Facebook Obsessives. STFU.

Recently, there has been a spate of people, friends of mine, and in some cases that's 'Facebook friends' more than real-life friends, and by that I mean that I know them more (not 'only') on Facebook, than in real life, who seem to be taking Facebook far too seriously, blaming it for everything awry in their lives.

Ironically, these people who are signing off from Facebook, or refusing to sign up at all, or taking long leaves of absence, are, in my opinion, the ones guilty of taking it far too seriously. In my opinion THEY are the ones giving Facebook far more attention than it deserves. It's just a website. Manage your time better!

As an exile FB is great for me for keeping in touch, seeing my family's photos and so on. I enjoy a couple of the games on there, chess particularly, and I cannot understand why so many people blame it for anything at all. It's just a website. A medium. Blaming the medium is like having an argument with someone over the phone, and blaming the phone.

Personally, I think it's a kind of trend to 'dislike' Facebook. A bit like it's trendy to disown 'lol' and other acronyms of the ilk. "Oh, that Facebook, I'm spending far too much time on it, I'm gonna be cool and sign off. Everyone will think I'm forward thinking." Fuck off. Lame attempts at bohemian exista (I just invented a word, deal with it) are, simply, for cunts. Oh, you thought this was a wordy diatribe? That there would be no calling people cunts? You were wrong. Don't blame the fucking medium. I hate those cunts who will ONLY wear Birkenstock sandals, who will ONLY have an i-pod with 85000 songs on it (mine's got 500, songs that I actually like, and some new stuff to check out – I'm not a fucking memory man), who will only wear Stussy t-shirts. They're the CUNTS who'll be signing off FB and telling the world what trend-setters they are. Incidentally, these are the same people far-too-fucking-cool (they think) to use 'lol'. Get it straight – they are the fucking lamoes, not you.

Horseradish Sauce, Marmite, Cadbury’s Chocolate, Mint Sauce, Indian Spices, Lea & Perrin’s Worcestershire Sauce and Wholegrain Mustard.

The World’s Most Expensive Grocery Trip.

I’ve just been back to England. My main purpose was to visit my family whom I’d not seen in nearly two years. My secondary purpose was to buy the items listed above, which are impossible, or at best very difficult, to find in Korea. I did however forget to buy some mature cheddar. Dammit. I’ll have to find another use for my Lea and Perrin’s.

It’s a long way to England from Korea. My trip over went: 3 hour subway ride, 4 hour flight to Hong Kong, 2 hour wait, 12 hour flight, 2 hour train trip to my mum’s place in Harpenden. Factor in that there’s a nine hour time difference, and the day I travelled over had about 35 hours in it. It took me several days to get over the exhausting trip and the jetlag.

Also, I took over a bottle of soju as a gift, which was smashed en route, and everything in my bag was soaked. Luckily it’s a clear liquid, and I had it in a plastic bag meaning the glass, at least, was contained. I smelled like a brewery all the way to my mum’s though.

I spent the first two days relaxing and staring at British TV. Oh, and shopping for the items above. I miss British supermarkets. I need my ‘crap’ British food.

Chips. I ate loads of chips. Nobody in the world does chips (French fries) like us Brits.

Roll-yer-own cigarettes. Yes I know I should quit smoking, but not before I’ve rolled a few of my own.

A pint of beer. A PINT. In a pint glass. Three pound fucking seventy down south by the way.

Driving on the left. God’s own traffic rules apply in England.

Till next time…

Twenty Five Things I Like About Korea

OK, this is a kind if rehash, as I’ve blogged about Korea before. Last week, I wrote about 25 things that completely baffle me about Korea, so in the interests of fairness and balance, here are 25 things I actually like about the place.

1. Safety. You can walk the streets day or night without fear of crime. (Unless you are Nick Petman, who is a one-man crime statistic.)
   
   
2. Eating Out. So many restaurants here. They are everywhere, on every street corner. You fill your face and swig a beer for about a fiver.
   
   
3. Korean BBQ. At these myriad restaurants, my favourite food is Korean BBQ. I won’t bore you with the Korean names for these, but you have a little gas hob on your table, they bring the meat out fresh, along with an array of side dishes (vegetables, leaves, salads) and dipping sauces, and you cook the meat yourself right there. Wrap your cooked meat in a leaf along with kimchi, garlic, or any of the dishes or sauces and insert-into-mouth whole. Amazing!
   
