What's yours is mine, and what's mine is Korea's.

Recent games of football here in Chuncheon have left me frustrated, not for my lack of prowess on the pitch, or indeed the Korean’s reluctance to allow me to play in one position for more than two minutes before moving me on to another role. It’s been on the sidelines that my rage has been growing.

We play quarters here, which means a longer game. However, it also means more drink stops, and so each game I arrive, ready to play, with my Gatorade in tow; all two litres of its luminous green majesty sitting on the touchline. The sugar content is addictively corrosive (I’m sure I saw Lindsay bleaching the toilet with it last week) and even the bottle is designed to fit into your hand, should you struggle to pick up those pesky regular cylindrical bottles. In comparison Lucozade simply doesn’t measure up.

With each passing quarter I enjoy the walk to the side, knowing I’ll have a sip of the nectar and experience a sugar rush enough to paralyse a small panda.
Sadly this experience has been tempered in recent weeks.

I’m a private person by in large. I like to share, but when I choose to share. My house is open, but when I want it to be open, so imagine my horror when I walked over after a particularly taxing 30 minutes of chasing people aimlessly, to see a Korean drinking Gatorade, my Gatorade, my beautiful, luminous Gatorade. My giver of life, my taker of teeth, being consumed, not by me, not even by a teammate, by an opposition member. My jaw dropped, birds stopped singing and in the distance Wagner was playing. I walked up in a rage; expectant of apologies, of a face belonging to a man caught with his penis somewhere it shouldn’t be.



Instead he just passed me the remaining fluid, smiled and walked off. I had made the mistake of leaving my bottle uncovered, and, such is the Korean way, he helped himself. It could have been my drink, chocolate, my last supper; if it’s in the open, it’s for sharing in Korea.

It takes a little getting used to. Students dip into my pencil case to use my eraser, fellow teachers offer tangerines to me when they’ve quite clearly been brought to work for their snack, Korean friends come to my apartment when I’m not in and buy books on my credit card. It really is share and share alike in this glorious nation.

I’m trying to adapt my ways to fit in, so should you ever hear of an Englishman caught stealing money from a Supermarket till, then rest assured, I’m just doing my best to share the wealth.

What's in a name

As I have mentioned in my earlier posts I give most of my Korean students English names. If they choose not have to one, that usually results in me using ‘you’ as a term of reference. Before cries of ‘colonisation’ ring out, let me explain; learning Korean names is just too hard. In one class I have a hae-jong, jong-hae, hae-young, young-hae, ji-young and ji-jong. Imagine a class consisting of Chris, Christopher, Christine, Chrissy, Christof and Christ. I tried to learn Korean names, I really did, but I just ended up insulting students, losing all respect for my academic knowledge and eventually sitting in a corner rocking.

My History teacher at school used to refer to students by their surnames. Logical, one would assume, although each time he started the lesson with ‘right, listen up’ I jumped to attention. (He was ex-military, and my surname is Wright, for those who don’t know me, or are too docile to get the joke.) My nerves were shredded, but for the most part the tactic worked well. Could that be my way into understanding Korean students on their level?

Consider this: In England, if two students in a class have the same name, this is often followed by the question, ‘are you two related?’ In Korea I teach a class of 8, of those 8, 6 have the family name ‘Kim.’ It’s not an unusual situation; indeed, around half of the Korean population has the one of three surnames, Kim, Park or Lee. There are only 250 Korean family names in use, compared with an estimate of 220,000 currently being used in English. Taking into account the number of other countries marrying into English speaking families, and the number is increasing year by year. It’s further increased by feminists and their sympathetic partners giving their children double barrelled surnames. When such children themselves marry, I look forward to future offspring with names such as Thomas Andrews-Deville-toomanynames-Mcfartoomodern.

