Seoulscapade

On concentration camp horrors in North Korea

After having read The Aquariums of Pyongyang, I knew what to expect with this book, the tale of Soon Ok Lee’s 6 years in a North Korean labor camp.

First of all, it’s all the same to call it a labor camp, a concentration camp, a death camp, a prison, when speaking of prison camps in a Stalinist state. The idea of these camps is to provide cheap labor for gangsters presiding over a country that is an economic basket case. That was why Stalin worked 20 million to death.

The toll of the Kim dynasty–Kim Il Sung and his idiot son Kim Jong Il–is probably now also in the millions. Eventually, the number of deaths they are responsible will come to light, and they will join the ranks of modern history’s most reviled and detested mass murdering gangsters, such as Pol-Pot, Stalin and Hitler.

Tailless Animals shows you why. But it’s no Gulag Archipelago, far from it. Solzhenitsyn’s record is up there with the greatest, it’s a literary classic, and one my favorite books of this “genre,” if I can call it that. Tailless Animals is at the other end of the scale. It is not written well and is pretty simple in terms of expression and ideas. It almost seems as if it were written according to a checklist.

So much is left out. You get stark facts but no real attempt to evoke what conditions were like. On the other hand, as a steady and objective account of the depths of human depravity, it serves its purpose. It could be excused as written by someone using their second language, or as a translation, but I tend to think for such an important subject, perhaps more effort could have been made. And the sketches here and there are a waste of space. They appear to have been Americanized, with hardly Asian looking characters, which struck me as bordering on stupid if not insulting. They make it look like a child’s story. Was it to illicit more sympathy from dumb American readers? Regardless, it was a poor decision by the publishers.

Christian publishers, that is, so you can skip the Christian intro. I could have done without the Christian sentiments toward the end, but I guess they were a part of what the author became. Koreans have a habit of getting sucked in by religion as much as they have been by Confucian dictators. No, god didn’t make the birds fly out at the right time to cover any noise Lee made when seeking to cross North Korea’s border. No, the guards let her into Hong Kong because your fake IDs were good not because of god’s smoke and mirrors. Well, whatever gets her through the night.

The Senate hearing testimony she gave contains details that aren’t in the book. For one thing, the ability to bury all factory workers en masse in underground tunnels, if guards wanted to, are absent; for another, the biological experiments conducted on prisoners. Why were things like that left out? I can only wonder.

Despite my criticisms, everyone needs to read this book, as they do the others I’ve mentioned. North Korea is a poisoned land, operating on corruption, greed and thuggery such that decency cannot survive there. It really gets to me that the world knows North Korea is like this and has concentration camps but does nothing–scared of Chine, no doubt. Politics means that the people that get stuck the the death camps simply have no hope, except for the very, very lucky few.

It has been said to me by a Korean that this generation of Koreans is not enthusiastic about reunification with North Korea or its collapse. They know it would me a huge aid and rebuilding debt they would have to pay. It’s pretty disheartening. Sometimes I think I have a deeper loathing for Kim Jong Ill and his gangster cronies than the average Korean does.

Portrait of a Megalomaniac

I see in Korea’s young and not so young generations a preoccupation with other things, primarily their social mobility and financial success. They are fashion victims and brand whores. Like the Japanese, they spend far too much time watching the idiot box, obsessed with banal and formulaic soaps, with an endless collection of utterly trivial game shows and sophomoric comedy programs.

All of these diversions are self-centred and inward looking, all seemingly a little too smug and self-congratulatory over their own wit, cuteness or cultural uniqueness. They exhibit misplaced importance at every turn, and in that are mirrors of benumbed audiences that take superficial concerns and artificial emotions for something meaningful—oblivious or uncaring that it is all of minimal interest or importance to the world at large.

It’s all utterly mindless garbage, and though I cannot understand the language, I can see quite clearly the brainwashing repetition of patterns in all of it. Every soap episode has someone crying and people shouting at each other. TV here is like the music business, a tireless and endless stream of copied ideas and mediocre, barely disguised repetition, of aimless thrills and celebrity gossip.

When I first came to the country I thought K-pop was cute, interesting and technically advanced. But even then I could hear the stolen musical cliches and chord changes. Some songs sounded like a cynical rendering of sound bites taken from carefully selected pop classics of the last few decades. Now I just cringe when I hear K-pop and its mindless lack of originality, its pointless, boy-meets-girl blather. It makes me cringe as much as the soaps do. I even get angry at the vacuity of it all and how it contributes to complacency in all things.

A preoccupation with stupid diversions, self-centred trivia and the vanities of shopping—this is my impression of what mainstream Korea has become. I’m not saying everyone is like this. But it does seem to characterize the mainstream, and in that, I guess, it imitates much Western pop culture, which is guilty of the same excesses and even more culpable for starting it all.

The facade

The difference is that while South Koreans amuse themselves with mindless trivia, half of Korea—their own people, if the “one blood” myth has any credence—is suffering under a dictatorship whose cruelties are on the scale of the Nazis and Stalinist Russia. Everyone has known this for decades. The concentration camps can even be seen on satellite photos all over the web. Yet, nothing is done to liberate the 100s of thousands that are being kept in such places, like animals in a factory farm, right now, as you read this.

It seems that very few people in South Korea want their lives interrupted or disrupted by upheaval in North Korea.

Though it is difficult to see any other solution except war. To my mind, it would be over very quickly, perhaps in two weeks, and you would not get the protracted terrorist resistance seen in Irag. I should think that the upper echelons could be eliminated fairly quickly, the infrastructure would collapse within days. However, before anything, the concentration camps would have to be liberated, and with lightening speed, otherwise mass murder will result. Authorities allegedly already have a mass murder plans in place to cover everything up.

Afterwards, I’m sure if the populace could get a hold of him, Jong Ill would end up Mussolini style, hung upside-down like a pig after being shot or with his throat cut, though that is too easy and too good for him.

And what has inspired this rant? Well, learning about the book Eyes of the Tailless Animals: Prison Memoirs of a North Korean Woman and reading the Senate hearing testimony of its author, Soon Ok Lee. The book is 10 years old and I had not heard about it. I’d already read The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag and discovered in that the horrors of North Korea. I also knew about Dong Hyuk Shin. But there is a lot of evidence out there.

This got me thinking that there is too much forgetting, too much complacency out there, in South Korea as much as anywhere else. So, all of the above has been by way on introduction for presenting some material about the hell of North Korean concentrations camps, doing my part in spreading the word that everyone has to know about.

First, here is the incredible story of Dong Hyuk Shin. He was born and raised in a concentration camp because his parents were classed as criminals. Conveniently, this adds to the supply of slave labor, which is what the concentration camps are really all about. Shin lived in a camp for about twenty-three years as a slave laborer. He endured constant beatings, torture, starvation, and witnessed the execution of his family members.

