Dear massive, adulatory fan base
You knew the day would have to come when we became so fed up with life here that no amount of spiced cabbage and rice wine spiked with antifreeze (known to the Kims as "Sochu") could make it better. It has happened - our korean sun is setting, our train is leaving the station, our short film is just a money shot and a towel short of completion. That's right, Wake Me and Wex are outa Seoul in 36 hours.
It's been one year, 6 months and 19 days, and I've lost that lovin feelin. I can no longer tolerate the raw sewage smell greeting me at every corner, the wicked old women sneering at me on the bus, nor the assholes on scooters trying to run me down on the sidewalk. I still love the shiny suits and snowstorm miniskirts, but they can no longer compensate for my retarded job, where recently they appointed a bio chemist to be the head of my marketing division. the guy has never even sold a fucking toothbrush and now I'm supposed to take orders from him - no, no i'm not.
So i quit that shitbox job and am now officially working on my novel... Of course as you might imagine my departure from that ill-fated enterprise was as silly and annoying as my year long tenure there. I was subjected to an endless barrage of well wishing Kims who insisted on taking me out to lunch so that we could have awkward conversations about how everybody wishes they too had the balls to quit their pointless job and leave this ass backwards country. These conversations were spliced between inspiring farewell discussions such as my general manager's discourse on why dog meat is better for humans than beef. This is because humans are omnivores, and so are dogs, whereas cows only eat grass. We should eat creatures that share our appetites. (this is why the best meat of all is human flesh - goes great with pickles).
Before I slapped this moron across the face with my delicious T-bone, I demanded how his brilliant logic applied to the Kims favorite food, pork. Well everyone knows pigs have a special body chemistry that makes their fat more suitable for human consumption than beef fat. I will truly miss the Korean version of science that people here use to justify every ridiculous thing they believe. It's more entertaining than American logic, which tends to ignore science in favor of lessons from people who can walk on water and/or part seas.
But I digress. In less than two days I shall no longer have amusing arguments about the virtues of dog meat how it leads to cannibalism. Nor will I have to deal with scum-sucking assholes in HR who are forcing me to sue them over my severance pay. I leave all that bullshit behind me and step out into the great unknown, which is to say this great recession i've been hearing so much about. What better time to be unemployed? I'll have lots of company on the couch.
But lest ye think that my imminent parting wants for a little sweet sorrow, allow me to give a final shout out to all the poor seouls I'll be leaving behind. My friends and bandmates in this lame town have made the journey a fun one, despite all the crap this blog has detailed. I may not have learned much in my inane job, but I certainly leave Korea richer in friends and life experiences, and for that I (and Wake Me too) am grateful. So aniyeong, my korea homies. Hope to see you all again soon, but not back here.
every inch of my love
Wex
Monday, March 23, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Stop Being Douchebags? Yes They Can
On this historic day I thought I should write a little post about my man Obama, who's triumph over the snowmobiles of fear and the moosehunters of ignorance has managed to crack through even the opaque walls of the occasional Kim. While there has been no partying in the streets a la European Cities, my somnambulist colleagues actually acknowledged that something more important than extra sides of Kimchi was happening today.
In fact, I have noticed a marked increase in positivity coming from a traditionally sour source, the Korean cab driver. Most of our readers know that cab drivers have been the bane of many an otherwise pleasant evening here in Seoul. They are ill-tempered assholes who behave more like mutinous indentured servants than people who are actually getting paid. ("Turn the car around on this empty street?? Fuck no - Get the hell out of my cab!"). They also tend to be racist bastards who refuse to pick up white folk like me unless we sport a nice looking suit, and even then prospects are grim.
But since November 2008, I am pleased to say that many cab drivers can't stop talking about America and Barack Obama. These days it is not unusual to be welcomed into a cab with the a brief exchange about where I am from, followed by "America - very good. Barack Obama, yes we can!" Or something like that. After 8 years of being embarrassed and defensive, I'm once again proud to tell the cabbies I'm from America, and they too are proud to be alive in this moment in history. So kudos to you America, and to you too, cab-drivin Kims. You cats are alright.
Now please turn left at this intersection. "Turn left? Hell no! Get the fuck out of my cab..."
In fact, I have noticed a marked increase in positivity coming from a traditionally sour source, the Korean cab driver. Most of our readers know that cab drivers have been the bane of many an otherwise pleasant evening here in Seoul. They are ill-tempered assholes who behave more like mutinous indentured servants than people who are actually getting paid. ("Turn the car around on this empty street?? Fuck no - Get the hell out of my cab!"). They also tend to be racist bastards who refuse to pick up white folk like me unless we sport a nice looking suit, and even then prospects are grim.
But since November 2008, I am pleased to say that many cab drivers can't stop talking about America and Barack Obama. These days it is not unusual to be welcomed into a cab with the a brief exchange about where I am from, followed by "America - very good. Barack Obama, yes we can!" Or something like that. After 8 years of being embarrassed and defensive, I'm once again proud to tell the cabbies I'm from America, and they too are proud to be alive in this moment in history. So kudos to you America, and to you too, cab-drivin Kims. You cats are alright.
Now please turn left at this intersection. "Turn left? Hell no! Get the fuck out of my cab..."
Monday, January 12, 2009
Accomplishments of the Bush
This has nothing to do with Korea, but I find it pretty amusing.
It's the Whitehouse's resume for the past eight years. Apparently they felt like the Americans didn't understand all the great stuff Bush and Co. have been doing for the world.
But check out the style. Doesn't it read like some kid's summer report? I imagine some intern had to put this together while the rest of the staff was helping W clear brush. It's pathetic, funny, and rather emblematic of W's reign.
He will be missed.
It's the Whitehouse's resume for the past eight years. Apparently they felt like the Americans didn't understand all the great stuff Bush and Co. have been doing for the world.
But check out the style. Doesn't it read like some kid's summer report? I imagine some intern had to put this together while the rest of the staff was helping W clear brush. It's pathetic, funny, and rather emblematic of W's reign.
He will be missed.
$500 Shoes... still lives with his mom
When I was in Thailand with my pops this xmas we were wandering through some mall trying to find an internet café (the hotel had all the porn blocked) and along the way decided to check out some fancy stores. Pops commented that even on sale the name-brand shit was way more expensive than in the states and inquired “who the hell pays this much money for this crap”? Having spent over a year in Korea I was ready with the answer: “the Asians do”.
Since living here I’ve noticed something about the Kims that I suspect is common to all East Asian societies – they drop a shitton of loot on overpriced clothes/accessories. I’m not just talking about rich people either. All the Kims find it necessary to spend every cent of their disposable income on fancy name brand crap they don’t need. In fact most of them go beyond disposable income and simply drop all the cash they have on Prada shoes, Gucci glasses, Louis Vuitton briefcases, and Ferragamo belts. That kind of stuff is seen as a social necessity and people who don’t sport it are shunned and mocked.
I know you’re thinking you’ve seen this before, that everybody in New York and LA does the same thing. But trust me; they don’t kick it like the Kims. The most superficial Upper East Side princess to ever throw up martini on her Cockapoo at Elaine’s has never spent such a percentage of her husband’s wealth on fashion.
It’s a sad situation, but it’s also funny. Despite their excesses most of the Kims dress like clowns. This is partially because of bad fashion sense, but also because the average Kim cannot afford to completely bling out. Note that I only referenced accessories above. That’s because most Kims work like slaves for pathetic paychecks, so they can’t afford to actually buy fancy clothes. The prices here are so inflated that all your average salaryman/woman can swing is accessories. They can’t afford a Prada suit or dress, so they settle for Ferragamo shoes. In a way this is economical, since the accessories can be warn far more often than any item of clothing. But it produces an hilarious spectacle, because the aforementioned fashion sense gets in the way of what bling they can afford.
In my office I routinely see guys walking around with $500 shoes, $300 belts and $1K watches - in shiny suits that would barely pass muster at Kmart. The suits literally look like they were stitched together by some 6th grade Home-Ec class. The chicks wear sweaters that would make your grandma look cool, but they all have that Gucci bags. Apparently actual style is not what they pay for, just the ability to flaunt a big name. (Literally: the name on the item must be as bold as possible, with any tags sporting said name deliberately left sewn in, like a yuppie Korean rap video).Anybody who cared about style would divide that money into a few different respectable outfits instead of 3 really fancy accessories, but not the Kims.
