Kia WINS!

I hope this link will work.

These are the highlights of maybe the best game of baseball I've ever seen. I remember when Joe Carter hit his World Series winning home run for the Blue Jays but I don't remember the game being quite as exciting as this one.

I was at home watching it on my computer with my friend Guns. We had a few beers and were planning to go watch at a bar somewhere after having only a couple at my place. We didn't want to tear ourselves away from the game. It was that exciting. We finished all our beer and had a couple White Russians before the game finally came to its AWESOME conclusion. It was a long one. I think it was over 4 hours.

So after jumping around, high fiving, high tenning and yelling a lot, Guns and I went to a place downtown for further celebration. There were a couple VERY unfortunate things about the game, however. It started at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. I talked with a few people who had tried to watch it in a bar and they said there really weren't that many people watching in bars. Because of the time. One guy said he was the only one in the place he was at and the owner said to him that he was sad the game started at 2 since he wasn't getting that much business. At 6 PM the day before Gwangju's Olympic Soccer Stadium was opened up and some fans watched game 6 on the big screen there. But the fact that the stadium was opened wasn't very well advertised so not many people went. And, of course, Kia didn't win game 6. I would have gone if I'd known though. The soccer stadium wasn't open for game seven again because it was at 2 in the afternoon.

The other unfortunate thing was that the final was played in Seoul at Chamshill Stadium. I guess that's where all the Kia fans were because when we got to downtown Gwangju after the game there was no sign that the home team had just won one of the most dramatic victories ever. It was pretty dead.

We went to the German Bar. It's one of two foreigner bars in town. Really the only pub in Gwangju. There was nobody there when we arrived at about 8 PM. And there are plenty of foreigners here who are big Tiger fans. But, undeterred, we asked the waitress to put the game replay on the TV and we watched it one more time while drinking German beer.



Above is a good pic of the game 7 hero, Na Ji Weon and the guy I thought should have been the Series MVP, Aquilino Lopez. Na is a second year player for the Tigers. If you scroll WAY back in this blog to find my season predictions for the Tigers I wrote that I thought Na Ji Weon might just "bust out" and have a good year this year. Talk about busting out! I don't think he deserved MVP but it was a popular choice and I can't say I'm sad to see him get it. I've seen a lot of Tigers games and usually I'm there for warm-ups a couple hours before the game. It's pretty clear that Na Ji Weon is well loved by his teammates. He's a funny-looking, clumsy, player with a bad, Kirby Pucket-esque body. The other Tigers often joke around with him on the field. He's got that kind of mascot-like position on the team. Because of this a LOT of people were pulling for him to do well this year. I really like him.

He had a very good year. He wasn't a regular starter but despite that he got 384 at bats. That was fourth on the team behind former major leaguer Choi Hee Seop, this year's league MVP, Kim Sang Hyun, and Tiger superhero, Lee Jong Beom. He got over 100 hits 73 RBI's and 23 homers. I'd call that busting out.

In the first game of the Korea Series he didn't start. But he came in for 2 at bats. He got out both times. Then in the second game he got up 4 times, had no hits and one sacrifice bunt. (which of course didn't work). He didn't start game three but he looked better getting a walk and a strike-out in two at bats. In game four he started. I was nervous that Jo Beom Hyun was going to keep him out of the game but was happy to see him play. He got two strike-outs and an out before FINALLY getting his first hit up the middle and knocking in his first run of the series.

So in the first 4 games he went 1/11, 3K, 1RBI. Not MVP type numbers. I thought he wouldn't start game 5 but he did. Gotta give credit to coach Jo for sticking with him. In game 5 he got another hit, another strike-out and another sacrifice. (which didn't work). In game 6 he got a hit and a walk in 4 at bats. So his numbers were 3/17, 4K, 1RBI, 1BB. Still not overwhelming but he was looking more and more comfortable.

In game 7 he hit TWO homers, got 3 RBI's and even threw in a walk. His final numbers were 5/21, 4K, 4RBI, 2BB. His average in the series was less than .250. Just about the entire SK lineup had a better average than that. But he DID win the final game for Kia pretty much single-handedly. And I didn't see any envy at all from other players. They were all happy for him. And I sure was!

Lopez got 2 wins and a hold in game 7. I thought he shoulda won MVP. But I kinda like it when the MVP is not a pitcher.

