Penis Paradise. Palgongsan National Park
Highly recommended
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about life in Korea, it’s that cocks can turn up in the oddest places and at the most unexpected times. Of course, if you’re a westerner you might be surprised as we so often perceive Korea as conservative in its values. Well of course it’s freaking conservative! If you’ve been socialised and educated in one of those degenerate moral and ethical cesspits, such as the UK or USA, you cannot fail to perceive Korea as naive and innocent. Most westerners, myself included, are so used to cesspit values we hardly notice the toilet paper and bits of turd clinging to our bodies as we travel the globe. Being British and from the land where teenage pregnancy and STI’s are at ‘epidemic proportions,’ in Korea, with one of the lowest teen pregnancy rates in the world, 2.1 per thousand, it is quite natural to perceive the country as conservative and even innocent. Ironically, despite Korea’s low rate of STI’s and teenage pregnancy, the existing figures are a current social and political concern! I am neither religious nor particularly moralistic but, I prefer my students, especially ones under 14, to be innocent as opposed promiscuous, predatory, precocious, tarty and cheap.
純 순수한 - 'Innocent '
In Autumn last year, I visited Palgongsan National Park, on the edge of Daegu. After a very delicious smoked duck barbecue, I took a little troll around the restaurant grounds only to discover 42 penises, (yes, I actually counted them!), all poking skywards and congregated in an area about the size of a large living room. This little patch of cock I endearingly referred to as Penis Paradise. On my initial trip, I’d forgotten to take my camera and all year I’d been planning to go back and capture, albeit it on a digital, the only cocks I am probably likely to get close enough to touch between now and the grave. You can imagine how gutted I was when I enthusiastically arrived at my little paradise, tucked away in some obscure corner of the mountains, only to discover all but one cock remained. The adjoining restaurant had made some alterations but even after trolling around the building and snooping in tucked away corners, it became apparent I’d missed my one and only opportunity.
Where a patch of proud penises had majestically stood there remained one solitary cock which poked up pathetically from a surrounding pile of junk robbing it of any remaining grandeur. Up closer it retained an air of pride despite probably being the poorest specimen with a shaft looking hacked, holed and even split as if old or simply unfinished. The other ones had been smooth, perfected and each imbued with particular qualities suggested by both the nature of their wood as well as their individual design; qualities that only someone who likes natural wood and cock could appreciate.
Surrounded by junk - Sacrilege!
A badly hacked shaft in need of some oil!
Penis Paradise had originally stood outside a carpenter’s workshop/gallery and inside I found another penis. It was a big fat number, somewhat interesting but with a face carved on one side which I didn’t particularly like but it had the bonus of and added appendage ….yet another cock.
Two for the price of one
The epitomisation of Korea
Knotted and gnarled were the qualities that had enamored me when I first encountered that patch of penises. Korean wood is invested with a strange quality probably induced by struggling into life in quite difficult surroundings. Back in England, near where I live, are some examples of the most enormous oak trees and in a five-minute cycle I can be stood under trees that Constable himself painted. Korean mountain forests exude a sense of gargantuan Bonsai and walking in one, especially when daylight is ebbing, is like wandering through a Mahler symphony, most especially, his fourth. It’s a dark, warped, and knotted world, with craggy imposing crops of rock, mossy and lichened, the perfect background for goblins, ghosts and other imaginary forest creatures. There are no immense oaks on those rugged rocky slopes where every tree has had to fight its way into existence with roots seeking out and voraciously burrowing into nutritious gaps and fissures in that dense, granite-like base. Tress are wind swept, stunted, knotted, gnarled and twisted in manners which betray both pain and tenacity.
In my last high school, the top class of first, second and third year students, were called, ‘so-namu’ (소나무), ‘pine tree, classes,’ and the boys affectionately called, ‘so-namu.’ ‘He’s ‘so-namu’ would be used to describe and explain a boy’s exam success or identify the fact he was in the top class. That pained-tenacious existence, evident in Korean forests where life has been fought for, exists on other plains: you see it in the bodies of old men and women, bodies muscled and knotted, damaged and strengthened by an arduous life, yet supple enough to sit cross-legged, all a rarity in the west. I have seen old grannies who cannot stand up straight and are forced to walk with a right angle between their spine and legs, bodies damaged by a lifetime of carrying children or heavy loads on their backs, sit into a cross-legged position, and rise, without using their hands or moving their feet. Even at forty, I had to get on all fours to escape this position. Sometimes you see it in the bodies of younger children, but this is without doubt rapidly disappearing. I have several nine-year olds, usually ones whose hobbies are taekwondo, hapkido, or komdo, with six packs and thighs looking like they regularly squat. You see it in the faces of students as they trudge, bleary eyed from school to haggwon and on to another haggwon and then to the reading room, life a constant round of tests and assignments. Pain and tenacity are features of Korea which are engraved into the education system, their martial arts, encapsulated by the popular phrase ‘fighting!’ and also a reflection of their history. Penis Paradise was intriguing because wrought in the bodies of each penis, in both the nature of the wood and their design, was a sense of that pain-and tenacity – the struggle for life and triumph at its persistence.
'Tenacity' is often a key concept in Taekwondo, Hapkido and Komdo tenets
A reflection of Korea on many levels
Only one cock stood, an epitaph to its vanished members. Where had they gone? In fact, they’d been sold for exhibition at the Haeshindang Folk Village, Samcheok, also known as Penis Park.
Family Fun at Penis Park
Penis Park, Samcheok, A Collection of colossal Cocks
With only one cock standing, the juicy aroma of barbecued smoked duck, attracted my attention. Putting my camera away, I went and enjoyed a wholesome meal. It’s no substitute for the real thing, but here is the menu:
Smoked barbecued duck a specialty
Wanted: A Plastic Professorship
Have you noticed its predominantly university teachers who hand you business cards? Fingering the little stash I’ve collected over the years, not one is from a Haggwon teacher. I’ve never owned business cards, but then as I’ve never sent a text message and only used an ATM machine once in the UK. I’m slightly odd.
I pine, you pine, he pine, she pine!
I wouldn’t mind handing out a name card from a university, even a crap one but like most teachers, I would probably feel a little ashamed handing out something from an institution one notch up from a kindergarten or the kids’ party entertainer at Mac Donald’s. Even though haggwon and university pay are now fairly similar, in status there’s a world of difference between Coco the Clown’s English Academy and a University.
No matter how hard a haggwon tries to give itself credibility, names like ‘academy’ or ‘colleges’ don’t hide what most really are, factories (공장). ‘TOSS English‘ reads the bright neon strip over a college near where I live. Despite the amusing name, it must be successful as it has a fleet of mini buses and has been in situ for at least 8 years. However, back in the UK, ”Toss’ is slang for ‘shit’ or ‘masturbation.’ And then there’s ‘Kolon English Academy;’ Colon is the destination of the doctor’s digit when you have an extremely bad gut. Then there are the logos, the cap and mortar board, the pillars of some classical order column. Sometimes they use letters of the Greek alphabet which in the UK would be unrecognized to all but the students of British grammar schools.
