Observations on Race, Racism, Ethnicity and Racial/Ethnic Identity

Having recently returned from South Korea, I would like to say for the record that that county is, in my opinion, one that has never gotten over the idea that diversity is something to be cherished rather than avoided. Most of the population is Asian, and most of that population is most definitely Korean. The only difference seen is what can be chalked up to the "foreigner" element. Foreigners are present in the country mainly for business, and every now and then that foreign element marries into the Korean population. And that's kind of where things start to get really murky.

First off, I'd like to focus on the foreigner population that is there for business as its main purpose. Twenty or so years ago, a foreigner in Korea was seen as a cherished encounter. Little kids would run up to the "wayguk" and follow him or her, often touching the person over and over, much to the befuddlement of the foreigner himself or herself. Strangers would walk up to that foreigner and attempt to speak English, to show that the language was learned at some time in the past. Other old timers would smile and speak Korean to the foreigner, often trying to engage in some kind of hand gestures that indicated that there was some comraderie that might exist between them.

Fast-forward a couple of decades, and you'll find some of those artifacts still in the Korean repertoire, but you'll also find a segment of the population that has grown tired of foreigners, often picking fights with foreigners and then blaming those foreigners for "not understanding Korean culture". Quite a few legal cases here in Korea are decided against foreigners based on that factor alone. Not too long ago, a Samsung crane barge collided with a Hong Kong cargo ship the Heibi Spirit, causing a massive oil spill. The Samsung crane barge was the initiator of the disaster, but a Korean court decided that Samsung was not the guilty party, and the blame was laid on the victims of the actual accident. Subsequent responses to the court case were met with several accusations of "not understanding Korean culture."

Another one of those misunderstandings: Women. Apparently, foreigners don't understand Korean customs either. Quite often, a Korean male will become lustful towards a foreign female and do innocent little things like invade her home and try to have sex with her without her permission. When that woman goes to the police, she is often told that she just doesn't understand Korean custom. Well, they're right because recently there have been a few major cases where a woman has been sued by a major company because she breached her contract by having the crap beaten out of her by her boyfriend. This happened just a few days ago to an actress who committed suicide because she was upset over some insignificant little thing; apparently her representation management felt that she needed to sleep with every man they set her up with because that's part of Korean entertainment culture. To add insult to injury, the company that hired her as spokesperson sued her and won when they discovered she was seriously beaten by her estranged boyfriend. See, even the Korean women don't understand Korean culture.

But I could talk bad about Korea all day, and believe it or not, that's not what this post is about Instead, I wanted to talk about race itself. And it has very little to do with Korea. Korea just opened my eyes to focus on this sort of thing.

When I returned home last week, I started focusing a lot more on the differences between people. To start, I moved to Oakland, and in case you grew up in a cave, in Michigan, you can't go two feet in Oakland without realizing that this is a place that is a powder keg just waiting to go off. Oh, people deny that and go on with their daily lives, while walking quickly down some streets and running down others, knowing not to make eye contact with the regulars.

There's a huge racial and ethnic divide in Oakland and surrounding areas that seems really sad, mainly because most of us here all have the shared identity as Americans, or US residents/citizens. You would think that would mean something, but it only really means anything when you're faced with the dichotomy outside of the US environment. It's really bizarre when you think about it.

Let me explain. When I was in the service, the people who served with me represented all demographics that exist in the USA. Blacks, Caucasians, Asians, Hispanics, and any other ethnicity that comes to mind all served together as part of a bigger picture. Sure, in some units there were problems when the commanders didn't understand that they needed to teach that the unit was more important than shared other identities. I can tell you a couple of stories of a couple of infantry and engineer units I was in where it felt more like a prison population with separations of skinheads, African-Americans and Latinos meaning more than anything else. And then in other units, the idea of race and ethnicity meant nothing to anyone but an afterthought. Quite often, the leadership made the difference in how people perceived themselves. People never really figure these sorts of things out.

It's no different here in Oakland. Really. The leadership here is what makes the differences what they are. Whenever a person runs on a platform of race or ethnicity, that automatically sets up a dynamic that is going to transpose itself on the population itself. I'm reminded of the TV show, The Wire, where a white politician decides to run for mayor of Baltimore against an incumbent black mayor. He does it by pitting another African-American against him and ends up splitting the black vote. Although the show is fiction, it is a strong representation of some of the forces that really do work in politics in this country. There are places in this country where no white person can ever run for office and other places where no one of any ethnicity but white can ever achieve an elected position. And that's just sad.

As I've been taking the bus around town a lot these days, I find myself within the same company of a lot of people who don't look or sound like me. And unfortunately, this is not what the founding fathers wanted when they were hoping for a melting pot. What you discover in this kind of situation is that people who identify as something other than you tend to avoid you or see you as an adversary. Taking the bus in Oakland is interesting in the very idea that someone who may be open to race and ethnicity may also be taking his or her life into his own hands because not everyone else feels the same way. I was in a McDonald's yesterday reading the newspaper when I turned to a group of older black gentlemen behind me and asked them if they wanted my newspaper as I was leaving. This led to a friendly conversation between me and the four of them that stretched on for about five or ten minutes. We parted in a friendly manner, and as I was leaving, a younger black man who was sitting at the next table wandered over to them and said to the other men in an almost challenging way, "Who was that asshole?"

This is part of the problem I think that has plagued most forward thinkers. For those of us who have done higher education and the graduate school route, when you encounter someone from a marginalized demographic that you would not normally encounter in daily life there is no problem seeing that person as another equal person who contributes to the educational discourse. But outside of that environment, you're constantly encountering people who never learned to "play well with others" and when you end up trying to treat someone in a fair, friendly way, that doesn't always achieve positive results. In some cases, it can get you killed.

And that's the problem with where we are with race and ethnicity in the 21st century. The bigger part of the problem is that we're trained to not acknowledge it. We put things into categorical boxes like partisan behavior and pretend that these sorts of things don't happen. The Democratic Party is a good example of this. They are the party that incorporates the most of the previously marginalized, disenfranchised voters, but at the same time that party doesn't do a very good job of bringing people up to a common ground but instead takes great pains to contribute to the separate but equal placement we maintain between these entities. Again, we don't acknowledge this, but like in Lani Guinere's Tyranny of the Majority, she points out that a different kind of perspective is needed to move the races and ethnicities forward, but unfortunately the people who benefit from these differences, like old style Civil Rights leaders, also benefit from keeping those differences present. That's a problem that the Martin Luther King, Jr's never envisioned: What do you do with the civil rights organizations when you start to achieve equality, and even more important, how do you keep the identity of difference from overwhelming the organization so that it doesn't become a badge of honor rather than a bridge to cross? And that's the real problem. As long as someone has something to gain from separating races and ethnicities, what chance do we have of those same people casting off the cloak of power that their organizing brought about? It's similar to the whole communism in reality argument. Sure, communism sounds like a great idea, but how do you strip the state from the skeleton once you achieve the destruction of capitalism? You can't because those who put all their marbles in that game aren't capable of taking their marbles and claiming victory.

So, having returned home, I find myself in the middle of so many different people, and I want to stand up and shout how happy I am that I can embrace the idea of diversity with so many people. But I'm afraid to do so because if I make that much noise, someone's going to see me and probably kill me for speaking out in public in the middle of a crowd of people who are different than me.

Stumble It!

Current status of me (Back in the US, back in the US, back in the USSA!)

It's been a while since I wrote after I mentioned that I was going to be leaving South Korea. Things were really bad, and I wasn't going to continue going down that path anymore. At some point, you have to step up and do something about things, or you have no excuse to complain. I took my own advice, and I'm home now.

I thought I'd take a few moments to talk about the journey back. As I was getting ready to go home (the day before), my old boss tried contacting me by cell phone, telling me that I can't leave because the new boss will eventually pay me. Eventually. Kind of like he was going to eventually pay me. Even though he never did. I said, okay, and continued my preparations for going back to the USA.

The night before leaving, I was in the Seoul Incheon Airport, and I purchased a private room in the sauna they have in the basement of the airport. My plan was to get some sleep for the night before leaving in the morning. Unfortunately, my spidey senses were activated all night, and it was hard to get any sleep. Plus, the place was noisier than I thought it would be, and the room across from me kept turning the lights on and off, which kept waking me up from any potential slumber. So, I didn't get any sleep. But oh well.

