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 ... YouTards?!?!?!

(I wrote this post while events were still fresh. Unfortunately, I got busy with work and never got around to finishing it. While going through What the Kimchi yesterday I noticed that this was sitting unpublished. I decided to finish it and post it today.)

Odds are if you read a Korea related blog you saw the video and know about the expat blowing up at an old man on a bus in Seoul. (Was it Seoul?)

First you had the title of the video "Blacks riot in South Korea Bus". It was actually one black man. I don't know if that can actually constitute a riot but I doubt it. Regardless, it was very misleading. The title has since been changed to Black Violence in South Korea Bus. Still fucktardic but not as misleading.

But that isn't what had me shaking my head at the idiocy of some YouTubers. It was the comment section. I had almost forgotten just how fucktardic people can be on YouTube.

You had your Internet heroes making comments.

"I'D SHUT YOUR ASS? UPPP~~~~~~~~~~" emma1021poo

"What a fuckin IDIOT!! I'LL BRING IT MUTHAFUCKA!! Tough guy! I'll do that? shit to you!" zionrocket

if i was on that bus (as a black female) i would have slapped the sht out of him.

cdm0014

Of course if they were there they would have done something. They would have put him in his place. They would have kicked his ass. They would have ... probably done sweet fuck all just like the others on the bus did.

Then you had your racist trolls just using this as another way to grind their axe.

"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" StoryOfSouL

Ah the old when in Rome line. I could do a blog just on how stupid a thing that is to say.

"Fucking Nigger. Don't blacks know that they are the lowest race on earth? Didn't apartheid in South Africa and discrimination in USA thought them to bow down? to ALL other races?" AmandaLee392

is there anyway we can educate niggers with ipad?

koban4max

Then you had some that made comments that just didn't make sense. Or rather, made even less sense than the nonsense some of the YouTards were spitting out.

DEVIL FUCKER?

baitormaster07

He shouldn't even be there ..

southernature

Jap agent is active to let a Korean quarrel with a black.

killjap100

You did have some people making reasonable comments. Whether it was voicing their disgust vociferously or just letting people know it was wrong. (And that the net tards were wrong too.) Unfortunately, they seem to get drowned out by the idiots.

What can I say, these kind of tards are part of the reason I gave up on YouTube a long time ago. It seems like their whole life revolves around YouTube and posting their vitriol.

I was wrong.

I have several posts on here that mention or talk about blood money. The last one saw The Korean from Ask A Korean respond. After reading what he said I had to think about why I call it blood money and just why I blamed the system, in Korea, for the way things are handled.

I could come up with excuses for why I tried to defend calling it blood money and raging against the Korean system. But they would just be excuses. There are reasons, some kind of silly when I look back now, but I am not going to make excuses.

What The Korean said makes sense. I could have tried arguing against it but I would have been doing something I berate others for doing, denying reality. While I had read the post on his site I never really processed it. For whatever reasons I never laid my own bias aside when I read it. Luckily I have never claimed to be infallible and this is a good example of it.

I was blaming instances of people abusing the system or making errors in judgement on the system being wrong, even evil. I was using it as a whipping boy for things that pissed me off. In short, I was putting the blame on the wrong things.

(After posting and re-reading this I came to the conclusion that the title I used sucks. "My blood money argument" is kind of ... bleh. So I changed it to what it now reads. "I was wrong." )

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 ... 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. :)

Celebrating The Lunar new Year

Korean Adventure (March 7, 2003 Chautauqua)

Since I have been living and working in Korea, I have been able to celebrate the new year twice. On January 1st, I welcomed 2003, and on February 1st, I welcomed the year of the goat.
There are twelve different animals assigned to various years, including the rat, the dragon, and the cow. I was born in 1959, the year of the pig. According to my horoscope, I will be more of a homebody this year. So, no change.
Our calendar, the Gregorian, is used throughout Asia, but there are still those who rely on a lunar calendar to calculate the best time to celebrate ancient rites, such as the lunar new year.
The Gregorian calendar ignores the moon and adds leap days to recalculate the solar year. The lunar calendar, like the Islamic calendar, ignores the sun. The lunisolar calendar, exemplified by Chinese and Jewish calendars, adds leap months every three years. It can make you dizzy trying to keep them straight.
One of the main parts of the Korean tradition is something they call "jesa," which is a ritual performed in homes asking the residing spirit for blessings.
An altar table is set, and then the head of the household lights incense, pours liquor into a glass, and then into a bowl. He then bows twice to the ancestral spirit. His family follows suit, and the head reads the "chuk mun," or ritual address.
This is done three times, and a small amount of food is eaten to signify acceptance of the ancestors' symbolic blessing.
Some Christians have denounced it as a form of worship that they cannot condone. They also object to the drinking of liquor, as well as the increasingly popular tradition of visiting a fortune teller.
Such talk would have certainly brought down severe punishment in the 19th century, when over 300 believers lost their lives. Christianity has become close to a religious majority nowadays, and churches can be found on every street corner.
The struggle between the old (Confucianism) and the new (Christianity) can be very divisive of families, and compromises are having to be made. Many people are trying to find their own way of celebrating that will include everyone.
Some people simply say they are honoring their ancestors, and New Years Day is the appropriate occasion. It is part of a break from any orthodox religion and an effort to tailor their own beliefs and practices as they see fit.
Mainly, it seems to me, it is about family. Many Koreans have no religion at all, and don't perform the ceremony, but they do take the time to visit their home towns and pay their respects.
As the country changes and modernizes, some things will no doubt be lost. Maintaining something that is their own, may help a lot of Koreans retain a sense of national identity, and pave the way for better understanding and (one hopes) peace.
I got a lot of the information for this article from the Korea Herald, and a story by staff reporter Andrew Petty.