The Filthy Thing Was Sat on my Doorstep
no check-out!
Maybe it’s an urban myth, but when I was in China I met a traveler who’d claimed he ‘d seen a cockroach supping dribble for the corner of his room mate’s mouth, who thankfully, was asleep at the time. The roaches I encountered in China dwarfed anything I’ve seen in Korea. And seriously, I actually knew a very strange guy from my army days who ate cockroaches. It wasn’t a party piece, he didn’t brag about it or do it to shock people. If ever a cockroach scuttled within reach his arm snatched it with as much speed and accuracy as a mantis and instantly it was deposited in his mouth. What was uncanny was that the only part of his body that moved was his arm. He didn’t even need to turn his head and could pluck one within the field of his peripheral vision. You met some strange people in the army.
I spent 10 years in the British Army in Germany and most barracks were infested with both the Oriental and the German cockroach. I even found cockroaches in my food but when I complained was simply told they were full of calories. Needless to say I hate this insect and do not wait for them to start visiting my one-room. I’ve probably seen no more than 12 in 3 years and last year saw only a couple as I’d posted at least 10 poisonous banquet boxes around the room. The thing I’ve learnt about cockroaches is that if you happen to see one snooping around the perimeter of your accommodation, or worse, inside as an unwanted guest, you can guarantee there’s been plenty other visits when you’ve been out or sleeping.
I came home this evening and there was one of the filthy pests scuttling about in the opening of my door, where you leave your shoes. With temperatures still cool, it was too slow to avoid being crushed to oblivion. So it’s off to Dream-Mart in the morning to buy one of the numerous anti-cockroach devices. For more information on Korean insects and the filthy roach:
An Interlude of Insects (April 2010)
available in Korean stores (click-pic for information)
© 林東哲 2011 Creative Commons Licence.
FURTHER REFERENCES
Just…(그냥) More Bad English and a Nazi Collaborator
fantastic
One of my friends discovered this wonderful example of bad English in downtown Daegu, a few weekends ago. This isn’t just a little gaff, it’s total nonsense. And who cares what Coco Chanel had to say, she was a super rich bitch Nazi collaborator whose past continues to be rewritten. Her talents, like that of many celebrities past and present, would quickly have been exposed by a vigorous facial with a cheese-grater.
© 林東哲 2011 Creative Commons Licence.
Related Articles
Teenage Pluckers’ and Cottagers
a sign of stress?
It was a personal opinion and I’m not generalizing, but I was once told the worst affliction for a Korean teenage, one worse than acne, was grey hair. I rarely see Korean girls preening themselves or each other to the extent that occurs in British schools but the occasional group plucking usually among girls, but occasionally boys, is not uncommon. Whether grey hairs are a sign of stress I am unsure but Koreans believe them to be so.
As all waygukin know, Korean kids are fascinated with the bodies of westerners and especially with body hair. I have a girl in one class who will regularly play with my fingers and pinch out any bits of skin from around my nails. Another boy will check my eyebrows and pluck out any straggly hairs. I don’t know how long it takes other western teachers to become oblivious, if at all, to the increased levels of physical contact between teachers and pupils; I ceased judging it by British standards a long time ago.
Sometimes however, Korean inquisitiveness goes too far for western sensibilities. Not once have I used the boys toilets in my school as we have ones specifically for staff but when a repairman was resident last week and I was bursting, I slipped into the boys toilets and immediately two middle school boys who had been leaving, turned back. Despite positioning my back to them, which in mid flow is all I can do as I am too tall to hide between the sides of the urinal, one ventured to the side of me. Undeterred either by my embarrassment or suggestions to ‘fuck off,’ he simply starred. Was this cheeky inquisitiveness, blatant cottaging or urophilia? I wasn’t angry and there was something comical about the incident. In all however, one of the minor embarrassments of life in Korea and for those waygukin unable to ditch their cultural prejudices, it is probably an incident that can only be understood in relation to perversion (hence the pumpkin logo above.) I shared the incident with my boss; she found it very amusing.
a greater degree of physical intimacy
And if ever your shoulders and back are tense simply ask a student for a massage. Korean kids, and indeed Koreans in general are as eager to pummel your shoulders and back as British kids are to arm wrestle though in my absence from the British education system, that too might now be taboo.
a group plucking during a break
FURTHER REFERENCES TO SKINSHIP WITHIN THIS BLOG
It’s All in the Touch (April 2010) Also in podact
Korean Teenager (Ben 2) And Other Stuff (June 2010)
When ‘Gay’ is ‘Gay’ (June 2010)
Who Really Worships the Wang (October 2010)
Laura (3) Korean Teenagers – Magical Moments (Oct 2010)
Bathhouse Zen (1) Dec 2010
Bathhouse Zen (2) (Dec 2010)
© 林東哲 2011 Creative Commons Licence.
