rain and sexual harassment

It’s raining. Again. I don’t think it’s stopped raining this month. I don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. We are all going to drown in Korea.

Ok, well that’s exaggerating… a bit. It has rained everyday for the past month or so, but it’s not constant. There have been a few (I can count on one hand) dry periods. The main issue is that it is heavy. Picture a good Sou’Easter without the wind blowing the rain sideways so it’s just a consistent drenching downpour. Now take away the cold and add in heat so that even if you just got out of a freezing cold shower, you’re sweating as soon as you hit the bathroom door. Thank God for aircon! It’s that rain that even if you have your umbrella you’re soaked below the waist because the rain bounces back up at you. You wade through impromptu rivers on the sidewalks and consider bringing a change of clothes to school so that you don’t have to wallow in the disgusting feeling that is wet jeans.

Really, I bitch, but it’s not that much of an adjustment for me. I’m from the West Coast. This is weather I should thrive in. My co-worker from Seattle and I are braving the deluge like the seasoned veterans we are. I’ll survive and before I know it the rain will subside and leave behind only disgusting heat and humidity.

Sweet.

I’ve been getting the updates, and reading the news. I guess I shouldn’t really complain about the weather with what’s been goin’ on back home eh? Sucks to be you guys. At least I have some relief. Even if it is disgustingly humid (and it is), we all have aircon at school and at home. It’s a necessity here.

I’m now officially spending 12 hour days at school. Summer vacation has hit Korea with a vengeance. And what better way for children to spend their vacations than studying! For the next month I teach 3 3 hour classes a day. The same kids everyday. This is the norm for English Schools across the board. Heaven forbid that the students not study for a month. They must study MORE!! It’s only logical.

The kids get summer vacation homework from their normal schools as well. This usually includes going to a few museums, seeing some culture shows or plays, writing about them, and doing other more physical projects that are harder for them to do during school time. They go to English, Science, Math, and/or Social Studies Academies. I polled my kids and the average hours they study Monday to Friday (keep in mind…summer vacation) is 5-6. That is not including homework. About half of them also have classes on Saturdays. One lucky student goes to Academies 7 days a week.

I get to school at 8:15, teach from 9-12, do more prep and eat lunch until 2, and teach two classes back to back from 2-8. It’s not overly hard. I know what I have to do, so I do it. It’s just draining. Being “on” for that many hours coupled with standing the entire time wears out the soul and soles of your feet. It’d be nice if we could appreciate the earlier quitting time, but we can’t. I’m so done by the end that it’s all I can do to get home, walk the dog, eat something and try to read a bit before crashing around 11. It’s the pay check at the end that keeps me going. It’s also that trip to Japan I’m planning, which really needs that extra cash. As does my Visa bill.

So, yes, I have a dog. Well, it’s more along the lines of I am the best second mommy dog-sitter lady in the WORLD. I have two cats in Canada. There is no reason for me to also own a dog. Jessie was down in Gumi with Christa, but Christa’s contract finished (time flies eh). Jessie then took the scary train/subway trip for her big move to Anyang. She’ll stay with me until Christa either settles in back home or comes back to Korea. Then Jessie has to take the scary train trip again or an even scarier trip on a big plane all by herself to Canada.

Jessie together with the summer intensive classes has adjusted my sleeping schedule in a hurry. I no longer go to sleep at am and wake up at 11 am. I guess that’s a good thing…well no, it is. It hurt to rapid change it though.

Summer intensives and Jessie are just a few of the changes that have been going on lately. A ton of people have left Youngdo and new teachers have arrived in their place. The rumour circulating at the moment is that up to 5 new teachers are expected to arrive in August. That much changeover can only have huge effects on the social dynamic of the workplace. One thing about working with 28 other foreigners who are constantly changing is you learn to adjust fast to new situations and new personality combinations.

I don’t have internet at the moment. This update is being written in Works first then’ll be transferred over when I’m able to find a wireless signal. One of the people who left was my neighbour Stainton. We were sharing a wireless connection. I now have to get my own connection. That shouldn’t be too difficult right?? Ha.

Before I get into this story I shall regale you with a brief description of what it’s like to be a Caucasian girl living in Korea. Trust me; it’s connected to my internet story.

I’d never really watched our movies, television, and specifically music videos and thought, “Wow, North American girls sure are portrayed as sluts…” That is, until I came here, was constantly treated as if I was one, and started to pay attention to our culture as it is perceived by others.

We are offering a HORRIBLE interpretation to the rest of the World.

Warning….generalization ahead. However it’s not that far off the mark.

The vast majority of Korean …hell, Asian men, sees North American girls as those who would love nothing more than to be groped and ogled. We are perceived to have very little moral dignity and will sleep with most men if the situation presents itself.

In the past 2 months I have had no less than 4 direct experiences with this. I have heard far more stories from my friends. All similar in that we did nothing, usually we have no connection to the men, yet for some reason it’s assumed that we will go home with them. Just because they asked.

It’s just astounding how men who come from cultures that totally abhor such public contact with woman would deem it appropriate to grab us any way they see fit. Specifically I’m talking about Korean and Indian/Muslim cultures.

A few examples.

I’m standing outside of a bar waiting for my friends to come out. I’m alone. It’s Korea. This is normal. A man comes up to me and asks in these exact broken English words “you want come home sleep with me?” To which I replied “no, fuck off.” This made him angry. Obviously that wasn’t the way it worked when he saw it in the porno. He then got in my face, asking, nay, demanding now, that I come sleep with him. …. Wrong person to do that to. My words were somewhere along the lines of “leave before I make you leave.” He left.

Was this smart? Probably not. But it did serve its purpose. He saw that I was too much of a fight and stalked off. Expressing himself probably not so eloquently in some Muslim language.

