A-sa~~

A Victimless Crime

2006-11-13T00:20:00.000+09:00

By COY ASKEW
A-sa~~ Editor-At-large

What was once my heart is now a black, angry mass of bitterness and regret.

And all, of course, because of a woman.

Has it really been a year since that fateful night at Nori? The night we all came to think of as The Night We Lost Everything?

It boggles the mind.

Everything has change, and yet nothing has changed.

And it's all because of Janus Goodykoontz.

While one should never underestimate the power of a woman, Janus was particularly powerful on the part of the fate of A-sa~~. She forced us all the get our shit together and move into Seoul. Yes, no longer does the staff of A-sa mentally masturbate in Incheon. We now all work full time on A-sa. We print 5,000 copies twice a month! Of course, during the process of this growth Janus managed to destroy me, only to rebuild me in her own image.

In fact, Janus is now the editor of the magazine. She has such great people skills that I kind of just lurk in the background. Generally, no one likes me and I know that. So, I let her do all the people stuff. I just kind of grunt when something needs to get done that she can't use her black magic on.

But there is so much going on. It's hard to begin. Janus and I have a very complex relationship, to say the least. She is my rock of strength and yet she is my greatest weakness. She somehow manages to simultaneously to be the most delightful thing in my life while terrorizing me arbitrarily and capriciously.

It all boils down to her being both a dream and a nightmare. I have to work with her every day. I like her and she really helps me a lot when I need her. And yet, the closer I get to her, the less I feel I know her or can ever be her friend in the traditional sense. We work well together and there is a lot of positive energy between us. But whenever she senses I'm getting to close to her, I see the other, dark side of her. She continues to break my heart with a quirky, cute grin on her face.

Take, for instance, the most recent event.

She lives in Sinchon and I live in Haybonchon near Itaewon. Yonsi University is right across the street from her place and the A-sa staff often goes over there just to hang out. This particular night, it was just me, Janus and her male-friend-of-the-moment Fred. Fred and I were stretched out on her floor while she was on her bed.

"So, Janus, what we going to do for the picture of the next issue?" I asked.

"Oh. I don't know. I think one of my friends might come up with something," she said.

I was futzing with the staff camera the magazine had recently bought.

"Janus, have you been working on your astrological chart like I asked?" Fred said.

At this point, something in my unconscious mind led me to believe Janus was not thinking about magazine stuff, but rather the fact that two men were in her bed room, one of them being Fred..

Looking back, I should have just left at that point. Any time me staying in that room was like the frog that begins to get boiled but won't leave because he can't feel the slow increase in temperature. She couldn't help but thinking about the fact that Fred was in her bedroom. I didn't leave, in part, because Janus told me to stay.

"Uh, guys, you know, I think I'm going to take off. You two can hang out along," I said.

"Oh, Coy, what are you talking about? Stay and talk. We have so much magazine stuff to talk about!" Janus said, all but fluttering her eyes.

So I stayed.

Soon, however, the sexual energy between Fred and Janus was just too much.

She stood up and in her usually cute as hell manner, all but did a shimmy of sparkling sexuality on top of Fred's head.

Agasp at such rude behavior from such a usually adorable woman, I stood up and did a walk of shame to the subway.

I still can't believe she did that. What was she thinking? Could she not control herself or was she trying to prove a point? Was she trying to remind me, yet again, that no matter what she would never, ever be mine in the traditional sense.

Anyway.

At least we get 5,000 copies twice a month. Without Janus, that would never have been possible.

Miss Bright Eyes Meets Mr. Dark Energy Man

2006-02-10T20:52:00.000+09:00

By CALEB JONES
A-sa Staff Writer

It was really at The Bar where things went totally nuts. Soju was really on a tear the entire night. He really seemed like he had some issues he needed to get worked out through drinking vast somes of booze.

It was funny how when Soju came into The Bar that he tried to be all cool and bang knuckles with the DJ, but it all got mixed up. Soju came in for the knuckled smack, but the DJ thought he wanted to shake his hand and everything got confused. I couldn't help but grin at the stupidity of it all. Soju thinks he's all hip and stuff but he's such a screw up.

Anyway.

The place was pretty crowded, but a few people were leaving just as we came in, so the group of us were able to pretty much sit no problem. I'll try to tell you want I can remember. It's a blur now. Eve wasn't drinking that night, so that kept me a bit more sober than I would have been otherwise.

Soju was acting totally crazy, man. He kept ordering tequila shots. Soju has always been something of a lady's man so he started chatting up girls left and right. Once he gets some booze in him, just watch out. He's going end up touching someone inappropriately before the night's over. It's amazing he doesn't get smacked more.

"Do you know my grandmother was Korean?" he told a delightful young Korean girl.

"Really?" she said

"Yes, chin-cha!" Soju said. He had a crazy look on his face like he was going as far into oblivion as he could without killing himself or someone else.

Even in the darkness, I could see Soju was starting to touch the young lady just a little as they were dancing. Sigh.

"Dude, slow the fuck down," Coy kept saying to Soju.

Soju ignored him.

I don't know what is up between Soju and Coy these days. Soju's really been irritated with Coy of late. I think it's the whole helping him get extra money thing. I think how poorly he treated Shelly at the end is starting to eat away at him. Yeah, he got the money, but at what price man. What price?

Anyway, the evening starting rock soon enough.

That's when I saw it -- a girl was totally macking on Coy.

"Eve, do you see that?" I said.

"What?"

"That girl! That girl is totally luminous and she's talking to Coy. How is that possible? She all but sparkles and Mr. Dark Energy is getting some serious positive attention from her."

"Maybe they know each other from somewhere else," Eve said.

"Yeah. Coy is so damn secretive. I mean Naborat Jeebas, man." I said, eying the large collection of shot glasses around us.

"You ever wonder why Coy is so secretive?" Eve said.

"Yeah. All the time. I don't know. It makes you wonder. People who are secretive usually have something to hide."

"But could it be something else?"

"Like what?"

"Well, maybe it's not so much he has something to hide as it is he is projecting his own internal thought process on everybody else," she said.

"So, you're saying that maybe Coy knows how fucked up he is, so he's afraid that other people are just as fucked up and will use anything he says against him later?"

"Exactly, baby. I bet Coy doesn't really have all that many secrets, but I'm sure -- just sure -- his mind is one fucked up place."

Eve and I looked in amazement as this simply stunning young lady went in for the kill.

"Guys, get a room or something," I playfully whispered into Eve's ear.

The Night We Lost Everything: Prelude

2005-12-28T01:04:00.000+09:00

By COY ASKEW
A-SA~~ Editor

It's one of those things were you look back and you're not all that proud of yourself for what happened, but you admit that it happened nonetheless.

In the aftermath of Shelly leaving A-sa~~ we were all so emotionally drained that we decided we needed to do something to lift our collective spirits.

So we had a Christmas party in Itaewon.

It happened because we got a new guy, Orville Mulberry as our copy editor.

I have enough pull in my hagwon that the director pretty much lets me pick the new staff. And so when I saw Orville Mulberry's resume and mug shot, I knew he would be perfect for our hagwon. I took one look at him and knew this dude wasn't going to cause any trouble, unlike Shelly. This dude, I could trust to just be quiet and let me do my thing. Unlike Shelly, I could tell from the expression on his face that he wouldn't ask so many damn annoying questions.

I met Orville at the Starbucks in Bupyoung. I immediately took a shining to him. I didn't feel threatened by him at all. He's short -- even shorter than Shelly -- and he seemed like he would be a breath of fresh air compared to Shelly's constant know-it-allism.

I was so over joyed with Orville coming to A-sa that I asked our director if he would give us a few extra bucks so the entire staff could go to Itaewon and have a Christmas party. Given that our hagwon is all the way in Unyoung Dong, that is no simple request. It takes a long damn time to get to Itaewon from Unyoung Dong, so I was pulling my weight to get him to pay for all of it.

But he did.

I've looked at our school's books -- he needs me to keep the place going. I'm a damn good teacher and I could very well be the one thing keeping the place afloat.

I leave, and that's all she wrote.

So he looked at me, paused to calculate the risk of saying no to his bottom line and quickly said yes to my proposal.

So that's how it was that Orville, Soju, Eve, Caleb, Lester, the Korean staff and me all ended up in Itaewon this weekend.

