Japan Ain't All That Bad

Amid the most recent wave of anti-Japanese sentiment that this whole comfort woman settlement has renewed amongst Koreans, I spent four nice days in Japan. Let me say once again that I understand that the Japanese were a brutal people with a sense of real estate entitlement hard to rival. They did nasty things to many people of many nations. And the reparation payments hardly come close to making up for what they did. I can think of nothing that would. And I feel for the Koreans who received about a grand for every person who died in the Japanese forced labour camps. A thousand bucks! And that's just for the people who died! What about all the people who worked for the Japanese for 40 years during their occupation of Korea? If you figure out the salaries based on years of work and reparations paid, it's probably less than a penny a day. Korea definitely got the shaft!

Canada paid 17 thou, and the States paid 20 thou to every Japanese person put into concentration camps after Pearl Harbour. And you can bet they were treated a whole lot better than the Koreans were treated by the Japanese in their forced labour camps! So why not try to get some Japanese appology or reparation payments for this? Maybe because it's already been settled. Or maybe it's because the comfort woman issue draws more international attention. It does, doesn't it? If you listen to Bill Burr, and do yourself a favour if you don't, he's hilarious, "A guy gets his dick cut off by a woman. Thrown into a trash compactor. Then she turns it on. We find this funny. We don't care. But if a girl got her titty cut off by a man, there'd be support groups, candlelight vigils, the NFL players would be wearing special headbands in the most effeminate colour imaginable for a month! Because people CARE!"

You know what, good for Korea! Get the money any way you can. And the new settlement works out to over 180,000 bucks per surviving comfort woman. As reparations and appologies for war crimes go, that's pretty substantial. But don't feel too bad for the Koreans. They have helped themselves to a measure of revenge over the years. There are more Koreans in Japan than any other foreign nationality except the Chinese and they aren't there for their health. Just the pachinko parlours alone, which are almost all owned by Koreans, have extracted untold amounts of reparation money. I heard a lot more Korean spoken on the streets of Fukuoka than Chinese. Koreans have found a lucrative trading partner in Japan. Even Korean athletes will go over to Japan and play for bigger bucks.

Here is a picture of Lee Dae Ho, (on the left), who plays for the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks. He was a heroic hitter in the playoffs this year too! I remember him as a Lotte Giant from the KBO. The point is, now the two countries are working together. It will be nice if this settlement can allow them to bury their rocky past and move on.

One thing that is irking me a bit is that the Japanese argued that the comfort women were paid prostitutes, the Koreans said they were forced into it. So now that the comfort women have been paid... I know, I know, it's different, but at the same time, they have now exchanged sex for money and proved the Japanese right. Sort of. I personally think asking only for an official appology would have reflected better on the comfort women. But anyway, that's all done. In the interest of the whole new year, new start thing, I'm going to try something rare: a positive blog post. I had a GREAT time wandering around th streets of Fukuoka and investigating many of the buildings built by the people around the same time that they were committing such atrocities. Such beauty amidst such ugliness! Japan!

These first pics are from Tochogi Temple. It's just outside of Gion Subway Station. It was the closest temple to where I stayed.

The red really blasts you in the eye! I love the old whiskery trees too. And the modern buildings for contrast.

It's hard to choose my favourites. Here's a smaller temple called Myotenji Temple. The wood is sanded smooth and still can be smelled. The gravel is carefully raked every day. Till some dude walks on it. Or drives on it.

Then I think, "Why not take a walk through Higashi Park and see what I can see?" So I do. And, BAM!!!

HUGE statue of Nichiren! This guy was a heroic teacher! A TEACHER! A statue of a TEACHER. WTG Japan! He was very much like the Chinese teacher that we all know as Confucius. His teachings of peace and equality upset the ruling gentry and made him a popular assassination target as they became more popular. He had to move a lot. One time his head was almost cut off but a large light in the sky, "a brilliant orb as bright as a moon," appeared and the execution was stayed. This is one of many pictures of his life that circle the base of the statue. Here he is teaching.

Notice that his figure is brown and untarnished. This is because people come to the statue and rub it. Nichiren Buddhism is still widely followed today.

This is probably the stayed execution although I can't see a bright orb flying across the sky.

So then I decided to go to a whole compound of temples located between Gion Station and the Mikasa River. I am not sure which temple is which but there were some nice ones.

This one was the only one I wasn't allowed to just walk on into. Not open to the public.

