Walk in a Snowstorm
By Oh Young-jin
City Editor
Seoul had nearly a foot of snowfall Monday, a record in 70 years since relevant data first began to be collected in 1937. But, unofficially, weathermen say that it wouldn't be terribly wrong to say it was the heaviest snowfall in a century
Facing weather conditions of this magnitude, Seoul City Hall, together with the central government, used everything it had to clear the roads. An army of shovel-wielding civil servants hit the streets alongside a fleet of snowplows, some of them borrowed from the Army, pouring thousands of tons of calcium chloride onto the roads. In the end, however, their collective effort looked to be a lost cause, when snowdrifts got bigger on the roadside and the city remained snow-bound.
It was a rude wakeup call from Mother Nature, which was supposed to make human beings realize their limitations and become humble for a while. Or was it?
I felt rather contrary to this conventional wisdom.
My Monday story began at 6 a.m. when the alarm clock in my new mobile phone went off. A footnote is that the alarm has an inbuilt annoying feature ― its sound gets louder until you hit the snooze button ― tempting you to wait and hear how loud it can get. But I have so far chosen to lose in this morning competition for my mind.
Anyway, immediately after the tussle with the alarm, I peeked through my bedroom window outside to check whether it was snowing. It wasn't.
Thirty minutes or so later after finishing my morning routine, I gave another peek outside. By then, it was snowing so hard that I barely managed to see yellow dots of high-pressure sodium street lamps down at ground level.
I was worried about my trip to office. So I got prepared as best as I could, which could, in normal weather, have made me stand out from the crowd ― a man in suits, a tie and overcoat but with a bulky pair of climbing boots.
At a bus stop, an anxious crowd had already gathered, each of the commuters looking as if they were debating with themselves about the chances of their bus coming. A couple of them apparently gave up waiting and started their trek down the snow-covered slope. My patience was about to run out, when my bus didn't come for another 10 minutes and I saw cars stuck in ankle-deep snow, with their front wheels spinning in a rut, gaining no traction.
When I began to walk, I didn't know what the journey had in store.
As I trekked in what now became a snowstorm, first, I gave up shaking off snow gathering on my shoulders. Then, I stopped walking gingerly and started to hit my normal stride over a long, unbeaten snow-covered stretch of sidewalk
When I looked sideways, I saw a road-full of cars, SUVs, buses and trucks crawling at a snail's pace. I had an odd mixture of pleasures in anticipation of reaching my destination faster than those stuck in the so-called conveniences of civilization. I imagined that it was like the feeling of triumph the turtle had when it beat the rabbit in one of Aesop's fables. It was like the moment I realized Nobel Peace prize winner Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth suddenly became very "convenient."
Ironically, however, what hit me hardest was a sense of presumptuousness that I could withstand a blow from Mother Nature. I wondered to myself whether it was the same feeling of achievement Roald Amundsen had when he led the first successful expedition to the South Pole or Sir Edmund Hillary felt when he stood atop Mt. Everest.
This sense of triumphalism was reinforced when I saw a ``shovel brigade'' clearing up the entrance of my office building. It was not a snowplow but collective pairs of human hands that did the job.
It was a moment that dispelled all two-bit doomsayers, who prophesize that machines will take over the world and enslave humankind.
For me, it was a day of a double victory for human beings ― beating Nature's wrath and prevailing over the machine in an abridged version of Armageddon, until I realized my sense of victory was transient and illusory.
That nirvana came when I waited impatiently for my subway train and felt the same urge to walk back home as I had in the morning. After a long pause, I decided not, concluding that I didn't need to walk hours in freezing cold weather. Instead of admitting to defeat, I found an excuse, telling myself, ``After all, a few creature comforts won't hurt and I can beat Mother Nature or the crafty machine's plan to conquer mankind any time I want.''