Visions of Swastikas? Oh, Shut Up... er... Hush!

Nice, extremely idealistic, and kinda one sided song about late 1980s and early 90s era pop CULTure guilt over colonialism, Mr. Bowie. I still like the British (AND America) a lot though, regardless of how history is periodically revised for whatever political purposes.

But speaking for myself, I personally didn't "stumble into town, just like a sacred cow," with "visions of swastikas in my head."  And besides, swastikas mean something very different in primarily Buddhist Asia.  But I'll bet Bowie knows that.  Surely.

Nor do I have "plans for every one." I mean, speak for yourself, will ya? And the whites of my eyes are pretty much the same as they are in the eyes of absolutely every human being everywhere, regardless of what natural eye color/colour they may happen to have been born with.

Ah, skip it. I have long loved your music, Sir Bowie. You're awesome, even after all these years. But in this particular instance, she's right, you know. "Just you shut your mouth."  Or at least, "hush."

Great classic video though.  Bowie at his usual best.  Note: He tosses the rice casually in the air in the video because of the fact that, as western tradition dictates, we toss rice at weddings, where as in Asia, rice has traditionally been the main food stuff for the overwhelmingly high percentage of the desperately poor population, who (in the past) tended not to waste it. Okay. Point taken.

This nice Korean video by K-Pop group Apink may say it better in some ways though.  Well, not really, I guess. Bowie, as usual, has the more cerebral approach.  But if you're not already a fan (or even if you run the other direction completely when encountering yet another Korean girl or boy group with the more or less usual, tired old, sexually suggestive dance moves and dumbed down lyrics), then do give the cute video below a look see.  But whatever you do, when in Korea, don't say, "just you shut your mouth," or ANY variation thereof, but rather,"hush."

The introduction of the English term, "hush," is almost revolutionary in Korea though, you know!  Because if you live in Korea as a foreign westerner for any appreciable length of time, you may very well eventually be socially blackmailed if you do accidentally utter the phrase, "shut up!"

Or any other common English phrase that most Koreans would prefer not to hear, for that matter.  For just one other example, I was forbidden to say the English word, "bad," during my first two years teaching at a kindergarten here.  And yes, folks, "shut up," even when uttered harmlessly, in your own native tongue, with the proper voice inflection, OR EVEN WITH A HUGE SMILE ON YOUR FACE, is a very, very, VERY BAD THING TO SAY IN KOREA!  Regardless of the circumstances, it often seems.

Why, you might ask?  Well, my Korean wife says that every time a western movie is given Korean subtitles, when the characters in the movie tell each other to shut up, the Korean translation is always something so incredibly BAD that all Koreans think that telling someone to "can it," "shut your trap," "zip your lip" or... whatever... is tantamount to dropping the F bomb!  Go figure.

I'll have to explain later why I'm pretty darned sure that not being able to even so much as tell someone who's really annoying you that they need to "pipe down,"  is really just another classical excuse to control almost everything everyone in Korea does, says and even thinks.  What can ya say?  Old imperial habits and deeply ingrained medieval and blatantly unequal societal habits from a slave trading past die especially hard.

Above, is an image from my Flickr Collection, dated 09192013, entitled, "Relax! It's Apparently an Ancient Peace Symbol."  Yes, the casual, everyday use of an ancient peace symbol in Asia (that was once briefly hijacked by a bunch of goose stepping Germanic assholes) is all just part of the stuff that daily twists your western brain in all sorts of uncomfortable directions, while attempting to live and work in Asia.

http://www.gadling.com/2010/05/08/the-swastika-symbol-of-peace-and-harmony/ http://koreabridge.net/post/manja-or-swastika-%EB%A7%8C%EC%9E%90-dostoevsky2181

Find Someone Else to Blame

I don't know if it's the frigid winter months trying to kill us all (from sheer fatigue) or not, but the tension here on the Korean peninsula is absolutely palpable YET AGAIN today. That's okay, I guess, but it often gets very difficult to not be drawn into all the seething "drama." You know, "the war." The one that never seems to end. It certainly didn't end in 1953 with the Korean War Cease Fire.

Even worse, it often seems even harder to not be forced to play the role society seems to want to push, pull or drag one into playing. And that goes for any country, I suppose. But I really didn't come here specifically, to be cast in any roles. I didn't come here to star in any "Korean dramas," shall we say.

Because I don't really have any interest in getting involved in all the compulsive overworking, the drunken weekends, or the constant anger - that most people here don't seem to be able to express in a healthy way. And that so many of them, sadly, tend to take out on those closest to them. And then there's the blaming of it all on everyone else.

