I was perusing the Action Against MBC Facebook page when I saw something that made me shake my head. It is the perfect example, as if we need another, of why it is so easy to say South Korea is not foreigner friendly and how it is racist.
A guy posted about an article on Busan News. The gyst of it is that Busan Police are telling employers not to allow their foreign workers to go to Haeundae Beach because there have been some sex crimes committed there by foreigners.
Wow. Using that lack of logic and the Virginia Tech shooting the US should be asking all Universities to not allow Korea students.
What a bunch of fucktards.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
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.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
What the ... excuse?!?!?
I was reading an article David Wills wrote in Busan Haps and the subsequent comments from readers. A couple stuck out, especially one by a person going by the name AnESLteacher.
It's a good article.
I agree... every time a foreigner screws up, it sets all of us back. It's a normal reaction. It happens everywhere.
We must also always show respect to the locals, we are guest here. Even to the @$$hole ajoshis.
I do believe that things are changing, with every year fewer and fewer people point at me.
And with time, once all these kids that we are presently teaching grow up, racism will become less of a problem.
An interesting comment. There is some truth to it but part of it left me shaking my head.
It's a normal reaction. It happens everywhere.
Really? If that is true, that people react that way every where, why was there no outcry against Koreans in America over the Virginia Tech shooting? From what I have seen the over reaction to the deeds of a few foreigners gets blown up more in Korea than in the US or Canada. A lot more.
Monday, July 16, 2012
What the ... interesting coincidence?!?!?!
What an interesting coincidence. You remember back in February when I posted a copy of an email death threat I received? The one that turned out to have been rehashed by an unimaginative asshole?
It arrived around January of 2012. Two things blog wise were going on in the months preceding that. Anonyjohn was off licking his wounds and trolling David's site. Douchey D, Doctor Thiessen, or someone pretending to be him, was trolling around my blogs. Both of them got smacked around on the blog by me. My eyes were aimed more at DD when I mentioned then that it could be a coincidence but I am not a big believer in coincidences.
I have a new email, with some extras added, from some Anonytard using AOL.com this time.
Isn't the internet great. It allows shitheads like yourself to say shit that would, in real life get your head cracked open.
Hopefully you'll suffer the same fate fucking cunt.
Please turn to the loaded gun in your drawer, put it in your mouth, and pull the trigger, blowing your brains out. You'll be doing the whole world a favor. Shitbag.
I would love to smash your face in until it no longer resembled anything human, faggot.
Can you please remove yourself from the gene pool? Preferably in the most painful and agonizing way possible? Retard
Die painfully okay? Prefearbly by getting crushed to death in a garbage compactor, by getting your face cut to ribbons with a pocketknife, your head cracked open with a baseball bat, your stomach sliced open and your entrails spilled out, and your eyeballs ripped out of their sockets. Fucking bitch
I really hope that you get curb-stomped. It'd be hilarious to see you begging for help, and then someone stomps on the back of your head, leaving you to die in horrible, agonizing pain. Faggot
Shut the fuck up f aggot, before you get your face bashed in and cut to ribbons, and your throat slit.
It is kind of interesting that this one has appeared after I slammed Anonyjohn for being the idiot that he is. Coincidence? As I said, I am not a big believer in coincidences.
Regardless, I don't feel honoured this time. I am sad. It is sad that the best the fuckwit could do was rehash something else other anonytards have used to try and intimidate people. Something that was used months ago to try and scare me. It just goes to reinforce the idea that these fucktards are pathetic.
It arrived around January of 2012. Two things blog wise were going on in the months preceding that. Anonyjohn was off licking his wounds and trolling David's site. Douchey D, Doctor Thiessen, or someone pretending to be him, was trolling around my blogs. Both of them got smacked around on the blog by me. My eyes were aimed more at DD when I mentioned then that it could be a coincidence but I am not a big believer in coincidences.
I have a new email, with some extras added, from some Anonytard using AOL.com this time.
Isn't the internet great. It allows shitheads like yourself to say shit that would, in real life get your head cracked open.
Hopefully you'll suffer the same fate fucking cunt.
Please turn to the loaded gun in your drawer, put it in your mouth, and pull the trigger, blowing your brains out. You'll be doing the whole world a favor. Shitbag.
I would love to smash your face in until it no longer resembled anything human, faggot.
