What the ... rut?!?!?

It is strange how things come to mind sometimes. The other day, while talking with some co-workers, I realized that South Korea was my rut.

We get stuck in a rut at times. Whether it is literally or figuratively. Figuratively, our lives are going in a direction we can't seem to get out of for whatever reason. Often because it is what we know. What is comfortable. Or at least safer than the unknown. Literally, especially here in the winter, our car tire gets in a rut and it is hard or impossible to control where it goes.

For me it was a combination of things. While South Korea is the most racist and bigoted place I have ever lived it wasn't all shit. I actually enjoyed what I did. Add to that the fact that because I enjoyed it I found it easy to do. So good money, easy work. Fear of the unknown.

Oh yeah, almost forgot to mention that. Fear of the unknown is a powerful motivator, or de-motivator, depending on how you think. I had a job I liked with good pay. I had friends and a good social life. I could travel and have fun on my free time. If I left what was I going to do? Would I find a job I liked? One that made good money? Or would I be miserable. Great de-motivator to making any changes.

Oh yeah, and I was also morbidly obese and didn't give a shit. What a combination. Kind of surprised I am still here and actually happy with life. Surprisingly change was good. This time.

Why did I go to South Korea? I actually wanted change in my life. Something I feared. I had a job I hated. REALLY REALLY hated. Pay was good. Benefits were good. Job was shit and I hated it. But that is a story for another time. ;)

I lucked out when I got home. After taking a year off and shedding a lot weight I found a job. I didn't think I would like it. I didn't think I would last long if they hired me. I have been there for almost 4 years now and have started the move into the management side of things. I never saw this coming. Luckily, I got over my fear of change, and out of the rut, came home and took a chance.

Social Experiment

What can I say, I am proud of how this "experiment" turned out. It proves what I have always though about Canada and Canadians.

I heard a lot of people (which means foreigners) in South Korea talking about how they would treat Koreans if they encountered them at home. It pissed me off. I hated how foreigners were treated in South Korea. I would never want to make someone feel that hated in Canada. It is something I actually thought about while there. Something I thought about before I came home and after I returned.

In South Korea I was pretty much labelled as a piece of shit just because I was a foreigner. In my first couple of months I was labelled as having aids just because I was a foreigner. I was labelled as a just wanting to rape/molest "their" women. I always felt like a 3rd class or worse citizen there. Which is why people talking about "giving it back" to Koreans in their home country bothered me.

If I hated being treated some way why the hell would I want to treat someone that way. It would make me a hypocritical piece of shit. Which is worse than being a piece of shit. I wanted to make sure I never treated a foreigner in Canada the way I was treated in South Korea.

While I don't like these ambush type of "media" stories it does make me feel good. I have always thought of Canadians as being tolerant. That "we" wouldn't put up with racist bullshit. This "experiment" actually confirmed it for me. 

Life at the moment.

For those who may want to know why I am not around much right now I made a post on Flint's Follies.

Thank you.

I have to give out a BIG BIG thank you (thank yous? thank you's?) to two "people" today.

First, Korea. Once again, thank you. If it wasn't for the bullshit I was put through by the mooks, morons, and malcontents during my 10 years there I would not have had the ability to control my temper like I did yesterday. A co-worker flipped out for no real reason and when he was in my face, spittle and profanity flying, I was able to NOT knock his fucking teeth out and stomp a mud hole in him. I WAS able to not raise my voice while letting him know he was being a douche in a somewhat polite manner.

It is kind of funny when I think back. Unlike him I wasn't running around trying to raise sympathy from everyone. When people came to me and I told them my version of what happened it was amazing. According to them it was pretty much the SAME way the assmunch told it. And he did NOT look good at all in either telling of the story.

Stig, remember the taxi driver I didn't kick the shit out of? It was close to that situation. Dangerously close. If the finger had touched me I can't say I wouldn't have decked him. Or at least broken the finger. Same in this situation. If it had happened 12+ years ago ... I would have put the beat down of a life time on the mook I work with. Let alone that moronic cabbie.

The second thank you goes to the Anonymous posters, the majority of who came from ... Brazil?!?!?,  today. I did a major cleaning of the apartment and found myself tired and bored. A bored Flint is a dangerous Flint, right John? These pimples on the ass of the internet allowed me to blow off some steam and kill some time. I appreciate the distraction fucktards. Feel free to keep posting. I may even allow your comments. :)

Kudos mooks. Keep on being you. God knows you don't seem to be able to change for the better.

