Progress Report 3.1
Amyong Kasseyo,
How's things? Yeah? Good to hear.
Question for you: How many toilet rolls do you think you get through in a year? Assuming that your lifestyle remains stable, your diet consistent and you don't contract amoebic dysentry, how many individual leaves of bumwad do you think you foul, moisten or otherwise render non-reusable in a twelve month period? The figure could be expressed in a simple equation in which N (the number of rolls consumed, multiplied by an average number of 240 leaves per roll) is the product of the mean number of movements taken per day (M), from whcih we shall subtract a percentage value Q to show the quality of diet, and we shall add a fixed 5% to account for any other emissions whose flow toilet tissue might be called upon to stem. This gives us the following expression:
N=(MQ x 0.05) x 240
From this, we can determine the projected number of rolls required for a year with a clinical margin of error. But why should we care? Well the point is that I've just been out to buy enough toilet roll to last me until next June. So? Well that means that I've decided I'm definitely going to be staying in Korea for a year (which rhymes, by the way). I've committed myself. For a whole year. To leave early now would be a criminal waste of bog roll.
And I've decided to stay for a year in spite of several factors.
Firstly, I've decided to stay in spite of Korean fashion. I'm not exaggerating in any way when I say that your average Korean's fashion sense is so utterly derelict that even Russian peasants would point and laugh. I've never seen so many fine looking women so appallingly dressed. I'm not talking about being badly dressed in the sense that they could maybe do to accessorize with greater fluency - I mean they look like they've climbed out of the bins round the back of Primark. Korean clothes look cheap. If you were to judge the economy on the attire of its citizens, you'd assume that Korea was undergoing a Leonard Cohen-strength depression. And Korean clothes look nasty. They're always embellished with some tasteless detail or unnecessary faff which renders them irretrievably beyond acceptable limits of taste - even Welsh taste. And the blokes are no better - the look for men is either Ciro Citterio-at-Netto or 'you-call-THAT-gay?-check-THIS-out'.
Unfortunately, I've been a little shortsighted in my projections for how many items of clothing I'm going to need for the year, so it's inevitable that I'm going to have to, at some point, join the Korean anti-fashion revolution. I may be rallying you all to hold bring-and-buy sales and sponsored walks at some point over the next few months so that you can invest in clothes to send me and help me avoid this fate. Be ready.
I'm also staying despite a difficult personal quandary connected with the oppposite sex. Let me explain: If you want to take care of certain psychological and physical needs here, you have two choices - you can hold out for a Western girl and take what you're given but enjoy the free exchange of opinions, hopes and desires that a common language system permits, or, alternatively, you can bag yourself a Korean girl, and have what is essentially an ambulant vagina. Don't get me wrong - some men may enjoy conducting their conversations in sub-pidgin Engrish to an accompaniment of animated mime, but I would find it limiting. It's hard to convey complex irony with your fingers.
There is a but - Korean girls seem to have taken to me like they took to polyester. I've had more girls give me their phone number in the past two weeks than I have in the past 29 years. I keep getting told that I'm 'handsome' and 'cute'. I know, I know - I think they must have organised a nationwide practical joke the week before I arrived, and I realise that the Korean Jeremy Beadle is likely to appear at my side with a microphone at any moment, but for now, I'm playing along. The problem is that once they've conveyed their opening compliments, the conversation becomes a little one-sided - my dry Northern wit versus can-maybe-count-to-ten-in-English. I know I could probably manipulate the situation to a win-win if I had the patience and the time, but I didn't spend the past 29 years developing this obnoxious-but-tolerable-in-small-doses personality so that I could regress to primary school level for the sake of a Korean with questionable taste.
Also, whitey walking down the street with a Korean girl on his arm is an undeniably tragic tableau. There but for the grace of God go I, I tell myself. But what's the alternative? We went to Itaewon (Seoul's ex-pat district) on Saturday to watch the England game, and I was quickly reminded what English girls are blighted with, and to which Korean girls are apparently innured - attitude. On Saturday night, I felt myself being looked down upon, dismissed, and even argued against. One girl even questioned my knowledge of English by insisting to me, despite my reasoned and obviously-correct counter-argument, that there is such a word as 'uninspirational'. (Her head and hands are currently in a bin liner underneath my kitchen sink.) It was frustrating and it was unnecessary. Why do they need to be so combative? Who do they think they are, eh? So Western girls, the ultimatum is issued: When you're pulling down Korean averages in the looks stakes, then and only then shall you be entitled to have the attitude. Until then, you have a lot of work to do. (Please take a moment to look up from your monitor and remind yourself that I'm probably joking.)
