School (and recruiter) names.

Some of the names Koreans give their schools make me laugh. They are so stupid. They must be to impress parents because they sure as hell don't impress foreigners, at least not in a good way. In fact, some of them make Koreans look stupid.

Toss English ... whether you are from North America or the U.K. this name is stupid for several reasons. As someone from NA Toss English would mean throw it away. Like garbage. In the U.K. it has a whole other meaning. A blowjob. I wonder if their teachers are all called Tossers. I can see the first day of work.

Mr Kim. "Welcome Toss English. You teach good to children. We all good Tossers!"

English MouMou ... I have been told by students MouMou is Chinese for nothing. Which would mean for an English school they have a Chinese name AND the name says English Nothing. Bravo!

English Brain Food. Brain food?

CSI. Right, come to Korea and teach Crime Scene Investigation in English to elementary school kids.

CIA. I have to admit it looked cool on the Alien Card. Made for a good ice breaker. However, it looks as stupid as CSI. When students ask what it stands for we were never told. Among the teachers it stood for Cunts and Inconsiderate Assholes.

What is next? NCIS? Criminal Minds English Institute? Dr. House English Time?

Even recruiters take some of the stupidest names I have seen. Once again, it doesn't make them look good to foreigners. It makes them look like idiots.

Case in point a recruiter I saw on the web called Chosun Ilbo Delicious English Co. Ltd. What the kimchi?!?!? Delicious English?

South Korea 2 Greece 0

South Korea had a great game! They shut out Greece while scoring 2 goals. From some of the scoring chances they had it could have been 5-0. Greece only had one really good chance on goal.

Lee Jung-Soo scored the first goal for South Korea 7 minutes into the game. Park Ji-Sung scored at rghe 52nd minute with a brillaint solo effort.

South Korea is the first team to win a game in this World Cup. Greece has still NEVER scored a World Cup goal.

Oh pilsung Korea!

Mook of the Week

Welcome to the latest installment of Mook of the Week.

I saw these mooks one day while waiting for Stig to show up for lunch. At least one of them worked in the shop near them. He is a nice enough guy. I have dealt with him in the shop a few times. However, he is a mook as his behaviour here shows.

Now, I understand some, ok MANY, shops put stuff out on the sidewalk. In this case turning what is a 3-4 person sidewalk into a 1 person sidewalk. That on its own is annoying. But these guys take it to the next level. And unlike Stallone in that crappy movie "Get Carter" there IS a next level. Putting chairs out on the street and sitting there.

They seemed oblivious to the traffic that had to swerve partially into the 2nd lane to go around them. I have seen them sitting out on the road many times. Sometimes their chairs were halfway out into the lane. If someone beeps their horn or says something they start doing the mook dance, shaking their fists, and yelling "shebal sekis" at the "offender". After all, they are mooks and can't understand that THEY are in the wrong.

So, a 3-4 person sidewalk is turned into 1 lane as is a two lane street because these guys want to sit down and talk while keeping an eye on the stuff they have blocking the sidewalk. A street that can get very busy at times because Home Plus is across the way.

Sometimes, in the evening, you can see them sitting there drinking soju, makkeoli, or dongdongju. Mooking about as if they owned the world.

These are prime examples of mooks.

What the ... apologist?!?!?!?

I was talking about Korea with a friend today and I mentioned apologists. so he asked me what exactly an apologist is.

Easy definition is that an apologist is someone who is always defending something. Be it a country, person. institution, etc. But it means a little more, at least when talking about Korean apologists. These are people that feel they have to defend against any slight, whether real or perceived, no matter how minor or major. They will pursue this defense even when it goes against the reality of the situation.

There is actually a way to pick out apologists. There is usually a pattern to how they comment. Some ways obvious and others more subtle.

The most obvious way is to try and deny the reality of what you said. This can take different forms. Some may try to just ramble on (In person we would say they try to shout you down like some of the Anti-Obama wing nuts during the election.) It doesn't matter what you said. All is well. Nothing to see. Move along. All is well.