We started in at Seoul Pub. I love the place 'cause its so dark and comfortable. Orville doesn't drink and he's kinda fussy about smoke, so I had to tell him to just deal with the situation. After I barked at him for being such a fuddy-duddy he was quiet.

Soju was in rare form. He seemed like he totally wanted to drink himself into oblivion. I think he's been dating someone and just hasn't told us. It hasn't escaped my attention how he's been going to the local Buy The Way three or four times a day. I think -- but don't know -- that he's dating one of the cute girls who work at the Buy The Way. I don't know why he would keep stuff like that from me.

I'm his friend, for Christ's sake.

A Zipper Escapes

2005-12-28T00:45:00.000+09:00

By BOBBY "SOJU" TUTTLE
A-SA~~ Sr. Reporter

Naborat Je-bass, do I hate Coy Askew.

He is so insecure and at the same time so controlling that he makes working with him virtually unbearable.

I say virtually only because the mofo has so much pull at my hagwon that he was able to get me a nice little raise when I re-negotiated my contract a few months ago. All I got to say to Shelly is -- sucks to be you, bunghole.

It's not like Shelly didn't have every opportunity to prevent himself from being expelled from our hagwon. If only he'd played his cards right. If he'd been a bit more adept at working his split tongued magic on Coy instead of his little lady, he'd still be here.

Dumb ass.

But back to Coy.

What's so funny about Coy is he did everything in his power to oust Shelly from the editorship of A-sa~, and then...nothing. He plopped his fat ass in the editor's chair and proceeded to do not one thing different than when he was copy editor. Hell, I pretty much run the damn newspaper these days. All Coy does is come in and futz with the new camera he bought. I haven't seen the man actually take one picture with the thing. It's a nice camera, too. A-sa would look a lot better if he'd get off his fat ass and take a picture now and then.

I kinda feel sorry for Shelly. After it became clear that he wasn't as good a teacher as Coy, everyone else on the hagwon staff was in such fear of Coy that we sucked on his man titties as quick as we could so we could keep our jobs. There simply wasn't anything Shelly could do but sit out the clock. No one talked to him near the end, even though all of us had something to say. We just wanted to make sure Coy was happy. When Shelly left that last night, I didn't even say goodbye. I still feel kinda bad about that. But the money, man, the money. Saying goodbye to that man could have cost me a few thousand dollars in the long run.

Having said all that, you can imagine how happy I was when Coy said something about us all going to Itaewon for a Christmas party.

The last few months I've not been drinking all that much -- I have a "secret" girlfriend at the local Buy The Way. She doesn't drink that much and she's been controlling how much I drink. We kinda sorta broke up in the last few months and so I don't have any reason not to drink as much as I wish.

I tried to keep her existence away from Coy given what a jackass he can be, but I don't know how successful I was. It's just one of those things.

Anyway, it was in the bathroom of Seoul Pub that it happened -- the zipper of my cargo pants popped off. I stared down at my crotch in disbelief -- how often does one's zipper pop off?

My mind began to race -- should I tell Coy? Could I tell Coy? Was there any way I could walk around without a zipper? What should I do? What could I do?

After a moment's panic, it occurred to me that the solution was simple -- safety pins

Of course, given how Coy had seemingly become the dark lord of the A-sa staff, I couldn't very well walk over to my co-workers and tell them I needed to buy safety pins so my willy wouldn't pop out of my now exposed nether regions.

So I quickly called my now ex-girlfriend and explained the situation. After a moment's chuckle she said sure and promised to call me after a few minutes.

I walked over to the rest of the A-sa staff, hoping they wouldn't notice in the the darkness of Seoul Pub that I was momentarily sans zipper.

It seemed like a lifetime before I felt my phone wiggle in my pocket.

"Well, guys, I gotta call, I gotta go outside and take it. Talk to you in a moment, ok?" I said, eyeing Coy to make sure he believed me.

Coy nodded his consent and I headed into the darkness, hoping I could find some safety pins somewhere.

Of Course I Noticed

2005-12-19T00:53:00.000+09:00

By Caleb Jones
Ahssa! Staff Reporter

Of course I noticed.

How I could I not notice that Soju's fly was open.

It wasn't just open, it was open and ready for business.

There was a grand opening, 20 percent off sale going on down there.

Despite the fact that Coy is always flirting with Eve, I didn't even put up a struggle when we got invited to the A-sa~~ Christmas party. Shrug. Eve and mine's relationship is strong enough that we should be able to handle stuff like that.

Things have really been changing of late.

Shelly's gone, we got a new guy and people have been "promoted." Not that it really means anything. I've just met Orville and already the guy is beginning to get on my nerves. He sounds like Elmer Fudd and is the definition of "meelie mouth." And he touched my girlfriend!

We were on the way to Seoul Pub when it happened.

Eve, being the friendly person that she is, was chatting with Orville. Orville had this big shit eating grin on his face.

"So, how long you and Caleb been seeing each other?" he asked.

"Oh, about two years. We met in university," she said.

"It's about time you two get married, huh," he said touching her waist.

I'm not typically a jealous guy, but that was just too much. Something about the way he did it rubbed me the wrong way. I let it go, though. Whatever.

I'm going to keep an eye on that little punk, though.

Once we got to Seoul Pub, our reserved spot was waiting for us and we started to settle down for a quick drink before we headed over to Itaewon's Greek restaurant.

I'm a pretty affectionate guy when it comes to Eve, so we sat next to each other. I'm really big into PDA. That's just me. Something about when I'm dating someone makes me want to feel brief touches of their skin here and there.

"I think Orville likes you," I whispered wetly into Eve's ear.

After a somewhat alarmed look passed her face, she lowered her head onto mine and giggled.

A few moments later, Soju came back from the bathroom. He'd gone to the bathroom for what seemed like a million years.

"What happen, did you fall in or something?" I asked him.

"No." he said.

I looked at Soju. These days he looks puffy and pale. He looks "dissipated" as my mother would say.

After a moment, his phone rang and he left to take the call somewhere a bit more quiet.

Apso on the safety-pin yo?

2005-12-18T16:44:00.000+09:00

By BOBBY "SOJU" TUTTLE
A-sa~ Senior Reporter

Closing my phone after talking to my ex, I entered the darkness of Itaewon wondering where the hell I was going to get safety pins. The idea of putting safety pins so close to my tingly bits didn't really appeal to me, but that the hell else was I going to do? Walk around with my fly wide open?

I turned to my right and walked into the little store right next to the pub. A couple -- obviously GIs from the nearby base -- were walking around doing their little thing. They seemed like they might be at the very beginning of their relationship. She was cute. She was one of those women who was simply bigger than me. She wasn't fat, just bigger. Or, upon further reflection, she probably was just my size. But she one of those chyks that it would look odd if she dated someone about her height. She needed a big lug of a guy, much like the guy she was with at the moment. He looked friendly enough.

"....I was thinking of going to Yongsan and getting Mr. & Mrs Smith..."I heard him say.

"You're just want to see it for the babe, don't you," she said teasingly. "You might as well have said, 'I'm going to get a bootleg copy of a movie so I can ogle Angelia Jolie's boobies.'"

I was too busy looking for the safety pins to fully understand their relationship. Friends? Lovers? Co-workers? There seemed to be a lot of implied body contact, if not all that literal contact. In my mind's eye, they all but locked necks like giraffes or Canadian geese the way they were shimmering with mutual appreciation.

I remember having times like that recently. Those were the good olde days of my relationship. It was hard to believe that all that happened just a few months ago.

I walked up to the counter once the Cutie Pie & Boobie Ogler were gone.

"Do you have any safety pins?" I asked.

He just looked at me.

I tried to use my fingers to make safety pin like design with my hands.

He just looked at me.

After a moment, I said in frustration, "Apso on the safety-pin yo?"

Then, I headed to the next place a little farther away.

This time, I was in luck.

"A-sa~~" I chirped.

"Yeah, I was in the bathroom a little while a go and my zipper popped off my pants," I told the counter guy.

He could speak English. He seemed amused.

But where to put the suckers in? I couldn't very well go back to Seoul Pub and then again go to the bathroom. So I did the next best thing -- I walked over to Gecko's and put them in there.

