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Much hullaballoo about the formal draw-down of combat forces in Iraq, naturally, but as might be expected of a war from which the public is understandably fatigued, there’s not a lot of commentary this week asking why we’re drawing our forces down.
Is Iraq now a functioning democracy? Does the waxing conflict promise a future of stability and prosperity? Was there even a ‘winner,’ in the conventional sense?
Here’s what we know: The U.S. invaded the country ostensibly looking for nukes, although the principal actors in what became a multipart tragedy (Wolfowitz, Cheney, W., Rumsfeld) clearly harbored old grudges against Sadaam Hussein, understanding that with W. they had the chance to correct what they perceived as H.W. Bush’s crucial error; that is, his reluctance to take Baghdad and depose Sadaam.
And W. was more than willing to go along with his advisers’ suggestions. For his numerous faults, Bush was not without some degree of empathy, and bought what Wolfowitz and company were selling: the American public, with 9/11 still fresh in its collective memory, would be likely to accept a connection between two of the world’s greatest assholes, Osama bin Laden and the aforementioned Mr. Hussein, and therefore permit an invasion. W. probably figured the deception, which was embarassingly not verified by any of the government’s intelligence agencies, would be worth the moral cost if he could knock off Sadaam and bring democracy to Iraq. A victory for everyone in the end, right? I expect his forthcoming memoir to argue as much.
But of course the administration bungled the invasion epically, as the nation’s newspapers and journalists have documented over the course of the war, and its mishandling of the early stages of the conflict played an instrumental role in the development of an insurgency that has since claimed the bodies and minds of many soldiers and many more civilians.
What started out as a blow-this-guy-up police action transformed into a counter-insurgency, the doctrine of which combines nation-building with security. Has the U.S. built a nation in Iraq?
It’s unquestionably a safer place than it was in 2005, 06, 07, or even 08. But are we done? There’s still violence. See figs. A. and B. al-Qaeda insists it still has a presence in the country. Keeping Iraq, its people and its fledgling infrastructure safe now are a contingent of foreign civlian contractors and security forces and the Iraqi security forces. Is this enough? Maybe. But the question I’d like to ask the President, and his foreign policy advisers, is this: why risk it? If Iraq’s regime shows signs of collapse under pressure from insurgents, Iran, or al-Qaeda, what is to be done? Send over more contractors? Reconstitute Blackwater USA and with Van Damme leading an elite squad of ruthless, krav-maga trained hitmen? The risk of Iraq’s fragile peace imploding under the myriad pressures it faces is so great, any realistic risk assessment would conclude that a preamature withdrawl of American combat forces may very well needlessly embolden the various factions that so hotly contested the American presence in the first place.
In many ways, Barack Obama and I are on the same page when it comes to wars. I’m not against all wars. I’m against dumb wars. But here’s where he and I differ: we may be in a dumb war, a war mostly of our own construction, but we owe it to the people who have suffered — those caught in the crossfire — to restore (or in this case, bestow) some semblance of peace and prosperity to people that have known little of either.
A generation of Iraqi kindergardners have been born into chaos. My hope is that when they get to high school, they can try to one-up each other, swapping stories of their youth, when they ate shoe leather and survived shrapnel. But they’ll never get that chance if they don’t live that long.
big. This a map of the subway. Here’s a view of the downtown skyline – the picture also allows a decent perspective as to the size of the city. To my surprise, I found that it’s not terribly unlike a typical American city. It has a dense central district consisting largely of offices, museums, parks and government ministries, along with some stores and eateries, but most if it is an endless conurbation of approximately a zillion people. I think about a third of Korea’s population lives somewhere in Seoul, and that was backed up visually. We went to a popular shopping district called Myeongdong or something and it was just an ocean of humanity. Quite the spectacle, comparable to Haundae beach in Busan, only with fewer foreigners.
