It's March. March 1st. Next month marks my third full year of blogging. I give, (I'm not sure "credit" or "blame" would be the right word), to Heather for showing me how to blog. Thanks, Duderino. Over these three years it's been a useful way to vent for me. But I was just searching for an entry I alluded to in my most recent post about being walked in on while in the shower, (May '96), and started to realize that this is just as good as a journal. For as long as Blogger.com remains, and remains free, I have access to a history of my tales, and sometimes pics, of the past. I wish I'd started doing this long ago. I'd absolutely LOVE to read some blog entries about my years in university! And I'm sure I'd enjoy reading about how foolish, and how bad a writer I was when I was young.

I HAVE kept journals at times during the past. In my university days I used to get the Sports Illustrated day planner every year for about 6 years. Still have those and MAN are they fun to read! I even recorded dreams off and on during university. I have very weird dreams! So those too are fun to read about.

Probably the most complete history of my life in one spot would be all the letters I've written to my dear old Gramma Vickers. And I don't flatter myself to think that she's kept them all over the years, but if she had they'd be a great read!

I have Mormon friends who keep journals. I think it's one of the things the church tries to encourage. I think it's a great thing to encourage. If I could get all my students to blog just think how much their English would improve! And I could just read their blogs and make grammar corrections in the comment box. But that's never gonna happen. Besides it's a lot of work for me. We don't want that. But if I had smaller classes filled with students who really wanted to learn English...

So I thought I'd try to put an entry here that gives a feel for my life at this time. It will be this sort of entry I really like to read in the future. Like when I watch movies I sometimes get into moods where I don't care about the quality of the movie or the acting or whatever, it's the scenery that holds my attention. I watched Home Alone recently because it has some really nice cinematography of things I miss about home. Houses. Sidewalks being shovelled in winter. Christmas lights. American cars. Mailboxes. Who knows what I'll be reading in my blog in the future that will conjure up old memories of Korea? I think it'll be details. So I'm gonna try to make this a detailed entry.

As I sit at my computer drinking Ahmad black currant tea, which I bought on one of my infrequent journeys to Hannam Supermarket near I Tae Won in Seoul I'm glad it's in a blue mug. I like blue mugs. They make things taste better. It's a blue Starbucks mug that I think I might have purchased during one of my infrequent journeys to Starbucks. I only go if someone else wants to go. I think I got this mug when I was hanging out with Mike and Heather in one of about 50 Starbucks in downtown Seoul. I think this was purchased at the one across from the Kyobo Building with the view of the Lee Sun Shin statue. Mike loves Starbucks. More than anyone should really. I think it might have been in October cuz Heather and Mike got pumpkin flavoured coffee.

The tea is steaming quite copiously as it sits on my "I love to cook with wine, sometimes I even put it in the food." potholder, which was a gift from Jocelyn who I worked with at Mokpo U. last year. Thanks Jocelyn. And also thanks for telling me the word, "potholder". It was a struggle for me at the time to come up with the right word for this object. It had been buried in my brain for years so that retrieval was impossible. Ever forget a simple word like that? I had to send Jocelyn a message on facebook asking what the word for that large, material, coaster thingy we use for pots was. That's embarrassing.

The tea is steaming a lot because it's a bit chilly in my dorm room at Seogang today. I turned my heater off a few days ago when it was warm outside. The heater takes over a day to turn off. So I was sweating like a banshee for two days. Then the third day was fine but wouldn't you know it, today it's colder. I could turn on the heater but it won't heat up till sometime next week when it will most likely be warm again. So I'll just wear extra clothes until spring.

I can't see them because my purple horizontal blinds are closed, but I can hear students talking, and probably flirting, very audibly while sitting on the picnic tables in the courtyard outside my window. They might even be drinking soju. It's only 3 PM but it's the Sunday before the first Monday of class here. Might as well drink in that last blast of freedom.

Luckily for me I don't work tomorrow. I teach Physical Therapy from 9-11 and Hotel/Food from 2-4 on Tuesday. Wednesday I have Physical Therapy again from 2-3, and first year stewardess from 3-4. Then Thursday I have first year stewardess from 9-11, (when most will be catching beauty z's), and from 2-4 I have second year stewardess, who I taught last semester. I'll be doing a special class from 4-5 every day but that doesn't start for a couple weeks. It's a really sweet schedule! No Fridays! But it can and most likely WILL change dramatically before we fully get going here.

Now I have a girl, (what she's doing in the boys side of the dorm I don't know), talking, nay yelling into her phone directly outside my door. I wonder why anyone would stop there for a phone call. Yesterday the "Woo" guy returned. There's some kid here who is constantly running around yelling that. He's woken me up on many occasions. I think he might be like Timmy from Southpark. All Timmy can say is "Timmy." I think maybe all the Woo guy can say is Woo. But with different intonation depending upon the circumstances. But I'm sure even HE can pass here at Seokang.

I haven't been sleeping right for over a month. Sinuses. I'm pretty sure I'm not allergic to Korea but it's a theory I've mulled over. It could be the Chinese sand but upon checking my past blog entries I find that May is when that is worst. I've found only one thing that helps: Otravin. But as is my way, I choose not to medicate unless it's absolutely necessary, so I have a wastebasket full of dirty snotrags beside me and a roll of TP beside my blue tea mug. I slept from about 7 AM to noon today. I was up watching live streams of the Accenture Matchplay Championships. I think Ogilvie will win. I also watched hockey and a little bit of Sopranos. I had trouble with my video. Both streaming vid and the Sopranos cd were coming up on the screen as just green and red stripes. Sound was okay though. I went into control panel, display, settings and mokeyed around. That worked so I was able to watch. I am pretty sure that playing Guild of Heroes on facebook is what messed up my video settings. It has happened before. How is still a mystery.

See? This'll all be good stuff to look back on if I have these problems again.

We had hot water all through the day yesterday so I did my dishes and made some Chilli. I have two pickle jars of it left. I bought some sour cream and marble cheese from the underground market a couple days ago. I grated some of the cheese yesterday into the chilli. Mmmmmm. I think today I'll have some sour cream in my chilli. I wanted to go grocery shopping this afternoon for eggs, bread etc. but that was dependant upon hot water. As I walked into the bathroom to check I said out loud to myself, "I'll bet next month's salary we don't have hot water all day today." And sure enough I won the bet. So now I have to wait until 7 PM to shower up and go shopping. Hence, this entry. Usually we have hot water in the dorm from 7ish to 9ish AM and PM. That's all. I think that's starting today.

I think at 6 I'll play some Wii and work up a sweat then shower at 7. Till then I guess I'll just putter around at my computer.

Well this has been a good entry. Not especially interesting but time well wasted. See you soon.

How To Be a Good I-Don't-Caretaker

Five days ago I went to the immigration office with my boss, Professor Jung. We just call him "The Jung" around here. He doesn't know anybody's first names either. It was the second immigration visit this time around. Fourth in total for this year of work. I went there the previous week and after the requisite hour and a half wait was told that I needed to come back with papers from the school. But it was okay because I had expected that. And I got to watch Robocop on the big Samsung LCD screen TV in the waiting room. Along with 5 or 6 kids that really shouldn't have been watching Robocop on the big Samsung LCD screen. The Jung had been told that I would be in and out in one shot and for some reason he had believed whoever it was at the immigration office that had told him. Silly man.

