Battling Appliances II

Just a continuation of the last post. I see the one mistake that I made now. Boy it really helped to take photos of those gauges! It's almost impossible to see them because they're in a really tight spot. So I didn't notice that the gauge I thought was on 27 was actually all the way off. Still, it didn't turn the heater off did it? So it doesn't matter that I made a mistake.
Anyway I just finished work. It's almost 6 o'clock and I have my heater fighting with my air conditioner again. I called Jung, the guy around here who has been burdened with the unenviable task of fielding us foreigners' complaints. He called the Idon'tcaretaker and he immediately came into my room. You know what he did? He threw the breaker switch. Exactly like I had. So I told him it doesn't work and he says to me, I am not kidding, I still can't believe this but, I mean it's one of the crazier things I've heard here and I've heard a lot of crazy things, you are not gonna believe this, he says, "Tomorrow." Tomorrow my heater will be turned off. What? I thought maybe it would take 24 hours to cool down but that would be impossible wouldn't it? I mean I could have a woodstove fully loaded and it wouldnt' take that long. You turn your heater off and it stays on for 24 hours, then shuts off. Just in case? In case, um, you aren't quite sure if you want it off and you'll need a day to decide for sure? What the fuck? I mean really what the friggin' fargin' freakin' fuck? Is there any possible way that this guy isn't just messing with me and doesn't just want me to go through a second night without sleep?

OINK!

that means only in Korea

Battling appliances

If you've ever known someone who has been to Korea and told you that it's not as nice as living at home or not the same or something to that effect, I'm sure like most people you've wanted details. People don't often have an appropriate story they can give you off the top of their heads. It might be that they forget or they force themselves to forget. It might be that they are defensive about saying anything bad about Korea because you might be a person trained to question anything negative he/she might say. It happens. So they might say something like, "Trust me you don't want to know." Or they might say, "It's no picnic," or "There's a reason U.S. soldiers there still get hardship pay." The bent of many a North American is to jump to the completely inaccurate conclusion that people who say these things are just jerks or racists or have trouble coping with change or things that don't fit into their personal comfort zones. Shame on you for thinking that!

One of my more recent pet peeves is when a person with a narrow view of the world jumps right to the defence of a people he/she knows exactly nothing about. It really offends me when people do that to me because from their ignorance they are questioning not only my statements' veracity, but also my judgement and my ability to make reasonable judgements. People often assume your judgements are wrong if they are negative. These are what I will call the "Happiness Nazis". They want to FORCE everybody to be happy.

Now I know I can be a breath of stale air sometimes but believe me, I've tried to fake like everything is honkey dorie and it's just not for me. I feel happy when I can talk about things that piss me off and get them off my chest. It doesn't work for me to ignore them or bury them in make-believe. And I take more and more offence to people who want to force me to.

A recent example: Last night while in my dorm room I heard an announcement at around 6 o'clock PM. I had no idea what it was about of course because it was all in Korean. And the Idon'tcaretaker wouldn't think to walk the 20 steps to my room, KNOCK on my door, and inform me that today is the day the heaters become functional in our rooms. So I should remove anything that might burn, melt or malfunction if it's sitting on a hot heater. No, as I have posited on this blog before, I am pretty damn sure the bastard is enjoying every single one of the petty irritations he causes me. If he liked me or was even indifferent I would have been informed of many of the things that have happened here like when they shut the power off, shut the water off, don't heat the water or change the usual water heating time. They absolutely LOVE not telling me these things.

