Thursday, October 02, 2008

Progress Report 30.1

Anyong haseyo, bumface.

Look at that - we made it to 30! Hooray!

Given that I've been writing these things for a good way over two years (albeit recently with a more geological regularity than back in the day), I grant you that this isn't the most towering of achievements. But anyways, here we are at 30, and being as the world opted some time ago for a base-10 counting system, it gives us some small recourse to celebration. Hooray again!

And here I am at 32. Last week. Me. Thirty-two years of age. Hooray! The numbers spell maturity, but so also does my performing the utterance with such easy deportment. Feel the angst-free manner in which I type it: Thirty-two long and largely unproductive years alive I have to my name, and I don't care who the devil knows it.

How things are changed! When I first entered this decade, the passage was not an easy one, to say the least. As I recall, back in 2006, I was drunk from September 27th up until the end of the first week of October. There were tantrums, there was pleading, there was all kinds of acting out before I could truly come to terms with the grief I felt for my youthfulness, and none of it was particularly becoming of me. However, September 27th 2008 passed without such histrionic kicking and screaming: It began with an early rise and a wholesome breakfast, followed by a day of preparing food for my evening guests - had it not been for the frenzied murder of a child in the late part of the afternoon, you might not have even known it was my birthday.

Speaking of birthdays, we have also occasion to mark the founding of a kingdom. Today is the 5,000th-odd anniversary of the day that demigod Tangeun impregnated a human female who had once been a bear. Depending on your politics, this is either a highly regrettable event of retroactive bestiality or a highly advantageous union such as Jane Austen might have once conceived. Regardless of your judgment, it was a top-heavy coupling that begat the entire Korean race. From these seedy but mildly fascinating origins, the mighty Han people went forth across the peninsula, and whence have singularly failed to achieve anything remotely of interest to the rest of the world for fully five millennia.

This may be a somewhat harsh appraisal - I believe there may have been an interesting war with the Japanese somewhere around the 17th century - but for the larger part of its history, Korea (in its various tedious guises: Chosun, Koryo, Shilla, the Three Kingdoms, u.s.w.) has failed to distinguish itself in the popular imagination of either the West or its closer neighbours. Its backstory is a wasteland of bickering skirmishes, spineless suzerainty, and tiresome, caretaker kings. Confucianism kept the peasantry in check, the aristocracy did the paperwork and the monastic castes variously came and went from favour.

It was a kingdom that was happy to plough its own plodding furrow, and thus didn't much care for the attentions of world around it. It had no ambitions to expand its borders, and no desire to see them either encroached. Foreign visitors usually took the form of invading detachments, who were either repelled or subsumed into the existing order as was seen fit. Occasional hapless shipwrecked sailors washing up on these shores were held hostage or hacked to pieces. Missionaries were tolerated or tortured to death depending on the efficacy of their preaching. It was, in short, a most insular peninsula.

That's not to say that it was any lesser a culture than its neighbours for the greater part of its history. It had its ceramics, its visual arts, its theatre, its poetry, and its architecture. It had its glaring feudal social divisions and a languorous aristocracy. In these departments, it could hold its own against any comers. Still would things be thusly ticking over had the world not modernized around it.

It was this failure to keep abreast of changing tide that was to cost the nobility their place at the top of the pile, and a few million of the peasantry their lives. And of Korea's cultural achievements, it would be the architecture that would pay the greatest price.

The subject of architecture is what I now intend to address, but first, an interlude, whilst I make a request of you:

Go and find an architect (or failing that, Brian Sewell). Once you have him, sit him down, give him a drink and ask him to name his top three cities in terms of their architectural beauty. Then further ask him to name his next ten. And then go on to the next hundred. Keep this up to the mid-to-high thousands, and then, maybe, after exhausting the lesser African capitals and Kingston-upon-Hull, you might catch a mention, between the studious umms and aahs, of the city of Seoul. The release of this single syllable (which is strictly two in its Korean pronunciation, but he probably won't know that) is your signal to thank him and let him on his way, for my point will have been proven.

What am I getting at? Simply, that Seoul is one of the ugliest cities in the world.

Even the staunchest of Korean nationalists (a double tautology - all Korean nationalists are staunch, and all staunch Koreans are nationalists) would have trouble erecting a rebuttal to such a statement. With its innumerable identikit high-rise apartments mushrooming in fecund clumps, the poured-concrete office blocks with unadorned features, the raised monster highways and six-lane city streets - only a Russian would declare it a vision to behold. Its constant murky miasma of smog seems part of the design. The greyness of its concrete is exhausting. The plain-coloured spastic signboards stick to the buildings like the vomit from a scavenged meal - undesigned, unplanned, and ugly, they are the dermatological symptom of the deep inner rot.

I have every reason to believe that there was until recently only one architect in Seoul. His monopoly position was little advantage to him, for he was commissioned for three or four blueprints and then sent to have his skill set reassigned. From his brief portfolio, every building in the city was constructed. Any questions of form and function were answered unswervingly in favour of the latter. Aesthetic concerns were not an issue. The buildings were simply structures, to be lived in, not looked at. No wonder they were so often beset with a gin-blossom of signboards - randomly-hung plates of anti-creativity, with identical, single-weighted lettering marooned upon an aphasic ground.


The tiresome, beauty-challenged nature of the construction belies the situation of its provenance. This is a city that was built from scratch. Much as many other Asian metropoleis were projected skyward with an impossibly short turnaround, so Seoul found itself in the post-war years with a rapidly expanding population to house, by consequence of its sudden modernisation. However, there is not here the creative, celebrated chaos of a Hanoi or Bangkok. This was no crazed proliferation, no orgiastic entrepeneurial pollination where fortunes and opportunists birthed a teeming skyline, but a centrally-planned and sensibly-managed union of government capital and a handful of big corporations. This was fascist architecture: Disciplined, functional, bereft of inspiration; a triumph over the human spirit.

It was a resounding statement on the order of the new Republic. Corporations built the apartments to house workers for their factories, and branded them accordingly. The peasantry were now the labour force whether they liked it or not. Those not willing to work and follow orders of their immediate superiors had no place in the new Korea, except for the countryside or to internment camps in the mountains.

But what of the architectural legacy of the past? How could the ornate and intricate achievements of previous generations be combined with such gunmetal insipidity? Such concerns are reconciled with great aplomb in some other Asian cities - most notably Osaka, to cite one example from my own experience. How in Seoul might the old confront the new? Such synthesis, as things turned out, was simply not an issue.

Why? Because over the course of the three years of the Korean war, almost every building in Korea had been razed to the ground. For the effect it had on architecture, it may as well have been a war against right angles. Countless homes, shops, temples, markets, halls, and structures of miscellaneous designation were left in ruins. Hundreds of irreplaceable cultural relics were lost forever amidst the pointless destruction of the conflict.

This is not to say that there were many cultural relics to lose. For you see, whilst Japan had been an occupying colonial force from 1906 up until 1945, they had overseen a restructuring of Korea to fit more closely to their 'Japan's little brother' ideal. This meant that they oversaw the construction of a basic industrial infrastructure, as well as paved highways and brick and concrete municipalia. (I believe I may have made this word up. I intend it to mean 'government offices, schools, and the like'.)

