Ruminations in Korea

This is a letter to the editor in today’s Korea Times. I found the letter to be quite straightforward and powerful in it’s message:

Freedom of South Koreans

Dear Editor,

I do not know if newspapers in South Korea publish letters to the editor as the U.S. papers do. But I felt the need to write this letter.

Last week, the start of the Korean War was remembered. At the time I was 18 years old, and I enlisted even though I did not know where Korea was.

I was sent to Korea and I served with the 7th Infantry Division. We were to serve for nine months and 36 points. When I finally rotated home, I was in Korea over 13 months and I had 52 points, but I was one of the lucky ones, I made it home.

I have always tried to feel I did some good in helping South Korea and its people. I wore my 7th Division cap with Korean ribbons on it in civilian life, but no more!

Like many Korean War veterans, I too have tired of the TV reports showing mobs of people in various Korean cities shouting “Americans, Go Home!”

When I think of the sacrifice we made and the number of people we lost in trying to protect the freedom of the South Korean people, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and to have the South Korean people throw our sacrifices in our face is too much to take.

If I had my way, I would bring home every one of our enlisted men and women.

Then South Korea could fend for themselves, and pray North Korea would allow you to live in peace.

Walter E. Gunther, Las Vegas

In the past, I have explained this type of thing as a cultural misunderstandings and tried to explain that they don’t REALLY mean “Yankee, Go Home” or “We Hate America,”. I think Michael Breen explained this phenomenon quite well in the November-December 2004 issue of the Invest Korea Journal (full text available here) when he wrote:

What, for example, do anti-American protestors want? The common assumption is that protestors want the United States to withdraw its troops but two years ago, when American commentators started suggesting that the troops be withdrawn if they were not wanted, protestors took to the streets to complain that Americans did not understand Korean anti-Americanism.

“We don’t want you to leave; rather, we want you to change your attitude,” they said.

While I still believe this to be true, letters like those written by Mr. Gunther remind me that to Americans, who do not understand the Korean way of doing things, words mean things. Americans hear the words and take them at their face value. We don’t do a lot of processing words through the filters of other cultures. Although there needs to be greater education and less focus on the minor events in the Western press, the Korean side must also understand that a poor choice of words or misguided actions can end up doing much more harm than good.

10 points for creativity. Minus several hundred points for doing something that makes you look stupid in front of the entire world.

The Irish blood coursing through my veins got a kick out of this alternative use of cabbage:

Koreans Nix Cabbage Inside Baseball Caps

SEOUL, South Korea - South Korea’s love for cabbage - the key ingredient in its national dish, kimchi - apparently doesn’t extend to the baseball field.

The Korea Baseball Organization ruled that wearing cabbage leaves inside a baseball cap constitutes as an “alien material” that may disrupt a game, the organization said in a statement.

The decision came after Doosan Bears pitcher Park Myung-hwan’s cap fell off twice in a game last Sunday, revealing frozen cabbage leaves. He was using the vegetables to keep his head cool and no measures were taken at the time.

“What will we do if another team argues that because the cabbage leaf fell just as the pitcher was pitching, the batter got confused?” league rules committee chair Heo Koo-youn said, according to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency.

Park said he had planned to give up his unusual cooling agent before the decision.

“I wasn’t planning to use cabbage any longer regardless of the decision of the rules committee, so I don’t care,” he told Yonhap.

“What’s in a name? That which we call a sewer,
By any other word would smell as awful.”

Things catch your eye that you want to remember. Things catch your eye that you want to point out to others because they are beautiful/funny/stupid/horrible/laughable/shocking/etc. You can capture and preserve those things with a camera, and the memories will remain with you for a lifetime.

Technology is not yet to the point where we can capture smells. Soon there may smell-o-vision, photosmell, and other such things, but not yet.

The other day, I was standing on one of the busiest corners in Pusan in front of one of the busiest department stores in town waiting for my appointment to show up. It was the hottest day of the year thus far.

Excuse me while I digress a bit for the benefit of those who are not in the know. Many places (most places?) are not connected to any waste-treatment facilities by any completely contained method. Thus you will see covered gutters along the streets with large holes between the cover slats. These gutters often carry raw sewage. They are routinely cleaned by city workers who lift the slats and scoop out all of the filthy, reeking, black sludge that collects in the gutters over time. Sometimes big green trucks with hoses (referred to by me as either “Suck Trucks” or “Floyds”) will come and suck out the gutters and drains.

