The Eastern Face of Stupidity

I suppose not many know about Origenes or Origen Adamantius, an early theologian from the 2nd century. He is quite famous for his self-castration. Yup, he cut his balls, willingly, probably singing "alleluyah" during the operation. And then he was able to happily live in chastity, pray, preach and enjoy in whatever self-castrated men can enjoy.
I think I'm not the only one who considers such self mutilation as utterly moronic. Yet many people who think of Origenes as an idiot, may take another self mutilated as a hero.

This guy. Bodhidharma, the first Patriarch of Zen. He had no balls troubles, but, as the legend goes, he cut his eyelids because he fell asleep during a few years long meditation. He was quite obsessed with cutting body parts - when a very insisting pupil wanted to have him as a Master, he just shouted from his cave: Cut your arm and you can be my student! The idiot N. 2 followed his instructions (as a reward he obtained satori immediately).
Clearly Bodhidharma seems a lesser moron than Origenes - I' rather cut my eyelids than my balls, but, honestly, the only things I find normal cutting are my fingernails. And hair, yes. But still so many people go "wow" upon hearing the legend of Bodhidharma and take him for a highly spiritual man, so devoted to meditation. OK, I have to stop now or I will end in a raging diatribe. Just try to think about this.
So this last weekend we had a short vacation. On 강화도 island. Nice place, nice temples, nice errr....



Yes, yet another museum dedicated to erotic art. Call it art... it looks more like a collection of prepubescent dreams. But I can't judge, I have no clue what it is to grow in a society with such strong taboos on nudity, where even male nipples are a full scale perversion... so no wonder all the folks, mainly old ladies, were giggling and chuckling and yelling and laughing.


It was more fun (for me, anyway) in the temples. No, I wasn't spending my time on my knees in front of a wooden statute, I was meeting nice girls. You don't believe it?

As it happens now everywhere I go girls want to take a picture with me!
And I want to take pictures of ATMs in temples. As a lesson how all the point of buddhism is to be humble and modest: withdraw all your money now and give it to us!

Hey, this tree alone is enough wood for all winter!


And now you'll all think that in the evening we were completely wasted... OK, maybe we were, a little bit, but the point of the flower is to complete the Hanumanasana, the Monkey pose.. well, do not mention the monkey...

We were actually sleeping in the house of Yoga's brother (who was not there at the time) and I felt almost at home. I slept in a room full of books and comic books. True, in Korean, and I still can't read them, but I spotted one on first sight, a large volume, a sort of a bible for SF fans.. and some memories from my youth... and so on...

Yeah, the first book is The Hithchiker's Guide...

And in the morning I had some shouting (sort of "singing") when I found a CD...

Yesterday, on our way back home we stopped in Seoul for lunch. In a Coco Ichibanya. Memories from Iwanuma! I have my fingers crossed that "One years ago in Japanese Kobe" will really happen.

Rocket Scientist!

