An Open Letter to Korean Children

Dear Children,

There's something we need to discuss. I'm leaving soon, and I don't think I'm likely to return. As much as I can enjoy your company, I can say that I've enjoyed spending many an hour a day with you, teaching you and learning a few things from you. A lot of you are great, and I'm sure you'll mature into accomplished adults. Some of you "need to work harder," in the parlance of teachers. And some of you are snot nosed spoiled bastards who I'll miss about as much as I'll miss the bi-weekly head colds your incessant sneezing gifted me.

There's still a lot you need to learn, of course, and most of that I can't teach you. But there is one area where I can help. Please listen.

Enough with the fingers up the ass. Enough. I don't want your fingers in my ass. There is no little part of me that desires this, not even in a joking way. I get no joy from it. I get no joy from scolding you about it. There is nothing about the experience that pleases me. Were there, you might see me trying to recreate it from time to time, but I ask you, children, when was the last time I shoved my index fingers up your bum?

(For those not in the know, this is a favorite sadistic 'game' Korean boys [and to some extent the girls] like to play. When you're distracted and have your backside turned to them, they'll sneak up, touch their index fingers together and then try to shove them as far up your asshole as they can. And no, I'm not joking. Really, I'm not joking. They really do this. Seriously.)

The answer to the question is: never. Not ever. Not once has little Sung Pil twisted his underdeveloped features into an expression of primitive puzzlement while trying to figure out what that strange sensation in his body's nether regions is, only to relax those features again upon the unsurprising discovery that it was the playful Wayne-teacher's index fingers producing said sensation. This has not happened. You see, there are some lines of playfulness I will not cross, and one of them is the asshole.

So...it's time to stop. Please stop. The fingers in my bum do not endear you to me in any way. It's not fun, it's not funny, it's got to go. And let's face it, your country is already unconsciously gay enough as it is, what, with the dudes fondling/grooming each other constantly and the saunas everywhere...do you really need to go around fingering each other?

Stop it.

From Youtube

Fuck you McDonald's, II

Check this out boys and girls. McDonald's seeks patents on sandwich making -

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,232373,00.html

On some bright sunny day in the not too distant future you could violate patent laws by making a sandwich in your own home! Yay!

More Korean Video

Fuck you, McDonald's

FYI. I don't live in America. I exist more or less outside of the McDonald's umbrella...which means that there're only 2 or 3 Micky D's within a mile of where I'm sitting, instead of, say, 20. And I only visit McDonald's once, maybe twice a month these days...which given my history and normal eating patterns back home is pretty fucking rare, trust me.

But I couldn't let this pass.

I was reading my hometown paper's website today and I saw an ad at the top of the screen for, get this, the 'McRib Farewell Tour II.' 2. As in, we already had a fucking farewell tour for the McRib last year, but you stupid suckers'll come crawling back for some more of that pink gooey BBQ sauce covered shit so we're gonna have another go at it.

Where the fuck do these McDonald's assholes get off? It's like they're not even trying anymore. You know these advertising types were just sitting around in their office doing their usual intellectual masturbation and one of them was like, "d00ds, we totally need to bring back the McRib, coz the idiots who eat our shit haven't cottoned on to that whole carrot and stick thing we've got going on...but how to bring it back? We retired it last year, d00ds!"

And then d00d 2 was all like "why don't we just have another Farewell Tour, you know, like all of those aging rockers who keep coming back for another tour to squeeze a few more dimes out of their decrepit geriatric fan base whose pathetic existence is periodically rejustified by lurid bands of grandfathers singing about sexual liberties and the political issues of 50 years ago...and to pretend to be 'cool' and 'in on' the whole thing we'll call it Farewell Tour II."

"Great idea, Chad," says d00d 1. "And we can design this whole hipster internet site that will totally speak to the rock and roll generation whom we will be exploiting and simultaneously appealing to purchase our disgusting product."