I walked pass the Gecko's dartboard on my way to the bathroom and thought -- again -- how much I fear being given an impromptu lobotomy a la a lawn dart by some drunk GI mistaking my noggin for the board. I got into the bathroom and felt a pang of angst over how wide open my fly was. I hadn't been that open when the zipper popped off. I had been pulling the zipper UP when it happened, so at first the zipper was all but closed. Then, in a panic, I futzed with fly so much that it was wide open by the time it was over with.

I carefully opened the package and slipped the safety pins through the two sides of my own fly.

"Oh, Naborat Jeebas, please don't let me impale myself while dancing tonight. That would not be cool."

I looked down to make sure nothing was hanging out and opened the door. Who should I see but Bright Eyes Paulette. Paulette was one of those people that everyone in Unyoung Dong knew in some way. She was beautiful, her green eyes sparkled with mischief, she was great for a conversation on anything.

I saw her and her big smile and couldn't help myself.

"Hey! How's it going Paulette! I haven't seen you in a long time. I thought you left the country!"

"I did, I did. But I'm back now. What are you doing these days?" she said, the ever present evil little twinkle in her eye.

"Oh, nothing much. Just had to go to the bathroom. I'm headed back somewhere else to meet Coy and the rest of the crew."

"Oh. I'm here with Lorelei, can you stop by for a moment and chat?" she said.

Hmmmmm, Lorelei, I thought.

"It would be nice to see her and the rest of the gang again. Sure, but only for a moment," said.

We swung by the corner where Lorelei and the her gang were. It didn't take me too long to realize something: Lorelei was obviously having a good time, to say the least.

"Look who I found," Paulette said.

"Oh, Paulie, I swear that from now until the end of days I'm going to wake up and stick forks in your eyes for this," Lorelei said. Of course, she said it nearly at the top of her lungs and in such a drunked form of speech that you'd need one of those Star Trek universal translators to understand her. I, on the other hand, just have my personal Drunglish to English translator in my head.

"Huh? What does that mean?" I said, turning to Paulette.

She didn't say anything. She just smiled.

"I can't really hang out, I gotta get back to Coy and the rest of the guys. I just thought I'd say hi while I was over here," I said.

After some small talk, I headed back to Seoul Pub.

The Fake Girlfriend

2005-12-18T16:43:00.000+09:00

By ORVILLE MULBERRY
A-sa~~ Copy Editor

I didn't really set out to create an imaginary girlfriend.

It just happened.

Actually, it happened in bits and pieces. A misunderstanding here and question left unanswered there and before you know it you've not only created an imaginary girlfriend, you've given her a name, a history and a personality.

My fake girlfriend came about for a number of reasons. If you are old as I am and you have a very conservative family -- as I do -- then they're going to start thinking something is seriously wrong with you if you don't at least have a long term girlfriend floating around somewhere. Meanwhile, as I got older, I realize having relationship problems that I needed help with was a great way to make friends. You'd be amazed the time and effort people will put forth if they think they can help you solve a relationship crisis.

While it wasn't a conscious decision, by the time I hit 30, I had the whole scenario down pat. Whenever I started a new job, I would tell my new coworkers that I was on the cusp of asking my "girlfriend" to marry me. Over the next few weeks, I'd get everyone all excited about it. Then over one weekend, I'd ask her....only to be rejected.

I'd squeeze out a good two weeks of emotional intimacy out of my coworkers while I pretended to figure out where I was going with the relationship. Just under a month after I started a new job, I'd break up with my "girlfriend" and spend the rest of my time at the talking about how I couldn't start a new relationship because of my "heartbreak."

Usually, it worked like a charm.

Not that I actually kept the friends I made through this process. I have interpersonal communications that I am well aware of that tended to drive people away, but at least I got to experience the friendship while it lasted.

I didn't know what to make of the A-sa~~ staff when I first met them. They seemed well intentioned, but they were so drunk all the time it was amazing they actually got the damn newspaper out. I don't drink, so I came at things from a whole different dynamic. All they seemed interested in was drinking and staying out all night, talking in front of the Buy The Way.

The first few days I got there, I had this sense that I was entering a story midway through. There was a lot not being said. As best I could figure it out, there was some dude named "Shelly" who really -- really -- did not get a long with Coy. Coy seems like a nice enough guy, I don't understand what could possibly have happened.

Most of what I know now comes from the kids. The kids would talk about these two huge fights that Coy and Shelly had at some point over the last year. The kids didn't know what they were about -- they just knew they happened. Shrug. I don't know. This Shelly guy sounds rather unprofessional, is all I gotta say. Why was he so difficult to deal with?

The staff were still calling themselves "Ahssa!" when I first got there. That was the first decision I made as copy editor -- the whole name thing. I also knew I could probably get anything I wanted the first few days I started.

"Uh, guys," I said at the first staff meeting. "You know you have the name wrong, don't you?"

They just stared at me.

"Guys, the word is 'A-ssa~' or "A-sa~', not 'Ahssa!' I'm afraid it makes you guys look like dumbassas."

They just stared at me.

"Well I'm not calling my newspaper "A-ssa~" Coy said. "It's too much like 'ass" for my taste."

"Well, at least call it 'A-sa~~'" I said.

It happened...eventually.

Anyway, the only reason I went into Seoul with them was I wanted to seem cool. I hate drinking and smoky bars make me uncomfortable....but I had just started so I let it pass -- this time.

That Eve Royal is pretty hot. I get the impression that everybody has a huge crush on her. I wonder if she knows. I sure would like to make her my "real" girlfriend. But she and Caleb seem pretty content.

Just One Of Those Things

2005-12-18T04:41:00.000+09:00

By BOBBY "SOJU" TUTTLE
A-SA~ Sr. Reporter

You know, you don't really set out to do this kind of stuff.

The last thing I really remember that night was coming back to Seoul Pub. I remember Coy demanding I do tequila shots because I was so late. After that...I don't remember that much. It's just a black void. Yeah, I remember bits and pieces of the more notable stuff, but in general....it's just black.

It's really kind of spooky, too.

It reminds me of that Jane Fonda movie, The Morning After. She wakes up, and there's a dead body in the bed next to her. She doesn't remember what happen the night before.

I don't really know why I got so drunk that night. I think I had some issues that needed to work themselves out -- the whole girlfriend breakup thing -- and drinking a whole lot was one solution. It actually kind of helped, to tell you the truth. After I sobered up, I felt a whole lot better. I was even able to put up with Coy's egomaniac ways for a few days. Naborat Jee-bas, does that dude need a girlfriend. Too bad Shelly kinda stole the one he wanted.

Anyway, here's what I do remember.

Shelly was furious with me for being so late, so I had to do a few tequila shots. We hung out at Seoul Pub for about an hour, then headed towards the nearby Greek restaurant.

I remember Coy saying something mean to the folks behind the counter on our way in. The next thing I know, we're in Sinchon. That's when the real fun began!

The Twain Meet

2005-11-12T20:45:00.000+09:00

By COY ASKEW
Ahssa! Editor

Something about the touch of his hand on my shoulder spoke volumes.

"You're from the United States, huh?" he said. The way he dropped his head and shook it ever so slightly made me uneasy. Would he have acted that way had I said Canada?

"I'm from Jordan," he said in a thick Middle Eastern accent. What accent your English is in means a lot as an expat.

Ice water crackle down my spine, bounced off my butt crack and dashed to my ancle.

Huh oh.

Whenever I'm in a position to act as America's Soft Power Representative, I always go for the soft sell, no pun intended. Big grin, a lot of eye contact, a lot of teeth and a firm handshake. I try so hard to unconsciously persuade people not to blow shit up in the United States, I should start getting a stipend from the U.S. State Department.

"Oh, is that so," I said heartily. "What brings you to Korea?"

"I buy used cars here and sell them back home. I go back and forth every six months or so," he said.

Is that so, I thought. You sell them in Jordan, they blow up in Iraq.

He was a big guy with a big goofy grin on his face. His English was ok, but I sometimes had problems understanding what the heck he was talking about.

We talked about women -- that, at least, seems to be a universal issue two dudes can talk about when they meet on a street corner in Korea -- and I bid him adieu. We exchanged numbers, as expats in Korea are apt to do, and that (I hope) was that.

A Mute Point

2005-11-12T11:49:00.000+09:00

By SHELTON BAUMGARTNER
Ahssa! Guest Blogger

I looked at her again.

Could she, in fact, speak?