But the ridiculous appearance of these cats is overshadowed by an even more amusing fact – they all still live with their moms. Take the guy on my team who works next to me. He sports a $2K Omega watch, some kinda fancy mail order shoes from Italy, and owns 4 different cashmere scarves (from Burberry, Sax, etc…). Like everybody else on my team, the dude has a $200 Montblanc pen that he carries with him everywhere. Since nobody really needs to take notes on the pointless work we do around here, my man uses his Montblanc pen to doodle whenever possible. He talks shit about my fake designer belt and ties from China ($3 a pop), but my rejoinder is simple: He lives with his friggin mom.
The guy is 32 years old and unmarried. He actually dresses a lot better than most Kims, probably because his mommy buys him decent (non Home-Ec manufactured) suits. But at the end of the day, dude is still not married (strange for a Korean) and he never gets laid. What is the point of all his bling? Wouldn’t the poor bastard be better off if he sold his fancy accessories and put a deposit on an apartment? I guarantee he would at least have a little better shot with the ladies. And yet, without a hint of irony, my male colleagues will defend cohabitation with their parents as a pecuniary prerequisite. It costs too much to live alone, the Kims opine.
That’s fine with me, since I’ve been replacing his brand name gear with Chinese replicas for months now. If somebody’s gonna look fly around here, it will have to be me.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Winter Wonderland
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Readers
I know it’s been ages. I know I’ve been remiss in my duties in recent months. But it was fantasy football season, and since I usually write these at work, which is also where I watch football on the internet and compare stats for hours on end, I was pretty short on time. Plus every once in a while some asshole has the gall to demand that I do some work.
But never fear: football’s almost over and I’m quitting this stupid job soon, so I plan on doing as little work as possible over the next couple months.
As a bonus, it’s winter time in Korea. Winter in Korea is miserable, so you know I’ll have plenty to write/bitch about. The only positive thing I can think of to say about winter here is that it’s so fucking cold the raw sewage smell seeping up through the sidewalks is somewhat dampened by the frost.
This pleasant effect of the cold temperature is more than mitigated by the effect winter has on my shitbox apartment. As was the case last year, winter has brought on an onslaught of mold that no amount of bleach can cure. I’ve never seen anything quite like it; last season I literally peeled strips of mold off the walls around the windows. Nowadays there is no wallpaper left, so the mold is forced to cling to concrete. After I bleach the walls the stains combine with mosquito blood from last summer to create a rather morbid spectacle. Sort of like a zombie’s apartment – if that zombie had a maid.
Of course the zombie would not bathe, and thus would not have to suffer through the misery that is my shower in the wintertime. My landlord is a nice guy, but when it comes to the water heater he’s either retarded or just a sadist. The heater (which more aptly would be called a “warmer”), sits outside in the cold, encased only in a plywood box with no door. Even though we leave the heat on when we’re away the pipes managed to freeze last month. Watching the landlord defrost them with a blowtorch was amusing. He told us that when it gets really cold we have to leave our water running all night to prevent pipe-freeze.
Even when the pipes work the water isn’t hot. Actually that’s not quite true: it’s scalding hot for about 30 seconds, and then freezing cold. Somehow the heater saves up just enough juice to blow one flaming load when u first step in the shower – but then it goes limp as soon as u come back for more. My landlord doesn’t believe me when I tell him there’s a problem. He seems to think I simply enjoy having him over for a chat whilst standing around in a towel.
But this is it - last winter in Korea. Soon I will leave this moldy, frozen, sewage-smelling dump and trade up for a new city. How’s London this time of year?
I know it’s been ages. I know I’ve been remiss in my duties in recent months. But it was fantasy football season, and since I usually write these at work, which is also where I watch football on the internet and compare stats for hours on end, I was pretty short on time. Plus every once in a while some asshole has the gall to demand that I do some work.
But never fear: football’s almost over and I’m quitting this stupid job soon, so I plan on doing as little work as possible over the next couple months.
As a bonus, it’s winter time in Korea. Winter in Korea is miserable, so you know I’ll have plenty to write/bitch about. The only positive thing I can think of to say about winter here is that it’s so fucking cold the raw sewage smell seeping up through the sidewalks is somewhat dampened by the frost.
This pleasant effect of the cold temperature is more than mitigated by the effect winter has on my shitbox apartment. As was the case last year, winter has brought on an onslaught of mold that no amount of bleach can cure. I’ve never seen anything quite like it; last season I literally peeled strips of mold off the walls around the windows. Nowadays there is no wallpaper left, so the mold is forced to cling to concrete. After I bleach the walls the stains combine with mosquito blood from last summer to create a rather morbid spectacle. Sort of like a zombie’s apartment – if that zombie had a maid.
Of course the zombie would not bathe, and thus would not have to suffer through the misery that is my shower in the wintertime. My landlord is a nice guy, but when it comes to the water heater he’s either retarded or just a sadist. The heater (which more aptly would be called a “warmer”), sits outside in the cold, encased only in a plywood box with no door. Even though we leave the heat on when we’re away the pipes managed to freeze last month. Watching the landlord defrost them with a blowtorch was amusing. He told us that when it gets really cold we have to leave our water running all night to prevent pipe-freeze.
Even when the pipes work the water isn’t hot. Actually that’s not quite true: it’s scalding hot for about 30 seconds, and then freezing cold. Somehow the heater saves up just enough juice to blow one flaming load when u first step in the shower – but then it goes limp as soon as u come back for more. My landlord doesn’t believe me when I tell him there’s a problem. He seems to think I simply enjoy having him over for a chat whilst standing around in a towel.
But this is it - last winter in Korea. Soon I will leave this moldy, frozen, sewage-smelling dump and trade up for a new city. How’s London this time of year?
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Fart's War
Let it never be said that Wexford Sunshine will not sink to their level…or anybody’s level for that matter. I hold myself to no higher standards – nay, I am as fallible as the next man, and almost as petty as the next Kim. Thus, I have a confession to make: I fart on old people.
But lest ye judge me too hastily: allow me to put you in context. Some of our earliest readers may recall the description of Wake Me and my morning commute. Although she rides the bus and I the subway, both of us are accosted by the presence, both physical and olfactory, of teeming hoards of Kims as we plod our way to work. More often than you would expect these folk are wicked old and wicked nasty. Nasty both in the sense of reeking of garlic, smoke and rotting cabbage, as well as being mean spirited old hags. The smell comes mostly from the old men, who eat raw garlic every morning and breathe it all over you in the steamy confines of a subway car. Since I don’t have the breath to combat the Kims, I respond with my only other weapon – a well placed fart. Whether or not the male Kims can smell my flatulence, (or indeed can smell anything at all after years of living in Seoul), is questionable. Nonetheless, I try to position myself in front of the oldest, most foul-breathed man I can find before unleashing my morning barrage.
You may think this is a disproportionate response, particularly if you’ve never smelled anyone who eats kimchi and garlic for 3 meals a day. Well in addition to their breath these guys are often jerks - but it’s their female counterpart who is truly vicious. We have occasionally referred in these pages to the dreaded Ajuma – the Korean grandma. It is this creature of darkness that more than any other factor inspires me to make war on my fellow commuters.
Somehow sweet, demure little Korean girls evolve into beastly brutes after they have children. Maybe it’s a result of years of enduring this blatantly sexist and chauvinistic society that finally hardens them, but whatever the justification, the Ajuma is rude and aggressive – and not afraid to drop some elbows as she and her gaggle of accomplices vie for the few available seats on my hour long early morning commute. Don’t just take my word for it though – apparently there’s a Korean joke that goes “there are 3 sexes in Korea: male, female and Ajuma”. The Kims are just as oppressed by the Ajuma as I am, and they are equally baffled by her violent tendencies. When an Ajuma has succeeded in punching you out of her way, she will fix you with the death stare for daring to gape at her behavior. She will then proceed to slam the window shut, no matter how obscenely hot it is in your bus or train car. (I believe this has something to do with the cold blooded circulatory system of the Ajuma, but it may also be connected to a fear of fresh-ish air common to many Kims).
Upon exiting the train the Ajuma will shove past you to be first on the escalator. Since she invariably stands still on the escalator once achieving her position, I believe this is simply a form of primal competition for the Ajuma. She is not actually concerned about getting anywhere quickly. In fact why the hell are the Ajumas even riding the train at 7am? They have no jobs, nor any reason to pick rush hour to take care of some other business. Pondering all of this makes a fellow start to believe that the Ajumas are simply out to fuck with you.
