It looks like I won't have the choice of working back at Seokang where I work now. I've been told they won't be re-contracting me here. As I said I really doubted I'd be back even if they DID want to re-sign me because of the problems I have had. If you haven't been reading my blog, let me give you a very clear idea of what I mean. My supervisor, who I call Peter, (although his name is Na Ki Duk), was the one to tell me the bad/good news, in his own ultra Korean way, that they don't want me any more. Here's the message he TEXTED me: "Before next week's official notice I hope you have time to arrange your new place to work ASAP. Thank you for working with us for last two years. Good luck!"
First of all there was no official notice for anything. He is just doing what they have always tried, and failed, to do with me: treat me like a well-trained Korean who would fall for this shit. He's trying to make me think that there is some kind of official notice to force me out of my room in the dorm within a week or "ASAP," whichever comes first. So I text back, "What "official" notice are you talking about? I am under contract till the end of August." He texts back "I am in Philippines now. I will contact you on June 30 in Gwangju." So I text back, "And what new place of work? You are saying I gave you notice to quit without my knowledge?" He texts, "Right.We will not make a new contract with you. Sorry."
It's June 27th and I got that message four days ago. I suppose I am expected to clear outta here by the end of the month to make room for my replacement, no doubt a dirt cheap "teacher" from the Philippines. That's what they tried to do LAST time they got rid of me and THAT time it crashed and burned. Probly will again.
BUT they didn't want me going without having a little more fun with me before I left. Two days ago I stayed up late to watch stupid soccer. Two offensively talented teams, Portugal and Brazil, going at it so I thought it would be one game I could watch without falling asleep. Final score 0-0. Then the next morning after only a couple hours of sleep, I get woken up by jackhammering right outside my room. And it goes on and on and on all day long! They are taking out the tile floors of the bathroom and shower areas, right outside my door, and I suppose putting in new stuff. It's not just the jackhammering that would have been nice to have been warned of, it's the fact that they turned off the cold water. This means I can't shower, do laundry or flush my toilet. I still have water from the hot water side that is scorching hot when the hot water is on and cold when it's off. So I have to fill a big pot with water to pour into the can after I drop a deuce. It's Sunday today and Korea played, and lost, last night in World Cup so there are no workers here today. There is still no change in my water situation and I'm guessing tomorrow, early, the jackhammerers will be back and who knows when I'll have laundry and shower priveleges again?
I thought of typing, "But at least they haven't shut down my internet yet!" But that would be foolish wouldn't it? If this entry has an abrupt ending, it's Murphy, or his Korean equivalent, "Muppy", at it again.
Other job prospects have been pursued. This past week was stated as interview week for Yeungnam University. I was notified by them that I would be given my interview time and place during the week. I waited all week and received nothing. This may appear disheartening but it's nothing out of the ordinary around here. They are most likely waiting for a guy with 16 Doctorate degrees to decide he hasn't been getting enough kimchi in his diet and that his students somewhere back in the educational first world, are too responsive to proper teaching methodology to pose any kind of professional challenge to him. Sometime around the end of August when places like Yeungnam realize that this guy doesn't exist and decide to settle for far superior teachers with less wall paper, I'll get another notification from them telling me how things were very hectic in June and they appologize for losing touch.
My REAL hope is for a job I've applied for at Gwangju Institute of Science and Tech. GIST. That's where I did the winter camp this past January. One of the guys I worked with at the camp, Andy, is the only teacher in their new freshman English program. They are looking for another to work with him. Since I've already met my prospective supervisors, co-worker, and students, AND LIKED THEM, I think this would be a great job for me. Here's hoping they aren't holding out for Doctor 16!
I will be called for interview/teaching sample sometime starting July 8th. If I get the job I'll be notified by July 23rd. That'll be enough time for me to move my junk and still make it home to Canada for my 25th grad reunion on July 30th. If I don't get the GIST job, and haven't found something else as a back-up plan, I think I just might pack everything up and ship it home. I really think I need a couple more years here in Korea before I have enough money saved to move home for good but I may not have that, cough cough, luxury.
And speaking of luxury, I think I'll find a cheap hotel for the night so I can have a shower and a shit. Maybe find a laundromat too. Ah, Korea in the summer time!
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Friday, June 11, 2010
Long Time No E
Wow! I guess this is what happens when you try to juggle TWO blogs, a job, a wife, 3 kids, a couple dogs, a coaching position and a role as advisor to the minister of education. Even when most of them are made up! It's been a while!