Lifetime prisoners like Shin were not taught about the existence of Kim il-Sung and Kim Jong-il because it was assumed they would never leave their camps. It’s amazing to think, given that the main tool of Stalinist or communist regimes for brainwashing and spreading lies has always been propaganda. It enslaves the minds of people outside the prisons. To abandon even that shows how the prisoners were fated to die in prison without any propaganda wasted on them.

Second, the testimony of Soon Ok Lee is worth reading, and I’ve included it here in an it’s entirety.

The mentality of Baby Kim

End of rant, for today.

A great deal was advertised on TV in Seoul recently where you could get a new LG Cyon mobile phone—the strangely named Viewty, model KH2100, for only 26,000 won. It included a charger in the deal and since we needed an extra one of those, we bought the phone.

It’s got all the stuff you’d expect of a latest hand phone, including a cool touch screen instead of any buttons (except for off and on). It came with a cable to hook the phone up to Cyon’s Mobile Sync software. Unfortunately, this software is all in Korean and some fonts just appear as questions marks on my English XP system. But after trial and error I could figure out how to import a CVS file of my numbers into the phone and sync pictures.

Separately from this software, it’s also possible to connect to the phone’s portable 450 MB disk to upload images, text files or music. Great, I thought, I’ll just copy over some MP3 files and away I go—wrong! Like many before me, I misread the signs. When it says MP3 in all advertising, on all of the phone’s music settings, and even on the name of the phone’s default music folder, it does not mean it plays MP3! How stupid of me to think so.

The Cyon can’t play MP3s. Instead, it plays KMPs, which I’ve never heard of. There’s not much info on the net, and I could only find a Mac program that would do conversions—don’t be fooled by something called a KMPlayer, it’s just like GOM Player and doesn’t do conversions—but then I stumbled onto a Korean blog with a small conversion program that thankfully works.

You can download it from here. You don’t need to install it, everything is ready to go in the folder.

Once again, like the Cyon software, this program is made for a Korean operating system so most fonts are question marks, as shown above. Through trial and error again, I figured out how to get it to work. Here are the steps following what I’ve illustrated in the image:

1. This is where you locate and load the MP3 file you want to convert.

2. Put your mobile number (or any number) in here. It won’t work without this.

3. Select the output directory.

4. Do the conversion, which takes about 2 seconds.

Just above the convert button is a button to clear the contents.

It’s called a Healing Tao, or at least that’s what’s stamped on the back of it. It’s supposed to be good for internal health, and according to my wife, a lot of people swear by it. And so does she now, after trialing it, and so do I, after hearing about and witnessing some of its effects.

So how do you use it? Well, all you do is lay on it, with those knobs pressing into your stomach. You’re supposed to do this for about half an hour or so. My wife managed 5 minutes before bed one night. It was simply too painful to continue. But that was enough for her because the next morning she was amazed at, um, how shall I put it, at how the final act of the digestive process had improved.

That’s essentially what the thing is for to aid the digestive process. The handles, I presume, are if you want to use it like a massaging machine. As for the handle with tapered end, I’d hate to think what that might be for. I’m sure it’s use does not involve anything painful. The knobs can be taken out to reduce the number of pressure points on the stomach, too.

I’ve noted that it causes burping pretty soon after you start laying on it. So, my skepticism has been cured to some extent. As for its full affects, I can’t be sure. I can only go on what people say. But what a curious invention. I’m also intrigue at how anyone would come up with such a contraption.

I guess he or she wanted to improve on hand massaging. Some of my wife’s friends massage their stomachs after meals to aid digestion, a technique that has probably been passed down from generation to generation. This thing is just an extension of that.

My wife can now last quite a while on it without groaning with pain. As for me, I’ll pass on it for the time being.

Yet again, primitive and barbaric behavior has been directed against innocent animals at a protest demonstration in Korea. In the picture above, pheasants are being slaughtered at a rally against Japan’s reiterated claims to territorial rights of Dokdo, a small group of rocky islands between Korea and Japan. Japan had published the claims in some teaching manuals.

Here’s how Al Jazeer reported the incident:

On Thursday protesters in Seoul staged a bloody demonstration outside the Japanese embassy, slaughtering live pheasants – Japan’s national bird – on the street.

. . .

Angry protesters battered, disembowelled and beheaded live pheasants, while dozens of war veterans in military fatigues shouted “Dokdo is our territory!” as they ate the birds’ internal organs and dripped blood on Japanese flags and on pictures of present and former Japanese leaders.

There were also banners that read “Stop violating our territorial sovereignty!” and “Japan must stop distortion of history”.

In April, Japan and South Korea held their first full-fledged bilateral summit in three years.

Ties were suspended after repeated visits by earlier Japanese leaders to a Tokyo shrine honouring the country’s war dead including convicted war criminals.

How pathetic. This does little to help Korea’s already poor standing in the world community in terms of its terrible animal welfare record. Nor does it help raise the consciousness of individual Koreans about the rights of animals, and most assuredly, a great deal needs to be done in that area.

Sections of the Korean community have a habit of slaughtering innocent animals at protest rallies. Apparently they do it to “express emotion.” I reported on another incident of this nature last year. At that incident, a young pig was suspended by ropes while someone hacked it to pieces with a knife—a most disgraceful, unmanly and cruel thing to do. No animal deserves a death like that. It did not cross the minds of these sadistic butchers that they were torturing to death what is essentially the child of another mammal.

It’s not emotion they are expressing at these protests, but their own backwardness and lack of intelligence. Animals sacrificed to “express emotion” are of course entirely innocent, with no connection at all to human affairs. And to abuse and exploit them as scapegoats is truly primitive. It’s the kind of thing ignorant peasants did two thousand years ago.

The grown men in the picture above should be ashamed of themselves.

I just came across news about a former court poet for North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, who escaped North Korea and has become a best-selling author in South Korea. The poet goes by the name of Jang Jin-sung, and his poems portray the horrors of poverty and hunger in North Korea.

I felt I have to spread the word about him because I have a loathing of that clown, Kim Jong-il, even though I am not Korean. Here’s what Jang Jin-sung was reported to have said about Kim Jong-il, according to the Asia Times.*

The first time I met Kim Jong-il, I felt overwhelmed with emotion…. But once I realized that he was the world’s richest king, ruling over the poorest country on the face of the Earth, that was a turning point.

To me, he was no longer a god, and I came to think that I could no longer live under that system. Preserving that regime while the people of North Korea are starving to death, that is an abomination.