What continued to fascinate me in Seoul, as it has throughout Korea, is the Korean peoples’ obsession with stuff. Every square inch of every space in the country is dedicated to commercialism, and none of it seems like such a bad investment. Koreans are either the most compulsive spenders on the planet or simply the most willing to part with money for material goods — there are all manner of shops, fruit vendors, squid-on-a-stick joints and so forth everywhere. You can buy a watch, a watermelon, a pair of shoes, a knockoff Louis Vuitton bag, an onion, an iPhone cover, a bagel and a baseball glove at the bus station, if the spirit so moves you. Underground shopping centers are wildly popular, and can be found in every major Korean city. Most of the shops peddle clothing but if you’re hankering for an SD card or a Bart Simpson umbrella or a suicide knob shaped like a skull, you could probably find an old lady on a stool hawking one. Speaking of old ladies…
Women sure do a lot of shit work in this country, although there are plenty of guys grilling squid for 20,000 won a day. I don’t know the statistics, so I can’t be sure, but it seems as though a disproportionate amount of females are cleaning bathrooms and making rice cakes. Virtually all of the street peddlers are women. Older women, in a particular, form the backbone of the underclass, selling sesame, garlic and peppers on street corners. These are people that Korea’s economic miracle in the 70s and 80s left behind. Koreans are rightly proud of their rapid modernization, but many of those who toiled in the fields or performed other low-wage, low-skill work after the war missed out on the catapult into prosperity. Likely, many of the most destitute women lost their husbands in the war and were unable to remarry due to their advancing age in the postwar years. Lingering remnants of the pervasive, all-consuming patriarchy that dominated Korea for centuries and continue to play a role in its modern economy. It’s not that the men have it easy here. They don’t, at least in the middle and lower classes. Pretty much everyone busts ass for peanuts…
And it’s those very peanuts that are at the heart of the vibrant service sector in Korea. There’s no minimum wage here, so by American standards, business overhead is laughably low. Even a Korean convenience store would shutter after trying to make a payroll in the U.S. Since wages, business taxation and regulatory expenses are so manageable here (half the country’s buildings would violate Saginaw’s fire ordinance) consumer goods (with the sole exception of electronics like cameras, which are quizzically MORE expensive here, five fucking feet from where they’re manufactured) and food are in general far cheaper. These policies and market conditions help drive the Korean entrepreneurial spirit. Starting a business, maintaining a business and making a profit on goods and services is a lot easier here than in the U.S. I don’t know how Korean banks work so I can’t offer any insights on how Kohut might obtain enough startup capital to finally open his Daegu-based AK Fashion Advisory Services LLC Inc. Corp., but if you wanna have a go and strike out on your own, here seems like as good a place as any to give it a shot. Low taxes, laughable enforcement of regulations and a low wage structure help put it all together.
So it evens out — Koreans make less money and pay more in rent, but have access to the same breadth of consumer goods as the rest of the developed world, and at better prices. I suspect it’s a first-and-a-half world lifestyle many Czechs, Spaniards and Italians may be able to identify with. You’re not going to pull 50 large and bennies moving shit from one end of the factory to the other, and you can forget about owning anything resembling a house in this country, but you’ll eat. Speaking of bennies…
If the GOP wins the house and senate this fall (very possible), it’s going to yell at you a lot about teacher pensions, health care, and federal spending. It will demand changes in taxation and entitlement spending. What it’s trying to say is that it wants the U.S. economy to look more like South Korea, and less like France. Take public school teachers, for instance. Korean teachers do well enough by Korean standards, but their counterparts in the states enjoy generous pensions, large chunks of paid time off and health insurance plans that teachers here could only dream of. They’re ununionized, so the state never committed to wage and pension contracts it couldn’t fulfill. The teachers here live mostly frugal lifestyles. None of these, these, or these. Need to get somewhere? There’s the bus. Vacation time? It’s $4.50 to get to Busan. Backyard, picket fence, 2 1/2 kids, dog Spot, cat Fluff? Rofl. They do get a pension, but I have no idea how much (little) it is and really, could it be anything other than a Denny’s gift card? Or a Coffee Club membership at the local 7-11? That’s basically the life Republicans are asking all public sector employees to brace for. It will be a battle. Marriages have ended over health insurance. Just imagine how poorly teachers unions will react. Speaking of health insurance…
The South Korean system is pretty fucked up. There’s insurance for poor people, called Medical Aid, but no Medicare equivalent. Predictably, the old people you see will be in pretty rough shape, especially the poor ones. Medical insurance is compulsory, much like auto insurance in the U.S., with prices strictly controlled by the government. Who knows if it’s enforced. I suspect not. Firms with more than 16 employees must offer medical insurance as part of an employement contract — it’s about 2% of my check. As far as the quality of care is concerned, I skimmed a few studie that suggested it’s on par with most developed nations, but given the price controls, it suffers when it comes to more common, routine procedures. Undoubtedly, it’s in the hospital’s Finance VP’s best interests to get the dudes with broken toes out the door in a hurry when every minute spent inside an emergency room costs just as much as an open heart surgery.
A final note: American beer. Where are you. Fuck you Hite Cass Max. You all suck.
Did I ever tell you about the time Bill Brasky forced me to wear a woman’s bikini around the office? Anyway, Brasky tears off my clothes and makes wear this skimpy bikini. For the next three months I had to conduct all my business wearing a woman’s bathing suit. I would cry from shame and question my manhood daily but at the end of the quarter I’ll be damned if my sales hadn’t tripled.
He’ll eat a homeless person if you dare him.
One time I ask Brasky to dress up like Santa for a Christmas party I was throwing for my children. You know Jaccob and Christine?
Sure, they’re dumb as rocks and always have dirty faces.
That’s them, That’s them. Well Brasky shows up as Santa, reaches into his bag, and says, “I’ve got goodies for you kids.” He proceeds to hand out scrap metal and cigarettes to ‘em. Then he takes off his beard and says, “There’s no Santa ’cause I ate him.
Oh, you know he sheds his skin once a year?
I once saw him scissor kick Angela Landsbury.
