Faherenheit 84 (29 °C)
In the last few days, whenever I leave my relatively cool ‘one room,’ and step into the stairway, I can both feel the rising humidity and smell it. The smell, difficult to describe, is not unpleasant and if you can ‘smell ‘humidity, that is how I would characterise it. Then, when you step outside you instantly get zapped by both the sun and its heat reflected off of the pavement. With a little breeze in the air, and cool mornings and evenings, it’s not unpleasant but soon, venturing outside will become a torturous experience reminiscent of being stuck in a sauna-like microwave in which life is reduced to seeking sanctuary wherever there is air conditioning. As the middle English song goes; ‘Sumer is icumen in, Lhude sing cuccu! Rivulets of sweat trickling down your back and amassing in little crescents under your man-boobs, if you’re unfortunate to have them, as I do, all necessitate keeping a towel in your bag and one of those bright coloured handkerchiefs in your pocket. As a winter baby, I’ve always hated summers but maybe my dislike of Korean summer is shaded by life in a one room before an air-conditioner was a normal part of an employment contract. Sitting around a small fan, clad only in underpants, as it gyrated from you to your flat-mate, granting you intermittent coolness, or spending the evening freezing in MacDonald’s, were the only reprieve from summer’s muggy heat.
A memi (매미), cicada
Spring, which this year seems to have been skipped, as beautiful as it is, is an unpleasant reminder of what is to follow. And then there are the memi (매미). I have never heard cicadas in Northern Europe and associate them with hotter climates and in Korea, as summer’s leitmotiv, whose chirping, an incessant white noise, will dominant. Memi are bizarre looking things especially if you come from a climate with much smaller insects. I remember, before I’d seen one, you would pass a tree in mid-day and a chorus of memi would be ‘screaming’ at you. I could never see them and if you stopped and walked back to investigate, the ‘screaming’ would diminish, as if they were watching your approach. The sound is so intense, a crazy-crispy buzzing that it would suggest one tree is host to many memi. How many make that intensity of sound? A handful? Thousands? I am no memi expert but I think when the temperature falls a little, in the evenings of early summer, emerging memi migrate from the ground, either by flight, climbing the trunks, or a combination of both, to find a perch in branches. This is the time when, if you look carefully, you can sometimes see them on tree trunks. At other times, I have seen them in-flight as their bright colours, hidden when resting, flash vividly, probably to warn off predators. If you’ve never seen one, they certainly look ugly, fascinating and definitely prehistoric.
Not on my pillow!
I don’t know if I like memi or not, that screaming symphony is at its peak at the hottest time of day, usually as I am on my way to work, scuttling between one air-conditioned sanctuary and another. I don’t know if I like them because they are a harbinger of summer’s heat. My bollocks positively dislike like them! When you hear the first memi you can assume the temperature is approaching 29 degrees and at the same time you will probably notice sweat trickling down your back . Once their chirping is symphonic, amassed and intense you can assume the temperature is in the 30’s and if you’re male, your balls, dangling in what has now become an E-Mart carrier bag, are probably stuck to you leg.
Here are some facts to remember when you hear your first memi this summer:
Desert cicadas are the only insects known to sweat in order to lower body temperature!
While Koreans often translate ‘cicadas,’ and many Americans term them, ‘locust,’ they are not! Cicadas belong to an entirely different family of insect.
One species of cicada is native to the UK. (Melampsalta montana)
Cicadas lay eggs in tree bark from which hatched nymphs fall to the ground where they live, burrowing, throughout this stage. Many cicada species emerge from the ground annually, but some, with much greater life spans, emerge at 13 or 17 year periods.(eg: magicicada).
Should a memi park on you’re pillow and sing in your ear-hole, with a capacity of 120dB, you can expect permanent damage to your sense of hearing.
However, here is the most important fact: Fahrenheit 84, (29 °C), the approximate temperature from which both the memi will begin to sing and a pair of bollocks will start to stick to an inner thigh!
If your bollocks were stuck to your leg when you heard the memi screaming, I’d like to know! It’s a sort of survey!
