Elwood 5566

Spot the Korean

Let me get my disclaimer out the way to begin with! Yes! there are plenty of decent, thoughtful and interesting waygukins in Korea and some may very well have visited Boryeong, but this post isn’t about them. This post is about the other types of waygukin, the ‘waygukin wanker’  types who generally ignore other westerners,  have no significant Korean friends, have boarded the bus to Boryeong,  and like to moan about Korean people and culture about which they like you to think they know everything.

I occasionally ‘rant’  about the unfriendly nature of many waygukins in Korea, it’s one of my minor idee-fixe. Two weeks ago, I had this idea to start a ‘waygukin wanker of the month,’ post in which I’d feature a photo of one of the numerous wankers around Song-So who will totally blank you if you pass them. I’ve lived in the building next to one for almost two years but even if we pass on an empty street, shoulder to shoulder, he will ignore me. I said hello on one occasion but he simply diverted his gaze to the floor and mumbled inarticulately. So, on one hot Friday afternoon, I stood for an hour waiting to get his photo but unfortunately he failed to turn up and missed the chance to be immortalized on my pages.  I haven’t seen him for two weeks and am beginning to assume he must have gone back to wherever. Good riddance! However, there are plenty of other candidates to replace him.

Courtesy of Roketship (link)

Maybe ‘waygukin wankerism’ is a disease, possibly contagious, and if so, one of the most potent sources of contamination has got to be the Boring Boryeong Mud Festival.  Bogland is full of boring accounts written by waygukin who assume they know all about Korea once they set foot on Korean soil and whose search for the spirit of Korea, it’s traditions and an understanding of the Korean psyche, lead them to splash about  in a bit of dirt chucked over a sheet of plastic on one of the only holidays of the year. If I had a list of a 100 things I want to do in Korea, the Boryeong Mud Festival wouldn’t even be on it. Even one of my closest Korean friends, who is 25, said it was disappointing with watered down wishy-washy mud piped onto plastic sheeting. But, he was impressed with the army of waygukins as he felt they provided the festival an international atmosphere.

Lovely plastic sheeting

Boryeong is as typically Korean as the Costa del Sol is Spanish or, Tijuana is Mexican and any place which attracts an army of waygukins should instantly loose its appeal especially because it’s the sort of ‘safe’ crap you do on a 18-30 cheapo package holiday to some place with bags of sun, sand, sangria and bouncing tits. It doesn’t attract interest because it’s Korean but because it’s the hip place for waygukins to go and which can be blagged about to mates afterwards. Those who like Boryeong probably find appeal in the likes of: Ko Phi Phi Le, the Costa del Sol or Costa Med, and Ibiza and other shitty destinations catering for the unadventurous, en-masse.   I find it amusing how so many foreigners will cue to take the bus to Boryeong yet are terrified of a trip to the local bathhouse which will provide a far more rewarding insight into Korean life.

Talking to a waygukin or two is fine, except most can’t talk, and having a beer with one is even better, I desperately miss the sense of humour, but slopping about in diluted mud with a million of them!! No thanks! I came to Korea to escape wanky-ways and in particular wanky British culture,  which doesn’t mean I don’t want talk or socialise with English speaking westerners per-se. I’m always on the look out for new friends but finding a western human who will talk is difficult. The last waygukin I swapped phone numbers with, declined an invitation to the cinema because he believed Koreans would perceive two men together as gay.

Boryeong should be towards the bottom of the ‘to do list’ but I suppose Korea is now such an easy country to live in, bilingual signs and menus, tourist information booths,  a wealth of information on the internet that didn’t exist 8 years ago, a modern international airport, all the major fast food chains, etc, that gone are the days when only the more adventurous risked coming here. It’ll soon be time to move on!

Too many westerners! YouTube link

© 林東哲 2010 Creative Commons Licence.