Back in Korea. This has become my adopted home country so those words should bring a little comfort if only through familiarity. I have to admit to some of that no matter how much I bitch and moan about Korea and oh I do, and oh I WILL, but home has its comforts. For example, I am drinking a coffee with fresh cream in it right now. I had to avoid Nestle while in the Philippines so instead of Nescafe coffee with Nestle Coffee Mate, I started the day with a local brand of coffee and a local brand of whitener. Not bad, just different and uncomfortable. But it was the best I could do while I was there.
It's also nice to know that at some time close to lunch time on this Sunday morning I am going to have some bacon and eggs and it won't be eggs boiled in a kettle like I had at Studio 18 in San Antonio, Pasig City, Manila, it'll be scrambled or fried eggs with good bacon and a slice of toast with real butter on it. All luxuries a guy in a room with no fridge can't afford. It's also great to be sitting here on MY computer chair with my windows open in a nice, cool 19 degree temperature unaided by air conditioning or heat. It was a glorious sleep in my own bed with my own pillows and a temperature (even with the windows closed due to mosquitos) that required some use of blankets for the first time in months! What a great sleep! And it was needed for a number of reasons as you will see if you read on.
Okay, now that the first piece of bread is lain down, it's time for some Korea bashing in this shit sandwich I am going to call "Korea: Stupid or Stupid Like a Fox?" There could be a LOT more shit in the sandwich, but I'll just concentrate on what I'm dealing with at the moment, and I am not at all sure how substantial the top piece of bread will be if there is one at all. This could be an open-faced shit sandwich I'm making here.
Do you ever wonder when you see something outrageously stupid, "Geez, that's almost too stupid to be humanly possible! I wonder if they're doing that stupidly stupid, fucked up, moronic thing maliciously."? Ever wonder that? I find myself faced with that mental anguish on a regular basis in Korea and although there has been development since '97 when I first came here, I find Korea's over commitment to technology to be making up for whatever examples development has overcome. They're determined to prove to the world that they are country of technology and whether they are ready for it or not, it has become a religious, name-it-and-claim-it sort of endeavor, the growing pains of which the people (including, and maybe ESPECIALLY, the foreigners) who live in Korea have been saddled with. I have posted literally dozens of examples here from the electronic, Star Trek sliding, glass doors that malfunction and lock people IN buildings to new websites for things like booking flights, receiving packages, online shopping, Covid shot registration, hell almost EVERYTHING that don't work because they are all strictly tied to bank, phone, alien card, and passport information that conflicts because the agents at those agencies are so fucking stupid that they write your non-Korean name in Korean characters. Here's the crux of my post: Wouldn't it be fiendishly diabolical if one or all of said agents at said agencies hated foreigners and wanted to cause them all a lot of headaches and wrote the name, with full malice of forethought, in a combination of Hangeul characters that he/she knew no other agent at any other agency would possibly duplicate? It would almost be clever, wouldn't it? Now you are probably saying, "Surely they write the name in your alphabet!" Well THAT would be the smart thing, and, I admit, it is starting to happen here, but for a guy like me who has been here as long as I have without learning to speak their language and is forcing them to speak MY language to do their job, it's a punishment that sort of fits the crime, no? And stop calling me Shirley.
Now there is no way, there is no fucking way, I can prove this ever happens, but there again is a nice little Chinese water torture constant dripping that is in the background wherever I go and whatever I do here. Does this really exist or am I making it up? drip Can a whole country that is so disorganized in so many ways possibly be this organized in its mistreatment of foreigners? drip Or am I just assuming it's happening to all foreigners? drip Maybe this is just happening to me. drip Maybe I am being terribly narcissistic here. drip No, I have friends who have the same experiences. drip Or are they just placating my rage? drip Do they really have the same experiences? drip Or are all my friends lying to me? drip It makes ME a worse person. I have had so many bad experiences, for example, at immigration that it is almost impossible for me to see them doing something stupid/smart again that will add frustration to my life and NOT hold all the other examples of the same shit against the current immigration officer. What makes it especially bad is, what if I'm wrong? What if it just appears to be something stupid/smart, but it is actually necessary? Am I jumping to those conclusions now? Am I becoming the bad person in the story? Am I the one who has overdeveloped discrimination against Koreans, not the other way around?
