Bags and Bags and Bags of Sweet Cocaine

So it's Christmas time in Korea... And by fuck it's cold! When I go outside it feels like a snaggly toothed and drunk old man winter is giving me the finger... It is, in fact, so cold that whenever the Koreans enjoy one of their favorite past times - Spitting - the loogies freeze and leave beautiful little creations that resemble snow flakes... Only real snow flakes don't have little pieces of kimchi and phlegm in them...

Heat is very important this time of year... It's like 15 degrees Fahrenheit at night... In Korea, heaters are different than those in America... They are under floor heaters, heated by running hot water flowing through pipes... This is, in fact, the reason why some Korean people sleep on the floor... The water is heated by the water heater which is in turn heated by gas... Now, gas is fucking expensive here. A friend of mine recently had a gas bill of 150,000 Won or around $150... That's a lot of soju my friends, it really is... But what is my gas bill you ask??? 9,000 won or around $8... Haha... How do I keep it so cheap you ask? Location, location, location... I live on the second floor right? And directly below and above me live people with small children, so naturally they want to keep their kids warm... So the people above and below me are constantly spending hundreds of thousands of won running their heaters in a frantic attempt to keep the next generation of proud Hangul speaking shits alive and happy... And I'm reaping all the benefit!!! I live in a service little warm pocket, a free cocoon of heat... Excellent, right?... Right...



(Cocaine's a hell of a drug...)

Cocaine - A terrible little white powder that this author has never tried... However, the subject has come up twice this week and has taught me powerful lessons about Korea and Korean's way of thinking... Weird... A lesson wrapped in Cocaine... Like Paris Hilton's dreams... Only not as whorish...


Lesson 1 - "Korean Ostriches"



So I'm teaching a class last Thursday... So I'm walking around, milking the clock while the kids are doing some kind of bull shit activity, I don't even remember what it was really... And all of a sudden the noisiest group goes quiet... Which is never a good sign... Like the calm before the storm... So I walk over to investigate... Very quickly one of the kids who is kind of a douchy dick head puts something in his pencil case really quickly and pretends to be doing his work...

Side Note:

Damn, seeing how these kids try to hide stuff and get away with stuff and lie about stuff reminds me of when I was a kid... I thought I was so cunning, yet, I was so obvious...

End Side Note:

So I grab the pencil case to investigate... I look inside and there's this little bag of white powder... What could it be??? I like in Cops where the policeman sticks his pinky into a similar bag of white powder and tastes it with his tongue and says, "Yep, that's the real stuff..."... I thought about doing that but A) I don't know what Cocaine tastes like and B) it could be rat poison or crystallized semen or something nasty... So I show the bag to my co-teacher and she has a little conversation with the kid in Korean... He's all wide eyed and emphasizing his words like a guilty dip shit... So she simply walks over the the trash and throws it away and goes on with her day... So I walk up to her and ask her, "What the fuck, bitch?"... Not in those words, but... So she tells me that the kid got the bag from a museum and it's part of a science experiment... Really??? Really??? Now, I've been part of a few "Science Experiments" too in my life and I would never come up with a crock of bull shit like that... But, hey, I really don't care what it was... So I said, "Oh, I thought it was drugs or something." She looked at me like I had just slapper her mama... "No, NEVER in KOREAAAA!"... (She kind of exaggerated the final A in Korea... Which made me laugh on the inside...)

Now this brings up lesson number 1 - Koreans simply don't think certain things exist in Korea... Drugs, Homos, Crime... These things don't exist... Dragons and Unicorns exist here... But Drugs, Homos and crime don't... Really? If you really believe that I think you've done one to many "Science Experiments" in your day...

I've found that Korea is becoming more and more like an onion... The more layers you peel away... The more it stinks...

However... Is that really a bad thing... I mean, ostriches that bury their heads in sand seem pretty happy don't they?... And furthermore... If you tell children that something doesn't exist, doesn't that make it more likely that they won't think about ever doing something because they think it doesn't exist, they aren't even given an option? So if a Korean person thinks that being a criminal or a homo or a drug user is as possible as an American person thinking that being unicorn or a dragon is possible, isn't that a good thing???


Mid Lesson Side Note:

You know what pisses me off??? Well there's the obvious: Clowns, Canadians, Gingers, Kids, Old People and the 18 - 50 Crowd... But other than that I'm a pretty peaceful guy... But recently I've found something that pisses me off and I think it should piss you off too... Super Squeeky Clean Conservative Religious Gangsters... That's right... Super Squeeky Clean Conservative Religious Gangsters, or SSCCCRGs...