   
4. Buddae Jiggae. Korean Army Camp Soup. After the Korean War meat was scarce, and locals began experimenting with U.S. Army surplus. This is a soup made with hot dog sausages and spam! Add mushrooms, onions, the obligatory kimchi and various other ingredients and spices. Hardly haute cuisine, but very tasty, and very cheap.
   
   
5. Cheap cigarettes. I’m an on and off smoker. On right now, off last year. Cigarettes here are 2500 won a pack. That’s £1.25 each. Also, all cigarettes are the same price, no matter which brand.
   
   
6. Cheap Beer. A 500cc (roughly a pint) of beer is about £1.50. Mostly lager, which suits me just fine.
   
   
7. No chavs/moody groups of teenagers. Oi what you fucking looking at? Are you Polish? Did you call my pint a queer? You will never get randomly punched in Korea.
   
   
8. Under Floor Heating. Toasty feet. Great!
   
   
9. The Children. Somehow, and every Westerner I speak to here agrees, their kids are cuter than ours. Maybe because they all look so different to kids back home, maybe it’s just because they are that tiny bit smaller, I dunno, but the teeny-tots here are the cutest things you’ll ever see! They are adorable.
   
   
10. Noraebang. Singing room. Get drunk, go and do karaoke with your friends in a private room. Sounds totally lame, but is actually great fun, though the getting drunk part is entirely essential.
    
    
11. Cheap Utility Bills. Come on British Gas, how can my monthly gas bill over here be a tenth of what your bills were?
    
    
12. Cheap Trains. Walk up, buy a ticket. All the same price. Don’t have to book a lifetime in advance to get cheaper tickets. Costs about a fifth of train travel in the UK.
    
    
13. Cheap Taxis. Ending up 20 miles from home at 4am isn’t such an issue. A third of the cost of the UK taxis.
    
    
14. No One is Fat. No one.
    
    
15. European Frico Cheese Burgers from Lotteria. Possibly the best fast food burger on the planet. Lotteria is Korea’s version of McDonald’s or Burger King, but has a Korean twist to many of the burgers. The Frico Cheese one has the usual patty, salad, also a cheese/breadcrumb patty, some unknown sauces and olives! Scrumptious.
    
    
16. My Boss. Top bloke. Friendly, helpful, cheerful, thoughtful.
    
    
17. My Apartment. Many of us teachers over here are given a one room ‘studio flat’. A bedsit to my UK readers. In my first year here so was I. This year, for some unknown reason, my new school gave me a three-bedroomed twin-bathroomed flat on the 11th floor. I’ve got more cupboards than I’ve got stuff to put in them. Which is nice.
    
    
18. Weather. Korea has four distinct seasons. I won’t name because they have same names as ours. OK, I will. Spring and autumn are like summer in the UK. Summer here is blisteringly hot, and winter is for skiing and making snowmen. In the summer it is hot every day, not like back home where it’s changeable every day. It’s never gloomy and overcast for a month. It’s always sunny, even in winter, even when it’s freezing, the sun is out.
    
    
19. Being in Different Culture. Being in a different culture is, somewhat unsurprisingly, interesting. I never feel like I’m sludging through another gloomy depressing day. I wake up every morning on the other side of the world. And the sun is out. People still stare at me. A fascinating foreigner in a land where there aren’t many.
    
    
20. High Speed Internet. Last week I downloaded a 750mb movie (The Usual Suspects) in 7 minutes flat. Beat that England!
    
    
21. Mobile Phone Coverage Everywhere. On the subway, up a mountain, everywhere. They have some system called DMB which apparently cost a fortune to implement but means I can browse the internet, on my phone, 100 metres underground on a train. Great for the football scores.
    
    
22. Table Service. Not everywhere, but many bars you just walk in and sit down. They have a buzzer/bell on the table and when you want something…bing bong!
    
    
23. Free Bar snacks. You like popcorn and crisps? Free in most (non-western styled) bars, by the bowlful.
    
    
24. Korean Girls’ Legs. Following on from the ‘no-fat’ entry above, and the fact that Korean ladies’ fashion is based almost entirely around one thing, very short skirts, I have to say that Korean ladies’ legs are, simply, great. Well done Korean ladies.
    
