When you roll into any asian country like Korea, as a foreigner, you end up befriending other foreigners. What usually ends up happening is the foreigners, separate from everyone, and become a culture within a culture. A sub-culture if you will.
It is usually amongst these people that I may choose who to be friends with. Which sounds snobby and elitest, but it’s something you learn in your 2nd year. You come to realize that some of those people you were friends with last year… some of them are not the kind of people you would be friends with in any other situation. You’re friends because you’re both trying to survive in this foreign country.
It is when I see these kinds of people, that I think that some people just shouldn’t be here.
I once stumbled on a blog on MySpace, some guy in Seoul. All he ever did in his extensive blog was complain about various aspects of Korean culture. He couldn’t get over his own homophobia to sit in a Jimjilbang, or thought that Koreans were mentally challenged for not having yet discovered the ‘dinner table and chair’. (Koreans traditionally eat on the floor, but not all of them do)
Anyhow, this brings me to a certain type of person that I come across while in Korea. You usually see them in the wee hours of the morning, 3 or 4 am, and you can usually notice them right away. Because they’re loud. And obnoxious.
They often punch or kick things.
Yell at Korean people. Whole sentences of slurs often ending in “You fucking Korean”. All this while I’m walking with them, face hidden in absolute shame. The same person has the fucking nerve to offer me a high five with a big stupid smile on his face just 30 minutes later in the bar.
I think about how a few years ago while in University, I gave a guy a heavy backhand to the nuts for making one too many ‘yellow’ jokes. 10 minutes later, after he managed to stand up, he came over and apologized. I nodded just so he could move on, without having to worry about me holding a grudge.
Then I see that same type of guy here. Stomping around the streets wreaking havok on the streets of the country in which he is a guest, and not a king, as he may think. He may make more money than most Koreans, it does not make him above them.
Anyways, I thought of all this just now because I’m recalling this past weekend when I met a dude, we’ll him X. X was drunk. X was jolly. X was hugging his friends and being the rambunctious sort that people get when they have enough drinks. Then I saw X on the street later.
He was yelling something in my direction. He was calling the name of the person I was walking with. But we were having a discussion and he ignored him. Now yelling at the top of his longs, a passerby, annoyed by his yelling, yells something to the effect ‘Jeez’ as walks past.
Then I hear him yelling cuss words at the Korean man. He stood there with his hand out, leaning on his right leg with his chin in the air, and his eye brows giving him this expression saying “yea, fuck you, you walk away you pussy” while yelling something to like “Get the fuck out of here you fucking Korean I’ll kick your fucking ass.”
I passed him. But he continued. Having just met the guy, I already decided the he’s not the kind of guy I’d want to associate with his. Surely he must be a nice guy if he’s a friend of my friend. But if he’s got an attitude like that, it wouldn’t take much more to make me spit in his face before knocking his teeth out on the corner of a brick wall.
I said to “Dude, back off, what are you trying to prove. He’s walking away.”
He continued. Then he said something like this, which made me want to throw him down the stairs we were going up.
“Hey, theres so many Koreans where I grow up.” Oh, so this means he’s not ignorant. “So many Koreans and I don’t give them shit when they walk around. They make all their noise in their karaoke rooms and I don’t complain.”
His friend and mine, looked at me and rolled his eyes. I rushed up the stairs because if I stood around this loser any longer, I’d snap.
Which is a big deal. Snapping is not my thing. Definitely not my thing. It’s my brother’s thing. He’s got all kinds of scars, and notches on his belt.
That’s when I know that this just isn’t the kind of person I want to even know the name of. I don’t get how these people are teachers in Korea.
Some people just shouldn’t be here.
November 28th, 2007 | Life
You’re right. I would, more often than not, snap and attempt to teach these peons a lesson. But, the honest truth is that I’ve become very cynical and defeated in my conviction to right an obvious wrong in my older age. I used to have such a strong will to bring an increased enlightenment to those I encounter, be it close friends or random humans. And, I’m not saying, nor implying that a beating alone fixes this by any means.
A proper lecture while or after the beating is usually my technique….
Nevertheless, I can’t help think of a time where Mom & Dad emigrated to Canada and faced much of the same adversity and ignorance.
And, the idiots I had to deal with on an ongoing bases when our family first moved to Richmond Hill a the age of 6.
Now, you in the Motherland of all places. To experience the often defining encounters of what it is truly like to be minimalized to less than equal, truly feels like the efforts are in vain…
It makes me wonder why Humility and Empathy isn’t a requisite for Graduation at any level of education, as English & Math is.
The world has become a smaller place, and with it, one would think that tolerance would be at the very least the default behaviour or disposition, and at the best an increased sense of empathy for one’s fellow human. Unfortunately, we see that the smaller the world gets, the less we can avoid such atrocities, even if we venture half way across the globe.
It truly is in our ‘backyard’, and I do think it needs to start early in our lives’ development.
Ask the many that were ignorent in my early youth. Most got the message, and I don’t mean the loss of a random fight, but the awakening that came as a result of it…
But wouldn’t it be nice if we, the self-proclaimed “higher Species,” could come up with an educational system and parenting method(s), that passes on philosophy of reaching this awareness, which is as crucial to wellness as an apple a day is. Now that would be fucking dope!
Comment by Brother — February 1, 2008 @ 10:13 am