Japan was in a strong position to play the colonial power back at the beginning of the 20th century. It had recognized the change in the global weather and took steps to make its own voice heard, signing treaties with various major players rather than ceding cities and being colonized piecemeal as was happening in China. Its establishing itself on the world stage instead led it to become the aggressor toward its less forward-looking neighbours. Hence the sly sortie onto Korean soil.

Once established, the Japanese rulers weren't particularly interested in having anything too Korean around to remind them of the true nature of their task. Korea to them was not so much a self-contained kingdom with a 5,000 year history as a wayward sibling being brought onto the right path; laying waste to palaces, forts and temples was akin to buying it some new clothes. The peasantry, needless to say, were treated with equal disdain. Those who weren't willing to co-operate were reeducated in the classical fashion, though there were plenty who most certain were willing. The best of these ended up in charge when the Americans docked their boats, and were happy to assist in making their brothers and sisters put-upon subjects once again. What IS it with peasantries?

So now we're left with a capital city that is short on pretty but heavy on efficient. And what is my motive in bringing the subject up? Well, firstly, some degree of it is misanthropic bile. I'm venting, I suppose, but not without some provocation. Seoul IS ugly, make no mistake. However, things do appear to be changing. New buildings occasionally break the mould. Architects are starting to show some confidence. It will be a long time off before the city moves away from looking like Milton Keynes to the nth power, but the roots for a renaissance have been laid. This is not just in the showpiece structures at the heart of the city, but on the outskirts too. A new library recently opened in my neighbourhood whose design I might go so far as to call 'postmodern'. In point of fact, in my visits there thus far, I don't recall having even seen a book.

But, as always seems to be the case with Korea, there are entries on both side of the ledger. Whilst we may now have some attractive municipalia sprouting forth, there was a significant loss not too long ago. Back in February of this year, Seoul's southern gate - Namdaemun - was largely destroyed by arson. What had been the city's oldest wooden structure, dating back to 1398, was ravaged by fire when a sour-tempered ajoshi, goaded by his being short-changed on a property deal, snuck into the structure, dampened it liberally with paint thinner, and set the thing ablaze. Thus one more artefact of Korea's cultural heritage was laid waste.

How much of the gate was actually antique is open to some debate. It would seem that a great deal of it dates back only to the slightly less imperious epoch of the early 1960s, when extensive repairs were made. Nevertheless, it was a significant loss for a city that could ill afford to lose another bauble.

There was, however, not nearly as much wailing and gnashing of teeth as I expected there to be. There was emotion, mos' def, but not quite on the scale one might anticipate. I would dearly like to read into this the signs of a city looking forward to its future rather than fetishizing its past. In this indulgence, I hope I'm not being too optimistic. As an individual with an increasingly lengthy history with no heritage to show, its a notion I might also indulge about myself.

Anyways, that enough from me.

I promise never to talk about architecture ever again.

Until next time,

Anyongi kaseyo,

S

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Progress Report 29.2

Anyong hasseyo,

Guess what? I'm going to update this blog very soon. The minute I get a spare second, in fact.

Until then, please keep it real.

Anyongi kaseyo,

S

Thursday, August 07, 2008

Progress Report 29.1

Anyong hasseyo, fucknut!

Before you start, I know it's been ages and I know I've been promising to update for ages too, but I've been really, really busy.

Doing what? Well, since we last communicated in this fashion, I've changed jobs, changed apartments, grown my hair slightly longer and been on holiday to New York, and those are the sort of things that will keep a chap's every spare minute accounted for. Not a single second has slipped by without it being designated to one of the four previous columns on the spreadsheet of my life. However, I'm currently on holiday from work and I have set aside this evening just for you. So enough of the fussing and bickering and the accusations of neglect - come and sit down here, and I'll fetch you a cuppa and tell you all about it.

Right, now where were we last? Oh yes - December. Well it was Christmas last December, if you remember, so we went out for Christmas dinner in Seoul, didn't we? Yes, that's right. We had Italian. It was really nice, but I had to work the next day, didn't I? Oh, we all did, so we couldn't get too drunk. Mind you, we still managed to put away a few.

AHEM. I've tired of the above conceit almost as soon as I've begun it, so I shall give you the details of the seven months that followed in a much more economical form:

Jan: Began lining up new job, negotiated new visa with the CUNTS at Immigration.
Feb: Continued negotiating with CUNTS at Immigration, finished old job, went to Japan to get new visa.
March: Started new job, as lecturer in visual communication theory at a university.
April: Continued new job.
May: And again.
June: Finished for summer, went to New York.
July: Went to London. Came back to Korea.
Aug: Began updating blog.

And that pretty much brings us up to the moment that I am typing these words. Okay?

Now, one thing that has given me pause when considering updating before now is that it has been so long that I don't really know what to tell you about. There's been so much happen that I don't really know where to begin. At the political level, we've got a new president and a new government, we've had massive protests over American beef, and we've had a tourist shot in the Kumgangsan resort in North Korea. At the personal level, I've become a university lecturer, put on a little weight and become part of the band that may very well save rock'n'roll. And at the cosmic level, the world has taken further irretractible steps towards its ultimate destruction. So there's a lot to report on.

If we were to look back over the past seven months and then morph that temporality into a fallacious phantasmatic landscape, we might perceive various hillocks and dells that we could, if we were given to cliche, call ups and downs. Yes, there have been ups and downs. And I would say that the ups have greatly outnumbered the downs. There were a few stressful weeks at the beginning of the year when those CUNTS at Immigration were causing me grief (and reinforcing my conviction that we are little more than serfs condemned forever to inescapable fealty toward the government of whichever state in which we were spilled from the womb), but that resolved itself with fortuitous timing, meaning that the closing of one door segued almost directly into the opening of another, but with sufficient interval to permit me a brief trip to Osaka.

Here I ate the best sushi I've ever had, ate the best (albeit only) octopus balls I've ever had, and tripped disasterously over a small chain link fence (an experience that comes flooding back with great immediacy whenever I find myself walking through a city and gazing up toward the sky). Brushing myself off, I returned to Korea and took up a position in higher education, and it has been pretty much all ups since then.

This trajectory of fortunes is somewhat the inverse of the new Korean president, Mr Lee Myung-bak. Despite starting the year on a high following a landslide victory in the elections, since his inauguration, he has managed to turn around such widespread approbation in quite a spectacular way. How did he achieve such a reversal? He agreed to import American beef.

When weighed against the misdemeanours of previous premiers of the republic (massacres, gulags, frauds of dizzying proportions), importing cheap meat for your barbecue-bothering citizenry would seem quite a grandiloquent gesture. However, President Lee was about to be handed a hard-earned lesson on the power of misinformation when used on a uniquely irrational people. News broadcasts prognosticated a Creutzfeld-Jakob armageddon to be visited on these shores as soon as the first container of filthy Yankee cowflesh touched the dock, citing pieces of specious evidence to back themselves up. Protests started small then quickly snowballed, led by underhanded teaching and labour unions. Soon there were half a million people on the streets, candles held aloft against the bastard in the Blue House, convinced that he had sold out their futures for the sake of the FTA.