You know the type, those kids that talk like 2pac and think like Billy Graham. Terrible, like watching Mickey Rourke and Camilla Parker Bowels having mayonnaise sex... In K-Land, there's plenty of SSCCCRGs around... People that think they're super epic and chill and say things like Fo Sho, Playa, Duder and other gangsta epitaphs, but then instead of a Glock 45 in their pocket they have a bible... Is there anything more pathetic?

End Mid Lesson Side Note:


Pre-Lesson 2 Side Note:


Student: "Teacher, what's wrong?"
Teacher: "I have a hangover, do you know what that means?"
Student: "Does that mean you're drunk?"
Teacher: "No, it means I was drunk yesterday."


End Pre-Lesson 2 Side Note:


Lesson 2 - "Bare Knuckle Minsu"



So there's this bar in Jungang called Hangout bar... It's a super small bar that local English teachers frequent because the bartender speaks pretty good English and he's always pumping heavy metal instead of the dreaded K-Pop...

So a group of 4 of us stroll into the bar last Friday night... It was like the beginning of a joke... "So an Irishman, a New Zealander, a Korean and an American walk into a bar..."... What would the punch line to that joke be I wonder? "No, I said I want some BASS", "No I said BOUYS"... That's all bar jokes usually are really, misunderstandings... Like most bar incidents I guess...

So we walk into this bar and there's a sign on the door saying "Foreigners Welcome"... This made me think... Am I not welcome at most other bars? Should I use a different water fountain? Can I sit at the lunch counter??? Weird sign... But... Fuck it... So as we're walking in we notice that the usual atmosphere of western teachers has changed into that of 4 quiet Korean dudes drinking...

As we walk through the crappy wooden door the music stops and all the Korean dudes turn around... We're staring at them and they're staring right back at us... For a good 15 seconds there's not a sound as we're feeling each other out like a mongoose and a cobra getting ready to fight. It was 4 on 4, evenly matched... I was thinking about going for the small guy with a bottle... If I was wearing a gun and a holster I would have had my hand nervously hovering just above it the way that old-time cowboys did in the old west... Go ahead Koreans, make my day!!!


(Say when...)

But the tension eased pretty quickly and we sat down amongst the enemy and ordered a drink... We all had a pretty good time together... There was this one drunk guy sitting one seat away from me. He was nice, at first... He kept telling me about his daughter who was studying in Dallas... He said Dairrus, I think that's Dallas... Or maybe there is a Dairrus in this world, who am I to say there isn't...

Around this time a guy walked in wearing a sweater that would make Bill Cosby say, "God damn that shit's ugly"... But he was a really nice guy, a westerner, giving us a 5 to 4 edge over the native team...

This guy turned out to be from Trinidad... So all five of us were talking about random topics: Butt implants, Monkeys, Geography, Conspiracy Theories... Bla bla bla... We were then talking about our respective home countries... I, of course, tried to start a "U.S.A, U.S.A, U.S.A" chant, but to little avail. Then the Irishman brought up how a huge shipment of Cocaine was just seized in Belfast. So we started talking about how it had effected the country and stuff... More bla bla bla...


(Cocaine's a hell of a drug...)

To tell you the truth, the whole time I was wishing I was at home in my underwear eating cookies. I really did. As I looked to my left, I could sense that the Dairrus guy was starting to get agitated... And more drunk... Which is a bad combo... Like nakedness and snow or knives and wieners...

All of a sudden there was a barrage of Korean... The Korean guy was obviously livid about something. He started to speak really good English... Fucking bastard. While he was delivering his mis-guided soliloquy, he was also shaking his fist at us like he was a drunken Irish man in a pub at closing time... "You foreigners!... You are guest in our country!... Drugs bad!... NOOO!! IN KOREA!!!" This guy flipped out like we were doing lines off of his wife's ass. I mean, he was ready to fight. The bartender quickly told the guy to shut the fuck in Korean and began to profusely apologize to us about his drunk countryman. The Trinidadian went over to him and spoke in his best talking-to-a-child voice said, "You made a mistake, you should say sorry"... The Korean guy thought about it for a second, and then said, "Sally"... That was good enough. Korean people can't speak English at all anyway, much less when they're fucking pissed.

So at this point we decided to find other pastures, maybe a pasture without so much hostility and rampant nationalistic foolishness.