Choi Hee Seop hit .320 in the series, (8/25), including 4 walks, 6 runs, 5 RBI's. These are better numbers than Na Ji Weon and his two RBI's in game two won the game 2-1 for the Tigers. I suppose the reason I wouldn't give him the MVP was that he hit zero homers and struck out 5 times. He supposed to be the Tigers' home run guy.

An honourable mention goes to An Chi Hong. I noticed this rookie in pre-season and said he'd platoon with another guy at second base this season. Well the other guy is now history. An Chi Hong was voted to the All Star Game and got the MVP of that! A rookie! Too bad I was in Thailand when that happened! In the Korea Series he hit .286, (6/21) with 2 runs, 2 RBI's, 2 stolen bases and a homer. Not spectacular but it was a defensive series. And his defence was STELLAR as you can see from watching the highlights of game seven at the top of this page. He's number 8 on second base. I think he got about 10 outs in the game.

My two favourite players did well also. Lee Jong Beom hit only .238 but won game one to get the Tigers off to a good start. He also had 4 walks, 4 RBI's and 2 runs. Yoon Suk Min pitched 12 innings giving up 14 hits, and 3 runs. He struck out 11 batters but in all that time the Tigers gave him 2 runs worth of support. He won game two but lost 3-2 in game six. However Yoon won the All Star game and Lee Jong Beom was runner up for MVP.

What a great year it was for the Tigers! I can't wait for next season!

Tigers 2, Wyverns 2

The Korea Series is in full swing and for those who just don't give a crap about Korean baseball, stop reading now. I tried starting a new blog just for my favourite Korean baseball team, the Kia Tigers, but I couldn't keep up with it during my vacation to Thailand/Cambodia and I just couldn't find a good way to pick up afterwards. The Tigers were in 3rd or 4th when I left and first place when I got back. They never left first for the remainder of the year although the SK Wyverns put on a MASSIVE run of 20 games unbeaten to end the season. One was a 2-2 tie, which stupidly counts as a loss in Korea, but they still weren't beaten in their last 20 games. You would think that'd get them into first but the Tigers won 7 of their own in a row to finish out the year.

I really like the way they do things in the KBO as far as their playoff format. The 3rd and 4th place teams slug it out in a best of 5 to play the 2nd place team in a best of 5 and the winner of that takes on a very well rested season champion in the Korea Series. That well rested champion was Kia this year. They sat back and watched while the Doosan Bears beat a feisty Lotte Giant club 3 games to 1. Then they got a 2-0 lead on SK. I was shocked given the finish SK had! They hadn't lost two games in like two MONTHS! But SK came back to win the next three.

So as expected it's the SK Wyverns vs. the Kia Tigers in the Korea Series. The first two games were Tigers home games in Gwangju. OF COURSE I went to see them, right? Nope. I ended up going to my friends' restaurant grand opening that weekend. (which was this past weekend). I had a great time though! Met some nice folks and I was very impressed with the restaurant the Jackson family has set up. It's a breakfast restaurant in the Peng San area. That's near Pyeong Taek. I think they'll do all right. Likely within 6 months there'll be 4 or 5 copycats down the street. Already several people have said they were "thinking about" doing that...


Above is a pic of Moodeung Stadium, the Kia Tigers home field, as I went by in a taxi on the day of the first game of the KBO finals. Known as the Korea Series. I went to about 30 home games this year so I'm pretty comfortable in old Moodeung. It was about 1 in the afternoon when I passed by and already the crowd was REALLY thick for the game at 6 in the evening. I think I'm probably lucky I didn't try to go.

It was good to see the family again and I even went to church with them. A nice cozy, little church that sings songs that I remember from MY church-going days. The pastor is a retired military man and his sermon was on something that has been coming up again and again lately for me. It's not something good. It's the idea that when the shit hits the fan, don't sweat it cuz it just makes you stronger. It actually says that we are to "count it all JOY when we fall into divers temptations and persevere." That's in the Bible. Maybe not exactly like that, but it's there, man. Trust me.