I've been reading in Korean newspapers about the outrage that a "famous" chain of coffee shops started with their racist employees. And I was a bit puzzled. First of all, the coffee they serve there has nothing to do with coffee. In any train station bar or a highway rest area in Italy you will drink way better coffee. The mess begun in the US, where a woman (or two, I don't remember now) of Asian (specifically Korean) origins found their cups of the above mentioned brown hot water signed with ｀ ´ , which is a pictogram that the waiter (or waitress) used to remember the customer with slanty eyes. Personally I find this sign cute and in no way offensive, but I dont have almond eyes. So maybe I'm just jealous that nobody will never refer to me with such it. What i find disturbing is the way newspapers reported the fact. Barista Draws Chinky Eyes on Korean-American Customer’s Cup. OK, to find the title I had to browse and also found that it was two women that got those cups. Where do I see tho problem? The drawing may be or may be not offensive, it's a matter of personal view. But calling someone chink or chinky eyes - hell yes, that surely is offensive. Chink is an ethnic slur, initially used for Chinese immigrants, but later was expanded to include other people of East Asian descent. And the newspaper title was the first to intentionally use this derogatory term (this is not the story from another bar where the waiter clearly wrote "chink lady" on an order bill). So, if I put again on the side the fact that I find｀ ´ a cute sign, I just keep wondering what I'm supposed to do when so many Koreans behave exactly the same way they find so extremely offensive? I'm constantly reminded that I don't look like them. There's something that looks like a foreigner. Really? No kidding? I do look different? Hell yes, I do look different because I am different. I may have a Korean heart and spirit, as I love to brag, but they live in a caucasian body and the day I will take this statement of the obvious as an insult I should just kill myself (Just please please don't call me American, OK?).
Well, this was a hell of a long introduction for the racist treatment I had to suffer yesterday. I worked on a construction site and it was friggin' freezing in the morning when I had to move a pile of iron crossbeams... the temperature was somewhere near -4°C, but the metal felt like -40 in my hands. By lunchtime we would be sweating if it was not for the cold wind and with my coworkers we went to a nearby restaurant where my calvary started. As usually everybody stopped eating when they noticed me and stared at me in amazement. Racists! Racists! When the waitress, an elderly lady, came for the order, she first asked where I'm from. Racist! Racist! When she brought the banchan, she asked how old I am. Rac.. err, maybe not. When she brought the beer she sat near me and started caressing me. Which was more than embarrassing. My coworkers almost chocked themselves when her hand disappeared under the table and started moving rhythmically. Do I sense some raised eyebrows? Believe it or not... my left hand was resting in my lap and the old lady just loved my - in her opinion - hairy forearms. Maybe I looked to her a sort of fluffy animal. Racist? Anyway, only the guy sitting next to me saw clearly what was going on under the table but he loved too much the shocked expression of the others that he remained silent. So did I. Only when she left they all jumped on him, asking what the hell was she doing and he just started laughing. So did I. So they still don't have a clue and the two of us still have a good laugh.
Most of the last week I was in deep shit. But literally. We were fertilizing the fields. And what else is manure if not shit? This was the farmers' acknowledgement that spring started. And it just doesn't matter that two days ago was snowing again. But in my house the spring arrived more than one month ago. I wanted to have some sort of "zennish" ornament so i picked a twig and put it in a cute small bottle. For the balance i filled the bottle with sand and water and in two weeks the twig was in buds. Now is full of shiny green leaves.

Today I build my first rocket stove. And no, it's not a stove that astronauts use for heating or boiling water. It's just a hyper-efficient wood-burning stove. Urban legends go so far as to say that with three chopsticks you can boil enough water to cook ramyon. Since I never believed in legends, let alone the urban ones, I decided to make one. Not for me, for my friend who actually introduced to me this stove concept. She agreed that first I will build a scale model and if she finds it really so efficient, we'll go on with the real stuff. Instead of professional materials I choose paint cans, bricks, clay, wire mesh and rice husk. The cost? Exactly zero.





I'm already thinking how to apply this efficient burning concept to the traditional Korean floor heating.

