Precariously Poised on the Precipice

As the title hints, I have recently been walking a thin line in regards to my demeanor and mood. One one side, I'm terribly excited, possibly ecstatic about events upcoming on my life's calendar. From actually being able to go out side and train for capoeira, to actually being able to get my berimbau (its from actual berim wood...the mother fucking real deal), to capoeira music days in the park, to a prospective vacation to the Philippines this summer (if not there, then somewhere not Korea..its basically the idea of getting the fuck out of town that excites me more than anything), to coming home for a month in September, to moving to Seoul for next contract. So much to be hopeful for. The enthusiasm for the move to Seoul was unanticipated, at least to the degree that has infected me. On Saturday our little group found our way to a generic coffee shop in downtown Seoul and discussed how nice it would be to just relax like this at some coffee shop or restaurant on a daily basis, instead of simply once a week. I had no idea how pleasing the idea would be to me. Good company, you say? Nigh daily? Why, good sir, the mere utterance of these toxic words cause my heart to palpitate...the idea...its....its unchristian!

One the other side of coin, there is the aspects of Korea that serve to daily frustrate, anger, stoke, and infuriate me to the point where I fear I may slip into some sort of rage induced madness, which would culminate in my running through the streets of Korea in nothing but boxers and an umbrella, shouting "God doesn't love you", in Korean mind you (and yes I do know how to say that). I began my full schedule of classes last week, and as expected, it was rift with WHAT THE FUCK moments. Much to my chagrin, they had again tossed me into the clusterfuck that is gym classes. As you may remember, previously I was told to look in a dictionary, as my English is clearly shat since I didn't know the exact word for some terribly random movement, of which there is no specific name in English. That's the beauty of English in this regard, you could describe the movement any number of ways, but since Korean has a specific term for the movement, I guess, then English must also have a corresponding word. This time around did not spare me of the ridiculousness. Quite early in class, the gym teacher pulled me aside and offered up a mission statement of sorts for what I should be doing in the gym class, in his eyes: "Eric, the students don't want to play soccer...they want to learn English." Prepositions and grammatical aspects that differ in Korean could not possibly explain away the absolute ass-backwardness of that statement. What the students want, is to play soccer, video games, and not have to be in school till fucking 10pm each night. They couldn't give a fart about English, and frankly, if I was in the same position, I wouldn't either. Things progressed, as they often do, and I found myself shaking my head yet again. This time, I was told that I would, each week, pull aside 2 students or so and have a one on one conversation with them in English....Umm, yeah. Not even going into how that is completely taking away from the goal of gym class, that the students get some exercise and such, but randomly throwing a student into a one on one conversation just doesn't work. The kids get flustered and scared and can't spit a word out. Case in point: the high level first grader that they tried this with. She was scared, probably to the point of soiling herself, and did manage to spit out words....cept they were all Korean, every single one. After my "success" with her, I was moved on to another student. This girl was called over and the gym teacher preceded to explain to me that this student was "stupid" and that I must speak very simply to her. He repeated several times, that she was stupid, all the while she stood inches away, oblivious. Now, I'm not very PC (what, no way, I don't believe it!), but simply calling a student stupid bothered me quite a bit. Maybe it's just my definition of stupid. For example, what Korea and my school routinely try to do in their English teaching is, in my book, very stupid, while this young girl is simply not as smart as her classmates. Another urksome issue has been the new history/social studies teacher this semester. Quite simply, he is one of those Koreans that has nearly no English, but for whatever reason is enamored/endlessly intrigued by foreigners and thus makes it his mission to talk to them, whether those said foreigners wish to be bothered or not. One moment of note was when I was in the lunch line, talking to some of my students about this or that, when the history teacher shows up, steps directly between myself and the student (essentially booting them out of the conversation), and begins in really broken english to explain that this student is fat, while another is thin. I was upset enough by the stupid nature of his conversation, as the "fat" child in question was by no means fat, but the idea of simply forcing yourself into the conversation just added to the irk-factor. He also assumes that I'm mentally retarded since I can't speak Korean (yeah, he's one of those too). For my first day of after school classes, while I was hooking up the projector, the history teacher came in and decided that he had to show me how to work my own computer (he actually showed me how to turn this p.o.s. off...god, I wish I would have known that earlier, would have saved me a shit ton of electricity). Even the students thought this was absurd, as one of the students responded, in English (haha, I must be doing something right), "He knows how to do that" or something akin to that. The history teacher obviously didn't know what the student said, so the boy repeated it in Korean. I laughed. He unluckily lives by me and insists on driving me home on most days. On day I even went so far as to play my DS while in the car with him, so to hopefully hammer home the point that I don't want to talk with him, without saying it outright and possibly angering him. He didn't get the message. Yeah its rude on my part, but they have forced me to take drastic measures here to get through to them that I am anti-social by nature and don't want to talk to every Korean that comes my way.

Now, we come to the crown jewel of frustrations: rascism here in Korea. Now, I've read many, many stories about it and it has undoubtedly stoked my internal fire, but today took it to another level, as I found a blog that talked in depth about the issue. I had heard through the grapevine that there was recently a Korean made for tv movie or something that featured several white foreigners who just go around drugging and raping Korean women. Not only are they white foreigners, but they are teachers to boot. Now, yes, there is and has been numerous racist depictions in American movies, but I firmly believe (please, please, don't let me down on this one US) that most Americans can tell the difference between tv and real life. From my conversations with various Koreans, I've learned that they oftentimes believe the depiction of Americans/people in general, as depicted in movies. I've had people seriously ask me if all US schools are like the one in Gossip Girl. Couple this belief in the boob tube with their generalizations about foreigners based on the actions of a small few or even one, and you have a nasty powderkeg that could cause some serious damage. Many Koreans firmly believe that all foreigner men are sex crazed, pot smokin, Korean women raping perverts based on the actions of a very small few, maybe even one. This stuff isn't going to help it.

http://populargusts.blogspot.com/2009/03/predators-and-sex-objects-media.html

Be forewarned about the contents. I've only showed it to one person so far and she probably went out and stabbed someone to take the edge off of her rage. If you have any respect for women, dislike the objectivization of women, and hate flat out racism, then you might want to avoid the article. If you wish to read about the ugly and very real side of Korea that they don't like to talk about, told by someone that actually knows what they are talking about (I can't even pretend like I have any idea what I'm saying half the time), then proceed. Just don't say I didn't warn you. I'm still fuming about it and I read it 12 hours ago or so.

So, as you can see, I'm trying balance intense excitement about the future with a anger and frustration about the present and many other things in general. The tricky situation is trying to find some compromise between the two and not falling victim to one or the other. Yeah, Korea sucks alot in regards to some stuff and the future seems to be pretty awesome, but I can't get carried away either way. I gotta say grounded and realistic about everything. I gotta keep my head about me. I've still got another 1.5 years here, and the previously mentioned nearly-naked ramblings through town would probably be detrimental to my future and current employment here in Korea. Probably. But it is Korea, so you never know....