I know, my shipment! Yup, the same shipment that has been mentioned in several of these blog posts for almost the last two years. STILL not even on a boat to Asia yet. It's all paid for. Has been for two weeks. The hold-up is something almost as unbelievable as the unbelievable history of this shipment and its hold-ups. You see, there was a 20-dollar charge added to my last payment to the freight company. This payment has boosted the total for this shipment to well over the thousand dollar mark and a 20 dollar arbitrary bank fee has stalled my shipment for another 2 weeks.
I paid a certain amount, have the receipt to show it, sent the receipt to the shipping company, at their request, TWICE, and STILL I'm getting messages from them telling me they received 20 dollars less than the amount I sent. Saying that it was my bank that must have added a charge so I should pay them 20 bucks to cover it. Well, I don't think it WAS my bank that charged THEIR account. In fact I'm pretty sure that can't happen. THEIR bank charged them 20 bucks for the Korean bank transfer for whatever made-up reason. Now they want me to cover it.
When I got my criminal record check done here I tried to pay using all kinds of methods and couldn't do it. I ended up asking Heather, my American friend, to do it with her American Paypal account. She did so and lo and behold, a 20-dollar fee was tacked onto it. The document service told me they had received 20 bucks too little and had the same initial reaction as the freight company: Are you trying to rip us off here? I can't remember but I think the document and all the nonsense that they had to do to certify it all came to a few hundred bucks. They realized that if I tried to send the 20 bucks to pay for the shortage, the same 20-dollar deduction would happen again, so they ate the 20 bucks and chalked it up to the price of doing business overseas. (In Korea to be exact.)
The two people I'm dealing with at the freight company are not so quick on the uptake and are insistant upon my paying them the 20 bucks I, or MY bank, shorted them. Almost as if it's coming out of their salaries or something. They sent me a Paypal receipt and I explained the Paypal situation here in Korea to them. They said I should wire them the 20 bucks and I said that there is no reason to believe the same 20 dollar surcharge wouldn't be added. Leaving them still 20 bucks short, me another 20 bucks poorer and the banks UP 40! God it must be good to be a bank!
So they suggested I do direct deposit from my Canadian account. That SHOULD work but the address they gave me is not recognized on my bank's e-banking payee list. For two weeks I've been receiving new emails with the identical information in them. "We gave you a bill of this and we received this". Like there is ANYthing I can DO about it! 20 dollars. I'd pay it if there was any way to do so.
I've posted about it on Facebook too and I love it when people in the friendly confines of North America try to help. My cousin, Shawna, though it sounded more like a criticism than an attempt to help, messages, "You don't need a Paypal account to pay a Paypal receipt." Nothing more by way of explanation, just a verbal eye-roll at my ignorance. My buddy Roger, (and I KNOW HIS heart was in the right place), sends, "It's free to start a Paypal account. Easy breezy."
I was reminded of the movie, "Good Morning Vietnam," when the Adrian Kronaur comedy routine included a message from the president of the United States telling the soldiers in Nam that if their skin gets irritated from shaving, why, they oughta try using some cold water. Though I am a veteran of Kangnam, not Vietnam, I am still aware that cold water was not so easy to come by in Nam during the war. But it's easy for the POTUS to just transfer the creature comforts that he's used to and mentally construct a highly inaccurate representation of the situation for the fighting forces in Vietnam. It's the same for people who I know back home. They really don't have much of an idea of how things are over here. Even though I blog, write letters and have told a story or two to a friend or family member or two, I am always surprised when I find how similar people think things are over here to things back home. I mean just simple little things.
For instance, I HATE these posts about how to make really great casseroles or cookies or pizza or pies or just about any recipe with a succulent picture there to taunt and tease me. It taunts and teases me because when I look at the list of ingredients, usually half of them are all but unavailable to me. I say "ALL BUT" because they can be found on base, but it's illegal to ask a U.S. military friend to purchase any products for me at the commissary and I would never do anything unlawful as that. Ahem.
