The other day I was in the midst of my daily 5 kilometer run (aka balancing on a moving strip of plastic until a meter displayed 5.00 kM) and watching a little television. Because I usually rock out to some sort of tunes while in the gym, I watch something like Discovery Channel (since it has Korean subtitles) or pro-wrestling since I need no sound. On this particular day in question, the batteries on my mp3 player crapped out at the 1.00kM mark. So I actually watched some television.
Flipping through the channels I found the show, Let’s Speak Korean on Arirang. Let’s Speak Korean was a pretty decent show…emphasis on the word “was.” Back in the day the show was actually informative, the host, Stephen Revere was funny, and the presented advanced enough material that I actually learned things. Oh they also had students…students that were clearly better than me. Not anymore.
This new version of Let’s Speak Korean is terrible! For starters the material covered is really basic junk. This is actually the thing that bugs me the least; in fact I’m a little bit proud that everything I’ve seen is so easy. I actually yelled, “HA! I already know that!” at the TV, which got me a few weird looks for the middle aged ladies that were jogging nearby. Also gone is Stephen Revere, replaced with some Korean dude known as Young. Again I don’t really have a problem with Young. He breaks it down decently, but I never drank beers with him so I don’t know how cool he actual is. What bugs me more is not Young’s arrival, but the fact that the lady named Lisa is still there. She just bugs me. She kind of comes off as really condescending. Again this part is not that bad. She was there before and the show was fine. What bugs me the most is the new “student” guy.
This dude is a total moron! For starters his pronunciation is terrible. If I want to hear foreigners speak Korean poorly I’d record myself and play it back. This is a show that’s supposed to help foreigners learn Korean…get some people on there that can actually speak it. But even this is not that awful. I can kind of see the producer being like, “Let’s get an actual rookie. Other rookie speakers will be less threatened by someone who is making mistakes.” More than his inability to remember similar grammar or vocabulary (”Airport가 어디에요?”), his foreigner caricature makes me want to break some faces.
If you’ve ever seen any English language education show on EBS, you know of the “whiteface” for lack of a better word that a lot of the native speakers engage in. “HI!!!!!! I’M WHITE AND SPEAKING ENGLISH!!!! I’M OUT OF CONTROL!!!! ARE YOU READY TO LEARN ENGLISH!?!?!?!” “Yeah Isaac, we’re ready to learn English…stop dancing please.” Yeah, this guy does it too. Maybe I’m just Oscar the Grouch, but I don’t want to learn anything for a dude that’s dancing around like he’s Barney all going, “WOW!!! SO THIS IS KALBI?!?!?!” Forget you Let’s Speak Korean! I’m going back to Integrated Korean with Michael, the foreigner that speaks perfect Korean, but has never heard of bulgogi before. At least he remembers all the grammar.
So the other day Jinhui and I went on a road trip to visit some island and travel into a wine tunnel. The trip seemed like it was going to be awesome. I mean a wine tunnel?! The pictures on the website made it look like some dungeon meets elegant cafe…plus there was going to be wine. And the island? Islands are always cool. So we were both looking forward to this trip, which made the whole thing all the more disappointing.
Our journey began at 9:30pm when we rendez-voused (wow that was some elite conjugation there) with the rest of our tour group at city hall in Seoul. This trip featured a caravan of 5 tour buses packed with tourists. Maybe it was my cynical American upbringing, but there’s something about a busload of people clapping at lame jokes made by a tour guide that just gets under my skin…either that or it actually was annoying. I tend to think the later since my wife (who was not raised in America) was also annoyed by the clapping and rows of people basically yelling, “Right on!” when they learned they would get one Chocopie each…though I may have had a corupting influence on her during the nearly one year we’ve been married.
So anyhow the bus rolled out on this 5 plus hour ride south. “A five hour bus ride at night? That won’t be too bad, I can just sleep the whole way there…much like I did when we went to Busan,” I thought to myself, and perhaps actually verbalized to my wife prior to boarding the bus, but once I was secure in my seat I learned that I wouldn’t be doing much of anything even closely related to sleep. No cat nap. No shut eye. No 40 winks. Bupkiss! For you see, unlike the bus to Busan which was fairly deluxe, this bus was pretty much a school bus, meaning there wasn’t anything like comfort going on in the seats. That coupled with my legs (which are longer than the average Korean’s and therefore not taken into consideration in places like movie theaters or on buses) made for a pretty awful ride. The two or three times I did manage to doze off were interupted by the tour guide getting on the mic, which by the way had more reverb than the average 노래방 (noraebang aka karaoke) microphone, and making some stupid proclaimation.
After trucking for a good amount of time, it was 3:00 in the morning and the bus made a stop at a hot spring / sauna. Since this cost extra and neither my wife, nor I are particularly keen on being nude with members of the same sex complete strangers we elected to skip it…unfortunately we were in the middle of nowhere, so there wasn’t anything else to do but sit on the bus (which now had the engine turned off and was rapidly getting colder) and try to sleep. With the bus pretty much empty now, getting some sleep was a little easier since we could lay where we felt the urge to. Again, by the time I actually got to sleep, the tour guide was back on the horn telling us it was time to roll out.
It was 5:30 in the morning, and as the bus rolled down nauseatingly windy roads the tour guide kept on yapping. What was she yapping about? Not much, but she just kept talking and then people would clap. “No you fools! Don’t encourage her!” At 6:00 we arrived at our destination: breakfast. Now in the time I’ve been here I’ve pretty much overcome my western, “Ew…that’s weird!” reflex when it comes to food. I mean I’ve eaten whales, grasshoppers, fermented bean paste that pretty much smells like ass, the internal organs of a cow… The one thing I won’t eat is creatures that come from a shell: clams, oysters, etc. They just seem like snot. I’ve tried on several occassions to eat them, but in my humble opinion they’re nasty. So imagine how happy a sleep deprived Wyatt that had just spent seven hours on bus was when he discovered that breakfast was a pot of stew consisting entirely of shit in shells.
I decided that I would just eat rice and the side dishes that were at the table. Apparently in my time here I became a connoisseur of rice, since I found this particular bowl to be overcooked and dry. It was hardly the breakfast of champions. With breakfast out of the way, we and the rest of our tour group (which consisted primarily of girls trying way too hard to be cute and their boyfriends) waited around for 7:30 when we could ride a boat…actually it wasn’t a boat, it was a ferry, and it was small.
I saw a sunrise. It did not suck.
They boat ride on the other hand was pretty terrible. As I mentioned, the boat was kind of small, and the sea was angry that day my friend. For my readers that are not pirates, seamen, or sea captains, let me tell you that sailing in a small boat on choppy water is not very fun. I tried to sleep, but again guys on microphones, and sheer discomfort prevented me from doing so.
After 30 minutes or so we arrived at our destination, an island known as 외도 (外島 / Oedo) which means “Outside Island” (as opposed to all the inside islands). Anyhow there was a botanical garden there for us to examine and take pictures of, which we did. Somewhere around the time that I caressed a statue of Venus my anger and grumpiness faded for the most part. The island was pretty nice, except the guy that yelled at me for sitting in a Santa Claus sleigh because it was apparently too dangerous to get into and out of…that guy was an asshole, but I digress. We scoped an island, I handled the man-junk of a replica of Michelangelo’s David, and we took a lot of pictures. Then it was time to head back to the mainland.
We got back on the boat and drove back to land, and the buses. The drive back was a lot calmer, and almost pleasant. By the time we got to the bus, I was ready for lunch…it was 10:00 in the morning. Onto the bus we went and we drove for a few minutes before we stopped at a cliff overlooking the sea. Apparently some commercial was filmed there. I spit off the cliff, because that’s apparently an awesome thing to do. Then 10 minutes later it was back on the bus.
Somehow I managed to fall asleep for about an hour and a half which really helped heal my eyes up. All morning long, the lack of sleep made my eyes feel like they belonged to a mummy. That’s how dry and itchy they were. But that hour and a half really hooked me up with eyes that were not painful. But I thought to myself, “Self, you were just asleep for an hour and a half. What did you miss?”
The answer was, “nothing.” In the hour and a half that I’d been asleep we’d just been on the road, and we continued driving for another hour and a half. A little after 1:00pm we arrived at some random town which was seemingly in the middle of nowhere, and unloaded for lunch. Lunch was slightly more awesome than breakfast had been, but still was nothing to write home about…so I’m not even going to tell you what we ate.
After lunch we got back on the bus and started driving again. “Why did we stop at that hick town? It seemed really pointless to have lunch there,” I said to my wife. “I know…”
So we drove for an hour or so before arriving at our destination, and the thing I’d been looking forward to all day: the wine tunnel! The wine tunnel had been the one thing that was keeping me going. I knew that if I could endure the shitty food, and uncomfortable seats just a little bit, there would be a trip into a wine tunnel. That promise alone helped me make it through…and now I was there.
If I learned one thing on this trip it was never expect anything to be good, because you’ll only get disappointed.
The pictures I had seen of the wine tunnel on the internet made it look awesome. It kind of looked like a dungeon meets romantic cafe meets wine being in there. The reality was far less awesome. There were no nice romatic tables with a candle on it. Hell no, there were rows and rows of white plastic lawn chairs. And somehow, when the romantic cafe part of the wine tunnel vanishes, the tunnel part starts to suck quickly. The floor was dirt, the walls were dirty, and the ceiling was covered some sort of green plastic…mesh, that had…water on it, and…I don’t know what it was for, but it was there, and not nice.
There was a concert there. A Christmas concert. I’ve been been to a lot concerts before. I’ve been to shows in stadiums, shows on the street, shows in basements, and everywhere in between. A tunnel is not a very good place for a concert. The reason is this: the shape of a tunnel makes it so that only the people closest to the stage (about 4 rows) could see anything. Everyone else could kind of hear it (since there was no P.A. system really this too was difficult), but all I could see was the back of some random dude’s head.
The trip at this point had a grade of about D or F, but then someone gave me wine. I knew we would be getting wine, but when I saw the lawn chairs, I half expected to get a paper cup of wine and maybe like 2 crackers. So imagine my surprise when the wine was given to me in an actual wine glass! Also we didn’t get 2 crackers, but plates of crackers and cheese and…DRIED PERSIMMON!!! Now Americans, to my knowledge, don’t really eat a lot of persimmons, but let me tell you: Countrymen! You are missing out! Persimmons are awesome! Go forth and eat them!!
So speaking of persimmons, not only did we get dried persimmons to snack on, but the wine itself was forged…built…brewed…made from persimmons! It tasted pretty good. My wife says that it was deep. It was different from the regular grape kind of wine in both taste and smell, but it was pretty alright…and just pretty. The color was nice.
So Jinhui and I decided to get our money’s worth and we got as many glasses of wine and plates of crackers as we could. Also as other people left, we moved forward to get a look at the stage. The concert was pretty weird. First there was a group that did some classical music, and had an opera singer. I don’t like opera ladies, their voices are too loud and high and make my head (which is made of glass) feel like it’s going to explode. Opera men are not that awesome either, because they try too hard to have a low voice. After the opera singers there was a poetry reading.
Jinhui and I both did not like poetry reading. I thought it was boring. She thought it was depressing. We both thought it was a pain in the ass. Following the poetry slam, a jazz band took the stage! The jazz band played a selection of Christmas tunes: Silver Bells, Jingle Bells, White Christmas, Blue Christmas…Desperado. You know, all the classics!