(Link: for more comprehensive memi facts and the source of most information here)
Beyond the Blog – 'Roketship'
A+ - beyond the blog
No, it’s not a spelling mistake! It’s ‘ROK’ as in Republic of Korea! When you get bored of Bogland and just want to look at pictures, try Roketship . Here you will find a refreshing and highly amusing cartoon blog on life in Korea. I’m quite jealous of a cartoonist’s ability to elicit a response to some ‘idea, in so little space and in such a minimal manner. Often a cartoon provides more impact than words. It”s for this reason you can buy comic books explaining the theories of Nietzsche, pronounced ‘Nietzsch-iiiii ‘if you’re from the US, or similarly didactic comics on Marx or Hegel. I’m sure if I searched I could find such resources on Brain Surgery and Nuclear Physics. Now you can gain a sense of Korean life as experienced by the foreigner on ‘planet Korea’ without ever having to leave your hometown. Let me assure you that from a cultural point of view, Roketship is more informative than many travel guides.
However, you interaction will be enhanced if you have actually lived in Korea and even if your sojourn has been relatively short, you will find the cartoons encapsulate some of your experiences. My one criticism, I couldn’t find any turds, you know the whippy-whirly ones which quite fascinate me and always make me hungry.
Seriously, this site makes a complete change from the reams of crap that float about in Bogland.
Courtesy of Roketship
Courtesy of Roketship
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)
Beyond the Blog – Pap and Crap in Bogland
Cataloging Crap
‘Blog-rolls?’ Is that a spelling mistake? No! Bloggers and writers! They’re worlds apart! The difference between a ‘blogger’ and a ‘writer’ spans the same gulf as the one separating Britney Spears from Andrea Bocelli. Britney and Bloggers have a purpose, I’m not dismissing them outright. I’m new to blogging but certainly an old hand at writing – which doesn’t imply I’m successful or that my writing is any good, but I don’t class it as ‘blogging’.’ Trawling through blogs you realise that most of them are dull, passionateness and pointless. In just the same way the Bontempi heralded the deskilling of music, rendering florid arpeggios at the touch of a finger, a feat on a regular piano requiring years of practice, the internet has deskilled writing. In just the same way you can be a ‘musician’ today without being able to play an instrument or even read music, you can be a ‘writer’ without actually writing!
- Boring!
There an assumption that if you record a recipe, catalogue the weather, or sequence how to get down town, that this bestows on you the title, ‘writer.’ Blog after blog churn out the same crap as if the authors are writing for a magazine with an established readership and in which someone else writes material of substance. And yes! I am aware that his makes me sound like a horrid snob. Blogging allows us to ‘publish’ material that at one time you wouldn’t have dared release to an agent or publisher without ensuring it was the best it could be. Further, it allows you to develop your ability from the very first post. Let me give you an example of two boring posts, two examples of ‘blogging’ and not ‘writing.’ Remember Saturday March 6th? It snowed quite heavily over the country and this resulted in numerous posts that all read something like this:
Just when you thought it was safe to ditch the duck down thermal anorak, and winter suddenly reappears. After several afternoons with spring in the air, Sunday morning saw Apsan Mountain, Daegu, dusted in snow. So, after an invigorating bowl of chicken and ginseng soup, we took the cable car to one of Apsan’s summits. It was freezing with icy patches underfoot and a wind that stung the ears. Icicles hung from the summit buildings and surrounding trees were covered in a powdery snow.
What a load of crap! And if you look up White Day, you’ll be treated to something like:
March 14th, White Day, is when men who were given Valentines gifts on February 14th (Red Day), reciprocate, usually with gifts of chocolate, white lingerie or other presents. Like many of the silly days we celebrate around the world, Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day, for example, White Day is a fairly recent invention, not as usual an innovation by a card company, but by a confectioners based in Fukouka, Japan which launched the first White Day in 1978.