I'll share an embarrassing example. I have come to realize that asking for help at "help" desks or from people in department stores whose job it is to give you help, is fruitless. It's easier and faster to just search for what you're looking for yourself. Again, I am not alone in this (and it's not just friends placating my rage). Had circumstances been a bit different yesterday, there'd be a beautifully poignant photo here of round, green question mark signs posted on a pole on the 3rd floor of Incheon International Airport Terminal 1. I wanted to take a picture, but I was so frustrated I didn't. Let me back up to the start of the story. I got up at 9 or so after only a few hours of sleep on my last night in Manila, packed up and got the attendant at the desk to call me a Grab cab. Grab is a huge company in the Phils. Their taxi service is like Uber. They are everywhere on scooters delivering food and other things too. Anyhoo, I got into the Grab cab already tired. I couldn't sleep mostly because of stress at what I was pretty sure would be a(n?) horrific few days coming up. We got to the airport a little before noon. There was a huge line-up to get into the airport. I got in line behind a white dude a little younger than myself sucking the face of a twenty something Filipina who had on sexy shorts and a tight, white, low cut top. Pretty obvious what was going on there and if I had my life's savings to bet on it I'd place it all on Angeles being the destination the dude was going home from. He was speaking English and I think I detected a German accent but couldn't be sure. They were holding up the works. The line had moved up while they were "engaged" and the girl politely motioned for me to go ahead of them. I did and heard Face Sucker say under his breath, "Nice shoes by the way." I was wearing my newly purchased hiking shoes. I brought them in case I wanted to do some jungle exploration. I had worn my sandals on all the walking around Manila though. Fate had not allowed me the visit to Palawan I was hoping for.
At any rate, I got to the end of the line and was told I was too early but I could wait in the passenger waiting area. Covid/Monkey Pox precautions I guessed. So I asked the security guard at the entrance to the waiting area when I would be able to enter the airport and she mumbled about 6 o'clock or 6:30. It was noon remember. I had 6 hours of waiting ahead of me. So I passed my stuff through the ex-ray and saw a sign that said restaurant over the entrance to the waiting area. I was hungry for lunch having had only a granola bar and some local coffee with local whitener for breakfast. I got to the waiting area and it was just chairs and chargers. The restaurant area was gutted. Just people sitting down and using devices. I had planned on studying during the wait so I got out my laptop and tried, but I couldn't construct an efficient way to read and take notes. My mind was on other things anyway. So I just waited. There was a Jollibee on the other side of the outer airport where I had some chicken (and that awesome gravy!) By 7 I had waited long enough to get hungry again, and way more tired. I stood in the perpetually long line-up again and when I got to the end I was allowed into the airport even though my flight hadn't opened for check-in quite yet. I saw TWO guys, both white guys if that matters, wearing hiking shoes like mine so I felt a little less self-conscious about Face Sucker's comment.
Check-in was no problem, I got something to eat at an expensive (for the Phils) eatery with not-so-delicious (for the Phils) food. Then I went to a cordoned off area in front of gate 3 to wait another 3 hours or so before we boarded. There were security guards (with guns and rifles) making sure nobody left the waiting area. More Covid/Monkey Pox precautions I guessed. I even had to exchange my passport for a plastic tag with number 17 on it to go to the bathroom outside the waiting area. When I came back 3 minutes later, they asked to see my alien card to compare it against my passport (and they DID!) before they gave it back. The flight was unremarkable and as expected I got exactly zero sleep between midnight Philippine time when we took off and 4:30 Korea time when we landed. Now, remember this next part. It'll come to bear after I (finally) get through the embarrassing example I promised.
I disconnected my phone from my battery which it was hooked to in my bag in the luggage compartment for the whole flight. I knew I'd need it to scan the QR code for the PCR test I'd be getting. I had read that Sept. 3 the pre-flight PCR result before entering Korea had been dropped, but you'd still need to get one after landing and report it electronically. Electronically! Online. You can smell a problem arising here, can't you, my sagacious reader? The airport was relatively empty at 5 AM and I had stopped to pee out the beers I had had on the flight to unsuccessfully encourage sleep. Kloud beer of course. Being up in the Klouds. Anyway, the rest of the passengers had passed me. I was the last one, or close to it, off the flight. As I walked toward the luggage claim area I saw more and more people wearing a kind of Hazmat-looking full-body scrubs. They were the Covid/Monkey Pox precautions I assumed. Like 20 of them or so. A few of them motioned and/or said, "This way," or something. I got to a signboard that had two QR codes on it. One for Koreans (that probably worked) and one for foreigners. Doing my best to approximate the boredom of a seasoned traveler I got out my phone and prepared to scan the QR code. Two young fellas who spoke English very well approached me and asked if I had filled out my health statement. That was another thing I did after coming out of the toilet. I filled out my yellow health statement while other passengers who had received them from the flight attendants before landing passed me by. They told me they had run out when they reached me during the flight. I filled out my arrival card and customs declaration instead. Then as I deplaned the stewardi had yellow fans of health statements for those who had been lied to during the flight. I grabbed one and filled it out while sitting on a planter in the airport hallway. So I said to the fellas, "Yes, here it is," and produced my yellow health statement. They looked at it and said, "You're good. You don't need this code. Go ahead. Keep going." or something like that. I said, "I don't need to do any test?" and they said no.
