Scribblings of the Metropolitician

Pas™ Kicks Ass!

OK, for you people out there who seem to think that all I have to say about Korea is negative – although I don't think that's true for this site. But I don't want to rehash that argument. I think this site would be clearer to newcomers if there was a way to see a complete list of postings, instead of the most recent 10. Then we'd be able to see bigger picture.

That said, I know that sometimes I'm a little hard on the place. I know it's my job – self-described as it is – but I also know that some people still bristle when I get too down on Korea's dirty. So here's a piece that you definitely have to chalk up to the positive.

Also, for those of you wondering why I, the black and Korean "mixed-race" man, am not talking about Hines Ward now that he's finally arrived, well, I...umm...just don't have much new to say that I haven't said already. I say let Hines Ward have fun here with Mom and just leave the man alone. If something funky comes up, I'll give a shout out; but right now, back to my back!

So Pas™ is fucking cool. What is Pas (파스)? It's like a big patch the size of a small notebook sheet that you stick onto an afflicted area – sticks like a second skin, by the way – and it either cools or heats, depending on the one you buy. Americans got Ben-Gay™ and other creams and whatever – but they ain't got the Pas™! There's nothing like it. I will confidently say that being sick in Korea is far better than being sick in America. They got remedies for everything.

For example, when I got minor food poisoning – what I got is still debatable – back in 1994, my home stay mom went and got me one of the little medicine drinks in the little glass bottles. I was all like – what the hell is that?! – when she simply ordered to drink it. I had thrown up everything else that had gone down my throat in the last 12 hours, so I was pretty skeptical. Little did I know that it would change my view of Korean medicines.

It just numbed my esophagus as it went down. I mean, like when your leg goes to sleep and it's way sleep, way past the tingles stage. I drank that shit and it just ended sensation inside my digestive system. It was wonderful. I was like – why the Sam Hell don't they have this in the US?! Well, my answer is that we don't have a heavy social drinking culture that forces salarymen to drink, in the evening, like recidivist AA members on a "just this once" binge, then be at their desk in the morning at nine. To do that kinda stuff, you need chemical assistance. To fight a hangover and a lack of sleep, you need something that can stabilize your system and give you caffeine and sugar. To keep your gorge down, you need something like I drank. There are a lotta cool things in those little glass bottles in Korea.

But back to my back. Over the last few days, I've had it pressure points prodded by myriad fingers, spots poked by acupuncture needles, and my painful spot has been heated, massaged, walked upon, slapped, even vibrated with extreme force. I don't know whether to feel traumatized or go have a cigarette. But the pain is still there. At the massage I just came back from, I got stuck with a Pas™ patch and it's really helping.

Who knows why? Perhaps it's the heating effect that's combined with a strange cooling effect at the same time, such that my sensory system is so confused that my pain is getting lost in the crossfire. It may be helping directly. Who knows? All I know is that Pas™ is kicking some ass. I'll quote another great sci-fi character, this time from Robocop, to sum up my feelings: "I like it!"

Man, in America, all I got were some painkillers and muscle relaxants. I already got those from the pharmacies here. In America, I couldn't afford to have my spot heated and cooled, poked and prodded, slapped and massaged. Here, I can do everything from get needles stuck in my ass to having a vibro-machine stuck up my rear. Hey – anything helps.

But I'm actually glad I'm having a relapse in Korea, because of not only this country's many remedies, but because I pay less here without insurance than I do with in the US.  If I were in America, I'd be scared to go see any kind of specialist, because my deductibles would be killing me. Here, visiting a famous acupuncturist (yes, that's actually the lady who has been sticking me with needles for the last couple days – I found her website)with degrees and TV appearances all over her walls cost me $10. Walk in, get stuck, walk out. No appointments, nothing.

And when you add the magic of Pas™ – you'll never want to leave this place.

Damn, My Back Hurts

As you certainly noticed, my posting has gone down in volume for the last couple weeks.

I'm truly sorry about that, but you see, my back is frickin' killing me. The human hero in The Terminator – Kyle Reese, played by the indefatigable Michael Biehn – said that "Pain can be controlled." He said it kinda tough and cool, and it got him laid. But I know he was frontin', cause I know he never had an old back injury. Yeah – pain can be controlled; but preferably with some damn powerful drugs.