In Britain, any awareness of the roots of western civilization is relegated to 5 or 6 year-olds and hence denuded of its significance as the cradle of western civilization. The invasion of ‘ ‘Greece” by Darius in 490BC and Xerxes, 480BC, had they succeeded, would have radically altered the face of western history possibly resulting in an Islamic Europe. Mention Thermopylae to most British people and it is now associated predominantly with a comic or a partly animated, fantastical movie. Many Korean kids can recite or narrate the Battle of Thermopylae or Marathon and some have even ‘explained to me how Socrates came to commit suicide. As a history teacher in the UK, I can put my hand on my heart and tell you I have never seen or heard any mention of Thermopylae , Marathon or Socrates in a British school. For various reasons, the most significant aspects of our history, often due to political imperatives, are demnatio memoriae. Koreans students certainly have more awareness of classical history than do their western peers and so the column, pediments, alpha and omega, and other little symbols of academia and learning are common but ironically, the ‘colleges’ they represent are as genuine as the Phrontesterion in Aristophanes’ The Clouds; the silly little ‘Thinkery’ where students bend over, bum holes gazing intently at the heavens in the quest for knowledge.
Much as I love Korea, their method of teaching English needs a total overhaul and the dependence on memorizing phrases, a number of which are clumsy and strange, needs scraping. Koreans have a similar attitude to teaching English as they do cooking bean paste soup. I’ve told several friends I add a dash of black pepper powder to my dwaen-jang. They were shocked and repeated ‘pepper’ several times as though I’d said I piss in it. Then they told me that black pepper wasn’t part of ‘the recipe,’ as if there is only one recipe, only one way to do it. Korean education is very successful, but their standard of English, despite the haggwons and schools, is dire. Perhaps if they treated English education more like ‘pushion pood (fusion food), squirting jam over pizzas, replacing mozarella with that stretchy, play cheese, or sweet potato and dipping bistro hotdogs in a concoction of syrup, mustard and red pepper paste, standards might improve. ”I’m pine,’ ‘Have a nice day,’ ‘pleased to meet you,’ ‘ drive you to suicide. And then there’s the constant American twang but that can wait until a future post!
Currently, I’m waiting for my business cards to arrive and they will probably carry my school’s logo, a cartoony character but I’m not particularly bothered. I’ve worked in enough language factories and a high school, to know that my boss has genuine intentions and besides, my loyalty is won because my conditions are probably superior to those of most university teachers whose pay is no longer way in advance of a haggwon teacher and whose holidays, at one time a guaranteed four months have been whittled down and interpolated with various obligations. My boss and her family have been close friends of mine for over ten years and have even vacationed with me in England. Though I would love to become a professor, albeit a plastic one, working in a university, for me at least, would be a step down.
A teacher from the Coco the Clown Phrontesterion of English. (I'm Pine and You)
Of course, most university teachers, instructors, give you a name card not because they teach in a university, but to impress on you the fact they are ‘professors.’ Professors are the officer class of Korean teachers with haggwon teachers relegated to ‘rank and file.’ Yes, I would probably do exactly the same but it is non the less amusing in its snobbery. Name cards of the highest status carry ‘professor’ in both Korean (교수) and hanja (敎授) in order to separate them from ones simply in English. I’d probably have mine embossed in gold. In reality however, it’s the knowledge and skills of a ‘professor’ I would like and not merely a hollow title. By English standards, I’m not too clear how it works in the USA, a ‘professorship’ is a position, ‘a chair,’ awarded to top academics and not a title conferred merely by teaching in a university. Despite the demise of standards in the UK and the ascendancy of ape values, you still read or hear of academics being ‘invited’ to a professorship.
What, by gad! No dickie?
Last year I spent several days adjudicating a speaking competition with three professors all of whom gave me name cards. Two wore little silk dickie bow ties and the other a complete set of plus fours and matching walking cane. When I first saw him, from a distance, I thought it was Sherlock Holmes until I heard his American accent. He didn’t have a pipe but his plus fours were real and actually made of tweed. Ironically, I’d met this chap before, some 6 years previously when we worked together in an academy ‘factory.’ Before the plus fours and business card, and of course, ‘professorship,’ he used to turn up for work looking like a backpacker, his hair never combed and his clothes disheveled and scruffy. One day, I recall my old boss consulting me as to whether it was acceptable to offer to buy him some new clothes. If I’d known at the time what I now know I’d have simply suggested conferring a professorship upon him and buying him some appropriate name cards. The rest would have taken care of itself.
Even when I’ve known teachers who for one reason or another moved from university to hagwon, from the status of ‘plastic professor’ to that of a boring ‘teacher,’ they’ve initially introduced themselves, or been introduced to me as, ‘professor.’ Further, not only have they continued wearing the dicky bow, but they’ve insisted students call them by title.
I’m a snob, academia, the classics, the entire gamut from music, art literature to history, Oxford, Cambridge, public schools, grammar schools, dickie bows, waist coats and plus fours, professors, even plastic professors, I adore them all. When I was a boy, this was what constituted education and refinement and through out my twenties I aspired to it. Sadly, by the time I got to university, in my early thirties, the gown, mortar board and anything ‘classical,’ if not already on a heap in the college quad, were on their way! And now, well, every Tom, Dick and Harry have a degree – usually in hair dressing or business studies. As much as I mock plastic professors, tongue in cheek, a least the title sets you apart from the herd. Sadly, of all my university friends, some of whom are university lecturers, professors, some even renowned in academic circles, few embraced ‘the classical’ with any passion in little other than their individual subjects. I don’t want to leave my current occupation, that would be foolish, but secretly, I would love one of those business cards and the snobbery of calling myself a ‘professor.’ Is it possible to teach a lesson or two a week in a university, even a poxy one, and ‘earn’ the title ‘professor,’ or even ‘associate professor?’ If so, pathetic as it is, I want the job!”
Fart Pants (방귀 바지) 코딱지
rubus coreanus (복분자) 'wildberry'
In the E-bente Tang (이벤트 탕) today was a an aroma I’d not encountered before, black raspberry, or wild berry (복분자). Translating is always a problem. First of all, the ‘information board’ advertising the aroma had a picture of black and red berries and so too did a bottle of berry ‘wine (more like liquor) I subsequently bought (복분자 주). To compound the problem, I suspect in the UK we call these berries blackberries and raspberries and these are quite different in taste. When I looked up this berry on the internet, I noticed the red and black berries were growing on the same stem. So, I discover that the Korean berry, bokbunja (복분자), is actually a member of rose family and of the genus rubus of which there are hundreds of species divided into 13 sub-genera, one of which contains 12 sections. (more rubus info) Indeed, if you want to be pedantic, bokbunja is rubus coreanus. Interesting, but all academic as from the scent emanating from the pool I couldn’t tell whether I was wallowing in blackberry, blackcurrant, or indeed, rubus coreanus.