More twaddle! If someone wants to learn about ‘White Day,’ or ‘Childrens’ Day’ you can look it up in far more credible locations. And as for recipes, there are some amazing sites very professionally produced. Copying and pasting is no more writing than it is ‘research.’ Unfortunately, there are examples of blogs ripe with such shite and no one should get annoyed that a little weather report penned to mum or your mates back home isn’t hailed a literary masterpiece.
Writers write because they are compelled to do so or because it is their living and if fortunate, both. Forget dreams of becoming the next J.K Rowling, on average, an author’s first book will earn around £3000. While some writers are ‘forced’ to write by impulse or economic necessity, many blog for others reasons. For some, it’s about keeping a journal and recording experiences and while some do this in a school kiddy manner, others clearly think they’re Malinowski exploring some dark and distant continent. Personally, I prefer a Malinowski approach as pomposity is preferable to the boredom instilled by mundane cataloging. Others are concerned with ratings and posts are rife with boring trivia under the assumption that anything is better than nothing – hence the two examples quoted! Others are about self promotion even when it appears there is little to promote. Some are driven to blog by political and social passions, modern day pamphleteers, if you like. All this is fine, I’m not condemning blogging, but let’s not allow blogging to deskill ‘writing’ either as a broad art form or as a skill possessed by an individual.
One of the best methods of improving your writing is to know what not to write and this involves spotting weaknesses in the work of others so you can better spot it in your own. A crowning blog I recently extensively browsed, which shall remain anonymous, has had a profound impact on me. Spanning almost 11 years, which I think predates the blogging phenomena, the author provides an extensive history cataloging their literary achievements but within the blog and in all its hundreds of posts I could find nothing, absolutely nothing, of substance; nothing seized my attention or drew me towards it, nothing hit me between the eyes! To consistently publish rubbish for 11 years under the assumption you are talented is self deluded in the extreme and is an attitude adopted by a great many talentless celebrities. It has impacted on me because I don’t want my writing to be twaddle or pointless, I want it to spark a reaction. So, my resolution:
1. Never to catalogue topics such as the weather, or social events. Such topics should only be broached if approached from an interesting or different perspective
2. Never to publish a post for the sake of maintaining some statistical target
3. Never to use ‘search terms’ to influence the contents of my writing
4. To spend longer re-drafting and never to write and publish on the same day
5. To avoid constantly prettying-up my site
6. To turn the PC off and go out into the real world on a regular basis
Of course, much of what appeals to us as individuals is subjective, but it is possible to identify well written work without necessarily being enamored by the content. Even though we might not like a topic or might disagree with its content, we should still be able to spot something well written and creative!
‘Writers’ shouldn’t be writing for the sake of writing. It’s not about typing words onto a screen with little creative forethought and when the words are amassed, publishing them instantly. Before blogging, the only way to get work published was to make it stand out. Content preceded all else else and drafting and redrafting was the standard process. While the internet and modern technology provide the writer with some superb resources, it also encourages the cutting of corners and the array of ‘toys:’ themes, widgets, statistics, other paraphernalia, distract the writer from writing. I’ve spent ridiculous amounts of time prettying up my pages when I should have been up-grading the content.
Popular doesn't mean better
And have you noticed how the blogs with the highest hits are often the most boring? This should come as no surprise as it is a general rule that the shittiest ‘things’ in our society, pop music, fast food, Hollywood, etc, are shite! Yes, I know there are some great pop musicians and excellent Hollywood movies, but by and large the governing maxim is, if it’s popular, it’s crap! Last week, a 16 year old student asked me how my blog was doing. He wanted to know how many hits I’d had. ‘About 1400,’ I told him, proudly. For a moment, I thought the revelation had excited him until I found out he’s had 77.000 hits over a period of approximately the same time. I looked at his site and it is very well presented but what lures an audience is the Jeremy Clarkson, boy’s toys appeal: guns, fast cars, fighter planes and You-Tube clips of people getting their brains blown out. Amidst all this typical ‘laddy’ content however, a bizarre twist which for me at least, gave the site a strange appeal, for amongst his categories of ‘Army,’ ‘Air-force,’ ‘Navy,’ and ‘Special Forces,’ were: ‘Recipes,’ ‘The Music of Erik Satie’ and ‘My School Trips.’
