The Forbidden Tale

It’s 2023…sometime during June and I’m walking my butt down a street I have zero familiarity with. It’s hot and clammy out thanks to the early essence of summer simmering…or rather boiling in the air and on my skin. I’m sweating. Could it be due to the obvious heat or is it due to the evident nerves in my stomach as I walk myself into a situation I am absolutely not mentally prepared?

Who knows.

Where might I be going, you may be thinking? Why am I taking you back to 2023, and what on earth is this entry even about?

Well, my friends…the reason you are only being told this ‘forbidden tale’ now, is because it has taken me nearly two years to heal from said event. You see, the internal wounds that an introvert can acquire by putting themselves in a rather extroverted situation - well these wounds never quite heal in the same way that others may, and whilst I would have loved to share this story with you sooner, I needed a two-year break from ever having to re-live it in my head.

Okay, so here we are, back we go to 2023…reliving the traumatizing, albeit comical event.

My friend’s birthday was coming up, or rather it had passed and for his birthday celebration, a few of us planned a trip to visit the island he dwelled on during his time in Korea. No, really. We even had to take a ferry to get to what felt like the middle of absolutely nowhere. The experience was surreal and beautiful all at once and I’m glad I got to visit such a place as Docho-do in Sinan. (For all you interested in venturing to islands whilst on a trip to or in Korea, I definitely recommend.) There’s absolutely nothing to do there, but the peace and quiet for a short period of time felt like pure bliss in a constantly busy and upbeat Korea.

So, building up to all that, I had decided that I was going to draw my friend for his birthday. I don’t often do it, but when I feel that certain people would appreciate such a gift and that person means a lot to me, I’d always be more than happy to do it. My whole dilemma and hesitation came from the fact that I would have to then get this picture…printed.

Ah, joyous.

You see, at that time, I had never owned a printer of my own. (Now, I do. I have a very expensive printer that I bought with zero hesitation all due to whatever the hell I had to endure during said time I am now telling you about.)

Alright, so printing it.

How hard is that even?

Surely you can just go to any print company and ask them to print something for you? Surely it can’t be that hard? – SURELY? is what you’re probably asking yourself right?

WRONG!

I too, was reassuring myself of this very thing. Surely it can’t be THAT complicated, but oh baby how very complicated it can be, apparently.

Back in South Africa, I had to get things printed too when I was freelancing as an artist back then. I’d sell prints online and have to get them batch-printed whenever I had to package orders. I didn’t have the means or machines to print them myself and so I would try my luck with certain print companies to get them done. This was also very much trial and error because what I learnt was that a photo-printing company will not offer you the same understanding towards what you want, or quality over that of an actual printing company who specialises in such things.

So, I had my ups and downs.

I often hated going alone because trying to navigate such conversations as well as the embarrassment I’d get from exposing my cutesy drawings and fanart to strangers…well let’s just say having Mom by my side made me braver. Yes, yes, I sound like a child. However, this is exactly my point. I was extremely introverted (still am) and extremely anxious (a bit less now, but still not something one can just shake off) and for those who don’t have or know this kind of anxiety or feeling, it’s impossible to fully understand or empathise for those that do. I may appear silly to make mountains out of molehills. “Who cares what random strangers think of you?”, my mom’s voice plagues me in the background.

Believe me - if I could, I wouldn’t care but the very fact that I do is a disease in itself. Heck, a chronic-illness sounds more accurate.

So due to this ‘illness’, I get anxious when I put myself in situations where I fear others may hold a lot of judgement – even though I don’t want to care. Teach a dog a trick and try get that dog to unlearn said trick – it doesn’t happen and so just like that, neither is there a switch inside my head to turn this anxiety on or off. I’d rip the thing out of my head if I could, just know that.

Eventually though, I did in fact find a great place to print my stuff and I felt very comfortable there. Sure, I still felt a bit awkward, but it was a place I was brave enough to venture to alone. Also, whilst we’re on this topic because I can totally see that I may be painting that picture (pun-intended) or peaking certain curiosities, nothing I ever drew was raunchy, weird or NSFW. Everything I drew was simply what I loved and enjoyed but you can fear judgement for the simplest of things, and so that was simply that. This is partially why I love Korea so much. Like Japan, it embraces cute-culture as I call it. Wear crocs with cute jibbetz? Adorable. Wear seventeen cute bag charms on your handbag? Love it! Have a cute phone charm and case with cute things dangling down the side of it? Absolutely!

