Scribblings of the Metropolitician

Errybody a Nigga Now

This is an obvious example of how much black popular culture has influenced even the Korean language. He isn't just aping english is an over pronounced way, but black slang and even perceived mamnerisms. "Nah I mean?" Kinda shocking is how many times he says "fuck" in a major telecom's official commercial. It isn't blackface, but it's racist as hell. I mean, who is he ostensibly supposed to be aping besides a "cool" black man? He's insulting the very racialized object he is appropriating for its cool cache. Of course, Koreans would deny its racism because he's not in blackface dancing around in Animal print robes with a bone in his nose. The racial coding here is the same, though. Except it's fascinating how the apparent pronunciation of black slang english translates into new, funny, deliberate mispronunciation of standard Korean. The mispronunciation of Korean sounds like Koreans think black people talk in english. All while enabling the use of slang Korean such as "jonna" that would never have been acceptable in a Korean commercial before.

Posted with Blogsy

"Hoes Gotta Eat, Too"

I take a very practical approach to photographic ethics. 

Especially when taking pictures of sensitive things in  Korean culture. 

How did this come up, you ask? Well, in a Facebook group called "Korea Blogs" someone started a debate about this blog post that I jumped in on and made this point when it seemed about to get all grandiose about photographic ethics. I first referenced my own previous post on the matter before going on to say the following:

Ethics, schmethics. I don't publish my red light pics bcs I think they are too clear. I've got some amazing ones of Yongsan from around 2007 with clear faces, etc. MUCH better than these let-me-sneak-a-shot-from-100-meters-away crap, but I don't publish them because the faces are CRYSTAL clear and I don't want to hurt the girls. Faces, having photographic gonads, people... "ethics" is just a matter of deciding to hurt people. And yhose pics aren't even clear enough to do that. So, while kvetching over theoretical concerns about "ethics" is fine and fun, this blog post isn't really a problem. People need to calm down.

 

Then I proceeded to upload two pics I had never puboished before because of how good they were, as both clear red light district shots and as records of the old Yongsan that was razed over to make Raemian apartments to go up soon. The key action in the pics is in the faces, which I have to take out. Hence, I won't publish them, because without the faces, they have no meaning -- but I don't want to hurt these girls. To me, it's the ultimate respect. Because, as a great man once said, "Hoes gotta eat, too."

Now, some people might kvetch and carry on about showing faces in pics at all -- but as in most things Korean, it's a judgement call, not the law, that's the real thing defining the issue here. Lately, I've stopped cropping out facesabove the mouth, which was my old way of doing things, because people aren't doing anything embarassing out in public, usually. And if they do, I do think about faces.

A fun, very Korean moment. Harmless, in and of itself.

 

No Faces, practically.

 

Sometimes you just gotta wait a bit for the right moment.

 Hat tip to Hollywood Shuffle.

 

Apparently, I'm a "Fauxtographer"

This dumbass article just came across my Facebook feed. So like someone is a little bit too invested in making the dividing line between the so-called “real” and fake photographer, a telltale sign of being An amateur oneself. I find that amateur photographers are generally concerned with what kind of camera body or lens one has or how expensive your equipment is, which is a way of compensating for the fact that one is not confident about the actual photography. a telltale sign that this article was written by an extremely knowledgeable hobbyist who doesn't do anything with photography professionally is the 1st rule in the article, which is that if you're not using RAW mode, you're not a professional.

Apparently, shooting runway JPEG and submitting CNN the JPEGs means
I am not a professional. I'm a "fauxtographer."

Apparently, that makes pretty much every central runway photographer or anybody producing large amounts of images doing a wedding very much not a professional. best because almost no one shooting large amounts of images is shooting RAW. one of the main reasons is that if you're shooting for example runway, there is essentially no room for error as clothing comes out, so you adjust the shutter speed in manual mode based on the brightness of the clothing, which if you are shooting in JPEG mode, you're going to get a spot on every time, and the problem with RAW is the prohibitive file size and the fact that the average runway show produces anywhere from 1200 to 1500 pictures. and in order to get the proper stance and position in the step, you got to be shooting on a still camera that lets you do continuous shutter operation at about 5-10 fps, the faster the better. since you are aiming to hit each article of clothing at each point in the runway completely accurately in terms of exposure because overexposure of the highlights means that detail is lost no matter what mode you're shooting in.

Shoot it right the first time and you don't need post-processing.
And if you blow the highlights with poor flash technique,
RAW won't save you.

And this idgit doesn't even know that you have abouyt the same exposure latitude in JPEG as you did with film negatives. Anyone coming from film to digital knows that you can fix even JPEGs quite a bit as long as it's somewhat properly exposed, as long as you were pretty close. I shot on film, where if you bonked it, you just bonked it. So to me, JPEG ain't too different. I shoot right the firdt time, not worrying about saving it in RAW unless you've got the time and card space and low output of numbers of images. A studio shoot would be a good choice for RAW. A professional photographer knows that there are no hard and set rules that makes one a "pro" versus "faux" shooter. Anyone shooting RAW on the runway is a crack smoker, just because that's like taking a bazooka to a knife fight.And if you fucked up a set of clothes or an entire show because your color temperature was off, you don't have time to edit 1500 pics, do you? Cause shooting it all in RAW and saying "I'll fix it in post -- white balance and exposure can be fixed after the fact" is about as ghetto-ass amateur hour as you can get. -- No, you, author of this article, are the FAUXtograpgher. What the hell is youarenotaphotographer.com? Overcompensating much?