The whole affair was a disgrace to all involved - the government, the media, the unions, and not least the utterly credulous populace that allowed themselves to be pawns in a leftist powerplay. But Mr Lee eventually came out contrite, set conditions on any imports, and no doubt wished he had freer use of the repressive apparatus of the state that had benefited so many of his forebears. The world would most likely not have begrudged it, and it can't have had a worse effect on his approval rating, which is now at an all-time low.

What else "a'gwan"? Well, Samsung spilled oil off the South coast, wrecking the prosperity of a number of small fishing towns, Korean scientists quintuple-cloned a beloved dog for an American woman with significantly more money than sense, and Hyundai Asan cancelled all tours to the Kumgang mountain resort after North Korean soldiers fatally shot a South Korean housewife who'd strayed out of a permitted area. So it's been business as usual, really.

Now, my holiday in New York was probably the highlight of the past half year, but I think I'll save the details of that for a separate report. Suffice to say this: If it's a New York cliche, then I lapped it up.

One change that has taken place since we last talked is one that is something of a negative regression: I have become hopelessly, pitifully addicted to caffeine once again.

This is somewhat beholden to my work ethic, which has of late become positively Calvinist, even during my extended summer break. At present, I go daily to a coffee shop (no, not Starbucks) and make further progress through the canon of what I teach, over the course of six or seven hours. (Okay, it is Starbucks. Sorry, but that's all there is round here and I can't stay at home and work because I just end up playing GTA San Andreas.) Needless to say, during this period of self-enrichment, I knock back a few mugs of the black stuff. Quite perfectly fair enough, I know, but these jolts of refreshing and vital invigoration come at a price - not only KRW2,800 a pop, but also that price adjured by Newton's Second Law, namely: You can't get up without getting down.

So every coffee that revs me up and has me tearing through dense works of theory like Heidegger's Dasein tears through the metaphysics of presence will necessarily leave me wretched and bamboozled a short period thereafter. And with this reverse-swing comes certain abrasive distemper, during which my sensitivity to the slightest of irritations becomes painfully engorged.

It is invariably during this period that my awareness of the more singular of Korean eccentricities nudges gently but insistently to the fore. The one that had me grating my teeth to smooth pebbles today was a habit peculiar to Korean females of a certain age, who, for reasons best known to themselves, feel the need to clap their hands loudly when laughing; not in a show of appreciative applause, but in a single, sudden gesture, issuing a surprising report that today had me reduced to a nervous wreck.

Just around the time that my concentration broke, each clap - normally tolerated as a simple fact of the auditory furniture - started to feel like a slap delivered directly to the surface of my brain. From all about the large customer seating area, housewives in the grips of pleasurable conviviality would break into fits of giggles, lean back slightly, and - BANG - clap their hands, at a volume sufficient to scare crows away from several acres of freshly-sown pasture. Every 20 to 30 seconds there was another - BANG - like incidences of domestic violence, sounding off from every direction. I tolerated it for around 30 minutes before firing off an angry text message to a Korean friend, demanding an explanation, an apology and request to cease and desist. Then I had to leave, as the air con was turned to levels powerful enough to reverse global warming and I was almost driven to kill.

So there you go. That's all the news that's fit to print.

Well, it's nothing of the sort, if we're honest about it, but I've had a long time off and I'm getting back into it slowly, so I don't want to do too much at once. But over the next few weeks and months, I promise I'll tell you about:

- the history of North and South Korea's petty border disputes
- my trip to New York City
- what a set of cunts Korea's previous seven or eight presidents were
- what my university is like
- my new apartment
- the size of my balls
- the 3rd annual Pentaport Rock Festival
- the band that is going to save rock'n'roll
- my recent incursions upon the dignity of the opposite gender
- my top ten favourite breakfast cereals.

It all sounds very exciting, doesn't it?

Well, until next time, I shall bid you good health, and good day, and

Anyongi kaseyo,

S

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Progress Report 28.9

Anyong hasseyo,

What up?

I promise I will update this soon. It's just that I've been really busy for the, er, past six months. Really, I have. Rilly, rilly busy. I'll tell you all about it when I get around to writing the next update, which will be in the next week or so, I swear down.

Until then, I'll leave you with the latest news from the world of biscuits.

Anyongi kasaeyo,

S

Friday, December 07, 2007

Progress Report 28.3 (Answers, damn it!)

Anyong hasseyo, nitwit.


No small talk, thank you - let's just get down to business: Here are the answers to the true-or-false quiz from a couple of weeks ago.


  1. It is indisputable that technology is the cornerstone of the modern Korean economy. Ever since China and South-East Asia began to undercut them in the manufacturing sector, the government has made hi-tech research and development its number one priority, and now, Korean companies such as Samsung and LG lead the world in the production of flat-screen LCD TVs, mobile phones and personal media players. However, it wasn't ever thus. During the 1980's, dictatorial President Chun Doo-Hwan (known to be none too keen on television) personally authored legislation that set the maximum size and minimum curvature of television screens manufactured here, blocked the issue of a patent for a Ceefax-style teletext system, and specifically outlawed TV remote controls, claiming them to be “harmful to family harmony [and] contrary to the diligent Korean work ethic.” The law stayed in force until 1987, when it was overturned by his successor, Roh Tae-woo - a huge fan of Japanese soap operas!

    TRUE or FALSE?

FALSE.

To the best of my knowledge, no legal restriction has ever been placed that limits the physical capacity of the television to give pleasure. Mind you, just because it's got the right equipment and proportions, doesn't mean it knows how to use it...

  1. It's presidential election time right now in Korea and the race is hotting up. Currently edging ahead in the polls is Lee Myung-Bak, former Hyundai CEO, staunch Christian and repeated target of various allegations of bribery and corruption. His main competitors are Chung Dong-Young – one-time TV anchorman and the pretty-boy of Korean politics – and Lee Hoi-Chang, an ageing two-time loser hoping to make it third time lucky in 2007. Presently, it's anybody's game, and this has naturally led to the kind of muck-raking, mudslinging and dirty tricks that you'd expect from an election run-up in any country as the main parties battle for supremacy. However, Lee Hoi-Chang has taken a further step to improve his chances of victory, and it is a step that is more uniquely Korean. After consulting a practitioner of poong-soo (the Korean version of feng shui), he has had the remains of nine of his ancestors dug up from their graves and then re-interred at an alternative location judged more conducive to the realisation of his political ambitions. He has said in the press that he blames his two earlier election defeats on his failure to take this action sooner.

    TRUE or FALSE?

TRUE

Regrettably, this is so. Lee Hoi-Chang disinterred his forebears and moved them to another cemetery because he thought it would net him votes. It will not help him a jot in the election, mind, as Lee Myung-Bak at this point seems unbeatable. This is despite the fact that he is almost comically corrupt and despite the fact that he looks like Finbar from the Rubbadubbers.



  1. If you've been paying attention over the past year and a half, you'll have noticed that a lot of Korean luminaries mentioned in my reports have the surname Kim. There's former president and Nobel laureate Kim Dae-Jung, eternal-president-of-North-Korea-from-the-spirit-world Kim Il-Seong, his son and president-from-this-world Kim Jong-Il, star of Lost Daniel Dae Kim, and many, many more besides. But it would be foolish to believe that the name Kim grants those thus dubbed any particular good fortune. Its prevalence amongst the movers and shakers is rather due to the law of averages – and increasingly so. You see, Kim is the most common surname in Korea, and now the nation has seen its number of Kims reach record levels. The 2007 census has revealed that currently 21% of all Koreans are named Kim – a staggering 10.5 million people.

