Korean Job Discussion Forums

Alpha-Epsilon · Joined: 24 Nov 2005

You're still there. I know. It's another post for you to peak at, to glimpse outside your windowless conscience, to see if there's an answer.

There isn't, here in Korea, since you're now nowhere. You think you are, sounding so smooth. Those that thrum the keyboard here in hopes they'll make a louder sound are often the most lost, and hurt. They're thrumming their fingers now in anticipation, that Korea will offer them hope.

But this is false hope, as they crack their knuckles, and turn another page there, living day by day.

It's false because you're selling yourself out. You're not the Westerner you used to be, that self-sufficient, independent, do-it-on your own and stand-up-for yourself type of guy. Therefore, you've joined the crowd. Never mind freedom, or integrity , or right and wrong, ie., demeaning your country, despising your president, disgracing your parents. What matters now is conforming.

You're conforming to an ideology. It supersedes family roots, honor, political sense, and democracy, because you've become as nonsensical about the world at large as the Koreans. Hate surrounds you.

Join the bandwagon and Bush-bash. Be them. Be nothing without an enemy. Be an enigma. Sell yourself and your country.

Then return home empty.

Avram Iancu · Joined: 05 Jul 2003 Location: Changwon

No, it is called having an intrinsically different experience, and making of your own life something that most people here (unlike yourself) are, namely, a unique individual, and this is but one part of a greater whole (although not the same kind of 'hole' you would be familiar with, as in, "Shut your pie ____"....you sad sac (sic)...

PimpofKorea · Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 7:55 am Post subject:

wylies99 · Joined: 13 May 2006 Location: I'm one cool cat!

PimpofKorea · Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 8:00 am Post subject:

wylies99 · Joined: 13 May 2006 Location: I'm one cool cat!

Pimp- I edited my comments. Don't want to scare the kiddies. Laughing

Maybe I should have just left it alone. I don't know if the OP's comments actually deserve serious political discussion, anyway. Laughing

PimpofKorea · Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 8:03 am Post subject:

PimpofKorea · Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 8:04 am Post subject:

Cedar · Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 8:05 am Post subject:

wylies99 · Joined: 13 May 2006 Location: I'm one cool cat!

In the US very few people actually vote. The OP was posting about Americans. At least I think... Laughing

polonius · Joined: 05 Jun 2004

I thought this post was about feeling like you are a number in a system. And to the OP, I would guess that you have always felt that way, simply based on you Pseudonym. You think that you are part of a society or group that has a specific job in life. Regardless of where you are in the world, or what you are doing.

What you fail to see is that a lot of people get enjoyment from what they are doing here in Korea, perhaps moreso than they would having a cubicle job, and simply typing digits or letters into a computer. Many of us teaching here interact with our students and coworkers. We are not part of a crowd or a unit without methods of improving our situation. I, and I believe many others here continue to better themselves on a daily basis so that we are not considered conformists.

You claim that we are lost or hurt, but I think quite the contrary. We are not tied to anything. If we were back in the west, we would have to put Tab A into slot B. I have never felt more free in my life. I have complete independence over what and how I choose to live my life. If I were back at home, I am certain that there would be more economical constraints placed on me, that I would feel that my independence was shrowed by a vail of a Pavlovian manner.

It is too bad you feel this way, but, I know that for those of us that have been in Korea for multiple years do not feel this way.

And although I would like to give my 2 cents about George W., I will restrain, because I don't think that was the main idea of this thread.

captain kirk · Joined: 29 Jan 2003

twg · Joined: 02 Nov 2006 Location: Getting some fresh air...

IlIlNine · Joined: 15 Jun 2005 Location: Gunpo, Gyonggi, SoKo

OMG You're right!

I hadn't realized before, but your post enlightened me to the stark truth.

<goes and kills himself>

venus · Joined: 25 Oct 2006 Location: Near Seoul

You're wrong.

Korea is a sad little country with a self denialist, reppressive, stagnant culture.

This much is true imo.

Yet that doesn't mean I have changed as a person in any negative way.

I have become tougher, because it makes you tough putting up with the sh*t you have to just to work here on a daily basis.

I have come to appreciate my own country and culture one HELL of a lot more through being here.

Yeah, I'm here just for the money. It's true. I don't like work in general and here I can save twice as much as I could back home and work less hours and have an apt to myself. Then I can quit working for two whole years in order to follow my own pursuits living on my savings. I have a decent social life with other Westerners and a good lifestyle here.

I do not let the b@stards drag me down and remain true to myself and have the same sense of self that I had when I came here and I'd even say the unusual nature and toughness of my work related experiences here have made me a stronger person with a much broader outlook on life.

Not all of us become apologist, lost, patronised wanna be Koreans who are secretly mocked by the people whose esteem they favor...!

I'm milking this place for the cash and easy lifestyle, a smart cow grazing where the grazing is good, pure and simple.