The story begins, as the most intriguing stories do, in a dimly lit side street in southeast Seoul. There it was, as if placed by some divine hand, ethereally poised under the amber glow of the only street lamp in the ally, the big bright orange couch.

In Seoul, it is not uncommon for families to leave large pieces of furniture and home amenities outside their gates to be taken away by the city cleaners, or sometimes, as in this case, opportunistic foreigners looking for free home furnishings. Grandfather clocks, shelves, entertainment units, bureaus and sofas have all been claimed from Seoul’s sidewalks of forsaken furniture. It’s like interior design meets back ally consign. In my dorm the teachers have now acquired 3 such items. The orphaned automanns and stray sofas are taken in, heavily dosed with disinfectants and deodorizers then tightly nestled into the modest dormitory rooms. Some see it as a rehabilitation program for the discarded decor; I see it as a mild form of furniture filching, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me from joining in the fun of curbside pilfering.

Three of us ventured off in search of the couch that had been spotted a few hours earlier. It was not difficult to find, considering that it was bright orange and that it was, in fact, a couch sitting on a side street, where no couch ought to sit. After giving it a test-drive there on the spot, and attracting some attention from the neighbors and one very disgruntled dog, we decided to hoist it off. Through the neighborhood James and Ryan carried the surprisingly heavy orange atrocity past wide-eyed children walking home from Tae Kwon Do, and middle-aged men who paused their smoking to turn and stare and the foreigner furniture thugs. The walk home never seemed so long.



the Haul