Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Full on or casual?

Full on or casual? It's a question isn't it? So was that. But really in so many ways we think full on is just going to be better and I am certainly starting to see a lot of examples where it isn't. Casual is always easier and sometimes it's just better, despite what we may be trained to believe. Of course examples will have to follow. And they will:

Parenting. GREAT example! Nowadays parents are full on protectors, instructors, disinfectors, nurturers and projectors. But kids aren't any better for it. Might be worse. Then you look at some of the sadsack, lazyass parenting of the past THAT WORKED and we gotta give this one to the casual. Kids can do stuff on their own. They can! And it's actually GOOD for them!

Education. Same thing in a lot of ways. Here in Asia where they spend twice the time in the classrooms as we, in so many very important ways, they're only half as smart. The only Koreans I've known who have managed to achieve a level of English I would consider to be totally fluent didn't get it the Korean way. They got it hangin' out with, dating and partying with English speakers. I always try to keep my classroom casual and administrators, (and lots of students), think I'm just lazy. And they are amazed how well they are able to convey that to me using the English they learned in my class playing games and doing fun exercises.

Religion. I don't want to pick on one so I'll be very vague here. But the full on militant religious are probably the same in all religions. They look at individuals very closely to see past the good, pick out all the details in the doctrine that differ so that they can pinpoint the sinners' exact routes to hell, (or its equivalent), talk with like-minded believers about how glad they are that Jesus, (or his equivalent), has delivered them from such evil ways, (as far as those like-minded believers know), then do a little self-congratulatory back slapping as humbly as possible, and finally pray for their lost souls. This takes a tremendous amount of study and effort! I prefer the Dalai Lama's casual approach. He believes we should just seek happiness. It's what we do anyway, right? But he cautions that improving your station in life, your means, your financial position, that's nice because it makes life easier but it differs from true happiness because it's not spiritual. Spiritual happiness comes from making others happy. If you want to make someone happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. Just be nice to people! Casual and effective. That's the way for me! What the world needs now, is love sweet love. It's the only thing that there's just too little of. What the world... and so on.

I was in Pyeong Taek today shopping at E-Mart. If you know Korea you know a lot of E-Marts have Mcdonalds and the one in Pyeongtaek does. And if you know Korea you know we haven't had 1/4 pounders at Mcdonalds. Until NOW! Just recently. So to tell you the truth it wasn't absolutely essential for me to go to E-Mart, I think about 1/4 of the reason I went was to eat Mclunch. And it was worth it!

But a funny thing happened at the Mclunch counter today. Not new, but funny. I ordered a 1/4 pounder set with 6 Mcnuggets. The cashier says no problem, rings me up and takes my money. Tells me about the 4-minute wait but doesn't mention there is no sweet and sour sauce in the place. I see her huck a little container of barbecue sauce on my tray. Now this is not a big thing but I can't tell you how many times this EXACT same thing has happened to me in Korea. Well occasionally it varies in the flavour of the sauce. But that's all. I always just ate my nuggets with mustard, barbecue sauce and even a few times with that awful chilli sauce for dipping the Mcwings. Ew. But I WANT sweet n sour! That's all. And why don't they TELL me? Easy, because they know the order was made, the nuggets might be in the oil already, a nice person will just take what he's given. Today I said DAMN THAT!

So I asked if there wasn't any sweet n sour sauce. She made a show of looking to make me think she hadn't been trained to hide that fact from me, then said no. So I said, "Okay forget the nuggets. Change them for a Big Mac." She yells something to the cook who yells something back to her. Then she says, "No." I just laughed. So did the Korean guy behind me. "NO?" And I laughed a bit more. So I downshift into English and say politely, "I don't want the nuggets if I have to eat them with barbecue sauce." She relents and tells the cook to fire up a Big Mac for me. Then asks me for the extra 900 won. I checked my burgers for spit and didn't find any.

Why this story? It just gets me thinking about Korea. Maybe thinking too much. You be the judge. But if I were working at a bulgogi restaurant and that chick walked in and ordered bulgogi I would TELL her if I had no bulgogi sauce, only barbecue. I wouldn't give her pork covered in barbecue sauce. She'd freak! Probably torch the restaurant, start a candlelight vigil, I'd be deported and soon the government would hastily enact a law that forbids all foreigners from serving meat with barbecue sauce on it in Korea. Okay maybe a little too much.