But this got me thinking again about Koreans and their wacky wacky thought processes. Being brought up from a child to believe something doesn't even exist makes it harder and harder to accept when reality finally hits you in the face. And while teaching your children that something doesn't exist might be a band-aid solution to some of the worlds wrongs, I believe that it will eventually turn into something terrible. I believe that people must be shown right from wrong, instead of just told that wrong doesn't exist, and furthermore taught why it is wrong. I've gotten kind of preachy in the last paragraph I feel. So to lighten it up, a light-hearted joke...


Light-Hearted joke:


There's an African American guy, a Mexican guy and a white guy exploring a cave. They suddenly come upon a magic lamp. They rub the lamp and a genie pops out.

"Because you have released me from my lamp prison, I wall grant each of you 1 wish."

So the genie looks at the African-American guy, "What is your wish?"

The African-American guy says, "I wish for me and all of my African brothers to be happy and back in Africa."

So the genie snaps his fingers and, POOF, all of the Africans in America are returned to Africa.

So the genie turns to the Mexican guy, "What is your wish?"

"I wish for me and all of la raza to be happy and back in Mexico."

So the genie snaps his fingers and, POOF, all of the Mexicans in America are returned to Mexico.

So the genie turns to the white guy, "What is your wish?"

The white guy says, "You mean to tell me that all the African-Americans and Mexicans are out of America?... Hmm... Then I'll just have a coke..."

End Light-Hearted Joke:

What's With All This Korean Stuff?

3 months... That's roughly 90 days... 3 months have gone by and I'm half way around the world from home... What the fuck have I done over the last 3 months? It seems at the same time so short and yet so long... Like a pig's tail... Living in America and going to college feels like a lifetime ago, 2 lifetimes really... When in reality it was only 4 months... But why? The weeks have been flying by at an incredible rate, when Monday rolls around it feels like the next day is Friday and it's time to go out and party again. Like a mighty pterodactyl flying through a prehistoric forest or something... Ya, it's not really like that at all... Oh, and in just half that time I'll be sitting on a beach in Thailand sipping some kind of beverage out of a coconut... Excellent...

But until then... It's lunch time...

And boy what a lunch it will be... When I first got to Korea I thought the lunches were terrible... I really did... But now I actually look forward to them, which really kind of scares me... It either means that I have actually started to enjoy this crap, or, that I'm so starving that I'll eat anything that's put in front of me... During my days of solitary lunches my thoughts usually begin to wander... I guess like all dreamers, I confuse disenchantment with truth...




Korean school lunch consists of five sections... Please... Dine with me...





Noodle course:



So I eat lunch with people that mostly only speak Korean... I mean it's great... People don't really bother me and I'm usually free to eat the "food" that they serve in peace... And oh ya, since people in Korea eat like vikings enjoying a drunken feast at Valhalla, I can literally do whatever I want. I can eat with my mouth open, slurp, sip, gurgle and burp all I all I want... But one thing... If you're listening to headphones really loud and burp... Other people CAN still hear you... Maybe you can learn from my mistake...







Kim Chi Course:



Laser Eyes...



Today I was thinking about how cool yet challenging it would be to have eyes that shoot laser beams. I mean you could easily fend off attackers and impress chicks and stuff... But I bet people who actually have laser beam eyes don't really enjoy it ALL the time. I mean, there's probably a lot of destroyed stuff... Tons of sun glasses, clothes, house decor and other things that all have like laser beam marks on them.

And I wonder if people with laser eyes have like different strength settings. Like stun and kill and stuff like that... Today, enjoying another lunch in beautiful Korea, I was thinking about how cold my potatoes with some-kind-of-sauce were, and how I would like to just sort of heat them up a little bit if I had laser eyes... But I bet it's hard to gauge the strength, so I would probably just burn a hole through the table and that would RUIN my potatoes and probably piss people off...

Also, working with children would probably be out of the question. I mean, I probably would have to register with some kind of government agency and that would lead to all kinds of red tape and medical exams I would have to take... It seems like a lot of people with laser eyes probably have a lot on their mind... Do they constantly think about things like this? Or are they trained from an early age to live with their special condition...

And also, I wonder if people who are born with laser eyes are biased against people who gain the ability later in life... And I wonder if there's a natural vs. synthetic fight raging in the laser eye crowd. If I was a pure born laser eye, and I see a synthetic wannabe laser eye coming my way, I would totally give him the stink eye... The laser stink eye... OOoooo, that sounds cool...




Soup Course:


Being a Kid...


Being around all these kids makes me think about when I was a kid... But things have changed. Every morning on my 10 minute walk to school I see the same kid. He's about 4 feet tall and probably about 50 pounds. Every morning he's talking on a cell phone, listening to an ipod AND watching a little tv... What the fuck little kid?

