Ruminations in Korea

The sucking sound that the entire world is hearing these days is Byung Hyun Kim’s continued embarrassing performance as he continues to make life miserable for every team he plays for….and Colorado may be his last MLB team.

To those of you who have argued in previous posts, that Kim doesn’t suck, just take a look at the most recent attempt at playing baseball by Kim. If we are lucky, he may snap and give us another brilliantly offensive headline.

Kim’s stats are simply horrific. His earned run average for the the year so far is 9.64 which is horrible. But his ERA for the past seven days is 27!! TWENTY-SEVEN!!! Someone please tell me how that doesn’t suck!!

Things are not going well when the local cheerleading newspaper, the Rock Mountain News, calls you a blunder and proceeds to rip you apart:

Former Baltimore Orioles manager Earl Weaver once told general manager Hank Peters he would rather have a 24-man roster than take an extra player he didn’t want. “If he’s in uniform,” Weaver said, “I’ll wind up using him, and then we’re all in trouble.” Kind of like the Colorado Rockies with Byung-Hyun Kim

Right in the midst of a feel-good weekend, Kim entered the scene against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Sunday afternoon at Coors Field. The next thing the Rockies knew, their visions of a weekend sweep of the National League West-leading Dodgers had been wiped out by an 8-6 loss in the series finale.

They were within six outs of the sweep, taking a 5-3 lead into the eighth, then the bullpen imploded. Jeff Francis’ bid to become the first Rockies pitcher to win his first four Coors Field starts became history.

Ostensibly, when the Rockies felt the urge the final week of spring training to allow Boston to dump the unwanted Kim on them, they had visions of a quick fix for the one-time closer in Arizona. Kim is only 26 but his career crumbled with the Red Sox.

He didn’t even get an out Sunday.

On came Kim, and on went the Dodgers. First, Kim hit Jeff Kent with a 1-2 pitch. Then he gave up a double to Milton Bradley. A single by Olmedo Saenz followed and the Dodgers were on their way to a winning five-run rally after a 5-3 Rockies lead.

There have been no tangible signs of growth from Kim. He is supposed to be able to throw strikes but that hasn’t been the case with Colorado. He has allowed only six hits in 9 1/3 innings but he has given up 10 runs, primarily because he has walked 11 batters and hit two others.

BREAKING NEWS!

At 3:00 today, Six elephants broke out of confinement at Elephant World and the Children’s Grand Park in Seoul.

Two pachyderms were caught immediately. Three have holed themselves up in a restaurant and are on a rampage inside. One escaped into a residential neighborhood and is being pursued.

There are reports that some of the elephants in the restaurant were injured by broken glass and other objects.

UPDATE: The lastest on the elephants: Apparently one woman in the restaurant suffered a head injury of some sort. One of the captured elephants is being held at a Police station in the area. (for questioning?). The elephant on the loose has now been chased past the main gate of Kunkook University.

UPDATE: The fugitive elephant was caught hiding in the courtyard of a woman’s house.
Comments from Netizens: “There’s not enough room in our courtyard for an elephant :( ” - “Our courtyard is pretty big. I guess we could fit about five elephants in there, but I’m not sure.”

A couple of days ago when I lamented the sorry state of customer service, i chose my words carefully. I said “Customer Service in Korea Sucks” and added parentetically “(for the most part)”. I put that tag on the end because sometimes, very good things happen.

Contast the experience a few days ago with the experience I had last night. In my continuing quest for the bluetooth-enabled Samsung SGH-D500 mobile phone, I decided to make another attempt at dealing with KTF customer service at a DIFFERENT outlet….one street away from the place i visited the other day.

Here is a transcript of the conversation I had with the customer service guy at the smaller outlet last night:

ME: Excuse me. I heard the Samsung SGH-D500 was going to be released through KTF this week. Do you know when it will be released and how much it will cost?

HIM: D-500? The Blue Black?

ME: Yes.

HIM: Ah. They changed the model name from SGH-D500 to SPH-6900 for domestic sales through KTF. It was supposed to be released today. I’m not sure if it was or not. When new products are released they send the to the KTF central warehouse. From there, they are distributed around the country. It always takes two or three days for things to get to Pusan, because they give everything to Seoul first.

ME: Oh.. I see. Do you have any idea how much it will cost?

HIM: Not yet, but I would guess around 600,000 won. Check back in a few days.

ME: Ok.. Thank you.

HIM: Wait! Give me your phone number and I will put a note here on my computer to call you when it comes in so you don’t have to keep checking back.

ME: Great. Thanks. ***-****-****

HIM: (typing on his computer)….Oh… I see your current phone is less than 6 months old. You will have had it for six months on the 28th. We don’t buy back phones that are less than 6 months old. If you wait until the 28th, we can buy your old one back from you, which will knock about 200,000 won off the price of the new model….Then again…if you don’t want to wait, we will see what we can come up with to help you out.

ME: Wow. Thank you very much. Really.

HIM: No no.. The pleasure is all mine. I will call you when it comes in.