Suicide

A "question" was asked in one of my comment sections here that I answered on Flint's Follies. Instead of reposting it all here I provided the link above for anyone interested.

Punctuality

I have always been punctual. It is something I pride myself on. I would rather be 30 minutes early than 1 minute late for anything. A lack of punctuality on the part of someone is a sure way to raise my ire. Before I went to Korea I would always be at work around 15 minutes before my shift started. I was never one of those people who would show up at the last minute. It meant that I never had to rush.

I found myself showing up even earlier at my 1st job in Korea. It became my routine to be there when the doors opened at 6AM. Our first class was at 6:30. I would use this time to prep anything I needed, which rarely happened, drink coffee, and read the paper. It allowed me to actually relax before starting the day.

At my second and subsequent schools I would usually show up an hour before classes started. I would use my laptop to catch up on email, read some news from home, and anything else I needed/wanted while having coffee. If something was going on that the foreign teachers hadn't been told about, which happened WAY TOO OFTEN, I would sometimes find out about it then and not be caught completely by surprise.

When it comes to my punctuality, my time in Korea served me well. Now that I am home I find that I like to be at work 45 minutes to an hour before my shift starts. I can find out what has been going on, read the paper, drink my coffee, and catch up with co-workers. Sometimes I have even picked up an extra 30-60 minutes of work when they were short and would ask me if I could start right away.

Now if only more of my co-workers were punctual. Or even just on time.

What the ... work ethic?!?!?!?

One of the things I find lacking here in Canada is some of the work ethic I encountered it South Korea. I am not talking about the coming to work even though you are coughing up a lung and will infect everyone else BS. I am talking about the not calling in sick for petty and/or selfish shit.

A co-worker here wants a 3 day weekend. S/He calls in sick. They want a day, or days, off and didn't get them ... call in sick. They don't give a shit how it will fuck over the rest of us. As long as it is good for them.

I miss working with people who didn't pull shit like that.

You know ...

... we have it pretty good here.

That is a direct quote from my friend Aussie. And you know what? For the most part, he was right. Yes, there was some BS to deal with. Ok, a lot of BS at times. However, overall, it was good.

As Aussie would say, we weren't really worked that hard. We had a lot of disposable income. We could enjoy ourselves. For the most part he was right.

My sort of last boss was GREAT! Someone who could actually be trusted. Sure the usual BS popped up, lack of communication, but you could talk to him and he wouldn't knowingly fuck you over. He would actually stand by his word! Unlike most hagwon owners. (Which for me meant 1 in 6 hagwon owners.)

While I am enjoying my current job and being home ... I miss that job. I miss teaching.

I never watched more hockey than when I was in South Korea. I love hockey. Ask Stig, I think I drove him nuts with hockey talk sometimes. I didn't work until the afternoon and because of the time change hockey was on in the morning. :) I miss watching that much hockey. :(

Life was pretty good then. :)

I miss ...

I miss online shopping! I never really thought of it until the other night when I was talking to a co-worker. We were talking about ... well just shit ... and all of a sudden I blurted out that I missed online shopping in SoKo.

There was MUCH more variety than here. And if it took more than 2 days to get to you it was strange.

My CW mentioned that when she shops online she likes to buy from Asian sites because it still works out to be cheaper than Canadian ones. Even with delivery factored in. That is pretty sad.

Still learning lessons from my students.

The other morning, about 5 minutes after I woke up, the phone rang. It was work wondering where I was. I said at home. They told me I was supposed to be at work. I said no I don't start until 7 tonight. They said that the schedule says I should be there now. Long story short, someone changed the schedule on my day off and never bothered to tell me.

Needless to say I was PISSED. I have never been late for work because I forgot I was working or hadn't checked the schedule. The only times I have been late in my life, and I can count them on 2 hands, it was because of forces beyond my control. The weather or traffic.

I am the kind of person that would rather be 30 minutes early than 1 minute late. It irks me when people are late and I try to NEVER be late. There are people at work who are habitually late and it screws up everyone who is working. To me being late is a sign of unreliability and I never want to be considered unreliable.

Needless to say I was working myself into a righteous fury on my way in. Not a good mood to be in when driving. Nor when working. Especially when you factor in that I am NOT a morning person on a good day and this was not starting off as a good day.

As I listened to myself rant I had an epiphany from my teaching days. I had just ranted to myself that "I am never late!" when I heard a little voice in my head start laughing at me.