Five Second Hanja (1F) – Death and its Associates (죽을 – 사 and 넉 – 사)
superstition and the number 'F'
During my first year in Korea, in 2000, I studied taekwondo the school of which was situated on the fourth floor of the building. Unlike today, where I can look every anomaly up on the internet, it took me a while before I learnt that the fourth floor was the one designated by an ‘F’. For Koreans and many Asian countries, the number four, ‘sa’ (사) is as burdened down with bad luck as is the western number ’13.’ The reason for this is that the four and ‘death’ share the same sound, ‘sa’ (사).
'sa' four (넉-사)
Koreans usually avoid numbering floors or houses with the number ‘4’ and in some cases any other number containing ‘4’. While tetraphobia is not as extreme in Korea as some other countries, it is usually either omitted, replaced by an ‘F’ or the numbering reordered, in hospitals and public buildings. In some cases the use of the number can affect building or housing prices. KORAIL (Korean Rail) left out the number ‘4444’ when numbering trains above 4401.
die; death; dead; inanimate; inert (죽을 - 사)
According to Wikipedia, out of respect to Asian customers, the Finnish Company Nokia rarely releases any model phone designated by ‘4’. Their one exception was the Platform 40 series.
For more five second hanja characters: key ‘five second hanja’ into ‘search’ or select it under the theme ‘Korean Language’ in ‘categories.’
© 林東哲 2011 Creative Commons Licence.
Related Articles
- Why the Number Four Is Considered Unlucky In Some East Asian Cultures (todayifoundout.com)
Monday Market – A Mixed Bag of Seasonal Interests
For the last month I’ve been waiting for the appearance of mistletoe and durup in the street markets. Durup (두룹), aralia elatia can sometimes be found in places like E-Mart but it is usually on the expensive side if out of season. Mistletoe (겨우사리), viscum album coloratum, is something I’ve never seen in supermarkets, not even in tea bag form and many Koreans don’t even know what it is.
fresh mistletoe – 10.000 won (five pounds UK) which I’m told is a little expensive.
I’ve had a bag of mistletoe (dried branches and leaves) in my fridge for the last year and used it regularly during the summer when made as a tea, and chilled, it is wonderfully refreshing. Last year’s bag I purchased in May and it was already dried. Yesterday however, I saw the first bags of mistletoe and they were fresh so this morning I boiled the last of my old batch and will try the new ones in a few days. After which I will simply lay them on newspaper on my veranda and dry them out for the forth coming year.
Warning – there are many varieties of mistletoe and I’ve read the berries, possibly in European varieties if not further afield, are poisonous. Apparently, ewes abort their young if they graze on fallen mistletoe! If you are a reader outside Korea I would be very cautious about making tea out of the next batch you see.
durup (두룹) aralia elatia
Durup, for which I can find no common English name, costs between 3000-5000W (£1.50 – £2.50) a bowl and is surprisingly tasty with a mildly nutty taste. I generally blanch them and eat them with red pepper sauce (초고추장), which can be bought ready made like tomato sauce, or with swirled in sesame oil, minced garlic and sesame seeds with a little soy sauce. I use them as a side dish. They can also be used in kimbap and pancakes but I have not tried such variations. I would imagine there are numerous other ways of using them.
a street vendor selling durup
Durup and Misteltoe will appear in street markets until about mid May after which they are difficult to find though I would imagine large markets will have dried mistletoe all year. Both are worth trying.
Don’t forget that mugwort (쑥 – sook), artemesia asiatica and mong-gae (멍개), ‘sea squirt,’ are also currently prolific.
mong-gae, or sea squirt (멍개), a delight of the deep?
For my previous posts on posts on these seasonal items, click:
© 林東哲 2011 Creative Commons Licence.
