Get Out of My Way!

When I lived in Taiwan, way down south in sunny port city Kaohsiung, I had a really great Taiwanese girlfriend named Jo Jo. Great girl! One day, Jo Jo and I went out for a little afternoon stroll. Which really isn't all that easy in densely, densely populated little Taiwan - an island that isn't all that big to begin with, with 23+ million Chinese and a smattering of aboriginals and assorted "waiguoren" (foreigners) all working together to stink up the place.  And I really wish I could honestly say that many locales in Taiwan (and other places I've lived in Asia) don't often smell pretty bad.

On top of all that, all those people are squeezed into only about 1/3 of the island because the other roughly 2/3 is made up of some of the highest mountain peaks in the still tectonically very active Asia Pacific rim region. Anyway, Jo Jo and I did our best to have our little stroll, despite all the noise, chaos and really horrific traffic.

We decided to go up over an overpass for pedestrians. Luckily, right then, we were the only two up there, so we stopped to look down at the usual, insanely buzzing Chinese/Taiwanese traffic in the intersection below. Scooters going here and there, most totally ignoring the traffic lights and other signs. Cars doing pretty much the same, and if you were unlucky enough to be riding a bike or... worse yet, be on foot... good damn luck to you, buddy boy!

Right then, a scooter came so close to colliding with a car, we both thought we were about ready to see another serious accident. I think the combatants (and yes, I chose that word very carefully) missed each other by maybe an inch, and of course then kept going on their own merry, erratic way. "There!" I exclaimed to Jo Jo. "Did you see that? I... just don't understand. I've lived here for years and I just don't get it. What are the rules? Tell me the rules and I'll follow them!"

What Jo Jo said in reply haunts me to this very day, and it is mostly the reason why I simply could not settle down with anyone in Taiwan. No way, Jose. Uh-uh. She then said, and I quote exactly, "I think Chinese people are clumsy. I think it's genetic." As you can imagine, I did not even care to touch that hot ass little potato!

After all, I was raised in the United States, home to people of every race, religion and creed on the face of this Earth.  And I was taught in my beloved America that you don't say "racist" stuff like that!  But then... Jo Jo was Taiwanese/Chinese.  So that statement bothered me a lot, and I've naturally spent a lot of years thinking it over.  What did she really mean?  Who taught her to think that way?  But, Jo Jo and I spoke no more of it that day, or ever again.

I think about Jo Jo sometimes and hope that she is well and happy. Well, she probably is because soon after that, she ran off with a Canadian guy who took her back to Canada with him to meet his parents for Christmas. Now... do I believe that every last individual in ANY group of people is "clumsy?"

The problem with that kind of extreme thinking is... when you start thinking that way, sooner or later, you're getting people into cattle cars and shipping them off to be gassed, shot into barren holes and incinerated in big industrial crematoriums.  And what did the human race ever really get out of doing any of that?

So... what I really think is that there is a maximum amount of any kind of animal (and humans are animals, top of the food chain or not) that you can comfortably or safely put into any environment. Exceed that amount and your Alcatraz gets more violent, your dog pound gets more and more inhumane.

Or... people just start to behave erratically. For lots of reasons, really, and not always the same ones. Sometimes, you encounter a person who is just ANGRY inside, but they can't let it out in their culture, where drunken weekends are virtually the only pathetic tonic. Or, they're not making enough money. Or, they aren't getting along with their wife. Maybe they are in a huge "BALI BALI" hurry for all sorts of other socially pressurized reasons.

Or... they simply are tired as hell because since they were a little kid, they only got 5 or 6 hours of sleep because they were forced to go to class after class, from early in the morning to late at night. Sleep and any sort of childhood be damned. Gotta pass those exams! Gotta have that BIG FACE and the rice bowl that comes with it.

Or... maybe they're just too damn tired of having to get out of everybodies way all the time. "Why can't I just walk where I want?" Well, because you can't. That's why. Everybody has to follow rules. "Well, then... I'll pretend I don't see the other people around me and they'll HAVE TO get out of my way! Yeah!"

Sometimes it's just passive aggression. Sometimes it's genuine clumsiness in a region of the world where most people haven't been driving for more than an average of a full decade. And their parents didn't have any of these new fangled Western cars either! Those parents... that survived wars and terrible deprivation with only a sweet potato to live on every day. If they were that lucky, that is.

But again, they don't always really do have a good excuse for not looking where they're going, do they? In any human society, we all gotta not only get along, but also honestly, truly respect the people around us. Not just IGNORE them.

And, Asian brains splatter on a windshield pretty much the same way that anybody elses brains do.  And in my experience, things like "culture," nationality and so called "race" do not in any way, shape or form subvert or compensate for basic universal laws (like gravity) that apply to all humans.  Each and every one of us.

Defining "Aggression"

When I lived in Taiwan for almost five and a half years, the locals were always asking me, "Do you think Mainland China will invade Taiwan?" I was like... well, if they do, RISE UP AND KICK THEIR ASSES!

"But we have no oil, so maybe America will not help us."

Uh... I honestly think America and her allies (to a certain extent) are the ONLY ones that are standing up to China in this region. I think America is the ONLY country that is really keeping North Korea from getting even more out of hand than they already are. 'Cause it's not like the best buddy of the Lil' Kim Dynasty up north (China) is doing all that much to curb Northern Korean nuclear enthusiasm and periodic bouts of pure aggression and show stopping saber rattling.