    
25. Meeting Americans, Canadians, South Africans, Australians etc: Don’t do much of that back home. Mind you, I need a portable ‘urban dictionary’ when conversing with them, especially the Yanks. Kthxbi…

Tips and Tricks for Getting-By in Korea

These are tongue-in-cheek. I like Korea and the Korean people. As a Westerner, there are however a few ‘differences’ between the two cultures that I find it hard to comprehend and adapt to. These are some that bemuse me. Feel free to add your own in the comments.

• 1) Don’t ask what’s for lunch. It’s rice and soup.
• 2) When walking on the pavement/sidewalk, and the way ahead is clear, expect the person walking in the opposite direction to come onto your side so you now both have to change sides. (WHAT is it with that?)
• 3) If you are walking along in a straight line, the person walking perpendicular to your trajectory will deliberately and willfully head straight for a collision course.
• 4) No one will hold a door open for you.
• 5) Don’t say excuse me, even in Korean. A (sometimes) gentle nudge will suffice.
• 6) Any woman over 40 has the right to go straight to the front of any queue.
• 7) Any woman over 40 has to wear their hair in a tight, died black, short perm.
• 8) Any woman over 40 must sport a capless peak the size of a satellite dish,
• 9) Any woman over 40 must wear lime green trousers/pants, with a flowery purple blouse.
• 10) Any woman over 40 is protected by a higher being when crossing the road, and therefore does not need to look or listen.
• 11) It’s OK to clear your throat LOUDLY and spit the result into the street.
• 12) When driving, don’t use your indicators, they are an unnecessary luxury used only by the foolish.
• 13) Be prepared to wait the equivalent of four lifetimes waiting to cross the road. Push button. Read “War and Peace”. Cross road. In that order.
• 14) If you have a car smaller that a cruise liner, you are nothing. NOTHING!
• 15) When doing any kind of work or task, the ONLY thing that matters is speed.
• 16) It’s OK to lie if it avoids any kind of personal loss of face.
• 17) Music was invented five years ago.
• 18) The drunken Korean man who shouted “Wayne Rooney Manchester United!!” at you in the bar because you’re English, is now your best friend.
• 19) Expect things to change at the last minute. For example, it’s 8.30am.You have class at 9am. Phone call. That class is now at 8.45… 8.44 comes around, phone call “classes today are all cancelled”. Hurrah! 8.46 class arrives. Normal day.
• 20) If you are an attractive young female, you must wear a very short skirt and a very high neckline. No exceptions.
• 21) If you are a “streetwise” male, you must wear some new-looking jeans, and new-looking trainers/sneakers. No other clothes exist. None.
• 22) It’s cool, when smoking, to hold the cigarette between your teeth.
• 23) When drinking you must: not fill your own glass, look away whilst sipping, not watch anyone else, stand on one leg, spin around, put the glass back on the table upside down, offer a toast at every opportunity, click the glass of your superiors lower on the glass than your own, and recite Chaucer’s “The Millers Tale”, in Korean, after every sip. Most of these are actually true.
• 24) Despite the West also having a long history of inventing stuff, Koreans will be amazed that any Westerner has heard of rudimentary items such as, say, gloves.
• 25) It’s OK to ask someone their age and marital status before their asking their name.

Let it be said that Koreans are also very kind, and very helpful. They rarely get angry, they are generally courteous (in their own way!) and it’s a very nice place to live. I also love computers, but they too have minor annoyances! That’s life. I can’t change computing, and I can’t change Korea. I do however love them both!

If you have an ‘annoyance’ that you’d like to post, feel free to add a comment below.

Another Rant about American Pronunciation

I don’t care about accents as such, I have one, you have one, we all have one, and none are ‘correct’.

A typical American uses, in pronunciation at least, the diphthong ‘ae’ (pronounced something like ‘eh’) whereas a typical Brit would use ‘a’ (pronounced something like ‘ah’) when saying, for example, ‘hand’. That’s not a problem, all are understood.

