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.