Most of the temples and shrines I went to have convenient stories to them that you can access by cell phone. I couldn't though. Roaming charges.

This Jyoten-Ji Temple was really nice and clean. It was built to honour the monk who brought culinary flour techniques to Japan that ultimately lead to udon noodles and other pastries. The Japanese aren't scared of carbs, they erect TEMPLES to them!

Then this little gem on the way to the castle ruins. That dog was really friendly! I gave him a good scratching. Had a drink of the water here too.

Again the red!

Finally, on my last day in Japan, on the way to the Korean embassy to pick up my work visa, I visited the ruins of Fukuoka Castle.

This is the base of it. Like many temples in Japan, (and in Korea), there is a sign stating that the original is gone or has been replaced due to the fact that it was destroyed by Japanese soldiers. Their violent imperialism was practiced on a smaller scale on their own people. As good as they were at building this beautiful architecture, they could sure knock it down with great efficiency too! Here's the castle as it was. How could anyone demolish this?

The location was well chosen. The view of the city from up there was tremendous!

As the hawks flew overhead, visa pick-up time drew near. One last shot of the castle. It was my best.

So, yes, they have quite a checkered past as a country, but Japan's not all bad. Hey, they have Hello Kitty airplanes!

Beer at KFC!

And if you look closely at these two pics, you will see that water costs close to 100 Yen. You can get BEER for that price! Beer the same price as water! This country can't be all that bad!

Leastaways, I don't reckon. Hopefully in the days and years to come, Korea and Japan will patch things up. I think they're well on their way.

People Don't Just Pillage

Throughout man's existence there have been things that just naturally seem to go together. Peanut butter and jam, perogies and cabbage rolls, tool and die, rock and roll, rub and tug, love and marriage, sweet and sour, death and taxes, aces and eights, Simon and Garfunkel, politics and corruption, rape and pillage.

Every war that I know of has been a falsely labeled example of pillage on a grand scale. And I doubt there are any examples that didn't include rape with the pillaging. Maybe I'm using that pesky logic again but it seems to me the most fundamental and important of human rights is the right to live. Nothing is more sensible or inalienable. You can't even BE human without life so taking life away represents a violation of EVERY human right! The right to not be raped is also an important one, but there is no argument that can be made that will convince me it is on the same level as the right to live. So it follows that when soldiers are violating the most basic and important of human rights, life, and killing indiscriminately, it messes with their heads. So much so that it is an acceptable, (not in the sense of forgivable but understandable), leap of clouded reason to assume that the enemy's right to not be raped is also suspended under the same circumstances by which their right to life has been.

Why wouldn't it be? If there is a sign at a pool reading, "Don't pee in the pool," it just wouldn't be solid logic to assume that exchanging the water for acid or adding piranha WOULD be acceptable. However, if there were signs reading, "Adding piranha and/or exchanging the water for acid have been temporarily sanctioned by the ruling government to facilitate more efficient pillage," then a bather might make a sensible assumption that a little pee in the pool might not be frowned upon so much.

Seriously, how can one be expected to recognize the sense in moral and ethical decorum in regards to lesser issues while ignoring the most important? And how is it, then, I thought, that in Korea, the people seem to be concentrating on lesser offenses more than the major ones perpetrated upon them by the Japanese? So I have looked into it and, much like other expats who live here, I am immune to the training the average Korean receives on this point, so I thought I'd come up with a much more objective idea of the "comfort woman" phenomenon. It was interesting to study. And for a guy like me, who is not adverse to a good conspiracy theory, it was that much more interesting. I will not say there were no women mistreated by the Japanese here in Korea and forced into sexual services. That would be ignoring all the information I have read. But there were mitigating factors in this issue that made it actually less, rather than more of an issue in my estimation.

I have seen several examples of the Korean public consciousness in action during my years here and it works much the same as a wave. "Hanlieu" or "Hallyu" is a rough translation which literally means "flow of Korea." They apply it to their movies and music flowing all across Asia. I apply it to other things. I've blogged on them before. Like when there were some phony credentials found belonging to some foreign teachers here. The flow of skepticism was like a tidal wave, (for the purposes of this article, I won't say "tsunami."), across the nation. "EVERY foreigner's degree could be phony! Let's RE-verify them all!" So every foreigner went in and had their degrees verified at their expense. The end result was that even KOREAN credentials started getting checked. That was when they really found the witches they were hunting for. But the wave dissipated when the country realized that famous Korean museum curators, scientists, artists etc. were not the witches they were hunting for, because they weren't foreign.