Did I ever tell you about the time that I went horseback riding with Brasky? But there weren’t any horses around. Well, Brasky throws a saddle on my back and rides me for three… Whoa, easy there, Hank. There’s no scotch in that glass. He throws a saddle on me and rides me around Wyoming for three days. Well, wouldn’t you know it, my stamina increases with each day and I develop tremendous leg muscles. Yeah, tremendous leg muscles. So anyway, Brasky decides to enter me in the Breeder’s Cup, right. Under the name “Turkish Delight.” And I’m runnin’ in second place, and I’m runnin’ and I break my ankle. So anyway, they’re about to shoot me, right? Then someone from the crowd yells out, God Bless him, “Don’t shoot him. He’s a human.”
You know he jumped off the Empire State Building this one time and he only sprained his ankle?
Like an alligator, he can fully digest a turtle shell.
His favorite TV movie is “The Boy In The Plastic Bubble” starring John Travolta.
A ten foot monster who slept with all of our wives! And he punched us all in the face! And we LOVED him for it!
He had a four day heart attack! Yeah, a day for every chamber! When they did the autopsy, they said his heart was like a basketball filled with ricotta cheese!
They found sixty dollars in change in his stomach!
I remember one time Brasky took his family to Sea World– Anyway, they were watching Shamu the whale when Brasky got splashed! Right. So Brasky yells, “I’m Bill Brasky and no one gets me wet!” So he climbs into the tank, grabs Shamu and throws the whale into the audience, splashes him and yells, “How do you like it?!” And then damn if Brasky didn’t step in there and finish the show!
You know, he would shoot whiskey into his neck with a syringe.
He did all the make-up on the Planet of the Apes movies.
He taught – he taught me how to love a woman – and how to scold a child.
He had dandruff the size of mice!
Did I ever tell you about the time Brasky took me out to go get a drink with him? Anyways, we go off lookin’ for a bar and we can’t find one. Finally, Brasky takes me into a vacant lot and says, “Here we are!” Well, we sat there for a year and a half. Sure enough, someone constructed a bar around us! P. J. McGinty’s! Well, the day they opened it, we ordered a shot, drank it and then burnt the place to the ground. Brasky yelled over the roar of the flames, “Always leave things the way you found them!”
He once punched a hole in a cow just so he could see who was comin’ up the road.
He had nine children, all of ‘em boys! Hell, he sired a baseball team. An orchestra, if you count the bastards!
Did I ever tell you about the time I had breakfast with Brasky? Anyways, Brasky drank a full glass of liquid LSD with his eggs. Then he slept for eight months straight. When he woke up, he rubbed his eyes and said, “All in all, I prefer gin!”
They say Gene Roddenberry got the idea for Star Trek from Brasky talkin’ in his sleep!
He once breast-fed an injured flamingo back to health.
He used to jog around the block with a fridge on his back!
His poop is considered currency in Argentina!
He loved extension cords!
He hated Mexicans! And he was half Mexican! And he hated irony!
He grew a third arm and kept it in a vault!
He slept eight hours a night! [the others give him a puzzled look] Well, he was pretty normal when it came to that.
An eight-foot, two-ton monster who can palm a medicine ball! That’s what he is.
So anyways, Brasky would put on a white tie and tails and walk his pet cobra through the park on a leash. He named the cobra “Beverly”. And he taught it how to fetch and dial a phone. But then one day, it bit the maid. So with tears in his eyes, Brasky had to shoot the maid.
Brasky would use his own thigh as an anvil!!
You know, it was the sight of Brasky’s naked body that drove Brian Wilson insane!
He showers in grain alcohol!
He uses the Shroud of Turin as a golf towel!
He killed Wolfman Jack with a trident!
He drives an ice cream truck covered in human skulls!
Yeah. He makes every woman that sleeps with him, refer to him as “Bear Bryant”!
He once ate the bible while water skiing!
Did I ever tell you? He once had sex with a cigarette machine!
Yeah, I know Bill Brasky! He’s a 10-foot-tall beast man, who showers in Vodka.. and feeds his baby Shrimp Scampi..
Best damn trader on the Bull Market!
He orchestrated the merger between UNICEF.. and Smith & Wesson.
Brasky went public with his own buttocks.. and made $7 million.
Second Friend of Brasky: Did I ever tell you about the time Bill Brasky went hunting?! Anyway.. Brasky decides he’s going to hunt down all four of the Banana Splits! He stomps and chews every one of them with a machete. They all begged for their lives.. except.. Fleagle!
We once had a bachelor party for Brasky. He ate the entire cake.. before we could tell him there was a stripper in it..
He once hosted the Grammy’s, and gave every award to Corey Hart!
He has a toenail on the end of his penis!
Brasky got his wife pregnant.. and she gave birth to a delicious 16 oz. steak. The afterbirth was sauteed muchrooms!
Brasky’s family crest is a picture of a barracuda eating Neil Armstrong!
Brasky ranked 18th.. in the AP College Football Poll..
Did I ever tell about the time Brasky was in a production of “The King & I”? Anyway.. on opening night, Brasky chloroformed the entire cast.. and slowly eats them in front of the audience for two hours! The production got pretty good reviews.
