Will Taiwan Be The Next Afghanistan?

 Big news recently geopolitically speaking: Afghanistan. The Taliban wasted no time in sacking Afghanistan, taking over government, inheriting untold American dollars worth of American made and supplied armaments, and no doubt reversing many a social development that had taken place over the last 20 years, most particularly for Afghani women. Below is an adjustment of the latest slogan dreamed up at the June '21 G7 meeting of "B3W" which stands for "Build Back a Better World." Although it is much worse, "Build Back Burqa" is a lot less clunky. Keep the B3W in mind as you read... This is foreshadowing. Does it still qualify as foreshadowing if I tell you it's foreshadowing?

The Taliban didn't even wait until after the American military pulled out. Truth is, they were moving in while the pull-out was taking place. And despite constant warnings that the pull-out would stop if the Taliban (including other groups like al-Qaeda) committed any violence, the violence increased all the way through America's exit. Exit plans were adjusted, scrapped, altered, rescinded, reviewed, repurposed and withdrawn... it was not pretty. Here's a timeline of the events.

No doubt you've seen photos and/or movie clips of people chaotically clambering to board planes to get out of the country as soon as possible. Some even clutching wings and wheels of the planes believing they'd be able to hold on. Some falling to their deaths as they found out they could not. What caused all the panic? The Taliban promised to be nice after all. Well it turns out, nobody believed them. This is very reminiscent of the Chinese promising Hong Kongers that nobody would be extradited to China and tried for being unChinese. Nobody believed them either. And shouldn't have. Ask the millions of people who protested why they didn't trust the Chinese Communist Party and you'll get similar answers as to why Afghanis don't trust the Taliban. We may come back to this too. (more foreshadowing) <--- best read in a Homer Simpson whisper.

It all makes one wonder, doesn't it? What did the US get for their 20 years in Afghanistan? Here is an insightful list of ways this war has cost, and will continue to cost the US and Afghanistan. It begs the question:

Doesn't it? Did Uncle Sam win? It sure looks like the obvious answer is absolutely fucking not! But as you will find with age and wisdom, every question is best answered, "It depends." This question depends on who you think is represented by Uncle Sam Van Winkle. If, like most healthy-in-the-head people, you believe he represents the people of America, then the answer is no. But if you ask the brain damaged members of the ruling class, or the investors in the military industrial complex, Afghanistan was an outright victory! Here are the cold (chilling) calculations.

Now, given that pulling out of Afghanistan means putting a cash cow out to pasture, I'm thinking...

What the hell, bruh indeed! Big Money just doesn't abandon big money. And if you've read the title of this post, you might guess where I'm headed with this.

Here is an interesting article you should read. And if you are wondering why those ships might be going to the South China Sea, you should read this article. And if you are wondering why China believes, mistakenly, that Taiwan is part of China, you should read this article. And if you are wondering what China sees in Taiwan, it can be summed up in four letters: TSMC. Not only is Taiwan the world leader and focal point for the most important industry in the world now and in the foreseeable future, the whole world is becoming more and more dependent upon them. China would very much like to welcome them back into the embrace of the loving motherland, of course. But the greater concern, geopolitically speaking, is if China fails at, or doesn't even try diplomacy and just tries to Crimea Taiwan. The destruction of TSMC infrastructure being a casualty of war, (forget about the people because war is all about money) is a massive concern for the large, rich, powerful countries of the world (remember the B3W foreshadowing?). Here's an article about that.

Protecting Taiwan is crucial in the G7 plan to build back a better world and you can be certain that aside from posing for lots and lots of nice photos, the leaders and reps from the G7 were talking about Taiwan at least a little bit at their latest summit in Cornwall, England. Maybe the idea of re-routing all those ships to the South China Sea was discussed at the time. Maybe, despite the Chinese Communist Party's frequent promises to allow Taiwan to retain autonomy as an official Chinese territory is about as believable as the Taliban allowing Afghanistan full autonomy or the Chinese allowing Hong Kong full autonomy. Maybe this was discussed too. (told you I'd get back to this)

Crimea was only 7 years ago. The military coup of Myanmar was back in Feb. Hong Kong is sort of on a break because of Covid, but their autonomy is hanging by a thread despite the millions who protested CCP feces they didn't want China to fling at them. Now Afghanistan. It seems Imperialism is alive and well in the world. Spurred on by the seemingly effortless sacking of Afghanistan by the Taliban, it's not hard to imagine China champing at the bit to make its long threatened move on Taiwan. 

The question is, will this be a bad thing for the powers that be in the geopolitical soup? In other words, are those ships from the UK going to the South China Sea as a deterrent or a catalyst? 

The quote in the 2005 documentary, "Why We Fight" by American political scientist Chalmers Johnson comes to mind: "I guarantee you, when war becomes that profitable, we're going to see more of it." He was talking about profits of 25%. 

The question is, could that type of profit be sustained in a war over Taiwan fought between China and the US/Japan/UK and maybe some other countries on both sides wanting to share in the profits? 

Again, the answer is, "It depends." Do the people in charge of our world see people like this:

or do they see them like this:

I think we all know the answer to that. So while the occupation of the South China Sea by ships from all over the world may seem like a heroic move to protect Taiwan, and as scary as that is, it just might be a decidedly non-heroic provocation, and that, my readers, is a helluva lot scarier!

You can read in the articles I've posted here that the consensus is that nothing's going to happen. Don't worry, China won't attack. Everything's AOK. But that was the consensus in Crimea before little, green men started appearing. The best time to strike is when that is the consensus.

I hope, maybe more than ever before, that my fears expressed in this post are unfounded! We shall see...

Good Lord! No sooner had I finished this post than I read this. Again I ask, "What the hell, bruh?"

Vaccination Registration Registration

This post will mostly be a map for my Friday journey to register to get my Covid 19 vaccination here in Korea. I was supposed to have registered in a one-week window (I think) between July 17 and 24th, but did not receive any notification to do so. I've been told I should have received notification through Kakao, text, even snail mail, but as yet - nothing. I even had not one but TWO Koreans on the administration staff at my university on the lookout for me and THEY missed the window too. During the window, I was teaching teachers and admin from my school, several of them in the same age category as I and we were talking twice a week about when we could register. None of THEM seemed to get the message either!

To be as kind as possible, even though the world lauded Korea as having one of the best Covid responses with masks, social distancing and whatnot, the vax rollout has been a hot mess. To put it as kindly as possible. 

I have been getting 2-5 notifications every single day on my phone for over a year about Covid numbers, and updates and such. Almost all of them are in a form that I can't copy and paste into Google Translate. But I have seen ages expressed in numbers like, "55-60" with a curvy dash and I thought for sure I'd see my group, 50-54, when it came up. For the life of me, I swear I got every Covid update but THAT one! But there are other ways a guy can check too, none of which are working either. There's 1339, a Covid hotline that I've used before successfully. You may remember back when I was ordered to get tested for Covid IMMEDIATELY by my supervisor at Gongju U. in Cheonan. This was at 9:30 at night? Member? I called 1339 then and they told me I couldn't have gotten tested that late had I even tried, plus the testing centers weren't even giving tests to people without symptoms due to the limited number of testing kits. I had no symptoms, so they told me not to bother.

This is the same school. A year ago they're panicky and demanding that I get tested because I may have been close to an area in Seoul that had a pocket of cases. Now they don't even notice when my registration period for the vaccine comes up. It's quite something how Korea has changed in the last year! At any rate, 1339 is either automatically hanging up on me when I call, or tantalizingly getting me through the "press 6 for foreign languages" to the message (not in a foreign language) which says to wait till an operator picks up, and THEN ending the call before an operator picks up. I've called about 100 times and have had friends calling for me. Nada. 

Another thing I tried and failed miserably at was the online registration. This is an old story too. I recently got my Personal Customs Code, which, by the end of this year is going to be mandatory if you want to order goods online that will be delivered from other countries, get packages from family or friends at home or things like that. It took forever and the sticking point was the name. Korean bureaucracy could significantly increase its efficiency with foreigners by using the foreign spellings of people's names instead of taking wild and varied stabs at them with the Korean alphabet. At least for people who use English to spell their names. That said, it's pretty common for Russian or Arabic or people from countries that don't use this alphabet you are reading at the moment, to have an agreed upon Romanization of their names. Anyway, when the name is needed in an English application, some of the transliterations back from Hangeul into English are atrocious! Daeebeet Mekkenaer. Dayvyd Meockaenur. The combinations are endless and if you don't match whatever some unknown bureaucrat chose as your official spelling (rather than use your actual official spelling) you are shit outta luck. Sometimes they even DO use the proper letters, they just mess those up. Like spelling them wrong or using given name MacCannell, and family name David. Mr. David. This is REALLY weird because they do this when my family name is given first, like on my passport. Here they actually say the family name first, but somebody has been given a rule that foreigners say their given names first and family names last. So thoughtlessly apply the rule. Don't ask or anything. I recently read of a brutal example of this phenomenon that occurs so frequently in Korea.