I’ve been meticulous in bathhouse ablutions today as I am feeling particularly dirty. The source of this dirt is both mental and physical; increasingly I come to realise that by socialization westerners are dirty species both mentally and physically but also, short of being showered in shit, I was fouled upon. Not having used a bathhouse for 4 days, and yet despite showering twice a day, I was amazed at the scum that washed off my body into the gutter. As I was on the end of a row of sit down showers, I could see it collecting in the drainage grill and it was gray and creamy, more like sludge than scum. Neither was my ablution particularly stringent and was made using the normal, mildly abrasive bathhouse towel than by the rasp of one of those little green ‘Italy towels.’
Once lovely and clean, and basquing in my favourite patch in the hot pool, I got thinking…
I’ve recently had a new pupil called Fart Pants (방귀 바지) who is currently sitting on the fence between the kids who have a brain and the ones, and there are not many, who I deem ‘hobaks’ (호박). Hobaks are pumpkin head kids who are just incredibly slow and tiring to teach. Most professional teachers, back home at least, will castigate the practice of pigeonholing kids in such a derogatory manner and will certainly condemn me for printing her name except of course, it is not Fart Pants. But let’s not get holy, holy, most teachers pigeonhole kids in one form or another but usually deny they do so and as is the case in Korea, you can still call one kid intelligent and another a mong without offending the silly sensibilities of political correctness that demand all kids are equal.
definitely worth licking
I’ve always maintained that if ever I had to lick a bum hole, if I was forced on pain of death, if I couldn’t choose a baby to lick upon, it would be a Korean. Of course there’s a ranking system: all babies first, followed by males (preferably younger) females (preferably younger), old men, old women. I would think this ranking would be a fairly common for anyone forced to comply but given some preferences. Personally, I think a hierarchy much different from this, for example, preferring to lick ancient butt to baby butt, a truly rank preference, would be suggestive of some sexual perversion.
Although I wouldn’t want to lick any bum, not even for pleasure, if I had to my first choice would be that of a baby. Anyone other than a baby I could probably never look in the face again ether from a sense of guilt or revulsion. A baby would no more remember the act than having its nappy changed. As a baby has no personality it’s not like licking the arse of a real person, and once out of its nappy it’s not much more than a dirty doll. Denied a baby, I’d select a Korean. Perhaps some Koreans don’t scrub their butts out but I know lots do because I’ve seen them. On the other-hand, I’ve never seen a westerner clean out their arse.
Koreans must have the cleanest arse holes in the world. I doubt you’ve ever seen a westerner scrub out their bum hole so you don’t really know if they do. I suspect most westerners just flush their butts with a blast from the shower which isn’t very hygienic considering its a deep, dark, dank, dirt dump which we sit on all day and despite its catalogue of offenses is subject to significantly less scrutiny than our mouths and teeth. There is a veritable arsenal of mouth wash and gargle to both freshen and kill oral bacteria but nothing of a similar nature with which to douche your arse.
Like most arses, Pluto has been exiled
With an arse hole as distant as Pluto, the first time I saw a bide abroad, I assumed it was either for bathing a baby or washing your feet. And even though its design should have announced its purpose, the idea was repugnant. A device for washing your arse! A filthy idea! To have deduced the purpose of that alien bide would have required a morally degenerate mind and the inclinations of a pervert. You dump out of a bum and after mopping up you forget the filthy offence. Poohing is a sin and a sin of such gargantuan proportions that even though ‘cleanliness is next to Godliness,’ the Bible avoids any mention of that dirty orifice. You don’t talk about poohing, you don’t share the experience and you certainly don’t make devices to clean it. If there’s one reason, why westerners are so distrustful of Islamic culture it’s because their poohing customs, ie. mopping up with a hand wetted with water from an old baked bean can, force infidels to confront the one place we hate to go. For the westerner forced to muck-out a la Mohammad, having to touch that unspeakable place, especially when adopting the most undignified of postures, is a significant form of first contact. Touching down in that dark and alien cavity and being compelled to blindly explore it contours without the comfort of a wad of tissue, is something you never forget. It is a first contact not just in that you are forced to acknowledge that there is life on Pluto and that is not as nearly as far away as you thought, but that in all the years leading up that significant event, you staunchly upheld the prime directive of non-interference (and if you were interfering with one, even your own, you never talked about it!) A working definition of a seasoned traveler? Someone who has had first contact with their own arse hole. Hence, I imagine most arses, especially non Korean arses, have permanent bad breath and while you can have the pseudo medical condition ‘halitosis,’ there is no corresponding medical term for a smelly bum. Unfortunately, considering their propensity for filth, bum holes are sorely neglected.
But of all Korean butts in Korea, there’s one exception, Fart Pants! Fart Pants (방귀 바지) is the dirtiest Korean to date I have met. And though her parents aren’t poor, her dirtiness has more to do with her habits than being physically dirty. Admittedly, her favourite coat, salmon pink, looks like it has been used to clean the floor but this didn’t bother me until she started farting in class. The pink coat, being padded, has insulating properties and a fart is always more unpleasant when heated. I don’t know how universal it is in Korea, but I’m told that teachers rarely say anything to a kid who farts because it draws attention to them which of course, they don’t like. In common with the rule of vile farts, hers are silent but I know they’re hers because her eyes will be sparkling and she will be salivating heavily in a manner that suggests she’s either been fingering her own butt or sucking a turd up and down her back passage. Either way, there is an intense look of pleasure and glee on her face.
The smell, still warm, then looms up from under the desk around which we sit and it’s truly hideous. As the foetid guff engulfs me, I sit up, then press my neck as far back in my collar as possible, before moving my chair back after which there is no escape. A few days ago, after trying to hold my breath I knew was going to retch and had to leave the classroom. Betty, who is sat right next to her, must have had her nasal passages cauterized as she doesn’t seem to notice a thing. Fart Pants lets one-off in most lessons. When she first started classes, nerves probably clenched her butt shut but now she’s in the swing of things and relaxed, she blows off with as much ease as someone with a prolapsed rectum. I find her farts incredibly intense and personal and being subject to them is a form of abuse. Apparently, she farts in other teacher’s classes but no one has heard her which makes me suspect she might have a punctured colostomy bag. If she moves about too much, even a considerable time after issue, a residual smell, loitering under the lagging of that pink coat, will waft up.
If this hasn’t been bad enough, there have now been a number of occasions when I have noticed her toying with a bogey (코딱지) between the tips of her index finger and thumb. She seems to keep a bogey in play for several minutes, massaging it around like a piece of sticky glue or a grain of cooked rice. Then her hand goes under the table and I anticipate it being dropped. Moments later however, it re-emerges only this time its on another hand. It’s magical! Not in the sense she can keep amusing herself with one bogey for so long or that it seems to matter transport from one digital location to another, but because the things are so moisture retentive. A few days ago, she must have forgotten about one of her nasal playthings: it had been rolled, stretched, palpitated, passed between various fingers and hands. Suddenly she went still which was quite noticeable because she is always fiddling and tears welled in her eyes. Another fart was being primed! The intense pleasure its production provided distracted her enough to evaporate that offensive entity being entertained predominantly between her fingers. When I asked a question which necessitated pointing in a book, her hand reappeared from under the table. From this stage on it’s a guessing game; which hand? which finger? When she pointed to the page, on the end of her right index finger, perched a pale green bogey still looking fairly fresh despite the copious palpitations. Next moment, her hot fart smacked me in the face.