FURTHER REFERENCES
The Sad Implications of an Hilarious Photo
ha ha! Excellent, if not ironic
This is too funny to be true! Should I even find it funny? Before I suppress the urge to rant about cultural contamination, I have to consider it either posed or possibly taken anywhere in the world where a few Asian kids have gathered. Sadly, it looks like it could actually be a Korean elementary school. The more au-fait the former ‘Hermit Kingdom’ becomes with the West, the more I am exposed to language such as ‘puc’ or ”puc you,’ all uttered with the typical Korean kiddy innocence. I am waiting for the first time I hear the most offensive of all four letter words, which as yet I doubt have ever been uttered on Korean soil.
© 林東哲 2011 Creative Commons Licence.
The Bathhouse Hand Job – Update 1
maybe it is… maybe it isn’t
Over the weekend I wrote about some seedy developments at one of the best jjimjilbang I know (Haircut’n Handjob). I have since discovered first hand, well not quite, that it has indeed been brothelised. On Saturday, one of my friends introduced me to a chap who had just had his cock vigorously frisked. He was actually naked at the time he was telling us and I was tempted to look down to see if he was still ‘flushed.’ I’m not sure whether he had a shave, haircut and massage or just a hand-job and have yet to learn whether the ‘massage,’ or indeed the haircut and shave, are simply euphemisms for a wank and possibly more.
but not as obvious
There are two barber’s poles outside the complex entrance though they are each of a different design and not turning in opposite directions. After more investigation and asking, it does seem that the 1 pole haircut, 2 pole hand-job ‘rule,’ is ambiguous.
I also noticed, both arriving and leaving the mogyoktang (bathhouse) floor, that the barber’s shop was a little like the travel agents one used to see around Checkpoint Charlie, East Berlin side; they look like what they are advertised as, but no one is at home and there are no customers. I take it the shufflings take place in one of the back rooms and by the lack of girls lazing on the barber’s sofa; it must have been rush hour. Perhaps if you enter at the front, and dressed in street clothes, you get a haircut etc, but if you enter from the changing room area, via a little passage, you can get wanked.
As for the women? On my last few visits, I haven’t seen any sitting in the hairdressers, and there were five or six of them; business must be good. What did they look like? Umm… definitely Korean, black hair, petit…but I doubt that’s much help! They looked okay, perhaps in their late twenties but to be honest, as it was lunchtime, I was more interested in the contents of the nearby Paris baguette.
© 林東哲 2011 Creative Commons Licence.
The Rantings of a Real Teacher – Music to my Ears
This weekend, I stumbled across excellent posts on corporal punishment in Korea and the meltdown occurring in schools and education in the USA (where the experience is not much different to the UK). Both posts were in Shotgun Korea. All too often K-blogs berate the Korean education system and occasionally try to claim Korean students are much the same as they are in UK or the USA. Rarely are such authors professional teachers or have had experience teaching in mainstream education in their native countries.
lack of homework in my class – 20 press-ups
It is refreshing to read posts by an experienced, professional teacher, given that most foreign ‘teachers’ or ‘professors’ in Korea are neither. And who is equipped more than most of us to reflect on the realities of education in the USA and subsequently gives some opinions on education and educational issues in Korea. I have subsequently added Shotgun Korea to my list of recommended blogs in: Beyond the Blog.
Common Sense Corporal Punishment
Wicked Educational Values Rant
For the background on the corporal punishment issues in Korea, see the following link from Brian in Jeollonam-Do
© 林東哲 2011 Creative Commons Licence.
Haircut and Hand Job
haircut 'n shave
I’ve only once had a haircut in one of the jjimjilbang I use and it was a guy who cut my hair. For several years I’ve seen him hanging about his shop or chatting to the adjacent shoe-shine man. Recently however, I’ve seen a little line of women sat on the sofa in the barber’s shop while the barber seems to have disappeared. A neon sign over the door announces a shave, hair cut and massage for the price of 30.000 Won (£15). There was something about those women that struck me as odd but being naive in such matters, I ignored it.
haircut'n wank?
Then, last week two different Korean friends tell me that the jjimjilbang, in effect the mogyoktang, now provides an extra service, namely a wank which apparently comes after your haircut and massage. I was shocked; it was such a respectable establishment and I teach the owner’s son. I’m wondering if the father knows but if I do, a mere waygukin, he must certainly know. And does his wife know? Well, I won’t be getting my haircut in there again. I’m not opposed to a wanking service but in the basement or another room, not in the barbers.
one pole seems ambiguous, two are definitely more suspect
I’ve never really understood the validity of the barber’s pole as a sign for a brothel though it is apparently the case that such establishments are identified by two poles spinning in opposite directions. However, even my Korean friends are uncertain about the exact meaning of such poles.
