World's Largest Standing, Non-Lead-Based Buddha

Ah, shibal.

To my surprise and my readership's chagrin, I am not being exploited at work. I teach a modest seven or eight classes a day and the director rarely beats me. (For the record, when she does, she smacks me around with a sock full of Korean change, which - because of the exchange rate - leaves fewer bruises than a sock full of American coins of similar size and composition.)

I am wildly popular with my students because I let them pet my armhair. My name is unpronounceable in all but two world languages (Old Welsh and American Sign), so the kids call me "Kisu," the Korean word for "kiss." Several thirteen year-old girls harbor crushes on me, the frightening kind where they pencil "I Love You" on their eyelids and flutter their lashes while I teach the present continuous. No time for love, Dr. Jones.

I am a charter member of The League of Extraordinarily Maladjusted Expats. It started out two weeks ago with a small nucleus of white flakes languishing outside a gas station at 3 AM. It has since snowballed into something large and hideous. We are gaining momentum and rolling downhill fast. The group is far more offensive than any one of its members.

We are everyone and nobody. We are an obese 47 year-old Newfoundlander missing his left eyetooth. We are a 20-something Protestant missionary who plays jazz gospel hymns on the electric piano. We are a timid homosexual Korean businessman. We are a prematurely balding Australian. We are two Korean brothers with similar-sounding names. We are a bleached-blonde Canadian fuckwit who thinks he's that fuckwit from Van Wilder. We are a dark-haired vegetarian girl who reads Dostoevsky. We are Kisu.

Heil Kimchi?

Me: Ahh! Korean Nazis!
You: Um, dude ... that's a Buddhist good luck symbol.
Me: Ahh! Lucky Korean Buddhist Nazis!
You: [beleaguered sigh]

On arthropods.

The Daeguba System is in peril. It has been infiltrated by the most evil and icky empire of them all: the phylum arthropoda.

I returned home after an exhausting, caffeine-palsied night of chatting with my l33t hax0r friends in the PC bang across the street, flicked on the living room light and ... arrrghhhh! A bug! Fuck. I can't describe what kind of bug it was or I'll chunder all over the computer monitor and it's not my monitor to chunder all over.

These bugs have no name but you know the kind I mean. They have no name because naming them would imply that they belong to a species, that they fall in love, mate, have families, family friends, innocent hobbies like frisbee golf and flying remote control airplanes. But they are not, not, not a species. They are mutants, genetic mutants that spawn in the dingy creases of the world, wherever there is a basement sink, a forgotten-about space behind a toilet, or a person sleeping with his mouth left precariously wide open. But if I were to name this bug - thus implying it belongs to a species with bloodlines and ancestors and immigration papers and dignity, which I remind you it does not, damn it - if I were to name this bug, firm believer in onomatopoeia that I am (even though "onomatopoeia", while a very funny-sounding word, is not, itself, onomatopoetic), if I were to name this bug, I would name it "bluoughoughughhhhh!!!" because that is precisely the sound I make when I flick on the lights in my living room and catch one of these bugs, one of these bluoughoughughhhhhs, making a beeline on its 17.256 legs for a drain, a hole in the wall, or a stray pair of underwear to nest in, to squat in for a while, to sit around looking at pornographic magazines or whatever it is these mutant bugs do when they burrow into your dirty underwear for weeks on end.

Of course, now that I've seen one of these things - the beast was so huge that I hesitate to think of it as just "one" - I'm convinced that the apartment is crawling with them. They're in the walls, the floors, the ducts, the vents - it's like they were planted by the KGB, they're everywhere - in the sink, in my clothes, inside my body, inside each other like matryoshka dolls, an infinite regress of crawly fuckers, each more hideously deformed than the last.

Tonight I'm sleeping in two pairs of boxers, with one pair on backwards to keep out even the cagiest of Marine special op bluoughoughughhhhs. And by sleeping, I mean rolling around gasping, sweating, and whispering the rosary through clenched teeth. And by the rosary, I mean that one rosary, the one that's supposed to prevent nighttime bug visitations.

