Korean Job Discussion Forums

[cerulean808]

Decided to get this down while its fresh and I'm angry, though still got some devils drink in the blood.

Another Sat night at Itaewon, drinks n thrills n spills then sun rise, damn, 'please return to reality'. To the bus stop, down by the river. As I approach attention grabbed by a couple of white guys, North American accents, sitting in the gutter, one suddenly screams at the other, can't remember whats said. See the wild look so careful not catch their atention.

Clamber on my bus, second to last seat up back, seats half full. The 2 white guys appear come up the row sit on the raised back seats, nothing particularly aggresive about them at that point from what I recall - not even drunk maybe. Next thing an older Korean guy comes past me back down to the front of the bus to sit, must have been on the back row. OK...

A middle aged Korean guy is on his cell phone, one of the white guys starts loudly saying 'F**king Korean guys whining like little girls its a f**king joke' blah blah blah, then he starts an offensive mimicking of the Korean language.

Then they start abusing a couple of Korean guys sitting opposite me. These Korean guys have kind of snuggled up, you know the way theyre less inhibited about that. So the white guys are calling them f**king fa*g*ts, 'look their s*cking each others f*cking d*cks', 'Koreans are homophobic and look what they do, f*cking hypocrites', they start singing that Korean soccer song in a mocking tone, 'Piss on Korea, Koreans are f*cking losers' blah blah blah.

This goes on for a bit, my blood pressure rising. The Koreans ignore them, you could cut the atmosphere with a knife. Finally I grow some balls stand up and face thse 2 a$$holes. I said;

' I've got some issues with Koreans [ being shafted by my hagwon director specifically, (are't we all) ] but what youre doing disgusts me' I turned to the Korean guys opposite me and said 'As a foreigner I'm sorry bout what their doing, they don't represent me.' One of them gestured to me like 'It's ok. I understand.' Then one of the white guys started on me 'Who the f*ck are you apologizing for?' blah blah blah. I told him ' What you're doing is f*cking despicable, as a foreigner I'm going to a seat away from you.' And I went down to the front, they were quiet then must have made them pause. Five minutes later it started again. So about then my stop, the first stop, comes up. When I get up and head to the exit I yell 'You're the f*cking a$$holes!' and give em the birdy as I step off.

Done a couple of stints here and never experienced anything like it. Anyone witnessed similar incidences? Can't believe it, the massive damage it must do. Hope my retaliation helped those Koreans distinguish the ok freigners from the a$$holes. Adrenline rush is stopping me from gettin some shut eye now

[doggyji]

Heh.. that even sounds on a par with the aggressiveness of neo nazis.. do they even go abroad? The typical "I own this place mmmwhhhaaha" mammals I occasionally read about on Korean websites.. I guess you did the right thing but be careful since you never know what kind of show they can present you...

[Captain Corea]

I've never seen anything like that and am not sure how I'd handle it. I might go sit by them and ask them what was going on. In any case it'd shut them up for a bit.

[little mixed girl]

i would have had no issue with you if u decided to beat the crap outta those guys.
i hate ppl that go to foreign countries and think they are the s**t, when they probably rolled off their sisters that morning and onto the flight to korea... <_<

[Milwaukiedave]

It's foreigners like those two that give the rest of us a bad name. Damn I wish I'd been on the bus with you, we could have taken frick and frack out in a heartbeat.

Personally their behavior disgusts me. We hear Koreans complain about native speakers in various ways because of idiots like these two.

I think you handled it as best as you could. You did put yourself at risk though because those two might have jumped you. The Koreans on the bus seemed to understand that you were chaistising them for their behavior.

I don't know what I would have done in that situation. It's difficult because you don't want to be silent, but at the same time getting the s*** beat out of you is not good either.

What would have been interesting is to find out what school they worked for and then tell a Korean friend who could call the school. In most of our contracts there is a clause that says something about behavior in general so that could have serve as a warning to them.

[Qinella]

I've seen dudes like that only in Itaewon. I saw a guy go off on the 7-11 clerk once because they didn't sell aspirin. Some other guy walking around, yelling about how horrible Pakistanis are. Lots of belligerent dumbasses in Itaewon.

[cisco kid]

You're Samurai Jack, going up against the evil dragon dude.

[Roch]

[JAWINSEOUL]

Just one more reason to avoid the part of town!!!!

[desultude]

[jmbran11]

I've never seen anyone openly mock Koreans in public (or even in private for that matter). Sure, I've heard people do quite a bit of complaining about this and that, but you would have to understand English fluently to catch the gist of it. While we sometimes do things the Koreans would consider rude (talking to loud, not showing proper deference to elders), most of the English teachers I've met here actually respect Koreans and want them to respect us.

Maybe the guys were soldiers? It's not fair to generalize, but I've heard a lot of compliants from Koreans about the attitude of military personnel, who don't necessarily interact with the culture the way that we do. And, it might explain the homo thing. (It's definitely Westerners who are homophobic).

Anyway, it's an impossible situation, you did the best you could.

P.S. I love the samurai guy!!!!!! We used to watch that on Cartoon Network in the U.S. late night (before/after Futurama).

[flotsam]

I see a lot of soldiers milling about Seohyeon, which is where the 9401 stops first in Bundang--anyone know how close the nearest base is to there?

[seoulsista]

That's really shameful and I would have done the exact same thing, so good for you.

Can you clarify, your bus (9401) was going from Hannam to Bundang in the morning? They had to have been teachers then not military.

[rocklee]

Were they young? was one of them blond?

[SorryForLosing]

I've seen this ow so much :/ being that i was a soldier in korea for 4.5 years i saw this very frequently. I just started hangin out in areas where there werent GIs ... they are crazy ... one incident ill explain -- me and some friends were on our way back from itaewon going to suwon where we were stationed... and one guy starts asking the taxi driver if he su*ked di*k or if he was gay blahblah saying things that the taxi driver would prolly not understand ... it disgusted me .. he even pissed in a bottle in the backseat of the taxi.... heh ... anyway ive had many experiences like this ...

but in all fairness ive had my experiences with koreans too .. yelling at me (im white) for no apparent reason calling me a yankee blahblahblah

~~