After the jazz group, the show was over. Jinhui and I bought some persimmon wine, and then it was back on the bus. The tour was over and it was time to go home. The trip home was just okay. We played Tetris…well, Jinhui played Tetris, and I watched some crappy movie about a retarded guy that likes to run. Some four hours later we were back at home. We heard some more pointless clapping and then the tour was over and I was glad.
We learned two important lessons on this tour, the first as I already mentioned was not to get ones hopes up about anything. The second, and perhaps more practical was not to go on group tours anymore. The past two group tours I’ve been on have wasted so much time jackassing around in bus and we ended up not seeing as much as we could have. Anyhow that’s about it. If you want to look at pictures check out my Flickr account.
This is a plea to all my Canadian readers (I know for a fact at least two of you exist). Will either you, or one of your countrymen (or women) please for the love of Christ write a walkthrough on how to go about dealing with your country’s government? I mean Street Fighter 2 had a walkthrough, and that game was a hell of a lot easier than Canadian government institutions.
For those of you just tuning in, I had a bone to pick with Canada about the way they do criminal background checks. It turns out that a great deal of this anger was misdirected and premature. It turns out that apparently one doesn’t have to go through the process of getting fingerprinted and waiting 150+ days in order to get a Canadian criminal report. Nope, it turns out that all one has to do is provide a name, address, and (in the case of my wife) passport number, to any of the local police forces and they will check out your national criminal record and ship out the results to you in anywhere from a week to 14 days depending on the police force you choose to use. We picked the guys in Winnipeg, mainly because they were the cheapest and also didn’t require fingerprints (which as I explained eariler was kind of a hassle to get here).
So here we are thinking we’re in the clear. Oh not quite. Like most things, this service does not come for free. Unfortunately, Canada, as I mentioned before, is a developing country, and therefore has no way to pay for this service online or by using a credit card. Additionally Canadian currancy frightens them, since they stated that they would not accept payments made in cash. No, they want a check. Unfortunately for us, we live in Korea, a country that has moved beyond (or perhaps never had) a checking system. Here everything is paid for either with cash, or a credit card. So we went in search of a money order.
The post office didn’t have any, but they insisted that you could get them with ease at the bank. The first bank we went to didn’t have them, but told us that you could score them at a bank that did international exchanges. The international exchange bank didn’t have them either, but told us that we could get money orders in American dollars at Citibank. This would have been fine, save for the fact that we were sending this shit to the provinces, and it stated that they only dealt in Canadian funds (unlike the central…federal? government who would gladly accept American dollars). Fuck!
So we headed home, dejected. What could we do? Flying to Canada to deal with this was out of the question for two reasons: 1) It was too expensive. 2) I probably would have punched a Mountie in the face for causing my wife and I such annoyance, and then would have been sent to Canadian jail (which if the Trailer Park Boys is to be believed, might not actually be that bad of a thing). So the only option that seemed to be open was to ship the documents to my family in the US (a country where one can get cashiers checks) and have them ship the documents and check to Canada.
So basically I don’t know who I’m pissed off at. I’m pissed off at Canada’s government for sucking ass six ways to Sunday. I am pissed off at Korea for not having the outdated method of payment required to do business with Canada. I’m pissed off at America for making the wife and I have to jump through such hoops to obtain a paper that says she didn’t do any crime during the one year that she lived in Canada. And, I’m pissed off at myself for getting pissed off about such stupid bullshit. I’ll be glad when we have a paper that says, “Jinhui, you didn’t do crime in Canada.”
As you may or not know, my wife and I are in the process of getting out of Korea and heading back to the US of A. As part of the process we are required to prove that my wife is not a criminal or a threat to the peaceful society that is America. So we have to present her criminal records. To obtain this in Korea all we had to do was walk into the police station hand over her ID card and wait 40 minutes. Case closed!
But due to the fact that my wife lived in Canada for a year, we must also produce a Canadian criminal report. This is proving to be slightly more difficult so please bear with me as I go off on a rant. If you are Canadian with Canadian flags all over everything you own and are easily offend by people bad mouthing your country, or if you are an American that seems to think Canada is the greatest land ever and don’t want that illusion tarnished, turn back now before it’s too late.
Ok all the sensitive people are gone now? Good. The follow rant was directed at my brother who happened to be on AIM requesting Wesley Willis Fiasco tunes from me.
ME: can i get a “Fuck canada!”
MY BROTHER: oh yeah i heard about that
MY BROTHER: are they being bitches?
ME: yeah they are indeed.
ME: at least 150 days for them to look up my wife’s name and print out a copy of a blank criminal record.
MY BROTHER: shit
MY BROTHER: thats like half a year
ME: yup…about half a year
ME: and the direct quote was that it would take, “in excess of 150 days”
ME: when you get up to the hundreds when talking about number of days switch to months assholes.
ME: if I see 5 months I’m going to get less pissed off then if I see 150 days
ME: even though I know in my heart of hearts that they are exactly the same
MY BROTHER: yeah
ME: i think canadian police force know that they suck ass as well, since there’s some thing on their webpage about how they will not respond to any emails that include profanity.
ME: oh and also they don’t have a way to download the form I need…so I have to email them requesting they mail me the form.
MY BROTHER: wow
ME: but also they did not have the email address I needed to request the form so i had to write an email to some third party requesting an email address so I could send the email to request a form that most 1st World countries would have on their offical website.
ME: stupid developing country canada!
MY BROTHER: yeah
ME: they seriously are pissing me off
And that was pretty much the end of the rant. Tune in tomorrow if you want to hear about a trip I took to some mountain.
I don’t know why, but for some reason vapid Korean talent, 현영 (Hyeon Young or however you wish to Romanize that name), bugs the hell out of me. I mean there are countless other actors, singers, and gagman…oh don’t get me started on the gagman, who are as annoying if not more annoying than Miss Hyeon. Additionally Miss Hyeon has something a lot of the other celebrities (again, particularly the gagman) do not, and that is quasi-decent looks.
All that aside, there is something about her that just bugs me to no end. Actually I wish to retract my earlier statement that I don’t know exactly why I detest this woman. I know exactly the reason why, and that reason is quite simply her voice. She has that kind of voice that I can’t stand (no not the six year old kid that sounds like he smokes 3 packs of Newports a day and when he speaks it makes you want to clear your throat): the “I’m trying so hard to sound cute, that I’m going to make myself sound like a retarded six year old girl, when in reality I’m a 30 year old woman voice.”
Her voice is like nails on a chalkboard, and everytime that I hear her speak I want to stick sharp objects in my ears. I think the reason that I am so bothered by her voice is the fact that it is a total affectation. For some reason people, I’m not going to name any names, are under the impression that this kind of voice is cute, so Hyeon Young plays it up. In all fairness, she is not the only one in this nation that does so. A quick walk through a larger supermarket, and you will hear countless women using their kindergarten / cartoon character “cute” voice, summoning you to come and try various products. But none of those women are famous!
Anyhow here is a quick clip of Hyeon Young in action. However, I must warn you, she’s super annoying. Please be careful!
Hyeon Young is the woman on the running machine, talking about how her breasts hurt because she wasn’t wearing a bra. As a quick aside this is quite possibly the most risque thing I have encountered on television in Korea.
Yesterday was a day in which I seriously felt the need to bellow the following lines from Braveheart. That’s right ladies and gentlemen, you are looking at a free man…or reading the words of a free man…whatever. Apparently after nearly two months of intense investigation, the good people at Suwon immigration came to the conclusion that I was not a mail-order bride from Vietnam, a Chinese factory worker attempting to stay here beyond my tourist visa, or even an American who plans on staying in Korea longer than a year and found it in their hearts the good will to issue me an F-2-1 visa.
Basically now I am free. No longer do hagwon owners have control over my fate (now my wife does). If I don’t like a job, from here on in I can quit as I see fit. If I want to sit around the house in my underwear studying Korean…well, I’ve pretty much done that since January, so I’m a little bored of that…but I could continue doing so if I so desired. Basically I can do whatever I want (within the limits of the law), but it is so nice to taste freedom again.
So I would like to take this moment to personally thank all the fine people at the Suwon immigration office, in particular 조근휘. Their dedication and easy-going personalities made this process one that was quite easy and dare I say enjoyable. Wait a second…that’s not what I wanted to say. Please if you are easily offended by any words in the English language please turn back now…come back tomorrow, do not scroll beyond this point…..
Ok all those sensitive souls have departed?
FUCK YOU SUWON! You cold hearted motherfuckers! Why the shit would you assholes, upon being handed our application forms declare right away, “If you don’t get the visa after the investigation you can sue?” Why the fuck are those the first words out of your mouth? No, “You got married, congrats!” Nothing like that! Secondly, why in the name of all that is good did you make us come in a second time to fill out more paper work…paper work that could have very easily been filled out the first time we went in? What the fuck dudes?! Third of all, why didn’t you call us after bestowing me with a visa. We called you, and when I got the visa, it said it was issued the day after the second (completely pointless “interview”) trip to your dumbass building. And finally (and if this is the case with ever F-2-1 visa I apologize, but I’m on a rant here so…) why the bitchhole is my visa only good for 11 months? Is that due to your inability to complete paperwork in a timely fashion? Is that because I paid for this thing at the start of February? Or is it some other nonsense?!
Anyhow it’s a good thing that I’ve already paid a visit to 화성, so now I have no reason to ever return to your miserable, dirty little shit-hole of a city. Fuck you Mr. Cho! Fuck you Immigration Office! And fuck you Suwon! In the words of my hero, rap superstar Vanilla Ice, “You can kiss my white butt!” We’re outta here!
Whoa! That was some pent-up angst! It’s passed now, and let me say that never in my life have I been so stoked to have gotten some stamp…perhaps save for the time I got a stamp proclaiming I could count to 100 when I was in kindergarten. That was pretty bad-ass as well. Anyhow I’m living large now, and if any of you other F-2-1 visa holders have 11 month visas let me know…I’m just curious what’s up with that.
Having been recently hired by a language school near my house, and due to the fact that my wife also works at said language school, this weekend I found myself in a nearby town for a little on the job training that just happened to go down while I was off the job. This types of events always suck, no matter where you are in the world, but if you have a decent group of people with you can be tolerated. I luckily had that group of people, and not to toot my own horn or anything, but luckily for my co-workers, they had me.
Being an international man of mystery, I’m not going to give the details as to what school I work for (I will let you see pictures), that being said, the orientation we attended was for the Khan English system, since the owner of the school where I am n0w an employee was considering adding the Khan system. Upon learning of this name, I like every geek that came of age in the 1980’s instantly thought of William Shatner bellowing “KHAN!” in the movie Star Trek 2, unfortunately no one else there knew what I was talking about since I was the only non-Korean there.
We arrived at the venue shortly after 1:00 and after signing in, and stealing handfuls of pens, cookies, instant coffee mix, and tea, we were let into the conference hall. The room had 4 person desks arranged in rows of three about ten desks deep. Our group of 12 were seated in the second row from the stage. I looked at the desk. There was a folder with some reading materials, a pen, and a basketball jersey at each seat.
I looked over the basketball jersey. Each one (in our group) was green with a white number 2 in the center. They looked exactly like the basketball jerseys from my elementary school, and in addition to being the exact same colors were the exact same size. After squeezing myself into a tank top that 이효리 (Lee Hyori) would be proud to wear I was ready to be educated in the ways of Khan English…only apparently no one else was ready yet. The schedule listed the start time as 1:30, but since no one else had arrived yet, that was going to be pushed back.
