Korean Job Discussion Forums

[sparkx]

During my short summer break a Korean girl I know decided to take me rafting on the Dong (sp) river. Since I have really never been outside Seoul, I jumped at the opportunity thinking it would be good for Sparkx soul. It definately was nice to actually get out of Seoul and see some
areas untouched by industry. I have to admit it was quite beautiful -- the rolling mountains with rivers snaking in between them --
BUT as per usual the "Koreanness" of the trip completely ruined the whole experience.

First off, our leader (who was employed by the company as a guide) never shut-up the whole trip. I mean his lips didn't stop flapping the whole time. At first I thought that he was talking about the scenery and giving an indepth history lesson of the region, but after asking my friend she told me that it was ALL about him -- (his military training, his fav. movies and songs, etc.) My friend thought it was funny because no one answered his questions but the whole time I was thinking, "if these people are here just to relax and enjoy the scenery why are you forcing yourself to be the centre of attention?" I've seen this before at Korean "western" bars with bartenders freestyling on the mic for an hour straight as if they are Wayne Newton or something. It was like the verbal equivalent of the flashing lights and concrete structures of Seoul -- an assault on the senses.

This was overall a minor gripe and wouldn't have merited a thread on Daves's but it turned out to be just the tip of the iceburg.

As we were paddling down the river and my auditory blockers finally kicked in I began feeling quite peaceful. Back home I do quite a bit of canoeing and kayaking and I was once again feeling that relaxing complacency you can only get on the water.

Suddenly the aforementioned leader springs up out of his crouch and begins shoving people off the boat. When I say shove, I mean full out bodycheck to the chest leading to a backflip over the side of the raft.
I am in no way sensitive to this sort of thing since I've played contact sports my whole life so I took the whole thing with a glowing grin and a grain of salt, gave the guy a little "good one, ya got me" finger point and jumped back aboard.

Once, twice or even three times this MAY be funny but they did this little comedy routine maybe 10-15 times and laughed their asses off every damn time. One girl cut her lip on her paddle from one of the guys flanking her, grabbing her by the face and pulling her off the boat. To top things off they would also grab people and hold them under the water until they choked or started panicking. I felt like I was in that movie City Slickers with the bully cowboys except in this instance the bullies were bleached blonde, arrogant as all hell, diamond earring wearing, waif-like Korean guys.

It was maybe the 10th time I had been pushed off the boat into freezing cold water and I was starting to get seriously pissed (especially since I payed good money for this abuse). I said to myself "*** this". I waited till the smuggest, loudest and driest leader had turned around and I swam up to the back of the boat. In one quick motion I grabbed the side of the raft with one hand and the the guys lifejacket with the other and hurled his ass off the boat like a javelin. The guy hit the water and started egg-yoing and whining like a little ***** as the shivering rafting party began cheering. He swam over to me shouting in Korean. With one of his scrawny little buddies in tow they grabbed me and pushed my head under the water and held it there for a good 10-15 seconds (doesn't sound like much, but when you're not expecting it, it's damn scary). I managed to lift my head out for a brief second when he dunked me again. I drank a mouthful of water and started panicking. I finally surfaced and began choking for a good 5 minutes. When I composed myself the rage hit. I looked up to see him on the raft laughing and pointing at me with his little ass-kiss chorus. I was all set to stomp a mudhole into the guy when I looked around and noticed the Korean rafting contingent floating around in the water - blue lips and a chorus of whines like that scene from Titanic (it was also part of the joke not to let people back on the raft). I realized that discretion was the better part of valour especially since I was the only foreigner on the trip and it would probably say more to be the only one in the water not shivering and crying. So I bit my lip, kicked back like I was in the Florida Keys and acted like I was made of teflon the whole time waiting for the guy to come near me so I could turn him into a human lobster trap and anchor him to the bottom of the river.

I was bitter the rest of the trip and spent my time plotting a way to bury my paddle into the guys cranium and make it look like an accident but of course never got my opportunity.

I don't know if Koreans are sado masochists and enjoy this treatment or what, but all I know is that our tour was at maximum capacity and no one seemed as shell shocked as me on the bus ride home.
*edited by Lemon 11:57am*

[whatthefunk]

WOW... I went on a 'Korean Vacation' once and it was hell, but it in no way comes close to being as horrible as yours. Makes a good story I suppose...