While we drove to the office with the extra papers he asked how things were at the dorm. I didn't want to bring that up because I thought I'd freak out but I surprised myself by telling Jung in a calm manner, (for the fifth time), about the problems I'd been having with the I-Don't-Caretakers and the door. I elabourated and told him the latest story about coming back from a vacation with lots of luggage including my computer and having to struggle half an hour with the door then another half an hour looking for an I-don't-caretaker, then HE struggled with the door for half an hour finally using the knob key which I don't have a copy of and refusing again to give me one when I asked. I also told Jung that the taller I-don't-caretaker was in the dorm the whole time listening to us both struggle with the door and when we finally got it open he said to the small I-don't-caretaker, "Oh. I didn't know it was you."

Immediately Jung called somebody and told them to give me a key to the knob lock on the door. Which I should have had 6 months ago. Which I had asked for many times and was refused and assured that nobody ever locks the knob lock. Hell, I wouldn't have got the key to the deadbolt if I hadn't gone to the I-don't-caretaker's office and asked them specifically for it. They weren't about to bust their asses and walk the 15 steps from their office to my door to give it to me. Because they don't care. It's their job not to care. It's what they do. Although there have been many times when they decided for no aparent reason to walk straight into my room when I was foolish enough to leave my door open. Never do they have anything useful to tell me or give me, like a key, they just want to see me in my gotch. And a few times they HAVE. One time one of them brought some ladies in while I was in the shower. To dust off the fans I think was the reason. And more than once they actually opened the LOCKED door to get in despite my yelling "NO, DON'T COME IN!" But all that's part of the I-don't-caretaker's job too. And after yelling at them frequently, getting Jung to yell at them, putting a sign on my door that says in Korean "DO NOT ENTER", ALWAYS keeping my door locked, and vainly trying to deprogram the Korean knock-and-walk mentality out of all of them, it's now to a point where they only SOMETIMES do that. The other night I was cooking cheeseburgers and one of them came to my door and knocked. He tried the knob but it was locked. I yelled, IN KOREAN "I'm busy." He knocked again. I yelled again. He knocked one more time and I opened the door and pointed at my cheeseburgers. He just looked past me at my apartment a bit then walked away without telling or giving me anything.

So anyway, now I have both keys to the back entrance which puts a damper on all the fun the I-don't-caretakers have when they see me going out on a Friday night and decide to lock the lock I previously didn't have a key to. So what could they come up with at their daily meeting to replace that part of their job? They have daily meetings. They sit at a round table and I suppose these are the points of business they discuss. Aparently my footwear was on the agenda at a recent meeting. I am about 6 steps from a hot and cold water machine, which I often use, and about 10 steps from a washing machine. I don't wear shoes or socks in my apartment unless I'm exercising. (Playing with my Wii). So I usually walk in my bare feet to get water or do laundry. This week alone 4 of the I-don't-caretakers have ordered me to put shoes on. What they want me to do is another part of Korean culture that is programmed into them at an early age and that I'll never EVER do. They want me to crush the heels of a pair of shoes making it an expensive pair of slippers then noisily, (need I say annoyingly noisily?), shuffle the 6-10 steps outside my apartment.

Now you might think I'm being lazy or stubborn. Yes I am. But the real reason I will not do this is because if I asked why this national obsession with shoes, slippers, footwear, and they thought about it for a month the best reason any of them could give me is "just because." Many Koreans have told me that they have several ways to say this in Korean. I even know one of them. And it is mind-boggling how well accepted this is as an answer to meaningful questions. It's a sad part of this culture that I will not adopt. I have been moving into an apartment carrying a fucking giant couch and when the Korean on the other end comes to the entrance he kicks off his shoes for the love of GOD! And then while carrying a refrigerator out he struggles at the doorway to slip his shoes back on. You might THINK I'm only kidding.

So this morning I'm filling my Brita at the water machine in my bare feet and the small I-don't-caretaker says to me, "Mister David." Then turns his head to the side, sucks in some air and says something in Korean about "shin pal", shoes. After being ignored for the appropriate lenth of time he shows me the key he was told to give me 5 days ago. But he doesn't give it to me. Oh no. He goads me into following him in my bare feet, with my now full Brita, like a jackass might follow a carrot to the back door. There's another I-don't-caretaker there in a supply room who orders me to put some shoes on. While ignoring him the small I-don't-caretaker launches into this elabourate display of how to open door locks. Does he demonstrate once? No. Twice? No. I think the guy would have continued all day if had let him. This is the guy who with both keys STILL took half an hour to open the door when I had returned from my vacation and had my luggage outside. And said to me upon entry, "See? No problem!"

I calmly told him I understood the complicated concept of doorlocks in English. Then I told him I understood in Korean. Then I said it a little louder. Finally I say to him "WHY? WHY 6 months? WHY, WHY, WHY?" Then to the other I-don't-caretaker who is still sternly glaring at my bare feet I knock on my head a few times and say, "Crazy!" All in a loud voice but while smiling. Finally he parts with the key and I barefootedly, and noiselessly, convey my key and filtered water back to my room. How much do you want to bet they'll start locking both locks now?

There is a bright side to the story. And if it's for sure, it's bright like hangover sunlight. I haven't seen the tall I-don't-caretaker for quite some time. These I-don't-caretakers don't make the college any money. They are a lot more dispensible than I am. I have had nothing but trouble with the tall guy and before me Kasia had had her share of troubles and possibly even before Kasia the bastard was causing trouble for the foreign teachers. If he has quit or been fired things will be greatly improved around here. If the little key demonstration and possibly the shoe thing was in any way punishment for whatever degree of responsibility I might have had in his removal it was well worth it. I'm hoping and praying.

Don't worry about the tall I-don't-caretaker. With the skills he's acquired during his tenure here he will be a valuable addition to any number of establishments throughout Korea that need employees to do nothing and piss people off. He'll land on his feet I'm sure.

Playing with my Wii

The long winter vacation is almost over and I have an unusually small supply of stories, photos and adventures to talk about. For a few reasons I didn't really go ON holidays this winter. I visited friends in Osan for an extended period of time but that's only 3 hours away from home. I didn't go to another country or see anything I haven't seen before. I think when I'm old and waxing reminiscent, the thing that I just might remember most from the winter of '09 will be entering into the Wii era of my life.

For the past few weeks I've been playing with my Wii, almost every day. That doesn't sound like anything new right? Har har har. Playing with my Wii. It sounds modest. I mean the inescapable inference is of diminutive size. How big could a "Wii" be, right? They should have called it a "Wang" or a "Woah" so I could proudly tell people what I've been up to.

And believe it or not, there are similarities. There was a recent SNL sketch where Alec Baldwin sees his son and friends playing with their Wii. He asked if he could give it a try. The Wii actually has sensors that make SHAKING the controller necessary. In the game Alec Baldwin played in the sketch he founds some bags and had to shake money out of them and the harder he shook the more money came out. I guess in the heat of the game people might naturally tend towards familiar muscle memory and Alec was shaking his Wii like a teenage boy. And getting massive amounts of money. The other guys, who didn't have the, how shall I say it, self-pleasuring tenure of the old man were in awe. They carried the innuendo on for a while too changing hands, making sounds you might hear at a coin operated porn booth and saying that Mom will be a natural at it. It was a pretty clever sketch.