Okay, okay, I know I've been in Korea a long time and I've got a very low level of speaking and understanding of the language. Again there are good reasons for this but people who want to blame me COULD say that the Koreans are justified in expecting me to understand the announcements. This is what I'm talking about. And I'm gonna sound like a jerk for saying this but you have to know Koreans to fully understand what's going on here. The announcement was not made to help anyone, it was made as a matter of procedure. A rule states that you need to announce these things. It's much like the meetings that took place in cities around Korea this past weekend designed to LOOK LIKE they will help foreigners with problems they might be having in Korea. EVERY single person who is not a native here would LOVE to go to one of these meetings because every person has problems here. I could have gone to see if I could get some money back for the cable internet scam Hanaro Cable in Mokpo ran on me. My friend Kasia was in a taxi accident and has gone through hell with that. There are no avenues in Korea open to foreigners who need help such as this. So why didn't I go to this meeting? Because there was no advertising at all as to where and when it would be. One sagacious person saw an ad in one of the English newspapers about it and told the Gwangju News, a magazine I voluntarily contribute to from time to time. They wanted someone to go to the thing and write something up about it so they sent me the info, but I asked them and even THEY didn't know times and locations. The meeting probably wouldn't have helped any foreigners either. I'm saying that from experience. The ad said there would be lawyers, doctors, immigration professionals and people like that at the meeting. I wonder if any of them spoke any language other than Korean. Again from experience, I doubt it. And as to whether there would have been any help offered to a foreigner who can speak Korean, I'm guessing no. The purpose of this meeting was to have the meeting. That's all.

Say this to a Korean and they'd probably just shake their head and agree with you. Because it happens every day here. There was a message posted at the immigration office that said there would be help offered to any foreigner who has any difficulty finding work in Korea due to the new immigration laws. The sign was in Korean and there have been thousands of people who had a helluva time with the new laws including me. I have yet to hear of anyone being helped.

This is how they do things here. Not just to foreigners either. The same stuff happens to Koreans. It's all smoke and mirrors. The appearance of help, not help. But to tell this to a happiness Nazi whose never known a Korean or been to the country would get me at the very least a stern tsk tsk tsk.

The bottom line is this is not yet a developed country. They are trying their best to make it LOOK developed but it's still what Thomas Friedman calls a "cleptocracy" like surrounding countries like Thailand, Indonesia, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos etc. You are pretty much on your own in those countries and you are pretty much on your own here.

So back to my heater problem. I noticed the room heating up just around the time I was heading off to bed. This is not unusual. I actually used my air conditioner the night before last, (October 21st for the love of GOD!), because it was too hot for me. But I got into bed and immediately noticed that the heater right beside my head was on. So I look on the side of the heater. There's a thermostat. I adjust it as low as it goes. But it only goes down to what looks to be about 27. As you can see the numbers go below that but there is no way to adjust it to anything less than what this ridiculously inaccurate gauge shows to be like 27? 28? You be the judge.That's too hot. As you can see, there's a red button on the bottom of the thermostat that says in English "on/off". So I turn that off and go to bed. It just gets hotter in my room. I remember the last time I taught here having trouble with this and somebody told me I had to open up a little door in the side of the heater. Of course this little door is locked and there is no key. Another thing the Idon'tcaretaker "forgot" to give me. So I jimmy it open with a knife. Inside is a fuse switch. I throw the switch and go to bed. It just gets hotter in my room. I get up AGAIN and go back into the little door area where there is another dial. I turn it all the way down. Or at least what any reasonable person would think is down. Toward the side of the smaller numbers. I go to bed again and it gets HOTTER. Evidently 3 is the lowest setting. Lower than 0. And 3 being the absolute lowest is STILL not off!

I'm pissed off now and sweating in my room. I've got the windows open but it's not really cold outside here yet even at night. Cool but not helping my perdicament at all. I notice a plug in the heater and I yank it angrily out of the socket then go back to bed. IT FUCKING GETS HOTTER!!! I swear to God I wake up and turn on my air conditioner! Now I'm sitting here at 6 AM sleepless, sweaty, with my heater AND aircon BOTH running and still no closer to a solution to my problem.

You want details? I give details. These are the kinds of problems that happen all the time all over Korea to everybody. Although I sound like I'm ready to kill someone right now, I'll go through my day today, teach my 5 classes dead tired, slough home to a toasty hot apartment and be happy because I KNOW that this is Korea. And I have this blog and a few close friends where I can write down or talk about my problems. That allows me to deal with them. I wouldn't have been able to last for as long as I have here without that ability. I CERTAINLY would have gone postal by now if I had been running away from all that is not cheery while spreading sunshine to everyone around me.

You think I'm a grumpy old man? Well screw you!

Thinkin' 'bout home

I don't want anybody to get the idea that I'm coming home yet. I can't leave here until I feel it's all been worth it. That'll be a while yet. But having had a long break with nothing to do but think, I DID get to thinkin' on home. And while a fella can wax poetic from time to time, for me I usually end up soundin' like a country music song without the music. Leastaways that's how it turned out on this here occasion. But, tarnation if I done didn't end up writin' down just zactly how I was feelin'! Gives a body peace o' mind to do that.

