What the ... solidarity?!?!?!?

And now for something completely different. A post not about the usual suspects (AnonyJohn, KKKorean Sentry, Korea Times).

The brother of one of my co-workers lived and taught in South Korea. P, my co-worker, went to Seoul 5 or more years back to visit his brother. Last night we ended up talking about life in South Korea.

He was not impressed with Seoul or Koreans. Overall, he found Seoul a fairly dirty city and the citizens rude. Which I can't fully disagree with. Compared to Halifax Seoul is pretty dirty. Hell even Cheongju is. If you can't block out the staring, pointing, spitting, and such behaviour people do come off as rude.


Another co-worker had joined and was listening to our discussion. He asked why the ESL teachers didn't form a union so they wouldn't get screwed over. P, who is one of our shop stewards, couldn't stop laughing for a while. He knows how that would end up.


I mentioned ATEK to them. Now, I am NOT an authority on the life, times, and fall of ATEK. (Here are some links you can check out if you want to find out more.) When I first heard about it I reserved judgement. Part of me hoped they would do well. Part of me was pretty sure they would fail. Part of me just didn't give a shit because I wasn't part of them even though they claimed to represent me.


For me, the certainty that ATEK was doomed came about during the Swine Flu BS of 2009. People were exposed to H1N1 at an EPIK (or was it GEPIK?) get together that summer. The Koreans were sent home to be self-quarantined with their families. The foreigners were all put in a hospital. Some were whisked away from their apartments by ambulance to be quarantined. They were stuffed in rooms with few creature comforts to while away their time. 


A group of ESL teachers on the internet got together and organized help for the "prisoners". They rallied people to donate books, games, food, anything that could help the "patients" while away their time. It was a great idea and the organizers still deserve a tip of the hat for their efforts. What does this have to do with disappointment in ATEK? Everything.


This was the perfect opportunity for ATEK to show that they were there to help ESL teachers regardless of the problem. They did jump on the bandwagon many days after the aid was started but for me it was too little to late. (AnonyJohn has decided to be my own little Grammar Nazi. Did I use the right "to" AnonyJohn?) They should have been there for these people from the start and they weren't. If ATEK couldn't be there at a time like this when would they be? At that point I figured they were doomed to failure. Unfortunately, time would eventually prove me right. 


It is kind of funny when I think back. I had held back any criticism of ATEK before that moment. When I mentioned on another blog that I thought ATEK had screwed the pooch this time the reaction from some of the ATEK pushers was funny. One of them told me to get off my high horse. Seriously?  An organization that claimed to be there for ALL ESL teachers, except F VISA holders, whether they accepted the representation or not, was NOT there for some ESL teachers in need. It was the perfect moment for ATEK to shine. And they were no where to be seen until they started to ride the coat tails of the few who started to help the people in quarantine. To me that was very telling. ATEK went for the big headlines (human rights complaints) instead of helping the little people.

It wasn't even just ATEK itself that had me thinking it would fail. My own dealings with other ESL teachers had a hand in that. When the owners of Ivy School were screwing Spock and myself over it was the perfect time for the foreigner ESL teachers to stick together. After all, if they would fuck one person over they would, and did, fuck everyone over. But that isn't how the others saw it. They were more worried about themselves than anything else. So they paid lip service to Spock and I but did and said nothing else. Immediate self-interest and preservation trumped anything else. but I am starting to digress. :)

It was an interesting conversation with some co-workers that brought back some memories of my time in South Korea.

What the ... insult?!?!?!?!

My first month in Korea I got in trouble with a co-worker. In one of my classes the students were noisy. So, I asked one who had half decent English how I would say be quiet or please be quiet in Korean. He told me. I was new enough at the game that I took him at face value.

A few days later I was in the teachers room trying to talk with a co-worker. I say trying because Mrs. Cho who was beside us was so fucking loud that I could barely hear the person beside me. Well, I had learned how to say be quiet so I used it on her. That is when the shit hit the fan.

Mrs. Cho leaped out of her seat and proceeded to get in my face. "What did you just say to me?" At this point I really thought she was going to hit me. "How dare you tell me to shut up!" Yeah, the fucker taught me shut up not be quiet and I was stupid enough not to confirm it.

Once I could get a word in edgewise, which took a couple of minutes, I told her what I thought I said. She proceeded to lecture me on how shut up is the worst non-profane thing you can say in Korean. I should expect a fight if I ever say it to an adult and a phone call if I ever say it to a student. She didn't calm down until I told her the name of the student who misinformed me. He was her student too, and she left to take out her anger on him. He never did volunteer to tell me how to say anything in Korean after that.