Over the weekend I bought some anti-bacterial hand cream, the choice was amazing as this item is currently very fashionable. I also bought a bottle of Febreeze as I noticed that the farts clung to my clothing like fried food or tobacco smells.
Monday afternoon! First class of the week and Betty is on her own. Fart Pants has left the school and I shalln’t miss her!
I Touch Kiddies and I'm Proud of it! (Eulogy for Children's Day)
podcast 16
In the Ebente-tang (이벤트탕) the aroma of the day is jasmine. I now play this game where I try to guess the scent before looking at the information board. I got it wrong today but then I have a slight cold. For the second time in 2 weeks I saw an older guy with a snood. Anyway, I was thinking…
Not suitable for pumpkin people! (click)
Betty and Becky are two small kids I teach three times a week. Betty is the most adorable little girl you could ever meet. She is always impeccably dressed, usually in her little school uniform of matching gray skirt, jumper and blue blazer and her hair is usually decorated with some form of hair clip, a sequined butterfly or a flower. Around her neck hangs the customary mobile phone, stark pink with a little teddy bear suspended from it, as is the fashion. She is always laughing and skipping and incredibly happy.
Recently she has been playing the ‘ddong chip game’ (‘똥 injection’) which a few weeks ago I thought must have gone out of fashion until I noticed a couple of boys playing it. This ‘game,’ more of a gesture than a game, consists of clasping the hands together and extending the index fingers. The custom is to adopt a sort of James Bond stance, holding the clasped hands like a gun, and then poke your index fingers up your victim’s arse. It’s common for kids to do this to teachers. This week however, Betty has struck me twice in the testicles. The problem is, she has a habit of jumping out from a doorway so that she is under my belly and I can’t see her, at which point she strikes and runs away, giggling. Obsessed with my hairiness, she constantly strokes my arms, or feels the stubble on my chin and today after a hair cut, she wanted to stroke my head. Sometimes she sits on my knee or hugs my leg, her face almost in my crotch… Beginning to think I’m a paedophile? If so, that’s actually quite a sad indictment of our society.
As a westerner configured and attuned to sickening sexual predilections, as all westerners are, at this point I feel compelled to offer some defence. You know the kind of crap: ‘I’m not a perv but…..’. In Britain you can no longer make ‘statements’ such as: ‘I love children….’ ‘I touch children…’ I like the affection of children…’ without having to subsequently proffer some heavy mitigation to annihilate any suspicions. It’s a crazy situation which has been allowed to develop because electorates are poorly educated in subjects that matter to civilization and easily coaxed and coached to hysteric proportions. As with all the witch-hunts of the past, professionals have done little or nothing to challenge proceedings until a point is reached where a profession actually emerges to ensure the paranoia remains; a sort of official ‘Witch-Finder General Body’, which will poke and inflame fears and very successfully accuse, or suggest all opposition, especially professional opposition, as a manifestation of the problem itself. Hence, to defend a witch is to be a witch, and to critique paedo-paranoia suggests one is themselves a paedophile. ‘I love animals…,’ ‘ I love the affection of animals…,’ ‘I touch animals…’ needs no mitigation! Paedo-paranoia, as an ideology and profession which seeks perversion in everything, is as offensive, anti-social and unnatural as the abuse it seeks to prevent.
Betty’s behaviour is totally normal and no Korean would see anything amiss in her physical intimacy with adults. Earlier this week, in a class with two older boys, probably about 10 and 11, I had to lift up my shirt to let them scrutinize the scar across my navel where I had an umbilical hernia repair. Neither did they wait for me to consent before starting to tug my shirt out of my trousers. On another occasion an older boy who had an allergic reaction to something, pulled off his shirt and asked me to scratch his back and a few weeks later, the same boy asked me to put drops in his sore eye. Patting your stomach, stroking your arms, and playing with your fingers or hand are all regular, natural occurrences which should, in a predominantly healthy society, be associated with our being human and mammalian. Older kids will give you massages and play with you in a manner I have never witnessed in a British school and which would certainly lead to an interview with management. As for my Korean boss, I’ve seen her on the floor wrestling both girls and boys and I’ve seen a boy give her husband a massage on his thigh, very close to his groin, after he pulled a muscle. All totally natural ! Those whose minds have been poisoned with all that western crap, and from which I am not excluded, supposedly premised on love but in practice totally the opposite and in which everyone, especially men, are potential molesters, are likely to see such behaviour as suspect. Of course , child abuse goes on in Korea, probably more than we are aware off. But thankfully, during my life time, social relationships in Korea will not be perversified and terrorized to an extent where every adult is a demon and every touch between adult and child a potential case of abuse, to the same obsessive level it currently enjoys back home. I like contact with kids and see it as a part of natural, human relationships. If indeed the sexual abuse of kids is so high in the west, it is perhaps time we reevaluated either western human sexuality or human sexuality itself. Let’s face it, compared to Korean society, many facets of western life are fucking messed! Teenage pregnancy, sex diseases, anti-intellectualism, gross male machoism, rampant crime and violence.
In the UK in August 2007, a company launched Kevlar padded school uniforms to protect children from knife attacks. Perhaps our sexualities are fucked, too? The way we dress our daughters would suggest paedophilia is a prevalent predilection much closer to home rather than an offbeat obsession of strangers. What Daddy wants to see their daughter dressed like a tart? Clearly, many! Currently, in the UK, much debate is raging about Primark’s marketing of a padded bra / bikini for 8 year old’s! This joins similar promiscuous products of tweeny-hood such as thongs for six-year old’s emblazoned with two cherries and the caption ‘Eat Me!‘ (Argos) Marks and Spencer’s, ‘Angel ‘ range of thongs for 7 year old’s and the pole dancing kit for kiddies.
Of course, when you try to explain to Koreans about the sicker side of western society, the crime, teenage pregnancy, anti-intellectualism, the high rates of teenage infection by sexually transmitted diseases, the promiscuity, our obsession with sex etc, etc, it is rarely really comprehended. Several years ago I was in a bathhouse with my Korean friend, David. It was a hot and sticky afternoon in August and we’d gone to a mogyotang (목요탕) to cool off in the cold pool. As it was the summer vacation there were a number of children present including a 12-year-old American boy who was on his own. A 12-year-old boy naked and alone in a public place! In the UK, paedo-paranoia is so great kids can’t even go to school alone let loiter in a bathhouse unaccompanied and nude. For a while we played with a couple of small boys, flipping them into the air with clasped hands in which they put a foot. The American boy, whom we’d chatted with for a little, sat on the edge of the activity and at one point, David tried to encourage him to join in. When David touched the boy’s shoulder I noticed him tense up and I had to explain that for westerners, such physical intimacy is uncomfortable. It was a miracle the boy was in a bathhouse in the first place.