The next day, I flew out of Seoul to Beijing. It was a pretty short flight. I had a four hour layover in Beijing, which was a good thing because my arrival started a drama that appeared like it was never going to end. I take medication, and for some reason that medication activated the "drug dealer" sensors on the Chinese drug detection equipment. So, I was escorted to another room where they kept running my bags of medication (Koreans put your medication in daily bags for your "convenience" rather than put the stuff in bottles like in the states). So, they kept running this slip of paper over my bags and then running it into the detection machine, and each time this big yellow light would go off, with a big, fun buzzer that indicated that I was definitely a Colombian drug lord trying to sneak through China for some drug deal in Vietnam or wherever it is Colombian drug lords do business these days (I stopped reading the memos from Colombian Drug Lord Headquarters some time ago). So, the interrogation continued. So after a couple of hours of waterboarding, they realized why I wasn't revealing what I knew: I didn't understand Chinese. Yeah, no one spoke English, nor Spanish, nor German, nor Japanese, nor Korean, so I was limited to making hand puppets and trying to convince them that my little pinky was a drug-free shadow representation. After a while of this, I started going through the chain of command of Chinese interrogation officials. In the beginning, I dealt with some guys that were obviously way low on the chain of command, because they had very little bit of information on their epaulets. Then each new person had more stuff on his or hers. Finally, I think I was dealing with the General of the Chinese Army, because everyone else in the place seemed to think he was the most important person who ever lived. As all of my stuff was laid out on his assistant's desk, I decided I was going to take a new tactic in this drama: I was going to make his assistant my very best friend. So I started talking to him, saying all sorts of friendly things. I looked up at the room to realize how unique the architecture was, and I indicated that I had never seen anything like it before. He took great pleasure in trying to tell me in broken English how the building was constructed, and that it was one in three great buildings. For the record, it was actually pretty impressive. And during our half hour conversation, he finally asked me what I did for a living. So I said I was a teacher, and I made a gesture to show that I taught little kids. He smiled and then went back to his paperwork. When the big boss came back in, the assistant turned to him and started speaking to him in rapid Chinese (I assume it was Chinese, although for the record it could have been Klingon and I wouldn't have known the difference). It was quite an animated conversation. Then I saw my new friend make the same gesture I did to show that I taught little kids. The big boss stopped talking for a second, turned and looked at me and then said, "You are through here. Thank you. Go to your flight." And then I was released into the waiting area for the next two hours to wait for my flight to San Francisco.

The flight back was pretty uneventful. I sat next to a Chinese woman who was immigrating to the United States. She asked me whether she should choose to live in San Francisco, Los Angeles, or New Jersey. Yeah, New Jersey. I thought about her options. Los Angeles, even though it's where I grew up, existed in my memory because during the Rodney King riots the African-American population targeted the Korean-American population to kill them. I thought that's probably not where they should go. As for New Jersey...the only thing I knew about New Jersey was that was where Tony Soprano and his gang worked. So, I didn't think that was a good idea. I love San Francisco, and I think it is one of those places where everyone can fit in, no matter how hard you try not to. So I said there. She seemed to be leaning towards Los Angeles, but I gave my two cents.

Since being back, I've been looking for both a place to stay and a job. Neither is secured yet. I'm foolishly spending money I don't have to spend, but I'm home, and that is a true sign of being a real American, isn't it?

Stumble It!

My last unofficial day at work

Today was probably the worst day of work I've had in a long time. Yesterday was great. Yesterday was the two classes with the debate kids, and like I said before, I really like these kids. We had a pretty good set of debates. There was one small problem, however. The previous week, one of the girls accidentally broke the handle off of the door where we hold the class, so you basically can't shut the door unless someone is inside the room. Well, of course, fate struck and the kids were outside of the room when one of them accidentally shut the door, locking all of their stuff inside. So, after I realized that there was no other way to get into the room, I had to do what I was trying to avoid, and that's break into the classroom using my skills at lock picking, one of the few skills that I tend not to bring up in public too often, even though it was taught to me by the government when I did what I used to do for the military. Anyway, I did it when one of the girls wasn't watching, and once I slipped into the classroom, I thought I got away with it, but she had actually seen everything and was so excited that her teacher could pick a lock REALLY FAST that she had to tell everyone. Well, I just said the government trained me and leave it at that. Of course, try telling something like that to kids.

Anyway, fast-forward a day and this was a new set of classes that I went in to teach. I was mostly tempted to just skip teaching, but to be honest, my apartment was roasting around that time, and my sole reason for going into work was because I was about to faint from heatstroke. Anyway, once at school, I listened to the new girl talking about how she's nervous about staying because she realizes the school is definitely not doing well and is probably going under.

It turns out there was some information in this conversation because I found out that she used to work for the guy that is now the big name in our school, some thirty-five or so year old Korean guy who "graduated from Harvard" who has been spending his entire life charging young mothers of young kids money to hear his motivational speeches about how he got accepted to Harvard. Granted, he hasn't done anything since Harvard, other than have motivational speeches, but that's his big schtick. Anyway, it turns out that the girl I'm working with once worked for this guy in the past. Turns out, he pays as well as the school does. He owes her a lot of money, and he "promised" to pay her, yet never got around to doing so. I'm starting to think that this kind of thing runs in this particular circle of school management.

So, I taught the first class, which was mainly one 6th grade student who is pretty smart and always interesting to communicate with. I like him, so that was okay. The second class is the class from Hell, which is with a bunch of kids that have no concern for learning and want to play games all day long. They yell and scream, and they started today's class by calling me all sorts of Korean insults, laughing because they were convinced I had no idea what they were saying. Then they'd pull the typical 10 year old tactic of "teacher, do you know what she say?" And after ten thousand renditions of that, imagine how fun that class was starting to be.

So, I just stood in front of them and let them go on. And on. And on. About half an hour into the class, they started trying to get me to actually start the lesson because when your teacher is standing in front of the room, leaning against the white board, just staring, it starts to get a bit uncomfortable. So I continued just standing there. They then found their page where they remembered we were and asked to start the class. I began the lesson, and immediately after, almost on cue, they started going nuts again. So, I stopped and said nothing. And just stared at them.

Then they started the name calling routine again. I looked at my watch and said: "Class is finished for today." And then I walked out. I said goodbye to the other two teachers (the young girl I've talked about here, and some guy I've never seen before), and then left. I told the secretary, who I've known the longest that she's probably not going to see me again, that I'm going to be flying Wednesday. She asked me if I wanted to talk to the big boss. I said no. The last time I talked to her, she promised me AGAIN that she was going to pay me on a certain date (the fifth time now), and I had no desire to go through another session of that. So, I said no and wished her well. She told me she was probably going to be quitting on Friday.

Then I went home and made myself some eggs for dinner. Not really a dinner kind of meal, but I wasn't feeling like having the usual kind of thing. It means I have nothing for breakfast tomorrow, but that's tomorrow, and I'll face down that demon when she comes.

Stumble It!

The Other Victims in this Human Drama

Thought I would take a step back from complaining about the bad job and talk about another variable that is taking place at work that doesn't actually affect me, but is right there in front of me. What I'm talking about is some of the other people who work with me who are now finding themselves as potential victims in this problematic situation. It's bad enough that I haven't been paid in quite some time, but I'm not the only one. Others have been working pretty long, too, and they're also in a position that isn't very tenable.

Well, a new girl started working just last week, and she's a sweet, innocent-appearing, Christian, Korean girl who seems like a very friendly person. I've had a few conversations with her, and she's only now starting to realize that things aren't as solid as she first imagined them. I could see her trying to put into words her concerns, while at the same time trying to verbally convince herself that things won't be that bad. When she would ask me what I thought, I avoided becoming the voice of dread and told her that perhaps she should talk to one of the Korean teachers, another woman who has been with the company for a few months. I said that perhaps she can give her a better perspective of how things are going, because I really didn't want to have her coming away from a conversation with me and my negativity, feeling even worse for the effort.

This is the kind of girl who is very trusting, and she's hoping very much that things will work out. At the same time, the manager (not the owner) is about to quit as well, because she hasn't been paid in a very long time. The main secretary is about to jump ship right behind her. The whole place is imploding on itself, and it's sad to see anyone else swept up in the disaster that is this place.

But I feel really bad about this new girl, mainly because she seems so nice, and she's in a precarious situation where she probably needs to do something else. She told me that she came from a job where the previous boss told her that the ESL community is small, and that she shouldn't make waves (she may have not been paid completely at that job either) or she might find herself unable to ever find a job.

I find it truly sad that this industry allows this sort of behavior to take place and reinforces it through traditional feedback processing. I used to complain that I am stuck in this job because I'm legally not allowed to take another job in Korea, but these other teachers are just as stuck, because if they take another job, because they're allowed to by law, the industry itself punishes them for making waves and not just sticking it out until the boss decided he or she might be willing to pay a salary.

The manager asked me today if I'm going to be working on Sunday, realizing I'm probably going to be out of the country almost immediately because of this mess, and I said I would be there. She asked me why, as she couldn't see why I would loyally come in when I know I won't get paid. Well, on Sunday I teach debate to two groups of young kids who really like doing it. The classes are never a chore, and they're always interesting. Otherwise, I'd probably stay in a hotel near the airport and never teach another class here again. It's not because I'm being loyal or anything like that. I just like these kids, and I figure I'll at least give them one last debate class with me before I leave.

Stumble It!

Discovering where I stand in the grand scheme of things in Korea

I'm about to leave Korea. Things haven't worked out well here. I haven't been paid in so long that I don't remember when I was last paid. Well, I'll be leaving here next week, and I kept that open, thinking that all they had to do was try to catch up on my pay, and I'd stick it out. Well, in the grand scheme of things here, that's admitting I'm spineless, and therefore, leaves me open to further complications.

Let me explain. You see, I discovered through a conversation with a Korean teacher who was privy to a conversation with the big boss and her assistant manager where the big boss felt that she did not have to pay me because she didn't believe I had enough money to afford a plane ticket to leave. Yeah, I'm not kidding. The thought process she was using was that I'm helpless, stuck in Korea, and therefore there's no hurry to actually pay me. So, just because pay is several months behind is not a problem. The wayguk (foreigner) isn't going to leave because he has no way to leaving. Therefore, we can treat him as unfairly as we desire.

If this was happening back in the states, I'd quit immediately, find a new job and then move on from there. But I don't have that luxury here because I'm in a country across an ocean from my home. I don't even have the luxury of being able to claim my apartment as mine (it's "owned" by the boss who can probably kick me out if we ever come at odds with each other; I've heard of stories of people having to vacate their apartments in minutes, and sometimes having the doors locked on them with all of their stuff still inside).