[makushi]

I say you round up some our hard hittin pipe wielding boys and make a return trip...

[denz]

this story should have been hard to fathom, but it wasnt. which says alot about korea. having rafted in oz, i will admit that a little hijinx is part of the appeal, but it is very isolated, well timed and safe. pushing people's heads under the water? that is frenchconnectioned uk ed.

our work has organised a rafting trip sometime in the near future (probably this afternoon knowing korean style), thanks for the heads up sparkx. if anything like this happens, i'll have some fun. "gimme the oar".

denz

[Bulsajo]

Um, just trying to make more sense of the story- the a*holes in question worked for the rafting company? Any idea what the name of the company was so others can be forewarned? Maybe get rid of a bit of the rage by firing off an angry letter to the KNTO? Christ, holding paying customers' underwater (well, anyone, paying or not) until they choke?!?

[sparkx]

Bulsajo - The company name is Dasom Rafting Co. As whatthefunk said, I have pretty much chalked it up as an interesting story while spreading the word on Dave's to avoid the operation like the plague.

I have been wondering if my experience was an isolated one...The Korean girl I went with is very beautiful and quite outgoing, and I noticed some hostility from these knobs from the get-go. During the prep. time these guys walked around to help everyone out with their equipment except us which is odd since I was the only one who couldn't understand their verbal instructions.

Denz - I really caution you about this outfit yet I would love to know if it was just me or if this *** happens all the time. Maybe what these guys really need is a wake up call -- but me by my lonesome wouldn't dare drop the hammer.

Keep me posted

[makushi]

Reminds of the time that a co-worker and myself decided to head down to Koje-do for a little scuba diving adventure.

Got to Koje no problem. Spent the night in a nice min-pak and woke up bright and early to start our adventure.

There were two boats. My co-worker and I along with six others were loaded onto a Boston Whaler-type boat (completely open) with no instrumentation, running lights, etc.

Another larger group was loaded onto a bigger boat, which the owner of the charter company was driving.

Anyway, our boat follows the larger boat out to the dive spot which is about an hour off-shore at a submerged reef.

Our boat�s skipper is a young kid that claims he was an ex-ROK marine. For the next hour we get to listen to him tell all kinds of stories about himself (a common theme is emerging) and his exploits as a marine. And because we are in a fairly noisy boat, he has to shout to be heard�nice!

Anyway, we get to the dive spot do a couple of really crappy low visibility (5 foot max) dives and start to head back.

The big boat leaves before us and is soon out of sight.

We keep going in the general direction and all the Korean (everyone except me) are shouting about what they did/didn�t see on their dives.

I�m watching our skipper who has now become very quiet. I notice that every few minutes he�s changing the boats direction. But as there aren�t any landmarks, just water for as far you can see, and he doesn�t have compass, I am wondering what he�s basing his direction changes on.

Then it hits me. He�s lost!

So I tell my co-worker to ask him if he�s lost. He responds�.�oh we�d better not, he will get really embarrassed.�

As I happen to outrank this particular co-worker, I forcefully insist that he has the skipper if he�s lost.

My co-worker pops the question and immediately the skipper stops the boat and almost starts to cry.

Now all hell breaks loose on the boat with everyone shouting and pointing in different directions.
Keep in mind that we don�t have a compass and the sun is directly overhead. I ask the skipper about water and fuel. He says we�ve got enough fuel to run for about 3-hours but no water.

Anyway, to make a long story short we spend about two hours going in circles (I guess but who really know where we where�we did see a couple ships motoring in the distance but that was it) when we spot a fishing boat. We cruise up to it and ask which way to Koje-do. He points us on our way and off we go.

The next hour we use our dive compasses to try make sure we don�t change directions and just about the time we expect to run out of fuel the lead boat (which has gone in refueled and is now out looking for us) spots us and leads us back.

We are all very sunburned, very thirsty, and very frickin lucky that nothing worse happened.

Keep in mind this boat didn�t have a GPS, radar, compass, depth sounder, radio, and the skipper didn�t even bring a cell phone.