According to what I was told by Mrs. Cho, and other Koreans when the topic came up, shut up is extremely rude in Korean. There is no playful way to use it. There is no polite way to use it. Any Korea would take extreme offence to being told to shut up. Mrs. Cho's reaction was considered normal for someone who had been so offended. Which is why I tended not to say it.

Reading many of the comments left on the YouTube video of the BusTard in action had me thinking of the shut up incident. Especially the following comment but some YouTard named StoryOfSoul.

fuckin nigger. i am not trying to mock all the black people, but his behavior makes me angry.

and i cannot understand how come he is an english teacher in korea? such a mother fucker. when you go to Rome, you obey their rules big ass. and fuckin leave? this country. i usually try not to mean to people. but GO BACK TO YOUR COUNTRY SHITTY MOTHER FUCKER

When in Rome eh? I can't tell you how many times some retard, be it an apologist, a netnazi, or just some mook, has used that line. It is as stupid now as it was then.

Up until the point the BusTard started getting physical with the old man and woman on the bus he reminded me of ... a Korean. I immediately thought of Mrs. Cho's reaction to being told to shut up. It had me wondering just how visceral a reaction a Korean would have given if they were told to shut up. Especially by someone younger than them. Or even worse, by a foreigner younger than them.

Even the threats of a beating from the BusTard reminded me of Koreans over reacting. Especially the taxi driver who cursed me out in Korean but wanted a fight because I flipped him the bird after his tirade. He was waving a fist around so much I had to put my hands in my pocket or I would have snapped him upside the head. Which of course is what he wanted so he could cry injury and try to get some blood money. But I digress.

When in Rome? Well, it was in Korea not Rome and up until the point of physical contact the BusTard acted like a Korean. Which doesn't make his over reaction right. It just makes him a BusTard who needs to be punished for attacking an old man and pushing a woman around.

What the ... stripping morons 2?!?!?

My last comment in the stripping morons post, about the lack of Korean media coverage, got me to start searching the web to see what I could find about the idiots and their actions. Except for Korea Sentry and Waygook.org I found ... nothing.

I couldn't find anything on Dave's ESL Cafe. Mind you, unless something is on the first coup-le of pages of posts you may as well forget about finding it. The search utility there is a piece of shit.

The Korea Sentry thread was started last Thursday. As was the Waygoo.org thread. But nothing in any of the Korean "media outlets? That strikes me as strange.

While I can EASILY believe there are idiots out there who would do this (strip at a baseball game) I find it hard to believe the Korean "news" hasn't picked up this ball and run with it yet.

Someone on Waygook.org said that according to Marmot's Hole the picture is 2 years old. I haven't found anything to corroborate that but if true it could explain the lack of "media" attention.

I found Marmot's post about it .... from last week not 2 years ago. Someone did claim in the comment section that the photo was from 2 years ago, but that doesn't necessarily make it so. Then it changed to 1 year ago with a link to site that a blurry picture that could have been the same ass hats.

Whether it was a week, a year, or a decade ago the photo is making the rounds now and will be used in conjunction with the latest fuckery by the subway 'tards to attack all foreigners.

Also, to digress a little, you find out in the comment section that even IF the search engine on Dave's worked you wouldn't find any mention of this incident. According to one commenter any thread that mentions the incident was being deleted by the mods on Dave's.

What the ... stripping morons?!?!?

First you had the idiots drinking and playing cards on the floor of a subway. Some morons decided to try and one up that and now we have ...

... fucking idiots stripping at a baseball game.

I find myself in the strange position of actually agreeing with the KKKunts at Korea Sentry. This kind of behaviour is unacceptable. They should have been arrested.

Mind you I think the KKKunts were too tame with the name calling. Calling this kind of classless moron a dumbass doesn't do justice to just how crude and rude they are.

I do find it strange though that the Korean "media" isn't going ape shit over this, especially in light of the subway dickheads. Maybe it is a busy news week or they have enough anti-foreigner shit to use.

What the ... fucktard convention!?!?!?

I was going to do a big write up about the idiots drinking and playing cards on the subway in Seoul but someone beat me to it. I am not talking about the coverage by bloggers like Bobby of Marmot's Hole (who was the 1st I saw "covering" this) I am talking about the coverage by What Would Fucktard Do.

WWFD pretty much nailed what I would have said on the head. The foreigners in question are mooks of the nth degree. They deserve to be exposed, ridiculed, and are mocked.

Then you have the 'tard who took such great offense to it, Han. I loved his indignation and hypocrisy. If it was a Korean he thinks people would have done something. Odds are they would have done ... nothing. If they don't care to get involved when people are being harassed or attacked why would they get involved when people are drinking and playing cards? And don't even get me started on people drinking in public in Korea ... or going around being drunken asses. It is hard to top the adjossis, although these morons on the subway have managed to reach that level.

