西洋오랑캐

So this past weekend I discovered two awesome, new (to me) forms of Korean entertainment. The first is an awesome band called Propeller21. I had heard them compilation I owned awhile back, but this weekend I picked up an EP of their jams. Man! I’m all about that record…it’s kind of punk, kind of pop, kind of emo, but totally awesome.

The second discovery I made was a movie. It was on TV last night (or this morning depending on how you want to look at it). This movie was called 수취인불명 (the English title is allegedly “Address Unknown”). The movie takes place in Korean town near a US army base sometime in the late 80s or early 90s (I’m guessing by context clues, though I missed the begining of the flick). Anyhow the movie is extremely bizarre and slightly depressing. The thing left the most indelible impression on me was the portrayal of the American military. These characters spoke in English, and when they did, every other word was “Fuck” or “Shit” or “Bitch” or “Asshole.” This was odd, because when soliders talked to their superior officers it was like, “You fuckin’ asshole I was just taking a leak…” I’m not a soldier, but I don’t think it really works that way. When these GIs weren’t cursing, they were uttering such cheesey 1950’s BS dialogue. It was like when they weren’t in dock worker mode they became Wally from Leave it to Beaver. “Golly, you’re swell…would you like to be my sweetheart?”

Anyhow there was one scene that really spoke to me. One GI started dating a Korean highschool girl (in addition to feeding her acid…which is kind of beside the point). In one scene, the girl said, in English, she was 18. The Korean subtitles also said that she was 18 years old, yet in the Korean way of counting age she would be either 16 or 17 years old. Anyhow, this girl and the GI get it on in her family homestead. This is what impressed me most. I mean, the characters in this movie were all small town people, much like the family of my girlfriend. This GI could not speak Korean, was rude, and did acid on a regular basis, but when he is fucking their underaged daughter in their house, the parents / adult brother do nothing other then kick his boots, try to steal money out of his wallet, and call him “새끼.” On the other hand, if my 25 year old girlfriend’s parents call while we are together I have to be quiet and pretend I’m not there. Perhaps I need to go with my girlfriend to her hometown and have loud sex with her in her parent’s house. After that her parents will use profanity when speaking of me (which they already do, but then at least I don’t have to pretend to not exist when they call). Another thing I liked about the movie was the fact that they used a purely Korean guy to play a half Korean half African American character. Yeah they dude’s skin was kind of dark, but aside from that he had all the facial features of a Korean…and none of an African American. Wtf? Anyhow I really digress. If you are looking for a really odd, and depressing flick check out 수취인불명 (Address Unknown). I’m not one to ruin a flick, but if you’ve seen any Korean movies or music videos, this one has the same ending as all of those, only way more extreme.

So to recap, check out the band Propeller21 and the movie 수취인불명.

As a quick aside, the middle school students I tutor taught me an interesting Korean phrase this past weekend. That being 빨간 비디오 (red video). This is apparently the term used to refer to porn tapes, since at one point (and possibly still) they were (are) manufactured using red video cassettes, so there’s another random Korean term for those of you who are interested in such things.

Yesterday was my short day. I only had to teach two classes, which was pretty awesome. The two classes are the higher level classes and they are usually pretty well behaved. Yesterday all they had to do was read a story and then it was game time.

The first classes, which are the younger students, read the outstanding “What A Trip!” with only minor incident. The student known as James, was a buffoon as usually and got sent out of the room during game time (of which there will be more later).

The second class (the older and higher level of the two) came in next. The wrote in their daily journal and then they had to read some story about how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. The thing is, instead of reading, they were all just talking to each other. After numerous warnings to be quiet while others were reading, I told them to put their books away. A cheer arose…until I told them to get out their pencils for an ultimate spelling test. They then had to spell some 60 random words. Afterwards I asked if they wanted to read or have another spelling test. They said they would read, so we read the story of a caterpillar who becomes a butterfly, and then it was game time.

Yesterday I tried out a new game. I purchased two fly swatters and made a bunch of flash cards of vocabulary words the students were supposed to know. I then divided to class into two teams giving each a fly swatter. I would then yell out something like “Hit ‘yellow!’” The team that hit the word first would score a point, and the team with the most points at the end was declared the winner.

The two classes I tested this game with both really enjoyed it, so it looks like “Fly Swatter Game” is a keeper. Today when the lower level classes come in I’ll have to test it out with them (probably using pictures instead of words which is not a problem).

Today for you I bring two stories about me and speaking Korean. In the event that you can’t see my picture in the right hand corner, I am caucasian (or white to the uninitiated). Also for those who don’t know me personally, or haven’t read all of my writings, I have studied Korean both in university and independently (which was while I was living in Korea) for over 3 years. This being said, though I have studied for quite some time, and can handle most basic conversations. This brings up my first story.

