Carry a Big Stick

Everyday, when I come to school, there is a teacher who waits between the front gate and the main building of the school itself. I don't know his name, but I see him everyday and wave to him. I can't be sure what he's there for, but I am guessing that he is supposed to "greet" students in the morning. Notice I wrote "greet" with quotations -- he is not friendly to the students, but rather is quite grumpy and clutches a stern, wooden stick in his right hand. I've nicknamed him "The Enforcer."




The Enforcer seems to be placed so that the students calm down and behave themselves before entering the school. He sometimes pulls students off to the side (I assume these are the troublemakers) and have them just stand. Everyone is supposed to be in school by 8:20, so when I come late, I often hear The Enforcer yelling "PALI PALI!" to the students. I'm assuming in Korean, Pali Pali means "hurry the f*** up you slow, degenerate bastards." The students frantically start running after hearing him.

The Enforcer inspires punctuality and instills fear. I want his job.

Party Don't Stop Till 6 in the Mornin'

I've always felt as though I missed out on the fun college experience because I opted to stay home for my college years. Having already graduated and seeing how much fun Korean college kids have at the many drinking establishments furthers that notion.

Never too late though, right?

I went to Seoul this past weekend to meet up with some other public school teachers I met at a teacher's conference we had the other week. It was a long trek to Seoul from Yongin: over two hours, due to confusion and a couple wrong trains.

We met up in Hongik University, or "Hongdae." The area is the place to be on a Saturday night -- young folks in their 20s all gather here to eat, drink, sing and dance. The place is crowded with people and I was loving all the beautiful girls walking around. The place really is amazing -- there just isn't anywhere that is so bumping and full of young people like Hongdae in Hawaii. Being so far though, a journey into Hongdae meant that I would be staying up all night, until the transit opens in the morning.

We hit it off with some Korean BBQ and soju. The weather has been extremely muggy, so I did not really appreciate being 10 inches away from a gas fire and hot plate. We then went to a Western bar to kill time, and eventually headed to a little club that had an all-you-can-drink menu for 10,000 won for 2 hours (about $7.50). At first, it was only us there drinking and dancing (or sitting on the side, in my case). After a while and many rum and cokes though, the place started getting busy and I got drunk enough to dance. Unfortunately, I got too drunk, to the point that I was no longer thinking about having a good time or trying to meet girls -- I was just thinking about going home.

Everybody started walking around and eating, while I just followed and had my head down the whole time. I was dead-tired by 1 AM. I don't think the teacher's schedule of working at 8 mixes well with staying out late. So much for partying all night. We rested several times in the early morning. I was lying down at the park where a guy kept playing his god-damn hand drum and after tht, we then took a nap at the benches in Hongik University. Before, I laughed at all the Korean guys passed out on the streets and barely-able-to-walk drunk girls, but now, I had become just like them.

The ride home was a terror -- there were about 25 stops and it was a very shaky train. I was hungover and tired as hell and nauseous. I ended up taking a lot of breaks in between to put my head down on my lap. The blooming morning sunlight didn't help me at all. I'm sure the many other spectators just looked at me and thought, "well, here's another degenerate, alcohol-abusing youth." I just wanted a nap.

I finally got home over 3 hours after I had left Seoul. I was sticky, my clothes smelled like barbequed pork belly, I had various stains on my shirt, my pockets were filled with random handouts that people gave me in Hongdae, and I smelled terrible. I walked over to my bed and my face met the pillow.

I'm thinking maybe Hongdae again, next week.


***

There were many great sights of hordes of people, of funny Koreans dancing to hip-hop, of drunk guys sitting on the ground right outside of clubs, and especially of the zombie-like crowd on that first bus out of Hongdae. Unfortunately, in my drunken state, I only managed to take these 2 pics. That picture on the left was this ridiculous trash pile the morning after our partying and the one on the right was of a Yager dispenser.

A Vicious Cycle?

Having been in South Korea for over 2 months now, I have been seeing a lot of Korean women everyday. One simply word usually comes to my mind when I see a very attractive girl here:

"day-ummmmm"

The modern-day Korean woman is on the tall-side, slender (but not skinny), and is very pretty and made-up. Interestingly enough, Korea has an exceptionally large rate of plastic surgery. I have to wonder: are Koreans pretty only through mass aesthetic work, or are so many Koreans naturally pretty that the average-looking one wants something done to fit in? It's the old chicken and the egg, honestly.

I heard a statistic from my co-worker that around 60% of women here get something done. I am not one to debate the merit of plastic surgery, but I think it's a reasonable solution for someone who's fugly and wants to have a easier time in life with the opposite sex (esp. if you're a girl). As empowering a procedure as plastic surgery may be, there is a huge underlying problem: what happens when you decide to make babies with someone who had a lot of things done?


Let's take for example this pop star chick:



This is Hyo Yeon from the group SNSD (I just googled "korean plastic surgery"). To be honest, it seems that she was given a good thwack from the ugly stick at birth. I mean, it looks almost like she had a full sex-change from boy to girl. Seeing the before picture, I'm guessing Hyo Yeon is eternally thankful to her surgeon for what he did for her looks AND her career in entertainment.

Now, let's say I married her, did the hibbity-jibbity, and then 9 months later, out came a kid. I would be expecting a child with decent height from myself and great facial features from it's mom. Instead, I'll get sasquatch. And when little Sasquatch turns 7, he/she'll need some plastic surgery. And a vicious cycle starts.