I've been struggling with a supervisor who is doing his best to make things as tough as he can for me. He told me I could teach at camps during vacations, that I'd get my own private internet in my room, and that I'd be getting a raise so I make the bare minimum salary here in Korea:2 million won a month. All three were contract promises and all three were lies. It's VERY hard to count that kind of stuff JOY! Kicking his scrawny, spineless, prevaricating ASS would be a joy though. But not very Christian of me. Just one of the divers temptations I have to power through.

Also this semester, AS ALWAYS, he gave me my schedule without classroom numbers and as always I went to a couple of the wrong classrooms and taught at least one class full of students who sat there for 20-30 minutes before telling me I was in the wrong room. But because this happens every single time I had asked my supervisor if he was absolutely positive of the room numbers cuz they didn't sound correct to me. He assured me, (lied to my face), that they were correct.

Then this past week during midterm exams I had 3 of my 4 exams scheduled at the same time: Monday at 10 AM. The one exam that wasn't conflicting with any others was, of course, the exam for my supervisor's class, the flight attendants. Since I knew what to expect if I asked him to help with the other conflicts, I solved the problems on my own by going to the various offices of the three other departments I teach. Between the deans of the physiotherapy and dental assistant departments we were able to hammer out a revised schedule so that dental was at 9 and physio was at 10. I couldn't find the dean of the E.M.T. program so I arranged with the students to have the exam at noon on Monday. My supervisor assumed I wouldn't be able to do this, (because he thinks his job is actually hard), and he sent me a message around 11 saying, "EMERGENCY! Your class is waiting for you! Where are you?" I called him back and said, "Relax they know the exam is at 12." Sure enough they all showed up at 12. This PISSED my supervisor off!

That's what I'm dealing with here. And there are dozens of other stories I could tell. In fact scroll down my archives and read. You'll find some of them. But it has been really good recently to be talking with some of my friends about this very subject. I have actually been encouraging OTHERS to stay positive in the midst of trials and tribulations and now it's ME who has to take my own advice. I wrote a letter today to my supervisor's supervisor explaining what a jagoff he's been but because I have a pretty sweet deal here, (all things considered), and I like the hours, my students, my long vacations and I don't have a wife or kids so don't need a ton of money, I'm still happy. I'd better just accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative. I haven't sent the letter to anyone although I have the email of the guy who could probably fire my supervisor's ass. I don't think I will either. Why fix what ain't too badly broke?

But back to baseball. I'm hoping I don't have to use this strategy with the Tigers although, here I go. The Tigers won the first two games. Aquilino Lopez, (a former Blue Jay hurler), started game one for the Tigers and I have to admit, I am BLOWN AWAY by how well he's done this year! Early in the season I said he'd probably crap out and be sent home. But he's not only stuck around, he's become one of the best pitchers in the league. He's now known for getting stronger as the games go on. He's the one and ONLY pitcher on the Kia staff that the coach leaves in past the 7th inning because around about that time he's virtually unhittable. I saw some stats on a broadcast that were astounding! Like opponents' batting average after the 6th inning is like .090 or something ridiculous like that! So he pitched game one. He pitched 8 innings giving up 6 hits including one solo homer. It worked out to 3 runs. Not spectacular but it was as dry as the Sahara Desert for the SK hitters on the night. They're not used to that kind of low production.

The offensive hero of the night for the Tigers was the veteran Lee Jong Beom. Everybody's favourite player. He's been around for ages here in Gwangju. The people of Gwangju know him as "The Son of the Wind", (I think it's "Param Adeul" in Korean), for one season when he hit .393, stole 84 bases and got 196 hits. (He was only caught stealing 15 times.) But that was back in 1994! Nobody expected him to star out now, but he had a good season this year and even at 38 he's producing in the playoffs. On a night when the Tigers only got 6 hits, he got two of them and they were clutch hits that earned him 3 R.B.I.'s and were the difference in the game. The final score was 5-3 for Kia. I watched the game at Scott and Minju's new restaurant. They have a big screen there. It wasn't open yet, (they were setting things up while I watched), but next day was opening day.


Above is a pic of the restaurant interior and the TV upon which I watched this historic game. That's Alex in the foreground. Because Peng Sang has a big military presence he got an American quarter and flipped it over to the heads side and asked me, "Uncle Dave, that's Barack Obama, right?" If you blow the pic up you might be able to read the extensive menu. It's mouthwatering. You can also see it in the pic on the right.

