Trick or Treat Bitch

What scares you???


There's obviously the general stuff like bears, midgets, beer goggles, spiders, bums, Texans... The list is endless. I mean fear is a natural human instinct put in place to save us from shit that's bad, right? But one thing I've noticed during my short time here in Korea is that these people are scared of the weirdest stuff possible. First on the list...



Fans.


In Korea, 팬 죽음, aka Fan Death is a super real problem. Fan death is the belief that if a fan is left running in a room while a person is sleeping, said person will be dead by morning. According to The Korea Consumer Protection Board, a government funded agency, "asphyxiation from electric fans and air conditioners is among South Korea's five most common accidents or injuries"... According to data they collected... When I got to my apartment on the first day, along with showing me the rice cooker and the... other rice cooker my co-teacher made a point to show me the timer on the fan. ALL fans and air conditioners manufactured or sold in South Korea come with a timer switch, shutting that fucking death instrument off before the... haha... Shit hits the fan...

But how does a fan kill you? I've heard several theories so far as to how Fan Death works...


1 - Electric fans create a super powerful vortex that creates a vacuum inside a room which sucks in all the oxygen and kills the poor sap inside.

Alex's Verdict: I think this defies the laws of physics... And it just sounds like a college freshman trying to use words he learned in beginning physics...


2 - The electric fan uses up all the oxygen in the room and, again, suffocates the poor mother fucker inside.

Alex's Verdict: Ok, electric fans run on electricity, not oxygen. Unless you have a fan with a combustion engine, this will not happen...


3 - Electric fans chop up the oxygen molecules into super tiny pieces, leaving them too small to breath, and the person in the room suffocates and dies.

Alex's Verdict: This sounds like fucking bull shit. Not only does this violate the law of mass conservation but it, also, just sounds fucking retarded.


4 - The South Korean government started the rumor in order to get people to turn off their damn fans and save energy.

Alex's Verdict: Damn, that sounds pretty plausible.




Next on the List...




North Korea.



Before I came to Korea, everyone was always asking me, "Aren't you scared of North Korea???" Well... No... North Korea is a joke. I mean, they don't even have the internet there!

(Separated at Birth?)

What? They DO have internet there... Are you sure??? Oh fuck... But they don't even have food...


(Quick google search...)


So they DO have internet? Fuck...


But this is interesting... Let's explore a little bit...



:::::Special Side Topic:::::

Computing, North Korean Style.

Computing in North Korea, just like the rest of their whole fucking infrastructure, is like a 1 legged dog with heart disease... Completely fucked...

The computing age came to Korea in the late 70's. The UN came into North Korea and helped them build a little plant that would have the capacity to produce processors and other computer stuff. But those feisty North Koreans, surprisingly, gave the UN the shittiest materials to build the damn thing and hired people from such computer savvy places as Eritrea and other fabulous lands to run it...

So fast forward 15 years later...

The damn plant was finally fully functional... Like the death star, but if the death star was made with wood and tape and shit like that...

Throughout the 90's, according to a Korea Times article, North Korea produced about 20,000 computers. Enough to satisfy their military needs and bring some much needed export cash to the fucking train crash of a country. According to the same article over 60% of the computers were exported to China.

Those bumbling North Koreans even managed to developed their own software! One masterpiece was a word processor that had a pretty sweet function... It could automatically insert the names of the "Great Leader" and "Dear Leader" through a specially designated hot key.

So if you wanted to write, say, Kim Jong Il sucks balls, you just press F7 and write "sucks balls" and BAM... There it is!

It has been reported a few times that Kim Jong Il himself loves to surf the net. In 2001 he even asked sexy U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright for her e-mail address!

According to Reporters Without Borders, Internet access is illegal in North Korea. Very few government elite (Maybe 300 or so total) have access to the internet through a secret Chinese connection... Foreign embassies are allowed to have internet access but they have to pay by the minute, $2 a minute (Those are Vegas prices!) Also, they have to have all internet connections set up in guarded rooms where all North Korean citizens are forbidden to go... Bad times... Where do North Korean's get their porn???