There is no arguing with that. The volume of poetry Jang Jin-sung has published is called For 100 Won, My Daughter I Sell. Jang’s poem of the same title tells of the true story of a dying mother who sells her own daughter to a stranger for 100 won ($0.70 US cents), hoping it will help her child to survive. The mother then spends the money on a loaf of bread for the girl.

Here is the poem in translation:

Exhausted, in the midst of the market she stood
“For 100 won, my daughter I sell”
Heavy medallion of sorrow
A cardboard around her neck she had hung
Next to her young daughter
Exhausted, in the midst of the market she stood

A deaf-mute the mother
She gazed down at the ground, just ignoring
The curses the people all threw
As they glared
At the mother who sold
Her motherhood, her own flesh and blood

Her tears dried up
Though her daughter, upon learning
Her mother would perish of a deadly disease
Had buried her face in the mother’s long skirt
And bellowed, and cried
But the mother stood still
And her lips only quivered

Unable she was to give thanks to the soldier
Who slipped a hundred won into her hand
As he uttered
“It is your motherhood,
And not the daughter I’m buying
She took the money, and ran

A mother she was,
And the 100 won she had taken
She spent on a loaf of wheat bread
Toward her daughter she ran
As fast as she could
And pressed the bread on the child’s lips
“Forgive me, my child”
In the midst of the market she stood
And she wailed.

Apparently, Jang witnessed this incident, as he describes:

It happened at a market in the Tongdaemun district of Pyongyang. A lot of people witnessed that tragic scene and cried that day,” he said.

As they watched her, she tried to appear unaffected in the beginning, but after she gave her daughter that mother’s parting gift, one last piece of bread, and as she wailed, all the onlookers broke into tears. Even now, my eyes still tear up when I think of that instant.

Another poem in his collection is “Our Food,” which presents the image of a kitchen where thick tree bark is ground with a hammer, then mixed with caustic soda and boiled.

Another poem, “The Tastiest Thing in the World,” was written in remembrance of Jang’s younger brother who died of starvation. The younger brother had said that the finest food he had eaten was the food in one of his dreams.

I look forward to the death of Kim Jong-il. Let’s hope North Korea is free soon.

* This post was based on work by Sookyung Lee for RFA’s Korean service. Korean service director: Kwang-chool Lee. Interview and poems translated by Grigore Scarlatoiu. Written and produced in English by Sarah Jackson-Han.

OK, here’s some explanation to the following. I’ve traveled a bit and have put up with what most have to while traveling without a fuss. But everyone has their limits and when you stand back and take a cold hard look at it, some things about traveling really suck.

Why I became so annoyed about what people commonly put up with is perhaps because I’ve been spoiled by the Korea’s excellent transport systems–far superior to those of Europe. This discrepancy, and the fact that I’m less tolerant than I used to be, has compelled to write of the following ordeal.

To start our 2 week vacation to the south of France in January, 2008, we had to endure a 10-12 hour flight to Paris, then transfer to a 1.3 hour flight to Nice, which was delayed for another couple of hours. It was wearying as you can imagine.

Livestock Conditions

I was dreading Flight AF 267 from Incheon to Paris because I knew it’d be grueling. As it turn out, it was, with additional unforeseen trials adding to the hardship.

The Boeing 777 used for this flight had a seating arrangement installed for economy that borders on the inhuman. I mean, I’m strongly against the appalling confinements livestock suffer, and in all fairness I also object to such conditions being applied to humans.  It was like a kind of torture and patently not suitable for 10-12 hour flights. I really think flight seating measurements should be looked into because I swear the airlines, or Air France at least, are shrinking them centimetre by centimetre each year, on the sly.

I am not a large person at just 77 kgs and I’m under 6 feet tall, but what I was expected to fit into gave me practically no moving space at all. It was similar, I guess, to what sows sufferer in factory farm gestation crates, which is torture. I find it hard to believe that anyone else could find this restricted space acceptable after paying so much for an airline ticket. Why do people put up with it?

I had to get out to stretch at one point and upon my return, while standing in the aisle, I was taken aback by the space I was expected to fit in. Just seeing it from that angle, I just couldn’t believe it. I stood there kind of stunned. I actually went and inspected other rows to check that my seating was not worse then everyone else’s.

The Three Little Pigs

As if the cramped quarters weren’t bad enough, we had what can only be described as inconsiderate arseholes sitting in front of us, who henceforth shall be known as the three little pigs. The pigs were French, by the way, not Korean. As soon as they sat down they inclined their seats as far back as they would go, and that’s how they stayed for the duration of the flight. That reduced my space considerably. Sometimes the guy in front of my was bouncing hard on his seat as if to try and force it back further. Unbelievable. It took a lot of restraint to keep my cool.

To be fair, the monk was not as bad, he actually raised his seat to eat meals. However, that was no help to us, since a fat lady was in front of my wife and the bouncer, a pompous prick with a nose like something on a gargoyle was in front me. Both of them were oblivious to any consideration towards us. As the flight began to drain our energies, we began to hate them.

It was also aggravating that the three little pigs had the seats by the exit door, so they had all the leg room they could want. And so, they spread themselves out in that direction as well by leaving items lying around their feet. They had to be asked several times by airline staff to pick up their things. But they pretty much ignored these directives.

In situations like this, I often give up because I don’t want to lower my standards to their level with petulant retaliations, and because I am sometimes benumbed by the sheer enormity of human stupidity and ignorance—so insurmountable that it is foolish to even bother to protest. It’s like when you a dealing with children, or even pigs, you indulge their lack of insight. It does not always do much to lessen the anger.

Double Standards by Air France

Does Air France use such a torturous seating arrangement because it’s a Korean flight and because there is a mistaken belief that Koreans are smaller than Caucasians? It is true that the Japanese are smaller on average than Caucasians, and it might have once been true of Koreans, but it is not true of the average Korean anymore. Air France needs to adjust its policy, not just for Caucasians like me flying out of Korea, but for Koreans, too.

On top of everything an incident occurred that could only be described as discrimination. My wife, who is Korean, was like me finding the confinement of the seating hard to cope with. By the way, she is somewhat smaller than me, and even she found it torturous. The woman in front of her ignored any protest. At one point, it got too much for my wife and she asked one of the stewards to get the person in front to put her seat up. The steward simply shrugged and did nothing. However, later, my wife noticed a steward asking a Korean passenger to put their seat up at the request of someone seated behind them.

Is there a special rule for French passengers and another rule for everyone else? It would seem so because, to add insult to injury, the rude people in front of us were not even made to put their seats up during meal service. Putting seats upright is usually a standard requirement on all airlines at meal times. Why does Air France not practice this policy? Do you have any idea how difficult it is to eat a meal when the person in front of you has the seat back as far as it will go?

