No Foolin Kimi

We decided to start this blog on april fools day, because the Korean response to that venerated American tradition really seemed to epitomize all that is bizzarre, sad, and sort of hilarious about this country.

April fools day for koreans consists of teenagers calling the fire department and reporting fake fires...clearly they have missed the point. Being new to the office, as well as the first American on the floor, I felt it beholden upon me to introduce my colleagues to the pleasures of playing pranks on your co-workers (instead of emergency services). They didn't get it.

Koreans have a rather limited sense of humor. They generally only respond to old women - "Ajumas" - screaming at fat people running around in their underpants. This style of comedy is less amusing than it might sound, due in large part to the annoying hi-pitched quality of the ajuma's voices. For people lacking in the humor department Fool's Day is tough, but for the Koreans it presents an almost existential dillema.

While they were aware of the concept of april fools (due no doubt to the numerous fake fire evacuations they had participated in throughout the years), my colleagues could not be prevailed upon to participate in any jokes. The reason I sought to enlist their help was simple - nobody takes me seriously around here to begin with, so my chances of pulling off a convincing prank were slim. Plus I wanted to teach the Kims about humor.

But when I suggested that we play a prank on someone else in the office, the Koreans balked as though I'd just asked them to help me unclog the toilet. "Maybe somebody should do it, but definitely not me". This is the go-to response for almost any new situation in Korea. A brief flash of terror at the notion of stepping outside the normal boundaries. Thus, even when I suggested a simple prank on the other foreigner in the office, whereby one of our Managers would pretend that our VP was very upset and considering firing her, I got no support. An alternative joke? Nope, can't do it...

And of course my own efforts to mess with the Kims were all foiled by the somewhat befuddling incongruity of a person trying to do something fun, at work. They could not grasp the concept of someone playing a joke at work and probably thought I was drunk (which is irrelevant). Work should not be fun you see, because having fun would imply that you must not be working hard enough.

As you may have noticed, we're posting a bit late...this is because google decided our blog was a spam blog - I don't even know what the hell that means, but I assume it is in someway related to korean spam consumption - which by unofficial estimates averages around 500 cans of spam per/person per/annum