Chicken Little

As a feminist, I am generally more concerned with the problem of the "glass ceiling" than the actual ceilings. But as some of you have heard, last Tuesday night around 6:30pm a piece of my ceiling crashed down. I shut the door, then my upstairs neighbor moved something, and there was a "thud" sound upstairs. Then came a "boom!" sound as the kitchen light fixture, the faux wood bar it sat on, and a small piece of the ceiling all crashed down onto the kitchen floor. The plastic covering the light fixture, as well as the long light bulb inside broke, and shards of plastic and glass went everywhere.Instinctively, I called out "Oh my God!" to my empty apartment. Thank God I wasn't standing in the kitchen section of my officetel (a.k.a. studio)!!

I cleaned up the glass. Then I pondered the small hole in my ceiling with two wires dangling out. I hoped my upstairs neighbors didn't have bugs. And then, I wondered how I would explain the situation to my apartment building staff in Korean. So, I out on some dish washing gloves and grabbed the light fixture as a visual aid. I went down to the door man/superintendent and tried to mime out the situation, inserting my pathetic pigeon Korean where appropriate. After about ten minutes of my riveting re0-enactments, He finally understood, he got out the phone book, pointed to an add for a repair man, and told me it would be W30,000.
Hmm, my pieces of my relatively new ceiling are falling down and I HAVE TO PAY FOR IT?? I think not!
So, I took my visual aid and went two doors down to the apartment complex manager's office. He frowned at me and looked rather displeased to see me hauling around my light fixture. I again resorted to live theater he couldn't follow it all (or wasn't trying) but he seemed to understand the "boom!,crash! and fall" parts of the drama. He shrugged. He took out his cell phone and said "hackyo" or school. Now, here's the issue, by that time it was about 7pm so of course no one was left at the school. I also have a new co-teacher, so, technically, my new colleague is the person responsible for any problems at my apartment. She had just started the day of the ceiling debacle, so she and I hadn't yet exchanged cell phone numbers, I tried my old co-teacher once out of desperation, but she didn't answer (it wasn't her job, anyway). So we went through the motions one more time e, with me trying to act out "apartment" and "fix" like he had to fix it. He nodded no, and again said "hackyo" school. Now, my school is the formal renter of my apartment, and sometimes I need their "permission" to have minor repairs done. So, I thought that might be the issue, but gain I could not reach anyone.
I did not have the phone numbers of any of my hiking club friends on me, and didn't really feel comfortable calling a Korean acquaintance at dinner time and, so finally, at a loss, I called Steve and asked for his secretary's number. I felt bad but she translated perfectly and helped me understand the problem. The problem was not that the apartment building needed permission to fix the ceiling. The problem was that the apartment builing refused to fix the ceiling. The apartment manager said that "the foreigner could have broken the ceiling." ME? Break the ceiling? How, exactly? Even on a step stool, I can't REACH the ceiling to break it!! After several questions the apartment manager finally sighed and said that the lease on the apartment stipulates that the building will not be responsible for any repairs in the unit rented to a foreigner, as I could cause damage. I could not tell if this was stinginess or xenophobia or an attempt to scam the American who doesn't know the lease system. Or, all three.
So,I returned to my apartment and stared at the hole in the ceiling and the two wires dangling from it. I ran into the doorman in the hallway and I looked so sad that he came to my apartment with a hammer and some duck tape, but when he saw the extent of the damage he shook his head, knowing he could not fix it. I started again at the wires. They weren't touching, so my boyfriend assured me that it would be ok and there wouldn't be a fire. I cooked dinner in the relative dark (a trickle of light shone in from the "bedroom" side of the studio). I washed the dishes in the relative dark, missing a clump oat two of broccoli soup. I started to think about my former apartment building in Nowon, and my neighbor who left food in the hallway. And the fat roaches that then began to scurry across said hallway. These weren't pleasant memories to re-live!That night I dreamt of big beetles and cockroaches crawling out of the hole in an endless stream...
Anyway, the next day my poor co-teacher had to call and argue with the apartment building all over again. Even though it is a relatively new building, and things shouldn't just fall down(!) off the ceiling, the apartment building manager still refused to help. The next day was a holiday and my school asked if I could just ignore the hole in my ceiling for 48 hours. I felt bad, but a clean, safe apartment is part of my salary. A clean safe apartment has an entire ceiling. I was supposed to have 5 friends over that night for wine and a Scrabble match, so I held firm. One night of cockroach dreams was enough, thanks.
I spent three hours waiting for a repairman after school. My guests were due to arrive at 7, and he came at 6:20. Just in the nick of time, he installed a smaller, cheaper light fixture on a metal rod. He covered the hole and incorporated the dangling wires. My giuests arrived late, so I had an entire 20 minutes to clean the dirt and ceiling dust the repairman left behind!
In the end, my ceiling did get fixed in time, and I didn't have to pay for it. All because I argued my case.
Moral: Don't accept the first "no" as an answer.