Otaku life

I hurried to Japan to be back home today. Today is the 대보름 (Daeboreum), celebrating the first full moon of the lunar year. It's something of a Spring Festival - which is hard to believe if you listen to the weather forecast. Actually, Spring already started on Saturday, on 입춘 (Ipchun) and, amazingly, the temperatures were a little bit above zero. For this week in Gangwon do they are expected to fall to 20 below. Today the first snowflakes appeared here around lunchtime but it was a false alarm. I have a strong feeling that the white crap will cover everything during the night.
I saw also some sunshine on Saturday when I went to Busan to board the ferry for Japan. Like always I boarded with a bag of beers to fight the boredom of a night on the ship, having no idea in what fun it will end. I already froze my ass drinking a bottle of beer on the roof of the ferry terminal, so I choose to drink the next in the smoking room on the ferry. And I almost choked myself when a pretty girl approached me. Not for the fact that she approached me, but for what she asked me.
"Hi! Are you Korean?"
How the hell did she know? Oh, she was just joking, she laughed heartily and asked me if I speak Japanese. Ah well, another situation when I bitterly regret for being so dumb at Asian languages. And then she told me that I look like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Carribean. I can only guess that was a compliment. After some small talk she introduced me her boyfriend and that sucked big time. (No, not him, a pleasant guy, just the fact that she has a boyfriend...) And after more small talk and more large beers she introduced me her sister. Single. Which made big time. And it went even better when after some jokes on my drinking I said yopparai des. "But you can speak Japanese!"
No, not really, I know just a few words that I picked here and there in Japan and watching anime.
"You like anime?"
No denying this time. Yes, I'm an otaku. "Sugoi!" chirped the sisters in chorus. "And which is your favourite anime?"
Easy question, was, is and always will be Evangelion! "Sugoi!!" I almost saw the double exclamation mark. "Mine too!" explained the older sister.
"Chincha?" I was already so drunk that I started talking in Korean. The next moment I was taking of my clothes, the girls looked somehow worried, but only till the moment I stayed in my Rei t-shirt - they just wanted to take some pictures of a crazy otaku in his Evangelion underwear. It's how they put it, I really don't have Evangelion underpants. It seems a nice idea, though.
It's not hard to guess what came next. A drunken chorus (oh yes, in the meantime we were joined by two Korean otakus) singing, shouting, grunting and squealing Zankoku na tenshi no teze... and the ferry hasn't left Busan yet!

"And what is your second favourite anime?" Deddoman Wandarando. "Sugoi!"
"The third? The third!" Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. "Sugoi!"
As for what went on later I'm a bit confused. I do remember talking about Tokunoshima and singing (sic!) Shima uta and I remember being a translator from Korean to Japanese and vice-versa. I was also invited for some homemade miso soup next time I will be travelling in Japan.
I woke up in Japan with a monstrous hangover and a painful stiff neck - I just hate those bricks that serve as pillows on the ships. The Immigration made no problems on my statement that I'm just on a visa run and the Customs officer took his time to check minutely all my stuff, stinky socks included. Funny thing, I clearly remember that just the same guy did the same three months ago. He just doesn't like me.
Three hours to wait. A short walk in the neighborhood and a check in the nearby park to see how my homeless friends are doing. There was only one, still sleeping, using a cat as a blanket.

Way to cold outside, back to the ferry terminal. I took my textbooks with me - to do my homework in Japan! Don't you agree that it's a bit stupid, ironic, crazy etc to do Korean exercises in Fukuoka? Well, I like it.

Before boarding I couldn't resist to take a picture of a warning in the Duty Free Shop. It's not engrish by definition but it's a good lesson in how to complicate the simple act of stealing.

I slept almost all the way back to Korea and had enough good sense to choose a queue with a woman Immigration officer. Yes, I did it out of a sexist reasoning. Because women are more nosy. When guys go through my passport they keep asking where do I go, what will I do, when will I do.. but all they want to know is WHY. And they never ask it. Because of that they feel miserable. But they have Power and they take revenge on me, making my life miserable. And actually there's another reason that has nothing to do with sexism but with racism. Koreans can be racist bastards and it's more probable to meet a male racist than a female one.
The girl - clearly I choose a pretty one - asked me immediately. "You are going to Japan every three months for one day and the rest of the time you are in Korea. You can't work legally so WHY are you doing this?"
At which I made an embarrassed and shy face and almost whispered "I have a girlfriend in Korea". She maintained a professional expression, but I saw the corners of her mouth bending upwards. "Is this your girlfriend?" she asked and pointed at the address of Sang Pyeong that I wrote as my address in Korea. "Oh no," I replied as I was in total shock, "we are not married, we don't live together! This is my friends' house, they live in the same village." And all her professionalism was gone, replaced by a broad smile.
"Welcome to Korea."
Fuck the karma if for being honest you get kicked in the ass.