On opening day, Scott was all by himself in the kitchen cooking for an army of friends and family that ALL showed up at once. A nightmare for ANY restaurant never mind one that hasn't cooked a single meal yet. But he did admirably. There were even some walk-in customers but it was, of course, too slow for most because of the huge backlog brought on by the festivities. The customers understood. I think.

I couldn't get a picture of Scott. He was a blur in the kitchen making waffles, bacon, eggs, French toast, you wouldn't believe the menu. I wish I could post it but I lost the site. It's online. He takes phone-in orders too. That's gonna be popular.

Anyway, it was a long wait for most but for most we didn't care. We were all socializing and enjoying ourselves while Scott whipped up his magic and Min Ju distributed it all and collected the money. I think they're both going to be exponentially happier now that they don't have to teach any more. Not that they won't miss the teaching, but, like me they're gonna LOVE getting rid of the shit that comes with it. Like having to be nice to students' parents who are unreasonable and crappy supervisors and so on.


Here's Jeff, the Jackson's upstairs neighbour, eating the first order. It was the Hungry Human Breakfast. That's what I got too. And trust me you have to be very hungry or not quite human. And here's Minju waiting on tables. I KNOW she's loving every second of this new restaurant!

But back to baseball, Kia and SK played on opening day for "Bacon 'N Eggs": October 17th at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. This is closing time for the restaurant. We watched the first inning at the restaurant and the owner of the building came by, took a look and said, "Let's franchise!" Then we went home and watched the rest on TV. ANOTHER big Screen! Scott and Min Ju have done well for themselves in their businesses!

This time, MY favourite pitcher on Kia was pitching: Yoon Suk Min. Internationally for Korea he has the best record, PERIOD! But he's largely overlooked by Koreans. Same thing in the KBO. He's respected but not considered elite. I DO consider him elite and in game two he made the SK hitters his bitches! He scattered 7 hits over 7 innings giving up ZERO runs and striking out 7. The reason he's not a pitching GOD in Korea is because his team never seems to give him run support. He's like a Korean Dave Stieb. Boy THAT'S dating myself! I'd like to date myself. I'm a good guy. Good sense of humour. Not bad looking. A pretty good catch really. Eehhhh anyhooo, Kia only got 5 hits in the game and two of them went to their former major leaguer Choi Hee Seop. He knocked in one run each and that was enough for the win. Very dependable closer Yoo Dong Hoon gave up a homer in the 9th but the final was 2-1. I nearly pooped my pants when the home run was hit in the ninth. I even told Scott, who was in another room, "OH NO! Tie game," because I thought there was another guy on base. But I forgot he had been thrown out on a close play. During the season Yoon Suk Min LOST close games like this because of little tiny mistakes by relief pitchers or fielders or whatever. He didn't have a stellar season this year. He went 9 and 4 with 7 saves during an inexplicable stint as the best pitcher in the league being used as the CLOSER! Man that was frustrating for me! And for him! I think I even saw him purposely trying to be bad so as to be removed from that role. Don't blame him. Anyway, I think he'll get to pitch again and I'm hoping he'll win, it'll be for the championship and I'll be there in Seoul to watch! Maybe, just maybe THEN he'll get the respect he deserves.

On to game three. The scene now switches to Incheon, the home of the SK Wyverns. The starting pitcher for Kia was my personal acquaintance, Rick Guttormson. I met him at a pub in downtown Gwangju. We drank for a while together and chatted a bit. I still don't consider him a "friend" because he said he'd give me a signed ball at the game the next day, but he wasn't the starting pitcher even though he though he would be. So I got no ball. Not HIS fault at all. But I don't know if he'd know me from Adam or not. Next time I drink with him I'll consider him my friend. Then maybe he'll overtake Yoon Suk Min as my favourite pitcher on the team. Unless I happen to meet Lopez... I sat beside Guttormson's younger brother at one game too. Nice guy.

