Once upon a time there lived a farmer in the County of Wentworth named Gedsudski who was deliriously happy with everything Fate had bestowed upon him. He had an uncanny knack for growing the most useful crop in the world: hemp. He was pleased that others used his crop to make their lives better. Some used it to make clothing, some used it for food, some for rope, some to build their houses, and some even used it for oil. Farmer Gedsudski had even heard tell of a man who had built and fueled an automobile almost entirely of Gedsudski hemp. Everything but the tires was what he’d been told.
Why, his hemp had directly or indirectly made almost every life in Wentworth County that much better for the growing of it. This was a source of happiness for Farmer Gedsudski.
And, Farmer Gedsudski had a wife of legendary beauty! Mrs. Gedsudski was the best wife a man could want in the eyes of Farmer Gedsudski. She was as good as any of the hired help at harvest time and much easier on the eyes in the long days of winter when the fields were resting under blankets of snow. There were those who remarked that her culinary skills were almost as great as her beauty. She seemed to win the Wentworth County Fair baking contest every year with muffins or cookies that contained her secret ingredient. Hemp, of course.
Farmer Gedsudski couldn’t put his finger on it but, between her cooking and her radiant beauty, he saw an almost other-worldy quality about Mrs. Gedsudski. She kept him happier than he thought any woman could. For longer than he thought any woman could.
Yet, with all his job satisfaction and marital bliss, Farmer Gedsudski felt he was missing something. On many a night, in his relaxing armchair, with a very relaxing bowl of hemp in his pipe, Farmer Gedsudski got to thinking. There were days when hemp farming was difficult, and some seasons the weather cooperated and some seasons it didn’t. There were trials and troubles in the hemp farming racket, he knew, but wasn’t it in overcoming these that he took greatest satisfaction? The Missus wasn’t as young as she used to be either but wasn’t she still thrilling him just as much after a hard day planting and a succulent meal of hemp lasagna? So what on earth was it that had him itching to try something new? What was this desire to up and leave what anyone with the sense God gave a termite would consider a life of near perfection? Was it just that little word? “Near?”
Some of the Gedsudskis’ neighbours noticed an overcast shadow about him and felt it incumbent upon them to give Farmer Gedsudski advice. Mrs. Hansen, who brought eggs and milk every week said that the love of money was the root of all evil. Farmer Gedsudski hadn’t found that to be the case, really. He did have certain customers who were only interested in certain strains, who paid quite handsomely for them. They were, indeed, his least desirable customers, but he didn’t think having more money than he and the Missus needed was a bad thing. In fact last winter, when only the greenhouses were in operation and Mrs. Gedsudski wasn’t as necessary, wasn’t it one of those customers who offered her a vacation at his tropical condominium at a reasonable price? Farmer Gedsudski thought, “Those guys ain’t so bad.”
The more advice he received and the more he mulled it over, the more Farmer Gedsudski realized that what he was missing in his life was Truth. He told Mrs. Gedsudski one morning that he was striking out on his own in search for Truth. Well she took it harder than he’d expected. But she actually helped his quest in a backhanded sort of way when she said, “You go find her then. See if I care! But I will sue you for everything!”
“Her.” Farmer Gedsudski had no idea Truth was a woman. He reckoned that’d eliminate about half of his search. For that, he signed everything over to Mrs. Gedsudski and granted her the divorce she immediately asked for. He had found that his skills in herbology would suffice to keep him clothed and sheltered during his search. And leaving the challenges and the schedule of the farm behind him turned out to be an unexpected blessing. His new ex-wife had made his search easier right from the get-go.
He searched high and low, near and far, east and west until finally after several years of wandering the globe, at the top of a high mountain, inside an almost imperceptible cave, he found her. Truth was a woman after all. She was an aged, silver-haired, bone rack of a woman. Cave living had not done wonders for her complexion. She had the tanned saddle-skin wrinkles of a brown elephant. Her one remaining tooth did little to block the breath that was rank evidence of a life spent in neglect of dental hygiene. Fires in the cave were her means of cooking and staying warm so her arthritic, bedpost fingers were all permanently soot black. Upon meeting Farmer Gedsudski, she gave him a gummy, halitosis smile and beckoned him inside by waving one hand that looked like a black catcher’s mitt.
Farmer Gedsudski dwelt in the cave with Truth for a year and a day. Though the times of intimacy were a far cry from his cinnamon sweet, firm, buxom former Missus, the curdled, dangling dog-like dugs and sour, sweaty smelliness of Truth was something Farmer Gedsudski learned to appreciate. Truth was everything he’d been looking for otherwise. Every day she told him of the world and every day he was awed by Truth. The knowledge and wisdom she imparted made him feel whole again. He had found what had been missing from his near perfect life.
On the day he left, Truth embraced him and gave him one last rotting flesh kiss, something he had almost become used to, and whispered one final message into Farmer Gedsudski’s ear: “When you speak of me, my darling, tell everybody I’m a hot, young blonde with a body that just won’t quit.”
Sunday, January 31, 2016
Thursday, January 28, 2016
Apostille Apostate
I was asked, (or rather, my boss, Mr. Shim was asked), today by the education office of Gangneung to produce a copy of my university degree with an apostille. I can't tell you what a buzzword this has become in the offices responsible for levelling endless bureaucratic paperwork at every foreigner as punishment for choosing to work here in Korea. I've heard it in the immigration office, "We need apostille," at the bank, "We must apostille," at the hospital, "You apostille," and now the education office. First of all, I have an alien card, which means I've been cleared by immigration and the government of Korea. THIS means they have seen an apostilled copy of my degree. Secondly, said degree has been notarized, sealed, stamped, apostilled, verified, and legitimized to death. I have produced sealed transcripts on two occasions, had my degree investigated and verified by Korean document verification offices TWICE at my expense, and have had stamps and signatures affixed to it by notaries, lawyers and Korean consular generals. This is on record at any immigration office, so why does the local education office need an apostille?
Let me first say that it genuinely IS a fun word to say. APOSTILLE. Makes you sound legitimate doesn't it? Say it a few times and see if you don't feel like you could fool someone into believing you are more official than you actually are by saying it. APOSTILLE. I don't need to know what the hell this means, I just need to demand it and watch the foreigner hop to it. It makes me feel SO good about myself! APOSTILLE!
I am positive the officials who request apostille have no idea what it means, most of them anyway, because I have gotten into exchanges with them during which they proved their ignorance. And, as always, pointing out that an immigration officer or any office worker knows less about their job than you is a dangerous thing to do. At the immigration office nearby Gangneung I gave them a copy of my degree which had been stamped and signed by a lawyer who I had never met previous to the stamping and signing and who I paid about 50 Canadian dollars for the service. The lady at the office, who I was told prides herself on knowing a lot about Korean immigration laws and rules, asked me for my ORIGINAL degree with apostille. I told her that nobody gets their ORIGINAL degrees stamped or notarized or "apostilled," and what I had just handed her was a copy of my original document that had been stamped, signed and notarized by a lawyer. She said, that's not what we need. We need apostille.
The word "apostille" in French means "notation." When we get our documents "notarized" by a "notary" public or a lawyer, this is identical to having them apostilled. Ironically, in Canada, where we have French and English as our national languages, we never really used the term until recently. It was something that started, in my understanding, in the U.S. But since the difference between Canadians and Americans is negligible to a Korean immigration officer, all over the country they started demanding Canadians produce "APOSTILLE." I am sure hundreds of us have informed workers all over Korea that we have been doing exactly this for years and that the document in their hands is essentially "apostille." And I'm sure hundreds of Korean immigration workers took offence to the uppety Canadians trying to tell them their jobs. So now, just recently, Canadian notaries, lawyers, foreign workers and document services have started using the term "apostille" but doing exactly nothing different than they did before.
So Mr. Shim calls me from the education office asking for the requisite apostille. I had given him a copy of the copy of my degree that the lawyer had signed and stamped. I said that the stamp was not a postage stamp, (which, hilariously, due to misinterpretation combined with deep desire to seem highly official, Korean consulars have been doing for years),
it's a stamp that raises the surface of the paper and creates bumps on it. This is why it is not done to the original degrees. I'm pretty sure the craze over "sealed transcripts" I fell victim to twice was just a misinterpretation gone amok as well. One of my colleagues had her's delivered and she opened the envelope before giving her transcripts to her employer. She wanted to copy them I think. They wouldn't accept the transcripts because the seal had been broken. The envelope seal. I bet what happened was when checking their very, very bad electronic dictionary, some immigration head office worker mistakenly used the word "seal" when he/she wanted "stamped" and mixed up a personal seal or stamp with a sealed envelope. And, fuck it, let the foreigners figure it out. Notice the degree is stamped with stamps, a personal seal stamp, and a signiture, just to cover all the bases.
Anyway, I said to Mr. Shim that the signiture was still there along with the lawyer's official ink stamp so that really should qualify as an "apostille" without the person feeling the bumps on the paper. I'll find out at work today whether the worker was appeased or not. I'm guessing he'll be going back with the original copy of the original degree with the bumps because somebody wants to appear official without actually knowing what the hell he/she is doing and if they can inconvenience a foreigner along the way, well that just an added bonus.
That REALLY is what a mojority of the paperwork I've been doing for, I don't know, the past year???, comes down to: inconveniencing foreigners. I had 6 photos taken for the purposes of official papers here. They had peel-away backing so they could be conveniently stuck to the documents. I ran out and had to get another 4 yesterday so that I could go to the hospital to get my official physical examination, which requires a photo attached, FOR THE SECOND TIME! It needs to be in a "sealed" evelope too. ha ha ha ha. I have to laugh because if this all isn't just inconveniencing the barbarians from abroad then they are laughable, jeuvenile attempts at ersatz professionalism so many of the agencies put on here. Like playing grown-up. That's what it is. Seriously! I think I may be giving the Koreans the benefit of the doubt assuming they're doing this out of pure racism.
At any rate, I am, indeed, an apostille apostate. I reject the official requests for them as either xenophobic inconveniencing or childish desire for unwarranted legitimacy. At their VERY BEST the process is an antiquated one. Back when practicing law was not well known to be among the most unscrupulous of professions, I suppose it might have meant something to have an attorney affix his or her signiture or seal to a document, thereby giving it slightly more legitimacy than the word of a commoner. If the lawyer had known the person for some time and was able to vouch for his/her honesty, and if no money changed hands, the process might have actually had some merit. But nowadays when a lawyer who has just billed a client for an hour after leaving a message on his answering machine, set a rapist free on a technicality, and paid a visit to a hospital emergency room giving out cards for potential personal injury lawsuits, signs, stamps, seals, verifies, notarizes or fucking APOSTILLES anything as a total stranger who I have paid to do so, it means exactly nothing and actually detracts from the legitimacy of any document. But it's a costly and inconvenient process that is just so doggone FUN to say! APOSTILLE! APOSTILLE! Maybe it's me but I see two gay men using it as a safe word. APOSTILLE! APOSTILLE you beast!
Anyway, after we get this nonsense taken care of, Mr. Shim assures me that the paperwork will finally be over. Which is good because after, like I said, about a year of jumping through hoops and filling out documents most of which are completely unnecessary, I feel like saying to the Korean government, "APOSTILLE! APOSTILLE! JIN JAH APOSTILLE!"
Addendum after work the same day: What'd I tell ya? Mr. Shim tried unsuccessfully to use the copy of the stamped degree without the bumps. I guess they need to feel the bumps. Whatever! I'll be so glad to get all the paper pushing over and done with, I'll submit to one last act of subservience. In fact I have made it through my first full month of employment here and that means I will have money again! WOOOOO HOOOOO!!! Not outta debt by a long shot but not scrounging for change either. Korea, despite its shortcomings, and there is no shortage of shortcomings, has bailed me out of the worst financial disaster I've ever been in. I am working my ass off here but I think it'll get easier. I am slowly reigning in the students who looked to be troublemakers. The older ones at least. The younger ones might need a bit more work. But as time goes by and I keep sacrificing an entire day of every weekend to plan lessons, I'll eventually get entire curriculums together for all the books and that will make my life a lot easier.
I have to say I love the hours! I never have to get up early. What a blessing that is! No shift work, split shifts, sleep deprivation, short turnarounds or any of that crap. 3:30 PM to 9:30 PM every day Monday to Friday. It's more teaching hours than an ideal schedule should have. I'd prefer 5 or even 4 hours a day since I have so many students and different classes and every one requires its own lesson plans for the week. But for a guy who likes to have a beer or two to wind down at night, then get online and play, it's a perfect schedule. I could even have more than a beer or two if I had a mind to. Not doing that though until I get more settled in.
So now that the big bureaucracy is almost over, I will be able to concentrate on other things. Namely, getting a phone, getting my stuff sent here from Canada, and getting paid up with all the very accomodating people who stuck with me through the whole Indonesia fiasco. The shipment is in the works and will likely be here by March. I may get a little use from the jeans, pants, sweaters and winter clothes in it yet. I KNOW I'll be using the golf clubs. And it will be super nice to have my big computer! And printer. Though I think I just might break down and get a printer here. Mine will be all clogged up by now anyway and printers aren't too expensive. I've been going to a store and getting things printed out at 300 won per page black and white and a lot more for colour. I could have bought a printer by now with only one month's worth of printing.
