Gossip

Well, there's always gossip, isn't there? The passing along of information about people you may or not know is at the same time good (who can't resist?) and bad (if you're talking behind their back). It's a pretty big business when you consider TV shows like "TMZ" and "Entertainment Tonight."
So let me tell you what I heard...

The "Chinook" troop carrier

During my first year in Korea, my co-worker Blondie became involved with an American soldier I'll call Mr. Bill (Oh noooooo....). Blondie, as you can imagine, was very popular. I remember once when our gang went to the nightclub at the Ariana Hotel in Daegu. She got invited to a table full of Hennesy reps and was given all the free samples she could drink.
Daegu had at least three U.S. bases, so there were many opportunities to run into and party with the G.I.'s. There was a club close to Suseong (where we all lived) called "Morrison's" (after Jim Morrison). The cover was 15,000 won, and for that you got all the beer or soju you could drink. I stuck mostly to beer, but there was a variety of flavoured soju available, as well.

The versatile, and venerable, "Huey."

I remember one night trying to drink 15,000 worth of alcohol. I made it, but just barely. And I didn't keep it for very long.
You may think 15,000 may not have been very much, but at the time you could get a jug of draft for about 6,000 or 6,500. Beer was (and still is) really cheap there.
In downtown Daegu, there were lots and lots of drinking establishments. There was the Rock 'n Roll Bar (sadly out of business), Old Blue (which featured two rooms: one devoted to jazz and the other devoted to rock - again, sadly out of business), the El Toro (which had a big patio and an even bigger St. Bernard wandering around), the Berkeley (which also had a patio and a trickling fountain), and the Gypsy Rock.
The Gypsy Rock's original location was a basement room just down from the El Toro. It was the favourite of a lot of G.I.'s. The walls were bare cement covered with graffiti, and the furniture was crude wooden tables and stools. When the place was arockin', you couldn't move. I imagined it was what the Cavern would have been like when The Beatles were playing there.

The "Loach," a light reconnaissance 'copter.

The Gypsy moved after a year or two to newer premises. The dance floor was in the basement, and the upper two levels were open in the middle so you could look down and see the dancers crammed together. The new premises were larger, but you still couldn't move when the music was playing.
So somewhere along the line, Blondie met and fell for Mr. Bill, who was a helicopter pilot. They look very happy in the few pictures I have of them.
Because she knew a soldier, he could sign us into the base and shop for certain items at the PX. He got us a turkey for Thanksgiving and a barbecue to cook it with.
We also got to go to the base for the open house and see a lot of cool military hardware (pictured here).

The Apache, Mr. Bill's 'copter.

But they didn't stay happy for very long.
Their intention was to get married until Blondie found out Mr. Bill was already married. His wife was living in the States while he served his tour of duty in Korea.
Blondie was heartbroken, but she still pined after him. She did two years in Korea, and then went to Mexico. I eventually lost contact with her. She just lost interest in replying to my e-mails, I guess.

As part of the show, Mr. Bill took off straight up into the air, spinning around, and taking off like a bat out of hell.

I later heard that Mr. Bill may or may not have been killed in a helicopter crash. I also later heard that he may not have been married at all. The crash and the marriage stories may have been invented just to give him an "exit strategy" in case any woman got too close.
This was just one story about some of the people I met while I was in Korea. I know many more. Ah, gossip.