Seriously! I would pay 20 bucks for a bowl of Kraft Dinner and a couple Shake n' Bake pork chops! No Shake n' Bake, and I dare you to find a proper pork chop. Oh they have pork and they chop it, but it's not the same. And then you will need an oven to bake it in. They are not nearly as hard to come by as they once were but still haven't caught on over here. And if you buy one, hooking it up might be harder than just taking it right back to where you bought it. See, they don't have the proper hook-ups here. And everything's gas. No electric. And the kitchens are designed for a 1950's 5 foot nothing, stay-at-home wife. There's no room for anything that makes kitchen bitchin' easier for her. And if you DO find an electric oven, find a good place for it in your kitchen, you might run into the problems I have with my electric burner. I have one burner. The boss promised me he'd get a two burner gas stove from the previous teacher's house and hook it up right away here. Two months ago. He's most likely not moving on that because the gas hook-up will be difficult, and I don't have room in my stove area for the two burners. I've been making do with this thing but it sucks. The usual problems. Korean's don't know what slow cooking means. NOTHING is cooked on low. They don't need low. In fact, if they made Spinal Tap stoves that crank up to 11 here I'm POSITIVE they'd be huge! So my little hot plate gets RED hot on one. Half way between zero and one! And anywhere up to 10. Don't be surprised if your newly purchased electric oven has the same feature.
Hah! I just noticed that my crappy, little burner has the word, "luxury" on it! I have found, along with other friends, that "luxury" is one of those opposite words. "De Luxe" too. Most things with these words on them are crapzola! The thing has a timer that is the on switch. You can't turn it on without the timer. And sometimes this timer has a mind of its own. I swear I am not making this up, sometimes my little burner turns itself on! And sometimes it doesn't turn itself off. Even on ZERO the stupid thing gets hot. It's a fire hazard and an engineering abortion. All things considered though, it's better than some set-ups I've had. Funnily enough my nuclear burner is right beside my Indonesian toaster, which is the exact opposite. In fact, it's so slow, it'd be more accurate to call it an Indonesian bread cooker. So things like bacon, (there again, not as hard as it once was to find, but still a chore. Though nowhere near as expensive as Indo so I got that goin' for me), if I don't want it charred, yet undercooked, I turn on the toaster and hang my bacon pieces down into the slots. You know, I'm kidding but it's not a bad idear....
Paypal is a nightmare in Korea! I've heard more than enough stories to steer clear. Because of the paranoia Korea has that people will do to them what they have become so good at doing to other countries, they won't allow you to take your money out of Korea. So if you're moving, you have to spend your Korean won from your Paypal account or give it away. They won't allow you to exchange it into another currency. I'm not saying I know that to be true, just that I've heard it and it sounds believable to me. It's just not convenient for foreigners. Like many other things.
I can't play Facebook games. I can't tell you how many Facebook friends are STILL sending me game requests and it bugs me because I miss those games. Can't play them. And then there's the Korean KCSC warning any time you go to a porn site, or a site some Korean censor has mistaken for a porn site. I have had sports highlights blocked, lessons for my kids, it's not very accurate. Oddly, it never seems to work in reverse. They don't seem to mistake any of the porn for pure, clean websites that won't harm the pristine collective consciousness of the great Korean people. I always laugh when I say I live in Korea and people ask, "North or South?" But sometimes it's like when a student's parents come into the hagwon to pay or give a gift or maybe I see them grocery shopping at E-Mart. The resemblance is very easy to see. It's very rare to see kids that look nothing like their parents. MUCH rarer than in Canada, I'd say.
