Betwixt and between.

I find myself wanting to use a phrase I found my adult students overused in the past, mixed emotions. So I decided to go with betwixt and between. I find myself in the strange position of going home, potentially for good, on Monday but not being entirely happy about it.

When I first left home for Korea it was hard. I was leaving my family, friends, and life for the unknown. Now I find myself in a similar position. 9 years is a lot of time to invest in a place. I have actually lived in the same place in Korea for the last 9 years. I have worked for the same boss for the last 4 years plus. While there have been ups and downs the last 4 years it has been a great time. I find myself having to leave behind friends, work, people who have become a surrogate family to me, students and a life I enjoy to go home. It is strange how things have a way of turning around.

It gets even stranger. While I am looking forward to seeing my family I am not that excited about leaving. Probably because of a lot of the issues of the unknown I first faced coming to Korea in 2001.

Yesterday was my last day teaching. It was rough. I almost lost it a few times as did some of my students. Ok, I did lose it and so did some of them. I have just been lucky to have so many great kids. There isn't one I would say I didn't like.

It is like there is a void in me now. For the first time in about 14 years I find myself with no job and having to start looking again when I get home. It is kind of scary when you dwell on it. And I do like to dwell. :)

Oh well. Time to enjoy my last couple of days in Korea.

Blood Money

The idea of blood money has been around in one form or another for a long time. In the west we know it best as Danegild or Weregild. In Korea today it is called hapuigeum.

In the west it was originally used as a way of preventing blood feuds when someone was killed. Today, in most countries you find it being used, it is still used to compensate for the death of a loved one. However, in Korea it is paid by the offender to the victim (whether real or perceived) of a crime to either prevent charges or have them reduced. It is a common practice in Korea and is often brokered by the police. Often the police will try and cajole people into accepting the blood money.

According to a friend (Korean) blood money is only supposed to be used to handle cases where there are no witnesses. He gave the example of 2 people getting into a fight or 2 cars crashing with no witnesses. Also, he told me the police usually push people to settle this way so they don't have to file the paperwork and see it through.

One of the flaws in this system is that the courts here see the most injured person as the aggrieved party even if it was their fault. Which can lead to sleazy assholes causing trouble to get hurt or faking they were more injured than they are just to get money.

My friend was of the naive view that this is the only way it was used. Fights. Accidents. His shock seemed genuine when I showed him articles about the South African woman who was raped and what happened.

There is not a lot of information about blood money in Korea, in English, on the net. Most of what I learned came from personal experience and talking with Koreans. What is on the net in English mainly concerns the case of a South African woman who was raped last year and the rapist offered her blood money.

Well, there is more to it than just that. The rapist stalked her for a while. Then raped her. Then she was basically raped by the system. I say that because of how blood money affects the sentencing process.

The piece of shit offered her around 5 million won and told her to leave his country. She refused it. Before it went to court he upped the amount to around 18 million won. She still refused it. She wanted him tried, convicted, and punished to the full extent of the law. Which ended up not being very far.

Unfortunately in Korea, even if blood money is offered but not accepted, it affects your sentence. The Korean legal system considers the OFFER of blood money to be a sign of remorse, which will see your sentence lowered. If it is accepted your sentence will be reduced even more.

Then you have some of the cases involving people I know. In one case, which I mentioned in another post, a friend/co-worker was repeatedly attacked by a guy. When the guy finally came at him with a bottle he took the guy down with a kick to the nuts and a pop to the head. The guy was KNOWN by the police to go after blood money from people. Yet they pushed his case for the money and it was paid. When I related this story to my friend (Korean) when we were talking about blood money he seemed to think the guy deserved money because he never hit my friend with the bottle. I guess I looked at him like he was an idiot because he started trying to justify things.

He actually gave me a bit of insight to the stupid amount of posturing Koreans do when they fight. In an interesting twist of reality he actually said the guy MIGHT not have hit my friend/co-worker so he didn't have to defend himself. But I retorted the guy might have swung fully and he would have been hit. To which he replied that then my friend would be the one receiving the blood money. Pretty fucking twisted logic. Let someone smack you upside the head with a bottle instead of defending yourself because he may not swing it fully at you. When Koreans do this posturing they are hoping the other guy will hit first. That way they can sleaze some money out of them.

Then you have Dong-Chim from my assault posts. The MAIN reason he went after the attackers was to save face for losing the fight and get blood money. A year or so after Dong-Chim was in a car accident. He actually got a doctor (maybe through bribery) to keep him in the hospital a week longer to prove how wrong the other guy was ... and get more blood money. What a fucking weasel.

Blood money was a concept that came out of medieval times. From my experience in Korea it is part of what is wrong with the legal system here. It basically institutionalizes bribery and blackmail. It allows the police to not have to do their job. Some of the Koreans I talked to, unless they were lieing, have no clue about how the system really works. It isn't a practice I would expect to see in a modern civillized country.

What the ... door stop?!?!?

Ok anyone who has been in Korea knows what it is like exiting an elevator. Those wanting in will be crowding in front of the door and trying to get in while you get out. I got to see another take on it ... and oblivious selfishness today.