It's fascinating to me - and this is a blog post that I aborted earlier in the week because I thought it was stupid, but now that it's topical ... - that people are so revolted by bugs. It's practically universal among human beings, this revulsion, with the notable exception of entomologists, beekeepers, beard-of-bees wearers, stinkbug huffers, bedbug bite-permitters, ladybug daters, antfarm farmers, brevity-of-the-mayfly's-life-span reiteraters, fishermen, rolly polly with-a-stick pokers, and silverfish sympathizers. Also, most humans don't seem to be too creeped out by monarch butterflies, for whatever reason. Think they're so damn regal ...

Why are we disgusted by bugs, such that we can't help but dry heave when we see some little black speck wriggling around on the floor? Does the nausea serve some evolutionary purpose? Or could it be something more capricious than that? The fear of the mechanical, the unthinking, the metallic/robotic? The same reason we are, sometimes against our own will, forced to conclude that Steven Spielberg's A.I. was a smoldering piece of shit?

Dr. Joel Smaldone of Rutgers says ... ha ha.

One of my worst memories - and it feels very recent, though I must have been shorter than four feet at the time - is of standing on the sidelines during a recreational soccer game, sipping a Capri Sun leftover from halftime, kicking the dirt around, moping, when I glanced up and saw two dragonflies mating, making love, hovering there, fucking in midair, struggling to get it done while still staying aloft, like two little rods, two pencil leads dumb and unalive, hovering, stuck together by another little rod, almost invisible, a dragonfly penis, a tube bubbling with warm dragonfly spermatozoa. Barf. The sight inevitably brought to mind Discovery Channel shots of jet fighters refueling, so lewd and daring and sexy, and I admit I had a hard time looking away from the spectacle. But eventually, I got so queasy that I spit out a mouthful of Capri Sun and walked away, to go stand by the alcoholic assistant coach, whose breath reminded me of the sad people at the bowling alley.

By the way, it was a house centipede. The bug, I mean. I looked it up.

God, I fucking hate bugs.

산

I wake up this morning basted in my own sweat, peel myself out of bed, scrape the smog out from the bags under my eyes. Saturday. No children to spank, no R sounds to coax from malformed Korean palates, nothing to do.

I decide to go up into the mountains. I pack my bag. Grappling hook? Check. Ice pick? Check. Lonely Planet phrasebook for bartering with previously undiscovered tribe of mountain-dwelling Korean Pokemon? Check. Ziploc bag containing four bansai bananas and one diagonally sliced peanut butter (no jelly) sandwich? Check.

Walk down the street, past the pig intestine restaurant, past "Fanta Land," whatever the hell that is. Walk past the crappy Korean burger joint, the Paris Baguette, past about sixteen English language schools - one is called "Oops!"; I don't know why anyone would go through all the trouble of founding a language school only to call it "Oops!" - and down to the end of my street. Stand there for five minutes waiting for the light to change. Seven in the morning. Little tyke on roller blades next to me starts singing "miguk, miguk, miguk!" and stomping his blades on the sidewalk. Do Korean children ever sleep? Stay up way past midnight, up stomping around in their rollerblades by seven ...

Light changes and I cross. Two guys in dress shirts and ties stand dumbstruck as I walk by in my shorts that don't fit, my shirt that doesn't fit, my scraggily fledgling beard that doesn't fit. On top of it all, I'm white. I give them the chin pop. I imagine that there are English subtitles underneath the guy on the right. "You don't see that every day!" he says, except it's in Korean, so I have to read the subtitles - they are bright yellow - and assume that he's talking about me, like everyone else I pass on the street.