I remember playing video games with Kasia in my dorm room and thinking that students who passed by might have overheard us and jumped to some conclusions. Now with the Wii it would probably sound even worse. I play golf all the time and you can put spin on the ball by pressing the direction arrow the way you want it to spin and shaking as hard as you can. If the ball is heading toward the water I put back spin on it and shake like a mad man grunting things like, "Suck back, ball! Don't get wet! Come on, baby screw back! Almost there, almost there, OH OH God yeah!" And I'm in here all by myself playing with my Wii. I hope nobody listens at my door.

And it's only going to get about a thousand times better when I have friends over playing with my Wii. Or if they don't want to play they can just watch me play with my Wii and see how an experienced veteran does it. Then they can join in when they think they've got the hang of it.

I've put my X-Box away. She's in storage with all her games. Now I'm a Wii man and I want the whole world to know! This is my electronic coming out announcement. Wow, that felt good! If you enjoy playing with your Wii, don't be afraid to tell people. It's okay. You're perfectly normal. And if you have friends who disapprove of it, well they just weren't any real kind of friend in the first place now were they?

I think for myself it's gonna be hardest to tell my Mom I've given up on the X-Box and now only play with my Wii. You know how old-fashioned some people can be. But I think she'll come around when she sees how happy it makes me.

I thought about being bi-consolar but there are just too many problems. For me it's easier to do one or the other and I'm committed to this relationship now.

Ha ha ha. I could go on and on with that. Anyway, I think I'm gonna go get the Wii Fitness board soon and with that I'll likely exercise more often. I already play golf and sort of exercise between shots to try to simulate walking the course. It's actually MORE exercise than golfing. And I've heard they already have a Simpsons game for it. I REALLY want that! I can see so many really cool games in the future. With a larger sensor they could have full body simulation so that you'd HAVE to do the exercising. A video game that is GOOD for you! Who could have predicted that?

And I think maybe the best thing about my Wii is that if I find I'm spending too much money socializing it's something interesting to do for free. Tomorrow I'm going to an Indian restaurant with Dave, Ang, Rebecca and Kasia, then to a sort of pre-wedding party for a couple other friends afterwards. I won't feel bad about spending too much money cuz I've been saving money playing Wii for a while now.

If you've never tried the Wii you should. I've seen so many people who hate video games say they really enjoy the Wii. The only downside for me is the fact that I have a Korean Wii. It's really hard to figure out all the instructions. And for some reason, like the Ipod, the Wii hasn't caught on in Korea so there aren't many games available. But with any luck I'll be able to get English games and maybe get a mod chip so I can play them on my Korean Wii. I'm going back to Canada in the summer and you can bet I'll be figuring all that stuff out while I'm there. If not before.

Anywii, I think I'll go golfing. Keep yer stick on the ice.

Survivor Brazil Predictions, (first episode spoiler alert)

Already! That means I'm gonna be back at work before too long. Boy time flies when you're getting old!

I'm gonna do things a bit different this time. I waited till after the first episode this time to make my predictions. Every other bit of info I have is from the Survivor website. I didn't do so well last time but I think getting to know the survivors for one episode's gonna make a huge difference! Here goes:

Tyson- THIS guy is a Mormon?!? I think he might just be the most interesting survivor this time around. Probst seems to think so too saying he looks like trouble. His first impression of Erinn was that she might be a bitch and unlike the Mormons I know who wear very specific undergarments at all times, he was the first to get nekkid on the show. Immediately colourful. He did his mission, (and wore those specific undergarments the whole time), in the Philippines so the heat won't be a prob. He's a swimmer and a cycler but doesn't look threateningly athletic. His favourite movie is "The Jerk". Good. His favourite survivor is Johnny Fairplay. Bad. He figures arrogance might be his downfall and he obviously has no shortage of that! I was noticing that there was no token homosexual on the show this time when suddenly Tyson started talking about what he'd spend the winnings on. Furs for his shoulders, jewels for his pretty fingers and a tiara? Could be why he dropped outta BYU. Gay or not he's gonna be flamboyant. I can't see him exiting early. I could see him winning. Not sure if I want him to or not yet.

Sydney- I don't see much to her but the fact that she's gorgeous. Says that people will get on her nerves and when Carolina was talking about getting the shelter done Sydney was the most vocal in disagreeing because it was too much work. I think the tribe will live to regret that since it gets VERY rainy where they're at and they're sleeping on the ground. Says she will lie, cheat and steal. She voted for Stephen in the first impression vote probably more because he looked geeky than for his corporate soullessness. I think it was probobly her more than Spencer that killed their team on the maze and lost the challenge. Don't like her and don't think her looks will keep her around long.

Sierra- Sore throat or not she looked pretty weak. But won the whole crew over by using her craftiness, (as in arts and crafts), to make a shelter. Everyone forgave her. Everyone, that is, but Coach. However, if it's a good shelter and it rains soon, which it's gonna, maybe coach will forgive her too. She put on a show, (not just because she didn't wear her panties), in the first challenge. Probst really likes her. I think I'll agree that she is gonna be surprisingly strong and she'll last for a while. Don't forget she DID make the obvious decision about the immunity idol but for the social, not the strategic reason. Nonetheless she has the first clue to the whereabouts of the immunity idol and lots of time to find it.

Coach- If anyone will rival Tyson for the title of most interesting survivor this time I think it'll be this guy. But I think I'm gonna like Tyson a lot better than Coach. Probst said he could listen to his adventure stories all day long but wouldn't let him date his daughter. I think that says it all. He kayaked 6000 miles alone for crying out loud! But he's in love with himself and his downfall is GONNA be his strategy to lead the group. He was coaching his tribe in orientation during the hike to camp. And although this guy navigated all over the world he didn't get his team to camp before nightfall. So maybe he was in reality lost at sea on that famous 6-month journey. Actually called himself a genius and many times a "Renaissance man". Well the literal translation of that is "rebirth" and you gotta die before you're reborn. I don't think his alliance with Brendan will get him anything but stabbed in the back. And probably deservadly so. Says he's gonna leave bodies in his wake as he gets from A to B. Wrong strategy.

Candace- One of the few things I hate about Survivor is that they ALWAYS have lawyers on the show. For ONCE I won't be voting for the lawyer to get snuffed out early. I am totally in lust with this gal. If I were in her tribe, I would write someone else's name down just to keep her hot bod around. And hey, she's not a PRACTICING lawyer any more. However, I, like Probst, find it hard, uh difficult, to believe her when she says things haven't come easy, uh been easy for her. I wonder if she got all those scholarships and passed the bar on her first try purely through hard work. Was it real hard work or was it like when her, Sierra, Deb and Tyson went to get water and she was up on the hill watching the other three and DRINKING water while they did all the work? Says she hasn't had a challenge lately. Well she hasn't dazzled me yet by stepping up to this one. But she HAS dazzled me in other ways. Unfortunately the nice boobs are usually voted off fairly early. I think it's cuz they're hard not to notice. She might be a princess and if anyone actually can't handle the elements I'd put my money on Candace or Erinn.