Goin’ Home

I’m goin’ home
where the guy beside me on the bus won’t fart n’
I can open any friggin’ egg carton.
Where if I want a coloured car I don’t need to paint one.
Where I’m just treated like a foreigner but I ain’t one.
Where a lot of boobs ain’t fake, where bread isn’t cake,
and where a steak is a steak is a steak!

I’m goin’ home
where they have Swiss Chalet not Mexicana.
Where Safeway and Super Valu give a single man a
chance to buy just one tomato, cucumber or banana.
Where goin’ out ain’t a promise or an oath.
Where Saturday I can shake, Sunday I can bake,
and any day of the week I can do both!

I’m goin’ home
where usually it’s only children who are whiney.
Where they make pants big enough for my heiney.
Where NOBODY eats rice at every single meal.
Where superheroes ain’t real, where I don’t hide what I feel,
and I don’t have to bend over to take a shower, chop veggies, kiss a girl, do the dishes, look in the mirror, walk through a doorway, sweep the floor or make a business deal.

I’m goin’ home
where a guy without much hair can get it cut.
Where folks don’t barge on through a door that’s shut.
Where traffic laws are more than just suggestions.
Where education ain’t an unfulfilled obsession.
Where pronunciation perfection ain’t this week’s textbook section,
and where consequently people make better use of an "erection".

I’m goin’ home
where cheatin' is still cheatin' if you ain’t caught.
Where jobs and diplomas aren’t bought.
Where patriotism isn’t thrust upon us,
national pride is personal, quiet and honest.
Where taxi drivers, phone operators, store clerks, customer service, food servers and deliverers, bosses, administrators, translators, and total strangers, I can talk to them!
Where home ain’t somewhere I’m goin’, it’s where I am.

What's in a name?

Names. We all have them but how often do we give them any thought? Well I've got lots of free time these days and when that happens I think about stuff. Rarely important or useful stuff but at least I think. Names are on my mind these days. Have you ever thought about where your name came from? I mean a LONG LONG time ago, who was your ancestor that chose your name and why? Some names are easy to see the source. For instance:

Jobs

People all over the world felt that they could identify with their jobs so much they chose their jobs as their names. The best example is Smith. A person who makes stuff. So a blacksmith should be a black person who makes stuff, right? But names and words can change over time as we will see. Others in this category are Cooper-barrel maker, Baker, Cook, Taylor, Butler, Fisher, Marshall, Barber, Weaver, Carpenter, Hunter and Miller.

Food

We eat every day. Ideally, more than once and not by ourselves. So it's no wonder that food found its way into the hearts of the forefathers who chose our names. Berry, Coffey, Lamb, Bass, Herring, Bean, Cherry, Mayo, Lemon and, of course, Curry and Rice. This is excluding Duncan, Hines, Kraft, Macdonald, Campbell, Perkins, Horton or other names that just remind us of delicious foods.

Nice

Some names were probably just picked because they're so nice to hear like Valentine, Day, Hale, Hardy, Love, Flowers, Frank, Boon, Golden, Gold, Good and Barr.

Wishful Thinking

Some were probably chosen with a little wishful thinking. The forefathers might have been hoping for a little self-fulfilling prophecy when they chose names like Young, Mo(o)re, Freeman, Banks, Rich, Gold, Golden, Cash, Fuller, King, Pope, Prince, Duke, Masters, Newman, Sharp, Smart, Wise, Wiley, (W)right, Strong, Hale, Hardy, Witt, Good, Best and Brewer.

Machismo

Some of the forefathers wanted tough sounding names, or possibly were just trying to make up for shortcomings when they chose names like Powers, Steele, Cannon, Sharp(e), Lions, Wolf(e), Strong, Wilder, Pierce, Lynch, Paine, and Savage.

Random Objects

Some of our forefathers seemed to go with the native North American method of choosing names whereby they just take a look around and name the kid after something they see. Here are a few examples some could probably have looked a little harder: Hall, Reed, Bell, Moss, Poole, Man(n), Marsh, Page, Warren, Webb, Wells, Barnes, and Ford.

