, but he seemed to be on a schedule.

So what did I learn about the chicken? Well first off, I learned that Korea respects and appreciates the chicken, but mostly Korea reveres the rooster. The rooster's five virtues are much sought after by Korean men: Intelligence, Strength, Courage, Heartedness, Trust. The rooster is intelligent because it wears that lovely crown. The traditional hat worn by government officials in Korea is named after the chicken's crown. The rooster's sharp and fierce talons represent his strength. The rooster will fight without running away, and this is representative of his courage. The tiger, I was reminded, will run away from a fight. (Wuss!) The rooster has what is called heartedness because he cries when he finds food. Instead of gobbling it all up for himself, he lets his family know that it is there so they can have some, too. Finally, we can always count on the rooster to cry out at dawn and this is our reason for trusting him.

A rooster and hen chicken represent fertility when shown together, and chicks added to the mix make this message stronger. A rooster in a peony (seen at left) will bring wealth and fame--this is popularly represented in traditional art and may be a gift from a bride's parents to their new son-in-law. Similarly, a rooster in a Cockscomb brings a successful career.

The entire second floor gallery is dedicated to Korean traditional chicken art. Traditional Korean coffins include wood carved sculptures called 'Kokdu' at the corners, and these sculptures are often in the shape of chicken heads. The chicken happens to be the only one of twelve Chinese zodiac animals that has wings, and so it serves as a messenger between this world and the next. It also wards off evil spirits. The museums collection of chicken Kokdu is quite extensive and they represent a great variety of styles and influences. Some are more than a hundred years old.







I learned a lot about the place of the chicken in Korean history and culture. The gallery has pieces that tie the chicken to the Shamanic God of fortune, it includes furniture carved with chickens or the heads of chickens, and it shares some history of how the chicken was used in protecting the spirits of the dead.

The first floor gallery houses a collection of chicken art from around the world. And as you may imagine, everyone has something to share when chickens are the focus. From Scandinavia to Africa, Myanmar to native American North America, and from South America to Japan, everyone has turned something into a chicken. Wood, brass, crystal, ceramic, recycled plastic bags, you name it, there was a chicken made out of it. There were chicken pairs and families, chicken tea sets and paintings, chickens sitting, chickens crowing, chickens pecking and chickens simply standing about. There was little history shared here, but one thing was clear: the chicken is revered everywhere.

I had set out seeking a lecture about Zen meditation, but my path was not as direct as I had expected it to be. I suppose I can take this experience as my lesson in Zen anyhow. Too strong an expectation may lead to a frustration so great that the opportunity that is truly available on this path may be missed. And if that were the case, how would I learn what snippet of wisdom the Museum of Chicken Art had to offer? Well, I wouldn't.

A Visit to Seodaemun Prison

A friend and I recently visited Seodaemun Prison History Hall in Seoul and I would recommend it to anyone interested in history, prisons, or appreciating Korea.

In brief, the prison was built in 1908 and used during the Japanese rule of Korea to house anti-colonial activists. After the Japanese occupation ended in 1945, the prison was used by the South Korean government until 1987. It was constructed to accommodate around 500 people, but actually housed close to 3,000 prisoners at the height of civil disobedience. In 1992, the site was dedicated as the Seodaemun Prison History Hall. For more historical information, click on the link above.

Prisoners at Seodaemun were forced to work, they were tortured, and many of them were executed. I was reminded of visits to Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen, and other former German concentration camps where one can't help but imagine the suffering that occurred in the very cells you walk by. Like many of the concentration camps, the execution building still stands at Seodaemun and remains a reminder of the prison's original purpose. The execution building itself was off limits to photographs, although you'll find many on the web. I took this shot from outside the wall that now blocks the small wood-sided execution building from plain view (you see the wall to the left of the poplar tree).

A plaque before the entrance to the execution building states that this poplar tree "was planted in 1923 at the time when the execution building was constructed. It was said that patriots in the course of being dragged to the execution hall grabbed this tree and wailed with deep resentment for their unachieved independence." The tree is therefore named the Wailing Poplar.