Then the Canadian child molester. "All foreigners could be child molesters! Let's install cams in every classroom and have mandatory STD checks and criminal background checks!" FFWWWWOOOOOMMMM a new wave swept across the country. And it sort of worked! There were lots of child molesters caught on the cameras installed in Kindergartens, hagwons and such. Only they were filming KOREAN workers mistreating the kids. Crash! That wave dissipated.

One of the mitigating factors in the comfort women phenomenon that you find when researching is that a LOT of comfort women were pimped out by Koreans. And not just for the Japanese. For Americans too. Also, many of the comfort women were not coerced by the Japanese or by Koreans. A comfort woman could make, it is reported, 750 Yen a month. At the same time that stat was recorded, a house in Korea could be purchased for 1000 Yen. YEAH! And even today, if you ask a Korean woman what she looks for in a man, the most common answer is money. I don't think it would be completely out of line to wonder if the Korean gals were the same in the days of Japanese occupation and if, for at least some of them, they didn't have the best years of their lives! And STILL might be wealthy because of them. THIS is probably the most interesting take on the situation I found. Written by a Korean who lived and studied in Japan. Hmmm...

I have lived in two apartments here in Korea that were owned by an old couple. I was meant to assume the owner was the man but in fact, as I got to know them better, and they got to realize that confiding in me couldn't possibly hurt them, they told me that the woman owned the place. I have no doubt that across this land there is a SHITLOAD of real estate owned by couples with money from the wife's work as a comfort woman and a plausible back story of the husband's work as a plumber or whatever being what financed the purchase of the house. There are probably guys who married comfort women and never really had to work that hard for the rest of their lives. There ARE possible good things that came of the comfort women for both them and their fake breadwinner husbands. And they didn't have to come up with the cover stories until recently. Honestly, what was a man or a woman supposed to do to survive, much less own a home? But then, another wave sloshed across Korea: Christianity. FFFWWWWWOOOOOSSSHHHH!!! Now it's shameful to have done anything to co-operate with the Japanese during that time to survive, especially sinful things!

In Park Yuha's "Comfort Women of the Empire," it is reported that in 1995 compensation was offered by Japan. 61 surviving Korean comfort women who accepted it were named publically and shamed as prostitutes and traitors. FFFWWWWOOOOOMMMM!

To me the most disturbing thing I find when I look into the comfort woman issue is the Korean wave being used for mind control. Park Yuha's book was banned and she's pretty much persona-non-grata in Korea now, much like those comfort women who took compensation. But the Japanese do stuff like that too. I absolutely HATE people trying to force their beliefs onto other people! To keep them from hearing or seeing things that are just not good for them. I have to say, the Korean internet censorship is far more extreme example of this than that of Japan. It rivals China's internet spying! Korea has even repeatedly tried to force Japan to alter the content of the books they use in their schools. It is not entirely out of the question that the situation of the comfort women has been systematically exaggerated over the years and foisted, wave-like, onto Koreans so that it is taken as fact.

This is not in defence of any war time rapists in any country, but ever since coming to Korea in '97, I've heard far more about the comfort women issue than the Japanese attempts to wipe out the Korean culture as well as the people. It's hard to get an accurate number but 5,400,000 Koreans were conscripted for labour at the beginning of Japanese rule in Korea. And the Japanese have an uncanny knack for maltreatment of conscripted labourors. Throughout Asia the Japanese have become known for this. The Burma-Thai railroad - probably around 60,000 people died from Japanese maltreatment. In Indonesia, 300,000 up to 1,500,000. 1-200,000 dead in Manchuria. This is not even including people who were just, plain massacred by the Japanese. Just forced labour deaths. In Korea the total can only be estimated but it's somewhere between 270,000 and 810,000.

That's a mind-boggling number of people! Mind boggling! And added to the number of people massacred it's even higher. Now, Japan HAS made reparation payments. Here is a list. It's probably important to note that it was compiled by a Japanese person. But even so, if you took the number of people who died during forced labour to be a reasonable figure of half a million people, (somewhere in the middle of min and max estimates), the total of 500,000,000 dollars Japan paid Korea would equate to approximately a thousand bucks a death. Not including the ones where were just stabbed or shot or killed in other brutal manners that soldiers are commended for using. The internet has some grisley photos that I'm not going to post here.