If you are planning and off-shore fishing of diving trips�.check to be sure they got their act together first.

[Bulsajo]

You should've sent the ex-marine over the side to swim for help!

[HamuHamu]

Maybe it's something about the Dong river - my trip was almost identical. I thought that the pushing off of the boat had something to do with the fact that there weren't actually any RAPIDS on the river. And the few times that we came near any fast water, we were instructed to paddle like mad to keep away from it. Defeated the point if you ask me.

I was thrown out the first time because I wasn't singing along with some Korean rafting song. Forgive me for not knowing it. This was after I made it clear that I can't swim and am quite frightened of rivers.

Every time other boats passed us, we were supposed to splash them as much as possible with our paddles and try to soak them. It was pouring rain and 13 degrees out that day.

I should have known it was going to be completely opposite to any rafting trip I could ever imagine, when all of the Korean girls were wearing their little tiny high heels (IN THE RAFT) and CHECKING THEIR MAKE UP every time we stopped. These would be the same people who laughed hysterically because I was wearing Tevas. Go figure.

[makushi]

[captain kirk]

man, that's a 'deliverance' kind of episode there, sparx.
two years ago i went on a rafting trip with unesco. if anyone wants to find out, call unesco office in seoul. it was the best trip in korea so far, and that includes cheju. because it was an ACTIVE trip, we did something, rafting. the river was low at the time, it was fall. so the rubber boat captain had to get out and haul the raft over shallow parts where the bottom bogged our wobbly-bottomed craft. that guy was strong, all over. and we had the splash wars when other boats came by. in the melee i got a bit too exuberant (because the other boats were acting like d*cks) and actually whacked another guy over the head with my paddle. along with everyone else he had a helmet on, but there were some 'you've gone too far' looks. no-one was pushed out of the boat by our host, or held under water so they couldn't breathe and would naturally start to panic. our skipper lost his watch in the melee, which was a drag, perhaps when i pulled him out of the boat when i'd dumped and was getting a hand up from him. i guess these army guys went through some arduous training, and the sight of you, sparkx, with that beautiful korean sidekick inspired a hazing. i hope this story of yours doesn't put anyone off. because the rafting trip was excellent. the kind of adventure/expedition type activity you'd expect to do in thailand, a vacation spot. and it alleviated the 'seriousness' of korea, that hacking around. the silence and the natural views from river level were outstandingly serene. it's a completely different and refreshing activity.
i guess the 'dominant males' mouth off about their life history because who cares what the women think, it's a patriarchy, and everyone is for the army. perhaps it's a national duty to listen to army bores. they dare you to shut them up, hand to hand! which would be unpatriotic, treasonous.

[sparkx]

I had another episode last night. I caught a glimpse of the rubber dingy I play with in the tub and I had a flashback. Just like in Apocalypse Now, I punched a mirror and started weeping naked on the floor as I thought about the raft nazis who abused me. I may never recover

I've talked to a few of my students and it really does seem like my experience was an exceptional one. Even Kirk and HamuHamu's stories don't seem quite as extreme as mine was -- I am really starting to think in was the k-girl factor. Maybe it was like in elementary school when a kid did something bad and the teacher made the whole class pay the price; these guys punished the whole group for my friends association with a dirty blooded, inferior cracker.

I really would love to return with some foreigners to learn them boys proper. I imagine, though, it would be like when I was a kid playing American Gladiators with my sister. These fools would get tossed around like paper mache pilons and soon learn that if you put your hands on another person without their consent you'll get stung!! I can already hear that magical "Assschhhhhhhh" sound in my head. That alone would be worth the price of admission.

Thats it -- I'm booking my next trip asap.

[richinkorea]

sparkx,

weren't you saying in another thread that you "would mop up the floor with any and all Koreans " ?

Wasn't that you ?

Seems like this would have been the perfect opportunity, assuming of course, that you are as tough in real life as you've let on here.

I can't believe you didn't dunk that freak, very disappointed. He played you like a girl.

And now you are having nightmares and are plotting revenge "with some foreigner friends" ???...... lost all respect man.

[waterbaby]

[sparkx]

Waterbaby wrote: