Martoons

Cast of characters

Fred

Mr Go

White Beard 

Mr Kang look-alike – White Beard’s son

*

The other family was preparing to leave so Go and Fred shuffled off the borrowed mat and rolled it up.

The white-bearded old grandfather was being helped up by some younger members of the family.

Fred turned to the son – the Mr Kang look-alike.

“This man with the wonderful white beard: I take it he’s your father?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“That’s quite the beard!”

Kang look-alike repeated the comment to White Beard who muttered something back.

“He’s been growing that beard since the end of the Korean War.”

“During the war, of course soldiers had to shave every day and he has sensitive skin so his face was always covered in shaving cuts.”

“His fellow troops used to laugh at him.”

“He couldn’t wait for the war to end so he could stop shaving. And he’s never shaved since.”

“Amazing – he fought in the Korean War!?”

White Beard muttered something else to Kang look-alike.

“He says he was a soldier for the Korean Army as part of the UN forces.

“That was later, though.”

“In the beginning, he was with the North Korean army but everyone in his unit was killed so he defected to the south to survive.

“He says he learned how to fend for himself in the freezing cold environs of Jiri Mountain.”

Fred then happened to make eye contact with White Beard and bowed respectfully to him.

“Thank you very much, Sir, for your military service. I wouldn’t be here on this spot today if it wasn’t for guys like you.”

After a quick translation, “Yeah, yeah,” White Beard responded in a feint voice with a big smile and then hobbled away with the assistance of a walking stick.

The son lapsed into the standard questions Fred had been asked gazillions of times –

where was he from, what was he doing in Korea and so on; standard stuff.

He felt like a specimen on a microscope slide and looked away, letting Go do the talking on his behalf.

Not wanting to seem rude, Freddy feigned some upper body rotations. He did a dozen but did them slowly with control.

As he rotated back and forth he had a nagging hunch that someone nearby was watching him.

* Is Fred being spied on? *

He looked around and sure enough, across a small trail dip and behind a tree, a lady was peering at him through binoculars. Or they?

* Could there be more than one of them? *

*

Scandal    

Fred was able to pick out that the watcher was a woman, 30s-ish and attired entirely in radiant orange – sweatpants and a fleece top.

When she let her binoculars down, Fred saw that she also wore oversized, thick round sunglasses with citrus fruit frames.

* Who is this woman? *

Fred had heard other foreigners complain about Koreans staring at them; he’d been on the receiving end of his share of intrusive eyeballs too.

But he’d never had someone scoping him out with binoculars!

He usually ignored onlookers but if they were particularly bothersome he got silly and put on a show for them.

When the orange lady brought the binoculars back up, Fred cranked up the biggest pasted smile he could muster and the most effeminate wave.

She didn’t get the humour – and fled down the trail instead.  

* Why was she spying on him? *

*

Tomorrow: The spying orange lady’s identity is revealed.