Seodaemun offers something of an interactive approach that I have never experienced at another historical prison exhibit. In the bottom floor of the main exhibit, visitors can see life-like representations of what cells, prisoners and even torture looked like. They can also become a Korean revolutionary and watch themselves be arrested. I took the opportunity to participate.

Smiling me in a crowd of fellow Koreans hollering "대한 독립 만세!" ( [daehan dokrib mansae] Hooray for Independence!)
And before you know it I've gotten myself arrested.
Faceless guards escort me to Seodaemun.
My smiling profile is interrogated. But I don't budge!
This is me being tortured--I believe with scalding hot water poured down my throat. This was disturbing to see and it took me a bit of time to identify what was so disturbing about it: One-seeing myself in a position to be tortured was simply uncomfortable. I think few people really want to see this. Two-it is a fun and interactive museum setting. School kids come through, have their likenesses imprinted on the screen and watch themselves be Korean nationalists, giggling all the way. I want to know that at the end of the day, they realize what they are giggling at. Three-I can't forget that this is someone's reality in this world. Right now.

After much thought, I have concluded that the activity is as realistic as it can be, and that should make people uncomfortable.
Here I am escorted to my cell.
And in my spacious cell I continue my hollering for freedom: "대한 독립 만세!" It should be noted that Seodaemun has solitary cells that were much smaller than the one seen here, and I imagine I was not alone in this room.

The Seodaemun Prison History Hall exhibit left me feeling thankful that I could say "that was then..." and made me question how much I would be able to endure for my own beliefs and values. But it also reminded me that "this is now" in some parts of the world. It makes one consider the differences one feels when they visit Alcatraz--with its clean and pristine lines of cells, beautiful west coast Pacific views, and fantastic jail break stories--and when they visit the camps and prisons where the execution room is still to be seen, where we are given the numbers of lives that suffered torture, starvation, and death.

It leaves me wondering if we will someday tour other modern day prisons in this fashion. More pictures of Seodaemun follow.
This room memorializes Seodaemun prisoners. Each 3X5 card is a prisoner intake card with photo and personal information. There are thousands here.
Buildings were built with these bricks, which were made by prisoners. The mark represents Seodaemun prison bricks. Textiles and prison uniforms were also made in Seodaemun and shipped to other prisons throughout the country.
A view so often seen in Seoul--the old, the new, and the natural. The red brick buildings are century-old Seodaemun prison buildings, while the white buildings in the background are modern apartment buildings. In the far background a mountain outcropping can be seen, which has surely been here longer than everything else.

Winter Hats Make Me Smile

Hats used to be so uncool that I preferred walking to school with icicles in my hair. Apparently using a hair dryer when I was fifteen years old was uncool, too. Anyhow, in the dead of winter in northern lower Michigan I walked a mile or so with wet hair to get an education, and I arrived with icicles over my ears. (Someday I may share these facts with my grandchildren in order to let them know how hard life was, but I'll omit the part about how it was my choice and I'll add that bit about up hill both ways. I always appreciated that snippet of trickery.)

Call it maturity or what you will, nowadays I can't stand going without a hat in cold weather. At the end of last year's hat season, I was faced with a horrible situation--my favorite hat was lost in the Vancouver airport. Yes, it's true! Either someone snatched it from my luggage cart or (more likely) it fell out of my bag as I was shifting my belongings around in preparation for boarding. It was a great hat but can't be seen here because I can't seem to find a single photo of me in it. You'll have to take my word on how lovely it was.

The hat was gifted to me years ago by a dear friend and I initially had a hard time figuring out how to wear it (it was very loose knit, so if I wore it without folding it, my ears suffered from wind zipping through those large holes). When it finally clicked, I wore the hat through several winters. It was angora and had four lovely little flowers at the top. It received many comments and surely beat frozen locks both in comfort and in fashion. When I realized it was gone, I hardly had the opportunity to say goodbye.