Childrens Day
Physical intimacy for westerners is now predominantly perceived as a sexual act which means that innocent intimacy, especially between adult and child, is branded suspect and a potential grooming process which could lead to sexual abuse. And if professionals such as social workers, teachers, the police, etc, aren’t enforcing paedo-paranoia, they are mute in any criticism of it. Indeed many teachers and other professionals will encourage paedo-paranoia.
Occasionally, though perhaps more so in the past, grandparents or relatives tweaked small kids between the legs, more so boys than girls, sometimes as a game and other times if checking the gender of a baby, and when this was witnessed by a foreign teacher in a school in which I taught several years ago, I found her crying hysterically in an adjoining office. She was adamant this was sexual abuse and wanted to know where she could report the incident. That this was a foreign country with different values and that it was not a sexual act, fell on deaf ears. One only has to talk to a professional involved in ‘child protection’ to sense their sickened mind-set, that everyone is suspect, that every intimate gesture must be scrutinized and that it is a perversion which is rife throughout society. In such discussions one always feels judged, that you too must be ‘one’ and hence the intense need to mitigate yourself. Krystalnacht, the Salem Witch Trials, the persecution of women in the middle ages, the Spanish Inquisition, McCarthyism, all were spurned and inspired by the babble, conflation and hyperbole of ‘professional’ witch-finders.
Physical intimacy with students or Koreans doesn’t phase me and if you think it’s just kids that are so lax about bodies, body proxemics and touching, it’s not. Several years ago a friend of mine who is totally heterosexual, asked to see my dick. There was a reason, non sexual, which I will save for a later post, but I had to take it out for him to inspect. He had just delivered my lunch and the steaming mandu were on the table between the two of us as I unzipped. Then, almost as if returning a favour, he nonchalantly showed me his vasectomy. Tackle zipped away, we sat down and tucked into the mandu which, made by his wife, happen to be the best I have eaten.
So, ‘I touch kiddies’ and I don’t mind when they ‘touch me!’ Indeed I’m proud to say, ‘I touch kiddies.’ And if you think this is perverse you can throw me in water and if I float, I’m guilty. Matthew Hopkins, Witch-Finder General, a medieval ‘professional babbler,’ was paid a pound for every witch he discovered and the water test was one of his prime methods of exposing them. Needless to say, with a livelihood premised on the existence of witches, and so, so many of them, he found them everywhere. Until that was, so legend says, it was discovered he too floated and he was promptly executed.
We have foisted a range of fears onto children and youngsters that lead them to perceive potential danger in innocent interactions, have taught them to distrust intimacy, to seek perversion in others and most perverse of all, taught them that intimacy is solely sexual. It is future generations that will have to endure the anti-social, anti-human damage wrought by those perverted ‘professional babblers’ and a society who kept silent!
But that is back in the perverted West. Meanwhile, here in Korea it is Children’s Day and my school is taking some students to the park. We’re going to play!
© 林東哲 2010 Creative Commons Licence.
Links to the ‘padded bra for 8 year old’s debate in the UK:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/apr/14/primark-padded-bikini
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/15/primark-padded-bikinis-mumsnet-sexuality
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/apr/14/primark-children-padded-bikini-tops
Related Articles
- Mary Ann Sieghart: Good riddance to the society of suspects (independent.co.uk)
Sausages and Shit – Comparissons in Smut humour
podcast 15
Around a year ago, I wrote several mini plays for my younger students with the intention of encouraging stress and intonation and injecting some emotion into what was often flat and dull dialogue. Out of this came an idea to write something using those words which Koreans always mispronounce. I trialed ‘I’m Pine’ in a small class and quite scared the kids as I was the only one laughing, indeed I was hysterical and all red-faced and coughing. Meanwhile, the kids looked on without the slightest clue what I was laughing at. I abandoned the project when I realised that fnarr fnarr, innuendo and smut, work as effectively on Koreans as sarcasm. However, if you pronounce sarcasm more like ‘sharcasm’ or ‘sharcashi’ it will elicit a response as this has something to do with oral sex. If you use this word on Kindergarten kids you’ll need to explain it more graphically, perhaps by way of eating a banana or sausage.
I mean! Its a cock! Isnt it?
Have you noticed how you can have a roomful of Korean kids eating bananas or sausages and no one ever makes a joke or gesture about sucking a cock? In a class of British kids there will always be one who makes the connection public. My sister and I can never eat phallic food without making jokes or obscene gestures and many a time one of us has deep throated a banana after using our teeth to quickly groove it a suitable helmet and meatus. A banana might not strike one as a suitable replica of a cock, but one advantage is you can embellish it with far greater success than for example a sausage, which like cosmetic surgery, often results in a simply ghastly mutilation. Bock-wurst sausages, the most realistic of phallic foods are particularly amusing as like truly big cocks, no matter how hard you slurp, they remain bendy. Bratwurst too, can slip in and out of the throat provided not too hot or over grilled, when the skin splits and they can scratch your throat. Westerners are much more apt to defile items resembling a cock in terms of texture or shape and pepperonis, lychees, strawberries, bananas, the entire gamut of sausages, marrows, courgettes, cucumbers, etc, etc, are all the butt of our crude humour.
All the fun of a saveloy! (1982)
The herculean efforts required to suck away a stick of seaside rock provide an extension to, and memory of, holiday joys
Can we westerners eat a banana or saveloy in public without a fleeting association of it being a cock? Is it possible for us to eat a banana without some awareness that we mustn’t lavish our lips too long on the tip or caress it fleetingly with a tongue. We must certainly never suck it like a lolly, that’s a cardinal sin. And what about rock, the great British seaside tradition? Rock, and things like barley sticks can all be vigorously sucked without ever offending the sensibilities as can corn on the cob, the eating of which is never passive and certainly reminiscent of nuzzling along the girth of a bloated shaft.
Infinitely more gratifying, are the girth and grease of a sausage
In commercials, it is permissible to suggest oral gratification provided the object being ‘sucked,’ or more usually poked between pouted lips (of a sexy woman), is something lifeless and hence lollies and cream eggs are often subject to titillation. For the British juvenile commercial, fellatio is epitomised by the Cadbury’s chocolate flake in which the references are all cock but the moment the tongue probes that helmet-less stump the thing either melts or flakes apart. There is an unspoken rule that sucking or licking something in public or alluding to the oral stimulation of a penis is acceptable provided the phallus in play is hard, unyielding, cold, fragile, brittle, and basically void of any life. Once all the qualities of life are removed, all potential threats nullified and nicified, you can lick it and suck it as much as you like. This is why it is okay to suck a lolly, the rigidity and cold reminiscent of a cock with rigor rather than one with vigour, but not a banana. This is the reason you can never suck on a saveloy or nuzzle up the shaft of a succulent sausage, holding it in daintily between your fingers and it is why, in your favourite bistro, you never dip the head of your Cumberland in the creamy mashed potato, lube it up with as smidgen of thick gravy, and commence to lick it like a lolly.
