Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Ya-ta Boy]

ajosshi (N) an adult Korean man
(V) to ajosshi (someone): get a foreigner in the car and then explain that the evening's plans are not what the foreigner expected

Example: I was ajosshied again the other night.

Last Sunday one of my former students called and said his brother and sister wanted to meet me. Being as how he is a pretty good guy and I had nothing special planned for Wednesday I agreed to meet him and the siblings at 6:30.

At 6 on Wednesday he called and said he had to work late. Was that OK? Sure, no problem.

At 8 he calls and says to meet him at the apt complex gate in 5 minutes. So out I go. When he drives up, there are three other people in company uniforms in the back seat. No brother. No sister. He says we are driving them home first. Oh, OK.

We drop them off at 8:30 and take the road to Pusan. I said, "Where are we meeting your brother and sister?" (I was expecting dinner downtown.) He said, rather unresponsively, "They left home 10 minutes ago. We will meet them at 9:30." Oh, OK (but with a small tummy growl).

After an hour we get to Pusan and start driving up a very narrow mountain road with cars and buses coming down, largely on our side of the road. Two times we pull off the road. Luckily, we were on the inside lane, not the one next to the cliff. Finally, he pulls off into what appears to be space, but it is just one of those very steep driveways down to an isolated restaurant in the country (actually, some out of the way place on a mountain somewhere in Pusan). I am highly relieved to be out of the car.

We are the only car in the parking lot. We get out and I get introduced to Sister #3 and her husband. They are bustling around cooking up some duck and chicken, so I stand around for awhile. Then my friend says Younger Brother and Sister #4 will be here soon. They are picking up Girlfriend and then driving Father home first.

They finally pull in at 10:45. Audible stomach growls by this time. In the meantime I have learned that my friend has 5 sisters. He was the 6th child and the first son, and he was born prematurely, so his father named him after the hospital, for good luck. Since he was a preemie, Younger Brother was born for insurance. He was also named after the hospital. Apparantly that was the plan, since it was a different hospital. (BTW, all the girls were born at home.)

The table was set up in one of those deck things outside with a roof over the top. If it had been light, the view would have been terrific since the deck thing was on the side of a cliff. Everyone, Younger Brother, Girlfriend, Sisters #3 and #4, brother-in-law, friend and I sit down for a great dinner of some kind of chicken soup and some extremely tasty duck. The soju starts flowing.

With that awful mountain road in mind, I quietly asked my friend how he could drive us home. He said we'd be sleeping at one of the sisters' homes. Oh. (Wish I'd turned off the air con before I left home.)

Along about 12:30 and 5 bottles of soju later, Younger Brother and group take off for home. I start looking around for a bed. But no. Village Friend is on his way over. He wants to meet a foreigner. So a few minutes later VF shows up. He picks over the left overs while two more bottles of soju are opened. At some point, my friend disappeared. At 2am I said I needed to get some sleep. Sister #3 leads me inside, to the restaurant. On the floor is a yo and a blanket and my passed out friend (in another yo).

Fortunately, restaurant floors are pretty comfortable to sleep on because we were up at 6 so my friend could drive me home in time for work. I don't know how my friend managed to get us down that road because I was still definitely drunk, but he did. (The hangover wasn't too bad because we had been drinking C-1, the soju with the anti-hangover ingredient.)

I'm sure plenty of the rest of you have been ajosshied. Care to share?

[ajuma]

More times than I can count, but NONE are as funny as this!!! Thanks for the pick-me-up!

[peemil]

I used to get onejungnimed. I don't know how to spell it out in English. But your bosses name thingy.

Anyhow... When I first come here over two years ago. I got put right on the outside of the city. Out in the rice paddies and what not. In a huge empty apartment. No foreigners around here. And only legs to get around. It's alright to get taxi's but if you don't know where you are supposed to be going then what are you supposed to tell the taxi driver?

Either way... My Director speaks so little English it truly is embarassing given that she teaches it. Hmm... When I got here I used to get press ganged every Saturday off into the car with a boss who speaks no English to something or rather.

One weekend this happened. We drove for two hours out of the city. To the middle of what I thought was nowhere at the time. Stopped. Got out. I'm thinking WTF am I doing here? What is going on? Decided to have a cigarette and get a drink from the nearby shop. When I return the Director is talking to two monks. OK. I am getting the wave on. Get into a new minivan with two monks and my boss.

Drive for another hour or so to a spot of land. Monks and boss get out and talk about something. Back in the car. Off again. Into a little town. Eat lunch. Get taught to use chopsticks from really good monk chap who saw that I was struggling and not like my boss who just laugh and say oh you don't know. Have a Mickey Mouse fork.

Finish lunch. Back into car. Drive into the city. Go to school which is run by monks. Up to the top. Go into temple. Stand around. Oh... Apparently I have to pray to Buddha. Nope. I don't do that. No go on. Now my Director is very Korean. Very. So I give it a go. Monk shows me how to do it.

Next... Slingshot into car. Back to apartment. Out we go.

What the hell was that all about?

[Grotto]

An adult student offers to take us to Seoul to raid Cost-co(CC)...seeing as I was working 5 hours away from Seoul and the nearest CC I jumped at the chance. As we were going in late one afternoon and he is not the speediest of drivers we arrived in Seoul around 10:30PM, no problem he says he knows of a great yagwon that is nearby, cheap and clean.


The trip in from Taebaek took about 5 hours....the trip to the 'nearby' yagwon took another two. Both myself and my co-worker were pretty tired and losing patience...to lighten the load I started cracking jokes....

.psssstt Ryan you do know hes taking us out in the boonies to kill us and hide the bodies.....

oh oh its another one of those people who cant ask for directions....

hey are you taking us back to Taebeak? Okay it was funny at the time

Oh no not another one of those cock or walk situations

The cheap yagwon was that cheap! clean NO! cockroaches in the bathroom...oh yeah no beds just futons that were mildewy. At first they wanted us all to sleep in a tiny little room maybe 8' by 8' but we got our own room.

The only upside to the trip was that there was some kind of convention going on and there were all these business guys from some company having a huge drunkfest in the hotel basement, which Ryan crashed. Walked in sat down drank his ass off and basically was adopted by the company as their unofficial way gook in mascot.