- Beyond the Blog
There are some fantastic posts lurking in Bogland, quite often with little or no readership. I occasionally discover posts or blogs which demand your attention and which you cannot ignore. Often their content is the same as the all the other crap except that it’s written from a unique perspective or is hinged on a wacky, off beat idea, or it might simply an mesmerizing choice of vocabulary. Whatever, such writing takes you on a journey which you unwittingly subscribe to. Often such blogs will make me wish I could had thought of their idea or that I had some of their skill. In the pages of such work you can sense the enthusiasm and passion of their authors. When a ‘blog’ or any artistic product engages you to the extent it keeps you from going to bed or makes you late for work , it probably has a quality which takes it beyond the blog . But then a shitty movie or porn video can have the same effect, and Wagner, who I know is highly talented, often sends me to sleep. Perhaps I’m talking shite!
You think I’m a snob? I am, but I know my limitations because I wrote and published those shitty extracts above! And besides, as a teacher it’s my job to both encourage better writing and spot the merits and flaws in work of students. My own scribblings get treated the same way!
If you want some truly interesting posts / blogs, click this link. My opinion, of course….
Like all bloggers, I decided I needed a blog roll and that the more extensive, the better. So I spent a a considerable ammount of time dwvising a system to rank and rate blogs and catologue their content. After researching about 15, I started falling asleep. Then, when I realised I had to contend with not just WordPress Blogs, but Blogger, Tumblr and so forth, it dawned on me what a gargantuan task lay ahead and I was already bored. There an assumption that if you write a recipe, catalogue the weather, or write about what bus to take to get downtown, that this bestows on you the title ‘writer.’ Blog after blog. after blog, seem to churn out the same crap as if the authors are writing for a magazine with an established readership and in which someone else writes material of substance. A great many of us are teachers, perhaps not by training but by vocation, but it does make me wonder how we teach the skills of essay writing when the quality of our output is so boringly mundane. And it also becomes clear how little many writers have read and how little they actually think! This makes me sound like a horrid snob. Remember April 10th
and spent a considerable ammount of time I am quickly coming to learn that the majority of blogs are shite. That’s a horrid and mean thing to say but if you In a sense I cannot wait to reach retirement so I can employers would not like Most of the stuff I do write about probably infuriates people
Monday Market -Sea Squirt – (멍게) Subphylum Urochordata, also called Tunicata
Looks like a wart infested hand-grenade
Is it a ‘hand-grenade,’ ‘scrotum,’ ‘boil,’ ‘mess’? Actually, it’s a sea squirt and as it’s too easy to write this sea food off with unpleasant similes, I won’t. Out of water, the sea squirt is an ugly thing usually eaten raw (회). It is a fairly common sea food, especially in spring and is actually an animal that eats by sucking in water from which it filters out food. It remains fixed in one place and doesn’t move. In their natural habitat they are strangely beautiful.
Bizarre but beautiful
Market mong-gae (멍개)
Delicious?
Their taste? Um…?! Well, yea! They probably grow on you like many Korean foods some of which have little taste but are nonetheless appealing! Mong-gae, is slimy and has a taste reminiscent of mild detergent. It has recently had some interesting publicity due to its apparent anti-cancer properties. Often it is served on a bed of ‘sliced’ jellyfish. So, rather than simply read about it, go and try it! In my local seafood restaurant it costs about 15.000Won (c£7 sterling)
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.