In fact, I'd wager that if the US didn't have a strong military presence in the Asia Pacific region, there wouldn't be a democratic South Korea, Taiwan or Japan today at all!  So, the whole point about whether the US "would" help Taiwan in the event of the outbreak of hostilities with China is... well... kind of fear fueled BS to begin with.

But there seems to be a very, very deep seeded culture of fear in many places that is often very hard to describe, let alone fathom. People in Northeast Asia even seem to be especially afraid of taxi drivers! Sounds weird from a Western perspective, but from what I've been able to gather in China, Taiwan and now Korea, is that most people are just afraid to defend themselves in many ways that most native English speakers might take for granted.  At least Americans, anyway.  'Cause many of us are raised to truly believe that we indeed have rights, not just as US citizens, but that we also have "inalienable human rights."

Imagine that. Well, I happen to be one of those American citizens who sincerely believes that I do have rights.  I have the right to speak my mind because, like all unoppressed people, I have a right to have an opinion.  And more importantly, if I think things are out of balance, or society (ANY SOCIETY) is out of step or balance, I have the right to express my thinking on the matter.  But then... I was born in the United States, not communist led China.

But I digress.  But only just a little.  See, all the taxi drivers in Asia are reportedly supposed to be involved in organized crime.  You know, real rough and tough MAFIA BOYS!  Or... something like that. Actually, I think SOME of them ARE involved in some sort of organized crime, but we have to remember that what many Westerners may see as bribe taking and wide spread corruption is often business as usual in many parts of Asia. It's disgusting, I know, but this culture of fear in Northeast Asia - how certain people exploit it to their advantage, and how it has long fostered a social environment where people are easily bullied and taken advantage of - goes back literally centuries, upon centuries.

"Aggression."

In fact, I've had words with a few taxi drivers in Taiwan and Korea over the course of a total of roughly eleven years, and none of those guys has ever busted my knee caps, believe me. "PAPER TIGER," is an expression that I believe actually originated in Asia, and if you ever lived here for long, you'd probably understand why.

There is an awful lot of faking and posing here. The last taxi driver I dealt with here in Korea wasn't very tough, but he sure did try to be! On that day last year, I was just trying to pick up my then fiancee at the bus station. The taxi driver was apparently trying to get a fare, but since I was there with my car to pick her up, I thought he was just being a jerk by trying to cut abruptly in front of me with his car. But... I'VE DRIVEN IN TAIWAN AND KOREA... FOR SEVERAL YEARS... so I've learned a few things about how to deal with shitty, aggressive drivers, that they don't teach you back home in Missouri.

On that day, I maneuvered pretty quickly, and the reckless taxi driver wasn't able to get in front of me. And that probably pissed him off the most of all. Well, it was raining, so I just wanted to get up to the curb (because I was next in line and he was trying to cut in) so I could let my wife get in the car without stepping off onto the slippery rain soaked street.

Simple.

But... after I'd stopped and she'd gotten in, this  unnamed taxi driver fellow veered around me and zipped ahead until he had to stop at the traffic choked stop light where there were wall to wall cars waiting. By then, I'd actually forgotten what he'd tried to do, because honestly, in my own personal experience, many, many drivers in Northeast Asia seem to think there are no traffic rules or courtesies to follow.  So, "let it go," they tell you.  No use getting all worked up over the actions of a few idiots.  Right?

But then... I guess this "taxi man," or "king of the road," (as I like to call them) must have thought that he had plenty of time to get out of his car while we were all waiting at the red light. So he got out of the car and started shouting at me at the top of his lungs. He was just wailing away and waving his arms like an animal, so I rolled down my driver's side window, pointed straight at him and told him he'd damn well better get back in his car.

Of course, the taxi man continued to carry on, coming closer and closer to our vehicle.  So I continued to point and tell him, "Hey! Shithead! GET. BACK. IN. YOUR. CAR. NOW!" Well, he finally did, but the point is... he wasn't ever going to do anything except shoot his mouth off. And POSE, of course. He was a typical poser. Now... could he really have been a bad, bad person that I should eternally live in FEAR of? Maybe. But I sincerely doubt it.

But then... I began all this by saying that there is a deep seeded culture of fear in Asia, right?  I mean, if everybody in Asia is so chicken shat, then why did this guy go off like that when he was the one driving unsafely - AND being overtly aggressive?

Because he's a taxi driver!  He's got STRESS!  There are lots and lots and lots of taxi drivers in Asia.  There's a lot of competition for what little taxi fare there is to be had.  Further, it's terribly overpopulated, the streets are choked with cars everywhere you go and, quite often, the roads and driving conditions in general are just plain hideous.  Yes, driving or even just trying to get anywhere very far in Asia is often just simply a pathetic, stress filled ride to pure hell.

So, the man was a taxi driver.

So what?  Well, for another thing, many, many people in the Northeast Asian countries where I've lived, are not only very, very superstitious and tend to really buy into the idea that certain people are simply entitled to break the law based on their status, profession, for convenience, what have you, but their avoidance of everyones simple right to stand up for themselves really seems to dramatically increase the odds that they definitely will get bullied by all sorts of people in this horrifically lopsided, hierarchical society.

Superstition.  Fear.  So many people in Taiwan, China and South Korea that I've personally known really seem to believe way too much of the anxiety fueled, superfluous stuff everybody around them says. They don't check facts.  They just buy all the hype.  Hook, line and sinker.  But then, come to think of it, people are like that everywhere, right?  Yes.  But not everybody lives in a really, really densely populated place, do they?

So... to keep up his bad boy Mafioso taxi driver image, I suppose, this little taxi man had to threaten me in public to show what'll happen if the locals don't allow the corrupt, reckless driving taxi lords to run red lights, break any rule they please, and just generally drive around really recklessly.