I started an entry but actually got too depressed about it to finish it! It was about the underwater geyser of oil in the gulf. 40,000 gallons a day! That kills me! I don't know how long it takes them to reach the depth they're at but it seems to me the smartest solution would be to drill another hole into the deposit, with bigger pipe, (and this time one that is controlled), and the flow into the gulf would be either limited or stopped completely. Surely they could have reached the deposit by now with a second hole!
With everything from garbage plugs to Aquaman commanding sea creatures to suicidally swim into the hole en masse being discussed as solutions it's strange that I haven't heard this suggestion. It could be that it takes a long time; it could be that they don't have big enough rods; it could be the fear that a bigger hole would make the original hole suck salt water into the deposit and contaminate the re$t of the depo$it; I don't know. But there are probably plenty of rea$on$ why that ha$n't been done.
I don't wanna talk about that though. The greed of some human beings sickens me.
There have been other things happening that are blogworthy. First and foremost I have finished another semester of teaching here. I still have to hand in the final grades and finalize the attendance but my classroom work is done. I'm planning a visit to Canada. But I don't want to go until I have an idea of what I'll be doing HERE when I get back.
I would consider another year at Seokang IF they provide me with off campus housing or a monthly housing allowance. In talking with Maris and Erin, the other guy and girl I work with, (respectively), I found out that Maris has a 400,000 won/month housing allowance. Okay, he does have a masters degree in music and the whole point of us being at this place is to legitimize its existence. Now not only can Seokang student recruiters say they have actual TEACHERS working at this place, (to make it appear like it's a school), but they can say they have a guy with a MASTERS degree! Wallpaper draws a lot of water in these here parts. His masters is in music. If he were teaching music, or musical ESL or English through Gilbert and Sullivan, then okay, maybe he deserves the housing allowance I've been prostrate in supplication for lo this past score and a dozen moons... but he's not. He's doing the same stuff I've been doing for three years longer than him. And there is a distinct learning curve with this place. It's not your average sham school where people are level tested to be sure they can handle a class taught in English, it's bring us your poor, your huddled masses, your DEAF, and we will teach them conversation in a foreign language. Well, not "we", some foreign folks will. With foreign degrees! Really! They can do it! This piece of paper is proof! And the parents say, "Well, since you have proof..." and fork over an obscene amount of cash. Very little of which goes to the earner of that piece of paper, I might add.
New teachers are always shocked to see the average English level here. It's such a shock because by their 20th year here EVERY Korean has been exposed to at least 10 years of English study. It is nigh onto impossible for them to emerge so Shadrach Meshach and Abednego unscathed from THAT fiery furnace! But, here we are at Seokang teaching these miracles the basics. Erin told me in her 2nd or 3rd week that she went over all the verb tenses. I'm sure she did, but I'm also sure her students didn't learn them. I covered present tense, (what do you like?, what do you do?, how often do you...?), and present progressive, (what are you doing?). I touched on future with a palm reading exercise and a dice rolling fill-in-the blanks sort of mad lib but in 16 weeks, 32 hours of class time, I couldn't finish future tense with my students. Maris told me he did pretty much the same amount as me. Good for him! He's learning fast. Next semester we'll make things even easier. That's how it goes around here. By the end of next year, if I stay, I'll be teaching the alphabet and phonics.
To be fair, I'm only talking about some of the programs here. This session it was my Thursday classes - the hotel cooking program. The worst I've ever taught. Last semester it was the same. I honestly don't know where they dig them up! There are other programs like the EMT program. Word to the wise: if you are in an accident don't even bother trying to communicate in English with the people who come in the ambulance. But there are GOOD programs here too! This semester and last my superstars were the Physical Therapy program. Everybody does their homework EVERY week. They threw me birthday parties and teachers day parties. To give you an idea, the other day I was writing something on the board while teaching how to describe the way people look. I was asked a question, (which is something else they do and the cookers don't), and by mistake I wrote "glassed" instead of "glasses" on the board. A student pointed it out and I corrected it before class finished but, bless their hearts, about a dozen people wrote "He is wearing glassed." on the final exam. I didn't deduct marks.
If ever I have a semester without the good to offset the bad here, I think I'll go insane. And I predict those days are coming. Classes are going to get larger and academic standards will probably decrease in the good programs rather than increase in the bad ones. For this reason and, as you know, the stupid dorm situation, I have been looking for other employment. Just testing the waters for now but it could be a moving year. A couple places have already shown some interest.