Bathhouse Basics 1 – What is a bathhouse? (목욕탕)
Aquatic Symphony
Bathhouse (목욕탕) – exactly as the name suggests. Simply a place to wash. However, while some establishments are not much more than a place to administer yourself a thorough scrub down, others offer the chance to wallow in luxurious ambiance. The range is broad and bathhouses often have their own distinct atmosphere shaded by the time you visit. What you will find common to all are: nudity, segregation by sex, places to shower, both standing and sitting and a number of pools. This is the most basic I have experienced. Others will have a number of adjoining ‘rooms’ containing various saunas, steam rooms, ice rooms (어름방), salt saunas, yellow mud sauna (황토방) sleeping rooms, and a place to be scrubbed down by an attendant. Once again, the variation is extensive. Pools vary in size and number and like the various ‘rooms’ often utilise specific minerals which are believed to promote good health. The most common are probably hot pools (열탕 – yeol-tang), warm pools (온탕 – on-tang), cold pools (냉탕 – naeng tang) but I have also bathed in pools of gold and saunaed in silver. Baths may contain herbs, or green tea or be built with health inducing minerals. In addition, some bathhouses have heated areas around the pools where it is possible to take a nap and these may be heated by ondol (온돌) heating (underground heating) or by infra-red lights.
Changing rooms
Chilling
In the bathing area, bathhouses often have:
conveniently located televisions
various types of massage
soap, towel, body clothes, toothpaste
a large stone on which to eradicate hard skin
In the changing area:
sofas, television
a room in which to dry and preen yourself
toothbrushes, shampoo, Italy towels, hair conditioner
socks, underwear, ties
soft drinks, some snacks, especially smoked eggs
In the steam room of the Kayasan Hotel Bathhouse
A typical seated shower area
Grouped around the bathhouse (목욕탕):
barber, hairdresser
shoe shine facility
shoe repair facility
a sports complex or some exercise facilities
a jjimjilbang (찜질방)
In the pools
Some may have outside areas or indeed, be located in outdoor settings. Finally, some establishments have limited opening hours while others are open twenty-four hours.
Variations are extensive and endless!
© Nick Elwood 2010 Creative Commons Licence.
Sushi (회) and Sashimi (초밥) The briefest introduction
Many westerners conflate sushi and sashimi but the preparation and contents of each are quite different. Without offending Koreans, westerners also use the Japanese words to describe these food styles.
sashimi (회) – is uncooked and always fish and it is eaten with various leaves and sauces, the most common of which is wasabi (와사비), a stark hot, horseradish sauce. Fish, often in quite large amounts, is placed in a leaf after being dipped in a sauce and garnished, for example with sliced, raw garlic. The leaf is then formed into a ball and eaten. Basically, anything that lives in the sea can appear on a plate of sashimi (회).
sashimi always fish - always raw (회)
sashimi - more adventurous!
Sushi (초밥) – is vinegared rice formed into bases and topped with fish that is often cooked. Sushi can use non fish toppings such as tofu or lava seaweed.
Sushi (초밥) - often cooked and sometimes no fish at all
That Fiery Little Penis and Cocks of Greater Dimensions
고추산 Just opposite Penis Paradise in Palgongsan National Park. Daegu.
Last year the place was full of cocks, some of the biggest I’ve seen in Korea and at one point a great number of them were loitering about outside an adjacent restaurant just waiting to be picked up. Some were even for sale and as I have little self-confidence, the thought had crossed my mind that, the only way I am going to get to chomp on Korean cock, is to pay for it. Cocks in public! Not the sort of behaviour you expect in Korea! The choice was amazing, young ones, old ones, thin, fat, bent, tapering. Well, you can read about my ‘adventures’ in Saturday’s Post, Palgongsan National Park – Penis Paradise, where you will also find some photos of gigantic Korean cock!
Needles to say I was salivating, not from what you’d expect, but because next door the sizzling aroma of barbecuing duck wafted on the spring breeze. Now, the other day, using my limited Korean, and despite all my studying, limited it is, I was telling a shop assistant that my hobby was food. I ‘d been walking around town with one of those bright yellow E-Mart bags from which sprung three enormous tendrils of burdock (우엉) . As it’s the first time I’ve bought whole burdock, I’m a bit surprised at the flexibility in those tendrils, having presupposed they were more rigid, and so they bounce about crazily. Korean passers-by give my tendrils a second glance because no foreigner buys those weird roots. I’m quite proud of my bouncing burdock and am on the look out for one of those unfriendly westerners who constantly pass me by without ever saying hello or smiling. Smug wankers don’t talk because they like you to feel they’re totally at home in Korea even though they all eat in MacDonald’s and speak little Korean. Anyway, my burdock is a trump card, a sort of ‘fuck-you!’ However, there are no foreigners about and so I make a mental note to walk about town on a regular basis with burdock sprouting from my bag, like I’m taking out a pet.
