Complaints

There's a popular message board for foreign EFL/ESL teachers (especially) in Korea, called daveseslcafe.com. While wasting time at work teachers much like and including myself go there to discuss myriad mindless minutiae about living and working in the Korea. Many people use the forum to complain. And they complain a lot.

I discovered this post the other day and I thought its rambling run-on diatribe pretty much lays out all of the complaints we waygookins (foreigners) typically have with the Korea. Annotated discussion follows after.

"Recently Korea is really bothering me. Maybe it's the change in the weather, but every negative thing that I can usually get passed is piling up. The horking(fn.1), snorting, hacking, spitting, littering, bumping, pushing in line(fn.2), prehistoric table manners(fn.3), people not saying thank you, excuse me or I'm sorry, cars blocking crosswalks(fn.4), motorcycles on the sidewalk, general discouresy, gum snapping, staring, inane questions(fn.5), those vegetable trucks(fn.6), the dude who invades my privacy (and sleep) over the speaker at six in the morning, car horns, excessive whistle blowing by those traffic guys, traffic congestion, polllution, neglect of dogs that are tied up all day, jerks who smoke anywhere and everywhere (fn.7)(even directly under no smoking signs), the ongoing nonsense about blood type, incessant insistences on Koreans being geniuses (fn8) and very kind, taxi drivers who don't stop for foreigners, anti-Americanism, the whole 5000 year nonsense(fn9), noise (everywhere, all the time), having to tell my students a hundred times each class to stop talking, the incredible hassle that one must go through to get a sick day off when you have the flu, cars going down one way streets in the wrong direction, neighbours slamming their doors every time they go in or out, lying recruiters, dishonest employers, sneezing on packed buses and subways, pushing onto an elevator before the people on the elevator have exited, the (criminal) refusal of parents to place their children in seatbelts, the fact that nobody washes their hands after using the bathroom(fn10), bus drivers who think that throwing their passengers around the cabin is part of their job description, the fact that they wait until the very last minute to inform the foreign teacher of anything(fn11), etc etc etc. "

fn1: I'm not sure what "horking" is. dictionary.com isn't either. One can assume it is some sort of bodily function related to the others that follow it in the sentence.

fn2: Not to mention the cutting in line. Just today I was at McDonald's (I know, I'm a loser). I walk in and the place is deserted. I take a friendly gander up at the menu board while I wait for the inattentive clerk to take her position (usually this requires a few extra moments, you see, it's not only that the McD's clerk has to muster up the strength to walk from here to there and take my order, it's also that she, like so many of her peers, must first glance awkwardly at her co-worker/friend, giggle a bit, and nervously glance in my direction so as to intimate that deciphering my dulcet tones is not something she is looking forward to). As soon as she'd readied herself behind the register this 5 foot nothing 75 kilo adjumma dashes into the pocket like Walter fucking Payton and jumps me in line. Cee U Next Tuesday, bitch!

fn3: Oddly enough this has never really bothered me, and no, I wasn't raised in a barn.

fn4: Really? This bothers you? Get over yourself.

fn5: See a previous post of mine about chopsticks skillz inre: inane questions.

fn6: Oh my god...the vegetable trucks. They've always been only a minor annoyance for me, in part because I lived on the 8th floor last year and this year I live on a back alley where only the more daring mobile-veggie-pushers bother to tread. But what they are, essentially, are a truck with a bunch of semi-rotten veggies loaded up into the back, with an old adjosshi (grandfather) driving and his adjumma (grandmother) wife sitting in the back with a bullhorn. Over and over and over again she (or a pre-taped recording) implores passersby to investigate her wares and consider purchase of said items, indubitably because they are priced preposterously low and/or are of exceptional quality. But man are they annoying.

fn7: That's me! :)

fn8: I don't usually have Koreans telling me they're all geniuses (tho I'm sure there are some who think it). I have heard Koreans tell me they're more evolved than Westerners because they have less body hair. Seriously. My only regret is that at the time I didn't respond with the sarcasm and incredulity which the situation would have normally demanded because I was trying to be polite. But what a fucking idiot that person was.

fn9: Koreans like to brag (not to me, but to some people apparently) that they have 5000 years of history. As if everyone doesn't...

fn10: This is just flat out wrong in my experience. Koreans are, if anything, too hygenic (at least the adults are, children, as always, are another story...).

fn11: I had this happen the other day with a "dinner" I was supposed to attend. I was told that morning. I didn't have plans that evening but I lied and said I did just for the principle of it. Plus, I hate having dinner with my co-teachers...