Luckily for us in the audience, Khan English brought some videos…of their recent English Competition (because everything is a contest or competition here). As soon as the film started I was less than impressed with Khan. The contest (and as I learned later, their program) consisted of little more than yelling random English phrases as loud and as fast as one could ten times.
Practice with this phrase: I’m going to the movies with my dad. You did it ten times? I’m sure even native speakers ended up sounding like “I BUHHHH BUHHH BUHHHH DAD!” at the end. Now imagine children, who are not fluent bellowing random phrases as fast as they could. On of the Korean teachers turned to me and asked, “What is that girl saying?”
I replied, “Honestly I don’t know.”
After about 30 minutes of watching video footage of Korean children bellow their way through some scripted dialogues. the Khan seminar began. Like I mentioned before, I was the only non-Korean there, so the entire thing was conducted in Korean, but not your standard issue, straight out of Seoul, but in some sort of dialect that had some of my co-workers scratching their heads from time to time. The first person to speak was a middle aged woman with a horribly annoying voice. For those of you in Korea, or with extensive knowledge of Korean children’s programming, she sounded a lot like the witch on the television show, 하나 둘 셋, which is a pretty horrible thing to sound like.
Upon realizing that she was reading the handouts we had recieved word for word, and not adding anything, I began doodling in my folder, and procended to spend the duration of her presentation doing so. I would occassionally stop what I was doing to check if I had heard something correctly (”Did she just say, ‘one breast training method?’”). After reading to us for 2 hours, occassionally breaking to cackle, she decided that we had endured long enough…so she rewarded us with a five minute break time. Oh how sweet those minutes were. While some in my group used the bathroom, and others prayed for the sweet release of death to come, I spent that five minutes stealing more instant coffee than I could ever hope to consume before returning to America.
The next speaker was a fellow that was all about chatting me up in English. He was the type of character that every white person in Korea has encountered at least once. While his English was not bad at all, he just had no real conversational skills, so talking to him was more annoying than anything else. I understood that he was just trying to make small talk, but please for the love of all that is good, talk about something interesting. If a person proclaims that they don’t watch winter Olympics because they think it is like gym class, move on to another topic, they clearly have no interest in short track speed skating.
So he chatted up the audience with the practical teaching methods of Khan. Basically it worked like this…you, the students and the teachers, learn English by yelling as loud and as fast as you can. Apparently this turns one’s “local speaking muscle into an international muscle,” (their words, not mine). In order to aid in this madness, Khan offers a full line of DVDs that can be used in class to assist in the screaming teaching. These DVDs featured the most mind numbingly dull personalities ever. Each word of phrase would be repeated four times by different people at an increased volume and speed. So it started out with the soft spoken, blonde lady who was kind of like a kindergarten teacher, “Great.” Next was the dork in glasses with a speech impediment, that emoted way too much when he spoke, “Great (facial tick…facial tick…eyebrow spasm).” Next up was the chimpmunk looking woman that was reading for a teleprompter as fast as she could, “Great!” And finally, my personal favorite: guy with a rage problem, “GREAT!” That dude seriously would have veins popping out of his face as he “taught English.” It was so GREAT! I mean great.
So we watched guys screaming junk about watching a movie with their dad, and I became less and less enthralled with Khan (not that there was ever a point where I was enthralled, save for perhaps the point where I saw free coffee and cookies). I think the thing that bothered me the most was that all that the kids doing in the video was memorizing a script (which is different from actually learning a language) and reguritating that script and most people thought these kids spoke English well. However in one scene in the video, the white guy goes of script and the kid gives such a random answer, since they just memorized what they had to say, and weren’t actually listening to what was being asked. The sad part was, I was probably the only one that realized it.
After screaming for a good hour or so, and winning some prizes for being able to speak English (and in one case Korean), it was dinner time. Dinner was rice and kimchi, which was on par with what I expected. After dinner we were assigned rooms. My school had one other man so we ended up bunking up with some dude who had the hair cut known in Korea as a “sports cut,” (basically a crew cut or flat top) and sounded like a frog…I dubbed him “Sports Cut,” since I couldn’t remember his name. I did not care for “Sports Cut.”
Following dinner it was time for more screaming and yelling. We were broken into teams and were given some junk to memorize and then bellow as fast as we could in a race against the clock and the other schools. Khan decided it would be best to break this down into three Herculean tasks. The first task involved reading a short, poorly written passage about computers as fast as we could…as a group. After a couple of failed attempts which came about due to the fact that we couldn’t end at the same time we passed the test and moved onto task two.
The second task involved our teams yelling the slogans “God helps those who help themselves,” and “The early bird catches the worm,” ten times each taking only one breath on each attempt. Needless to say by the tenth time each phrase sounded kind of like, “BAH HAHNNA BBAHAA BBAAA!” Apparently that was good enough since we passed and moved on the phase three.
The third phase involved shouting about the virtues of Khan English and doing some hand motions that went along with these virtues. Our team got the whole song and dance down perfectly and were ready to be tested. Unlike the previous tests, which had been administered in various conference rooms, this final task was held outside on a soccer field under the lights. We were marched out onto the field and positioned in such a way that a member of the Khan S.S. could look down on us, but all we could see was a black outline of a man. We delivered the creed with outstanding prowess. This was apparently not good enough for Mr. Khan, and we were commanded to step back (military style) and practice before attempting it again.
We practiced several times, got our hand motions synched up (since that was where we had a little trouble), and then returned to be judged again. We delivered the creed with a fury and vengence that would have made Mr. “I’M GOING TO A MOVIE WITH MY DAD!” from the video proud. Apparently that wasn’t good enough either. The Khan-hole had us turn around and then either he, or another Khan-trooper moved down our line and made each of us yell as loud as we could. They started at the opposite end from me, and as he moved down the line telling random 40 kilogram Korean women that they aren’t loud enough, I started to get pissed off.
What did any of this have to do with teaching? Why should we listen to this tool anyway? He’s not paying me, he’s not my boss…hell, he’s not even my boss’ boss. I’ve been yelling all day, I’m done yelling…we’re done yelling.
In my time here I’ve been pretty accepting about a lot of stuff. Yes, it’s a different culture, I’m a guest, they do things differently here, but at that time, my inner American asshole bubbled up to the surface. “This is bullshit…we’re not gonna yell anymore.”
Then it was my turn. The man approached me. I looked him in the eye…and did nothing. He looked slightly perplexed, and offered up a command in Korean, telling me to yell from my stomach as opposed to my throat. I stood, unmoving. “Perhaps he didn’t understand,” he glanced at the co-worker standing next to me as if to explain to me in English.
“이해하지만 안 해, (I understand, but I won’t do it.)”
There was a brief moment as the words came from my mouth that I thought the guy was going to hit me, and he did…kind of. As he walked past me, he gave me one of those “good try” shoulder pats that gym coaches give out, or soccer players give the opposing team so they don’t look like jerks at the end of the game. From there he began a speech about how we didn’t give it our all and that it wasn’t Khan style and how bad we were…so I gave it my all and scream as loud as I could.
He paused, looked at me and then started again. “Khan does not look highly upon losers. Are you losers or…”
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” I bellowed again. It was the kind of a scream that while doing it you know you are going to be unable to speak the next day without horrible pain.
The man gave up and told us that we were done and could go inside. We marched off the field and while the rest of my group headed in, I stayed outside. I’d had enough for the day, I didn’t want to have to go in and take the oral exam about the Khan system and how it worked. If I was a smoker I would have smoked, but I’m not, so I just sat on a rock.
A while later when I went inside the other teachers in my group were in awe of what I had done: telling an authority figure off. Tests were finished, so we were given bread and then we all retired to our rooms for the night…only my group had a different idea involving alcohol. So we had drinks and discussed the merits of Khan, and how rediculous this whole thing was, and the fact that when I left, Sports Cut was in our room studying the Khan system.
The drinking was much better in terms of fostering an atmosphere of team unity than any of the other nonsense we had done up to that point. After many bottles of booze we all called it a night. I went back to my room and off to sleep. I awoke about 3 hours later when at 6:00, Sports Cut woke up. I looked for the bread I was given the night before, but apparently Sports Cut had eaten it. That bastard!
So after a quick shower in a sink, our group gathered together for a quick breakfast before we moved on to more Khan-style hi-jinks. The morning offered two different, simultaneous presentations: one for the teachers and one for the owners. Since I currently own little more than some books and CDs, I was forced to endure the presentation for teachers.
The teacher presentation wasn’t so much a presentation as it was a hands on experience / trip through the darkest recesses of hell. We we broken down into arbitrary groups and each group was sent up to the front of the room, one group at a time. From that group one person had to teach the Khan way while the other people in the group in the acted as students, and the other groups doodled in their books, slept, and cursed themselves for being in the room.
Somehow my group had the pleasure of being the first group to show off what we had learned. The Khan overlord selected one of the other teachers from my school to go up in front and play the part of a Khan English teacher. Perhaps inspired by my act of defiance the night before she refused. The man selected another teacher from my school. She too protested, but this time the Khan overlord was more insistant.
“Screw this…” I thought to myself and then stood up and bellowed (Khan-style), “I’ll do it!”
So I walked up to the front of the room, was handed a strange lesson plan written entirely in Korean (save for the word DVD) and was told, “Ok, teach.”
So I began teaching. Not the Khan way, but my way, making use of Khan materials. In all honesty, I was throughly under prepared to attempt to teach anything, yet somehow I had not only my fake students’ attention, but the attention of the entire audience. The laughed, did what I told them to do, and overall were in the palm of my hand, all of this inspite of the fact that the Khan overlord kept interrupting me to attempt to make me use Khan screaming tactics. “Sorry man, I can’t live by your rules!”
So I blasted through the lesson plan with a lot of “Oh, I guess we’re going to watch some sort of DVD now…that should be awesome and/or loud. Get ready to scream along kids!” Finally I was told to wrap it up…so I did with a “Alright, here’s the homework. Have a nice weekend! Peace out kids!” And I walked out of the room among a chorus of laughter and applause. I should have kept walking, but something drew me to return, so after stealing a few more handfuls of coffee mix I entered the room, and sat down with my commrades to watch the other groups present.
Like I said, I should have kept walking, since what I saw was some of the most painfully tedious teaching ever. I’m not saying every class has to be a three ring circus or a rock concert, but when teaching children, you’ve got to be at least a tad engaging or else kids are going to sleep, doodle, or engage in other non-academic persuits during class time. So on the one end of the bad teaching scale were teachers that were just mind-numbingly dull. On the other end was “S-Tina T-shirt.”
I think she actually wanted to say “Estina Teacher,” but it came out as “S-tina T-shirt.” I’m not one to make fun of the average person’s English ability, since it’s their second language, but if you are an English teacher, you should at least be able to speak the language with some fluency. This woman made the same kinds of mistakes that elementary school students I teach make. Things like “Open book,” (as opposed to “open the books,” or “open your book,”), “eh-buh-ri-ba-ti,” (in place of “everybody,”) and then my favorite, “Look at my teacher’s eyes.” I’m not really sure what she was attempting to say, and I wasn’t the only one, since her spoken Korean wasn’t that great either. A mess of dialectic nonsense, poor English, and the Khan method made her presentation the worst…but for some reason she was given the most time.
Thankfully after some 2 hours or so, the whole thing was over. We were given certificates for successfully surviving the Khan Training Program, a hot lunch, and were sent on our way. All in all, it was a pretty huge waste of time, but at least now I can write that I received a certificate of completion for the Khan program on my resume…since it’s so important.