And even if it were given directly to the families of the people who died, (which, of course, it wasn't), it occurs to me that this is an incredibly low sum of money. It is most likely that this has occurred to every Korean person who is aware of this stat as well. So it is my informed opinion that, yes, the comfort woman story is a true one, though more than likely exaggerated by Koreans in order to get a little bit more reparation money from the Japanese. Simple as that.

So let's see, 46 former comfort women remain alive. The new settlement is for 8.3 million. That works out to $180,434.78 per lady. If that money were to go directly to the comfort women, (which, of course, it won't), that just might be a more realistic number, but nowadays with people being sued for millions of bucks for spilled coffee, it doesn't seem like it's even close to fair. I think the more important part was an official, on record appology.

Again, not in defence of rapists anywhere, but it seems to me that I've heard of this being done by soldiers of many countries in many wars. And I can understand the complaints of the Japanese when they say it is a bit unfair to single them out. Let's see, countries who have had their OWN comfort women during war time... starting with the Vikings, Saxons, Gauls, Romans, all the way to Germans, Russians, Americans, Brits, French, Chinese, and... wait for it... the Koreans. It seems there are cases of Korean soldiers raping Vietnamese women during the Vietnam war. And there are more than 46 remaining survivors. Sure, the stories of the Vietnamese could be exaggerated. Maybe they are seeing the money Korea is getting and they want a chunk of it. Who knows?

The point I want to make is two-fold: It seems like an army doesn't just run on its stomachs, as Napoleon famously said. He was close, but a few inches high. Every time there's war, there seems to be comfort women for the soldiers. What would pillaging be without the rape? In none of these situations will we ever know the entire truth or be able to gauge the proper compensation. But the major point is, a little bluntly, why bother? Why doesn't anyone see that this is just one symptom of a far greater problem? Why don't we put as much diplomatic effort into a solution to the problem that CAUSED all these women to be raped? And I don't even think that's war. I think it's greed and selfishness. I bet if you asked any true rape victim comfort woman from any war what she would do with a massive, multi-billion dollar settlement, she probably wouldn't want to waste it on bangles and bon-bons. She'd give it all away to ensure that no more greedy assholes start any more wars that invariably will lead to future people suffering the same trauma as she did. It ain't the rape we should be so concerned about, it's the pillaging.

Leastaways, that's what I reckon.

Assaulting the Windmill

Here'a a complicated article. It's complicated just enough so that the laymen, like most of us, who are not up on our political and financial jargon, will forfeit the point to save ourselves the effort of consulting the dictionary and applying the definitions of the jargon to the sentences in which the jargon is used. And, because I did it, trust me, it doesn't make it much clearer if you do. This is a political skill that in their jargon would be called "statesmanship," whereas guys like me would just call it "baffling with bullshit."

A few things to note from the article: First and most importantly, it's brought to you courtesy of the Canadian Petroleum Services. Might be some slight bias. Secondly that the majority of the millions of barrels a day of oil poduced in Canada is taken from Crown-owned mineral rights. Since the Queen doesn't own Canada any more, those resources belong to the people. You and me! And thirdly, the main point of the article is that even after admitting to 2.4 billion a year in subsidies, (numbers that Harper denied but his fellow party leaders like Mulcair and Trudeau suggested), because of the risk of oil exploration and research and development, these subsidies are only subsidies if you "assume" they're not worth the risk.

Well, I could type away here about the hundred other ways oil is subsidized in Canada, the well known and the not-so-well known, but I'd like to point out one other line from this article first: the line where the writer says that direct transfers of government funds to oil companies are "clearly documented" in government budgets. What government budget in Canada has EVER been a clear document? They are purposefully UNclear, like this first article and for the same reasons.

But let's turn our attention to another article to unfuzz things a little bit, shall we? Read this.
That is how things work in the old Canadian oilpatch, kiddies! First of all, it is not a Canadian company building the infrastructure to extract Canadian oil. Why not? No good reason. Second of all, it is not Canadian employees who were working for the company building the infrastructure to extract Canadian oil. Why not? No good reason. Third of all, the Chinese workers for the Chinese company were following Chinese rules and regulations, (undoubtedly being paid Chinese wages, which are illegally low in Canada as well), ignoring the rules and laws of Canada, the country from which the oil is being extracted. Why? No good reason. Fourthly, as we read above, these guys were subsidized by the Canadian government, (and hey, all you taxpayers know where they get their money!), to endanger themselves and others. There were two other "foreigners," (Chinese people), injured. And lastly, the money from the record-shattering 1.5 million dollar fine will not go to the families of Ge Genbao or Lui Hongliang, it will go toward company training of future "foreign," (Chinese), employees. The money is being paid by Sinopec Shanghai to Sinopec Shanghai to properly train their employees to do what they should have been doing all along! How long do you reckon THOSE classes will stay in session?