He breast-feeds John Madden!
Brasky named the group Sha-Na-Na! They did not want to be called that..
If you drop a phonograph needle on Brasky’s nipple, it plays the Beach Boys’ “Pet Sounds”.
They use Brasky’s foreskin as a tarp when it rains at Yankee Stadium!
Brasky directed that commercial where the women play basketball in heels!
He wears a live rattlesnake as a condom!
All.. the Yes album covers.. are Brasky Family photos.
Darryl Hawkins has a summer home in Brasky’s groin!
Hey, did I ever tell you about the time Brasky taught his son how to drive? Anyway.. Braskey taught his son to drive by entering him into the Indy 500. The kid wrecked, and died. Brasky said, “It would have happened sometime!”
Brasky’s semen can form into a liquid human! Like the guys in “Terminator 2″!
Brasky still believes in Santa Claus! And he wants to put him in porno films..
He thinks Iron-Man is gay!
He framed Roger Rabbit!
Brasky used to ride upon a steed, perchance to spy a lady.
The character Johnny Appleseed was based on Brasky.. except for the part about planting appleseeds and not raping men!
He gave a hand job to a manta ray!
Can we finally put this shit to bed? If the GOP establishment takes up this fight, they’re gonna get choked by the Supreme Court. Finally, a culture wars issue on the verge of a denouement.
“The right to marry has been historically and remains the right to choose a spouse and, with mutual consent, join together and form a household. Race and gender restrictions shaped marriage during eras of race and gender inequality, but such restrictions were never part of the historical core of the institution of marriage. Today, gender is not relevant to the state in determining spouses’ obligations to each other and to their dependents. Relative gender composition aside, same-sex couples are situated identically to opposite-sex couples in terms of their ability to perform the rights and obligations of marriage under California law. Gender no longer forms an essential part of marriage; marriage under law is a union of equals.
Plaintiffs seek to have the state recognize their committed relationships, and plaintiffs’ relationships are consistent with the core of the history, tradition and practice of marriage in the United States. Perry and Stier seek to be spouses;they seek the mutual obligation and honor that attend marriage, Zarrillo and Katami seek recognition from the state that their union is “a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred.” Griswold, 381 US at 486. Plaintiffs’ unions encompass the historical purpose and form of marriage. Only the plaintiffs’ genders relative to one another prevent California from giving their relationships due recognition.
Plaintiffs do not seek recognition of a new right. To characterize plaintiffs’ objective as “the right to same-sex marriage” would suggest that plaintiffs seek something different from what opposite-sex couples across the state enjoy —— namely, marriage. Rather, plaintiffs ask California to recognize their relationships for what they are: marriages.”
a car nerd’s hell. Hyundai? Kia? Oh my god, a country full of Excels. Remember that piece of shit? Neither do I, because they all broke down and rusted into zinc oxide before I was shitting in a toilet. So I was like FUCK when I got here and realized that the Korean auto industry has finally made it into 21st century, with some nice engines, designs, and interiors.
Exhibit A: The Kia K5
Check out the lines. It’s a beautiful car, really. And would you ever mistake it for a Spectra? A steeply raked roof, a sharply-angled grille and a masculine, aggressive countenance that reminds me a bit of Cadillac’s latest efforts. It’s quite the look. I can’t say much for the driving experience, but it’s easy on the eyes inside (they’re popular cabs here) and out and that’s the best a transplant car dude can really hope for. Hard for me to believe that the same company that made dreck as uninspired as this made the K5.
Exhibit B: Genesis Coupe
The Genesis Coupe is related in no way to the Genesis sedan, which in the Korean tradition makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. It’s a pony car that ships with two engines –a meek 4-banger and a hardcore V6 pumping out around 300 hp. Both models come with track-worthy brakes and suspension packages, making it a really compelling buy for someone of modest means looking to have some fun in the corners without taking out a second mortgage for a BMW. I’d take it over the V6 Mustang, Camaro and Challenger. It’s a looker, too – taut styling and a wide, aggressive stance. Unmistakably a sports car. If it had a V8 it’d be a real competitor to the top dawg Stangs, Challengers and Camaros that ship with ginormous engines.
Exhibit C: Hyundai Sonata
The class-leader in the family sedan segment is easy on the eyes on the inside and the outside. They’re popular cabs here, with good reason – excellent mileage, a roomy and comfortable interior, and respectable performance. This competes with the Ford Fusion, Toyota Camry, and Honda Accord. It slays all of them in most objective categories, MPG and price being the principal concerns, and in my opinion is the best-looking of the bunch to boot. The interior design is gorgeous, although it borrows a bit from the Chevy Malibu.
It appears that Hyundai/Kia has finally repented for its original sin – that is, building vehicles to a price, and not to a quality. Years of derivative designs have finally been supplanted by uniquely Korean takes on the automobile. As it moves upmarket with the Genesis and Equus, the company has a fighting chance at filling the void that Toyota and Honda left when they decided to start building boring, ugly shitboxes.