I’ve occasionally heard rumours about the availability of wanks in bathhouses, only ever in a heterosexual context and have never personally witnessed anything remotely sexual. I wonder how much they charge to watch?
Further updates on the brothelization of my favourite bathhouse
© 林東哲 2011 Creative Commons Licence.
Castrated Cake and Bollockless Beer
podcast 78
Recently, a blogger whose posts I regularly read (The Supplanter), has been condemning Korean cake and ridiculing its ersatz quality (Happy Spam Day). The Supplanter has made similar accusations against Korean beer (cASS and sHITE) but he is not a member of the substantial army of westerners that live here, some of them for decades, who continually berate Korean society. And I have to agree with him; Korean beer is shite and their cake, as scrumptious as it looks, is not much better.
Real beer! Beer with bollocks! From one of the many British micro-breweries.
I’m not much of a beer drink and if anything prefer what we Brits refer to as ‘real ale’ and I was also spoilt by ten years living in Germany where there is a vast range of decent pils-type lager. Korean lager never quite satisfies and drinking it tends to make me yearn for the real thing. Not only is it weak, watery and blatantly bland, but in every sip is the constant reminder of a chemical process and a factory production line.
Ss-Hite
Korean cake, at least in appearance, is certainly comparable with the fabulous creations of German torte and such delights as Schwarzwälder Kirchetorte, Sachertorte and kaβekuchen. In terms of taste however, you can expect a tragic disappointment.
German torten
Several weeks ago, I had a coffee in one of the numerous Sleepless in Seattle cafés to be found around Song-So, in Daegu. Having learnt not to coax disappointment, I rarely buy anything other than a coffee bun but when I noticed Camembert cheesecake on the menu, I couldn’t resist. Quite a strange concoction, Camembert, chocolate and cream, I thought, especially if you’ve experienced the almost putrefied, overripe Camembert which exudes the slightly pungent pong of ammonia. And Camembert in Korea is also strange as decent cheese is one of the hardest products to buy. I had heard that certain cheeses could not be imported because there were restrictions on foods with certain bacteriological properties. Then there is the theory that Koreans, like the Chinese, haven’t developed a taste for cheese or many other milk products as the climate and pastures for rearing cattle don’t exist as they do, for example, in Europe. Korean cheeses are usually always mild, stretchy and in terms of cheese, totally synthetic.
the Vienese Sacher torte
Well, the Camembert was quite delicious and there certainly was a tinge of Camembert flavour; present but not pronounced and as distant almost as Europe itself. The combination worked but the cheesecake was really just mildly cheesy syntho-cream. And then, last week, when I had some spare cash in my pocket, I noticed a complete Camembert cheesecake sitting in a Paris Baguette bakery. It was certainly very vocal and for a good ten minutes I stood outside the shop deliberating whether or not to buy it and apart from the calories with which I knew it would be loaded, I don’t usually spend 16.000 Won (£8) on a cake. Well, it was Friday and my boss had given me a bonus, so I bought it!
Camembert cheese
However, my reasoning wasn’t purely gluttonous as I’d hoped to salvage the reputation of Korean cake after reading the Supplanter’s condemnation. I was going to pen a response basically agreeing with his observations but forwarding the Camembert cheesecake as an exception and as soon as I got home took a few photos to help secure my intended argument.
Looks fantastic!
Korean bakeries are certainly adept at creating visual feasts and cakes covered in cream, chocolate and fruit, in a fascinating and artistically inspired range of designs, mesmerize and tempt the viewer. Unfortunately, visual creativity far outweighs culinary inspiration and innovation. My beautiful cheesecake, which looked like an entire mould encrusted round of Camembert, was nothing other than a boring sponge with a lick of creamy substance providing the filling and a thin painting of Camembert forming the facade, and a facade was exactly what it was! As far as sponge cake went it was delicious but cheesecake – it was not!
exposed as a sponge centered fraud
a real Camembert cheesecake – not sponge, not aerated cream, but Camembert!
I have now come to the conclusion there is more value and taste in a humble coffee bun than the entire gamut of glamorous gateaux where a thin wall of creamless-cream, coffeeless-coffee and chocolateless-chocolate hide a either a basic sponge cake or simply more aerated syntho-cream.
The simple coffee bun, nothing more, nothing less
© 林東哲 2011 Creative Commons Licence.
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