Gil McGowan said Sinopec didn't just import Chinese workers, they imported Chinese health and safety standards as well. That ain't just in the tarsands, Gil! He said the chance was missed to keep the Chinese from playing by their own rules because the fine was too low. "A rounding error" for a huge corporation like Sinopec.

This kind of company autonomy on Canadian soil, the ability for the Chinese to just come over here and take OUR oil while flouting our laws represents a massive subsidy in my "assumption." So does the fact that this oil will be removed as bitumen, a form much more dangerous to transport than crude oil, and transported across Canada, the country that owns it, putting its environment and beauty at great risk, THAT represents a massive subsidy in my assumption as well. The obvious alternative is to refine it in Canada before shipping it to China in safer forms. In refineries built and staffed by Canadians.

Why are things like this not obvious? Oh, right, Harper. The guy has a Chinese food named after him, folks! In his 9 years as Prime Minister he did far more for China than Canada. And STILL his influence remains! People want to name the Calgary airport after this traitor! Unbelievable in my assumption. There are people slamming the new Rachel Notley leadership in Alberta for ruining the province in the name of the environment. Well this is mostly the squawking of the former Harper supporters, (and a large portion of them were attached to oil in some way), worried that Notley just might make the oil industry PAY taxes and regulate itself and maybe even USE those taxes for worthwhile things such as cleaning up the mess they have made of Alberta. The people who prefer the suppression of environmentalism, one of Harper's pet projects, so that things like THIS remain virtually unknown in Alberta instead of on the front page of newspapers and top stories of newscasts.

It's not just the one oilspill. They happen ALL THE TIME! Look at that list at the end of the article. Those are just the really big ones. Nexen said they're sorry. Oh well then just keep right on going. I don't think I need to but I will point out that Nexen is yet another Canadian BASED Chinese company.

I'll remind readers of something I've posted before here. If the Canadian oil industry were not completely corrupted and they cared one iota about the fact that the oil being extracted belongs to Canadians and should be benefitting Canadians when it's extracted and sold, it would look something like Norway, a country with less oil than Canada, but because they have colossally better government, have a pension fund contribution from their oil industry that is approaching one TRILLION bucks. Canadian oil contribution to the Canada pension fund? I think it's zero, right? Zero?

Norway charges extractors up to 78% tax! And Canada's worried about just demanding that refineries be set up in our country. Hell we don't even demand that EXTRACTION infrastructure be built locally! And if you look closely at the dates of the whole Sinopec lawsuit story, the accident occurred in 2007 at a construction site started in, oh would you look at that - 2006. The first year of Stephen Harper's reign of terror. Coincidence? I think not!

So now today I see this unsubstantiated post:

Do I really need to point out how incredible this is? $600,000? Where does that rounding error number even come from? And who's counting these birds? I think maybe someone made this as a joke to put in The Onion or something and somehow it got forwarded to poeple who actually embarrass themselves by posting it! But I suppose we shouldn't be too hard on Albertans who don't know what's going on in their own province. They're not supposed to. Let's not forget that Harper is from Calgary, Alberta. Coincidence? I think not!

I admit, I'm not up-to-speed on the Notley government and what she and her cohorts are up to. I'm sure I'm not going out on a limb by saying it's corrupt in some ways. She's a politician! You have to expect that. But if this Don Quixote windmill assault criticism is the best complaint her opponents can come up with, maybe she's doing okay. SOMEbody has to do their best to clean up the mess Harper has made there! And if it is costing Alberta tax payers money, maybe, just maybe it's because of the BRUTAL deals that were set up to essentially give Alberta's oil away under the Harper administration.

I know, I know. I just walked into the knee-jerk rebuttal, "Yeah, sure, blame it on Harper now that he's gone!" If that's a comfortable defence for you, there's nothing I can do. But I'd just like to convince one person in Alberta to wake up and smell the bitumen. Or one person in Ottawa.