Then I remembered how upset some students got because they didn't get a perfect score on a test. One student actually cried because she got 99 out of 100. Shen went on and on about how she never failed. She never got less than 100. At the time I thought she was just being stupid. Now I can understand it better.

"I am never late!" "I never get less than 100!" They are actually pretty stupid things to get worked up over. Whether it is anger or sorrow. Of course we are late at times in our life, whether our fault or not. In my case it wasn't my fault. It happens. Just like getting 99 instead of 100 isn't the end of the world.

Even in my state of pissed offedness I could see how much I was over reacting. It helped calm me down and get me looking at things from a more reasonable perspective. It also helped me understand, in retrospect, some of the stress my students were going through and why they reacted the way they did.

I always said that my students taught me things. Even over a year after teaching I can still learn from them.

Korean Culture

I was talking with a co-worker a week or so ago. She is originally from the Philippines and took some ESL classes in Canada to improve her English. When she heard I had spent time in South Korea she started gushing about Korea. Some of her classmates had been Korean and introduced her to Korean culture. She loves Korean culture.

I bit off my cynicism and held back the first comments that came to mind. Instead I asked her what she liked about Korean Culture. She thought about it but was never able to answer because we had to get back to work.

It got me thinking about Korean culture and for the life of me I blanked. I just couldn't think of anything other than K-pop, karaoke, neon, and noise. (Ok, the flashing lights and slot machine noise helped me think of the last two.) A while later some of the traditional stuff came to mind. Samulnori, the hanbok, some of the food.

It bothered me a little that I couldn't think of a slew of things that would fit the category of Korean culture right off the bat. Had I become that jaded or forgotten that much? (Quite possible both. :))

If you feel like participating I am interested to read about what you think of when you hear Korean Culture?

What the ... timing?!?!?

It may be time to wrap this blog up. Sure I can always come up with Korea Times article to shake my head at or stupidity at Korea Sentry to rant about but South Korea isn't really part of my life any more.

My new job takes up a lot of my time. I am, surprisingly to me, enjoying my job. My free time, well, I tend not to spend it on the internet that much any more. (Thanks for entertaining me with you fucktardery John. I probably would have come to this conclusion sooner but you always gave me material to run with. You and Herr Consoleman. :) )

Stig has gone back to University and doesn't time for the blog either. Heh ... Back to School ... good movie. :)

All of which has me wondering if it isn't time to let "What the kimchi???" go and focus on my follies, or just let it all go.

Untimely replies and racist comments.

A comment that was left for me on Notes From the Dog Farm was pointed out to me the other day. Since time had passed I decided not to answer it. It did raise 2 interesting questions.

The 1st had me shaking my head a bit. The commenter asked why I stay in Korea if I dislike it so much. The only reply I can think of is a question. How can someone who claims to have read both my blogs not know that I left Korea almost a year and a half ago? If he meant why did I stay 10 years, that would reply a post of it's own.

The 2nd question raised was about some of the words I have used on my blog when talking about Koreans. Two were mentioned specifically; mook and ricetard.

It still surprises me a bit that people don't know the word mook. It has appeared in many TV shows and movies. Just about anything Mafia related has the word show up in it. You can't have watched The Sopranos without having heard it being used. It has even been used on the Simpsons. While it is an older term, more popular in the old pulp fiction novels and gangster movies, it isn't THAT rare to hear it used today.

Mook isn't just used to refer to Koreans. I use it to refer to idiots of any nationality. Once again, if someone read my blogs they should know that.

Of course you have 'tards like John who implied I was using it as a play on the word gook. Mind you that was him either being deliberately dense to imply racism on my part or too lazy to use a dictionary and just showing his own ignorance. But I digress.

Ricetard, well, yeah, regardless of how it was meant it was kind of racist. (Hmm, I went back and reread this post before posting it and even saying "kind of racist" seems like a cop out. It was racist.) Which is why I stopped using it.

It didn't seem racist to me at the time. Which is a reason not an excuse. It seemed like a funny play on words (especially after a Korean company released a confectionary called a Rice Tard), and Koreans aren't a race. Mind you that kind of reasoning is just a cop out. It is a way of trying to excuse something you either know or think could be bad behaviour. In this case my own behaviour. I can see how it can be construed as being a racist comment. So rather than using the term any more, or being stupid enough to actually try and defend the indefensible and continue using it, I stopped and just went with the generic fucktard and non-racist variants of it (Bustard, Youtard, etc.).

