Jo Jieun se ha marchado de México. Escribió una carta a sus amigos desde el aeropuerto de San Francisco. Se las comparto por el relato irónico acerca de sus primeras horas en territorio gringo.

Letter from San Francisco

My stomach started having problems since I left Oaxaca. I blame the food in the hacienda where I went at my last night in Oaxaca, plus lack in sleeping. Still, I can’t sleep very well, which I believe it started from the last week of my trip to central America, continued in Oaxaca on the plane where it was too cold to fall asleep and I believe they maximized the air conditioner to breed their penguins which might be walking around somewhere on the plane and will be sold to the zoos so the airlines can make up the expense of the high cost of petrol.

Now, I’m in the airport of San Francisco waiting for my long waited boyfriend. I have almost 12 hours to linger around in this airport, so I decided upload some photos and send them to you guys. Yes, sometimes I feel camera and computer are the greatest modern toys. How would I survive here without them?

Since I didn’t step on the real land of the states, I can’t say I saw the states, so don’t have really good stories. I think it will take some long time for me to write to you guys. So I’ll just write as long as I can and I want because I don know what to do here all alone in this airport. I want to tell you about the immigration officers that I’ve encountered:


Passion of Sam

I was going through the immigration in Houston. As you can imagine, it takes long time to get through, longer than any other countries. So, I was already bored and my body started twisting even though I knew it would be the pain in the ass but still it was too boring. After waiting around 20 minutes, I had almost 2 people ahead of me. It seemed to be going all right till an immigration officer opened another counter. Guess he came back from his lunch or something. He pointed one of the people who was in different line and gestured to call her up to his counter. She walked up to him and was waiting for the passport to be checked. But this guy -let’s call him Sam (I don’t know his name but he just looks like he would have a name like Sam). Sam started asking all the questions about entering information in their forms in the system to the officer next to him, which is fine, u know, when you are not good at your job, you need a friend to ask about things. So, the people who were waiting in line looked at him. And when I eye-contacted some people around me we just smiled. I think we had a same thought, “Hope he doesn’t do mine!” I was right, no one lined for his counter.

After Sam did her passport, taking almost 10 mins, he looked at ME! And telling ME to Come!! What a fucking fresh and brilliant start of my trip to the states, huh?

I was chewing gum. In Korea, you can’t chew gums in “official” place or moments. I mean, you can, but you can look ruder to the people in Korea than to those in America, I guess. But I was all bored and saw some people chew gums at the immigration counters. So I thought it is really nothing to chew gum when you get your passport checked, yeh! I was all activated to chew gum like a chewing gum Asian doll at the moment. I was just counting how many times normally I chew for a song that I was listening to. And he suddenly looked at me and said,

“Young lady, don’t make ---- chewing gum, it distracted me doing this.”

I didn’t hear that word, but even without the word his shocking statement was enough to express his passion on his job. My chewing gum distracts him. I was loudly laughing in my MIND, but I made a serious face and said

“Oh, I’m so sorry.”

Still he was struggling with the fucking system and 2 mins later,

“Hey, John, how do I do this? This really makes me crazy.”

And John, the officer next to him-again that guy looked like he would have name like John-, said “yeh, it is hard isn’t it?-he spoke out of his pride- Just put her name there and select –-- and enter, then you will see the next”

“Just come over, I tried but I can’t really do it, maaaaannnn”, said Sam with his original Texan accent.

Finally John came over and did most of the entering information. The passion of Sam wasn’t enough to motivate him to accomplish all his HARD jobs. I think he needs pray more to his god.

They told me to look at the camera. I really wanted to do Korean tourist’s victory pose but I thought it would be too much for such an IMPORTANT photo. So I just looked at it and made a big fucking smile and said,

“Do I look good?”

They seemed a little bit startled.

“Haha, pretty young lady”, they said.

“Thanks”, I said, chewing gum.


When I went through the immigration in Houston in March on the way to Mexico, the computer shut down suddenly. And the officer at that moment told me,

“Sorry, maam, I don’t know what happened, cuz it never happened before”

It seemed like he was trying to say “our system is impeccable!”

“yeh yeh, I believe you”, I said.

I was thinking, of course it can shut down anytime when you have that many people with that much information to put it without break. I don’t know why he said it when every other officer was telling him what to do when the computer shuts down, which means it happened before and they know what to do then.

I think I’m being too sarcastic about everything. Sorry that I couldn’t tell some beautiful or good things about the states yet. Oh, no, I saw one, like all members of a fat family sucking their cream on the top of their StarFucks coffees in the airport. What a beautiful scene… THINGS ARE HAPPENING AS I EXPECTED SO FAR, lol.

But still fun.

Job offers in Oaxaca will be also welcome. I am very responsible, highly educated (Bachelor’s degree), industrial, productive, passionate and able to speak Korean.

Thank you for reading my long, time killing writing.