What the ... Douchey Dave rides again?!?!?!?

A tip of the hat to Burndog for bringing David Thiessen's latest foray into fucktardery to my attention. Yes the idiot that told us there is NO racism in South Korea is back in the Korea Times, Worst in the Nation. His latest endeavour is a made up conversation between him and a friend recycling some of his batshit. All foreigners (except him, his "friend", and the few silent foreigners) are bad, deserve being treated like shit, and are racists. Burndog does an excellent job of dissecting the tripe so there is no need for me to do that here.

This piece of crap journalism, typical of the Terrible Times, wasn't a Letter to the Editor. The Times has actually got Douchey Dave to submit crap like this for their "Thoughts of the Times" column. I knew the Korea Times had a low opinion of foreigners but hadn't realized it was this low.

Douchey Dave makes the same mistake a lot of apologists and the KKKlan over at KS make. He assumes that all foreigners support the bad behaviour of other foreigners. That is what, Elementary School logic? Which sums up DD quite well. The mental and emotional maturity of a child. Or one of the KKKluckers at Korea Sentry.

It is funny to see him try to distance himself from the apologists. He said, through his fictional friend Cal, "Even their so-called apologists are not really defending the Korean nation."

If they aren't defending Korea by excusing the bad behavour of Koreans then they aren't ... apologists. I guess he is trying to set himself up as the Uber-Apologist. Better than all the rest.

I may have my run in with him on YouTube around it might be worth typing up and posting.

*****

As per 3gyupsal's request here is a link to the article. The 1st of 2. Sorry I had a brain fart and forgot to attach it when I initially wrote this thread.

What the ... kowtowing?!?!?

Chinese fishermen are once again illegally fishing in South Korean waters. When confronted they are fighting back. The first time I heard about Chinese fishermen doing shit like this they actually kidnapped, beat, and KILLED South Korean Coastguard Officers. Now they are at it again.

31 Chinese fishermen were arrested by the South Korean Coast Guard Monday October 24th. When initially confronted the fishermen attacked the Coast Guard officers and as in the past tried to fight their way out. The fight lasted an hour and saw a helicopter used to

The Chinese government then had the temerity to lecture South Korea on how to deal with the illegal fishermen.

"China urges the ROK to avoid the use of violence in the law enforcement process, to civilly and properly handle relevant issues, and to protect the legitimate rights and interests of the Chinese crew."

Yes, China actually tried to lecture someone else on civilised law enforcement. What a load of hypocritical bullshit. They also told South Korea

"We will follow developments closely."

South Korea's response? Not surprisingly it was similar to the last time. They bent over to take it up the ass from China again. The fishermen were released a while after China issued their statement. If they did nothing when a Coast Guard Officer was murdered, and wouldn't even allow the Coast Guard proper weapons to defend themselves in the future, why would they do anything more now?

What a fucking joke. If Korea isn't going to actually defend it's sovereignty they may as well just join China. I am not advocating just sinking Chinese fishing boats who are illegally in Korean waters. But if these fishtards pull shit like this they deserve to be shot out of the water.

Still learning lessons from my students.

The other morning, about 5 minutes after I woke up, the phone rang. It was work wondering where I was. I said at home. They told me I was supposed to be at work. I said no I don't start until 7 tonight. They said that the schedule says I should be there now. Long story short, someone changed the schedule on my day off and never bothered to tell me.

Needless to say I was PISSED. I have never been late for work because I forgot I was working or hadn't checked the schedule. The only times I have been late in my life, and I can count them on 2 hands, it was because of forces beyond my control. The weather or traffic.

I am the kind of person that would rather be 30 minutes early than 1 minute late. It irks me when people are late and I try to NEVER be late. There are people at work who are habitually late and it screws up everyone who is working. To me being late is a sign of unreliability and I never want to be considered unreliable.

Needless to say I was working myself into a righteous fury on my way in. Not a good mood to be in when driving. Nor when working. Especially when you factor in that I am NOT a morning person on a good day and this was not starting off as a good day.

As I listened to myself rant I had an epiphany from my teaching days. I had just ranted to myself that "I am never late!" when I heard a little voice in my head start laughing at me.

Then I remembered how upset some students got because they didn't get a perfect score on a test. One student actually cried because she got 99 out of 100. Shen went on and on about how she never failed. She never got less than 100. At the time I thought she was just being stupid. Now I can understand it better.

"I am never late!" "I never get less than 100!" They are actually pretty stupid things to get worked up over. Whether it is anger or sorrow. Of course we are late at times in our life, whether our fault or not. In my case it wasn't my fault. It happens. Just like getting 99 instead of 100 isn't the end of the world.

Even in my state of pissed offedness I could see how much I was over reacting. It helped calm me down and get me looking at things from a more reasonable perspective. It also helped me understand, in retrospect, some of the stress my students were going through and why they reacted the way they did.

I always said that my students taught me things. Even over a year after teaching I can still learn from them.

Beauty Pageant Bullshit

A tip of the hat to David Wills for bringing the issue of what happened at the Miss Asia Pacific World in South Korea up on his blog. In a nutshell, some contestants in a beauty contest in South Korea were cheated, harassed, and had to flee the country.

None what happened surprised me. Not what I read on the BBC's website. Not what I saw in videos one of the contestants who fled made while going through the bullshit. Not what I read about it on Critical Beauty.

In fact, it reminds me of the way Hagwon owners treat their slaves errr I mean foreign teachers. Lots of promises that aren't followed through. Lots of lies and bullshit. The rampant corruption. The uselessness of the police. The sexual harassment. The racism and ignorance (all blacks must be from Africa so the black girl from Guyana gets the African award for her national costume). All of which makes what the contestants went through no surprise to me. Been there. Been through some of it. Saw the rest of it. Never bought the t-shirt.

Hopefully the Korean government does something to make sure these assholes never run another pageant again. I don't actually expect that to happen but it would be nice to be pleasantly surprised.

Korean Culture

I was talking with a co-worker a week or so ago. She is originally from the Philippines and took some ESL classes in Canada to improve her English. When she heard I had spent time in South Korea she started gushing about Korea. Some of her classmates had been Korean and introduced her to Korean culture. She loves Korean culture.

I bit off my cynicism and held back the first comments that came to mind. Instead I asked her what she liked about Korean Culture. She thought about it but was never able to answer because we had to get back to work.

It got me thinking about Korean culture and for the life of me I blanked. I just couldn't think of anything other than K-pop, karaoke, neon, and noise. (Ok, the flashing lights and slot machine noise helped me think of the last two.) A while later some of the traditional stuff came to mind. Samulnori, the hanbok, some of the food.

It bothered me a little that I couldn't think of a slew of things that would fit the category of Korean culture right off the bat. Had I become that jaded or forgotten that much? (Quite possible both. :))

If you feel like participating I am interested to read about what you think of when you hear Korean Culture?