What the kimchi?

Lately I have been thinking about ending the blog. Korea is in my past now. The only really new topics to talk about come from rehashing old complaints, talking about old times, and the stupidity that crops up from their government (latest over HIV tests) and their so called media from time to time.

I find that it has been making me more belligerent on the blog. Brian was right in his comments in a previous thread, he should have been given the benefit of the doubt. I did think he misspoke yet I still tore apart what he said. I am not happy with how I handled that.

I always figured that What the Kimchi?!?? would end up going the way of the Dodo after I, and then Stig, left Korea and I would focus more on Flint's Follies. That hasn't happened. Even after being home for 5+ months the bizarre shit that happens in South Korea just doesn't happen here that often. Even the number of mooks you encounter is SO low compared to South Korea.

The "Shit Koreans Say" has given me a new impetus, and I have lots of material for that, not counting what friends and readers send me. So who knows?

You never know, I could end up back in Korea and that would make for lots of new stuff. ;)

Even More Shit Koreans Say

Texts from Korean Girls is an interesting site to see some of the shit Korean women say through text. Often Koreans will use a translation program and then copy what it says to send as their text. This usually comes out as gibberish.

Students rely on their English dictionaries too much and don't know or check the context of the word they use. Like one student who told me he missed having intercourse with his best friend. He meant talking with him, the friend had moved but the way the word was used made it sound like he missed having sex with his friend.

Students will often write out assignments in Korean and then run them through a translation program. What they hand in looks like English to them but is gibberish to anyone who can actually read English.

Chuck

Writing about Chuck and the Porn Taxi (sounds much more interesting then Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) got me thinking about him. I often say that I have met a lot of people in South Korea but most of them just aren't memorable. Chuck is one of the memorable ones.

I met Chuck at a bar in YongAm-dong called Buck's. He was working at one of our competitors, Little America. (For those who don't know Little America is a chain of English Hagwons in South Korea. They don't always have American teachers and some acquire nick names like Little Australia. ) Chuck was rarely sober. :)

When you think of the "bad examples" of English teachers in Korea Chuck would have fit the bill. He was rarely sober and always on the lookout for a good time. However, he was a nice guy and a loyal friend. A lot of Chuck stories I can't/won't repeat here. But it was rarely dull with him around.

One time we were at Carrefore and Chuck bought one of those pump action plastic pistols that shoots little plastic beads. I had met Chuck around 10AM at a coffee shop, he was already in his cups drinking beer. By noon we decided to see a movie but had a couple of hours to kill for the next show. So we went shopping and he picked up the toy gun.

We ended up at the food court and of course being foreigners were the object of some staring and pointing. Chuck was starting to sober up and get a hangover and the mooks were starting to get to him. He had to go to the bathroom so I waited at our table.

He came back with an evil grin on his face. Some kid (8-9 years old) was in the bathroom and kept sticking his hand under the door to Chuck's stall. He warned the kid to fook off (imagine it with a Socttish brogue) but the kid persisted. So, he hauled out his gun and shot the kid in the hand. Opened the stall door and shot at him a few more times. The kid ran out of the bathroom screaming. Chuck calmly walked out and told me what happened.

On one hand I thought it was hilarious and maybe the little shit would think twice before annoying people in a stall. On the other hand it was just a kid plus if he cried to daddy we could end up confronted by a pissed off adjosshi. I figured we should get out of there before that happened.

Eventually, after another adventure, we ended up at our movie. It was "The Core". What a horrible movie. Think of "Armageddon" but in the Earth not in space. Chuck was almost sober now and hung over. That isn't a pretty sight and his tolerance for crap movies is pretty low. He started acting a bit mookish and complained loudly about the crappiness of the film. I managed to quiet him down with the promise of more booze after the movie. We never did finish watching it ... and we were happy for that. We did get some booze after the movie ... and were happy for that too.

Chuck ended up leaving South Korea on a midnight run. His school was having money trouble and was jerking him around. He went to Thailand, back to Scotland, and ended up in Vietnam. We kept in touch from time to time thanks to the internet.

Unfortunately, he died in 2009 after an accident in Vietnam. He was a good person to call friend but at times he could be mookish. Mind you, he would be the first one to admit it when you called him on it. Then he would buy you a drink. :)

More Shit Koreans Say

This one was provided by a woman who worked with me last year. As with most woman (foreign and Korean) in Korea I knew, she had a lot of bad experiences with taxi drivers. They tend to be pretty sleazy with women traveling alone.

At least twice a week a Korean taxi driver would ask her to marry him. Usually before trying to grab her boobs. Some of them would make comments like "You beautifurr but hebby sizey." when proposing to her. Often they would do this while driving.

A Korean-Canadian co-worker stopped using taxis when alone because of drivers like that. Her last taxi driver reeked of soju and kept trying to take her somewhere for breakfast, booze, and sex instead of where she wanted to go.

What the ... deadline?!?!?

A friend sent me a job posting from Dave's ESL. They are looking for people to come and teach English at their winter camp at a Graduate School of Law.

The ad was posted November 1st 2010 and the deadline to have all your documents to them is .... October 30th 2010.

Does this stupidity surprise me? Hell no!

I wonder if graduates of this university helped come up with Visit Korea Year 2010-2012.

Shit Koreans Say.

I am going to steal a couple of ideas and roll them into one. Recently Prestige Korea wrote about Shit My Korean Wife Buys On The Internet. It got me thinking about the TV show 'Shit my Dad Says." Great show. So, I decided to start up "Shit Koreans Say." Feel free to add your own experiences.