I knew she could communicate -- she certain did scribble enough notes to the other kids near her. And from the reaction of her classmates, whatever it was she was writing could be described as "dirty" to a prepubescent Korean kid.

She looked perfectly normal with her fuzzy pink hair bows and her perpetually blank countenance. The only reason why the possibility that she was a mute was significant to me was the fact that, uh, I was trying to teacher her a SPEAKING listening class.

I've heard of a hagwon enrolling a kid just 'cause they had a pulse, but what if they lacked a voice and stuff?

What future awaits that poor kid? Oh, the novellas I could write using that young lady as a plot point. Will she just suddenly burst into song one day? Does Korea even have speech pathologists?

The Window of Doom

2005-10-21T12:00:00.000+09:00

By SHELTON BAUMGARTNER
Ahssa! Contributing Writer

I looked into the classroom and saw Teddy's little punk-ass grin next to a window that was on the cusp of falling five stories and killing some unsuspecting person walking on the sidewalk below.

"Holy crap! That could kill somebody," I said in shock.

If anything sums up life here in Korea as an expat, it's that -- the possibility of being killed by a window falling from a hagwon. This huge window really looked like it was going to fall at any moment and given how life doesn't always work out the way you expect in Korea, I was sure I would see it fall.

Then my boss came in and started to figure out how to fix it. I still wasn't all that convinced that it would save anyone from impending doom. I was in another classroom when I started hearing this BANG BANG BANG noise on the otherside of the building. Once class was over, I went to where the window was hanging and saw my boss had someone fixing.

Someone's life was saved and they didn't even know it.

I Name My First Lesbian

2005-10-21T00:48:00.000+09:00

You've heard of a boy name Sue, well I gotta Korean girl named Steve.

By COY ASKEW
Ahssa! Editor

I don't know that she's a lesbian, but damn if she doesn't look and act like one.

It was an honest enough mistake. At the beginning of each semester, yours truly gets to play the age old game of Name The Korean. I turned to my right and I saw a kid that looked like your average male Korean kid.

I didn't really think much of it -- I put a bunch of male names on the board and let the kid pick which one he wanted.

Little did I know that I wasn't naming a male Korean...I was naming a FEMALE Korean.

After weeks and weeks of teaching the girl, I saw her zip out of the girl's bathroom and I said to him/her, "STEVE, WHAT WERE YOU DOING IN THE GIRL'S BATHROOM?"

The moment I said it, I remember KHK telling me about one of my students who I thought was a boy but was really a girl.

And I realized it was Steve.

Seeing Steve leave the girl's bathroom reminded me of this girl when I was a kid who looked and acted the same way. Everyone assumed she was a boy or...uh...really wanted to BE a boy. Later, of course, people would mumble something inaudible whenever the topic of her significant other came up. "Yeah, she's mumble mumble mumble with mumble mumble."

Oh. Is that so?

Anyway, back to Steve.

Once I realize Steve was a girl, I started taking a closer look at her. One close look and Steve pretty much looked like every dom I've ever met. Her hair was short, her shirt flannel and her hands all over the cutest young fem you ever did see. I tried as hard as I could to see any sign that it was a girl and not a boy in front of me, and I just couldn't see it. Looked all boy to me.

These days, I look at Steve and Julie and think, "Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?"

See, Korean culture is EXTREMELY conservative, at least on the face of it -- no pun intended -- and the idea that I might have a little pre-pubescent lesbian in one of my classes I find ever so delicious. "Steve, Steve, Steve, you need to take your little twinky there to a nice New England town and raise a couple of gender neutral chillens," I think while I try to ponder what fate awaits Steve.

The position of Julie in Steve's world I find perplexing. Is Steve just going through a phase, or is she going to grow up to be...uh...a lesbian? In such a conservative society, why does Julie seem so happy with Steve touching her all the time. I mean, I know all about how Koreans have a completely different idea about same-sex touching vis-a-vis the West, but dude, Steve looks and acts like a Western lesbian. (Which, come to think of it, would be a great band name. "You do NOT FUCK with the Western Lesbians! The Western Lesbians carry ALL their own equipment!")

I tried to cover for Steve, Julie and their Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name when a bunch of girls from the other side of the room started to suggest that Julie and Steve were a couple.

"No, no, their just friends guys. Stop talking like that," I said.

There talk did cause me to walk over to Steve and say, "Steve, you need a girl's name. How about Sue? That's a good girl's name," I said.

"No, TeaCha! I like Steve!"

Fight the power, my young lesbian in training. Fight the power.

It's Always Something

2005-09-20T11:05:00.000+09:00

By SHELTON BAUMGARTNER
Ahssa! Editor

Sometimes, I don't know how much of the kookiness I experience here in Korea is simply big city life and how much of it is uniquely Korean in nature.

For example:

Last night, I was walking to a noraebang to do some singing with a coworker.

On my way, I hear a young man say the Korean expression "Yah!" and suddenly come into my line of sight from the right, riding a bike at least three sizes too small for him. What's more, there was something seriously wrong with the bike because it was making a horrible clanging noise. Flag tire? Was he trying to escape from someone? If he was, he was going way too slow to be too successful. It was like escaping in that contraption they used in A Fish Called Wanda to flatten the studdering dude really....really...slowly. He then turned the corner, ditched the bike and ran like hell into the night. The sight of the teenager on that (stolen?) bike reminded me of a previous image in Seoul at the bike park where 40 year old men were driving around on kiddy bikes.

Then, today, I went to the dentist to get some work done and just as I was about to leave, the dentist said in English, "Maybe you should do something about your hair style."

Huh?

Only in Korea folks, only in Korea.

The Ahssa! Definition of Liberal

2005-09-11T12:25:00.000+09:00

From Staff Reports:

If a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged, then a liberal is a conservative who's city has been destroyed by flood.

Only In Korea, Folks, Only In Korea

2005-08-30T02:24:00.000+09:00

By COY ASKEW
Ahssa! Copy Editor

A (male) student comes up to me after class as I'm getting ready to leave.

"Coy TeeCha, I think your handsome."

Blink. Blink.

"Uh, thanks. You're not too bad yourself, kid."

********

I am in class, totally in the zone. I look up and see me boss. He looks happy, I'm happy because he looks happy.

The door opens, he puts a hand on my nervously shaking leg and leaves.

Koreans think shaking your leg like that lets all your good luck leave your body.

I guess my hagwon needs all the good luck it can get.

The 'Teecha Bed' Monster

2005-08-10T23:28:00.000+09:00

By SHELTON BAUMGARTNER
Ahssa! Editor

This is an example of how being a nice guy can get you in trouble with your students.

I have a student who is pretty cool and all, but he has serious problems with discipline and he is always up to no good.

One day, recently, he said, "Teecha bad-uh."

Being the nice guy and not taking anything too seriously, I played along.

"Is that so?"

"Teecha hypa-bad-uh...
...supa-bad-uh....ultra bad-uh...."

I just grinned and smiled, but before too long, I realized I should have cracked down on him much, much sooner.

We had a quiz and I threw in the word "novel" just because it's hard, even though I had "promised" students that the quiz would only be on the most recent chapter.

The class was not amused -- even though it was only one point in a 30 point quiz.

While the entire class pouted, I saw one of my better girl students writing "TeeCha bed" on her textbook.

"Ahhh, shit, man, I've created a monster," I thought to myself when I saw that.

'Nabaraz Jeebas'

2005-08-10T23:25:00.000+09:00

By SHELTON BAUMGARTNER
Ahssa! Editor

One of my cutest students recently has taken to saying one of the cutest things.

For some reason, he recently saw The Passion of the Christ and now throughout class he will say,

"Teacher know Nabaraz Jee-bas?"

It took me a few moments to realize what he was babbling about.

"Do you mean Jesus of Nazareth?" I said in befuddled amusement.

"Yea."

"Yes, I know of Jesus of Nazareth."

The Canucks Strike Back

2005-07-27T20:32:00.000+09:00

Why would you tell the guy you're Canadian? You sure make a big deal about how American you are in the Migukin blog... It's this kind of behavior that makes Canadians dislike Americans. --Anonymous

By Caleb Jones
Ahssa! Contributing Writer

I came into the common room of the Ahssa! apartment mad as hell.

What the fuck did Shelly think he was doing faking being a Canadian while he was in the Philippines? I know he can be cloyingly annoying at times, but this is just beyond the pale!