Because of the hated undol heating, every day I take a shower that I pay quite handsomely for. The gas bills are 120 bucks a month here. Just for heating. And if you know me, you know I like a cold house. I'm not using the stupid undol that much. But every day I heat up my shower water for awhile. I find an hour is necessary if I want a good shower. And when I say "good," that is relative. If I don't heat the water for an hour I get a blast of freezing cold at first. And, by the way, like most undol heating, the pipes don't go into the bathroom, so it's as cold as ice in there already, floor to ceiling. But I don't mind that much. It's just not nice when you get a blast of freezing water. I don't stand under it, but it splashes on my legs and that's not pleasant. Then almost immediately I get the scalding hot, Starbucks coffee temperature water for half a minute. So almost a minute of pre-shower water goes down the drain. Then it gets to a point where I can get under the water. If I heat the water for less than an hour, the time I can STAY under the shower, adjusting the tap hotter and hotter until it's all the way to the hot side, will be roughly 3 minutes. Then it'll go back to the cold. I find if you run the water past the scalding hot, rinse off in the warm and quickly turn it off, lather up and turn it back on again, you can extend your warm water time by a good two minutes! But sometimes that just gets you another blast of the scalding. It's hit or miss. I've tried putting the beginning minute of extreme temperature water into a big container and using it later but it's a hassle and it never seems to be quite the right temperature.
And THEN, when you want to turn it on or off you have to deal with this diabolical device:
It's the garden variety thermostat for the undol heating. It reads 20 right now because it's morning and I'm heating up water for my shower. Or, maybe 20 bucks is what I'll pay for that shower. Not sure. And, yes that's an intercom phone beside it. I have an INTERCOM! Wooooh! It's 6 feet from my door. I'm sure if anyone called me on it I'd be better able to talk through the door. And most likely would. In fact the cable guy was the only guy to ring me and I just answered the door. I wish someone had used the money for that useless piece of tech. to invest in a thermostat that works. THIS thing is like my burner: possessed! It too turns itself on once in a while. Or just doesn't turn off when the off button is pressed. I doubt I have even once pressed that power button just once. You have to hit it with a barrage of carefully off-set taps that will randomly result in the setting you desire. If you can read the Korean and understand the setting you desire. Grrrr!
And while we're on the bathroom, toilets. I mean sit upon toilets. STILL something that can't be taken for granted in this country. I have my schedule pretty much down to where I never have to, but twice in the time I've been working at the hagwon, for reasons of overindulgence, (not liquid but food, kimchi being the most likely culprit), I have been forced to brave the one sit-down toilet in the bathroom at the end of the hall. The hagwan is in a long building. It takes a good minute to walk to the end of the hall to the bathroom. More than once I've felt like Danny in the Overlook hotel walking that hall. It wouldn't have looked very professional to ride a Big Wheel I don't reckon.
The bathroom is just a treat! It smells of urine unless someone who works or studies at one of the other businesses on the same floor has done us the favour of adding tobacco to the urine smell. There are five or six mops hanging on the wall by the sink but no mop buckets and the musty smell of those mops gives one some idea of the decade in which they were purchased and probably last used. The sink has a yellow-brown stain from the almost constantly running trickle of water from the one tap. To keep the lines from freezing. A common tactic here. The urinals are not bad but there are three stalls, two of which have squat toilets in them. The centre stall, to my relief, has a sit-down toilet. The seat is dirty. Someone has pissed with the seat down and someone has flicked a butt into the toilet at some point since its last cleaning. So with the door open, I use part of my partial roll of TP to wipe the seat, blaming both the urine and the tobacco ashes on the same person under my breath as I do so. There is little I can do about the liquid on the floor surrounding the toilet. The grouting around the base of the fixture leaks water. I am hopeful that it is ONLY water on the floor. So I squeeze all the way into the stall, close the door and try to sit on the toilet. I can't. My head bounces off the door and sends me backward just enough so my bare ass touches the sweating reservoir and again I am hoping that the shocking chill I got was from water and not some other toilet liquid. I steady myself and begin to concoct a strategy for the use of this toilet. My first thought is to spin 180 degrees and sit down facing the reservoir. That won't work. The zipper in my pants makes a sound that sends a shot of panic down my spine and into my now acrobatic stomach. I thought my pants had ripped. I hadn't even taught my first class yet! I had six hours to go in these pants. I can't rip them!