As people like me are struggling mightily to get the vaccine here in Korea, they're actually throwing perfectly good ones in the garbage. Why? Mindless adherence to a rule without risking any thought about the purpose of the rule or the greater good. If I've said this once, I've said it a thousand times, and it's still true: people in Korea are trained, not educated. They follow rules, they are told not to think. They're awesome soldiers, but horrible officers. The story is of many Korean clinics advertising leftover vaxes and starting waiting lists for people to claim them online. When they didn't have any takers from the people in Korea who hadn't yet had their first shots, perfectly good vaccines were trashed. There WERE, however, people asking for the vaccines who had already had their first shots. If they had waited long enough to get their second doses, why not give them earlier than scheduled? Because there's a RULE! Obey, obey, oh yay, obey!

Anyways, countless foreigners are putting the letters of their name into randomizing programs, writing them on Boggle dice and rolling a random spelling, or just coming up with their own convoluted misspellings of their names and hoping to match the misspellings that will match the ones being used for the vaccine registration. When you enter any proper spellings, or the wrong misspellings of your name, you get the annoying message that says your name doesn't match your alien registration or you are not a registered foreigner in Korea or, more often than not, some message in Korean. Here's one of MY many attempts:

Isn't that an absolutely awesome nose thumbing? "The Korean Disease Control (and prevention) Agency says, "FUCK YOU waygookin! We're not going to give you an English message on our English website!" That's not what it says, but it might as well. This happens at every bank machine in Korea and countless other "English" websites. It's something that has gotten worse in Korea leaving little doubt that it has been intentional. You think they also don't know that transliteration of our names back and forth several times between Korean and English completely messes them up? Of course they know! It's all part of the foreign fuckery I've blogged about so often. And how many times have I warned that it will come back to bite them in the ass? Well here we are. Foreigners want to get vaccinated here but can't. You just KNOW this will lead to a general perception that foreigners are causing numbers to go up. You also know that Koreans bringing this on themselves with xenophobia will not be part of that perception. Well, way back in the spring there were mandatory tests ordered by the government only for foreigners. What message do you suppose THAT sent to the general populace? And further reports of the recent delta variant originating in a cluster of foreigners, and the delta detection rate being "especially high among foreigners," whether real or imagined leads to heightened anti-foreign sentiment here. Like that was necessary. But now that even Koreans want to get foreigners vaxxed up as soon as possible, their electronic booby traps are biting them in the arse.

Like most foreigners, I tried phone, I tried online and I failed outright to register for my shot. I needed an alternative. I emailed the two reps from the school to help me find a place in Gongju where I live that I could go to in person and fill out a non-electronic piece of paper that Korean bureaucracy was less likely to mismanage. I haven't heard back from them. I also texted my friend, Rob. He works for the same school and has had the same experience here in Gongju trying to register electronically and failing. So he went to:

Dat dada DA! The Gongju City Health Center. He said he went to the 3rd floor and registered in person on paper. BOOM! Exactly what I wanted. So I got the Naver Map of this location and figured I'd take a cab there on Monday.

The best way I know of to catch a cab in Gongju is to go to the bus station. There's always a lineup of them there. It's about a 20-minute trundle from my place to there. Even in the 31 degree sun, that wasn't going to be so bad... he thought foolishly. Did I sweat profusely? Nope. Did I get a wicked sunburn? No. It wasn't actually the weather that made my little walk a pain in the ass, it was the prevailing winds of anti-foreign sentiment. I didn't get to the grocery store next door to my apartment before I was accosted, in fast and not very carefully enunciated Korean, by a teenaged boy. I couldn't understand every word, but I have been panhandled in many languages before and I know the drill. I even KNOW the word for money in Korean and heard it in his spiel a few times. So I went with ignorance. I shrugged my shoulders and said, "Moolah," which means I don't know, then continued walking. When I got far enough away, the kid shouted, "HEY! MONEY!" I thought to myself, "Maybe you should have led with that?" 

This was a first. Never before had any of the people of Gongju asked me for money. It wasn't the last first of the walk, however. No more than 100 yards later two boys riding double on one of those pay scooters passed me going the opposite way, The one boy said, "Hello!" Now you may think I'm being oversensitive here, but I've also been helloed many times in Korea and I know the difference between the genuine ones and the ones intended to impress friends with patriotic discrimination. This was clearly the latter. It's almost always a dead giveaway when the hello is from a group, not an individual. For example, on my latest riverside hike, a Korean man I've seen a few times on his bike or reading a book on one of the benches in the art park shouted, "Anyong haseyo," to me. I immediately smiled and yelled back, "Anyong haseyo," with a little bow cuz he's older than me. The kids on the scooter? Just having fun hassling the foreigner. That actually happened to me ANOTHER time from another kid on a scooter! First and second time since I've been here in Gongju that any kids walking (or scootering) in groups have done the infamous Korean cattle call. I call it that because if you say hello back, they laugh their asses off like when you moo at a cow and it moos back. I didn't give them the satisfaction. Little buggers.

Then, as I was nearing the bus station, I started across a street. A car was exiting a main road at high speed and turning onto the street I was crossing. I stopped for the car. The car stopped for me. I waved and started across the street. Maybe it was the wave, or maybe it was the eyes, but suddenly the driver gunned it and cut in front of me forcing me to stop before getting run over. 

So apart from the old guy in the park, I'm getting a clear impression that people in Gongju might be blaming foreigners for extended mask-wearing, staying at home and social distancing. And here in Gongju, we aren't on the higher lockdown levels that Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and most southern tourist areas of Korea are on. I wonder what it's like there.

To make a long story short, I got to the building pictured above and was met by resistance instantly. They almost didn't let me in the front door. But I managed to explain that I couldn't register by phone or computer and I just wanted to register at that place and time. They made me phone a number to verify my place and time, then I went to the 3rd floor. Two ladies sitting at computers tried their best to understand my bad Korean, read some government worker's bad Korean writing on the back of my alien card, and get me plugged into their computers. With great effort including my writing some things down in Korean (which I'm quite proud they understood) we got my name, address and alien number into their system. It only took 20 minutes or so. 

Then they took me to a room down the hall where 5 other people spent at least half an hour arguing about different interpretations of the rules, changing the instructions the two ladies had written for me (and they changed them about 5 times) and landing on almost the same instructions. The ladies had told me to come back on Monday. The NEW instructions are to come back on Friday. For a government office, that essentially one day earlier since they aren't open on weekends. So half an hour of arguing for a day. Things are clearly not yet organized on this front.

However, assuming the rules don't change again on Tue, Wed, or Thu, I will be going back to that office and actually registering for my Covid shot! All I managed to do on Monday was register to register I suppose, but it's still a victory! I doubt I could have gotten that done electronically.

On that high note, the following will be pics I took on the walk home from the Medical Center. It was a lovely walk even if the temperature was a little hot for my liking. And I got some exercise while registering to get registered. So not a bad deal!

The bridge to take over the river. The "Ballbearing" statue bridge.

The bear statue on the OTHER side of the bridge. Go up the road and turn right at the palisade park entrance intersection.

Walk straight till you come to THIS cool bridge. There's a nice little waffle and ice cream shop on the corner where this pic was taken. There's a big school on the other side of the bridge. Don't go past the school. Turn left as soon as you get across. 

You'll see this police station on the left. Keep walking straight. There are some nice houses with lots of flowers and veggies planted in the yards.

Keep going straight. Interesting coffee shop/store at this intersection and sign for the medical center. It'll be on the right hand side just ahead. You can't miss it. 

So other than the Covid caper, I am half way through my vacation here and even though it's only summer vacation, which is my least fave, and even though I can't travel, I'm enjoying it so far. I have a few more visits with a few more people planned. No word yet on what going on next semester at work, but how surprised am I about that?

Addendum: I went back to the Health Center today (Friday, Aug. 20) and waited for quite some time for different people to decide what to do with me. They were shouting my name from cubicle to cubicle, my phone number, my alien number, and seemed a little like they might be trying the same things I tried to get me registered. And having the same luck. Finally one guy picked up a phone and made a short call. Then I opened Google Translate on my phone and a young girl who had originally taken my alien card when I got there, punched in, "Go to Baek Jae Gym." She wrote on a piece of paper Beak Jae Jae Yook Gwan so I could give it to the taxi driver. I went outside the Health Center and caught a taxi. We drove a little outside of town to a big building in the middle of the trees. I went in and finally filled out my paper, non-electronic, offline registration form. Yippee!!