For those of you who don't know why the apparently sedentary Metropolitican has such a serious back problem, let me tell you. A long time ago, in a boarding school far, far away, I was once pretty athletic. It wasn't because I was a jock or particularly health-conscious, though. My school had required sports, and it just turned out that I got into swimming and water polo playing. I wasn't the best, but I didn't totally suck, either. I was also the only brown spot in the pool. Man – water polo be whiiiiiite, dude.

Anyway, during the off season – in the spring – I would do other sports. One of the ones I tried was crew. This is the sport in which 8 men in a long, thin boat row together until they feel like throwing up. You can't see where you're going, because your back faces front, and the training to get in the boat – which itself ain't no picnic, but at least you're moving – is miserable. I don't know why I did it. At the time it looked cool. And here was another white, East Coast boarding school sport that I had never scene at home. Again, one of only a few brown spots on the team. I was in boat 7, which meant that I was a total scrub. But at least I wasn't the last boat, where the "girlie men" rode. OK, I am being a dork and a dick; but at least I wasn't in the last boat. Whew.

Looks like not much has changed, if this picture of a crew team from my
alma mater in 2002 is any indicator. Some pretty preppy WASPy guys
and one brown dude. There's an Asian guy in there, too. But finding
preps of color on a crew team is apparently still very much like
a really easy round of Where's Waldo? Hehe.

Anyway again, in the course of a race, I "caught a crab," which means that my oar got got in the undercurrent and pulled under. Since all of the people pull in rhythm on sliding seats, I got out of sync and when I got my oar back under control, I moved back too quickly and jammed my back into the front of the oar held by the guy behind me. Right into the base of my back, people. As E.T. so cutely understated, "Ouuuuch."

I was in extreme pain for months, popped prescription muscle relaxants and painkillers like M&M's, and generally lived a life of extreme torture. Sometimes I just moaned myself to sleep. My roommate at the time didn't like that.

So ever since then, when I get fat and lazy from lack of exercise, my back cramps up. Last time was a couple years ago. This time is KILLER. I'm actually mostly recovered, except that one nerve or muscle in there continues to want to give me excruciating pain. I want to kill the muscle and excise it with a penknife and eat it on rye bread to show it that I am indeed in charge, but I think that would probably cause only more damage. So I leave it and am trying to get by with over-the-counter drugs.

I am getting better, and am already exercising again. I've also lost 10 lbs. So don't worry – I am going to be a better, healthier person soon. But for right now, life is sucking.

I will be posting more soon. I even missed my chance to try and sneak into the Hines Ward press conference, which I think I am just wily enough to have succeeded in pulling off. But I have been lying around in a haze for days, and didn't realize that the conference was probably today until too late. Had I had my wits about me, I would've been at the front door of Lotte Hotel in a suit and backpack, patting myself down with a quizzical look on my face, telling the girl guarding the door in pretty convincing Korean, "I swear that press pass is in a pocket here somewhere."

But I am only dreaming of ripping that muscle out of my back Predator-style and raising my claws in bloody victory at the sky. Rrrrrrowr!

Wow - Someone Finally Noticed

Picked up a piece from another blog that pointed to a "miniskirt war" on college campuses. Took people long enough to notice – but now I feel someone vindicated. Some folks out there on the 'Net have called me a pervert for even pointing it out, and Koreans think I'm crazy. But now that it's become a mini-"issue", I'll just take pleasure in saying, "See!? I told you it's not just me!"

I've taught a university class for the past few years here while not doing my dissertation research and have been pointing this out myself – the skirtlines 'round Seoul have been pretty crazy for a while now, and they're just getting all the more crazy.

In my lecture last semester, one of the more risqué freshmen – who seemed really, really happy to get out of the school uniform she had been wearing for many years prior – used to come into class late all the time. That's not in itself problematic; the problem was with the clothes she was – or rather, wasn't – wearing. Her skirts we so short that I was kinda embarrassed to look, but then again, kinda tempted to look, but then I was I technically the "professor" giving a lecture, but damn, that skirt's unbelievable, dammit, I shouldn't look, don't look, don't look, oh my God, I've lost my train of thought, what was I saying again? I think I covered the fact that my mental train had temporarily left the tracks because of the nearly-naked and her 5-inch heels – but the students didn't notice, anyway; they were too busy being as distracted by her entrance as I had been. Boys were looking while not trying to look, while some girls rolled their eyes or snickered.