Long story short, from the looks of him, I probably could have twisted this guy into a coat hanger in just a few minutes, but then... I am civilized.

And guess what? As proof of how pervasive this culture of fear in Asia is, and the fact that so many people here really only seem to care about what everybody else thinks.... Guess who got in trouble immediately after the incident? ME!  Yes, the then fiancee threatened to call the whole damn wedding off because I wouldn't let a taxi driver cut in front of me while she was waiting... without an umbrella... at the curbside... IN THE RAIN... at the bus stop.

Said she was "embarrassed" by my "aggression!" Yep. Mind you, I didn't get out of my vehicle or threaten this guy in any way, shape or form, UNTIL... he threatened me and my significant other.  Again, he was the one who got out of his car and came at us like a crazy man, flailing his fists! I, on the other hand, kept calm and stayed in the car. And yeah, I did call him a shithead, but he really was acting like one, and I only did that because he'd started going nuts and was both physically and verbally threatening me and my woman.

So... crisis averted.  And most importantly, I did not back down.  "Biting!"  As many Koreans are often heard to shout in sometimes heavily accented English. But they actually mean to say, "Fighting!" of course.

But not everybody is good at accents, right?  And at least they're learning some English.

And that brings me back to the title of this here "aggressive" little blog entry.  Now that I've lived in Korea almost as long as I once lived in Taiwan, I'd like to think that I've gotten a pretty good handle on the way both societies tend to work, and, in general, how most people within these respective societies tend to think.  At least, I certainly hope I've gotten the cultural expectations and patterns down as well as possible.  Well, at least as well as an "aggressive foreigner" ever truly could, that is.

So, in my observations over the years, living and working in both Taiwan and South Korea for half a decade each, I'd say that "fighting" is a lot more common in South Korea than it is in Taiwan.  Well... not really, but if you ask most Taiwanese what word immediately comes to mind when you drop the word 'Korea,' they'll say, "aggressive.  We think they're aggressive.  They have such bad tempers.  Maybe it's because they eat all that spicy food!"

Yep.

Well, I have no idea if eating a whole lot of spicy food makes a person more foul tempered or "aggressive" than certain individuals in any group of people tend to be, but I do know that while in Taiwan, I heard those specific stereotypes about Koreans an awful lot.  But... to be really fair,  when I've mentioned Taiwan to many Koreans, the words that they most often tossed around were, "lazy,"  "slow," "stupid," and "dirty."

Stereotypes!  What can ya say?

To be really fair though, I've known several Taiwanese who studied in Korea, or married a Korean spouse, or the other way around, and those little arrangements seemed to work out just fine.  At least as far as I know anyway.  I've even taught several half Korean, half Taiwanese kids in English classes.  And for the record, those kids don't malign the ethnic origin of either of their parents.  Well... at least, not to my knowledge.  Instead, one of them, a teenager, shot his mouth off about the US in my class one day in Taiwan.  Hey!  Equal opportunity stereotyping, I guess.

And most importantly, in a true democracy, everybody is entitled to voice their opinion.  And to express their true feelings?  Aren't they?  Well... unless your feelings are deemed to be too "aggressive" by some age old socially oppressive society, that is.  Ah!  Asian traditions.  But that's another topic for another time.

So... what about this "aggression," then?  Well, in the case of South Korea, I think a lot of the "aggression" I've seen while living here can simply be attributed to the fact that Korea is a rather overpopulated place to live.  On the other hand, so is Taiwan (where, I believe the population density is actually much higher than in Korea).  But... no Taiwanese kids EVER, in more than five years, EVER hit me with their fists, like many Korean kids have.  No Taiwanese kids EVER stuck their fingers up my butt when my back was turned, like many Korean kids honestly have.  EVER.  Meaning... NEVER.  Never ever, in fact.

But then, the Korean war never truly ended, right?  There's still an enormous amount of tension on this peninsula because only a cease fire was signed in 1953, not a real peace treaty.  And the Koreas are still very much divided, and South Koreans still live very much in fear of what might happen if North Korea attacks them.

Wait!  Now THERE'S a big similarity for you!  Just as South Koreans live in fear that the North will invade, Taiwanese live in fear that Mainland China will invade them!  Ah-ha!  It's all so clear now, isn't it?

Maybe not.  Overcrowding and constant competition for scarce breathing room and resources definitely would tend to make the best of us (from any country) sort of "aggressive" every now and then, wouldn't it?

I guess I'll have to give all this "aggression" some more thought.  Until then, PEACE on Earth and good will to ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE this holiday season.  Black, white, red, yellow or some beautiful shade of brown in between - I wish you all, every single one, all the best.

And... to that poor taxi driver who had to go around the block one more time because my wife did not indeed need to pay his taxi fare... and I indeed may have learned far too well how to drive defensively/offensively in Taiwan... I say, "Merry Christmas, taxi man!"  Or, "Lord of the Taxis."  Or... "King of the Road."  Or... whatever.  Peace, dude.

And stay in your damn car next time, buddy!  Not everyone in all those cars out there is a humble Asian who knows his little place in your fanciful little hierarchy.  'Cause you just never know when you're going to come face to pale face with the descendant of foul tempered Vikings - who may not be in the mood to back down when somebody tries to bully them.  Fear that, buddy.  Fear that.

Wars Within & Wars Without

So I left Taiwan in 2002 after five and a half long years.  For me, the insanity of living in a foreign "country," as different from the United States as anywhere in China tends to be, all just built up until one day, I just felt like I was going to explode.  All the emotional repression, the ingrained cultural behaviors that would be just plain wrong where and how I grew up.  And the backstabbing, lies and endless no win situations with shady (or as my British friends would say, "dodgy") local "businessmen" trying desperately to make a few bucks off of the demand for English language acquisition in Asia.

 

Then, there's the constant feeling of literally being totally outnumbered (and then some) in a truly alien environment, where you don't even like the food or most of the often outdated and really rather Medieval, hierarchical customs.

 

And that ain't the half of it.  The constant shoe changing, even just to step out onto a tiny porch or into a crappy little bathroom that doubles as a shower with no shower curtains or anything to separate the spray of water from the toilet and entire floor that gets soaked each and every time you simply take a shower.

 

Then, there's not being able to walk anyplace where there is no litter on the ground... because there are no public trash cans (in Taiwan, China or South Korea)!  And daily having to witness people drop rubbish at their feet (or in Korea, at the foot of TREES is where people throw their trash, IF... they're even careful about where they drop it, that is).  And drivers don't just run red lights, they just generally drive, well... badly.

 

Because in Korea, the overwhelming majority of the people honestly believe they don't have to stop or even slow down when they want to make a right turn on a red light! Sounds like an interesting "culture," huh?  Except that if you end up having to pull up to a red light in the far lane and sit there waiting like a decent, law abiding citizen, some impatient, hotheaded Korean will very soon pull up behind you and lay on his horn to try to get you to move forward, out into the crosswalk, usually - WAY PAST THE WHITE LINE YOU WERE TAUGHT IS SO IMPORTANT IN LAW ABIDING WESTERN COUNTRIES!  And all so that he doesn't have to wait a total of maybe... TWO WHOLE FREAKING MINUTES (as in 120 seconds), at the very longest, to make his damn right turn!  Pregnant lady in the car every single time?  Some other type of medical emergency every single time this happens?  Nope. It's just your average day in horrifically impatient, self centered "modern" Asia.

Hurry, hurry!  Chop chop!  Or, as the Koreans say, "bali, bali!"  For the Mandarin speaking Chinese it's, "quai-dian, quai-dian!"  Yes sir, most Asians just don't seem capable of waiting like little (grown up) good boys and girls.  And... just exactly what IS up with that anyway?

 

And most drivers in Korea either don't use their turn signals at all, or they use them WHEN they are turning.  Most Koreans I know, God bless them, flip their signals right when they are already in the process of turning!  I try to tell them till I'm blue in the face, "IN ADVANCE, IN ADVANCE, SO PEOPLE KNOW WHAT YOU'RE GOING TO DO!"  You know, for SAFETY, for crying out loud!  But... it's like pissing in the wind!  It's like... swimming against a monstrous, crushing wall of typhoon waves, man!  I know I'm here to "teach," but sometimes the overabundance of students (paid clients or more often, NOT) just gets... well, completely and totally OVERWHELMING!

Overwhelming.  Now there's a darned good word for Asia in general.  Overwhelming.

 

But apparently I, a garden variety "foreigner," an expat by any other name, am not the only one who gets so overwhelmed in this kind of overcrowded, polluted, socially overstressed environment.  It seems that the native populace gets more than their fair share, too.  In fact, the level of passive aggression that this kind of pent up, emotionally repressed and deprived society fosters is often ABSOLUTELY STAGGERING!

In general, most northeast Asian societies dictate that people are not supposed to be outwardly aggressive, so most Asians are taught since childhood to swallow everything down.  Hide your feelings.  Never show emotion, for God's sake!  Emotions are so dirty!  So messy and... well, honest, I guess.  And we can't have that, now can we!

So I SWEAR... so many people over here do the craziest, most obvious, incredibly PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE things all the time - from needless, incredibly brash noise making, to bumping into one another, or cutting people off when there honestly is plenty of room to pass by without making bodily contact or inconveniencing a total stranger in any way.

 

But that wouldn't get any of those pesky repressed emotions languishing way down deep inside out, now would it?

 

Because you see, there's no outlet.  Well, in Korea, there are the drunken weekends that begin as early as Wednesday or Thursday most weeks, but since they don't usually do that in Taiwan, I'll just get back to my original point.

 

So, most Asians in Taiwan, China and Korea (where I've lived for more than a decade collectively) just seem to OOZE behaviors that would get the holy living crap slapped out of you in most Western countries!  Sometimes, it seems like everybody in the region is just tacitly, slyly, provoking the hell out of everybody else, just to see how much crap they can get away with!  'Cause if you reach your limit and loose your cool, EVEN JUST A LITTLE BIT... then, they've got you!  Not always, but quite often, there's a gang of frustrated Asians just waiting nearby to release their pent up angst on anyone who dares step out of line!

 

And it doesn't matter if someone has just totally, blatantly, OBVIOUSLY wronged you.  If you REACT, and show what their society considers to be inappropriate emotion about almost anything, YOU ARE THE ONE WHO IS CONSIDERED TO BE IN THE WRONG.  Because YOU disturbed the usually TOTALLY BOGUS "harmony."

 

So, everybody over here just sort of pretends all the time.  Or... they're really not in touch with reality at all in the first place.  I am often left to wonder which is which.  Since everything is about appearances and face, face and MORE freaking FACE!  And there's nowhere to turn for sanity.  Asian cops, for just one example, are quite often bribe taking jokers, who ride around with their siren lights flashing, four "policemen" per car - two in the front, two in the back, so... think about it, where would they have room if they DID need to pick somebody up  who was breaking the law?  And most laws and traffic conventions are quite similar, or even identical to the ones they are patterned after in western countries.  So sorry, but ignorance or differences in "culture" are almost always no excuse.