But none of that is really any of my business, I suppose. After all, who am I? Rest assured, I'm not here to judge or even to criticize their supposedly wise old Asian ways. I'm here to teach. Since, in all truth, I was originally invited to come and babysit so many of the neglected kids (while their parents are out slaving to keep up that highly advertised "work ethic" image that Koreans especially seem to prize so very highly).

But it doesn't mean that I will willingly play the good foreign scapegoat, and take the blame for this society or any other. Read a good history book about the Korean peninsula, if you've a mind to. Two or even three while you're at it, if you please. Choose some books that aren't biased, of course. Those are usually the very best kind to read about the history of any group of people anyway.

Either way, the long, long history of internal problems here goes back quite a long, long time before the United Nations got bogged down in all the widely publicized Pacific Rim tension. Long, long before the United States, by default, also got dragged into all the infighting - whether we wanted to or not.

So, keeping this all in mind today, I soldier on. Or rather, I continue to do my very best, each and every day, to teach. And teaching is serving. But not necessarily becoming anyone's little foreign bitch. I can only hope that my lessons and all my hard earned efforts will not continue to fall on what often seems like mostly deaf ears.

And the Vicious Cycle Continues

Just yesterday (02/21/2014), I had to teach a junior high school aged girl how to hang up her own coat. I was astounded. Annoyed. Flabbergasted. Just beside myself because I was having to take care of nearly a dozen other kids at the same time, and I just didn't have time for that.

Either she really didn't know how to hang up her coat, or she was quite simply passively aggressively trying to avoid the chore. But like so many behaviors here in South Korea, it is often incredibly difficult to tell what's going on inside all those black haired heads.

I'd watch again and again as she'd loosely drape the coat onto the hanger and it'd slide right off and hit the floor. I'd look into her eyes and she'd appear to be smiling that typical inner smile I've seen in Asia in a host of different countries in this region. That little smirk, that satisfied infinitesimally tiny grin that is almost indiscernible. Almost.

She'd then turn to walk back to her seat. I'd have to pick the coat up yet again, and again, just to show her, "here, button the top button." Then I'd shake the coat on the hanger to clearly show that now it would not come off easily. Naturally, all I got in reply was a barely discernible nod. No thank yous. No other acknowledgement. Zip. Zilch. Nothing. Then, she went back and sat down.

Now, in an attempt to be as fair as possible, and to give as much of a benefit of the doubt as humanly possible (because I'm not a jerk, and I always try to be fair, kind, patient and open minded - AND I DID NOT COME HERE TO GET FED UP WITH THE BEHAVIORS HERE, on this half of the Korean peninsula - often to the point where I just want to smack the whole passive aggressive lot of them), most Koreans don't hang up their coats. But I have frequently seen them fold them up and put them on the floor somewhere.  Which doesn't really work all that well in "modern," rapidly westernizing South Korea, as one might guess.

So, more often than not, the kids just set their stuff down on the floor any old place when they come tearing into class, and of course their stuff gets a bit dirty and banged up, as their little discarded garments, books and what have you, frequently fall off the back of their little chairs and off the tops of their small desks.

Sometimes, the coats just get tossed onto a nearby desk or even directly onto the floor.  And then the other kids carelessly trample it in their carefree haste. Or even worse, I have to watch the little owner of the coat step on their own sleeves from time to time. Kids, right?

But most days, it's an enormous amount of work trying to pick up after even the older people here, as even they tend to just casually discard trash in the streets. Seems it's somebody else' job to clean up after them! And it's just always been that way, I gather.  Ah, the poison that still lingers from the old imperial Chinese system.  The system of master versus slave.  What I call the GOD/DOG way of doing things.  Somebody either waits on you hand and foot, or... you wait on someone else hand and foot.

That's a pretty pathetic excuse for equality.  But we are talking about the medieval way, aren't we?  All that old stuff is nowadays going the way of the Dodo in rapidly moderizing Asia, isn't it?  Well... isn't it?  Not really, I'm afraid.  No.

But, I guess I should try to remember that most Koreans have slept on the floor for centuries. Slavery as a national institution, and servitude to god emperors and kings in general, is a very big part of Korean history.  Likewise, wardrobes, until very recently, in these hopefully modernizing times, have been virtually non-existent for most everyday folk.  Until at least the late 20th century, anyway.

Either way, it's often a pretty tough job, having to serve as a little foreign "pooper scooper" for all the people here in Asia. And sadly, some days, I can do little more than stare up into the sky, the only place where there is yet not much human litter, and mutter in exhaustion, "Lord, lift this burden from me."