Thus after being stuck behind one too many Ajumas on the escalator as I attempted to reach my connecting train on time, I decided to hold some of my farts until I reach the stairs, depositing them at face level as I push past the unmoving old Kims.
Once I get on my second train of the day I am generally drained of gas. Therefore I spend the rest of my morning eyeing the passengers who have managed to score seats. Which one is about to get off? Is that the old guy who got off at the second stop last week? Once I find my mark I prepare for the last stage of my morning war of attrition. I must make a tactical decision in my strategic battle against the Ajuma – how shall I stand so as to make it impossible for the old bag to grab the seat I’m scoping out if I’m lucky enough to see it vacated. If I flinch for second, or if I start to doze off standing up, she will throw me aside the minute my seat becomes available. Then I will be left to stand on my tired legs for another 45 minutes, slowly suffocating in garlic.
I could be a gentleman of course and simply cede vacant seats to the old people. I could even try to contain my gas, saving the fart for open air. But if I did I would the biggest sucker in Seoul. Absolutely nobody here gives up a seat for an Ajuma or an old man. They may not all use flatulence in their battle, but all the Kims recognize that this is War, and the prize for second place is not getting to sleep through the noxious commute.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Wex of Arabia
The arrival of a certain asshole in our offices today (we can call him Kim So Douche) reminded me of a story I’ve been meaning to tell you for some time.
Two months ago I went on a business trip with the Kims. (There was one other foreigner on board, but he doesn’t count. He’s such an obsequious kimchi-lover he might as well be a spokesman for the Fan Death Association). We went to the Middle East: Dubai, Abu Dhabi and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
That’s right, I was in Saudi Arabia. Why has it taken me 3 months to write about what I did in “the Kingdom”? Clandestine services demands a three month post-op grace period these days.
Saudi was a rather depressing dump, at least the part of it I saw. No sign of the largesse of oil wealth – just a developing country in a desert with a lot of half-finished buildings and creepy unlit highways. I imagine Riyadh must be more impressive, but we were on a trip to the industrial coastline.
So, what’s a business trip like with the Kims? At times it’s like taking your grandparents to Times Square. My boss generally shuffles around blithely, without ever seeming to take much in. But once in a while he’s confronted with something foreign and needs to be shepherded, like how you have to drag grandpa away from the hookers on 8th Ave. Or when you have to convince Grandma that there’s nothing to fear from the pre-op trannies pouring out of “Don’t Tell Mamas” on 43rd.
In general the Kims prefer to stick with what they know. This is why we ate Italian food in Saudi Arabia, and Korean food in Abu Dhabi (after two whole days without pickled cabbage, the Kims were starting to wilt). They’re constantly seeking to compartmentalize the unknown or to break it down into manageable bits that can fit on a powerpoint slide. In preparation for this trip my boss asked me to read a little book on Saudi culture called “Don’t they know it’s Friday”? He wanted a powerpoint overview of how Saudis do business differently. I of course refused to waste my time in such a manner (I’m very popular around the office thanks to this attitude), but to mollify him I did agree to look at the book. I am now the Saudi expert, having read a book by some old British wanker about not shaking hands with Saudi women.
This is pretty typical of Korean business culture. Nobody is prepared to develop any real expertise but they’re quite happy to create pretend experts who can deliver sound bites of knowledge lacking any real depth… but I digress
The real reason I started writing this piece was to tell you about how this asshole I saw today conspired with my idiot boss to screw us all out of $1000. Here’s the situation: as the youngest and lowest ranking member of our business delegation I was given the task of making sure we had hotels booked in Saudi and Dubai (where we had some other meatings). I’m pretty sure there’s an office somewhere downstairs that’s supposed to deal with hotels, but I’m equally sure that it’s staffed with drooling imbeciles – so I thought it best to handle it myself. I told my boss that I’d take care of the hotels, in consultation with this asshole from a different team who lives in Dubai. I had not yet met the asshole – Kim So Douche – but he was meant to be a source of advice on which hotels to choose. I called him and he recommended two hotels.
I booked the hotel for Friday night in Dubai and had one in Saudi for Saturday night. We had to then come back to Dubai on Sunday and Monday, so I made a separate booking for those nights – at a Hotel recommended by Kim So Douche. I told my boss we had reservations and even offered to print him up his own copy. We stayed the first two nights of our trip without incident.
Upon arriving at the Dubai airport on Sunday I discovered that, without ever consulting me, Kim So Douche had booked a separate hotel for our final two nights in Dubai. He had done this the night before – while we were staying in a hotel that I had booked. I later learned that So Douche had consulted with my boss about whether or not I had already booked a room for Sunday. Even though they knew I had booked the first two nights of our trip, it somehow seemed possible to them that I had forgotten to book the final 2 nights. Instead of waiting to confirm this completely ridiculous possibility with me, they double booked the hotels – eventually forcing us to cancel one of the reservations. Since these were nice hotels, the last minute cancellation cost $1000.
Despite the fact that this was completely my boss and Kim So Douche’s fault, they somehow seemed to regard it as a mere miscommunication. I said no – it was clearly my job to take care of this, as evidenced by the fact that we spent the first two nights in the hotels I booked – not to mention the fact that my entire team was well aware that I had booked the hotels (including the useless American who was with us on the trip, and with whom the Kims also decided not to consult before double booking the hotels). Besides, what kind of idiot would only book hotels for half of the trip?
No big deal, u might be thinking. I mean, there’s no way my boss, a Vice President, would ever ask a lowly underpaid assistant manager to help pay for such a mistake…right? Plus, isn’t it part of Asian culture that the older, richer guy has to shell out for the poor young guy? Not this time. The bastard made me and the other American guy cough up $250 a piece to pay for this error. He paid for $500. My boss refused to ask HR to compensate us for the Hotel, which they certainly would have done. He also refused to even ask Kim So Douche to chip in, even though it was his hotel hubris that caused the problem. His reasoning was that it would make us look bad if other people in the company found out about the gaffe. As for justifying taking my money – he claimed that it wasn’t really my money anyway, since we all had a per diem for the trip and I hadn’t spent all of mine on food. Apparently my unspent compensation is up for grabs. Next time he goes on a business trip I’m going to drive his company car off a bridge – it’s not like it was really his car after all.
Two months ago I went on a business trip with the Kims. (There was one other foreigner on board, but he doesn’t count. He’s such an obsequious kimchi-lover he might as well be a spokesman for the Fan Death Association). We went to the Middle East: Dubai, Abu Dhabi and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
That’s right, I was in Saudi Arabia. Why has it taken me 3 months to write about what I did in “the Kingdom”? Clandestine services demands a three month post-op grace period these days.
Saudi was a rather depressing dump, at least the part of it I saw. No sign of the largesse of oil wealth – just a developing country in a desert with a lot of half-finished buildings and creepy unlit highways. I imagine Riyadh must be more impressive, but we were on a trip to the industrial coastline.
So, what’s a business trip like with the Kims? At times it’s like taking your grandparents to Times Square. My boss generally shuffles around blithely, without ever seeming to take much in. But once in a while he’s confronted with something foreign and needs to be shepherded, like how you have to drag grandpa away from the hookers on 8th Ave. Or when you have to convince Grandma that there’s nothing to fear from the pre-op trannies pouring out of “Don’t Tell Mamas” on 43rd.
In general the Kims prefer to stick with what they know. This is why we ate Italian food in Saudi Arabia, and Korean food in Abu Dhabi (after two whole days without pickled cabbage, the Kims were starting to wilt). They’re constantly seeking to compartmentalize the unknown or to break it down into manageable bits that can fit on a powerpoint slide. In preparation for this trip my boss asked me to read a little book on Saudi culture called “Don’t they know it’s Friday”? He wanted a powerpoint overview of how Saudis do business differently. I of course refused to waste my time in such a manner (I’m very popular around the office thanks to this attitude), but to mollify him I did agree to look at the book. I am now the Saudi expert, having read a book by some old British wanker about not shaking hands with Saudi women.