So, when people ask me why I'm leaving, I would point at this complete lack of respect I've been receiving here from this job. Yeah, I could continue to work for free, but what person in his right mind would continue to do that. I mean, I'm as gullible as the next guy, but there comes a time when gullibility turns into exploitation. I'm a bit past that point.

Stumble It!

Some people just aren't born to teach very young children

Most people know my job has been going downhill for some time now. I won't go into the specifics again (it's all over my blog if you really want to read it, but just leave it at the fact that I'm not getting paid, and we're probably good to go), but yesterday definitely was a true nadir in my Korean teaching experiences.

First off, I'm really here to teach debate, and I have a solid group of students who participate on those days that I teach it (Saturday and Sunday). However, during the week, I've been required to teach English classes to fill time. Mostly, I've been teaching novel reading classes to students and every now and then a social studies class. It hasn't been that bad, but it hasn't been great either.

Well, we ended up with a new manager the other day, and she changed the curriculum completely. Part of the problem of being me here is that the mothers of these kids keep requesting me to teach classes (it may be because they like my teaching; it may be because they want the Caucasian guy teaching their Korean kids; or whatever). So, this new manager decided that I should be teaching reading, dictation and grammar instead of the usual novel classes. Well, the reading isn't that bad, and the grammar is pretty straightforward. But the class for dictation is a class of four students who are EXTREMELY young. Think fresh out of kindergarten and you get the age group. Think less mature than kindergarten and you get the mentality. So, I'm supposed to teach dictation to a group of kids that have no intentions of listening AT ALL. I ended up spending the last half hour of class fending off screaming kids yelling "We want ice cream!". Needless to say, I went home after work with my nerves so frayed that I don't think I will ever teach kids that age again, especially in a language they mostly don't understand.

That's what it's like to teach here on an almost constant basis. The kids don't want to learn; they're being forced into evening classes by their parents who want them to max the English portions of the TOEFL tests that they have to take in order to get into good schools YEARS from now. So the kids don't see a reason why they should be there, and they hold it personally against the teachers who are trying to teach them. And then to top it off, you have the mothers who have no teaching experience whatsoever constantly telling the teachers how they want the classes to be taught. Fortunately, I don't have to run into this part of the equation (the Korean teachers do, however), but there's always that sense that everything you do is being watched. All of the classes are on CCTV, so the parents often sit in the lobby watching the classes on the main computer, criticizing each teaching moment as it takes place.

That's the kind of atmosphere that I've been living in for the last 7 months or so. Now add the variable of "no pay at all" and you might understand why I'm heading to a major clash with this job.

Stumble It!

Discovering Who Your True Friends Are & the Use of Punctuated Equilibrium to Determine One's True Motivations

Most people who follow my research areas know this about me, but I tend to be much more interested in why individuals do things than in why groups of people do things. To me, history is not about how groups interact or act, but in how motivations push specific individuals to do the things they do. In other words, rather than try to figure out why the majority of people might have thought one way or another during the Moscow uprisings of 1991, I look at the influential people who swayed large groups of people so that we can see what that individual's actions did to move the crowd. Even more important to me is what was done by specific individuals that history does not record. So, rather than focus on the great speakers that swayed the founding fathers to do what they did, I look into the Tory speakers and writers who kept people from making the resistance unanimous. It may seem like common sense, but we don't study things that way other than as some kind of post-modernist approach to studying the status quo. I'm interested in it for the long term, to see how those individualists might be projected on future conflicts to see what might cause one rebellion to win while another to fail, instead of leaving them stuck in their own little footprint in time.

But I'm getting ahead of myself with this post. What I wanted to talk about is a symptom that I often study in social science that I also have started to observe in every day life. Right now, I'm having some real problems in Korea. Therefore, I started to turn to old friends who I have helped out in the past, figuring that the whole definition of friendship is that it is a person you can count on in a crisis. What I am discovering is that friendship is very situationally dependent. Some people I have helped out at great cost to myself in the past I recently contacted, asking for some assistance when needing to return home, and I was actually shocked at apprehensive they were to offer assistance of their own. One friend, in particular, is someone I have helped out in numerous situations where he has called me up and asked for assistance. Without a second thought, I was always willing to lend a helping hand, even canceling some of my own plans to help him out at the last minute. Imagine my susprise when I was asking him to help me figure out how to get back to the states with as little trouble as possible. I found the hesitation to be quite interesting, and the rambling while trying to find a way out of the conversation to be even more telling. Finally, I thanked him for his help (which he didn't give) and then I hung up. I realized that some people treat friendships one way, and once the need to reciprocate occurs, they waffle and go the other direction.

This is very much a part of my study of the human condition that I detail so much in my studies. It matches something I have believed for so long now that I constantly argue with people over. But the premise is simple: You can never tell the true nature of another individual until that person is required to step outside of his or her natural element. It was the same thing with combat. The tough talking guy was often the guy who ran the other direction. The quiet, demure one was the one who ended up saving the team.

This is one of the reasons why I find message boards so intriguing. People argue with each other constantly about how they would do one thing or another, but in reality, they have no idea how they would actually respond in any particular situation. They think they would do one thing, but when it comes down to having to make that choice, they rarely do what they expect, but do what they are most likley going to do because their decision-making skills are not based on their thinking process when things are not in crisis mode. Only when they have to face the realization that their actions will yield results that they cannot take back do they become aware of what exactly they would do because then they have to actually do it.

Years ago, I was working for a hotel when we suffered a chemical spill. I was the fourth in charge of a security detail, and the spill took out the director (the number one guy) and the safety director (the number three guy). I had gone down into the spill with them, but I was the only one to realize there was danger because of the first whiff of the chemical, so I grabbed towels from the housekeeping laundry (it was in the laundry room) and started breathing through that. My bosses were not so lucky. The number two person was not on site at the time, so I found myself having to take over a squad of twelve people who had never seen me in action before. Their supervisor, the one who should have been in charge, was in the control room in complete panic mode when I walked in. He couldn't formulate a sentence to give an order to any of his security officers, so I asked the dispatcher if there were any calls that were behind and not part of the crisis, to which there were a few, so I assigned the supervisor to those and took him out of the command loop. From there, I stated issuing orders to everyone to start doing what needed to be done. In about ten minutes, the director of Property Operations (Engineering) realized that Security was actually starting to lock down the system, so he came running into where I was to start coordinating larger events, realizing that we now had a command area where this could be done. In about fifteen minutes, we had saved another five employees who were trapped in the subbasement where the chemical spill took place (it turned out we had to go on a suicide run to the basement where all of the gas masks were stored in Engineering). In the end, we saved a lot of people that day, and what I found interesting was the after effects of the event. The second in command, the one who was not there, started claiming that she had done all of the actions that I did, because no one but me and a few other select people knew what had really happened. I didn't care but knew she was the kind of person to try to take credit for something she didn't do. Anyway, she would have succeeded but the general manager was questioning her and thanking her for her smart thinking in front of the Director of Property Operations who just lost it right then and there, claiming she was never there and that it was all taken care of by Security's investigator, me. Up until that time, the general manager didn't even know who I was. He knew who I was after that.

The point is: People all responded in different ways that were expected. Some of the security officers realized I was in charge and taking care of the situation so they immediately fel in line and started doing everything I said. In moments, I knew who I could count on and who I couldn't. The supervisor I mentioned was a nice guy, but he was not the kind of person who knew how to handle a crisis situation. Unfortunately, he remained in that job for a long time and there were many situations where he was the wrong person to show up at the right time, but those are other stories and for another time.

Stumble It!

The Ongoing Problem with my Job in Korea & Why I'm Leaving

I'd heard of it happening to others who are teachers in Korea, but I never actually thought it would happen to me. When I arrived here, I was coming to a place that was recommended by another debate instructor from the USA. Things started okay during the first few months, and then the job started to go downhill. My job was mainly to teach debate on the weekends and then a few English classes during the week. Being a hagwon job (a private school rather than a public school) one of the advantages is that you don't really have a 9 to 5 type of job where you have to stay at the school when you're not teaching, and everything was generally okay. The kids were cool, and on some days it was a lot of fun.

Fast-forward into about the fourth month and that's when things started to go downhill. First off, the school started making a lot of bad decisions business-wise, and students started dropping off. Then more bad decisions. Then some really bad decisions. And then about the fourth month in, we weren't paid. Then a month or so went by, and we still weren't paid. Then a tiny bit of pay was made up, but we were still far behind. Some good teachers quit (the Korean ones). I was the only foreign teacher, which means I don't have the luxury of quitting because my visa is controlled by the school itself. So I couldn't quit. So I watched as everyone else quit.

Into the sixth month, the boss sold the school to someone else. Pay still hasn't been up to date. Some of us receive a bit of it, but generally we don't receive all of it. Into the seventh month, I didn't get paid at all. As it is, my pay is now 1 and a half months behind, or actually I'm paid up minus 1.5 of my monthly salary, if that makes any sense.

What makes it worse is that the boss is constantly promising to pay on one day, that day arrives, and then nothing happens. Then you can't get a hold of him. And then when you finally do, he acts like nothing happened and then makes promises of when he might be able to pay, often changing the date by the end of the conversation. Two days ago, he promised to pay me (by some bizarre formula he had calculated) on Friday (today). No pay. Then he was called by the new boss who realized I was pissed, and he promised to pay 1 million won (about 1/3 of the amount he owes me). My account received 500,000 won. In other words, he paid me 1/6 of the amount of money he owed me. There's no word when I'll actually get paid.