TRUE or FALSE?

TRUE

It is a well-established fact that in any Korean Business English class, a large percentage of the students will be called Mr Kim. In fact, if you ever forget a Korean person's name, calling them Mr or Ms Kim will get you out of trouble more oftentimes than not. But despite the preponderance of Kims and despite their 348 different lineages, it was only in 1997 that it became legal for two Kims to marry each other.



  1. Fowl, both wild and domestic, have had a long association with the traditional Korean wedding ceremony. Amongst those required to attend orthodox nuptials are: a crane, to represent a long and happy life; two mallard ducks, which symbolise fidelity and support; and a hen, which sits atop the banquet table and somehow signifies good fortune. However, only one of these species has any presence at the much rarer traditional divorce ceremony – to wit, the duck. A man seeking to divorce his wife is required to attend a district court, bearing an adult duck. His wife is also required to attend, herself bearing a duck. After stating his complaint to a judge, the court is cleared of all but the man, the judge, the officers of the court, and the ducks. The man is then required to stare out both ducks, and in no more than three minutes. Only if he is successful will the judge declare the marriage to be broken down beyond reprieve and authorise the annulment. (It was only in 1991 that this requirement was removed from the statute books.)

    TRUE or FALSE?

FALSE.

Although the birds get involved at the wedding as described, divorce is still a source of great shame in Korea and so any wildfowl that might honk or quack or otherwise draw unnecessary attention to the proceedings of a divorce court are kept well away.



  1. It's a well known fact that ageing Western rock and pop acts can hammer out a decent living in Asia long after taking the fast train to squaresville in their home countries. In recent months, Korea has played host to Smokie, The Scorpions and even Megadeth. But did you also know that this permissive and charitable maxim can also apply to comedians? Cast your mind back 20 years and you might recall a rubber-faced Lancastrian funnyman named Phil Cool. It now seems hard to believe that the end-of-the-pier electrician-turned-impressionist once occupied pride-of-place in the BBC's comedy roster. But while changing tastes may have left Phil out in the cold at home, the last laugh has finally been his, as he has consistently been Korea's highest grossing touring comedian since the mid-1990s. After adapting his act to suit his Oriental audience - focussing on impressions of everyday items such as cars, washing machines and rice cookers instead of Rolf Harris - chuckle-hungry Koreans have not been able to get enough. Phil has consistently sold out venues up and down the country and even became the first non-Korean to have his own prime-time TV special. And his popularity does not look set to wane – early in 2008, he will play a series of gigs at Seoul Olympic Park that will see him into the record books as Korea's highest earning comic ever.

TRUE or FALSE?

FALSE

Although I would love it to be true, the fact is that Phil Cool most likely has trouble filling the front row of an Accrington working man's club these days, even on a pie-and-peas night. What's more, the Korean market would be a tough nut to crack for the latex-featured Lancashireman, as he would be regarded as inaccessibly high-brow, owing to the fact that his act doesn't involve dressing as either a baby or an old man and falling over.



  1. Still on the subject of entertainment, whilst it may be true that there are many things that one could say about Korean television, it is unlikely that any one of those things would include the words 'innovative' or 'original'. The two mainstays of the medium – games shows and soap operas – both involve cheap sets, bad hairstyles and an inordinate amount of quiet, unfocussed discussion. TV here is staid, drab and homogeneous, and that's how Koreans like it. However, every now and again, a format comes along that manages to both buck the trend AND bring in the punters. This year, the honour has gone to a show that gets the ratings by pandering to two basic Korean needs: the need to hear foreigners talk about Korea, and the need to look at foreign women. It's name? 'Chat With The Foreign Beauties'. Its premise? Take a dozen female immigrants, doll them up and sit them in a studio to talk about their (almost entirely positive) impressions of the country with a raffish Korean host. At prime-time. For an hour. Every week. Think such shallow and sexist self-glorification would get old very quickly? Think again – it's been one of the highest rating shows on television for months.

TRUE or FALSE?

TRUE

As much as I would like it to be false, this is sadly true. Every Sunday, millions tune in to marvel at the Foreign Beauties as they try to speak Korean. Though it may sound like an unpalatable and tacky format – and it is – there has been some good to come from it. One of the Beauties revealed that her university professor offered to give her a passing grade in exchange for a cheeky fuck, and the resulting press furore led to his dismissal. Also, anything that shows Koreans that their language isn't something that God has granted them exclusive access to as a tool for one day conquering the world is a Good Thing.


    7) After a decidedly wobbly start in the market ten years ago, breakfast cereals have now taken Korea by storm, and leading the charge is the Kellogg's company, whose well-known Coco Pops, Frosties and All-Bran ranges are complemented with Korea-only products such as 'Grain Story' Rice Flakes and Black Sesame Flakes, which are better-suited to more mature and conservative cereal consumers. However, despite their success, Kellogg's managed a massive marketing misfire earlier this year when they launched their Choco-Chex cereal. Their PR campaign involved round-the-clock TV advertising, celebrity endorsements and even a temporary breakfast cereal restaurant in Seoul's fashionable Myongdong district, that proved very popular with upmarket shoppers. But even with a considerable marketing push, Choco-Chex failed to take off. Why? The reason was the name of the cereal itself: 'Choco-Chex', when spoken in a Korean accent, sounds very close to the Korean phrase 'jo-go chik-sae'. Why was this a problem? Because translated literally, 'jo-go chik-sae' means 'gravelly pebbles of shit'. Kellogg's have since relaunched the cereal with the new name 'Sweet Cocoa Baskets'.

    TRUE or FALSE?

FALSE

Though again, I wish this were true. Incidentally, one Korean cereal that you'd have a hard time marketing at home is Green Tea Flakes. They're a bit like corn flakes, but they're green, and taste like green tea. Mmmm – very delicious!


  1. Protesting is something of a national pastime in Korea. Walk around central Seoul and it will not be long before you come across someone demonstrating somehow about something, be it the specifics of the Free Trade Agreement with the USA, generalised feelings of distaste towards to Japan, or the variously perfidious actions of the government in Korea. Protests are typically noisy and aggressive and are broken up as soon as they become a nuisance, so the actions of demonstrators rarely garner the attention so desperately sought. There was one notable exception to this rule, however, earlier in the year, when protesters expressing their dissatisfaction with plans to relocate an army base tied ropes to the legs of a live piglet and pulled it apart in front of cameras. This action got them plenty of attention - from outraged animal rights groups throughout the country and all over the world.


TRUE or FALSE?