To recap one I used on Prestige Korea, a few years ago one of my co-workers asked me if I was still going to the health club (gym). I replied yes. He then said "Then you are looking healthy."

There was a student in my first year in Korea (she was in University) that I used to hang out with a lot. We would meet for coffee, dinner, go on short road trips. Sometimes her brother would come along. After a couple of months she started taking another class and all of a sudden wasn't answering calls or showing up when we had plans. Since she was still in the school I worked I would see her there. I knew her mom was sick and figured that must be why. One day I asked her what was going on. Her reply boggled my mind. "You aren't my teacher anymore so I can't spend time with you. I have to spend it with my new teacher."

Then there was the student-friend of mine. He was a Middle School teacher, later high School, at the time and in his late 40's. He was well traveled too, in fact he went to the Australian Olympics with the coaching/training staff of the South Korean boxing team.

One summer day we were out driving around. While stopped at a light he asked me what the middle finger meant exactly. I told him it usually meant fuck you or fuck off. So ... picture this ... he proceeded to start giving the finger in all directions while shouting "Fuck You" "Fuck You!"

It was summer and his window was open. I wish I had a picture of the cab drivers face beside us. I think he believed the FU's were directed at him. My friend did this until the light changed.

Another time, and not so funny, we were walking down the street when he saw an African-American. He walked right up to the guy, almost nose to nose, and with a grin said "You are black! You are a nigger!"

I told the guy he was insane but I understood if he wanted to kick the shit out of him. He commented on Koreans and left instead.

You just never know what will come out of a Korean's mouth.

What the ... negative image?!?!?

Sometimes you just have to laugh at the stupidity of some of the nutizens and Koreans. Take Herr Konsoleman of the Kamikaze Kimchi Kommandoes for example.

Once you get past his poor writing and absent reasoning abilities you are left with the impression of someone, a Korean someone, who is a racist, hates foreigners, is a rabid nationalist, and has the tendency to over react.

He exemplifies a lot of the nutizens who post in English (and Korean). Some of them are ethnic Koreans (ie Korean-Americans), many of whom have never been to the Fatherland. Yet they will tell you what it is REALLY like in Korea. Many are like Herr Konsoleman, Koreans living abroad. They rave on and on about how great Korea is. How evil the foreigners are who go there. How evil anyone who doesn't agree that Korea is the greatest country in the universe is. (Which does beg the question ... If Korea is so great and life is perfect there why are you (Herr Konsoleman) living abroad (New Zealand)?

Then they complain about people who lived in Korea taking a negative image back to their home country. Here is Herr Konsoleman whining.

"With all these U.S soldiers, foreigners and ESL people they have been taking "negative image" of Korea back to U.S because most of them are low graded people who only went to see some Korean hookers and redlight districts, and U.S media doesn't want U.S citizen to know about rise of S.Korea. Also, U.S media have Chinese and Japanese working for them so if you combine Chinese, Japanese and past ESLs in U.S, there is no way they will portray positive image of Korea."

If you pay any attention to the Korean Blogosphere you know about the bull shit foreigners have to put up with from the Korean government and so-called media. Let alone what they put up with from Korean citizens. Herr Konsoleman mirrors a lot of what they say.

Yet, for some bizarre reason, they can't fathom why foreigners would return home and not sing the praises of South korea. They wear some seriously big blinders if they can't understand that.

Let's see ... you go to a foreign country to work and live. You are automatically labelled a low life degenerate and often treated like one. Wow! How could you not go home and sing the praises of that country?!? (And that is without even bringing up Hagwons screwing over foreign teachers, and businesses screwing over foreign workers.)

If Koreans REALLY want foreigners to leave Korea with a positive image of the country they need to start by cleaning up their act. The nutizens tend to give Korea a black eye every time they power up their computer. A Korean team or athelete in some sport lost ... let's make death threats, bomb threats, and post peoples personal information. Someone talks about a bad experience in Korea ... they must be lying! It's time to get out a lynch mob and go after them!

And HE has a problem with how Korea is portrayed in the media? Try being a foreigner in Korea and subjected to the media BS that goes on. A place where the government knows E-2 visa holders aren't causing the HIV problem but regulate them like they were, while not testing the visa holders who probably do bring it in. Why? In response to parents who are fueled by the anti-foreigner media. Why would someone NOT have a negative view of Korea and send it home?

"Hi mom. I had my HIV test. It is negative of course."

"Why did you have an HIV test?"

"It is the law all for all E-2 Holders, especially us dirty English teachers."

"Oh. I see. Is there a problem with foreign teachers having HIV?"

"No. In fact the government said they knew we weren't a problem. They do it just to keep parents happy."

"Why do the parents think you need HIV tests?"

"The media here hates foreigners, especially English teachers, and makes it seem like we are all a bunch of diseased degenerates."

"Well ... at least everyone gets tested."

"Oh no. Only the E-2 VISA holders do. The hookers who come over on E-6 VISAs don't have to anymore. Plus it doesn't affect the Korean men who refuse to wear condoms or the HIV infected teenage prostitutes they go to."

"Oh ... I see ... so you are coming home soon right? I can buy your plane ticket."

Do I expect this to change? Unfortunately, no. At least not in my lifetime. Which means whack jobs like Herr Konsoleman shouldn't be surprised it foreigners keep returning home with a negative image of South Korea.