Shit Koreans Do... At The Theatre

I was at the movies today. I went to see the new "Harry Potter" film. I quite enjoy the books and the movies. I wasn't aware of Harry Potter until I went to Korea in 2000. I started to see stories on the news about kids lined up to buy each new book as it came out, and dismissed it as something that I was too old for.
But during my first year in Korea, I became desperate for things to read. I picked up the first Potter book and I never looked back.
Watching the latest film, I became aware of a family of mooks sitting behind me. The little girl asked questions about what was happening every five minutes, which her mom did her best to answer. Neither one of her parents asked her to be quiet, and her persistent whispering went on and on. The dad was not impressed with the film at all, and complained loudly as soon as the end credits started to roll. Things like "garbage" and "waste of time" and so on. The little girl seemed like she enjoyed the films; I wondered what she thought of what her dad had to say.
The rest of the audience was pretty well behaved. There weren't any other talkers and nobody fiddled with their cell phones at all. There were a couple of times when some kids left to go to the bathroom, but they returned to their seats with little hullabaloo.
How different from a Korean movie theatre!
The amount of mookish behaviour that goes in there has to be seen to be believed. People coming in late, people going in and out all through the film, kids running up and down the aisles, people talking, people talking/texting on their cell phones - it was no wonder Flint and I went to fewer and fewer films as time went by.
Once, when we went to see "Miami Vice," it was like we were surrounded by mooks who came to the movie expressly to talk to their friends on the phone. Silly Flint and I had actually come to see the film, and nothing else.
I was sitting next to a woman who just would not leave her phone alone. I finally leaned over and started yakking in her ear, "Who is it? Is is for me? If it's for me, I'll talk."
She shut the phone off, but she was not happy. Her big plan to get back at me was to wait until I took a swig from my drink, and then fill the cup holder on the armrest between us with her own bottle of water.
I chucked it on the floor.
She started chattering away at me, and I said something like, "I'm trying to watch the film!" I kept expecting her boyfriend to do something about me. What I didn't realize was that he had made a motion to put me in my place, but Flint had loomed up behind me. The boyfriend scuttled back into his seat like a turtle retreating into his shell.
There's nothing so frightening as Flint when he looms... or smiles.
Well, that was the "high point" of our theatre-going experience in the Land of Morning Calm and Afternoon Difficulty.
After Flint left Korea, I did go to a couple of movies with our mutual friend Spock, and whenever the usual mookish behaviour began, I took to throwing popcorn at the offending mook.
The look on their faces... still convulses me with howls of derisive laughter!

What the... Rabbit Ears?!

I just wrote about having my car inspected last Thursday, but one detail I forgot to mention was about the television in the office at the inspection station.
While waiting for the inspection to conclude, I idly watched the usual gang of giggling idiots on some Korean game show go through the usual antics.
They'd dress up in weird costumes like men in skirts (nothing gay there), hanbok, etc.
Each humourous occurence would be run and rerun a half-dozen times, sometimes in slow motion, with accompanying sound effects, canned laughter, and subtitles, just so everybody watching understood that something funny had just happened.
The door to the office was swinging open, and every time it would close, the TV picture would go all fuzzy and the sound would turn to static.
What the kimchi?
I noticed the TV had... rabbit ears.
If you don't know what rabbit ears are, you're too young to be up this late. Go to bed!
Rabbit ears are aerials that you can adjust in order to pick up a signal that any station is broadcasting. I remember many times trying to make the picture clearer by waving them back and forth, shifting the TV around, and so on.
Nowadays, TVs usually have cables attached, and I had thought rabbit ears had gone the way of the dinosaurs. I had no idea that a person could still pick up TV signals the old way.
A lot of the TVs I've had in Korea have been pretty old fossilized pieces of shit, but none of them had rabbit ears.
I remember one con-apt I had there was no VCR. I was going to ask for one, and a friend suggested I get with the times and ask for a DVD player. I could rent Korean movies and watch them with English subtitles.
Well, I got the player, enraging the teacher who'd been there for months with a broken VCR that the wanjungnim kept forgetting to replace.
After a couple of years, I left that school and ended up in The Junkpile, with one of those fossilized pieces of shit I was talking about. It had no connections for the DVD player!
Checking on the Internet, I learned about a device called an RF modulator, which allows for a DVD player to be hooked up to one of those old style TVs.
I picked it up in a shop in Daegu with very little explanation to the guy needed. I just sort of pointed and grunted and showed him a diagram of what I wanted. He made a phone call and a deliveryman dropped it off 20 minutes later.
Nowadays I have a computer with which I download and watch all the TV a man could want or need. The screen on the 'puter is as big as most of the screens on the TVs I've had, so I'm not missing anything other than Korean Komedy Klassics with canned laughter, sound effects, subtitles, and jokes run and rerun a half dozen times just so everybody who's watching knows something funny has occured.