On a semi-related note, GM sells the Chevy Cruze here as the Daewoo something or other, and I’ve seen a few bowtie-badged examples, too. It’s a nice piece. I hope it sells a zillion. The most popular American car here? Naturally, it’s the Chrysler 300. Korean businessmen tend to think their shit don’t stink and prefer to be ferried from brothel to brothel. What better way to do it, really, than in the cavernous backseat a ghetto Bentley? In truth, it makes me a bit wistful whenever I see one. Little pieces of Michigan (actually, Brampton, Ontario) all over the place.
So Ulsan’s not an autofag’s torture chamber. Hyundai/Kia has gradually made car-watching tolerable, and of course you’ll find some exotics here and there. There was a Porsche Panamera Turbo parked outside our hotel in Busan, and we saw a Ferrari down the road. I think Bryn has a picture of me drooling over the Porsche, in my mind the best saloon money can buy. Upload that shit pronto, Lord Thomas.
seaman’s club last night. They’re a take on ‘hostess bars,’ which are in turn an evolution of gisaeng houses, old-school sketchy joints where you buy beer served by women that sing songs and dance. Apparently, gisaeng houses are becoming increasingly rare, the market for scantily clad ladies being effectively served by dallanjujeom (karaoke bars where girls sing, dance, and pour drinks), the more common hostess bars and seaman’s clubs.
Seaman’s clubs are hostess bars serve the sizable foreign population of Korea exclusively — no Koreans are allowed – and they’re essentially highly sanitized brothels, although the girls’ duties resemble that of a call girl moreso than a prostitute. They talk, dance, fondle, stroke egos and provide the complete girlfriend experience for customers who in turn for those services buy the girls’ ‘drinks’, which cost about $20 a pop. The drinks are essentially flavored water although I wouldn’t blame the girls for pouring a stiff one, depending on the customer and his demands.
If a gentleman wishes to excuse himself and a girl to a more private setting with a karaoke machine and well-padded furniture, he can do so for a sum and the girl is fully expected to comply with the customer’s physiological requests (more likely, complaints) from that point forward. The price to go ‘upstairs’ was $60 at the bar I visited; additional services thereafter require deeper mining of one’s wallet, up to around $150 for the full boat. Let it be known this information was acquired through a third party. I did not request a girl.
I did however talk to a couple of girls while some friends emptied their piggy banks, and was really amazed at how open and honest they were about their work, their lives, and their lot. The first girl, for whom I unwittingly bought a $20 drink, asked me how I felt about Korea. I told her that I hadn’t really drawn a conclusion yet, having been here for just a couple weeks. I asked her what she thought of it, and without hesitation she told me she hated it. So I asked her why she came — she said there is no work in the Phillipines, especially in the area where she was from, which is far from Manila.
I asked her what she did back home, and she proceeded to blow my mind by telling me she had a nursing degree. I had always figured that women that end up in these professions were desparate because of a lack of education, money, experience, opportunities and connections colluded to limit their options. So why the fuck is a bilingual nurse in Korea giving handjobs? Because she couldn’t afford the exam back home. I was crushed, and half-tempted to buy her drinks all night and expedite her GTFO. She went on to explain to me how girls like her, of which there are many thousands, end up in Korea. They gain access to the country on a particular type of visa, which their Korean employer procures for them. It’s not at all unlike how foreign teachers are hired here: find a school, get a passport, get a visa and sign a contract. Their visa says ‘entertainer’ on it. Prostitution is illegal in Korea but the law is not enforced, at all. The girls work for about a year and typically live in an apartment above the club.
I asked her how long she had left on her contract, but I don’t remember when it was supposed to expire. I told her mine was up next June and she asked how much I made — I told her I expected to save between $12,000 and $15,000 in my time here, and she gasped as if that was some unattainable fortune. I didn’t ask how much she made, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she took home just a few hundred bucks every month. Before she left, I asked her how she was getting along. Interestingly, her biggest complaint wasn’t the hours but the work — she told me she loved to write back in the Phillipines, but never gets the opportunity to ‘use my mind’ in Korea. Pretty amazing, right?
I also talked to another girl for awhile but not for nearly as long — she said the boss gave her the stinkeye when he realized she didn’t have a drink in her hand. But I had a good talk with her, too. She also was brutally honest about the job. Said she was sick of living a lie; told me she never enjoyed life except for when she was singing and dancing with the other girls — they work from 1 p.m. to 4 a.m. seven days a week — I asked her if she sang, and apparently all the girls do. She inquired if I liked Beyonce and fuckin of course I like Beyonce, and she told me she did a pretty good imitation. I said let it out, and holy shit, she could belt. It was really impressive – but more impressive were her accurate renditions of Alicia Keys, Rihanna and Mariah Carey. I told her that once her contract is up to hit the American Idol tryouts immediately — the chick could holler.