The debts to friends and family will take longer to repay. I am SOOO looking forward to the end of 2016! I reckon by then I'll be out of debt again and I'll even have some money in the bank. Enough for a bit of a Christmas time holiday for sure! And MAN will I be aching by then to hit the links in Pattaya! Or who knows, maybe even Viet Nam! Then another year here in Gangneung and before I know it the 2018 Winter Olympics will be right in my back yard. And I'll have the donatos to GO to the events! I have plans to repay some deserving, sport loving friends who have helped me in my time of need. Big plans. I hope things work out.
So anyhoo, as I so often say, I have no love for the crazy, silly, messed up things that happen here in Korea. I DO love that it's a free enough country that I can express my feelings truthfully without getting ground up into Soon Dae for it. But, like my regular railings about Canada, if I didn't like the place, I wouldn't care enough to bitch about it.
Peace out brethren and sistren.
Addendum: OH MY GOD, Magnum! The first comment I've had in ages and it's someone trolling for apostilles. Do you see? Do you see? Do you see, Larry? DO YOU SEE what happens? You're killing your father, Larry. DO you SEE what happens when you f*&^ a stranger in the a@#$? Do you see what kind of money grubbing vermin I'm dealing with here?
Let me first say that it genuinely IS a fun word to say. APOSTILLE. Makes you sound legitimate doesn't it? Say it a few times and see if you don't feel like you could fool someone into believing you are more official than you actually are by saying it. APOSTILLE. I don't need to know what the hell this means, I just need to demand it and watch the foreigner hop to it. It makes me feel SO good about myself! APOSTILLE!
I am positive the officials who request apostille have no idea what it means, most of them anyway, because I have gotten into exchanges with them during which they proved their ignorance. And, as always, pointing out that an immigration officer or any office worker knows less about their job than you is a dangerous thing to do. At the immigration office nearby Gangneung I gave them a copy of my degree which had been stamped and signed by a lawyer who I had never met previous to the stamping and signing and who I paid about 50 Canadian dollars for the service. The lady at the office, who I was told prides herself on knowing a lot about Korean immigration laws and rules, asked me for my ORIGINAL degree with apostille. I told her that nobody gets their ORIGINAL degrees stamped or notarized or "apostilled," and what I had just handed her was a copy of my original document that had been stamped, signed and notarized by a lawyer. She said, that's not what we need. We need apostille.
The word "apostille" in French means "notation." When we get our documents "notarized" by a "notary" public or a lawyer, this is identical to having them apostilled. Ironically, in Canada, where we have French and English as our national languages, we never really used the term until recently. It was something that started, in my understanding, in the U.S. But since the difference between Canadians and Americans is negligible to a Korean immigration officer, all over the country they started demanding Canadians produce "APOSTILLE." I am sure hundreds of us have informed workers all over Korea that we have been doing exactly this for years and that the document in their hands is essentially "apostille." And I'm sure hundreds of Korean immigration workers took offence to the uppety Canadians trying to tell them their jobs. So now, just recently, Canadian notaries, lawyers, foreign workers and document services have started using the term "apostille" but doing exactly nothing different than they did before.
So Mr. Shim calls me from the education office asking for the requisite apostille. I had given him a copy of the copy of my degree that the lawyer had signed and stamped. I said that the stamp was not a postage stamp, (which, hilariously, due to misinterpretation combined with deep desire to seem highly official, Korean consulars have been doing for years),
Anyway, I said to Mr. Shim that the signiture was still there along with the lawyer's official ink stamp so that really should qualify as an "apostille" without the person feeling the bumps on the paper. I'll find out at work today whether the worker was appeased or not. I'm guessing he'll be going back with the original copy of the original degree with the bumps because somebody wants to appear official without actually knowing what the hell he/she is doing and if they can inconvenience a foreigner along the way, well that just an added bonus.
That REALLY is what a mojority of the paperwork I've been doing for, I don't know, the past year???, comes down to: inconveniencing foreigners. I had 6 photos taken for the purposes of official papers here. They had peel-away backing so they could be conveniently stuck to the documents. I ran out and had to get another 4 yesterday so that I could go to the hospital to get my official physical examination, which requires a photo attached, FOR THE SECOND TIME! It needs to be in a "sealed" evelope too. ha ha ha ha. I have to laugh because if this all isn't just inconveniencing the barbarians from abroad then they are laughable, jeuvenile attempts at ersatz professionalism so many of the agencies put on here. Like playing grown-up. That's what it is. Seriously! I think I may be giving the Koreans the benefit of the doubt assuming they're doing this out of pure racism.
At any rate, I am, indeed, an apostille apostate. I reject the official requests for them as either xenophobic inconveniencing or childish desire for unwarranted legitimacy. At their VERY BEST the process is an antiquated one. Back when practicing law was not well known to be among the most unscrupulous of professions, I suppose it might have meant something to have an attorney affix his or her signiture or seal to a document, thereby giving it slightly more legitimacy than the word of a commoner. If the lawyer had known the person for some time and was able to vouch for his/her honesty, and if no money changed hands, the process might have actually had some merit. But nowadays when a lawyer who has just billed a client for an hour after leaving a message on his answering machine, set a rapist free on a technicality, and paid a visit to a hospital emergency room giving out cards for potential personal injury lawsuits, signs, stamps, seals, verifies, notarizes or fucking APOSTILLES anything as a total stranger who I have paid to do so, it means exactly nothing and actually detracts from the legitimacy of any document. But it's a costly and inconvenient process that is just so doggone FUN to say! APOSTILLE! APOSTILLE! Maybe it's me but I see two gay men using it as a safe word. APOSTILLE! APOSTILLE you beast!
Anyway, after we get this nonsense taken care of, Mr. Shim assures me that the paperwork will finally be over. Which is good because after, like I said, about a year of jumping through hoops and filling out documents most of which are completely unnecessary, I feel like saying to the Korean government, "APOSTILLE! APOSTILLE! JIN JAH APOSTILLE!"
Addendum after work the same day: What'd I tell ya? Mr. Shim tried unsuccessfully to use the copy of the stamped degree without the bumps. I guess they need to feel the bumps. Whatever! I'll be so glad to get all the paper pushing over and done with, I'll submit to one last act of subservience. In fact I have made it through my first full month of employment here and that means I will have money again! WOOOOO HOOOOO!!! Not outta debt by a long shot but not scrounging for change either. Korea, despite its shortcomings, and there is no shortage of shortcomings, has bailed me out of the worst financial disaster I've ever been in. I am working my ass off here but I think it'll get easier. I am slowly reigning in the students who looked to be troublemakers. The older ones at least. The younger ones might need a bit more work. But as time goes by and I keep sacrificing an entire day of every weekend to plan lessons, I'll eventually get entire curriculums together for all the books and that will make my life a lot easier.
I have to say I love the hours! I never have to get up early. What a blessing that is! No shift work, split shifts, sleep deprivation, short turnarounds or any of that crap. 3:30 PM to 9:30 PM every day Monday to Friday. It's more teaching hours than an ideal schedule should have. I'd prefer 5 or even 4 hours a day since I have so many students and different classes and every one requires its own lesson plans for the week. But for a guy who likes to have a beer or two to wind down at night, then get online and play, it's a perfect schedule. I could even have more than a beer or two if I had a mind to. Not doing that though until I get more settled in.
So now that the big bureaucracy is almost over, I will be able to concentrate on other things. Namely, getting a phone, getting my stuff sent here from Canada, and getting paid up with all the very accomodating people who stuck with me through the whole Indonesia fiasco. The shipment is in the works and will likely be here by March. I may get a little use from the jeans, pants, sweaters and winter clothes in it yet. I KNOW I'll be using the golf clubs. And it will be super nice to have my big computer! And printer. Though I think I just might break down and get a printer here. Mine will be all clogged up by now anyway and printers aren't too expensive. I've been going to a store and getting things printed out at 300 won per page black and white and a lot more for colour. I could have bought a printer by now with only one month's worth of printing.
The debts to friends and family will take longer to repay. I am SOOO looking forward to the end of 2016! I reckon by then I'll be out of debt again and I'll even have some money in the bank. Enough for a bit of a Christmas time holiday for sure! And MAN will I be aching by then to hit the links in Pattaya! Or who knows, maybe even Viet Nam! Then another year here in Gangneung and before I know it the 2018 Winter Olympics will be right in my back yard. And I'll have the donatos to GO to the events! I have plans to repay some deserving, sport loving friends who have helped me in my time of need. Big plans. I hope things work out.
So anyhoo, as I so often say, I have no love for the crazy, silly, messed up things that happen here in Korea. I DO love that it's a free enough country that I can express my feelings truthfully without getting ground up into Soon Dae for it. But, like my regular railings about Canada, if I didn't like the place, I wouldn't care enough to bitch about it.
Peace out brethren and sistren.
Addendum: OH MY GOD, Magnum! The first comment I've had in ages and it's someone trolling for apostilles. Do you see? Do you see? Do you see, Larry? DO YOU SEE what happens? You're killing your father, Larry. DO you SEE what happens when you f*&^ a stranger in the a@#$? Do you see what kind of money grubbing vermin I'm dealing with here?
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Artificial Happiness
Okay. Sigh. Holy crap, I'm exhausted before I even start this post! What exhausts me more than most things? Maybe more than anything? It's the hyperpositivity that seems to me to have reached pandemic proportions worldwide and, by no coincidence, our world is in the most trouble its ever been in.
Let me start by saying that I'm with you, positive people! I am! I realilze that you can find positives in almost anything if you look desperately enough. And I agree that thinking positively is healthy for mind, body and spirit. This is what makes it so easy for people to try to life coach us all into ignoring the smorgasbord of high-carb, fatty, succulent shit the world serves us up on a daily basis, and making do with the dietary, free-range, organic, rice cakes of positivity hidden somewhere on that table.
Nope. No. Scratch that metaphor because while the positivity may very well be good for us, like eating "right," it is not the negativity that is our enemy. Not in my opinion. This is just the opinion of the hyperpositive. Ironically it is what the people who cause all the negativity would gladly have the entire world believe. What I'm saying is, while these positive people don't realize it, in most cases, and they are not evil, in most cases, they are enabling the evildoers of the world. That's right. That's what I said. By thinking positive, they are enabling the negative.
How so? Well I'm glad I asked that question. While the hyperpositive are engaged in their difficult labours of creating their escapist, artificial happiness, they are forcing out the realities of the world that are in dire need of attention. They are putting their heads in the sand while the desert collapses around them. This is the very definition of apathy, folks, yet, (and this is why I find them so exhausting), so many of these people singing "Zippadee Doo Da" on the sinking Titanic are pointing fingers at people who would draw attention to the problems of the world in an effort to elevate them into public consciousness so that the public can amend them.
Titanic, ice berg, climate change. Let's use this for an example. These retreads who would tell you that global warming is a myth and burning fossil fuels is not harming our planet are quite a crew, aren't they? They remind me of the tobacco industry reps back in the days when they hired scientists be very busy NOT proving smoking causes lung cancer. Ignoring these people while the Chinese ACTUALLY purchase Canadian air by the can,
is not going to make the smog, the oil spills, the melting ice caps, the proxy wars or the greedy corporations go away. But we can always look really REALLY hard to find a positive from all the shit the fossil fuel hoarders of the world bring us. Let's see... advances in technology and science such as the oil-eating enzymes developed to help clean up oil spills. How about the shorter line-ups to see the Great Wall, or as much as you can see of it on a polluted day? Seriously though, the one truth that has been crammed down fossil fuel country citizens' throats is jobs. It's true. No arguing that. There are small groups of people who gain employment from the fossil fuel industry by extracting and selling and making an even SMALLER group of people filthy rich at the expense of the GIGANTIC majority of us. How can they feel good about that? "Just don't think about that. Ignore it. Concentrate on the positive. Don't be such a bummer. Don't be so negative! Stick your head in the sand and let's go out drinking and dancing so we can wipe reality right out of our heads."
This is NOT happiness, my friends. I've seen other defence mechanisms as well. The old, "I have to do this to support my family," "It's just business," "If I don't do it somebody else will," arguments come to the fore. There are even people who do charity work to ease the mental burden that being a contributing factor to the steady deterioration of the planet causes. But try as they might, no amount of charity will help as many people as their industry is hurting. So go on Prozac or Zoloft or whatever the hell the newest anti-depressant might be. Then you are just supporting ANOTHER evil industry. We ALL do it. If we have money in a bank, if we shop at Wall Mart, if we buy stuff made in China. What the hell ISN'T made in China?
So it sounds like just another person bitching but not offering solutions. This is another tried and true argument that is used against realists nowadays. When people occupy Wall Street or demonstrate I am constantly hearing, "Their reasons. weren't clear. What could these cryptic signs possibly mean?"
I have seen positive things done by these supposedly negative people too! Look at Iceland jailing its corrupt bankers. Look at Germany going a day where they actually used less energy than they created with non-fossil technology. Look at Norway sharing the oil profits with the people to whom the oil belongs and making them all rich. Things like this could happen globally if only we could wake the sleepers, the lazy, the ignorant, the misinformed and the hyperpositive.