Which is what they did. Check it out-

http://www.mcrib.com./

I encourage you to visit this website. Marvel at the depths to which Western civilization has sunk. Introduce yourself to the weirdly gesticulating late 20s/early 30s ish woman (young enough to appeal to 60 year olds but old enough for it to not be entirely creepy) who greets mcrib.com's visitors. She encourages us to "rock out" with "t-shirts, downloads" and other merchandise. She wears a shirt with a picture of a bone on it with a cross through it. No boners? I have to admit I don't get that one. After she's said her spiel she rocks her head back and forth repeatedly, obsessively crosses and uncrosses her arms, while the mcrib band performs a sound check in the background. Throngs of people who've apparently been worked up into a frenzy over the 2nd coming of the mcrib sandwich teem in the background, they've gathered themselves together to pay homage to a disgusting slab of processed meat.

My thanks to Mcdonald's for restoring my faith in the worst of humanity.

Thanks Mom + Dad

Now I just have to eat all of that....I had the collards and some mashed potatoes for dinner last night...it was good...

Today in Seoul...

So I went into Seoul today to run a few errands and whatnot...I wound up picking up an iPod...what can I say, I'd been thinking about getting one for a while and decidede to splurge. But the point of this post is related to this article -

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061125/ap_on_bi_ge/skorea_us_free_trade

I was in Gwanghwamun when this was going down and I actually checked it out. A few pics not featured in the story you read above:

Of Birthday Parties...

We had our monthly birthday party today. A coupla blog worthy pics.

I think I'm becoming an ajoshi

For those not in the know, an ajoshi is an older married Korean man who is deserving of respect because he can pass out drunk on soju on the sidewalk, force his way to the front of any line, and treat the world and his supposed inferiors with contempt. Apparently.



Anyway, I say this not because I long ago abandoned any pretense of courtesy and any notion of kindness to strangers and started elbowing my way through teeming throngs of eldery Korean grandmothers with the best of them. Nor do I say this because public drinking out in front of the convenience store has long been an unquestioned habit for me here in Korea. Nor is it because on the way home a few nights ago I crashed my bike (I was completely wasted at the time - riding my bike home for a few miles seemed like a good idea at the time) and made a complete ass outta myself and fucked up my knee a little bit, check it out:

No, I say this because today I was walking home from work. The wind was blowing. It was cool, but not uncomfortable. My mind was on something else. I'd had a pizza the night before, and a few Cass to wash it down. So without even thinking about it, way out there in the middle of the public arena, I let fly a rip roarin fart.

I didn't even realize what I'd done until it was over. A woman walking nearby totally heard it, and probably caught a whiff of it, too. She gave me a surprised, not shocked, and an offended, but by no means appalled, look. Sure, she's heard ajoshis fart in public all the time, but never a waygookin, still, there was something about this one that made it so it wasn't ALL wrong. I suppose I almost looked the part, I do after all carry a stately paunch around with me most everywhere I go.

But what was really enlightening about the whole incident, and what made me realize I was approaching a higher level of ajoshi consciousness, was that I just didn't care. It didn't bother me what this woman thought...fuck it, if I wanted to fart who was she to question me? Who cares if she has to be exposed to my noxious drafts? I've got that right, haven't I?

I suppose there are worse fates.

I found another way to waste time

So the other day I realized the camera I'd bought 6 months ago, the same one I'd pretty much let sit unmolested on my counter for the past few months, can record low quality video and sound. After making and deleting a bunch of really tedious videos wherein I walk around my apartment and marvel at the squalor I decided to take it to school the other day. I recorded an unfortunately long and dull "discussion" with my 1st year students during lunch. Its length is only matched by its incomprehensibility, but, the kids are cute. Enjoy.

I liked this

Yes, I'm starting to get fed up with Korea

Here's some news from the country I temporarily (thank gawd...) call home that'll brighten your day.

Koreans have the highest suicide rate among countries in the developed world.

Cheers!