A pretty educational night, all things considered, concluding around 4:30 a.m. in a McDonald’s where we met some random Korean dudes that wanted to play soccer and drink soju on Sunday. That’s Korea.
hot here. But it’s not the temperature, which really never gets much higher than 85 degress or so, but the punishing, relentless humidity. Breathing the air, the quality of which is suspect, requires concentration and a tolerance for failure.
I don’t really have much else to report, because I haven’t seen or done much other than go to bars and restaurants. I think I love the food here. It’s great, and cheap. A few days ago I ate ‘hangover soup,’ or gamjatong. A big bowl plus a few sides ran me all of $6. My immediate conclusion upon rapid consumption: legitimately one of the best things I’ve ever had.
I know I say that about everything, but it was true that time. Another time I ate something and instantly recognized that what I was eating was downright historical was when a Mexican woman, on her last day of work at Bavarian Inn, prepared chorizo sausage burritos for a select few friends and confidantes.
I also underestimated the role kimchi (pickled cabbage + tongue-fucking spices) plays in the Korean diet. I figured it was something people enjoyed regularly, like how Americans are frequent consumers of salad, or pork rinds. But no — it’s a staple. Just about every meal I’ve had here outside of hole-in-the-wall barbecue meat joints is served with some kind of kimchi. Thankfully, I find it palatable, perhaps even enjoyable, and have consumed not insignificant quantities of it.
Having not been paid yet and having emptied the war chest long ago, I’ve had few opportunities to explore the surrounding environs in much detail. So please pardon the conspicuously-lacking visual imagery in this update. A sojourn to downtown Ulsan is on the horizon, as is a train ride to Busan, a big town about an hour and a half from here. I intend on purchasing a camera with my first check, so expect some documentation in the near future.
I find teaching both enjoyable and stressful. I was initially quite shocked at the behavior of the kids. In the larger, more raucous classes, they talk nonstop and tend to create what can best be described as an pagan cacophony. Many of the kids show no respect for the teachers, be them foreign or Korean. Attempts to be firm are often greeted by laughter or Korean curse words. Only when threatened with a trip to the sixth floor (the director’s office and ‘counseling’ room) do the more insolent ones begin to cooperate. Yes, corporal punishment is perfectly legal here. And thank god it is. I couldn’t imagine trying to control a class of 30 if there wasn’t a looming threat of severe physical trauma keeping them in line. Thank god I can toss out some vulgarities here and there without them understanding it.
For example: A kid in one of my classes answered the question ‘What makes you stressed?’ (a typical textbook question) with ‘Lingua,’ which is the name of my school. I asked why, and he promptly responded by describing the preferred tool with which the director applies punishment. It sounds painful enough, and it works. Another kid in my class had a history with the teacher I replaced — he was a terrorist for months until she got sick of the backtalk. A visit to the counseling center later, and he’s been a saint ever since I took over.
I suppose that’s why the schools let the kids get away with being as wild as they are. There’s an understanding that if a line is crossed, there will be consequences. It’s just that it seems to me, at least, that many kids successfully tiptoe that line. I certainly don’t remember elementary and middle school like this: the nonstop chatter; audibly playing games while the teacher tries to teach; getting up and running around during class; incessant bickering and hitting one another. And they’re so. Fucking. Loud. But what can you do? I tell them to sit down, they sit down — for 30 seconds.
Perhaps I’m exaggerating. And it’s certainly true that the minority of my kids give me fits. Some of my classes are just great — cooperative, even enjoyable. But certainly not all of them. And you know, it’s hard to blame the riotous ones for being the little anarchists that they are. These kids go to school for eight, sometimes 10 hours a day. My last class gets out at 9:45 p.m. The kids in that class will have been up since 6 or 7, and in addition to public school that ends around 3 p.m., many will have already attended another private school or tutor for specialized study before they even step into my class. Not to forget — many kids attend some kind of school on Saturday and even Sunday. We played soccer at a middle school Sunday night, and there were kids in and out of the building all night long.
So they’re overschooled here. There’s no doubt about that. They all complain about the massive amount of homework and the overly rigorous citywide and national exams they have to take. Standardized testing is course de rigeur here, and the tests are very hard, if the kids are to be believed. I believe them. And while I don’t see this firsthand at my school, since it’s really not how we teach, but the students are forced to memorize vast, epic sums of material at the public schools. A girl told me she had to remember Korean poems, songs, stories, letters, proverbs in Korean class; everything in the entire world in science class and so on. Rote memorization is an ancient Asian tradition as far as I know — in old China, one had to memorize an incredible amount of stuff to pass the civil service exam and win a job with the government.
So while I can’t quite convince myself that the job is difficult, it’s certainly no cakewalk. I’m still assembling my in-room personality. Partly, I want to be the Stalin of Lingua — I walk in, and if there’s a mouth agape, I punch it. But I also actually like many, even most of the students They’re clever. Fun. Interesting. Normally quite hilarious. And occasionally genuninely kind. Occasionally.
We’ll see. I don’t think I’m such a bad teacher. But often it seems as though it’s hard to be a good one.
I miss its stench.