"Dude, I read Ahssa! today....I mean, come on! And you go on...and...on..and...on about how proud you are of being an American over at Migukin!"

Shelly just stared at me.

"Son, what's gotten into you, coming into my room like this?"

"You wrote you told some creepy dude in the Philippines that you were an Canadian. That's why Canadians hate Americans, right there!"

"Slow down, my friend from the Great White North, let me explain. Here, have a cookie," Shelly said.

He pulled out a cookie to let me rip into while I listened.

"First of all, I was in the Philippines, not Korea when that happened and so the usual rules of behavior didn't apply in my mind. I hate being caught in a lie and even though it would be fun every once in a while to fake being a Canadian here, to me it's just not worth the effort. And I am proud of being an American, no matter what," Shelly said.

"And, I felt put on the spot some 'cause some weird dude was randomly talking to me and I thought the less I told him the truth about me, the better. Who knows what he might be thinking of doing, and if he found out too much about me, just imagine what he or his friends might do to KHK! So I played it safe and just made up some crazy shit to see how far I could take it. It was sorta fun creating a new id on the fly. I was much taller, I know that," Shelton said, without a trace of anger on his face.

"Ok, I guess it's ok. I guess I can forgive you this time. You guys still owe me 20g won you know, though."

[Interlude]: 'Same As The Old Boss...'

2005-07-27T20:22:00.000+09:00

By COY ASKEW
Ahssa! Copy Editor

"Where are all the hot babes?" my future publisher said out of the darkness of a Unyoung Dong sidestreet.

The Ahssa! staff gave each other knowing glances -- "Who is this creepy dude?" we all thought at the same time.

It turns out his name is Jay Reid and while he was new to Unyoung Dong, he one of those long-term expats who go slowly totally insane for some reason. And he was wealthy. Very wealthy.

This was both good and bad news for the Ahssa! staff. None of us are very good at managing money and Ahssa! never made much money, so we frequently found ourselves scrounging for money from anyone willing to help us keep going.

But the last few months things had started to get progressively worse. Shelton had his girlfriend managing his money, but me and Soju were just in horrible shape and we didn't know if we were going to be able to keep bouncing back between working at the hagwon and writing for Ahssa! or not.

So we were looking for a "publisher" to help us out, and once we realized how wealthy Reid was we realized he was our man. So, despite the fact that he was a bit, well, weird, we began to invite him to all our nights on the town. You should have seen him chowing down on galbi, drinking soju and going to the noraebang with us. He can't sing -- it sounds like a cat dying after being hit by a car -- but did I mention he has money?

Ever so slowly, we started to introduce the idea to him that maybe he might be able to give us a little money now and then when it came to bandwidth, that kinda stuff. Little did we know, he was ever so slowly starting to see himself as our "benefactor." He started coming to staff meetings, complaining about how much we drank, that kind of stuff.

Eventually, we had The Talk that changed everything.

"Look, guys, if I'm going to start giving you money, you're going to have to make some changes around here," Jay said. We were brooding over how to improve traffic.

"I think all of you guys are really talented, but...you're horribly unfocused. What is "Ahssa!" anyway? Is it about three dudes and your personal lives or presenting news that people will actually want to read?"

None of us said anything.

"Here's what we're going to do. We're going to setup a new blog called Migukin, I'm going to be it's publisher and if you want to write angstful drival about how no body likes you, you can turn to Ahssa! for that. All of you are going to stop drinking so damn much and you're going to actually get some work done. I'm paying the bills and that's what we're going to do."

We were all in shock. You mean that's what an outsider would think of Ahssa!? And none of us really drink that much anymore -- not even Soju. Shelly has his girlfriend to keep him in check, I'm sobering up and Soju is leaving for good soon so he can start his newspaper career back home.

"Do you mean "Migugin?" Soju said. "That's proper Romanization of the Korean word for 'American.'"

"I know that," Jay said. "But 'Migukin' not only sounds to expat ears, it looks better on a t-shirt."

We let that sink in.

It looks better on a t-shirt.

Friedman to Miguk: YOU SUCK

2005-04-05T01:13:00.000+09:00

We need to get going immediately. It takes 15 years to train a good engineer, because, ladies and gentlemen, this really is rocket science. So parents, throw away the Game Boy, turn off the television and get your kids to work. There is no sugar-coating this: in a flat world, every individual is going to have to run a little faster if he or she wants to advance his or her standard of living. When I was growing up, my parents used to say to me, ''Tom, finish your dinner -- people in China are starving.'' But after sailing to the edges of the flat world for a year, I am now telling my own daughters, ''Girls, finish your homework -- people in China and India are starving for your jobs.''

Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times

Thomas Friedman is the left-of-center answer to the right-of-center David Brooks.

The cadence of each is that of someone who has just walked up a few flight of stairs.

Yes, everything he says is true: America kids don't study enough, we're all going to hell in handbasket, we should be more like the Canadians (He didn't say THAT, did he? -- Coy.)

Yadda, yadda, blah, blah.

I am the first to admit that America is on the cusp of losing it's stature as the lone "hyperpower" in the world.

China will soon be a "superpower" in the truest sense of the word, while America will be a hyperpower with a bum knee.

The scariest thing about all of this is that Asia is where Europe was in the late 1980s -- still suck in the twilight of history, waiting for Something Big to happen. With Europe, it was the fall of the Wall, for Asia it will probably the fall of the DMZ.

But wait, campers, there's more!

I could totally see not only a fall of the DMZ...but a unified Korea kicking the Migukin GIs out and allowing the Chinese swoop in to take their place. Since at least 1905 the Koreans have had some sort of lord (dark: Japanese) or (light: U.S) so they might as well bounce over to the Chinese.

So Korea will be where history starts moving again in Asia...and then Taiwan will follow. It would be sad if China attacked Taiwan, but they just might do it. (The U.S. will then go to war against China and probably lose...if China is strong enough to feel comfortable attacking Taiwan by that point, I don't really think they'll be all that bothered by the U.S.)

Then Mongolia will come under Chinese sway and because the U.S. will be so weak by this point...Japan will probably either start up its military spending again...or cower before the all mighty China.

The only thing that might slow China down is if Europe can get its head out of its ass long enough to realize that maybe a "united front" against China might be somewhat productive.

The real wild card in all of this is Russia. Yes, Russia is probably going to coast being a new petrostate and all...but they have a lot of smart people...and they might decide to help the West and not the East if there is a pissing match between the United States and China.

Another thing helping the U.S. is we are getting a lot of help from new Americans who keep giving us freshblood...and the fact that once Americans get riled up enough by a country, we have a tendency to surprise everyone how quickly we can get our act together.

But one of the great mysteries of the American experience is how we are able to screw around so much in elementary school and high school and suddenly do so well once we get to college (and beyond.)

It's a real mystery.

I just hope whatever it is that is helping us out won't go away.

Quote of the Week

2005-03-27T12:35:00.000+09:00

Granted, Prozac Nation is an extremely silly movie, but let's face it: self-dramatizing middle-class girls who stay up for days on end writing Harvard Crimson articles about Lou Reed ("I feel his cold embrace, his sly caress") are inherently silly people.

Slate

From Staff Reports

The above quote pretty much sums up the Ahssa! world view.

"beware of hogwons in korea"

2005-03-22T13:36:00.000+09:00

By SHELTON BAUMGARTNER
Ahssa! Editor

Someone came to Ahssa! using that as a search phrase.

Well, let me tell you.

Working at an English hogwon in Korea can be fun, frustrating, exciting, amazingly cool, amazingly life-changingly bad and it can be a little of all of none of the previous words.

The key thing you have to keep in mind is this: not only is Korean culture signifanctly different from any Western society you will have experienced to date, there is little or no real "regulation" of hogwons outside of the requirement that the wayguk teachers have to have a 4 year college degree.

So you can have a great experience, or you can have a horrible experience. Even if you are really careful and do your homework before you pick a school, there are no assurances that it won't all go horribly wrong soon after you get here.

But if you like/love dealing with kids, you have a sense of adventure and you are EXTREMELY FLEXIBLE and can rationalize nearly any personal disaster out of existence, then you should come to Korea to teach English. YMMV,IYKWIM,AIKYD.