Various Pictures

Since Lee has failed in the modest task that was his charge and has not sent me the pictures stored on his camera from his visit, and since I've got my computer up and running again, and since I made a weekend trip down to Mokpo and have some pictures from that, I'm gonna go ahead and give ya what I've got.

I had to put these up in a slideshow thing, and sorta out of order, b/c of various technical issues. But these are all from the last month or so; most were taken during Lee's visit, a few were taken this past weekend in Mokpo (mostly the ones from atop the mountain - yes, I actually hiked this weekend).

I guess I should update my blog

So, it's been over a month and I haven't really written anything down here. Here's an update on life in the land of the morning tedium...

I had (one of my 3) week long vacations during the first week in August. It was a blast. Lee visited from the states, and it was fun introducing him to all of the craziness of this place. We spent the bookending weekends in/around Seoul, and during the actual week we were on the road for the most part...we stayed in Gyeongju and Yeousu...both cities had a distinct feel and both were very different from Seoul, that's for sure. I enjoyed them both, especially Yeousu, and I'll probably be returning to it before I leave Korea.

I've got lots of pictures from that week, but you'll not find them in this post dear reader b/c a)I've yet to receive Lee's pictures via email, which for the most part were better than mine and naturally featured me in the image more (and so of course they'll be worth the wait) and b)my hard drive on my brand new laptop died the other day, and I've yet to resolve that problem.

That's right. My laptop that I bought, like, 3 months ago had had enough of this world and decided to prematurely shuffle off this mortal coil. Well, at least its hard drive had. I suppose that's the equivalent of dying from a broken heart. Anyway I haven't yet made the trip to Yongsan to try and sort out all of the mess, so, well, it's not all bad news because in the last few days I've been able to rekindle my love affair with noisy, smoke-filled Korean PC bangs (that's pronounced bahhngs, by the way, not the other, funnier sounding way).

Anyway, pictures of that week are forthcoming, but likely won't appear until both (a) and (b) are resolved.

Work continues to make its daily demands on me. The job's still none too difficult, it' s just none too interesting, either. I like the kids, and to a certain extent I enjoy being around them and teaching them, but, as I told Lee on the final Sunday of my vacation before I was to return to work, after what you might say were more than a few, "you know, I've been away from the little buggers for 9 days now, and you might think that in that period, after having spent so much time with them for the past 5 months, that I might once have missed them, or at least missed one of the good ones, one of the smart and kind ones that make the job a little fun sometimes, or you might at least suspect that in that period I would have thought about them once, that something would have reminded me of a bungled phrase they're fond of or something clever one of them said, but I haven't, in this period I've not once thought about them, I didn't even consider them. Not once." I guess I was too busy, ya know, having fun. So maybe being a teacher ain't the way to go.

But, hey, it pays the bills.

What else is worth mentioning? Things I remember from the last month: An epic game of Risk (yes, Risk, the geeky boardgame...) in which my fortunes rose and fell as swiftly as the little pin moves up and down on the, uh, earthquake detecting machine...during an earthquake, and which ended with me (represented by a lone soldier piece) exiled, Napoleon like, on the island of Tasmania in the outskirts of Sean's vast empire. Seis-something? I'm not gonna look it up. I participated in and won (along with my group) a quiz competition at the Goose and had to help write the next week's quiz (which was last night and which had a really big crowd). My category? Quotes from famous Waynes. It was the hardest category of the bunch, see if ya can figure two of the more obscure ones which stumped the Goose crowd:

"Our officers and men fought like men who are determined to be free."

"Gun control measures always collapse under the gentlest burden of common sense."

I saw some amazing old American movies at this theater in Seoul, the highlights were For a Few Dollars More and Casablanca. Oh, I had a "meeting" with the parents of my preschoolers (more like a presentation) in which I had to assess each student's progress (in the best possible light) in front of the assembled ajumma-geois. That was fun. Joanne translated for me. Marina's (my new 'boss,' after they canned Sophia -did I talk about that? what a fucking disgrace that whole incident was- yeah anyway Sophia, who was a teacher before she was our manager, was just amazing, she befriended everyone and ran the morning crew really well; she was forced to resign because she was too friendly with us and not friendly enough with management, at least that's what I was told, there may've been other reasons, but from where I'm standing it looked and looks like a mistake) totality of advice before the meeting was something like "please...to smile more..."

