The Gym

Body aroma masked with other fragrances, fluorescent lights, general anxiety, and a random Asian brazenly roaming around in his birthday suit to this day flood my senses as I remember walking through the Missouri University Recreational Center men's locker room. I have a year long membership to a gym here in Korea, and I have to say, I see way too many naked Asians. They seem to perfectly adept to being nude.

There's no shame in these Korean men. They prance here and there stark naked. Brush there teeth naked, get on the scale naked, spray their hair naked, and finish their stretches naked, which might be the most disturbing thing to see. Ever. They do the laundry naked, wash their car naked, tie their shoes naked, cook bacon naked, to be completely honest, the last thing these guys do is put on their clothes when getting ready. Maybe the majority of people's morning ritual includes being naked for an extended period of time, in PRIVATE. The scene in the men's locker room is Korea's best reenactment of a Roman bathhouse tragedy, minus the women.

I thought I had a personal trainer, but I don't. The trainers do take a interest in me more than others, because I am a rare foreigner in the gym, so they will assist me sometimes. I walked in on one of these trainers, during scene 21 of Roman Bathouse Korean Edition #11. Now, I don't want to lift a bunch of weight with H* standing over me. Even worse, grabbing me to correct my mangled lifting form into perfection. Some of these positions that lifting requires are awkward enough, add a trainer in a precarious position helping you, throw in the fact that you have just seen this man naked, a pinch of random stares, and you have a recipe for a newly converted gym homophobic.

*H is apparently his English name; he has a Hollister hat that reads H, I'm assuming he had that particular hat on one day and the boss was like
"All the other personal trainers have English names, you need one too. I don't care that you don't speak that much English, what name would you like?"
H (in Korean) - "I don't know any English names"
Boss (also in Korean, looking at his hat)- "How about H?"
And so it was done, the name H was born.

I now spend about one minute and fifteen seconds in the locker room, and I'm trying to cut it down another 25 secs.