I walked the streets of Hogye and surrounding environs for the better part of five hours the other day, putting some pretty serious miles on my Asics. It’s not such a bad area – it’s isolated, sure, but I actually quite prefer it to the concrete jungle. My apartment is literally on the edge of town and there’s a big green mountain outside my window.
Some observations:
There is real poverty here. Perhaps other westerners have entered the country boasting a similar naivete, but the images I had of RoK/Japan were of skyscrapers and bullet trains, not dilapidated shanties. But today I saw some people living in abject squalor; a few of the dwellingts I saw weren’t fit for dogs, let alone families. Surprising in part because the town is as a whole quite well-off, due in no small part to Hyundai, which employs tens of thousands.
The smell. Perhaps it’s just Hogye, but the place smells like a sewer. A sewer in which a million people are barbecuing chicken and filleting fish. It’s not pleasant.
The streets often narrow to comical widths, but that doesn’t seem to diminish drivers’ enthusiasm for high-speed cornering hijinks in residential neighborhoods. Most of the ‘main’ streets are in very good condition and sorted as well as any other modern conveyance, but in the older parts of town, before civic authorities recognized the myriad benefits of lanes, you can get very, very dead with little effort.
Speaking of civic authorities, you can tell what the government spends its money on: the people. Buses are cheap; trains are cheaper still. Public spaces are numerous, well-appointed (there’s a brilliant soccer field not 15 minutes from my door) and impeccably groomed. The public schools more closely resemble college campuses than their American counterparts, which only Master Splinter could love. The streets are in general well-kept, although since Koreans spend so much time schmoozing out in public, they can get pretty messy.
In fact, Koreans seem to do a lot of schmoozing just about everywhere. Even in Hogye, which is hardly some bustling metropolis (although things are usually pretty brisk), there are a dozen places to eat and drink on each street, and plenty of shops selling everything from paint to shoes. There are a bajillion small-scale businesses here – some restaurants seat no more than a dozen people; the smaller shops might have six racks of clothes. Can’t imagine how they make money on such small volume, but there they are. My guess is the business tax in Korea probably doesn’t apply if the gross income falls below a certain threshold. Corporations must be taxed more aggressively; otherwise, I have no idea how the government pays for all the civil works projects.
A word on taxes: the levies here at the consumer level are very low. The income tax is progressive and ranges from 3-5%. There doesn’t appear to be a sales tax on goods or services. Likely, this is partially because there is no minimum wage. So the difference is split in that regard. Consumer goods and food are slightly less expensive here than in the U.S. (or Europe). Rent seems to be the major contributing factor to the high cost of living Korea.
Another English teacher articulated something I had noticed ever since I stepped off the plane: In the U.S., the customer is always right. In Korea, the customer is king. The service here, for everything, goes above and beyond the call. Being Aaron Crossen, I kicked a table and broke a fellow teacher’s drink my first night here. The servers cleaned it up before we had time to discuss the ramifications of having a clumsy ogre live and work in Korea. Also, the teacher I replaced just left finished her second contract and had a little going-away shindig at the local watering hole. The manager of the bar gave her a free shot and a plate full of free food — chicken wings, watermelon, bananas, pineapple, cherry tomatoes. Enough food to feed fuckin Pakistan. And not two nights before, at the same bar, the manager brought our table nachos, chicken and squid, and it was all ‘service’ (roughly translated into ‘it’s on the house). Service is the best word in the English language. Not only is the customer king: loyalty is highly valued.
It may sound a little ignorant, but I can’t help but chuckle at some of the ways the Koreans use English. Known somewhat affectionately as Konglish, it’s everywhere, and it’s hilarious. “Fighting! Korea!” was a popular slogan on t-shirts during the team’s World Cup run, and roughly translated, it just means “Go Korea.” Sometimes Konglish is pretty inventive, actually. Once I get a camera I’m going to document the funnier instances. There’s a pizza joint across the street from my school called Mr. Pizza and its tagline is ‘Love Women.’ Mr. Pizza: Love Women. Yes, Mr. Pizza, I certainly do. BTW, we had shrimp and crab pizzas with a sweet potato crust. It was good.
I like my school. My colleagues and boss are courteous, understanding, and excessively polite. The kids can be savages, but no worse than American kids and the majority of them are great. The corporate culture, though, couldn’t be more different: in the States, at least in most modern companies, you work with your boss. That was certainly the case at Cech for me, and at Valley too, to a slightly lesser extent. Here, you work for him. He is the closest thing to God that you’ll ever know. The environment doesn’t seem to be non-collaborative or anything — just different. It’s Confucianism in some sense and Korean tradition in another, I’m sure. But in conjunction with good economic policy, Korea businesses seem to have put it all together in a functional manner.
Speaking of school, I had my first classes today. I really enjoyed it, and I’d like to get good at it. The kids seem to learn well through games — I’m going to try and find some that they might like. Figure that’s a good way to start building rapport with the little scoundrels.