 

In more than a decade (collectively, between five and a half years in Taiwan, six torturous months in Shanghai, China, and now nearly five years in South Korea), I have never ONCE witnessed a Northeast Asian policeman do anything more than write tickets, ride around in a patrol car, direct traffic or, more often than not, just look the other way when somebody runs a red light!  Which is pretty common in Asia, let me tell ya!

 

And if you do have an honest to goodness real problem, Asian cops will often try to ignore or even scold you into dealing with it yourself - because their jobs, mind you, are largely a façade... a symbolic VENEER.  Which is pretty much the definition of modern Asia: lots of pumped up false pride, with diplomas (honestly earned or not) on the wall, as big and nice a car as you may or may not even be able to afford, and prestige, prestige, and more hollow, shallow, meaningless pride heaped on top of that.

 

Even junior high schools in Asia are ranked according to how much face or prestige they supposedly merit!  "My son go to number one junior high school in this district."  So what!  Is he supposed to be BETTER than other kids?  Is he a freaking movie star?  Or do you just need something to brag about to make everybody who doesn't go to "number one school" feel like human garbage?

 

Oh, well... nothing is real here anyway, except all the frustrations that build up inside of a person after a while. For most of the natives, it's more or less something they learn to deal with in their own, socially acceptable way, I guess.  And if not... they literally commit suicide.  But if you weren't born in this kind of morass... and you have something resembling a conscience, or... better yet, you just KNOW BETTER because you were born and raised in a more developed country, it all just slowly but surely eats away at you, day by day, little by little.

 

And that's where I am now.  Nearly five whole years on this little... no, GIANT powder keg of a warring peninsula - with only two very brief forays abroad for respite in fully half a decade.  "So.. if you don't like here, get out!  Go back your country!"  God, I wish I had the money to not just "go home" (back to America), but all the extra cash needed to buy a car once you're stateside, and all the money you need to pay for a place to live until you can find a decent job that will allow you to get back on your feet again.... And God knows how long that could be in THIS economy.

 

Because I did it once before, you know.  I left Taiwan, TOTALLY FED UP, UNABLE TO TAKE EVEN A SINGLE DAY MORE in 2002, with something I could swear ought to be diagnosed as a pretty bad case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, with only a few thousand dollars saved up (which was all I could muster, after paying back debts from a low wage earning life in small towns in mid Missouri), only to land right smack dab back in the lap of parents who were not only not even morally supportive, but pretty much browbeat me out of the house within just a couple of days.

 

When I threw all my luggage into the used car my father had bullied me into spending half of my meager saving on, and drove away one evening, still jet lagged from living half way around the world for more than half a decade, in a time zone that with TWELVE FULL HOURS different from Missouri, I really had no place to go.

 

After an even more brief and tumultuous little visit to my youngest brother's house, I was out on the street again, with nothing but the clothes on my back, my luggage, and the car I now owed monthly payments on.  I tried to check into a hotel, but was rejected that night because they said I needed a reservation, so I slept in a small parking lot across the street from what used to be the home of an old friend.  He'd moved away to California by then, of course.  But it was the only place left to go that provided a connection to the life I'd known before heading off to Asia to "teach English" to try to pay off that pesky college loan.

 

How did I end up back in Asia again?  Well, after five years of low wage earning in Columbia, Missouri, I had finally run out of both forbearance and postponement periods for that massive, consolidated college loan.  Then I lost my job at the book factory where I'd just barely survived for four years.  And the only job offers I was getting were to go back into "teaching."

 

But not teaching in a school in the US.  No way.  Even though I had more than five years teaching experience (if you can call it that) in Taiwan, I had (and still have) no teaching degree or certification of any kind (well, I did get a 100 hour TESOL certification online), so it was off to Shanghai, China I went.

 

Shanghai....

 

Where do I begin?  Between the constant, loud throat clearing and spitting, public nose clearing and overall atrocious hygiene of the average Mainland Chinese citizen, the two whole weeks I was down with food poisoning, the restaurant guy who tried to sell me cooked dog (well, at least it was cooked, I guess), the money demanding local "girlfriend" that I literally had to leave the country to finally get away from, and the fact that I had a total of three different jobs and three different apartments in just shy of six months of mostly downs (with very few of what could even tentatively be called ups) in Shanghai, by that time as winter was beginning to set in, I was ready to hurl myself out the window of the tiny, flimsily built high rise that I was holed up in.  But, only after the kindergarten I'd been working at suddenly stopped classes for two whole months.

 

Without pay.

 

Running low on both cash and things to eat, I finally, out of sheer desperation, began calling my parents in their tiny, rural town in Missouri once again.  After several weeks of them telling me I could just "come home," with me refusing repeatedly because of what had happened the last time we'd tried that little arrangement, I finally had no choice but to simply put myself into their hands once again.

 

Of course, that didn't work out too well the second time around either.  Surprisingly though, it did last five whole months.  But after five months out in a relatively remote little town, staying in my parent's hastily arranged guest room, with not even enough money saved up this time to put a down payment on another car (and no way to get a job, because,as my father had so belligerently put it so many times, "you can't get no goddamn job without no goddamn car!"  And, "You can't get no goddamn car without no goddamn job!"