What the ... preparation?!?!?!?!

One of my brothers visited us for a week along with his wife. They tend to be a tad loud and at times cause confusion. I say cause confusion because the wife is so slow to get ready that plans to do things tended to get screwed up all the time. My brother never helped matters either. All of the noise and confusion would leave our mother stressed and ready to blow up.

Towards the end of their visit both my mother and one of my sisters (not at the same time or together) asked me if it didn't stress me out. It didn't. In fact, my mother caused more of a headache for me by getting stressed out. The next question was "Why doesn't it bother you?". The answer was pretty easy. I lived in South Korea.

I spent 10 years living and working in South Korea. Confusion, noise, last minute changes, and lateness is par for the course in life there. You learn over time to ignore it to a degree or you go insane. You find ways to vent, like blogging, so you don't explode. Compared to what I put up with in Korea it didn't rate very high on the stress or bullshit scale.

Living and working in Korea also helped me to deal with my Sister-in-law. She is deaf and has a lot of the same trouble that students learning English have when speaking. Vocabulary, pronunciation, and talking speed at times. You have to pay attention when she speaks and when you reply you have to watch your speed and vocabulary. It was a lot like talking with students. Which meant I had no problems, or stress, talking with her and understanding her. And she was able to understand me.

My 10 years in South Korea pretty much prepared me for my brother's visit. :)

What the ... bureautardic bullshit?!?!?!?!

I never thought I would say it but I would much rather be dealing with Korean Immigration or the Pension people than the idiots I have had to deal with in the Canadian government just to get my birth certificate.

The last 2 years dealing with Korean Immigration and the Pension office was a walk in the park compared to the idiocy I have been dealing with for the last 6 months. Not even to start getting into the bull shit of getting my Criminal Background Check done. In many ways it worse than when dealing with Korean Immigration a few years back because there isn't a language barrier.

And they wonder why people hate bureaucrats?

The Cheongju Cough

After being in South Korea for a month or so I developed what would come to be called the Cheongju Cough. Every foreigner I knew who lived in Cheongju had it at one time or another. It never really seemed to go away completely. It would vanish for a time and then come back. We just ended up calling it the Cheongju Cough but foreigners I knew who lived all over Korea had it.

I got sick a lot in Korea. Some of it can be written off to teaching kids. Other times due to environmental factors such as "yellow dust" or just plain old air pollution. I got a LOT of sinus infections living in Korea which my ENT Doctor blamed on the air pollution. Then there was cellulitis. I got that at least once a year my last 4 years in Korea. The 1st time was the worst because I didn't know what it was and ignored it for a long time. According to my doctor cellulitis is common in Korea. I blame the damn mosquitoes while my doctor blamed bug bites and ... pollution. No wonder so many Koreans wear surgical masks when they go outside.

I have been home almost a year now. It will be a full year a week from now. Since I have returned I haven't really been sick. I haven't had any major sinus infections. I haven't had any cellulitis. Hell, I even shed a lot of weight. Strangely enough, with my 1 year anniversary home looming, this is one of the first things that came to mind.

Apologies

Recently, my mother made some comments about one of my brothers that she thought were amusing but he, and everyone else around at the time, took as insulting. After being told that what she said was offensive and hurt my brothers feelings she did something a lot of people can't seem to do. She apologised to my brother and is trying to make sure she doesn't do it again.

I am proud of her for doing that. She didn't have to be told to apologise, she knew that she was in the wrong and it was the right thing to do. She didn't go to lengths to try and explain it away, she thought it was funny but the fact no one else in the room did spoke volumes to her. If she had to be told to apologise it would have meant nothing. Kind of like if you apologise without knowing what you did wrong.

It reminded me of an ex-friend. To make a long story short, over a period of years she proved herself to be extremely unreliable, selfish, and way too bitchy at times. It became even worse in the last year or two of our friendship. She knew something was wrong so she sent an IM saying that and apologising if she did something wrong. Keep in mind she is the type of person that if you apologised without knowing what you were sorry for she would NEVER accept it and probably rip into you. One of the many problems was her double standards. So I let her know a bit of what was wrong and she actually started trying to defend the more indefensible things. Then she pointed to her previous apology not knowing what she apologised for and said "Well, I already apologised, I don't know what else I can do."