Stephen- Thinks he might get eaten. I think that would be GREAT television. Has worked in corporate America for the last 7 years. He calls it "soul-sucking" work so he's probably lost most or all of his soul. His plan is to look innocent and get other people to suggest dirty moves for him. Thinks the good old boys will hate him. I agree. I think I will hate him too. Hope he gets voted off fast but if he shows ANY athleticism he will probly have a good chance to make it to the end. But I doubt it will be without making enemies along the way.

Jerry- Looks a lot younger than he is! I think he's smart to keep his military training on the down-low. Probst and I agree that he has an instantly likeable personality. He CAN lead but ain't gonna. I think that's smart too. I want him to get the money more than anyone and he'll be one of my favourites. He's got all the tools. I think for once a guy I'm voting for COULD win!

Carolina- Kinda glad she's gone because every time her name was pronounced that way it made me cringe. However, it's another woeful case of the breasts getting voted off early. This is one where Probst was wrong. He figured she'd be around a while for her cuteness. She said that in the beginning she was going to try to work on unity in the tribe. Yet she was perceived as being whiney and complaining the most. And then at tribal council she announced to the whole world that she IS whiney and DOES complain the most! Dizbrain!

Debra- I have a feeling I'm gonna like this chick a lot! Just like Bob from last season, (who shoulda won dammit!), I have an instant affinity for her because of her occupation. But she looks to have a really cool personality too. Says she'll be the life of the party and the clown. I think everybody is gonna like her. And with all the working out she does they'll forget all about her age. I also like her cuz she's smokin' HOT! If I were a student at her school I'd LOVE to be sent to the principal's office! She's probably one who I'll be voting for to win it all. But it's early. I could change. She does have some glaring weaknesses. Says she's way too trusting, wears her heart on her sleeve and tends to want to lead. Could be tragic.

Sandy- Two things she said that stick out to me: 1. I have to try to figure out what a "pace" is. And 2. "Why the hell do I even wanna waste my energy on tryin to get in your good graces when I ain't eith- why- neitha- never- there- wudn't an option?" Like Probst I think she'll be lucky to last another vote. If Carolina hadn't commited suicide Sandy'd probably be driving bus now. I don't think she'll have much time to mother her tribe or "caress them in (her) breast." However, when she was voted for in the first impressions vote she DID say that a young one will get voted off first. And she was right! God help me I like this old gal! She spices up the tribe! Even though she probably didn't know what "curry favour with the tribe" meant in the immunity idol clue, she DID rename her tribe Jalapeno! Unfortunately she'll have to do more than believe to achieve. Her strategy is to not get voted for because her tribe wins immunity challenges. I think that's her only chance and she did a great job in the first challenge. Also she may be able to weather the first vote against her. All she has to do is ask somebody what the hell a pace is.

Taj- I'm gonna lu dis girl! And why not? She's a singer and out of the gozillions of girls that throw themselves at successful NFL stars like Eddie George, he picked her. There MUST be something to her! I love two other things about her: 1. Her strategy of "nurturing you right out the door." and 2. giving the winnings to kids from abusive households. Cuz we KNOW she doesn't need the money! She's doing it for the fun and to lose weight. And good for her! She says she's snappy. But let's face it, a big old black lady is gonna get away with that. She sure snapped Carolina's ass straight out the door didn't she? And Carolina was thanking her for it! My early female fave.

Brendan- I think this is the smartest guy in the game and I think he's going to win. I don't vote for him because he's rich, but I think he'll probably deserve to win. He voted for Erinn in the first impressions vote and I think that was the smart vote. He has already been approached for an alliance and I don't think this'll be the last or the best offer he receives. He might play dirty but I think he'll outwit more than anyone. He has already said that nobody wants a Coach during the Survivor experience so we'll see how that plays out. I think Coach is toast soon. He showed strength, but not too much of it, during the challenge. I don't think I'll be too upset if he wins. And that'll be nice since the last few shows HAVE been won by people who I didn't want to win.

Erinn- Salon worker. Says only 15% of her job is doing hair, the rest is people skills. She'll need them because she hasn't made a great first impression. She likes the looks of Tyson but he thinks she looks like a bitch. Says she tends to blurt things out. Like already, "What the hell am I doing here?" Her last camping trip was in 7th grade. Says she's tough but I'm not buying it. Although she kicked ass on the maze in the immunity challenge. If she survives it'll be because she completely disappears.

J.T.- I just know I'm gonna like this guy. He's a country boy with a brain. Kinda like my own self, hyuck! He's got a lot going for him at a young age so he's got some savvy. Absolutely kicked ASS on the first challenge! Left everybody so far behind on the running part I think he slowed down so as to not stand out so much. He has a good strategy, to ally until they're down to 6 or 7 then throw the alliances out the window. He's a good fisherman. He's the guy who did the map and compass work that got his tribe to camp early enough to make up for time Sandy wasted looking for the idol. He says the heat and mosquitoes won't be a problem. But Alabama is hot and DRY I think. The rain might be problematic. But I can't see him giving up because of it. If a man wins I hope it's J.T.

Spencer- Youngest ever on Survivor. Probst says he's got a good head on his shoulders but could get played. I agree. Says he's used to teamwork from playing sports but I doubt his teams ever tried to backstab him. He'll have to be on the lookout for that. He is smart and well spoken. In the beginning he was thinking. Told his team to get lots of rope from the truck. Has seen all the Survivors so that should help him. If he doesn't get too hungry I think he'll do okay. He looks to be the kind of player I vote for. Could win but I think he'll play too honestly so it's a long shot.

Joe- Is in real estate. He's probably not hard up for money. A proud Texan. He carried a lot on the trek to camp so he's strong. I think he coined the name "Psycho Sandy" so he has a sense of humour. I don't know if that'll stick though it is appropriate. Him and Spencer saved Sandy. However, Spencer was smart in that he was saying positive things about Sandy whereas Joe was dissing Carolina. This might be a negative for him. Especially if it keeps up.

So to recap, MEN: I think either Tyson or Brendan will win. I vote for Jerry and J.T. WOMEN: I think either Debra or Taj are gonna win. I vote for Taj and Debra.

Can't wait for next show.

Happy Valentine's Day

I'm in hibernation mode again. Not completely, I mean I cleaned up the house, exercised, did some laundry, and went shopping for groceries today. Bears don't do those things in winter. I don't think. But for most of the day, as with the other days of my holidays, I was pretty immobile. Watched 3 movies, updated my facebook page countless times. I'm having a pretty good war with three other players of Gangster Battle. One guy named "SBD The Gasser" and two, (I'm assuming), gals named "Princess Di Connell" and "OT Settle the Score Woman". I hope these people don't take it personally when I attack them. I just do it cuz I know I can beat them and it's easier than searching for folks who I think I might be able to beat. Besides, they started it! They don't attack me, they ambush me. Cuz if they attack they lose. And OT Settle the Score Woman sometimes shanks me in the back multiple times. I think once she shanked me 10 times in a row. This is what you do when someone is in the hospital. You can't attack someone who's on the mend but you can shank them in the back. Nice eh? They've killed me more times than I've killed them. But I just attack them for money usually. Although I admit if I have nobody left to attack I'll shank OT Woman. I did that today while singing, "Shank shank shank, shank shank shank, shank your booty." But she had it coming to her. heh heh.