ME: Thank you. Bye.

HIM: Thank you for coming in. Bye.

THAT was a perfect commercially-oriented exchange. It took about two minutes total to get in and get out. Slick. Professional.
He didn’t try to avoid men when I went into the store. He didn’t start giggleing and poking his co-workers in the side trying to get someone else to deal with me. He didn’t bat an eyelid when I started speaking in Korea. He was courteous, kind, efficient.

That is how EVERY transaction in this country should go. Unfortunately, it is such a rare occurance that it actually made me happy. It is so rare that i felt it warranted special mention…. Special mention for treating people decently, acting professionally, and doing your job well? That’s pretty sad when you think about it.

The latest from Colorado has Pitching Phenom Byung Hyun Kim giving a game-losing grand slam homerun.

Kim (0 for 2 this season) is apparently at the bottom of the pitching roster in the Rockies bullpen. It seems he was put in the game out of sheer desparation.

“He’s a hot hitter, and when he came up in the seventh we had limited options,” Rockies manager Clint Hurdle said. “My starter had thrown 112 pitches and my bullpen was down to a couple of pitchers.” …

Here’s how it went down:

Trailing 5-3 in the seventh, San Francisco loaded the bases on three walks, the first two issued by starter Jason Jennings.

“I knew I was done when I walked Pedro Feliz,” said Jennings, who remained winless despite striking out eight. “I wasn’t going to face Alfonzo, the hottest hitter in the league right now.”

Byung-Hyun Kim (0-2) relieved with two outs and walked Alfonzo on four pitches. Tucker hit the next pitch into the Colorado bullpen in right field for his second career slam and a 7-5 lead.

“Bad pitch,” Kim said. “Bad location.”

Think so, Kim? Bad pitch. Bad Location. Bad Pitcher.

A while ago, I read that the Sumsung Blue Black mobile phone would debut in Korea this month through KTF. Then, the other day, I was reading the Korea Times and it was mentioned that the Blue Black would be coming out this week.

It being a lovely spring day, I decided to walk to the local giant KTF outlet (as opposed to the millions of little ones dotting the neighborhood) and see when, where, and how much the new phone was going to set me back.

I walked into the store and approached the nearest employee and had the following exchange in fluent, flawless Korean:

Me: I saw in the news that the Samsung SGH-D500 mobile phone would be released thorugh KTF this week. Do you have a fixed date and price for it yet?

Her: Foreigners can’t buy cellphones.

Me: (caught off-guard by the non sequitur…even tough I should have been expecting it.) huh?

Her: Foreigners can’t buy cellphones.

Me: Yes they can.

Her: I’m sorry, but no. Foreigners can rent phones with prepaid plans, but they can’t own them.

Me: Nothing to be sorry about. Yes. Foreigners can own phones. I own one and have oned one for almost 10 years.

Her: No. you are probably renting yours or someone co-signed for you.

Me: No. I changed from LG to KTF last Autumn and own my own phone.

Her: But that’s not possible with KTF.

Me: Would you like to place money on a bet? Here’s my KTF membership card.

Her: Does it have a foreigner’s name on it?

Me: Yes. Look. My name. Right there.

Her: That’s strange. Anyway our branch doesn’t allow foreigners to buy phones.

Me: Why are you arguing with me? I don’t care what your policy is. Even if I could, I wouldn’t buy a phone from you now. I simply want to know when the SGH-D500 will come out and how much it will cost.

Her: Why, if you can’t buy one?

Me: Do you know when they will come out?

Her: No.

Me: Do you know how much they will cost?

Her: No.

Me: Have a nice day…and, by the way, it might be better for business if you didn’t argue with people, especially when the other person is right.

I wish this were an isloated incident. But discourteous, insulting, dismissive customer service is the norm here. It is VERY refreshing when I get good service from a business or person. I show my gratitude by mentioning their friendliness and I return usually with other people. I also do the opposite. The fastest way to make sure that I never go back to your business is to blow me off or to give bad service.

UPDATE: Read here for my next adventure in Customer Service.

This was originally posted as a comment to an earlier post about Kim. It was long enough that I decided to make it a post of its own.

A comment-based conversation between me and HK from the new blog "Babble-on"
about Kim.

Hk,

YOU SAY:
Why are you so bitter towards Byung Hyun Kim?

ME:
I’m not bitter. I just think he sucks. Now that Park Chan Ho has turned into a complete nothing and may go down in history as one of the worst trades in Baseball history, Kim is being touted as THE Korean major league superstar. He clearly is not.

Some people point to the fact that he has two world series rings. As ridiculous as that sounds, it is not proof that he is a good pitcher, it is proof that the teams were good enough to get by despite having Kim on their team.

It is nothing short of a baseball miracle that Arizona won the world series despite the HORRIBLE pitching from Kim that singlehandedly very nearly put them out of the series. You will note that the Red Sox didn’t let Kim anywhere near the world series.

I’m not bitter, but other people sure are. Look at what the Red Sox General Manager had to say about Kim, "We certainly made a mistake and I take responsibility for that. It’s just a mystery what happened to this guy." That’s not a ringing endorsement.