However, just because there are a lot of words in a language, doesn’t make it any better. When it comes to flexibility of language, a look over the pond to America shows how even the strongest of linguistic foundations can lead to monotony. There is New York, (formally New Amsterdam, before they realised they weren’t keen on the whole legal pot idea) New Hampshire, New Orleans and New Jersey. These were all before they got lazy and decided to drop the ‘New’ altogether; this lead to Manchester, Boston, Lincoln, Birmingham Durham and Lancaster.



However, as poor as the Americans are at naming places, I can’t claim that the UK is number one. That award must go to, rather ironically, a new country; New Zealand. Whether it was their desire to show that they weren’t simply an extension of the Australian London Prison plan, or perhaps because most of the immigrants were a mixture of Dutch and Scottish; either way the Kiwis leave the rest of the world behind when it comes to naming places, especially mountains.



Perhaps they have an unfair advantage in that 75% of their country is mountainous, but none the less, Kiwi originality shines through, especially in the use of the word knob. Should you wish you could climb Bald Knob, Billie’s Knob, Jeanie’s Knob, Power Knob, Newcome Knob, Doctor’s Knob and Gordon’s Knob. In fact, Gordon has two knobs in New Zealand, both of which are climbable. Gordon also has Gordon’s Pyramid and a whole range named after him.

The childish jokes don’t stop at Knobs, you can climb a Bushy Cone, The Amazon’s Breasts, The Twins, Drunken Sailors or The Old Man Of the Buller.
I’m not sure what the accident rates on mountains in New Zealand are like, but I can only imagine they’re low. I can see climbers just crawling to an exposed ledge and waiting for the elements to take their course, for the alternative is:

‘Hello, mountain rescue? Yes I’m stuck on top of a Windy Knob. Where that is? It’s next to The Great Unknown. Hello? ... HELLO!’

The epic names carry on with Paradise Peak, but if that sounds too jolly for you, then you could always climb Mt Misery, Isolated Hill (part of a range), Mt Dreadful, or Mt Awful. You can even go Greek and climb Achilles or Ajax. The Devil even gets a look in; he even has two Devil’s lookouts on the east coast. Quite what the Devil has to look out for I’m not sure, but he must have a hunch it's coming just north of Christchurch.

If more serious issues are your thing, such as race perhaps, then the mountains can accommodate your needs too. There’s a Maori Chief Peak, and even a Niggerhead. With that name in mind Yellow Peak, Black Rat and White’s Safety Hut take on whole new meanings.

All the while a couple in said country were banned from naming their number 4real for the simple reason it included a digit. Not to insult the perseverance of their forefathers they pressed ahead and decided on Superman. Koreans, take note.

The world was a mess, but his hair was perfect

Call me a poncy westerner if you will, but I quite like to have my head massaged as a minimum preparation for having my locks tended to. At the very least I expect my hair to be washed before the act of hair topiary begins. I have a very specific look for my hair that demands I spend copious amounts of time and money making it look like I spend no time and money upon it.



Quite frankly, the thought of actually roughing it in a barbers scares me shitless, so as I entered a Korean hairdressers this morning my tactic of simply saying ‘cut’ and then agreeing with everything that came out of the scissor wielding demon’s mouth had me rather nervous.

I spent some time looking for a place; at first I walked into a place called ‘The Oracle’ but he shooed me away, informing me he was eating lunch, but that I could come back later. From the name I can only assume he already knew what he was about to do would be a letdown. I ventured past ‘The Hair Doctor’ and wandered for a while before I chose the ‘Hair Shop.’ I figured if I was giving them hair, they might pay me.
As I sat down I decided to back up my instruction of cut by showing this temporary Delilah the entry for trim in my Korean dictionary. She nodded and began to talk at great length, saying a great deal more than I imagine the Korean word for trim to be, before starting the whole ordeal.

The cutting was haphazard at best, she was watching television at one stage, and I left with what looked like two haircuts, the hair she cut and the great number of hairs she decided, in her infinite wisdom, would be better left the length they were before.