 

Goddamn.  Even when I was a very young child, that seemed to be his favorite expression.  Well, that and calling me names likes like, "dumb little bastard," "boney ass little shit," and "incompetent."  I was all of seven years old when he so thoughtfully bestowed me with that last one.  If I'd have truly known what it was to take one's life at that age, I'd have been positively suicidal after he first called me that.  In fact, I looked that word up in the dictionary very soon after he first said it to me, and if a seven year old can be clinically depressed, I think I honestly was.

 

I cried and cried and cried the day I looked up the word "incompetent," and when I got home that afternoon after school, my mother asked what was wrong, and I remember that I went to get the family dictionary and I read her the definition the best I could.  I didn't understand all the big words, but I knew, mostly from my father's usually derisive, verbally abusive demeanor and habit of insulting me left and right, that that word couldn't possible be good.

 

My mother, perhaps to her credit, actually kind of got onto him about it that day.  Although I now consider her to be his primary enabler in most cases, mostly because of her frequent cooperation with and overall inability to stand up to, all five foot eight or so inches of the tempestuous, foul tempered, impatient and often verbally cruel and just plain mean man that is my biological father.  At any rate, on that day all those years ago, she told him what I'd said immediately after he got home that afternoon.

 

At the time, I of course, was sitting, moping in despair, on the lower bunk of one of a pair of such beds that were crammed into the tiny room I shared with one elder brother and two younger ones, when my father came storming though the doorway.  And God, was I scared.

 

"Who called you incompetent?" He demanded harshly, which was just his usual way of talking to me.  My head dropped to my pale, skinny little seven year old chest, and I simply could not stop sobbing.  He repeated the question again several times with increased emotion, as if to get me to either drop the issue altogether, or to simply deny it.  I did neither.

 

After all, I guess I thought at the time, if I really am incompetent, and, as the dictionary put it, "not competent; lacking qualification or ability; incapable: an incompetent candidate," then I guess I just figured I was such a useless waste of skin anyway, so if I was going to die at his hands that day, I might as well get it over with, right? "You did," I choked and sputtered through a torrent of tormented tears. "You... called me... that. You... said I was... un-conscious."

He of course had said that too, and a whole lot of other nasty things, but... he never really admitted that he'd said any of it. To this day, as far as I know, since I haven't seen or spoken to him in more than five years, when reminded of such incidents, he still quips, "I don't remember." Sadly, I do remember. All too well, in fact. So, of course, he didn't even say he was sorry. But then, I never once got a hug when I was growing up. But that day at least, I did get his hand on my shoulder for a very brief and terribly uncomfortable moment or two, as I recall. But just that once.

And that was when I was seven years old. And my father obviously didn't kill me that afternoon. In fact, believe it or not, he seldom ever laid a hand on me. No. Mostly just words, threats of bodily harm, such as, "Goddammit, if you (do this or that), I'll bust your boney little ass, you dumb little bastard." Words, taunts and jeers so mean they seemed to cut right to the bone, where they festered there like an invasive, toxic cancer, or some kind of foreign, savage parasite that feeds off of the host until he is but a hollow shell of a human being with not enough self esteem left to fill the very bottom of a discarded paper cup.

So after five months with my parents in 2008, one month in a homeless shelter (right after I'd nearly bled to death from one of three ulcers which ruptured suddenly one day, for which I subsequently spent a week of recovery in a Missouri hospital), and then four months working two temp jobs to just barely pay for a creepy, dirty little weekly rental apartment in Springfield, Missouri, it was back to crowded, polluted, mind numbingly frustrating Asia again! This time, of course, it is South Korea.

What can I say, but the cold hard truth? The only job offers I was getting in my email inbox every single day during that tough time in the latter part of 2008, were from recruiters urging me to take another English "teaching" job in South Korea. Since I wasn't making enough to save up to pay the deposit AND first month's rent on a regular apartment, and both temp jobs were supposed to be ending by Christmas, on December 10th, 2008, I arrived all by my little lonesome, at the airport at Incheon.

But for an uncomfortably long while, the school didn't pick me up at the airport that morning, as had been promised. And when I called them at the only number I'd been given by the recruiter, I was told, "Look, I don't know who you are, so stop calling here." But that's another really hair raisingly sad and just plain pathetic story in a long list of my unfortunate misadventures here in South Korea (and Asia in general, actually).

But I'm still here after nearly five long years. Still standing, I guess you could say. Yet how, with so little money coming in, literally on the brink of homelessness, did I manage to get half way around the world, all the way to South Korea... to Asia, yet again?  Simple. Unlike other English teacher hiring destinations, such as Taiwan, Mainland China, and Japan, South Korea was the only country actively offering paid airfare to "qualified applicants" who were willing to go.  As far as I know in fact, South Korea is still the only major Asian country that has to pay poor, dumb, mostly naïve and cash strapped and indebted young college grads to come here!

In my case, of course, it wasn't that I was at all willing, but rather that, once again, I felt that I had little to no choice but to go back to try to work as an English "teacher" in far flung Asia. So, it was either back to the homeless shelter (where they only let you stay for thirty days, UNLESS... you signed up for one of their two to three year long church organization contracts) or the cold winter streets with the other homeless people, or... it was off to South Korea, a place I had long before decided that I never even wanted to so much as visit.

Why did I never ever never want to go to Korea?  Well, let's just say that most Koreans don't have a very high opinion of most Taiwanese.  And, to be quite honest, most Taiwanese (and other Chinese in general) do not have a very high opinion of most Koreans.