The new boss decided out of the blue that she doesn't like paying on the 10th, so she's going to be paying on the 20th, but not THIS 20th because she thinks the last month is owed by the previous boss, so she says she'll pay me my next check NEXT month on the 20th. In other words, I will have gone about 3 months without being paid, and then I'll get paid a tiny percentage of the amount I'm supposed to be paid.

So, if anyone wants to know why I've decided to just cut and run, that's why. Unless something drastic happens here, I'm going to take the few dollars I have and just come home to the United States and pretend that Korea never happened. I'm so sick and tired of dealing with this crap on a nonstop basis. It would be one thing if I was in love with some Korean girl here, or I loved the food, or something like that. But none of those factors exist.

And the new boss has hired a manager who seems to like speaking to me like a child. Now, in some contexts that might actually be kind of cool, but right now, I'm not into having a mommy as a supervisor. Remember the one advantage about working only when you have classes to teach? She doesn't like that, and she wants me there every hour that the school is open. You know, if things were a lot better in all sorts of other areas with this school, I might be amicable to something like this. But things suck here right now.

The funny thing is that the mothers of a lot of these students keep requesting that their kids have more classes with me. I'm a pretty good teacher and the kids like me. I make classes informative and interesting. But I'm afraid they're going to lose me because of all of this garbage. And if this keeps working as it has, I have all intentions of jumping ship sometime next week, realizing that I'm never going to get paid anyway. Sure, I'll have to suffer when I get home, and I don't know how I'll actually survive it, but I can't take this anymore. At least if I decide to do something stupid and drastic to my life, I'd at least like to be around people who at least understand me when I decide to do it. Yes, Golden Gate Bridge, I'm thinking of you right now in your big red beauty. Okay, I'm not there yet, but at least I'd like the option of going out someplace close to where I can buy a Wendy's cheeseburger first.

Stumble It!

Korean M&Ms May Be Racist

"...which is why you should never actually lick a nuclear fuel rod," said Chief Engineer Akmar Hurreisaba.

In other news, it was reported today by our Legospaceman affiliate in Seoul, South Korea (the Korea with all the artillery weapons aimed at it by the evil crazy guy in the north), that the popular brand of candy, M&M's, which is owned by Mars, Incorporated, may actually be racist. With this story is the legospaceman.

Legospaceman: Yeah, Bunny, it's true. This reporter was analyzing a package of peanut M&Ms purchased in South Korea for...um...quality purposes, when he discovered that the picture on the front of the bag shows five happy M&M characters lounging around together. What wasn't realized, until a second look, was that there are six M&M characters, and one of them was missing. It turns out that M&Ms "forgot" to include the brown M&M character.

Now, while this could have been a simple mistake, or perhaps a casting problem during the shooting of the picture, such as a situation where the brown M&M failed to show up for the photograph, we then started examining the other different bags of M&Ms to determine how frequent the brown M&M was missing. It turns out that on all other bags of M&Ms in this particular convenient store in Seoul, South Korea, the brown M&M is not included on the package. But wait until you find out what we discovered when we opened the package."

Bunny Anchorwoman: We will return to this story after this message about how much better Reese's Pieces are than M&Ms candies.

(small pause for a commercial break where capitalist scum try to sell things to you)

Bunny Anchorwoman: And we're back. It turns out that the legospaceman uncoverered more interesting details.

Legospaceman: Yes, Bunny, I did a check of the M&Ms website, and it turns out that even though there is a brown M&M in the packages, the official website no longer acknowledges that this brown M&M exists. Something is seriously wrong here, and we're only beginning to uncover the mystery behind this obvious cover-up.

Realizing that just checking web sites was not going to be enough, so we sent in our undercover reporter and we managed to meet up with a well known person named...well, Bob. Here's a picture of him.


Yes, it turns out that Bob was the original brown M&M, and he wants his story known.

This is not all, the legospaceman also did a quantified study of the bag of peanut M&Ms he bought and discovered that brown M&Ms make up 32% of the entire bag, even though the bag includes representatives of 7 different colors of M&Ms. We will bring you more on this story as it develops. Back to you, Bunny.

Bunny Anchorwoman: Thank you, legospaceman. Let's hope Bob gets what's coming to him. No one should ever have to go through that sort of thing. Now, in fashion news, it appears that attractive women are starting to get all the attention again. With this story is....

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US Tit for Tat Policy With North Korea Does Not Work

Christiane Amanpour, CNN's Chief International Correspondent believes new policy incentives are necessary to keep North Korea in check. In other words, she feels we should set up benchmarks that North Korea can meet and then those will keep North Korea from continuing on its confrontational trajectory. Now, I generally like Amanpour and find her reporting to be decent, but I have to state that I totally disagree with her analysis and with the constant chatter that is coming out from those who consider themselves to be "experts" on North Korea.

Here's a part of her article:

North Korea now says it is slowing down its disabling of Yongbyon and that it will engage in "action for action."

Some analysts now say that despite North Korea's "provocative" rocket launch, the U.S. and its allies should launch new policy incentives and expectations with clear benchmarks for North Korea's nuclear disarmament.

Why should I have an opinion on this? Well, I used to be a counterintelligence agent in South Korea some decades ago, and I dealt with this sort of thing first-hand some time ago. The situation was no different back then. We were making the same mistakes back then, and we're going to continue to make the same mistakes in the future.

First off, we have to stop trying to "reward" North Korea for not doing certain things. They don't care. North Korea is a nation that has always gotten the rewards it achieves by doing something that pisses everyone off, and then they wait for the rest of the world to reward them. And it usually works. It's like the Bizarro interpretation of game theory's tit for tat where you continue to reward a partner for continuing to play the game, even if that partner falls out of the game a few times. In this tit for tat, we're all tat and haven't received a single bit of tit (okay, that didn't sound good, but the point still stands). We keep rewarding the player for not engaging the game, as if we're convinced that if we continue to keep upping the ante and offer more rewards, that player will somehow jump back into the game again.

It doesn't work that way. They have no incentive to jump back into the game when they know they're going to be rewarded anyway.

Twenty years ago, North Korea was facing a famine because they happened to isolate themselves from the rest of the world, and they suddenly realized that most of their arable farmland is on the side of cliffs, meaning they have nowhere to grow the rice they need. So they needed food from outside. When China and the Soviet Union were their allies, this wasn't so bad. Then the Soviet Union collapsed. So they were left begging from China. Now, China is having enough trouble feeding its own. North Korea is now relying on South Korea and Japan. Japan gave up on North Korea, pretty much just giving North Korea the middle finger and saying it wasn't worth it. North Korea responded this last week by shooting a Taepodong-2 missile through Japanese airspace, claiming it was a satellite that was going to transmit North Korean nationalistic music back to the motherland, claiming it succeeded, even though the missile never even came close enough to inserting a satellite into the atmosphere.

Today, North Korea has as much ability to feed itself as it did 20 years ago, and what nations have discovered is that a lot of times the food aid sent to North Korea was sold to fund the military complex that is literally the entire economy of North Korea.

So what is the solution? Stop the tit for tat game and let North Korea come to the table on its own. North Korea is already isolated so that military action is national suicide for North Korea, so if they take that direction, it was because they were planning for it long ago, not because they felt they needed to. By not engaging them in discussion, you let them do whatever it is they want to do. Engage China in real diplomacy, and let China know that North Korea is THEIR neighbor, so if they want their neighbor to run around with nuclear weapons, that's pretty much going to be on them.

All diplomatic efforts need to cease with North Korea immediately. If they come to the table and want to engage in diplomacy, that's another thing. Let them. But if they're going to play the hard to get girl at the dance, then let that girl sit in the corner and watch everyone else dance for awhile.

For too long now, our foreign policy has attempted to threaten, cajole, bribe and shame North Korea to do what we desire. Stop doing that immediately and within a few years North Korea will have to approach the table all by itself. The whole quasi-nuclear test and the missile launch were all responses to all of our previous attempts at cornering North Korea into compliance.

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Most Definitely Going to Be Out of a Job

I had another one of those debate days today where I teach debate to the young Korean kids. It went well, but instead of the boss being there when I finished up (he usually closes up on Sundays), his secretary was there instead. She told me that the boss told her that the business was definitely failing, and that he's probably going to have to shut the whole thing down very soon. I inquired further from her, and she thought we might have a few weeks left before the business is kaput.

I'm not all that surprised. Yes, it does put me in a bad situation, but I've had enough warnings before this that it's not hitting me out of the blue. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do next. All of the schools have already started up in Korea here, so getting a solid job right now is pretty much not going to happen. I'm not even sure how to go about transferring a visa here in the first place, even if I can.

So, chances are pretty good that I'm going to have to book my own flight home and somehow fend for myself when I get home. I don't even know where to go right now. California doesn't seem like a great idea with its job market right now, but nowhere seems like a really great idea with the job market right now.

It's too bad things didn't work out, but it appears they didn't. I just now have to figure out what to do after this so that I can ease myself into the impact rather than have to take it head on.

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The Cell Phone Debate

I teach several debate classes on the weekends. This morning, I was conducting a debate between two teams on a subject involving cell phones being carried on campus by students. One student got up and gave an impassioned speech about how cell phones are not disruptive, and how students respect teachers way too much to ever use their phones in class because that would disrespect the teacher and the whole learning environment. After this student finished his speech, he saw back down at his seat, started to listen to the next girl give her speech and then proceeded to whip out his cell phone and begin texting all of his friends. He did this, not listening to the speaker once, until class was over.