Sex

Like eating sex is something we do every day, ideally more than once and not by ourselves. Here are a few names that unfortunately for the families have come to remind us of sex. Some more strongly than others. Parker/Park/Parks, Rogers, John, Johnson, Cummings, Peters, Peterson, Bishop, Wood, Cox, Long, Wang, Hardon, Dick(son), Bates, Bush, Ball, Hancock, Moon, Gay, Cherry, Castro?, Horn, Driver, Jones, Head, and my favourite, May. I had a friend named Tammy May. You'd be surprised how often that got her laid.

Not Nice

Some names make me think that parents didn't like their children. Like: Hicks, Welch, Little, Short, Small, Larson, Burke, Pratt, Fowler, Moran, Neal, Lowe, Barker, Gross, Leach, Moody, Palmer, Grey, or Boyle. And maybe somebody who didn't think much of himself chose the name Simpson. It means son of a dummy or simpleton.

?

I just can't figure these out: Walker, Wade, Graves, Rowe, Cross, (not happy?), Cunningham, (as opposed to a not so clever ham?), Baldwin, (I can tell you the bald don't win much), Warner, (what are we being warned of?), the Warners were probably good friends with the Hydes.

But variety is the spice of life and it's nice to have so many surnames. Here in Korea they only have about 250 surnames. Kim, Lee and Park make up about half the people here. Add Jung and Choi and you can guess the majority of Korean people's names. Names in Korea were originally chosen based on where people were from and being a small country... Believe it or not I've had a class here in Korea where every student's last name was Kim. TWICE! And these were not small classes. Of course they were chosen alphabetically to be in my class but still... it was weird.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could just choose our own names? Homer Simpson chose "Max Powers" as his name. I've heard of several women named Sandy Beach. Red Green is one of my faves. When you start combining given names with surnames the fun begins: Annie Howe, Anita Bath/Goodman/Mann/Plummer etc., Willie B. Hardigan, Tim Burr, Tanya Hyde, Rose Bush, Robin Banks, Polly Esther Taylor, Mike Hunt, Marlon Fisher, Lance Boyle, (ouch), Justin Hale, Justin Case, Herb Rice, Harry + almost all the sex names, Chuck U. Farley, Chris P. Bacon, I.P. Frehley, the list never ends!

I've had some pretty funny names here in Korea too. Bum Suck is pretty common. So is Sue Me. Dong Suck, Ho Suck, You Suck, Suck Min, and it goes on. I had a GORGEOUS girl a long time ago in my Class whose name was Yoon Mi Ae. I will never forget her name cuz I would always think, "You and me eh?" when I looked at her. Then I had a student who told me his name was You. Just You. Usually they have two given names. I didn't want to call him You cuz I would feel rude saying, "YOU! What's the answer." So I asked if he had a nickname. Since his family name was Park and Koreans have trouble with the P and F sounds his nickname was "Fuck You". He told me his dream was to become a minister.

Sometimes Koreans think OUR names are funny too. I had a friend named Kim. That's salted seaweed here. It's also the most common name. None of her students could process that it was NOT her family name. Then she met a guy named Bob. Bob is very similar to the Korean word for "rice". When they make sushi they roll ingredients in rice and salted seaweed and call it "kimbob". I also met a girl named Belinda. In Korean "Pal in da" is a really rude way to tell a woman to spread her legs.

Anyhoo that's what's on my mind right now. It's nice to have leisure.

The Korean Sting (R.I.P. Paul Newman)

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What you see above is the only evidence I have of the latest railroading I've suffered in Korea. I try my best to avoid the ripoffs but there's something in me that either won't let me mistrust all Koreans for the dishonesty of the many who have performed their corporate sodomy on my aching ass then kicked me to the curb just for being nice enough to trust them, or subconsciously I set myself up to take these butt reamings because they give me something to blog about.

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Either way, I was only a tiny bit upset when I went to the bank machine to withdraw money for this long weekend and found my account to be down a couple hundred bucks. These things happen while you're in Korea. It's an occupational hazard. NEVER expect to get the full amount stipulated in your contract because if the people you work for don't cook up some sort of scheme to withhold at least SOME of the money they promised in your contract, they just don't feel like they are being good businesspeople.