And things are happening with the Tigers too. That's the main reason I haven't posted here. I'm busy with my Kia Tiger blog. And I've been trying to watch as many Tiger games as possible. And going to the games has provided me with some pretty good blog fodder as well.
Gwangju is known in Korea, by Koreans, as sort of a deep south. You know what I mean if you're American. A kind of banjo playing, squeal like a pig, hicksville. I dunno, maybe it's the heat. People from Gwangju are not well known for their subtlety. They're loud, brash, in-your-face kind of folks. I've always taken that as a kind of endearing honesty. But it's changing. Yesterday while walking to the game a busload of kids opened up their windows and hit me with a barrage of nationalism. As I've said before here, the difference between "I love Korea" and "I hate every other nation in the world" is ignorance. There are military, economic and probably many other advantages to training a people to be ignorant. It's on the INcrease in Korea despite their claims of globalization. And nowhere is it more obvious than in Gwangju.
At first accosters act like they are being nice to you by saying "Hi," because they want you to respond. The whole mooing at a cow phenomenon. But after they get the HILARIOUS response of, "Hello," or if you completely ignore them, they get to the true purpose of the confrontation: making fun of the foreigner and/or making the foreigner feel uncomfortable is hilarious and will make you not only look like a comedian to your friends, (no matter how stale and unoriginal your technique), it will also make you look like a good Korean. It is my opinion, (it's blatantly obvious in some cases), that this phenomenon figures greatly in the problems I have with the cooking classes as well.
Anyway, these little bastards were hiding behind their window curtains yelling obscenities at me for quite some time while their bus was stopped at a light and I walked by. I don't know if it was a school bus or some kind of private function but the teachers or leaders weren't putting a stop to it. Maybe they were proud at the nationalism of their charges. Or maybe they were yukking it up with them, passing along some good English zingers to try.
You might think I'm misreading things or I'm paranoid or just tired of Koreans. Or maybe you might think that in their ignorance they don't know they're being impolite at the low end or absolute racist pricks at the top end. It's not at all the case. I know this because it only happens when they are in groups and when they are in the safety of a bus or far enough away that I won't go over and kick asses. The other day I was about 100 yards from my door, (every time I leave my room, folks), on the way to the Tigers game wearing my Tigers cap and jersey and I was texting a friend telling her I was on my way to the ballpark, when some jackass says for the benefit of his friends, "Kia Tiger. Niceu pashion seu tyle!" (nice fashion style) I had lost sight of my phone screen and right after he said this I stopped so that I could get a better look at the message I was sending. The kids, who were I'd say high school age, thought I stopped to confront their asshole friend. So suddenly I hear, "Oh sorry sorry!" and some scurrying to get to that safe distance away from the foreigner they had angered.
Being a large target, accosting ME also makes these buggers look tough to their simple-minded friends. I have to constantly remind myself that it is all part of their training and not really their fault. But I'm not sure how long I'll be able to hold out.
Anyway, on the same day I encountered the busload of patriots, I got to the stadium and it was suspiciously empty. I went directly to my usual seat and wondered why there were so few people. Unfortunately even though there were entire rows of empty seats a group of already lit up folks sat right on top of ME. This one guy was their spokesman and he started soju-slurring some Korean that I probably wouldn't have understood had he been sober. He shook my hand with his dark brown, rock-hard partial right hand, which was missing the tips of Peter Pointer and Toby Tall, squeezing MUCH harder than necessary and holding the shake about twice as long as he should have. Then he looked around for prospective translators asking people if they spoke English because what he had to tell me was, to him, quite urgent to impart. The couple directly behind us waved their hands and said that they don't speak English at all. Eventually we agreed to speak Korean and I understood that he had met me in 2009 at a game and we had drunk beer together. I usually drink at ball games although recently I have been taking medicine for my annual summer sweat rash. Oh that reminds me: have to take my pill. Only two more and I can drink beer again.
So after he had established our lengthy friendship he decided to give me a beer. I refused and explained to him that I was taking medicine for my skin. He badgered and prodded and poked and pressured and encouraged me to relent but I held firm. So he brought up some soju and told me that it was made in the area that his family is from. Again I politely refused. So he introduced his wife to me and pointed out his 15-year-old daughter who was still in her middle school uniform and sitting several seats askance. He then introduced his two buddies, both of whom were also well tanned and had weathered skin and firm, calloused handshakes. He never did introduce the large-eyed toddler with thinning hair in a pony tail that originated from the top of her head and was cropped by a pink bow, and the white, Samsung credit card balloon tied to her wrist.
