By Scott Soper
Contributing Writer
Today is Sunday and Sundays in small coastal towns like Mallipo are for going to church or sleeping off drinking sessions of the local intoxicant soju, a different kind of detox action is needed now.
It has been two weeks since the Hong Kong supertanker Hebie Spirit spilled about 10,500 tons of the crude oil from the Middle East it was carrying to refineries in South Korea. While it was anchored five miles outside the port, waiting to unload its oil, it was rammed by a drifting crane carried by an unmoored barge that was set adrift from a local tugboat in violent weather.
Three holes in one of the Hebie Spirit's mammoth cargo tanks leaked about a three billion dollar sized oil slick that is ruining 181 aquatic farms and forcing every seaside restaurant in the area to close until further notice. There were no human injuries in the collision; and neither of the ships involved will sink.
The cleanup at a natural disaster site sounds a lot like the start up at a construction site. There are dream snapping noises in the early morning at first light and are loud enough to hear through the steaming hot shower at the Castle Sea-Side Hotel.
Rooms are already being booked quickly as if this is the high season for tourists and not a full-blown catastrophe that will drive them away indefinitely.
I am paying the full price to the manager Chae Sung-il again for the same room as last night. It's colder than it was the previous night and more hectic as busload after busload of volunteers come in from Seoul and the nearby provinces to disembark at Mallipo's beach access road.
The Korean Red Cross is already open for business and serving meals to all and sundry (in order of the participants) ― church fellowships, student organizations, environmental clubs, NGO's and there are even taekwondo and geumdo (Korean martial arts similar to judo and samurai) leagues.
Everyone is organized for the task and curious about putting on their own personal oil protection outfit. The morning proceeds like a melodrama being performed by several large casts.
Each different volunteer group watches their leaders at first pantomime and then actually strap on the protective gear of a gauze cotton suit, a cloth fiberglass breathing mask, clumsy elastic dishwasher gloves and finally form-fitted Chinese rubber boots.
Something else happens which is both extraordinary yet laced with common sense. Everyone covered head to toe in basic factory colors and readied for the cleanup puts away their cell phones.
The chance that some combination of oil, water and sand could team up to ruin one's code into the communication matrix the same way that it is ruining this once pleasant seaside destination is pointedly understood. For the rest of the day, going into battle the oil means communicating only with others in proximity.
The first group finished with breakfast in the giant Red Cross tent and now heading toward the oil soaked rocks are on-line game addicts from Seoul.
They were the last ones to take refuge the night before when Lee Hyo-le (I can still hear his low key Asian/Brit accent) explained how they came to Mallipo to help clean up the beach because they were also trying to clean themselves up of their addiction to online gaming.
Despite their different sizes, shapes and ages, it's doubtful anyone else on the beach knows about what's really going on with them.
But I do and as they cautiously get used to the footing of their molded boots scraping the rock slope then feeling for a gentle landing on the sand, the effect of all this is the same as watching an outer space B-movie where the aliens move clumsily around a planet that they have seen photos of a thousand times yet suddenly realize how different it is to finally get on to it and wander around.
The food line is moving slow, and for everyone involved in the clean-up: coffee, snacks and cell phone re-charges are offered for free at all the local stores. And in all four of those there is one large corner filled with fireworks. It's the usual stuff for a seaside town: bottle-rockets, sparklers, M-80's, black snakes, and Catherine wheels.
All made by the Chinese for sure, but, when I look at the owner of this store Sejong Park constantly stare toward the Red Cross tent, it's anyone's guess as to when they will be fired in a celebration again.
He leans slightly away from his view and toward me to explain in English and Korean that usually he is at church now but not today. And he can't understand how God has let this happen to his town, his people, his life.
This purpose driven Sunday is just beginning yet I have to concern myself with the gaudy colored encouragement placards that my elementary students in Seoul made and signed for the kids in Mallipo.
Actually, Mallipo is simply a beach town and doesn't have schools at all. The next town over is Taean. It takes 40 minutes to get to on the local bus and I've been told there is the fast food pit, Lotteria, next to the bus stop.
There should be a crowd of local kids at the fast food joint on a Sunday, but in the meantime, there are about 10 high school age kids jumping on and off the bus even though it doesn't actually leave for over an hour.
Sitting behind them, watching the kids text and gesticulate I realize that the local bus is kind of a social space to them. They get on it very early to meet friends, hang out with classmates and connect with each other. It's a private space for teenagers living in the country far away from Seoul. They flirt and study as if it's just another Sunday.
No natural disaster gets in their way. I can conjure up for them an ironic image of rural charm. They are just waiting on something with wheels to get them away from the coast.
The writer lives in Seoul and is working on a novel. Contact: hongkildong_1@yahoo.com