Try this: You're house photographer for a designer and the rehearsal is all done in tungsten light. You're set and prepped, but then the show starts with a spotlight. WTF?! What do you do? Know your shit and switch from 3400K to 5600K and know that yes, that's a "bright" dress in my internal scale, and despite the fact that black was 1/400 of a second, which would normally make this bright two shutter stops higher at 1/800, you guesstimate that this is +2 stops higher than even that since she's closer and at the end of the runway, and since she's in a spot, she gets brighter the closer she gets, which would make black 1/800 and bright at end of runway in spotlight 1/1250. You either get it right or go home. RAW ain't gonna do shit but eat up card and buffer memory. You blow that dress out, and it's gone, JPEG or not. So real shooters aren't wasting their time with "Am I a Pro or Faux?" silliness.  Real shooters ain't got time for that.

"Be White"

World-famous figure skater Kim Yuna says, in her ads for Smoothie King, to "Be White." In Korea, that's sage advice. Just like the smoothie -- and Korean positive associations with things and people "white" -- one should be "soft" and "innocent." I even remember the 90's music group called "White" (화이트), which sang saccharine love ballads that overflowed with affected expressions of innocence, youthful purity, and other positive emotions that reflected true love unaldulterated by the vulgar passions. Those emotions would be too dark. Ahem.

EBS has finally done the experiment I had always wanted to do, since coming back to Korea in 2002, when anti-foreigner sentiment was peaking. I remember in the 90's, when I first came here, I'd take my friend Beth around for the "blue-eyed special," as we named it, where Koreans would give us free food, drinks, and even tickets to shit for free. "Welcome to Korea."

I did an impromptu experiment at a CGV once with a white friend in 2002, who went up to buy his movie ticket after me. I spoke in Korean, got my ticket, came back. My friend, without prompting for any of it, not only got a free ticket, the ticket girl, enamored of his white, manly good looks, apparently, gave him another free movie pass and her phone number. I mean, I'm not asking for extras, but come on. I do little experiments like these with my white friends ALL THE TIME.

KOREANS LOVE WHITE PEOPLE.

And if you're a brother with another color, well...they just don't like you.

Now, I'm not saying that every single person won't like colored folk, nor that individuals aren't nice to us brown and black people -- but in the aggregate, Korean society just don't like black or brown people. And if a Filipino is standing on the street looking for something, he ain't gonna get nobody giving directions, walking his ass to the station, or even getting offered a phone number. The darker he is, it's much more likely that the police might come and stop him and ask what he's doing, and if he has a valid visa. And if you can't produce one on demand, they can arrest you and take you in.

And to those white folks who continue to insist "well, *I* never had any problems, or love to pontificate on how it must all be in our (colored folks) imaginations (because they would know, right?), try to walk a day in an coolie's skin, a sandnigger's clothes, or even the three-piece suit of a jiggaboo from Nigeria. 'Cause that's all a South Asian, Arab, or black man is in Korea, until proven otherwise.

That's why I apply for jobs by sending in the resume first, following up with the phone call and doing the dog-and-pony show in Korean second, then hoping for a first date in the interview chair. Funny thing is, without exception, unless the institution was told what I look like from jump, I walk in at the appointed time and am greeted with, "And you are...?" or "How can I help you?" I then remind them that I am Michael Hurt and I've got an interview at 3PM, at which point the person at the door or desk is like "Oooooooh! YOU are Michael Hurt! Oh, come right in..."

Yeah, fuck you, too, I think, but keep it to myself.

Most fun was when I was first learning Korean in the 1990's, on my little island, and I'd go around with Beth. Since there was no English at all where I was, people had to speak Korean. In doing so, they would have to pick between who they thought was more likely to speak it, since Koreans assume 1) Korean is so amazingly more difficult than other languages and hard for foreigners to learn, and that 2) any foreigner who does must be really smart to have done so -- so they would always speak to Beth.

It was so frustrating and stupid that it was nearly hilarious. I'd be in a camera or electronics shop in Seoul doing pretty OK in Korean, asking questions about something I was looking for, and they'd answer back to Beth. The triangle would continue, even if I was the only one talking. That's changed in the 2000's, since there are a lot of brown and black folks come here to work who now speak a lot of Korean, which Koreans assume "they learned in the factory" since they had to -- and it's funny that those folks are given next to no credit for learning the language.

But as my former director, Dr. Horace Underwood III, liked to quip, "If a white man stumbles out an an-nyee-ong-ham-sheeeem-neeker," Koreans lose their goddamn minds. "Oh, you speak Korean so welllllll!" What-the-fuck-ever. 

Anyhoo, I propose more experiments!

How about a handsome, tall, black man and lithe, attractive Korean woman walk as a couple through the #1 subway line, from head to tail, on hidden camera? Watch the fun -- and verbal and perhaps even physical assaults -- ensue!