Anyway, he had a VERY uncharacteristically bad outing. He gave up 4 hits in the first 2 innings, which doesn't sound that bad, but he also surrendered 2 walks and by the time he was yanked he'd given up 4 runs including one homer. I've watched him all season and I KNOW he's a bit of a slow starter like most pitchers. His worst innings are the early ones. But because of the shitty internet I have here in the dorms and the TV I used to have that exploded, I was unable to watch the game so I don't know if he should have been pulled or not. I'm guessing NOT. The coach Jo Beom Hyun is far too willing to go to the bullpen even though he's got the best starters in the league. And NOT the best bullpen. Suffice to say the next guy, Seo Jae Eung, (another former major leaguer), gave up 4 runs in the next two innings and the guy who has been the darling of the coach and the scourge of the bullpen for a few seasons: Son Young Min, gave up 3 more in his one inning. The Kia batters piled up 6 runs in a late-inning comeback attempt that Son Young Min made sure fell short. Kim Sang Hyun, the league's shoe-in M.V.P. got two hits, a homer and 4 R.B.I.'s but his efforts were wasted by bad pitching. I'm kinda glad I missed that game. I went for a bracing walk after trying fruitlessly to bring it up on my computer. Probly better for me anyway.

Yesterday was the best game of the series. By remarkably good luck I had enough bandwidth to get the game. The starter for Kia was Yang Hyun Jong who had no wins and 5 losses last year. Also a 5.83 E.R.A. Thing is I remembered him from last year as being a pretty good pitcher. I got him mixed up with Yoon Suk Min a few times. Only he's a lefty. I went to a couple pre-season games this year and he was pitching and he was VERY impressive. The games were VERY boring because of him! That's why I remember.

Not that pre-season usually means anything but I wasn't that surprised to see him bust out this year and have a great season. He went 12 and 5 with a very solid 3.15 E.R.A. And he had a very good outing yesterday as well. He went 5 2/3 giving up only 4 hits. The coach, as usual, pulled him WAY too early. I was watching and he should not have been pulled. Only 88 pitches! He DIDN'T deserve to lose either! He gave up one home run on a 3-0 pitch. What kind of megalomaniac swings at a 3-0 pitch? I mean honestly! That went for two runs. Luckily for the megalomaniac. Then Kim Sang Hyun, (Kia's MVP), hit a ball that probably would have been a homerun if not for a spectacular catch by the SK fielder. I think given the right circumstances this will be the Korean equivalent of "the catch". For those of you who don't know just google it. Dwight Clark would be a virtual unknown otherwise.

Yang struck out 6 and walked only 2 in 6 innings of work. Those are awesome numbers. He just made that one mistake probably thinking, "There's no WAY this guy's gonna swing at an 3 and oh pitch!" Or in Korea, an oh and 3 pitch. And that was all she wrote. Lee Hyun Gon went 3/4 with a homer and Na Ji Weon, (who I really like), got his first hit and RBI but it was all for naught. In the 9th inning with two out the third run for Kia scored on an error. Then 3/3 Lee Hyun Gon stepped up to the plate and hit a solid ball RIGHT AT the shortstop. The real difference in the game was that catch. It would have been a two-run homerun and Kia would have won the game if it were like an inch higher. But it ended as a 4-3 loss for the Tigers.

But, oh well. Count it all joy! Now I know for SURE that there will be a game Friday. Today is an off day while the teams make their ways to Chamshill Stadium in Seoul, (a money-making scheme I really hate), which is one of the few things I don't like about the KBO. I have ONE class tomorrow. A bogus hagwon class that was just piled on to fill out my sched. Probably only one student will show! Because of that I can't go to the game in Seoul tomorrow. Unless I just say fuck it! And nothing against this one guy who shows up but, he's a few sandwiches short of a picnic. He's the REASON the other 40 people dropped out of this class. I don't think it'd be too hard to think something up...

But before I get any idears... there WILL be a game on Friday! So I don't have to neglect my duties here. Even though my beloved employers have already breached the contract 3 times I am STILL going to teach a class of one weirdo rather than be a part of history tomorrow. Count it all joy! See what I mean? There's no doubt in my mind that this theme has arisen at an appropriate time in my life. And although I squawk and squeak like a greasy wheel I really do like my job. So I don't think it'll be too big a downer to miss the game tomorrow. Who knows, maybe there'll be TWO games I can catch in Seoul! And the winner of the Korea series will be Kia and I will be there to watch it! Then this will all sound like useless whining.