Prior to the immigration officals here telling me to not work, I was actively seeking employment…honestly I was! Perhaps I’ve been here too long and I’m not as trusting anymore, or maybe the 학원 (學院 / hagwon) owners in this area are slightly more dishonest, but while searching for jobs I had a hard time finding decent ones.
I’ve lived in Korea a while now, and I know what type of jobs I would be miserable working at, and therefore in my job search I avoided applying for things positions that included the word “kindy” in their discription. This was not so much that I hate kindergarten, it’s just that the chunk of a word that is, “kindy” annoys me to no end…it’s like people that use the letter U to mean “you,” but clearly I digress.
So as I was saying, jobs I know I don’t want, I don’t apply for. Apparently this technic doesn’t work that well here in Korea, since each and every job interview I ended up going to was completely different than the job I applied for. So here’s a run down.
The first job I applied for was a job that went from 9:30 until 2:00 including an hour for lunch. This was a kindergarten job, but they did not use the word “kindy,” I wake up early anyhow and would like to be home before 10:00pm, the pay was good, and it was apparently close to my house. At least that’s what the ad would have had me believe. In reality, the school was not the 15 minute walk from my home the ad made it out to be, but was more like an hour or so…there are buses, but I’ve had about all I can take of being bused to and from work (which is why I didn’t apply for jobs farther away), then in the meeting the lady acted as if she had not even read my resume (which she probably had not), “So did you graduate from college?” “Why yes I did…and you would have known that if you had read my resume beyond the phone number.” The thing that actually turned me off from the school the most was the fact that the alleged 9:30 to 2:00 was in reality 9:00 until 4:40 (which later morphed into 5:00) two days a week, and 9:00 to 7:00 three days a week with meetings after 7:00 ever Friday night. Thanks but no thanks. So the lady drew me a map of how to get back to the subway station (since someone had picked me up in a car).
Later I applied for a job for a position a couple subway stops away. It was a part-time job, the pay was good, the hours were awesome, and the location was good enough. A few days after applying for the position I recieved an e-mail from the fellow alerting me to an awesome position in the city of 일산 (Ilsan), which is not anywhere near where I am living. I alerted the fellow to this, “Wow, that is a pretty outstanding position, but I live nowhere near Ilsan and have no desire to move there. Please feel free to e-mail me with any jobs you have close to the place listed as my mailing address on my resume which you have a copy of,” interestingly enough I’ve yet to hear back from him.
And then there was the ultimate. I wanted so much for the job to be good. Really I did, but walking out of my apartment, bidding my wife farewell, I just knew that the job was going to be horrible. I arrived at the subway station where I was to meet this character for an interview and after a brief walk was at the school to have said interview.
So far my fears seemed to be unfounded. The interview went fairly well, the owner seemed to be a pretty amiable fellow, his English was a little hard to understand at times, but over all he seemed to be a alright guy, until he uttered this, “So now I’ll take you over to the school you’ll be teaching at. Let’s take my car it will be faster.”
So we got in the car and drove and drove for miles, past my house, past the super market, on and on we drove, listening to AFN Radio in the car while a computer bellowed directions at the driver in Korean, “TURN RIGHT IN 100 METERS! 50 METERS! 10 METERS! NOW ASSHOLE! NOW!!!” After what seemed like a century we arrived. “Ok Wyatt, no matter how bad the job is, at least feign interest so they will give you a ride home instead of drawing a map…there’s no way in hell you can walk home this time.”
We entered the school, which in all honesty looked great. A bubbly, yet impossible to understand woman greeted us in English…I think. Apparently this would be the woman I would actually be working for, so she too wanted to interview me. So she began to interview me, only I couldn’t understand her…so in Korean I told her, “저는 한국말 조금만 할 줄 알아요. 그래서…” But before I could finish that thought, she cut me off.
“NO KOREAN! YOU MUST ENGLISH!”
“But there aren’t any students here right now. Wouldn’t it be easier to speak Korean?”
“ENGLISH! YOU MUST ENGLISH!”
So I Englished, and muddled through the interview. She, for her part, went on and on about the school and it’s swimming pool (which was empty). I, having already spent more time than I wanted to at this interview, wanted to cut beating around the bush and get right to the point.
“Yes, the pool is nice, but could I see the contract.”
The contract came out and I looked it over. It seemed to be pretty standard fare: “We own you for one year. During that time, should you happen to look at us the wrong way, we retain the right to fire your ass and cancel your visa.” All in all a standard hagwon contract.
Among all the Engrish legalise, there was something I had never seen before in a contract. Apparently one of the reasons that could lead to the early termination of a teacher was “overt homosexuality.” There was a brief moment of outrage, and “That would never fly in America!” before I realized just how rediculous the wording was.
Overt homosexuality? To me that brings to mind hardcore gay sex, and if a guy happens to be on the giving or recieving end of some man-love at the school he should get canned. But, by that same token, engaging in overt heterosexuality at the school should be cause for dismisal. Is there something less offensive about heterosexual pounding in a kindergarten? The answer is no, and that both are disgusting and creepy.
As the lady continued talking about the virtues of an empty pool, I realized that they probably just meant “homosexuality.” I began thinking of the rammifications of such a stipulation. What if I were to wear a pink tie to work, or spend a little too much time on my hair one day, or happen to wear my assless chaps to work.
“Sorry Wyatt, we’re going to have to let you go…you’re in clear violation of the overt homosexuality clause.”
“But I’m straight! I can prove it!”
I was tempted to ask about this clause, but remembered I was miles from home, and had no idea how to return, so I held my tounge. What I did not hold my tounge about was housing.
All full-time teaching jobs in Korea (at least every job I’ve ever seen) offers their teachers an apartment, or money towards an apartment of the teacher’s own. Due to the fact that my marriage provided me with a vastly more badass house that any hagwon could ever offer, I went for option number two: the money.
“I have a house already, so I don’t need the apartment. How much of a housing allowance do you offer each month?”
“Zero.”
“Zero?”
“Yes, you already have a house.”
“I know, that’s why I want the money instead of a house.”
“But we don’t do that.”
“Then I’ll take an apartment.”
“But you said you have a house already.”
“I know, but you aren’t going to give me a housing allowance, so I want the apartment.”
By this time I’d had enough. A bait and switch, a lengthy car ride, getting yelled at for attempting to increase efficancy by speaking Korean, a prohibition on overt homosexuality, and now no housing. I was ready to go home…so I did.
The next day, some jerk at immigration told me not to work…so I stopped looking for a job, and started exercising.
A meer two days after failing my written test for my driver’s liscense, I found myself once again face to face with the irrational beast that is Korean beauacracy. The day started off innocently enough, I found myself sitting in a cafe with my Korean teacher, explaining about my failed attempt at becoming a liscensed driver in Korea.
Before I departed from my homestead that morning, my wife informed me that after my class we would be going to the local immigration office to apply for my F-2 (family member) visa. Now this visa is a visa most awesome! As an English teacher in Korea, I have very little control over my own destiny, mainly due to the fact that the school I work at controls my visa. I quit, they cancel my visa, I’m in Korea illegally. The school decides to randomly close…again my visa ceases to exist and I’m in a world of hurt legally. The F-2 visa would allow me to taste the sweet freedom of being able to quit a job without any sort of reprecussion should I so desire. The F-2 visa would allow me the freedom to not work should I chose to go study something…or randomly ride my bicycle about. In sort the F-2 visa is awesome!
But like all things totally awesome: Nintendo circa 1986, Kirby Puckett rookie cards, or cases of beer at age 19 (in America); the F-2 visa is a little bit hard to come by. First you have to find a Korean person willing to marry you. Ok, I accomplished that. The next part is where beaucracy first reers it’s ugly head. Like those seemingly pointless quests in any role playing video game (”Collect for me 3 troll heads, Moon Powder, and a complete set of 1988 Topps Baseball cards and I will award you with a weapon of unstoppable fury!”) my wife and I…well really just my wife, had to collect all manners of random papers. Marriage liscense, id cards, family registry, my passport and id card…and proof of employment stating that my wife was able to take care of my sorry ass.
It was this proof of employment, like the three troll heads, that was impossible to come by, since my wife was not employed at the time. The Korean government was willing to cut us some slack though…if we couldn’t get that proof of employment, a bank statement declaring that she had 30,000,000원 (approx. $30,000 US) would be good enough. Between the two of us, we had a little under that ammount, so we also needed to present the deed to the apartment we were living in.
After a morning of jackassing about collecting papers, we headed off to the immigration office. Since I technically no longer live in Seoul, I had to travel to a different immigration office than the one I normally visit. I had to visit one of the immigration offices out in the provinces, and man were there a lot of South East Asians in the house!
Normally a trip to immigration in Seoul will result in at least one, possibly two conversations with Canadians while waiting for my number to be called. At this place, I was the only white person out of the more than 50 or so people waiting around for numbers to be called. So we filled out the papers we needed to fill out, purchased some stamps to affix to our documents, and than sat down and studied some Korean while we waited, and waited…and waited to be called up.
While waiting I located a box with slips of papers for Kindness Reports and Unkindness Reports that could be filled out evaluating the service of the immigration gestapo that attended to us. I took both, a placed them in my pocket for future use. Shortly there after our number rang and we walked over to the window.
Some jerk with a Yao Ming-esque crew cut addressed us shortly, “Give me your papers, passport, and identification card.”
Now I can imagine the stress that dealing with an endless stream of immigrants must cause this man, but right away I began to feel the urge to crumple up the Kindness Report resting in my coat pocket. We handed over the papers to the gentleman as requested and he proceeded to ask us some questions.
My wife then alerted him to the fact that my job would be ending soon (or had already ended), which prompted the gentleman to go on and on about a two month investigation that would have to be conducted since we were getting married. He claimed that people would come to my home, and that phone calls would be made to my place of employment, and that the whole thing would take 2 months.
“Two months?!” my wife and I bellowed in unison.
Nathan (of Seoul Hero), as well as one of our other friends were both recently married and both applied for F-2 visas which were issued within 2 weeks time. Perhaps the man made a mistake.
“Ah…you must mean two weeks,” my wife proclaimed.
“No. I said two months,” the man continued, “A lot of Chinese and South East Asians fake marriages to stay in the country so we have to check everyone.”
Now, I may not have the whitest skin, but that was the first time I had ever been confused with someone from Vietnam. Clearly my wife thought the same thing.
“But as you can see, he is not from China…”
“Everyone!”
I’m going to give the immigration office credit for at least being fair in this regard. I’m not thinking I should get special treatment due to my nationality. But I still had a question regarding the fairness of the system, “Why is it only two weeks in Seoul?”
We got no answer. The man took our papers and told us that someone would appear to check in on us when we least expected it. We then brought up the point that my current visa would expire while this two month background check went down. The man insisted that this wouldn’t be a problem so long as I didn’t attempt to get work…basically he was saying, “Well buddy, for the next two months, sit on your ass and watch rock videos and cartoons at youtube.com,” which was not what I really wanted to hear.
Once out of the immigration office, my wife began jamming on the phone, calling friends, family, and other immigration offices across the country, and in the process learned that the office we went to had the longest turn around time from application to issuing of the visa.
One of the best things about moving into my current place of residence is the abundence of things I now at my disposal that meer months ago I could only dream of having access to. On the lower end of this spectrum are things such as some awesome books, and a scanner (hence the recent posts built around a scanned image of something I found on the street in the first months of my arrival), on the upper end of this is a car.
