A Yellow Encounter

by Alexandra Kodjabachi (Lebanon)

I didn't expect to find Korea South

I didn’t expect to find him there, with his yellow beard and yellow hat, in front of a wide two-store building. What was he doing this far away from home anyway? I, myself, was lost among the tall buildings. I never even intended to come here. A few days ago, I was told about a beautiful place, like a mansion, dressed in green leaves and climbing vines that, unlike all university campuses, was a space to be, not just to learn. At the center of a near symmetrical triangle of buildings, rose from the ground a parterre of shapes, all made in shrubs, converging towards a central figure, the statue of the founder of Yonsei University. It appeared like a coming together of André le Nôtre and Horace Underwood, a landscape architect and an academic, a meeting beyond space and time. I wonder what they’d talk about as the changing seasons would eclipse the fleeting murmurs of the students, roaming around the garden or breathing clean oxygen, when seasons would change and the forest would wear a different cloak, of crimson, gold and tangerine, taints of colors splashed on the world like paint on a canvas. That’s where I wanted to go. But the map I drew of metro trips and stops threw me in the wilderness of glimmering window panes stretched from the ground up. No green or crimson campus. Here, a national newspaper. There, a bank. Massive cold structures ascending and conquering, casting their shadows upon me and pressing my shoulders down. I could have been to any place in the world and would have seen the exact same replicate of mountains of cement, steel and glass. That thought stroke a match and slapped me in the face. A thread of humanity, larger than space and time, connecting cities beyond borders… Somehow, that thread brought me to him. I walked towards his yellow beard and yellow hat. He smiled, nodded and his head tilted with a gentle, warm welcome. “Let me show you around,” he said. We entered the two-store building, then went underground. And a door opened revealing shatter, clinking of silverware, a laugh, more shatter. We slid in the coffee shop and grabbed a seat. “I never thought I’d find you here. What brought you to South Korea?” “A single thread of humanity is all it takes…” He looked at his coffee with a grimace and drank it like a shot. By the time I finished mine with a burning tongue, he was already standing and ready to go. He took me to his workshop, completely digitized. “Try.” I laughed. “I am no painter,” I said. “You’re a dancer, right? That would be more than enough.” I walked to the screen, unsure of what that meant. And something in front me moved and the screen was white no more. Every action I took was reflected upon the canvas. I jumped. I danced. I twirled and swirled and swiveled. And paint would magically appear on the wall. A few minutes later, I stopped, out of breath. And a work of art, painted with movement, was born. “This is amazing!” I told him. And his smile peaked from behind his beard like a sun. “Come, I want to show you one last thing.” And I followed him, still dancing. We sat on the floor and went through a pile of letters. “For a long time, he was the only one to believe in me. It killed me that I couldn’t share my thoughts with others. But I always told my brother that I shall go on working. And here and there, something of my work will prove of lasting value.” He paused. “I wish he could see that now.” He paused again. “I could really use a shot of absinthe now.” “Oh, Vincent! You never learn, do you?” We laughed. And then I remembered: I still had a plane to catch! Horrified, I took my things, winked at his now familiar soul one last time and left him with his yellow paint, at the edge of a starry starry night above the Woojung Art Center.