But then I was hustled to a few people who asked me a few questions, one guy who explained in English what may happen after the shot and he sent me to get the shot! I said, "Right now?" He said yes. So I assumed it had to be one of the extra AZ shots or Sinovac or some welfare vax nobody else wanted. I asked what kind it was. "Phizer," he replied. 

I am Phizerized! And earlier than expected. After 24 years in Korea (off and on) my luck is starting to change!!!

Should We Erase "Race?"

I can't tell you how often I've seen the Facebook meme, "What is a word people use that bugs you?" You wanna know my pet peeve word lately? It's "race" or any of its forms. Here we have a few things that are being called "racism." Going to Chinatown to get a Chinese perspective is not one of those things in my book, however. You find people from China there, some very new to the country, many who can't speak English, and all with some experience living in another country. AND, it's cheaper (not to mention time saving due to Covid restrictions) than sending a reporter to China. Chinatown in New York might actually be the PERFECT place to have sent Jessie Watters. That said, we laugh along with Ronny Chieng's comedic complaint that it's like going to the Taco Bell to get a Mexican perspective, even though it's quite different as Jessie Watters and later, Ronny Chieng himself, showed. You wouldn't be nearly as likely to find a Mexican making chalupa boxes at your local Taco Bell as you would to find Chinese people in Chinatown. After badmouthing Watters about going to Chinatown to talk to Chinese people, Chieng goes to Chinatown and talks to Chinese people. He doesn't nail the ones who don't speak English like Watters did, but he obviously prepared his respondents that we are meant to believe were random, and coached them into giving funny zinger answers in English. Indeed, if one wanted to be adversarial, one could question which report was actually the more "racist." But that's not the direction I wanted to go here today. I'm more interested in another aspect of this whole thing.

I want you to ask yourself, and be honest - it's only you asking you, nobody else will know, when the dude at the end was calling Watters a chicken-shit reporter; Chieng calls him a douchebag piece of shit; O'Reilly was called a LARGER chicken shit too afraid to go to Chinatown himself; Watters, the dude alleges, has no testicles; he made fun of people in the worst possible way; then Watters is called an asshole; when all of this was happening, were you laughing ha ha ha, or was it more like "ha ha ha yeah fuck them!"? I hasten to add that it is not even presumptuous on my part to say that the latter was the intention of the piece. Fox News, Bill O'Reilly, Jessie Watters, FUCK THEM for being racist assholes! Am I right?

I was rolling my eyes when the song, "Kung Fu Fighting" was playing and Watters was asking if a Chinese guy knew Karate then fighting in a Tae Kwon Do gym! China, Japan, Korea - they're all the same and their martial arts are all the same, right? Was that racist? The "Snap out of it" clip after the guy couldn't think of Bill Clinton's wife's name? Would any American in Americatown, Beijing, being asked in Chinese the name of Xi Jin Ping's wife "snap out of it" and come up with the right answer? So THAT'S racist, right? What about the old guy at the end who is asked if it's the year of the dragon? Or is it the year of the rabbit? His response was to take a drag on his cig. Do you suppose he knew any English? Or enough to understand Jessie Watters? Surely showing this guy as a representative of ignorance rather than a language barrier is racist, no?

Well here's my point: It seems like more and more we are all being bombarded with the term "racism," we're concerned with BLM and cultural appropriation, we "like" facebook posts about candlelight vigils for victims of police brutality, anti-Asian hate, Native Canadian residential school graveyards, and all racism, hell, we might even light up a candle ourselves! We seem very self-assured that we understand what racism is... but I don't think we really do. In fact the part of racism I'd like to focus on in this post is our collective ignorance of it. Let me go a little further, as I sometimes like to do, and say that quite often, and maybe as near as make no difference, almost always, when people use the term "racist," or "racism," they are assuming they know the races to which people belong, which includes the rules for defining those races, and that someone is using race as a motivation for committing a harmful act, and they are not correct. Does this, in and of itself, not qualify as the pot calling the kettle black? Oh geez, PHRASING! What I'm saying is the people who are calling other people racists just might be the ones committing a more clearly definitive act of racism.

Let me give you an example from the video. The lady from Queens. She definitely has the look of a Chinese lady. She speaks Chinese. She's in Chinatown. But while speaking (in Chinese) about Americans and their perceptions of the Chinese, she uses "we" as a pronoun referring not to the Chinese, but to Americans. Then when she says, "I'm from Queens," it gives us a pretty clear impression that she considers herself to be American. How long has she lived in America? Does it matter? Was she born in China? Does it matter? What was her first language? What could we find in her blood and bone structure? Was it racist for Ronny Chieng to spark up a conversation with her in Chinese? Does she even know her own race? And does any of this matter? If so, how much? What are the criteria that are used, and in what measure, to determine a person's race? The answer may not be as simple, in fact it's WAY the hell more complicated (and I dare say more STUPID) than you might think. Let's explore that, shall we?

The term "race," was first used in the English language as a categorizing term in the 16th century. Believe it or not, the English considered the Irish to be of a different "race" during the 17th century. They were a race of savages incapable of being civilized. Half the words in that sentence should have quotation marks around them, but I will assume intelligence enough in my reader to understand those NOT to be the opinions of the writer. More to follow...

But let's jump ahead to 1684 when in his writings called, "Nouvelle division de la terre par les differentes espices ou races qui l'habitent," or New divisions of the earth by the different species or races that inhabit it, Francois Bernier had the gaul to attempt to classify the people of earth by race. He did travel a lot and he was part of the superior race, so I guess that qualified him. His "4 or 5" divisions were not very clear, so let's move on to another attempt in which some similarities could be found. It was Carolus Linnaeus in his book "Systema Naturae" (1735) that came up with a more interesting and more detailed 4-category analysis. The first category was the best, which is why it was first - the white European. They were characterized as pale-skinned, active and creative. The second classification was the red American. They had reddish skin and were patient. Thirdly the yellow Asian race had yellow skin and were melancholic and lacking in flexibility. And bringing up the rear was the black African who was, you guessed it, black-skinned. They were also crafty, lazy and careless in nature. 

I guess folks lacked detail and some may have been unhappy that their category of race included people they didn't see as being of the same race, so a guy named George-Louis Leclerc Buffon wrote "Histoire Naturelle" (1749) in which he divided the earth into 6 races. 1. Laplander 2. Tartar 3. South Asiatic 4. European 5. Ethiopian 6. American. The Tartar was equivalent to others' Mongolian or Asian. Buffon believed that all races came from a single species of Caucasian. He believed in the Biblical tale of Noah. Noah and his family, being pale-skinned, somehow managed to grandfather all the races on Earth. The "first race" was, and unbelievably, still is called Caucasian due to the belief that Noah's ark came to rest after the great flood atop Mt. Ararat, which is located in modern day Turkey just south of the Lesser Caucasus mountain range. 

So when you hear a person in real life or in the movies referring to a "Caucasian male committing a 2-11" or whatever, that racial term has its roots in a Biblical fable and some flawed geography. I'm not going to say a worldwide flood didn't happen. I'm not even going to say there wasn't any Noah or an ark... well, yes I am - the logistics are impossible. But the idea that Noah and his family were the only people on the Earth after the flood and all the races came from them? That's just silly! And when you factor in the more than 200 flood myths just like it from around the world, shouldn't we feel just a little bit stupid using the word "Caucasian?" The Caucasus region includes more than 50 ethnic groups for crying out loud! Their birthplaces vary and their skin colour may range from pale white to very dark brown. Confused? Wait there's more!

In 1790 a German (I'm not going to say anything about a German being the person we look to for racial characterization, but I think my saying nothing might say something about that) Johann Friederich Blumenbach in his book "Decas Craniorum" gave us 5 categories, but as the title might hint, the categories were not just derived from geography or skin colour, but also from cranial morphology. From my understanding, there were three types of skulls, which were called Negroid, Mongoloid and (ffs) Caucazoid. From this and a combination of geography and how people looked and were perceived to behave, he came up with the following races: 1. Mongolian, 2. Ethiopian, 3. Malay, 4. American, and 5. Caucasian. So the majority of Americans, the ones with white skin, are they Americans? Americans should have reddish skin. Can they become Americans if they live there long enough? What if they were of group of African people with skin as light as Asian? What if they were of a group of Mongolian or Malay people with skin as light as Caucasian? Are they Caucasian, Malay, American, African, Mongolian, What-the-hellian?