Last night (Sunday) I enter a convenience store outside of my neighborhood. I grab a coffee and some cookies. I walk up to the cash register, put my loot on the counter, and the girl rang it up. She then pointed to the display without saying anything. I asked her in Korean how much it was, as I couldn’t see the display (and I thought she was being rude). Anyhow instead of telling me how much it was, she turned the display towards me, and pointed again. I am aware that the majority of foreigners in Korea can’t speak Korean and make no effort to do so, but after I asked her (in Korean) she could have had at least humored me and responded in Korean.

For a point of comparision, when I went to Japan (a country who’s language I really don’t know beyond a couple simple phrases) people would approach me and launch into dialogues in Japanese, assumming I could understand exactly what they were saying.

For my second adventure, I go from the “He can’t possibly speak Korean,” to the “He is a master of our language….I can tell from that simple greeting he gave.” Today I met my boss for lunch prior to work. We then drove in together and parked in the Goyang town parking lot. She said before we went to the school she needed to pick up some alterations, so we went to the tailor together. I greeted the lady, with the standard “안녕하세요.” This expression is the most basic of all Korean phrases. Go to your local bookstore, pick up any Teach Yourself Korean book and this expression will be on the first page of instruction. Take a Korean language course and this will be the first phrase taught to you, but I digress. So I greeted her, and said nothing else. She then tells my boss, “와! 그분이 우리말 잘 해요.” (Wow! He speaks our language well.) She was able to tell this from the one phrase I uttered. Using this logic, all the middle school girls and kindergarten boys who yell things like “Hello everybody!” and “Oh handsome man!” and “How are you?!” are masters of the English language. While it’s nice to be complimented on my skills, I know I say stuff incorrectly, and want to be corrected. One of the reasons I came to Korea was to learn the Korean language, which is hard when no one corrects my mistakes (since they are all of the school of thought, “At least he is trying…let’s just tell him how good he is and send him on his way.”) Anyhow now these things annoy me a little less now that I will be attending Korean language school in a few months.

I’ve been watching a lot more Korean television programs as of late (perhaps because I can now understand them a little bit), and I have a new favorite television show. This week I have seen a program entitled 아색기가. The show is awesome to say the least! It’s a combination of soft core Cinemax style porn and Saturday Night Live (only it’s not live). So I have caught two episodes of this comedy-porn hybrid (would that be “pomedy” or “corn”), and I can say I’m duly impressed. Each episode is made up of several shorter skits that combine sexy situations and comedy (with very little nudity). In the episodes I’ve seen there has been countless bikinis and lingere, yet only one set of bared tits, and they were being covered with hands. There are several reasons I like this show (beside the scantily clad Korean ladies that is).

이선정 (Lee Sunjung) star of 아색기가 (A-sek-gi-ga), in action.

The first being that aside from cartoons, children’s shows (like Korean Seasame Street), and insane games, this is one of the few shows I can understand. The second reason I like this show is that unlike some other Korean dramas this show teaches some useful phrases (it was here I learned the useful verb “카섹스하다”). The third reason I like this show is the fact that when I was watching this show, with my girlfriend (which is awesome in its own right), and inquired who one actress (who had been in several scenes was), my girlfriend without hesitation proclaimed, “Oh she’s Lee Sunjung!” I was stunned, so I asked, “How do you know soft core porn actresses?” To which my girlfriend proclaims, “Oh before this she was a gag woman (it’s not a porn term…in Korea that use “gag man” and “gag woman” to refer to comedians).” How awesome is that?! That would be like Molly Shannon or Ana Gasteyer leaving comedic acting to become the next Shannon Tweed. You have to love the irony in that.

아시다시피 한국사람들은 술을 마시는것 좋아해요. 하지만 술을 마시고 나서, 그사람들은 보통 토해요. 매날 아침에 길도하고 인도(人道)에서 구토(嘔吐)를 많아요.

또 마시고 나서, 취한 한국사람들은 때때로 공공재산에서 오줌 눠요. 나는 구토나 오줌이나 길도에서 보고 싶지않아요.

나도 술을 미시는것 좋아해요 (지금 나는 맥주를 미시는 중이에요). 하지만 나는 자제(自制) 있어요. 오늘밤에 나는 어디에나 토안하겠어요. 한국사람들은 자제(自制)를 배워야 해요.

The weather the past few days has become rediculously cold. So in addition to busting out parkas and scarves, Korean girls have busted out the following expression, “오…추워!” (Oh it’s cold!) Of course Korean girls aren’t the only ones who comment on temperature, but the way they do it is something I have not encountered elsewhere in the world. Let’s look at two examples.

Scene 1: It’s 0 degrees outside. I exit a cafe with a male friend and have a 10 minute walk back to my house.

ME: Man it’s cold.
FRIEND: Yeah.
ME: Let’s hurry.
FRIEND: Alright.