The only advantage of nearly having my chest crush by the seat in front of me was that the video screen was now closer. This was useful because my video screen was tiny. As I later discovered, the screen sizes on seats were completely random as to who got a good screen and who didn’t. Some people had new larger screens while others like me, who presumably paid the same price for a ticket, got a tiny old fashion screen that was like watching an iPod. This only added to the resentment of the conditions I was expected to endure.

Why didn’t I put my seat back to give myself a few more inches? Because I hate to inconvenience the person behind me.

Vegetarian? Rabbit Food Will Do.

I was the subject of reverse discrimination, however, because I had pre-ordered a vegetarian meal. That meant I was served before everyone else. That part was fine. But what could the nation renowned for its rich cuisine deliver? For my main course, I was given salad. For my side dish, I was given yet another salad—the same kind of salad! One was big, the other was small. So, my meal mostly consisted of lettuce and and cherry tomatoes.

But I will give them credit where it was due. My meal was not delayed.

Delay After Delay

It was a great relief to get off that flight, but then we had to contend with Charles De Gaulle, which is a dump compared to Korea’s Inchean. We couldn’t see any signs for transfer to a domestic flight and had to face French information desk staff to get help. We were encouraged by not getting as much disdain as I expected. There was even a smile. I suspected something was wrong—or perhaps she was new.

We rushed to another terminal and got to the security check a couple of minutes before the close of boarding. We needn’t have worried about the time because the fight was delayed. And then as we were boarding, boarding was delayed because they wouldn’t open the plane door. Then on board the flight was delayed further while they moved cargo around for balance. I doubt such a delay would even happen in Korea—people wouldn’t stand for it.

By this time weariness was setting in, and so was body odor from stewing in one’s own juices for something like 14 hours. This plane wasn’t full, though. It was so empty, the first 10 rows had to move to the back to provide ballast for take off!

The aircraft was an Airbus A320, and this actually had leg room, by which I mean room for a pair of average legs plus some extra space for leg movement. This kind of aircraft would have been much better for the Seoul to Paris flight.

The flight to Nice was pretty quick and the airport wasn’t busy. Fortunately I had researched about getting into town, but I asked at the information desk anyway, who told me less than what I already knew. It’s funny, they’ll tell you to catch a bus at platform 5 but they will not tell you where platform 5 is. They will help you but only with the  minimum they can get away with. We couldn’t see any signs to direct us the the platform, and it was only be chance we eventually found it.

Getting Into Nice

To get into Nice from the airport’s Terminal 2 take bus 98. Pay the jaded driver around 4 Euros per person. Don’t bother to ask him for any help unless you can interpret grunts. He’ll give you a one day pass that is good for all bus routes.

Bus 98 does not have a map of its route anywhere. You don’t know where it will stop, and when it stops, you don’t know the name of the stop. This would never happen in Korea, not with such a pressing need for efficient mass movement. In France, if it’s only bedraggled tourists that will be faced with confusion, who gives a shit?

I had a map I’d printed off and an idea of where we were going in my head. Still, it was dark because of the delayed flight, which I hadn’t planned on, and I could not read any signs of significance. The scale threw me as well. Distances were smaller than expected. So, I didn’t have my bearings and wasn’t ready for our stop.

That was another bit of bad luck, as the bus got stuck in a main drag traffic jam before the next stop. Fortunately, our walk to the hotel didn’t take long because, as mentioned, distances were not great.

Salvation at the Roosevelt

At the Hotel Roosevelt, at the very doorstep of our destination, the whole dynamics of the journey changed. Here we were treated like humans. We were greeted in a most pleasant and helpful way by the desk clerk. The hotel foyer was simple, clean and neat and this was also reflected in the room. A kettle was even supplied, so we could have a welcome coffee, which you don’t often get these days.

What a relief it was to finally collapse on the bed, after what ended up being around 18 hours of uncomfortable travel. We were thoroughly exhausted.

Air France and Institutionalized Merde

My last word on this jaunt is that because Air France has a monopoly on direct flights to Paris from Korea, it possibly believes it can get away with anything. However, I suggest that Air France rethink their seating policies and upgrade their fleet. I certainly won’t be taking the direct route to Paris again on Air France until I hear that conditions are better.

To learn how to improve, Air France need only look and learn from the Koreans. The flight back from Paris was magical with Korean Air compared to the torture of getting there with Air France. With Korean Air, people in economy have more space. The video screens were the largest I had ever seen and the viewing selections the widest range I have ever seen. There must have been about 20 to 30 movies to watch. The staff ensures seats are upright at meal times and were courteous at all times.

I won’t go on because, quite frankly, what the French could learn from Koreans, in terms of customer service, transport and consideration of others, would fill an entire book.

I told you we wouldn’t have to wait long for more white trash news.

It was only a week or two ago on 60 Minutes that I saw segment on Interpol. They interviewed the man in charge, who is certainly working to make some changes. What a dynamic guy! On that segment they mentioned the reverse distortion technique now used on images that pedophiles have been distorted to conceal their identity. The guy above was featured in the example they showed, with a “whirl-pooled” face. A few days later, Interpol’s manhunt became more public and his reconstituted image was all over the internet.

He was in Korea until last Thursday. Now he’s being cornered in Thailand. Maybe he even watched the same 60 Minutes program. What a shock that must have been! And what a great way to hunt scum like this: just highlight them one by one like that, through Interpol and all over the internet. It gets results, and fast.

But what got my rolling my eyes again was that he was working in the ESL industry. Well, naturally. It’s almost inevitable that scum like that gravitate towards it. It’s easy to get into, it’s easy money, scumbags aren’t screened, it involves kids, it’s popular in Asia. It’s almost a complete package for a rock spider.

I wasn’t surprised to find that this scum had taught in Korea, although I was a bit surprised that it had been for over a seven year period.