The first incident was sadly funny. I was waiting for the elevator when an adjusshi and a grandmother show up. Her is slurping on an ice cream cone with his mouth open. Ice cream and cone remnants flying everywhere. When the door opens he slowly walks in. The grandmother follows but because he was so slow ... the door starts shutting on her. What does he do? Chuckle, grunt, and stare. I grabbed the doors to get her loose and then hopped in myself. Was I thanked for helping her? Of course not.

The HILARIOUS incident happened later. I had left on my break. When I was coming back, waiting for the elevator, it finally reached the ground floor. Some slack jawed yopkel was inside. As he stepped out he noticed me. So he had to stop, in the doorway, gasp "Waegukin!" and stare at me. And the door slammed shut in his sides. To which he started screaming "Aigo!" As I was laughing my ass off, pointing at him and saying "Pabo! Mungchunge!!!" He didn't seem as in good spirits as me as he hobbled away.

Fucking mooks. :)

Youseok is back.

After a brief absence Youseok re-opened his blog.

Typical of many sites Wordpress never asked for his side of the story. They suspended his account with no notice. No discussion. According to him he could only contact them through a form letter.

That is one of the things about Youtube that used to piss me off. They never actually looked into complaints. They just suspended or removed people. No chance to defend yourself or even find out the full reason for their action. It is one of the reasons why I stopped using Youtube. Another reason is that I COULDN'T leave comments on my own videos or page because I am in Korea.

I can understand a site may need to quickly suspend someone but they should at least give a reason and allow for discussion.

Good luck at the new address.

Mook of the Week

Welcome to the latest installment of The Mook of the Week. This time I show you a commonly seen mook, yet a mook with a purpose.

I don't know where South Korea would be without the cardboard collecting mooks. As Lousy often pointed out the garbage pickers and collectors are everywhere in Korea. Considering the amount of waste we see (Can you say over-packaging? I knew you could.) in South Korea someone needs to help with the excess. I would say that these mooks DO help control the amount of garbage out there. Mind you they cause problems too with their oblivious selfishness.

Even when there are EMPTY and/or LARGE sidewalks around these folks still insist on walking down the middle of the road blocking all in their way.

In this case, he was walking down what should have been a 2 lane but because of assholes parking illegally is now a one lane road. Across a bridge. I was lucky enough to have missed the impending cluster fuck by parking and watching from the sidewalk.

Thanks to being on a scooter I was able to find a quicker route around the ... cluster fuck and look at it from the other end. (Keep in mind just because you are watching a mook messing things up does not preclude another mook entering the fray. Such as the stupid bitch that, even though the sidewalks are almost empty, decides to walk down the street and add to the cluster fuck caused by the cardboard collector.

But I digress. With the sidewalks pretty much empty the cardboard collector blocked the road. Forced cars to back up. And then sauntered down the road oblivious to the problems he caused. Obliviously selfish.

Then he has to park out of the way, for a change, and look upon the BS he has caused. Odds are he still doesn;t understand what happend and just how mookish he is. That is to be expected of the mook.

And you sir ... are a Mook!

P.S. Lousy Korea seemed to be channeling through me. I felt obliged to throw some cardboard for this guy to collect.

The Fall of Youseok's Blog.

Another K-Blogger has vanished. YouSeok's blog is gone. This time the fall of a K-blog was not due to some piece of Korean Kimchi Kommando shit threatening to kill people's children. You could say Youseok was the master of his own demise.

In his desire to get at the KKKunts of the net he crossed the line and acted like one of them. This took the shape of him posting the name, phone number, and personal email of the head of the Kleagle, Consoleman.

Herr Consoleman filed a complaint with WordPress. com and they either archived or suspended Youseok's blog. It is a shame because he did some good with his site. However, posting the information was wrong. It is what we complain about the Korean netnazi's doing. It is the kind of thing that even the KKKunts under Herr Consoleman aren't stupid enough to do. Although they have talked about hoping the Korean netizens read their site, find out about people like Lousy and Youseok, and go after them. That way they feel their hands will be cleaner.

One of their Grand Wizards MidWestInsahm82, one of their more racist pieces of shit in the Kleagle, is already crowing about it. He is also taking great pleasure in the fact Lousy Korea's site was shut down. It was shut down because pieces of shit like him made death threats to peoples kids. Really something to be proud of eh? Can't say it surprises me to hear him being happy about that.

Lousy made me laugh a lot of the times. But she did cross the line sometimes, such as with the monkey comments. Youseok you were doing well until you crossed the line posting Herr Consoleman's information. I hope you get your site back up in one form or another.

What the ... dating etiquette?

What the kimchi is up with people dating in Korea?!?!? They seem to ignore each other when out. Why date someone if you are just going to ignore them?

Case in point a couple that had dinner in the same restaurant as Stig and I Saturday night. He was watching TV on his phone. She was talking on her phone and when finished sat there looking bored while he watched TV. The TV went off when the food came. Until that point they pretty much ignored each other.

This brought to mind the many times I have seen this kind of thing happen. It isn't just Korean-Korean couples either. One of my friends from the US complained a lot about how his gf would answer a call, or even make one, and be on the phone 15-20 minutes while on a date. What the kimchi?!?!?

If I was on a date with someone and they ended up on the phone for a non-emergency phone call for 15+ minutes I would walk out on them. Hell I would be tempted at 5 minutes if it wasn't an important call. Let alone if my date started watching their TV/Phone. If they are that bored they could just piss off.