That’s right there’s a car here…a car that no one knows how to drive. My wife recieved her driver’s license and then never got behind the wheel of a car again. My father in law, upon hearing that I was a licensed driver (in the State of New York) for 10 years now, thought it would be a good idea if I instructed his daughter (my wife) on how to use this car. The only thing is I would need a valid license in Korea if I wanted to take the car out of the parking lot.
So it was Wednesday, February 1st, 2006 and I headed out to the Korean version of the department of motor vehicles. Since I already had a valid license issued elsewhere in the world I was exempt from most parts of the test. I had to fill out a form, have a health exam, and then take a written test of the rules of the road. Easy enough task…or so I thought.
The paperwork I needed to fill out was not that bad, but like all Korean government institutions, filling out the papers required me to fill things out, get them stamped, walk down some flights of stairs to purchase proof-of-purchase stamps, walk back upstairs, wait in line again, and give the woman that originally stamped my papers the papers that now had proof-of-purchase stamps on it. Not really bad or difficult, just annoying, and kind of a waste of time. Wouldn’t it make more sense to simply pay the person who is stamping your paper? Anyhow I digress.
With papers stamped and stamped again, it was time for the physical examination. I entered a little building in the parking lot, and was ushered into a small room with three women sitting at a table. I handed the first woman my sheet of paper, and she then administered an eye exam which went well until I mixed up the Korean words for 8 and 9 (again) and she thought my eyes were worse than they are when really it’s my Korean that’s bad. The woman passed my paper to the next woman at a table and I moved down the line.
The next woman uttered two English words at me, “Sit down.” I looked around, but there was no chair to be found. I kind of shrugged, and then remembering this is Korea, kind of squatted as if I was using a Turkish toilet. “Good enough!” The paper was passed down the line, and I moved on to the final test.
The third woman opened up a book to a page with a circle of red dots with a number made of green dots in the center. Now inspite of what my wife or sister may proclaim, I am not color blind. I don’t know the difference between “eggshell,” “white,” or “parchment,” but I know my primary (and secondary) colors! “5! 74!” I bellowed triumphantly. My paper was further stamped up as fanfare blared and I was ushered out of the room.
With all that nonsense behind me, it was time for a written test. An easy enough task, or so I thought. It’s going to be a lot of “Who has the right of way,” “What does this sign mean,” “How do you correctly pass,” questions I explained to my wife as I waited to be called into the testing room. My name was called, and a police officer lead me to the computer terminal where I would be taking this exam. After signing in, the test begain.
“In the event of an acident (sic) what is the first thing you should do?”
Acident?! Oh damn…this is going to be a lot harder than I thought it would be. Hard was an understatement. I mean perhaps if I had taken a first aid class I might have been able to pass (since there were no less than 4 first aid related questions). However, the only knowledge I have of life saving techniques came from those public service announcements at the end of GI Joe cartoons, and since none of the answers to any of the first aid related questions contained the phrase, “and knowing is half the battle. GI JOE!!!” I was out of luck.
Then there was the easy question. Such an easy question. I should have knocked it out of the park…
Which vehicle will always have the right of way?
a) a motorcycle
b) an ambulance with flashing lights
c) a car
d) a bus
Since I had actually learned how to drive in America, I answered B, an ambulance…completely forgetting that this test was being administered in Korea, therefore making the correct answer D, the bus. The bus is the biggest and has the loudest horn, therefore giving it the right of way in all situations.
But perhaps the best question of all was this gem: “The following sentences are statements about left hand turns. Which one?”
Which one? Which one what? Which one is correct? Which one is incorrect? Which one does not contain a typo? Nothing…it was just “Which one?”
Needless to say I did not pass the test…nor did either of the other two white guys who took the test in English. So we went back downstairs and asked about taking the test again. I would have to wait at least 24 hours before attempting again, and the lady at the desk gave me a book to study with these words of encouragement, “It probably isn’t going to help you on the test at all, but you might want to read this.” So I did read it, and she is probably right, it’s not going to help me much on the test. But that’s not to say I didn’t learn anything in reading the guide to driving. Here are some of the more enlightening moments of the book, scanned for your pleasure.
Traffic Rule #1
Oh I’m sorry, did my attempts to draw attention to the fact that I’m being carjacked disrupt the flow of traffic? Next time I’ll just let my attacker take me back to his lair where he’ll chop me up into little pieces and fashion a tunic out of my skins. Wouldn’t want to cause a scene.
Traffic Rule #2
Man, I guess this means no more Friday night dance parties in the backseat of the Hyundai. I was not aware that the driver of the car was responsible for making sure such behavior did not go down…or was I aware that dancing by passengers of moving automobiles was such a problem that it warranted being included in the driver’s manual.
Traffic Rule #3
This isn’t that funny, unless you consider the fact that the book didn’t include information on things such as how to regain control of the car if it is skidding off the road due to wet or icy conditions, or how you can escape from a car submerged in water, or even the distance one car should be behind another car while driving in normal conditions, the inclusion of this rule (with illustration no less) becomes pretty damn funny (to the likes of me anyhow).
But, when the bulk of the images in the driver’s manual look like this, I guess what I should really be asking myself is why bother? I mean look at that mess. There are explosions and fires and cars all over the place. Do I really need to deal with that? Especially if while avoiding certain death I have to be on the lookout for puddles I may splash someone with, and keep an eye on my passengers to make sure no spontaneous raves have broken out in the backseat. The answer is…no, especially since I have a bicycle.
Yesterday started like every other day. I woke up watched some crappy television for a bit and then it was time to get ready to head off to Korean class. Now this is where the day went from being fairly normal to being odd. When I turned on the hot water in the shower, nothing came out. “Wow, that’s nice…frozen pipes!” I thought to myself. I didn’t have enough time to wait around for pipes to thaw, so it was the coldest shower on earth and then I was off to adventure.
Fast fowarding 14 hours I arrived back home (after some truly insane adventures that will be discussed at a later date) to find that whatever it was that had rendered my hot water useless earlier in the day had apparently spread to my heater. “(Making Sweet Sweet Love)! What am I going to do? I know! 집주인 (The landlord) will save my ass!”
So I dial up the landlord. “We’re sorry, the number you have dialed is not in service. Please hang up and try again!” Apparently the landlord changed his number without alerting me. So I walked across the hall and knocked on the door. I asked my neighbor if she had the landlord’s new phone number. She didn’t, but her 오빠 (either live in boyfriend or actual older brother did)…and he wasn’t home. She called him and a minute later he sent her a message with the landlord’s number. She asked me what the trouble was. I explained that I had no hot water in the morning, and now I had no heat.
“Oh you’re going to be really cold. Do you have an electric blanket? No?! Do you want to borrow one until the heat is turned back on?”
“Let me call first. If he can fix it tonight (not likely since it was 11:30pm), I don’t need it.”
I dialed the landlord and as I figured there was nothing that could be done until tomorrow at the earliest. My neighbor lent me the electric blanket and I was on my way to sleep through the coldest night of the year (thus far) with no heat.
The electric blanket got the job done, and I awoke safe and sound in the morning (read as I didn’t freeze to death or get electrocuted by the blanket). With sleep out of the way, I was faced with my next task: showering. Since the prior day I had taken the hobo shower, I felt as though it would be in my best interest to actually do things like wash my hair, but with when I turned on my shower, ice cubes shot out of the shower head, thus putting the kabosh on the shower.
Unfortunately I still stank. I had an idea. I went into the kitchen and got a large pot, filled it was water and heated it. (Note to self: boiling water is really hot. It is not a good idea to put your finger in the water to see how warm it is). Several minutes later when the water had cooled off I was able to wash my hair and give myself a quick scrub down. Serious amounts of deodorant were applied, and I headed off to adventure.
Were this any other country, working or even riding the subway would offer a respit from the frigid conditions I had endured the night before, but not in Korea. Most buildings: stores, schools, restaurants, ect. are without any sort of central heating, which is why were you to walk around from shop to shop in Seoul today you would see countless clerks bundled up like eskimos huddled around space heaters (at present I am in my office at school wearing a parka, a winter cap, and gloves [any typos can be blamed on said gloves]).
The subways are no better. This morning while waiting at a particular subway station for my train I felt a cold draft blowing into me. Looking up I came to understand exactly what it was. The air conditioner was on! I am not even kidding.
Anyhow, it’s another cold day, and I hope to Jesus, Mohammad, or Buddha (or all three) that my heater has been repaired by the time I return home this evening. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.
I’m not really a fan of getting my hair done, but since I don’t want a mullet, from time to time I must make a pilgrimage to the hair salon and get a chop. So it was with great loathing yesterday morning that I headed off to my local hair shop to get something done about the early stage mullet that had developed. Usually the place I go is pretty decent. They are quick and don’t waste time chatting with me.
But yesterday my experience was something different. I don’t know if it was because the girl who cut my hair was new or what, but instead of taking the usual 30 minutes or so to cut and wash my hair, this trip took well over an hour. Perhaps she had never encountered a caucasian’s hair before and found it to be fascinating, or perhaps she was just really serious about her craft and instead of giving me a hair cut gave me a hair style, but the way she cut my hair pissed me off. Instead of cutting my hair off in big chunks, she cut the hair off in microscopic portions, thus increasing the total time of the hair cut ten fold.
Years later when she was actually finished cutting my hair she lead me over to the sink to wash my hair. Again this took way entirely too much time. Hair shops (and every other shop for that matter) are all about providing “service” (서비스) as a means of attracting repeat clientele. For those of you who know me, or think you know me, know, I hate wasting time. When I go to a hair salon, I’m going for a hair cut. I have a girlfriend now, if I want someone to massage my scalp I’ll ask her to do that. Also since I’m not 6 years old anymore, I can clean my own ears out and don’t need someone else doing that for me.
However, the thing that irked me the most about this trip to the salon was the fact that the woman cutting my hair didn’t listen to me. When I sat down in the chair we had a conversation like this (only in Korean):
HER: Do you use wax? (editor’s note: When did junk like mousse become known as wax? Or is that just a Korean thing?) ME: No. I don’t use wax. HER: Ok so I won’t use any wax then. ME: Thank you. I don’t like wax…it makes my hair feel hard. HER: Alright, I understand.
So after the wash, ear cleaning, scalp massage, I sat down in the chair again, and she dried my hair and then began to apply wax. Now in all fairness in the six years I was in the chair I forgot a lot of stuff as well. Even after I enquired as to what she was doing and told her I didn’t need wax, she was like, “Oh I forgot…well it’s already in your hair now, so I’ll just style it.” “Fine.”
Below is was my hair looked like after the styling.
Wait, I’m not an Asian person…so my hair looked more like this:
I’m not a fan of anime, and I certainly don’t want to look like Guile from Street Fighter 2, and I want my hair to be soft for my girlfriend. Seriously, who want to run their hands through a head of hair that feels like a porcupine? Also to me dudes that put hella gunk in their hair always seemed like they were trying to hard…like those sleaze bag guys at night clubs with a dress shirt half unbuttoned and gold chains…another reason I don’t want that crap in my hair. Which leads me to my conclusion…the fine people at Ronco had the right idea when they created the Flowbee.
So perhaps I need to contact my local Flowbee dealer and see about getting myself a Flowbee to avoid future frustration. But I jest, I jest. In all reality my hair (once I got the wax out) turned out really well…and I no longer have to worry about people thinking, “Who’s that crazy bastard with a mullet on his skull?” when they see me.