But I'll have to keep that in mind while I'm teaching my ONE class at 4 PM tomorrow. Oh to clarify, the game is at 6 PM and it takes 4 hours plus to get to the stadium in Seoul from Gwangju. If not for the one student I'd go. But because of him I can't. I am guessing Lopez will be pitching tomorrow and if he makes it past the early innings before getting the nervous Jo Bum Hyun hook, he'll probably win. Then more than likely it'll be my favourite pitcher Yoon Suk Min on Friday. I can't complain.

So anyway, that's how things are this end. Sorry if you are not a fan of baseball but... I warned you.

The Study Card Argument

I heard, and saw, quite an interesting argument for atheism on youtube. Funny thing about youtube for me is when I go there I usually end up watching stuff you don’t really need to watch. I end up surfing stand-up. I love listening to comedians and with a few exceptions like Carrot Top, magician comedians or guys who are spastically jumping around on the stage and making faces, you don’t need to see anything. So you usually get a collage of still photos while you hear the act. I was listening to comedy by a guy named Doug Stanhope. Totally filthy but he makes some really good points. Like why are American people worried so much about the “under God” part of the pledge of allegiance being recited by school children? Shouldn’t they be more worried about the “liberty and justice for all” part? And why do we need to advertise so much? If you have a good product you don’t need to advertise. Almost everybody tries drugs but THEY aren’t advertised. In a democracy we get to pick our leaders, yay! But what if I’m doing okay leading myself? Where does MY vote go? This is what makes Americans Americans. Well would you still call yourself a Christian if you voted in a new Jesus every four years? Or the 4 million people a year who come into America and don’t contribute a thing that should be kicked back where they came from: babies! (I don't know how to post youtube links here but you can find the ones I'm talking about easily)

By remarkable coincidence this atheist guy who posted on youtube looked like Stanhope and I clicked on his video by mistake. But I was intrigued. I listened to the entire argument – something this atheist would most likely discount the possibility of a believer in some sort of religion doing. Likely, but I can’t say for sure. I just got a feeling that this guy had that swagger about him. His monotone voice and half closed eyes gave me the impression of perceived intellectual superiority. And it seemed a bit hypocritical since Atheism is packaged with a belief system analogous to religion. In my opinion anyways.

The scenario was as follows: He had a stack of all the religious beliefs in the world written on study cards so that the stack was massive. All the beliefs except those that I believe myself, that is. The atheist goes on to say that as we go through the cards I explain why I don’t believe in all the things written on the cards and we write my reasoning for non-belief on the backs of every individual card. He says that at some point we wouldn’t have to write anything on the backs of the cards any more, we could just refer back to earlier cards where I had explained why I didn’t believe in something else that was similar. Then he says after days and days of doing this we got to the bottom where he had secretly written all the things I DO believe in and says that when we get to those cards we could just as easily discount them using some of the earlier cards as precedence.

A pretty arrogant assumption in my opinion. First of all I really don’t think that it would have been very easy for me to GET to the bottom of the stack without finding a hell of a lot of cards that I could not discount. There would be lots of cards that are based in the same sort of reason or faith that is at the heart of my own belief system. Therefore I could not arrogantly discount them, rather I would set them aside and say that they could very well be true as far as I know. My beliefs are not always based on something that is easily proved or disproved. Often they are based on things that are impossible to prove. That’s why it’s called “faith”.

For example if there was a card that said, “Allah has always been and always will be.” I would be an arrogant dick to say that this is untrue. Rather, I believe I’d say that it could very well be possible. I just prefer to call the infinite being “God” instead of “Allah”. It’s more a question of preference, culture or geography than proof or logic or any scientific explanation.

Or one of the cards contained the idea that there was a “cosmic egg” of matter that imploded upon itself creating what “science” calls the “Big Bang”, which is the beginning of the universe as we know it. And BELIEVE me this IS a religious belief! I would have no reasoning to refute this argument because the cosmic egg is the infinite matter in this philosophy and it isn’t much different than an infinite Being that I believe in who, through divine design created the beginnings of the universe as we know it. It is absolutely identical in theory if not in terminology. I just happen to think that outrageously good luck is harder to believe in than a sentient Creator.

