Korean Job Discussion Forums

crazylemongirl · Joined: 23 Mar 2003 Location: almost there...

In New Zealand, sleeping.

Boodleheimer · Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 5:38 pm Post subject:

at my office in Prague.

edit: by "my office" i mean the craptastic sales company i was working at

djsmnc · Joined: 20 Jan 2003 Location: Dave's ESL Cafe

Woke up in my room feeling sleepy and bleary eyed from my craptastic work schedule. Scratched certain areas that need scratching right when a man wakes up.

Turned on the computer to Yahoo.com. Saw a picture of a black hole in the World Trade Center. Thought "Damn, how does a pilot miss a building, the Trade Center nonetheless?"

Went back to bed. Woke up an hour later with some friends in my room screaming "DUDE! Wake up and smoke this! Look at what's happening on TV"

Boodleheimer · Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 6:17 pm Post subject:

djsmnc · Joined: 20 Jan 2003 Location: Dave's ESL Cafe

tzechuk · Joined: 20 Dec 2004

I was here in Korea. Sitting at home with my husband (not husband, then). We were both shocked.

kermo · Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 8:07 pm Post subject:

In a Canadian Grade 3&4 classroom, when a teacher burst in with the news. Other staff members had TVs blaring around the school, and I remember being irritating that our class was being disturbed by the noise coming through the walls.

The students asked me why America was being attacked, and I remember just scrambling for an answer that would make sense to them. I'm embarrassed to admit that I just guessed: "The US is very rich, and many people don't like them. I think they're angry because the US is so powerful."

Looking back, that answer was far from adequate or even correct, but at that moment, I had no idea who Osama bin Laden was or what any of it was about.

princess · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Location: soul of Asia

I was teaching in Korea. I wactched the whole 9/11 news report on TV and called my Mom. I knew about it before she did.

neandergirl · Joined: 23 Jun 2005

In my apart unpacking (had just returned from Thailand) getting ready for work the next day. Turned on CNN and saw the reports of the first plane - thought maybe the channels had changed and it was a movie or something. As I was trying to figure out if it was a) real and/or b) an accident, the second plane went into the towers. Stayed up most of the night watching. Next day at work hardly anyone ('cepting a guy from NY) mentioned it.

ThePoet · Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 2:26 am Post subject:

I'll never forget that...

I went to work that day substitute teaching at a high school in Edmonton with a high islamic student population (mostly Lebanese and Egyptians)...I was sickened to watch the students walking down the hallways high fiving each other, smiling and laughing and saying how proud they were that America was having this happen to them. This was before there was even any concrete connection between terrorists and the planes, and even before the connection was to islamic terrorists (everyone in the media was being very careful not to jump that gun twoo quickly because they did so about Oklahoma and then had egg on their face when it turned out to be McVey).

Anyway, the students were bragging and acting like cok o' the walk and basically acting like they personally were responsible for the planning.

Then a couple days later as the arabic community was on any media outlet that would have them saying how sorry they felt and how they were not happy about this....I felt they were worthy of an Oscar for how they played the media into believing that they were not actually pleased about the events.

Sickening, hypocritical, and truly an eye-opener for my once 'tolerant' mind. Now I realize all those protests and tears and humble words are merely for the benefit of the camera.

Poet

hairy sue · Joined: 18 May 2006 Location: weewee heaven

Drunk with an elephant in Burma.

ajuma · Joined: 18 Feb 2003 Location: Anywere but Seoul!!

I was here in Korea. A good Korean friend of mine called me around 9-10 pm-ish and asked if I'd seen the news. Since I rarely watch TV, I said "no". She asked "You're from New York...do you have family in New York?" I said "yes" (meaning in the STATE not the CITY), and she said that I'd better call them to make sure that they were ok. When I asked why, she could only say "Turn on the news."

I did and was horrified! Called my Mom to talk about it. Stayed up half the night watching CNN (which here was over-dubbed in Korean so you couldn't hear much of the English). Tried to access CNN on-line, but couldn't get through.

The next day, my adult students were great...asking if all of my family were ok.

I remember feeling as if it was all a bad dream....

Cheonmunka · Joined: 04 Jun 2004

Watched it on TV here. My wife woke me.
The next day took the subway and the commuters all had their newspapers. Many people initiated deep eye contact with me that morning.

Junior · Joined: 18 Nov 2005 Location: the eye

London...the city continued as normal..all though there were people talking about it quite animatedly everywhere by about 4pm.
We were all glued to the TV that evening. There were rumours about terrorists planning to attack the Tube. Possibly with anthrax or something.
Of course the "inevitable??" attack indeed happened on 7/7.

Before 9/11, September 11 was famous to me as the "S11" movement- (anti-globalisation protests)- of which I was a part.

Wonder if they chose that date because it co-incided with those protests?

gang ah jee · Joined: 14 Jan 2003 Location: city of paper

I was drinking with eamo at this bar when some other dude called up and was all like "DUDES!"

So eamo and I headed back to my house and turned on the TV. A little later eamo left and my girlfriend came over. She was a mad radical activist (Bae Doo-na's character in Sympathy for Mr Vengeange could have been based on this girl), and she suggested we go to Itaewon to see what USFK were doing about the situation. The whole way over there she was arguing with the taxi driver, basically brow-beating poor old ajossi, who was sympathetic to the US, that the US had had it coming this whole time, and she was surprised that it hadn't happened sooner. She was all animated and laughing, which bothered me somewhat.

We arrived in Itaewon, but by this point all the GIs had been called back to base, and everyone else was either asleep or watching it on TV. We went for a drink at Space-A (it was the first time she'd been to Itaewon at night and she wanted to see hooker hill), and it was there that I realised that this girl was the worst dancer I had ever seen in my life. It was embarrassing to be seen with her, and I felt very disappointed.

Then we went home, and watched TV some more. She just wanted to talk about the political implications of the attack (well, write about it - her spoken English was awful, and my knowledge of Korean at the time didn't extend much into the domain of politics) but I was starting to feel sick to my stomach about the whole thing as the shock and awe wore off.

We broke up a few weeks later after a fight about my displeasure with her showing up at my house stinking of soju and kalbi at 3am when I had to work the next morning.

I miss her sometimes though.