Year 1 - Still drinking the kool-aid

Hi

I am getting used to going around more on my own, and slowly learning Korean.

I can go into a restaurant and order what I like in Korean. Same goes for bars. I can say hello, goodbye, thank you, cold, I am cold, and a few other phrases. All in what 2 and a half weeks?

One thing I have noticed in my sojourns is entertainment. A lot of corner stores, and EVERY arcade have a couple of games that seem to be very popular. The first is a kicking/punching bag game. The object is to hit it as hard as you can and get the highest power rating. They will spend HOURS hitting these things, especially while drinking. I have seen more than a few hobbling away from the kicking machines.

The other "game" I have noticed a lot of people playing is called "Happy Crane". Remember those games you used to see at the airport or bowling alley? The one that you pumped money into, used a crane, and tried to grab a prize? Well, they are ALL over the place here. People pump money into these two games faster than a video gambling machine back in Dartmouth.

One of the things I really miss about home is bath tubs. There are none in the apartments here. I have been tempted to rent a hotel room for a night just so I can soak in a hot tub of water.

The World Cup of Football will be here in 2002. A few of us are going to try and get tickets and see at least one of the games that will take place in Chongju.

One thing I haven't talked about yet is the underworld of Chongju, the sex industry. I don't think I will email this part to mom. ;)

Korea is a very conservative country compared to other Asian countries. Sex is easier to get in say Japan or China. The people of Korea tends to be more moralistic, and steeped in family tradition.

However, that doesn't mean that there aren't any outlets for them. One of my classes, in a discussion on differences between Korea and Japan, educated me on a few interesting subjects.

First there are Coffee Girls. You will see them EVERYWHERE driving their motor scooters. They don't lean over the handlebars. They sit with perfect posture while driving, and are always dressed to the 9's.

You can call a number and they will bring coffee and snacks to your apartment. They serve you coffe and food, drink and eat with you, and chat. For most of them, they will have sex with you IF they like you. Some are out and out prostitutes, but most aren't, and choose whether or not to have sex.

Then there are Parlor Rooms and Parlor Girls. They are basically the same as Coffee Girls, but you have to go to them. You are served dinner, drinks, etc. Then you may get to go into a back room for a ride.

They also have your regular type of whores. Them you take to a sex hotel. Sex hotels are easily noticed, they all look like castle towers. You rent the rooms by the hour. There are even a few Russian whores from Vladivostok. The Oriental men LOVE blonde women. Especially tall ones. "Bagging" one is seen as a bit of a status symbol.

Something else my class enlightened me on was sex trips. Business men from Japan will come to Korea for "special" business trips. Which basically means they come to get their ashes hauled by the locals. Koreans feel that this is just another example of how the Japanese look down on them, and see them as objects they own and can use at will. Mind you they don't see Korean men using Coffee Girls or Parlor Girls in the same light.

It was an interesting class.

One thing I have noticed is that crime, as we think of it, isn't that prevalent. A lot of people will go out and leave their doors unlocked.

Something I haven't done, and I doubt I would get used too. There are a LOT of police and army around at any time. When you reach 18 National Service is mandatory. You can either go into the Army or the Police. They take their law and order seriously here.

That is all for now.

****

I have to laugh now when I read myself saying Korea is conservative. Might be the subject of a good post. Exactly how is Korea conservative?

My male (adult) students were always eager to talk about the sex industry and the evils of Japan. They left out the sex junkets Korean men go on.

I was new and slurping up the kool-aid.

I was also still confused about the name of the city I was living in. Chongju, Cheongju, Jeonju. There were NO World Cup games in Cheongju. There were just too many ways to anglicize Korean and too many cities with similar names. And I am a tad stupid. ;)