All the characteristics of a beefy cock
A Walnut Whip
Such associations are lost on Koreans and to me at least, with my filthy western mind, it seems as though such humour should be universal, I mean, a sausage, especially a long bendy one, it’s a cock, isn’t it? Six inches plus of warm meat, firm but not unyielding, broad enough to gnaw like a sweetcorn, slightly oily and let’s not forget, juicy. They even have a skin! How could such characteristics not remind you of a cock? But give a Korean a turd, especially one whirled like an ice cream, and they’ll be highly amused. Seriously, one of the first words I learned to recognise was ‘ddong,’ (똥). In those first few weeks in Korea, I was quite intrigued by the appeal that many kids had for drawing ‘ice cream’ whirls on desks and walls. Why ice-cream, I thought? Are they hungry? There was a Baskin Robbins opposite my school but their ice-cream wasn’t whirled. And the whirls, expertly drawn, were literally everywhere: on desks on the wall and even in notebooks.
Naturally, such visualizations are culturally informed. I shit quite differently back in the UK where my turds, and those left loitering in toilet bowls which I’ve had the misfortune to see, are rarely whirled; a whirled turd probably symptomatic of a bad stomach. No! Western poohs are more like yule tide logs, bulky, loaded, substantive and sticky. If you’ve lived in Korea for any amount of time, and your diet is predominantly Korean food, you may have noticed how long a toilet roll lasts. I mean, two wadges are ample to clean your arse because you shit so fast any residue left loitering in your dirt track is dragged out by suction. If I had to calculate the time it takes to sit down, shit, and mop up, then on an average basis the process is far quicker on a Korean diet. Living in Korea actually adds time to your life because the moment you sit down, ‘hwang,’ and it’s out. Two little dabs with toilet paper, wash yours hands and you’re done! You have to wash your hands if your from the UK as research by a British University discovered that 15-53% of British people have traces of shit on their hands. Apparently, the further north you travel the shitier the hands. Since being made aware of this, as an act of both sanitation and disassociation, I now use anti-bacterial hand-wash after every dump.
A National icon. Mr Whippy!
Mr Pooh
Poohing Korean Style can take place in less than a minute. Korean faecal flurry can’t wait to get out, indeed your body blasts it into the loo in one atomic fart. But the moment you hit western food, the pastries, bread, burgers, potato, pizzas, and copious amounts of meat, and every fibre of your lower intestine is fighting to keep that clotted log contained in your gut and it’s so gargantuan in girth and solid in consistency that expelling it, like birthing, takes not just considerable will power but a highly rubberous ring piece. In its wake, a trail of muck, always sticky, pasty and clingy and which can only be removed by massaging it around your butt, sort of rubbing it off, with half a roll of paper. No wonder we need extra ply shit paper, and little lotioned wipes to prod our butts because an English diet, and this is the worst part, involves having to manually dredge yourself. With all that poking, and a paper draped digit, even double ply, is never a reliable defense, I’m not surprised many Brits have shit on their hands. And I wonder how much psychological damage is done having to finger around the flesh of that dirty clam on a daily basis. How much of our national psyche is shaped by those ‘turdy’ experiences. No wonder we don’t like to touch each other and seldom shake hands, no wonder we are so unfriendly, no wonder pooh is taboo! Fingering shit first thing in the morning is a vile and shameful way to start the day and knowing that everyone else has been digging the dirt is hardly conducive to community spirit!
© 林東哲 2010 Creative Commons Licence.
I Like my Girls in Knickers
I hate girls in pink as much as I hate boys in blue. Much of my hatred probably stems from those pathetic toys like Barbie and My Little Pony. Parents who buy their daughters such toys are as irresponsible as those who hand their five-year old crotchless panties or a thong. Even though many women will defend their comfort, I would imagine thongs are as comfortable as high-heeled shoes in which you are forced to strut about like a chicken. You can’t run in them, you can’t stand up straight, they can be dangerous but you look so much more sexy now you’re two inches taller! As for thongs, I dread to think how they must look on a hot day after that gusset has been sawing about up a sweaty crack like a length of arse floss. Fashion and comfort do not go hand in hand and if something is deemed ‘fashionable,’ all pain and discomfort will be tolerated in its pointless pursuit. In UK schools, a high percentage of teenage girls wear such degrading lingerie and I have seen evidence of such when girls have bent down. Conversely, I doubt few Korean girls under 18 wear them. Personally, nothing looks more unattractive or more slutty than a thong or indeed a pair of men’s posing panties. In the bedroom before a session I can go with but at all other times, keep them hidden! I like my girls in knickers, even those baggy blue ones girls were forced to wear for PE in the 60-70’s; the ones that looked like shapeless nappies. And my boys? Boxers please! I recently wore a pair of boxers for too long and on one leg a sort of thong developed. It was quite uncomfortable sometimes strangling my thigh like a tourniquet and at other times being consumed between my bum cheeks so, I know how it feels, girls; believe me!
My Boxer-thong.
Marmite anyone?
Ever since a few celebrity men wore pink a couple of years ago, including Peckham Beckham, who wore a pink scarf, it’s become an acceptable colour for men. All praise the gurus of fashion! Even kids in my classes have told me, that pink is now ‘in,’ in the UK. Of course, it’s been ‘in’ for quite awhile and for some it never went ‘out.’ I’ve worn a number of pink Ben Sherman shirts over the years but then I am forced to buy from the small selection available that fits me. I doubt I’ll wear pink now as it seems to have become a laddy-chavvy colour. Until recently men could wear pink as a statement of individuality, which is of course, is exactly what Peckham Beckham did, probably on the orders of his wife who as a talented singer and musician is correspondingly an expert on fashion , design and perfume, except that once adopted by the hoi polloi, it becomes more of a uniform. Fashion is about conformity more than individuality. If Peckham Beckham sported a turd on his head, a substantial number of the population would follow suit. Which reminds me, back in 2003, when living in Daegu, I had a pink baseball hat!
A Motorbike and pink - definitely a statement. But is she wearing a thong?
Coughing One Up
podcast 14
As I lay wallowing in the ‘ebente-tang,’ the ‘special event’ pool (이벤트 탕), today scented with jasmine (자스민) I was thinking, I’ve never heard anyone burp in Korea. In British schools burps are often heard and as a schoolboy, I can remember belching competitions as I was often the winner. In the army we were always burping. And while I have never heard a Korean burp, I am very acquainted with the sights and sounds accompanied with hoiching your lungs up, snorting your nose clear and even haenging the contents of your nose into the nearest gutter or down a wall. While such habits might not be rated high in terms of manners, in the bathhouse at least, they are clearly not taboo. When you have a cold or flu, nothing is worse than having to discreetly snort to keep your nose and throat clear and it has taken me a while to be able to utilise this habit without being too embarrassed. If I do snort, it is not as a habit as I am conscious of its performance and my snorts are still apologetic and reserved.
bathhouse interior
Koreans are far more guttural than we westerners, sighing loudly and mopping their forehead after finishing off a spicy meal and getting in to extremes of water in the bathhouse always elicits a large sigh, often accompanied with long and ecstatic, ‘shiwonhada!’ And the soju? That elicits sounds like ‘wa.’ Snorting, hoiching and ‘haenging’ are all fairly common sounds, at least for men. One occasionally sees older men bent over a sidewalk or on the grass, pressing one thumb against a nostril while ‘haenging’ the other one clear. Though I can recall very few occasions hearing a woman snort, I’ve never heard or seen one hoich or haeng though I’m told females hoich and haeng in a bathhouse, especially older women. I rarely hear my neighbours television or music but every morning, around 6.30am, I’ll hear a man’s strangulated and at times alarming hoichs.