As I was standing on the corner I was hit with this heavy wave hot wind bearing one of the sickeningly strong smells of overheated human excrement, garbage, compost, and other filth. It hung in the stifling air of this busy corner of the second largest city in the Hub of Asia (a.k.a. “Korea”). I had to move away from the corner to get away from the choking odor around the gutters.

My first thought was “This is totally unacceptable. If this were Midieval Europe, perhaps I could understand, but his is 2005 Korea! This will do nothing to help Korea’s image for the group of foreign business men holding their noses as they walk by.”

My second thought was, “I wish I could capture this smell and post it on my blog so other people could smell how truly and utterly offensive it is”

I’ve decided to start a separate blues blog. If anyone is interested in the blues, then come on over and check out my other blog, Blues Got A Hold On Me.

I little over a year ago (ugh….how time flies when you’re getting older), I discussed the Korean inferiority complex and the incessant need for Korea to compare what it has to what other countries have, rather than standing on their own merits.

Well, with the opening of the “Seoul Forest” park today, Korean now has a new chance to compare itself to someplace else. It seems that Seoul Forest is the New York Central Park of Korea.

Whatever… Yeah. I guess they are similar in some ways. They both have trees…..and grass… and…. well…. uh… Anyway, they are similar.

There are also differences. Seoul Forrest is 1/3 the size of central park. Also, one portion of the park, which is actually broken up into 5 smaller parks, “is an ecological forest filled with a variety of trees such as chestnut, pine, and cherry with animals like squirrels, deer and elk. Visitors are not allowed to enter the area, but they can enjoy the nature from the observatory bridge which crosses over the forest.

Welcome to the park. Don’t go in. I’m wondering how long it will be before we see a TV news magazine program about some guy who got all liquored up on fire water and broke into the Enchanted Magical Forbidden Forest (or whatever they call it) so he can poach himself an Elk or three.

Happy Hunting!

As long as I am back to my curmudgeony self, I feel compelled by forces greater than myself to relate yet another customer service experience I had this morning while foraging for food at Home Plus. As with all customer experiences I relate, this entire conversation was in Korean.

Me: (placing my cheese, cucumbers and diet coke on the counter) Can you ring these up for me?

Clerk Gal: Hello, do you have any discount or bonus cards with you?

Me: No. I left my bonus card at home today.

Clerk: Oh well, if you bring it in together with the receipt within the next month, we will credit it to your bonus mileage.

Me: Ok.

Clerk:(while ringing up the first item) Would you like a plastic bag?

Me: Yes.

Clerk: (while ringing up the second item) Ok.

Me: Thank you

As I reach for the bag, she begins waving the bag frantically in her left hand and pointing to the bin where all of the plastic bags are kept.

Clerk: Do you need a bag?

Me: (Thinking she meant ANOTHER bag) No thank you. (I reach for the bag)

Clerk: (Jerking the bag away from me before I could grab it) You don’t need a bag??

Me: (getting a little frustrated that it is taking a long time to right up three items.) I do need a bag. You already asked that question once, and I answered yes. I said no because I thought you were offering another bag. You only need to ask once. Please finish ringing up the food so I can get to the office. I’m late.

Manager Woman: (Standing close at hand, she comes over) What’s going on. Why did you ask him again if he wanted bag?

Clerk: I didn’t know he could speak Korean, so I thought he didn’t understand and answered incorrectly. I was making sure.

Me: Huh? Didn’t we talk about bonus cards and mileage and other things before you offered me the bag. If I can understand that, then i can probably understand “Do you need a plastic bag? Will you PLEASE ring up my coke so I can leave?

I’m back…I think.

The past month and a half has been very rough personally for several reason. However, now it seems as if the crisis is over and everything is back to SNAFU status. Thus, it seems that I can resume my ramblings.

At this stage, my inclination and intention is to direct my writings more toward daily life and more toward blues.

The blues is where I want to start today.

What is "the blues?"

One of the original bluesmen, Son House, answered the question this way:

"This thing that people call “the blues”… The Blues… B.L.U.E.S. Now you take a youngster, when they first wanted to learn to play the blues, they didn’t know yet what the real blues is. Now, it’s according to what you have in your heart. You can have the blues about your fellow man, your fellow lady, or somebody. You can have it from the heart. Now the blues come according to what you mean.

You know, some people can have the blues so hard they go to the river and jump in and drown themselves. Some kill one another, cut each other’s throat and shoot them. You can do anything with the blues. That’s their trouble. They got the blues! They say, “That woman told me she loved me. Now she’s gone. I’m gonna find her and kill her! Something has got to happen.”