This is pretty typical of Korean business culture. Nobody is prepared to develop any real expertise but they’re quite happy to create pretend experts who can deliver sound bites of knowledge lacking any real depth… but I digress
The real reason I started writing this piece was to tell you about how this asshole I saw today conspired with my idiot boss to screw us all out of $1000. Here’s the situation: as the youngest and lowest ranking member of our business delegation I was given the task of making sure we had hotels booked in Saudi and Dubai (where we had some other meatings). I’m pretty sure there’s an office somewhere downstairs that’s supposed to deal with hotels, but I’m equally sure that it’s staffed with drooling imbeciles – so I thought it best to handle it myself. I told my boss that I’d take care of the hotels, in consultation with this asshole from a different team who lives in Dubai. I had not yet met the asshole – Kim So Douche – but he was meant to be a source of advice on which hotels to choose. I called him and he recommended two hotels.
I booked the hotel for Friday night in Dubai and had one in Saudi for Saturday night. We had to then come back to Dubai on Sunday and Monday, so I made a separate booking for those nights – at a Hotel recommended by Kim So Douche. I told my boss we had reservations and even offered to print him up his own copy. We stayed the first two nights of our trip without incident.
Upon arriving at the Dubai airport on Sunday I discovered that, without ever consulting me, Kim So Douche had booked a separate hotel for our final two nights in Dubai. He had done this the night before – while we were staying in a hotel that I had booked. I later learned that So Douche had consulted with my boss about whether or not I had already booked a room for Sunday. Even though they knew I had booked the first two nights of our trip, it somehow seemed possible to them that I had forgotten to book the final 2 nights. Instead of waiting to confirm this completely ridiculous possibility with me, they double booked the hotels – eventually forcing us to cancel one of the reservations. Since these were nice hotels, the last minute cancellation cost $1000.
Despite the fact that this was completely my boss and Kim So Douche’s fault, they somehow seemed to regard it as a mere miscommunication. I said no – it was clearly my job to take care of this, as evidenced by the fact that we spent the first two nights in the hotels I booked – not to mention the fact that my entire team was well aware that I had booked the hotels (including the useless American who was with us on the trip, and with whom the Kims also decided not to consult before double booking the hotels). Besides, what kind of idiot would only book hotels for half of the trip?
No big deal, u might be thinking. I mean, there’s no way my boss, a Vice President, would ever ask a lowly underpaid assistant manager to help pay for such a mistake…right? Plus, isn’t it part of Asian culture that the older, richer guy has to shell out for the poor young guy? Not this time. The bastard made me and the other American guy cough up $250 a piece to pay for this error. He paid for $500. My boss refused to ask HR to compensate us for the Hotel, which they certainly would have done. He also refused to even ask Kim So Douche to chip in, even though it was his hotel hubris that caused the problem. His reasoning was that it would make us look bad if other people in the company found out about the gaffe. As for justifying taking my money – he claimed that it wasn’t really my money anyway, since we all had a per diem for the trip and I hadn’t spent all of mine on food. Apparently my unspent compensation is up for grabs. Next time he goes on a business trip I’m going to drive his company car off a bridge – it’s not like it was really his car after all.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Pheasant Executioners
Case in point – Have you heard of Dokdo? Or Takeshima? If so, you’ll know that they’re both the same place, and the name you use depends on where you’re from, or maybe simply on whether you prefer Japanese (Takeshima) or Korean (Dokdo) food. I’m not going to get into details, but suffice it to say this is a land-dispute between
Anger over the issue dies down periodically, but every once in a while Japan does something to bring it back to the forefront, either by driving a coast guard ship a little too close to the rocks for Korean comfort, or by denoting the island as officially Japanese in school textbooks, as they recently did. Wexford insisted that I pin some of the blame for the continuous nature of this dispute on the Japanese, for obnoxious yet subtle actions such as these. And when it comes down to it, it does seem as though Dokdo truly is Korean territory. But the vehemence with which Koreans insist Dokdo is theirs, the disgusting actions they resort to in protest of Japanese claims, and the in-your-face nationalism that emerges in support this meaningless pile of rocks, makes me want nothing more than to see it officially recognized as Japanese.
A friend of mine in Washington DC described to me how Korean lobbyists are gaining a name for themselves as enormously unsophisticated, so intent on pushing the “Dokdo is Korean” cause that US Congressmen and women are forced to remind them that there are more pressing issues to deal with – for example, their unruly neighbor up North. The Kims whine about it so much that on his recent trip to Seoul President Bush was obliged to rename the Rocks Dokdo in official US documents so the that air would be clear to calm them down over one of the other irrational obsessions here – American beef.
Part of the reason I’m so incensed with this stupid affair stems from my own recent run-in with the issue. I had been scheduled to speak at a “world” conference in
The most despicable reaction, however, came a couple weeks ago, when a group of Koreans staged a protest outside the Japanese embassy in
Thursday, August 28, 2008
The Good, the Bad, the Douchey
Dearest Readers,
Long has it been since my dulcet odes to Korea graced your browser. You may have imagined that I finally became accustomed to this miserable country and no longer felt the need to lambast its shortcomings through the magic of the internets. Sadly this is not the case. I have either been busy trying to get myself the hell out of here, or too depressed to do anything other than watch old Guns and Roses videos on Youtube. But never fear, there are many absurd episodes to recount.
First up, let me tell you about my run in with the law. Today I’m heading down to the Yongsan police department to sign a statement that will officially put an end to what was a bizarre, frustrating, occasionally amusing and once even inspiring affair.
It would take too long to get into all the details, but the story does demand some explanation. My band did a photo shoot for an incredibly pathetic local magazine called Rokon. This sorry rag is so phony that despite claiming on its cover to be an “indie source magazine”, it often featured Maroon 5 stories and ran a glowing review of the new Mariah Carrey record next to our Indie band article. Thus, when the editor of this lame excuse for a rock magazine refused to give me the photos from our hilariously overwrought shoot, I was rather incensed. After I politely but firmly told him that he had no reason to withhold our photos, he started acting like a bitchy prima donna, and eventually sent me a rude email.
Now, you may imagine that Wexford Sunshine is capable of responding to rude emails with abusive diatribes that will offend your average poser magazine editor. But this douchebag was more than offended by my scathing response, in which I referenced both his lame mag’s Mariah Carrey piece and his own ridiculous myspace page - which I claimed was clear evidence of his problems with a diminutively apportioned penis. Cut n paste this (blognazis at google don't seem to want me to link it), I think you'll agree with my assessment:
http://www.myspace.com/konghaus
Douchebag proceeded to loose what feeble control he had over his tiny mind and sent me approximately 30 text messages in a 24 hour period, which got increasingly more violent and threatening. I wasn’t terribly worried about it until he showed up outside my house the following day and threatened to sick his thug friends on me. At this point Wake me, my lawyer pal Alfonso Izquierda Esquire and I decided it would be best to bring the matter to the police. Before you go calling me a pussy, bear in mind that in Korea I would most certainly be blamed for any fights I got into – regardless of who started them. The Douchebag was apparently born in America, but he’s Korean American and I had to assume his posse would include Koreans who could lie to the cops about the whole thing. As you’ll see in a moment, I was right to be suspicious of the Korean justice system.
So we went down to the police station with a Korean friend of mine named David, prepared to get the whole thing on record. We knew the Douche wouldn’t get tossed in jail or anything, but I figured filing a complaint against him would at least give me the authority to beat his ass with a crowbar with legal impunity – in self defense of course.
Let me pause here to give props to my man David, and all the other people involved in this silly episode, including Alfonso Esq. and his attorney pal Kil-ho Esq., as well as my main man Jun and my boy Dennis (who provided the crowbar, and some damned fine whiskey). David spent 4 hours with me in the police station, translating, explaining and even getting finger printed for me. The rest of the crew was behind me the whole way, whether it meant translating, giving legal counsel or promising to bring the ruckus if anybody had to get thrown a beating. I often criticize the Kims but one thing’s for sure – a Korean friend will stand by you no matter how crazy shit gets.
Sadly, we never did get to kick any poser magazine editing ass. Shortly after we finished filing the report at the police station we discovered that some of the threatening texts I’d been getting from people I thought were Douchebag's violent posse were actually all sent by him alone. Apparently in Korea you can change the phone number that accompanies your text message, so it looks like it was sent by somebody else. Turns out Douche was not only short in the pants, but short on friends too. Furthermore, after the detective called Douche to tell him to come to the station, he proceeded to desperately phone me and my band mates, claiming he couldn’t afford to pay any fines and that the whole thing was just a big misunderstanding.