The movies I watched were "The Wrestler", "Slumdog Millionaire" and "Benjamin Button". Lemme tell you these were three good movies! In fact I wouldn't be surprised if they all won an Oscar. It's funny how things work. One day I watch nothing but duds and then some days everything I watch is great. I think it might have something to do with me. My mood when I watch. I saw the Dark Knight recently too but I don't think I was in a good movie watching mood. I still liked it though. Another Oscar hopeful for Heath Ledger. But before I start making Oscar predictions I'll have to watch films like Milk, Frost/Nixon, The Visitor, Doubt etc. This is a fun time of year for me. And I gotta say it's very nice to have the time to be able to see all these movies. So I'm counting my blessings. Not often I get to do that. But during hibernation I have plenty of reflection time.

Anyway, as it stands right now I'd have to say my early favourite is The Wrestler. Even though Mickey Rourke was the lead actor in my all time LEAST favourite movie, 9 1/2 Weeks, and I still hold a long-standing grudge against him for that, this was a great movie! And not just because of Marissa Tomei's super hot bod. I'm not saying he deserves an Oscar. I think he was good but from what I see in his interviews he's much the same as the character he played and he's played it before. But I loved this movie. Thumbs way up.

Slumdog was a pretty interesting look into the street life in India, but maybe it's just me, (having seen the same stuff in other Asian countries), it wasn't really new. Take a game show that is a HUGE hit because of the suspense it creates for viewers and put it in a movie. Not really a risky premise. If you add brilliant character development like Quiz Show then you'd have something. But the characters were a bit too melodramatic and superheroic. Like, (I understand), much of Bollywood fare. I was impressed how all the actors refrained from busting out into song or dance. Until the end of the movie. lol I liked it quite a bit but don't think it's good enough for Oscar. I don't want to spoil anything but the autograph scene was awesome!

Benjamin Button was such an obvious rip-off of Forrest Gump that I wonder if its whole purpose was to give the academy what they are looking for. And if you get a table full of Comic Book Guys to make a list of flaws that come up when a guy is aging backwards it would never end. Things like teeth. Were they rotten when he was born old or did they decay and fall out as he got to his teens? Why he changes so much in the 15 years that he grows up with the girl. If he went from a 90-year-old to a 75-year-old, how much change would there have been? Really. He went from a blind, deaf cripple to a fully haired, dude who could RUN. Ever see a 75-year-old run? And his girlfriend never looks like she ages more than 20 years while he goes right down to pubescence and infancy. But somehow looks like she's 200 a few years later on her death bed. And of course the sex drive. Did he need Viagra when he was a young guy who looked like an old dude or an old guy who looked like a young dude? He got his share of nookie during BOTH periods. No THIS is one book that shouldn't have been made into a movie. It requires too much imagination. Having said all that, I liked it. I loved Forrest Gump and this was very much the same movie. And Brad Pitt is money. He's never made even a mediocre movie. All his movies are great. So yes I'd recommend it but not for best picture or actor. However, Ben's Mom was even better than Sally Field, (Forrest's Mom), so she might deserve an Oscar.

So that's what I've been doing on Valentine's Day this year. Not bad. And cheap! But I'd like to wish everyone out there, (and their sweetheart), a happy Valentine's Day. In Korea, I hope you had a great one. I'm sure sooner or later this day will mean something to me again. I don't miss it much though. In fact if I had a significant other I might just suggest the very same day only together. What do you think, is this one reason why I DON'T have one?

Bail Me Out Scotty!

I was hoping I wouldn't have to open up this can of worms again because even though I knock my American friends from time to time, I love them and hope they can recover from the economic CATASTROPHUCK they are in. I don't understand the amounts of money being talked about when the subject of bail-outs comes up, (and I don't know you but), neither do you. We hear words like "trillion" and most of us don't really know what that means. I heard a really good illustration on the only TV news I watch, The Daily Show with John Stewart. A guy said that if you started spending a million bucks a day when Jesus was born you still wouldn't have spent a trillion bucks. And I'm assuming he's not accounting for interest accrued over the 2009 years you've been spending. Anybody remember the movie with Richard Prior called "Brewster's Millions"? What did he have a week or a month? I forget but he had a helluva time spending just one million bucks and having nothing to show for it. So I guess it shoulda been called "Brewster's Million." But he started with one and I think he ended up earning more millions didn't he? Whatever. Spending a trillion and having nothing to show for it would be impossible... for anyone but a government official. This is their specialty folks. It's what they do.

So how do they do it? Bail-outs is the plan of choice these days. This idea has been bothering me since I first heard about it because for the most part, people have been labelling these bail-out loans as "socialism". I wrote an entry back in November about the way people use words that are completely the opposite of the truth. This was the example that inspired the entry. Essentially, (and I'm no economist), all these bail-out loans are doing is intensifying the capitalism by enriching the, (miniscule number of), beneficiaries of capitalist society without ANY benefits to the people who are the source of the capital and, thereby, its benefactors, Joe Average, Joe Blow, Joe Sixpack, Joe the Plumber. Almost all Americans fall into one of these four categories. I think I'd be a Joe Sixpack if I were American.

The plan is pretty simple but as any good villain would say, "It's ingenious in its simplicity!" Bolster the benefactors' desire to work their asses off for the beneficiaries of capitalism by intensifying the unfair system and labelling it socialism. Communism is no longer a threat. It was chased away by McCarthy. But at this time in America the people NEED socialism so it is necessary to demonize it right away. So amp up the capitalism to a point where it's obvious to the most ardent zealot that it's a shitty idea and then make sure you call it socialism enough times to keep them zealous. And lo, and behold, it's working!

But, not with the aforementioned host of the Daily Show. He's started saying what I've been saying to anyone who will listen to me for the last few months: give the people the money! Hey what a concept! But that would be enriching SOCIETY. Socialism is all about society. You can tell because they are almost the same word. It's not about giving all the good shit to the top 00.001% like capitalism is. Capitalism, as I said in my November entry, is all about capital. Money. Like most "isms" those who are true "ists" are nefarious and extreme in their goals. They invite as many junior "ists" as they can to further their cause but not really benefit from it.

On a couple recent Daily Shows, John Stewart threw out the idea of giving money to the American people instead of giving it to the banks. All that would happen is the people would use it to pay down mortgages or loans or put it in their savings or buy bonds or stocks or whatever and the banks would eventually end up with it anyway but with great improvement of the average American's fianancial situation. Not to mention consumer confidence, economic stability, job creation, social program relief, healthier stock market, all sorts of signs of prosperity it would create. It seems logical right? Almost too logical. It's so logical it must be illogical. That's what capitalists hope you believe. Because even though the true capitalists of America would still get all that money, the goal of a true capitalist is not to be rich, it's to be richer than YOU! With the John Stewart plan, they are not as much richer than you so it's not as satisfying.

Here's the rub: This is what the American economy needs, (and has needed for like ever), but this really IS socialism. And Americans are supposed to hate that. Or at least fear it. Not supposed to want it anyway. So I think the wave of anti-socialism has just begun in America. You must not abandon capitalism. Socialism is bad. We don't want socialism. These are not the droids you are looking for. You'll be hearing more messages like this very soon. And to quote the great bard again, mark my words.

Uncomfortably Nub

It's been a long time since I posted. Mostly because I've been on holidays doing the Christmas, New Years, New Years partying. Two New Yearses in Korea. Gotta like that!