Others try a more insulting tact and try to deny the validity of your experience. I once wrote on another site about some bad experiences I had in Korea. Some apologist had to chime in and say "Well that never happened to me and I haven't seen it happen so I don't believe it happens." Well, he is welcome to go through life with his head stuck up his ass. Eventually he will get run over.

Or they will try to diminish your experience. One person wrote about a number of idiots he ran into just getting to the bus at Incheon airport. An adjosshi staring and pointing. Someone hawking up a loogie nnear him. Comments that people made in Korean thinking he couldn't understand. In comes an apologist who starts go on that he was exaggerating. The OP must have lumped a few separate incidents together to try and get sympathy.

By denying or diminishing your experience they hope to make it seem unbelievable, or that you are just a whiner.

Then you have the more subtle way some apologists act.

Some will try to obfuscate the issue. If you complain about, lets say cartoons in the Korean media, they will find a way to poo poo it. Oh the cartoons you are talking about were written by a Frenchman in Thailand not Koreans. Of course this would assume that you were only talking about one cartoonist. Furthermore, even if you were ONLY talking about those cartoons the fact a Frenchman in Thailand drew them doesn't negate the fact they were approved by an editor of a Korean paper and appeared in them. By bringing up someone from another nationality drawing them, and doing it in another country, it is supposed to cloud the issue. Excuse things. At the same time it may ignore major factors that would hurt their argument, such as not talking about 1 cartoon or cartoonist or the fact the papers allowed the cartoons to be used. It is all about deflecting the focus of the blame away from Korea and Koreans.

And lest we forget that grand method of obfuscation ... comparing what you complain about in Korea with other countries. "This happens in America!" Completely forgetting that we are in KOREA and not the other country. Why pay attention to facts if it hurts your argument?

Mind you even when they use this they can be wrong. Case in point bad drivers. when complaining about it in Korea apologists whined "There are bad drivers in Canada too!" Never said they weren't but I wasn't in Canada being bothered by bad drivers. And if I use the illogic of the apologists there are NO bad drivers in Canada! I have been home for 3 weeks and change. I haven't seen a bad driver ergo there are no bad drivers in Canada. Great lack of logic isn't it?

Then you have the way some apologists will make comments implying you have ulterior motives for making a negative comment about Korea, whether real or perceived. For example saying something like:

"It was a left-versus-right issue, most certainly, and there are plenty of Koreans who share your anger. If that really is anger and not just some convenient issue with which to bash Koreans in general when it's convenient for you."

They subtlely impugn your reasons for making your comment while trying to make it seem as though they aren't attacking you. Are you really angry or just using it to bash Korea? Thereby calling your motives into question and trying to devalue your comments or experience. They don't have the balls to come out and make a direct accusation. They rely on innuendo instead.

The biggest failure of the apologists is that they just can't understand that someone can like something (a country, a brand, etc) and still complain about it. That just doesn't compute with them. So they do what they can to try and silence you or make insinuations about you. In their desire to fully support it they ignore the bad and feel the need to attack anyone they perceive as speaking ill of it. That is an apologist.

What the .. ship?!?!?

I previously wrote asking where all the protests over the Cheonan sinking were. I was, and am still, willing to say there could have been some that just weren't picked up by the media. With that in mind, I started looking for evidence of protests.

Lo and behold there WERE protests reported in the media! Protests in South Korea in SUPPORT of North Korea! What the kimchi?!?!?There was a small counter rally nearby that was briefly mentioned. That was it. Looking at the protests over the accidental death of the 2 middle school girls in 2002 or the US beef riots it makes you shake your head and wonder just how low the Koreans can go.

To top this off what do I see on the news today? South Koreans protesting the Israeli attack on the "aid ship". What the kimchi? You knuckle heads won't say boo over North Korea sinking the Cheonan and murdering South Koreans but you will get out in the street for that?