In the pre-season with the Sox, Kim gave up 4 runs in 6 2/3 innings. In his opening game with the Rockies, he gave up EIGHT runs in 1/3 of an inning… EIGHT runs! That is not good. In fact, that sucks.

How bad of a player is he? Read on.

YOU SAY:
Is it because he’s a professional athlete in your country?

ME:
No. Not at all. I don’t care where he came from. It is completely irrelvant to me. There are lots of enormously talented foreign sports superstars playing in the US. More power to them. Despite what many people want to believe, Kim is not counted amoung them.

YOU SAY:
Your country that wouldn’t even give you a menial job, forcing you to move to Korea?

ME:
That’s an intersting thing for you to say. First, why would I want a menial job in the US? Second, what makes you think that I came to Korea to find easy employment? In fact, I am here because my employer spent 8 months begging me to come work for him. There were more than enough career opportunities for me in the US.

(note that so far, you are the only one being racist and stereotyping others….I’m not)

YOU SAY:
So the US values a Korean baseball player at about 1000 times the pay rate that they value you.

ME:
Again, that’s interesting. Let’s take a closer look at this. Kim’s official salary for this season is roughly US$6,500,000. Of that amount 5.6 million dollars comes from the Red Sox who are paying him NOT to play for them. How bad do you have to be for someone to pay you USD$5,600,000 to go away and not pitch for them?

Colorado paid the Sox a couple of million dollars to balance out the salary of ANOTHER player and traded a middle minor league player for Kim.

That is what Kim is worth -5.6 million and the Rockies thought so highly of him that they were willing to give up some guy that may never make it to the big leagues in exchange for Kim.

So, if you deduct the amount that Kim is being paid to simply GO AWAY and not touch a Sox baseball, you are left with the Rockies paying him about US$900,000 this year.

That puts him in a high tax bracket so figure 50% for taxes which leaves him with USD $450,000. I wont deduct things like his agent fees, which are very substantial.

On these after tax figures, Kim is making less than 4 times what I make…and I haven’t got my raise yet this year. That is a far cry from 1000 times more.

YOU SAY:
Why hate on the Korean?

ME:
I’m not hating on him. He just sucks. He’s washed up in his late 20s. The only reason I am talking about him is because I happen to live in Korea and far too many people here are talking about him as if he were the greatest player in the league.

YOU SAY:
It’s the Koreans who have to suffer by taking all the American refuse in as english teachers.

ME:
That is a subject for another post. However, I pretty much agree with you on that point. As evidence, of this problem, I point you to Marmot’s posting about Engrish teachers.

Koryo University Sucks!

During a recent class at Koryo University, a professor made the following comment (Article in Korean):

“The feeling of wanting to get a job, but being unable get one, is the same feeling as that felt by an aging woman who wants to be sexually assaulted but can’t manage to get sexually assaulted.”

This piece of crap still has his job. I was going to write a long rant about this, but what can you say. Filthy, misogynistic pile of human garbage. Congratulations Koryo University on your fine representation to the world.

Foreign Sociopaths Suck Too!

A 37 year-old Pakistani electrical engineer, identified only as “Mr. T.” and allegedly working in Korea illegally, allegedly met a Korean girl over the internet in May of 2001. The guy apparently lured her into his clutches with promises of English converstation practice. He secretly filmed them having sex in 2003. Last year, his girlfriend wanted to break up with him, so he allegedly threatened to release copies of the tape and has allegedly sexually assaulted her 24 times over the past 9 months. (Article in Korean)

From sports talk show host Jim Rome, we see that Korean baseball phenom Kim Byung Hyun, who single-handedly nearly lost an entire World Series for his team, still sucks:

BK Kim got rocked in Colorado and you didn’t exactly have to be Abner Doubleday to see this one coming, but I told you. BK Kim, fresh off of coming over from the Red Sox, was a total circus in his debut for the Rockies last Friday night. The bad news is that Kim gave up 5 extra base hits and got just one out before getting the hook. He gave up 8 runs, 6 hits, (2 of those were bombs) and got just the single out and oh yeah, he made an error. The bad news is, it wasn’t in Colorado.

What the hell happens when they take him to Coors Field? Not the best way to break in with the new club. Not the best way to instill confidence in your new manager and your new teammates. The good news is, and I am always looking for the bright side, he did manage to get off the mound without flipping anyone the bird. That’s got to count for something. He couldn’t get anyone out, ok fine, he got one guy out, but he didn’t tell the crowd to f-off.

Baby steps BK, baby steps.

After the game BK said, “It’s definitely not the way I wanted to make my first impression, but at the same time, it’s good to be part of this team.”

Oh really, not a good impression? Yah think? And of course it’s good to be a part of that team. That’s the only team in MLB that would take you. BK also said, “If it doesn’t get any better than tonight, I should just retire.”

I think this is the first thing I’ve ever heard this guy say that I agree with. Not a bad plan.