Here’s a news article about it from today’s JoongAng Daily:

Pedophile suspect taught in Korea

October 17, 2007
An accused pedophile who is the object of an international manhunt fled for Thailand last week from Korea, where he had been teaching English at a school in Gwangju.
The suspect, whose picture was originally posted on the Web site of Interpol on Oct. 8, has been identified as Christopher Paul Neil of Canada.
Interpol said Neil is believed to have sexually abused at least 12 different boys in Vietnam and Cambodia in 2002 or 2003, based on some 200 photos circulating on the Internet.
The suspect had been working as an English and social studies teacher at Kwangju Foreign School in Gwangju, an unidentified official at the national immigration service said.
Another Canadian English teacher in Gwangju said that Neil had been working at the school since August.
The school declined to comment.
Apparently well-known among English teachers, Neil’s naming as a suspect was the subject of heated commentary on Dave’s ESL Cafe, a popular Web site for foreigners teaching English in Korea.
A woman who claimed to be a friend of Neil’s told the JoongAng Daily that she had identified his picture on the Interpol site and informed the agency of his identity. “I sent a message on Oct. 9 to Interpol.”
National Police Agency sources said they had been informed of Neil’s identity by Interpol last week but he left the country for Thailand before they could apprehend him.
The woman, who refused to give her name, said she met Neil when they were both teaching in southern Gyeonggi two or three years ago. She contacted the JoongAng Daily after reading a post on Dave’s ESL Cafe seeking information on Neil.
Neil was somewhat awkward, she said, but not “unusual,” and his behavior had not raised any suspicions. “Actually, he was gentle and liked to socialize,” she said. “My friends and I went out regularly with this guy.”
On the Dave’s ESL Cafe Web site several posters identified Neil as a visitor who used the name “Peter Jackson” when he posted messages.
In one post, “Jackson” discussed whether police clearances were needed to obtain working visas in Korea. “Public schools will want one,” the post said, “but you should be able to stall them. I never gave a police check for my last public school job.”
Neil’s friend said police checks were frequently on his mind. “He talked about background checks. He said he would tell the school to wait [for documents] and then eventually the school would forget about it.”

By Hwang Young-jin Staff Writer[yhwang@joongang.co.kr]

This clown arrived from Canada, where he’d been a teacher, in 2000. He taught in Seoul at some well-known institutes and as an English teacher at a regular school. Six months ago he taught at a Catholic middle school and, as mentioned, he was recently teaching at an international school down in the lower south-east of the country, in Gwang-Ju City.

It is unclear whether he offended in Korea. I’d say not, given the length of stay without any commotion; he’d perhaps traveled to countries that are just a short hop away. He wasn’t actually here for the whole seven years. Altogether, he only taught in Korea for about four and a half years. The rest of the time was presumably spent in other Asian countries, or in Canada.

It might amuse you to know that this guy wanted to be a Catholic priest. Will the cliches never end?

Yet again, white trash make the headlines in Korea. I hope it doesn’t encourage any more xenophobia. Like I always say, they really have improve their screening process to keep out the white trash. But at least here’s one foreigner who won’t be getting back in the country any time soon, especially not with the prison record he’ll be acquiring. Good riddance, you white trash piece of shit.

A quite moment at the graveside, complete with traffic jam up top.

It’s become the routine for Sunah and me, when celebrating Chosuk and the Chinese New Year, to begin the day at 4.30 am and to get home around 10 pm. This Chosuk was no different. We were out of the house by around 5.20 am, heading for the main street to hale a taxi. It was still dark. Other guys like me were walking around, dressed in suits, looking for taxis. We were lucky. A taxi fortuitously appeared as we were walking through the dark street of our local market place.

We got to the Express Bus Terminal in good time and were in our seats with 10 minutes to spare. It was wise to have booked seats some days earlier, as the bus was full. The bus pulled out of the terminal and headed past LG Xi, a massive apartment complex being built near Central City. All I could see out of the window were gray half-finished apartment blocks and cranes from one end to the other.

The morning was foggy in certain areas, and as we passed the wealthy Pundang area outside of Seoul, enormous apartment complexes loomed in the haze. I’m always impressed by the scale of apartment developments in Seoul. Already, in some areas, you can drive as if through valleys of concrete canyons; more and more, towering apartment blocks are becoming a feature of landscape wherever you go. It’s quite surreal.

Another thing impressed upon me at about this time was the traffic heading out of Seoul. We were relatively free of it in the bus lane, however, for everyone else, it was pretty much like peak hour all the way to Cheonan. This was an ominous sign, although I didn’t think it out of the ordinary at the time.

When we got to the brother’s family’s house around 7.30 am, the ancestral table with its spread of food was being organized. The ceremonial rituals began at 8 and were over soon after. We then had breakfast. By the time we left Cheonan, it was at around 9.20 am, just a touch later than usual. The trip took about the usual time, though, 2 hours, and we were entering the cemetery at Gumi, where the father is buried, around 11. 20 am.

One sight that unsettled me before this was a dog truck parked by trees and large bushes. It was in some town we passed through. Its rear was stacked with red steel cages, about three high, most of which housed a doomed dog. There were a variety of breeds. Three men stood over by bushes away from the truck, all with serious expressions, one or two smoking. I did not like the look of that scene at all. We passed on without my being able to get a better look that might have eased fears I had. But I thought about those dogs during the day, about how they would probably be dead before the day was out.

The crowd at the cemetery was the biggest anyone had seen in the 10 years they had been visiting. As we drove up the hill through the cemetery, it was bumper to bumper. This was another ominous sign. My wife reflected that, since the Chosuk break was extra long this year, more people had time to make the trip. That meant more people were probably out there on the roads this year.

It wasn’t too bad in terms of space at the graveside, as you can see in the photo, but the place wasn’t designed for the amount of cars turning up.

The grave visit and the ceremony and light picnic was all over by around midday. A dog could be heard incessantly barking throughout down by the entrance car park. It was locked in a shed or some enclosure, barking at the constant flow of people and cars going by on this one particular day.

The short half hour visit to the grave is the pivot about which the whole day turns, the main reason for almost a whole day of traveling. After the visit, it was just a matter of getting home.

We started for home in light traffic, stopping off at a rest stop to have a quick lunch. Usually, we would visit an aunt at this time; however, her sons are feuding and so we will not be visiting that aunt any more. After lunch we drove on at speed until about 2 pm. At that time, we hit the first traffic jam, even though we were out in the country. It was something like this news image, taken the same day:

It started a few kilometers from the expressway to Cheonan and it took us about half an hour to get clear of it. At one point, I noticed roadkill, perhaps from the night before, and, by the pile of meat and hair, it looked to have been a large dog. I couldn’t figure it out: this portion of the road had rail siding on the right, beyond which was a steep slope, and on the left was a high concrete road divider. It was a farming area, with buildings off in the distance, here and there. So, where did this dog come from and what was it doing on this practically inaccessible section of road? Another dog mystery to perplex me, but not the last on this day.

As far as the eye could see . . . taken from our van.

Once on the expressway, we could use the bus lane because the the van we were in was an eight-seater. Most of the going was at a good speed. We whizzed by all of the regular traffic, and I could only reflect what a nightmare it would be to be stuck in all of that. It just went of for kilometers after kilometers after kilometers. And this is still out in the country!

I don’t think people can grasp what the traffic is like in Korea during Chosuk until they have seen it or been in it. Today was a particularly bad day, as the earlier ominous signs had presaged. We hit another traffic jam outside of Cheonun, but fortunately, we weren’t stuck in it for long as we turned off rather than headed on to Seoul.