Now maybe I expected too much. I expected two things. A real apology and some sign that she would at least TRY to change and become more reliable and less bitchy/rude. I didn't expect a great epiphany just some sign that the same bullshit would lessen and/or stop. It was too much to expect from her so the friendship just died off. I could have told her that she should have apologised but then it would have been forced and meant nothing. I could have told her that she needed to change but once again it is something a person has to realize on their own or it means nothing.

Talking with mutual friends she basically made everything my fault. I "threw our friendship away". She just didn't understand that she was wrong, should REALLY apologise and try to change. Well, unfortunately, that is about all I expected out of her. Even most of the mutual friends tired of her BS and stopped bothering with her.

It is amazing how many people simply can't admit that they were wrong. Or that they might have been wrong. It reminds me of the Fonz on Happy Days saying he was wrrr wrrr wrrr .... wrrr wrrr wrrr or he was sorrrrrr sorrrrrr sorrrr. My father was one of those people. He never admitted when he was wrong and never found it in himself to apologise until he was dying.

Because of the concept of "face" I found that when dealing with many Koreans, especially bosses, they couldn't admit fault or apologise. Even if it was clearly their fault or mistake it wasn't. At the most it was a "misunderstanding". If you pushed it then you were even more in the wrong, not them. It made it hard to deal with, or trust, those people at times.

DongHakSa by moonlight.

Gyeryongsan, or Gyeryong Mountain, is part of a chain of mountains between Cheongju and Daejeon. There are a fewBuddhist temples in that area. I went to one of them a few times, Donghaksa.

I was channel surfing today and caught a bit of a travel show. they were at a Buddhist temple in Japan. It had me thinking of the last time I was at Donghaksa. So, I loaded up the few pictures I took then and enjoyed the memories.

I went on a road trip to Daejeon with 2 co-workers, one Canadian and one Korean. We had a great day. First we went to the art museum. Then we went shopping. Ok, I am not much for shopping but my co-workers really enjoyed it. After that we hooked with a friend of my Korean co-worker for supper.

On the way home HyunSuk thought it would be nice to stop at GyeryongSan park and go to DongHaksa. The sun was starting to set as we got there. Most people were leaving the park. The moon was already up and visible.

When we got to the temple it was getting dark. A lone nun was preparing things in a small hall near the base of a hill.. She came out to talk to us, her English was pretty good and what she could say HyunSuk translated.

The nun was getting ready for the ceremony to call the nuns to evening prayer. She explained what that entailed and then asked us if we wanted to watch or participate. We decided it would be interesting to join in. We were right.

First she led us up a path to the top of the hill where there was a small building with a bell. She performed a ceremony and rang the bell several times. Then we went back down to the hall where she performed another ceremony. It was a great cap to a good day.

The views were fantastic as it got dark. My pictures don't do justice to the beauty of the night. The moon lit things up enough that we had no problem making our way back down to the entrance of the park and our car.

Mad Cow BS was actually informative.

As strange as it feels, I did learn something from the Mad Cow BS that took place in South Korea. And I am not talking about something that takes a dig at Koreans.

A friend's mother has Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease. I actually knew a little about it because of all the info (real and made up) floating around during the BSE BS.

What a nasty fricking disease. :( It can incubate for decades, 60 or 70 years and then just strike. When it hits life expectancy is measured in weeks. Talk about something that makes you feel impotent. All my friend can do is wait and be there for her mom, even though her mom doesn't always know who she is. :(

Death

A few family members died while I was in Korea. It was hard dealing with the death of a loved one while not home. When my oldest brother died I couldn't even get a flight that would have me at the funeral in time.

I think the strongest feeling I had other than grief was guilt. The guilt was for various reasons. not being home when it happened. Not being there for my mom and other family members. Not being at the funeral.

My Aunt died this morning. It has been hard to deal with but for different reasons. She has been hanging on for while. The strongest feeling tended to be one of helplessness. There is nothing I (or anyone) could have done to heal her. She was almost 94 and had a happy life. She knew the end was coming and was ready for it. It had been a few weeks coming though. But it was hard to just stand by and watch he die.

I is strange to say but I think it was actually easier to deal with a death in the family when I was in Korea. Usually I found out about the death after it happened. I missed all the time spent waiting for someone to die. Watching helplessly.

I am glad I was home for this. I had the time to see my Aunt and talk with her while she was lucid. I was able to be there for my mom and other family members. It was harder than dealing with it abroad in some way but I am glad I was here.