The act of racial classification hasn't come far since. In the rest of the 18th and even 19th centuries, the ideas bolstered by this pseudo science that natural laws made "white" people smarter, and more capable than non-white people became accepted worldwide and evidence of it still exists. "White monkeys" in China are people who are hired to promote products who, due to their skin colour, are considered more trustworthy by ad watchers, and therefore in high demand. The initial attempts at racial classification had their roots in tribalization and hierarchical organizing of the people of the world that were arrogant, childish, dangerous, and have been roundly considered invalid biological concepts. In the 20th and 21st centuries, race is now considered a social construct by most of us. But even so, I challenge you to come up with accurately socially defined ideas of race. 

Why do we even use the words "racist," and "racism?" I believe the usage of these words is maintained along with some of the original purposes of racial classification. The tribalization and separation through abstract ideas of blood purity, cultural superiority, and here comes that word again... PRIDE in something we don't even understand creates within us all a platform from which we can be manipulated to fight and die under the command of some false leader or another. When it changed over the years from the biological white=good and not white=bad to the social construct of white=better and not white=worse, it did little to get rid of racism. Listen to Dave Chappelle:

If we want to get rid of social, ethnic, cultural, or any other kind of division, it makes sense that we get rid of words that were created to encourage them. Words are powerful. Well, that's not even exactly what I'm trying to say either. Maybe it's like my "Proud" Canadian problem. As we all know, it's the context behind the words that is important. If you are "proud" of Canada that's not such a bad thing. But if your pride can be used to create in you sentiments of negativity against any other country, it IS a bad thing. And sometimes, it doesn't even matter. It's the assumption of context made by the person you're talking to. If you say you're a proud Canadian to your friends, you'll probably be okay. If you walk into an Alabama biker bar on July 4th wearing a Canadian flag as a shirt and say it, be prepared to chuck some knuckles. Best example ever:

So what is the context when we use the words "race," "racism" or "racist?" The context is rooted in ignorance and largely in ethnic and cultural division (or racism) itself. It has become convenient for us to use these terms thinking we have a common understanding of them, but we don't. I put it to you, dear reader, that very few people know their own race let alone what they're talking about when they use the word. Maybe if they did, they wouldn't use it so much. Maybe they'd use more accurate words like "bigotry," "prejudice," "discrimination," and such. To close, here's another example of how the context of words is so important. Not sure if it's 100% true, but it's a great example:

"Alternative fuel source." lol Anyway, this is where I'll end my pet peeve post. What do ya reckon? 

 

Tunnel Visions

 Another 4:30 wake-up for me. If you have read this before on my blog, you'll know that I have been stricken with the curse of doing some of my best thinking and writing at 4:30 in the morning. What am I thinking about today? What will I be writing about? Well for starters, I should be as happy as I can be today. I'm like a schoolkid on the day after the last day of school. It is unofficially the first day of my vacation today, Friday, July 30th. It is unofficially the longest time until I have to work again. I say "unofficially" (twice even) due to the fact that I'm only not working today because I have no teaching hours and I've recently convinced my employers to alter the contract to enable me to stay home when I have no teaching hours. If you have any knowledge of the Korean workplace, this is a plum that must be cherished!  However, there could be some carefully scheduled bureaucratic busywork that has been devised to disrupt the soft opening of my vacation on this Friday. I could be called in for a meeting, asked to do some editing, or given instructions or schedules for the upcoming fall semester, which starts in September. Or, sadly, it's more likely that I'll be summoned to perform one of the residual duties of my former security-like position - I'll need to open one of the doors for somebody. I still have the only functioning keys for the infuriatingly faulty sliding doors to my office. Some of the international students need to work there from time to time, but they haven't been entrusted with keys. Until now, one of the duties of the foreign professor had been to sit idly passing time in the office enabling their entrance into it. For these reasons, and because I didn't feel like it, I refrained from the customary celebratory beverages in which one tends to partake on the initial day of one's freedom from the salt mines, or wherever one happens to be stationed to do one's earning for one's owners.

I say I should be happy. I should be. But possibly because today is but a soft opening of my vacation, or possibly because of the dependability of cheer-draining Korean summer humidity, mosquitos, heat, and lack of sleep, I am not feeling the joy. Yet. 

My relative despondence may also have something to do with some of the news stories I have allowed past the cerebral surface and into conscious contemplation these days. And, as is so over-representatively the case, the soul disturbing story I'm referring to comes out of China. It's not Emperor Xi or his exhausting Emperor antics, which continue to be tolerated by fawning, obsequious leaders of countries that continuously illustrate the prophetic words of Dostoievski:

This time it's a more specific story out of China that is hammering up and down my spine with the icy mallets of mortality. If a person were to imagine the worst way to check out, I mean the most nightmarish of deaths, you'd have to go some to match the demise of the FOURTEEN people the CCP-controlled media is reporting to have died in a traffic jam in their cars in a tunnel in recent flooding in the Corporate Communist Kingdom this week. 

I kinda doubt the above video will last much longer due to the aforementioned Sino-gluteal-smoochery, so I'll try to summarize its contents and somnambuscarfious effects. Well, that'd be too ambitious. But I will sum up one part of it that gave me nightmares and continues to give me little daymares. It's the part about the Jingguang Tunnel. The Jingguang SMART-Tunnel. Like most other things with the label "smart" attached to them, there is a requirement of stupidity to believe that it is smart. The tunnel in Henan province that had cameras and digital tech enough to know at any time the cars, license plates, passengers, names of passengers, credit ratings of passengers, last bowel movements of passengers, you get the idea... was flooded in 5 minutes. All that technology and nobody could foresee this? All that "smartness" and nobody knows who's missing or dead yet?

But it's not the overhyped wonders of Chinese construction and development that bothers me so much. We all know about those shenanigans. I've written here plenty of times before about them. What is sticking in a veritable loop of horror in the back of my brain is what it must have been like to be one of the (officially 14 even though this video says 6) people who died in this disaster. My latent claustrophobia and non-latent fear of drowning are playing havoc with my imagination right now. Non stop. What would it have looked like to see a brown wall of water coming at you? What would it have felt like to be in the Titanically safe smart tunnel (see what I did there?) and suddenly be decidedly UNSAFE? What must their last 5 or fewer minutes have been like for those motorists? I can't imagine, yet at this moment, my brain is saying, "Oh yeah? Hold my beer..." and forcing me to try whether I want to or not. Again and again in my mind I am imagining the helplessness, betrayal, sorrow, frustration, the pure rage every one of those people must have felt. That is bad enough... but this is China, it only gets worse.

Thousands of people who knew loved ones who were travelling the road that led to the tunnel were using phones and social media to locate them. The Jingguang Tunnel holds hundreds of cars when there is traffic and there was traffic at the time of flooding. Even if all of those cars contained only the drivers of them, 14 dead? The CCP that is responsible for the situations in China that lead to mythical "sponge cities," "smart tunnels," and the like, horrible flouting of construction codes, and general citizen overconfidence in everything Chinese, is now adding insult to ass-rape by shitting on the people who lost friends and loved ones in the tunnel, withholding information, names and closure, just being the fucking Chinese Communist Party and protecting the bladder full of hot air that is their public image. But this is China, it only gets worse!

When mourners of the people sacrificed to CCP hubris laid flowers at the site of the tunnel, the CCP ordered a wall to be built around those flowers. Ostensibly because there were a LOT of flowers. More than one would expect for 14 people. The citizens removed the wall. The CCP put it up again and the citizens knocked it down again. Not sure how many times this went back and forth, but I can only hope this is but a microcosm of future relations in China between the citizens and their despotic leadership. And the video contains some hope of that.  You see, there is an ancient Chinese belief that nature indicates when dynasties are at their end. 

The Northern Song Dynasty from 960-1147 came to an end after mismanagement of environment and disastrous flooding of the Yellow River that killed over a million people. The Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) ended partially due to inability to manage irrigation and flood control combined with massive flooding and other natural disasters like Black Death, earthquakes and famine. The conditions in China now with flooding, mismanagement of flood waters, Covid 19, collapsing buildings, (and there are still earthquakes and starvation) look a lot like Nature telling China to get rid of its current leadership. Or at least it must look like that to traditionalists. Or at least, at least it WOULD look like that if any of this information were allowed to reach Chinese people unvarnished and  un-propegandized. But before this happens, methinks the Great Firewall of China (internet consorship) will be strengthened. I guess we'll see...