So I have a girlfriend which means I don’t have as much time to do things like watch really crappy TV, or look at internet porn, or even read the news. So with that being said, most of you have probably already heard this story. Since there was a shocking piece of video footage to go along with the story, it quickly became important world news. I first heard the story on NHK and were it not for the little 韓国 appearing on the screen I wouldn’t have known that it was a Korean related story at all (since I can’t understand Japanese at all). Anyhow on with the news story!
SEOUL, South Korea — A South Korean subway train started away with a baby in a stroller stuck in its doors on Thursday, and the whole incident was caught on surveillance video.
The video showed the 30-year-old mother wheeling her baby’s stroller into the train.
The doors closed with the mother still standing on the platform when the train started off.
Unable to pull the stroller from the doors, the mother and a bystander were dragged along the subway platform as they held on.
The mother said she grabbed her baby out of the stroller, but her jacket was still stuck between the doors.
After going about 30 yards, the train stopped at the end of the platform.
The baby was not injured, but the mother suffered minor head injuries.
Now I wasn’t there, so I don’t know what happened prior to the woman attempting to enter the subway car, but I can say that I’m not surprised at all that this happened. In fact what is surprising is that it doesn’t happen more often. I can not count the number of times I have seen people (including women with strollers) attempt to board subway trains while the doors are closing. Now I too have boarded the subway in a fashion akin to Indiana Jones grabbing his hat from under that stone door in Temple of Doom, but there is a big difference between me and these women, that being I don’t have a helpless child with me.
But Korea is a nation that is hell-bent on doing things quickly. I can’t count how often I hear “빨리! 빨리! (Quickly! Quickly!)” bellowed on any given day. Koreans want to get there faster and finish quicker, regardless of what the task is. This is the reason bus drivers drive like they are the only people on the road, paying no mind to the carnage they leave in their wake. This is why delivery men haul ass on sidewalks attempting to avoid traffic jams. This is why a previous girlfriend who shall not be named, would call a pizza place if they hadn’t delivered to our house 15 minutes after we ordered. And this is why my students will rush to finish their classwork.
I can’t really understand this need to rush through life that seems to dominate all areas of life here. My students, for example, rush to finish their work. If their writing is illegible, or there are countless spelling or grammatical mistakes I will erase what they had written and make them do it again. The end result? They usually end up being the last ones to finish…though had the taken the time to do it well the first time they would have finished when everyone else did instead of 5 minutes later because they needed to be the first to yell, “I’m finished!”
Anyhow back to the news story at hand, I’m glad the woman and child weren’t seriously injured, but I hope that she and the population at large learn to slow down with somethings.
Each morning I read the newspaper and this morning I came this most outstanding editorial. As someone has recieved more than my fair share of motorcycle enemas, I for one am totally on the same page as this guy.
[A READER’S VIEW]A closer look in the Korean mirror
I was born and lived in Seoul until the age of 28. Like all Korean males I dutifully performed military service. After graduating from university I lived overseas in various countries doing various jobs. I am now 32, living in Seoul again, and am married with two lovely children. I mention all of this because, with the exception of having spent almost four years overseas, I am exactly like you: an average Korean, who works an average job, is devoted to his family and loves his country.
I said that I love Korea. And because of this I want to shout out and warn all of us to give this country the wake-up call it so desperately needs. Aside from pockets of wealth throughout the city and country, as a whole we are still living in the mid-twentieth century. In comparison to other first world countries - which we like to believe ourselves on par with - we are years, if not decades behind. We have the financial means to keep pace with the planet’s heavy rollers, but that is where the proverbial buck stops.
Why are we sharing sidewalks with motorcycles and scooters? Our Seoul government office has just spent billions revitalizing a river and recently hosted a global mayor’s conference. I was there. And I felt anything but pride. It was embarrassing having mayors (and their representatives) from Rome and Tokyo sidestepping scooters and breathing in their fumes as they walked along city-center sidewalks. This doesn’t happen in other large first world metropolitan centers. A motorcycle zipping along the sidewalks of Chicago? A scooter blowing on its horn for pedestrians to clear the way in London? Never!!
And that is just the beginning. I live next to a traditional style Korean market, and I walk through it daily as I commute to work. I am amazed at how vehicles are allowed to pass freely down these narrow paths. It creates a dirty mesh of chaos amongst those shopping and walking. But more drastically, with the inherent congestion, these vehicles are allowed to idle endlessly, allowing their toxic exhaust to pour over the fresh produce which we feed our children. And this is not even to mention the insects and flies allowed to crawl on the raw meat for sale (shaded by only an umbrella), or the men and women spitting up phlegm next to the onions and cabbages that my four-year-old daughter has to eat. Frankly, it is disgusting. I feel as though I am walking home back to my cave in these instances - not my fancy high-rise apartment.
My favorite, however, and one that makes me wonder who is running things in this city - and brings me to tears every time - is the mosquito repellent pumping out of the back of makeshift three-wheelers. Again our kids breathe these toxins in as parents allow them to chase these toxic fumes on their bicycles.
This is absolutely archaic. No other first-world country in the world allows these things to happen. Aside from an architecturally blase stream of apartment buildings rising from the ground, Seoul at street level more closely resembles Calcutta or Shanghai - and even then a Shanghai of five years past. As Koreans we have been entirely blinded by our quick rise to financial wealth. Sure Koreans can build top-rate mobile phone products and a great flat-screen television. Sure we are connected to the internet at a higher percentage than any other country. But is this really how we want to be seen - as a group of technological nerds that has no concern about the day to day well-being of citizens and neighbors?
You may wonder why I am writing this in English. I have done so in an effort to show foreigners who live or travel here - those that send messages about Korea back to their home countries - that self-awareness is on the horizon. Korea may be starting to wake up to the 21st century in a manner that is not just digitally and financially induced (though sadly there is hardly any evidence pointing to this at present).
As Seoulites, and as Koreans in general, we must recognize and acknowledge the global community that now lives amongst us, and recognize that money and technology are not the only keys that open the door to the international community. Even China is already taking steps in this direction, having recently banned spitting in public and queue jumping. In order to build a better place for everyone to live in, in order to attract foreign investment and make Korea desirable, we not only have to wave the merits of the Korean flag, but we also need to acknowledge our faults and correct them. As a community working together we can build a country that really is up to date in every manner - and not just an archaic throwback to third world levels with fancy mobile phones on our hips and the occasional thick wallet.
By Park Kyong-don
2005.10.14
Park Kyong-don is a systems engineer living in Seoul. - Ed.
Living in a country outside of America (or Canada for that matter), I am exposed to a different culture on a daily basis. One of the smaller cultural differences that exist in Korea (and the rest of Asia to my knowledge) is the fact that one does not wear shoes inside their house. For the longest time I didn’t really understand the logic behind this practice, that was until last night.
Last night I was waiting for the bus to take me out of the country back to the city. This particular bus stop is in front of a small restaurant. So I am waiting at this bus stop with an assortment of other people: old men, some high school aged girls, housewives with babies strapped to their back, everyone. Suddenly, a man came out of the restaurant with a small child and in one swift move, pulled the child’s pants down so the child could proceed to urinate…all over the shoes of one of the high school girls.
The man then took the child back into the restaurant to finish up dinner, without so much as apologizing to the girl. If I had been that girl I would have been seriously enraged and would have torn the man and his kid apart like a lion, especially when you consider the fact that the restaurant has a bathroom in it (this I know from first hand experience), so instead of using the bathroom there (or waiting to use the bathroom), this guy and his kid decided to urinate on someone’s shoes.
As I got on the bus I had a light bulb moment, “Ah ha! So that’s why Korean’s take off their shoes inside…they never know who might have pissed on them!”
Anyone who rides the rails in Seoul…funk dat, in any city anywhere in the world, can attest that the subway is lousey with beggars. Here in Seoul the beggars usually attempt to provide some sort of service to the riders. They might walk around with a low quality cassette player strapped to themselves, blasting tunes (usually tunes about God). They might sing along to the tape. They might sell packs of gum marked up 300%, but they all attempt to provide some service to the riders…until the jerk I came across today.
It was roughly 12:00 in the afternoon and I was riding the orange line (line number 3) into the countryside where I work (actually I was riding to the station where I catch the bus into the countryside, but who really wants to split hairs). For whatever reason I was completely exhausted earlier in the day, and while riding the rails decided to take a quick nap. Who am I kidding, I didn’t decided to nap, I just fell asleep.
I couldn’t really tell you how long I was asleep, or if I really was asleep, since I recall hearing all the stations being announced, and what side of the train the exit was on, but I also know I had some crazy dream, the contents of which I am going to keep to myself…but I digress. I was roused from my slumber by someone shaking my arm. I opened my eyes and saw a hand in my face. Some crazy old man was shaking me with one arm, and waving his other hand in my face looking for money.
I looked at him and asked, “What?” (it’s amazing how quickly I loose the ability to speak Korean when panhandlers or “courtesy” calls get up in my area), so the guy moved on. I was now awake, and started to watch this jerk at work. His tactic was to shake the people who were asleep and then stand and continue shaking them until the put coins in his waiting fist. I know at one point this fucking prick smacked some guy in the face attempting to get his attention (the guy was way too into studying some text book and was oblivious to the beggar). Thankfully there were few people on the train and the fucking asshole moved on rather quickly.
Now I know it is a lot harder to be poor or homeless in Korea than it is to be poor or homeless in America (or Canada). I know of no actual social services in Korea (aside this), but that being said, if you are going to ask people you don’t know to give you money, you could at least do so with a little respect, and to any Korean hobos that happen to be reading this, don’t bother waking up sleeping foreigners…they aren’t going to give you any money.
Oh how I hate Gwyneth Paltrow, let me count the ways! For starters, she is Cameron Diaz only instead of being a dumb blonde, she is a self-righteous dumb blonde. To quote the great sage and poet of our times, MC Hammer, “You think you’re better than me? That’s foolish!”
Next up, she’s married to the asshole from Coldplay, which has to be the most retarded band ever. “Hi, we are in Coldplay, we make the same album of bland, inoffensive ‘rock’ again and again, and morons keep buying it!”
Lately, for some reason, Mrs. “I Breed With a Member of Coldplay” has become quite the corporate whore. First she accepted a multimillion dollar deal with the manufactures of iPods, and Apple ][, Apple Computers to name her unholy spawn of Coldplay, Apple, and now here in Korea I have to see her face all over television and the sides of buses, whoring herself for a clothing company named Beanpole.
I’d not heard of Beanpole prior to moving to Korea, and I have my doubts about Beanpole being a truly the “international” company as it’s webpage claims it is (since all searches I’ve done only turn up results for Korean pages). So perhaps Mrs. “I’m Cameron Diaz But Will Make You Feel Guilty About Looking At My Ass” Paltrow, thinks that she can fly under the radar, make some quick greenbacks (or won since this is Korea), and still act like she’s a serious actress who is seriously about her “craft.”
Well, fuck you Gwyneth, I’m on to you! And now the 12 people who read this website and live outside of Korea will be on to you too! Behold, the commercials!
I don’t know who the dude is, but hopefully he too is someone that takes their “craft” really seriously so people can yell about him being a “sellout” for appearing in these commercials.
Back while I was in America, and any time I happen to catch an American news broadcast or any late night TV hack (cough cough Leno cough) on AFN I am hit with news stories / jokes with taglines / punchlines like “pain at the pump” / taking it in the ass at the gas station.