At this point I thought the whole thing was over and was ready to move on, although part of me had been hoping for a fight (with the law on my side). But the fighting left to be done was not to be physical. It turned out that the asshole detective was too lazy to do his job and file the report on Douche. He wanted the two of us to reach some kind of agreement, so that his office wouldn’t have to press charges. From what I’d seen there wasn’t much else for them to do at the Yongsan police department, but I guess my detective needed as much time as possible for cigarette and kimchi consumption.
Thus he trumped up some bullshit about how he believed that I had threatened the Douchebag in the same way as he had threatened me. At first I laughed at this. Clearly one could not equate making fun of someone’s magazine and calling him out for having a small wang with repeated threats of physical violence and stalking someone at their home. The cop himself had told me that only repeated threats were actually considered a crime. Douche had repeatedly harassed me; I sent two emails. My man Kil-ho called the detective and explained this to him, even translating my emails for him so as to demonstrate their non-threatening nature.
But the asshole detective was determined not to do his job and sadly, this country’s joke of a justice system was on his side. I was informed by my lawyer friends that even though technically I had committed no crime, the prosecutor and judge would generally take the detectives word on such a small case. The detective would claim he thought I threatened Douche, no one would ever consider whether or not he had the authority (or even jurisdiction, considering the emails were in English from US based accounts) to make such a claim. The Judge would rubber stamp some kind of fine for me and I would have to go to court to fight it. Kil-ho and Alfonso both thought that defending my white ass in a Korean court was not worth the trouble. I didn’t want to drag them down with me for such a petty thing, so I eventually agreed to acquiesce to the detective’s plan. I would drop my complaint if Douche would drop his, and give me the photos.
Eventually some of the photos were secured, and I was told that Douche had to embarrass himself considerably to get them. I reluctantly went down to the police station with Jun to sign a statement retracting my complaint. But when I got there, we discovered that the Korean legal system did not have a provision for a conditional withdrawal of a complaint. That means I could not withdraw it solely on the condition that Douche was never allowed to file a complaint against me for my “threatening” emails. On top of that, the stupid cop hadn’t actually gotten the Douchebag to sign anything yet, so once I signed my withdrawal I would have no recourse if Douche decided to press forward with his own ludicrous claim. I yelled at the asshole cop, who once again was simply trying to get rid of me, and walked out the door – dragging Jun behind me and trying to tell him not to apologize for me.
In the end Douche was made to sign his unconditional withdrawal first, and I was prepared to never sign mine. But for complicated reasons Alfonso felt he would be compromised as a lawyer if I gave the finger to the system – so today, I will end the silly affair, which has now dragged on for a month. Now of course I am frustrated by the absurdity of this situation – this could only happen in Korea. But I’m also proud of my friends, who truly went beyond the call of duty to keep this asshole foreigner out of court and out of the hospital. Nice work guys.
Long has it been since my dulcet odes to Korea graced your browser. You may have imagined that I finally became accustomed to this miserable country and no longer felt the need to lambast its shortcomings through the magic of the internets. Sadly this is not the case. I have either been busy trying to get myself the hell out of here, or too depressed to do anything other than watch old Guns and Roses videos on Youtube. But never fear, there are many absurd episodes to recount.
First up, let me tell you about my run in with the law. Today I’m heading down to the Yongsan police department to sign a statement that will officially put an end to what was a bizarre, frustrating, occasionally amusing and once even inspiring affair.
It would take too long to get into all the details, but the story does demand some explanation. My band did a photo shoot for an incredibly pathetic local magazine called Rokon. This sorry rag is so phony that despite claiming on its cover to be an “indie source magazine”, it often featured Maroon 5 stories and ran a glowing review of the new Mariah Carrey record next to our Indie band article. Thus, when the editor of this lame excuse for a rock magazine refused to give me the photos from our hilariously overwrought shoot, I was rather incensed. After I politely but firmly told him that he had no reason to withhold our photos, he started acting like a bitchy prima donna, and eventually sent me a rude email.
Now, you may imagine that Wexford Sunshine is capable of responding to rude emails with abusive diatribes that will offend your average poser magazine editor. But this douchebag was more than offended by my scathing response, in which I referenced both his lame mag’s Mariah Carrey piece and his own ridiculous myspace page - which I claimed was clear evidence of his problems with a diminutively apportioned penis. Cut n paste this (blognazis at google don't seem to want me to link it), I think you'll agree with my assessment:
http://www.myspace.com/konghaus
Douchebag proceeded to loose what feeble control he had over his tiny mind and sent me approximately 30 text messages in a 24 hour period, which got increasingly more violent and threatening. I wasn’t terribly worried about it until he showed up outside my house the following day and threatened to sick his thug friends on me. At this point Wake me, my lawyer pal Alfonso Izquierda Esquire and I decided it would be best to bring the matter to the police. Before you go calling me a pussy, bear in mind that in Korea I would most certainly be blamed for any fights I got into – regardless of who started them. The Douchebag was apparently born in America, but he’s Korean American and I had to assume his posse would include Koreans who could lie to the cops about the whole thing. As you’ll see in a moment, I was right to be suspicious of the Korean justice system.
So we went down to the police station with a Korean friend of mine named David, prepared to get the whole thing on record. We knew the Douche wouldn’t get tossed in jail or anything, but I figured filing a complaint against him would at least give me the authority to beat his ass with a crowbar with legal impunity – in self defense of course.
Let me pause here to give props to my man David, and all the other people involved in this silly episode, including Alfonso Esq. and his attorney pal Kil-ho Esq., as well as my main man Jun and my boy Dennis (who provided the crowbar, and some damned fine whiskey). David spent 4 hours with me in the police station, translating, explaining and even getting finger printed for me. The rest of the crew was behind me the whole way, whether it meant translating, giving legal counsel or promising to bring the ruckus if anybody had to get thrown a beating. I often criticize the Kims but one thing’s for sure – a Korean friend will stand by you no matter how crazy shit gets.
Sadly, we never did get to kick any poser magazine editing ass. Shortly after we finished filing the report at the police station we discovered that some of the threatening texts I’d been getting from people I thought were Douchebag's violent posse were actually all sent by him alone. Apparently in Korea you can change the phone number that accompanies your text message, so it looks like it was sent by somebody else. Turns out Douche was not only short in the pants, but short on friends too. Furthermore, after the detective called Douche to tell him to come to the station, he proceeded to desperately phone me and my band mates, claiming he couldn’t afford to pay any fines and that the whole thing was just a big misunderstanding.
At this point I thought the whole thing was over and was ready to move on, although part of me had been hoping for a fight (with the law on my side). But the fighting left to be done was not to be physical. It turned out that the asshole detective was too lazy to do his job and file the report on Douche. He wanted the two of us to reach some kind of agreement, so that his office wouldn’t have to press charges. From what I’d seen there wasn’t much else for them to do at the Yongsan police department, but I guess my detective needed as much time as possible for cigarette and kimchi consumption.
Thus he trumped up some bullshit about how he believed that I had threatened the Douchebag in the same way as he had threatened me. At first I laughed at this. Clearly one could not equate making fun of someone’s magazine and calling him out for having a small wang with repeated threats of physical violence and stalking someone at their home. The cop himself had told me that only repeated threats were actually considered a crime. Douche had repeatedly harassed me; I sent two emails. My man Kil-ho called the detective and explained this to him, even translating my emails for him so as to demonstrate their non-threatening nature.
But the asshole detective was determined not to do his job and sadly, this country’s joke of a justice system was on his side. I was informed by my lawyer friends that even though technically I had committed no crime, the prosecutor and judge would generally take the detectives word on such a small case. The detective would claim he thought I threatened Douche, no one would ever consider whether or not he had the authority (or even jurisdiction, considering the emails were in English from US based accounts) to make such a claim. The Judge would rubber stamp some kind of fine for me and I would have to go to court to fight it. Kil-ho and Alfonso both thought that defending my white ass in a Korean court was not worth the trouble. I didn’t want to drag them down with me for such a petty thing, so I eventually agreed to acquiesce to the detective’s plan. I would drop my complaint if Douche would drop his, and give me the photos.
Eventually some of the photos were secured, and I was told that Douche had to embarrass himself considerably to get them. I reluctantly went down to the police station with Jun to sign a statement retracting my complaint. But when I got there, we discovered that the Korean legal system did not have a provision for a conditional withdrawal of a complaint. That means I could not withdraw it solely on the condition that Douche was never allowed to file a complaint against me for my “threatening” emails. On top of that, the stupid cop hadn’t actually gotten the Douchebag to sign anything yet, so once I signed my withdrawal I would have no recourse if Douche decided to press forward with his own ludicrous claim. I yelled at the asshole cop, who once again was simply trying to get rid of me, and walked out the door – dragging Jun behind me and trying to tell him not to apologize for me.