I remember back in my time...

Does anyone remember all the great games of the days of yore? Playing hide and go seek?

Heads up 7-up.

Skip-it.

Pogo Sticks.

Connect four.

Old-school Nintendo.



What about all the good TV from back in the day?


Salute Your Shorts.

The Secret Life of Alex Mack.

Legends of the hidden temple.

Wild and Crazy kids.

Hey Dude.

Pete and Pete.

Bill Nye the Science Guy.

Snick.

Nick-Jr - Face...

Ahhh face... Wasn't face the most pompous little bastard that you had ever seen? What a fucking tool. He was like the Bill Reilly/ Rush Limbaugh of kids television.. I hated face... Still do...

Or what about Toys-R-Us... That place was fucking awesome...





Rice Course:



Rumors about Korea that I'd like to start...


Did you know that Kim Jong il got a 1600 on his S.A.T's?

Did you know that Fart and Fresh is the same word in Korean?

Did you know that all Koreans must eat Kim-Chi once a month by law?

Did you know that due to the international economic down-turn, North Korea now has the 3rd most stable economy in the world?

Did you know that South Korea's love their porn... 29% of the world's adult content is consumed on this tiny peninsula.

Did you know that every Koreans must have 2 things in their house by law, a picture President Lee Myun Bak, and a copy of the book he wrote in college, "Toke-a-holic"?

Did you know that the Korean government openly puts salt peter in the drinking water in an attempt curb the over-population problem?

Did you know that in Korea, it is illegal for a woman under the age of 40 to speak without first being spoken to?





Dessert (or maize, as the Indians called it...) :




Solving Problems Like A Korean...


I've noticed that there's little to no fighting or problems in my school... Actually in Korea as a whole... Everyone seems super zen and chill and other meditative words. I thought I came upon a foreign utopia when I first got here... But then I realized that Koreans have a secret weapon for solving every little problem... After a few weeks I was given incredible insight into something that has been passed down from Korean generation to Korean generation... An incredibly simple and effective problem solver that is so simple that even a small child can use it, but so powerful that with one fail swoop of the hand, the word of god can be handed down... Now, a few weeks ago when I went hiking, I came upon a little temple in the forest... Everyone there was super peaceful and the vibe of the place was extremely sublime... After an hour of meditation, a Korean Monk came over to me... I offered him the hefty sum of 25,000 won for this knowledge...

I don't know it I'm supposed to be telling you people this, so if anyone asks you, you didn't get it from me...

Bari-Bari-Bow as the "keepers" call it, has turned my life upside down, in a good way... It can be used to solve problems between 2 people, or as many as 100...

The method is very simple...

When there is a problem that needs to be solved, each side stands facing each other... They hold their hands in a closed fist and chant the phrase "Bari-Bari-Bow"... When the "Bow" is spoken, each side, evoking a might ancient Korean god, morphs their hand into one of three shapes.


Shape 1: Loosely translated as the almighty hard Earth...



Symbolizing the mighty Earth and, in extension, all of god's mighty creations, players forming this shape summon the force of the almighty to their side... It's literally like god himself coming down from heaven and pointing his hand at your side of the argument... Powerful stuff... Now the almighty hard earth easily defeats that which slices, but is defeated by the everlasting word...


Shape 2: Loosely translated as the everlasting word...



This second form is also very powerful... Like the mighty texts from various lords, The Bible, The Koran, The Bhagavad Gita, The Yellow Pages... For many centuries, this form has been handed down from powerful and omnipotent beings that obviously have their shit figured out...


Shape 3: Loosely translated as that which slices...



Like a ninja shuriken, a kitana or a ginsu, this form kicks some serious ass...

Wait a god damn minute...

Rock?!?

Paper?!?

Scissors?!?

THAT GOD DAMN MONK!!!!!!!

(But really, RPS is everywhere in this country!!! Every day and every where I see people playing it... Last weekend I was in a club in Seoul and these 2 20-something Korean dudes were sitting at a table drinking and playing fucking rock-paper-scissors... I wonder why they went home alone?.. But ya, it's everywhere... You'd think it would get old but I guess not...)

(And speaking of something getting old, another game that my kids love to play is Hang man... The only problem is... That they use like 3 words... But that won't stop them from playing for like an hour... Literally, an hour with the same 3 words... It's bizarre...)


The Lunch bell has rung, another great day in Korea is half done... Or is it half started???