It helps if you are somewhat mildly interested in 1)English, 2)Kids. 3)$$$$ 4)Getting Shitfaced Drunk Then Singing Your Heart Out at a Noraebong All Night Long 5)Never Being Entirely Sure That You'll Get Paid On Time, 6) Lots of Free Time.

26: Part I -- Show Me The Money

2005-03-21T09:41:00.000+09:00

By COY ASKEW
Ahssa! Copyeditor

"Good God," I thought, "This was his office!"

It took me forever to come to that realization, the realization that the Free State's illustrious "newsroom" was actually the publisher's converted private office.

I knew how it had happened, given the parties involved.

At some point in the past, Ted Blackburn's children had concocted a plan to give him a big new office in the back of the newspaper so he wouldn't have to bang away at his antediluvian Royal in the layout room.

He'd have some peace and quiet and he could work.

The fact that Mr. Blackburn was getting older and even more angry and crotchety probably caused his children to see the back office as a way to slowly ease him out of power and into semi-retirement.

Most importantly, it would make it more difficult for the kooks who frequented the newspaper's front room from having such easy access to him. Anyone who spent any time with Mr. Blackburn would understand the significance of this. Mr. Blackburn's emotional system seemed inverted relative to every other human being on the face of the earth.

Take, for example, the newspaper's phone bill.

It would frequently start off as a slow rumble, only to build to a carpet bombing of cursing.

"GOD DAMN IT, MOLLY, WHO SPENT $10 ON A PHONE CALL TO NEW YORK CITY? ON A PRODUCTION DAY, NO LESS!"

"I don't know, Theodore," Molly, his ever-so-calm wife would say good-naturally. Nothing he said ever seemed to get to her, maybe that's why they'd been married for close to 50 years.

Compare this with his reaction to the news that Wal-Mart, a company well-known in the newspaper business for it's total disregard and contempt for, like, advertising in newspapers, was determined to setup shop in Hurt. Mr. Blackburn was one of three or four men who ran the town of Hurt and he, and the rest of the Powers That Be were on Hurt Town Council and had to approve the rezoning that Wal-Mart wanted.

"Well, there comes a time when every community has to make a tough decision about it's future," Mr. Blackburn said before he cast his "Yea" vote. "And while there may be short term negative impact to the local economy, I believe Wal-Mart coming would be greatly beneficial to the long-term interest of the greater Hurt community."

"You are a very interesting man," I thought as I sat there on the front row, staring numbly at the horrible notes I was attempting to take of the meeting. (I covered town council and thus had to frequently interview my own publisher.)
"You just probably cost yourself several thousands of dollars and destroyed several bedrock businesses in this community and you get all statesman-like on us. I guess it's true -- 'Only Nixon can go to China.'"

One of the other interesting quirks of Mr. Blackburn's personality -- other than his continued refusal to fire me long after it was apparent that I was a horrible reporter -- was his profit sharing plan.

Like most small, community newspapers staffs, we weren't paid shit.

But what made us special was that once a year, Mr. Blackburn would give all of us some "profit sharing" money relative to how long we'd been at the newspaper.

I had just thought -- yet again -- about the concept of sharing a medium sized room with four other people in what should be one man's office, when Mr. Blackburn tapped me on the shoulder and handed me a check that made my eyes pop out of my 25 year-old-head.

"$512."

Woah.

What a nice birthday present!

26: Part II -- Leaving Hurt

2005-03-21T09:40:00.000+09:00

By COY ASKEW
Ahssa! Copyeditor

Just as I was getting over that particular peace of good news, my conscious mind was assaulted with another shot over its bow on the part of the Universe.

In early 1999, I had been looking for a new job for about six months.

I desperately, desperately, wanted to leave Hurt and move to nearby Richmond. Despite a growing realization that I sucked as a reporter, I wanted to move to Richmond so I could start the next phase of my life, but I wanted to stay in the newspaper business in some way.

While I had always had an interested in computers, over the last few months, I had become the de facto "computer guy" of the newsroom. I had setup the Internet on all of the newsroom's computers and had been able to straighten out several computer near-disasters that had struck the paper's computers now and then.

Like New York, Virginia has two major press organizations, The Virginia Daily News Association and The Virginia Media association. The former was for dailies and the later, despite its grandiose name, was for weekly, or "community newspapers."

The arrival of the Virginia's Media, the organization's newsletter, to our humble newsroom each week was a major event. It was like the scene in The Jerk when he gets all excited that the new phone book has arrived, only Mr. Blackburn was usually staring at me, thinking God knows what.

My first indication that something interesting was afoot was when I noticed that the VMA needed someone who could both write and work on computers. Their long-time jack-of-all-trades had decided to move on to bigger and better things. Scanning the requirements, I had a hunch that I might be able to get the job. Or maybe not. For some reason, I didn't apply.

A little while later, I noticed that the VMA had apparently decided to break the original job into two different jobs. One job was strictly computers, while the other was strictly computers.

"Interesting," I thought.

26: Part III: 26 on the 26th...

2005-03-21T09:39:00.000+09:00

By COY ASKEW
Ahssa! Copyeditor

I somehow pulled myself out of the metaphysical stupor I generally lived in and sent in my application. I was covertly checking my email while at work, as I was wont to do every day about a million times, when I noticed a email with that had the VMA's domain name.

They wanted me to come in for an interview!

I contacted the VMA and they agreed to setup an interview on Friday evening to give me enough time to get to downtown Richmond from Hurt. While setting up the interview, I realized that maybe the Gods Themselves were rooting for me -- I wouldn't have a problem going to the interview without my bosses finding out because it was on my birthday and so they would give me the day off if I asked.

I still had to face the fear regarding driving in downtown Richmond, something I had never done before, but I wanted the damn job bad enough that I was willing to risk life and limb to get it

Besides, I was turning 26 on the 26th of the month. It was the only time that my birthday and my age would match -- something special had to happen!

I awoke the day of my interview and stared at my apartment.

"Where the hell is my suit?"

My apartment was in total chaos. I had no idea where my suits was and even if it was wearable.

After some rummaging, I found it.

It didn't look so hot.

This was not the suit that would get me the job I wanted.

I briefly contemplated the notion of getting a new suit on my way to The Interview.

I didn't really know how that would work out, given how little time I had, but I just knew I needed a new one.

[More later...]

[Interlude] The Ski Trip -- Part I: This is Crazy

2005-03-17T14:19:00.000+09:00

By COY ASKEW
Ahssa! Copyeditor

While there is much great skiing to be had in the Old Dominion, neither Shelton nor I had ever done it before we came to Korea.

People in Virginia go up to Wintergreen and ski all the time, but somehow we escaped doing it. Shelton even went to school at JMU, which is within day-trip distance of Wintergreen and a few other places.

So when the fine folks at the big Wonderland (1,200 students) near our school randomly invited the Ahssa! staff to join them on a ski trip we said sure just for the hell of it. It was pretty much just that thinking that got us to Korea in the first place.

Soju had experience skiing so he was all into it.

"Dude, skiing is so much fun! I even got a college credit in it in college!"

Shelton and I just rolled our eyes at each other.

"Kids," Shelton mouthed silently to me as he did it.

The three of us woke up at 6 a.m. so we could be in front of Wonderland at 7 a.m for the bus.

We felt like Chevy Chase's character (Clark Wilhelm Griswold, Jr.) in the first Vacation movie when he's about to jump in the pool with Christie Brinkley's character.

"This is crazy," Shelton said slapping his hands together like Chase did so memorably in the movie. "This is crazy. This is crazy."

While we waited, Shelly and I talked about what would happen if we got hurt.

"Dude, what if one of us breaks a leg?" he said.

"I dunno. You know the hogwon business, I doubt they'd really be all that sympathetic. Dudes like us are a dime a dozen. We'd probably have to go back home," I said clutching my coat a little tighter. Just the idea of going home at this point gave me the willies.

We started to get just a little worried. We were there at the appointed time and nobody had showed up. Then a bus pulled up, a Korean driver opened the door and said, "Wonderland?"

The three of us nodded.

"Ney."

A few moments later, the Wonderland folks showed up. We all felt very short around the guys. Living in Korea, you can forget that most non-Koreans are significantly taller than the three of us. We feel like "Little Big Men" here in Korea.

We got in the van (there were 8 of us altogether) and away we went. Shelton tried to start up a conversation with the Wonderland folks, but they didn't really look all that thrilled to do so at that point.