In the end Douche was made to sign his unconditional withdrawal first, and I was prepared to never sign mine. But for complicated reasons Alfonso felt he would be compromised as a lawyer if I gave the finger to the system – so today, I will end the silly affair, which has now dragged on for a month. Now of course I am frustrated by the absurdity of this situation – this could only happen in Korea. But I’m also proud of my friends, who truly went beyond the call of duty to keep this asshole foreigner out of court and out of the hospital. Nice work guys.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
The Korean Government Is Trying to Kill Me
It was another miserable day in The Deet Truck is the Korean answer to the admittedly absurd amount of mosquitoes that somehow manage to survive here for nearly ten months out of the year, and it is exactly what it sounds like – a truck with a large pipe extending off the back that emits deet into the air in a thick white cloud. I had only seen the Deet Truck once before, but luckily I was in my house and able to shut all the windows before it drove by. This time, unfortunately, I wasn’t so lucky.
From the behavior of the Koreans around me – those outside sweeping the street in front of their homes, walking their dogs, etc – you’d have thought that this huge cloud of toxic chemicals posed absolutely no threat whatsoever. Luckily, another foreigner walking behind me and I knew better, and dove for the first taxi that drove by. We had to force the cab driver to roll up the windows – even with the deet cloud coming ever closer he was completely clueless as to why these two foreigners were in his cab acting like lunatics, banging on the windows and gesturing with flailing arms – but we managed to barricade ourselves inside before the cloud engulfed the car. Our cab driver has no idea that picking us up this morning probably added five years to his life.
Once safely in the cab, the other person who doesn’t want to die inhaling toxic fumes and I acquainted ourselves, and commiserated over the obliviousness of the people around us, who were still making no move to get inside and away from the airborne deet. “They used to do this in the small town that I grew up in in the States”, he said (didn’t elaborate on which town that was though), “But they outlawed it”. Well of course they did! It’s DEET for christs sake! On the other hand, this may just be the Korean government’s way of driving the foreigners out, since I’ve only seen the truck around my apartment, which is where the majority of the foreigners in
So my new foreign friend and I made it safely to the station and I headed off to the bus where I would spend the next thirty minutes inhaling kimchi fumes off the breath of whatever passenger was smushed up against me for the duration of my commute. For the first time since arriving in Korea, I didn’t complain.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Considering suicide? Let Samsung talk you out of it!
Apparently I’m not the only one who would rather not live in this country – so many others are in agreement that life here sucks, that
Don’t believe me? Click on this link and check out the slide show from a recent Financial Times article (Notice the detail – they even give you a flower to hold before they bury you!).
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2e29bbb6-574b-11dd-916c-000077b07658.html
Don’t get me wrong, I do not find any humor in suicide, but if someone is going to seal me in a coffin and ask me to pretend I’m dead, I’m certainly going to have a lot of trouble not laughing my ass off.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Germy, but Toasty Warm
So, it was suggested by one of our dedicated readers that we try to lighten the mood somewhat. I agree that we tend to get bogged down by negativity, but hopefully you understand that we’re just trying to share our impressions and experiences with you, and unfortunately, they don’t happen to be the most positive ever. With that in mind, I’ve spent the past month or so trying to think of something good to say about this place, and I think I’ve finally thought of something. Yes, there IS one thing here that is able to, without fail, bring a smile to my face and temporarily steady my heart rate.
I am cooped up all day in an over-air conditioned office building, where I keep two scarves handy with which to insulate myself, and a pair of fake UGGs (yup, those cheesy wool boots) that I bought for $20 at a stall in the subway, and that wear around the office everyday, no matter if they do look a little silly with my business suit. You get the point – it’s cold. So there is nothing more satisfying than settling down on, you guessed it, the heated toilet seat. I don’t know who invented these things, or why they have them here, where the majority of people’s daily lives are significantly lacking in luxury (or even comfort), but I’m glad that they do. Now, whenever I have to pee, my mood brightens significantly.
Sure, electric toilets can be a little intimidating at first – they tend to have more buttons than most washing machines I’ve seen, some with Korean words I can’t decipher. Others just have pictures that look more like ancient hieroglyphics than anything else, and that you couldn’t pay me to push. I’ve heard stories of people approaching electric toilets the way that I tend to approach my Korean TV when I’m trying to switch to DVD mode – just push all the buttons until something happens – but those don’t tend to end well when the toilet is involved.
But once you’ve figured out which one turns the heat on, you’re really all set. You can bring in a good book, your PSP, or settle down for a quick nap – as Wexford suspects many of his co-workers do during lunch. I usually just like to lock myself in and focus on feeling warm for a few fabulous minutes, before I head back to my cube and chug another couple glasses of water. The only thing left to do now is convince Westerners that this is something we need in our homes and offices, so by the time I move back, there will be a nice, warm toilet seat waiting for me.
Monday, July 7, 2008
burn baby bird
Everybody knows the Kims have no love for dogs - unless they come in a pot covered in spicy sauce. In fact, some of the abuse of animals I've witnessed here could probably convince the PETA to sell yellowcake to Pyonyang (and you Know PETA is hoarding yellow cake). But did you know about their secret vendetta against doves? It's true, check this out: the picture above is from the 1988 summer Olympics. If you look carefully you can see a dove on the left about to meat its doom in that monster-truck-sized torch. Apparently it was traditional to release a flock of doves into the air to start the Olympics, as a symbol of international peace. The practice was discontinued after 68 years when the Kims built a torch so friggin huge it roasted some of the poor buggers before they could think to fly away.
Hmmm, I wonder what that giant torch could be compensating for?
Actually the entire 1988 Olympics was one flaming ironic Ferrari for South Korean dictator Chun Doo Hwan, who attempted to use the games to placate his people's demands for democracy.
"No votes for you, but check out this monster torch"!
Care for some crispy dove with that?
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Exercising, Korean style
Warm weather is here, which means it’s time for our hero to check out the
Two weeks ago me, my shorty and my boy Alfonso Izquierda went to the river to rent bicycles. The
Once down the hill the bike ride was fine enough, although the ever-present oblivious attitude of the Kims often reared its head in the form of people crowding the lanes.
Most Koreans don’t play sports (especially young Kims). Furthermore, the Kims who are not terrified of physical activity have a rather comical conception of what constitutes exercise. Thus one will often find a strange array of useless equipment installed alongside the river, including spinning discs that you are meant to stand on and twist from side to side, and other devices too inane to describe. Received Korean wisdom seems to indicate that shaking around like an idiot must be good for you.
These ridiculous machines are ubiquitous in my new gym, which I am now using to supplement my trips to the river. The most popular machines are ones on which tiny Korean women can be vibrated for hours on end without expending any actual physical energy. Remember the old vibrating belts they sold to fat Americans in the 50’s? They still have those here – jiggle it off while you chew a kimchi flavored Twinkie, fatties!
The Kims often don’t really have anything resembling sports etiquette. This, added to the fact that Koreans are generally lacking in etiquette in all areas, can make for some frustrating athletics. My gym is tiny, only possessing a free-weight area big enough for 4 people at a time to work out. Normal people would recognize this limitation and behave with heightened awareness of their surroundings – but not the Kims. People here routinely take over one of the two benches in the weight room and hang out on it for hours. While they may occasionally lift something, they spend most of their time looking at themselves in the mirror, or doing pointless little exercises that do not in any way require the use of one of the only available benches.
Yesterday I headed to the bench press to find it occupied by a large middle-aged Kim. After watching him finish a set and proceed to sit on the bench for 10 minutes, followed by a 5 minute session of air karate chops (he was sparring with himself in the mirror I guess), I asked him how many more sets he had left. He said one. After he finished his next ridiculous routine I moved in to take his place. I’m not sure what he said next, but the asshole’s general message was that I should wait until he was good and ready to get off the bench. I pointed out to him that we could easily share this bench – and also attempted to indicate that we should be mindful of the dearth of equipment in our gym. The old douchebag was completely baffled by the idea of sharing the equipment. He also seemed oblivious to the crassness of his routine and its air karate chops. Couldn’t he fake fight himself somewhere else? Of course not.