Come to South Africa and it…well it doesn’t really embrace cute-culture. Do any of that stuff and you may get some odd looks, and that makes me sad. I guess what I fear more than being judged is my seventeen bag charms being stolen in broad daylight because that will totally happen in South Africa. However, life is too short to care what people think about your cute bag charms and so yes, I will wear them on my bag darn it! Mock me or don’t. I will pretend I don’t care.

Alright, so after my short-lived side hustle during COVID-19 years, then I finally made the move to Korea. Goodbye printing company, hello…stress.

I initially didn’t worry much about having to get things printed because when I did move to Korea, I took a prolonged break from drawing and selling my art because the complexities that would have come with doing so in Korea were too much for my tiny brain and heart to bear at the time.

However, when it came to this birthday gift saga, I was faced with the very thing I was avoiding for so very long. Sure, I could have just sent a digital copy of the drawing to my friend, but if there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s that I love being sentimental and putting effort into things. (The complete opposite of both my parents, so heaven only knows where I got that trait from.) I didn’t want to give him air. I wanted to give him an actual, tangible gift.

So after school one day, I decided I couldn’t put it off any longer. I had the file on my phone, as well as on a USB. I had searched for possible ‘print-shop’ options in my surrounding area and off I went, on a sticky and somewhat uncomfortable (weather-wise) day.

From what my brain will allow me to remember, I stopped at two print shops that day and let’s just say one of them refused to assist me at all. The man simply rejected any sort of interaction with me and just told me to go away. The power I hold over him now is that I get to write nasty things about him. Oh, but I’m a better person than him and so I won’t do that. I’ll simply mention how his so-called print shop was a shoddy little nook that looked beat-up and run-down and I guess I’m thankful he didn’t murder me…because quite the perfect spot for it, if anything. He certainly murdered my feelings, but now I shall murder him in my head for the sheer satisfaction. (Okay, I’m sorry Lord, please forgive my human urge to get my imaginary revenge.)

I swept off the bitter-taste of what I simply concluded as ‘discrimination’ and off I went to the next place.

Now, the next place wasn’t very nearby. Unfortunately, the place that rejected me was the only place that was actually close enough in distance from where I worked, and the next place over was literally over the stream. So I crossed the bridge, forehead clammy, while sweat proceeded to linger and dance all over my body. My hair was probably frizzled all over my face at that point, cheeks probably red from the heat but also just being worked-up and hating every second of what I was even doing and whether I would even be successful or not in my quest.

Was it worth it? I don’t know. It’s worth it now because I get to tell you about it.

Eventually, I came to my literal last resort. I had no idea where to enter this place. Back home, the print shops look different. Here, it was hard to tell if it was even a print shop. For all I knew I could be walking into a butchery…a morgue…or whatever else. I sucked in the biggest breath I could, told myself I could do it and then walked into what appeared to be an entrance. Note that I was literally in the middle of a random street with hardly any people.

When I tell you, Korea is one of the safest places you can visit, I truly mean it. However, that didn’t help ease my crippling anxiety.

As I walked inside, there were about four Koreans in said ‘print shop’. There were two women sat at a desk and two men standing around, all simultaneously turning to look at me, as if I was a ghost. Ah yes, I anticipated this kind of reaction. So immediately, I had whipped out my translation app, asking if they could print something for me. They were hesitant and unsure, but they took my USB and proceeded to…attempt to help me. NOTE the word ATTEMPT.

Now thinking back on it, I’m pretty sure that company only did bulk printing for certain companies because not one of them knew what I wanted. They understood I wanted something printed. It was as straight forward as “I want this printed A4 size on nice, quality paper.” You’d think a print company knew what that meant. I’m not trying to dig at them either. They clearly tried their best but I think they were also overwhelmed by having to adapt and assist most-likely their first and probably last random foreign customer. Why I don’t think they fully knew what I wanted was because no one on earth would walk in there and ask for one thing to be printed. That’s what I’m getting it. This company did specific ‘bulk’ and probably more specialised-printing. I’m cringing now just thinking about it. Ugh.