Indeed even this youtube guy’s atheism is something I couldn’t refute. It could very well be true for all I know and the reasoning he has for it is surely exactly the same as my reasoning on many counts. This guy apparently believes that people who aren’t atheists absolutely “KNOW” every little detail of their entire faith and have readily available streams of logic with which to reinforce those details. Well that’s not faith, that’s training. That’s somebody trying to explain something that he/she will never fully understand with knee-jerk, unchallenged dogma.

I will never claim to understand God and I’m not so arrogant as to assume that I have irrefutable evidence of my beliefs. It is only people who are as dogmatic as to think that everything is, or even CAN be explainable that would fail this study card test. That is, their own beliefs on the cards at the end would have been self-refuted at the beginning. This, admittedly, is the kind of thinking that, when attached to a religion, causes inter-religious fighting and has lead to countless wars, fights, bloodshed and violence. It’s interesting that before stumbling across this atheist’s post I was listening to a rant by Stanhope which noted that you never hear news reports saying, “Credit for the bomb that killed 180 people in the atheist settlement was claimed by the agnostic liberation organization,” or something like that.

I am not this kind of believer and I think there are MANY more like me who believe strongly without feeling any need to force others into our way of thinking. If all religion could be like this perhaps nobody would fail this test. Perhaps religion and spiritualism all over the world would be able to conspire for more good than bad.

But the guy has a point. There certainly are some people who would fail this test. Those people are more soldiers and less believers. And I agree, this kind of mental discipline is detrimental to the world and indeed their own religions. But it’s pretty darn arrogant of this guy to think that nobody who has spiritual beliefs could ever pass this test, or even that atheists themselves would get to the end of the stack and have all their cherished beliefs completely unassailed by the arguments made on the backs of the previous piles of cards.

And if this is, as advertised on youtube, the most compelling argument for atheism, this guy, and this argument, sure don’t make me want to go find a local atheist meeting and hang out with folks just like him. And that’s the point that this guy is making in an unintentional and self-defeating way: a closed mind is a dangerous thing. Anyone who believes in this card stack argument is a dogmatic atheist and that’s just as bad as a dogmatic believer.

Atheism is a relatively new thing. Given time I’m sure they’d cause lots of wars if they continue to believe so closed-mindedly. At least that's what I reckon.

Beware the round-eye

Did I call this or did I call this? If you read this blog you'll know, (and if you don't, just trust me, I said this would happen), it wasn't long ago that I predicted lots and lots of Korean people would be led by the nose onto the popular belief, (or "wave" as they now call popular beliefs in Korea), that foreigners are dispicable, immoral, child-molesters and drug addicts. Not that this wave needed much momentum.

Well here is a VERY well researched account of how ludicrous this whole thing really is. Thanks very much to gusts of popular feeling a blog I follow.

Now I don't know how accurate the statistics are in this article and I am a firm believer in the quote that says, "There are three kinds of lies, white lies, damned lies and statistics." BUT, because of past experience with Korean media, I don't think I even NEED to do the research, I'll just assume these statistics are far more accurate than anything that has lead Koreans to these misinformed points of view. Not that these ideas usually arise from any kind of statistics, newspaper reading or clinical study but...

It would be like asking Quickdraw McGraw's trusty dog, Snuffles, if he would mind finishing off the excess doggie bis que eets. Sorry it's not in English but you get the idea. Sort of the way I react for lasagna. (for anyone under the age of 30, Quickdraw Mcgraw was a dog with a dog, not unlike Goofy and Pluto. His dog, who was much more dog-like than him, would do almost anything for a dog bisquit and when he finally received his reward he would go into a state of bliss that included harp music and softly floating to the ground. Look it up on youtube sometime. Update yourself on the rich history of the great cartoons you have now.)

Anyway, now that I've committed the comedic no-no of analyzing my own joke thus rendering it laughless, I will continue. I've been positing and suppositioning and conjecturing and presuming and postulationing and opining, and word-inventing etc. (I'll put old Roget away now), that this was a very real and palatable "wave" crashing into the shore that is the peninsula of Korea. But surely there were doubters of my voice of reason. Surely there were those who stood by the Asian wisdom of Asians and held that there was no way such a wise culture could create such a harmful stereotype particularly in light of the very harmful stereotypes perpetrated on the Asians of being good at math and knowing martial arts and working hard and getting straight A's and... um... where was I going with this?

Well - HA! There it is in black and green!