 

But then... Koreans hate the Japanese, the Chinese and even and especially their aggressive, isolationist, nuke happy, rabble rousing northern brethren (and rightfully so, one would assume).  And the Chinese in turn arrogantly believe that since they used to lord over the entire region in antiquity (actually, the Manchus and Mongols did, when THEY controlled China, Taiwan and even, in effect, much of Korea - with Japan often paying tribute), so most Chinese figure everybody else in northeast Asia (including southeast Asian peoples such as the Vietnamese, who were bullied, invaded and occupied by the Chinese for centuries before the French or us commie fighting Americans ever even heard of the place) ought to just bow down and worship at their feet for the magnanimous gift of Chinese culture!

But all that is yet another collection of stories. Disputed facts and figures (among the Asians who so fervently hate each other's guts), facts and figures that most people might find as equally confusing, sad and just plain frustrating as all of the above may very well have been to have to read.

So, here I am, five years later, at the end of 2013, at the ripe old age of 46, with only a mostly useless Bachelor of Arts in "Individual Studies" degree to show for the defaulted college loan I have yet to be able to pay back, even to this very day.  Because, believe it or not, most expat English teachers, at the very most, only make an average of about $24,000 US dollars per year in Korea.  It's somewhat less in China or Thailand, of course, and the ability to earn even as much as in Korea or Japan has taken a serious nose dive in Taiwan, with their stagnant economy, that actually began to tank in the late 1990s.

Yes, here I am. Often miserable, and feeling trapped yet again in a country, with a totally foreign Confucian culture that is not my own, and never will be, just hanging on to a thread of sanity most days.  Just barely.  Oh well, I guess I'm lucky that I'm not average age 19 over here, suddenly dropped down into the middle of a warring nation like Vietnam in the 1960s and 70s, with only a loaded M-16 rifle at my side for cold, hard comfort.

But there are wars within and there are wars without.  These years of my life are all about the wars within this collection of Asian countries with suspiciously similar customs that butcher the unsuspecting western mind with their tiny bits of exploding, culture shock fueled shrapnel and lingering, festering wounds that keep a man awake at night... writing blog entries, just to make some meager sense of it all.

Ah, the Wonders of Overpopulation (and a General Lack of Respect for the RULE of LAW)

South Korea is such an incredibly stressful place to live. Why, just today, I was driving in my car, waiting for oncoming traffic to pass. And of course, all of the other drivers waiting at all three of the other stops thought that they had the right of way!

So there I was, just sitting there patiently waiting to make a right at a red light. Because, to be safe of course, I needed to actually wait for oncoming pedestrians who were crossing the crosswalk to pass before I could safely make my turn to the right. I mean, right?

Yet, in typical caveman style, the Korean driver of a big truck who had been approaching quite rapidly from behind me, suddenly came up and started laying on his horn to try to force me to move forward and let him go ahead of me.

So in other words, that all too typical bully of a horribly impatient Korean driver, who was behind me (laying on his horn like a kindergartener who needs to pee really, really badly) while I was waiting patiently at the intersection to make a safe and legal right turn, that jerk (who'd perhaps had way too much caffeine, or... something), he actually expected me to plow right into oncoming pedestrian traffic - just so that he would selfishly be able to get wherever he wanted to go. Or.... I honestly don't know what else he expected me to realistically do in that particular situation.

In fact, I really don't know where the hell else I was supposed to go in my car at that moment. Oh yeah, that's right! Maybe he wanted me to drive up into the crosswalk, where many horrifically impatient Korean Drivers (who often seem to be shockingly childish) tend to obstruct (and endanger and inconvenience) pedestrians who are simply trying to cross the danged street... all the time. Uh-huh. But... I guess it really was an option (the totally insane plowing into pedestrians option)  for me at that particular moment, right?

Or not.

Therefore, I'd just like to take but a brief moment to politely inform all you highfalutin officers back home in my beloved country, the United States of America, all you hyper-vigilant A-hole go-getter law enFORCEment dudes and dudettes, who love to write people tickets for simply not stopping behind the white line in places all over America....

Well, I've got news for ya; you fancy-pants law enFORCErs, you would absolutely and totally (without a single doubt) most likely have a complete and utter nervous breakdown from hell if you tried to be a traffic cop anywhere at all in so-called "modern" Asia (China, Taiwan, South Korea, etc., etc.). Well, I guess you'd probably be fine in Japan, but... psst! The other (certainly "non-racist") Asians tend to hate their stinking guts, so... there's that, I guess.

Anyway... rules? What rules? Oh sure, most drivers certainly do follow some rules over here in South Korea (because driving or even just walking anywhere at all was even worse when I lived in Taiwan). Sure, some (good) South Korean drivers do follow the rules of their own sovereign nation. Of course they do!

They follow traffic rules when, that is, they're not busy running straight through every single red light that they can possibly get away with blowing through. Well... not every South Korean driver, but hopefully, you get the point.

And then there are the times when (some) South Korean drivers go around trying to outright bully other drivers to... to do what exactly? Oh, that's right. They kind of... sort of... well, they seem to want all other drivers on the road to simply just... disappear, when they feel the overpoweringly urgent need to go in pretty much any given direction, on any given day. Twenty-four seven. Every single day of their sadly stressful little lives.

Ah, the wonders of overpopulation!

Thus, in South Korea (and other parts of Asia that I have unfortunately been mentally and emotionally tortured in for long periods of time while working as a humble ESL/EFL teacher over the years), there always seems to be some impatient, childish, hopelessly selfish jerk who inevitably drives (at full speed, in many cases) right up behind you, and then starts to lay on their horn to try to pressure you into breaking the law. So that they don't have to simply... well, wait. Like a big boy or girl! You know, actually wait, like a grown-ass man or woman.