I'm also staying despite the Americans and Canadians. (I promise that this will be the last time that I use the C-word). I'm staying despite the baseball caps and facial hair. I'm even staying despite the backwards baseball caps. (When will these people learn that the baseball cap is COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE in any form? Do they honestly think that their moronic faces are improved by the ridiculous peak of a baseball cap sitting on their head like some sort of theatrical punctuation?) I'm staying despite the fact that they call you 'my friend', even when you're clearly trying to start a fight with them. And I'm staying despite the fact that they're all oversized, overfed, underschooled clods.
And despite my gripes, I've been out and bought enough toilet roll to last me a year (18 rolls, in case you're wondering - if you can't make a bog roll last you three weeks, then you need to eat more fibre. Perhaps you could start by buying some Weetabix off eBay). So there's definitely something outweighing these numerous cons that makes the prospect of staying here for a year quite palatable. However, I've rather enjoyed the negative tone of this email so I'm not going to spoil it by getting all flowery. Maybe next time. Besides, being nice isn't funny.
Food news: I have now eaten silkworm larvae, quail egg and acorn jelly. They were insecty, eggy and nothing-special respectively. The silkworm larvae in particular were exactly what you'd expect a fat little maggot to taste like. Not entirely disagreeable, but not exactly more-ish. I also went to a pasta restaurant yesterday (not my choice) and had a spaghetti con vognole that was so garlicky that it made my face hurt. Someone had obviously told the chef that Italian food features garlic quite prominently, so he'd taken the idea and run with it. Don't expect to see him on Masterchef anytime soon.
At some point over the next couple of months, I'm going to eat dog soup. I promise it. And when I do, you shall be first with the news.
Right, I have to go and teach my dreadful junior class. If I hadn't had this opportunity to express some bile, then there would have been a good chance that I might have pushed one of them out of the window, so thank you.
Amyonghi kasseyo,
S
How's things? Yeah? Good to hear.
Question for you: How many toilet rolls do you think you get through in a year? Assuming that your lifestyle remains stable, your diet consistent and you don't contract amoebic dysentry, how many individual leaves of bumwad do you think you foul, moisten or otherwise render non-reusable in a twelve month period? The figure could be expressed in a simple equation in which N (the number of rolls consumed, multiplied by an average number of 240 leaves per roll) is the product of the mean number of movements taken per day (M), from whcih we shall subtract a percentage value Q to show the quality of diet, and we shall add a fixed 5% to account for any other emissions whose flow toilet tissue might be called upon to stem. This gives us the following expression:
N=(MQ x 0.05) x 240
From this, we can determine the projected number of rolls required for a year with a clinical margin of error. But why should we care? Well the point is that I've just been out to buy enough toilet roll to last me until next June. So? Well that means that I've decided I'm definitely going to be staying in Korea for a year (which rhymes, by the way). I've committed myself. For a whole year. To leave early now would be a criminal waste of bog roll.
And I've decided to stay for a year in spite of several factors.
Firstly, I've decided to stay in spite of Korean fashion. I'm not exaggerating in any way when I say that your average Korean's fashion sense is so utterly derelict that even Russian peasants would point and laugh. I've never seen so many fine looking women so appallingly dressed. I'm not talking about being badly dressed in the sense that they could maybe do to accessorize with greater fluency - I mean they look like they've climbed out of the bins round the back of Primark. Korean clothes look cheap. If you were to judge the economy on the attire of its citizens, you'd assume that Korea was undergoing a Leonard Cohen-strength depression. And Korean clothes look nasty. They're always embellished with some tasteless detail or unnecessary faff which renders them irretrievably beyond acceptable limits of taste - even Welsh taste. And the blokes are no better - the look for men is either Ciro Citterio-at-Netto or 'you-call-THAT-gay?-check-THIS-out'.
Unfortunately, I've been a little shortsighted in my projections for how many items of clothing I'm going to need for the year, so it's inevitable that I'm going to have to, at some point, join the Korean anti-fashion revolution. I may be rallying you all to hold bring-and-buy sales and sponsored walks at some point over the next few months so that you can invest in clothes to send me and help me avoid this fate. Be ready.
