Korean Time

I'd like to start by thanking my few fans out there for their comments. Auntie Lori, and I'm pretty sure the other was Mel, but the aonymous "time-on-my-hands" commenter may have to go unthanked if it's someone else.

Getting to the nitty-gritty - I just had my first "squat-toilet" experience. My, how I wish it could have been held off indefinitely, but if this is as bad as it will get, I'll consider myself lucky. I'm pulling cobwebs out of all the nooks and crannies of my body still, and I'm still rather cramped after squeezing myself into a stall built for a young Korean's stature, not a 6'2" Canadian. I think I'd like to throw both the building architect and the janitor off a bridge right now.

I've titled this entry as "Korean Time" after thinking of all the places I've been where people tell me "We're meeting at 6pm, but in (insert city or country here) time." Usually I find it's someone trying to add some spice to a dull story or conversation, or their just trying to say they plan on being late. But here, things definitely move a little differently than at home.

The music and pop-culture is certainly trapped in the late 80's and early 90's. People are often in a rush to get somewhere, but only so long as they don't have to do anything once they arrive. Meetings scheduled for 8:30 don't actually start till 8:40, but if you're late, you're in trouble. And while I'm only required to work 20 hours a week, I have to stay in school the other 20 hours of the work week. I think they may tell me what I should be doing by mid-March.

Traffic and laws are another mind-boggling thing. At home (Canada), there are laws to govern how traffic works. In Tailand, not at all. Here, they've reached a point of having laws, but no one really bothers you if you don't follow them. Red lights are optional, four way stops can be avoided with a quick blast of the horn, and lane demarkations are more like the starting lanes for a NASCAR race, and become meaningless after the starting flag.

Shannon and I had a rather alarming experience on Sunday. We were working on some English grammar items, when I thought I heard a plane flying rather low outside our apartment. Shannon wasn't so sure, and went to look outside, but was stopped at the door, as our hallway was wildly thick with smoke. "Oh shit, the building's on fire!" We grabbed our wallets, I grabbed a shirt, and bolted out of the building, crouching low, shirts over our faces. Outside, it was a little desolate for a fire - no other people, no emergency vehicles... just the damn gardener fumigating the garden, filling the whole building with pesticides. So, Shannon (in her pajamas) and I went for a walk up the local mountain to pass the day and let the poison dissipate.

I'll end on the note that today has been my first day of class. Korean kids are just like Canadian kids, except they do whatever I ask them to, which may mean they're very well disciplined, or there's something slightly terrifying about a giant, bleached white guy who stands over their shoulder and won't stop talking in tongues. They are well disciplined mind you, and it's the kids who are in charge of cleaning the schools here, which brings me back to my thoughts on how that damn toilet got so dirty...