But let's be more charitable to the average South Korean driver for a moment, shall we? Sure! So, let's think about this; just exactly how long would most drivers in South Korea actually have to wait at the stoplight in most cases? Well, actually, just a couple of short minutes (or in extreme cases, four or maybe five minutes at the longest).

And by a couple of short minutes, I literally mean maybe a hundred and twenty whole seconds! Yes, the last time I checked, that's indeed how long it actually takes for two minutes to elapse. Imagine that, eh? I mean, who knew? Who'da thunk that it takes a whole one hundred and twenty seconds (in most cases) for a traffic light in "modern" South Korea to actually turn green! Who knew!

So, what I really want to know is; just who really are the "barbarians," in this particular case, eh? I mean, honestly? Who're the selfish, impulsive, childish folks out there (here in "modern," "democratic" South Korea) who simply cannot be bothered to merely wait a whole two to five whole minutes, like grown-ass men and women, to simply make a freaking right turn, of all things!?! Who are these "barbarians" I so often hear about? Who are they, really?

Because I'm sorry to say that, living and working over here in South Korea, I sometimes hear how, as a white American of European descent, I'm actually supposed to be the "barbaric" one. Yeah... right. Sure. Okay! So you're saying that it's actually all me, and they're all simply a bunch of holier-than-thou blinkered saints? Why, exactly? Because they happen to have been born south of North Korea?

Sorry, all you pathetic little face savers (and Western "liberal" enablers, who couldn't make it in most foreign countries, even fancy-ass Canada or Europe, if your braggadocious little life actually depended on it), but I wasn't born yesterday. And besides, I do not break any law, in any country, simply for the sake of some rude, backward excuse for "culture." And besides, culture is an ever-evolving thing, you know.

So there's that. Yep. There indeed, is that.

"If the Shoe Fits, Wear It"

I just finally moved in with my wife. Last year, when we got married (and up until May 23rd of this year), I was in the middle of a contract, teaching in another city, an hours drive away. Now, we are having to integrate all our junk into a tiny living space, in an old, poorly maintained apartment building. We live in a single unit with this long hallway that is noisy as hell. The mechanisms that close the big metal front doors on all these units wore out at least a decade ago, so unless an occupant gently and quietly pulls the door shut behind them when they come and go, there is an almost deafening sound. No big deal sometimes, but the guy next door smokes (a very common vice among many, many nervous, apparently anal retentive Korean and non-Korean men), so he goes in an out to suck on his cancer stick at all hours.

And... the big, heavy metal front door of his apartment slams mightily with every single entrance and exit.

My wife has been suffering with this noise pollution for months now and so, now that I've moved in, I am trying to help soothe her nerves a bit by asking the other residents on this floor to PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE not let their doors slam! Thing is... people in overcrowded, pent-up, can't show your emotions (except the typical plastic, fake "happy" smile) Asia cannot take confrontation of ANY KIND. Almost any form of direct, honest communication, no matter how you try to approach it, is considered "RUDE" to them. This, unfortunately, seems to be the result of centuries of strictly enforced Confucianism, stacked precariously atop a whole slew of various other societal and environmental pressures.

So... yesterday, when I attempted to tackle a number of problems head on (such as, a guy double parked downstairs, blocking both our cars, and I even had to speak directly to several tenants who I observed firsthand letting their doors slam), we were confronted by this viciously grumpy building guard who tried to tell my wife that "no foreigners live here." His point was that I have no right to ask some asshole to move his double parked car, or to bother fellow tenants who are BOTHERING US (unintentionally, carelessly, passive-aggressively, or otherwise)! But... my Korean wife promptly and politely told this do nothing, who growls every time you even ask him a simple question, that she already registered me as an occupant of the building.

This grumpy guard (whom my wife is afraid to even ask if any packages have come for her in her absence) basically just sits in the guard office all day, watching Korean TV shows, and doesn't want to be bothered. If you actually make him work, he'll scowl and grump at you. After we shut his mean mouth up by simply and politely telling him that I am in fact a registered occupant of the building now, he even tried to give me the old Korean stare down when we were waiting to get in the elevator. This Asian version of the "Mexican standoff" is really the only way that people here have to vent their feelings. Well... that and GETTING STUPID DRUNK EVERY WEEKEND to kill the pain of this pent-up society.

In any case, I stared right back at him till he looked away. I won. But mind you, I am NOT supposed to do that because... I AM WHITE AND WAS NOT BORN IN KOREA. I played by Korean passive-aggressive rules and won, but he'll be back. The next step that most disgruntled Koreans resort to, if they feel deeply, deeply offended (and they OFTEN do), is to try to get revenge some other way, at a later time. You know, back stabbing or some other end around butt slamming - even if they have to make something up to try to get back at you.

So, yeah, I'd definitely have to say that this place is definitely a powder keg, just waiting to go off. After we went upstairs, after the Korean stare down game with the grumpy guard, my wife told me that very recently, a sensational murder case made national South Korean news. Apparently, some Korean guy endured door slamming in his building for so long, without recourse, that one day, he finally snapped, and went to another apartment and... KILLED THE OCCUPANT THAT HE THOUGHT WAS SLAMMING THE DOOR TOO OFTEN. Welcome to "the land of morning calm."

Oh, and one last thing.  The fact that I had the good old fashioned guts to address these problems with several Koreans face to face, apparently means that I am "a barbarian." I think I smell RACISM. Scratch that! I'm getting really sick to death of that over-used and abused term. Try, xenophobia.  If the shoe fits, wear it.