"We do it all for you." "Have it your way." "The customer is always right." Those probably don't even translate into Korean. The fact is, if they ran Mcdonalds in Korea the right way it'd be fast food not medium speed food. It was 1:00. Lunch time. There should have been a few Big Macs and at least one box of nuggets in the tanning bed so there would have been no problem. The problem originated in the kitchen. The cook had already started cooking the nuggets and didn't want to waste them. I remember going to Mcdonalds where they had egg timers on the counter. Two minutes. If your order took longer you got some sort of deal. 4-minute waits just shouldn't happen. And furthermore, had I stuck with the nuggets I would have been given my fries. Then 2 minutes later my burger. Then after the 4-minute wait, the nuggets. I don't want to eat in installments! But that's how they do it in Korea. They think it's better. Because it's their idea.

I'm getting to the point. If you go to the bank and open an account they give you a bankbook much like if you order fries at Mcdonalds they give you a packet of ketchup. The bankbook is optional. You can use it if you want. Same as the ketchup. But then suddenly on a Friday night when you are far from home you go to a bank machine to take out some cash to pay for the train home and your card is refused. You try 10 other machines and get the same result. You have to go the entire weekend without money. Plans are cancelled and people are disappointed. You go to your bank on Monday and they tell you the bank book MUST be regularly updated. If not your account is closed without notice or explanation. Of course you ask why and you get the robotic, "It's a rule." or "It's our policy." So you start up a new account, get a new bankbook, tear it up and throw it in the garbage in full view of the shocked bank teller who learns exactly nothing from the display. Never once does the thought cross the wide open transom of her mind, "Yeah, why DO we have that stupid rule?"

There IS a point coming. Trust me here. The bank teller and the Mcdonalds worker both have similar experiences with many other foreigners and develop a distaste for them. So they get jobs at the immigration office. There they are trained to ask for every piece of documentation the foreigner can possibly be required to produce. Whether or not it is necessary is not for the trainee to decide. They even tell people that they must leave the country while their work visas are negotiated even though that's not true. They have full information on their screens saying that the foreigner's degree has been verified three times but they make him do it again at his expense. They refuse provincial criminal record checks that are all just federal record checks requested by municipal police stations. They make the foreigner get the identical federal criminal record check directly from the federal police. At his expense. Plus they require sealed transcripts from the university as proof of attendance despite the fact that on the screen the verification of his documentation is crystal clear. They do this for a while and grow tired of being yelled at by irate foreigners even though it was fun at first. They now hate foreigners so they get jobs at airport immigration and customs.

There they tell folks that they need to surrender their alien cards and assure them there will be no troubles when they return to Korea on a visitor's visa. They know the stupid foreigner won't even be allowed onto the plane to Korea without a ticket OUT of Korea in his possession. And there are hastily enacted rules almost every day to decrease the number of things you can do without an alien card. They confiscate cigars and bottles of scotch to enjoy on the weekend. They get yelled at some more by foreigners and despise them.

They get married to a full-blooded Korean man, squeeze out 2.5 kids while falling out of love, obssess over the kids to make themselves forget about their husbands fillandering, and train their kids to do exactly the same things that have made their lives so "happy."

And now, finally the point. One of my favourite Rush songs is Subdivisions. In it there are some awesome lines that always make me think of Korea. "Growing up it all seemed so one-sided, Opinions all provided, The future pre-decided, Detached and subdivided, In the mass production zone, Nowhere is the dreamer or the misfit so alone. Korea is a mass production zone. People are trained, not educated. They are like this because Korea is as full on a capitalist society as can be. People are numbered consumers. They matter little in the grand scheme of Korea.

So the final addition to my list of things that are better casual than full on would be capitalism. Or I suppose any government. If Korea could loosen up a bit I bet they would blow right by Japan and maybe even China. But I fear I'll never be proven right.

I poured my ice into the ice-hole, deposited all the paper products into the trash and even tamped it down a bit. There was a tray on top with a big pile of ketchup on it. I lifted that tray and put mine underneath it in the stack. The girl from the counter came over, smiled and wished me well in the Korean way, (peace be with you). I said the same to her and smiled nicely. My smile was genuine though I'm not sure about hers.

I'm pretty sure I'll just take whatever sauce I'm offered next time.