As much as I hate to state this, I think it may be a fact: for this to occur globally, it probably needs to start in the U.S. of A. And with the possible exception of China, I think they might be the toughest country to whip into shape. But I am going to suggest a solution. It's not drastic like quitting your jobs. In fact it's something that only Americans can do. Here it is. Vote for Bernie Sanders.
Bernie Sanders could make some VERY positive things happen in America. He'll fight the corporations, give affordable health care, cheaper education or even free, lower taxes for regular people and raise them for corporate fat cats, he'll run America the way we all know countries should be run. And more importantly he'll give hope for the hyperpositive. You see I believe that behind most of these "Hooray for everything" smiles is a depression and hopelessness that a corrupt world can cause. They try to block out the negative but it finds them. The "happiness" they claim to want to share with you and me is nothing but artificial happiness and an aversion to the responsible behaviour that could make real changes in the real world and lead to REAL happiness.
As I've said before, don't be skull sodomized. We need to sack up and face the negatives in the world and turn them into positives. REAL positives make REAL happiness. I, for one refuse to satisfy myself with the escapist, fairy tale happiness of the hyperpositive. They exhaust me because they think they are doing good when really they should be ashamed of themselves. But they are so out of touch with shame, (because, well that would be negative, wouldn't it?), they seem incapable of change. Not only that but the best defence is a good offense, they seem to think, so now, the militant action they so despise directing toward the genuine evil in the world, is being foisted upon the only people who are doing anything to change that evil.
Artificial happiness. It's a riddle inside a puzzle wrapped in a conundrum.
FEEL THE BERN!
Let me start by saying that I'm with you, positive people! I am! I realilze that you can find positives in almost anything if you look desperately enough. And I agree that thinking positively is healthy for mind, body and spirit. This is what makes it so easy for people to try to life coach us all into ignoring the smorgasbord of high-carb, fatty, succulent shit the world serves us up on a daily basis, and making do with the dietary, free-range, organic, rice cakes of positivity hidden somewhere on that table.
Nope. No. Scratch that metaphor because while the positivity may very well be good for us, like eating "right," it is not the negativity that is our enemy. Not in my opinion. This is just the opinion of the hyperpositive. Ironically it is what the people who cause all the negativity would gladly have the entire world believe. What I'm saying is, while these positive people don't realize it, in most cases, and they are not evil, in most cases, they are enabling the evildoers of the world. That's right. That's what I said. By thinking positive, they are enabling the negative.
How so? Well I'm glad I asked that question. While the hyperpositive are engaged in their difficult labours of creating their escapist, artificial happiness, they are forcing out the realities of the world that are in dire need of attention. They are putting their heads in the sand while the desert collapses around them. This is the very definition of apathy, folks, yet, (and this is why I find them so exhausting), so many of these people singing "Zippadee Doo Da" on the sinking Titanic are pointing fingers at people who would draw attention to the problems of the world in an effort to elevate them into public consciousness so that the public can amend them.
Titanic, ice berg, climate change. Let's use this for an example. These retreads who would tell you that global warming is a myth and burning fossil fuels is not harming our planet are quite a crew, aren't they? They remind me of the tobacco industry reps back in the days when they hired scientists be very busy NOT proving smoking causes lung cancer. Ignoring these people while the Chinese ACTUALLY purchase Canadian air by the can,
is not going to make the smog, the oil spills, the melting ice caps, the proxy wars or the greedy corporations go away. But we can always look really REALLY hard to find a positive from all the shit the fossil fuel hoarders of the world bring us. Let's see... advances in technology and science such as the oil-eating enzymes developed to help clean up oil spills. How about the shorter line-ups to see the Great Wall, or as much as you can see of it on a polluted day? Seriously though, the one truth that has been crammed down fossil fuel country citizens' throats is jobs. It's true. No arguing that. There are small groups of people who gain employment from the fossil fuel industry by extracting and selling and making an even SMALLER group of people filthy rich at the expense of the GIGANTIC majority of us. How can they feel good about that? "Just don't think about that. Ignore it. Concentrate on the positive. Don't be such a bummer. Don't be so negative! Stick your head in the sand and let's go out drinking and dancing so we can wipe reality right out of our heads."
This is NOT happiness, my friends. I've seen other defence mechanisms as well. The old, "I have to do this to support my family," "It's just business," "If I don't do it somebody else will," arguments come to the fore. There are even people who do charity work to ease the mental burden that being a contributing factor to the steady deterioration of the planet causes. But try as they might, no amount of charity will help as many people as their industry is hurting. So go on Prozac or Zoloft or whatever the hell the newest anti-depressant might be. Then you are just supporting ANOTHER evil industry. We ALL do it. If we have money in a bank, if we shop at Wall Mart, if we buy stuff made in China. What the hell ISN'T made in China?
So it sounds like just another person bitching but not offering solutions. This is another tried and true argument that is used against realists nowadays. When people occupy Wall Street or demonstrate I am constantly hearing, "Their reasons. weren't clear. What could these cryptic signs possibly mean?"
I have seen positive things done by these supposedly negative people too! Look at Iceland jailing its corrupt bankers. Look at Germany going a day where they actually used less energy than they created with non-fossil technology. Look at Norway sharing the oil profits with the people to whom the oil belongs and making them all rich. Things like this could happen globally if only we could wake the sleepers, the lazy, the ignorant, the misinformed and the hyperpositive.
As much as I hate to state this, I think it may be a fact: for this to occur globally, it probably needs to start in the U.S. of A. And with the possible exception of China, I think they might be the toughest country to whip into shape. But I am going to suggest a solution. It's not drastic like quitting your jobs. In fact it's something that only Americans can do. Here it is. Vote for Bernie Sanders.
Bernie Sanders could make some VERY positive things happen in America. He'll fight the corporations, give affordable health care, cheaper education or even free, lower taxes for regular people and raise them for corporate fat cats, he'll run America the way we all know countries should be run. And more importantly he'll give hope for the hyperpositive. You see I believe that behind most of these "Hooray for everything" smiles is a depression and hopelessness that a corrupt world can cause. They try to block out the negative but it finds them. The "happiness" they claim to want to share with you and me is nothing but artificial happiness and an aversion to the responsible behaviour that could make real changes in the real world and lead to REAL happiness.
As I've said before, don't be skull sodomized. We need to sack up and face the negatives in the world and turn them into positives. REAL positives make REAL happiness. I, for one refuse to satisfy myself with the escapist, fairy tale happiness of the hyperpositive. They exhaust me because they think they are doing good when really they should be ashamed of themselves. But they are so out of touch with shame, (because, well that would be negative, wouldn't it?), they seem incapable of change. Not only that but the best defence is a good offense, they seem to think, so now, the militant action they so despise directing toward the genuine evil in the world, is being foisted upon the only people who are doing anything to change that evil.
Artificial happiness. It's a riddle inside a puzzle wrapped in a conundrum.
FEEL THE BERN!
Friday, January 22, 2016
Population Problem
I remember an old Simpsons episode in which Apu says, I think to Homer, something about America's "dangerously low population." It was a funny joke. Irony. I laughed. It's something made fun of quite a few times in the show, most notably the ONE time Apu and his wife create children, it turns out to be EIGHT children. The Nahasapeemapetilon Octuplets (from top-left to bottom-right): Sashi, Pria, Anoop, Gheet, Poonam, Uma, Sandeep, and Nabendu
"Dangerously low population." I still chuckle at that. Back when the episode in which that line was spoken by Apu aired, I think late 80's early 90's, the population of the entire world was 5 billion. Today India alone has 1.3 billion people. That's about 18% of the world's population. Added to China's 1.4 billion, (about 20% of the world), (and I'm assuming that's excluding Hongcouver and all the other Chinese not living in China), that's getting close to 3 billion in 2 countries. Now they ARE big countries but still...
I don't know how it could be made any clearer. Would you want to ride that train? Or be visiting the "Great" Wall when it's so full? I know population problems. I've lived in Jakarta and I lived in Seoul back when it was higher up on the population density ratings. It's no picnic. I remember visiting Sorak Mountain during Chuseok, (Korean Thanksgiving), and although I always love being out in nature on a mountain somewhere, I couldn't get OFF that mountain soon enough. The ticket saleslady told me they'd sold a million tickets that day and I believe her. Every path was 4 or 5 wide with people pushing one way or another. You see when you have too many people, they get pushy. Aggressive. Competitive. Or they don't get anywhere at all. It's a problem that is just no good for anyone. Well, no good for ALMOST anyone.
Nice, relaxing dip anyone? There's nothing relaxing or nice about overpopulation.
And if you think they don't know, you are either ignorant or you have been misled.
I don't think I need to argue too hard to make this point. Do I? Because recently I read an article someone had posted online about Japan and it's shrinking population. The article was all doom and gloom about the dangers this will create for the future of the Japanese. I commented by saying something like, "And countries like China and India feel sorry for Japan's dangerously low population. Good for you, Japan!"
It wasn't long before a guy name Lolu replied to my comment. He said that China and India are enjoying booming economies right now while Japan hasn't boomed in 3 decades. So, still in humour mode, I reply, "Oh, I see. So more people = more money. That's gotta be right. Thanks, Lolu."
He replied, "More people = more workers for industries = more development of newer industries = more tax payers = booming economy." This is the pseudoscience and attractive sophistry that I am finding implanted in the minds of youngsters more and more these days. It sounds pretty plausible and with enough self-convincing a person with a functioning intellect could successfully turn it into a belief. It just ain't what's happening. So I replied, "Spoken like a true industrialist. In reality, it's not sheer number of workers that attracts industry, it's the competition among the workers. And their desperation, which allows them to accept lower wages."
Then Lolu the industrialist showed his colours. He wrote, "How can you have adequate competition between workers if you don't have enough workers in the first place?" I replied, "Adequate for industry? I don't think ZERO wages would be adequate for industry." And as the world has so spinelessly accepted as a fact of life, industry gets away with this behaviour due to its "fiduciary responsibility" to shareholders to amorally suck every bit of worth out of the land, the people, anything it can. I continued, "Industry wouldn't even be satisfied if people PAID to work. They'd STILL want more. Maybe Japan and other globally responsible countries are reducing "adequate" desperation amongst their people. It's a nice thought."
I added the last part because Japan is expensive. Having kids is expensive. Having kids in Japan is VERY expensive. Mystery solved. This, I believe, more than anything is why their population is dropping. And this is why I complimented Japan. It's the same in Korea and I have complimented Korea on it as well. It is globally responsible thinking to realize that maybe behaving like Chinese or Indian bunnies is not what's best for the world.
Here's Lolu's response, "Sure, Japan is being responsible by having a demographic time bomb where there won't be enough young workers to pay for and support the health and social needs of an ever growing ageing population. Very responsible!" (punctuation and spelling errors his, not mine)
Again, sounds like he might know what he's talking about. I think the word choice more than what is said is why this sounds more intelligent than it is. "Demographic time bomb." This is a staple with corporate types whose best interests lie in creating this panic, fear and individual thinking in the consumers. Keeps them cheaper and more productive. Think how hard you have to work to get on a train in India. How many people you have to step on a push aside in your fear of being late for your shitty job and losing the miniscule income it provides. That's what you get on the job site when overpopulation is fostered. People who will inform on other employees or even stab them in the back to protect their jobs.
During the whole exchange I wondered who Lolu was. I kept picturing a guy with an obviously African name, son of an upper crust one-percenter in the great continent. Educated overseas in England. Oxford probably. Business probably. Groomed to take over the family business. What industry was his father involved in and what mental malleability did he pass on to his son? If his father was, I'll go for the low hanging fruit, involved in the blood diamond industry of South Africa, for instance. What does a person repeat to onesself like a maaniacal mantra to justify such hideous treatment of one's fellow human being? "People are just numbered consumers." "I am not directly harming anyone." Or maybe something a bit more cmoplex like, "Adequate competition is a thing."
I realized I might have been banging my head against a wall trying to reason with this young man. And by then others had jumped the thread like the Korean dude, Jack Kim, who commented on how China's one child policy will cause a similar demographic catastrophe in China. And I read some other comments from other people who just go along with the main idea of Japan desperately needing to increase its birth rate and population and I started actually thinking, "Is it me?" I mean, is there a possibility that I could be wrong here? THAT'S how powerful this mindless drivel coupled with general acceptance as fact can be!
I'm NOT wrong. This sort of doom and gloom has been the forecast for MANY countries throughout the ages and has not come to pass. If Japan, or any country, sustains zero population growth and the Japanese old people outnumber the young Japanese workers, the country will not collapse. There are BILLIONS of people in the world who would LOVE to work for those obscenely high Japanese wages!
It's much too hard to get accurate statistics on things like unemployment or income disparity in India let alone China, but I'd like to comment on the Lolu nonsense a little further in case any of you see one iota of truth to it. He said that China and India are "booming" economies right now. This sounds good and it's supposed to when uttered by corporate, industrialist child-killers. But when you take a closer look at overpopulated countries, and I have read some people who have, you will find that the boom is not enjoyed by many. Mostly just the rich. I read a recent article in one of the well known American business magazines about China's economy. The writer had spent years and years in China and was well informed. He wrote that the people of China have basically made a deal with the Chinese Communist Party allowing them to get away with human rights violations based on the Powerball Lottery hope that if they continue having families of 10 or 20, maybe ONE of their family might manage to be soulless and anti-social enough to attain a position in which he or she actually benefits from this economic boom. And I guess the families hope that that family member won't do to them what he did to so many others on the way to the top and say, "No money for you motha fuckaaaaas!"