Or the same couple just walk through the Shinchon CGV as an obvious couple and watch all the people behind them snicker and point, as I did just a couple years ago? It was fucking ridiculous. Really? A couple at the movie theater?

Maybe we should have a black man in a suit try to get a cab next to his white buddy looking 90's-era Seattle grunge? Let's place bets! (I'm betting on Whitey, boys!)

Or sit an Indian man (or me!) on a crowded city bus and watch if the empty seat next to him is ever taken -- with a timer! First one who loses the bet that Koreans will choose to stand for an hour rather than sit to a dirty curry-eater buys lunch!

Oh, the fun we could have, EBS.

I'm game. Call me.

This Is How Much the Korean Media Hates Us

You know, every step of the way, I've been giving the warnings.

People scoffed when I said, years ago, that there was a "pattern" in the media's treatment of foreigners. Now, I doubt anyone can imagine it to be otherwise. You know, being a teacher here in Korea - even a foreign one - used to garner respect. And I'd say the quality of foreigners in Korea was much worse back when the numbers of foreigners wanting to live in Korea was low and the professionalization of the industry was in its infancy.

People actually gave me a lot of shit on this very blog when I warned that this pattern was dangerous and would lead to concrete consequences, such as changes in policy and even the laws. No one doubts that link today.

Yet, I'm the alarmist.

Now, a foreigner in need of obvious help commits suicide, and all the Korean media can do is fit it into the "evil foreigner" trope. Calls for screening alcoholism? Characterizing a man who is no different from the many people in this world, Korean or not, who was so hurt and tortured by something inside that he took to drink and then eventually took his own life as some kind of deviant or miscreant or criminal?

Has the discourse really gone this far? Don't you all see this as the last straw? How much has this discourse categorically dehumanized us so far that a newspaper can publish this kind of thing? A man has an alcohol problem and commits suicide, and he's added to the mental ticker in Koreans' heads of "deviant, criminal foreigners?"

Because there aren't any Koreans with alcohol problem, or killing themselves. 

I actually teared up when I read this, not so much because of the tragic death, to be honest. I'm another product of urban modernity, and my heart has hardened, unfortunately, to the reality of others' pain laid bare in the news.

But what really gets me -- and adds insult to this man's pain and injury to those who knew him -- was realizing just how MUCH the Korean media hates us, how much people have come to accept their construction of all foreigners as some kind of social monsters. 

It doesn't get any more callous, inhuman, and hypocritical than this.

We've become a social monster -- it's out of control.

I don't know what's worse -- the media's irresponsibility or the willingness of the everyday Korean person to believe the worst and most ridiculous things about us. 

It really is enough to make me stop caring about trying to fix things and just concentrate on becoming more commercially successful in my photography, stop reading the newspapers, and make that scrilla. Just get paid, get laid, and fuck thinking about social issues and problems. 

Maybe that's what happens when one starts bumping up against one's forties, or lived in Korea long enough, or just care too much.Who knows?

I think it's time to think more about making lots of money and buying bright, shiny things that will keep me distracted from the people in the world who obviously want to leave the place a shittier place than when they found it. 

Because, as you travel through life, you realize that there's nothing you can do about those people, and they're going to win in the end. Time to go make that money and meet more honeys. In the end, that's the only way to be comfortable, gain real power, not to mention regular health care.

Fuck it. I'm done.

You win, evil people in the world.

What a Dumbass, Racist Blog!

English Teachers Out -- how original.

With pictures that apparently draw a link between being an English teachers and being an interrogator at Abu Graib.

Riiiight.

Go over to the site, leave a piece of your mind (be smart and don't seem like whom they stereotype us to be), and let the warm sunshine of reasonableness and the truth be their own downfall. In other words, let their hyperbole and indignation-based-in-ignorance-and-racism be their own downfall.

Stupid people don't suddenly act smart when confronted by intelligent people. At best, they hem and haw themselves into irrelevant reasonableness (feigned as it may be) or they just break down into hysterics.

What they're going to do is come into my blog and try to find some choice post that they think they can exploit to embarrass me. Let them. It'll probably be some piece of sarcasm that they'll misinterpret. Or they'll simply try to paint me into one of their stereotypes of foreigners, which I don't fit, but that doesn't mean they won't try.

I doubt, however, they have anything meaningful to say about "English teachers" other than false accusations based in faulty or fraudulent statistics, or based in obvious racist motivations such as "the white men are dishonoring our sacred, Joseon maidens" or that we "spread AIDS" or...

...torture Korean children much like the prisoners of Abu Graib?

It's just stuff like that that means these guys will implode under their own sheer size, since there isn't much to the blog other than tired, old racist blowharding.

Let's blow 'em up and watch the fur fly, feeble arguments fall.

Oh, and let's see if the author has the cojones to sign his names to what he says. Or if he's like the rest of the cowards who populate the Internet with venom and vitriol...

The security blanket of anonymity, when taken away, generally reveals only rats and other vermin scurrying into the safety of darkness. 

My name's Michael Hurt and my email address is at the top right of this page.

English Teachers Out -- what are YOUR names?

Can you stand behind what you say? Are you proud of what you say?

I doubt it.

To the writer: you're a fucking coward.

Now, put me on blast in the Korean blogosphere and to Korean netizens, bitch.