TRUE

Don't believe me? Here's a picture:



  1. One thing that Korea can be rightly proud of (in that it might actually be true, rather than being a myth based on xenophobic and nationalistic prejudice) is that this peninsula is, for all intents and purposes, drug-free. Come to Seoul looking for a 'doobie' or some 'rock' for your 'pipe' and you'll leave disappointed. This is because there simply isn't any 'product' here - and the government of Korea is keen to keep it that way. As they view drug abuse as a 'foreign' disease, they aim to keep Korea clean by staying cautious of immigrants, which means immediately deporting any foreigners caught with controlled substances, and also by closely observing immigrants' use of prescription drugs for warning signs of a potential problem. For this reason, if you are diagnosed or treated for the symptoms of cancer at a Korean hospital, you will also be placed on a police watch-list. Why? Because having cancer is seen by the Korean police as 'exhibiting drug-seeking behaviour'.

    TRUE or FALSE?

FALSE

Things aren't quite this extreme, though it is true that foreigners are generally perceived as drug-addled degenerates by the Korean media. Strangely enough, until about a decade ago, when the medical profession took on the pharmaceutical industry in the courts and won, you could walk into any pharmacy and purchase any drug you fancied without a prescription. Alas, how times have changed!



  1. Finally, despite being one of the most conservative countries in the Far East, and despite professing to be a society based on neo-Confucian ideals, and despite vilifying foreigners as seedy, sex-crazed perverts, and despite placing duty towards family at the core of their values, and despite looking down on 'corrupt' Western culture, and despite having a population that is 18% Evangelical Christian, and even despite the fact that it's officially illegal, prostitution is Korea's fifth largest industry. It is estimated to be worth US$22 billion a year - that's 4% of Korea's GDP!



TRUE or FALSE?

TRUE

Take THAT, Korean neo-Confucian self-righteousness!

So there you go. Surprised? Enlightened? Still reading? If so, thank you.


No winners, unfortunately. Perhaps it was too hard...


That is all for now,


Anyongi kaesseyo,

S

Friday, November 23, 2007

Progress Report 28.2 (TRUE or FALSE?)

Anyong hasseyo, sunshine.


What's crack-a-lacking?


Remember ages ago when we had a Korea true-or-false quiz? Well that's what we're doing again today, right here and right now. Ten questions, answer true or false, first correct respondent wins a dried squid, some cuttlefish and a crappy wooden fan.


Alright already? Okay, let's go .


1) It is indisputable that technology is the cornerstone of the modern Korean economy. Ever since China and South-East Asia began to undercut them in the manufacturing sector, the government has made hi-tech research and development its number one priority, and now, Korean companies such as Samsung and LG lead the world in the production of flat-screen LCD TVs, mobile phones and personal media players. However, it wasn't ever thus. During the 1980's, dictatorial President Chun Doo-Hwan (known to be none too keen on television) personally authored legislation that set the maximum size and minimum curvature of television screens manufactured here, blocked the issue of a patent for a Ceefax-style teletext system, and specifically outlawed TV remote controls, claiming them to be “harmful to family harmony [and] contrary to the diligent Korean work ethic.” The law stayed in force until 1987, when it was overturned by his successor, Roh Tae-woo - a huge fan of Japanese soap operas!


TRUE or FALSE?


2) It's presidential election time right now in Korea and the race is hotting up. Currently edging ahead in the polls is Lee Myung-Bak, former Hyundai CEO, staunch Christian and repeated target of various allegations of bribery and corruption. His main competitors are Chung Dong-Young – one-time TV anchorman and the pretty-boy of Korean politics – and Lee Hoi-Chang, an ageing two-time loser hoping to make it third time lucky in 2007. Presently, it's anybody's game, and this has naturally led to the kind of muck-raking, mudslinging and dirty tricks that you'd expect from an election run-up in any country as the main parties battle for supremacy. However, Lee Hoi-Chang has taken a further step to improve his chances of victory, and it is a step that is more uniquely Korean. After consulting a practitioner of poong-soo (the Korean version of feng shui), he has had the remains of nine of his ancestors dug up from their graves and then re-interred at an alternative location judged more conducive to the realisation of his political ambitions. He has said in the press that he blames his two earlier election defeats on his failure to take this action sooner.


TRUE or FALSE?



3) If you've been paying attention over the past year and a half, you'll have noticed that a lot of Korean luminaries mentioned in my reports have the surname Kim. There's former president and Nobel laureate Kim Dae-Jung, eternal-president-of-North-Korea-from-the-spirit-world Kim Il-Seong, his son and president-from-this-world Kim Jong-Il, star of Lost Daniel Dae Kim, and many, many more besides. But it would be foolish to believe that the name Kim grants those thus dubbed any particular good fortune. Its prevalence amongst the movers and shakers is rather due to the law of averages – and increasingly so. You see, Kim is the most common surname in Korea, and now the nation has seen its number of Kims reach record levels. The 2007 census has revealed that currently 21% of all Koreans are named Kim – a staggering 10.5 million people!

TRUE or FALSE?


4) Fowl, both wild and domestic, have had a long association with the traditional Korean wedding ceremony. Amongst those required to attend orthodox nuptials are: a crane, to represent a long and happy life; two mallard ducks, which symbolise fidelity and support; and a hen, which sits atop the banquet table and somehow signifies the good fortune. However, only one of these species has any presence at the much rarer traditional divorce ceremony – to wit, the duck. A man seeking to divorce his wife is required to attend a district court, bearing an adult duck. His wife is also required to attend, herself bearing a duck. After stating his complaint to a judge, the court is cleared of all but the man, the judge, the officers of the court, and the ducks. The man is then required to stare out both ducks, and in no more than three minutes. Only if he is successful, will the judge declare the marriage to be broken down beyond reprieve and authorise the annulment. (It was only in 1991 that this requirement was removed from the statute books.)

TRUE or FALSE?


5) It's a well known fact that ageing Western rock and pop acts can hammer out a decent living in Asia long after taking the fast train to squaresville in their home countries. In recent months, Korea has played host to Smokie, The Scorpions and even Megadeth. But did you also know that this permissive and charitable maxim can also apply to comedians? Cast your mind back 20 years and you might recall a rubber-faced Lancastrian funnyman named Phil Cool. It now seems hard to believe that the end-of-the-pier impressionist once occupied pride-of-place in the BBC's comedy roster. But while changing tastes may have left Phil out in the cold at home, the last laugh has finally been his, as he has consistently been Korea's highest grossing touring comedian since the mid-1990s. After adapting his act to suit his Oriental audience - focussing on impressions of everyday items such as cars, washing machines and rice cookers instead of Rolf Harris - chuckle-hungry Koreans have not been able to get enough. Phil has consistently sold out venues up and down the country and even became the first non-Korean to have his own prime-time TV special. And his popularity does not look set to wane – early in 2008, he will play a series of gigs at Seoul Olympic Park that will see him into the record books as Korea's highest earning comic ever.

TRUE or FALSE?


6) Still on the subject of entertainment, whilst it may be true that there are many things that one could say about Korean television, it is unlikely that any one of those things would include the words 'innovative' or 'original'. The two mainstays of the medium – games shows and soap operas – both involve cheap sets, bad hairstyles and an inordinate amount of quiet, unfocussed discussion. TV here is staid, drab and homogeneous, and that's how Koreans like it. However, every now and again, a format comes along that manages to both buck the trend AND bring in the punters. This year, the honour has gone to a show that gets the ratings by pandering to two basic Korean needs: the need to hear foreigners talk about Korea, and the need to look at foreign women. Its name? 'Chat With The Foreign Beauties'. Its premise? Take a dozen female immigrants, doll them up and sit them in a studio to talk about their (almost entirely positive) impressions of the country with a raffish Korean host. At prime-time. For an hour. Every week. Think such shallow and sexist self-glorification would get old very quickly? Think again – it's been one of the highest rating shows on television for months.