It went fine, as far as I can tell. Mr Jong still bows and contorts his moon face into a half smile when I pass him in the building, so I assume things're ok. But I am so fucking sick of being told to smile more. I sometimes feel like this is how the Joker got his start, and that like him I'm going to wind up as some sort of pale giggling loon if I keep listening to the pointers these clowns give me.

Next week marks the 6 month period, and as such pretty much every afternoon teacher's contract is up. Basically no one, and I mean no one, is staying. Of the 10 afternoon teachers whose contracts expire, only 1 is renewing, and hers is on a tentative basis as I understand. Julia, the afternoon boss, is already gone (she just disappeared last week, and a few days later in a meeting it was mentioned that she'd long felt guilty about holding her position because she believed herself to be unqualified...she was, and she was a terrible manager, but that just sounds like more grade A SLP horseshit to me). Katy is the only waygookin who's sticking around, and that's only b/c she signed her contract at the same time as the morning teachers, and has 6 more months. Joey and Sean have already found other jobs around here, Jim (the guy who's been there for 9 years) is going somewhere else or just doing privates (he's married to a Korean so he can do them legally) and Joe is still looking for a place. This time next week there will be 9 or 10 new faces in the office, and 4 of them will be white. Interesting times, I guess.

That's it for now, I spose.

Mud Slinging

I spent this last (3-day! Ahsa!) weekend in Boryeong, South of Seoul on the Western coast. There's a pretty decent beach there and (supposedly) some sort of reservoir of skin-cleansing mud nearby which used to attract Koreans with skin problems from all over. Nowadays it's pretty popular with foreigners who pour into the village during the annual Mud Festival, and this weekend was the start of the week-long event. There were waygookins everywhere, lots of beer and soju to be had (not that that's different from any other place in Korea...), and giant vats of mud in which all the drunken soldiers/teachers/other losers could vent their frustrations and cover themselves with crap.

I had a good time, and I really don't feel like going into the minutia of the trip, so I'm just gonna let a few pictures do the talking.

Mud racing...


Mud wrestling...


Mud on my face...


Escaping the mud in a noraebang...


Looking super sexy on the beach...


Homeward bound...

In Comic Book Guy's Voice:

"Worst Field Trip Ever." That is, until the next one we take. Last week the SLP preschool crew took a trip to the, get this, water treatment plant in Bucheon. Yowza it sure was fun. I don't really feel like recounting the episode but I did take a few pictures and thought, what the heck, why not share these gems with the world?

Wow, check it out kids! It's a bunch of pipes!


The younglings were mesmerized by a video about the dangers of over-flushing:


A traditional Korean clothes-washing scene, I guess:


Ah-sa! It's a pump!:


Naturally the kids were pissed since the trip sucked so much ass, and didn't want to smile in the picture. Nah, actually I told them to make an angry face:


Horse class looking uncharacteristically docile:



Chan Woo managed to get over the sucktitude of the day by playing with a piece of plastic on his nose:


Back in class for snacktime....:

A New Toy, Picasso, and a Correction

I realized that I'd forgotten to include the answers to the pop quiz that ended an earlier post in the latest one like I'd promised. Here you go: Yoo Jin and Myung Bin are girls, Sung Pil is a boy.

Went up to Yongsan today and bought a digital camera. Everytime I head up there I have these delusions of intense bargaining, of all sorts of weighty consideration of the best deal, of playing the merchants off of one another yadda yadda, then I just wind up settling for the first reasonable deal that comes along. So it was again today. I got a decent enough camera for (what I think was) a fair price so I'm happy.