But luckily they weren't ripped. The pressure on the zipper, though was a clue that if I pursued this strategy any further, my pants might rip. So I spun back around and said, "Screw it!" I opened up the door, and sat down on the toilet. Anyone in there, sorry, but it's gotta be done. Any of my students who were in there... ugh. I'm so glad there was nobody in there!
So I get seated and managed, (just), to close the door. It's actually necessary for me to spread my legs uncomfortably wide and STILL they are right up against the door! But the payload is delivered cleanly much to my pleasure and palliation. But the relief was short-lived. Wiping! What the hell? I turn one way and my shoulder hits the stall wall. Same the other way. Forward, up, down, nothing is helping. I see if pulling the pants right down to the ankles helps. It doesn't. I might try taking one leg out but not without removing a shoe and with the floor so wet, I'm not about to try that. So finally again I say, "Ahh screw it!" I open the door and in full view of any who might be sharing the building's facilities, I wipe my arse. Good GOD, Magnum, I'm glad there was nobody sharing the facilities!
Getting dressed again was a struggle back inside the stall. Facing the toilet with an anchor hand against the wall behind I pulled up my gotch and pants mostly with one hand. Luckily there's a mirror above the sink with the running tap. I looked at the job I did and it looked like I had pulled up my pants with one hand. So since there still wasn't anyone in the bathroom with me, I dropped trou and started all over. When I finally got myself pulled together and left the bathroom feeling like a conquering adventurer I noticed that half way up my left pantleg my pants were darker in colour. Yup, wet from the liquid on the leaky toilet floor. I taught an entire class hoping against hope that my students just assumed I had been slushed by a passing car or stepped in a puddle.
Folks, I have but scratched the surface. There are reasons why people still get hardship pay working here in Korea.
But to end on a positive note, I should be okay to hit the sack now. It's 2 AM. But not to worry, I can sleep in tomorrow. I never have to wake up early. One of the sweet things about my job. I don't start till 3:30 PM. And despite my complaining, I'm sort of used to the hardships of Korea and am willing to make the sacrifices and accept the not quite so good substitutions for the real things. I could go for some Korean Shrimp and Seaweed Doritos or a pizza with corn and ketchup sauce right about now. Heh heh.
*** Update: Just after finishing this I checked my email and there were messages from BOTH of the parties dealing with my shipment. They both asked me for about the 9th copy of the packing list. I've updated the list twice in Canada, a few times in Indonesia and a few times here in Korea. I had sent a photo of the latest rendition of the packing list and asked if it would be okay but got no response. I couldn't scan it because my scanner is part of the shipment. I have bought a really cheap printer since coming to Korea but it required complicated driver downloads and such in order to get the scanner to work. In the emails I received today they said they weren't sure why I have been ignoring them. Ha ha ha. Probably because in my last email I said I wasn't sure why they couldn't understand why I can't pay them that 20 bucks. The one girl is a Russian named Katherine whose first language isn't English. Trust me, I'm an expert on this. She's the one making all the accusations and not being very tactful. She just tells me to do another packing list. Nothing more. The OTHER guy, Saba, has been the voice of reason. He explained that I needed to scan the packing list because the shipping company couldn't read the print-out of the photo I sent them. So I figured out how to use my scanner, scanned the packing list and sent it to both Katherine and Saba. Interestingly, neither mentioned the 20 bucks. However, Saba DID leave that open. Clever guy! He said that any further applicable charges will be on the shipper's account. So likely "Shipco," who is the shipper, will charge me for the storage while they waited for the scan instead of the photo. Please. I'm going to pay 50 bucks a day of storage on the docks because they don't have the technology to print out a photo? I'm HOPING it's as low as 50 bucks! And I have no doubt old Saba told them to add an extra 20 bucks as a "service charge" or whatever creative words they will use to label it.
Why are people such assholes?