西洋오랑캐

I’m leaving for Hong Kong in less than 24 hours, so this wil be the last update on this page for awhile. I leave you with this frightening report out of Pyongyang.

PYONGYANG, NORTH KOREA-Responding to mounting pressure and increasingly confrontational rhetoric from the outside world, North Korean president Kim Jong Il unfolded into a 70-foot-tall, 62-ton giant robot Monday.

Above: Kim Jong Il marches through the streets of Pyongyang.

“The DPRK’s nuclear program is very much its own business, as is its right to determine its own path of security,” said Kim, his torso splitting along ventral seams as clusters of Taepo-Dong ICBMs rose from his shoulders. “Any attempt by Washington to decide our fate will surely result in a sea of fire being unleashed upon them.”

As his arms and legs sheathed themselves in bulletproof Mecha-Muscle telescoping outward from his chest, Kim reiterated his refusal to bow to international demands.

“Constant criticism from outside indicates mistrust of our promise to refrain from missile tests,” said Kim, speaking over the mechanical shriek of wingblades sprouting from his back. “Only trust from the U.S. that we will keep our word can prevent World War III.”

“The imperialist West is holding my country to standards which it does not see fit to meet itself,” continued Kim, his voice now a metallic, digitized boom emanating from somewhere within the titanium helmet sheathing his head. “This does not surprise me, as they are well-famed for their lies.”

“Pyongyang Dynamo Power Punch!” added Kim, as he released his fist-modules skyward with twin robotic uppercuts.

While the Bush Administration remains publicly confident that a diplomatic solution can be reached, top officials admit that the situation has become more complicated.

Above: A South Korean border soldier eyes Kim Jong Il in the Demilitarized Zone.

“If we add Kim Jong Il’s transformation into a giant robot to his already defiant isolationist stance and his country’s known nuclear capability, the diplomatic terrain definitely becomes more rocky,” U.S. envoy James Kelly said. “Kim has made it clear that, if sufficiently threatened, he will not hesitate to use nuclear weapons or his arm-mounted HyperBazooka.”

Added Kelly: “We are also forced to consider the possibility that Kim may attempt to robo-meld with other members of the Axis of Evil, forming a MegaMecha-Optima-Robosoldier. Kim would make a powerful right arm-or even a torso-for such a mechanism.”

During a visit Monday to the Demilitarized Zone dividing the Korean peninsula, Kim stressed that his transformation was not an act of aggression, but rather an attempt to defend his nation’s autonomy.

“The DPRK must not be subject to the whims of an international coalition with no regard for the welfare of the Korean people,” said Kim before stomping the ground with his foot, unleashing a devastating ring of energy that vaporized nearby reporters and military vehicles. “Catastrophic Valiant Kim-Chee Earthquake Stomp-Kick!”

I hook you kids up with some the complete Hong Kong report upon my return. Later fellas.

Since I haven’t had a lot of really strange adventures as of late, I thought I’d use this opportunity to begin working on the stuff that will become the basis of some of my book when I sit down and write it.

While living in Korea, I’ve been in what boils down to roughly two fights. I find this number to be incredibly low, due in part to the sheer number of fights and screaming matches if witnessed, as well as the toleration of public drunkness. Sure I’ve heard Korean profanities muttered under breath about me, but there were only two real conflicts. It’s surprising how much one can take away from a culture by fighting with its members.

The first “fight” (conflict or confrontation would be more appropriate terms) came sometime in the fall of my first year in Korea. I was in a park with my friend (who was also America) eating kimbab. It was dusk, and in addition to the usually assortment of old men playing paduk and cards, street venders, and families, there were several beggars (it wouldn’t be Korea without a panhandler…) As my friend and I ate, one beggar, who was clearly intoxicated, came up to us and in Korean began a series of profanity laced questions and commands (”Why the fuck are you here?” “Speak Korean you fuckin’ sons of bitches!” “Fuckin’ foreigners!”)

A second beggar who had been sleeping on a bench near us awoke. He turned his attention to the drunk bum and told him to leave us be. The drunk guy turned his attention to his fellow countryman and we were for the time being ignored. The previously sleeping beggar motioned for us to make our escape (doing so prior to him distracting the angry hobo would have most likely resulted in a legitmate fight). As we snuck of our savior, in fairly decent English, proclaimed “I’m very sorry…”

My second fight came sometime in March of 2004. I was waiting for a bus in 연신내, and was drinking a Pepsi I had been given with my lunch. It was roughly 11:45 in the morning. Some man, clearly drunk, and most likely crazy, clad in a black martial arts uniform with white slip on shoes and a string of wooden beads around his neck came swaggering up to me at the bus stop. I had my headphones on so I could not make out all the nonsense he was spewing (I did make out “Why the fuck are you drinking a Pepsi you fucker?!”). A small crowd had gathered (it was a bus stop most were waiting for buses) comprised mainly of women with infants strapped to their backs and old men. I was pretty much on my own. The drunk continued to berate me, waving a finger in my face. At one point, he poked me in the eye. That was enough. When he raised his hand to slap me upside the head, for reasons still unbeknownst to me, I pushed him away, causing him to stumble backwards. During this fray a Korean soldier had come to the stop. As the drunk moved towards me, the soldier intervened and dragged the crazed lunatic away from the bus stop. An old man with a cane stepped out of the crowd and stood next to me. He asked in English, “What bus are you wait for?” I told him, and pointed to it down the road at a red light. The old man then told me, “We sorry what happen.” I assured him that it was not a big deal. The bus arrived, and I got on, with the drunk still yelling oaths at me.