It is at times like this that I think South Korea DESERVES North Korea as a neighbour. And the next time North Korea does something to the South, and you KNOW they will, the South has no one to blame but themselves.

What the delusion 2?!?!?

I thought Koreans had their head in the arses in my post on the sinking of the Cheonan. They just want to deny reality. They don't want to admit that North Korea is the enemy. North Korea has attacked them pretty much yearly in one way or another. They either excuse it away or pretend the bad behviour hasn't happened. I knew it was bad but I didn't know it was THIS bad.

I was reading an article on ROK Drop about the new outdoor exhibit at the War Museum in Seoul. It is a replica of the naval ship sunk by the North Koreans in 2002. Six sailors were murdered by the North in that attack. Eighteen others were wounded. Nice gesture of remembrance.

Then I followed a link to an article on how South Korea, especially the government, is FORGETTING the West Sea naval Battle of 2002.

This tragedy of the murdered sailors was bad enough for those left behind, but to make matters worse for the victims and their families, the South Korean government did everything possible to keep the grieving families quiet because they did not want to upset the Sunshine Policy with North Korea. So while politicians in the Korean government encouraged anti-Americanism in the aftermath of the US Army armored vehicle accident that killed two Korean school girls earlier in June 2002, the Korean government in turn did nothing to address the premeditated murder of six ROK sailors by the North Koreans.

The government even told the families to be quiet about the incident and sent no flag officers to attend a memorial ceremony or even offer any condolescences. USFK however did send representatives to the ceremony and USFK Commander General LaPorte offered the families his condolescences.

You need to read the full article. It left me pretty disgusted with how the survivors were treated, and the dead. Koreans need to get their heads out of their asses and see what reality is like. The one blood one people line is so much bull shit. North Korea has and will kill South Koreans. Putting on blinders makes wonder if the South deserves a rude awakening or not.

Mook of the Week

I don't know anyone who has lived in South Korea and NOT seen someone pissing publicly. Some try to conceal it a bit but most don't.

One night Stig and I were sitting out front of a convenience store near my apartment. We were enjoying some beer and a good cigar. There is a seafood restaurant at the top of the street. During the summer they have outside tables as well as inside.

Two mooks strolled down about halfway to where we were sitting. (Across the street from us.) They then proceeded to whip out their tallywhackers and hose down the alleyway/entrance to an apartment building.

All we could do was shake our heads in disgust. I didn't have my camera out or I would have taken a picture of them. Just in case I got the camera out.

Lo and behold a while later another mook shambled down the street from the restaurant. He didn't bother with the alley/entrance. He just pissed on the curb in view of everyone. He looked a little surprised when the flash went off. After the shock dare I say he was a little ... pissed off? Better than being pissed on.

What really marks this idiot as a mook is the location of ... a bathroom. There is a bathroom in the restaurant. The mook actually had to go FURTHER out of his way to piss on the street. What the kimchi?

It is hard to think of "The Strangest" pissing encounter I have had, or rather seen. There have been so many over the years. A guy standing in the door of a restaurant pissing out onto the sidewalk. A guy dropping his drawers and pissing on a phone pole in front of a store. A woman (from the same restaurant the guy stood in the doorway of but on a different day) whipping her kids panties off, hauling her dress up and holding her against a telephone pole to piss. A woman letting her kid piss against a power box in front of a dunkin donuts while the sidewalk was crowded. Ah, the restaurant people ... I should mention there was a bathroom they could have used.

Ok ... the strangest public pissing I have seen has got to be this incident. I was waiting for a taxi to come by and 2 women were walking down the sidewalk. Picture this. You and a friend are walking down a sidewalk. To your left a foreigner is at the road side trying to hail a cab. To your right, partially on the sidewalk, an adjosshi has his pants and underwear around his ankles proudly pissing away. Who would you stare at and make comments about? Of course for the Koreans it was the foreigner. Which, as I have said a few times previously, makes me wonder JUST how commonplace public urination is if seeing a foreigner is less common and evokes more of a reaction. Two sets of mooks for one that night.