But aside from these horrifically nagging thoughts and images, I really ought to be happy. I'm not working, and that frees me up to watch the Tokyo Olympics which have been already postponed, and are in increasing danger of being shut right down due to Covid 19. Which reminds me of Hunan, China, which reminds me of Henan... and here we are again thinking about drowning in a smart-tunnel. Not to mention the fact that the next Olympics are supposed to be in China, possibly the least olympian country there is.

I gotta stop this post now and watch a full day of Olympics while I can. I want you to know, I still support Canada. After that post on Canada Day about not being proud, I still cheer for Canadian athletes. I don't feel proud of Canada when they win, but I do feel proud of the athletes for their dedication to their sports. 

I also want you to know that, with apologies to the individual athletes, I will be voting AGAINST China on account of their abysmal leadership that is a little bit worse than that of Canada.

Yay Canada, Boo China!

Addendum: I didn't get my full day of Olympic watching in after all. No real surprise. The diabolically devised bureaucratic busywork I predicted in the first paragraph was requested as predictably as predicted. I asked about attendance when Pyung Hwa, my old supervisor, told me about the July classes I'd be teaching, gave me my schedule and everything. She said I didn't need to worry about taking attendance. I had taken attendance during the regular semester using an Excel format (and I hate Excel) that Pyunghwa had given me before classes began, and she helped me with it when I ran into problems. I remember being relieved that I didn't have to struggle with the tedium of Excel attendance for the summer classes. That was why. They're just summer classes. Nobody takes them very seriously.

Well today I was requested to submit attendance for the classes that had finished yesterday. You read that right. Even though I know it's not important to the administration, even though I had not been told to do it or given any format in which to do it, now, the day after classes, "Please give us your attendance." 

Now in the hands of a lesser teacher, this would have been a problem. But I'm a seasoned vet and I've come across situations before that have made me realize that it's just always good to take attendance and even take notes on every class. People can't try to con you into changing their attendance to get the required number of hours in class to pass if you know they just weren't there. And even though I know attendance was not a big deal for these summer classes, I recorded stuff for every class. Notes on grammar and pronunciation mistakes made; little bits of info they told me about themselves like kids, hometowns, etc.; what we talked about; and who was in class.  

So I went into work (which I think was the ultimate motive here) and made my attendance using the info from my class notes. I had been given an Excel file by my NEW supervisor, Hyo Jeong, attached to the email requesting my attendance, but I downloaded it and immediately noticed some things that I did not know how to do. I needed to write Korean, which I can't do because of the keyboard. and some of the attendance symbols, like a check mark, were things I'd have to hunt for and research and I just couldn't be arsed to do it. So I made an MS Word file and put all the info in a FAR more organized way on a table. Then I submitted my attendance and went to town, bought some new glasses (my eyes have changed AGAIN) got some ointment for the obligatory sweat rash that is setting in during this crazy heat wave, and then went home to sit under my air con, watch some Olympics and drink some beer. 

When I got home, I had been sent the message, not an email from Hyo Jeong mind you, but a Facebook message from one of the international students, that I need to submit my attendance in the format provided. Well my computer doesn't even HAVE Excel cuz I hate it. I really don't want to get all sweaty walking in the 35 degree weather back to work for a second time to do something I'd gone above and beyond to do in the first place. I mean, honestly, if you don't ask for attendance and provide the format for it BEFORE the classes, I think you should be very happy with whatever you get. No?

So I have told the international student that I "didn't receive his Facebook message." It's now 6 PM and technically, I'm off and my holidays begin at 7:00. If I'm asked again to re-submit, I'll just say, "Geez, sorry, I didn't get the message. Now I'm on my vacation without my computer. Wish I could help!"

We'll see how that works... Playing Korean games again. It's a living!

Happy (but not proud) Canada Day

 July 1st here in Korea. It's not yet July 1st in Canada, but I'm already seeing posts that people are "proud" Canadians. These posts once gave me a warm feeling of tribal fealty, but I've overcome that. Now I look at them as evidence of why Canada hasn't yet become a country Canadians should be proud of. It's a country people are unconditionally proud of and that is not a good thing, it's a scary thing.

I've probably posted this before, probably on Canada Day, but it's so perfect, I'll post it again:

National pride and ethnic pride. Pride should be reserved for something you've achieved or attained on your own, not something that happens by accident of birth. Being Canadian isn't a skill. It's a fuckin' genetic accident. You wouldn't say I'm proud to be 5'11. I'm proud to have a predisposition for colon cancer. So why the fuck would you be proud to be Canadian. If you're happy about it that's fine. Do that, put that on your car. 'Happy to be Canadian.' Be happy, don't be proud. Too much pride as it is. Pride goeth before a fall. Never forget Proverbs. 

The above paragraph is almost a direct quote from George Carlin. YES! George Carlin quoting the Bible! It's a gem! But it's also blatantly true. Yet every Canada Day people disregard or ignore this sense, logic and reasonableness and talk about how they're "PROUD" to be Canadian. They announce it to other Canadians... proudly. They get a Molson raised to them or clinked against their own Molson for having a common, but unsubstantiated pride. Now I'm generalizing. It could be two people who have worked and saved their whole lives, in other countries, with dreams to one day become Canadians, and they were successful through great struggle and difficulty. THAT right there is some substantiated pride in being Canadian! But for the majority of us, our fireworks popping, anthem singing and champagne toasting are but sounding brass and tinkling cymbals to use another Biblical reference. That's from 1 Corinthians 13, the "love chapter." For that reason, it bears repetition in its entirety, or at least paraphrasing. It says that a person can speak in languages of man and even angels, but if that man has no love, his words are... Sounding brass and tinkling cymbals is just a Biblical way to say "yada yada yada."

Love for Canada. I think George would agree with me when I say, I can understand that too. I love Canada. I could make a lengthy list of reasons. Clean air, good beer, beautiful scenery, the people (in general), hockey, fishing, health care, social net, education (even though it's deteriorating), multiculturalism, pushing strangers' cars when they're stuck, hitching strangers' bumpers when they're not, rye whiskey, wildlife, mountains, water, as I said, I could make a lengthy list. These are things people remind each other of every Canada Day, then falsely associate them with pride. Love, happiness, fine. Pride, no. 

Another lengthy list I could make is a list of things NOT to be proud of. The most obvious is the unmarked graves of all those native kids at residential schools. Also the way an inferior culture of greed, violence and inequality forced itself onto a far superior culture when the Indigenous people of Canada were overwhelmed by the Europeans. Not something to be proud of. I believe I linked this very same article in my blogpost on Canada's 150th birthday. 

The way Canada's government levied a small, temporary tax on Canadians intended to help the war effort and has continued collecting and increasing it for over 100 years. You know those places where you go to eat and they don't demand a tip, but you know they expect it? Or those shows that don't list a price, but are "by donation?" That's Canada's income tax. For a century!

Generosity exploited to the absolute maximum. Like the indigenous beliefs in sharing everything and owning nothing. Let's just take it all!!! Not a source of pride. 

Our standing as preferred trading partners with China, a country that practices genocide and has detained at least 13 Canadians on trumped up charges as revenge for Canada obeying US extradition law in regards to Meng Wanzhou who violated sanctions against Iran and stole trade secrets for Huawei, her Daddy's company. Canada won't use Huawei for 5G (good), but can't overtly say so for fear of losing its share of the huge Chinese market and that sweet, sweet Chinese slave labour. (bad) 

There hasn't been a candidate worthy of my vote in Canada in my lifetime and the "democracy" that may have once existed, is hanging by a thread. I could go on with this list too, but I won't. I'll just feel angry, sad and I won't like any of these things, but I'm not going to feel ashamed of them. 

Here's something I saw posted on Facebook today. Do you see the clever rhetoric? First of all, if the bad moments far outnumber the good moments, then, YES, we should define Canada by them. This is that hyperpositivity, the toxic positivity that I believe is one of the biggest problems in the world. If you really look beyond the positive, cuddly feeling this post can give, and think about it, it's absurd! We should define our country the way we define our families? Oh, right, because I dated Canada for years, fell in love with Canada, got down on one knee and gave Canada a big diamond, got married to Canada and am Canada's husband! First of all, polygamy? Secondly, if so, I want a divorce and I want half of Canada's money. Thirdly, although businesses have been declared people for evil intentions, and although Canada is run exactly like a business, it's NOT a person. 

I also didn't contribute in any way to the conception, gestation or birth of Canada, so it's a bit different than a child of mine. I did not raise it, teach it manners, give it a whack on the arse when it needed it or a hug when it deserved it. I am not paying for its university (especially at Canadian rates!) and I won't be doing any parental duties at all, especially showing unconditional love and concentrating on the good things while forgetting the bad. I'm not even sure I'd do that if Canada WAS my kid! I don't know because I haven't had one. But I KNOW I'm not gonna do that for Canada. Canada is my country, not my kid. The difference should be obvious, shouldn't it?