I learned two things about Koreans due to these fights. The first being it doesn’t take much to set them off. Yes I am aware that alcohol was most likely a factor in both of my fights, but this is a culture in which children, males in particular, are extremely spoiled. Most parents here will allow a child to have his way and get what he wants if they act poorly. Never learning otherwise, the children grow up to be, for the most part, incredibly immature men. Look no further than the parilment’s response to the attempt to impeach President Roh in 2004. The fist fights and screaming matches that broke out were no different from those my kindergarten students engaged in when one boy took another boy’s toy.

The other thing I took from this was slightly more positive. The thing that struck me as odd was the apologetic behavior of others not directly involved in the conflicts. They were apologizing not in the “oh I’m sorry to hear that way,” more in the “I’m sorry my fellow countryman is behaving this way…I am ashamed.” This comes from the emphasis on the group in Korea. Min Byeong-chul writes in the book Ugly Koreans Ugly Americans, “Koreans seem to feel most secure thinking of themselves as members of various groups, the largest of which is the Korean nation. They usually say ‘our mother,’ ‘our teacher,’ ‘our country,’ instead of ‘my mother,’ ‘my teacher,’ ‘my country,’” (67). This group mentality causes the others in the group to feel some modicum of shame or embarassment at the poor behavior of another.

I need to get in a band or something. Recently I dusted off my guitar (literally). I figure with the ammount of time I spend studying Korean on the train and via speaking to my lady, home time is truly my free time. So I figured I could stop downloading porn watching tv, and do something productive like practice guitar. To say I’m a little rusty would imply that at one point I had some skill to begin with which would be wrong, but I can honestly say that I’m not as good as I was in highschool.

I have practiced for some 3 or 4 hours since Sunday, and have improved some. I figured out how to play an entire Crying Nut EP (save for one song), so that’s alright. During my vacation I think I’m going to head over to Nagwon Arcade and pick up some multi-effect pedal…and possibly try and get in a bad Korean ACDC cover band or something.

Editor’s Notes: The following was written in a notebook while riding the subway. It was incomplete, but I have recorded it here for posterity.

I’m currently undertaking what has to be one of the longest possible rides one could take on the Seoul Metropolitan Subway System. I thought that it might prove amusing to keep kind of a running log of it all.

At 5:00 I got a call from U-rim telling me that she would finish at 8:00 as opposed to 9:00 and to come out and meet her. I got on the bus in 고양시 and begin to plan out my course of action. Having to be in 오리 at 8:00 pretty much rules out a return home. There are several routes I can take via the subway, but all save for one will get me to 오리 an hour too early. So I select the longest, most dangerous route possible. Essentially I’m taking a return trip home, only instead of stopping I’m going to keep on riding.

I get off the bus in 연시내 at roughly 5:30 and stock up on supplies (meaning I ate 떡꼬치 and took a piss). At roughly 5:45 pm I get on the train for the first leg of this adventure.

연시내 - 합정 (Line 5)
The first leg was fairly uneventful. I listened to Fu Manchu and studied some Korean vocab. At one point a girl who’s look could only be described as “jailbait” got on the train. Other than that, not much went down. At approximately 6:05 I transfered to line 2…the green line.

합정 - 잠실 (Line 2)
This was the longest leg of my journey and therefore percieved to be the most dangerous. After the antics on the subway Wednesday night I knew that I must do everything in my power to avoid people wanting to speak English to me.

As you know random dudes occassionally talk to me on the subway due to my being white. These events usually go unreported, because frankly they usually aren’t that interesting, but sometimes the event is so mind bogglingly weird that I have no choice but to write up a report of it.

So I’m waiting for a train with my honey, and some out of breath Korean guy comes up and tries to tell me something in English. He’s clearly drunk, and quite possibly drunk. At one point I thought he was going to throw up on my shoes, but that luckily did not happen.

Anyhow we get on the train, he gets on as well. So he sits down and U-rim sits across from him. I’m standing up as there is no seat for me to have. I have my back to the guy, but he feels it necessary to yell random English at me (”I’m Korean…I don’t know!” “Happy New Year!” ect.)

At one point he taps me on the shoulder and motions for me to watch him. He then proceeds to do some gymnastic manuvers on the handrail that people hold while standing on the train.