:::::End Special Side Topic::::::



Ok, what were we talking about? Ah yes, Fears... So North Korea...

I was talking to a South Korean about a week ago about North Korea. I asked him what he was taught in school and by his parents about his neighbor to the north. He told me that South Koreans feel sorry for the North Koreans. They don't see them as a threat and believe that through peaceful dialogue and diplomatic relations they can eventually become one happy nation...

I'm not sure if this guy was a fucking Pollyanna or something but I guess it could be true. I mean, ya... I guess North Korea is like Scientology or any other fucking cult... I mean John Travolta, Tom Cruise and Kim Jong Il probably know that the whole thing is full of shit, but if the majority of people think it's all good, then by fuck, it's all good... For them...



Next up...




Speaking English.



When I first got to my school I thought everyone was a dick. They wouldn't even talk to me! Well my co-teachers did, but one of them seemed pretty standoffish.

Side note:

I'm going to start a little fish restaurant called standoffish... Get it? Stand of fish? Stand of fish! Like it's a stand that sells fish... That's gold!
(Not Funny)

End side note...

In Korea people are super scared to speak English, especially to an English teacher like myself. I mean, I speak a little Spanish, mainly food and cuss words, but I'm still super stoked to speak Spanish to anyone, even if I butcher the hell out of it. In Korea people are super modest and like to make is seem that they're not better than anyone and suck at things they're actually pretty good at... The exact opposite of America... And that modesty can sometimes make people act shy and like dicks... When they're really not. Back in the USA, people like to do things they suck at. (No that's not a correct sentence... Mrs. Roza always told me not to end a sentence in a preposition... So it's In the USA, people like to suck things they like to do? No that sounds dirty...Ok... I got it) Back in the USA, people like to do things at which they suck... Nice... In order to get better at them... It's like a watch maker wanting to become a championship watch maker... He has to make ton's of shitty watches that only Mexicans and Canadians would wear before he makes that one championship watch... Kind of like practice makes perfect, right?




Next on the List...




Swine Flu.



Ok... This is understandable at first, right. Swine flu... OHHHH... It sounds fucking scary. When I think swine I think of stinky spam, Richard Nixon and my 6th grade teacher. But, Isn't an epidemic disease supposed to be like super deadly or something? I want my epidemics to fucking kill people if they even think about them... Like the plague, THAT was an epidemic... Doesn't it seems like every year there is a different "epidemic" disease that is a combination of a regular ass animal and a random minor illness? Remember bird flu? Mad Cow Disease? Now swine flu... What's next? Penguin Skin? Hamster Hands? Feline Cold? Squirrel cough?


Side note:

I wonder if animals in different countries speak different languages and have different customs. Like if you take a bird from Korea and a bird from the USA, could they communicate? Or if 2 dragon flies from different countries could, you know, fly together.

End side note...


But seriously... The Typhoid Mary of swine flu, some little Mexican boy, is fucking fine!

Oh look how cute... I mean, this kid lives in Mexico too... And HE recovered in like a week...

Let's break this down by the numbers... (Oh my god, my third grade teacher WAS right, I will need math!!)

According to CDC data, as of September 25th, there have been 15,078 cases of swine flu confirmed in South Korea. Of those a whopping 25 have died... (let me see, carry the 2...) That's 0.00165%... WOW...

So in a country of roughly 50 million people you have a .0003015% chance of getting swine flu and an astronomical .0000005% chance of dieing from it! Whatch out motha fuckaz!!!

Last year in Korea iron deficiency anemia, syphilis, falls, drowning and suicide each killed more Koreans than swine flu... So I guess you're more likely to kill your damn self than to be killed by swine flu... Holy crap...

And syphilis? Wouldn't is suck to die from syphilis? But hey, I mean, it doesn't even have any symptoms...So... I guess no one cares if the invisible man comes to dinner, right?