Korea: Let's Get Cynical

Earlier I alluded to the notion that many of the people in South Korea, especially the foreigners, are a very bizarre bunch indeed. Here's why.

After only a few days in this country, a newcomer will become aware that things are a little upside down and inside out. And then a lot.
Korea, you'll soon find, has its attractions (see above).
The western guys run after the Korean girls (and who can blame them), almost from the get go. But most of the Korean girls don't understand much English, and because most of them are very conservative anyway, they tend to run in the opposite direction. Most, but not all.

The western girls run after their western men (and who could blame them), who suddenly seem preoccupied with everything but them. Then comes a sort of bitter envy, as they find they are no match for the novelty the Korean girls apparently provide. Attention turns inward, and outward, and inward again. The idea of slimming down, in order to be more competitive in this new environment, blips like a landing light on a Boeing.

And then some of the braver Korean men, which isn't a few, try their luck with the western girls (they really should know better). The 'Russian prostitute' stereotype that many drunk Korean men infer on the white women they meet in the streets doesn't help their case. You'd think the western girls would respond some of the time. It is quite exceptional when they do - many profess to simply not being attracted to Asian/Korean men.

Everyone herethinks a white guy is an "American." When you turn out to be neither American, nor Canadian, not Russian or Australian or from anywhere else, the record gets stuck with a loud SKKKKKRRRRrrrrrrrgjjjjk.

So adding the foreigners to the Korean population, creates this silly sort of treadmill effect, where everyone is running after someone who is running after someone else.

But it's not only a funny novelty game that's going on between the foreigners and Koreans, but also between the Koreans themselves and the foreigners themselves.

The Koreans have more massage parlours than Coca Cola signs. There are two in my building, a few more on my way to work, and another one in the basement below my school.
These are to provide relief for the highly conservative lifestyles they like everyone to think they're leading. I'm sure there are many decent and well meaning Koreans but the thousands of twirling candy striped barber bubbles do reveal the balance of human nature...or rather, the imbalance here.

I'm not making any judgments. I don't think massage parlours are bad. They're merely symptomatic of the level of stigma, hypocrisy and frustration in a society. Paying for sex is a bit like buying bottled water. You shouldn't have to, and if you do, well, so sad and too bad.

Foreingers have their own unbalanced, out of whack mentality. You'll sometimes have an entire subway filled with Koreans, and then one foreinger will walk by another and avoid eye contact. What's with that? Are they embarrassed or ashamed? Can they see that you can see through them, or have they decided that you're the loser, that they're better than you are? Who can say? I've sometimes gone so far as to force open this impasse.
Sometimes, you can greet someone who stands right in front of you in the elevator, and they'll just plain ignore you. In my book, you greet someone and they don't greet you back, well that person ought to crawl into a little hole, or drop anchor and not go home until they learn some manners.

Perhaps the shock is simply too much for them - at having their bubble burst again.
The bubble I'm referring to is sometimes created...especially where the foreigner is reasonably good looking...by the Koreans themselves, who swoon over this person, and fuss over them, treating them like a VIP. What these same inflated egos forget, is that if you got them speaking Russian, Spanish or Italian, they'd be rendered instantly invisible. The appeal is English. Not the person, the language.

Nevertheless, many Asians admire the West. They imitate it. They buy the clothes, go to western movies. But it's a confusing thing, because although they want the things of the West, they clearly still have some reservations about us, and seem to intend to maintain much of their Eastern philosophy and its rituals. What they want and admire, I have to say, is not very admirable after all. Where does it end, this endless consumption? It's never enough, and happiness becomes associated with appearance and things, suddenly making these things into some or other commodity, with each subsequent purchase bringing in diminishing returns.

Western fry pits are now in Korea, feeding unhealthy grease to people who want to eat first, think later, buy now, pay later - these are accoutrements of the Western Way.
Too much of the West, in my book, is about immodesty, vulgarity, ignorance and grease.

Korean women seem very modest when you first meet them. Their feminine wiles are charming at first. Fluttering eyelids, hands covering a twittering smile. Many of the women are as slight as fairies. What they gain in posture, they lose in silhouette. But there is a remedy. There aren't many countries that offer such vast collections of padded bras as Korea. It's part of The Big Hoax.
You have these very modest girls, who fuss over padded bras, while their western counterparts, typecasst as prostitutes, don't need them, but continue to vie for attention by becoming less and less modest.

When these same foreign guys return to their original countries, do the Asians there still seem so special and so beautiful?
I would have thought so. I know when I went back to my country, after being away for two years, I was confronted with a blue eyed blonde girl in a bikini, my eyes almost popped out of my head. It suddenly felt like all the juice and color was returning to the grapefruit. And more than that. Health and vitality, and being natural. Korea is a different world yo all those things. There seems something obsessive about the country - the way it blocks of everything from Colgate, to Disprin, to Toyota. It's not all bad, Lord knows it has its delights, but it definitely has much growing up to do, along with the people who fly far to work there. For one thing, if they ever intend to make the Top 10 again, Economically, they'd better get over their grudge with Japan.

The main question to ask any foreingers caught wandering around the ROK is this one:
Why did you come here?
They might tell you that they've come to pay off a debt, or that they couldn't find work in their own countries. They will have majored in nice but ostensibly useless fields like archaeology, literature, history, art, philosophy, or idealistic...nature conservation, marine biology.
They'll explain, over throbbing music, that they came here to save. And later they'll describe weekends in Shanghai and Vladivostok, or show you a ludicrously expensive handphone that is also a videophone that won't work when making overseas calls.

When you go home after a night out you'll realise that none of the people, bar one, made much sense. You'll decide that it was probably because they were drunk, or you were. Eventually, or possibly not, you'll find that no one makes sense (not even you), and no one is really listening to you, or to themselves talking. Maybe you're not even listening yourself. If you look carefully you'll see they are not even looking at you. Their eyes are glazed and sort of pass over you with that unfocused looking-at-my-computer-monitor mode. Everyone is asleep and distracted. Everyone's looking to fill a need, and every day that need is different. Each need is some or other kind of nonsense. It might be a new gizmo, a new restaurant, another party, or a new movie - all the sorts of things professional adults need to be preoccupied with. It's based, for the most part, on a lonely desperation and not wanting to admit to being lost, and a refusal to grow up, to delay some of those everyday gratifications. One you've recognised this, no one, bar none, is making sense any more.

Up to here, I've dealt chiefly with the mating game in Korea. But the ridiculous extends into other areas too, like work. But to be fair, not all Asians or foreigners deserve these indictments. They apply only to the ESL Sham and its Shamdrunks.
Unfortunately ESL in Asia seems to attract some of the worst of both worlds. A university graduate does not necessary make an intelligent life.
There are obviously exceptions, and these are good to see. More often than not, you'll find the pick of the crop on TV.
The other talented teachers don't stay long. Why should they? You can only be a bullshitter for so long, doing a bullshit job, and living a bullshit existence. Some, I'm sure, can probably do so indefinitely. But not me. So farewell, good luck to you, and God bless.

Disclaimer: All characters, allusions and suggestions are of course entirely fictional. Any similarities have no foundation in reality or are intended to refer to actual persons. Thus persons responding to criticism will be deemed fictional. Only individuals no longer living in South Korea, will be taken seriously, as they should be.