King of the Bongo

Saturday morning...I woke up in the usual way: the soothing monotone bark of a bongo truck outside my window, followed by my cranky next door neighbour's screams, topped off by my two word salute to the driver.
This week marks the smooth slide out of the semester, as two of my classes at "the Power Station" are wrapping up, as well as my Saturday movie class. After almost 3 years of teaching every Saturday, it feels like a great relief to know that today is the end of the line. I don't mean to say that I had any problem with the class, in fact, I rather enjoyed it most of the time, and met a lot of cool people along the way. It was time, however, to become a Monday - Friday slave and keep the weekends open for other endeavours (BBQing meat, playing darts, poker, squash, napping, blogging, writing about blogging, blogging about BBQing, and BBQing squash).

Thursday was Buddha's Birthday, which is a National Holiday and a day off in Korea...except for "foreigners" it seems. Hongik required us (English, Chinese and Japanese teachers) to work even though the Korean professors, staff, janitors, students and everyone else in the country was taking the day off. As you might imagine, classes were pretty meager...only a few students were on the campus, so most of the 20 or so professors on hand passed the time drinking coffee and making off hand remarks. Not sure what the deal is with that, but even back in the old Hanguk University of Foreign Studies days, they made us go to work during Korean Thanksgiving - the biggest holiday in the country - which amounted to 6 English professors sitting around an empty campus for 8 hours. What's the point of them doing that you may wonder? Everyone else was wondering as well, including our students. The answer, dear readers, can only be found when you have stripped your mind of all ability to use logic and reason. Then and only then will you be able to understand the mindset of the business practices in the land of the morning bongo truck.

Saskatchewan Artists...what is the value of art?

This morning's news featured a few eye catching items:

1) Victoria Day in Canada...

A time when Canadians all take to their cabins, Pinesol in tow, and see what surprises nature has left them over the winter. Could it be a cob web, could it be a leaky roof, could it be a rotting raccoon carcass caught in a stove pipe? The answers can only be ascertained once the creaky, warped door is opened and you regain your bearings after inhaling the 1-2 punch of last fall's season ending "leftover cookout extravaganza" mixed with the ever-present musty box spring and mattress combo.

2) Snow in Saskatchewan

This is a certain sign of global warming, as it is usually -30 at this time of year, and everyone knows that it never snows when it is that cold. (for those of you not familiar with Saskatchewan, that is a joke...albeit a cold one)

3) Artists lobby for better pay

Artists in Sask. are trying to organize a union, which boggles my mind. Now, I am no artist, and I must admit that my most feared class in all of elementary school was art because I had no skill, talent, ability, luck, or appreciation for it. A couple of quotes worth mentioning:

"Artist organizations have argued creative people are underpaid in Saskatchewan and that better legislation could result in higher incomes. The proposed law would allow scales to be set for the payment of artists that would establish minimum pay."

"The stalling of the bill led to some debate in the legislature Thursday and some finger pointing at the Saskatchewan Party. "They want to continue to keep artists poor," NDP MLA Pat Atkinson said."

Now it seems to me that assigning a specific value to art work devalues it entirely. Just like in most other professions, if you are good at what you do, then you will get paid accordingly. If you are not, keep working at it until you are. Enjoying art is a personal preference; what I may find impressive, another may find boring or offensive. I might be willing to drop $1000 dollars on something someone else finds distasteful and wouldn't pay a penny for. The accusation "they want to continue to keep artists poor" is a laugh. First, I do believe that throughout history, the vast majority of artists have been relatively poor and are not hung up on the materialism of what they do, and secondly, what reason would there be for anyone to want to hold artists down? If people love your artwork, then by all means, sell it until your heart (and bank account) is content. If they don't, it isn't the government's fault.

"Oh those rich sculptors, when will they get off their high horse?"