I probably shouldn't write this, because I know it'll distract you, reader, from my protracted prose, but I included a few shots I took on the way home at the end of this post. Go ahead, look, I know my words can't compete with the colorful pictures. They're nothing too fancy. After I bought the thing and got it working I thought I'd cruise around Seoul and take a few shots of interesting stuff, but as soon as I started doing that I realized I didn't feel like hiking all over the city today. When I came back home to Bucheon I thought I'd at least spend an hour or two taking shots around here, but again, I was feeling lazy. I did muster up the strength to press the buttons a few times as I was walking from where the taxi dropped me off, so that's what you'll see below.

I guess it was another normal weekend. I tried to stay up for the Korea World Cup match Friday night, but Sophia had a party at her (new) place to celebrate the fact that she'd bought an apartment and I got drunk too fast. I was sleepy by 3 and once the game began at 4 I was dozing pretty heavily...and it's not like watching a soccer game is all that invigorating. I left at halftime. Oh, btw, Korea lost 2-0. Oh well.

On Saturday Myra and I went into Seoul to check out this Picasso exhibit the Museum of Art is hosting. It was pretty cool. We had a helluva time finding the museum, but it was worth the struggle because the paintings were generally pretty interesting. My favorite was this pretty big family portrait with a blue background, which seemed normal enough at the first glance but then when you check out the expression on one of the little girls' face you start to realize that something is fucked up with this family...I haven't been able to find an image of it online and this was pre-camera purchase, so, well, you're just going to have to trust me when I say it was cool.

I guess that's it.


The Pics:
I live in the building at the end of the street.


My apartment, which is, you guessed it!: dirty.




Just some apartment buildings near where I live.


The view from my window. You can almost make out the building where I work, which is just to the right of the sign.


Just some commercial buildings near where I live. Imagine these spreading into near-infinity and you'll get a good impression of what Korea looks like.

Hurricane Onion

I was as happy as the next bandwagoning (ex-)Raleigher to follow the Hurricanes Stanley Cup run, but I think this Onion article is pretty spot on. Kudos to them for researching a few local Raleigh restaurants, though...loved the shout out to Snoopy's and Brother's, but the Waffle House? WTF? Anyway, I really liked this part:

"We couldn't believe what was happening," said Sam Weber, owner of Playmakers, a Raleigh sports bar. "I still don't understand it. We had a decent crowd here to watch the 1982 North Carolina vs. Georgetown NCAA Championship game on ESPN Classic when out of nowhere a lamppost comes crashing through the front window. Then these huge pasty white guys, all wearing, like, matching sweaters, run in screaming like madmen and holding this giant planter over their heads, which they demanded I fill with beer. They invited all my customers to join them, but we were too shocked, terrified and disoriented to even move, so the gang got angry and stole four of my big-screen televisions."

The Onion sports articles have been really hi-lar-i-ous of late...the "dying boy brought in to cheer up Kansas City Royals" article is pretty good, too.

'Korea' Moments, and Smiling More

I was walking down the street today after work through a bar district. I came across a group of bikers gathered around their Harleys, smoking unfiltered cigarettes, swigging soju and probably gruffly cursing in Korean (I don't know enough to say one way or the other). I guess I was a little intimidated, and I didn't make eye contact or anything. The idea of Korean bikers might seem a little funny to you, reader, and it seems a little funny to me, too, but let me assure you these guys were the real deal. At least, they were as real as bikers can get over here.

Anyway, after taking in the scene for a second or two and getting past that first impression, I looked up to read the name on the bar where they'd decided to gather. It read: "Kenny G Bar."

This is what is called by me and many other expats over here a 'Korea Moment.' It's a point in time where expectations get confounded by Western perceptions, to put a dictionary.com spin on it. It's when 1+1=3. It's usually the highlight of my day.