TRUE or FALSE?


7) After a decidedly wobbly start in the market ten years ago, breakfast cereals have now taken Korea by storm, and leading the charge is the Kellogg's company, whose well-known Coco Pops, Frosties and All-Bran ranges are complemented with Korea-only products such as 'Grain Story' Rice Flakes and Black Sesame Flakes, which are better suited to more mature and conservative cereal consumers. However, despite their success, Kellogg's managed a massive marketing misfire earlier this year when they launched their Choco-Chex cereal. Their PR campaign involved round-the-clock TV advertising, celebrity endorsements and even a temporary breakfast cereal restaurant in Seoul's fashionable Myongdong district (that proved very popular with upmarket shoppers). But even with a considerable marketing push, Choco-Chex failed to take off. Why? The reason was the name of the cereal itself: 'Choco-Chex', when spoken in a Korean accent, sounds very close to the Korean phrase 'jo-go chik-sae'. Why was this a problem? Because translated literally, 'jo-go chik-sae' means 'gravelly pebbles of shit'. Kellogg's have since relaunched the cereal with the new name 'Sweet Cocoa Baskets'.


TRUE or FALSE?


8) Protesting is something of a national pastime in Korea. Walk around central Seoul and it will not be long before you come across someone demonstrating somehow about something, be it the specifics of the Free Trade Agreement with the USA, generalised feelings of distaste towards Japan, or the variously perfidious actions of the government in Korea. Protests are typically noisy and aggressive and are broken up as soon as they become a nuisance, so demonstrators rarely garner the attention they so desperately seek. There was one notable exception to this assertion earlier in the year, however, when protesters expressing their dissatisfaction with plans to relocate an army base tied ropes to the legs of a live piglet and pulled it limb-from-limb in front of cameras. This action got them plenty of attention - from outraged animal rights groups throughout the country and all over the world.


TRUE or FALSE?


9) One thing that Korea can be rightly proud of (in that it might actually be true, rather than being a myth based on xenophobic and nationalistic prejudice) is that this peninsula is, for all intents and purposes, drug-free. Come to Seoul looking for a 'doobie' or some 'rock' for your 'pipe' and you'll leave disappointed. This is because there simply isn't any 'product' here - and the government of Korea is keen to keep it that way. As they view drug abuse as a 'foreign' disease, they aim to keep Korea clean by staying cautious of immigrants, which means immediately deporting any foreigners caught with controlled substances, and also by closely observing immigrants' use of prescription drugs for warning signs of a potential problem. For this reason, if you are diagnosed or treated for the symptoms of cancer at a Korean hospital, you will also be placed on a police watch-list. Why? Because having cancer is seen by the Korean police as 'exhibiting drug-seeking behaviour'.

TRUE or FALSE?


10) Finally, despite being one of the most conservative countries in the Far East, and despite professing to be a society based on neo-Confucian ideals, and despite vilifying foreigners as seedy, sex-crazed perverts, and despite placing duty towards family at the core of their values, and despite looking down on 'corrupt' Western culture, and despite having a population that is 18% Evangelical Christian, and even despite the fact that it's officially illegal, prostitution is Korea's fifth largest industry. It is estimated to be worth US$22 billion a year - that's 4% of Korea's GDP!


TRUE or FALSE?


There you have it. What do you think? Send your answers to me at StephenJBEckett@gmail.com.


That is all for now,


Anyonghi kaeseyo,


S

Monday, November 12, 2007

Progress Report 28.1

Anyong hasseyo, nonce-features.


What up, yeah?


Me, yeah? Yeah, not bad, yeah?


Yeah, not bad. But there have been certain changes of late that have sullied the shine on my sixpence. I'm hoping that through sharing them with you in this sovereign forum, I might vaguely dispel them.


In the process, I shall broach subjects that are contemporaneously familiar to us both.


That'll be a turn-up, won't it? It's not often that I'm granted the opportunity to be relevant to events of international news-worthiness – speaking about Korea will have that effect – but Gawd love us if that's not the condition that we find me to be in right now. Relevance, I mean. I am relevant. Relevant I am.


How so?


Well, it comes to me by the gracious virtue of a swirly-faced paedophile. That's right – him. Christopher Paul Neil, the de-masked botherer of Vietnamese children and until his becoming the subject of an international manhunt made his position untenable, a fellow teacher of English in the Republic of Korea. You saw the news, you read the pictures, you joshed about it over drinks at the gentlemen's club. It is he who has made me so marvellously relevant. Children have suffered for my words to matter.


But before we reflect so long on the post-ironic irony of that fact that it prevents us achieving the detachment required to crack wise about it, I want you to quickly think back two reports, when the chum for my tiresome wordiness was Korea's latent and blatant xenophobia. Remember that? Korea's proud racial homogeneity? The pure bloodline? The excessive national pride? The blindness to shortcomings? The arm's-length, pinched-nose distaste for foreign workers? Remember? Well take it and buffer it for easy retrieval – you'll need it at points throughout.


These two strands, along with a disappointment over pasta that I share will with you later (the disappointment, that is - not the pasta), have contributed to a slight but perceptible change in the weather; a light melancholia that settled like an autumn mist, as gently as the shortening of the days.


Before I go into further detail on that though, let's spend some time with the paedophile...


He's this season's star of the internet – the failed priest and fan of Photoshop with a penchant for sating his lusts in tourist South East Asia, who shot to fame when German nonce-boffins unswirled his Canadian features in his holiday snaps to unmistakably incriminating effect. It's an image that we shan't soon forget – his melting, vertiginous physiognomy atop a pale, damp chest, and a look that suggested his attention was on something that had just slightly bottomed out of the shot. “Stinger for his head,” I thought to myself when first the story broke (I always think in late 80's Hull teen slang, you see), and then moved nonchalantly along to the next item of news. Little did I know that the image was going to become the the centrepiece of the most interesting thing to happen to the English teaching community in all the time that I've been part of it.


The de-filtered subject of the photograph reacted a little differently than I to the story's initial appearance. He packed a bag, shaved his head and doubled-timed it to the airport, from where he flew to Thailand and then headed to the coast, where he holed up with a ladyboy acquaintance. In the meantime, the details of his life were snowballing into the consciousness of the public, and nowhere more so than here in Korea, that had for eighteen months been his home.


It began slowly. The initial shock expressed in online forums that he was 'one of us' gradually gave way to communal tutting and clucking. Those with experience of past scandals knew full well how predictably the Korean public react to reported improprieties with foreign protagonists: like morons. The last collective outpouring of rage had occurred a few years prior, when an unwise contributor to an internet message board for English teachers decided to test its professed 'no censorship' policy with a post that went into unfortunate detail about how best to molest one's students. This came to the attention of a rabble-rousing netizen who didn't hesitate to use it as ammo to angry up the Korean online community into getting the site shut down. ('Netizen', by the way, is a peculiar Konglish term used by the press to refer to the eternally enraged and unfalteringly irrational members of the nebulous, numerous group of Koreans who form and express their opinions entirely in cyberspace, most commonly in the manner of a dehydrated drunk. Their volatile wrath is the stuff of nightmares for politicians, who do anything they can to appease them.)


In the consequent brouhaha, there were reports of assaults and random public slander and a generalized air of undisguised hostility against anyone who looked like they might be here to teach. The profession's reputation (I use both terms loosely) was permanently damaged and its social cachet subsequently reduced. The breaking scandal of Christopher Neil now looked set to further its downfall.


Online comments on the inevitability of a stinging backlash were soon joined by more fascinating and salacious contributions from those who knew him. “He taught with me last year”; “I went to his birthday party”; “He's not been into work” - a picture began to form of someone who'd quickly cut and run, much to his colleagues' surprise. The details that were emerging suggested that no-one had suspected a thing. We saw pictures of him singing in a norae-bang. We discovered his online identity. We went through his old posts (one dodgy one about how best to clear your hard drive, otherwise nothing too suspect). We dredged up his asinine poetry from MySpace. He was, apparently, a reasonably normal guy - a bit of a loser, shy around hot girls, dreadful at writing, but absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.


But his seeming normality didn't stop the wave of outpouring that followed - which was one of white-hot paedo-rage.


The online teaching community confirmed its intellectual pedigree with an unfettered, free-for-all round of 'who-can-be-the-most-irrationally-furious?'. He was condemned as a hellish monster; a grotesque, uncontrollable assemblage of murderous urges; a filthy, godless defiler of human dignity, the very nadir of civilization to date – but entirely in words of one syllable. Fitting punishments for his transgressions were dreamed up, mostly the products of limited - but possibly psychopathic - imaginations. “Id like to see him raped inside out in a Thai prison!!1!” said user CanadianFuckwit001. “I wanna cut his dick off and feed it to Vietnameze children in front of him and then laff at the dumbass sick fukkin douchebag!!!” said CanadianFuckwit002. “If I see him I will stomp on his sick-fuck pedarass fucking head and so will all my fukkin buddies too” commented poster YankHalfwit83. Appeals for calm and clear thinking were met with angry accusations of deviance - “You dont want to beat him down and laff at him get raped in prison, so you must be a sick fuck paedo too!!!1!” If self-righteous indignation gave off a faint phosphorescent glow, then Korea would have been visible from space.


This continued during the days that followed, while the path of Christopher Neil's absconding began to become clear. Vague details of his crimes and past emerged and clashed. Journalists surfaced, trolling for titbits. Reports of his wayward peccadilloes formed and vanished like mephitic vapours: he's into little boys, he's into little girls, he's into prostitutes, he's into ladyboys, he likes to fellate, he likes to be fellated, he gives it, he takes it - from the surfeit of anecdotal evidence, you would be forgiven for thinking that he spent his entire post-pubertal existence at the epicentre of a messy explosion of semen.


The keenness of the hunger for details began to border on unhealthy. The ex-pat websites began to resemble forums for comparing outrage. A resolution was needed and quickly, before the indignation went supernova.


Fortunately, it came. Neil was picked up by the Thai plod hiding out with his ladyboy love-interest in a village by the coast, in an appositely Hollywood conclusion to the tale. “Bingo!” said the chief of police, showing a keen sense for the quotable sound-bite. “We got him.”


To prove it, they paraded him in front of the cameras in a loose-fitting t-shirt and sunglasses (“Id like to punch the fukkin sunglasses of his sick fukkin face,” CanadianFuckwit001 sagely remarked at the time), and gave a press conference with him plonked uncomfortably amongst a clamour of uniformed cops. Someone remarked – not me, though I wish I had the neck to claim this observation as my own – that he looked like a time-traveller who had beamed himself into the scene by mistake.


And then it was all over. We were safe from the international paedophile menace once again, and all that was left was to reminisce about the excitement, talk up our part in his downfall, and wait for the backlash to strike.


That period of dreadful anticipation would have been the ideal time to take a step back from the case and ask a few prescient questions. It might have been a good idea to ask why there was an international manhunt for a paedophile who, as far as there is a hierarchy in these matters, would not exactly rank as the worst ever sex offender in history. Then one might discern certain qualities of the case that make it unique: The German police develop a brand-new, top secret technique for un-swirling swirly faces, they pursue one perpetrator throughout the world via Interpol with much whooping and hoopla, and he's arrested with the full attention of the whole world. Hooray for the German police.


But the perp was Canadian, the crimes took place in Vietnam and Cambodia, and he was arrested in Thailand. Why was it Germany's problem?


Well, because the photos were discovered downloaded onto a hard-drive there – their jurisdiction, their problem. So they un-swirled the perp's hidden face and had Interpol put the world on full alert. They were saying: “You can't hide on the internet anymore, paedoes, so stop uploading your pictures.” What they were effectively implying was: “By all means go and fuck children in Thailand – that way it's Thailand's problem, not ours. But don't put your photos online afterwards, because then it is our problem.” Despite the obvious difficulties you might have in conjuring sympathy for someone who is both a child abuser and a Canadian, it's hard not to feel that CPN was, to some extent, thrown to the wolves for the sake of making a point.


But let's not let such cynicism about motives cloud the excitement of the stage-managed manhunt. A paedophile was weeded out from already suspect English teaching community, so we should take our backlash like men. (And women.) But here's the thing – from the press, at least, it never really came. The Korean media, usually only too happy to scapegoat an entire community for an individual's misdemeanours, couldn't summon up sufficient froth to make a story. It might even be optimistically ventured that the press had concluded that heaping scorn onto the foreign teacher community (perennially the whipping-boy of outraged public morals) for the past actions of one deviant member would be too cheap a shot even for them - especially seeing as the victims in the case weren't even Korean. (Believe me, this is how they think it here.)


That didn't mean, however, that teachers were off the hook. Just because a backlash was too tacky for the press to touch it, that doesn't mean that the government aren't willing to give it a shot...


It was heralded with an announcement about new regulations on the issuance of visas. From December onwards, anyone wishing to be permitted a visa to teach English in Korea will have to submit to a criminal background check, a medical check and an interview with a consular official, said the immigration office. This comes on top of the current requirement to submit original copies of degree certificates and sealed university transcripts. All this despite the fact that Christopher Paul Neil had no criminal record and had no complaints made against him in Korea.


You would be forgiven for thinking that such steps are perhaps symptomatic of a deep fear and distrust of foreign workers on the part of the Korean Immigration Service, wouldn't you?


Well, you're dead wrong, and in order to banish such perfidious inklings, the Commissioner of Immigration himself has spoken out. In a article entitled “Korea As the Leader of Embracing Foreigners”, he nailed his enlightened colours to the mast. He assured Koreans that they actually had nothing to fear from the growing numbers of foreigners entering the country. They were not here to “damage our homogeneity or... leech off our wealth,” he soothingly averred, and so Koreans should “actively embrace foreigners who choose to live, work or study here.”


Why the hell should they? Well, apparently there are “economic and moral reasons to do so.”