It hasn’t really sunk in yet, I don’t think. And before now, a year never felt like such an excruciatingly long time. I told just about everyone that would listen that I’d be back in two shakes of a lamb’s tale. But I won’t – I really won’t. I worked at Cech for a year, and heavens to betsy that was a long year. Same at Valley Publishing, and it felt like I worked there for a decade.
Leaving my friends and family was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and I feel pretty shitty whenever I think about them. I was looking at some photos taken over the past year and just about lost it. I know some incredible, irreplaceable people; it makes me delirious wondering how I’m supposed to get on without them.
Ulsan itself seems pretty cool although I don’t really have what one might refer to as an educated perspective on the place since I’ve been here all of two days. I live in a district called Hogye, about a 30-minute ride from downtown. You can drink on the streets and the overwhelming preponderance of watering holes seems to implicitly encourage such behavior. Bars and many restaurants don’t close until the last customer stumbles out, a brilliant policy that should be universally adopted.
Nonetheless, it’s all still a bit overwhelming, even in the Asian equivalent of a quaint backwater. I’m sure I’ll have an actual opinion of the place as I get to know it.
P.S.: I’m never riding a plane again. I’m Tom Sawyer/Huck Finning it back to the states.
P.P.S: Oh my god, unreasonable Korean facsimile of beer.
P.P.P.S: Oh my god, Korean girls.
It’s not easy being nice.
I don’t normally do this type of shit, but said fuck it and made a new year’s resolution. I resolved to become a kinder, gentler person. What follows in an assessment of said resolve.
It’s not that I was such a rapscallion in the first place. I never involved myself in (all that much) mischief, nor did I associate myself with (too many) deviants (Dick Burr notwithstanding) or folk otherwise threatening to the public good.
But I’ve always been quick to pass judgement on people, including my friends and family. It’s easy and often tempting to overanalyze a particular statement, action or set of behaviors and reach withering conclusions about people. And I shouldn’t. Because human beings are invariably convoluted, labyrinthine enigmas.
We say things we don’t mean and do things we immediately regret; we construct identities that attempt to reflect what we want to be but rarely represent what we think. Add to that the incredible diversity of our individual and cultural histories and the human experience becomes even more inchoate, making 15-second assumptions about attitudes an even more preposterous endeavor. This is a view I’ve held for years. I just never took it that seriously.
So this year, I’m making an effort to restrain my opinions, by my nature somewhat cynical and always skeptical. And I’m trying to withhold judgement on everyone: the drug dealer on the corner; the paunchy dude at the bar hitting on the help; the older woman in the SUV that cuts everyone off in traffic; that batshit-insane Latina next door that videos us walking to our vehicles; the burdensomely white English student with the iPad in the coffee shop.
It’s a balancing act, because naivete is the retarded cousin of kindness. Rarely, you’ll find someone that’s just up to some shit, period. Good for them, because it makes my job easier. But most people aren’t single-mindledly in pursuit of anything in particular at any given time. We constantly stray from our best intentions and pursue detours of thought and purpose. That’s fine, and it’s called being alive.
So, an early-season performance evaluation: I think my work speaks volumes, really, evidenced principally by the formation of strong relationships with people whom in 2006, 2007 or 2008 I would have written off. I dutifully withheld judgment and was rewarded with some beautiful — and hopefully, long-lasting — friendships.
Adam Phillips and Barbara Taylor wrote an essay cum book — the title of which this rant borrows — tracing the history of kindness as defined throughout generations and cultures, and while they manage to work in some pop psychobabble into an otherwise likable read, the essay (never read the book) still fascinates me.
They argue that the environment in which humans are reared discourages kindnesss, or compassion, or charity, because those things all pose risks. Risks to our well-being (picking up a hitchhiker); risks to our finances (giving money to charitable causes); risks to our social standing (befriending the friendless). But if we can rewrite the risk calculus, we can find that kindness is often its own reward. It feels good to do good. It’s as basic an urge as any. I believe sympathy — not pity — is experienced by everyone; it’s part of our very being. It’s just that some refuse to allow it to bubble to the surface. In his Confessions, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, my favorite romantic precisely because of his myriad flaws, says that man’s desire for happiness is never thoroughly eliminated. In short, people are good. I believe it. I do.
With tolerance for the diversity of experience, our social needs aren’t so different. You can’t make a checklist for happiness, sure, but being on the receiving end of kindness? That can’t hurt. So I’m trying. I asked an old lady at Meijer today if I could take her cart to the cart rack. It doesn’t take much, and it felt good.
I don’t think I’ve ever been known as an especially kind or caring individual, and certainly not that charitable of one. But this year, I’ve tried to change that. I’m going out more, with more people, although it’s not like I was ever much of a shut-in. I try not to let a person’s appearance dictate how I interact with them. I try to be honest with everyone. I make a deliberate effort to understand my shortcomings and the attitudes of my friends, family and complete strangers in such a way that doesn’t eliminate the possibility of sympathy.
Man, blogs are great. You can’t get away with endlessly raving about yourself anywhere else, that’s fer true.
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