The above picture was taken at the turn off a few kilometers outside of Cheonan, which would have been about 100 kms or so from Seoul. Most of that traffic pictured was probably heading for Seoul, and I am not kidding when I say that it would have been like that all of the way. Their nightmare was far from over.

This was around 4.15 pm. We’d come about 160 kms from Gumi, and it had taken us nearly four hours, not including the stop for lunch. And this was only because we had been able to use the faster bus lane. Those who could not use the bus lane could probably add another two hours or more onto their journey. Wait until I tell you about the brother-in-law . . .

Back in Cheonan, we rested for a few hours before having dinner. Sunah’s sister arrived with her kids, but her husband, the brother-in-law, was still due. He’d been visiting relatives even further south than Gumi. He rang to say he was on the way after passing through Daegu. He’d left his relatives at around 2 pm and we estimated that he might arrive by 8 pm—a conservative estimate, as it turned out.

This is another news image taken on the same day. The right lane, obviously, is the one heading to Seoul.

My plan was Sunah and I would leave around 7 to catch the subway—I was definitely not taking the bus. On the bus, we could probably expect a three to four hour trip. On the subway, it’d be about an hour. Just after 6 we had dinner and relaxed until around 7. Before we left, the brother-in-law rang again. It’d been 2 hours since he last rang and in effect he hadn’t moved. He was still stuck in traffic in the same area he’d rung from 2 hours earlier! I felt so sorry for him.

It was a relief to get on the subway, but it was crowded, and this meant we had to stand all the way. We were in Seoul by around 9 pm and got off at what used to be called Garibong, near the clothing outlet district, or what is now called the Gasan Digital Complex station. It was good to get out and walk, when looking for a taxi, after standing for so long after a long day.

Here is where another dog incident occurred. We were up from the station and walking along a dimly lit sidewalk. With all of the clothes outlets closed, the area was pretty deserted. All of a sudden out of the dark appeared a sausage dog, running towards us, ducking in and out of nooks, and looking to and fro as he came. He had a harness on and obviously he’d lost his owner. What could we do? We couldn’t very well take him with us, and he wasn’t interest in us anyway. He kept running on, searching.

Sunah was upset by the sight, but I rationalized that the owner must be out looking for him somewhere in the area. However, I was also concerned by the dog’s plight. To better understand why, you need to understand that it is not uncommon for stray dogs in Seoul to end up on the dinner plate.

I reflected on this incident, as I often do when I see signs of distress around Seoul, that I can’t be the only one to witness such things. And if I am not, things like this are happening all over. But added to this is how the day had been punctuated by ill-fated incidents that concerned dogs, and similar things were perhaps happening all over as well. Also, on previous outings, I had often been pained by the lonely figure of a large dog, as I mentioned in an earlier post—chained near a dog box, in the same spot year after year, by that auntie’s place. What is it with these celebratory days and dogs in misery or distress?

We arrived home around 10 pm, as predicted. My wife called her brother’s house, and she was told that the brother-in-law had not arrived. He was still out there on the road stuck in traffic. I could only shake my head, but at least Chosuk was over for us for another year.

* * *

I’ve been writing all of this on the day after, but conditions out on the road are much the same. The shot below was taken today by a news services.

We rang the brother’s house again, and we learned that the brother-in-law had arrived there at 10.30 pm last night. Not surprisingly, he was exhausted and went straight to bed. He’d been on the road for around eight and a half hours and had covered just over 200 kms. We also learned that he and Sunah’s sister had left with their kids at 11.20 this morning—there was no way he wanted to face another traffic jam. However, they should have left a lot earlier.

My wife just rang them, but they are still on the road. After 3 hours, they’d only made it as far as Suwon, around 50 kms out of Cheonan. That means, at a guess, they are probably going to be on the road to Seoul, stuck in traffic, for another 3 hours.

I have no other word for it. It’s just madness.

Not long after arriving in Korea, I was informed that it wasn’t easy for foreigners to get a credit card. No reason was given. People just said, “It’s not easy.” As time went on, I didn’t need a reason, anyway, as I was becoming aware that, as a foreigner in Korea, having to overcome hurdles, discriminatory or otherwise, comes with the territory.

I’ll give some examples. I had a lot of trouble getting the English version of my Korean bank’s internet site to work. Site software was updated regularly, but no one seemed to be checking that the English version still worked with it. It was down more often than it was up for me. Add to that a complicated security process, and several cumbersome steps to go through to do anything, like transfer money (if you could get that far), plus a three-times and you’re locked out policy, which meant that, if things went wrong, you had to visit a branch again to have everything reset—it was all too much. After months of problems, I just gave up and reverted to the old-style method of using a bank book.

For another example, there was a time when foreigner registration ID numbers were simply rejected whenever they were submitted for anything online. And to do anything online in Korea, such as reserve movie tickets, you need this personal “citizen’s” ID. It was as if foreigner IDs were not registered on a database anywhere, or rather they were registered but had a “non-entity” status against them. It stands as another instance of denial-of-service for foreigners, although I believe that this issue is being addressed by authorities.

That’s all very nice; however, if you want to pay for something online, you are still going to need a credit card number as well. More than likely, you will have to use a credit card you brought from your own country. This is because, in my experience, foreigners cannot get a credit card in this country—at least, not foreigners on the kind of salary I get. It would not be a problem, if you were Korean, though, on a salary much lower than mine.

I’ll explain what I mean. Some months ago a promotion was going on at a new shopping complex that had opened not far from where I live. From memory, I think my wife and I bought some clothes there, and that entitled us to a little gift. When we went retrieve it upstairs, we were accosted by some LG credit card saleswomen. That was the catch that went with the little gift. But the scam worked: since I didn’t have a credit card, my wife and I thought, why not?

It wasn’t that I was suckered into it. It was a financial move. My wife advised that if you have a credit card in Korea, you can get tax back through using one (on top of other benefits). In fact, they are running a commercial now on TV that explains this very idea.

We went through the application process and awaited approval—kind of presumptuously, in hindsight. Weeks went by. My wife called LG to inquire. There was a problem with my work status, they said, or some such thing. My wife called the saleswoman we’d signed up with. She was angry and called the LG card centre. And so it went on, back and forth over the next few days—calls to my work Admin from LG and from my wife; calls from my wife to the saleswoman; calls from the saleswoman to LG again, etc. Finally, things seemed to have been sorted out. We were once again on “waiting for approval” status.

That was a few months ago. I’m still waiting. Well, not really. My wife and I realized that LG is not going to give me a credit card. But we still didn’t have a real explanation as to why.