The economics? Because workers from South East Asia will work for less than their Korean counterparts, Korean firms can “therefore restore their price competitiveness”.


The morality? “Korea traces its homogeneous lineage to the legendary demigod Dangun, who founded Ancient Korea with the vision of Hongik Ingan, i.e. bringing good for all humankind. It's Korea's founding ideology to reach out to foreigners.” (I wish I was making this up, but you'll find the full article here: http://www.immigration.go.kr/HP/IMM80/index.do)


Unfortunately, the Commissioner doesn't see the matter from an entirely sunny perspective. “There will be issues to be addressed,” he warns. “Some foreign brides married to Korean farmers are having difficulty adjusting to a new life in an unfamiliar county,” he plainly states, referring to the increasing numbers of South East Asian women being imported as spouses-stroke-punch-bags by Korean yokels in lieu of home-grown females with sufficiently low standards to take them. And, most appropriately to the topic at hand, the Commissioner gravely portends that “many young men who come to teach English... have questionable qualifications and background [sic].”


Let me just restate that just so that we're in no doubt about what is being said and by whom. The Commissioner of the Korean Immigration Service has stated, in a piece aimed at convincing entrenchedly xenophobic Koreans of the manifold benefits of increased immigration, that many of the male university graduates who have come here to teach English (being a graduate is a prerequisite for a visa) have questionable qualifications and backgrounds. Not the females, you understand – just the guys. Many of them. So says the Commissioner of the Korean Immigration Service, an organ of government whose stated mission is the attainment of “Integrity, Dignity, Excellence and Accountability”.


A more easily-insulted individual would survey those words and make a haughty beeline for the next flight out of the country, perhaps slowing briefly to spit at the immigration officer at the exit desk.. Even someone with a level of self-esteem close to zero would raise his sorry head to meet your gaze if you said such a thing to his face. To hear such pronouncements from on high beggars belief. To hear such pronouncements from the very man tasked with assuring the humane and dignified treatment of people coming here in the service of Koreans beggars belief up the arse with a crowbar.


Elsewhere in his piece, he derides low income immigrant workers (many of whom earn around UKP400 a month) for living in poorer areas, thus “raising the prospect of ghettoes”, and criticises those denied legal status by their employers, as they cannot “receive due protection of their basic rights.” Not once does he suggest that Korean employers might be directly responsible for most of the problems that he mentions, apparently believing that immigrant workers choose to violate their rights themselves. Nowhere does he allude to the inherently racist attitudes at work in Korean society, perhaps because he verbalises them so cogently himself.


I could tolerate such ignorance if it were belched up by some soju-sodden halfwit on the street, but for it to come from the mouth of the man at the top effortlessly dispossesses me of the formerly-held illusion that Korea is in good hands. I had previously believed that such idiocy was a symptom of being a regular schmo. Now I see that there is a rich vein of stupidity and delusion running right up to the pinnacles.


It's enough to make me want to tell the whole nation to get to fuck.


As much as I like the Koreans that I know personally, it's hard to buttress against such institutional antipathy. Why make oneself a subject of an agency that changes its visa policy on the whims of an ignorant commissioner? Why put yourself in the service of a nation that seems to be backward beyond salvation? Why live in a country where the crimes of foreigners generate national outrage while the wrongdoings of natives are instantly forgiven and forgotten? (Item: Several years ago, a US tank accidentally killing two schoolgirls caused nationwide demonstrations against America; last month, a Korean drunk driver killed three high school girls on a pedestrian crossing ten minutes from where I live and it barely even made the news.) Any extended period of reflection on these things would lead to extraordinary difficulties in squaring these matters away.


It's better to try and sustain the notion that the government are not the people, and that the recent developments are nothing new. The government of Korea has long distinguished itself as a hive of fecklessness, corruption and flimflam – why expect anything different now? If you were to take affront at every stupid or scandalous action, your daily life would be reduced to a permanent St Vitus' dance of disgusted umbrage. However, while It may be easy to shrug off each insult as and when it happens, the cumulative effect slowly wears one's patience to the nub.


And hence my sense that the weather is changing, and that maybe it's time for a change. I've had a good run here, but perhaps it's time to move on to more sophisticated shores. Or at the very least, take a holiday. It's been an education, and most pleasant in its way. But I tell you, there's little more of what follows hereafter that I can stand in good humour...


A new restaurant opened last week adjacent to my school. It's speciality? Pasta and pizza. It's name? Casa, from the Italian. Hooray, I thought - a new Italian restaurant! I hope it's a good one.


The signs were indeed promising: minimalist decor, tasteful lighting and an original choice of face for the storefront sign. I was mad-keen to sample their menu. My first attempt was thwarted by their not yet having opened, but Friday last I unfortunately met with success.


Despite the evidence accrued from a wealth of bitter postprandial disappointment elsewhere in this nation, I naively hoped that this experience would be different. (Such child-like innocence as this seems somehow inevitability fated to be lost in the most brutal of circumstances.) Maybe this Italian restaurant would serve real Italian food, I ventured. Maybe the chef will be trained. Maybe they'll not serve pickles with the main course. Maybe someone somehow connected to the venture might have actually been to Italy, or at least to an Italian restaurant run by Italians, or might have read a book on Italian food or looked it up on the internet. Maybe this Korean Italian restaurant will be the one that bucks the criminally abysmal trend set by its competitors.


It was sadly, predictably, not to be.


The garlic bread was sweet, hard and half a day old. The pizza was limp, thin and raw, and completely unable to support the thumb-thick depth of industrial 'mozzarella' that topped it. The seafood pasta was an unholy conflation of disparate elements that clearly illustrated that the chef's only qualification was the willingness to try. They didn't serve alcohol. They didn't have any black pepper. They presented a bowl of pickles with pomp and ceremony. It was, in short, incredibly fucking Korean, and the straw that brought the dromedary to its knees. I'm afraid to say that I criticised the food to my Korean co-diners with lustful savagery, irrationally demanding explanations for the food-crimes of their countrymen. It was not particularly becoming of me, and somewhat hypocritical, given the circumstances.


But this is to what I find myself reduced. After all the patience, and all the understanding, and all the excuses made and misgivings quieted, I'm starting to think that the country is beyond help. It stubbornly sticks to its faulty ways. It doesn't want to change. It will have to hit rock-bottom before it can turn its life around, but I don't think I want to be here when it happens.


So that's where I find myself: The relationship's starting to lose its sparkle and I think I want out. I haven't made any decisions, but it'll probably be for the best if I move on. I'll let you know when I've made up my mind.


Just time to quickly fill you on some other developments:


  • I've started eating Kellogg's All-Bran Flakes for breakfast every morning and last week I did a poo as big as my forearm. I strongly recommend that you give them a try.

  • I have eaten 1kg of pistachios in the past seven days.

  • It's getting very wintry here.

  • I'm writing this on my laptop in Starbucks and I don't feel ashamed. This is just how it is for me now.

  • Thank you to Paul 'Now Australia's Problem' Beckett for the two James Ellroy books and the one Robert Crais one.

  • Anything questions you might have that you want answering before I probably leave should be sent to StephenJBeckett@gmail.com


That's is all.


I bid you a hearty


Anyonghi kaeseyo,


S