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Making a Clean Break from Korea

Everytime things seem like they're getting better, something happens that makes things worse. I received my rent notice today in my mail box (my rent is paid by my boss), and when I opened it, something didn't look right. So I took it to one of the Korean teachers and had her translate it completely. Apparently, my boss hasn't been paying my rent for the last few months. The rent is now due for 3 months of rent.

Up until this time, even though there were pay problems, I at least felt secure enough in the fact that I at least had an apartment to get me through this mess. Turns out, that was just wishful thinking. Even though I kept giving the rent notice to the secretary at work, they never paid the rent. There's a really good chance that should they not pay it this month, I'm going to get thrown out of my apartment. Imagine that. In Korea, without an apartment, and pretty much nowhere to go. I can't take another job because this job owns my visa, so my only option will be to go home.

So, I'm seriously considering doing just that. I can't really afford to do this right now, but I'm starting to think that I can't afford not to do it. Things are getting worse here, and even though I like to think things will work out, I'm starting to believe that may not be the case.

The problem is that I don't know where to go. I need to go some place where I can find work. And I don't know where that is. I'm not 18 years old anymore. I need to find something that can actually pay the bills, and right now, I really don't know what to do. I'm open for advice.

Korea is no longer the solution. It just didn't work out here. I can't really go to some other country unless I find a job there first. That's the big problem all around. I don't have a job I can go to, so I don't know where to go.

But I have to do something. Fast.

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Reason #72 Why I Want to Quit This Job

Okay, let's forget the "they don't pay me" part of the equation and just focus on the job itself. My boss, who is generally a pretty nice guy, wants me to write a "debate book". Yeah, a book on debate. I'm not kidding here. He wants an entire book written on debate, authored by me. And imagine it this way: "Duane, a whole week has passed. How come debate book no finish-ee yet?"

Last Wednesday I finally had it and told him there was no way imaginable that I was going to be able to write a debate book for him, especially when I never have any time. He keeps adding classes for me to teach. I'm beyond the max now, and they just added a new "TOEFEL Writing" class for me to start teaching today, keeping me here an hour even longer than I'm normally here. Actually, it's two hours longer than I'm normally here because they creatively took away my usual hour break and put a class in place of that break, figuring I'd probably never notice. When I complained, they stopped speaking English and just nodded a lot, and then printed the schedule just as they planned to do.

I don't think people realize how screwed over I've been in this job since I arrived here. The boss promised me FEWER classes so I could work on "his book". Instead, he added classes, and sure enough, in a few days, after he thinks I've forgotten all about it, he'll want "the book". I'm getting so pissed at this fracking place.

My only real alternative right now is to just cut my losses and leave. I just don't have anywhere to go. I need a job, and I can't find one. I can find hundreds of jobs in South Korea, but I can't take a single one because I'm on a prison visa (at least it feels like it), and for some reason I can't seem to get a single response from any other country. It sometimes feels surreal, but it's happening and so aggravating.

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"You can't leave without giving lots of notice"

Sometimes I think I'm living in a psychological experiment where there are hidden scientists just watching to see how the people around me and I will react to ridiculous stimuli. Here's one I ran into at work. The boss is over 3 weeks late on pay. He keeps promising to pay "tomorrow" and of course never does. One of the Korean teachers finally realized that her landlord doesn't accept "fantasy money" as payment for rent, so she said she was going to have to leave because she needs to have a job where she gets paid. The boss says, "you can't leave because it would be unfair." In other words, he can not pay her, but when she realizes she needs to pay her bills, it is unfair for her to get another job instead.

The job is getting really strange right now. I'm working harder now than I ever have, and I haven't really been paid. My understanding (from rumor) is that the boss sold the school to a well known school administrator who is going to be taking over late in March. But even so, no one has been paid. I've made a few attempts to get "exact" information from the boss, but when I have done so, he's played little games like sneaking out the back entrance to his office and then not showing up for a few days, relaying all messages to his secretary who hasn't been paid either.

Personally, I'm starting to believe I'm going to have to pull a midnight runner (leave without telling anyone) and somehow scrape up the money to buy a ticket to the states and then somehow figure out some way of surviving until I obtain employment again in the states. I've been in contact with people here who have offered me jobs, but they realize they can't hire me because this school pretty much owns me and my visa. My only options right now appear to be:

1. Pulling a runner and somehow surviving until I find a job back in the states.
2. Finding a job in another country.
3. Finding a job in the states before leaving and taking that job.

I applied to the Texas Teaching Fellows program, and I made it past the first stage, but then they informed me that I had to attend an interview. Me being in South Korea makes that impossible, so another option seems to have been drop kicked on me. I'll live, but that seemed like such a better option than trying to fend for myself without any options.

I think the stress is starting to get to me because I've been having trouble breathing lately. I get these weird feelings like I'm stuck in a cage and find it hard to catch my breath. And then it passes. Not really sure how to describe it. All I know is that I need to get out of this stupid situation sooner rather than later.

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Those little things in life

Being in South Korea and not being from South Korea often gives one the opportunity to think about a lot of the little things in life, the things that you grew accustomed to but miss now that you no longer have access to them. Lately, for reasons that might be obvious to some, I've been thinking a lot about things that I wish were here but just aren't. Since I can't have them, and quite possibly may never see them again, I thought I'd take a few moments in what may be one of my final posts to talk about some of them.

1. First, diet Dr Pepper. Yep, that beverage is probably my favorite beverage ever. I found I was ocassionally able to find it on the blackmarket here in Itaewon, but other than that, you can't buy it here. You can buy regular Dr Pepper, but I hate regular sugar sodas (or corn syrup sodas, if you buy them back in the states). Finding diet Dr Pepper has been an epic quest all on its own. I finally gave up and just realized I would have to go without. Unfortunately, the closest replacement is Coca Cola Zero, and it tastes a lot like battery acid, without that refreshing battery acid taste.

2. College-ruled lined paper. Never thought I'd miss that. They have paper here that feels like I'm in kindergarten again trying to write for the first time. Why they can't sell mass amounts of regular lined paper, I don't know. Oh, you can buy a notebook with lined paper in it, but loose sheets of paper, which I love to write with can't be found. Or if you do find it, it's really funky looking.

3. Computer software. Unless you're a fan of Starcraft, finding ANY title in Korea is almost impossible. The solution is to buy it online, so you can buy it off of Steam (the Valve network). But if you're not in the USA, Steam doesn't give you anywhere near the selection you can buy there. I've been itching to play Sid Meier's Civilization 4: Colonization ever since I heard about it being released, as I was a huge fan of the old Colonization. Can't get it here. At all. Same thing happens with a lot of software titles. Part of the problem is that so many people in Korea pirate software. But the ones they punish are the ones who would actually pay for the games.

4. Microwave pizza. All you can find are really ridiculous types of pizza that no human should ever eat. Lotte Department stores sells a microwave gourmet cheese pizza that I found for 8,000 won (about $6.50). I bought one. A week later, it was 9,500 won. A week after that, it went to 11,500 won. It's not worth the price. I can buy take out (there's a Pizza Hut a few blocks from me that charges 13,000 won for a tiny cheese pizza, and there's a Pizza School outlet a little further away that charges 7,000 won for a pretty nice sized pizza, except for some reason they put corn in it).

5. Dishwashers. I hate doing dishes. Really hate it. You can't find a dishwasher here. There might be some in some obscure place, but who knows where?

6. DVDs. I mean regular ones that aren't pirated. There's one store in the CoEx mall that sells some tv seasons on dvd, but there are very few selections available. I miss walking into a Best Buy and having every DVD I've ever wanted right there in front of me, AND cheap.

7. English language phones. Preferably an iPhone. I have a cell phone that I can't use other than to receive calls. Can't figure out how to access the net with it. I think you can. Can't figure out how to send a text message because I still have no idea as to what key I press to mimick the space bar. Tried everything. Finally gave up. Also, I receive nonstop spam messages in Korean on this phone. Either someone is trying to advertise some sex service to me, or Jack Bauer is trying to tell me that I have to stop Magabe Buwato from setting off a nuclear explosion in LA. So far there hasn't been a nuclear explosion in LA, so I'm thinking the texts have been about sex services. Sorry, Jack.

8. A heater in English. I still don't understand what settings I have it on. I asked two Korean women I work with to take a look at a scan of my heater console, and they "guessed" that I should turn two nobs on the console, meaning that even if you are able to read the language fluently, you still haven't a clue how to operate the stupid thing.

9. A solid bed. I am using a bed with a mattress that has what feels like spikes sticking out of it. Complained about it. No one cares. Can't figure out how to replace it because even if I had the money to buy a new mattress, NO ONE understands that I need it delivered. Even if I speak in FLUENT KOREAN, they act like I'm speaking Swahili to them. God, I hate this stupid language. And I hate their beds. Or at least this one.

10. Eggo syrup. They sell Eggo Waffles at Costco. Not syrup. Not sure why. The syrup is Korea was designed by some evil criminal mastermind who uses it to keep his soldiers in line ("if you do not do as I say, I will make you consume the Korean syrup from Emart").

11. A TV guide that actually explains what's on Korean television. Instead, you get a remote control and about 200 or so channels to continuously click through, knowing you'll never find anything to watch because 40 percent of the channels don't register.

Anyway, that's my rant for right now. As I'm now 2 weeks and a day into not having been paid, AND having to work....

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Living in a life of uncertainty

One thing people tend to know about me is that I like things to be quite conservative. I don't mean politically. I mean so that my Tuesday seems a lot like my Monday. Stability is good. Anarchy, except as a conceptual government, is not.