Well now that I’ve lived overseas for some time I going to say to America, “Welcome to the rest of the world.” Every joker interviewed on every “outrageous” gas price story comes off as a pompous ass, “Over $2 for a gallon of gas?! That’s outrageous!”
To those people I say, don’t bother living in any other country. I took this picture this afternoon at the gas station near my house. The prices here actually seem a little bit lower than other gas stations I’ve seen here in Korea, but it gives you an idea of what’s going on.
The price of gas at the gas station near my house. The 1499 gas is “volatile oil” the 1210 gas is “light oil.” I don’t know what the difference is between the two since I don’t own a car here. I’m going to assume that it’s like premium and regular back in the USA.
For the sake of simplicity, we’re going to say that 1,000 won is equal to $1US. Prices look pretty good don’t they? Oh wait, you’re probably forgetting that America is the only country that actually uses gallons. This is the price per liter. For the uninitiated, 1 gallon is approximately 3.79 liters (way to make me do math people…god I hate you so much).
Say what?! That means that gas would be around $4 a gallon, and like I said, these prices are pretty low compared to other places I’ve seen, so America quit yer bitchin’! And if the price of gas is such a problem, trade in your tank of a SUV vehicle for a bike or a bus pass.
As this summer’s appearance of “jelly shoes” as a fashion trend proves it takes awhile for western fashion trends to get across the sea to Korea, so it is only fairly recently that Korean men are getting into the “real men wear pink” trend in hip-hop fashion (I know this fad started earlier back in the good old US of A).
Allow me to state right off the bat that I think this is the most assinine fashion trend ever…even more assinine than the Ugg He-man boots thing from this past winter or Co-ed Naked shirts (you know that shit got whack when it would be like “Co-ed Naked Being Naked. We Got Nothing Left Guys.”)
“What Wyatt, you think pink is a girl color?”
No, it’s not that at all. I own a couple of pink shirts. I don’t think pink is a “girl color” or a “gay color.” The thing that makes this trend rediculous is how overkill they take it. Take for example the buffoon I saw this morn on my way into work. He was equipped with the following items (all in the same New Baby Girl shade of pink): baggy clown pants, shirt that would have fit K-1 fighter Akebono, Nike sneakers, messenger bag (containing a pink umbrella…though the umbrella was a slightly different shade of pink), and flat brimmed hat worn at a 37 degree angle to his face. Also he had an mp3 player hung around his neck that was shaped like Hello Kitty’s head.
It was way too much. Dude you want to wear a pink shirt for fat guys when you weight 120 pounds? Go for it, but maybe wear some blue jeans. Feel like sporting pink pantaloons? Go with a different color top. Wanna wear a baseball cap with a flat brim at a stupid angle? Go throw yourself on a train track…
The point is when it comes to pink clothing, like everything in life, moderation is the key. Sitting two seats over from this pink hip-hop mook, was a guy clad in jeans and a pink shirt, and to look at him it wasn’t “Holy shit that’s a lot of pink,” it was more like “Look at that gay guy in the pink shirt,” since his shirt proclaimed, “Hot Stuff Coming Through,” and everyone remembers that episode of The Simpsons.
Today I learned a very important thing about going to school in Korea…there’s no such thing as a sick day. Some sort of summer plague is running roughshod over the school children in 고양시 like a disco inferno.
My first class of the day is my class of first grade (and a couple second grade) maniacs. Things are going pretty well, until suddenly a child (let’s call him John, since that’s his title) starts crying. Now in a class of seven boys, crying is not outside of the realm of possibility, though in this particular incident, he was sitting alone and everyone is class was actually paying attention.
So this kid is balling, I ask him what’s wrong in Korean (which shocked the rest of class since I don’t speak Korean in front of them ever), and then asked if he had a stomach ache. He claimed he did, so I walked him out of the class to go see the secretary. As he walked I noticed a not unfamiliar scent. The kid had shat himself. Luckily for him, none of his classmates seemed to notice the smell or the fact that he had a greasy brown stain on the ass of his slacks.
Now the kid was clearly ill when he came in today and I could not understand why his parents sent him in. A similar (albeit less disgusting) sequel to this event occured later in the day when the class of five and sixth graders came in. One of the boys who is usually out of control was looking very subdued. I asked him what was wrong and he explained that he was sick and had puked at school earlier in the day.
ME: Didn’t you get to go home?
HIM: No…I had to clean it and then go back to class.
ME: What the f? Why did you come here today? Why aren’t you at home?
HIM: I have to study.
ME: Well, don’t even think about puking in here. Ok?
HIM: Ok.
He didn’t vomit at all in class, which is a good thing, since I stopped teaching kindergarten I had not had to deal with any disgusting bodily fluids, and if I had to deal with two in one day, it might have been too much to bear.
This will be quick and then I’ll let you get on with your life, or since this is the internet, downloading pornography.
Many moons ago I saw a Christian death metal band. They were sharing a bill with my brother’s ska band (you gotta love those bizarre lineups that can only come from all ages shows). I tell you this, because today’s ride on the subway was about moronic and annoying as the concept of “Christian death metal.
I boarded the train in 합정 as usually. Normally during my commute to work the trains will be be and several elderly Koreans…possibly a housewife or three. Today for some ungodly reason, the train (or at least three cars of the train) were filled with Korean elementary school kids and their overlords.
These kids were running around in the cars, screaming, swinging from hand rails, fighting each other, and whinning to their overlords. Basically they were behaving like animals. I was not sure if this is seen as appropriate behavior or not, because none of the adults in charge of these kids said a word.
I was not in the best of moods to begin with, and these little bastards were quickly getting on my last nerve. Unlike fans of the Christian death metal band in “the pit”, I couldn’t very well smack a bunch of second graders about on the train. Something needed to be done, and quick.
The train arrived at the next station, and when none of the children moved to get off, I figured I would. So I got off the train and turned around to face the door I had just exited from, awaiting the next train. For some reason the train sat there about a minute. During that time several non-school children passengers noticed what I had done, pointed me out to their cohorts and applauded me.
I waited five minutes for the next train and arrived at work with my sanity in place.
Last night while comming home, I saw the biggest asshole I’ve ever encountered in my life. All Korean men are required by law to do 2 and a half years of military service, usually while they are in college. Men who are too fat, too short, too tall, have bum knees, or other maladies, are exempt from military service, but instead serve as civil servants. Clad in green jumpsuits, these civil servants work in public parks, subways, or according to the lads in the band Popstore, the post office.
For the young men working in the subways, they usually make sure that people aren’t jumping turnstiles, or keep people behind the yellow line while trains are arriving. However after nightfall, they also have to deal with the drunks who ride the rails.
Like I said, last night I saw the biggest asshole ever. I came up a flight of stairs to the platform to await the train. I was greeted by a barage of, “개새끼 (son of a bitch),” “씨빨 (fuck),” and other lovely Korean words. Looking up I saw a biligerent drunk 아저씨 (middle aged man) being restrained by a lad in a green jumpsuit. The civil servant was attempting to escort the drunk 아저씨 off the platform, but the drunk was having none of it and was attempting to break away from him.
All of those in Korea who have witnessed drunken “fights” can attest to the fact that very rarely are these fights anything more than screaming matches or who can say “새끼” the most contests. Drunks will get all up in each other’s faces and holler at each other, veins popping out of their neck and face like the Incredible Hulk, possibly jabbing a finger into the chest of the person they are arguing with. Very rarely do fights become legitimately violent (ie. punches thrown). So I was surprised when I saw the 아저씨 smack the civil servant in the face.
Somehow the civil servant guy was able to remain professional and attempt to restrain the asshole without choking him out, kicking him in the nuts, or allowing him to get hit by a train, but I’m getting ahead of myself there. Had it been me, I would have wrecked the drunk guy’s shit if he was slapping me in the face for doing my job. But not this civil servant, at one point after slapping him in the face, the drunk almost fell off the platform into an oncomming train, and instead of letting him fall to his death, the civil servant grabbed him and pulled him away to safety.
“So Wyatt, why is this drunk guy the biggest asshole ever?”
Allow me to explain my logic. I am throughly against anyone who comes into a place and berates people for doing their jobs, or treat store employees like crap. Now the green jumpsuit lads are doing their job…but unlike a McDonald’s employee getting bellowed at for forgetting “no pickles!” these green jumpsuit lads are not being paid. This is something he has to do, and to have to deal with getting smacked in the face and not recieving any coins for it is a little much to ask.
Like I said if it was me I would have wrecked that drunk guy’s scene after getting smacked in the face for doing my job.
I’ve recently been having a lot of conversations with random citizens of Korea, so I’m thinking it might be in my best interest to get business cards (명함 in Korean) created. Now these business cards would not have my phone number, or profession, or even my name for that matter. What these cards would contain are the answers to all the questions I am asked by any Koreans that meet me (be it grandmothers, highschool students, punk rockers, businessmen, or shopkeeps). Anyhow without any further ado here is a sample of what my business card would look like (answers on the actual card will be in Korean).
Q: Hello?
A: 안녕하세요!
Q: WOW! You can speak Korean?
A: Yes I can speak Korean. Since this is Korea, I will say I can’t speak Korean well to be modest, but in reality I can speak Korean better than large swatches of my fellow English teachers.
Q: Where are you from?
A: I’m from America…New York to be specific.
Q: How long have you been here?
A: I’ve been here two years.
Q: Why did you come to Korea?
A: I studied Korean in college, and I wanted to continue to use and improve in the language.
Q: Can you eat kimchi? (This is the Korean way of asking “Do you eat kimchi?”)
A: Yes. I eat kimchi and many other Korean foodstuffs. I think Korean food is incredibly delicious. (This prompts the follow up question bellow).
Q: What is your favorite Korean food?
A: I really like 비빔밥 a lot, and 갈비, but it is hard to pick a favorite.
Q: How old are you?
A: I was born on August 19, 1980…you figure out my age. (This is my actual answer. I’m not being rude, it’s just that different people calculate my age differently. I’d say I’m currently 24, but some Koreans say I’m 25 others say I’m 26).
Q: Where do you live?
A: By Yonsei.
Q: Do you have a girlfriend?
A: Why, are you looking for a boyfriend? No, seriously I do have a girlfriend.
Q: Is she Korean?
A: Yes she is Korean. She is totally awesome! She’s smart, cute, funny, and kind. She can speak three languages and is a really sharp dresser. I’m really lucky to have met her.
Q: What do you think about 독도?
A: 독도는 우리 땅. (”Dokdo is our land.” This is the battle cry of all Koreans, and people are usually happy when I give this answer, until they realize that they are speaking to an American.)
Q: What do you think of Japan?
A: I have Japanese friends and their country is really clean, but with the exception of wassabi peas their food is a tad bland for my liking.
Q: Do you have siblings?
A: Yes I have a brother and two sisters. One sister is a nurse, and by brother and sister are twins and are in college.
Anyhow that about does it the questions that would be answered upon my awesome, fantabulous business cards. If I’ve left out any of the standard issue questions Koreans pose to foreigners please let me know (that’s what the comments are for).
Today I had to be somewhere at 8:00pm to meet a friend. So that meant I had to go directly from work to the rendez-vous point. For the bulk of my commute I was making outstanding time. I usually go from bus to subway at 7:00pm, but today I was on the subway at 6:52. Things were going well until I got on the line two, the green line!