Does this make the mooks actions on the subway ok? Hell no. None of that takes away from the simple truth that the "louts" are a bunch of mooks and that in an environment like Korea they drag all foreigners down by their actions. It does make you take Han's indignation with a few grains of salt though.

The Pill

I only had two room-mates in the ten years I was in Korea (whew!). The second was a pretty good guy, but the first, who worked with me at my first school, was the worst!
Imagine a depressed, angry, paranoid individual and multiply him by ten. That was the man I'll call The Pill.
When I arrived in Korea, my director, Mr. Kim aka The Kimmer, and his assistant James dropped me off at the apartment I was to share with him. We chatted for a few minutes, and then The Kimmer left, and I turned to see if all of my bags were in my room, or something, and when I turned back, HEY PRESTO! There was a Korean girl standing next to The Pill.
It turned out to be his girlfriend, who I will call Two-Na. She had been hiding in The Pill's room while the director was there. I wondered why.
The Pill started to reveal somewhat about their relationship (and his nature) as we walked to the school that first day.

This was the building our school was in. It occupied the fourth and fifth floor. The name of the school was "Wonderland," which is a fairly large franchise in Korea. There motto (prominently displayed everywhere) was "Everyone Smiles In Wonderland." I ended up working at three different Wonderlands. One was good, one was okay, and one was very bad. I suppose I was lucky in that I got the one that was very bad out of the way first.
One of the reasons this school was very bad was because of The Pill. As we walked there on my first day, he began talking about it (and its director) as if it was the bane of his existence. He felt that they were always spying on him, and that they didn't believe foreigners should be "involved" with local girls, and that is why Two-Na was hiding that night. I could see that he was in a very bad place, and it coloured my perception of my new job.
I had expected to receive some kind of training before I would be expected to teach. I think that this belief came from things the recruiter said. I didn't know at the time that recruiters will do and say anything until they drop you off and get their money, and then you are on your own.
My "training" consisted of following one of the other teachers around for a couple of days before being asked to do it on my own. Apparently The Kimmer and his aides felt that a person completely untutored in managing a classroom could absorb enough knowledge to do it alone in that time. Eventually I became comfortable in the classroom, but those first months were filled with terror that began as soon as I walked in and continued until the end of the day.
Besides The Pill, there were only two other foreign teachers at the school, who I will call Dolly and Marty. Both were Americans. The Pill was a Canadian who had moved to Texas at some point, and he constantly talked about how great it was there. I began to consider him as an American as time went by.
Marty's contract was up at the end of December (I started with about a week left in November), and he was counting down the days like he couldn't wait to get out of there. Dolly seemed happy enough to be there, and I believe her contract had until the following summer to run. The Pill's was about the same.
Dolly did a runner within two weeks, however, and after Marty left, The Pill and I were left to handle the workload alone.
The head Korean teacher was a man named Jay, whose job it was to look after the curriculum and any questions a teacher might have about it.
The disorganization of the office became apparent almost immediately. The books were crammed helter-skelter into shelves. Supplies were sometimes available, sometimes not. Teachers were given a basket with which they were to carry their supplies to whatever room they were teaching that day. Each class had its own room, and the teachers were to go to them rather than have them come to the teacher's room. There was only one school I taught in that allowed us teachers to set up in our own room. It was brilliant, and I missed that at every other school, which all asked you to "chase the students."
My poor performance as a teacher eventually revealed Jay's real role, which was to blame the foreigner any time anything went wrong, and heap abuse on them until they felt like shit. If a parent complained, or a student wasn't being coddled, Jay would descend like the wrath of God on all and sundry. It didn't help that I knew my skills were non-existant, and my performance was shite. There was no way I could defend it.
But what did they expect? They knew I was inexperienced, and they hired me anyway. Did they expect me to turn into a good teacher overnight? According to the Korean government's parameters, I was qualified enough to be allowed into the country to teach English. I knew I needed more experience and that I would not be able to be effective in the classroom without more training. I expected to receive this training from the school, but I did not. When my performance suffered as a result, who was to blame?
It didn't help that as time went on, living with The Pill became more and more difficult. His paranoia eventually brought him to include me among his many enemies, and he began to take every opportunity he could to be critical of anything and everything I did. When he saw me reading my Bible, he quoted the verse in Matthew that admonished a person to go into his closet and study privately. When I ate the last portion of rice left in the cooker, he reacted as if I had stolen the last bit of food left on the earth. I liked my toast darker than him, but he expected me to reset the toaster after I had used it to his own preference.
When we returned to the apartment at the end of the day, he and Two-Na usually closeted themselves in his room, and did not interact with me at all. I was left to my own devices, and expected to be out of their way if they wanted the apartment to themselves.
The Pill was very protective of her, and he revealed why about a week after I had arrived.
He told me she was pregnant with his child.
I did the math, and this must have been accomplished about a month after he had arrived in Korea. Fast work!
He was pestering the Kimmer for his own place, and as our relationship deteriorated, I began pestering the Kimmer, as well. It had gotten to the point where we passed each other without speaking, even in the apartment.
When he moved out, I fell to my knees and thanked God in Heaven above. Deliverance!
But the Pill had one last trick to play on me before he left my life for good.
New teachers eventually arrived, including another male who became my room-mate. He was an Australian who I'll call Gargamel. Two British girls named, um, Carol and uh, Di, as well as a Canadian girl called... Barbie rounded out our group. Life actually became bearable after these people arrived. They actually knew how to converse with other human beings. They were willing to explore Korea with me, and they were more than willing to have a good time.
Within a few months I began to enjoy my time in Korea, and my job as well. It helped to have somebody to talk to and lend a helping hand, as well as commiserate regarding the daily helping of bullshit we all had to eat.
At the end of May, all the Wonderlands in southeast Korea were coming together at a conference in a hotel on Haeundae Beach in Busan. Each group of foreign teachers had to make some kind of presentation about lessons/lesson plans. We came up with a skit about making a car and teaching the kids about directions. The Pill didn't contribute too much. He made a dramatic speech at one of our meetings that Two-Na was experiencing complications, and he had to be there with her. Then his mother died, and he had to go back to Canada to be at her funeral.
All lies.
Our presentation actually came in second at the convention and we divided a cash prize amongst ourselves. It was a bittersweet time, because I was about to leave that Wonderland and start work at another in Changwon.
Our school had six teachers and their school had five. The Kimmer explained that we had one too many, and they had one too few. I was elected to make the move.
I don't know why he picked me. Maybe he thought I was the weakest teacher, and the school'd be better off without me. It would have made more sense to oust The Pill, as he was the outsider in our group. We all worked well together and got along, whereas he separated himself from us as much as possible.
Maybe a smarter man could have figured out a way to convince The Kimmer of this, but I was not that man. His mind was made up. He didn't want The Pill to go. He wanted me to.
The weekend after the convention, The Kimmer and Gargamel loaded up my stuff into The Kimmer's car and drove me down to Changwon.
On Monday, The Pill did not show up to work. He had pulled a runner, and now The Kimmer had to find someone to take his place. He didn't ask for the other Wonderland to send me back, but went about recruiting someone else.
The Pill had fucked me over but good. The times he said he was looking after Two-Na he was looking for another job. And the trip home for his mother's funeral was actually a trip to Seoul to interview for that job.
I have never seen The Pill since that time, in spite of my intense desire to meet him in a dark alley and find out how many pieces I can carve him into. I have to content myself with the knowledge that every day of his life he is going to wake up, look in the mirror, and realize he will always be what he is, a complete and utter waste of skin.