However, as any traveler knows, goodbyes are inevitable. Nothing lasts forever and I took the loss in stride, hoping only that someone else came upon my little head-warmer and appreciates her as much as I did (yes, she's a she). And I along my way, I didn't think about the need for a hat all summer long.

Then I visited Lake Michigan in September and was reminded of such things as the gales of November. I would need a hat soon, I knew.

Looking through my mom's closet--still in MI--I came across a big knit hat I wore in college and that I think my mother had worn years before me. I remembered that hat being perfect in warmth and fantastic in fashion, but I also remembered that hat having been unraveled in my college years... Well, some of the memories were foggy and apparently false. I took this hat with me when I returned to Seoul, of course.

My returns to Korea are always somewhat bittersweet. I miss friends and family and a place that feels like home, yet there is something familiar enough about my hovel in Seoul that feels like home, too. It is difficult to exist in a city so large and so impersonal, but I was noticing more and more after this return how happy people (strangers) appeared.

The weather had turned quickly. The wind had picked up and already had a winter-like bite to it. The sun shines throughout the fall and winter seasons here, so I thought perhaps it was relief from the rains that people were smiling about. I wore my 'new old' hat to keep me toasty on the way to and from the subway, and I smiled at smiling people all the way.

Seoul is typically like New York. Folks have places to go and don't often pause to acknowledge strangers (foreign or otherwise) while on their way. But these sudden smiles simply wouldn't cease. One day after work I donned my hat in the elevator. At the 8th floor, a man boarded and grinned at me then looked to the floor. When the doors closed he said something quietly in Korean, smiling all the way. I realized he was referring to my hat, which I tapped and said "it's a great hat, isn't it?" He laughed and deboarded at the 7th floor. (Sidebar: Who takes the elevator from floor 8 to floor 7?) As he exited the elevator he turned to me to say "Thank you for the encouragement." "Thank you for appreciating my hat," I thought in return, but in reality I just smiled and nodded.

As I teacher, I like to think that I encourage people, and it makes me feel good to know when I do. Did I encourage this man to wear a poofy winter hat? Did I encourage him to make fun of me in a poofy winter hat? I really don't care. In fact, I am not at all sure 'encourage' was the correct word to express this fellow's true meaning. Just like I am not sure that 'appreciate' was the correct word to reflect what he was doing when he noticed my hat. But semantics isn't important for me here.

What is important is that people keep smiling at me. That makes it worth not taking the hat off until spring.
All images for this post (excluding the final image) were sourced from google images.
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Making Gluten Free Stove-Top Pizza in a Small Seoul Apartment

This post begins much like the how to make gluten free brownies in a small apartment in Seoul post did: Call a friend, act sad and deprived of the goodness of gluten free products and have said friend send a care package including GF pizza mix (Bob's Red Mill is a fave here). Once it arrives, prepare it according to the directions.

I prefer sautéed veggies on my pizza, usually bell peppers, onions and mushrooms will do the trick. I also like to add fresh tomato sliced thin. We use tomato sauce instead of pizza sauce, since pizza sauce is more difficult to find here. I add dried basil and garlic to the sauce when I spread it on the crust--but hey! I am getting well ahead of myself. Simply prepare the toppings and set them aside for a moment. Cheese is important, of course. We get mozzarella from Costco. What we typically find in Korean grocery stores simply will not do!

Once toppings are prepared and set aside, it is time to get down to business. You'll need a fry pan of at least 12 inches in diameter. Put it on medium/high heat and add about 2 tablespoons of oil (I use olive oil for pizzas). Typically you'll have enough dough from a mix to do this twice, so split the dough in half and work the first half into the shape of a pizza pie. When the pan is hot, place the dough in the pan and press it with the back side of an oiled spoon to make it as thin as you can, and to get the edges of the dough to the edges of the pan. Helpful Hint: the pan should not be so hot as to scorch or fry the dough. You are cooking it like you would the perfect golden brown pancake.