Remember that. Also, there was a girl, in full hospital hazmat garb who handed me another paper just before I got to the immigration area. Immigration is what had caused most of the stress that kept me awake the night before and during the flight. I had two days left on my D-10 visa and was wondering what I could do about it. Could I get an extension until after the weekend? It was early Saturday morning, so Sunday (today) was expiration day. Could I get a new D-10 at the airport? Could I hand in my alien card and switch to a 6-month visitor visa? It used to automatically kick in after a visa expired if I'm not mistaken. But either for Covid reasons or others, I assumed that would not be the case. So I had a bit of curiosity along with the overwhelming feeling of DREAD caused by the umpteen dozen problematic run-ins I had had with immigration officers during my years in Korea. I have grown accustomed to them and am utterly unable to put them out of my head when I do anything with immigration. But this was maybe the one and only time I was actually looking forward to talking with an immigration agent to get some closure on what was going to happen. I reached immigration and was in line to talk to a human agent and some lady dressed in her security-like uniform pulled me out of line (I don't know why she singled me out) and told me to use the passport scanner. Ah automation! It makes everything easier doesn't it? (scoff scoff) I scanned my passport and it didn't work. I scanned my passport and it didn't work. I scanned my passport and it didn't work. She grabbed my passport, scanned it on a different scanner and it worked. So I was able to pass through immigration without talking to an immigration officer. Automation had once again given me what I DIDN'T want.
As I exited the immigration area to find out what carousel my checked baggage was riding, I noticed a girl at an unmarked desk. I took a chance and asked in English where I could talk to an immigration officer hoping she could point me to one of the immigration officers RIGHT THERE. She said airport immigration opened at 6. I explained my situation about my fast expiring visa and she vehemently removed herself from any responsibility for knowing what I could do, but told me airport immigration opens at 6 and they might know what to do. I thanked her and proceeded. By the time I had gotten my checked bag, gone through customs and re-entered Korea, it was a little after 5 and I was hungry again. Tired as fuck and hungry. I say that as an excuse for the upcoming embarrassing part.
I saw a young, pretty girl behind the desk under the question mark as I exited customs. I walked up to her and asked where airport immigration was. I said, "Hi, where is immigration?" She looked befuddled and answered, "Zimmigration?" Immediately all the past immigration AND information, help worker, and a few good-looking Korean airhead incidents rose up in the judgy part of my brain. Nevertheless, I pursued the issue because I was in no mood to wander around the huge airport and find it myself. I said, "Immigration. Where - is - immigration?" A trifle over-enunciated, but I was a tired, hungry passenger. "Aaaah aaaah immigration!" she corrected. My pronunciation of my language is often corrected by Koreans who suck at it so add them to the judgy part of my brain. She told me it was on the third floor behind the letter H. I thanked her and went up the escalator carrying my two unwieldy bags. On the third floor I found H, found a luggage cart, and looked all around H and EFG, and IJK. I couldn't find immigration. I checked my phone and found a helpful site for airport information and entered "immigration." No match. I found a website with a map of the airport. No immigration. I checked about half a dozen sites online and found exactly no information about immigration at Incheon International Airport. I KNEW it existed because I had been there a couple of times. Once I paid a fee there for overstaying my visa.
I found a big, electronic panel that invited me to touch the screen for information. I did so. Everything you need to know about the airport was right at your fingertips. The wonders of technology. I looked at the map. No immigration. I did a search. No match for immigration. During my fruitless phone search there was a site that mentioned "manned immigration" so I input THAT. No match found. I overheard a group of people speaking another language behind the useless machine I was screwing with and one word stood out, "Immigration." In my tired, hungry frustration, I just asked them in English, "Hey are you guys looking for immigration too?" They were Indian, so they spoke English. One of the guys in the group of five came over to me and said, "Yeah. We have been looking for it. There are no signs anywhere." He was right. They have signs with arrows pointing out all kinds of things in the airport. Not immigration. One of the ladies in the group pointed to a board full of references helpful to travelers and said, "No immigration." I said to the guy, "It used to be right here. I remember going there a long time ago. Maybe they moved it." He said he remembered it too and pointed out where he thought it once was. "Maybe it's been removed because of the new automated passport system," he said. I thought he just might be right. There was an office for customs, overweight baggage, money changers, bank machines, a couple restaurants, a Paris Baguette and a coffee shop (closed because who wants coffee or pastries at 5:30 in the morning? Stupidity or ingeniously irritating?), airport police, all kinds of stuff but no immigration.