Anthony's bachelor party

A group of about 15 of us thought that the recently opened "Hooters" pub in Apkujung would be an appropriate place to kick off Anthony's bachelor party, and for the most part, we were right about that. I have never been to Hooters in Canada, but I imagine that the concept is pretty much the same, with the major difference being that Canadian waitresses have bigger...trays...yes...trays for carrying your order to your table.
After Justin's nightmare of a bachelor party, we hoped to keep the razors, bondage gear, emergency room visits, photo opportunities and markers to a minimum, and I think we achieved success. There are some pretty wacky photos of the Hooters antics floating around (keep an eye on the Goat's page in upcoming days) but generally we were about as well behaved as 15 guys can be when they are out on the town.
Second stop was "The Loft" in Itaewon. I had never been there before, but a few guys vouched for its fun atmosphere, so we headed up there and mixed it up for a while...bumping into several of our coworkers by chance. Anthony was still holding it together quite well around midnight, and we thought that we should get over to Bless U where we could have a little pool / darts tourney or something like that to keep everyone entertained and on edge. The Old Man sent us on a scouting mission and they were going to soon follow. We got to Bless U and it was fairly quiet, so we knew we could get into some games with no problems. Colin and Barney showed up a little later without the bachelor, who was getting his groove on and busting out a few moves on the dance floor back at the loft.
We stuck around for a bit in Bless U, but we were running out of steam and ended up heading home - some of us in the dog house, while some of us were not. I'm sure Tony was paying the price today, but hopefully had a blast with good friends last night.

The Wrath...

What a lovely Sunday. Birds were smiling, the sun was singing, I was shining...
It all started off slowly and pleasantly with an early morning wake up to catch some of the Senators and Buffalo game...hell of a game...the Sabers scoring with 5 seconds left or something nutty like that to force overtime. OT was constant end to end action and the Sens finally scored. Wow...I haven't seen a game like that in a while I must say.

LVJ scooted over around 2ish and we decided to go for lunch. I live right beside a church, so it is usually a bit busy on Sunday as you would expect, but there was a parking spot right in front of my house, so she parked there. With all the milling around going on, we thought it would be a good idea to leave her cell phone number just in case we had to move the car to let someone in or out or whatever, which is pretty much par for the course here, so not a big deal. Just as we were finishing up our tom yum and green curry, she got a call that went something like this (in Korean though of course)

LVJ: Hello
Guy: Yeah, is your car parked here? It is blocking my car.
LVJ: Yeah that's my car. I am just across the street, I will come and move it and let you out
Guy: (realizing that she was a young lady) Well, how stupid do you have to be to park your car there you dumb bitch? Fuck!
LVJ: Sorry. I'll be there in a minute

She turned pure red with anger, so I knew that the day was about to turn interesting. She told me the details of the conversation and so I said to her that I would take care of it...
I walked across the street seething with fury...I was enraged to the point that I had to phone LVJ back while I was on the way so that she could tell me not to pound the guy.
As I approached my front door, this guy had his motorcycle parked across the back of her car as a way of blocking it, and he was standing by the driver's door with his arms crossed trying to look like a tough guy.
He was expecting someone like this to come and move the car:

However, to his surprise, this guy showed up instead (christ...oddly this pic does look a little like me...same strong hair line!):


The look on his face was priceless when he realized that his little ploy to trap a young girl turned sour...he looked like a cornered weasel. I walked about an inch away from his face and began a tirade of expletives in several languages...this went on for a couple of minutes with him trying to say some shit, but me not hearing a bar of it and releasing the verbal hounds on him. He looked like he was going to cry (this is about a 45 year old man) and then an old man came out of his house to see what was going on. The old dude spoke to me in English, and seemed to understand that the guy had done something to me to set me off. The old guy started in on the rude guy, but when rudey started speaking, I just cut him off and continued screaming in his face. He started reaching for his phone to call for some back up, so I though I would wrap it up by giving him a double finger salute right in front of his eyes and motioning for him to move his bike (you see, he didn't need us to move the car...he wanted the spot for someone else, which infuriated me even more). He had that kind of expression like "oh man, I really fucked up" mixed with "I hate foreigners".

I drove off and parked about a block down with thoughts of the old ultraviolence on my mind...


Strangely, as we went and had some coffee at starbucks after that, I felt a great sense of relief, as though I had released a year's worth of pent up stress and frustration at once. In the long run, it is probably not good for my own longevity to wig out that severely - from both a heart attack stand point and also street fighting standpoint. Call me old fashioned, but there is no way in hell that any fucking dick like that is going to talk to my girlfriend that rudely, and moreover, when I saw his little intimidation tactic standing by the car, I felt not one bit of remorse for losing my cool.

On a completely unrelated note, the Korean chapter of Rageaholics Anonymous meets every second Thursday of the month at 730pm in Shinchon. All are welcome to attend. Coffee and squares to follow.

What a day...

1. Class today was one of those days where I felt like
a) screaming at someone
b) telling someone to "fuck right off"
c) giving myself a lobotomy
d) checking to make sure that my students' brains were plugged in and in the on position
e) throwing my hands up in disgust and disbelief
f) suppressing my annoyance and using this blog as a release valve
g) all of the above

If you chose g), then you are correct. Let me give you a few vignettes from class...

• when some dude said that he wouldn't mind visiting Mexico because he had watched a documentary on it or something, a dopey broad cuts in with "I hate Mexico...I don't like Mexican people at all." When asked why, she responded that even though she had never been there (and didn't appear to know SFA about it) a guy that she perceived to be Mexican asked her to dance one time - at a night club of all places! She thought that he was too forward, and therefore hates the whole country.
• Apparently all Chinese people are dirty and smell bad. Chinese food is disgusting, and Chinese people have no manners. My students confirmed this by never having been to China, and eating jajangmyun (a Koreanized kind of Chinese food that is popular here)
• Korean guys have better manners than guys from any other country, which is why so many "foreigners" love Korean guys, like "Bi" (is that "BEE" or "Buy"?)
• A group of girls in class discussed at length the need for equality between men and women, then went on to stress the importance of trying to land a rich guy to marry above factors such as appearance, personality, love, trust, blah blah...to the point that one guy in class finally said to them "you are so shallow. Make your own money." That caused some tension for a minute...I was satisfied.
• In the second class, an older lady explained to me in great detail how I need to go to church and read the bible faithfully in order to live properly. At that point I was considering choice b)

These incidents are nothing new really, and any teacher can pretty much hear this shit all the time, but for some reason, today it was annoying the hell out of me. Maybe it was all of them happening in the space of 2 hours. I usually prefer hear doses of idiotic comments thrice a day, usually after meals and accompanied by a glass of water. I took this photo with my camera phone during class...I think it will give you an idea of the caliber of conversation going on.


Thank you blogspot.com...giving me free space to air these beefs has probably prevented me from getting fired, going to jail, getting in a dust-up, or indeed, all of the above.

Vacation can't come soon enough

Tasty Beverage? None for me, thanks

In setting this precedent, I can only imagine that the courts will be tied up for years. This has got to be one of the only cases on record of a Korean employee taking a stand against their boss.

Court Punishes Manager Over Forced Conviviality

In a decisive blow to office bullies who force colleagues to drink with them whether they want to or not, a court has ordered one such man to pay W30 million in damages to a junior co-worker (US$1=W928). The court heard that the man forced a junior female colleague to drink at dinner parties, and refused to let her go home. In March 2004, the 30-year-old woman went for a job interview with an online game manufacturer. After the official interview, she went to a drinking party, billed as a "drinking interview", along with a personnel manager identified as Choi (39). After drinking a couple of glasses of beer, the woman declined an offer of soju or Korean distilled liquor, pleading a bad stomach. But Choi insisted she would pass the booze test only after drinking until 3 o'clock in the morning.

At the instructions of Choi, all company staff had to attend at least two dinner parties a week. On one occasion, the woman attempted to sneak away. Choi called after her to come back, but she refused. At the next such “party”, she was severely scolded by Choi. On another occasion she attempted to mix her whiskey with water, saying she really could not drink much. But Choi told her to drink “or you’ll be in trouble with me,” the court heard. After some time, the woman started to suffer gastritis and migraine, and experienced frequent nausea after meals. She sought treatment and ended a four-year relationship with her boyfriend. Eventually, she filed suit against Choi.

The Seoul High Court on Sunday ordered Choi to pay the woman W30 million, increasing damages of W7 million awarded by a lower court. The bench said Choi “arranged more than two dinner parties a week and forced the plaintiff to drink without letting her go home until early in the morning.” It ruled this was an illegal act that infringed on the plaintiff’s right to self-determination and to freely enjoy her time after working hours, and caused her psychological pain.

I especially like the part where she uses her gastritis as an excuse to break up with her boyfriend.
"Sorry Jung Hoon...it's not you, it's me...I am so gassy because of all these late night drink-a-thons at work."

Call me cynical, but I am thinking that she knew she was getting 30 million, so she decided to ditch her boyfriend so she wouldn't feel obligated to buy him anything.
On the other hand, "saving your 30 million" is a common concept among Korean gals, as that seems to be the magic number required to get married...so really, who knows what the hell she was thinking...

Yikes

Well, a trouncing tonight against Alley Ratz bruised the pride and bruised our stats. There were a lot of zeros on the board, sadly mostly on our side.

The Ratz had some problems fielding a team, and in hind sight, we could have driven them to a forfeit if we were going to be sticklers about it...and in the end, maybe we should have. We waited and juggled things around though and were able to get all of our games in. Yeob got us off to a tentative start dropping his games, and then TK put up a good battle against Max, but got blanked as well. I was glad to get a crack at Mitch, as he had beaten me before and it didn't sit well...but I got him 3-0 in singles and then Yeob and I took him and Ron 2-1 in doubles. The Big C couldn't get in the pocket against Ron in singles and then had a tough doubles 01 that came down to the wire (literally). He redeemed himself by hitting the double 18 in the team game (now 2 wins in a row on that rascal) to get our 6th leg of the night. 13-6...our worst loss of the year. Yikes indeed.

John swung by to try to put a hex on the Ratz and to lend some sage words of encouragement (thanks again John) but left with eyes watering as our shoddy play was like pepper spray to the eyes of all onlookers. We have a few days to reflect on the philosophical side of barroom athletics as we prepare to tackle "Take it Easy" on Monday.

Changed internet companies today after my previous company went bankrupt, so I will get down to some general blogging tomorrow and over the weekend.

Need an ego boost? Do this.

After browsing around facebook, I rambled across this little item, so I decided to put the old birthdate in there to see what kind of vague generalities it had for me, but I'll be damned if it didn't hit it right on the head.

Your Birthdate: August 5

You have many talents, and you are great at sharing those talents with others. Most people would be jealous of your clever intellect, but you're just too likeable to elicit jealousy. Progressive and original, you're usually thinking up cutting edge ideas. Quick witted and fast thinking, you have difficulty finding new challenges. Your strength: Your superhuman brainpower Your weakness: Your susceptibility to boredom Your power color: Tangerine Your power symbol: Ace Your power month: May

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Revenge on the B Team

Last night we ventured into the musty basement known as "Blue Frog" to lock horns with the "B Team" looking to avenge our hapless performance earlier in the season. We managed to pull through, but barely. Yeob got the ball rolling by handing out a solid ass kicking and then TK did the same. The Big C drew their cricket marksman for the third match and had him on the ropes in cricket but lost in a photo finish...hell of a game though. I went to warm up during their 01 game, and they must've been throwing some big numbers cuz it seemed to be over in a matter of seconds. I had a very strange match...the guy lead off by throwing a 7 mark against me in cricket, then hitting the triple 20 a couple of times while aiming at 18 to take a commanding lead after 9 darts each. I was finally able to get something going though and worked him on the 17's 16's and 15's to erase his lead and beat him to the bulls. Steady 01 games, but ended up losing 2 close games in the end, then Yeob and I were able to exact our revenge in doubles 01 by playing steady and coming out on top. Cricket was really close, but Colin and TK ended up dropping their games, which left us tied going into the team game. For once (actually the second time) we actually threw some big numbers and dished out a fairly decisive win to take the night.

Alley Ratz Thursday and Take It Easy on Monday to round out the season. Should be a great week.