|
Korean Job Discussion Forums "The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
|
View previous topic :: View next topic |
Author |
Message |
princess
Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Location: soul of Asia
|
Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2005 1:33 am Post subject: |
|
|
PolyChronic Time Girl wrote: |
I live on the 10th floor of my apartment building...some days it's just a long elevator ride up there and I don't want to bother sharing an elevator and make stupid small talk with ajeoshis, so I hit the close button right away when I see ajeoshis running up to the elevator. Then I laugh because I have the elevator to myself ......hee,hee,hee
Also, I usually don't like talking to taxi drivers when I'm in a taxi alone. In order to avoid conversation, I have a fake conversation on my cell phone to my husband (so the taxi driver doesn't get any ideas) the whole way to my destination.
These "evil doings" of mine are really just a defense tactic I use to avoid conversation/interaction with stranger-ajeoshis.
Oh, and I frequently say "yongo mal moteyo." ( I don't speak English) to the random Koreans on the street who want me to edit something of theirs. |
hahaha!!! You too huh? I do that on elevators especially when I am having a bad day and I don't feel like having some ugly old ajeosshi stare and suck his teeth. Taxi drivers, too. I act like I am deaf. I hate talking to them. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
Pyongshin Sangja

Joined: 20 Apr 2003 Location: I love baby!
|
Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2005 1:40 am Post subject: |
|
|
I drive a little van around my neighbourhood spraying huge clouds of DDT out the back. I think it's catching on. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
mullethunter

Joined: 04 Mar 2005 Location: may i present... the euro mullet
|
Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2005 2:22 am Post subject: |
|
|
i watched "dirty dancing: havana nights". twice. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
Demonicat

Joined: 18 Nov 2004 Location: Suwon
|
Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2005 3:13 am Post subject: |
|
|
Instead of stinking up my house by throwing Kimchi in the trash, I throw it out the window. I justify it to myself by saying that some homeless stray will eat it out of the alley, but I can't imagine man nor beast eating it. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
Tiberious aka Sparkles

Joined: 23 Jan 2003 Location: I'm one cool cat!
|
Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2005 4:17 am Post subject: |
|
|
My second year in Korea, I took in a free cat advertised on the Internet. This feral monstrosity, though it was but a wee young thing, would claw and bite me non-stop, and more than a few times shred my newspaper before I had had a chance to read it.
Compounding my feline problems was the fact that kitty litter was nowhere to be purchased, and even after the wife (then girlfriend) and I covertly procured some sand from a nearby construction site, the little terror wouldn't regularly use the box, preferring instead to piss behind the TV stand and any other corner it deemed fit.
At night I would close the bedroom door, for I learned early on not to allow the wretched beast to lie abed with me, for the sake of my own sanity; it would claw and jump and bite at my face and legs ceaselessly into the early hours of the morning. But when I shut out the little devil, it mewled and caterwauled so that the neighbors cursed me, and I spent many sleepless nights.
At the end of my tether, I resolved to turn the enfant terrible out; I first tried to give it away in the same manner in which I had obtained it, but with no success. Finally I opened the door and nudged the cat out as I was on my way to work one afternoon. Yet it stayed; it was there seven hours later when I returned. I had second thoughts and wondered if it wasn't a good idea to give the poor thing a second chance, or at least wait a little longer until I could find someone to take it in. But the wife (then girlfriend), ever the Lady to my MacBeth, insisted that what I had done was for the best. The cat would soon enough venture out and either take up with the neighborhood strays, or, hopefully, a kindhearted man or woman would come across the cute little creature and find it in their heart to adopt the little Damien.
Three days passed, then four. The cat was still outside my door (hey! I'm a poet and I didn't even realize it). It looked emaciated and weathered, but still I wouldn't take it back in.
I like to believe I have compassion and a kind heart, but I guess that's untrue, a bunch of BS, because I let the cat stay outside my door for a full week, and when I awoke one morning, it was no longer there.
I like to think that the cat found someone, anyone, whether feline or human, to accept it into their fold. Sadly, I doubt this is true. One scorchingly hot summer afternoon three weeks later, while my mother was visiting from Canada, and shortly after I had proposed to my wife, we returned from lunch to find a tiny cat's corpse, fetid and desiccated, at the foot of the alley that ran up to our apartment.
Sparkles*_* |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
eamo

Joined: 08 Mar 2003 Location: Shepherd's Bush, 1964.
|
Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2005 4:56 am Post subject: |
|
|
Tibby,
On stormy nights, when the window shutters start a-banging and the flash of lightning prevents sound sleep, do you hear a faint miaow.......
It's the Heathcliffe of the cat world. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
Tiberious aka Sparkles

Joined: 23 Jan 2003 Location: I'm one cool cat!
|
Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2005 5:32 am Post subject: |
|
|
eamo wrote: |
Tibby,
On stormy nights, when the window shutters start a-banging and the flash of lightning prevents sound sleep, do you hear a faint miaow.......
It's the Heathcliffe of the cat world. |
You mean that cartoon cat that was a rip-off of Garfield?
No, he doesn't frighten me too much. He's too much of a pussy.
What really gets to me is Donnie Whalberg in 'The Sixth Sense.' I can't get up in the middle of the night to have a drink of water without imagining that pale, malnourished dude in his pee-stained tighty-whities suddenly appearing behind the fridge door as I close it.
*shivers*
Sparkles*_* |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
Tiberious aka Sparkles