Enter my wife’s sister, who works at bank. Her bank is pressuring employees to sign people up for a credit cards. Each employee is required to sign up 20 people. I used to work in a bank some 20 odd years ago and they did something similar to us—cheap bastards. So, anyway, my wife saw this as an opportunity for me to get a credit card.

Here’s where we found out the truth about why a foreigner cannot get a credit card in Korea. Her sister informed her of an unwritten rule among banks in Korea, a rule that is not made public: a credit card should only be approved to a foreigner if he or she is earning a salary of 70,000,000 won or more. Let’s see, that’s about $76, 000 US. Gee, I just missed out.

Essentially, this rules out anyone in the “English industry,” which simultaneously blocks any white trash getting their hands on a credit card. I can understand the banks’ reasoning, as I presume that in the past, foreigner white trash would take out credit cards, rack up a debt, then do a runner at the end of a contract.

Thus the case is closed and mystery solved, and now I know why, for foreigners like me, a Korean credit card is out of reach—regardless of my credit standing, regardless of being married to a Korean national.

As soon as I saw on the list of servers that one of them was using a map called de_bulguksa, I knew it had to be some kind of Korean temple design. In Korean, “sa” means temple and bulguk would be the name of the temple, so in English it simply translates as Bulguk Temple. At the time I thought it might be a kind of joke name or something.

But when I started playing, there was definitely something familiar about the look of the place. I’ve been to a couple of Korean temples, and I kind of thought it was a kind of composite design. I was able to have a look around before attracting gun fire because not many players were on. It’s a pretty good rendition of temple grounds in Korea.

Only later did I realize the reason it looked so familiar. It’s based on an old Buddhist temple called Bulguk in the south of Korea, in North Gyeongsang provence, and I’ve been to the place! It’s a major tourist destination.

It didn’t click with me that it was the actual place I’d been to because, while the design might be faithful, the outer surrounds aren’t anything like I remember. In addition, there aren’t any tourists cluttering up the scenery, as I had experienced–just gunmen running around, which, quite frankly, is what I prefer to see in this context.

None of them showed me any of the compassion and mercy, the virtues at the heart of Buddhist philosophy.

You can find out all about it [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulguksa]here[/url]. This is some information about the temple from the site:

Bulguksa is a Buddhist temple in the North Gyeongsang province in South Korea. It is home to seven National treasures of South Korea, including Dabotap and Seokgatap stone pagodas, Cheongun-gyo (Blue Cloud Bridge), and two gilt-bronze statutes of Buddha. The temple is classified as Historic and Scenic Site No. 1 by the South Korean government.[1] In 1995, Bulguksa was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List together with the Seokguram Grotto, which lies four kilometers to the east.

The temple is considered as a masterpiece of the golden age of Buddhist art in the Silla kingdom. It is currently the head temple of the 11th district of the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism.

Also, on that website, in the structure section, you can see a map of the temple. The CS map is pretty much the same layout. Of course, if you were really picky, you could go to the trouble of such things as counting the number of steps, and so on, which would have significance according to Buddhist scriptures.

I don’t think I’ll go to that much trouble, but I bet the CS mapper did. I wonder how they did the Buddha, located in Daeungjeon (대웅전), the Hall of Great Enlightenment, as shown here. That was as hard for me to answer as to imagine the sound of one hand clapping.

At that point in the game, I laid down my weapon and camped with Buddha to achieve enlightenment.

See the Counter Strike gallery.

I had to laugh at the beginning of a post from seoulbuffoon, entitled “White trash among English teachers,” on the latest antics of said trash in Korea. Here’s how he starts it off.

There they go again!
The white trash in Korea are hogging the headlines for all the wrong reasons, as usual.

Hilarious. He was responding to the following article from the joongangdaily website:

English teachers arrested on drug charges
September 06, 2007

Police are investigating 23 people, most of them foreigners who teach English here, for smoking marijuana and trafficking in the drug, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency announced yesterday.

The police detained three on trafficking charges: two Canadians, 28 and 30, and a Ghanaian, 34. They could be sentenced to 5 or more years in prison if convicted.

In addition, the police booked three Britons, five Canadians, 13 Americans and one Korean. The maximum penalty is a fine and 5 years in prison.

All 23, except for the Korean and the Ghanaian, are English instructors at hagwon, elementary schools or universities. The Korean is a girlfriend of one of the teachers.

“Some of the teachers were intoxicated while teaching students,” said Lim Chang-muk, an inspector at the agency. “Officially they made about 2 million won at schools, but they made as much as four times more outside of their regular jobs, which violates their E-2 visa guidelines.

With an E-2 visa, foreigners can only work at the organization that sponsored them. Most of the foreign suspects hold an E-2 visa.

The suspects obtained marijuana and hashish from suppliers introduced through their colleagues, police said.

The police said they confiscated 620 grams (1.4 pounds) of marijuana worth 13 million won ($13,860) and 0.7 gram of hashish.

What the . . . are these guys really making something like 8 million won (around $8000) a month? OK, I’m going to start looking for a teaching job. If they can make that much and still find time to party every night, that’s for me. But you know, I doubt it’s true—the money part, I mean.

As for the rest of it, I’ve got no doubt. I once knew of a guy who used to smoke dope before he went to work at Harrods of London. You think anyone’s going to be a little more responsible at a hagwon?

But let’s get back to our outraged poster. He’s got a few things to say about white trash, which I am delighted to present.

No wonder the entire clan of English teachers have very bad reputation here among Koreans.It just takes a couple of these assholes to tarnish their image. Although, if you believe some of the crap that is posted on the Internet ESL forums, young Korean girls are just dying to get into bed with them!

For this reason, there are frequent outbursts of public opinion to throw them out of the country, driven of course by the media stories.

I do not blame the Koreans for their extreme positions, especially when it comes to English teachers, but I personally feel that the government itself is to blame for allowing the white trash to find employment here without adequate qualifications. Once the “hagwon” education system is regulated, things are bound to improve.

Also the craze among Koreans to put their kids in hagwons and learn English from “blonde heads with blue eyes” has led to this unchecked mushrooming of fly-by-night operators who in turn employ anyone who is white to teach the kids.

If that does not happen, we will continue to see regular stories about their antics and the outburst by the public. In the meantime, the genuine English Teachers and other expats will continue to face a prejudiced public.

Having said that, I must mention that a recent survey by the Gender Equality Ministry found a marked softening in attitudes toward foreigners.

Grrr . . . those bad white trashers. This is what I love to see—lots of indignation and white trash biting the dust.

The Korean media love it, too. Here’s an excerpt from the koreabeat website about TV show on ESL teachers in Korea.

Foreign English teachers have been arrested for smoking marijuana before lessons and habitually using drugs in seedy areas.

The number of foreign English teachers who regularly use drugs is increasing.

