The Grand Narrative

Life on the blog has been very exciting recently, at least for a newbie like me:

1. I think I may be solely responsible for clearing up access problems to the Metropolitician. It’s good to have access to it again; it’s such a treasure trove of well-argued, and comprehensive posts about so many issues that I considered starting at his archives in 2004 and printing my way to the present. But I think if I started today and spent half an hour a day, I might be finished by the end of the year.

2. Last Monday, I was having what I call a “bad Korea day.” Minus the newbies, every expat here will know what I mean. I don’t get them very often, maybe once a month or even two months, but on that day from the moment I stepped out the house to the moment I got home, everyone seemed to be going out of their way to point me out to whoever they were with and then discussing foreigners. Even more middle-school and high-school boys seemed to scream “빡빡이/bbak-bbak-ee” or “baldie,” at me than usual, even one with a bloody shaved head himself. In New Zealand or America I’m sure they’d rapidly run out of breath doing that, but no matter how ’80s and ridiculous-looking men here still prefer combovers to shaved heads, and so not only do I stand out because I’m a foreigner, but my head means I’m double the fun.

Like boys anywhere the same age, they have so little brains they would never guess that anyone could tell what they mean by tone and attitude alone, let alone putting themself in my shoes and realising that I might pick up on the bbak-bbak-ees after a while, and they’re always shocked if I do so much as turn around, and do their best to pretend it wasn’t them. As for those unfortunate ones standing too close to me at the time, freaking them out by speaking Korean to them is what I live for. But them being Korean, they’re usually embarassed and apologetic, not knifing me for making them look foolish in front of their friends.

(In lieu of an actual photo of me doing that, this will have to do. Actually, its a pretty realistic depiction of me)

After having a whole morning of feeling like I was famous, without the pluses like riches, I ducked in this restaurant to eat my 2nd favorite Korean food. While I’m on it, I should briefly write it up:

The chain of stores is called “우정/Oo-jeong”, which means “friendship.” I know of at least 8 branches in Busan; there may be more, but I don’t know about outside of Busan. Their menu has been diversifying recently, but its’ mainstay is 돌솥비빔밥/Dol-sot Bibimbap, which literally means mixed rice and vegetables (and hot pepper paste) served bubbling away in a scalding hot bowl.

I admit, I’m prejudiced, for Bibimbap has always had a special place in my bowels heart. Across the alley/road from where I first lived, so about 6m from my front door, there lived a wonderful ajumma who had a ‘restaurant’ that consisted of 1 table. Strangely, no-one ever ate there, but she carried food over to anyone on the block who wanted it. So in my first few drunken weeks here, all I had to do to get a hearty healthy meal brought to my table for a paltry US$3 was stick my head out my window and sleepily grunt at her in my hungover beginner Korean. In hindsight, I think I fell in love with Korea then, although meeting my future wife 6 months later certainly helped.

If you’ve been in Korea a while, you’ve probably had bibimbap at least once, but please reserve your final opinon of it until you’ve had it at this store. For no matter how unphotogenic it is, at least for me, it tastes bloody marvellous and is only 3000won here.

Before.

After mixing it all up.

This isn’t a food blog, so that’s all I’ll say, although if you’re interested in Korean food you should look further here. I will add one more thing though: if you’re a newbie to Korea, or even if you’ve been here a while, don’t let your opinions of Kimchee be ruined forever by a bad kimchee experience when you’re new here. If you come in summer, then forgeddabboudid, as its all sour, but any other time do not try some yourself but get a knowledgeable Korean friend or expat to test the kimchee for you first. Even better, get them to recommend a place and go with them. Because at most restaurants the kimchee is very poor stuff bought ready-made and in bulk, but at good restaurants they make it themselves and it is always much better (although it can still be sour in the summer). And if you ate the kimchee at 우정 above you’ll be eating it for the rest of your life, but if you did at your average 김밥천국 “Kimbap heaven,” you’ll not so much never eat it again as not even sit near it.

But back to my bad day. That day the restaraunt wasn’t my refuge, as everyone except the friendly staff inside that know me seemed to be in on the make-the-foreigner-feel-uncomfortable conspiracy. They eventually settled down though, but then the midday news came on. And what was the third most important story in Korea that day? That’s right! Four, yes four, foreign English teachers had been found to have forged their degrees! Oh, the humanity!

 Yeah, just what I fricking needed in the middle of what already had been such a wonderful day. But no, I didn’t get beaten up, and there wasn’t any more pointing out and discussing of the bald white guy than usual for the rest of my meal, because the other patrons hadn’t learned anything new. Indeed, it merely reinforced their stereotypes of foreigners.

Lest I rant, I should point out that days like this are unusual for me, and for 95%+ of my time I get no more or less attention from Koreans than if I were Korean myself. And there’s nothing inherently evil in pointing out that there’s a bald white guy there, and then mentioning that he looks bloody strange, especially if you think said baldie doesn’t understand a word you’re saying. But because Koreans learn English to pass their University test (which is what this post is all about, to be followed up with part 2 soon), and not to actually ever use it, most couldn’t speak 5 mins of English to save their lives. So most lack foreign friends, and so get most of their information about foreigners from the media. And when it comes to foreigners, the Korean media presents stories that are the most tabloid, racist, populist, one-sided stinking festering heaps of crap you wonder why Koreans want foreign teachers so much in the first place. It is this combination that led such a non-event being the 3rd news story to be presented that day.

I’ll leave you in suspence for a moment there, as that becomes much more relevant to my next ‘development.’ Actually, my first thought upon hearing it was racing home and gaining more hits for the blog by beating the rest of the Korean blogosphere in breaking the story to the English-reading public, but in the end I was enjoying my bibimbap too much to feel a sense of urgency, and things like this are so par for the course here, as you shall see, it wouldn’t have generated much interest in the end. Of course, the Marmot was on top of it the next day.

3. With all that in mind, late last week, I read this on the Marmot in the morning. After all my fun in the restaurant, what more could I want than drunken GIs making videos of them hitting on Korean girls I thought to myself, although ironically that day was like almost any other in Korea: no-one gave me a second glance.

If you’ve read down to here, then you should definetly click that link, and then click here for the Metropolitician’s take on it, directing his wrath more (and rightly so in my opinion) at the Korean media. 10 mins later I clicked on the stats page for this blog, and noticed that this post was starting to get a lot of hits from this site. Noticing it was all in Korean, I started to freak that the dreaded Korean netizens had found me already, and were ‘virtually’ going to skin me alive…and my blog had only been going for 2 weeks! My netizen Korean skills being underdeveloped, I got my wife to give the site a look-over, and she confirmed that they were talking about that the video. But then I noticed (myself) that the guy who put up the link to my post said he liked it, and since then no-one has commented on it; I dare say that it all being in English had something to do with that. But 33 of those clicks got my daily record for the blog up to 103 hits last Saturday, so a big round of thanks to savior4! I’m still getting hits from it now.

And after my herculean last post, I should probably leave this one here for now.

(No, I’m not a girl, but if anyone has some similar artwork of a guy with a salute and an expression like that, please pass it on)

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