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.

The lesser of two evils?

What is worse ... a person who complains about where they are (like Korea) or a person that complains about people who complain about where they are (Korea)?

I find the latter can be divided into two categories. Those who have had something bad happen and need to vent and those who just like to complain. You can usually tell the two apart because the person who just likes to complain will never find anything good to say about the place.

I find the people who complain about the complainers can also be divided into two categories. The kind of person who has been subjected to too much venting and is doing some venting of their own and those who tend to ignore anything bad and act as if the place they are in is perfect. The first type I can understand, the second is usually trying to ignore reality, often they are apologists. When someone is running into the bad on a daily basis it can also get to you and may make you vent too much.

I find the people who complain about complainers can be worse than the initial complainers. I understand needing to vent. It is good for a person to vent. Those who never see the good, or refuse to see it, do irk me at times. Refusing to acknowledge the good is just as bad as the idiots who refuse to acknowledge the bad.

Hilda tended to fall into the complaining about complainers while refusing to acknowledge the bad. I remember once some of us were having a discussion about the Cheongju-Cheonan Rapist and how the English media in Korea never reported it. Hilda had a little diatribe about us only focusing on the bad, she knew about it a few years ago because a Korean co-worker told her (so there complainers), so why not talk about good news. Someone greased her out a bit because a) it is a subject we chose to discuss and was important, b) it was so nice that SHE knew and never told anyone, and c) why the hell chime in if you really have nothing to add. That ended that.

Of course it was always a different story when something happened to Hilda and she needed to vent.

Ah, people. They always find a way to drive others crazy. :)

Douchebags I knew.

Writing "Shit Foreigners Say ... to deny reality." brought back a lot of memories of things BuMSuk said and did.

As a friend he just wasn't that reliable. The only time you could really count on him was when he wanted something. He also had a tendency to say and do douchey things. Two incidents really stand out in my mind.

The first one happened during a night out with friends. We were having a good time. I had smoked a nice Romeo & Julietta No. 2 and left the tube on the table. A little while later I was coming back from the bathroom and noticed BumSuk and an American friend (Jon) "play fighting". As I got closer I heard Jon saying he was going to kill BumSuk and the fight started going into another booth. It was a real fight ... or at least an attempt at one.

I managed to get them apart and BumSuk retreated to the bar befofre leaving altogether. What had gotten Jon so pissed off is that BumSuk picked up the cigar tube and told Jon he wanted to stick it up his (Jon's) girl friends ass. What the kimchi?!?!?

BumSuk claimed he was drunk, until later when he was home and on the phone. Then he would say he claimed to be drunk so as not to get beat up and he was really sober. He just thought it would be a funny thing to say to someone. Strangely enough, the female friend who made the stupid comment denying the rape bragging tried to defend what BumSuk had done that night.

The second one happened pretty close to the rape bragging BS. We were talking about a woman I liked but who wasn't interested in being anything but friends. To me that means move on, stay friends, but don't bother thinking of anything else. Evidently it meant more to BumSuk.

He said "Just get her drunk and fuck her."

I was flabbergasted and said "What the fuck did you just say?"

He smiled and said "Oh, I was just joking."

It didn't feel to me like he was joking but he did have a strange sense of humour. So, I let it slide. In retrospect, I don't think he was joking.

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. :)