I walk up two blocks, over two blocks, I walk down two blocks, down two more blocks, pensively walking now, down two more blocks - maybe I've gone the wrong way? - but I swear this is where - but the mountain's right ... how could I miss a mountain? - maybe I'll just take this gravel path up the hill here, it should get me - um, dude, this is definitely a farm - did that farmer just say something? better turn back - up two blocks, up two more blocks, two more blocks up - gas station, soju bar, seafood joint, Buddhist temple, gas station, pile of garbage - ah! there it is! - nature trail, up around some mucky brown pond frosted with lichen and mossy stuff, into the forest and ostensibly, to the top of the mountain.

9:32 AM:
Two hours have elapsed since I left The Daeguba System. Is this a good name for my apartment? Let me know.

Two hours have elapsed and I have found the mountain trail. The trail is only two blocks from your apartment, if you are not a jackass. I am already tired. My legs ache. My stomach eyes the peanut butter sandwich in my satchel. But no. I must conserve, I must conserve energy and foodstuffs, especially foodstuffs. It will take me months, years, perhaps the better part of an afternoon to reach the summit - I see myself, first as a set of frost-blackened fingers appearing suddenly from below, gripping the rock like some sort of spider; I grip, lose my grip, grip again, pull myself up with my teeth, heave my body onto the summit, lay there like a pile of rubber, retarded from lack of oxygen, technically dead, but still strong enough to rise to my feet, to do some pelvic-thrust-oriented dance on the peak, to lob a pine cone grenade-style dropping 21,392 feet down to the earth below, to scream something triumphant and insulting, something like "Eat shit, people down there!" That moment will come. But first thing's first: where does a guy find a shirpa around here?

10:21 AM:
The ascent is slow, tedious, annoyingly character-building. My foot comes down on something crunchy. I glance down and see a skull, a skull with nerd glasses and a shitty haircut straight out of 1986. This is a circa 2006 Korean skull. Male. Also, it occurs to me that I really have to piss, but there are too many Real Live Koreans nearby for me to piss anywhere but in my pants. I'm not sure what the Korean stance on public urination is, but I suspect pissing on a mountain is punishable by death or by some sort of ironic pee-related torture, possibly resulting in death. I hold it in.

10:22 AM:
Wait a minute! What are all these Koreans doing up here? Why, that fellow's got a bum leg and ... and ... and she's like 83 years old ... and that one's fresh out of the womb and he's toddling right up the ... they're all passing me by! Here I am, doing my little happy dance up the slope with a bladder like a pumpkin, a beard of sweat spreading down my t-shirt, and I can't keep up. Koreans from all walks of life - some of them can't walk, others are barely alive - are leaving me in the dust. Say, is that Kim Jong-Il?

11:05 AM:
My ascent up the hill ... er, mountain! It's totally a mountain! ... is facilitated by a miraculous natural staircase, complete with smoothed, splinter-free wooden handrails, stairs of a cement-like consistency, and occasional cabanas for smoke/tomato-eating breaks. Some might view such natural complexity as evidence towards an intelligent designer, or at least an indication that the untamed mountain I had planned on climbing is in fact little more than a glorified bluff with a hiking trail meticulously kept tidy by the Daegu Jaycees. But that is foolish. Korea does not have Jaycees.

11:12 AM:
The walk ... hike ... climb? ... grows steadily steeper. We're talking incline level 3 on your treadmill, with resistance set at "medium". The staircase crumbles under my feet, is dodgy, is covered in little jagged rocks and sometimes acorns. Scuffing my Pumas becomes a very real possibility. I consider turning back. But I dig deep and summon the courage to go on, the tenacity to keep pushing upwards, upwards t - what the fuck? I'm at the top already? What the - and who are these people, lounging around in this cabana overlooking the city, these old women chatting in their pink jogging suits, these men with visible fillings playing with their iPods? Who are these people? Reinhold Messners, they are not.