Today was otherwise highlight-less. Joanne and I had the first of two Open House Days, in which the kindies' mommies come to SLP and meet with the directors and such, and then spend 45 minutes sitting in our class while we coteach. Everything went fine, though Joanne was upset because one kid burst into tears when we asked him to answer a question he's been given everyday for the past four months ("Sung Pil, how are you today?" answer: Crying) and another yawned a few times. I thought she was getting a bit too wrapped up in the whole thing, but of course I don't have to talk to these mommies, they're just 10 more expressionless ajummas like the ones I pass on the street everyday...I don't have to interact with them...she's the one who has to field their pointless phone calls about Yoo Jin not getting enough rice at lunch or Myung Bin having trouble reading my handwriting.

To be honest the whole exercise is so bizarre and pointless that, as I so often do, I just insulated myself from worry with a nice fuzzy blanket of not-giving-a-shit. In that way it's like so many other things here in Korea... But what I mean is that at SLP we ALREADY have cameras in every classroom and a special room set up for the mommies to come watch the classes whenever they want, but on top of that we want to set aside a special day for them to all crowd into our little classroom where we know the kids will be distracted and/or disturbed by their presence (see: Sung Pil) and as such the viewers will get (probably) an inaccurate impression of how much their son/daughter has learned, and to make matters worse instead of having a normal teaching day where there is one teacher and 10 students, we make the co-teachers teach together in front of the class so that they can stumble over each other as they try to adhere to what they normally do with a lesson, and then after we've warped the system and fucked everything up we have to listen to these mommies complain about things going wrong that would've been right on a normal fucking day when there was one teacher and 10 students in the class and pale faced permed up ajumma was sitting alone sipping overhot green tea in the observation room in front of a bunch of monitors.

As I said there's no point getting too wrapped up in this shit. And there were few complaints, and, if my boss can be trusted (which is quite a big if) none of them had anything to do with our teaching style, but were about institutional problems at SLP.

Honestly the most trying thing about the day was having to remember to smile. A few weeks ago my boss observed my class and his biggest complaint was that I didn't smile enough. No shit. Not a smiler, here. I mean I like to laugh as much as the next person but I'm not someone who normally walks around with a big grin on my face, and when I try to pretend I always come off looking like a deranged escaped mental patient. With the kindies I've just been being myself, and I get along fine with them, but apparently that's not good enough for the mommies so the word was passed down that I had to up my grinning by a good 25%. That was a fun adjustment.

What else, what else. I got my first Korean haircut the other day and it went really smoothly, which was a tremendous surprise, and it only cost owe-cheon (5,000). I've started to get a pretty good grip on the number system, and I actually understand what someone is saying when they tell me the price. This has made things a lot better.

Oh, here's a pop quiz for the rare reader who's made it this far. I mentioned a few Korean names in this post, Sung Pil, Myung Bin, and Yoo Jin. Try to guess which of them are boys, and which are girls. I'll post the answer next time. Until then,

McDonald's and the Cultural Womb

I thought this article was really interesting and insightful. I spend way too much time in my local Mickey D's here in Bucheon and after reading through the article I think I have a better understanding of why.

Indeed, despite its vaunted reputation as a juggernaut of American culture, McDonald's has come to function as an ecumenical refuge for travelers of all stripes. This is not because McDonald's creates an American sense of place and culture, but because it creates a smoothly standardized absence of place and culture — a neutral environment that allows travelers to take a psychic time-out from the din of their real surroundings. This phenomenon is roundly international: I've witnessed Japanese taking this psychic breather in the McDonald's of Santiago de Chile; Chileans seeking refuge in the McDonald's of Venice; and Italians lolling blissfully in the McDonald's of Tokyo.

Interestingly enough, the author mentions that he taught for 10 years in Busan, S Korea.

Speaking of Busan, I did a short trip down there this past weekend. There's nothing really interesting to report, but it was good to see the city, however briefly, and it sure as shit was nice to get away from Bucheon for a while. Every time I travel outside of the Seoul area in Korea I feel relieved...I dunno, there's just something about this area that doesn't really suit me. I'm not sure what it is yet. I guess I'll check back in when I get a better idea.