This is an obvious attempt to get Canadians to overlook the bad things about Canada, in a time when one of the worst things EVER is still increasing in degree day by day, and drum up PRIDE to take the place of sadness we are rightfully feeling. Here's another one:

Are you starting to see the silliness? Unless you were manning the backhoe when those lakes were being made, you just happened to be born in a place where they had existed a long time before you. How can this make you proud? Look, I understand the feelings of regional attachment. I like the Kia Tigers because I lived in Gwangju, and they're the team from that city. And when they won the championship, I was happy! But I wasn't proud. And this year they're in last place. I don't even live in Gwangju any more, but they're still my favourite team. So should I be ashamed of them? Should I be embarrassed to talk about baseball? No and no. What I should do is complain! And as you most definitely could imagine, I do.

This is why I complain about Canada. I love it and I'm happy to be from there, but I'm not proud of it. I would like to work together with all of Canada to make it the country it should be. An egalitarian society that leads the world in forward thinking, clean industry, environmentalism, equality, democracy, and happiness. Something it's far from right now. I think this is not only possible, but necessary. I think Canadians SHOULD define Canada by its worst moments because we can't fix what we don't define. Ignoring the problems and concentrating on only the good will make things worse. The bastards who made all the bad stuff will see this as national apathy and encouragement to do more bad shit. But if Canadians united to take action and make our country the way I KNOW almost all Canadians want it to be, then and only then would I be "Canada proud."

Best post script ever: 

Could there be a more apropos canvas than our currency to display the portraits of such thinkers?

In Credit Able!

 What did I say last post? That there'll be some stupid bank rule that will make cancelling my credit card difficult? Some number that won't be in English or a gulag-ish card cancelling office? Scoff! Guffaw! Chortle! Sometimes I am absolutely adorable! It was nothing so NON-diabolical and amateurish. The tangled webbing of the credit card trap bore a strong resemblance to the internet fraud and buggery that was the cause for cancellation. And it's up there with the best of my Korean banking tales of woe to be sure!

But let's begin at the beginning, shall we? I met my new supervisor Hyo Jeong on Friday at 2. We needed Aminur to translate our meeting because, as explained before, the only person in the English department who can speak English, my ex-supervisor Pyeong Hwa, had been moved undoubtedly to some other duties that require no English. It's not Hyo Jeong's fault, she says it's a burden. It's not Pyeong Hwa's fault, she is not thrilled with her new duties either. It's the austere, inflexible, positively Dickensian villainy of the management combined with the kindly, timorous over-obedience (not to say spinelessness) of the people beneath them. Or at least that's what I'm guessing because I've seen it so many times. The fact that I have to guess means I have no idea, and that's by design. Foreign teachers don't get to talk to management in universities over here because we're trouble makers what with our demanding proper educational procedure, efficiency and all. No, there are always buffers. Often quite useless, but by design. They are the people foreign teachers can talk to, but they have no ability to enact any meaningful change. Their one purpose is to tell us that we can't speak to management, and they take our suggestions and grievances to the higher ups like a used car salesman takes a request to lower a car price to the boss: "See the game Saturday?" "Oh yeah. That was a beauty, eh?" "Yeah. Yeah. Sure was." (goes back to the customer) "Well the boss is firm on that price but he did say he'll throw in an undercoating at 25% off!" I know all this... and yet being the eternal optimist, I go against all sense and sanity and give it a whirl anyway. All the time. And it just puts a target on your back. 

I wasn't going to say anything at our meeting about the stupid desk warming but before I could stop my mouth it was blurting out common sense and proper procedure. "I can't believe they truly intend for me to stay in the office when there is no work because that would make my pay minimum wage. I am making a fair wage for my hours of teaching, which is what I was hired for, and I'm making nothing for my hours as an office sitter, which is NOT what I was hired for. It's hard for me to believe that something so insulting is what was intended." I used the proven tactic of saying that universities in Korea USED to do this but none of them have done it for a long time. It's an out of date practice. At this point Hyo Jeong asked what schools I'd worked at and when I listed them, her whole demeanor changed. I've worked for some places that (although none deserved it) are highly respected in Korea. So while she was claiming impotence at the beginning of our meeting, she promised at the end to ask about allowing me to go home when I was not needed. Though I don't hold out any hope that it will happen despite my optimistic nature. All I will accomplish is tightening their surveillance on me. 

And it actually started that very day! I had asked Hyo Jeong for Monday off to do my banking in Seoul and she said she'd let me know the answer by the end of the day. I was there in the afternoon for the first time all week because I was awaiting an answer. At around 3:30 in storms Pyeong Hwa no doubt sent as an emissary to report on my truancy if she could witness it. She asks me if she can use my computer and starts calling people and setting  up Zoom and doing stuff that she really didn't need my computer for. Possibly this pop-in was also orchestrated for my benefit so that I could see the value of being in the office so as to let people in who want to use my computer. The first person to ever come into the office came in minutes after I had requested an end to the office sitting. I knew then I had no shot at getting that bullshit "policy" changed. 

However, while she was there, I asked if she'd heard from Hyo Jeong and she said she had and that she would tell the people in the office about my taking Monday off. Or at least that's what I heard. She may have said she would ASK the people in the office about my taking Monday off. But anyway...

I went to Seoul Sunday and met up with John and Danny, a couple Canuckian teachers like me and we had a few pints at Fat Albert's. Since Covid, things in Itaewon close down at 10 but I got a good amount of drinking in and had a fun night. Went to a lot of the places I like and saw some people I like. Next morning at 8:58 I get a phone call. It's Aminur. They got him to call me because nobody in the English department speaks any English. He said, "They told me to tell you that you can't have today off." I basically said, "Too late bitches!" So they told Aminur to tell me that it will be taken out of my holidays. I called them some nasty names and poor Aminur didn't deserve to be put in that position, but they'll do anything but talk to a foreign teacher directly about stuff like this. You know, stuff that defies logic. See if you can wrap yer brain around what they're doing here: I have August off, so they are going to make me go into the office August 31st to do nothing because I didn't go into the office today and do nothing. It's important to somebody that I show up to the office and do nothing from 9-6 every weekday. That person has probably never once thought of WHY it's important, it's just always been important and it can't change. 

What probably happened (and I KNOW I've seen this before) was at some point some dipshit heard someone in charge say that the foreign teachers are to work between the hours of 9 and 6 but they are only going to be teaching 15-20 hours. That dipshit assumed to "work between the hours of 9 and 6" meant to be AT work during that whole time. And the "rule" was born. Since then, nobody has had the balls to challenge it. This is what goes on in offices all over Korea and they blame it on population, the job market, history, culture, Confucious, but it just comes down to bosses power tripping and workers not standing up to them. 

So anyway, not a nice way to wake up. But I didn't feel as bad as I could have hangover-wise, so that was a plus. I cleaned up, packed up and had some Macbreakfast. That almost made me hurl, but then it almost made me feel good. It was a sweaty, muggy day anyway and I had a LOT of beer to sweat off so I figured I'd best get at it. I knew it would be no snap and I'd probably be at it for a few hours. If I wasn't in a cool room, I'd be sweating. 

I went across the street to my bank. The only place where I could do what I needed to do. I updated my bankbook, then showed the teller the monthly deductions from my account. Five of them from WSPAY then the new one from IDAMAT that hadn't yet appeared on my account but did on my phone. I explained that it was automatic fraudulent rebilling and the way to cancel it required a phone call that could not be completed from Korea. She told me that it was based in the Netherlands. I didn't care, I just wanted to stop paying every month. We were getting close to 200 bucks for nothing! So she said, as expected, "We can only issue credit cards here, we can't cancel them." I had gotten the card from this very bank. Could have been this very teller for all I know. I had to call a number. I said okay, let's call. So surprisingly, she did! And she got through immediately! She spoke in Korean for a minute then hung up. It had to be ME who called. She couldn't have just handed the phone to me? So she gives me a card with the number on it. I THANK her and leave the air conditioned bank. I try to think of somewhere quiet to sit so I can call. My phone volume isn't high and I can never remember how to turn it up, if I can. So I go to the alley where Fat Albert's is. There are a couple of benches nearby. I sat on one and called. "All lines are busy but your call is important to us. Press one if you want to continue waiting." But hey, it WAS in English. I pressed 1 about 80 times then someone finally answered. She says, "Sorry our lines are busy, please give us your phone number and we'll call you back." Musta been rockin' one of them 1950 Lilly Tomlin switchboards with no call display. THAT'S how important your call is to them. But I gave her my number. I had to take a leak. Mcdonald's coffee. So I started walking back to Mcdonald's and decided to take my phone out so that if they called, I wouldn't miss the call. Right as I pulled it out, the call came.