I'll love it.

Top 10 Images, Cliches, and Other Annoying Contrivances That Korean Culture Promoters Should Stop Using

Why, you might ask, should certain images stop being used in advertisements and other promotions aimed at non-Koreans? Well, because they're cliched and trite, mostly, and based upon faulty assumptions of what foreigners know/can know about Korea. They also are images that are the result of an ethnocentric myopia that produces images of what Koreans think foreigners should see about Korea, as opposed to what a non-Korean might want to see. Cases-in-point: putting singer Rain in a "Korea, Sparkling" ad when most people in the target market has no idea who he is. Means a lot to Koreans, but nothing to non-Koreans. Same with an ad that put Korea's president at the time on the screen, which was an expression of desperation in itself -- note, you shouldn't have to put your nation's political leader into tourism ads, hawking the nation's wares, especially when no one knows what he looks like. Besides you, that is.

And certain images, such as b-boys breakdancing, has meaning more to Koreans than outsiders. What do break dancers mean to Koreans? The practitioners and the only-recently-recognized art form in Korea symbolize a shift to more cultural openness and a new fusion that exists between "East" and "West" and are living symbols of the "new" that goes with Korea's "old." We're dynamic and hip, dude!

To say, North Americans and especially beyond, they're symbols of American culture. Or black American culture. What do break dancers have to do with Korea, again? Oh -- I get it. Korea's hip and cool. Err, kinda. It's trite and cliched. Think about it another way. I'm watching a commercial promoting Malaysia as the "new destination in Asia" or some shit. And then I see break dancers pop-locking across the screen. WTF?

So, with that, I begin the perfunctory and arbitrary Top Ten list of images, cliches, and other annoying contrivances that I never, ever want to see again, and which sully or confuse Korean brand imaging:

10) People breakdancing, especially with other folks in Korean traditional clothing and/or playing traditional Korean instruments. I just think -- why the fuck am I watching "Breaking: Electric Boogaloo" in some Korean tourism spot? And anyway, it's cliche. Get over this image, please.

9) Grinning Korean celebrities smiling and holding their arm out in any welcoming gesture, or in the direction of another graphic. We don't know who they are, and even if we do, it looks desperate. Kim Yuna sells everything, but I don't want to see her in her skates in a Korean tourism ad. Do you really think that makes me want to come to Korea more, or does it just make you look desperate to try anything?

8) Foreigners marveling at things that are actually quite normal, or at least not worth busting a nut over. Like trying a dish, at which point a look of astonishment and wonder washes over the white face of the taster, who then gives an overly-hearty thumbs up and a smile right into the camera. Cue vomiting.

7) Obviously forced shots of foreigners looking into the camera and yelling unison the words "Fighting" or "Number one!" Or the words "I love Korea!" It's obvious and contrived, unconvincing, and I'm not fucking 5 years old. Korean media people underestimate their audiences, even their own Korean ones. People these days watch The Sopranos, CSI, 24, and other shit. The average media consumer isn't a child anymore. And web-savvy and relatively more media-sophisticated foreigners certainly don't respond to "Korean kimchi, number one! I love Korea!" That's just plain fucking lame and lazy.

6) Any swooshing graphics, energetic bass lines punctuating video, or those awful synthesizer orchestra "hits." No trumpets played over news footage of Koreans winning any prize, and you only get to show either the national flag or a graphic of the peninsula on the map, not both, and only once.

5) No images of factories producing cars, robotic arms putting microchips onto a circuit board, or Korean tech workers wearing white suits in a clean room, inspecting a machine part prominently in front of their visor and before the camera. For that matter, no shots of Koreans in anything white, for safety's sake. That would eliminate the danger of researchers in white jackets, scientists in white jackets, or doctors in white jackets. Taekwondo is an exception, though. Those things they wear when doing the cool, jumpy, spinny stuff aren't jackets.

4) The use of any superlatives. Korea is the "best" or "most" of anything, or being the anything-est in Asia, or the "first" when they weren't (note Yonsei, you weren't/aren't "the first and the best" at anything, at least according to any list I've seen lately). Koreans just literally make that shit up, and it just sounds either arrogant or annoying, and often, both. Shit, even Harvard would never arrogate themselves to have a slogan like "the first and the best", even though there's some legitimate argument to both claims. You just sound like a dick.

3) Authoritative narrative voiceovers. Try to sound friendly and engaging. Again, not like a know-it-all dick. Western media left that behind in the 1960's. Except for James Earl Jones saying "This is CNN" or something, which is cool. But there's a reason Morgan Freeman does so many voiceovers. He's nice. James Earl Jones was Darth Vader. Americans are afraid of Darth Vader. He's your father, he cut off your arm, and he's a dick. Westerners don't like authority. Koreans are still used to Park Chung Hee, Chun Doo Hwan-style, apparently. In Korea, father still knows best, it seems. In the West, daddy cut off our arm, symbolically castrated us, and that pisses us off. Germans, Italians, and many others don't like big daddy figures any more (you know who I'm talking 'bout, ya'll). Darth Vader encapsulated western fears in 1980's "The Empire Strikes Back," as he uttered the words that reverberated in our culture across the decades, with "No, Luke. *I* am your father." He was the big, black dick who threatened the very integrity of the known universe. Anyway, it's very Freudian. Just trust me on this one.