He then asked me my age. Having been in this country as long as I have I am completely desensitized to the question and immediately answered. He was two years older than me, which made him "Hyeong," meaning older brother, and just in case that meant a damn to me he and his cohorts embarked upon a fresh salvo of soju suggestions. In Korean drinking culture the younger MUST drink at the behest of the older even if you have good reason not to. I have had students with alcohol allergies who were forced to drink at school, family, social or company get-togethers. I was not put off in the least by their persistence admittedly because I was proud that I had met a Korean of similar age who actually looked older than me. It is most often the other way around. Maybe soju preserves people...
By the time the game started the group had relented to only occasional alcohol pushing and seemed satisfied that I accepted a few pieces of chicken from them. Even THAT I had to put a stop to though. However, it became aparent to me that the baby's balloon presented an obstacle to my view of home plate and the batters. I didn't want to seem ungrateful and ask them to do something about it although I'm sure they would have cut the balloon loose at some point of the string or the baby's apendage to be hospitable to me. So I decided to move a few seats to the other side of my old friend toward the wife and middle school aged daughter who were in the row directly below us on the homeplate side of the opaque, white balloon. The couple in the seats behind had done the same.
This solved my line of sight dilemma but it seemed to be taken as a slight by my soju swilling old friend. He went rather silent after this. On the other hand, the mother became the focal point of the soju shenanigans. A slight trickle of rain started to fall. The mother made a big show of rushing to the concession stand and purchasing a 1000 won white, plastic raincoat for the middle school student. Not to have her maternal instincts outdone by anyone in the crowd, she took her two yellow, plastic, noisemaking tubes called "thundersticks" and used them to shelter her already covered daughter from the elements by holding them above her head. An extra white raincoat was bought by the man but he had to do his fatherly duty and outlast the elements and the mother had to be a pelicanesque sacrificial nurturer to her daughter so the extra raincoat lay open and getting wet on the inside sprawled across two empty seats. A pelican will peck at her chest to draw blood upon which her babies can feed.
All this time the baby, unprotected by rain gear of any sort, had climbed up on the mother's back several times and was shaken around as Mommy was dancing and cheering for the Tigers. More than once she was jarred loose as Mommy sat down or stumbled. Once the baby landed in MY row and her feet were caught between the cement where she had landed and her mother's seat. To make matters worse she had bumped her head on the seat in my row a couple seats away. I tried to help the little girl but her mother immediately pushed my hands away and began pulling her screaming baby who she must have thought had gained a thousand pounds or so. Soon several surrounding fans began yelling over the babies screams to the mother that the baby's foot was caught. A Korean guy from a few rows down was allowed to dislodge the infant. The woman scooped it up, pulled up one side of her jacket and began breast feeding it.
If you've been to Moodeung Stadium you'd know that there is no way to avoid contact with people in front of you. They are pretty much sitting between your legs if you are of average adult, western size, which I am. I may be wrong but during the times when she was intermittantly breast feeding, the wife seemed to rub her elbow against my leg more often than usual. And even though I was intently watching the ball game, I got a couple very clear boob shots. Too clear to be unintentional it seemed to me. I'm not even gonna say she had a bad rack, but for the sake of manners I moved farther down the row. Now the group was SURE I was dissing them. It wasn't long before they left without saying goodbye to me.
I was now directly behind an attractive, university-aged girl with a massive umbrella. Again my vision was impaired. So I moved even farther in. It wasn't long before some guy with a big Kia Tigers flag began waving it directly between me and home plate! I couldn't believe it! So I move UP one row and ended up standing beside the couple who spoke no English at all. Before long we were watching in the pouring rain. It tends to scare all but the real fans away. And it brings the real fans closer together. It turned out that the couple's names were Joon and Joon. We introduced ourselves and had a good game together communicating our favourite players, baseball strategies, high fiving when Kia scored and just chatting together - in Korean AND English.
It would almost seem anti-climactic to tell the story about the guy directly behind me who had a siezure at a game last week and how I physically pushed two girls off of him. They figured it was necessary to push really hard on the guy's face to protect him from the siezure I guess.
