Korean Job Discussion Forums

captain kirk · Joined: 29 Jan 2003

Having some pulgogibap and a Korean says, 'how are you?'. His English is good, college age, it's a college area. Turns out he's from Vancouver, but Korean ancestry, and leaving for home for a few months TOMORROW. He's tired from the hassle of wrapping up loose ends, but obviously titillated. I'm going back for a bit, like him, but in a month though I'm just as titillated. So we have a titillating conversation. I'd thought he was Korean and going to ask 'how old are you?', 'are your married?', then 'why not?'.
Somewhere in our happy rapping he mentioned 'lifers', and how crazy most of them are. I said what, because I've been here seven years, working haggies, but he didn't know that. And could he be more specific. He said they're worried about the health of their livers, say, 'you've got to give the kids stickers or you'll get fired', and are very morbid in their thinking. Then I said I was a lifer and that I agree. I am a little concerned about my liver, but think it's ok. I give the kids candy instead of stickers. The boss can fire a teacher any time they want. And I'd written a long 'what happened before you arrived and what happens at this haggie' nine page 'letter in a bottle' to the new teacher at our haggie. Last night. But read it over and realized it was morbid. There's something about stewing in one's own juices and being an alien. And negativity can snowball, or 'crudball'. So I drop it where it lies, that crud. But when writing about the haggie and the exploititative boss and being a product, an alien product, well, something about that brings up the bile. To meet the 'indigestibility of it'.
Otherwise I drop negativity like toxic hot potatoes.
Have you met any lifers with nervous ticks?

U.S.A. · Joined: 19 Jan 2003

the eye · Joined: 29 Jan 2004

haha...captain, you're an excellent read.

i was working uni last year. there was a lifer there who literally had a 'nervous tick'. he had this forced stare like thing. he'd keep his eyes locked with you. but they kindof quivered slightly.
it almost seemed as though he was trying to put me in a trance. his shoulders were locked tight.

he was an alright guy, though. he'd been in korea 10years at that point, 9 of them at the uni. it was a terrible uni, too... i thought it was the administration who'd put that look in him.

inthewild · Joined: 28 Mar 2004 Location: Korea

So I need to bring stickers with me, huh?

mithridates · Posted: Thu Nov 18, 2004 12:18 pm Post subject:

I can sometimes tell who has been in Japan or Korea for a number of years by the gleam in their eyes. Do you know what I mean about that gleam?

U.S.A. · Joined: 19 Jan 2003

peemil · Joined: 09 Feb 2003 Location: Koowoompa

Something like this I expect...

the eye · Joined: 29 Jan 2004

nice try, peemil... needs more of a glaze tho.

chi-chi · Joined: 15 Jan 2003

chi-chi · Joined: 15 Jan 2003

mindmetoo · Joined: 02 Feb 2004

Well, not an ESler but the nervous tick reminds me of a weird math grad I worked with on a contract for Spar, working on the mobile robotic arm for the space station. Basically our job was to enter math formulas in WordPerfect the engineers wrote on paper.

Although my degree was in child psychology, I was about 8x more productive than her. Basically you start to notice patterns in the formulas and create keyboard macro shortcuts to input complex formulas with a single keystroke. It's not rocket science although the end result was.

Anyway, she was slowed down considerably because a) she kept doing everything brute force. Never once stopped to think "hey there's that same damn formula again in that bigger formula... I know I'll retype it again!" b) she had this nervous tick. Ever time she got stressed out, which was like every five minutes, she'd reach out and start to fondle these catholic saint devotional cards...