After a spell in the steam room and quick dip in the cold pool, I sit down on one of those bucket seats next to an elderly man I haven’t seen for a while. I attempt to make conversation, telling him I’ve had a string of colds and asking how his health is but he can’t understand me. Of late, I have noted a marked improvement in my Korean but his inability to understand me isn’t doing my confidence any good. When I have to resort to spelling words on the palm of my hand, I conclude he must be hard of hearing! Unable to communicate, we both drift off into the relaxing mental blankness that accompanies scrubbing and cleaning your body and which can at times, especially with the world obliterated by the soothing sounds of water, be almost zen-like in its emptiness.
awesome
He’s scrubbing his foot, positioned on the ledge next to me, as I feel a need to snort. Though I have neither snorted in public or spat one out, along with haenging your nose into the palm of your hand, many seem to do it. The congestion irritates me so I snort and without any forethought, decide to spit it into the gutter. Now, as I was in the process of forming my lips and amassing the clot subsequent to its expulsion, it occurred to me that I’ve heard people snorting, and seen them spitting but wasn’t quite sure if what they were spitting was actually the contents of a snort. I mean, when someone snorts you don’t stand and watch and then inspect what’s been expelled. Right on the edge of expulsion, I realised I had assumed what comprised the spit was what had been snorted whereas it might simply be spit. Too late, I blew out large oyster. Instead of hitting the gutter to be carried off in a river of soapy suds, it landed on the black marble ledge next to the older man’s soap. I quickly doused it with the shower only to aqua plane it towards his toes which he was busy scrubbing. Luckily, I was able to divert it with another blast of water which sent it slinking over the edge of the ledge where it hung like a pendulum before slipping into the gutter. I’m not sure if he noticed but if his sight was as keen as his ears, I doubt he even knew who was sat next to him. I have decided to pay more attention to the expelling of such matter in the future. And then there’s the subject of pissing into the gutter as you’re showering…
© 林東哲 2010 Creative Commons Licence.
Want to see my Boxers?
My former boxers. If young and lithe they might be sexy but on me they pose a scary sight!
podcast 13
I have a fat arse and in the UK, unlike the USA or places like North or Southern Germany, if you are tall (over 6’3), and bulky (waist over 40 inches), you can say goodbye to ever dressing decently. I’m certainly no fashion guru but then I have an excuse! Britain is so backward in so many ways and probably the worst dressed nation in the developed world. If I had to rank them, it would be marginally above the naff fashions of Poland and those from the former East Germany. Shortly after arriving home last Christmas, I was confronted on tubes and buses by a sea of black, browns and depressing drabby colours.
For years I’ve had to cut sleeves off my shirts. If I can buy a shirt that fits, it hasn’t been made for a tall person who is big, but a short guy who is mega fat. Most shirts and jackets I buy in the UK have cuffs that end just below my elbows which if I recall correctly, is reminiscent of both 80’s fashion, where men’s short sleeves were accompanied with a handbag, and the character Nik Nak from Man with a Golden Gun. Trousers are never over 34 inches in the inside leg unless you’re atrophied and like a chopstick and conversely, if you have the girth of an elephant but legs not much longer than those of a chair, the choice is unlimited. Meanwhile, if you’re fat and tall, you’re fucked!
Britain has a knack for giving outsize clothing shops bad names. I’m not surprised most establishments are internet based as the shame of entering them forces you never to leave home. Who wants to shop for fashion at a shop called ‘Mr Big,’ or ‘Fat Man?’ I usually refer to such shops as ‘freak shops,’ because in terms of store name , quality, and actually design, Alla Poland, only a freak in desperation would wear such products.
My British made (off the peg) bag blazer, costing 477.000Won (£280) Pure shite quality!
Shortly before coming out to Korea in 2007, I bought a sports jacket at a freak shop outside London. To be honest, it is probably the most decent and respectable outsize clothing shop I have seen in the UK. The round trip tallied 2oo miles and I paid the price for the privilege of being large. The last pair of trousers I bought here, prior to my first visit to Korea, cost £80 sterling (137.000W) and lasted a year. The quality was shit and they were shapeless and style-less and wearing them was one step up from dressing in a cloth bag. That year I had three pairs of trousers made by a friend in Daegu, each cost me 80.000Won, which then amounted to around £40 (about £46 today). Indeed, I am about to wear one of the pairs this very moment – nine years later. My jacket, cost £280 sterling which as of today is a staggering 477.000 Won. I’ve only worn it in Spring and Autumn and then, only to go to and from work, so it hasn’t had a lot of use. However, I’ve just had to have repairs made to the lining which has come apart (cost 8000W or £4.70). A few years ago, when in the UK, I inquired about having a pair of trouser made by a ‘bespoke tailor,’ probably not the cheapest place to go, he quoted me £300 (512.000Won).
Here in Korea, there is no way any shop will stock clothes or shoes that would fit me but with Daegu as one of the world’s leading textiles centers and an abundance of reasonably priced tailors, getting something made to measure is easy. As a fat arse in Britain you’re treated to limited range of choices when you buy boxer shorts. The only option for purchase is via an online freak shop and the choices of colours, usually black, gray, white or blue with a little variation in terms of check, stripes or plain. So it was an amazing experience for me to shop at Daegu’s main textile market and chose patterns for my new boxers.
Silk boxer shorts? Cotton? Linen? Even plastic, the choice was mine!
I eventually had a tailor make me a few pairs and have since built my collection to twenty. The overall cost of each, including the material, works out at about 22.000Won (£12.50). While this is expensive for a pair of boxers, it is substantially cheaper than ordering a pair from hand-made boxer companies in the US and of course, I’ve selected the material. Needless to say, on my visits to the bathhouse, I now strut about proudly in my lovely array of boxers. But I haven’t discarded my threadbare old ones. Loathe to wear my new ones in which to exercise, I wear them on the treadmill where the worn material and disintegrated gussets provide ample ventilation for my nether regions.
Luxury
Luxury that only a fatty would appreciate
© 林東哲 2010 Creative Commons Licence.