Sigh. Oink.
I started an entry but actually got too depressed about it to finish it! It was about the underwater geyser of oil in the gulf. 40,000 gallons a day! That kills me! I don't know how long it takes them to reach the depth they're at but it seems to me the smartest solution would be to drill another hole into the deposit, with bigger pipe, (and this time one that is controlled), and the flow into the gulf would be either limited or stopped completely. Surely they could have reached the deposit by now with a second hole!
With everything from garbage plugs to Aquaman commanding sea creatures to suicidally swim into the hole en masse being discussed as solutions it's strange that I haven't heard this suggestion. It could be that it takes a long time; it could be that they don't have big enough rods; it could be the fear that a bigger hole would make the original hole suck salt water into the deposit and contaminate the re$t of the depo$it; I don't know. But there are probably plenty of rea$on$ why that ha$n't been done.
I don't wanna talk about that though. The greed of some human beings sickens me.
There have been other things happening that are blogworthy. First and foremost I have finished another semester of teaching here. I still have to hand in the final grades and finalize the attendance but my classroom work is done. I'm planning a visit to Canada. But I don't want to go until I have an idea of what I'll be doing HERE when I get back.
I would consider another year at Seokang IF they provide me with off campus housing or a monthly housing allowance. In talking with Maris and Erin, the other guy and girl I work with, (respectively), I found out that Maris has a 400,000 won/month housing allowance. Okay, he does have a masters degree in music and the whole point of us being at this place is to legitimize its existence. Now not only can Seokang student recruiters say they have actual TEACHERS working at this place, (to make it appear like it's a school), but they can say they have a guy with a MASTERS degree! Wallpaper draws a lot of water in these here parts. His masters is in music. If he were teaching music, or musical ESL or English through Gilbert and Sullivan, then okay, maybe he deserves the housing allowance I've been prostrate in supplication for lo this past score and a dozen moons... but he's not. He's doing the same stuff I've been doing for three years longer than him. And there is a distinct learning curve with this place. It's not your average sham school where people are level tested to be sure they can handle a class taught in English, it's bring us your poor, your huddled masses, your DEAF, and we will teach them conversation in a foreign language. Well, not "we", some foreign folks will. With foreign degrees! Really! They can do it! This piece of paper is proof! And the parents say, "Well, since you have proof..." and fork over an obscene amount of cash. Very little of which goes to the earner of that piece of paper, I might add.
New teachers are always shocked to see the average English level here. It's such a shock because by their 20th year here EVERY Korean has been exposed to at least 10 years of English study. It is nigh onto impossible for them to emerge so Shadrach Meshach and Abednego unscathed from THAT fiery furnace! But, here we are at Seokang teaching these miracles the basics. Erin told me in her 2nd or 3rd week that she went over all the verb tenses. I'm sure she did, but I'm also sure her students didn't learn them. I covered present tense, (what do you like?, what do you do?, how often do you...?), and present progressive, (what are you doing?). I touched on future with a palm reading exercise and a dice rolling fill-in-the blanks sort of mad lib but in 16 weeks, 32 hours of class time, I couldn't finish future tense with my students. Maris told me he did pretty much the same amount as me. Good for him! He's learning fast. Next semester we'll make things even easier. That's how it goes around here. By the end of next year, if I stay, I'll be teaching the alphabet and phonics.
To be fair, I'm only talking about some of the programs here. This session it was my Thursday classes - the hotel cooking program. The worst I've ever taught. Last semester it was the same. I honestly don't know where they dig them up! There are other programs like the EMT program. Word to the wise: if you are in an accident don't even bother trying to communicate in English with the people who come in the ambulance. But there are GOOD programs here too! This semester and last my superstars were the Physical Therapy program. Everybody does their homework EVERY week. They threw me birthday parties and teachers day parties. To give you an idea, the other day I was writing something on the board while teaching how to describe the way people look. I was asked a question, (which is something else they do and the cookers don't), and by mistake I wrote "glassed" instead of "glasses" on the board. A student pointed it out and I corrected it before class finished but, bless their hearts, about a dozen people wrote "He is wearing glassed." on the final exam. I didn't deduct marks.
If ever I have a semester without the good to offset the bad here, I think I'll go insane. And I predict those days are coming. Classes are going to get larger and academic standards will probably decrease in the good programs rather than increase in the bad ones. For this reason and, as you know, the stupid dorm situation, I have been looking for other employment. Just testing the waters for now but it could be a moving year. A couple places have already shown some interest.