Joined: 23 Jan 2003 Location: I'm one cool cat!
|
Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2005 5:35 am Post subject: |
|
|
Whoops! Double post.
Sparkles*_*
Last edited by Tiberious aka Sparkles on Tue Jun 21, 2005 4:18 pm; edited 1 time in total |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
eamo

Joined: 08 Mar 2003 Location: Shepherd's Bush, 1964.
|
Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2005 5:46 am Post subject: |
|
|
Darn you!
Subversive!!
You know I'm talking about Wuthering Heights and not giddly-diddly Heathcliffe the Cat!!
Was Donnie Walhberg in The Sixth Sense?? |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
plattwaz
Joined: 08 Apr 2005 Location: <Write something dumb here>
|
Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2005 5:56 am Post subject: |
|
|
I'm loving this post...and feeling like much less of a horrible person reading that you all do so many of the same things as me. I too once stuck out my tongue at a gawking pedestrian, and also (and this is the first I have EVER admitted it) opened my mouth full of food to a staring ajumma. I close the elevator door on people, I tell people I don't speak English.....I even disobey all of the recycling laws on purpose.
And come to find out that I'm not going to hell for it! Or, at least, I'll see you all down there!!! |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
jajdude
Joined: 18 Jan 2003
|
Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2005 8:15 am Post subject: |
|
|
I'm lazy. I work and prepare as little as I can get away with. I feign ignorance as much as I can. I think of my job as just something to do to deal with boredom. I like to start classes late and finish early. And I blame everyone else for my troubles.
That's not a bad 'confession' is it? |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
steroidmaximus

Joined: 27 Jan 2003 Location: GangWon-Do
|
Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2005 4:14 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I drive through red lights and constantly speed. I also play loud obnoxious music with the windows down. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
sparkx
Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Location: thekimchipot.com
|
Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2005 4:26 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I almost got canned within the first 2 weeks of my present job because I refuse to bow. I've been in Korea for almost 3 years and I have never once given someone a full bow (the little head nod thing yes, but never a bend-from-your-waist, respectful bow). I think it looks ridiculous when whitees do it.
The G.M and Director sat me down and gave me the whole "you need to respect Korean customs and try your best to fit in, eat korean food, blah blah blah." To which I responded, "If you wanted to hire a Korean you shouldn't have hired me. If you want to fire me, go ahead. Just don't expect me to become something i'm not."
I've been here almost 2 years and upper management loves me...I eat Korean food when i feel like it (which is actually almost everyday because I actually enjoy it), set my own work schedule and still have never bowed to anybody. Whoever steps in to this position after I leave will be in hog heaven. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
PaperTiger

Joined: 31 May 2005 Location: Ulaanbataar
|
Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2005 4:33 pm Post subject: Don't tell nobody but... |
|
|
I watched "Anaconda" five times because I was too baked to remember the first four times.
I paid the bus fare with a Japanese 500 yen coin because they wouldn't change it at the airport along with my other Japanese currency.
When you weren't looking, I puked out your car window and then hit the doobie and passed it to you. You might want to stop at the carwash tomorrow. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
JongnoGuru

Joined: 25 May 2004 Location: peeing on your doorstep
|
Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2005 6:17 pm Post subject: |
|
|
sparkx wrote: |
I almost got canned within the first 2 weeks of my present job because I refuse to bow. I've been in Korea for almost 3 years and I have never once given someone a full bow (the little head nod thing yes, but never a bend-from-your-waist, respectful bow). I think it looks ridiculous when whitees do it.
The G.M and Director sat me down and gave me the whole "you need to respect Korean customs and try your best to fit in, eat korean food, blah blah blah." To which I responded, "If you wanted to hire a Korean you shouldn't have hired me. If you want to fire me, go ahead. Just don't expect me to become something i'm not."
I've been here almost 2 years and upper management loves me...I eat Korean food when i feel like it (which is actually almost everyday because I actually enjoy it), set my own work schedule and still have never bowed to anybody. Whoever steps in to this position after I leave will be in hog heaven. |
Great stuff. Though I've never been called in for a "better bowing lecture", I sure have been in that sort of work situation myself a few times. First expat on the scene, having to define and shape my own job & responsibilities, learn the Koreans' ropes while they learn a few of mine, learning where it pays to be flexible, setting certain limits, working out differences, etc.
The difficulties and misunderstandings I encountered were mostly of the "form vs. substance" nature, and that's where I think a lot of non-Koreans will be faulted for not showing what is seen as "due respect" for ceremony, hierarchy, group harmony and the other warm-fuzzies. We tend to measure success exclusively in terms of results and efficiency, and we expect to be evaluated and rewarded accordingly. (Yeah, blinding original insight here, I know. )
BTW, did you write that to confess something or to boast?  |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|