Maybe I'm too harsh. You be the judge. I started the week off with this gem. In Korea there is a penalty for smoking pot of up to 30 years in jail and you can be busted for it even if the marijuana is consumed in a country where it's legal! You heard right, folks, the citizens of Korea are policed worldwide! So you can probably sense a little hysteria. What did they call it back when all this stupidity started? Reefer madness? A Korean publication known as No Cut News even posted a picture with their article about the evil foreigners trying to tarnish the Korean racial purity with their vices. Here it is:
I said to my Korean student here that it seems to go in cycles in Korea. A while ago they changed laws for foreigners after finding some Canadians with fake degrees teaching ESL. They instituted all kinds of degree verification laws. Later it was found that the foreigners had nothing to do with the fake documents but that their Korean recruiters had obtained them for the foreign teachers. No punishment for the recruiters, the foreigners were deported and the degree verification laws remain. And, oh yeah, when they started checking qualifications for EVERYBODY there were tons of Koreans found with fake degrees, some very high profile. So they stopped that.
Then came the sex scandal. Not going into the details but cameras were put up in schools all over Korea and, what do you know, they found more Koreans committing sex crimes than foreigners. So that anti-foreigner crusade relaxed a little too. But the laws were changed so that foreigners now have to get criminal record checks across the board and those laws not only remain but the added inconvenience of having degrees and criminal record checks stamped by notaries was introduced recently.
STD's, AIDS, foreigners are blamed and have to be fully fluid tested before going to Korea. And I would suggest that with the increase in sexual activity while maintaining some absurd stigmas about HIV that scare the locals away from being tested, they'd find these problems more prominent amongst Korean citizens as well.
Now the drug thing. What do you want to bet it will soon come out that the marijuana or Spice trade in Korea is largely handled by the natives? And the users? Mostly Korean. It's just that when you raid "all foreigner" clubs, as the above article stated, you tend to find foreigners with the weed. I've seen plenty of all Korean clubs but never one that's all foreigners, however, I DO know that foreigners are extra special targets in Korea. I lived there. If you doubt my personal experience, here's just one article of a bazillion you could find to support the argument.
But when blaming the foreigners for your problems doesn't work, who can you blame? Big, rich businesses! I had a good laugh when I read this article. Korea's favourite alcoholic beverage, soju, blamed for alcoholism? If you've been to Korea the number 26 would jump out at you. That's all? Only 26 people are blaming their alcoholism on soju? Wow! If they win their lawsuit, every third Korean will have a good shot at some free money. Or at least a few cases of suju on the comp. I just loved the excuse that "The health warning labels are too small to read..." ... when you're blind drunk on soju, yes, they probably are! lol
Next I read about the flooding in Pusan. When I read stuff like this I genuinely DO feel bad for the good people of Korea. I still believe the majority of them to be good. Wouldn't have stayed there so long otherwise. But I also tend to let my mind wander to the faults of the rest of Korea. I found myself thanking my lucky stars that I didn't choose to go back to Korea and teach, and came to Indonesia instead. Why? Well, I WAS in Calgary during the great floods of 2013. If I had been in Korea during the Pusan floods just a year later I feel it might have been just a little too big a coincidence for Korean waygook busters to ignore. I'da been deported on meteorological suspicions.
But the news wasn't all bad. I found this to be too funny to exclude: Korean franchise Paris Baguette has opened its first store IN PARIS! Korea's "bang"ing on the French bread market's door! It must be "pain" ful for the French. Ha ha ha ha. Bang=Korean for bread and Pain=French for bread. Aren't you "roll" ing on the floor laughing? Or was that a "crepe" y pun? Well you can't have your cake and eat it too.
Finally, on another positive note I read that the 10th Gwangju Biennale will start September 5th in Korea. I always liked the Biennale. There was lots to see and do. In fact I participated in the kimchi making contest one year. The foreigners division. I recall that the first and second place prizes were taken by two Japanese ladies who were married to Korean men, spoke Korean, had lived there for ages, had participated in the event before and had actually brought outside accoutrements with them to the contest. I had no idea that was legal! They garnished their kimchi with fancy mushrooms and sprigs of attractive seasonal foliage. I tried to make mine in the shape of a maple leaf, a strategy lost on the judges who snubbed me that year. If I were in Korea on September 5th I don't think I could help but enter the Gwangju Biennale Kimchi Making Contest - Foreigner Division. And I'd bring along a dimebag of my OWN accoutrements, if you know what I'm sayin...
Anyway, shout out to all my homies in the R to the O to the K!
Peace!
No comments:
Post a Comment