But it becomes a problem when the USA thinks it can teach the rest of the world how to spell English in other alphabets, using its pronunciation. The letter ‘a’ is generally pronounced ‘ah’ in every major language in the world, including English, everywhere except North America – it is never ‘eh’ (ae). More annoyingly, when they use it correctly, as in ‘aesthetic’, they change the spelling to ‘esthetic’!

The Koreans have a letter that is pronounced ‘ae’ (eh) it’s ㅐ in Hangeul (there’s a picture above if you can’t see this (you need Korean language on your computer). So now we have Americans telling Koreans how to spell place names, in Korean, using American phonetics. For example Amsterdam phonetically ‘spelled’ in Korean is akin to “Ehm-ster-dehm”! New Zealand, spelled in Korean, is 뉴질랜드 (Nyu-jeel-LEHND-uh). So we’ve got Americans telling the rest of the world how to pronounce and spell the names of cities and countries that are, in some cases, ten times older that their own country. They really have no right to do this. It begs the cliched question. Who do they think they are?

And while we’re on the subject of place names, Moscow does not rhyme with ‘cow’, Iraq and Iran are not Eye-raq, and Eye-ran, Nottingham is not pronounced Nodding Ham, and Yorkshire is not pronounced York Shire. Accents are one thing, they are forgiven, but don’t tell us how to say the names of the places we come from! We don’t pronounce the ‘s’ on the end of Arkansas, despite there being a Kansas with an audible final ‘s’, so return the favour and say our, and the rest of the world’s, place names correctly. And unless it’s North American like Canada (캐나다) Keh-na-da don’t have the downright arrogance to instruct other countries to use your phonetics.

The Problem with Scottish Football

There are many problems with Scottish football. The standard of play, and facilities in some cases, up in Scotland is as low as it’s ever been. Even though I’m English, I can also tell you that the national team has struggled for years, not having qualified for a major tournament since 1998. Attendances are down across most leagues. The Champions of Scotland have been Celtic or Rangers for each on the last 25 years, since Aberdeen won it under Alex Ferguson way back in 1985. To put this into perspective, it’s quite possible that you’ve become a parent, and a grandparent, since anyone outside the Old Firm has won the title.

The referees have been on strike, some clubs are on the verge of financial extinction (again in some cases), the TV money has all but dried up, and Scotland, I think it’s fair to say, hasn’t really produced a truly world class player for as long as anyone can remember. Even the most die hard Scot would not, I think, argue with any of the above.

So who is to blame for this state of affairs? In my opinion, the state of everything bad about Scottish football, if not all of Scotland, can be attributed to one loathsome set of people, the fans of The Old Firm. Not the clubs themselves, the FANS.

Let’s take the referee’s strike to begin with. One of the main reasons they went on strike was persistent abuse received, not from clubs’ managers, or in the press, or even inside stadiums, but after the game, over the phone and in person, to their houses, often threatening their families too. Who do you surmise was doing this? If you guessed fans of the Old Firm, you would be correct. If a decision goes against their team you can guarantee that the presiding official will receive phone calls, and even visits, to his home. Windows have been broken, families threatened, death threats issued. No official should have to go through this, and no other clubs’ fans are known to do this in Scotland, only Rangers’ and Celtic’s fans.

Sectarianism is also rife in Scottish football. Except there are only two clubs who participate, you’ve guessed it, the Old Firm. Well, specifically, their fans – both clubs have publicly (at least) distanced themselves from such Neanderthal prejudices, but any attendee of any game involving either half (or both) of the gruesome twosome will have witnessed a spectacle of idiocy known rarely elsewhere in the game. Where else inside a football stadium do fans sing of battles from 400 years ago, famines, pseudo-religion, and celebrate and glorify terrorist atrocities often committed on their own soil against their ‘own’ people for the sake of cheap points scoring?