He is not alone – none of the Kims with whom I’ve tried to communicate in various crowded gyms have ever grasped the concept of sharing. It’s simply not done here. What is done resembles some kind of farce: there’s not enough room for everyone on the equipment, so the Kims waste as much time as possible doing imaginary “exercises” that aren’t having any effect whatsoever. It would actually be funny if it weren’t happening to me – but I guess that’s par for the course here.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
You vill purchase eine Banana!
Have you ever awoken on a Saturday morning to find yourself in a Nazi death camp? Nein? If you would like to have a piece of that experience and still get to keep the majority of your gold teeth, I recommend spending a weekend in a Seoul residential neighborhood. Every Saturday I awake to some old bastard screaming in a megaphone like an SS Officer:
"Hey Assholes! Buy some fucking bananas right Now! You will wake up and come buy these bananas! Holy crap these bananas are amazing and cheap. Buy them or I will bury you in an unmarked grave"
At least that's what it sounds like he's saying. My Korean isn't good enough to decipher megaphone commands, but the death camp tone is definitely established. I know he's selling bananas, or some other crap you can already easily acquire at any corner store, because the bastard parks his truck right in front of my house. Sometimes he walks up and down the street with a megaphone. Other times he sits in the truck and uses a recording, blasting from the speakers on top of the truck.
The best part is when other trucks come buy selling more shit I don't need - then we get dueling megaphones! Usually it's fruit or fish, but sometimes these assholes have the gall to scream about chestnuts or cheap shoes. I even saw a guy with a hat and visor truck. Who the hell is lying in bed on a Saturday morning thinking to themselves "damn, I could really use a new cheap plastic sun-visor...oh great! the visor truck is here!" ???
What's more, I'm pretty sure I've never even seen anyone buy anything off these obnoxious old bastards. I for one wouldn't buy his bananas and sun visor if I were starving to death on a sunny day - that would only convince him that his Nazi tactics had succeeded.
So the other day I went outside, determined to punish the two trucks together by hurling rocks and epithets. I discovered there was only 1 truck. The banana-selling Himler had the truck speakers cranked, and was walking around in a circle adding his megaphone to the fray. There's no way anyone could hope to understand what the two of him were screaming about, so I can only assume he's been hired by the Korean government to torture me.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Security Duty
Ever wonder what it's like to be a security guard? How about an on-call secretary? Wouldn't it kick ass to somehow be a combination of both?
Well if you work for a korean company, that dream will be fulifilled, whether you like it or not. I just learned that one of my co-workers will be here at the office during our national holiday on friday. Wasting a holiday at the office - she must have some really important project to work on right? Actually no, and not just because none of the projects here are important. She's on an assignment referred to as "Tanjik", which I'm told is a rotating position that at least 2 regular employees are required to fill on every major holiday and most saturdays.
The way she described it, my colleague will come in on her holiday and spend 7 hours walking around on each floor of the buidling, checking to see who's here. This is supposedly meant to do more than simply keep a record of who's working overtime (because nobody is paid for overtime, so who really cares).
If there is some kind of emergency, she is somehow expected to deal with it. These emergencies could range from a fire in the building to the death of an overseas employee. She of course has no experience dealing with either of those issues, nor do any of the other countless suckers made to waste their vacation days on Tanjik. The fact that this whole idea is not only a waste of her time but also completely unsuited to her skills is completley ignored. "Where the hell are the security gaurds on these days?", I inquired.
"Well, they really wouldn't know how to handle all the possible situations that might arise", said my boss. Oh really? And who would exactly? My 24 year old colleague who has never seen a building burn nor responded to dead employee phonecalls? Who understand these improbable crises and why would they be any more qualified to do so than our security personnel or our secrataries?
The Koreans have no response to this.
Tanjik is a typical Korean corporate strategy - invent some mythic problem that can only be addressed by an institution which serves no purpose and defies logical explanation. Give this institution a special name, like "Tanjik", and convince your hapless employees that it's somehow an honor to waste your time in this fashion. Equivocate whenever questions are asked and ascribe some sort of intangible values to the ridiculous excercise. Pretend that the whole thing has some honorable and wise tradition behind it when in fact you're just hell bent on ruining somebody's day off.
And why do that? Why spend more effort inventing meaningless tasks than you spend on actual productive work? Because this is Korea. Meaningless bullshit is what we're all about.
Well if you work for a korean company, that dream will be fulifilled, whether you like it or not. I just learned that one of my co-workers will be here at the office during our national holiday on friday. Wasting a holiday at the office - she must have some really important project to work on right? Actually no, and not just because none of the projects here are important. She's on an assignment referred to as "Tanjik", which I'm told is a rotating position that at least 2 regular employees are required to fill on every major holiday and most saturdays.
The way she described it, my colleague will come in on her holiday and spend 7 hours walking around on each floor of the buidling, checking to see who's here. This is supposedly meant to do more than simply keep a record of who's working overtime (because nobody is paid for overtime, so who really cares).
If there is some kind of emergency, she is somehow expected to deal with it. These emergencies could range from a fire in the building to the death of an overseas employee. She of course has no experience dealing with either of those issues, nor do any of the other countless suckers made to waste their vacation days on Tanjik. The fact that this whole idea is not only a waste of her time but also completely unsuited to her skills is completley ignored. "Where the hell are the security gaurds on these days?", I inquired.
"Well, they really wouldn't know how to handle all the possible situations that might arise", said my boss. Oh really? And who would exactly? My 24 year old colleague who has never seen a building burn nor responded to dead employee phonecalls? Who understand these improbable crises and why would they be any more qualified to do so than our security personnel or our secrataries?
The Koreans have no response to this.
Tanjik is a typical Korean corporate strategy - invent some mythic problem that can only be addressed by an institution which serves no purpose and defies logical explanation. Give this institution a special name, like "Tanjik", and convince your hapless employees that it's somehow an honor to waste your time in this fashion. Equivocate whenever questions are asked and ascribe some sort of intangible values to the ridiculous excercise. Pretend that the whole thing has some honorable and wise tradition behind it when in fact you're just hell bent on ruining somebody's day off.
And why do that? Why spend more effort inventing meaningless tasks than you spend on actual productive work? Because this is Korea. Meaningless bullshit is what we're all about.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
If The Fans Don't Get You, Mad Cow Probably Will
I thought I’d continue with the topic from the previous post – Koreans believing things completely lacking in any scientific basis – in the context of the US beef protests that have been going on in Seoul for the past couple weeks. Quick background on the issue: Korea was the 3rd largest import-market for US beef until 2003, when a case of mad cow disease was recorded in the States, causing Koreans to freak out and immediately ban all beef imports from the US. The new Korean President, Lee Myung-bak, has been trying to get the US-Korea FTA signed, and has therefore recently agreed to reopen the Korean market to US beef imports. And man, are the Koreans pissed.
A couple weeks ago people began holding candlelight vigils in protest, and I’ve read that more than 1.2 million Koreans have now signed a petition to impeach the president over his lack of concern for the well-being of the country. I mean, I was sympathetic when Koreans reacted to the accidental deaths of two Korean schoolgirls hit by a US tank in 2002 by holding candlelight vigils, but really - candlelight vigils over a trade dispute? I thought it seemed a little excessive until I heard what all the fuss was about. A Korean “documentary” that aired a couple weeks ago, had claimed that Koreans “carry a special gene that makes them more susceptible to mad cow disease”, sparking the belief that anyone who consumed US beef must have some sort of death wish. The internet has been all abuzz with people here lamenting their inevitable early deaths, like one young Korean woman who cried, “Are we fated to die so young?”, or another who wrote “I just want to live and fulfill my career dreams, not die mad like an American cow!”.
Truly, this is more of an issue of fear mongering within a culture that still struggles with significant levels of anti-Americanism and victimization following centuries of occupation and colonization. But I won’t get into that now. Whatever the influence behind it, I think the main concern here is the fact that such a ridiculous claim could garner such widespread attention and support throughout the country.
The Korean Federation of Medical Groups for Health Rights had slightly less absurd reasoning behind their anti-FTA stance, but no less unsubstantiated. One of their 2006 reports states, “We're so well aware of the fact that there has been no country that improved their people's health, economy, or the quality of the lives of their nation among the ones that agreed to sign FTA with the US. Instead for those countries that signed FTA with the US experienced the downfall of economy, forced to lean on the US, the right for people to their health was demolished and poverty was increased. We know that this is what the US wants. Therefore, we oppose Korea-US FTA agreement.”