Since I'm not at home I'm writing this on another person's computer. And it's a laptop. And it's hard to type on for a couple reasons. The keyboard is smaller and for some reason it randomly skips letters. But I'm just inspired enough to write and I'll tell you why: I went to the bank this morning.

Anybody who knows me, has been to this blog or has ever talked to me for 5 minutes knows the only thing I hate worse than banks is Korean banks. There are customs and habits that force us to use them but these customs and habits can easily change. It certainly isn't for services, dividends or conveniences that we still use this most useless of necessities in life. For most, (if not all), of us, the inconveniences and charges, (not to mention the stress), far outweigh anything good our banks offer us.

Every time we use a bank machine we are expediting service for those who want to do banking at the bank. For this we are charged. At least a buck. I've paid up 25 and I've heard of even bigger charges for cash machines. If you do international banking, (don't), on the bank machine, you'll get exchange rates that should be illegal and service charges that amount to socially accepted usury. I've even been charged for paying bills at the bank machine! It's exponentially worse when you get into mortgages or loans or credit cards. Which is why I haven't, and won't likely EVER get into that. They'll even fine you for paying back a loan or mortgage early I hear. Only a bank! Then they use all our hard-earned money, move it around magically, make billions and billions of dollars and CHARGE us for making them rich. You do the work and they get the money. Pretty sweet deal! For them.

And what else do banks offer us for making them rich? They limit our access to OUR money. When the banks are closed, when the cash machines are closed, (and they close every day in Korea for some insane reason), on holidays, if they deactivate your bank card or freeze your account to protect you from getting to your own money, if you don't have all the appropriate documents, if the bank is being robbed, if exchange rates are especially unfavourable, on a whim, or for no reason at all they enjoy keeping us from our money.

What do we get from banks really? Is our money safer there? Hah! Tell that to the people who have lost money when their bank has gone out of business. That happens a lot too. And how does it happen? It's not like the money disappears. Your bank makes stupid investments with your money and loses it all for you. Yes sir! Risk-free investing. That'd be pretty sweet! For THEM.

Your money is statistically safer in a safe in your home. Even safer in a safe NOT in your home.

If we weren't paid by direct deposit we'd need banks to cash our paychecks or we'd have to carry large amounts of cash home on payday. And yet mugging and robbery haven't disappeared since we stopped getting paid by cash or check, have they? Cash is untraceable. People all over want to know how much money you make and where you spend it. You can bet nowadays with so little cash flow, almost every purchase you make with electronic money is sold by your bank or credit card company to advertisers or marketers. Hence we're making them even MORE money by not using cash.

Having said all that, Koreans have IMPROVED banks! They've made all these services even MORE effecient and even added a few more ways to make our money the cause of and not the solution to so many of our problems. I've dealt with many of them on an individual basis but today I'm gonna talk about passports. Now of course passport-based services are not offered to the locals in Korea. Only the foreigners get these bonuses.

Some banks stamp your passport every time you do anything wasting valuable space; I've been refused by my own bank when I asked to deposit Korean cash into MY account but didn't bring my passport; if you're sending money home, transfering money, withdrawing money, there are banks that will require your passport. It's almost like they don't know it's totally and in ALL of these cases unnecessary. But the teller has been given a rule and zero power, (or understanding), of discretion.

You see when a person comes to Korea they get something called an alien registration card. In order to get it your passport has to be produced for and verified by no less than 20 officials and organizations. The business you work for, the Korean consulate or embassy, Korean immigration, airlines, airport immigration and customs in all countries you pass through to get to Korea, your country's government, police, hospitals and I'm forgetting some for sure. When you come to Korea you become a number. Your alien card number. You need it to start a bank account, rent a movie, do almost anything. It's the same size as credit card so you can keep it on you at all times. It's a more convenient size than your passport because it's more useful. Everything you do at a bank requires the alien card and exactly nothing you do at a bank requires a passport. The cards used to have your passport number ON THEM! And in those days I was STILL asked frequently for my passport. I have argued with tellers and had older people come to my assistance and do whatever I wanted done SANS passport more than once. Some tellers in this country used to know the rules and not ask for the passport all the time but it seems like along with a whole pile of other rules and laws that have been invented or more strongly enforced in Korea recently to make things as inconvenient as possible for foreigners, all the banks are just saying, "screw them, ask for passports for everything."

I am visiting friends and I needed to wire some money home today. Something I've done from many banks without a passport before. We went to KEB, the Korean Exchange Bank, which is supposed to specialize in this sort of stuff. Needed a passport. Now you can ask WHY but expect the thousand mile stare as your response. Today I had Min Ju to translate and the teller mentioned money laundering I think. Like I make 2 million a month and I send home 3 million a month. So I'm making extra money illegally. That's money laundering. I was sending 400 bucks to a storage company where I keep some of my stuff in Canada. Just a little common sense and discretion... No, rules are better!

Who "launders" 400 bucks at a time. There used to be a limit of 5000 dollars a day. I think it's up to 10,000 now. I'm not gonna break the country by sending home an extra 400 bucks a month. Of course the teller can't know this. But who DOES know? How do they catch money launderers. Although our teller might think she heroically helped her country today, nope. We are just numbers. Those numbers, (our alien numbers), are attached to all our banking. We are only allowed one account for payment in Korea and one bank card from that account if we want to take money out of that account, or transfer money via bank machine overseas. But that privelege has recently been take away from all foreigners too. Because of fears of money laundering? I don't think so. So now we have to send money home by the stone age method of wire transfer. No internet banking is allowed either. Money orders or certified checks are a huge hassle too. Koreans are absolutely petrified of foreigners making money here and taking it out of the country. I wonder why Koreans are so knowledgeable in this area. Setting up shop in another country and piping all the profits back to yours. Hmmmmm. At any rate it's the alien registration number that is traced.

So why do they do it? There are service fees, early payment fees, overdraft fees, well this is just a foreigner fee. That's all it is. So essentially foreigners have to carry around their passports all over the place. There are more and more places unnecessarily demanding them. I'd rather walk around with huge bags full of cash. I won't get killed for all the money I have in the bank but I could very easily be killed for my passport.

Incidentally HSBC recently tried to buy out KEB but the Korean repesentatives of KEB let the hugely favourable deal lapse. The least politically correct reason I've read for this deal's collapse was their "fear of foreign interests benefiting from a Korean-based, (not owned), company." Less than a year after the deadline of the deal and now Korea is searching for foreign banks that will loan them money to replace deals they had with banks in the U.S. that have gone tits up. Hmmmmm do you suppose H.S.B.C. will do it? Hah, Korea had their chance and blew it. You can't even open an account at an H.S.B.C. here in Korea any more. I've tried. And every time I read the newspaper I hear of another giant company either passing up Korea for their business or pulling their business out of Korea. They give carefully worded reasons for pulling outta here but we know why it happens.

I'm not going to carefully word it: the longer I stay, the worse this country gets at dealing with foreigners. I am going home in June and I wouldn't be surprised if I just stayed. As one of my good friends here in Korea says, "I'm a nub." This place has finally worn me down to a nub.

NFL '08

Okay, I figured I'd write about something happier. I think that might be why I like sports: They're always so positive! I mean, we complain about our teams losing, and get upset when coaches or managers make stupid moves but sports can always put a smile on the face of a fan like me. Even when I was cheering for one of the worst team in the league like some of those sadsack Canucks teams with the hockey stick jerseys and the flying V's. They were awful! But you always hope for a miracle like what happened to them in '82. The Canuck run to the finals in 1982 is probably my fondest sports memory even though they lost 4 straight in the finals.