Anarchy has been the state of things lately. When I arrived to South Korea, I had medical problems I couldn't control. Lots of anarchy. Finally got it all under control. Conservative again. Anarchy defeated.

Then the economy went kind of nuts. Lots of future anarchy. Thought I'd just ride it out and worry about those sorts of things when I get back to the states. Well, that never really works. So now I'm having to deal with it.

Haven't been paid in two weeks now. In other words, pay is two weeks late. Keep being promised a paycheck, but that's all I have received: Promises. The other staff receives the same guarantees. Everyone is somewhat on edge. No one is really upset at each other, but everyone is frustrated and thinking about jumping ship. People are looking for new jobs. Everyone except for me.

Why not me? Well, because I can't. I'm here on an E2 visa, which means that I am obligated to the company that sponsored me, even if that company has no money to pay me. I can't just up and take another job here. My only real option is to somehow convince by boss that he's not going to ever salvage his business and give me a letter of release, and then I can theoretically look for another job. Theoretically. Immigration changes its mind on this twice a day. And that also has a lot to do with which person in immigration you talk to. NOTHING is standardized here. There is no certainty. Just organized anarchy. Not good.

So, my other option available is to leave the country. That sucks big time because I don't have a job lined up anywhere. The US is going through crap right now, so there's lots of economical anarchy there. I'd be leaving a bad situation to a horrible situation. At least I have a home right now. Well, for the moment. Next month, who knows what I'll have.

I could go to another country, but that requires finding a job there. The visa application processes for most countries takes months. You don't just jump on a plane and start a job. Getting to Korea was a nightmare of a process. Going somewhere else would just be that much more difficult.

So, I'm sort of sitting here wondering if things are going to get better. I don't know. I have no idea. I can't plan for anything. And I can't do anything about my situation to make things better. I have a hard enough time holding a conversation with the clerk at the convenient store where I buy food. A few weeks ago, THAT was my difficulty. Now, it's gotten much worse, and I'm trudging through, hoping things get better. If not, who knows what will happen?

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Finding my new religion

I answered my door this morning, and two women were there to talk to me about what I thought was some apartment issue. First, it sounded like one of them needed to inspect something in my apartment. It wasn't quite clear, and then after a bit of broken conversation, I discovered that they were there to discuss their religion.

Now, in the states, I tended to usually just politely close my door to religious door to door people, but something about these two attractive women intrigued me (it could be that they were both attractive, but I digress). Anyway, so as I listened to their conversation, in very broken English, they were somehow telling me that they represented a Christian religion that worshipped the God Mother. Okay, I was kind of intrigued here. I'd heard of Mary worshippers, but this didn't sound that way. They went on and on in broken English about certain passages from the Bible, and after awhile I caught on. Every time the Bible mentioned a female pronoun, THAT was an indication of the "secret" God Mother the Bible was REALLY talking about.

Then they read from huge sections of Revelations, and it was there that I realized I'd heard all of this before. They were practically quoting entire doctrines of St. Augustine in The City of God. Sprinkle in a little Thomas Aquinas, and you had their entire argument, sans the God Mother part. So, I mentioned this, and of course, they'd never heard of Augustine or The City of God. So they continued on and on. So I decided I'd tell them all about these two important historical figures and their contributions to the Christian Church.
It ended up being one of the most bizarre conversations I've had that only seemed to be interrupted with their immediate need to "bring me" to their church, located somewhere in Korea. Well, I had to work today, so that wasn't going to happen, but they kept bringing out more and more pieces of broken scripture that they had to read to me, none of it making any more sense than the last bit they read. It was then when I actually read through their book (in Korean and both English) that it had to be translated by someone who had as much knowledge of Korean as I did, because the English part of it read something like "And so He-ith that taken in the chosen chalice of imbibement to the Monkey God of Happiness, makest the tree grown in the desert of Hebrewness."

Well, I had to head off to work, but I have a feeling they're going to show up again.

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As the World Turns

Current health
I'm okay. My system seems to have been adjusting to all the changes I've put it through. I can read normally again, and I don't feel like I'm about to have a stroke every time I go to sleep at night (part of that was probably stress and self-induced symptoms, I assume). Now, I feel good. Hopefully, I'm out of the troubled waters for now.

The job
It's actually better than when I started. There is massive turn-over here, which is stressful in its own way, but for the most part, things are generally stable. The students like me ("love me", according to reports from the parents), and the parents are constantly asking why I'm not teaching more of the classes because they'd rather have the "star" of the Academy teaching their students than random Korean teachers. That feels pretty good to hear, but at the same time I'm not sure I'd want the workload that would entail if they did add all those kids to my schedule.

I generally like the people I work with. There was one woman working here was kind of annoying, with one of those abrupt attitudes that really didn't seem appropraite most of the time. The kids used to complain to me about her (she was teaching science), and I knew she wasn't getting along well with her subject matter. They let her go yesterday, so she's no longer with us. Supposedly, someone else will replace her soon. That seems to happen a lot. Sometimes, it's justified. Other times, well, let's just say that I'm not qualified to make such judgments. But the other teachers and my supervisor are pretty cool. I like most of them, and even though we don't have long, drawn out conversations, I think we get along just great. We lost one teacher I really liked; she taught mainly the Toefl classes (English second language program). I got the impression she wasn't happy here, so I don't know if she left on her own or if it was a decision of management. Either way, she left a few days ago and asked if she could call me on my cell phone, so I gave her my number. I liked her. I hope she does well wherever she ends up going. She was somewhat in tears most of the other day, so it's sad to see someone cool have to go.

My computer
This situation was another one of those "can only happen to Duane" nightmares. It finally arrived a few weeks ago, but Customs had it and wouldn't release it. They wanted me to pay for it because it had insurance on it. A Korean teacher talked to them on the phone, and finally I had to fax (then scan and email) copies of my passport and other documents before they would finally release it.

So, I got it home and turned it on. Started up, and then gave me "Disk failure. Put in system disk." Nothing worked. Basically, it took me awhile to discover that the computer could not see my hard drive. So I rebuilt my computer. Twice. Finally, after a week, it could see the hard drive. It started up. But now it couldn't see my keyboard. You see, I installed this Zboard keyboard some months ago, and without it, my computer refused to recognize any other keyboard. No matter what I did, I couldn't fix it. So I bought a new XP disk and reinstalled Windows XP Home edition (over XP media edition, cause no Korean place had media edition). It came up and worked. But then I had no drivers. Duane wasn't smart enough to copy his drivers, so now I had no Internet connection and it had been so long, I couldn't remember how to get this configured. Finally, I realized that the ethernet card it was displaying wasn't actually an ethernet card but a protocol. So I used my laptop and found the drivers that fix the ethernet card. Then I had Internet access. Then, slowly I was able to reconnect everything else that needs to be working in my computer (cause now I could download them directly onto the computer). My life was pretty much saved by having a laptop and a flash drive. I now have to find tons of software that I no longer have because the new XP doesn't recognize any old files. I don't even have a word processor. Hopefully, Kat will find that software and send it to me. Or I'll end up having to pay a ton of money to buy it again, and as everyone is scared to death of allowing software downloads from Pirate Korea, I probably can't order anything directly from the US online. But I'm back up and running, so that's good. Plus, my computer starts up a lot faster when it doesn't have a ton of other software that refuses to stop loading first.

My writing
Not much to say. No success here. I received a copy of the book 2009 Novel & Short Story Writer's Market which I ordered from a British book company I buy a lot of books from these days. I've been pretty happy with them so far.

My degree
University of the Pacific still hasn't updated my transcripts to reflect I have a master's degree. But then I understand I'm not the only one who hasn't received an update from UOP, so I'm not panicking just yet. Kat is going in tomorrow to see what the status was on the printing of my thesis, which according to my understanding should not be a problem towards awarding my degree. But we'll see....

That's about it. Not much else going on. No social life whatsoever. Not even trying. But that's okay. I gave up on women a long time ago because they're all icky and have cooties. Calvin, Hobbes and I aren't letting any grrls in our club treehouse.

Stumble It!

The day before Christmas and you wouldn't know it being here

The snow
I walked to E-mart yesterday, and it was really the first time I've had time to go anywhere other than work lately. It was then that I realized there was snow and ice on the streets. It wasn't like full-blown snow, but it was obviously white and it was all over the place. I was told by any number of Koreans that it didn't snow in Seoul. I think I have just experienced another one of those inexplicable lies that people say for no reason whatsoever. I sometimes feel like Korea is an entire country made up of patholical liars, because honestly, what would have been lost to have said "Yes, Duane, every now and then snow does touch the ground of Seoul." Is this some kind of pride thing, which is the reason behind most of Korea's lies? Are they afraid I won't appreciate Seoul more if it ever snows here? Is this the first time EVER that snow has appeared here? I seriously doubt that last one. Still, people told me it never snows here. I'm not sure why, but that's what a lot of people have said.

iTunes
Sometimes, this service really pisses me off. It's expensive to buy things from there, yet sometimes it's your only way of getting access to the things you want. I downloaded two tv shows yesterday (Sarah Connor Chronicles) and it cost me $4 total. Not much, but that sort of money adds up. What really bugs me about this is that this is a one-time download. It's ONLY on my current computer, meaning that if I ever wanted to see those tv shows again and had my main computer, I'd have to buy them again. This was a problem for me when I came here and had my laptop. I had a bunch of music from iTunes on my old computer, but I had to buy the same music again, because they charge per download, not per account. I use Steam, which is a game resource from the company that makes the very popular game Half Life. I ordered a game from there the other day called Titan Quest. Turns out, it doesn't run so well on my laptop, but when I get my main computer hooked up again, I can download it for free because I bought it on my account, not just for one computer. That's where Apple pisses me off. They're so pretentious about how great they are, but it's all about the money, and customers come second to them.