Can you please remove yourself from the gene pool? Preferably in the most painful and agonizing way possible? Retard
Die painfully okay? Prefearbly by getting crushed to death in a garbage compactor, by getting your face cut to ribbons with a pocketknife, your head cracked open with a baseball bat, your stomach sliced open and your entrails spilled out, and your eyeballs ripped out of their sockets. Fucking bitch
I really hope that you get curb-stomped. It'd be hilarious to see you begging for help, and then someone stomps on the back of your head, leaving you to die in horrible, agonizing pain. Faggot
Shut the fuck up f aggot, before you get your face bashed in and cut to ribbons, and your throat slit.
It is kind of interesting that this one has appeared after I slammed Anonyjohn for being the idiot that he is. Coincidence? As I said, I am not a big believer in coincidences.
Regardless, I don't feel honoured this time. I am sad. It is sad that the best the fuckwit could do was rehash something else other anonytards have used to try and intimidate people. Something that was used months ago to try and scare me. It just goes to reinforce the idea that these fucktards are pathetic.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
What the ... assumption?!?!?!?
It doesn't always pay to be nice.
I was at Road King one night enjoying an R&J (Romeo and Juliet) Churchill and some rum with friends. A waitress, also a friend, came up to me and started talking about a foreigner she had just served at the bar. He is so nice and so good and so pure. I quickly deduced he was pretty typical of Western men.
Why would I think that? She told me how she served him with a smile. After talking with him for a few minutes she had asked him if he would like to meet for coffee the next day. He was very enthusiastic about it.
Why would that make me think anything but positive thoughts? She smiled at him and treated him like a person. Ergo, in his mind, she must want him. Why else would she have been nice to him? Why else would she have asked him out for a coffee? When I told her this she didn't want to believe it. So she went back to the bar and talked to him again.
When she came back to my table she was pouting. I was right. He took her kindness for interest in him. When she asked about coffee that confirmed it for him. She must want him.
I don't know what it is about a lot of guys in the west, or at least Canada and the U.S., most are just that full of themselves. If a woman smiles at them and makes eye contact they take it to mean she wants him.
I haven't been able to find a link to the story but I remember a news story about a year before the above happened. It was probably around 2006 or 7. A chain of stores in the U.S. was forcing it's cashiers to make eye contact and smile at all customers. The cashiers were PISSED.
Why? Because most guys would assume the cashier was interested in them. The company ended up backing off from the policy after the shit storm of complaints that it caused.
Sometimes, with some people, it just doesn't pay to be overly nice.
I was at Road King one night enjoying an R&J (Romeo and Juliet) Churchill and some rum with friends. A waitress, also a friend, came up to me and started talking about a foreigner she had just served at the bar. He is so nice and so good and so pure. I quickly deduced he was pretty typical of Western men.
Why would I think that? She told me how she served him with a smile. After talking with him for a few minutes she had asked him if he would like to meet for coffee the next day. He was very enthusiastic about it.
Why would that make me think anything but positive thoughts? She smiled at him and treated him like a person. Ergo, in his mind, she must want him. Why else would she have been nice to him? Why else would she have asked him out for a coffee? When I told her this she didn't want to believe it. So she went back to the bar and talked to him again.
When she came back to my table she was pouting. I was right. He took her kindness for interest in him. When she asked about coffee that confirmed it for him. She must want him.
I don't know what it is about a lot of guys in the west, or at least Canada and the U.S., most are just that full of themselves. If a woman smiles at them and makes eye contact they take it to mean she wants him.
I haven't been able to find a link to the story but I remember a news story about a year before the above happened. It was probably around 2006 or 7. A chain of stores in the U.S. was forcing it's cashiers to make eye contact and smile at all customers. The cashiers were PISSED.
Why? Because most guys would assume the cashier was interested in them. The company ended up backing off from the policy after the shit storm of complaints that it caused.
Sometimes, with some people, it just doesn't pay to be overly nice.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Ramyon
I was in Sobey's a week ago and what did I see ... ramyon from Korea. Holy fuck ... kimchi ramyon!!! That is what I am talking about baby!
It has been over 2 years since I had any ramyon. After looking at the sodium levels on the packages here in Canada I was turned off. When I saw the stuff from South Korea, especially the spicy one I always got when I lived in Cheongju, I had to get it.
I added some veg and some jalapeno sausage. Gourmet fucking ramyon! Damn!
It has been over 2 years since I had any ramyon. After looking at the sodium levels on the packages here in Canada I was turned off. When I saw the stuff from South Korea, especially the spicy one I always got when I lived in Cheongju, I had to get it.
I added some veg and some jalapeno sausage. Gourmet fucking ramyon! Damn!
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
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.
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.
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