Allow the pie to cook until you've reached the state of golden brownness on the pan side; this takes about five minutes. Once browned, flip the pizza crust to the other side (yes, again, like a pancake). Here is where you add toppings: sauce and basil, tomatoes, sauteed veggies, cheese, etc.
Once you've topped your pie with cheese, you'll need to put a lid on it. My pan is too large for a lid, so I use an aluminum bowl. This allows the toppings to warm and flavor one another, but, most importantly, it causes the cheese to melt! Allow to cook another five minutes or so.
(I suggest checking in more often the first time through!)

Quit the pizza of the heated pan and place it on a plate to set for ten minutes. Finally, cut and devour. Congratulations on your first stove-top pizza pie!

By the way, this works for Gluten-Full pizzas as well:)

Yak Butter

Photo: Sasha Friedman

When I was a Chicago Girl Scout we went to a farm and made butter. We learned all about the process of milking the cow and then churning the butter. We were shown the old fashioned butter churner in order to better understand what our foremothers went through to make the yellow patties we, at the age of ten, took for granted on our dinner tables. And then we made our own butter.

Each Girl Scout got an empty Gerber baby food jar with a small amount of raw cow's milk inside. We were told to shake it until it became butter. The event stands out for me because I know I shook it and shook it and shook it. My arm became butter, but I kept shaking. I remember that I and other girls stopped several times to ask "Is this butter?" knowing that the sloopy slop inside the jar was not quite butter. We resumed our shaking.

Finally--and my memory is torn by the fact that you as a reader cannot possibly comprehend how long this seemed to take because it cannot be properly written as my ten year old self experienced it--my milk became soft, creamy colored butter. I opened my jar and put the butter on bread (or crackers?) and tasted. It was softer and creamier than any butter I had ever tasted, and I think I was, perhaps actually tasting butter for the very first time. This was no condiment, but rather the main event. This was my turkey on Thanksgiving.

Fast forward 20 years: I can't believe I am old enough to write what I just wrote--this is non-fiction. I like butter. I haven't substituted with margarine since I left my mother's house and, while I avoid butter in some instances, I do not shrimp on adding it to baked goods or corn on the cob. I like cheese, too. I don't know if there is a relation.

I recently traveled to Mongolia, and I knew I would have an opportunity to consume meat and dairy products, as these are staple menu items to the region. Our food was highly westernized, presumably due to the tourist industry's experience with, well, tourists. We had plenty of beef, but only once were we served goat meat barbecued in the traditional Mongolian art (and I am not referring to Mongolian Barbecue's art, which is more closely related to Japanese style Teppanyaki than anything traditionally Mongolian). We were given a taste of fermented mare's milk only after requesting it and we came across yak butter in the truest traveler's fashion possible. Aaah, yak butter.

Photo: Sasha Friedman

Yaks are officially among the most beautiful animals in the world in my book. In Mongolia they roam free through the forest and across the plains. Just look at their shiny, long coats. Passing them on the road we heard them ripping grass from the roots and munching it continuously. They do not low like cows do; they are rather quiet. They won't eat grains, only grass, and so their milk is guaranteed to be free-range. They are big and I was a little nervous to pass within 10 feet of them at the outset. After four days in their neighborhood, though, I became rather comfortable with their presence. They didn't seem to care one bit about mine.

It was by chance that I tasted yak butter, and it was not because I became so comfortable as to walk up and milk one of the roaming lady yaks myself, closing my winnings into a glass jar and shaking it forever and a day. We had gone horseback riding--this was included in our tour package--and the horse herder who guided us invited us back to his ger for tea. We met his two young boys, whose heads were clean shaven like their daddy's and who, at a stature half of my own, handled our horses like they were puppies, and his wife served us cow's milk tea, home baked bread (because that is all there is so far from town) and yak butter.

Aaah, yak butter.