And things are happening with the Tigers too. That's the main reason I haven't posted here. I'm busy with my Kia Tiger blog. And I've been trying to watch as many Tiger games as possible. And going to the games has provided me with some pretty good blog fodder as well.
Gwangju is known in Korea, by Koreans, as sort of a deep south. You know what I mean if you're American. A kind of banjo playing, squeal like a pig, hicksville. I dunno, maybe it's the heat. People from Gwangju are not well known for their subtlety. They're loud, brash, in-your-face kind of folks. I've always taken that as a kind of endearing honesty. But it's changing. Yesterday while walking to the game a busload of kids opened up their windows and hit me with a barrage of nationalism. As I've said before here, the difference between "I love Korea" and "I hate every other nation in the world" is ignorance. There are military, economic and probably many other advantages to training a people to be ignorant. It's on the INcrease in Korea despite their claims of globalization. And nowhere is it more obvious than in Gwangju.
At first accosters act like they are being nice to you by saying "Hi," because they want you to respond. The whole mooing at a cow phenomenon. But after they get the HILARIOUS response of, "Hello," or if you completely ignore them, they get to the true purpose of the confrontation: making fun of the foreigner and/or making the foreigner feel uncomfortable is hilarious and will make you not only look like a comedian to your friends, (no matter how stale and unoriginal your technique), it will also make you look like a good Korean. It is my opinion, (it's blatantly obvious in some cases), that this phenomenon figures greatly in the problems I have with the cooking classes as well.
Anyway, these little bastards were hiding behind their window curtains yelling obscenities at me for quite some time while their bus was stopped at a light and I walked by. I don't know if it was a school bus or some kind of private function but the teachers or leaders weren't putting a stop to it. Maybe they were proud at the nationalism of their charges. Or maybe they were yukking it up with them, passing along some good English zingers to try.
You might think I'm misreading things or I'm paranoid or just tired of Koreans. Or maybe you might think that in their ignorance they don't know they're being impolite at the low end or absolute racist pricks at the top end. It's not at all the case. I know this because it only happens when they are in groups and when they are in the safety of a bus or far enough away that I won't go over and kick asses. The other day I was about 100 yards from my door, (every time I leave my room, folks), on the way to the Tigers game wearing my Tigers cap and jersey and I was texting a friend telling her I was on my way to the ballpark, when some jackass says for the benefit of his friends, "Kia Tiger. Niceu pashion seu tyle!" (nice fashion style) I had lost sight of my phone screen and right after he said this I stopped so that I could get a better look at the message I was sending. The kids, who were I'd say high school age, thought I stopped to confront their asshole friend. So suddenly I hear, "Oh sorry sorry!" and some scurrying to get to that safe distance away from the foreigner they had angered.
Being a large target, accosting ME also makes these buggers look tough to their simple-minded friends. I have to constantly remind myself that it is all part of their training and not really their fault. But I'm not sure how long I'll be able to hold out.
Anyway, on the same day I encountered the busload of patriots, I got to the stadium and it was suspiciously empty. I went directly to my usual seat and wondered why there were so few people. Unfortunately even though there were entire rows of empty seats a group of already lit up folks sat right on top of ME. This one guy was their spokesman and he started soju-slurring some Korean that I probably wouldn't have understood had he been sober. He shook my hand with his dark brown, rock-hard partial right hand, which was missing the tips of Peter Pointer and Toby Tall, squeezing MUCH harder than necessary and holding the shake about twice as long as he should have. Then he looked around for prospective translators asking people if they spoke English because what he had to tell me was, to him, quite urgent to impart. The couple directly behind us waved their hands and said that they don't speak English at all. Eventually we agreed to speak Korean and I understood that he had met me in 2009 at a game and we had drunk beer together. I usually drink at ball games although recently I have been taking medicine for my annual summer sweat rash. Oh that reminds me: have to take my pill. Only two more and I can drink beer again.
So after he had established our lengthy friendship he decided to give me a beer. I refused and explained to him that I was taking medicine for my skin. He badgered and prodded and poked and pressured and encouraged me to relent but I held firm. So he brought up some soju and told me that it was made in the area that his family is from. Again I politely refused. So he introduced his wife to me and pointed out his 15-year-old daughter who was still in her middle school uniform and sitting several seats askance. He then introduced his two buddies, both of whom were also well tanned and had weathered skin and firm, calloused handshakes. He never did introduce the large-eyed toddler with thinning hair in a pony tail that originated from the top of her head and was cropped by a pink bow, and the white, Samsung credit card balloon tied to her wrist.