But the war is indeed on, people. I talk about female competition for the male gaze in some of my photo posts, but I think it's just getting worse. When I mention this to Koreans, they always dismiss my comments by reiterating the "fact" that Americans are the most risqué dressers in the world and that America is much, much worse than Korea because Koreans are conservative Confucians.

But, but, I say – I don't remember being constantly distracted by this even on the "wild" Berkeley campus. We get people of all types, and I know it's "worse" in SoCal, but isn't there something different about someone wearing casual summer clothes – even a Britney top and short sport shorts usually comes with flip-flops – that's just a little different? I mean, even in America – land-of-sex-on-the-first-date-at-wild-parties- and-living-together-in-sin-before-marriage-with-no-morals -unlike-us-pure-and-virtuous-Koreans – more revealing clothes tends to come with warm climes. In Korea, even in the dead of winter, you'll see nearly as many miniskirts being sported as you would on a warm sunny day on an American campus.

But why has this become an "issue," you ask? Well, from a quick read of that article linked above, there are boys on college campuses right now complaining that the practice of wearing extreme skirts is getting downright distracting enough to interfere with the basic task that students are supposed to be – um – tasked with – that being the one of studying. So we are introduced to the case of a male student at Korea University who, according to his interview in the article, wrestled with the fact that he felt really embarrassed to even ask but finally mustered up the courage to go ask a female student wearing an extremely revealing skirt – I think the article was implying that you could basically see all – who was sitting in full view of everyone and had caused a mini-ruckus, if she might be able to adjust herself so that she wasn't revealing so much; she reported him to the women's center on campus and hit him with a sexual harassment charge. Ouch.

Now, I'm sensitive to the fact that men in Korea have an inflated sense of being slighted now that women are gaining more power and visibility in greater society. I also realize that many

complaints about the "fear" of being hit with the "oppressive" power of sexual harassment charges are pretty baseless. I'm not advocating making a fashion police, measuring skirtlines on the streets, like in the Korean 1970's, or any of that stuff. I understand enough of feminist theories and its different waves to know that women should not have men police the limits of their sexual identity. But I also gotta ask the common-sensical question of, "Damn, girl! You gonna walk into class like that?!"

After seeing how the limits are being pushed lately, I really think the best analogy to make would be that of having a new trend in America of having women wear bikini tops to class. That's the best way I can think to describe the relative impact of this extreme wear in Korea. No matter what Americans think of minis – and I still tend to think Americans are, overall, pretty conservative about hemlines – Koreans were until recently shocked by showing the bellybutton and still think tattoos are for gangstas only. Wearing what's called a "똥코치마" ("ass-crack skirt") around a Korean campus has about the same impact as I'd expect from an American co-ed walking in with shorts and a bikini.

Now, what would we do in the face of such a trend? Whatever official or social sanctions there might be, I just think that certain clothes belong in the classroom, while certain ones belong in the dance club.Am I so wrong? Am I the only person who thinks so? I mean, I don't want to see clothes in class that I swear I have only seen on girls who work the Deja Vu strip club in Vegas. To put a point on it, I don't know whether to give that student her quiz back or a dollar bill to stick in her skirt top. I'm caught, man! I'm stuck! Seriously, though – this stuff is a bit distracting.

The article goes on to mention the fact that this is actually kind of unusual in America. One female student interviewed from Seogang University pointed out that wearing such skirts to school is something American students don't generally do; in Korea, young girls wear everything from formal business suits to go on "meetings" and other blind dates, to faux Britney Spears schoolgirl outfits with thigh-high stockings with tassels on them atop seriously sassy stilettos.

I'm not going to try and play the morality card and say that I don't enjoy the sights, or that my imagination sometimes doesn't run away with itself. But I am going to say that I don't think it normal to see, staring me in the face, what is considered fetish or naughty wear in most other nations. The thing that's hard to convey through mere text is the fact that the fabuloso freshman I mentioned above really seemed to like the fact that she disturbs everything around her. When she walks in the class, she has the most impish smile on her face and loves to CLICK-CLACK as she sashays into her chair. I know – the "girl power" boosters out there are going to say "let her get her thang on," that she's dressed to kill, she's working it, you go girl, whatever. Fine – it's her choice.

But all I'm saying is – can we get a little self-respect? Stop obviously trying so hard? Leave something – anything – to the imagination?