So I reverse direction and run back to the bench to get off the noisy road so I can hear the person I'm talking to. She asks what I'm trying to do. I tell her I want to cancel my credit cards. Oh, well I can't do that. This is not the right number. That's all, the bank teller gave me a card with the wrong number on it. It only wasted an hour of my time and sweat. No biggie. So I'm digging through my bag trying to find a pen and paper getting even sweatier and she says she'll text me the number. So I hang up and head to Mcdonald's. Upstairs where the bathrooms are only has a few people in it, so I grab a table and make the call. After the requisite phone gymnastics punching in 1 for English, your card number, pound and so on and so forth then I pressed zero for an operator. It took a while but not as long as the wrong number had taken. She answers and asks me what I want to do. I tell her I want to cancel the card. And I have two cards I want to cancel. Do I need to punch in the number of that one too? No she sees my other card. Why am I cancelling? So I go through the whole story again. As I'm doing so, about fifty people come up the stairs. I think they were having a birthday party or something. I kept asking her to repeat herself and she kept telling me to turn up my phone and I don't know how and am nervous that if I touch any button the call will end and I'll have to go through this all again. And the sweat is back. Even though Mcdonald's is air conditioned. 

So she argues with me saying I don't need to cancel. I said I just don't want a credit card any more. There were other problems. Like the other day I was buying something with the credit card for 180 something dollars and twice I got a message that my card limit was exceeded. So I had to use my bank card. She tells me, "Well it looks like you have about 700 dollars of charges that still haven't come out of your bank account." That worried me. I hadn't bought anything for 700 bucks. But that's probably what she was looking at. She said it was mostly ebay. It was a couple of Pettersson rookie cards for 150 bucks. A great deal and he's my new favourite player since the Sedins retired. The extra 30 bucks is shipping from the States. I sure hope I didn't find ANOTHER flaw here! It's not a good deal any more if you pay for it three times!

So she says she can also make me a new card and mail it to me. I say okay. She says where are you living? Is it still and I can just barely hear her but I heard the word Cheonan. They still had my old address. So she asks my new one. It's on my phone. But I don't know how to look through my phone without losing the call. So I'm digging through my bag looking for something that has my address on it and sweating profusely. I find banking stuff but it all has the wrong address too. I'm starting to get weird looks from some of the noisy Mcdonald's patrons who can sense my stress then I hear her voice from the phone. She's yelling. lol JUST EMAIL IT TO ME. I WILL TEXT YOU THE EMAIL. I thought she was gonna say, "What is your phone number," but she didn't. Thank heaven for small miracles. 

I got the email address and sent my address to the email address. I thought I was finished. I had planned on buying a few groceries before going home so I thought I'd better do that now. I hoped I'd get some confirmation that my address was received, but nothing came. I decided to go to Fat Albert's for a REAL burger. The one I had the day before was awesome! Plus they have gravy for the fries. Macdonnies doesn't compare. Jaimie Oliver would have been proud.

As I'm walking down the street, I check my mail one more time. There's something there. It's an email from my bank saying my email will not be received unless I confirm my email. If it is not done immediately the email will be dropped. There was a button that said "confirm" so I pressed it. The screen flashed a bit, but that was all. Was it confirmed? Was my address received? No idear.

I decide, screw it, I'm just going home. This is exhausting. I'm not shopping or even eating at Big Al's again. I'll probably find something somewhere else. I get almost to the subway when it hits me - I won't have a functioning bank card. The girl on the phone said my new card would arrive within 5-10 working days. I need money to get me through that time. Good thing I paid rent the day before! So I reverse and start walking back to the bank. Again, full backpack, muggy and hot, I was a soggy mess when I got there. I try my bank book in the bank machines. There's a whole new (and more complicated) interface on all the machines. Gone is the big "English" button that was the logical place to start. Now you hit "international service" and get some messages in Korean that don't seem to be the ones I need. So I try just putting the bankbook straight in and it works. It asks for my PIN and I put it in and THEN asks for my bankbook PIN. I don't remember ever making a bankbook PIN. So I guess and I guess wrong. I don't know I've guessed wrong until I go through the entire transaction and it says some message IN KOREAN like you put in the wrong PIN I'm guessing. So I go back upstairs to talk to the girl again. I waited about half an hour and got the same teller. I told her I THINK I cancelled my cards. But I need some money if I have no cards. So we try one of the cards. It's cancelled. So we have to use the bankbook. So I tell her I don't know my password for the bankbook. We have to change the password. That took a surprisingly long time! But I got it done. Imagine if I'd gone home and tried to take money out and the machine asked me for my bankbook PIN? I would have Kung Fued that machine! 

So now it's almost three and I can't go home before eating. I go to Fat Al's and tell JK the whole story. She's flabbergasted. "Why is it so hard?" she asks. The million dollar question. Why is everything an ordeal? I had a lovely burger with fries and gravy and a slow motion beer. The hangover kind. Then it started raining. I was trapped at the bar. So I had another beer. The rain stopped and I went home. I received several messages on the bus trip home. One was confirmation of my confirmation. So that was nice. I got a message saying my new card had been sent. Wow! Speedy! The latest message was at 9:30 (it's 12:15 now) saying that a transaction of 25.89 EURO was authorized yesterday. Then "error: Transaction suspension." I hope that means what I think it means. 

Now if only they could give me back the money that was stolen from me every month for the last 5 or 6 months...

How The Hell Is Automatic Rebilling Legal???

 It's Friday night. Occasionally on a Friday night, I like to drink beer or some other imbibement and chat. This is well established on this blog. Sometimes I drink too much and say stupid things. Sometimes I get blocked. This too we've gone over before.

But occasionally, being a single man, I browse the chatting sites. Not necessarily looking for a girlfriend/wife, just looking to chat with someone new. Usually female, but not always. I'm not going to tell you I've never surfed porn, I have. That's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about just chatting with people. You see, sometimes people around here don't want to chat late at night, and people back at home don't want to chat because it's too early for them. So I need to find people who are available. That's all. 

I used to do this on Yahoo. What happened to just going on Yahoo and chatting with folks? I used to use a website for games called POGO and play games there while chatting with interesting folks. I sometimes like chatting with strangers. I used to play games on Facebook too for the same reason. Or I could even play with friends. Where the hell has all that stuff gone? And while we're on the subject, how were there about 100 sites for cam-chatting not so long ago, and now there are none? None for FREE that is. I remember owning webcams so I could chat with folks and see them sometimes. NOT ALWAYS naked either! Either this has become impossible, or really hard, or I just can't find any good sites because I always seem to search for ages signing up for shit giving out my info then finding out it's a crap site. This goes on for hours sometimes. While I drink. And get drunker. And drunker. And then I make a mistake and join a sketchy site and BAM I'm paying 30 bucks a month for life! How is this legal?

I had my VPN on Canada tonight and so one of the chat sites I went to read that and hooked me up with people from Vancouver. I lived in Vancouver before so we instantly had stuff to talk about. I was like a fish on the hook. "This person from Burnaby wants to chat with you." "You're from Burnaby? I used to live there," I foolishly typed. The person answered. And sent a pic. But I couldn't see either unless I upgraded my membership. Or at least START a membership by giving this site my email and a credit card number. A week was only 5 or 6 bucks. What could be the harm? So I signed up. I heard the noise my phone makes when I make a purchase. Sure enough, 4.77 Euro to IDAMAT.COM. What the hay, at least I could now view... I heard the noise of another purchase just seconds later. What the frig? I checked and sure enough, 19.05 Euro to IDAMAT.COM. I'm betting 19.05 Euro is about the same as 28.95 US dollars. That's what I pay to the unknown site that keeps billing me every month and I just can't find out who they are. Their harmless sounding name of THAT rebilling service is WSPAY.COM.

The site I was on, I've already forgotten. Findafriend or Localchat or some friendly sounding moniker like that. They don't tell you that when you buy a month, a week or even a day, you automatically start your monthly rebilling on the site. Never does that come up on the screen. If you search for half an hour through the billing and membership and details and personal settings until you finally find it, it DOES say that when you sign up for Findafriend or whateverthefuck, you automatically start a monthly rebilling charge of blah blah blah. So you keep searching until you find a way to cancel monthly rebilling. Evidently, I didn't do that the first time and promptly forgot the site I was on the night before the first time I did this. Tonight I went through the cancellation protocol.