Call it vain if you will, and many have done, but my hair is a great source of pride to me; when it’s cut I’m temporarily relieved, Sampson like, of my powers; powers that amount to being able to swagger down a street in a way that would make Mick Jagger wince, and not feel like a twat. And also ... well that’s it. In short when my hair is sheared I feel like a tool, even when I drop the hip swaying. Maybe I should drop the pretention of cool altogether, just don’t expect me to do that, or indeed anything unessential, in public, without a hat, anytime soon.

Psycho Simon says

During my time in Chuncheon I’ve signed up to a football team called FC9020, a group of Korean men, all between 30 and 50, supplemented by four foreigners. At first my position seemed to be similar to back home; in my eyes that’s wherever they find a weakness in the side, I plug that gap. Others seem to see it, and in my manager’s case, tell me, that it’s a case of fill all positions, then put me wherever is left. The last year has seen that be right back for the most part, with the odd foray to the substitute’s bench when we have had more than eleven.

When I arrived there was a man called Greg playing striker for us. A traditional English striker; unfit, strong with odd moments of brilliance / fluke and an ability to head the ball. I did my part, floating round the pitch, showing my uncanny ability to be where the action isn’t. When Greg left, things changed. I was moved to striker, and so far it’s suited me. I generally play against a back two of 50 year olds with 10 year old knees, both of whom seem intent on setting an offside trap on the half way line.

Whilst I’m no Darren Campbell, I don’t turn down a gift when one is presented to me, and they’ve been presented in the 100s. By the sheer law of averages the multitude of chances I receive has seen a few goals come my way, and I had started to feel happy in my footballing skin. That is until I met Simon.

Psycho Simon, as he has come to be known, does his best to make every man feel inadequate. He works at an English camp in the mountains. Doing what exactly I’m not sure, but I’m fairly certain that it’s a place where cocky kids are sent to decrease their sense of self worth.

Allow me to explain, Simon runs around at maximum speed for the whole game, so it’s hard to say where he plays exactly. The first time I came up against him I panicked, he shouted whilst he ran, roaring towards me like a hunting dog. I was centre forward, this wasn’t supposed to happen. In my frightened rabbit like state I stood still. For too long; he was on me, snarling, dribbling; his testosterone only matched by his baldness. I had no choice, I went into a 50 / 50 tackle with him, expecting not to emerge. And then. A moment of calm bliss... I had the ball and Simon was not there. I had won. I waltzed off like Pepe le Pew and passed the ball onwards. Simon did not come near me again, just near the old and weak. I heard him once in a while screaming PASS TO ME, GOD DAMN IT PASS TO ME, but we never clashed again.



Whilst I’m no academic, I understand that if a Korean , who doesn’t speak English, doesn’t respond to my requests, there’s a chance that he may not understand me. Simon sadly has yet to grasp this concept. GO RIGHT ... GOD DAMN IT WHY DIDN’T YOU GO RIGHT? gets louder each time, until it’s a scream, a blood curdling scream, which has led to Simon’s aforementioned nickname.

Sadly his actions point to a darker trend; the view that we westerners are in a foreign land, and not the foreigners. Simon has seemingly yet to make an effort to learn the language of his compatriots, although I think FOR FUCK’S SAKE PASS TO ME is fairly universal.
I must state at this juncture that I’m no linguist, but I have learned to either say ‘yogi’ (here) or simply stay quiet, but then maybe that’s just because I’m never near the ball.

Jehovah Jehovah

During my time here I’ve been making an effort to connect with locals, or rather they’ve been making efforts to connect with me. On occasion, when soju (Korean rice liquor, people drink 3 litres of the stuff then complain how toxic it is) has been involved they’ve tried to make that connection literal, but for the most part it’s involved shouting ‘hi’ at me, looking me up and down, or saying ‘American?’ before I say no and smash the nearest blunt object into their face. With broken teeth, they’ll follow up with ‘Canadian?’ The process occurs again before finally they say ‘England’ and we can be friends.