My First Korean Con-Apt

Jisan-dong in Daegu, where I lived for the first six months of my first teaching contract.
Following are pictures of the first con-apt I lived in while teaching English in South Korea. It was a two-bedroom apartment, the only one I ever had. The rest of my time there, I was by myself in a "one-room." I must say I preferred to be alone. I shared the apartment with two different room-mates. The second was okay. He was a good guy, friendly, and as eager to explore Korea as I was.
My first room-mate, on the other hand was... well, picture the saddest, angriest, most paranoid individual you have ever met. Then double it. Imagine a guy who walked around with his own private raincloud perpetually lowered over his countenance, ready and willing to spread doom and gloom wherever he went. That was my first room-mate. He was to make my introduction to Korea a very bad experience, and a definite low point in my career as an English teacher. I had to live with this mook for a month that proved to be one of the longest of my life.
Why I didn't kill him, I don't know. I still fantasize about a dark alley, a sharp knife, and...
Well, back to the apartment.
The school paid the rent, and I was responsible for the utilities (gas, electricity, TV, etc.). We were provided with a television, hooked up to a basic cable package. There were about 70-odd channels, most of them Korean. A few movie channels showed English language programs, and Arirang showed Korean programs with English subtitles so that you could get an idea of what Korean TV was like. If you were lucky enough to be in a city with an American military base (like Daegu) you had access to the Armed Forces Network, that had a variety of U.S. programming.
There was also provided furniture, of the cheapest value that could be gotten. Most bedrooms had a bed, chair, wardrobe (there were no built-in closets in any apt. I lived in) and a desk/table. The kitchen had a table and chairs, and there was a couch in the "living room."
As I had just arrived, I had the smaller of the two bedrooms. There was just enough room to make comfortable arrangement of the furniture completely impossible, but I coped as best I could.

This is the road in front of my apartment building. A very narrow street, as you can see. It's going downhill, towards the main part of the neighbourhood where my hagwon was situated. If you turned around, you could see at the end of a street a rather large hill, which took about an hour to climb, offering quite a view of the city.

This is the main entrance to the building. The larger door was so that a vehicle could drive in and park in the courtyard, but that never happened while I was living there. The smaller door was the security door, which could be buzzed open from the apt. It never worked, and everybody usually came and went through the gate.

This is the entrance to the apt. The door is on the right, and the shoe cupboard is on the left. This is the only apt. I lived in where the shoe cupboard was built-in. The one-rooms usually had a smaller one next to the door. The entranceway featured a tiled area where everyone entering the apt. was supposed to leave their shoes. Custom dictated that nobody should wear their shoes in the house because it was considered "dirty." A Korean would goggle and gasp like they were having a heart attack if they ever caught a foreigner wearing their shoes in the house.

This is the kitchen area, just to the right of the main door. The hagwon supplied the fridge. This one was about the average size, though I have had a few that were bigger. A couple of times I have had hagwons try to get away with supplying what I would call a "beer fridge." These usually didn't last any longer than it took to replace them. One of my directors was astonished that I would need a regular sized fridge.
Foreigners constantly surprise them by acting like regular human beings.
Just on the right of the picture is the plastic garbage pail that I bought for myself. Hagwon owners don't supply these, apparently, and my first romm-mate just had a big 100-litre bag sitting on the floor.
What a mook.

This is the bathroom. Toilet, sink, and shower head attached to the wall. I've never had an apt. with a tub or separate bathing area. The water from the shower splashed on the floor and went down the drain in the middle. The bathroom had a raised threshold so the water didn't flow into the apt. After I'd been there a while, I purchased plastic slippers so I could walk on the floor without getting my feet wet, and a bathmat, so I could wipe my feet after coming out of the bathroom.
My first room-mate hadn't thought to supply these basic necessities even for himself.
What a mook.
If you look closely to the left of the sink, you can see two shower heads and a water heater attached to the wall. This was because that fucking mook hadn't figured out how to heat the water for his shower, and the hagwon hadn't seen fit to instruct him in its proper use. They did spring for this extra water heater, which kept the water hot enough for you to get wet, and then turned cold.
Very bracing!
I must say that I wasn't smart enough to figure out something was wrong until I got my second room-mate. He figured out how to get the regular shower working properly.
Why the hagwon couldn't have figured that out before paying for the extra heater is beyond me. Laying out any more money than they have to is anathema to them.
The way it was set up was pretty fucked up, too. The gas line came in through the bathroom window (Heh. In-joke for Beatles fans), which consequently could not close all the way during one of the coldest winters in Korean history. Nice engineering, eh? Typical of the makeshift that characterized all Korean engineering.
So that was the basic arrangement that I was introduced to when I first met my first room-mate and co-worker in Korea.
More about that fucking idiot soon.

Shit Foreigners Say ... to deny reality.

"I have never had the happen so I don't believe it happened."

This phrase, and similar ones, are often used by apologists to discount or diminish the experience of others in South korea. They seem to have the strange idea that if something never happened to the, or if they haven't seen it, it couldn't possibly have happened. Kind of a scary way to go through life, in denial of anything you haven't seen.

I had my own encounter with a friend who used a version of this to ignore reality.

One of the reasons I stopped hanging out with BumSuk is because he was a sleazy asshole. Once he bragged to me about him and a friend (MJ) picking up a high school girl who was passed out drunk in a park. They took her, unconscious, back to MJ's hotel room to fuck. He seemed proud of the fact that they raped a girl. I don't hang around people like that.

A while later I was meeting a friend, another ex-pat. I had stopped hanging out with BumSuk and did NOT want him or MJ around. If they were going to be around I wasn't. So, she asked me what my problem was with them and I told her. Her reply was;

"Well, they never told me about that so I don't believe it happened."

What the fucking kimchi?!?!?

Shit Foreigners Say ... about Korean culture.

"No. That is a Korean tradition. You don't know what you are talking about."

This was said to a Korean by a foreigner in my presence. That is, we were all sitting around talking. BumSuk was telling us what was and wasn't traditional Korean behaviour or culture in a bath house. This twat tried telling a Korean what was and wasn't Korean. Talk about arrogant.