He then asked me my age. Having been in this country as long as I have I am completely desensitized to the question and immediately answered. He was two years older than me, which made him "Hyeong," meaning older brother, and just in case that meant a damn to me he and his cohorts embarked upon a fresh salvo of soju suggestions. In Korean drinking culture the younger MUST drink at the behest of the older even if you have good reason not to. I have had students with alcohol allergies who were forced to drink at school, family, social or company get-togethers. I was not put off in the least by their persistence admittedly because I was proud that I had met a Korean of similar age who actually looked older than me. It is most often the other way around. Maybe soju preserves people...
By the time the game started the group had relented to only occasional alcohol pushing and seemed satisfied that I accepted a few pieces of chicken from them. Even THAT I had to put a stop to though. However, it became aparent to me that the baby's balloon presented an obstacle to my view of home plate and the batters. I didn't want to seem ungrateful and ask them to do something about it although I'm sure they would have cut the balloon loose at some point of the string or the baby's apendage to be hospitable to me. So I decided to move a few seats to the other side of my old friend toward the wife and middle school aged daughter who were in the row directly below us on the homeplate side of the opaque, white balloon. The couple in the seats behind had done the same.
This solved my line of sight dilemma but it seemed to be taken as a slight by my soju swilling old friend. He went rather silent after this. On the other hand, the mother became the focal point of the soju shenanigans. A slight trickle of rain started to fall. The mother made a big show of rushing to the concession stand and purchasing a 1000 won white, plastic raincoat for the middle school student. Not to have her maternal instincts outdone by anyone in the crowd, she took her two yellow, plastic, noisemaking tubes called "thundersticks" and used them to shelter her already covered daughter from the elements by holding them above her head. An extra white raincoat was bought by the man but he had to do his fatherly duty and outlast the elements and the mother had to be a pelicanesque sacrificial nurturer to her daughter so the extra raincoat lay open and getting wet on the inside sprawled across two empty seats. A pelican will peck at her chest to draw blood upon which her babies can feed.
All this time the baby, unprotected by rain gear of any sort, had climbed up on the mother's back several times and was shaken around as Mommy was dancing and cheering for the Tigers. More than once she was jarred loose as Mommy sat down or stumbled. Once the baby landed in MY row and her feet were caught between the cement where she had landed and her mother's seat. To make matters worse she had bumped her head on the seat in my row a couple seats away. I tried to help the little girl but her mother immediately pushed my hands away and began pulling her screaming baby who she must have thought had gained a thousand pounds or so. Soon several surrounding fans began yelling over the babies screams to the mother that the baby's foot was caught. A Korean guy from a few rows down was allowed to dislodge the infant. The woman scooped it up, pulled up one side of her jacket and began breast feeding it.
If you've been to Moodeung Stadium you'd know that there is no way to avoid contact with people in front of you. They are pretty much sitting between your legs if you are of average adult, western size, which I am. I may be wrong but during the times when she was intermittantly breast feeding, the wife seemed to rub her elbow against my leg more often than usual. And even though I was intently watching the ball game, I got a couple very clear boob shots. Too clear to be unintentional it seemed to me. I'm not even gonna say she had a bad rack, but for the sake of manners I moved farther down the row. Now the group was SURE I was dissing them. It wasn't long before they left without saying goodbye to me.
I was now directly behind an attractive, university-aged girl with a massive umbrella. Again my vision was impaired. So I moved even farther in. It wasn't long before some guy with a big Kia Tigers flag began waving it directly between me and home plate! I couldn't believe it! So I move UP one row and ended up standing beside the couple who spoke no English at all. Before long we were watching in the pouring rain. It tends to scare all but the real fans away. And it brings the real fans closer together. It turned out that the couple's names were Joon and Joon. We introduced ourselves and had a good game together communicating our favourite players, baseball strategies, high fiving when Kia scored and just chatting together - in Korean AND English.
It would almost seem anti-climactic to tell the story about the guy directly behind me who had a siezure at a game last week and how I physically pushed two girls off of him. They figured it was necessary to push really hard on the guy's face to protect him from the siezure I guess.
Sigh. Oink.
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