Lee Hee-ho (이히호), my friend's youngest son
The shop assistant is bemused at my burdock and I tell her I’m making a side-dish with it. She’s even more impressed when I tell her I can make kimchi. She asks me if cooking is my hobby so I stroke my belly, ‘of course,’ I reply. ‘Can’t you tell?’ And as I laugh the burdock in my bag is wibbling, like it is laughing too. Well, my point is that food is probably my greatest hobby and I doubt many people prefer some culinary pleasure to sex but I do. I once wouldn’t answer my door to gratify the sexual urges of a very handsome boy because I was tucking into a curry. Of course, I could have let him in, we could have shared it but I don’t like threesomes. He banged on the door for a while then gave up and probably went and had a wank, or found someone else to do stuff with – of which there was never a shortage in the army. When you’re young you think that sex with an Adonis will always be available, that your pulling power will never be diminished. It’s only when you are older you regret letting such things slip past. If I could go back in time I’d have chucked the curry in the bin and opened the door. I stroke the burdock reminiscently and note their almost semi-rigid state. His name was Lance Elcock!
So, back at Penis Paradise, the barbecuing duck smells delicious and I am starving hungry. I can catch up with the cocks later. Now, I’m with my Korean friend David (이영선) and his family. I’ve known David for ten years and he’s one of my best friends. I’ve been taking a few photos of his sons, one aged 5 and the other is almost a year old in western reckoning. After feasting my eyes on those fat cocks around the corner, I find it a little amusing when his youngest son begins to chomp on a cock he’s picked up and so I grab my camera ready for some hot shots. He licks the end a few times, a little unsure what to expect, then removes it from his mouth and looks down on it with apprehension. A strand of saliva slips onto it which my camera is too slow to capture. Then he begins sucking on the tip and I await the moment when I might capture his surprise. Oooo, here it comes! He grimaces a few times but doesn’t stop sucking until the full force hits him, when suddenly, he starts wailing.
Mmm...not too sure!
Another nibble!
Whang! It's hot!
I feel quite bad because I’d sat, watched and photographed as the little boy munched on a very hot, small chili, the hot ones generally being the smallest. So now you know that in Korea, a ‘cock’ (고추) refers to both the vegetable and a penis. Actually, Koreans have an idiom which I know intimately well as I repeat it when feeling inadequate in a bathhouse: the smallest chillies are the fiercest! (작은 고추가 맵다) Because I’d only just entered where we were eating, my friends busy poking and prodding the barbecue while I had been ‘around the corner’, I assumed they knew what he was doing. Maybe I wasn’t thinking… Eating a chili! Quite natural for a Korean, I thought.
Minari – Hemlock Water Dropwort (미나리) Monday Market.
미나리 Minari
Yes, ‘hemlock’ raises alarm bells! Historically, one of the most common ways to poison enemies, ‘retire’ the aged and of course famed for its association with Socrates. Minari is probably the closest you will come to tasting hemlock and surviving to tell the tale. Rest assured however, Minari, Oenanthe Javanica, differs from the lethal variety, Oenanthe Crocata.
Minari grows all over Asia and is even used in Italy. It is a crisp, fresh herb which lacks the strength of water cress which is often recommended as an alternative in Korean cooking, (western style), when minari is unavailable. Personally, Id leave it out altogether as water cress has a very distinct taste.
Minari is used added to soups and a sprig is often used to garnish noodle dishes and it is a common component in cabbage kimchi. It is also used as a salad, often tossed in a red pepper based paste dressing. It is readily available throughout the year in street markets and supermarkets.
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