It never fails to astound and confound me was when you get ex-pats who just got to Korea try to tell you what Korea is like. Usually the stupidest comments would come from people who just got off the plane or had only been there a year or so. Because the mere fact they are in Korea means they are now experts and even if you have been there longer they know better than you. Then you have the way apologists do something similar.

"It isn't rude. It is Korean culture."

Apologists LOVE to use this line to excuse bad behaviour by Koreans. I think the first time I heard it used was by someone explaining away why Koreans point at foreigners and why it wasn't rude. Now, one of the first things I was told before coming to Korea was not to point at people. You gesture using your whole hand because pointing is rude in Korea. You don't want to offend people.

After the apologist said that I decided to ask some of my students, I taught kids and adults my first year, if it was rude or cultural. They were unanimous, pointing is rude. It is not "cultural" to point at people. When I told the apologist this they said "Oh no it is cultural. They were wrong." What a fucktard.

People like that need a smack upside the head to reboot their brain.

Shit Foreigners Say ... about what they do in Korea.

"What do you you do?"

"I'm a writer." or "I'm a musician."

No, you are fucking ESL teacher who does something else on the side.

I can't count how many ex-pats have given a stupid answer like that when asked by a Korean, or other foreigner, what they do in Korea. I am not talking about people lying about their job when hitting on a woman I am talking about people who are either embarrassed to say they are an ESL teacher or who have deluded themselves into thinking they are something more, or sometimes less, in Korea. If you were hired as an ESL teacher and/or your VISA is for doing that then guess what? You are an ESL teacher.

If you don't want to be an ESL teacher quit your job and try getting an entertainer VISA to be a musician. Or get the proper VISA and go work for a newspaper if you want to be a writer. God knows you can't be worse than some of the assholes who write for the Korea Times. IF you have an F VISA quit your job and get one doing whatever.

I remember one ex-pat whining on and on at a bar about how teaching was interfering with his music. I had enough and said;

"Quit your ESL job and get work as a musician or shut the fuck up. You are here on an E-2 VISA to teach ESL. That is your job. Not playing in a band. Not making an album. Quit your whining."

Then you have the ones that don't want to say they are a teacher. I remember one ass on YouTube who went on about not wanting to be called a teacher. He is an English coach. He actually wanted his students, and people leaving him YT messages, to call him coach.

I don't know why some people are so embarrassed to call themselves a teacher. You are in Korea, or where ever, teaching English. Whether your skills are being underutilized, misused, over utilized, or ignored you are here so people can learn English.You teach and they learn. You are a teacher. If the thought of telling people that embarrasses you get another line of work and piss off.

Shit Foreigners Say

A reader emailed me and asked me if foreigners ever said stupid things. My reply was "Hell yeah!"

Often you will hear some ex-pat go on about how being stared at, pointed at, and talked about makes them feel like they are "a rock star". They call it being treated like a celebrity, rock star, movie star, or some similarly stupid comparison.

It is just a way of ignoring the fact that you are an oddity in South Korea. You are the exhibit in the zoo, where people come to point and stare. In some cases, especially with the South Korean media, you are an object of derision.

Rock star my ass. Get the rose coloured glasses off and face reality.

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. :)

What the ... health superiority complex?

Talking about being sick in South Korea reminded me of something. have you ever have a friend who would act as if they were superior than you for one reason or another? I had one, a fellow Canuck

If you got sick a couple of times it would be lorded over you. "You get sick easily. I don't." If you and others had been sick, even once, in a period of time you would hear "I guess I am healthier than you guys." or "I am tougher than you guys." You might be sick once in 6-7 months and she would bring up every time you had been sick in the last 5+ years. All the while going on about how she rarely if ever got sick.

One thing to keep in mind is that when you are working with kids it is a lot easier to catch something than working with adults. Their hygiene is dodgey at best. Hell, you can say the same about a lot of Korean adults.

Parents send the kids to school and hagwons even if they are feverish and hacking up a lung. Koreans never seem to cover their mouths when they cough or sneeze. They don't usually wash their hands after using the bathroom. As I mentioned before, one of the nice things to come out of swine flu is that Koreans were TAUGHT how to wash the hands and told to wash after eating and using the bathroom. unfortunately once the hype over the illness died down so did the attention to hygiene. I taught kids and my "friend" taught University students.

Of course she was also ignoring reality. She was conveniently forgetting the times she was sick. The times you listened to her whine about being sick. How she was dieing. Not once throwing her bullshit back in her face. For some reason I put up with it. Mind you, we aren't friends anymore.

Not having someone go off like that anymore is nice. It is something I have noticed in the last couple of days. No one seemed to take pleasure in my being sick and going on and on about how healthy they are.