I read today that Trudeau Part Deux was crying over the past treatment of native Canadians. How about we take a closer look at the PRESENT rear-ending natives of Canada, (how long before "native Canadian means people born in Canada, not just what it means today?), are receiving at the hands of foreign oil companies, water companies, drug companies, banks, probably mining companies and logging companies as well? Every Norwegian has a million dollar pension just from their oil. Canada is a FAR richer nation and even old fellas like me probably won't even GET a pension. I would love to see Trudeau shed a tear or two over THAT! What are the chances?

Poop Mountain

So I've been in Gangneung four days now, (today is day 5), and it's been pretty busy for me. I've been getting situated, finding all the stuff I need and, as I always do, walking around the neighbourhood and getting to know the town I live in. While walking the streets locating strategic locations like chicken hofs, kamja tang restaurants, supermarkets, 24-hr convenience stores, gyms, burger joints, rotisserie chicken trucks, foreign food stores, Mcdonaldses, stationary stores, pubs, E-Mart/Homepluses, big size clothing stores, computer repair shops, dalk kalbi joints, English bookstores, the library, and so on and so forth, I noticed something else I had hoped, but not expected, to find: A walking/exercise trail. YAY!!!

Loyal BTS followers will remember the days before BTS was even a thing and I lived in Gwangju and taught at Seokang University. Back then I posted pics and descriptions of my beloved walking/exercise trail behind the school. I was all OVER that thing! Well, I'm gonna be all over THIS one too! It's just past the Lotte Super, about a 5-minute warm-up walk away from my door. And it's got all of the trail exercise equipment I like. I even think, from pretty solid evidence, I know the name of the little mountain the trail is on. Believe it or not it's called Dong San. That'd translate almost exactly into "poop mountain." Here is just one of a few buildings on or around Dong San that lead me to this supposition.

Aside from the name, it's going to be a great way to exercise and relieve any stress I might encounter. It's got all the usual Korean exercise machines. You know the air walking machines. No idea why they would have them on a GROUND walking trail. Why change the scenery while you walk when you can look at the same exact thing the entire time? Don't get that. They also have the stair climbing machines right beside actual stairs. But whatever...I just won't use those machines. Or the hula hoops or the round circly machines. I've never really figured out how to use them. You know the ones I'm talking about? Here's a pic:

What is a guy supposed to do? Turn those wheels? And then what happens? You get better at drawing big circles? And notice right behind it is the ubiquitous massage machine. I didn't find any of them on the Poop Mt. trail. I never used them either. What they have are benches where I can do push-ups and sit-ups, bars for pull-ups and shoulder presses, bench press stations where I do curls, and those disks you stand on to do oblique twists. And plenty of fresh, piney air to breath while walking the trail and climbing the stairs and hills.

Just look at those gnarly, red Jack Pines! And the nice bed of needles to add to the cushion effect of whatever footwear you use. And the smell! Mmmmm!

One other really nice bonus of Poop Mt. hiking trail is the views. It's not a very high mountain but still on one side you get a view of the ocean:

And on the other, a view of the mountains. The mountains are a bit farther away and my phone cam lens isn't professional quality so you can't see the layers of mountains that there were in this pic. But imagine three more layers to this scene all shadowy and mysterious. It's a nice view.

As for the list above, I haven't yet found all the things on it. I actually observed Anne for her entire 6-hours of teaching on Thursday. That'll soon be me. I was pretty hungry afterwards so I think I'll be bringing snacks every day I work. I went to the Dog House bar after work with Anne. I met a few of the other expats in town here. We played darts and talked. Really nice folks. Anne paid! What an excellent early Christmas present!

The kids I met were pretty good I have to say. And the classes went off without a hitch. Anne is a very good teacher and she keeps the kids on task. I will take some pointers from what I saw her doing for sure! Thanks Anne.

But that was just Thursday. Close to a dozen kids in every class and all doing different lessons. I've crunched the numbers and it's going to be about four times the lesson planning than I did at my last job here in Korea. Quadrouple! Also there won't be 5 months off a year. AND, they're kids, not adults.

Why, you might ask, have I done this to myself? The answer is simple: I have given up trying to find the best of both worlds, search high and low though I have, in the Korean ESL job market. Nowadays even moreso than when I began my career back in '97, there appears to be no such thing as a job at the university level with those fantastic hours I mentioned that also comes with a relationship of mutual respect with management. It's a snuffleuppagus as far as I'm concerned. And because I've had jobs with amazing schedules, lots of vacation and adults and I was miserable because I was working for assholes, and I've had jobs with heavy workloads, little vacation and teaching kids and I was treated well, I think I prefer the latter. The only reason I left any of those jobs was to try to get the same respect from owners/management from a school with more vacation and a shorter work-week. I hereby give up! I'm not going to even apply to these ads that promise wonderful working conditions then break the contracts a month in. That is now what I EXPECT from other jobs.