For those of you outside of Seoul, the green line is the subway line in Seoul that goes in a circle around the center of the city. For me the green line is the heart of the subway system in Seoul. Anyhow each and everyday I have to take the green line one stop to get to my home, and usually things go off without a hitch, but today I was going in the opposite direction.
I live north of the Han River, and when I take the green line from 합정 to 홍대 the subway cars are fairly empty. There is room to breath, and more often than not seats to be had (not that I use them since I’m going on stop and like to be the first one off the subway).
Traveling across the river to the southern part of the city is another matter entirely. The cars are packed tighter than Pamela Anderson attempting to cram her surgerically enhanced tit-flesh into a training bra. Additionally, more often than not someone has their hands on your ass since there is nowhere else for said hands to be placed.
So today I was heading south. I’m used to rush hour traffic, be it cars or dudes on a subway, so unless someone is being a prick (ie honking horns in a traffic jam, or opening a newspaper on a way to crowded subway car) I don’t really have a problem with high traffic times.
What I do have a problem with is a mass transit system that decides rush hour is a good time to kick everyone off a train and take that train offline for the day…which is exactly what happened today. We were all rocking along in the cramped subway car. I had one station to go before I needed to transfer. It was at this time that a voice came over the subway’s PA system annoucing that we all need to get our asses off the train at that stop. So the crowded car empties onto the already crowded platform. Over the Distillers, “Coral Fang,” (which is blasting over my iPod) I can hear an army of Koreans moan in disgust.
We stand on the platform awaiting the arrival of the next train. It’s hot, sweaty, and smells of people: alcohol, grilled meats, stale cigerette smoke. I can feel myself getting dirty and sweaty just standing there amongst these throngs of people. After about five minutes, another sardine can like subway train arrives. As the doors opened people lunged forward, cramming themselves into an already overloaded car. Somehow I was at the head of the line, but the force of the crowd surging pushed me clear across the subway car to the doors at the opposite side.
The doors slammed shut, probably crushing someone’s ass in the process, and the train limped forward. “It’s only one more stop,” I thought to myself as some overweight, balding business man attempting to claim some personal space, ground his pelvis into my ass with a slow mechanical resolove, “It’s only one more stop…”
Since I’ve come to Korea I have been told I look like a movie star…many many time, and it is always the same star. Orlando Bloom? Nope. Leonardo DiCaprio? Guess again. Edward Norton? Hell no. Give up? Koreans (men and women alike) are under the impression that I look like everyone’s favorite rainbow colored suspender wearing alien, Robin Williams.
I can’t see it…
Apparently it is not just Koreans that think this way, as last weekend at Darrell’s house warming party, a pair of Japanese ladies were like, “You look familiar. You like like…” “Robin Williams?” “Yes! You look like Robin Williams!”
So why is it that people in East Asia are under the impression that I look like Robin Williams? I think this cartoon provides the answer. Exam the fouth face, the last on the right.
Several times in the past week several random shopkeepers have gone out of their way to speak to me in English. I realize that by being able to speak Korean I am probably in the minority of the foreign population living in Korea, so I can understand why they are speaking to me in English, but even if I respond in Korean they continue to use English.
Maybe it’s just me, but for some reason I always feel a little annoyed when the shopkeepers, cab drivers, ect. feel the need to speak to me in English, and this got me thinking. How would Koreans (or any other non-English group feel) feel if they were residing in America (or any other English speaking country) and native people spoke to them in Korean (or some other language)? Would a Korean in New York City feel the same frustration if I, knowing Korean, were to speak to them in Korean while serving them? Or am I just being overly sensitive?
I recently entered the 20th century and purchased a DVD / VCR combo device. Now that I have this device, I’ve been watching a lot more m-net (Korean music video channel). You see, as a side effect of my study of Korean and my subsequent relocation to Korea, my younger sister, got into Korean pop music. So now I have a VCR again, and as a service to her taped a bunch of music videos and “live” events off the music channel. While the random videos rolled, I noticed a deeply disturbing trend…there are way too many Korean singers rocking braided hair. Below are some examples:
I think these guys are called Side-B. Not that it’s really important. What is important is the guy in blue’s wack hair.
Usually hot member of Jewlery (the one on the right) totally ruins her look by adding some redankulous braids. The one next to her makes up for it by oozing sex.
Maybe it’s just me, but they only people who can pull off braids without looking like complete wankers are black people. Sorry white college girl who just got back from a trip to the Bahamas, those braids make you look like a moron too. Anyhow, I prayed that perhaps this trend was just something celebrities were doing, like Puffy Daddy and his shiney moon suits he rocked for awhile. The other day I went to 동대문…and as usual, my prayers were not answered. Countless regular people (male and female) were sporting this horrific braids. Perhaps the worst were the girls who had white string braided in with their hair. Seriously it made their heads look like a mops.
And then I found this….Crazy Head (see photo at right), a hair shop in Hongdae specializing in bestowing this bad hair upon the populous of Korea. That means that there is enough demand for this kind of hair for a speciality shop to exist. It’s going to be a long spring, but at least they aren’t sporting mullets!
There’s no punchline, it’s what I did today. That’s right kids, I went to immigration today, and for some reason unknown to me it was actually a fairly painless event. The most difficult part was getting to the actual building. The immigration office is 5 subway stations away and involves one transfer, but for some reason this morning, it took roughly 50 minutes to go those 5 stops (usually takes between 15 or 20). The train stopped on the tracks, not once but twice for a pair of 10 minutes of nothing.
So instead of getting to immigration at 9:30 I got there around 10:30…needless to say the place was slammin’ busy, so I pulled my number (like at a deli), sat down and studied Korean for an hour, before I went up, deposited my papers, waited for 5 minutes, picked up my updated documents, and headed off to work. Like I said in the grand scheme of things realitively quick and painless.
There is one aspect of the immigration office that irks me to no end, and that is the annoying way in which you have to pay for the documents to be processed. You don’t hand a wad of cash to the immigration offical who deals with you…nope, that would be too easy. So what you have to do is buy these stamps which they glue to your application. The thing is each time I have applied for an E-2 visa (the visa required to teach English in Korea) the ammount has varied. So it’s not like I could buy the stamps before heading up to the counter…I have to go up, wait for the guy to tell me the price then trek off and buy me some stamps. The immigration officer has to sit there waiting for my return before moving on to the next customer. This whole thing is highly inefficent if you ask me. The other thing that is annoying about these stamps is they are never in the same place. The first time I went the stamp vendor was in the same room as foreign visa applicants. The next time the vendor had a booth in the lobby. Today they were on sale in the basement at the concession stand. I bought my 30,000won worth of stamps, and a hot dog to support the booster club…I’m joking about purchasing a hot dog, but I could have if I so desired.
Hey Korea, just allow people to pay cash to the immigration officer…or open up more than 50% of application windows…or better yet do both! Make a trip to immigration a little less annoying then it already is.
I swear to Buddha my washing machine is a card carrying member of the KKK. The past few times I have done laundry it has gone something like this: I do a load of “light” colored clothes. This takes about 45 minutes and occurs without incident. Next on the docket, “dark” colored clothes. Without fail, the washing machine will stop about half way through the cycle and make horrific beeping noises. If this does not happen, the timer will reset itself and wash the clothes for close to an hour and a half (if I don’t intervene).
I can think of no reason for this to be happening. It’s not the weight, since my linen and towels and the heaviest of all laundry done, but have no ill affect on the washing machine (incidentially the linen is white). It’s not the content of the wash, since the dark clothes and light clothes are pretty equal in terms of quantities of specific articles of clothing (ie 2 pairs of khaki pants vs. 2 pairs of dark pants). And it’s not the order I do the loads. If I wash dark clothes first the machine will stall, and if I wash dark clothes second the machine will stall.
The only rational explination is that my washing machine has an irrational fear and hatred of dark colored clothing. I’d better do something soon, since I don’t want this to become any uglier than it already is. The second a cross is burnt in my room is the second that washing machine gets pushed out a window.
Right now is not a good time to be a foreigner in Korea. For those of you who have no knowledge of local news stories in Korea, there has been quite the brew-ha-ha as of late regarding some drunken shenanigans between some foreigners and Korean women at a night club. Check out The Marmot’s Hole if you have no idea what I’m speaking of.
Anyhow from this tiny shit flame a shit firestorm of sorts has erupted, engulfing the entire foreign community in this shit inferno. Since this story broke I vowed I would not be bothered mentioning it unless I was someone caught up in this shit blaze. Last night, that very thing occurred, when 유림’s mom called her and warned her to watch out about me.
All because some foreigners had a party with Korean girls, drunken (albeit consentual) debaucery took place, photos were taken, and later posted on website along with some fairly derogatory comments. Some Koreans found out about this and got all up in arms. This whole scene is one of those things were no one is in the right, there are only varying degrees of being assholes.
First let’s start with the party people. My understanding is that everything that went down was consentual, and all parties involved we of age. Though the frat party atmosphere isn’t really my scene, I see nothing wrong with what happened at the party. That being said, what the party people did online before and after the party leaves something to be desired.
First off, the posting of wet t-shirt contest pictures is kind of greasy, and some of the comments posted about Korean women were extremely greasy. The number of times Korean women were refered to as “pussy” was sickening. Again, making stupid derogatory posts annomously via the internet is little more than stupid middle school moronics.
Once the Korean media took note of this nonsense is when the shit firestorm really errupted. First off, this story exists purely due to xenophobia. If it was a bunch of foreigners gropping each other (with no locals), there would be no story. If there only Koreans involved, there would be no story. The fact that the whole premise of the story is that it was Korean women being taken adventage of by “foreign devils” is complete bullshit.
What happened was no different from your typical frat party. A frat party with strippers in America would not be newsworthy ever…well at least as long as no one died or was raped, neither of which happened at this particular party.
So because some guys decided to act like assholes with women who agreed to it, and these guys decided to exagerate about and post pictures of their exploits online, a new wave of anti-foreignism has errupted, and this time we can’t hide behind a Canadian flag, because unlike previous GI based offenses, this one was a bunch of English teachers. So party people, internet junkies, and Korean media, thanks a lot!
It is said that every cloud has a silver lining, and so does this story. While 유림’s mother was warning her daughter to watch out for my nonsense, her mother refered to me as “니 남자친구 (your boyfriend)” which is an improvement from my previous title of, “그양놈 (that occidental bastard).”
I’ll be glad when in two weeks time this whole sorted affair is forgotten about…like that GI who stabbed some dude, and I just hope there’s no remake of “Fucking USA” because of this incident.
I think as a foreigner in your country I’ve been pretty understanding of the difference in my culture and yours. You want to eat dog meat? Fine. Public drunkeness? Sign me up! Respect for elders? Sure, whatever floats your boat.
I enjoy your food, your language, your pop culture, your history, ect. Like I said, I’ve been pretty understanding, but this time you’ve gone too far.
Alright, there are so many things wrong with that video, I’m not really sure where to begin. Ok first off, sexualizing 6 and 7 year olds? Come on now, that’s just wrong. Parents, get your head out of your asses…that video is so wrong, and you’re allowing it? Come on now!
Secondly, this video is in regular rotation on Korea’s version of MTV. The first time I saw it, it came on after a 채연 video. Now our friend 채연 is some prime mute and whack material, but imagine the horror, if you were unable to finish yourself off and then 7Princess hit the screen….jesus christ!
So Korea, unless you are attempt to lure some of the pedophiles away from Thailand and into your neck of the woods, knock this shit off.