"The ride up is for sleeping," one of them said. "The ride home is for talking."

"Fair enough," Shelton said.

So we all passed out for the next few hours.

[Interlude] The Ski Trip -- Part Duh: Overcoming Fear

2005-03-17T14:15:00.000+09:00

By COY ASKEW
Ahssa! Copyeditor

When we woke up, we were just north of Seoul at a gas station.

"...So this is 'the gas station,'" one of our fellow skiiers said, as though they had heard a lot about it. "There's not much there. You can't even go in!"

After a moment of walking around and streaching our legs, we got back in the van. Again, Shelly and I started mumbling about, "This is crazy, this is crazy, this is crazy."

We got to the ski equipment rental shop and got our stuff. Soju had to help us a lot because we had no clue what the hell was going on. We didn't know what we needed, we didn't know what we didn't need. My big green coat was obiviously not going to cut it, so I decided to ditch it and rent a coat.

"So you two have never gone skiing, huh?" someone asked casually.

"Nope," I said.

"Nope," Shelly said.

"Uh-huh," he said, with something akin to a "Oh, dear Lord. This could be bad," expression on his face.

"Aren't you scared?" someone else asked.

"I don't know about Shelly, but I'm not. My mom used to say that I wasn't 'Scared of the devil.' But, then, she also said I was specially sent to Earth by Jesus himself. So you have to take what she says with a grain of salt, don'tchaknow," I said with a bit of a twinkle in my eye. (Was it a "cloyingly annoying" twinkle? -- Soju)

Now, they say whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger and our experience with skiing is a prime example of that.

And at first, skiing was really, really difficult.

And we were scared.

To actually get to the ski lift, you had to ski down hill. Now, at first this seemed kind of dumb, but in reality it's brilliant because if you can't ski well enough to actually get to the ski lift, you probably shouldn't be getting on the lift.

The only problem is, we felt like we were learning how to drive a car in the middle of a interstate, given that other skiers kept whizzing past us in the midsts of us being taught.

But we had a great teacher and while we probably were only given less than 20 minutes of actual instruction, in our minds it took forever and was almost life-changingly scary. Shelton and I kept running into each other as we tried to understand the principles at work. At first, it felt like if we were actually in the skies, we would suddenly lurch forward down hill really, really fast.

After a few times on the "snow bunny" slopes, the two of really started to get the hang of skiing, although Shelton was more the obvious natural and I just enjoyed doing it. The only thing I can equate it with is smoking my first cigar back when I was a kid. It was the day the universe changed. From that point on, I knew I was always going to be interested cigars.

The same with skiing. Now that I can do it, I'm probably going to always be interested in it, although I am even more interested in learning to snowboard. The folks who can snowboard look so cool!

For me at least, what is so interesting about skiing is that now that I can do it, I can go really fast and have lots of fun. I realized that Shelton was better than me, though, when we went to the more advanced slope and he just took off down the hill, while I fell flat on my butt and had a few moments of abject fear where I saw me pulling a "Sunny Bono" on a tree. (That would suck. -- Soju)

[Interlude] The Ski Trip -- Part III: Having Fun

2005-03-17T14:08:00.000+09:00

By COY ASKEW
Ahssa! Copyeditor

After that, I just said, "Screw it, I just want to have fun."

I stuck to the "snow bunny" slope, getting used to skiing and understanding how to go fast without killing myself while Shelly went with the "cool people" to the more advanced "black forest" ski slopes nearby. For someone who is so insecure about his lot in life, Shelly sure does get off on hanging out with "the beautiful people."

Before they left for the "black forest" slopes, one of the Wonderland folks asked me how my day was going.

"Oh, it's ok. I've been going up the 'snow bunny' slope a few times," I said.

"Any interest in going with Shelton and us to the tougher slopes?"

"Hmmm. Well, I look at it this way. Either I can develop a 'comfort zone' with skiing and really enjoy going past that point in the future, or I can have my first memories of skiing being abject, total fear."

"I gotcha."

I skied for a few hours alone, just enjoying it.

I had several humorous experiences. An ahjuma and her son got on the lift with me and she ended up on my lap as the bar came down. Then, another time, I was talking to two little kids and tried to be funny without too much success. They told me they were learning English at a hogwon and I went into my "fun teacher" bit.

"Hey, you want to know something funny?" I asked.

"What?"

"In English, 'salsa' is food while in Korean, it's poop!"

I could tell from their sudden shift in their body language they thought I was a freak.

Oh well.

At one point, I saw Soju was among a group of people below me as I went up the ski lift, so once I came back down I stopped and asked what the matter was.

Soju had been racing down hill against some others in my group when he ran smack into a Korean skier who was at the wrong place at the wrong time. He looked pretty shook up. Soju had to go in and sign some paper work. At first, the Koreans wanted him to go to the hospital with the guy, but thankfully, they didn't press the matter.

And then, it happened -- I started running into people and I realized it was probably time to stop. It was when I at going extremely fast and found myself unable to stop as a man and his child rapidly approached me that I knew it was time to hang up the old skis for the day.

So even though I had a few more hours of skiing open to me, I just gave up and started to go the meeting place.

I was really tired and I just wanted to relax.

I ran into some expats and chatted with them for a moment.

"So, where ya from?" one of them asked.

I sighed as I summoned up the courage to admit my origins.

"Ahh, well, I'm from 'the extreme south of Canada," I said. "In fact, I'm so far south that I'm from the United States."

They just looked at me.

"How did you know we were Canadian?" one of them asked.

"You're white," I said, without missing a beat.

After a bit more chatting, we parted ways without me even getting their names. Expat life in Korea is so different from anything I've ever experienced in the United States. In the South, at least, people, like, act like they might actually be somewhat interested in your existance. It took me forever to get use to how cold and seemingly uncaring Korean expat culture is.

I met up with Shelton, Soju and the rest of the gang after about an hour. We all talked about our zany adventures. It was getting dark as we returned home. Looking back over the day's events, I was struck that there was a bit of cognitive dissidence invovled with skiing in Korea -- it felt like I had been teleported back home for a few hours.

The lesson of the trip is that one shouldn't be discouraged simply because something is difficult to learn at first. Sometimes believing in yourself and taking the effort to overcome a fear is the gateway to a wonderful new experience.

Interlude: An Expat Romance

2005-02-07T12:00:00.000+09:00

By SHELTON BAUMGARTNER
Ahssa! Editor

I still can't believe it happened.

As an expat, you here stuff about people you know in round about ways.

I was at our favorite pochen macha (soju tent) in Unyoung Dong with Coy and Soju late one night recently when Soju said something about how "he wondered how Lester and Eve were able to keep their 'romance' away from Caleb while he was back home in Canada."

Huh?

I always knew freaky Lester Aswhepe and Eve Royal were strangely close while Caleb was in Canada during his visa problems, but I never new it graduated to the level of "romance."

"Ok, guys, tell me what you're talking about."

They both stared at me.

"You mean you don't know?" Soju asked, dumbfounded.

"No, I don't know. You mean crazy-expat Lester and hot Eve were an item those six months Caleb was back in The Great White North getting his visa problems straighted out?"

"Uh...yeah...kinda, sorta maybe," Coy said, looking down, pretending to get some grit out of his fingers.

Jesus, even Coy knew!

"No one tells me anything! Did they do the deed, or not?"

Coy and Soju looked at each other.

"We don't know. All we know is that there was a moment there when they got really, really close. Lester was going to the Bobos in Paradise motel where Eve was working part time at their bar all the fuckin time. They would go out shooting pool every night after she got off work. Just about the time Caleb came back to Korea, they stopped doing it and started acting like nothing happened," Soju said.

Now, let's put this revelation in perspective.

Lester, while fairly attractive, is still a kook. He's one of those expats who has been in Korea so damn long that he's lost his mind and sometimes acts like Dennis Hopper's character in "Apocalypse Now." He's a nice enough guy and all, but you'd never think he could get any attention from a girl like Eve Royal.

Ahhh.. Eve Royal. Where to begin? Eve Royal is that girl who has a boyfriend that all the guys that know her have huge crushes on. They daydream about what a natural beauty she is. There is something about her that engenders a feeling of intimacy. Her only known fault is she often speaks so softly (some would say mumbles) that you often have to strain to understand what the hell she's saying. You feel painfully rude if you ask her to speak up. The only time I've ever done it was at about 6 a.m. in Seoul when I was so drunk I endeared the strange state where the time-space continuum seemed just a little bit warped.

