Reaping the Benefits

They kept saying to me, just accept it Seonwu (except my name wasn't Seonwu then so they called me something else); accept that you are Woo Big. I don't want to be Woo Big... why didn't you cut out the closeup with the disco mask and the shiney pucker? Why you make me look like greasey-lipped pegboy? I hate you.

So now I'm in Korea and it is a funny place. I like it because there are very few white people. I don't hate white people. I am in fact white. But you know how you feel when you eat the same goddamned leftovers day after day? I needed a break from the turkey stew... it had grown tiresome.

I like Korea. I can't understand what anyone is saying, so I just pretend they all like me. I feel so loved wherever I go. And I am not a big slow-moving whitey, so I am able to sneak under the radar and surprise the Koreans. I find the most amusing way to do this is... learning Korean. The best part is where you actually pronounce the words like a Korean, instead of like Billy Bob Thorton playing the character of an inbred uncle-raper TRYING to speak Korean. It's not that hard... it's like imitating Yoda or Prince... you have to get outside yourself a little... feel the Force... because Prince definitely feels the Force.

Sometimes Korea is scary, like on the bus, or in a cab... or even worse... OUTSIDE of a bus or cab that's headed straight for you. And sometimes it is just strange. Like after the first freeze when you see the man in the frozen rice paddy with the pruning saw making the fire. What are you doing, Mr. Man? Out there in the icey ricey, sipping the smoke, swingin' the sickle? I wonder if you're a cereal killer... but seriously, what are you burning? I chuckle my cityguy chuckle and chalk it off... chalk it off to Farmer Business, which is a collection of archaic practices practiced for the sake of, well, bread and meat... by Farmers. But who really KNOWS? He could be burning his porno collection or photos of his ex-wife or a box full of GI Joes.

Korea has Tradition... which is a thing that you accumulate when your country is more than a few hundred years old. That means that they get to pretend that problems like broken marriages and affairs with one's spouse's relatives and homosexuality are a Western inventions. Really Korea is FULL of broken marriages and affairs with one's spouse's relatives and homosexuality... but just like in North America and other parts of the world, people act really horrified when they find these things, and cry and pray and carve their skin with sharp pointy objects, or booze up and wrap the Kia around the front end of a bus.

Mostly what I like is, Korea has JOBS; jobs for over-educated lazy whitey slobs like me, where I get paid better than I EVER did in my own country, despite the fact that minimum wage is less than HALF what it is there. If you are a native English speaker with a Bachelor's degree in ANYTHING, and you are waiting tables in Vancouver or washing cars in Ontario or wiping windows in Quebec, then you are STUPID. I hate to be mean, but sometimes Woo Big must be mean. Don't be sad; Woo Big was once stupid too.