I’m dancing in a bar. I’m dancing with my friends. We are not dancing with any boys. Korean boys come and start to dance in our circle. Normal. I don’t even talk to this guy. He comes up behind me and starts dancing with me. Normal. We are now surrounded by a big group of Korean guys. Our male friend comes over because he’s noticed just how big the crowd is around us. The guy dancing with me now deems it appropriate to grab my nether regions…we get the hell outta there before anything else happens.

I’ve dragged far too many friends out of similar situations. Where they’re dancing with one boy, and then all of a sudden they’re simultaneously being grinded by up to 6 boys, hands everywhere. It happens fast, trust me.

A friend of mine was in India. Not an exact quote but “I’ve seen Baywatch. You are American. You will come to my room tonight and you will sleep with me.” She locked her door…it was a homestay.

Another friend, sitting on a train. Man approaches her. “Are you Russian?” “No, I’m Canadian.” “Oh, you want to come to my house in ____ city? We can be friends.”

Just a few excerpts. There are way more where that came from.

Anyways, back to the internet story.

I was supposed to get it hooked up on Saturday. They can’t come during the week since I work all hours and won’t be home. I was told they’d arrive between 9 and 11 by the nice English speaking woman on the phone. They would also hook up my other neighbour Cal’s internet at the same time. He had also been connected to Stainton’s internet. Sounds good.

At 11:30...I’m now angry because I have stuff to do. I get a phone call from someone who does not speak English telling me, “…sorry…blah Korean blah blah….late…Korean blah…quick quick hurry hurry.” Ok, he’s coming. That’s all I want to know. Some guy comes into my apartment, immediately brightens when he sees a foreign girl…alone, and proceeds to look around my apartment and smile at me a lot. Great. He finally asks me where my cable outlet is, I point it out, he does some things, beeping comes out of my wall; he briefly glances at my computer and leaves.

There is still no modem or any new equipment in my apartment. My computer is not attached to a bloody thing.

I figure he has gone upstairs to Cal’s. Fine.

He comes back down; he has been up to Cal’s apartment. Done the same thing (nothing) apparently, and now he’s going to explain to us that we can’t get internet for some reason. We can, however, get it on Monday. Ok, fuck, fine. This is retarded. Korea is stupid, but fine. Thanks for nothing guy. Cal goes back upstairs and guy now deems it appropriate to chill in my room. I’m sitting on my bed against the wall reading my book. He starts to wander around looking at my pictures, asking who these people are. I’m thinking “this is extremely weird, and get the hell outta my place.” but I say nothing. He then sits on my bed and asks if Cal is my boyfriend.

a) get the fuck off my bed
b) why should I tell you
c) get the fuck off my bed

I should have said yes, but I didn’t. He then asks if I have any boyfriend. Well more to the tune of “you, boyfriend…ok?” I stopped answering his questions and hardened my expression. He commented on Jessie for a bit, and then gathered his things.

Really though. What does one do in that situation? Do you throw a huge frickin’ stink and shove the guy out of your place? Do you politely tell him that these questions are inappropriate and making me uncomfortable? Please keep in mind that he doesn’t speak English. He’d understand angry words, but are angry words necessary?? Is he really trying to get with me or is this just what he thinks North American woman are used to? I’m pretty sure that he would not have acted the same had it been a Korean girl. Does he think it’s totally normal to have these intimate conversations with me because of where I’m from?

We get asked ALL THE TIME if we have boyfriends. If our answer is in the negative then quite often we are met with either sympathetic looks, like something must be wrong with us, or a come hither once over followed by some sort of approving eyebrow raise or even a comment on how we look. More often than not it's the taxi drivers. "No, I'm not married." "Oh, your son isn't married either??" "Oh, thank you, you think I'm beautiful." "Yes, I'm sure your son is very nice..." and so on.

In the end my internet story gets better (sarcasm) because I called the internet companies ENGLISH help line to find out why I couldn’t get internet yesterday. They called the technician and apparently it’s because there’s a box locked in my basement that he couldn’t get into. I have to ask my building manager to unlock it. Don’t you think it would have saved everyone a lot less hassle if he had just:

1) Called the helpline himself.
2) Spoken to them in Korean.
3) Let them explain it to me in English.
4) Let me go and get the manager.
5) Let the manager unlock the box
6) HOOKED UP MY INTERNET???

The absence of logic and the over presence of sexual harassment astounds me in this country.

Hmmm…how about I don’t end this entry on such a negative note.

The secret is not to let it get to you. I’ve become a master at staring back until they look away, or just pretending that they don’t exist (better option). The majority of the time they’re just harmless oglers. It’s not an overly dangerous place. Just keep your wits about you in certain neighbourhoods. No different than any other society really.

Anyways…continuation of my Saturday as follows:

After buddy left I went into Itaewon and got my haircut. I think it looks pretty good. We got rid of a lot of the dead red grossness that was impossible to control because it was so fried, yet somehow kept a lot of the length. I now feel it’s possible to wear my hair down. After that I met a friend for drinks then hooked up with the Youngdo crew to celebrate another friend’s birthday. It was good times, I came home too late to a puppy that wanted to play even though it was 4 am, and managed to pass out even though she was biting my nose.
And it all balances out in the end!

P.S.
I wrote this entry on Sunday. More retarded internet chaos happened on Monday which involved me running back and forth between school and home during my valuable 2 hour prep/lunch time. I now have internet, but it wasn’t installed when I was at home (even after all the me running back home to help with the set-up). This country is retarded…enter the first major anti-Korean day of the year.

Don’t worry, the kids made it better. They have a tendency to do that.

P.P.S.
The box that was "locked" had a button right underneath the keyhole that, when pressed, opened said box. Not gonna talk anymore about it. It pisses me off too much.