I wished my Indian friends luck and continued my hunt. I found a large map of the 3rd floor similar to the one the Indian lady had pointed out no immigration on. No immigration. I saw two big question mark circles though. One was not far from where I was reading the map. I figured I'd give this another shot. So I went to find the information booth that one would ASSUME is located at an area marked on a map with the internationally accepted icon of information - a circle with a question mark. I got to the area and there on a pole arranged in a triangular pattern around it were three circles with question marks on them. No booth, no person to give you information, just signs. I mean, that IS what the map promised isn't it? LMFAO! Stupid or intentionally and diabolically infuriating?
I take the elevator down to the first floor and push my cart back to the first girl. I say, "Hello again. I am looking for an immigration officer. Where could I find one?" She, of course, reiterates her original response. I said, "There's no immigration office there. There is customs, but not immigration." She insists again and again. Shows me a map with immigration office behind the H. I say, "Well there's a map upstairs that has an information booth marked on it and no information booth so sometimes maps are wrong." She kept insisting and even offered to walk with me and show it to me at 6 o'clock. It was about 5:50. I said, "If you are going to keep insisting it's where I've already checked, I don't want to waste another 10 minutes to check where I've already checked. Thanks for trying to help, but you didn't." Then I left and some nosy Korean dude asked her a question in Korean that included the word "immigration" in it. All the nosy asshole Korean run-ins I've had rose up to the judgy part of my brain too. But I went back to the elevator and avoided confrontation.
Now I was on the third floor just wandering around hoping to bump into an immigration officer by fortunate accident and fucking FUMING at all the current occupants of the judgy part of my brain. By fortunate accident, I happened upon the OTHER area that was marked on the 3rd floor map by a question mark in a circle and this one actually had a counter and another pretty girl, not just a pole with some question marks on it. LOL. Classic! Okay, there is probably an explanation like the kiosk is temporary and is not set up at the moment, although if they are as serious about this pandemic as their enforcement of the rules regarding it is, now is the time there are people who need information, isn't it? Like, where can I get a PCR test in the airport. At the beginning of the pandemic I flew to Guam and the airport was impossible to pass through without getting your temperature checked. And they checked and RE-checked those checks. Here is a pic of the sign WITH the kiosk set up underneath it and the polite agent (with the requisite white gloves lol) and the cute Korean animation that give the impression that this fever check isn't something they will shoot you dead for if you refuse to comply.
So anyway, I approach the new girl and ask. She says, "It's right over there behind the letter H." I say, "Are you SURE? I just came from there and there were several of us looking for it and we couldn't find it." She got annoyed and made a point of showing me that by putting down whatever she was holding a little too hard, opening the door to the kiosk a little to quickly and walking a little too fast motioning me to follow. I slouched behind the far too low cart and being unable to take normal strides without smashing my shins on the cart, I didn't keep up with her. This further annoyed her and she stopped way ahead of me, turned around and motioned a little too energetically, for me to follow. When we got behind the H, she started looking around like all the Indians and I had. She was NOT sure where it was either. In fact she walked right past it, turned around and THEN pointed to it. I said, "Great! Thank you." in as sweet a voice as I could.
I SO wish I could post a photo here of the post festooned with question mark signs with nothing underneath it that I saw yesterday in Incheon Airport, rated fourth best in the WORLD by Skytrax, but, alas I didn't click a pic. It would have been a better way to end this post. I hadn't planned on it being so long. A warning about anything Korean being rated, if it's an internet rating, they'll vote, if not, they'll pay. They even have a word for it: sajaegi. You can read a little about it here.
So I guess this'll be a two-parter. It's well after 1 and I still haven't had breakfast. It's time for me to brunch. Suffice to say for now that airport immigration wasn't really helpful after all that effort. There was one dude and one girl and the girl did the talking. She said that they couldn't help me. They made absolutely sure that I understood that. I asked what my options were. She said she had no idea. Why that would be, I don't know. You'd think it'd be something they would know. Remember, I had been to that very office to pay the fine for an overstay before. So somebody who worked there in the past knew the rules. But that's the thing about immigration: the rules are never absolute. Every agency and every agent is different. The strict nature of enforcement is absolute, but the rules they are strictly enforcing are fluid. So it wasn't a surprise I didn't get much help from airport immigration. But it wasn't a waste of much time, so I thought I'd try.
Or maybe one of the agents I was prevented from seeing by the lady who forced me to use the machine instead might have known. Who knows? Anyway, she told me (and I think this was just to get rid of me) that she reckoned if I went to the Daejeon Immigration Office on Monday, the day after my visa expired, I'd be okay. I asked if I'd have to pay a fine, if so how much, but she didn't know. At least said she didn't know. So I said I was just happy that I wouldn't be deported. I added something about now all I needed to do was make an appointment on the HiKorea website to visit the office in Daejeon and sometimes that isn't easy. I gave her a little wink as I said this, thanked her and said goodbye not realizing how right I was.
Consider that a teaser for part two.