I have to satisfy myself with the idea that this is as good as it gets here. And although 6 hours a day seems like a piece of cake to a lot of people who might read this, that also comes with lesson prep. For a good teacher that'll be at least a few more hours. So I'll be a-workin'! But I find I'm a-happy when I'm a-workin'. So I think this is going to be a good new experience for me.

I am off to Fukuoka December 21st to obtain my official work visa, (FINE-skal-ly!!!), and will return to Korea on Christmas Eve. I'll go directly to the Spiwak/Peet residence to have a late-night nog with their whole family including Omma and Pap, and then spend Christmas day with them all. I may even spend the weekend. But starting the 28th I've got massive curriculum planning to do! Then in early January I'll get down to some serious teaching and money earning. Possibly by the end of winter I will have dug myself out of the massive financial hole I will name Indonesian Wall Street.

But who knows? With my nose to the grindstone working, and hiking at Poop Mountain a few times a week, maybe, just maybe come summer I'll have my beach body back again!

This is as close to a New Year's resolution as I come.

P.S. Today I found Homeplus, Macdonalds, the movie theatre, (where I could see Star Wars), a liquor store with slightly overpriced but hard to find alcoholic supplies, and a store called Bestco. It's a bit like Costco only smaller. But most things are sold in large quantities. I can get a can of spaghetti sauce that has about 30,000 won worth of sauce in it for 8,000! Big spices too. Homeplus was a bit of a let-down. It really doesn't have much that E-Mart doesn't. And E-Mart is closer. The things you find out when you wander around...

I'll Be Home For Christmas

What a lovely spring we're having! This winter. Seriously, plus 10?!?!? I understand the same sort of weather conditions are being enjoyed by Canadians right now. And the newly welcomed Syrians too.

Ha ha ha. But seriously, way to go, Trudeau Part Deux! There will be people complaining about how Canadian tax payers can afford to support the refugees when we can't support our own poor, which is true, we really SHOULD do more for the poor in Canada, but you will find it'll be mostly the wealthy, money-grubbing, tax break receiving, former Harper supporters who never gave a shit about the poor anyway and are just saying it to whine about his replacement who just might make them pay taxes this year and might use them for something worthwhile. Ahhh but it's so nice when Canadian political cartoons inspire laughter in me instead of thoughts of assassination!

It was only couple of days ago that I was going out with Skadi and Lona to poop-walk them in shorts and a shirt. Those are the Spiwak/Peet dogs. The Mike and Heather, (Spiwak/Peet respectively), residence is where I've been for a long while now. Freeloading off my good friends. I say that but, really, I feel that living with these guys comes with chores. And doing some of those chores has helped out and possibly lowered the Stressmas stress around here. But it has also gotten me into the Christmas spirit more efficiently than I would have if I'd been on my own. After all, the way we celebrate Christmas nowadays, it's about the kiddies, isn't it? And, they have kiddies! I'm enjoying the decorations and the Elf on the Shelf and the music and movies and food! I really am!

But staying amongst a family again has also made me accutely aware of how different my life would have been if I had had children. And although I say every year to friends and family members that I envy them at this time of year, I probably shouldn't. Here's an example:

It's brother Mark, Sister-in-law Sherry-Lynn and their clan. I'm sure there will be some great moments in their Christmas season this year that they will talk of with friends and family while celebrating the yuletide together, but I know what happens between all those Christmas party worthy yarns. I know the searching for decorations, the setting up of said decorations making sure those youngsters who want to take part can take part just enough to get the satisfaction of contribution without messing it up for everyone else. I also know how the older ones are the opposite and need to be prodded to get off the X-Box and decorate the friggin' tree or make the red and green chain or put the fucking lotion in the basket!!!

I have witnessed the struggle of balancing all the company and school Christmas concerts, parties, functions and get-togethers that popular families with kids get invited to. "Who will resent us LEAST if we don't show up?" The kids can have Christmas candy and sweets, but not too much. "But INSERT NAME has already had three, why can't I?" We should watch some Christmas movies as a family. I want 'Christmas Vacation.'" "I want '"A Christmas Story.'" "We've already seen that." "Yeah but INSERT NAME has watched 'Polar Express' 3 times!" "I wanna watch 'Krampus.'" "That's not a Christmas movie!" "It is so!" "I don't wanna watch any movies." "Okay then, no Star Wars for you." "I wanna watch THAT movie!" And so on and so forth...