Well isn't that interesting? There are five steps. The first step is which account you'd like to cancel monthly billing for. I had one from early this year. AH HA! IDAMAT and WSPAY are the same chiseling, greasy, slimy rebilling scam sites! So I pick the first one. Step two, what is the reason for cancellation? There is no box to fill in that says, "Because I never fucking UNCANCELLED you assholes!" Again, in what kind of backward, fuck-your-fellow-man society is this shit legal? Step three: check another box, step four: check another box, step five: call this toll free number 1800assfuck, and give them your account number, 123youscrewedme. I call the number and OF COURSE it doesn't work. Cannot be dialed as such in Korea evidently. I probably need to dial 1 then 001 or some crap before a toll free 1-800 number. I don't know and I don't care. I am going to Seoul Sunday so that I can do some banking Monday. I got the day off today. I already HAD it off, but I arranged things so that I didn't have to show up at the office to do nothing all day long. Instead I can save myself 60 bucks a month by cancelling my credit card. I HOPE!

What do you want to bet there is some fucked up banking rule that doesn't allow me to cancel my credit card? Maybe I have to make a phone call to some other number. This one will work, but it won't be English. Or maybe I'll have to visit some credit card cancellation office that will be as intimidating as the immigration office. THIS is the shit I dread leaving my apartment for!!! I absolutely know it's coming, I just can't predict the form it will take. 

As I said, I tried to put a stop payment on the first scam site back in the winter in Jan or Feb. The bank teller said she couldn't do that. Couldn't do it! These scam sites are protected by the banks! Why are there not mandatory sirens and flashing red letters when you are about to sign up for one of these sites that say, "Warning: You are about to be scammed out of a certain amount of money for life! Are you sure you want to pay this scumbag website every month for the rest of your life?" But there aren't. There was absolutely NOTHING that warned me of any automatic rebilling. NOTHING. 

How in the name of Alfred E. Newman could any country be so MAD that they could allow even ONE citizen to be cheated like this and laughingly call themselves "civilized?" I don't want to hear your justifications or rationalizations either. "Well it was probably a porn site." So what if it was? A guy wants to rub one out so he goes online to find some pictures or videos to "assist" him in his efforts. Not something he should be paying for for the rest of his life. "It's a clever idea. It's the entrepreneurial spirit." Fuck you! It's the larcenal spirit. "Buyer beware." I went to the mini mart today to buy the 4 beers I just drank. The cashier assumed I would use a card. She was SHOCKED to see my cash. We are basically being forced to abandon cash and use credit cards or phone pay services and nobody is even hinting that THEY beware. How about don't even make them available to the public until they are safe to use? Wipe out this kind of scam. Harshly punish the perpetrators. Don't reward their "ingenuity" with higher paying jobs and positions of prestige. Am I wrong here? Come on!

How am I to know that anything I buy with my credit card will not instantly set off an automatic rebilling every month? I want to know people are working on this. I want to know the leaders of our countries are wiping out internet fraud and credit card fraud, not practicing it themselves. I want to know that not only are they trying to get rid of such corruption, but that they'd never commit it themselves. Most especially not in the very campaigns that got them into government! You know who the best example for every kind of fraud there is is. 

How is THIS guy not yet in prison? Look at just one of the many examples of fraud he committed that amounts to nothing more refined or sophisticated than pulling a gun on a person walking down the street and mugging that person. The story was in the NY Times and Wall Street Journal. I only used the less official sounding source because I've used up my weekly limits to the other two.

What gives folks? How can we expect people to not fuck each other in the ass if our leaders and captains of industry do it themselves? What needs to happen is people need to be made examples. We need to find some of the biggest offenders like Trump and say to them: (I'm going to need you to imagine the person in the following clip is saying "Donald," not "Larry.")

I tell you without a word of a lie, if I found out who the creator of automatic rebilling, or even just the creator of one of the sites that nailed me was, I met that soulless incubus or succubus, and happened to have a crow bar in my hands, I think I'd go ahead and do what Walter Sobchak is doing in the above clip, only I'd do it to that person. But then I'D go to prison, wouldn't I? For the crime of wiping pure evil from the earth. 

John McAfee told us he would never commit suicide. He was running from the American IRS for years. They were trying to make an example of him. The example? Even the rich have to pay their taxes. In a cell in Spain just before extradition to the US for example making, he was suicided to death. By rich people who don't want to pay their taxes. But nobody even bats an eye in this world so full of corruption it's considered a virtue.

For crying out loud, even China, CHINA is at least making a show of trying to fight corruption! From time to time the CCP makes a big show of arresting someone for corruption. They might even make a BIGGER show and kill them. Take Lai Xiaomin for example. Former top banker and asset management company Huaron chairman, He had connections. He used those connections to get bribes. He is also reported to have had about 100 mistresses. I saw a vid in which he was explaining that he never spent the money, just collected it. Wanna make a girl hot? Take her to a room where the walls are made of stacks of bills. It couldn't have been his looks. He took a lot of bribes and saved a lot of money, but he was executed early this year. 

Is this guy's story a deterrent? Look how old he was! He had 277 million bucks, 100 mistresses, and, look how old he was! Execution saved him from suffering through the worst years of his life! Do you think there are any young scamsters in China changing their ways after hearing about Lai Xiaomin? Quite the opposite I'm sure. Such is the case with so many "successful" people who got that way by being complete assholes. Greed is good. Assholes are heroes. A one-week membership is a lifetime membership. And China, maybe the furthest country from the Olympian ideals, gets the Olympics for a SECOND time!

But we're all still sucking their arses aren't we? Canada is probably the worst. Preferred trading partner status! We've had some rough times since the current PM isn't a wannabe Chinaman, but still kowtowing. Recently not only didn't boycott the upcoming 2022 Beijing Olympics, but instructed the Canadian team to say nice things about China. Well YEAH! If you don't, you might not be let out of the country like 13 people since the Huawei Princess affair. (see other blog post).

And with TSM or TSMC poised to corner the semiconductor market for the Taiwanese (who don't like China) is it any wonder Chinese/Taiwanese relations are more strained than ever? So even though Taiwan has never been Chinese territory really, China's going to try to convince the world that they were, and pull another Hong Kong, rather than, you know, just do business honestly. That'll be how they steal the most important market in the world nowadays, microchips. And who has the balls to stop them? None of the most "civilized" countries of the world. They're falling all over themselves to get the two things China offers: the huge market and that sweet, sweet slave labour. 

I've heard that any country who boycotts the Beijing Olympics will be aggressively sanctioned by China. This according to their emperor for life Xi Jin Ping. 

So if you're an athlete there, don't talk about human rights violations; don't talk about the Dalai Lama or the disputed border with India; don't talk about the Uyghurs or the fact that China burns more coal than every other country in the world combined; don't talk about the messed up social credit system; don't talk about the Great Leap Backward or the cultural revolution; don't talk about their abysmal worker's rights; corruption; cheating; lying; stealing; or Winnie the fucking Pooh! Everything will be great. Or else.

Dammit! China's close and I know my way around! I bet NHLers will be there too! But I'll be boycotting. We all should. But we won't. We'll normalize things. I fucking LOVE that euphemism! "Normalization." One of the greatest words of the 20th century. We'll act as if there's nothing wrong. We'll support our athletes, sing our country songs and worship bits of cloth with maple leafs or stars and stripes or hammers and sickles. 

And we sure as Szechuan aren't going to care about the evils of automatic rebilling are we? I guess I shouldn't sweat the small stuff should I? 60 bucks a month is "small stuff." It goes back to that all too familiar life philosophy that I loathe more and more every day, the "well-at-least" life philosophy. Well at least I'm not a Uyghur! Well at least I'm not working for nothing! Well at least I'm not in a country run by an emperor and Big Brother. At least I'm not getting killed (Tiananmen) or thrown in jail (like Liu Xiaobo) for fighting for human rights. At least I'm not making two bucks a day. At least I'm not happy about my country because I recently started earning two bucks a day instead of one. 

But contrary to everyone who knows me's beliefs, I am an optimist. I'll never stop being one. I believe in the Olympian philosophy exalting all the best qualities of the body and mind, not the least. Will, mind, education, competition, athleticism, culture, joy, respect, and ethics. I dream of a day when I can trust established businesses to charge me for only what I bought with my credit card and for the authorities to disestablish businesses who charge for more. I dream of the day the Olympics will be given to a country that is truly Olympian. But since there isn't one, what the hell, let's give them to China again.