2) Don't ever make a picture of a Korean woman in a royal, Chosun-era hanbok prominently using a cellphone again, ever. EVER. I threw up a little bit in my mouth when I saw that.

1) Stop using the word "wave" with anything related to Korea again. The "wave" has ebbed, and no one but Koreans who read their own press releases (because that's what the reporting generally was) believed in any fucking "wave," anyway. And once the suits got into it, they ruined it, anyway. You raised censorship restrictions, Korean media has high production values these days, you no longer live in a military dictatorship and have actual freedom of expression. So now, you have some media that non-Koreans might actually find interesting. Cool. Don't get a huge fucking complex, or have a touchdown party every time some Korean actor shows up in a 3rd-rate Hollywood film. You're not destined to "take over" or "dominate" anyone else's film industry. You just have freedom of speech, good production values, and more artists making cultural products than during the old days of dictatorship and economic deprivation. Cool, we like you, welcome to the club. Just attend a few meetings before declaring yourself president.

So, IS That Nigga Crazy?

Well, no. 

But I did feel angry about only one thing, to those paying attention -- I was mad at Robert, whom I consider a friend and colleague. For those who remarked I was "proving him right," actually, not. I didn't think much in particular about the statistic or the survey in question besides, "Oh, that's interesting." There's nothing to get angry about, from where I sit. 

Me and Robert hung out last night, as planned because of an overlapping engagement, and drank makkoli with a bunch of other blogger folks. While we joshed around about it, I did express in person what the whole thing was about -- I don't appreciate the comments in his peanut gallery, many of which are outright racist, although most of the frat boys over there engaging in it pat themselves on the back, thinking their comments pass as some sort of incisive wit, e.g. "Yeah, Metro was conceived out of the same slime that the dude fucking that Korean chick on video probably had running out of her pussy!" Metropolitician rant in 3...2...1...

Witty. See, it's just plain old racist locker room banter, with the boys going "Let's see if we get a rise out of him." Well, yeah, you're being a racist prick. For example, in the post with the video with the black dude who filmed a Korean chick having sex with him, that man has nothing to do whatsoever with my father except he's BLACK. The dumbass Korean chick in the video with him has nothing to do with my mother except she's KOREAN. I'm not in the conversation, have nothing to do with this situation other than my parents' RACES. And making jokes about my deceased father, who never made sex tapes of hapless Korean women, or my mother, who worked hard to re-attend college and get her bachelor's degree in the US after her Korean degree didn't transfer over, become a registered nurse and become one of the senior staff in the intensive care unit at one of the biggest hospitals in the Ohio tri-state area -- yeah, I get to brag about my mama -- she has a strong a logical relationship to some whore some black dude picked up for a one-night stand and put on the Internet as the topic of human rights does to a discussion of Chinese politics. Other than the obvious fact that "Duurgh, they're black and Korean." 

Which is racist as a motherfucker -- period. It's not funny. None of those white motherfuckers on the Hole would ever say that to my face, because they know they'd leave my face minus an eye or two. But it passes as witty banter on the Hole, as does any random discussion in which people want to bring up random, irrelevant bullshit and then attach my name to it, as if my name was Bennett and I was all all innit.

That's why, to the unobservant, I seem "sensitive." To those who listen to what I say and know me in person, they know I say shit, and respond to shit, because I treat what people say to me as what they SAY, and I don't say shit in writing that I wouldn't say to someone's face. 

Back to Robert, I'm not mad at him for him saying anything racist himself, nor do I consider him a racist. But, given the fact that he DOES often police his comments, and that he HAS been known to ban people, it has bothered me that out-and-out racist assholes get to act their worst on the Hole, as do outright sexist pricks, but nothing is ever said, not a word gets spoken to be cautious. I'm not talking about censorship, but plain old racial slurring. 

It's not condoning the behavior, but it certainly not sanctioning against it. And in 1) bringing me up from out-of-the-blue, and 2) expressing such a fundamental misunderstanding of my personality as to think that particular news story would at all get me "angry" -- I was pretty surprised and disappointed with The Marmot at that point in time. 

Of course, we hashed it out over makkoli and noodles, two literally big bloggers having at it, as it were. But I think he got -- and I said this in person -- that I didn't appreciate him encouraging the exact kind of behavior, even if not in degree, but in type, that his dumbest commenters engage in. 

This is more of a personal beef, with a longer context than most casual readers here are aware of. Back to even that psychopath Scott Burgeson, who contacted me via email from out-of-the-blue, yelling and screaming about why I was avoiding him and not reacting to some proposal I'd never heard of, and then cursing me out even further for asking him to clarify himself, before finally getting irritated and telling him to go fuck himself after the fifth time-wasting exchange. On the Marmot, he published my last, irritated email in which I told him to go fuck himself, as if he wasn't being a complete psychopath by yelling and screaming at me in his own emails from 9:04 in the morning. I simply countered by publishing the entire exchange, which was brought on my Scott crossing that line, at which point The Marmot deleted the entire exchange, and I was known as having had a non-existent "public breakdown" online, an impression the Hole didn't counter or clear up. Of course, I should have just stopped publishing on the Hole and taken it home to here, but I didn't. And anyway, after that, I never published anything worth discussing on the Hole again. Although the commenters didn't forget about it. 