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You've gotta roll with this or it'll drive you crazy when they do things like pay you a ridiculously low hourly rate for the first month of your contract because you only worked 28 days of the month; or make you sign an 11 month contract so they don't have to pay severance and still have the gaul to include a phrase in your contract stating that you get a month's severance pay for every 12 months worked; or sometimes they don't even try to be clever, they just don't pay you what you earned. Despite the many and varied screw jobs I've been the victim of over here, or perhaps BECAUSE of them, I no longer get that upset when Koreans rip me off. Maybe that's bad, eh? I'm desensitized.

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The 184,332 won deduction from my bank account was stolen by my former cable internet provider, Hanaro Telecom in Mokpo. It wasn't a con job that I'm unfamiliar with either. It's a business tactic that I think should be illegal and I think I may have posted about it before. The lengthy contract. It might as well be called "The Wire."

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When I was working in downtown Vancouver I joined a gym that cost me $29.95 a month. I ended up leaving the job I was working at, (King George International College), because the Korean owners screwed me. Sigh. So I quit going to the gym. But they told me I was "locked into" a 2-year contract. I looked at what I had signed and even in the little tiny writing there was nothing about 2 years. The guy who showed me around the gym NEVER said anything about 2 years. The onus is on the customer to ask about the length of time he/she is expected to continue buying the product I suppose. And in this way it is absolutely unfair and people should be protected from it. But they aren't. I got nailed by the same scam with my cell phone provider too. It was a bit different. They DID tell me about the length of time I was in the agreement for, then made it absolutely impossible for me to cancel the service. This was 5 years ago I think. My cell phone is STILL in storage in Victoria and probably still functional. I'd hate to see THAT bill! They both got collectors after me and I'm not sure which but one of them actually got a warrant for my arrest sent to my brother. Assholes. I will never pay them.

The Set-Up

But in Korea things are different. A foreigner really has no way to fight against crap like this. I got the cable internet myself because if you remember Mokpo National University gets things taken care of for their foreign teachers but with glacial speed. I am hopelessly addicted to internet so after waiting a couple days for the U. to hook me up, I asked David Morris where he got his and he drew me a map. I went down the next day. A lady who spoke minimal English sat me down, gave me a coffee and went through her spiel. VERY fast internet for an unusually low price. I was paying about 50 bucks a month in Yang Ju before I moved to Mokpo. The deal with Hanaro was much cheaper. I think 20 bucks cheaper!

The Hook

She took me over to a TV that was hooked up to the cable TV service that I would get free along with the internet. It was really high-tech! You could call up a menu on the screen with all sorts of different categories like movies, comedy, news, specials and SPORTS! Then it would list all kinds of events past, prestent or future. Some of them needed extra pay, usually 500 won or about 60 cents. There was pause, rewind, fast forward, things were automatically recorded so if sports take place at 3 am, (which they do here), I could watch them at a more convenient time. And the olympics were just around the corner. The equivalent of Korean Teevo plus internet all at a cheaper rate than usual. I was hooked.

The Tale

The lady sat me down again and mentioned a few of the names of past teachers at Mokpo U. who she had dealt with. I recognized a couple of them as teachers who were still working there. Then she got down to the contract. It was a three-year deal. I told her I wasn't interested but she insisted that I could break the contract at any time with no penalty. I remember spending a lot of time trying to communicate to her that I couldn't understand the purpose of the contract if I could break it penalty-free at any time. Her English was conveniently insufficient to answer my questions about this. She ensured me that many past Mokpo U. teachers were happy with the service. I HAD asked David if it was good and he had had no troubles. So, desperate for internet, I signed. My big mistake was selecting the automatic payment option. The company just took the monthly payments directly out of my bank account. A convenience that turned out to be not so convenient.

The Sting

Everything got hooked up soon after signing. There were a few big bumps in the road though. I immediately noticed that I could no longer use all of the programs that I had been using in Yang Ju with LG Telecom cable internet. I called Hanaro to get a technician to my house to check it out. The guy they sent knew less about computers than I do, (and that's next to nothing). He didn't get the programs working and left my computer permanently messed up. Worse than before he came. A LOT worse. Also after a few days of monkeying with the "Teevo" I realized it was crap. Nothing new was ever recorded. It was the same junk on the harddrive of the cable box I had. So I got them to disconnect that while they were at it. But for 6 months, apart from not being able to use Yahoo programs, I have to say the internet was pretty good.