So, I guess the moral of the story is:

If you happen to chance upon someone doing something that you already know how to do, in a somewhat slow, careful, or even what may appear to be a clumsy fashion, do back off and think first. Odds are, they are simply trying to methodically teach themselves the proper way. Or they haven't yet quite figured out how.

So don't jump in to selfishly show them up for your own public face and sense of smug satisfaction. If you really are "better," you will seek to serve and teach them gently and carefully. You will genuinely help, not just show off. Because it might be you who doesn't know how the next time around. Remember that.

Unless... that is, they're just being PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE little people who can't be bothered, it often seems, to wipe their own damn butts!  But that IS the parenting style here in Asia - despite the deceptively "positive" stereotypes about homogeneity, good study habits and mutual cooperation that Westerners are taught to believe and idolize about the Far East.  And I shouldn't even have to say it ain't all so.  'Cause it just ain't.

You see, most Asian parents want to ultimately score big face from their little ones, so they try to always make a public display of valiant servitude!  They pick up all the kids trash.  They wait on the kids hand and foot.  UNTIL, that is... they get to be older and harder to control!

And let's FACE it, even though this charade is kept up in public, in private (and unknowingly IN PUBLIC) most Asian parents caught up in this rush and hurry CULTure actually ignore and neglect their children by never having any time for them, while they pursue their famous "work ethic" for everyone in their communities to see.

But wait!  That's the effects of rapid westernization showing, right?  I personally don't think absolutely everything can be ultimately blamed on the west (or the US specifically), but hey!  What do I know?  I'm just the little foreign pooper scooper that could!  Well... not really.  I'm getting pretty tired of being forced to play that woefully lopsided traditional role, I'm afraid.

Whomever may or may not be to BLAME, most Asian parents are so damn busy, that they send their little ones to one private school and "academy" after the other, keeping their own children constantly just as mindlessly busy as they are.  Or even busier!  Constantly tasking them, as if they were little Asian robot soldiers and dutiful laborers.  CULTurally driven zombies, who grow up to do pretty much exactly the same unquestioningly mindless thing to the next generation.

And let's be HONEST, for a change, shall we?  These poor kids, I see them.  I KNOW them. I've taught them in Taiwan, China and now South Korea for more than a decade.  I know their parents.  I know the drill.  I see exactly what's going on, despite the face generating masquerade.  Most of the poor kids I have taught also can't even remember the vast majority of what they've studied.

In fact, most of the poor, overly tasked kids go through English book after English book but STILL CANNOT SPEAK ENGLISH or communicate - even, it often seems, to communicate their most basic feelings effectively, in their own repetitive, overly polite and actually rather robotic native tongues!

Because they don't genuinely study hard.  They study too damn much.  And most of it simply goes in one ear and out the other.  They missed most of it, because it all went by too fast!  And they may not have even had the aptitude in the first place.  So it all got lost.  Tossed out with the last bunch of English books their hurried parents worked so hard to buy for them.

But then, there is a big thing in Asia about not focusing the real blame on the school system, but on the "dumb, unqualified foreigners" whom they draft, fresh faced and inexperienced, fresh out of college - regardless of whatever their major may have been in school.

It's always good to have a scapegoat though, you know.  After all, they all work so very hard to have BIG FACE.  So it can't possibly be all their own fault.  Nah!  Gotta be them dang foreigners.  Gotta be.

And so it goes.  And so it has been in China, Japan and Korea for thousands of years, since the old Imperial Examination System began.  And the vicious cycle continues.  And the vicious cycle continues.

But hey!  Don't listen to little old western (constantly "misunderstanding" THE PEOPLE) me!  Read all about the Chinese Imperial Examination System.  The following link presents mostly just the positive side of the system that eventually, though started with clearly good intentions, finally faltered and fell into hopeless stagnation and corruption in the end.  And so it goes.

http://www.sacu.org/examinations.html

Thanks, But No Thank You

Once, in early 2009, as I recall, I had yet another mostly neglectful employer who didn't know what they were doing, so I was forced to make a sudden "visa run" to Japan. On the flight over from Korea, I sat next to what at first seemed like a very nice older Korean man, who seemed incredibly interested in only one topic: the fact that, as he saw it, "nobody really understand Korean way."

Okay.  Whatever. He attempted then, of course (whether I wanted to listen or not) to give me a seemingly endless list of things that I really must change my mind about. Topic number 1: Dog eating. "All Foreigners who are not Koreans do not understand us."