What the ... attitude 2?!?!?

All that talk about rude Expats and the banter with Mr. Anonymous got me thinking. Who were some of the rudest Expats I encountered in South Korea? What nationality were they?

Some of the rudest, most obnoxious, arrogant Expats I had the bad luck to encounter in South Korea were ... Mormon missionaries. Some were yanks. Some were Canucks. Some were supposedly from Europe. Which goes to show that mookishness knows no boundaries.

The first school I worked at was nicknamed "The Mormon School." The owners were Mormon. The morning desk staff were Mormon. If you walked in during the AM you would hear the front desk singing hymns. Mormon Missionaries would drop in all the time. And the Missionaries seemed to be the worst of the crop.

You would be having a conversation with a co-worker or student and the missionaries would feel the need to interject. Regardless of the topic. Without so much as an excuse me. Or even introducing themselves. That is when they weren't hogging the ONE computer we had for staff and students to use.

One time a co-worker and I were talking in the staff room. One of the missionaries let himself in. I was telling Matt how I learned what "do you want to die" was in Korean. This mookanary felt the need to chime in and lecture us on how no one should be teaching us words like that. He was given some prime examples of other words he didn't like ... and told that since he didn't work at the school he could get the fuck out of the STAFF room.

Several missionaries felt the need to inform me, and friends, that they don't care about us. By "don't care about you" they meant they didn't care what we did in South Korea or what our religion was I assume. Or maybe they meant they literally didn't give a shit about foreigners at all. And that is the wording some of the used ... "we don't care about you". They were in South korea to "save the heathens". Nice attitude. Great way to make introduce yourself. "Hi, I am Elder Asshole. I don't care what you are doing in Korea. I am here to save the heathens. Hoo Rah!"

Then you had the ones that insisted you use their title "Elder". Imagine some snot nosed little shit 10 years or more your junior insisting that you call them Elder.

Some of them even fell into the "sense of entitlement" category I discussed in a previous thread. I remember one day when I was hurrying to work. I had a couple of minutes to go or I would be late. Two Moron ... errr Mormon missionaries ... were coming up the sidewalk. It was a huge sidewalk, 4 Expats could walk side by side on it. At the last second these two cut in front of me. I had to stop or plow into them. Unfortunately, I chose to be polite and stopped.

One of the mooks said "Hi. are you in a hurry?"

Biting my tongue I said "Yes, I am almost late for work."

He said "oh" and then started asking some inane question. I ended up shouldering them aside and hurrying to work. Made it with seconds to spare.

I know friends who had ok encounters with Moromon missionaries. I know those who had encounters like mine. Unfortunately all of my encounters with them were bad in some way. They just came off as too full of themselves and too mookish.

What the ... attitude?!?!?

My brother and I were talking about living in South Korea over rum and a cigar yesterday. (Appleton Estates rum and a fine R&J No1.) He asked what it is like dealing with other foreigners in South Korea. For the most part I didn't have many problems but the attitude of some foreigners pisses me off.

I have encountered many who have this strange idea that just because we are both foreigners I HAVE to talk with them. I MUST WANT to talk with them. All I can say is get over yourself moron! In some ways this is more annoying than the Koreans who just want a free English lesson, even if their English is horrible.

They will stop you anywhere and expect you want to converse with them JUST BECAUSE you are both foreigners. I don't know where they get the idea that because we have one thing in common, being foreigners, I will want to talk with them. Or that common courtesy means you MUST talk with them. Hell, a lot of foreigners in Korea are people I would never waste my time talking to in Canada. So why would I do it in Korea? Because we are both foreigners? It is like some strange sense of entitlement the asshats feel. You MUST respond the way they want. You MUST acknowledge them. When you don't it hurts their widdle feewings.

I am not talking about someone just saying hello. Common courtesy says you respond. Whether it was with a hello, a wave, or a tip of the hat. But that is where common courtesy ends. There is no requirement to engage in a conversation with people. If you voice or show disinterest and people persist THEY are being discourteous, not you.

Here is a prime example of what I mean. A guy by the name of blaseblasphemener posted on Dave's ESL Cafe a several years ago about his encounter with another foreigner in a book store. What he posted went like this;

So I'm in the English Book store today, around 1:30. It's a pretty small little store, and I'm browsing. This guy is also looking at books and is coming towards my direction. Out of, oh, I don't know, common courtesy, and probably against my better judgment, I say, "How's it going?" There's like a 4 second pause from the guy, then, "Good" in a totally disinterested voice. "What school do you work at?" I ask, trying to recover gracefully from being dissed. Another loooong pause. "...... Esl". No return question. "Oh, uhhh, I work at ....., do you know it?" (very well-known in this city). "No." end of conversation. Me holding back from knocking arsewipe out.