Health
I'm continuing to feel better. I can pretty much see normal now. I've been having serious problems sleeping, and I've been taking a sleeping pill (over the counter type) to compensate. I ran out the other night (I don't take it every day, but every other day or so), so I went to a Korean Yak (pharmacy), the one where I first bought it, and it was a Sunday. They said they were out of all types of sleep medication. At least I think that's what they said. They pointed and shrugged shoulders a lot, so I can only guess that was what they were saying. Fortunately, yesterday, I found a new Yak close to me, and I bought two packages of the same product. I slept really well last night, although I had a pretty hard time getting on with my day as that stuff generally knocks you completely out.

Work
We're starting up a new group of students here, and I'm not really sure what my teaching schedule is, although it does appear to be kind of sparse. I find myself highly under-utilized here, and I don't really mnd it, but it does seem to be a normal thing here. I believe I'll be teaching one or two classes a day (who knows?), but the content of the classes is somewhat unknown to me, and again, I have a strong feeling I'm going to find out the exact content about an hour before I teach my first class. I'm teaching writing, but that could mean anything here. I think I'm supposed to teach based on the previous teacher's lesson that day, which means I'm not going to find out what she's teaching until she finally actually comes out and reveals it to me, something that rarely happens, even if you ask directly. Instead, they'll tell you it doesn't snow here.

But the job isn't bad, and it's kind of nice to be taking a break from the rest of where my life was going some months ago. I'm glad school is over, even though I have no idea if I graduated because here it is December 24th, and University of the Pacific has yet to post that I've graduated. I keep checking on my unofficial transcripts, and they keep listing me as a continuing student. I have this sneaking suspicion that they're going to screw this up yet another semester, which makes my job prospects crappy again. The administration of the university (not my department) is really dysfunctional and seems to work against the students rather than for them. You'd think that wouldn't be the case, but it certainly is.

Random Notes
I'm really looking forward to getting my desktop computer here. I've really missed it. It's been like living a temporary life where my real life is completely on hold, and that really shouldn't be the case. I'm here and now, which means this is my real life. It just seems like I'm holding space until the rest of my life catches up with me.

I have Christmas off, but only because it's my weekend day off. If it wasn't I'd probably have an additional day off, so I'll end up just getting my weekend day off instead. It would have been nice to have an extra day off, but the schedule didn't work out that way. The same thing is going to happen for New Year's Day, because it falls on the day exactly a week after Christmas. People in Korea really don't celebrate Christmas all that much because they really don't have the incentive to do so. It's become entirely commercial in both Korea and the United States, and the economy is horrid in Korea right now, so people aren't interested in spending money.

Stumble It!

The Status of Duane

I wish I had more to say, but I really don't. Nothing is going on in my life right now, other than I get up in the morning, do some random work around the apartment, and then I go to the school where I team little middle school kids a little bit about the English language. On the weekends, Saturday and Sunday, I hold debate classes where students learn about an issue, prepare a case, and then argue with each other, using the international debate format. Sometimes, I find myself impressed with their arguments; other times, it's like listening to two ships in the night, talking about two different issues and wondering why I'm listening to what they have to say.

As for my health, it's kind of on a "wait and see" basis. Things are not great, and they don't seem to be getting all that much better. Right now, the big problem is that I'm having vision problems (I can't read with my glasses on, and I get a headache without my glasses). I had this same problem a few months back when my potassium went nutso on me, but all tests have indicated that the same problem is not back, so it looks like it's a wait and see process to hope that things start to correct themselves.

I do really regret coming here, however. I feel like the protagonist in Kobe Abe's Woman in the Dunes, where a man becomes trapped in a society of people who live in the sand, and there is no way for him to escape, so he has to accept that he will always live in a sand house that is constantly collapsing on him, because that is what was chosen for him. I feel trapped that way, a lot, and as much as I try to compensate by making things more comfortable, I can never escape the fact that I live in a house of sand that no matter how much furniture and westernized conveniences I add, I'm still going to be living in a house of sand.

The frustrations are such simple things, too. Like my computer. I really miss my computer, because with that, I could wile away lots of time playing games, of which I have a massive collection (none of which are with me right now). My laptop computer here is being used as my main computer, and it just doesn't have the processing power to do the things I want to do, so it's like living with a manual typewriter and trying to use it to surf the web. Okay, it's not that bad, but the point still remains. My stuff is still back in the states, and it is taking forever to get any of it over here. To get some of my own stuff here would be such a boon, because at least then it would feel like a little bit of my own life is here, but none of it has come here so far, so I keep finding myself having to compensate by settling for less than what I desire.

And my graduation from University of the Pacific is supposed to be this month, but I have no way of feeling that out whatsoever. Kat has been making the changes to my thesis (the page changes, not content), but the graduate school is so dysfunctional that it would not surprise me if somehow I don't even graduate, but get swept under the rug because they really don't care. The woman who works at the front desk of the Graduate School serves as a barrier to education, and it's amazing that this woman even has a job sometimes. But she continues to do what she does (making it more difficult for people to graduate because...well, no one really understands why she does this because it doesn't serve any positive purpose whatsoever, for the students or for the university, or even for general prosperity).

I've started playing World of Warcraft again, mainly because it's the only thing my computer CAN handle, and it gives me a release from living in Korea. I don't even care to explore Korea these days because I'm just so frustrated with being here. Today, I went to Costco, which is about the most I've traveled in some time. I bought a bunch of stuff with which I hope to make my life more comfortable, like a few DVDS (half of season 1 of LOST and all of season 2). I'd rather have my own DVDs here, but again, I have very little of my stuff from back home, so I have to do what I can to add to my sanity here. I also bought a huge pack of pens because the pens you can buy in office supply stores here suck big time. I also bought another HUGE box of Honey Nut Cheerios because at least those I can eat for breakfast and not feel like I'm sticking a trout in my mouth first thing in the morning.

I have started to find books here at various bookstores, even though some of them can be massively expensive, meaning you have to really search each store and compare prices on books. An example is the new Ken Follett paperback, World Without End. At What The Book, a bookstore here in Itaewon with English titles, this book was being sold for 35,000 won (about $26), whereas Bandi & Luni in the Coex shopping mall was selling it for the list price of 12,820 won (nearly a third of the price). You find that with a lot of things here, so much that you really have to be careful with what you buy and where you buy it or you'll get massively screwed.

Haven't even given any thoughts to relationships here. I know some of my American friends would probably be surprised by this because it's not a secret that I have somewhat of a weakness for Asian women. But it doesn't seem to be happening this time, and I find myself really not interested. I think what has happened is that I have lost all patience with most of the women I deal with, and thus, I really don't want to get involved. My interests are pretty finicky in relationships, and I find that sometimes it's just not worth the effort trying to find someone. I think my chance to find someone ended some years back, and that I had a couple of really good prospects that I screwed up, so I believe that nature has finally just decided that I let the brass ring go by too many times, so I'm really not going to be finding anyone again. I have this really bad tendency to become involved with women who want to be friends with me, and that's about all I ever find anymore. I know most of that is my fault, because as most people point out to me, what I should just say is that I'm not interested in friendships with anyone new, and if they're not interested in anything further than that, then move on and seek out someone else.

My hope is that I will be able to find a job back in states, so I can go home and work there. Korea would have been fine for me about ten years ago, but at this age, it's really not doing that much for me. I get really frustrated with incompetence, and there's a lot of that at work. And when your management screws up and then feels the need to make YOU responsible for how they screwed up, it really gets irritating. One example was this last weekend. I haven't had an actual debate in two weeks (weird schedules were the cause) so I had no idea what my schedule actually was. So I kept asking the supervisor for a schedule. ("Okay, I give schedule tomorrow...." and of course, no schedule comes tomorrow) Then, I was given an interview schedule (they want me to interview students for the new debate program) where my first interview was at 1pm. Then I get a phone call at 10am asking me why I'm not at work already to coach a debate that I knew nothing about. Instead of "sorry, we should have told you", I get "You should know to be here, and get here now!" as a response. Then I get the supervisor claiming she "told" me, even though the only thing she "told" me was about the interview at 1pm. It doesn't help that NONE of them speak any English, nor that none of them understand anybody's Korean, including mine. That's the other problem with this country. The language. It's a garbage language, in case you didn't know that. It was written only recently in history, and so many words mean so many different things that if you ever listen to a phone conversation, you'd go nuts. It literally goes like this:

A: Yobaseyo. (Hi)
B: Yobaseyo. (Hi)
A: Papaseyo? (Are you busy?)
B: Huh? (What?)
A: Papaseyo? (Are you busy?)
B: Ah, Papa John's Pizza? (Ah, Papa John's Pizza?)
A: Aniyo, Papseyo? (No, are you busy?)
B: Ah, Aniyo, Peolo anpapeyo. (Ah, no I am not particularly busy)
A: Papa John's? (Papa John's?)
B: Aniyo, Peolo anpapayo. (No, I am not particular busy)
A: Mmm, Papa John's. (Mmm, let's eat at Papa John's)
B: Ne, Papa John's. Ne. (Yes, Papa John's, Yes)
A: Mmm. (Yummy sounds)
B: Anyoung hee, kashipseyo. (Goodbye to you leaving)
A: Ne, Anyoung hee, keshipseyo. (Goodbye to you staying)

Gotta love the language. No one ever gets anything done, but they all seem to end up at Papa John's Pizza.