I'm also staying despite a difficult personal quandary connected with the oppposite sex. Let me explain: If you want to take care of certain psychological and physical needs here, you have two choices - you can hold out for a Western girl and take what you're given but enjoy the free exchange of opinions, hopes and desires that a common language system permits, or, alternatively, you can bag yourself a Korean girl, and have what is essentially an ambulant vagina. Don't get me wrong - some men may enjoy conducting their conversations in sub-pidgin Engrish to an accompaniment of animated mime, but I would find it limiting. It's hard to convey complex irony with your fingers.
There is a but - Korean girls seem to have taken to me like they took to polyester. I've had more girls give me their phone number in the past two weeks than I have in the past 29 years. I keep getting told that I'm 'handsome' and 'cute'. I know, I know - I think they must have organised a nationwide practical joke the week before I arrived, and I realise that the Korean Jeremy Beadle is likely to appear at my side with a microphone at any moment, but for now, I'm playing along. The problem is that once they've conveyed their opening compliments, the conversation becomes a little one-sided - my dry Northern wit versus can-maybe-count-to-ten-in-English. I know I could probably manipulate the situation to a win-win if I had the patience and the time, but I didn't spend the past 29 years developing this obnoxious-but-tolerable-in-small-doses personality so that I could regress to primary school level for the sake of a Korean with questionable taste.
Also, whitey walking down the street with a Korean girl on his arm is an undeniably tragic tableau. There but for the grace of God go I, I tell myself. But what's the alternative? We went to Itaewon (Seoul's ex-pat district) on Saturday to watch the England game, and I was quickly reminded what English girls are blighted with, and to which Korean girls are apparently innured - attitude. On Saturday night, I felt myself being looked down upon, dismissed, and even argued against. One girl even questioned my knowledge of English by insisting to me, despite my reasoned and obviously-correct counter-argument, that there is such a word as 'uninspirational'. (Her head and hands are currently in a bin liner underneath my kitchen sink.) It was frustrating and it was unnecessary. Why do they need to be so combative? Who do they think they are, eh? So Western girls, the ultimatum is issued: When you're pulling down Korean averages in the looks stakes, then and only then shall you be entitled to have the attitude. Until then, you have a lot of work to do. (Please take a moment to look up from your monitor and remind yourself that I'm probably joking.)
I'm also staying despite the Americans and Canadians. (I promise that this will be the last time that I use the C-word). I'm staying despite the baseball caps and facial hair. I'm even staying despite the backwards baseball caps. (When will these people learn that the baseball cap is COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE in any form? Do they honestly think that their moronic faces are improved by the ridiculous peak of a baseball cap sitting on their head like some sort of theatrical punctuation?) I'm staying despite the fact that they call you 'my friend', even when you're clearly trying to start a fight with them. And I'm staying despite the fact that they're all oversized, overfed, underschooled clods.
And despite my gripes, I've been out and bought enough toilet roll to last me a year (18 rolls, in case you're wondering - if you can't make a bog roll last you three weeks, then you need to eat more fibre. Perhaps you could start by buying some Weetabix off eBay). So there's definitely something outweighing these numerous cons that makes the prospect of staying here for a year quite palatable. However, I've rather enjoyed the negative tone of this email so I'm not going to spoil it by getting all flowery. Maybe next time. Besides, being nice isn't funny.
Food news: I have now eaten silkworm larvae, quail egg and acorn jelly. They were insecty, eggy and nothing-special respectively. The silkworm larvae in particular were exactly what you'd expect a fat little maggot to taste like. Not entirely disagreeable, but not exactly more-ish. I also went to a pasta restaurant yesterday (not my choice) and had a spaghetti con vognole that was so garlicky that it made my face hurt. Someone had obviously told the chef that Italian food features garlic quite prominently, so he'd taken the idea and run with it. Don't expect to see him on Masterchef anytime soon.
At some point over the next couple of months, I'm going to eat dog soup. I promise it. And when I do, you shall be first with the news.
Right, I have to go and teach my dreadful junior class. If I hadn't had this opportunity to express some bile, then there would have been a good chance that I might have pushed one of them out of the window, so thank you.
Amyonghi kasseyo,
S
posted by Stephen Beckett at 3:59 PM
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