What told me they didn’t do the kind of printing I had asked for was that when the woman opened the file and printed it, their printer had issues. Initially they tried fixing it, but they couldn’t get the colours to print correctly and the picture didn’t look nice. They then prepped and set-up a different printer. The issue this time was that the image was printing at its original size, which was too big for A4 paper. At one point, the woman gave me the half cropped-off print and asked “Is this okay?”

Lady, you don’t need me to tell you that is NOT how it is supposed to look.

I had told the woman that she was supposed to resize it but rather than doing that, she printed it over and over again, as if the problem would miraculously fix itself the more she tried printing it.

An instagram story I shared of the many pages they printed. Yes, here is the evidence, my friends

They were about fifteen pages in of awful, off-set printing and the sweat was now pouring down my body as if I had turned into a damn waterfall. At one point, I was sitting at her desk trying to resize it myself. Unfortunately, their computers were in Korean (of course) and they didn’t have simple programs like Microsoft Word where I just wanted to drag and place the picture in order to re-position and re-size it. I don’t even think they had Photoshop. What kind of Ludacris printing place doesn’t have frikken Microsoft or Photoshop? Come on.

At that point, another man had entered the building. He looked surprised and then immediately asked what was happening. I assume he was their boss or co-worker of some sort, because he then started talking to me with a smile, clearly seeing my distress and the fact that I was on the brink of over-heating to my inner-core, and so he told his co-workers to turn on and crank up the air conditioner. (Thank you, Jesus.)

Okay, but at this point I wanted to leave because I clearly wasn’t going to get what I wanted. The ‘boss’ also started literally bossing his co-workers around, to investigate several different printers to try and assist me faster. I told them it was okay and that it didn’t matter and that I would just leave because I felt extremely bad at that point, but one thing you should note is that…Koreans are very adamant on helping you, even if it means not helping you at all. So, they printed about three trees worth of pages and eventually we got a subpar printed picture of my friend’s drawn face on A4 subpar-quality paper. I said; “YES, THAT’S IT!”, just trying anything at this point to get out of this place. I came in and caused such an uproar of distress and discomfort that I just wanted to delete myself from the universe so they didn’t have to feel the burden of dealing with me any longer. The man looked very satisfied and gave me about three print-outs. He also gave me an ice-cream.

The one positive thing that came out of that whole series of unfortunate events.

I asked then how much I should pay and to my absolute horror, he gestured his hands as if to say “Don’t worry about it.”

I was mortified.

Not only did they 1) set up several printers to print specifically for me, 2) do manual-labour by moving around said printers, 3) use up about half of their paper supply and all the ink from their printers, 4) as well as their air conditioner, 5) while now being one ice-cream poorer, they then told me 6) I didn’t have to pay anything for it.

That’s what confirmed to me that they didn’t have a service for this kind of printing. They didn’t even know how to charge me, and I’m pretty sure they didn’t want to try and figure out how to even try. The sooner I left, the better for all of us. That’s what I had concluded in my head.

Here I was, just a random foreigner who entered a random printing place, asking to borrow one of their printers – leaving behind a literal paper-trail of evidence. I really did want to delete myself at that moment, again and again. I wished so badly that God would bring me to heaven so I could finally ask him why He made me like this?

So there I was, STILL SWEATING, free ice-cream and papers in hand. I bowed and said thank you and left as quickly as I could. If I had it in me, I would run down the street just to get away quickly enough. Get away from what now exactly? The lingering mortification I can never seem to shake.

I considered going back there in the future to repay them in some way, but then I thought more deeply about it and felt that if they saw my face again, they all may just jump out of their skins. It’s best for all of us if they never see my face again. That would be the biggest gift I could ever give them. No more round two shenanigans, that’s for sure.

So, to reflect on it once more…it wasn’t worth it for that, but it was worth it for my friend.

It always will be.

Until the next stop,

Bus Blog Driver Tay