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Then I decided to move to Gwangju for the job I have now. I called the lady who had signed me to the Hanaro contract and she gave me the number of some other people to call. Those other people spoke much better English. Unfortunately they were able to communicate to me that there would be a 200-dollar penalty for breaking the contract.And you know, I hardly even argued. I never raised my voice and I think I even thanked the guy before hanging up.

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Hanaro Telecom is just one of those companies that makes me wonder if things will EVER change here in Korea. They always talk about being a global economy and they make all kinds of empty gestures to ensure their overseas trading partners that they are complying with international business standards such as sending thousands of accountants back to accounting school to "learn" the international accounting techniques. My experience in the Korean "education" system tells me those accountants learned nothing, they just finished the course. And those techniques probably will not be implemented anyway. But when a big wig from a prospective super-client comes to inspect the company he/she is thinking of doing business with they will be informed that all the accountants finished the course. The "set-up."

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Recently, though, I have seen a ray of sunshine in the business environment of Korea. This is a tremendously NON-letigious society. Nobody sues for anything. Often when there's an accident the parties involved settle things at the site. But there has been a class action lawsuit filed against Hanaro Telecom for giving clients' information to other dirty Korean companies who use stolen, confidential information to spam people with ads about their products. I have had my phone for like 5 years and I had only received spam from ONE company until I signed with Hanaro. Now I get it all the time. Sometimes at 3 am. It doesn't matter to these companies when they spam you. The inconceivable thing is, there have got to be people responding! Right? Otherwise they wouldn't do it.

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Anyway, I sure hope Hanaro gets what it deserves. I heard there's a possibiliy of every Hanaro client getting a million won. That's over a thousand bucks! THAT would be a nad shot! And I hope the companies Hanaro gives people's numbers to get their just deserts too. But my experience with Korean business tells me that Hanaro will just pay a pile of cash to the lawyers who are launching this class action lawsuit and it'll be dropped.

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If not, I'd sure like to know how I can get in on this lawsuit payout! There's really no way for a foreigner to find out things like that. If I got a million won it would really only be 800,000 since they've already stung me for 200,000 but it's the thought that counts.

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I know some of you are probably thinking, "Why didn't you just cancel your account and start a new one so Hanaro wouldn't be able to take the money out of your account?" Well having lived in Korea for as long as I have, I certainly DID think of that! However, since this recent backlash against foreigners rules have been changed at Korean banks that don't allow foreigners to withdraw cash using their bank cards overseas. My bank card was acquired before this racist rule was implemented so it works in Thailand and the Philippines. If I were to start a new account I'd get a card that doesn't function overseas. To keep from dealing with any credit card company, (who are the WORST offenders when it comes to business ethics), is worth a couple hundred bucks to me.

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I don't even want to mention the 201,300 won deduction above the Hanaro theft. You see, I have no receipt for that and I ALWAYS keep my bank machine receipts in my wallet. There have been several incidents like this as well. Some quite recently. I was in I Tae Won and a girl I know there told me to make sure nobody sees my PIN number at a bank machine cuz there had been a rash of recent bank machine thefts. I have no idea how a person would do this but money is the mother of all invention isn't it? Necessity? Nice euphamism Ben! I figure somebody DID see my PIN number that weekend in I Tae Won cuz there were a couple entries in my bank book that I forgot. But somehow I manage to forget a LOT of things when I'm in I Tae Won. It's like the Vegas of Korea in that way.

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I hope some day Koreans all go abroad and get ass burgled by other "cleptocracies" over here in Asia and realize how these con artist business practices make the victims feel. Maybe then things will genuinely change here. But in my eyes while countries like Indonesia, The Philippines, Viet Nam, Cambodia etc. are con men wearing rags in a dirty alley playing the shell game or Three Card with foolish passers-by, Korea is a guy dressed in an Armani suit on an 8 lane super-thoroughfare playing the shell game or three-card with foolish passers-by. I have SO much less respect for the Korean because they don't need to do it. But they still do. I hope Korea finds some way to stop it before the global economy punishes them for it. But my experience in Korea tells me it'll be a hard part of their culture to change.