It's like a kick in the groin for me to say this, but they sort of won it on defence. The Canucks were outscored by every team in their division that year except, (speaking of sadsack teams), the Colorado Rockies, but nobody had a lower goals against total. They had some good defencemen but let's face it, this was back when goalies WERE the most important guys on the team and a great goalie like Richard Brodeur could get you places all by himself. He was unconscious the whole year and unbeatable in the playoffs until he met up with Bossy, Trottier, Potvin, Gillies, Tonelli, Nystrom and the boys who once again proved that a really great offense is what wins Stanley's Cup.

I could STILL probably name most of the Canuck players on that team although they wouldn't be nearly as recognizable as the Islanders they played. In fact I remember doing exactly that in lieu of what I was supposed to be doing in grade 9 chemistry class with my partner in crime, Brian Manning. For our loyalty to the Canucks we got kicked out of class for the umpteenth time by Mr. Brown but it was worth it. That was a really memorable time in hockey for me.

This year in the NFL just might be another memorable time. Not for any one team like last year's almost perfect Patriots, but for the crop of amazing rookies that are bringing heaps of offense to the NFL in 2008. For a guy who likes offense this is a banner year! For a guy who plays in sports pools where rookies are cheap and heavily offensive rookies are like gold, it's even better! When low-cost players are at the TOP of the league in fantasy points it unbelievable! But that's what's happening this year. And I'm cashin' in!

I'm in The Sporting News' football pool every year. I do their hockey and baseball pools too. It's a way for me to keep up with real sports even though I can't really watch them over here in Korea. Over a hundred thousand people entered the football pool this year. 100,458 to be exact. I have a team ranked in the top 8% of that. Like 8 thousanth! That's pretty good!

A team in the pool consists of 2 quarterbacks, 2 running backs, 2 receivers and a team defence. If a person had picked all rookies and kept them the same this season he could be winning his pool! That's just crazy! Here's what that team would look like:

QB #1 - Matt Ryan of the Atlanta Falcons. He's replacing maybe the most overrated QB EVER, the dog-hating bastard Michael Vick, so everybody is glad to see him doing well. But he's doing REALLY well since his team was built for the run and really only has one receiver - Roddy White. They're making each other look good.

QB #2 - Joe Flacco of the Baltimore Ravens. Again his stats are more amazing considering he doesn't have any great receivers. Mason is good, Clayton and Heap are at best nice to have. NONE of them are what I would consider valuable football pool players.

Ryan and Flacco are ranked 14 and 15 respectively in the TSN pool ahead of players like Gerrard, Roethlisberger, Bulger and Frerotte. But when you consider that they are MUCH cheaper to buy than any of the players above them, they are up at the top of fantasy QB's.

RB #1 - Matt Forte of the Chicago Bears. He is the number one running back in the league this year and almost nobody knows it! His combined stats are better than Adrian Peterson, L.T., Brian Westbrook, Clinton Portis, etc. AND HE'S A ROOKIE! Absolutely amazing! I don't think he's the best but he's got more points than anyone and he's got a rookie price.

RB #2 - Chris Johnson of the Tennesse Titans. What Johnson has done this year is just as amazing as Forte because he might not be considered the number one running back on his team. If Tennesse used Johnson instead of LenDale White in the red zone he'd have a lot more TD's and better fantasy numbers than Forte.

* I have to say that Felix Jones of the Dallas Cowboys could probably be better than both of the guys above. He's been injured this year though. Plus he's on a passing team and has one of the premier rushers in the game ahead of him in Marion Barber. If I were a team like Baltimore, Indy, New England, Arizona, Cincinatti, geez, almost ANY other team, I'd be talking to the Cowboys about Felix.

WR #1 - DeSean (Fraction) Jackson of the Philadelphia Eagles. He's the number two receiver in the league this year sandwiched between Cardinals Fitzgerald and Boldin. The difference is THEIR QB has been playing well. As much as I like Donovan McNabb he's been average this year. I wonder what kind of number Jackson could put up when McNabb is playing well. We may still see...

WR #2 - Eddie Royal of the Denver Broncos. He'll go over 1000 yards and he might catch 100 passes. Unheard of for a rookie and unlike Jackson whose on a team with NO other receiver who can catch, (Baskett sucks), Royal is on a team with Brandon Marshall, one of the best. Some would say this is an advantage to his performance since DB's are focussing on Marshall, but if you are talking about good receivers, they'll catch balls in triple coverage IF the quarterback throws to them. Luckily Cutler likes to throw and he spreads a lot of passes around between Marshall and Royal, who are 6th and 9th in the league in receptions respectively.

Since I love receivers and since this year is a revolutionary year for them, I'm gonna pick two more!

WR #3 - Steve Breaston of the Arizona Cardinals. People are always talking about the dynamic duo of receivers in Arizona. It's a dynamic TRIO folks! Breaston has caught 60 balls on a team where he is the third option for the ageless wonder Kurt Warner. All three are in the top ten. For this reason Arizona is my favourite team to watch this year. I think second might be Denver and third would probably be the New Orleans Saints with their ALMOST rookie wide receiver,

WR #4 - Lance Moore. Nobody spreads the ball around his receiving corps like Drew Brees. I'm pretty sure I've seen him complete passes to suited up waterboys and position coaches this year. But if he has a go-to guy this season it's Lance Moore. Even though nobody throws more than Brees, Lance is the only receiver from the Saints in the top 70 in receptions. That's just weird.

My fourth favourite team to watch this year has been the worst team by FAR of last year, the Miami Dolphins. They have two almost rookies in Ted Ginn Jr. and Greg Camarillo that I wish Chad Pennington could throw to more often. You know he wants to. But they have to give Brown and Williams a lot of touches. It's too bad cuz Miami likes their passing. I'm not sure Ginn and Camarillo are Clayton and Duper and for sure Pennington isn't Marino, but I think Miami needs to pass more.

Anyway, these young guys are making it worth the fatigue of staying up all night and watching jerky live streams and/or real time updates from 3 AM to noon Monday morning here in Korea. And it's been SWEET having Mondays off this semester!

Check these guys out! They're fun to watch!

What are we saying?

Being a student of the English language I have always been fascinated by how human development can be seen in the words we use and how we use them. But I am even more fascinated when it can NOT be seen. I’ll give you some great examples: The word “communism” has the same roots as words and phrases like “community”, “cooperate”, “communing with nature” and many others that are positive. Yet if someone calls another person a communist, even if the namecaller or the namecalled doesn’t fully understand the meaning of the word, hasn’t read Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto, and knows little or nothing of the politics associated with the word, you might have a fight on your hands.

Societies have succeeded, even thrived using the principals of communism. The North American Inuit and native peoples depended on communist ideals to survive. And for centuries they did survive despite harsh climate and conditions only to be decimated by the people who are now the greatest proponents of obliterating those ideals. Everything was shared amongst the tribe. When explorers of the north like Martin Frobisher first saw the Inuit people they were amazed at how ownership had no meaning. If a man wanted to hunt he would find a sled and some dogs in the community that were not being used and without asking, take them. The people from whom the sleds and dogs were borrowed would simply assume another person needed them and think nothing of it. Indeed, the people of North America during that time most probably thought that the idea of ownership was against human nature. You can just bet the European explorers took full advantage of this phenomenon! Only the sleds, clothes, tools, carvings, implements, dogs, even people that were “borrowed” from the Inuit communities and brought back to Europe were never returned causing great hardship to the tribes.