Hence, my extreme irritation at the "taking my pills" comment, because I've been pissed about that implication of having "lost my marbles" simply because I decided to call Scott Bug's lying bluff and show what was said, from the very beginning. Because again, HE was buzzing in MY ear -- I've never met Scott Burgeson, I've never contacted him, and I could give a fuck as to whether he lives or dies. But he, figureatively, picked up the phone and called ME, not the other way around. And then decided to act like I went buck wild on HIM. A clear sign of paranoid schizophrenia, by the way. 

Anyway, I call shit as I see it, and always have been. And since then, I'm sick of my name being brought up in shit I ain't in, then being called to task for reminding them that I ain't got nothing to do with the conversation. Then, when I say that, it's like, "Aha! We got him!"

Fucking juvenile.

And from where I sat, eating my oatmeal and going through Digg and other blog feeds, I was pretty irritated to see that Robert was seemingly encouraging it by example. 

And yeah, I can see why people think I "overreacted." I myself hesitated for minutes, thinking about whether to hit "Publish" or not. But I wanted to publicly say -- while expressing my irritation directly to that friend -- that my reputation for jumping into conversations and being THAT guy is so unearned. I keep any ranting I do to HERE -- I don't know why Marmot's Holers have such a boner for me that they keep bringing me up, having fantasy conversations about what they think I WOULD say in all kinds of situations. The only thing I post about over there  in YEARS has been a video about Korea's first astronaut (including completely uncalled for banter about whether I "banged" her or not -- WTF?!), free movie tickets to a Tarantino premiere here in Seoul (to which commenter Whitey once again brought up the non-issue of me mentioning my school names or other lines on my resume, something that seems to bother only him and a few other commenters, since they seem to remember my resume details better than me), or about Seoul Fashion Week, which also brought another attempt at a jab, which I didn't grace with an angry rant, either.

I was just pissed to see the Marmot himself, in my eyes, encouraging his own peanut gallery. And I've expressed as much in person. 

So, there's no battle, no war, no Godzilla vs. Mothra showdown in Seoul going to happen. From one blogger to another, I got mad at something I thought was inappropriate. I get Robert's point and true intention that it was light ribbing -- I truly do, and there are not lingering hard feelings about it. I can take a lot of ribbing, and do in person -- how can you be fat, black, and look like a Samoan while living in Korea if you can't? 

I was just pissed at Robert for a minute, and basically told him what I'd tell him in person, had he been around to be on the receiving end of me spitting up my oatmeal. "Dude -- WTF?!" Anyway, I don't regret it -- that's how I felt at the time, and there's a LOT of context around it, to me. Now, Robert knows about it. He can do what he wants -- it's his blog. I'm just saying that, as a friend and colleague, I wouldn't tolerate people constantly attacking, say, his or his wife's racial or ethnic origins, nor his future kids, or allow them to be compared to some slime running out of blah, blah, blah. You get it. 

And since I'd draw the line at that, I kind of hoped that Robert could draw his own lines about how to deal with his many racist and sexist commenters, in addition to the tendency for his commenters to drag the conversation down to the lowest levels possible a lot of the time. 

That Nigga Crazy!

Here I am, eating a late-night bowl of oatmeal for dinner, checking out the blogs that I've missed out on reading for the last couple weeks. So, no matter what you think, remember who started this shit -- and it ain't ME.

Sooooo -- over at The Marmot, it's now not just belligerent commenters, but the founder himself, who suggests that I must be crazy (hence, the pill-taking, I assume) because 1) I report that I am regularly harrassed in places such as the subway in Korea, along with dozens of other instances I can cite, as well as countless other people whom I know and 2) he implies that I either bring it upon myself or, alternatively, must be crazy to report it back to others as a pattern. 

This is the same ribbing (and source of doubtful stares) that I get from most of my white male friends who constantly counter with, "Well, nothing ever happens to ME" but then go on to either doubt or discount my experience with harrassment as somehow not being reflective of reality. Because the white man's experience is obviously the valid one, or those of the majority. Same with Koreans who counter with, "Well, no one ever harrasses ME." Uh, duh?

Well, Robert, I'm not a white man who walks around the city wearing a white hanbok. That might make our experiences a tad different.

And as for the report, I don't see why it's assumed that its mere existence would send me into some kind of rage, or a bout of apopleptic writing rage. I don't doubt at all that a good number or Koreans welcome multiculturalism and are open to new ways of doing things in society, as reflected in that survey. It still doesn't change the fact that a good number of angry, drunk men constantly single me (and certain kinds of other people whom they seem to be bothered by) on the subway and other places for harrassment.

It doesn't change the fact that, if you're black in Korea, you either need major personal connections or a golden resume just to get the same shitty hagwon jobs they hand out to any white folks with a pulse here.

Or, regarding how the report talks about there being few reports on attacks against foreigners here, it might be because a police officer actually TOLD me that a foreigner's testimony has no meaning against a Korean's, when I was arrested for calling the police on the drunk man who was harassing ME. They just don't keep those statistics, Bob.