Same in India. Same in all overpopulated and underpaid countries. It's a corporate win win! And it's the ONLY reason someone might have to say that shrinking population is a bad thing. Don't be skull-sodomized by the greedy. Have your friends spayed or neutered. Here's one more picture of what they say we NEED:
"Dangerously low population." I still chuckle at that. Back when the episode in which that line was spoken by Apu aired, I think late 80's early 90's, the population of the entire world was 5 billion. Today India alone has 1.3 billion people. That's about 18% of the world's population. Added to China's 1.4 billion, (about 20% of the world), (and I'm assuming that's excluding Hongcouver and all the other Chinese not living in China), that's getting close to 3 billion in 2 countries. Now they ARE big countries but still...
I don't know how it could be made any clearer. Would you want to ride that train? Or be visiting the "Great" Wall when it's so full? I know population problems. I've lived in Jakarta and I lived in Seoul back when it was higher up on the population density ratings. It's no picnic. I remember visiting Sorak Mountain during Chuseok, (Korean Thanksgiving), and although I always love being out in nature on a mountain somewhere, I couldn't get OFF that mountain soon enough. The ticket saleslady told me they'd sold a million tickets that day and I believe her. Every path was 4 or 5 wide with people pushing one way or another. You see when you have too many people, they get pushy. Aggressive. Competitive. Or they don't get anywhere at all. It's a problem that is just no good for anyone. Well, no good for ALMOST anyone.
Nice, relaxing dip anyone? There's nothing relaxing or nice about overpopulation.
And if you think they don't know, you are either ignorant or you have been misled.
I don't think I need to argue too hard to make this point. Do I? Because recently I read an article someone had posted online about Japan and it's shrinking population. The article was all doom and gloom about the dangers this will create for the future of the Japanese. I commented by saying something like, "And countries like China and India feel sorry for Japan's dangerously low population. Good for you, Japan!"
It wasn't long before a guy name Lolu replied to my comment. He said that China and India are enjoying booming economies right now while Japan hasn't boomed in 3 decades. So, still in humour mode, I reply, "Oh, I see. So more people = more money. That's gotta be right. Thanks, Lolu."
He replied, "More people = more workers for industries = more development of newer industries = more tax payers = booming economy." This is the pseudoscience and attractive sophistry that I am finding implanted in the minds of youngsters more and more these days. It sounds pretty plausible and with enough self-convincing a person with a functioning intellect could successfully turn it into a belief. It just ain't what's happening. So I replied, "Spoken like a true industrialist. In reality, it's not sheer number of workers that attracts industry, it's the competition among the workers. And their desperation, which allows them to accept lower wages."
Then Lolu the industrialist showed his colours. He wrote, "How can you have adequate competition between workers if you don't have enough workers in the first place?" I replied, "Adequate for industry? I don't think ZERO wages would be adequate for industry." And as the world has so spinelessly accepted as a fact of life, industry gets away with this behaviour due to its "fiduciary responsibility" to shareholders to amorally suck every bit of worth out of the land, the people, anything it can. I continued, "Industry wouldn't even be satisfied if people PAID to work. They'd STILL want more. Maybe Japan and other globally responsible countries are reducing "adequate" desperation amongst their people. It's a nice thought."
I added the last part because Japan is expensive. Having kids is expensive. Having kids in Japan is VERY expensive. Mystery solved. This, I believe, more than anything is why their population is dropping. And this is why I complimented Japan. It's the same in Korea and I have complimented Korea on it as well. It is globally responsible thinking to realize that maybe behaving like Chinese or Indian bunnies is not what's best for the world.
Here's Lolu's response, "Sure, Japan is being responsible by having a demographic time bomb where there won't be enough young workers to pay for and support the health and social needs of an ever growing ageing population. Very responsible!" (punctuation and spelling errors his, not mine)
Again, sounds like he might know what he's talking about. I think the word choice more than what is said is why this sounds more intelligent than it is. "Demographic time bomb." This is a staple with corporate types whose best interests lie in creating this panic, fear and individual thinking in the consumers. Keeps them cheaper and more productive. Think how hard you have to work to get on a train in India. How many people you have to step on a push aside in your fear of being late for your shitty job and losing the miniscule income it provides. That's what you get on the job site when overpopulation is fostered. People who will inform on other employees or even stab them in the back to protect their jobs.
During the whole exchange I wondered who Lolu was. I kept picturing a guy with an obviously African name, son of an upper crust one-percenter in the great continent. Educated overseas in England. Oxford probably. Business probably. Groomed to take over the family business. What industry was his father involved in and what mental malleability did he pass on to his son? If his father was, I'll go for the low hanging fruit, involved in the blood diamond industry of South Africa, for instance. What does a person repeat to onesself like a maaniacal mantra to justify such hideous treatment of one's fellow human being? "People are just numbered consumers." "I am not directly harming anyone." Or maybe something a bit more cmoplex like, "Adequate competition is a thing."
I realized I might have been banging my head against a wall trying to reason with this young man. And by then others had jumped the thread like the Korean dude, Jack Kim, who commented on how China's one child policy will cause a similar demographic catastrophe in China. And I read some other comments from other people who just go along with the main idea of Japan desperately needing to increase its birth rate and population and I started actually thinking, "Is it me?" I mean, is there a possibility that I could be wrong here? THAT'S how powerful this mindless drivel coupled with general acceptance as fact can be!
I'm NOT wrong. This sort of doom and gloom has been the forecast for MANY countries throughout the ages and has not come to pass. If Japan, or any country, sustains zero population growth and the Japanese old people outnumber the young Japanese workers, the country will not collapse. There are BILLIONS of people in the world who would LOVE to work for those obscenely high Japanese wages!
It's much too hard to get accurate statistics on things like unemployment or income disparity in India let alone China, but I'd like to comment on the Lolu nonsense a little further in case any of you see one iota of truth to it. He said that China and India are "booming" economies right now. This sounds good and it's supposed to when uttered by corporate, industrialist child-killers. But when you take a closer look at overpopulated countries, and I have read some people who have, you will find that the boom is not enjoyed by many. Mostly just the rich. I read a recent article in one of the well known American business magazines about China's economy. The writer had spent years and years in China and was well informed. He wrote that the people of China have basically made a deal with the Chinese Communist Party allowing them to get away with human rights violations based on the Powerball Lottery hope that if they continue having families of 10 or 20, maybe ONE of their family might manage to be soulless and anti-social enough to attain a position in which he or she actually benefits from this economic boom. And I guess the families hope that that family member won't do to them what he did to so many others on the way to the top and say, "No money for you motha fuckaaaaas!"
Same in India. Same in all overpopulated and underpaid countries. It's a corporate win win! And it's the ONLY reason someone might have to say that shrinking population is a bad thing. Don't be skull-sodomized by the greedy. Have your friends spayed or neutered. Here's one more picture of what they say we NEED:
Monday, January 18, 2016
Hengbokguh in Paradise
What a day it was today!
I got outta bed knowing I had been paid for the first time in a LONG time, what amounts to a regular check. Not regular because it was minus an advance I had to take to get me fed and watered to the point I'm at now, but it was my first check at the new job. I went to the bank machine right in front of the KT Telecom building and took out 200,000 won. That's about 230 bucks Canadian right now although it used to just translate 1000 to 1. What's happening to the Canadian dollar? Dayum!
For the three weeks I've been in Gangneung I've been using wifi called "iptime." It has no password. It's brutally slow and getting slower so I went to apply for KT today. That's what I was doing outside the KT building. Other than getting all moneyed up. After a minimal wait and a miraculously successful struggle with my Korean and the teller's English, everything went smoothly.
Geez. I so seldom type that sentence I had to stop and admire it. Oh, wait a second... I got a text message several hours after I applied, while I was at work. The message said I had defaulted on internet payments back in 2008. 8 years ago!
I did some quick record checking and blog reading, (that's one of the main reasons I'm writing this thing, (pppfffssshhhttt! Like I have "records...")), and I had Hanaro internet in Mokpo for half of 2008 then moved to Gwangju where I used the school internet.
I recall ONE thing being most important when I signed up for Hanaro in Mokpo: that I could cancel at any time. I was told by the woman who spoke English just fine that I could. Then when I moved to Gwangju I tried to cancel and she told me I'd have to pay 6 more months.
As you can imagine I had a few choice words for her, which I know she understood, given her excellent English. When I'm morally outraged and downright pissed off I can string together some Shakespearian, Old Testament, Mediavally disparaging remarks on a body! She probably even understood THOSE.
It's what every foreigner has feared more than once being over here. We are constantly handed contracts, including those for our employment, cell phones, internet, utilities, bank accounts, housing and other such necessities, that are ENTIRELY in Korean and we just hope the not-to-be-trusted people who are offering them to us, can be trusted just this once. COME ON - Bankers? Landlords? Government workers? Lawyers? Cable companies? Who knows the kind of usury, graft, fraud, sophistry and chicanery those contracts actually contain? And if you have read my blog before, or know me at all, you'll know that every contract I've signed for work over here in Korea has been broken. Except my current contract and one other. (sheepish eep!)
Well the bitch in Mokpo just blatantly lied to my face and told me I could cancel at any time. I remember this because it was important to me at the time. I had just finished a demoralizing year at Hankook University of Foreign Studies where I found a perfect example of how the greedy scumbag liars of this world can only cheat the spineless, apathetic, self-delusional, neg-blocking, and lethargic - who don't stand up for themselves. It was difficult for me to decide which of that lot I was hightailing it away from. But I had one offer and one possible offer on the table at the time. I was a hot commodity. I wasn't pushing 50 either!
Mokpo University was one place I was looking into and Seokang College was the other. I had worked at Seokang for a year and been told they'd hire me back when it was possible. I had enjoyed the year and was looking forward to returning. But at the last minute they told me I'd have to wait another semestre before they'd be able to hire me. That's 6 months. So I did something I never did before or since: I took the Mokpo job, signing a year contract, with every intention of breaking that contract if Seokang wanted me back. As it turned out, Seokang wanted me back and I broke the contract. With permission from Mokpo. They were actually very nice about it. And, although it was more work and fewer holidays than other contracts I had had at that time, (not NOW though), and although there were other minor problems, their's was the one contract that was never broken as far as I can remember. Shoulda just stayed. Hindsight...
I can't remember for sure, but I can think of no reason why I wouldn't have even TOLD the Hanaro lying sow the whole story. She assured me vehemently that I could cancel at any time. Told me she had dealt with many teachers at Mokpo U. Even gave examples of some who cancelled early. Then just lied. And probably does it regularly. Never losing sleep.
This is going to come back to bite me in the ass, I'm sure of it, but I think the most bothersome part of it all is that the Korean people believe all the workers for the above mentioned necessities when they say that foreigners have caused so many problems for them and they all get away with charging outrageous fees and adding unfair rules and regulations for foreigners. What do you want to bet that a huge number of the supposedly "delinquent" foreigners were innocent just like me and that it was a crooked Korean and a totally Korean contract that were the cause of the problems? And then through no fault of their own the foreigner is considered a credit risk. Dishonest. Evil. That's the way this place works, folks. And as a foreigner, there's precious little recourse. There is nobody who will believe my word agaisn't that lying succubus' in this country. Which further perpetuates the reason why they won't believe my word against that lying succubus'.
And anyway, I thought Hanaro was different from KT. Do they share their records? I know Hanaro had a class action lawsuit against them for sharing peoples information to spammers. Thousands of Koreans collected. I looked it up online because I got tons of debilitating spam on my Hanaro internet and could have gotten in on the rewards, IF I were Korean. One of the penalties.
I've been told that this is part of my record in Korea. Like that "permanent record" we all fear? This is like my Korean credit rating. I wonder if I'll be able to get a phone or if I could rent a house or start a business.
But I guess KT won't let me have internet. You know, out of moral principles. But if I go there with the year's payment up front, they'll get off their high horse in a jiffy. Money's a morality mitigator ain't it?
Shit! This was going to be a positive post. After KT, which I thought had gone just swimmingly, I hiked 'er downtown to my bank. It was a cold wind a blowin' today so I actually had to put my hoodie hood up and TIE it! But it was good exercise. I got to the bank and transferred some money into my Canadian account. No problem! AGAIN I use that phrase! This time it sticks too! I got the aged teller and she did everything right. And fast. Even allowed me to pay a couple bills. And tonight the money is in my account. Less than a day! THAT's what I'm talkin' bout!
And after the successful cable and banking ventures, having the cash in pocket, I went to McDonald's and got a bacon tomato burger. I was feeling pretty good I must say. Understanding, sort of, how people can get comfortable in their little lives of regularly intrickling of resources. So much so that they are able to deal with great negativity in the job place. Like overbearing, egotistical morons who want to be considered ABOVE every other teacher even though they don't deserve to be. Go get another cheeseburger and forget it. I was even thinking today that I could probably make a few bucks on a slogan here in Korea. Hengbok means "happy." It is pronounced remarkably close to the Korean pronunciation of "hamburger." They say something like hemboguh. Hengbok. Hembog. "The Whopper: It's not a hamburger, it's a hengbokguh."