Stumble It!

The problems of getting sick in a foreign country

I finally got to see a doctor today, and they ended up admitting me so they could put me on an IV. Unfortunately, they want to keep me for a week in the hospital, and I just don't have the time to do that because there's no way in the world my job would allow me to miss that much time. Yeah, I'm not kidding. It's just not an option. My employer lives in a different world than that of reality, and I can already see how such a request would go over. Basically, it wouldn't go over at all.

So, I'm trying to do the best I can without being admitted into a hospital for a week's stay. My blood tests haven't been all that great, which means something has to be done, and I really am starting to run out of options.

Spending my day off on a hospital bed with an IV coming out of my hand was not exactly what I had intended for today, but I can't really fault them for trying to save my life now, can I? One positive piece of news was that my potassium levels were not actually the problem (something I thought was the case, as this is why I ended up in the ER right before I left for Korea). Same symptoms, different cause.

So, I have to go back for more testing on Thursday, and they'll probably admit me again for another day's worth of IV fun.

******************************************************************************
Current word count for Rumors of War: 22516. Took a few days off because of health reasons. Will try to get back to finishing this. On another note, my old agent got in touch with me today by leaving me a phone message. She's going to take a look at The Ameriad, and there's a slight chance she might be representing me again, although it still feels pretty much like a long shot. That's how the whole publishing industry seems these days. A long shot.

Stumble It!

An update from the depths of Hell...I mean Korea

It's sometimes hard to figure out if I like it here or really just hate it. I find myself wishing I was home a lot, or wishing I was anywhere else but here. If I had the choice to do it all over again, I would never have come here. There are just so many things that are screwed up, and it gets really frustrating.

Example: Today, I was informed that the "government" will not give me my medication that was sent to me from the states without me having a prescription for my medication to present to them. I don't have a prescription because it's my medication from the states, being sent here because I forgot to bring it. There's no grey area. No prescription, no medication. I guess they think I'm trying to smuggle in weed or something, even though it's in pill form and comes in bottles marked as the appropriate medication that it actually is. An easy Internet search (looking up the medication will show you it IS the medication claimed) could be conducted, but they are "too busy" for that. So I guess my medication is going to be thrown out instead of delivered to me. Another reason I hate this place.

I can't even do simple little things that I might enjoy, like play the new Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization. I can't play it because if you don't live in North America, no one will sell it to you. You can't even download it anywhere because they've blocked off South Korea for distribution. I was able to buy a game I really didn't want called Titan Quest, but it doesn't work properly on my laptop, so that was yet another waste of money for something I don't even get any pleasure from.

My writing career sucks being here. I can't send out queries unless the agent takes email queries, but when you email an agent, they don't take you seriously and just delete your emails for the most part. I can't send in short stories because mailing to the states is inappropriately overpriced. So, I can write, but that's about it.

The food. I can't stand most of it. I have a hard time going to a supermarket here because when I get into the meat section, the aroma nearly causes me to vomit. Did I mention that I really hate it here?

The people I work with are okay, but they have a really bad habit of speaking only in Korean and then wondering why I never know what's going on. Today was a good example of that. We lost one of our teachers (he quit a few days ago) so I had to take over his class on English writing. I found this out today, about an hour before class. The head teacher asked me how come I didn't have a lesson plan already made up (an hour before class). I said I just found out about the class. She said that everyone knew, and how come I didn't? Yeah, that's the kind of thing that really causes one to sit up and hate where they're at.

And medically, I'm really having some problems here. I have a condition I can't seem to fix, and if it's as bad as I think it is, I've been living with an imminent heart attack coming at any time for about the last three weeks now. No one seems to understand the significance of needing to get medical coverage taken care of, mainly because it's not happening to them and, in the words of one very sensitive Korean: "You haven't had a heart attack yet, so you're fine."

On the positive side, I bought a really nice 22 inch flat screen LCD monitor for my computer for the equivalent of 22 beads and trinkets (about $140). So I hope someone gets some great use out of it after I collapse on one of these upcoming days.

I also read a really good science fiction book called Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. I'm now reading the next Cliff Janeway novel by John Dunning.

Stumble It!

The frustration of bratty little foreign kids

Sometimes the job can be all right. Other times, it can be just massively frustrating. Yesterday, was one of those times.

Most people who know me know that I'm pretty easy going on most things, but there are some specific issues that I do find myself to be passionate about. One of them reared its head in class yesterday when one of my little snot nose kids decided he had a new insult word he wanted to start using throughout the entire class. The word was Nigger.

First, it took me a few hearings of this to even realize what he was saying, and then I just stopped the class and told him that word was MASSIVELY inappropriate. Well, tell this to a 12 year old kid, and suddenly it's THE WORD to use. I then stopped class completely and explained in what had to be a five minute diatribe about how some words are swear words and kids can find them "cool" to use. I didn't give examples, but he was quite willing to produce a few of them to fill in the swear word gap we were obviously having.

I then explained that the word is not something you "insult" your friend with because it's not that kind of word. I then went on to explain about how the word is used specifically through hate, that to call someone that name is to truly hate that person. Not to be mad at him and think you've come up with a good insult, but to REALLY, TRULY WITHOUT A SHADOW OF DOUBT, AND FOR ALL TIME hate that person and everything he or she stands for. You would have to hate that person so much that you would want them dead and would be willing to give your life to make sure that person dies. THAT MUCH HATE.

I then went on to explain that not only was it about hate, but that anyone who would use this word towards another, at least in the United States, would reveal how little education he or she has, how disgusting a creature that person would be, and how no good person would ever have any respect for that person ever again. I said, if that's the kind of person you want to be, then you should be the kind of person to use that word. I had to keep stopping them, especially him, from interrupting me with an attempt at using the word as a joke until they got the picture. About four minutes into it, I think they finally realized this was NOT a word to be used in Duane's class EVER again.

I, of course, didn't get into the whole situation of how African-Americans sometimes call EACH OTHER that name, because that would just confuse them and somehow make them think it was "cool" to use somehow.

Again, I'm usually pretty easy going in these classes. Hearing that word coming from a little 12 year old kid really just set me off to no end.

**************************************************************************************

Back to my log of my latest novel, Rumors of War. I am now at 9797 words.

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My first debate in almost a decade

I could have gotten out of it if I wanted. My eyes were having trouble seeing (the medical problem I'm still having right now), so I could have passed on it, but I started thinking that it would look really bad if I found an excuse (even a real one) to get out of it, so I said I would participate in it.

It was between the teachers as the academy here, and it was to be in front of a bunch of Korean mothers who were thinking of enrolling their kids in the academy. The topic chosen was This House would eliminate child labor. The Korean teacher on my side and I were to be the opposition, so we pretty much had to argue that child labor was good, or find some way around it.

The two female Korean teachers were the pro side, and they created a standard child labor is bad, and they were going to use the WTO to abolish child labor in third world areas like Bangladesh. Our defense was pretty standard, except I decided to play a different card in this game, and I created a three pointed defense based on:

Go Your Own Way
Sometimes, the only way to really avoid such a thing as child labor is for the country involved to experience it themselves and then solve it after realizing how it has affected their country. The argument was basically that imposing morality upon another society only reinforces one's own morality, but does not develop morality in the targeted society. However, if these countries go through their own reflection process, like the US and Great Britain did, then they, too, can benefit from their own experiences and create a better future society. I linked the argument to a connective philosophy put forth by Samuel Huntington's The Third Wave, in which countries backlash after achieving successes because they have not yet learned a better way than what they knew before and were only relying on what was taught to them from first world countries.

Good Capitalists Aren't Born
This argument is that child labor is not always wrong. I started with the example of my own life, where I began working at twelve. I reiterated that the government's plan (through poi's) is targeting all workers who are under age. This meant that younger people with stable jobs will also lose their jobs, or those companies and the government will receive backlash from the WTO (the government's plan). I included that child labor keeps children out of crime, as most poor children are subjected to an environment where the forces of crime target them if they are available. Taking away their job makes them available. I also reiterated the idea that child labor is the first training opportunity a young person has to learn the concepts of their society's economic process. I linked Orson Scott Card into this argument with the concept of growing a society's progressive knowledge based on contributions from its youth population.

AIDS Kills All
This was what I figured was my more "Duane" argument here. I argued that third world countries, especially those in Africa are suffering from the AIDS crisis. The regular work force is being devastated by AIDS, which is making it so that there is no left to fill in the occupied workforce. Therefore, the youth of those countries are now being forced to fill in where adults used to exist. There is more and more call for the youth to fill these positions as more and more people succumb to the disease. With the higher educated populations leaving the country in fear and in search of prosperity, to not use the labor force of younger people was both foolish and would lead to eventual destruction, more warlords, and geometric rates of deaths. I linked this to a Carole Pateman argument on the concept of civic education and deterioration of societies based on being unable to fill the gaps of previous generations.

It was a fun debate. Our side seriously overwhelmed the government's side with our case. I used a typical "WTO/UN/World Bank is bad" response case (the kind we never get enough of at Pacific) to most of their main points. I then ran an "Enforcement is mainly illusory" case on their sanctions argument, and the rest of their case fell apart from there.

Yes, it was definitely something I haven't done for a long time. And I got to use my favorite weapons in my arsenal: Passion and pathos (same thing really). It made for a much more lively debate.

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