What's most annoying is the fact that people who read about my irritation with these things assume it's because I "hate Korea" -- rather than look at all the things I like to do here, from photography to podcasts to all kinds of personal reasons I like living here, and see that it really, really, really irritates me that a few assholes can ruin the entire party. 

I like living in Korea, and it's BECAUSE of that fact that little things like being called a nigger on the train, being verbally attacked in Seoul Station in front of a cop who does nothing, or having a good friend have to go back to the States last month because her recruiter straight up TOLD her that it was too hard to get her another job because she was black -- shit like that can ruin your day.

It's BECAUSE I like Korea, because I've worked hard to learn the culture and language and society, that stuff like this bothers me, Bob.

You want to bring up my blog out-of-the-blue, based on a random news peg? What about the many reports that now reflect the fact that yes, random violence against women is on a major rise, another thing I've been anectdotally arguing is the case, for about 4 years now, and which cell phone cameras and YouTube videos are also starting to bear witness to. It's funny how, from when the police started keeping those kinds of stats, this violence has been on the rise. So, it's crazy to say that this might also be the case with foriegners? Does this make me a person in need of taking "his pills?"

You don't seem to consider any of the OTHER shit I say, which ain't too crazy -- I guess now you just like to pick and choose fights with the personality, much like your commenters.

Remember, Robert, YOU brought this shit up, brought my name into this, and implied in front of thousands of readers that I would have an extremely violent reaction and a specific opinion to this topic (which I don't) -- all completely UNSOLICITED by me, out-of-the-blue. Just like your commenters, I'm not only not even talking about any of this within earshot of you people, I'm not even THERE for the conversation -- YET YA'LL KEEP BRINGING ME UP.

My reaction to something like that isn't unreasonable, nor unexpected. I'm not in your grill, nor on your blog, talking about race, violence, or anything else -- I've been wise enough not to even broach any serious topic on your blog, what with the puerile nature of your commenters. Even with that, I've always either linked to or written on your blog respectfully, and spoken of you in the same way. We don't see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, but I thought there was at least respect as colleagues.

So I don't see the need, or how it's at all appropriate to be talking about me going into histrionics, needing to "take my pills," or some such shit, basically making me the unsolicited whipping boy for all that is liberal, related to race, or blackness in your part of the blogosphere. Like the post about the black dude who filmed himself fucking some Korean chick on secret camera, where some commenter started talking about my MOTHER and something to do with the slime or other bodily fluids that your commenters guffawed about me being the result of. And I know you DO sometimes intervene and police your commenters -- just not for unsolicited, disgustingly racist comments. You tacitly approve them, and probably find them as funny as your peanuts gallery apparently does.

Because now, you're apparently participating in the baiting. Because that's what it is when I'm sitting over here eating my fucking oatmeal only to read about how you apparently think, like your readers, that I'm some fucking comic book character who's lost his marbles, is going to go vitriolic batshit over anything touching the subject of race, or is constantly engaging in self-serving name-dropping when YOU people are the only ones bringing either me, or that shit, UP.

I expect as much from your commenters, but not from you. I was pretty goddamn surprised, actually.

So, a very hearty "fuck you" to you, Bob.

Now, of course, I expect criticism that I'm overreacting, or that I'm being sensitive, or some such. But the bottom line is that your little post steps over the line of reasonableness and just plain level of professional regard that I'VE always kept up, no matter what bilious bilge your comments section brought up, no matter how much we disagreed occasionally on political shit or issues. Now you're engaging in the same immature baiting that I made the conscious decision in my head to just blame your COMMENTERS for. Now, after not having had anywhere near a serious discussion within miles of you or your peeps, you wanna just start randomly calling me out, implying I'm the same Loony Tune I thought just your commenters like to think of me as? That shit was uncalled for, Robert.

As they say on the playgrounds where black folks go, "Don't start no shit, won't be none."

 

Oh, Go Screw Yourself, "GO! Overseas!"

Just got tweeted a link from some site called "GO! Overseas", which has a "10 Don'ts for Teaching Abroad in South Korea." Sounds like it was written with the following editorial guidelines in mind: "Be as frank as possible, but don't make Korea look bad, since we're a promoter of overseas workers and need to make everything seem as pleasant as possible." With your amateurish, out-of-focus classroom shot and generic stock image of Korea.

Typical seeming helpful-but-not pap. Like any of you idiots have any deep knowledge of the problems on the ground here.

What really got me, though, was the following quote at the end of their insipid article:

For some reason, there are teachers in Korea who don’t like teaching and don’t like Korea. Do they leave? Some do, but others opt to stay on and gripe to anyone who will listen about how things “make no sense here.” Stay away from these downers. Instead, make friends who enjoy teaching and who can help you through your problems. Make friends with Koreans who can explain why certain cultural bits are the way they are. Just don’t bitch. You’re only spreading negativity.

Readers, you all will have to excuse me, because I'm gonna have to make it raw for these idiots.

A hearty "fuck you" to Go! Overseas.