Loses something in translation but I bet it'd work. Now two weeks from now I'll see that. Just watch...
Anyway, it was very nice today feeling like I'm back working a steady job again, getting out of debt, happily wandering the streets, getting logistical difficulties taken care of, got my alien card, I am also feeling much better health-wise, coughing much less... I was even thinking of a post on OINK in which the author complained about all the foreigners complaining about Korea and suggested they just go back home. I thought to myself that Korea besically saved my life here and I'm pretty doggone happy to be back. Then KT pulls this.
It's tough to go an entire day with nothing but plusses. So now I'm thinking, "Well that guy who wrote that post in OINK made one flawed assumption, at least in regards to me, that home, wherever it may be to the complaining foreigners, is any better. The ESL industry in my country pays less, won't hire full time so has no benefits, no pension or severance, no free apartment and, since it's run largely by Koreans, has been messed up by them. Korea is now the only place I can do this well for myself and it now requires more hours and less vacation. Also teaching kids. And it still doesn't even compare with what my country claims as an AVERAGE job of 47,000 a year. Plus all the other problems in Korea so fuck you, OINKer, if you don't like the people complaining, why don't YOU go home?
And there goes my good day in Gangneung. Stay tuned, it's sure to happen again. Just not likely before several more posts complaining about people congregating in doorways or pushing their grocery carts more slowly and even stopping as you courteously wait for them to go first, and many many other things. What I know, and what that OINKer fails to see in my complaints and others on that site, is that we still like Korea, maybe even love it, otherwise we wouldn't bother to complain.
Man! Some woman out there somewhere is VERY lucky I stayed single!
I got outta bed knowing I had been paid for the first time in a LONG time, what amounts to a regular check. Not regular because it was minus an advance I had to take to get me fed and watered to the point I'm at now, but it was my first check at the new job. I went to the bank machine right in front of the KT Telecom building and took out 200,000 won. That's about 230 bucks Canadian right now although it used to just translate 1000 to 1. What's happening to the Canadian dollar? Dayum!
For the three weeks I've been in Gangneung I've been using wifi called "iptime." It has no password. It's brutally slow and getting slower so I went to apply for KT today. That's what I was doing outside the KT building. Other than getting all moneyed up. After a minimal wait and a miraculously successful struggle with my Korean and the teller's English, everything went smoothly.
Geez. I so seldom type that sentence I had to stop and admire it. Oh, wait a second... I got a text message several hours after I applied, while I was at work. The message said I had defaulted on internet payments back in 2008. 8 years ago!
I did some quick record checking and blog reading, (that's one of the main reasons I'm writing this thing, (pppfffssshhhttt! Like I have "records...")), and I had Hanaro internet in Mokpo for half of 2008 then moved to Gwangju where I used the school internet.
I recall ONE thing being most important when I signed up for Hanaro in Mokpo: that I could cancel at any time. I was told by the woman who spoke English just fine that I could. Then when I moved to Gwangju I tried to cancel and she told me I'd have to pay 6 more months.
As you can imagine I had a few choice words for her, which I know she understood, given her excellent English. When I'm morally outraged and downright pissed off I can string together some Shakespearian, Old Testament, Mediavally disparaging remarks on a body! She probably even understood THOSE.
It's what every foreigner has feared more than once being over here. We are constantly handed contracts, including those for our employment, cell phones, internet, utilities, bank accounts, housing and other such necessities, that are ENTIRELY in Korean and we just hope the not-to-be-trusted people who are offering them to us, can be trusted just this once. COME ON - Bankers? Landlords? Government workers? Lawyers? Cable companies? Who knows the kind of usury, graft, fraud, sophistry and chicanery those contracts actually contain? And if you have read my blog before, or know me at all, you'll know that every contract I've signed for work over here in Korea has been broken. Except my current contract and one other. (sheepish eep!)
Well the bitch in Mokpo just blatantly lied to my face and told me I could cancel at any time. I remember this because it was important to me at the time. I had just finished a demoralizing year at Hankook University of Foreign Studies where I found a perfect example of how the greedy scumbag liars of this world can only cheat the spineless, apathetic, self-delusional, neg-blocking, and lethargic - who don't stand up for themselves. It was difficult for me to decide which of that lot I was hightailing it away from. But I had one offer and one possible offer on the table at the time. I was a hot commodity. I wasn't pushing 50 either!
Mokpo University was one place I was looking into and Seokang College was the other. I had worked at Seokang for a year and been told they'd hire me back when it was possible. I had enjoyed the year and was looking forward to returning. But at the last minute they told me I'd have to wait another semestre before they'd be able to hire me. That's 6 months. So I did something I never did before or since: I took the Mokpo job, signing a year contract, with every intention of breaking that contract if Seokang wanted me back. As it turned out, Seokang wanted me back and I broke the contract. With permission from Mokpo. They were actually very nice about it. And, although it was more work and fewer holidays than other contracts I had had at that time, (not NOW though), and although there were other minor problems, their's was the one contract that was never broken as far as I can remember. Shoulda just stayed. Hindsight...
I can't remember for sure, but I can think of no reason why I wouldn't have even TOLD the Hanaro lying sow the whole story. She assured me vehemently that I could cancel at any time. Told me she had dealt with many teachers at Mokpo U. Even gave examples of some who cancelled early. Then just lied. And probably does it regularly. Never losing sleep.
This is going to come back to bite me in the ass, I'm sure of it, but I think the most bothersome part of it all is that the Korean people believe all the workers for the above mentioned necessities when they say that foreigners have caused so many problems for them and they all get away with charging outrageous fees and adding unfair rules and regulations for foreigners. What do you want to bet that a huge number of the supposedly "delinquent" foreigners were innocent just like me and that it was a crooked Korean and a totally Korean contract that were the cause of the problems? And then through no fault of their own the foreigner is considered a credit risk. Dishonest. Evil. That's the way this place works, folks. And as a foreigner, there's precious little recourse. There is nobody who will believe my word agaisn't that lying succubus' in this country. Which further perpetuates the reason why they won't believe my word against that lying succubus'.
And anyway, I thought Hanaro was different from KT. Do they share their records? I know Hanaro had a class action lawsuit against them for sharing peoples information to spammers. Thousands of Koreans collected. I looked it up online because I got tons of debilitating spam on my Hanaro internet and could have gotten in on the rewards, IF I were Korean. One of the penalties.
I've been told that this is part of my record in Korea. Like that "permanent record" we all fear? This is like my Korean credit rating. I wonder if I'll be able to get a phone or if I could rent a house or start a business.
But I guess KT won't let me have internet. You know, out of moral principles. But if I go there with the year's payment up front, they'll get off their high horse in a jiffy. Money's a morality mitigator ain't it?
Shit! This was going to be a positive post. After KT, which I thought had gone just swimmingly, I hiked 'er downtown to my bank. It was a cold wind a blowin' today so I actually had to put my hoodie hood up and TIE it! But it was good exercise. I got to the bank and transferred some money into my Canadian account. No problem! AGAIN I use that phrase! This time it sticks too! I got the aged teller and she did everything right. And fast. Even allowed me to pay a couple bills. And tonight the money is in my account. Less than a day! THAT's what I'm talkin' bout!
And after the successful cable and banking ventures, having the cash in pocket, I went to McDonald's and got a bacon tomato burger. I was feeling pretty good I must say. Understanding, sort of, how people can get comfortable in their little lives of regularly intrickling of resources. So much so that they are able to deal with great negativity in the job place. Like overbearing, egotistical morons who want to be considered ABOVE every other teacher even though they don't deserve to be. Go get another cheeseburger and forget it. I was even thinking today that I could probably make a few bucks on a slogan here in Korea. Hengbok means "happy." It is pronounced remarkably close to the Korean pronunciation of "hamburger." They say something like hemboguh. Hengbok. Hembog. "The Whopper: It's not a hamburger, it's a hengbokguh."
Loses something in translation but I bet it'd work. Now two weeks from now I'll see that. Just watch...
Anyway, it was very nice today feeling like I'm back working a steady job again, getting out of debt, happily wandering the streets, getting logistical difficulties taken care of, got my alien card, I am also feeling much better health-wise, coughing much less... I was even thinking of a post on OINK in which the author complained about all the foreigners complaining about Korea and suggested they just go back home. I thought to myself that Korea besically saved my life here and I'm pretty doggone happy to be back. Then KT pulls this.
It's tough to go an entire day with nothing but plusses. So now I'm thinking, "Well that guy who wrote that post in OINK made one flawed assumption, at least in regards to me, that home, wherever it may be to the complaining foreigners, is any better. The ESL industry in my country pays less, won't hire full time so has no benefits, no pension or severance, no free apartment and, since it's run largely by Koreans, has been messed up by them. Korea is now the only place I can do this well for myself and it now requires more hours and less vacation. Also teaching kids. And it still doesn't even compare with what my country claims as an AVERAGE job of 47,000 a year. Plus all the other problems in Korea so fuck you, OINKer, if you don't like the people complaining, why don't YOU go home?
And there goes my good day in Gangneung. Stay tuned, it's sure to happen again. Just not likely before several more posts complaining about people congregating in doorways or pushing their grocery carts more slowly and even stopping as you courteously wait for them to go first, and many many other things. What I know, and what that OINKer fails to see in my complaints and others on that site, is that we still like Korea, maybe even love it, otherwise we wouldn't bother to complain.
Man! Some woman out there somewhere is VERY lucky I stayed single!
Saturday, January 16, 2016
Favourite David Bowie...
So I made it through the second week of work here in Gangneung. Just barely. I am talking down to the wire. Friday at about 9:00 I started feeling the cold I'd been fighting all week actually getting WORSE! On the walk home after my shift ended at 9:30 I was coughing so hard I got the spits. You know the spits. When you almost puke but all that comes out is a little bit of spit. Then I got to my room and cranked the heat. It was 21, the hottest it gets in my place, I had my winter coat on and my hood up, I was in bed under the blankets and I was still cold. Every time I moved I got the full body tingles. I'm sure I had a ridiculous fever. So Friday night was a bit boring for me. Just coughing my ass off and trying to get warm.
I really hate when you've been coughing for like three days and then the coughing reaches its high point right when your body reaches it's low point. I had sore coughing muscles. Lung muscles? Whatever muscles we use to cough were just screaming at me as I hacked for hours. It just sucked! I was desperate so I tried something I had heard about on the interweb. I put some Vicks Vaporub on my feet and then put my socks on. Then got under the covers in my bed and tried to get some sleep. I slept the crap outta Friday night! lol New place, new job, new schedule, new bed, new everything and on top of that a cold. I wasn't getting much sleep last week. I basically slept in till after 1 o'clock. I got a package delivered to my door otherwise I might have slept longer. I woke up twice Friday night coughing, which I had heard wouldn't happen, but on the other hand the tingles were gone, so the fever was gone, and I feel much better today. Hardly coughing at all. My coughing muscles are still sore but they're on the mend too. I've only eaten one meal today but don't feel the least bit hungry. That's a bonus!
I honestly expected a cold. Every single time I work a job like this in Korea with many students, the colds come. There's no getting around them. And I have just under 150 new friends here. So the germs are many and varied. It was a bit more dramatic than I had expected but luckily I didn't miss any work. So now Friday night and most of Saturday wasted sleeping, and/or lounging around the house playing stupid life-wasting games like Simpsons Tapped Out or Crossy Roads, I get outta bed and make some pork chops, potatoes and green beans. Delicious! After the meal I felt almost completely healed! It was almost miraculous!
A guy doesn't want to feel TOO healthy, so now I'm drinking some greyhounds and doing what I reckon a lot of people are doing these days: listening to David Bowie tunes. He is one of those guys who probably wouldn't come up if I were asked for my favourite musician list, but if I had some way of measuring the influence of those artists on my life, I think he should appear on that list. Not so much because his work was superior to so many other artists, which it was, but just because I had the good fortune of having my formative years coincide with his most productive years. There's just no escaping that. Almost all of his big songs conjure up some memories for me. Not all totally good, but all interconnected parts of some really, REALLY good times.
I stand, or rather sit at my computer, corrected. I just got up to go to the hwa jang shil, and the temp. in my place showed 22 degrees on the thermostat. That might not seem hot to many of you but you need to understand Korean heating. Most places have what they call Undol heat. It's floor heating that uses water. I have my socks on now to keep my feet COOL. Feet sweat, nose runs. Not my favourite thing about Korea. But at least I don't have the shivers like yesterday.
