Another Day, Another North Korean Missile Launch

Just this morning, I had a friend on Facebook private message me to ask about the latest North Korean nuclear test. Honestly, this is the first I've heard of about this latest North Korean missile test. As usual, over here in South Korea, everyone is acting like absolutely nothing is happening. Nothing except the usual SH*T and SHENANIGANS that people are constantly getting up to in most places in East Asia, that is.

You know, all the usual pushing, shoving, bad manners, littering (because there aren't any public waste baskets), shout talking, and really bad driving habits. People walking or standing in the streets, obstructing traffic, cars parked illegally in places that routinely force drivers on major thoroughfares to go out of their way to drive around, an illegally parked car near our apartment complex, with an extremely LOUD car alarm that just keeps going off at all hours of the day and night - and yet, no one ever comes to attend to it. That kind of thing.

Oh, and on the weekends, there are these stupid trucks with loud speakers attached to them that drive around the neighborhood really slowly, blaring sales messages for a local appliance store at an insanely LOUD volume. And cops in Asia are almost non-existent. When you do see them, they are driving around really slowly with their lights flashing. No siren. They're apparently just playing with their fancy PO-lice lights! And the cruiser is often totally full, with two cops in the front and two in the back. You look in at them, and they just seem to be joyriding, chatting up a storm and mostly eyeing each other.

In Taiwan I was told that cops joyriding around and playing with their lights like that were meant to be a major deterrent. "Those crim'nal, if they stealing, they see cop car, they drop what they doing!" Well, sorry, kids, but... NO THEY ABSOLUTELY DO NOT. Beyond the fact that they look like total JOKES most of the time, cops in Asia really don't do much in most cases. In Taiwan, in fact, I used to marvel at the sight of how four cops packed in a police cruiser like that would drive slowly by jaywalkers.

And in South Korea, most roads are double wide, with two lanes on each side of the middle yellow line. HOWEVER, the outer lanes on both sides are almost always packed, bumper to bumper, with illegally parked cars. And NOBODY ever gets ticketed or towed. Never seen it even once in eight years here. The only time you'll see a vehicle get towed, is if there's been an accident, and the smashed up mess can no longer be driven away by the habitually reckless driver.

've even seen cops in Asia quickly look the other way as somebody was running a red light. Oops! Didn't see that! I was busy looking the other way! QUITE LITERALLY. Yeah, sure you didn't, you corrupt, ineffectual moron. In fact, one day in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, while waiting at a crosswalk, I stood right beside a Chinese cop, who quickly turned his head as a driver went straight through a red light! And if you were born and raised in a law abiding country, like I was, you really don't forget things like that. Unfortunately.

So yeah. It's Asia. No real change. Ever. Violent crime? There's not much to speak of over here (that actually gets reported, that is), but every single day that you go out, you'll see mindbogglingly stupid shenanigans of all sorts, that are clearly in violation of the law (their law, our law, everybody's freaking law!), but they all just keep getting away with it.

Because, quite literally, absolutely no one seems to be minding the store. So it's constant CHAOS in South Korea. It's pure pandemonium in most cases. And even when the locals do use the crosswalks, they walk on the wrong side, totally ignoring the painted arrows that clearly show which side they need to keep to. So just crossing the street in Asia (not just Korea) is often an exercise in pure stress and frustration. So why then, should anyone expect anyone (in Asia, anyway) to do absolutely anything whatsoever about Kim Jong-Un's latest stunt up in North Korea?

Old Chinese Superstitions

When teaching in Taiwan and China, I was given four markers with which to write on the white board during classes: black, blue, red and green. Being from an art background myself, I tend to draw on the board a lot, as a teaching tool. Plus, to stimulate young, hopefully impressionable minds, I always made it a point to change marker colors when writing the kid's names on the board. However... there is an old Chinese superstition that says that if a person's name is written in red, they will soon die! So, among a whole list of other "offenses," I was told never to write someone's name on the board in red. And that right there is "modern" Chinese CULTure.... Psst! None of the kids whose names I wrote in red ever died. Not even a single one.

Patience

Today, right before my first class (the one that only has two students in it) a South Korean boy and a girl, both first graders, were happily engaged in getting me to chase them around the school -- which is something they both love, of course. It was almost time for class, however, so I had to figure out how to gently herd them back to their classroom, so we could actually study something.

But, wouldn't ya know it, as often goes "the best laid plans of mice and men," little Bonnie bumped into and knocked off onto the floor, two trays full of upper and lowercase alphabet letters! Letters that have to be put back into forty-eight different cups, all in precise alphabetical order....

Oops!

So, quite unlike the way it would have been if my own father had been in the room when I was that age, I just smiled. And then Bonnie, John and I all sat down on the floor, and made an impromptu, and surprisingly fun game, out of putting each and every single one of those hundreds of plastic letters back into each of their respective cups.

'Cause that's just the way it ought to be for every kid, and every stressed out adult. And that's the way I really, really wish it could always be for everyone in the world. Though sadly, it just ain't.