I Saw a Snood
Alleged Korean mafia member
podcast 12
I was laying in the hot pool (열탕) this evening. I never hang around in there too long as this one is quite hot and fifteen minutes is my maximum. As it was empty, I could wedge myself in my favourite corner and watch the television. Then this man with a large dragon tattooed on his thigh stepped into the pool. People often tell me that a tattoo is a sign of mafia membership but that might be prejudice. Last week I saw the first person I have ever seen in Korea with a tattoo on a part of the body not easily covered. It was a large cross which extended from the base of his neck right up until just under his ear. It wasn’t a good design and looked like he’d done it himself. A tattoo on the neck! That’s a bad sign and I heard myself mutter, ‘wanker,’ exactly as I do when I see those silly kids on hairdryer motorcycles zig-zaging from one side of the road to the other with an enormous speaker, masking-taped to the petrol tank and blaring at full volume over the whinnying strains of the engine. Yea, I know, those kids are probably harmless, but I had enough anti-social behaviour in the UK to last a life time. A tattoo on the neck in Korea, will definitely impede life to the max!
The guy stands in front of me so his buttocks and are facing me, and for a few moments he stands watching the TV. I’ve seen plenty of guys with this sort of tattoo as well as the one cascading down the back and they’re never unfriendly or aggressive – not as you might expect a gang member to be. I’ve also noticed how many of them have the same stocky, slightly pot-bellied physiques. The water was starting to get uncomfortable but as I was going to change pools, the ‘ice room’ was calling me, Mafia Man turns about and I get a glimpse of the first snood I’ve seen in several months. Snoods are not common in bathhouses, but on non-western adults at least, they are about as common as a foreskin.
Anyone who has ventured into a bathhouse will have noticed, especially if they come from Europe, that all Korean men are circumcised. Indeed Korea has the highest rate of non-religious circumcision in the world – thanks to the influence of the USA in the 1950’s. Meanwhile, N. Koreans remain intact. Finding data and statistics or indeed any information on the phenomenon of Korean circumcision is as difficult as finding information on frenulectomy / frenoplasty; the additional operation which the majority of American boys are subject to and which chops away even more of their dicks than their circumcision. When health ‘care’ secretly removes parts of the body and the victims don’t even know whats been removed, let alone their parents, it ceases to be ‘care.’
Korean circumcisions are usually performed shortly before the boy is about to go to middle school, the average age being around 13, though for some it may be performed earlier and it is certainly not uncommon to see uncircumcised high school or even first year university students. However, it is probably safe to assume 99.9% of males have been circumcised by the time they are conscripted into the forces. That this operation is not performed in infancy may be explained by the fact that until fairly recently, infant mortality rates were high and circumcision placed an added risk on a boy’s life. Unlike the USA, Korea has not exploited the clandestine removal of the frenulum. Clinics for circumcising boys, most popular during the winter vacation, are as common as supermarkets and indeed, my local E-Mart has a clinic opposite so you can have your dick mutated and be sat in E-Mart McDonald’s in less time than a scale and polish. Operations taking about thirty minutes, are performed under local anesthetic and cost between 60.000 – 100.000 won (30-50 UK pounds).
And this is exactly what it looks like!
Back to the snood! When I first started going to bathhouses, I quite often saw a couple of guys with these very weird-looking things hanging from the underside of their dicks. At first, I thought they must have had botched circumcisions but I now know they were either Filipino or had been ‘circumcised,’ Filipino style, which is known as pagtutuli. The traditional Filipino version, which simply cleaves the foreskin in two, and then lets it hang off the underside like a chunk of fat, hence the ‘snood,’ qualifies as a circumcision about as much as rasping your face with the cheese grater qualifies as a face-lift. Meanwhile, if you want to know what happens to all those foreskins in the US – it’s a mega-buck industry with neonatal foreskins the most lucrative. Want to buy a batch? Apparently, they make very good anti-aging cream! Personally, I’ll stick with Nivea. http://ccr.coriell.org/Sections/BrowseCatalog/?SId=3
© Nick Elwood 2010 Creative Commons Licence.
All or Nothing – on Mid Term Exams
Being the time of mid-term exams, the school was quite strange today as some classes watched videos and generally relaxed, while for others, the pressure is still on. The majority of British kids don’t know what pressure is and would find student life in Korea very strange most especially as Korean kids identify with, and respond to, the term ‘student,’ (학생 – haksaeng). Even this week, in the bathhouse, a boy was making too much noise and a man close by addressed him as ‘haksaeng!’ Trying to get an English kid’s attention by calling them ‘student,’ would be pretty redundant and a great many would simply tell you to ‘fuck off!’
The one and only!
I have great admiration for the Korean Education system, recently cited by Obama as a model the US should emulate, but one of its major downsides is the incredible pressure it puts on young people to perform. While it’s laudable that Korean students mostly want the best marks, it is somewhat sad that there is only one best mark, notably 100%. Earlier this week I found some old photos of me taken almost 30 years ago and I was not only incredible fit, but very handsome; in fact so handsome that I could actually fancy myself. At the time however, and at every point of my life, I’ve been too fat, too unfit or too ugly and yet there I am in a fading photo with a waistline and looking very good. It’s bit of a knock when you realise that at one time you possessed something you’ve spent your life looking for, and you never knew it! The same scenario is probably true for many people who struggle with their weight, especially women, always feeling fat no matter how thin, and it’s similar for Korean educational achievement.
Ben
Asking kids yesterday, how they got on in their National English-speaking tests, even the ones who got 100% generally said, ‘okay,’ or ‘so,so;’ their modesty masking their intense happiness. And those who got scores of 99, 98, 97 etc, were equally as modest except the chances are they’ were bitterly disappointed. There were several words that confused a number of my students, ‘sea animal’ and ‘sick animal’ was one, the other was ‘ hobby’ and habit.’ I could imagine a native English speaker making an error but for those who answered incorrectly, this is no consolation and neither is the fact that many of their friends made the same mistake. A score in the 90’s is respectable and worth celebrating unless of course, you’re Korean.
So, as I left school yesterday, Ben who is 15, is sat on his own, forehead on the table, and crying. I’ve never had a British boy of his age crying because they didn’t do well but here it is not uncommon. And of course, you cannot console a Korean whose ‘kibun’ (기분) is in the gutter. As a western teacher there is something incredible about a student intensely upset as it reflects they care as much about their performance, as you do. When kids don’t care or have slight regard, you can guarantee your job is about child minding and behaviour control rather than teaching. However, it’s a travesty that the celebration of success is pivoted exclusively on 100%. Ben is a fantastic student: intelligent, witty, and in the Korean way, innocent, he’s a teacher’s dream, yet despite all his efforts and best intentions the loss of 2 marks effectively makes him a failure. Today was his first of a string of mid-term exams!
I have noticed that when students get their exam results, school becomes a refuge for those kids castigated and even physically punished by their parents. Last year, Ben lost one point in an exam and his father scolded him and I recall him being afraid to go home. And so my boss will spend half her time plying them with tissues trying to console them and the other half explaining herself to agitated parents. Somewhere in the space between 90-99, maybe even 80-99, should be room for celebration and self-congratulation but as with weight-loss, in Korea it’s all or nothing and so a moment of self-appreciation, a pat on the back from a parent, is lost.
© 林東哲 2010 Creative Commons Licence.
Elwood 5566 
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