After that exchange nothing more will be said of the weather, unless some condition changes. (ie. It suddenly becomes windy, or starts snowing.)

Scene 2: It’s 0 degrees outside. I exit a cafe with my girlfriend and have a 10 minute walk back to my house.

GIRLFRIEND: Oh it’s cold.
ME: Yeah let’s hurry.
GIRLFRIEND: Oh it’s cold…Ok let’s hurry.

After this, my girlfriend will repeat “It’s cold,” roughly every 14 seconds to no one in particular.

I pick on “오 추워,” but really any adjective can be used: “Oh I’m hungry!”(배고파!), “Oh it’s hot…”(오…더워.)

I asked several people about it. First I asked my girlfriend why she was constantly saying it was cold. We were alone, I knew it was cold, she knew it was cold…so I inquired who she was tell it was cold. At first she didn’t even realize she was doing it. It was just a habitual behavior. After I brought it to her attention, she realized how often she did it, but could offer no rational reason as to why she was doing it. I asked her if she were to stop the constant proclaimations of “Oh it’s cold,” would she forget that it actual was cold which would result in some serious trouble. She said she that this was not the case, but could offer no other explaination, so I went to another source.

I next asked a male Korean friend about it. He told me that it was his opinion that girls did it to be cute. I asked if it was like the whiney, “오빠~~~” thing most girls do to be cute, but in reality are just annoying (thank god my girlfriend is older than me so I don’t have to hear that thing), and he said that was the case.

So I believe I have solved this mystery, but if you are Korean (or not Korean) and want to give me a different opinion feel free to do so, but for now I’ll leave you with this message to the women of Korea.

한국여자들, “오…추워!” 많이 말하는것이 안 귀여워요. 그말이 진짜 안 좋아요.

Last night I was supposed to meet a friend of U-rim’s who makes those big foam costumes people here wear for street events, but she ended up having to work so those plans fell through, so instead U-rim and I had a rediculously huge disagreement last night, and as a result I learned an important lesson: “Never ever have an argument in a coffee shop while seated in the chairs that look out onto the street if you think random people are funny.”

I’ll go into more detail about the fight later, but let’s just say during one of the akward silences, I looked out the window, and I kid you not, saw a guy who was windmilling his arms Pete Townsend style as he walked, followed by a guy walking with a baggette in his coat pocket…like the fool was trying to conceal it. Needless to say I was brought to laughter, which is not really a good thing to do if your girlfriend is on the verge of tears, and take it from me, trying to explain that you are laughing at a guy who was sneaking around with a loaf of French bread in his coat like a bread bandit is not really a viable option, especially if it’s not your native language.

Anyhow the fight basically was due to the fact that as of late, when we are together she’s kind of quite and doesn’t do anything. She explained that due to her work she has recently been extremely tired and stress out. This opened up a whole other can of worms, since I have told her that her work would kill her do to the insane hours she has to keep.

Her answer to decrease job stress was to start smoking again, which I was not enthralled with. I told her I didn’t want her (or me) to get sick. She went on to tell me that her grandfather smoked for 40 years and lived to be 82. I told her that half of all smokers die prematurely, and if she didn’t die, there was also the risk of cancer. To which she replied, “Smoking can’t give you cancer. There are documentaries about it on TV all the time.” That just put me in a rage. It’s one thing if she doesn’t care about her body and wants to smoke (while not around me), but the denial of scientific fact was too much to bear. By this point we had returned home. I typed “smoking” and “cancer” into a seatch engine, and proceeded to read a list of cancers smoking can cause (or increase the risk of).

Eventually the fight ended, but it was kind of a vague conclusion, as in nothing was really solved at all, but no one was angry still in the end. Afterwards, we went for a walk in my neighborhood to go buy 화투 (hwatu), which are some kind of cards used for a Korean card game. U-rim was going to teach me how to play, but when we got home, a bad Korean erotic movie (skin-a-max style). It was truly awful…there was no nudity. Like Japan, Korea blurs out crotches, but they will show tits and ass…this movie didn’t have those either. There were bikini clad ladies, a topless lady covering her breasts with her arms, and a lot of implied (albeit fully clothed) sex grinding. This aside, I understood the dialogue (yes there was more dialogue than, “Ohhh….yeah….more…more!”) and learned a useful phrase. If you want to suggest having car sex to a Korean all you need to say is, “카 섹스스하자!” (Ka seksu-haja!). Unfortunately in Seoul I don’t have a car (or the legal ability to drive one), and neither does U-rim…so though I learned said expression, I will never get to use it.

Well if I were a cowboy, that’s kind of what I would have done yesterday. If you are a regular reader of my webpage, you know that the school I work at added an extra class to my schedule, which did not really please me. You also know the following day one of my bosses told me that they were heading back to America at the end of the year. Additionally you will know that because of these two factors, I am less than enthralled with my current job.