Okay. Fine. But I CHOOSE - that is, I long ago made a PERSONAL CHOICE to not eat dog meat, or to willingly participate in the trade of such animals. THAT'S MY CHOICE, BUSTER. Whether I happen to live "in Rome," or not.

No social pressure for me today, thank you. But I did listen. And I have seen the way dogs are often treated in Asia. So, I do get it. One type of animal flesh probably really is more or less the same as another.

Sure, I guess we all  have to make certain sacrifices sometimes.  In times of extreme need, such as when everybody is starving and honestly need to eat their most beloved animals just to survive, or... when your CULTure is still hopelessly mired in traditionalism and doesn't appear to give a damn how all "the foreigners" feel about such things.

Oh, I think I get it, mister. Thanks anyway.

The Truth Only Hurts When You Can't Bear To Hear It

One day, in 2008, in Shanghai, I was very, very hungry. There are plenty of McDonald's and KFCs everywhere, but you get really, really tired of eating that stuff all the time, day in and day out. And even at a Chinese owned and operated KFC, I got food poisoned because they apparently refused to follow the American cooking safety rules. What can you say? When the cat's away, the mice will play!

And it's their country and their CULTure, right? They should be allowed to do what they want, right? Even if it flies in the face of common human safety and the universal need for good health practices! RIGHT? See... you don't get to break universal laws just because of belonging to a certain political party, the "right church" or because you were born in a certain country. It doesn't work that way in the hard, cold real world.

So that day, I went out looking for local food. Which can be a very scary experience, indeed. But I can speak Mandarin Chinese, so I found a place with a window buffet. I looked in at the trays of various foods in many different colored sauces.

"What's that one?" I'd point and ask the nice man in Mandarin. "Ju rou." Pork. "And that one?" "Niou rou." Beef. "Xie xie," said I, which is Chinese for "thank you." Feeling encouraged, I pointed to the stuff in the red sauce. "That one in the red sauce; what's that?" Gou rou." DOG MEAT. Suppressing the urge to vomit right then and there, I turned and ran like hell.

But you can't run far or very fast when your stomach is empty, so I eventually had to stop and eat at the same noodle shop with the filthy floor and sticky tables. Yet again. And still looking around at all the unsanitary conditions, worried as hell that I'd get food poisoning. YET AGAIN.

So, trade places, liberal Democraps. They're waiting for you. Start a war with the most populace nation on Earth, RepoopIcans. They'd like nothing better. Or lead by example, NOT by your self centered sense of entitlement. I'm here to EDUCATE. And it's one tough job.

So call me the R word. Call me "a racist." You go right ahead. Or better yet, come and trade places with me. See how long you last in my shoes. 

The Art of Honest Self Expression

Today, I find myself feeling curiously thankful to my parents, despite their private imperfections, if for no other reason than the fact that their constant conflict ended up teaching me how to feel and express honest human emotions.

For sadly, where I live today, most of the people often appear to be so beaten down by the incredibly strict, overtly controlling Confucian society long inherited from their ancestors, that under normal circumstances, they are almost completely unable to articulate most of the good (or beneficially bad) honest, straightforward emotions that I grew up taking completely for granted.

Well, that is, unless they happen to be falling down, stupid drunk. Yes, without strong drink they rely on pumped up displays of pride and vanity, with only the attendant but really rather pathetic "death stare," to protect them from those who they perceive would do harm. Yet, I sincerely doubt that any of those mostly mute defenses helps any of them to express or relieve most of their emotionally pent up anxieties, fears, needs and genuine human wants.

And I shouldn't have to remind anyone of what tends to happen when lack of sobriety leaves a person exposed to all sorts of societal depravities. Rape. Unplanned and unwanted pregnancies. Cruel, vile, truly thoughtless words and deeds uttered when inebriated. Car accidents. Familial abuse. And even death - whether behind the wheel of a modern speeding bullet, or from choking on ones own vomit.

Oh... I guess I left out the "fun" part, didn't I? Funny, puking has never held much delight for yours truly, I'm afraid, so I guess I shall just have to continue to miss all the "fun."

So, learn how to express your true feelings, and be eternally grateful to those who teach you how, with intent or not, to articulate your needs and wants in this life. For as far as we know, there are no do overs, and we get only one chance before the shell of our earthly form returns to the welcoming dust. 

Fascinating, that it took a Chinese guy (who was also 1/4 German) to finally, after thousands of years of emotional repression, to finally break the mold, to finally rise above the fray, to teach everyone, regardless of race, color, creed, sex or anything else, to tell the whole world that we must all, whenever possible, practice the simple, eloquent and beautiful art of HONEST SELF EXPRESSION.