Let’s move on to money, itself a problem within the game, and not just in Scotland. Most of the money up there goes to the Old Firm. True, they have the largest fan bases, but those fan bases themselves are built upon sectarian foundations. Why are Partick Thistle, Motherwell, Hamilton Academical, St Mirren, Clyde et al not as well supported? They have the same or similar catchment areas. Some might say that that the Old Firm’s early successes paved the way for a huge and loyal fanbase, but Queens Park FC, who play at the national stadium smack in the middle of Ibrox and Parkhead (The Old Firm’s grounds) won the Scottish Cup ten times in the 19th century alone. Why did Third Lanark, another famous Scottish club go bust in 1967? Because they didn’t have the revenue of Glasgow’s two ‘giants’ perhaps? Although, in Third’s case, mismanagement was a huge factor in their downfall. The Old Firm also feature in more TV games then the other ten clubs in their division combined, adding to their already bloated revenues, and ensuring their dominance and cancerous grip on Scottish football carries on unabated.

Fans' Behaviour

Their fans’ behaviour was perfectly summed up by Rangers’ recent visit to Manchester for the 2008 UEFA Cup Final, where hours of rioting and destruction ensued. A lesser known fact is that when Rangers previously reached a European final in 1972, there was an equally bad (if not worse) case of rioting, when thousands of drunken hordes invaded the pitch, with a minute or two of the game still remaining. From Wikipedia “Rangers were allowed to keep the trophy, but were banned from European competition for two years (reduced to one on appeal). This marked the first time in the history of the competition that the winners were banned from playing in Europe the following year.”

And I’m not singling out Rangers fans , vile "gutter-rats' (to quote their ex-manager Willie Waddell) though they are. Celtic’s fans are equal in their contemptible, violent, moronic and sectarian behavior. Did anyone see this photo a few weeks ago of a misspelled banner? I can tell you first hand having been to Celtic Park, and games featuring Celtic away from there, that their fans’ behaviour is also a complete disgrace. I’ve seen bottle throwing incidents, been pelted with rocks, had bus windows broken, and various other violent drunken incidents seen and witnessed. The same with Rangers too. Some would argue that this happens at every football much, Trust me, the Old Firm’s fans are much worse, much more often. Also, why do so many of them treat everywhere they go as a public toilet?

In short, pretty much all of the problems stem from one thing, two Neanderthal sectarian dinosaurs masquerading as football clubs, who have fans masquerading as human beings. They truly are Scotland’s shame.

Living Near the North Korean Border

I currently live in Dongducheon, where I teach English at the local High School. It’s a sweet job, the staff and kids are great, my apartment is lovely – 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a balcony – and I really like being here.

And it’s about 12 miles from North Korea!

Add to that that there are military bases all around the area and you would think that I lived in a war zone, if you ever watch the Western news shows.

A friend asked me the other day how close I am to ‘things’ if it all kicked off, and I told him, truthfully, “just about ground zero I reckon”.

The thing is, I can tell you first hand that life goes on completely as normal here. The kids have just done their exams, the teachers carry on as normal, and whilst it’s obviously a topic for discussion at the dinner table, we are not putting sandbags at the doors and windows. Everything is normal.

One bonus is that all the soldiers who frequent the local bars are now on base in a state of readiness, which means I can get served quicker! Hurrah for small mercies!

My take on proceedings is that it will all blow over. North Korea is installing a new leader, and perhaps he wants to make a bit of a show, or perhaps even the exiting leader wants to. Also, I can’t quite fully understand why the South Koreans and the Americans need to do their military exercises so close to NK. It only provokes them.

I love South Korea, its people are friendly and, I hesitate to say this as it could be misconstrued, but they are kind of ‘innocent’. They go about their lives in their own little ways, they are not an angry race, they are generally polite, very helpful, often surprisingly kind. It would be a tragedy if such a peaceful and friendly nation, and one that has worked so hard to build itself up after decades of wars and occupations (by the Japanese) was to be ravaged by another war. You see, whilst ‘Korea’, it’s culture and language is very old, South Korea is new. It’s only been a country for fifty years or so, and the first thirty odd of those were under military rule. So really, it’s younger than some of the people reading this as a ‘proper’ democratic country.

I would feel terrible if these lovely people lost all they had worked so hard for. You can see how proud they are of what they’ve got, and what they’ve achieved in such a short space of time. The children here, especially the teeny-tots, are an absolute delight too – so cute and polite. It doesn’t bear thinking about that anything bad should happen to them.

South Koreans deserve peace and prosperity. I hope they get it. I think they will. I’m gonna (somewhat cheesily perhaps!) leave the last word to John Lennon :)