Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Ya-ta Boy]

With mosquito season fast approaching I thought I'd like to scoop the annual Mogi Man controversy. We all know and love the Mogi Man. He's the guy on the scooter who goes around the neighborhood spraying out a huge cloud of mosquito killer...followed by hordes of kids.

Every summer here at Dave's we get a thread of irrate and indignant waygookins outraged at negligent Korean moms who let their kids run around in the bug spray cloud and firmly declare that this would never happen back home. I'm sure it wouldn't, except in Korea and upstate New York.

A few days ago I came across this T. Coraghessan Boyle short story: The Fog Man. (1989)

"He came twice a week, rattling through the development in an army-surplus jeep, laying down a roiling smoke screen that melted the trees into oblivion, flattened hills and swallowed up houses, erased Fords, Chevies and Studebakers as if they were as insubstanial as the air itself, and otherwise transformed the world to our satisfaction. ...We took to our bikes, supercharged with the excitement of it, and we ran just behind him, the fog man, wheeling in and out of the tight billowing clouds like figher pilots slashing across the sky or Grand Prix racers nosing in for the lead on that final excruciating lap...

My mother was there too, legs tucked up under her on the couch, the newspaper spread in her lap, her drink on the cluttered table beside her...

"The fog man was just here," I would announce...My mother would nod.

One night I appended a question. "He's spraying for bugs, right?" This much I knew, this much had been explained to me, but I wanted confirmation, affirmation, I wanted reason and meaning to illuminate my life.

"My father said nothing. My mother looked up. "Mosquitoes."

"Yeah, that's what I thought--but how come there's so many of them then? They bit right through my shirt on the front porch."

My mother tapped at her cigarette, took a sip of her drink. "You can't get them all," she said."

********
For the newbies who got this far...'mother' was right. The Mogi Man doesn't get them all. But you can buy a little electric bug killer at almost any mom and pop store. Just plug it in and insert the little pad, usually blue, in the top and sleep the sleep of the blessed. Those little buggers keep the mosquitos at bay. The insecticide pads are sold separately. Together they cost around W7,000. A small price to pay for a mosquito-free home.

[eamo]

[pet lover]

Yeah, they work great, but a mosquito net smells a lot better and is just as effective.

[d503]

i love those things but they get to me if i leave them in too long

[little mixed girl]

i remember a teacher of mine talked about some mysterious blue 'glass' that appeared in a field near his house. all the neighborhood kids would go and play with it, yrs later they found out it was asbestos or something like that...

[just because]

Do you know the Mogi man, the mogi man, the mogi man
Oh do you know the mogi man
That lives in Mogi lane....

Ha ha ha ha ha...I kills me!!!!!

Anyway, I also rate those blue pads, cheap as...

Still haven't been bitten once yet

[PaperTiger]

Doncha reckon that anything that kills bugs can probably have a negative effect on PEOPLE too??? It's amazing how resililiant and hardy some brands of stupidity are. It's pretty obvious that stuff doesn't work; why do people still use it? Bribes, gotta be bribes.

[Tiberious aka Sparkles]

[pet lover]

Lots of mosquitos where I live and I haven't gotten a bite yet this year. It's weird because I usually get eaten alive and end up with scars. No screens on the windows at work, haven't set up my mosquito net yet, and don't use any kind of bug spray or poison at all. And yet, no bites. This is so weird.