Another word that is more recently being demonized by North American speakers of English is the word “socialism.” It’s another word that has its roots in the positive interaction of people. It is good to be a “social” person and bad to be antisocial. Why then is it bad to be a socialist? Well you can’t talk about communism and socialism without bringing up their ugly brother, capitalism. Without question the roots of this word ARE the most negative of the three. If communism and socialism are Adam and Eve, capitalism is the snake. Capital means money, therefore capitalism is “moneyism.” Whereas socialism purports the love of society and communism is based on loving the community, capitalism is the veritable root of all evil: the love of money. It is this brother’s need to exist independent of his siblings, and our inexplicable love affair with this brother in North America that has changed the connotations of the aforementioned words.

If this is the first time you have ever read capitalism being talked about in such a negative way, isn’t that fascinating? I find it fascinating that the word “moneyism” is underlined by a red squiggly line on my computer but if I type “commie”, no squiggly line. But perhaps when one looks at the history of Microsoft, the makers of the program I am using to type this, one shouldn’t be so surprised.

Getting back to the early North Americans, what was it that made it seem necessary for these people, living in harmony with nature and each other, to be so violently taken out? I don’t think it was just their ideas of sharing things. In fact I believe those ideas would have been espoused by European settlers and become a more prevalent part of modern North American life had they NOT excluded the ownership of one thing: people. This is what I believe caused our forefathers to believe native North Americans were primitive, even savage. What an abomination! They did not OWN other human beings. For this they had to be slaughtered.

Don’t think me harsh. The idea of owning people was nowhere near as ugly to Europeans back in the time of Frobisher and other explorers like him. In fact it was an aspect in societies that was thought of as integral to proper order in a country. They didn’t so much as say they owned other people but to a nobleperson a serf was a belonging. Position in life was absolute and it dictated who belonged to whom. Another great example of a word that has changed from negative to positive over the years is the word, “ambitious.” A person who sought to rise above his position was seen to be a challenge to the Lord’s purpose for him to be a servant to, (belonging of), those above him. Read any of the Shakespearian histories. The ambitious are the villainous. But read any resume nowadays and you will find “ambitious” or something like it. Use it when describing a man to a woman and he’ll score points. And this brings me full circle to what I believe the whole matter is about. I don’t believe servitude or slavery was the main bone of contention between Europeans and native North Americans, I think it was more about men and women. Sex. Marriage. Husbands and wives.

Back to Frobisher and the boys. One of the “belongings” that the Inuit people did not jealously guard, but shared amongst the community were women. They weren’t really wives.That implies ownership. They were women. Frobisher and his crew didn’t take the Concorde to Canada. They sailed. The voyage didn’t take hours or even weeks. It took over 2 months to get from England to Baffin Island. The married crewmembers missed their wives. The single crewmembers missed their girlfriends. Although the Inuit women may have been too stout and brown for their taste, hey, any port in a storm… It is well documented in the historical writings of the Hudson Bay Company of Canada that this was another aspect of Inuit culture of which Frobisher and his boys took full advantage! And I don’t blame them in the least because I don’t care how many horn rimmed sea turtles or reticulated garden slugs you can show me who mate for life, let’s wake up and smell the bacon: PEOPLE DON’T! I think the Inuit had it right. And you can bet Frobisher’s boys did too. Until they got back to their wives and girlfriends. THEN the Inuit were uncouth savages!

I’ve sat in a brand new car with less than ten kilometers on the speedometer. I smelled the sweet, new car smell and appreciated the fact that I might have been the first person to ever touch my ass to the velvety smooth seat, handle the instruments, caress the Corinthian leather upholstery, start it up, rev the engine and jolt off the line in an explosion of smoke. I know if I had bought that car, the thrill of sole ownership would have lasted. Maybe a year. Then I would have seen a newer, flashier model and I would look at my car with papers and crumpled coffee cups in the back seat, a dent in the rear left quarter panel, a few scratches and even signs of rust in the wheelwells and I would entertain the idea of trading up. Then after two years I would look at other cars that might not even be as nice as mine. Just different. I’d wonder if I shouldn’t have bought a truck. Or maybe a convertible. I’d wonder what it would be like to drive my neighbour’s car. This is the way we are. And in a capitalist society we are allowed, nay, encouraged to indulge this desire to diversify in every area of life except one: our mates. The very qualities that make a person successful in a capitalist society will make a marriage fail. Yet the institute remains virtually unassailable. This I find absolutely fascinating!

I sometimes listen a bit too closely to love songs just to get a chill at how psychotically acquisitive the lyrics are. Another example of how the development of our culture has changed the things we say and we don’t really notice. The most “romantic” songs of our time say things like “you belong to me and I belong to you” and “every move you make I’ll be watching you.” This sounds more to me like a life sentence than a loving relationship. But it’s ROMANTIC ownership! Oh, well then that makes it okay.

So the next time you watch a news report about the 70 billion dollar American bank bail-out and how “socialist” it was, or hear a feminist talking about her husband or the next time you listen to a song on the radio think about how the words reflect the development of our society. And if you’re really daring, think about whether that is the reflection you’d like it to be.

The Brown Hedged Course

In the spirit, but not the literarily constricting format, of my Saturday sonnets I posted here before, I give you my latest poem. It was inspired by an E.M. Forster short story called "The Other Side of the Hedge". Check that out if you have the time. It's a good one. And it really is SHORT.

The human mind: a mystery itself will never solve
amid the sophistry and horseshit we’re receiving
until we can transcend or spontaneously evolve,
everyone needs something to believe in.

As entertaining as it is to see
a fashionista cite his influences
as amber and fuchsia leaves in gay Paris,
give your head a shake, come to your senses
and you will smell that haute couture is rotten.
Beneath the fashionspeak so droll and funny
is something brightly coloured and partly cotton.
The Emperors’ new clothes are made of money.

At the auction the crowd gasps and hushes.
A hundred forty mil. for some Pollock art.
Not a painting, cloth he used to clean his brushes.
Still in fairness impossible to tell apart.
What Pollock’s life has shown us no one got.
A country’s greatest phony they did anoint.
His tragic life and death just made him hot.
The most priceless Pollock illustration is of my point.

I’ve even heard it said that love,
a prize so pure with value never ending,
was not a jewel sent from heaven above
but from Wall Street to keep consumers spending.
And in the office building at the worksite
we do our duty dispirited and aloof.
And only hope that this rumour isn’t right
keeps us from throwing ourselves off the roof.

This brown-hedged course upon which we are running,
since walking is progressive but it’s slower,
will lead us to our goal with wisdom and cunning,
and when we get there, we’ll just run some more.
But I won’t run with you nor will I even walk.
You go ahead if you want, I’ll be fine.
Someday we’ll meet up again, drink beer and talk.
On a circular course, you can’t leave me behind.

The human mind: a mystery itself will never solve
amid the sophistry and horseshit we’re receiving
until we can transcend or spontaneously evolve,
everyone needs something to believe in.

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.