The point of all of this is just the ability to show some people how tough it is for us foreign English teachers to live here sometimes. You absolutely KNOW that when you are introduced to your gorgeous 13-year-old student's parents they're not thinking about how good a teacher you are any more. Hell, she/he could be a total boot! It really doesn't matter. I have had more than one job interview that consisted of not a whole lot more than, "Don't "DATE" the students and we'll all be happy."

There was some question in my mind about whether there really WAS a problem with this sort of thing in the past that had lead to this sort of interview or whether it was just plain rumour and gossip. I found out that it was sort of both. In one school, I won't name, there was a teacher found to have "DATED" a student or two and who was fired for doing so. The thing is, he wasn't a foreigner, he was Korean. And he wasn't without a job for very long, he's back teaching as we speak. I don't want to go out on too slim a limb but I doubt this is an isolated incident. I've worked with many a teacher whose "care" for his students, or even "HER" students, transcended that which is rightfully considered appropriate.

EEEeeewwwww! I know! I have been pretty much crawling through the Sahara sands of sex for as long as I care to remember and I still haven't had even an instant with any of my students that made me fear that I'd "DATE" them! It just makes me shiver with disgust! I KNOW Juliet was only 13 when she got jiggy wid Romeo but these 19 and 20-year-olds I have in my class are in so many ways YOUNGER than Juliet. I guess I'm a bit like Roman Polanski in that I see beauty in these young girls, (at least 90% of my students are female), but "YOUNG" is the key word here. I just can't equate sex with them. REALLY! So it's very easy for me to do my job without surreptitiously investigating loose-hanging shirts or wide open skirts. And even though I have no problem saying that there are MANY drop-dead gorgeous girls in my classrooms, I'm talking Hanna Montana, not Angelina Jolie. I appologize for the crudity but to me, taking their underwear off would be pretty much like changing a diaper. And just so you know, I don't get any thrill from that.

I've had many a good session of just shooting the shit with my stewardess classes. They know I love this and it's exponentially less work for them to just carry on a conversation with me than it is to stick to the lesson plan. This doesn't mean I'm creepily keeping track of details like where they live or if they're single or not. It doesn't take them too long to realize that I'm just a harmless guy. And if you know what I'm talking about, this makes it EVEN HARDER to remain harmless! They begin to trust you and to be more physical and touchy-feely with you. I have actually put a limit on this with my students.

I think there are probably quite a few students who wonder if I'm gay! Or at least they wouldn't be too surprised if I decided to come out in class one day. But this is, (rest assured Mom, (and maybe other family members who have doubts)), never going to happen.

Oh now I've gone and done it! I didn't want to give the impression that any of my family members have any doubt as to my sexual proclivity. And I don't want to seem like I have any problem with people who choose to go that way. Not at all. What I'm saying here is I, and I feel pretty sure that all the foreign ESL teaching fellas I know here, are about the last guy Koreans should be skeptical about with their daughters. The statistics, now we KNOW, back this up.

And oh now I've gone and done it! The very act of posting this makes it seem all too likely that I'm doing it to convince people of my high-minded intentions. And how often is that the act of a person with the opposite?

Sigh. I suppose there's no way to avoid suspicion. But, maybe this will help: I'm in my 10th year here and have yet to be suspected, well convicted of any improprieties with my female students. Oh man! That sounds bad too doesn't it? Of COURSE I've been suspected! The interviewer basically told me that that was his one and only job! To suspect me. And let me tell you now, he really REALLY doesn't do anything else. At least nothing else that would help me.

The reason I'm posting, other than because it's been a while, is that when I read this I felt really GREAT! Finally a little bit of evidence that at least some of the Korean distrust of foreigners seems completely unfounded!

Do I think that this will make even a dent in the "wave" of Korean distrust of foreigners? Nope. Do I think that people around here, (my workplace), are gonna trust me more? Nope. Do I think I'll stop asking myself questions? Yup.

It all comes down to how to get over it. How have I dealt with things like this, (which are really par for the course here), for 10 LONG years?! It's something I've had the great pleasure to talk about with a few of my friends recently. I believe that the trials of life should be counted all joy. Like fire purifies the hardest metal. Like steel is tempered with rigourous beating. So am I improved. And it all makes for excellent blog fodder don't you think?