Our tour guide explained to us that yak butter is made in a large pot over the stove. You warm the raw yak milk to a boil and, with a large wooden spoon, you stir, then lift the milk above the pot and allow it to fall back into itself. You do this again and again and again. Finally (long after your arm has fallen off if you choose to shake the pot like I shook my Gerber baby jar) the milk forms zillions of tiny bubbles and it becomes apparent that a thick layer of butter has developed on the surface of the milk. You take the milk off the stove and allow it to cool, usually overnight. When the milk has cooled sufficiently, you cut the butter free from the edges of the pot with a knife and lift it out. It usually folds itself in half and what you end up with is a plate full of yak butter about one and a half inches think. Thicker than cow's milk. Thicker than goat's milk. And oh so rich and delicious. The milk is pasteurized for drinking to boot!

The tea served to us was intriguing: milk with a bit of salt added made for a flavor entirely new to me. I would never have thought to add salt to my warm milk, but I add salt after buttering my corn on the cob, so why not?

The bread I could not eat, as I am allergic to gluten and didn't want a tummy ache on the last stretch of our journey on horseback.

A dinner plate was covered by the cake of yak butter and I took an amount equal to what one might put on a piece of bread in my fingers. I ate it straight. I have never put something so celestial in my mouth. The memory of my Girl Scout butter is faint, but the memory of yak butter in a nomad's ger in Mongolia remains ever strong. I hope the memory is at least as heavy as the yak butter itself, because it suggests that it will remain with me for at least as long as it takes for me to find more yak butter.

Most people I know are privileged enough to carry in their minds the list of "things I will do before I die". On my list for many years has been milk a cow, and it is still there, but added to the list is make yak butter. I by no means feel I have to milk the yak myself, but I have to make yak butter. Then I can share it with you and tell you a story that will stay with you at least as long as the taste of yak butter stays with you. And, if you're like me, that will be a long, long time.

When Rendered Helpless

We had finished drinks at the German pub a few blocks from our hostel and started back to pack our bags and be ready to fly early in the morning. It was dark. The light turned and we crossed the street. I was being defensive, I thought, when I strutted into the road. A local crossing next to us didn't walk, but rather jogged. We jogged, too--if the locals do it, there may be a reason. A car flew around the corner, not breaking, just as we reached the curb on the other side of the street. I don't think it had headlights on. Had we walked, we would have been hit. We continued in the same direction as the car and as our hostel while reflecting on the car that didn't just hit us in the crazy streets of UB.

And then, a bang was heard, traffic stopped, and I had enough time to see a body fall in front of a car ahead of us. The sound was a thud, really, or a crack. I can still hear it and see this person fall, his face for a moment lit up by the headlight as it passed toward the ground. I became alert and tried to pull forward. My first instinct was to get closer. I was going to help. This person needed help, after all.

Everyone stood, looking at the car and the man on the ground. The people waiting for the bus continued to wait for the bus. The men gathered on the street side remained on the street side. People looked, but nobody did a thing for several seconds, which felt like awfully long seconds to me. The driver got out and reached for the man, shaking him. I saw his unconscious head bounce back and forth on his limp neck and said in a small voice "No, no, don't, you're doing it wrong.." Sasha held my hand tighter. That is when I, too, stopped. The driver dragged the man to his car and put him inside. He drove away. I can only assume he got him to the hospital and that the best was done for him.

I had a hard time not shouting and intervening to check the man's vitals, support him until more help arrived, and direct others to do the same: "you, call the police and the emergency response team." What? Does a response team exist in UB? Will the ambulance ever come? Is it faster, albeit more dangerous, for the man to be packed into the backseat and shuttled to help? What does a foreigner know? Surely, what does a foreigner do? I can't even say 'hello' properly in Mongolian, much less 'let's get help.'

All of the training, the CPR, the First Response, the Life Guard, the First Aid, the take action, the empowerment: you CAN make a difference made, me feel like I let someone down on the street in Ulaan Baator. I don't know if the man survived and I don't know what would have happened had I--or someone--stepped in to keep his neck stable... I do know that hesitation would be easier were I sure I didn't know how to help, instead of it being the other way around.