Yesterday the non-departing boss comes up to me and tells me, “As you know Kyung-bin (the other boss) is leaving after December, so we are going to hire a receptionist. What are your plans?” Without even hesitating I blurt out, “Well, I wanted to learn Korean, so I think I’m just going to get a part time job teaching kindergarten and go back to school.”

So I guess I’m going to work through either the end of February, March, or April, since my contract is weird I’m not sure the actual ending date of work, but that’s it. There’s an end in sight for this job…so I guess I should find out about becoming a student here.

And before I leave you I should present you with this most excellent copyright violation I’ve ever come across in my year and a half in Korea. Yesterday on my way to work I saw a lady with a bag proclaiming “Disney Donuts” in the Dukin Donuts font. So not only are they ripping of Dukin Donuts (which is a pretty popular thing to do here in Korea), but they are using the Disney name as well.

This is just insane. Apparently some dude (American) faked all sorts of credentials and scored some university job here in Korea. He probably would have never gotten caught if not for the fact that he got too big for his britches and got greedy. Check out the full report courtesy of The Chosun Ilbo.

A high school graduate from the United States, who found employment at a certain private university in Korea after faking a master’s degree and doctorate from a famous U.S. university, now finds himself in police custody.
◆ Degree forged, “open” employment

Seoul Metropolitan Police arrested on Monday a 34-year-old Mr. M, a graduate of an art high school in New York, for taking employment at a private university in Seoul after faking a master’s and doctorate degree from a U.S. university. M received a salary and research fees from the school.

According to police, M met a Korean woman while he was working at a hotel in New York and came to Korea last November. Last April, he asked a broker in Thailand to falsify a master’s degree from New York’s Columbia University, after which he found employment as an English teacher at a university in Seoul. He worked as an instructor until last February and received W24 million per year.

Later, M counterfeited a doctorate degree in a similar way. He falsified a doctorate degree from Central Michigan University and applied for an assistant professor position at the same university. He was hired, and received a total of W68 million from the university, including W44 million in salary and research funds.

◆ Fabricated thesis, even smoked pot

Police investigation revealed that M, putting the school’s policy of granting money to professors who public theses in famous academic journals to ill use, received research grants for theses he carefully stole from other scholars.

After he became an assistant professor, he opened a website with a domain name similar to that of a famous academic journal, on which he registered edited versions of others’ academic theses under his own name. He did this three times, receiving W15 million in research fees.

He also took wild hemp and planted it in flowerpots in his on-campus professor apartment, regularly smoking marijuana.

As this shows that the strict screenings given to Koreans applying for professorial openings are not being properly applied to foreign candidates, there are those calling for university hiring standards to be fairly and strictly supplemented.

(englishnews@chosun.com )

I had a conversation with my friend from university recently. He does the same type of job, only in Japan. He commented how a lot of the other foreigners in Japan are total geeks who are obsessed with all things Japanese, he asked me if this was the case in Korea. I told him that it was not really the case. There were some people who came here to learn Korean while teaching, or to pay off debts, but there were also a lot of the foreigners were just misfits who couldn’t function in their home countries. Apparently I wasn’t that far off the mark in my declararion.
The one problem I have is that the guy is American…I mean the GIs and our president do a good enough job of causing the Korean people to dislike Americans, do we really need this crap as well.

I came home last night all ready to write a pissed off entry about how Americans are stupid, due to the results of the presidential election, but when I got home there were no results…so I just began my glossary of terms. Turns out I only had to wait 12 hours to do so, but in 12 hours time a lot of my ire had vanished, but here is my “angry about election outcome” post:
Well it looks like I’m going to be in Korea at least for four more years. I woke this morning to learn that in my homeland it’s going to be more of the same for some years to come. This news comes on the heels of learning that at my job, I will be starting a new class (3 more hours a week). Now 3 more hours is already bad enough, but the way it works out I will be finishing Monday, Wednesday, Friday nights at 7:00 now, and if I catch the bus (which I rarely do) I’ll get home at 8:30 pm. I have to leave my house at 11:00 am to get to work at time. This new schedule pretty much puts the kabosh on me going to school and learning Korean, which is one of the things I liked about that job to being with, so now (since I can’t go to school anymore) I might as well work at some suck ass hagwon closer to my house. The way I figure it with my commute factored in I’m tied up in work related nonsense the same ammount I was while working at Kid’s College, and unlike Kid’s College I actually pay taxes now. I’m not one to break contract or cut and run, so I’ll stick it out in Goyang-dong until April, but after that I’m not sure what I’m going to do. Right now I’m leaning towards getting a part-time job and then going to school to learning Korean…and possibly get my TOEFL certification. However this is many months away, and is subject to change.