Maybe, however, Koreans can rest well knowing that at least they aren’t the only people in the world willing to believe things that make the majority of the rest of us snicker. The Japanese Agricultural Minister, Tsutomu Hata, tried in 1987 to deter Japanese from eating US beef by stating that Japanese intestines were longer than those of Westerners and therefore unsuited to digesting American beef. No, seriously. When I was in Japan nearly 15 years after that statement, I still met Japanese who would tell me, with a straight face, that their intestines were longer than mine.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Fan Death
I almost shat myself when i heard this: many Korean people believe that prolonged exposure to an ELECTRIC FAN WILL KILL YOU. I feel like Jon Stewart covering President Bush over here - I could not make this shit up if I tried! Check out this press release from the Korean Consumer Protection Board:
http://english.cpb.or.kr/user/bbs/code02_detail.php?av_jbno=2006071800002
A buddy of mine has a Korean girlfriend and he had to explain to her that the fan would not "lead to death from an increase in carbon dioxide saturation and decrease of oxygen concentration", as the Consumer Protection Board suggests. This is clearly an hilarious superstition, but even more interesting is their attempt to ground it in scientific terminology. I mean, tell us the evil spirits get blown up your nose by the death fan, then you would just sound like those African guys who think that witches are stealing their penises just because old men can't get it up anymore (and honestly, there must be some sort of devilry in that).
But to acknowledge that you understand what elements are floating around in the air, and then still maintain that it's possible for a fan to somehow blow away only the oxygen molecules - that is some seriously fucked up science. I wonder if this fear also explains why most Kims will not open the friggin windows on the bus even if it's 200 degrees inside - previously i just assumed they wanted to ferment themselves in the reek of Kimchi breath. Caus if a fan can blow away all your oxygen, perhaps the rushing air through a window can blow away all your ability to use critical thinking skills and scientific analysis...Guess it's too late for that.
Now my only concern is weather these evil Korean death fans can also blow their peculiar brand of logic into my unsuspecting brain...I'm already starting to think that motorcycles were meant to be driven on the sidewalk; it's only a matter of time
http://english.cpb.or.kr/user/bbs/code02_detail.php?av_jbno=2006071800002
A buddy of mine has a Korean girlfriend and he had to explain to her that the fan would not "lead to death from an increase in carbon dioxide saturation and decrease of oxygen concentration", as the Consumer Protection Board suggests. This is clearly an hilarious superstition, but even more interesting is their attempt to ground it in scientific terminology. I mean, tell us the evil spirits get blown up your nose by the death fan, then you would just sound like those African guys who think that witches are stealing their penises just because old men can't get it up anymore (and honestly, there must be some sort of devilry in that).
But to acknowledge that you understand what elements are floating around in the air, and then still maintain that it's possible for a fan to somehow blow away only the oxygen molecules - that is some seriously fucked up science. I wonder if this fear also explains why most Kims will not open the friggin windows on the bus even if it's 200 degrees inside - previously i just assumed they wanted to ferment themselves in the reek of Kimchi breath. Caus if a fan can blow away all your oxygen, perhaps the rushing air through a window can blow away all your ability to use critical thinking skills and scientific analysis...Guess it's too late for that.
Now my only concern is weather these evil Korean death fans can also blow their peculiar brand of logic into my unsuspecting brain...I'm already starting to think that motorcycles were meant to be driven on the sidewalk; it's only a matter of time
Friday, May 23, 2008
Efficiency
Perhaps you've heard that people in Seoul work longer hours than anyone else in the developed world? If not, check it out here
UBS recently did a report on Korea, finding that not only do Koreans work more than anybody on earth, their cost of living is also higher (see the article in our "Korea in the news" section). People in Seoul pay 20% more for the same crap than people pay in New York City, and yet New York kicks ass, while Seoul...er what's the word? Sucks?
This might strike you as logical on some level (not the sucking part, but the rest) - Koreans work the longest hours because they have such a high cost of living. They gotta earn more so they can afford this overpriced suck-fest. Sadly, this is not the case. First of all, Koreans employees earn squat compared with other countries. Now, this is partially do to the fact that the Korean system is in no way based on merit, and most rewards are simply doled out to the crooks who've made it to the highest position in the company - most likely by being born into it. Non-executives make nothing. But there's a deeper issue at play: efficiency.
This country has got to be the most inefficient place outside of Africa that I've ever seen. Sure, people stay at work all night long, but they don't accomplish a damn thing. Most of the time the younger Kims are just sitting around holding their dicks while they wait for Kim the Elder to finally leave. When they are working, they perform meaningless tasks because only the top brass is allowed to use their brains in a Korean company. (And we must assume that by the time they reach that level, they've spent too much time inhaling fumes in the bathroom to be of much use).
Take for example my stupid job, wherein I do almost nothing. Last week I got a bit riled at my boss for not including me on important projects and meetings that were clearly within the scope of what I theoretically do here. In response, my boss gave me a task: he asked me to read a book. This book was written by some British guy about how to do business in Russia. Now the fact that this Brit asshole knows nothing is beside the point. (The book is filled with such brilliant insight as : "it's cold in Russia", and "don't mention Communism in a meeting"). The point is that my boss actually suggested I present this book to the entire company. I have never been to Russia, much less lived there - meanwhile we have bona fide Russians working for us, as well as many Koreans who have spent months there on assignment. Why would anyone benefit from my book report on the topic? And yet this is the most meaningful task I have been given in 2 weeks.
Do you doubt me, dear reader? Think that my meaningless life has made me too critical of the Korean workforce? Well consider this: basic economic theory tells us that a worker will be paid the marginal product of his labour. We have already noted that Koreans earn far less than other OECD workers. This means (roughly) that they don't produce as much. We also know that Korea is ranked 31st in overall competitiveness in the world. All this overtime amounts to nothing whatsoever.
Therefore, the gratuitous extra hours every night still can't make up for the fact that this country is so god-damned inefficient that they can't even properly rip off the Japanese anymore without wasting a few billion Won.
UBS recently did a report on Korea, finding that not only do Koreans work more than anybody on earth, their cost of living is also higher (see the article in our "Korea in the news" section). People in Seoul pay 20% more for the same crap than people pay in New York City, and yet New York kicks ass, while Seoul...er what's the word? Sucks?
This might strike you as logical on some level (not the sucking part, but the rest) - Koreans work the longest hours because they have such a high cost of living. They gotta earn more so they can afford this overpriced suck-fest. Sadly, this is not the case. First of all, Koreans employees earn squat compared with other countries. Now, this is partially do to the fact that the Korean system is in no way based on merit, and most rewards are simply doled out to the crooks who've made it to the highest position in the company - most likely by being born into it. Non-executives make nothing. But there's a deeper issue at play: efficiency.
This country has got to be the most inefficient place outside of Africa that I've ever seen. Sure, people stay at work all night long, but they don't accomplish a damn thing. Most of the time the younger Kims are just sitting around holding their dicks while they wait for Kim the Elder to finally leave. When they are working, they perform meaningless tasks because only the top brass is allowed to use their brains in a Korean company. (And we must assume that by the time they reach that level, they've spent too much time inhaling fumes in the bathroom to be of much use).
Take for example my stupid job, wherein I do almost nothing. Last week I got a bit riled at my boss for not including me on important projects and meetings that were clearly within the scope of what I theoretically do here. In response, my boss gave me a task: he asked me to read a book. This book was written by some British guy about how to do business in Russia. Now the fact that this Brit asshole knows nothing is beside the point. (The book is filled with such brilliant insight as : "it's cold in Russia", and "don't mention Communism in a meeting"). The point is that my boss actually suggested I present this book to the entire company. I have never been to Russia, much less lived there - meanwhile we have bona fide Russians working for us, as well as many Koreans who have spent months there on assignment. Why would anyone benefit from my book report on the topic? And yet this is the most meaningful task I have been given in 2 weeks.
Do you doubt me, dear reader? Think that my meaningless life has made me too critical of the Korean workforce? Well consider this: basic economic theory tells us that a worker will be paid the marginal product of his labour. We have already noted that Koreans earn far less than other OECD workers. This means (roughly) that they don't produce as much. We also know that Korea is ranked 31st in overall competitiveness in the world. All this overtime amounts to nothing whatsoever.
Therefore, the gratuitous extra hours every night still can't make up for the fact that this country is so god-damned inefficient that they can't even properly rip off the Japanese anymore without wasting a few billion Won.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
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