So anyway, I could complain about work and how the schedule is still causing trouble, how co-teaching without communication is hard to do, how I sometimes don't know what book my students have or when I will see them again, but those things will work themselves out. Again, like catching a cold or 10, when you work in a hagwon, you HAVE to expect these things. And unlike the usual hagwons, the place I work has already taken steps to solve the problems. For instance, Kimberly, one of the other Korean teachers, and I are meeting Monday to iron out some troubles. I share a couple classes with her. Lower level, younger ones. I am talking phonics. Some have almost no English at all. I had one kid in my class Friday who had mistakenly joined us. I took the attendance and asked his name in English. He looked at me terrified. I asked his name a couple more times. He just froze. I then sat beside him and asked in Korean what his name was and he told me in a voice Jaimie Summers would have had trouble hearing. (Old guy reference. She was the bionic woman with super hearing). We started the class using a book he didn't have so I said he should share with the guy beside him. He just started crying. Crying probably because he knew he was in the wrong class. I thought it was me he was scared of even though the other kids already know I'm a pushover. He just couldn't tell me in English so I think he was frustrated. Then Kimberly knocked on the door and called his name. Said, "You are in my class today." That was a big relief for everyone!
Then there was the text, half in Korean and half in English. I'd say actually more than half Korean. I was just told to implement it in some of my classes. And start at such and such a point. Well I did and I got mixed reactions from my classes. The final class I did it with made me realize that the fill-in-the-blank questions I was giving them had the words in the blanks basically explained in Korean above. Which I couldn't understand. The previous classes had milked it for entire classes but the last one just finished in no time flat so I asked why it was so easy. They told me the reason. So I asked one of the bosses how I was supposed to use the book. Teaching these close exercises is all but useless. She told me to use some other exercises in it. And they DID work better. But like the schedule, the new books, new students, I think everyone is in the same boat. It's a bit chaotic at the beginning of the year. I have no doubt it'll just get easier. Then it'll almost get boring.
Those sort of things, and the other teacher already having taught lessons from the book that you had planned to teach. So you have to pull something outta the old bag of tricks, a.k.a. the arse. I, being the seasoned and jaded teacher I am, not only plan for but EXPECT things like this so I was okay every time it happened. But I mentioned it to the others and we will be meeting this week to try to organize some ways to keep it from happening in the future. Exactly what a bad hagwon would NOT do. This is what Kimberly and I will be talking about Monday.
So all I can say is, of course there were struggles in the first two weeks, but I think those will all be smoothed out soon. This gives me nothing but good feelings about the place I work. So, having said I won't bitch about it, but having bitched a little, I'll try to pretend I didn't and continue the thought I originated three paragraphs ago. I could complain about work or my cold or lack of sleep, but won't, having already done so. What I want to do is figure out what David Bowie song is my favourite. This may seem like a two line blog post to you but I seriously doubt I have done this before. Exactly what IS my favourite? There are so many good ones! I have been listening to a very good compilation of them via Youtube whilst writing this post. So many of my favourites have been included! But which is my absolute favourite? It's not an easy question.
There are the fun ones. Modern Love, Let's Dance, China Girl, Rebel Rebel, Dancing in the Streets (with Mick Jagger (I always thought those two had something going on there)), or maybe Under Pressure with Freddie Mercury. There are the slower ones like Space Oddity, and some of his newer stuff. There are those with mindless lyrics, like Blue Jean, and there are those with lyrics that make you go "Hmmmm..." like "The Man Who Sold The World." That's right, Kurt Cobain didn't write that, kids. There are those that automatically conjure up a specific memory for me. That's no fair, I know, but this is MY favourite so that is going to factor into it. That's music. David Bowie was a contributor to the soundtrack of my most formative years. When I hear "Modern Love" I can't help but think of Castlegar, cruisin' and listening to tunes with Tami and others, the HiLite Restaurant, playing pinball at Harry's, smoking home grown for a buck a joint and coughing almost as hard as I did yesterday with my cold, pit parties, pool parties, Syringa, rugby, camping, grad, all my awesome friends, too many to name and all the fun we had. Some of it WHILE listening to that song. Then I hear China Girl and Blue Jean and the passionate wailing David Bowie and it blows me away!
It's a tough one. But if I were to die right now, go to Heaven and meet David Bowie, and he were to ask me for a request, (with Lemmie playing bass of course), what would I choose? I think it's a good thing that Heaven is for eternity because that might be how long it takes me to decide.
So here's what I'm gonna do: I'll fudge here and pick two. My favourite song of his just based on pure catchiness, stuck-in-the-brain-ability and enjoyable tune combined with obvious passion that few artists can match would be Blue Jean. But since I'm a bit of a stickler for lyrics and this is just a little bit better than a meaningless song, (he actually says in the lyrics that SOME day he'll write a poem about Blue Jean, clearly this song isn't it!), I gotta go with China Girl. I LIKE those lyrics. And the passionate voice and awesome music are both there too. I also have some fond memories of this song associated with fond memories of youth.
So there you have it. If I died tonight, and could find David Bowie in Heaven, (assuming we both get past the bouncer and velvet rope), I'd request China Girl.
How 'bout you?
P.S. They say you're supposed to try something new every day to keep life interesting. Having just eaten, still recovering from a cold, I plucked a few nose hairs and unintentionally sneezed FIVE times in a row! NEVER done that before! Other than that, even though I've only eaten one meal today the cold symptoms are minimal. The core muscles are recovering but still burning from the coughing and sneezing of the last few days. All in all I reckon I've probably gotten a decent ab and core workout, eaten less, and just plain lived healthier over the duration of this cold. I've tried to drink more liquids and get my vitamin C and such. Today, (Saturday), after getting my arse outta bed I have felt absolutely fine. I mean a fraction of the nose blowing, coughing, sneezing etc. So, how much of this can be attributed to the Vicks on the feet?
The jury is still out on that one. I'll get back to you.
I really hate when you've been coughing for like three days and then the coughing reaches its high point right when your body reaches it's low point. I had sore coughing muscles. Lung muscles? Whatever muscles we use to cough were just screaming at me as I hacked for hours. It just sucked! I was desperate so I tried something I had heard about on the interweb. I put some Vicks Vaporub on my feet and then put my socks on. Then got under the covers in my bed and tried to get some sleep. I slept the crap outta Friday night! lol New place, new job, new schedule, new bed, new everything and on top of that a cold. I wasn't getting much sleep last week. I basically slept in till after 1 o'clock. I got a package delivered to my door otherwise I might have slept longer. I woke up twice Friday night coughing, which I had heard wouldn't happen, but on the other hand the tingles were gone, so the fever was gone, and I feel much better today. Hardly coughing at all. My coughing muscles are still sore but they're on the mend too. I've only eaten one meal today but don't feel the least bit hungry. That's a bonus!
I honestly expected a cold. Every single time I work a job like this in Korea with many students, the colds come. There's no getting around them. And I have just under 150 new friends here. So the germs are many and varied. It was a bit more dramatic than I had expected but luckily I didn't miss any work. So now Friday night and most of Saturday wasted sleeping, and/or lounging around the house playing stupid life-wasting games like Simpsons Tapped Out or Crossy Roads, I get outta bed and make some pork chops, potatoes and green beans. Delicious! After the meal I felt almost completely healed! It was almost miraculous!
A guy doesn't want to feel TOO healthy, so now I'm drinking some greyhounds and doing what I reckon a lot of people are doing these days: listening to David Bowie tunes. He is one of those guys who probably wouldn't come up if I were asked for my favourite musician list, but if I had some way of measuring the influence of those artists on my life, I think he should appear on that list. Not so much because his work was superior to so many other artists, which it was, but just because I had the good fortune of having my formative years coincide with his most productive years. There's just no escaping that. Almost all of his big songs conjure up some memories for me. Not all totally good, but all interconnected parts of some really, REALLY good times.
I stand, or rather sit at my computer, corrected. I just got up to go to the hwa jang shil, and the temp. in my place showed 22 degrees on the thermostat. That might not seem hot to many of you but you need to understand Korean heating. Most places have what they call Undol heat. It's floor heating that uses water. I have my socks on now to keep my feet COOL. Feet sweat, nose runs. Not my favourite thing about Korea. But at least I don't have the shivers like yesterday.
So anyway, I could complain about work and how the schedule is still causing trouble, how co-teaching without communication is hard to do, how I sometimes don't know what book my students have or when I will see them again, but those things will work themselves out. Again, like catching a cold or 10, when you work in a hagwon, you HAVE to expect these things. And unlike the usual hagwons, the place I work has already taken steps to solve the problems. For instance, Kimberly, one of the other Korean teachers, and I are meeting Monday to iron out some troubles. I share a couple classes with her. Lower level, younger ones. I am talking phonics. Some have almost no English at all. I had one kid in my class Friday who had mistakenly joined us. I took the attendance and asked his name in English. He looked at me terrified. I asked his name a couple more times. He just froze. I then sat beside him and asked in Korean what his name was and he told me in a voice Jaimie Summers would have had trouble hearing. (Old guy reference. She was the bionic woman with super hearing). We started the class using a book he didn't have so I said he should share with the guy beside him. He just started crying. Crying probably because he knew he was in the wrong class. I thought it was me he was scared of even though the other kids already know I'm a pushover. He just couldn't tell me in English so I think he was frustrated. Then Kimberly knocked on the door and called his name. Said, "You are in my class today." That was a big relief for everyone!
Then there was the text, half in Korean and half in English. I'd say actually more than half Korean. I was just told to implement it in some of my classes. And start at such and such a point. Well I did and I got mixed reactions from my classes. The final class I did it with made me realize that the fill-in-the-blank questions I was giving them had the words in the blanks basically explained in Korean above. Which I couldn't understand. The previous classes had milked it for entire classes but the last one just finished in no time flat so I asked why it was so easy. They told me the reason. So I asked one of the bosses how I was supposed to use the book. Teaching these close exercises is all but useless. She told me to use some other exercises in it. And they DID work better. But like the schedule, the new books, new students, I think everyone is in the same boat. It's a bit chaotic at the beginning of the year. I have no doubt it'll just get easier. Then it'll almost get boring.
Those sort of things, and the other teacher already having taught lessons from the book that you had planned to teach. So you have to pull something outta the old bag of tricks, a.k.a. the arse. I, being the seasoned and jaded teacher I am, not only plan for but EXPECT things like this so I was okay every time it happened. But I mentioned it to the others and we will be meeting this week to try to organize some ways to keep it from happening in the future. Exactly what a bad hagwon would NOT do. This is what Kimberly and I will be talking about Monday.
So all I can say is, of course there were struggles in the first two weeks, but I think those will all be smoothed out soon. This gives me nothing but good feelings about the place I work. So, having said I won't bitch about it, but having bitched a little, I'll try to pretend I didn't and continue the thought I originated three paragraphs ago. I could complain about work or my cold or lack of sleep, but won't, having already done so. What I want to do is figure out what David Bowie song is my favourite. This may seem like a two line blog post to you but I seriously doubt I have done this before. Exactly what IS my favourite? There are so many good ones! I have been listening to a very good compilation of them via Youtube whilst writing this post. So many of my favourites have been included! But which is my absolute favourite? It's not an easy question.
There are the fun ones. Modern Love, Let's Dance, China Girl, Rebel Rebel, Dancing in the Streets (with Mick Jagger (I always thought those two had something going on there)), or maybe Under Pressure with Freddie Mercury. There are the slower ones like Space Oddity, and some of his newer stuff. There are those with mindless lyrics, like Blue Jean, and there are those with lyrics that make you go "Hmmmm..." like "The Man Who Sold The World." That's right, Kurt Cobain didn't write that, kids. There are those that automatically conjure up a specific memory for me. That's no fair, I know, but this is MY favourite so that is going to factor into it. That's music. David Bowie was a contributor to the soundtrack of my most formative years. When I hear "Modern Love" I can't help but think of Castlegar, cruisin' and listening to tunes with Tami and others, the HiLite Restaurant, playing pinball at Harry's, smoking home grown for a buck a joint and coughing almost as hard as I did yesterday with my cold, pit parties, pool parties, Syringa, rugby, camping, grad, all my awesome friends, too many to name and all the fun we had. Some of it WHILE listening to that song. Then I hear China Girl and Blue Jean and the passionate wailing David Bowie and it blows me away!
It's a tough one. But if I were to die right now, go to Heaven and meet David Bowie, and he were to ask me for a request, (with Lemmie playing bass of course), what would I choose? I think it's a good thing that Heaven is for eternity because that might be how long it takes me to decide.
So here's what I'm gonna do: I'll fudge here and pick two. My favourite song of his just based on pure catchiness, stuck-in-the-brain-ability and enjoyable tune combined with obvious passion that few artists can match would be Blue Jean. But since I'm a bit of a stickler for lyrics and this is just a little bit better than a meaningless song, (he actually says in the lyrics that SOME day he'll write a poem about Blue Jean, clearly this song isn't it!), I gotta go with China Girl. I LIKE those lyrics. And the passionate voice and awesome music are both there too. I also have some fond memories of this song associated with fond memories of youth.
So there you have it. If I died tonight, and could find David Bowie in Heaven, (assuming we both get past the bouncer and velvet rope), I'd request China Girl.
How 'bout you?
P.S. They say you're supposed to try something new every day to keep life interesting. Having just eaten, still recovering from a cold, I plucked a few nose hairs and unintentionally sneezed FIVE times in a row! NEVER done that before! Other than that, even though I've only eaten one meal today the cold symptoms are minimal. The core muscles are recovering but still burning from the coughing and sneezing of the last few days. All in all I reckon I've probably gotten a decent ab and core workout, eaten less, and just plain lived healthier over the duration of this cold. I've tried to drink more liquids and get my vitamin C and such. Today, (Saturday), after getting my arse outta bed I have felt absolutely fine. I mean a fraction of the nose blowing, coughing, sneezing etc. So, how much of this can be attributed to the Vicks on the feet?