And there are things that people just wouldn't even think of. Like laundry. Mike and Heather let me do my laundry while I'm staying with them. And it's great because they have something very rare here in Korea: a DRYER! So I feel like I am doing the family a little favour by folding the stuff in the dryer and transfering the washing machine clothes to the dryer before I start my stuff. Today, unless there is a circus performer or an elf living here that I don't know about, the clothes in the dryer I folded were Iryna's. She's the 8-year-old. HOLY MOLY! "Is this one shirt or two shirts stuck together?" "Is this a skirt or stockings or both stuck together?" "How do you fold spaghetti straps?" "A dress. A one-piece dress. I'm just gonna do the fitted sheet fold for this..." "Is this DOLL clothing?" "ONE electric, sparkly, hot pink sock. How do you LOSE the other one?" "How many pairs of yoga pants does a girl need in life?" "Okay lace trim in or out?" I swear I had to Google a couple of items!

I have told Heather and Mike that I appreciate them for letting me stay with them until I get back on my feet. They are wonderful human beings and I hope I can repay them someday. I have also told them that I appreciate it even moreso because every day spent at their house reminded me that even though Christmas IS for the kiddies, and it's nice to see them all excited at this time of year, I'm so glad I ended up childless and single!

That said, I have completed the transfer to Gangneung. Gangneung, (formerly Kang Neung), is known as Pine City here in Korea. The aptly named, full of pine trees, city will host a lot of the winter olympic events in 2018. I hear there are 3 hockey arenas being built as I write this. I went for a drive around my neighbourhood with my boss yesterday and he showed me some of the construction. There are also some really nice walks amongst the pines. It's very close to both mountains and ocean. It has probably about 250,000 people. A far cry from the hustle and bustle of Seoul! It's got Gyeungpo Lake and beach and some awesome seafood. Even awesome for a guy like me, who isn't especially fond of seafood. The weather here is warmer in winter, (with more snow), than Seoul, and cooler in summer. I may never need an air conditioner! There will only be two months in the summer, July and August, that will get really hot. But even then the average temperature will only get to around 24. I can deal with that I think.

I moved into my new place yesterday, (Dec. 14th). It's provided by Mac's Hagwon where I'll be working. I was enjoying coffee with the landlord and lady yesterday and they asked if I like Korean coffee. I said I liked Max coffee, Max beer and Mac's Hagwon. Nobody really got the joke. I guess because the coffee is actually Maxim and the school is actually Mac. But I got the beer right! So anyhoo, yesterday was spent unpacking and arranging all my stuff in the place. I stocked the fridge and bought most of the things I need to be comfy. I think I'm going to like the place. Here are some pics:

This will be where the magic happens. I will most likely be spending the rest of December going to Japan on a visa run, getting my alien registration card, going to the hospital for the necessary blood tests and the like. Just getting all settled and legal here. But the other time, except maybe Christmas with Heather and Mike, will be spent prepping for my new classes. Here is where I'll make my curriculums. And, starting Boxing Day, I'll also watch the World Jr. Hockey Championships of course.

Here's the entrance where I hang my hats and E-Mart bag. Most of the provisions I bought yesterday were from E-Mart. We have a big one here. Thank goodness!

Here's the desk again and that sliding door goes to my laundry area. I have a new washing machine, but, alas, no dryer any more. Back to the old rack drying. I don't mind my clothes a little crusty. It builds character. There is also a boiler room in the laundry hall which is big enough to store lots of stuff. And a nice, big window with a good view of the hood. I'm on the second floor so can see pretty far. Can almost see the hagwon from here.

And here's my GIANT new bed. I don't have the right sized bedding for it but I went to E-Mart and bought the soft, blue blanket. It was pretty comfy last night. The wallpaper... meh.

And this is the kitchen area. So if you imagine all that in a panoramic view, you get the gist of my new place. LOTS of space! I like it. Only problem I've had so far was the yappy dogs around here but at least that wasn't the case at night.

Now to get the visa, ARC and lesson planning done... And I dare say I can do it all quickly and efficiently because I am unmarried and childless. I may have dodged a life-bullet there.