Why Did You Join the Foreign Legion?

Today was one of those days where I needed to forget that I live in Asia. The thing is that it's impossible. It is impossible to lose yourself entirely. It all started with sandwiches...

I bet you had a sandwich this week. You probably had more than one. In English speaking countries that sacred invention is taken for granted. A sandwich is never far away. Even if a sandwich in all its greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts glory is not present in a pre-assembled form for your enjoyment, the elements of a decent sandwich are. In Korea, that is not the case. In fact, it is probably only slightly harder to get to Mordor than it is to acquire a decent sandwich here.

Asia, as a general rule, neither appreciates nor fully understands sandwiches. For example, in Japan it is acceptable to put shrimp salad and a piece of lettuce on two slices of bread and consider this a sandwich. That is not a sandwich, that is blasphemy. Nothing that comes from the ocean belongs on a sandwich.

Minimally, a good sandwich requires cheese. Asia does not understand cheese either so, naturally, this further impedes the possibility of encountering or creating a good sandwich. What is well known to be "plastic cheese" (ie Kraft Singles) is considered adequate as the "cheese" in a "sandwich" here. I realize that on occasion this occurs in the US as well. People who do this in America, when there is perfectly good real cheese a stone's toss from every point on the map, should be hanged for treason. There are many other elements necessary for a good sandwich but it would require at least a four volume set to fully articulate the art of the sandwich so I will leave this and move on.

Today I wanted to go out but had no specific goals aside from not spending all of Sunday in my apartment. I took the subway to Myeong-dong, which has many eateries, and was seized with the desire for a sandwich. Fast food would not do. I walked and walked. I looked in every bakery advertising sandwiches. A place that had the word "deli" in its title featured no deli foods whatsoever. None.

While in most countries the basic starting point of the sandwich is two pieces of bread, in Korea it is two pieces of bread and a slice of ham. Regardless of other, likely contradictory, elements between the two slices of bread you will see a pink strip in there, jauntily pretending that it belongs. This probably relates to the fact that in Asia, as in German-speaking countries, ham is considered a vegetable. Thusly, if the sandwich earns a piece of lettuce or tomato it also must contain a slice of ham.

Being unable to enjoy a sandwich crushed my ability to fully enjoy anything. It appears that I will not have a sandwich until the end of July at the earliest and that makes me sad. I am aware that chains such as Subway and Quiznos exist in Seoul but I consider what Subway makes to be a pathetic imitation of a sandwich; one whose product would simply be a mealy, flavourless reminder of what I left behind.

So here I am, sandwichless, at the end of the weekend. I'm still in Asia and no amount of drinking or blogging will let me forget it. I'm immersing myself in Battlestar Galactica Season 2 (I still need S1!) to compensate. Frackin' sandwiches.