So I ask, why do I even bother? Have common social graces slipped sooo far that people can't even muster up the energy to try and be nice? I feel like a wanker not saying hi to people, and then when I do, most people act like I'm a stalker or something. I just don't get it, but I think that is the last time I will say hi to a stranger. It just seems f@#4ed up to me, modern world, korea, whatever, be-damned. I'm not in Seoul by the way, so seeing a foreigner is still a pretty rare occurance.

This is the kind of whining these type of people do. They really need to learn what common courtesy means. He said hello. It was answered. Move on. He said the guy sounded disinterested yet tried to engage him in conversation. Guess who the rude asshole really was?

Idiots like this also ignore the other persons point of view. Not to make excuses but you just don't know what the guy was going through in his life. He could have had a death in the family, broke up with a girlfriend, or just been having a horrible day and didn't want to talk to anyone.

So, some asshole you don't know comes up to you and says "How are you?" while you are trying to find something on a shelf. Not hi. Not Hello. "How are you?" You answer with a terse good and keep doing what you were doing. That way you exhibit common courtesy by replying while sending the message you aren't interested in talking. The guy starts trying to hold a conversation with you based on that reply. You give more signs you aren't interested in talking. The guy persists. Who is the arsewipe again? Who needs a smack upside the head?

Then, when this type of asshole gets together with his butt buddies, usually after leaning on some liquid courage, they start whining and thumping their chest. (Or in the case of the "brave" soul in this example they wallow in their anonymity online.) "Me holding back from knocking the arsewipe out." Showing how brave they are when the object of their ire isn't around. They whine about what losers people like that are. Not them of course. They could never be losers ... in their mind.

Flint, I hope you dye!!!

As I hit another birthday I look into the mirror and ponder my grey hairs. I don't really have a lot. Not as much as I though I have. Then I remember the first time I dyed my hair and why.

I never dyed my hair until I went to Korea. In past posts I have mentioned how Koreans, both adults and children, freak out when they notice you have grey hair. or as they call it white hair. Koreans will have the offending hair yanked right out of their heads.

Now you are probably thinking that I dyed my hair because of Koreans pointing out my "white hair". You would be wrong. It was actually my foreign co-workers who drove me to do it.

I only had a little grey on the sides and a touch in the back. Even though I have more now it really isn't a lot, and I have stopped dying it. Hilda and Matt used to drive me up the wall going on about my grey hair. Matt, well he was a snot nosed kid of 23 or so and god only knows what his natural hair colour was. He would dye it bright colours and wax it into fine spikes. Hilda, she had more grey in her hair than I did, and she is 4 years or so younger than me. Dave, well his problem was more losing hair than having it turn grey so he didn't care as much.

Hilda and Matt would drone on about how I should dye my hair. Hilda once actually said I was making all of them look old by not doing it. When I finally did dye my hair it was just to shut them up. Not a good reason. At that point, I kind of liked it and kept it up.

Funny side note. I actually wanted to dye my hair light brown once and was told no. The owner of the hair place I frequented was great. A nice person and a fantastic barber. She always did a great job at what would be an insanely low price back in Canada. when I told her I wanted my hair light brown or blonde she told me no. She was adamant it would not look good and she would not do it. In the end I figured she knew more about it than me and I went with something darker.

Getting your hair dyed, at least for me, is much cheaper in Korea than Canada. At Blue Club, and the one in GaGyeong-dong, Choengju is GREAT. Owner brews up FRESH coffee, good coffee, while you wait. But I digress ... at Blue Club it costs 20,000 Won for a cut and dye. Here in Canada it costs over $20 just for a cut and wash. But I digress again. Dyed hair ... grey hair ... white hair ... Koreans freaking out.

Spock pretty much has a full head of grey hair. He never dyed it and probably never will. (Much to his wife`s chagrin.) The first time Koreans meet him it might be mentioned. It might not. Then it is forgotten. I think the reason Koreans seemed to freak when they saw some of my grey hair was because they just weren't used to seeing it. As the dye came out it was like BAM! Grey Hair! Of course they would comment, it was something they weren't used to see. Now they sometimes did get too in your face about it. Which can be ... disconcerting. Nay annoying. :)

Now that I am home I haven't dyed the hair. I did buy some "Just for Men" but it sits unused in my bathroom. As I think back to why I started dying my hair the reasoning seems stupid. If I dye it again it will be for me, because I want to.

If I never dye it again it will be because I want it that way. I was foolish for my reasoning. Matt was shallow, which I always knew. God damn that boy is the definition of shallow. Hilda was shallow, which for some reason I ignored.