One of these connections has been with a Korean going by the English name of Brian. I met him; or rather he chased me and stopped me, on the way home from work. He was friendly, and when it came to goodbyes a little too friendly with hands, but he was pleasant enough and we arranged a man date.

That was before he dropped the bomb.

Brian took me to a spot above the city, where we shared some pasta and questions about our respective cultures. All went well until I asked him about military service, something that is mandatory in Korean law. Brian told me he hadn’t served, but instead spent his time in jail as he is a Jehovah’s Witness. Cue horror film music and gasps all around.

I must admit to limited knowledge of JWs, mainly limited to the fact they refuse blood donations and believe people walked with dinosaurs and talked to snakes. That’s usually my fill of anything Christ related and I head back home to read Asterix cartoons to bring me back to a far more logical way of thinking.

However, on this occasion he was my ride home, and so I listened. I found out that around 1000 people are currently in Korean prisons for objecting to military service. That’s a lot of JWs. Even more when you consider they believe there to be limited places in heaven. If I knew I was going for a particularly competitive job then I’m not sure I’d be spreading the word about it so eagerly at 8am each morning.

Either way Brian did try to convert me, but I showed him Buddhist merchandise I’d bought at a temple and he seemed to back away, like a vampire from the garlic, except mine didn’t smell. I’d say Brian wasn’t trying to take my soul, but considering JWs can’t play football on the Sabbath, or enjoy the wine Jesus was so fond of, he wasn’t too far off.

Lost and found in translation

A couple of days ago I was called into the office of the Director of the Academy I work for. That is Mr. Choo, the same Mr. Choo that met me at the airport.
My only real dealings with Mr Choo were pestering him in the early days to turn on the hot water in our apartment, something he forgot to do for some days, chuckling as he informed me it was another cold shower that night. I also had the pleasure of being observed by him.

I must stress at this point that Mr Choo has never taught a class in his life, nor does he speak any English. However, he observed my entirely English spoken class none the less. The class was well planned if I may say so myself. I had the students split into two teams and got them to write quiz questions from a text, for the opposing team. I supplemented this with my own questions. A question lesson if you will.
Mr. Choo’s feedback (he was somewhat shocked I asked for any) was that I should ask more questions, especially with such a young class. It was my oldest class, and so with that I learned not to take him too seriously.

All this leads us back to the office I shared with him and a translator, on a fine winter’s day. He had called me in to ask how I teach. I told the translator my methods, she proceeded to nod and stay silent. Mr. Choo began to tell me what I should be doing, namely one particular thing I should be doing. He told me, or rather the translator did: “you prepare too much, too many resources, just speak to the children.” I nodded and asked back, “OK, can you give me any advice how to go about that, what to talk about?” He nodded again when my words were finally spoken to him.
The advice I received was wise indeed: “prepare more, more resources.”

Now the quick ones amongst you may have spotted something here, but being a little slowly I confirmed my position with him. “So I should prepare less by preparing more?” I looked at him, expecting him to smile at any moment. Maybe I had the greatest boss in the all the world, the most dry humoured boss I could wish for. My appetite for irony was whetted; I’ve been starved, spending my time socialising with Americans.

Sadly he nodded in confirmation and looked quite pleased with himself. Prepare less by preparing more, it’s like a retarded version of the Cub Scouts.

The Future must end

Firstly I must make two important points, put into list form for your convenience:
1 – The Future is no longer the child I wish to father, rather the child I wish to send walking over a minefield wearing magnetic boots, if such things even exist. For his behaviour in my class, and general lack of any redeeming qualities I would invent such items.
2 – The greatest slogan t-shirt has been gazumped, and with some force. I read as I saw:
“The world is full of joy and the world is full of hardship, but the joy is only possible because of the hardship suffered by Helen Keller.”
Somebody, somewhere, wrote that and sold it to a Korea t-shirt company; sniggering at the time I hope.