The jury is still out on that one. I'll get back to you.
Tuesday, January 12, 2016
Korean Banks: How I Have Missed Thee...
That's right, folks, I'm an official member of Korean society again. I have applied and received my alien registration number and will soon have the alien card mailed to my workplace for me. I have a temporary print-out with the number on it. On the strength of that I went out looking for a bank account. Because in Korea, without an account, you are a person of, ahem, no account. Really! It's significantly harder to function here.
So one of the bigger drops in the Korean slow rolling water torture that wears us all down to walking nubs, Korean citizens and expats alike, the banking system splashed into my life of waterboardom here. It's fascinating to me to see how my brain works! I get together with my friend, Heather, and talk about the years we spent here in Korea at the same time and am blown away by the success I have had in blocking out those years. Even the good stuff, which is usually what Heather brings up. The visit to the bank yesterday brought some of the previously blocked information back to me. "Oh yeah... The mandatory bank book."
This is one of my pet peeves about Korean banking and though it's not at the top of a long list, I have blogged on it before. I actually caused a scene once in a bank when after 100 transactions without updating my bankbook my account was frozen. It ruined a good weekend because the banks were closed and I couldn't get money from the bank machines. I could not believe it when they told me MY account was frozen because I didn't update MY bankbook. I think in my blogpost I compared that to going to McDonalds and having your french fries confiscated because you didn't put ketchup on them. The bankbook in Korea is not an option. It's a necessity. So as I recall now, I opened a new account, took the beautiful new bankbook I was given, threw it into the garbage can and said, "See you in 100 transactions." As you can probably guess, I was outta this country vowing never to return before those hundred transactions transpired. I HAVE since returned. Twice. And, yes, I will drink the Korean Kool Aid and update my bankbooks. That's right, PLURAL! I have TWO bankbooks. One for local transactions and one for transfers into my Canadian account.
I went into the Korean Exchange Bank and asked for their "Easy One" account. This is an account designed especially for foreigners to make money transfers to their home country easier. The second I said "Easy One" they hopped right to business! I am worried that might mean high exchange rates, monthly fees, and other penalties for banking while foreign in Korea. This is jaded skepticism that just comes from experience.
I produce, for their convenience, my passport and temporary alien number. Immediately we enter into problem number one. They have these specially designed accounts for foreigners, (more accurately, as I was to find out, Americans), yet nobody in the bank who isn't afraid to speak English. Nor did a word of English appear on the majority of the 15-20 forms I had to fill out. I was signing and initialling until I got writer's cramp all the while wondering what kind of usury I was giving these, (to be redundant), not-to-be-trusted bankers permission to perpetrate upon me. Probably extortional exchange rates and outrageous fees.
The female teller, youngish, (which is always a bad sign), asks me for other official Canadian I.D. I show her my birth certificate and Social Insurance card. No she wants a photo I.D. I AGAIN draw her attention to the Korean alien card paper, with photo, that she has ignored to my surprise. She insists that I give her a driver's licence or my Canadian citizenship card. I told her that as far as I know, we don't have those in Canada. As for the driver's licence mine expired although I HAVE a temporary licence, but it is in paper form and doesn't have a photo. She notices, as I'm fumbling through my wallet, my City of Calgary Recreation gym card, which has a photo. I give it to her. Hey whatever works. It got me on base here one time. She inspects it and isn't satisfied. But she notices my B.C. and Alberta security guard licences. I give her both and she takes a photocopy of them. She says, "This, this and this, we can do." Meaning with my passport and two expired security guard licences, I can open up the account. I pointed out that they were old and in Korean communicated that they were from my job in Canada years ago. She said that didn't matter. Fine. Whatever.
Then she gives me to a dude. You see it was lunch time, (12:30), so this girl had to go. Dude takes me to a table instead of at the bank counter and tells me to have a seat. He gives me the first of many forms. There IS English on them but it's not the best. For instance the bank/beneficiary section asks for name and address so I put the bank name and address. Later it asks for the bank's name and address. Dude had low level English but he got his point across and we were communicating fairly well. He "helped" fill out the forms a bit too. By teling me dozens of places to sign and initial. And missing a couple that the other girl had marked. I figured they might not be very important signatures so didn't ask. He filled in my birth date by looking at my passport and using the passport expiration date. Something I didn't catch until the THIRD person whited it out. That's right, because it was HIS lunch time, (1:00), I was transferred to a third person. This was a lady. Older, (a good sign), and she seemed to know what the frig she was doing. And what the frig she was doing was basically un-frigging what the others had frigged up.
She told me that the two security guard licences were expired so they were not acceptable forms of I.D. She asked if I had anything with a photo. I said, once again, I DO have this Korean Alien card number document. She looked at it and asked why I hadn't shown them this in the first place. Because of the language barrier I chose not to fight this battle. "Yeah, sorry, I don't know what I was thinking." She asked me what my REAL birth date was, actually said it in the question, then changed the November 2017 date the dude had put on a couple of forms, making me negative 22 months old. Eye roll. She and the teller beside her, my first teller now back from lunch, had a good laugh at this while she was whiting it out. I asked her if I needed to sign a few places where the dude hadn't told me to sign and she got me to do that.
She got a whole whack of stuff done and produced a bank card. They call it a checking card. This was a savings account so I'm still not sure what is meant by a checking card. I don't think it's a credit card where I can take money out that I don't have in my account. Maybe it can be used on internet sites as a credit card. Still not sure. She told me it was only for Korea though. I asked if I could use it in surrounding countries like Thailand, Viet Nam etc. She said no. So I asked if I could get one that COULD be used in other countries. She said, "Okay." and got me a different card. This is an account created specifically for foreigners, remember.
Well, not really. The one and only form entirely in English was the form whereby I promised, as an American citizen, to pay American taxes on the transactions that warrant said payment. I asked what the hell she was giving this to me for. In a nice way. She said for taxes. I asked if it was American taxes, cuz, remember, I'm Canadian, or Korean. She said Korean. I think she said this to just get me to sign the paper. There WAS a section that asked if I was a citizen of another country and I filled in Canada. So I'm not really sure what THAT was for. Sketchy.
Finally, after about an hour and a half, she shows me the accounts and the names and tells me to check the spellings. The spellings were correct. However, my bank in Canada misspelled my name when I set up the account there. They made me a Mc instead of a Mac. After several requests to change it, Toronto Dominion Canada Trust did nothing. So I showed her on my phone the spelling of my name on my account. So she sighed and did a whole new set of documents and showed me again. This time the Canadian account name was right, (well WRONG but right), but she forgot an L in my name on the Korean account. MacCannel. So she had to do the whole process a third time.
SO, then I said I wanted to send some money to my Canadian account. I gave her 100,000 Korean won. She showed me the exchange and it was 120 bucks and change. I don't know if that was good or not. Probably not but whatever. She then showed me the transaction cost 11 dollars so 109 dollars would go into my account. That seemed okay to me. I had spent 2 hours opening this account, I had a cold, felt a bit run down, and this was making me late for work. Fine, I don't care, just do the transaction. Today I checked and the money was there! Yay!
What did I just say? "Yay?" Korean bank? "Yay?" There must be some mistake here. Ah, yes, here it is. There was a total of 85 dollars and change deposited. Not 109. So 24 or 25 bucks charge on the Canadian end? Probably. That's 36 dollars I paid for a transfer of 85 dollars. It's not like they're sending a rider with the money. They're pressing buttons. THAT's why the CHA CHING!!! when I mentioned the "Easy One" account I suppose.
What a misleading name!
So one of the bigger drops in the Korean slow rolling water torture that wears us all down to walking nubs, Korean citizens and expats alike, the banking system splashed into my life of waterboardom here. It's fascinating to me to see how my brain works! I get together with my friend, Heather, and talk about the years we spent here in Korea at the same time and am blown away by the success I have had in blocking out those years. Even the good stuff, which is usually what Heather brings up. The visit to the bank yesterday brought some of the previously blocked information back to me. "Oh yeah... The mandatory bank book."
This is one of my pet peeves about Korean banking and though it's not at the top of a long list, I have blogged on it before. I actually caused a scene once in a bank when after 100 transactions without updating my bankbook my account was frozen. It ruined a good weekend because the banks were closed and I couldn't get money from the bank machines. I could not believe it when they told me MY account was frozen because I didn't update MY bankbook. I think in my blogpost I compared that to going to McDonalds and having your french fries confiscated because you didn't put ketchup on them. The bankbook in Korea is not an option. It's a necessity. So as I recall now, I opened a new account, took the beautiful new bankbook I was given, threw it into the garbage can and said, "See you in 100 transactions." As you can probably guess, I was outta this country vowing never to return before those hundred transactions transpired. I HAVE since returned. Twice. And, yes, I will drink the Korean Kool Aid and update my bankbooks. That's right, PLURAL! I have TWO bankbooks. One for local transactions and one for transfers into my Canadian account.
I went into the Korean Exchange Bank and asked for their "Easy One" account. This is an account designed especially for foreigners to make money transfers to their home country easier. The second I said "Easy One" they hopped right to business! I am worried that might mean high exchange rates, monthly fees, and other penalties for banking while foreign in Korea. This is jaded skepticism that just comes from experience.
I produce, for their convenience, my passport and temporary alien number. Immediately we enter into problem number one. They have these specially designed accounts for foreigners, (more accurately, as I was to find out, Americans), yet nobody in the bank who isn't afraid to speak English. Nor did a word of English appear on the majority of the 15-20 forms I had to fill out. I was signing and initialling until I got writer's cramp all the while wondering what kind of usury I was giving these, (to be redundant), not-to-be-trusted bankers permission to perpetrate upon me. Probably extortional exchange rates and outrageous fees.
The female teller, youngish, (which is always a bad sign), asks me for other official Canadian I.D. I show her my birth certificate and Social Insurance card. No she wants a photo I.D. I AGAIN draw her attention to the Korean alien card paper, with photo, that she has ignored to my surprise. She insists that I give her a driver's licence or my Canadian citizenship card. I told her that as far as I know, we don't have those in Canada. As for the driver's licence mine expired although I HAVE a temporary licence, but it is in paper form and doesn't have a photo. She notices, as I'm fumbling through my wallet, my City of Calgary Recreation gym card, which has a photo. I give it to her. Hey whatever works. It got me on base here one time. She inspects it and isn't satisfied. But she notices my B.C. and Alberta security guard licences. I give her both and she takes a photocopy of them. She says, "This, this and this, we can do." Meaning with my passport and two expired security guard licences, I can open up the account. I pointed out that they were old and in Korean communicated that they were from my job in Canada years ago. She said that didn't matter. Fine. Whatever.
Then she gives me to a dude. You see it was lunch time, (12:30), so this girl had to go. Dude takes me to a table instead of at the bank counter and tells me to have a seat. He gives me the first of many forms. There IS English on them but it's not the best. For instance the bank/beneficiary section asks for name and address so I put the bank name and address. Later it asks for the bank's name and address. Dude had low level English but he got his point across and we were communicating fairly well. He "helped" fill out the forms a bit too. By teling me dozens of places to sign and initial. And missing a couple that the other girl had marked. I figured they might not be very important signatures so didn't ask. He filled in my birth date by looking at my passport and using the passport expiration date. Something I didn't catch until the THIRD person whited it out. That's right, because it was HIS lunch time, (1:00), I was transferred to a third person. This was a lady. Older, (a good sign), and she seemed to know what the frig she was doing. And what the frig she was doing was basically un-frigging what the others had frigged up.
She told me that the two security guard licences were expired so they were not acceptable forms of I.D. She asked if I had anything with a photo. I said, once again, I DO have this Korean Alien card number document. She looked at it and asked why I hadn't shown them this in the first place. Because of the language barrier I chose not to fight this battle. "Yeah, sorry, I don't know what I was thinking." She asked me what my REAL birth date was, actually said it in the question, then changed the November 2017 date the dude had put on a couple of forms, making me negative 22 months old. Eye roll. She and the teller beside her, my first teller now back from lunch, had a good laugh at this while she was whiting it out. I asked her if I needed to sign a few places where the dude hadn't told me to sign and she got me to do that.
She got a whole whack of stuff done and produced a bank card. They call it a checking card. This was a savings account so I'm still not sure what is meant by a checking card. I don't think it's a credit card where I can take money out that I don't have in my account. Maybe it can be used on internet sites as a credit card. Still not sure. She told me it was only for Korea though. I asked if I could use it in surrounding countries like Thailand, Viet Nam etc. She said no. So I asked if I could get one that COULD be used in other countries. She said, "Okay." and got me a different card. This is an account created specifically for foreigners, remember.
Well, not really. The one and only form entirely in English was the form whereby I promised, as an American citizen, to pay American taxes on the transactions that warrant said payment. I asked what the hell she was giving this to me for. In a nice way. She said for taxes. I asked if it was American taxes, cuz, remember, I'm Canadian, or Korean. She said Korean. I think she said this to just get me to sign the paper. There WAS a section that asked if I was a citizen of another country and I filled in Canada. So I'm not really sure what THAT was for. Sketchy.