One is a Canadian, “S” (24), who entered Korea intending to teach English in September 2004. S worked at an elementary school before being hired by an English hagwon in Gangnam, being paid W3,000,000 per month for six hours of classes per day.

Police say that since 2006 S has been using that money to procure Ghanian marijuana from drug dealer “A” (34) and regularly smoked it afterward.

Police claim that S would even smoke marijuana into the early morning and then go to school and teach the students. Police explained that not only S but most of the foreign English teachers arrested taught English by day and smoked marijuana by night.

A source at the foreign affairs division of the Seoul Police Department said, “American and Canadian English teachers think Korea is a ‘land of opportunity.’”

They become hagwon teachers not only because there is no country which has much desire to learn English as Korea but because they believe they can make up to 1,000,000 won per month through illegal private lessons.

The source also said, “the majority of them find it easy to seduce Korean women and do drugs with them.”

Foreign English teachers see Korea not only as a ‘land of opportunity’ but also as a ‘perverted heaven’.

The case of “R”, a 26-year old American who smoked marijuana with his Korean girlfriend, is a typical case.

R, while living with his girlfriend “H”, a worker in her 20s at a foreign bank, is accused of going to bars and clubs in Hongdae and Itaewon after classes and regularly smoking marijuana.

The police investigation concluded that they were all working in local universities, Gangnam, Seocho, Yangcheon, Bupyeong, or Gwangmyeong in regular hagwons and were all exposed as having committed the same crime.

The police emphasized that to prevent the entry of these kinds of foreign English teachers inquiries have already begun into criminal convictions for drug use.

Police also emphasized that, “they had satisfied the requirement to receive an E-2 foreign language visa of having a degree from a four-year institution and there was no problem with their degrees. In the cases of other English hagwons it appears there are no problems.”

The number of drug users is increasing? Mmm . . . I don’t see any source for that? If it’s accurate, we can expect some more fun and games in the future. Every time I venture outdoors I’ll have Koreans checking my eyeballs. This could make me paranoid even when I’m completely straight. You naughty waegookin dope-heads! You’re going to ruin the “land of perverted heaven” for the rest of us.

But aren’t those broad statements by the authorities classics. I think they must have been lifted straight from Xenophobia For Dummies. The part about “using drugs in seedy” areas has me confused, though, because didn’t they state that teachers smoked dope before going to class? What are they imputing of hagwons?

Well, so long to the white trashers that got caught. You’re all replaceable—and I’m sure many your replacements will be just the same, since the criteria for gaining employment over here probably won’t be tightened up for some time to come.

Update:

Wow! They did tighten things up. Now you have to get a police clearance of some kind from your home country. I also heard something about a drug test.

First Woman : Your hair looks really nice today.
Second Woman : Oh, thanks, but all I did was use a cock on it.
First Woman : Really? Mmm . . . I might start doing that.
Second Woman : Oh, yes, a cock is an all in one beauty care system.

Yes, that’s right, it’s not a sex toy. It really is a common hair brush, which is fortunate because that’s what I had hoped I was buying.

What the hell were they thinking?

I’m imagining the boardroom of the manufacturer, when the design team sat to consider an appropriate brand name for their “Beauty Care System” (as it says on the label), or rather this common hair brush. They wanted to give it a cool English name. No one there knew much English. An English dictionary is called for. They fling it open, desperate now because the head guy at the end of the boardroom table is getting impatient. He wants a name decided on so they can start moving product.

They look up “leader” because they want to impress that their brush is a leading product on the market. But the synonyms don’t sound right; “boss”? no, “director”? no, “rooster”? no, they want something cooler. They find “cock”—hey, bingo, what about that? Yeah, it’s shot and snappy. Yeah, that’s cool. Yeeeaaaah.

They explain to the head that they’ve found a word, and that it means “leader.” He’s impressed. He likes that sentiment. He nods his ascent because he likes to think of himself as a, well, a “leader”-head. The Cock goes into production. English speakers all over Korea are aghast.

I’m clutching at straws here.

Maybe they were thinking in terms of to erect, to fabricate, to fashion, as Roget’s Thesaurus has it. Thus, “the Cock” is Konglish for “the Fashioner.” Could that be it?

Really, it’s beyond me.

Thursday, Aug. 2:

My wife’s best friend’s sister-in-law committed suicide this morning. She opted for the method I discussed in my earlier post, the ever-popular leaping from an apartment balcony.

The news was relayed to me by my wife over Google chat in the early afternoon. Initially it was only that she had mysteriously died. And the husband couldn’t be contacted, so we knew the news before he did.

It’s a hard blow because the family are not wealthy. The husband works in the construction industry, and continues to work despite a cast of some kind on his leg. It’s possible he’s on a job out of town at the moment.

That may have contributed to the wife’s decision, for perhaps she simply couldn’t cope on her own any more. The latest I’ve heard is that police have adjudged from some items they read that she was suffering from depression.

She jumped at around 6am, thankfully not taking the children with her, as has happened in other cases. The children were still sleeping.

One of them is a girl in middle school, whose friends are from wealthier families, and who is known to insist on attending the extra curricula activities her friends do. That would have exacerbated any money worries because education—inside or outside of school—isn’t cheap in Korea.

Her life will never be the same, and perhaps her friends won’t be, either.

Friday, Aug 3:

The husband still can’t be contacted and a missing person’s report has been filed with the police. Rumour has it that he went to hospital, but that was not true. He also hasn’t turned up for work. Things are looking suspicious, if you ask me.

However, police are saying that no crime is involved.

Saturday, Aug. 4:

It seems that finally the brother has been contacted. He’s been working in Daegu. Why his phone was turned off is anyone’s guess.

A chill went up my spine and tingling down my legs when I watched these guys go to work. I used to be pretty fearless, when I was young, and even went parachuting a couple of times. But I could never do what these guys were doing.

They were here to inspect all the seals on all the windows of each apartment building. Presumably this was to prevent water and bugs getting in during the upcoming Monsoon season.

Sunah and I were still getting ready to go to work when we heard them clamboring around on the roof above us. We live on the top floor, 24 stories up. To the left of us, the building with larger apartments is one story less, so I could see another team of them preparing their ropes, one of them having a casual cigarette while standing at the edge of a 23 story drop.

Ropes were dropped passed our balcony windows. Then some little seats were lowered. I grabbed the camera in anticipation; already, the rabbits were going berzerk, but that intensified when the guys got into their seats and started coming past our windows.

I didn’t see how they got into the seats but I guess they just step into them somehow over the edge. I thought about this, about that moment, when you leave the roof and step out to get in the seat, at one point astride that drop going from solid ground to a little chair. Now that would take guts.

I’ll try and get some better pictures next time I see them in action.