I plant my Nebraskan flag and go sit down in the cabana. The man with visible fillings playing with his iPod stops playing with his iPod for a second to greet me and ask me a question. (He's speaking Korean. I'm in Korea, remember?) I stare at his fillings and nod slowly. He laughs, revealing more fillings, and says something else. I point to myself and say, "Sonsaengnim." Teacher. Me teacher. Booga booga. He nods. "Hanguk aju chal mothaeyo." I don't speak Korean well ... yet! But just you wait! He nods. The old woman next to me offers me a tomato. I take the tomato. I hate tomatoes, but I take a big wet bite out of it anyway, like an apple, hoping that this is the Tomato of Korean Fluency. But it tastes just like a shitty tomato. I want to vomit all over. The Koreans forget I'm there and resume staring out over Daegu, like a little cartoon city down below, its colors washed out so that it looks like it's on a TV screen, like it's printed on a giant tarp, two-dimensional, flat. It's nice, I guess.

I've still got to piss. I get up, tell the Koreans goodbye, and shuffle back down the mountain. When I'm far enough away, I disappear into the brush, lower my pants, and pee. Oh, yes. The pee rains down. I jiggle, zip, button. Then I throw that fucking tomato as far as I possibly can, into the woods. Swishhhhhhhhh, thok!

On the next episode of Daegu Days: Professor Kisu Talks Glibly About Cultural Differences.

Dirty Daegu

Hagwon.

I am in Korea. I'm too tired to write an authentic blog post, but I will gladly regurgitate the mass e-mail I sent out to everyone.

Daegu is a soul-crushing monstrosity swarming with small men in grey suits. The city has a pervasive stench that smells like a combination of garbage, fire, body odor, and kimchi. (Kimchi, for the record, smells like a combination of garbage, fire, and body odor.) From what I can tell, 98% of Daegu's inhabitants live in the horrifying 36-story filing cabinets that line the brownish river that drools through the middle of town. I would describe these apartment megaplexes in detail, but they don't really have any details to describe. You must believe me when I say they are horrifying.

I'm still like a skittish kitten around here - as opposed to a Scottish kitten, which anyone with good sense would name Seamus McManx - and I am constantly shocked and a little nauseated when I turn to find myself staring at a wall in my own apartment that I have never seen in my life. Everywhere here is unfamiliar. I woke up this morning and had no idea where I was. That much isn't unusual, but in any case, I'm not used to being woken up by a turnip vendor screaming into my window through a megaphone.

Everyone stares at me as I walk down the street. I do not expect this to cease when my 'fro grows back. Or when I grow out my beard. Or when I start walking around with my fly down and my gargantuan caucasian penis dangling out. But I'm not too bothered by it. The staring, I mean. They aren't doing it to be rude. The Koreans stare at me the way you might stare if you saw a flaming kangaroo hopping down the street with Buzz Aldrin sitting in its pouch playing "Mister Bojangles" on the mandolin. In short, I have caused more moped fatalities than I am worth.

Little kids point at me and yell "Chogi! Chogi!" (Over there! Over there!) in horrified voices. I wave at them and they run away screaming. Now I know how Bigfoot must have felt. No. Nobody knows how Bigfoot felt.

Hardly anyone here speaks English, but everyone wears Engrish. Let's face it: regardless of what our language is actually saying, it looks damned good when it's printed on a t-shirt in comic sans font. A few of my favorites:

(as worn by a dumpy 40-something year-old man) "MAKE A NEW KIND OF LOVE"
(picture of Snoopy smelling a heart) "UMM, TASTE OF LOVE"
(as worn by a teenaged fellow, in sparkly letters) "WORLD WITHOUT STRANGERS"
... and (as worn by a ten year-old Korean girl) "PUREFUCKING CANADIAN"

I finished my second day of classes today. Some of the students are bashful, quiet, absolute angels. Others are punk pubescents who are more interested in the woodgrain of their desks than the English language. I've got to learn to not give a shit, to take it all in stride, to not get hurt by indifference, hostility, or cruelty. That is the only way to survive school, the hagwon.

Tonight, I came home after a long day of classes and I drank a few rotten Cass beers. Then, I held a solitary dance party to The Beatles. When I got tired, I just sat around thinking about how fucking wonderful they are. That was today. Tomorrow might be better or worse or the same. I hope it's better.