Finally, after about an hour and a half, she shows me the accounts and the names and tells me to check the spellings. The spellings were correct. However, my bank in Canada misspelled my name when I set up the account there. They made me a Mc instead of a Mac. After several requests to change it, Toronto Dominion Canada Trust did nothing. So I showed her on my phone the spelling of my name on my account. So she sighed and did a whole new set of documents and showed me again. This time the Canadian account name was right, (well WRONG but right), but she forgot an L in my name on the Korean account. MacCannel. So she had to do the whole process a third time.
SO, then I said I wanted to send some money to my Canadian account. I gave her 100,000 Korean won. She showed me the exchange and it was 120 bucks and change. I don't know if that was good or not. Probably not but whatever. She then showed me the transaction cost 11 dollars so 109 dollars would go into my account. That seemed okay to me. I had spent 2 hours opening this account, I had a cold, felt a bit run down, and this was making me late for work. Fine, I don't care, just do the transaction. Today I checked and the money was there! Yay!
What did I just say? "Yay?" Korean bank? "Yay?" There must be some mistake here. Ah, yes, here it is. There was a total of 85 dollars and change deposited. Not 109. So 24 or 25 bucks charge on the Canadian end? Probably. That's 36 dollars I paid for a transfer of 85 dollars. It's not like they're sending a rider with the money. They're pressing buttons. THAT's why the CHA CHING!!! when I mentioned the "Easy One" account I suppose.
What a misleading name!
Sunday, January 10, 2016
Selfcess
A friend of mine recently posted this on facebook. What do you think? Can you see this? I definitely see a society obsessed with finding cures and also not learning much about the cause! But it seems that this little observational post implies we should learn about the cause. Study the cause. Pinpoint the cause and maybe erradicate it. It also gives the impression that the average person doesn't know exactly what the cause is, doesn't practice the cause consciously and isn't easily capable of stopping it. I think this is less and less the case every day. WIth vast libraries worth of knowledge just clicks away, a lot of us know what the cause of all the ills in this world is. But we allow, and in a lot of ways, ENCOURAGE the cause. While curing the symptoms, we faithfully transmit the disease. The cause is selfishness and greed. And, while I just stated that it's easy to eliminate in one's self, I feel that the elimination of it on a global scale is something that would require some study. Or at least some education. I don't think it would work unless everybody was on board, and, systmatically and diabolically, there have been so many divisive entities created in our society that it seems even if aliens or zombies or a super Ebola virus was destroying mankind, we would be fighting about what to do about it down to the last human being.
Imagine a pack of a dozen hyenas coming upon a fresh water buffalo carcass. They COULD politely divide it evenly amongst themselves. Or each one could selfishly dive into it and gorge as quickly as possible fighting off the other 11 in order to get the maximum amount. The hyenas don't know that two of the 12 are receiving almost none of the nourishment from the carcass because they are weaker. They don't know that for a week there will be no food until another animal meets the pack and it will require the strength and cooperation of all 12 to kill the animal for the furtherance of the pack. By then the two weaker hyenas are too weak to help. The remaining 10 are sluggish from a week without food. They can't make the kill and the tribe dies. But they don't care at all right now! Right now they want as much of this meat as they can get and they will FIGHT their own pack members to eat a bigger meal.
Some say those animals deserve what they get. They should share equally. Some say that it's instinctual to selfishly dive into the food and they're not intelligent enough to think ahead. Many believe that this is a little bit like what our planet and our species, humans, are going through right now. If it were, I'd be more forgiving of our species. But it's not. Not even a little bit. What we have as a species right now is comparable to one of the hyenas pulling an AK 47 on the rest of his pack, killing a few so they don't swarm him and disarm him, and keeping some alive by giving them a minimal amount of food, (enough to keep them functional but not thriving), so that they can serve him the food and maybe even go out and get him some more.
As time goes by the pack notices a nagging lethargy amongst the members. In everyone but the Alpha leader, (who has the AK 47). They do some observation and find that the Alpha leader sometimes has the leisure to snack on green, leafy plants while they are off hunting for his supper. They decide they need more of that in their diets and, low and behold, it works! They are happy for a while, but then one of the pack complains that sometimes when the Alpha leader is necessarily thinning the herd with the AK 47, he gets carried away and mounts a few of the younger, more attractive females and contributes to the overpopulation. And all this without the young females' consent. They ask for an apology and a little more meat for the young females. And they get it. And they're happy. For a while. But for some reason they can't quite put their fingers, (or their paws), on this pack just doesn't seem to be as successful and as happy as they think it could be. They're still not happy and sometimes they still go hungry.
Eventually the Alpha male dies and either a new Alpha male fights his way to the top or the pack is given the freedom and privelege to choose their captor. Either way the pattern goes on until it's just done as a rule. The pack even starts to believe that this is the way things have always been.
What the pack doesn't realize, or maybe are just too domesticated and gutless to do anything about, is that the Alpha leader will do anything, A NY THING to divert attention away from the real cause of the pack's problems: the greedy Alpha leader with the AK 47. And although he thins the pack now and then, if they all worked together, they have the numbers and the strength to take him down and then there'd be so much extra food for every pack member that they would never be hungry.
I'm certain I don't need to but I will mention a few of the things that have appeared in the news in my thoughts lately that have lead to this post. Kim Jung Eon reminding the world of his inexplicable and embarrassing existence; the comfort women agreement between Korea and Japan, but not every single other country that has engaged in war; the ever-growing imprisonment of Americans (almost half on drug charges), the biggest offenders of all, banks, still not being held accountable by anyone but the Finns and now maybe the Swiss; Donald Trump reminding the world of his inexplicable and embarrassing existence; business pillage and plunder; Syria; Hemp; Tesla; and I'll stop myself before I go too far into the "conspiracy theories." But every day I read something on facebook or somewhere in my surfing that makes me wonder just how much knowledge we still DON'T know. "Has Big Pharma surpassed the number of people killed by Pablo Escobar?" "Are drugs still bad and medicine good?" "How can a company from one country legally go into another country and remove resources?" Nestle stealing water from all over the world. Debeers mining diamonds. Oil. Natural gas. We all KNOW the people of the countries where the resources are receive little to no benefits from them. How is this legal? Is this what is meant by the "global economy?"
Here's something to ponder: Your kid comes home from school one day. Eight-year-old. He/she has a bag full of candies. You ask where he/she got them. The kid describes an experiment the social studies teacher did in class in which a huge jar full of candies was passed from student to student. Every student was allowed to take as many candies as he/she wanted and if there were still any left after the last student had a chance, the candies would be doubled and the jar passed around again. Of course this is the same scenario as the hyenas, the difference being even an 8-year-old can reason that there are unlimited candies available if everyone would just use human intellect, which is superior to hyena's, and take an even share allowing half or more to remain after everyone has taken some. Then repeat. But your kid didn't trust any of the other kids so he/she just took the whole jar.
Would you be disappointed? Angry? Would you do anything? Or would you say the all too common, and I believe encouraged to be MORE common, thing: "Well good for you! If you didn't do it, somebody else would have."
In many minds, even cultures, (and NOT the more primitive, rather the more modern ones), what this kid did is considered "success." We hear all the time about "successful" people. This invariably means people who have lots of dough. Why is this "success?" This is almost always "selfcess."
I saw a post about Steve Jobs' last words. Though it's pretty clear that these were NOT his last words, (God was mentioned and he was a Buddhist and did not believe in God), I think they are pretty powerful words. His ACTUAL final words may be even MORE powerful. He said, "Wow! Oh wow! Oh wow!"
I wonder what that meant...
I'm going with, "Oh wow! Maybe we CAN live in harmony without hoarding too much wealth and assets and causing other people to suffer!"
Wouldn't it be nice if a person didn't have to find this out right at death's door?
Monday, January 4, 2016
Bubble Bubble Bubble Puke
So after my first full day of work at my new job, I get home at around 9:45, (I work 3:30 to 9:30), do a little more work making attendance sheets and hit the sack at about midnight. I sleep until 3:30. I get up feeling REALLY hungry but try to force myself back to sleep. I had a sandwich and a couple of oranges at work. That should be enough, no? Well apparently no.
Now it's 6:00 in the morning Tuesday. I just had some scrambled eggs and toast. So now if I go back to bed within the next 3 hours, (which I plan to), I'll get the old reflux. Can't win!
I think I'll get used to it. It's just the first day. But while tossing and turning, and checking the internet, I came across a funny Family Guy video about Korea. Of course, being Family Guy, it shows nothing positive about Korea, but does it in a funny way. I had no idea, but it's a parody of a Hyuna video. Largely. I got that from the comments. I had never heard of Hyuna, and earlier in the day I was asked by one of my brand new students who my favourite Korean pop star was. I am proud to admit that I only KNOW one. Psy. And no WAY was I going to say he was my favourite! Though he is by default. I guess it's the same as saying my favourite Canadian pop singer is Justin Bieber. He is, I suppose, by default because I don't know any others. I am completely, by choice, out of touch with modern pop music. I wouldln't recognize a Justin Bieber song if I heard one. Much less a K-pop song!
So I just deflated an entire class of Hooray-for-Korea hearts and said, "I don't like K-pop." I did, however, admit to knowing Psy. They asked if Psy was big in Canada and I knocked some more wind outta their sails and told them the little kids liked him. Talk about shattering my chances at being the cool teacher with THAT group!
So I reckoned it wsa time to do some research. You know, to see what the kids are listening to here. Well I gotta tell you, I watched the video "Bubble Pop" once and had some strong doubts that ANYbody is LISTENING to that crap. I thought it might have been my imperfect, (near zero), grasp of the Korean language that was the problem. So I looked up <a href="http://lyricstranslate.com/en/bubble-pop-bubble-pop.html">this translation of the lyrics</a>.
Nope. Still no redeeming qualities. By my reckoning, between the lines of pure nonsense, (which are mocked by Family Guy), there seems to be a message. Basically "I can do what I want and get away with it because I'm gorgeous." Now watch me jiggle my lady parts to attract you so I can push you away. Call me more but don't whine if I don't answer my phone. Now watch me shake my hot-pants-wearin' ass. My lying heart is like bubble bubble bubble pop, but why don't you trust me? Look at my sexy S-line. Don't try to change my lying, moody, manipulative, bitchy personality, but here's a list of things for YOU to work on. Lash flash, boob shake.
HOLY CRAP! I thought. I dated this girl back in the 90's! She's one of the big reasons I still can't speak Korean! What I need now is a sleeping pill and a Men in Black pen to flash in my own eyes so I can forget ever seeing this video or the translation thereof. Failing that, I'll just have to satisfy myself with NEVER, if at all possible, EVER watching another K-pop video. But I AM going to watch this vid about another hundred times! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CceSdR3loY
If the link doesn't work, just search Family Guy K-pop and you'll see it. I have noticed a couple things. The shirt Peter wears first says pan goo. That means fart in Korean. (Peter Griffin chuckle) The words in the "nonsense" part WERE nonsense. "Animation," "Studio," "Saranghae," which means I love you, and a couple I don't know. I actually wonder if the Family Guy animation is still done in Korea. It used to be. But I think they moved it to Thailand.
Anyhoo, just trying not to go to bed immediately after eating. But thanks to Family Guy, maybe I can rest secure in the idea that I'm not the only one who detests K-pop. And rightly so!
Saturday, January 2, 2016
The Big Shirt
So I'm watching "The Big Short" and I see this:
Now you tell me that is not the exact same shirt as this:
Anh? Isn't it? Eh? I got this shirt many years ago at that shirt place a couple doors down from Itaewon McDonald's. I was wearing it THIS year and went into the store and the guy recognized that I had bought it there. So it's not that common. I've never seen another like it anywhere. Until now.
Spooky!
By the way, watch this movie. I think it should get the Academy Award for best picture. Steve Carrel's character had two classic lines: 1. "These people are all getting screwed and they're walking around like they're in an Enya video!" And then later after he meets a "synthetic CDO" salesman he says, "I am going to try to find moral redemption... at the roulette table."
While you're at it watch "Inside Job." Both movies will make you shake your head at the moral depravity within the biggest businesses in the world - banks.
I also saw "The Martian." It was good, but it made me crave potatoes.
But the shirt thing... unvelievable, eh? From now on I'm calling that movie, "The Big Shirt."
Now you tell me that is not the exact same shirt as this:
Anh? Isn't it? Eh? I got this shirt many years ago at that shirt place a couple doors down from Itaewon McDonald's. I was wearing it THIS year and went into the store and the guy recognized that I had bought it there. So it's not that common. I've never seen another like it anywhere. Until now.
Spooky!
By the way, watch this movie. I think it should get the Academy Award for best picture. Steve Carrel's character had two classic lines: 1. "These people are all getting screwed and they're walking around like they're in an Enya video!" And then later after he meets a "synthetic CDO" salesman he says, "I am going to try to find moral redemption... at the roulette table."
While you're at it watch "Inside Job." Both movies will make you shake your head at the moral depravity within the biggest businesses in the world - banks.
I also saw "The Martian." It was good, but it made me crave potatoes.
But the shirt thing... unvelievable, eh? From now on I'm calling that movie, "The Big Shirt."
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