Just a day in the life

Okay, so my reasons for posting now are two fold. One, I want to vent about the ridiculousness that I've just passed through, and two, because I feel bad about Collin, Jason, Stephen and Maria taking the time to talk to me on Skype and then I had no good stories or reasons why Korea is strange, even ass-backwards, at times. I feel like some, if not all of today's exploits may be categorized as entertaining, amusing, frustrating, and kinda pathetic. Hope this satisfies everyone's lust for Korean "stuff".


For the most part, the day was relaxing and oddly calming, which is surprising given I live in Korea and nearly every aspect of life runs in opposition to the previously listed feelings. After a fulfilling day of drinking tea (tasty!), and shopping for my remaining x-mas presents (yeah, hahah, I know really sad..."Eric, are those presents for next year?" ".....no...."), our triumvirate (shut up, I gotta find any chance to use words like this otherwise I'll lose them) was sitting at the train station when we happened upon a amusing or depressing, depending on how terrible a human being you are, spectacle. We originally noticed a grubby, homeless-looking fellow sleeping in the seats in front of us, who was unceremoniously roused from his soju-addled (one would assume) stupor by a security guard. Once awake, the man began yelling, at random intervals unintelligible Korean to anyone who would listen. Not content to merely preach from his seat, he soon moved to the front of the seating area and began to address the congregation. This time his yelling and drunken screaming was interlaced with periods where he would begin clutching his head, like he was possessed or something. Strange, but not terribly unknown here. Our misadventures continued upon entering the train when we were bothered, this time directly, by one of the “preachers” drunk friends. As we were standing around our seats, before the train had even begun moving, the man approached us and began yelling at us to sit down (we understand at least that much in Korean). We ignored him, since there was nobody else in the train for whom we were blocking the aisle and thus no possible issue anyone could have with us, but seeing as how he wasn't getting through to us, he began yelling louder and louder until we were forced to acknowledge his presence and somehow (not sure how we did) convince him to sit down. Finally seated comfortably, we hoped to enjoy a quiet and relaxing journey back to our respective homesteads. Man were we wrong. About 10 minutes into our trip, we were greeted and pulled into conversation with the infamous “Church Lady”. This dried up old turd (sorry, but I really can't find anything nice to say about this crotchety, bigoted, close minded old witch) is a elderly white woman from somewhere in the States (why did she have to be from the States? Isn't it hard enough to be proud to be an American globally without people like this?) who runs various different church groups/private Catholic academies. I had never had the displeasure to meet her before, but I had heard stories from the other foreign teachers in Yangpyeong about how she tries to get people to teach English classes and what have you at her various religious institutions. This doesn't go over with the foreign teachers seeing as nearly all, if not all, of the area teachers are terribly liberal/debauched and drift from day to day consumed by their heathen vices. Clearly. As soon as she sat down, Jethro and I both died a little inside because we knew that it was “her”. Amy, however, was not so properly prepared. She began with pleasantries like where we were from, etc. Rather than introduce myself as “a dirty heathen who loves homosexual pleasures, abortions, Muslims, and just sinning in general”, which would have scared her away (I hope), I decided to play it nice, polite and civil, as best as I could (I tried JC, I really tried...your disciples are just wackjobs and I'm only human). She eventually invited us to Sunday masses where we could meet all the foreign teachers working in her religious schools. We politely refused, as we had heard that the religious foreigners were so boring and bland that they made wet-blankets like myself look cool in comparison. I know, pretty frightening. Things went well for short time, as Amy and Jethro just talked amongst themselves will I smiled and nodded to whatever drivel dribbled out her lips. But the peace was not to last. Eventually, to lighten the mood she decided to tell about this “hilarious” e-mail she had received that was about how Muslims had never won a Nobel Prize for anything while Jews had won more than anyone. Ohhhh dear, here we go. That quickly deteriorated into pretty bigoted stuff about how the backwards Muslims are by using the extreme examples of the sorry state of such places like Iran, etc. to categorize all Muslims. Not content to belittle Muslims in general, she moved on to outrage at the American media and its “liberal slant” (I personally feel that American media is slanted much more towards idiocy than an political realm, but that's just me) for portraying the Palestinians as the victims. Israel was only defending themselves and they have a right to that. Yeah, tell that to the numerable innocent children and adults killed in the crossfire between Hamas and Israel. Regardless of your opinion, one can't be naive enough to believe that either side is “good” and the other “evil”. Both sides have committed horrific acts that inevitably pushed aside. Somehow the old bag wandered from that cheery subject to the even rosier issue of the moral and social decay of America. I personally hate this argument, as shit wasn't terribly rosy in years past. She talked briefly about such ills as gambling before moving on the scourge plaguing our times...homosexuals. She blamed them for AIDS, because some book she was reading said that gays on average have 1,000 or so sexual partners. I love “studies” and “facts” like that. Just laugh out loud hilarious. She did exhibit sympathy for Africa, as they were the innocent victims of the gays and their unquenchable lust for cock. After a period of the typical “gays are sinners, gays choose to be the way they are, yadayada”, one in which I noticed Amy and Jethro were beginning to bristle over her good old-fashioned hate, I tried to end the conversation before it got ugly and even I lost my cool, by plainly stating to this woman “That's all well and good, but I completely disagree with everything you have said for the past 10 minutes”. I had hoped that this blatant admission of my stance would clue this woman into the fact that we had no interest in listening to her fling her filth or converse with her in general. She really didn't seem to be getting the message up to that point, even though Amy and Jethro were completely ignoring her and I was only nodding and smiling to be polite. Wait, no, at one point I even stopped talking to her and struck up a conversation with Amy and Jethro and turned my back to her, but she still started talking with us again. Sadly, my attempt to shock the woman into leaving us alone failed as she just started flinging out more nonsense to try and sway us. At this Amy jumped in, having seen me wave the green flag and basically give up on playing it cordial. It really was only a matter of time. Our patience runs only so deep. From here on, having summoned the troops from their slumber I sat back and watched the lady just get argued into the ground. Both Amy and Jethro came at her with legitimate arguments that she obviously had no counter to, while I just sat back and said nothing. I was trying to maintain my good mood from an otherwise satisfying day at all costs. I also didn't wanna be responsible for murder after the poor woman died of a heart attack from the sheer shock of the filth and bile that was bubbling up onto my lips. Time, feeling sorry for our plight, obliged us and marched on till we at last arrived back in Yangpyeong. The woman didn't depart without her own attempt at having the last word, as she commented “Well, I thought you would want to talk about something of substance. I was unaware that you only like to talk about trivial things.” We just laughed. My evening of strange encounters was complete just yet though. As we crossed the railroad tracks overpass, I noticed that there was a younger Korean woman walking next to us who was constantly shivering and making the “burr, I'm cold” noises. Not unusual, except for the fact that it was 40 something outside and she was adequately dressed for the temperature. Just struck me as really odd. As we descended, she just randomly turns to me and asks me, in Korean obviously, if I live in Yangpyeong. I naturally answer, yes, to which she responds by beginning to yammer in Korean, of which I understood nothing, so I quickly moved to my apartment and peace and quiet (I hope). Just another day in the life. I live a charmed life.