"For some reason?" You know, I am really sick and tired of this glossing over of why perfectly decent college graduates from North America, who are no better or worse than their peers, overall, get no understanding as to why many "gripe" or "complain" after working here. I've seen and sent (with recommendations) many an undergraduate I taught in my classes to Korea. I myself went on a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) in 1994, well before the English teacher boom started. I saw the Korean government's horrible attempt to launch a program like ours -- the EPIK/KORETA program -- fail miserably in its first years, and continue to limp along today. I see the thousands of kids coming to work their first jobs in hagwons get crunched on by this very corrupt, largely unregulated system and spit out again.

It's not the kids, folks.

Let's just talk about the Fulbright ETA program, which has a primary goal of promoting cultural exchange and international understanding -- not exploiting these kids for all the English they can get. Beginnning with this markedly different assumption, we also get an applicant pool with a ratio of about 1/5 people applying being accepted. Fulbright ETA is actually not super-comepetitive, actually. But it scrutinizes enough. And we don't even have TESOL or any certificates! Yet, we've always been the most-desired teachers in any provinces. What keeps the experience pretty positive? The Fulbright office in Seoul is an advocate for the TEACHER, not the school or institution. Go into KORETA and you're getting screwed on your contract? You don't have anyone in your corner. We also have a 2-month orientation, including language training and all kinds of pedagogical work, from the history of the Korean education program to classroom workshops, lesson planning, etc. Fulbright draws upon the same pool of kids who are always accused of "bitching," yet our program's turnover rate is nearly negligible, and our returnee rate getting higher every year. And the Korea ETA program has been lauded by the US State Department (who sponsors it) as not only one of the best programs of its type, but one of the best-run ETA programs of any country with one.

Why is that? And why did Fulbright turn down the Korean government cold when it proposed expanding the Fulbright ETA program to "2000 by 2000" in 1994? After which it began its KORETA (later, EPIK, after that program's massive failure) program?

Because Korea is a backwards country when it comes to business adminsitration, strategic organizational planning, human resources management, and simply the fine art of doing business and sticking to contracts.

I know many, many businesspeople who HATE doing business in Korea, or bitch about it to no end, for the same reasons as English teachers do. There is no respect for contracts here, there is little recourse for breach of contract or illegal treatment, and often, Koreans will just plain lie when entering into a business relationship.

So, it is precisely BECAUSE Fulbright in Seoul runs interference for its grantees that the vast majority of us (myself included) have a positive experience as an English teacher here in Seoul.

Now, I won't even list the comedy of errors that is common to just about any Korean government-run program. Suffice it to say that it is a matter of INTERESTS. The government-run programs have the same set of interests as a hagwon does, which is telling: "Milk that teacher for all s/he's worth, for as little money as possible. And since they are essentially indentured servants with no legal recourse or rights (as a practical matter, anyways), we can violate contract terms and generally act like dicks. Or you can go the fuck home."

And many do, after completing their contracts. A few even do a "midnight run." It's really funny that no one ever asks the question of why foreigners sometimes do break their contracts and just go home. Most of the people who come here are not surly losers who plan to uproot themselves from all they know, move to East Asia, and plan to dedicated a year or two of their life to working here, fresh out of college. I would characterize most of these people as being possessed of some sense of adventure, discovery, and a desire to have some decent fun while doing it.

And what do they find here? Not only are many disillusioned by the lies they've been told, their work environments are very unprofessional. Given no specific training on-site, with textbooks that are often handed to them the day of class, and the supervision of mostly uncouth and crass owners, emotional and overly partial Korean managers, and the illogic of Korean office management, on top of having no help with cultural adjustment, etc.

These young kids go negative, get unprofessional, and start hating "Korea." Which they don't, but their work life defines 90% of "Korea" to them, and it SUCKS.

So, those who tend to have a negative view of Korea are those who tend to have a negative work experience, in my broad base of experience. And by extension, many young people who come in through different vectors -- internships, exchange programs, etc. -- tend to be far more positive.

And again, many of those in say, the ETA program, have had a positive experience by virtue of the fact that we have ample PROTECTION from same backwards administrative practices, etc. Because they do HAPPEN, but we have a particularly well-connected HAMMER OF THOR who can squash just about any problems that comes up, such as when your country-ass principal starts grumbling about farming you out to the local community college because his best friend works there, or your vice-principal starts bitching about why you shouldn't just sit in your desk staring into space until 5PM, like the other teachers, when your last class ends at 11AM. Like you can do anything useful in the school, anyway, as a foreigner.

Point is, the big, motherfucking, fat elephant in the room is KOREAN ADMINISTRATIVE PRACTICE and UNPROFESSIONALISM, which even Koreans are sick and tired of, but just can't do anything about.

OK, BREATHE.

You really want to know how to have a good experience in Korea teaching English? You don't need 10 fucking tips from an idiotic copywriter. You need only two, from someone on the ground, who yeah, hates Korean business culture, but doesn't hate Korea.

1) Find a program like the American-run Fulbright ETA program or something similar, which has someone running interference for you and has your back if you have a problem.

2) Try to find a job or Korean-run program in which you've heard people had generally good experiences, not by fiat of luck, but because of the administrative practices themselves.

And go fuck yourselves, Go! Overseas for publishing pap that you try to pass off as "helpful tips," while avoiding conversation about the real problem and blaming the victims.

Again, a hearty "Fuck you," Go! Overseas!