At one point some seat opened up and some girl told her boyfriend not to move over because then I would sit down and the guy would see me and not shut up. So I continued standing…the drunk guy came over and asked me how to say “닥쳐!” in English…I tell him it’s “Shut up!” He thanks me and sits down again.

Finally it’s his stop. He makes some superhero-esque dash out the door and then sticks his head back through the doors to explain to the guy standing by the door that it only took him one second to get out of the train…I thought he was going to get crushed in the doors, but that somehow did not happen…

So as I sure all of you who are not living under a rock know, a Korean man Kim Son-il was beheaded in the middle east. This is a sad event, I feel sorry for him and his family, but living here in Korea, this event is being dealt with much differently that it has been overseas, or even how the beheadings of Americans were dealt with in America…and to be frank, it kind of sucks for several reasons.

Reason 1: The day that his beheading was announced the Korean media was at his parent’s house, filmed and broadcast their reaction to learning of their son’s brutal and horrific death. Shame on you Korean media!

Reason 2: I later learned that the woman crying uncontrolably was his step-mother. She had only met him twice, and the guy had claimed to not like her, and hadn’t really kept in touch with his family after his father remarried (his real mom had died). She went from being a sympathetic mother-figure, to a money grubbing fake. Shame on you fake mom!

Reason 3: “Who Killed Kim Son-il?” So I’m on the subway and I see this flyer stuck up on the door asking in Korean “Who killed Kim Son-il?” Under this question were four pictures (President Roh, President Bush, a man who was a company head [I assume the company KSI worked for], and a fourth man who I believe is a government offical involved in international affairs [though I could be wrong]). Who was noticable abscent from this list of “killers?” Ah…the people who actually did the beheading. Sure the war might be unjust and assinine, but at least place the blame where it really belongs. I understand the point the sticker was making, but still don’t cheapen the man’s death by blaming people who had no direct influence on his death. Shame on you “Who Killed KSI?” sticker thing!

Reason 4: The lack of critical thinking that followed this event was quite disturbing. The majority of the Korean people failed to realize that KSI chose to go to Iraq. Instead of understanding this, the majority of Koreans buy into the KSI was there because the Korean government is a puppet of the United States. Now I’m not saying KSI should have been there. I think the whole war is fairly stupid and unjust, but people need to understand KSI chose to be there. He was not a soldier forced to go there, he worked for a trading company. He had studied Arabic language and culture. I have read that he desired to marry an Arabian woman. These do not sound like the skills and desires of someone who was in the middle east against his will. People need to realize that when going to a dangerous place (war zone) one runs the risk of injury or death. I realized that coming to Korea (which is a lot less dangerous than the powder keg that is the middle east). I am aware that there is the possibility (albeit slim) of Kim Jong Il and his cronies rolling down the street in Goyang-shi and shooting me with a cannon. The Korean people need to realize that America didn’t force KSI to go to Iraq. He chose to go there…and when you choose to go to such places…well bad shit can and does happen. Shame on you non-thinking Korean people.

Reason 5: The government’s reaction to this event was in one regard horrible and smacked of totalitarianism. Like the beheadings that proceeded this one, the men involved commited it to video. People being the sick / curious beings that they are, this video began making the rounds on the internet. The Korean government began blocking access to sites found to be hosting this video. There are a couple of reasons this bugs me (no, I don’t want to watch the video). The first reason I’m bothered by this is that they made no such efforts to block any of the other beheading videos. Are this videos less offensive? The only difference in them…Nick Berg and Paul Johnson are white. What if a Japanese man had been beheaded? Would that video be blocked as well? I’m going to guess probably not. The second reason I’m pissed off by this decission is that it feeds that kind of lack of critical thinking this whole event has illustrated. Ok, I don’t know what kind of people go out of their way to view such things, but people should have the ability to decide for themselves if they want to watch such things…it shouldn’t be the government deciding for them. The third reason I am frustrated by this decision (and this is where I’m directly effected) in the efforts to “protect the population,” a lot of inoffensive sites were blocked as well, including some sites that I visted. Shame on you Korean government for blocking websites I visited…

I’ll state again that I feel incredibly sorry about the death of Kim Son-il. Anytime someone dies, and especially if they die in a horrific fashion like KSI did, it’s an incredibly sad event. KSI should be remembered, but he should not be made into something more than he was. He was just a guy who chose to go to Iraq.

picture 044
Originally uploaded by wdunn.

Well it’s been one year since I came to Korea. When I arrived here I was single, with no friends, and no skill at the Korean language. In one year, I got a girlfriend, met some friends, and…well I still kind of suck at Korean (well not really).

Anyhow yesterday as a celebration of my arrival the Seoul Bus System offered up Free Bus Day…woohoo!

I was so excited to have free bus service, until I realized that free bus day was just a cop-out for the now way too overpriced mass-transit that I have to take on a daily basis…

Additionally U-rim purchased a cake that we ate together in celebration of my 1 year of service in Korea. Anyhow I’m not going to get all mushy and sentimental, so…it was a good year, here’s to another!