Eve has been in Korea long enough (but not so long that she's gone crazy like Lester) that she was able to get a job working part time at the bar at the Bobos in Paradise motel in Unyoung Dong. The owner said it helped bring expats in and improve business.

The great thing about Eve is she is beautiful and yet she is willing to act as "den mother" to all the crazy, mixedup and kooky expats that hang out in front of the Unyoung Dong Buy The Way.

We, in turn, lust after her secretly.

One of her quirks is she's always changing her hair color. Sometimes she's a redhead, sometimes, she's a blond and sometimes she's jet black. You never quite know what color her hair is going to be next.

Another quirk -- whenever we go drinking, we all know she's going to throw up at least once before the night's over. One time, Soju bet me that she would throw before we got home and, wouldn't you know it, I lost the bet. Eve vanished for a moment and when she came back, her face pale as can be and she suddenly was looking really, really tired.

So what was the deal with her and Lester? It took me a moment to contemplate the idea that a girl like Eve would hang out with Lester and maybe get a little "too close" for Caleb's comfort.

Yeah, Lester is cute in his own old-ball way. He's tallish, has something of a beer gut and is always complaining about his teeth...but he's cute enough that maybe, just maybe Eve would grace him with her affections. That's the thing about life, sometimes you strike up a friendship (or a romance) with someone you shouldn't be your friend (or lover)...and yet you do. It has something to do with how your unconscious mind interacts with their unconscious mind, I guess.

Caleb's a great guy and all, but even great guys have their limits.

If he knew how close those two got, would he beat Lester to a pulp? Probably not...but the extended Clan of the Unyoung Dong Buy The Way would probably be destroyed for good.
But of all the guys she could "kinda, sorta" have a fling with while Caleb was away...why Lester?

Korean "Gangsters"

2005-02-05T17:06:00.000+09:00

By COY ASKEW
Ahssa! Copyeditor

Where I come from, you really don't meet a lot of people who could be a member of the Mob. I was at motel bar back home one time and this guy who was "a legitimate businessman" told me that the Mob would "never let a Great Depression happen again because it's bad for business."

Huh?

I also got a really weird vibe from him, like he wanted the two us to take the two young ladies we were talking to at the time up to his hotel room and have, what, an orgy?

Sheeshs

So I come to Korea and grow a beard and what do you know, but I discover that if you have a beard and or a tattoo you're a "gangster." (Zelda told us that you can also be an "artist," which made us feel good.)

Apparently, it's more the tattoo than it is the beard. If a "gangster" wants to give you a message, they'll show you their tattoo as a warning. Zelda told the Ahssa! staff, however, that all the "real" gangsters she's met were actually quite nice. I guess it's only if you cross them that you have to worry about physical harm.

The funniest run-in I've ever had with gangsters, real or otherwise, came late one night at the Hongdae area of Seoul, also known as "Party Central."

We went to the Ministop near the huge Seoul Rt. 66 bar and got a bit to eat. There was a very large crowd of what looked like Korean hoods milling about. One of them had a horrible gash scar on his face. Another one bumped Caleb and gave him a very aggressive up and down glance that suggest thoughts of "You want a piece of me?" Things got even weirder when one of the Korean pulled out a HUGE knife and playfully threatened on of his friends with it. These guys were obviously not playing around. Soju was talking all kinds of Korean to them. They seemed to get a kick out of that. At one point, they started joking about names and said something about "Yono this and Yono that." We all burst into laughter when one of them said "Yonoho!" It was all very "8-Mile" but with a comic edge.

Korea, RFD

2005-02-04T13:46:00.000+09:00

By SHELTON BAUMGARTNER
Ahssa! Editor

One of the things I love about Korea is not only how relatively safe it is (at least for an expat male), but the Barney Fife quality of most of its police officials. Many of the cops are scrawny looking dudes who you suspect might have one bullet that's safely in their pocket somewhere next to their lucky rabbit's foot.

Yes, I'm sure they could kick my ass if need be, but they're still funny looking compared to cops in the United States.

I find the mascot for the Korean police to be rather amusing. I would kill for a shirt with a Podori doing the whole thumbs up pose.

Now, I and the rest of the Ahssa! staff have been here for coming on six months and I still don't know what the damn things are supposed to represent: dog? cat? Quizno's sponge monkey?

I think it's supposed to be a dog. Or maybe it's a very stylized human?

It doesn't really engender a lot of fear.

In the States, we would want our police mascot to make us feel safe.

Korean Movie Kookiness

2005-02-01T11:14:00.000+09:00

By SHELTON BAUMGARTNER
Ahssa! Editor

Korean movies have come to the forefront of the Ahssa! staff's mind of late.

One is "The President's Last Bang," which as I understand it, recounts with "Pulp Fiction" like humor the assassination of President Park Chung-hee on Oct. 26, 1979 by Kim Jae-kyu, the chief of the Korea Central Intelligence Agency.

What makes the incident just a little, well, odd, is Kim was President Park's boyhood friend! (I think.) I find the movie just a little unsettling because what if a movie came out in the States called "The President's Last Bang" which recounted with "Pulp Fiction" like humor the assassination of JFK? Watch the zany, self-referential adventures of Lee Harvey Oswald as he meets with CIA agents, the Mob and Fidel Castor! Whoohoo! It'd be "Quantum Leap" meets "Arrested Development!"

I think Americans would be just a little bit upset. I guess the case could be made that since Park was something of dictator (who did a lot of good for the country nonetheless) and his death was somewhat odd, that it can be treated with humor.

Anyway, the movie is set to be released this week and it had to be edited just a bit to remove some documentary footage so audience members wouldn't think it was, well, totally real.

Another Korean movie that is probably going to make a fair amount of news in the States pretty soon, is, of course "OldBoy." I've only seen bits and pieces of it and generally understand what's going on. It's supposed to be pretty violent and has a plot twist that will make you squirm in your seat.

I feel bad now that I didn't watch it with Coy when I had the chance. I was too busy going out and having fun to sit down long to watch the movie. If I had, I could tell folks back in the States that "Oh, I saw 'Oldboy' six months ago!"

It reminds me of the time I went to Great Britain for ten days and there was this really annoying guy (Like you? -- Coy) who kept trying to get me and the rest of the group to listen to some woman named "Sinead O'Connor" who sounded like she was about to kill herself. Six months later, she was a huge super star and I felt like a dork.

Ever since then, I've always been careful to look into anything new that someone raves about. Of course, we won't go into the fact that it took me a year to see Pulp Fiction when it first came out because of some of the things I had heard about it. (I'm almost as bad as Coy when it comes to avoiding conflict.)

The last movie is one whose English name I think is "Woman Teacher Versus Girl Student." I got the poster recently I love it so much. I have no idea what's going on in this film, but it looks fun. I think it has something to about a battle between a student and a teacher over the same man.

I think.

One of the interesting things about Korean culture is how modern it is. When the Ahssa! staff first got here, I assumed everyone would only watch American films.
Boy, was I wrong.

American culture and films are sort of muffled here. You hear echoes of it, but it's not very direct.

"Do You Think I Look Easy?"

2005-02-01T09:40:00.000+09:00

By CALEB JONES

Ahssa! Contributing Writer

While I was working in Nova, I would frequently go to into Seoul to teach at some of the hogwons that were affiliated with my chain. It was a lot of fun because you got to travel and see parts of Seoul you'd never seen before.

I went to my hogwon in Onsu and had one of the funniest experiences to date in Korea. I saw Pam, the head teacher putting up something that evidently was "This week's English phrase to learn."

Well, imagine my surprise when said phrase turned out to be "Do you think I look easy?"

Now, don't know about you, but I didn't want my students (especially the girl ones) to learn such a phrase until at least the time they're old enough to go to a bar and say it to the drunk person next to them who is hitting on them. Pam explained that she had transliterated a Korean phrase that meant something like "Do you think you can walk all over me?"

At first I took the sheet of paper the phrase was on from Pam so I could get a chuckle from it later on...but when I saw that Pam was about to cry because it was obvious that I was going to make fun of her English to others I gave it back to her. She was way too nice to hurt her feelings like that. Note to self: never, EVER make fun of a Korean's English.

Even more fun happened later. The whole office (plus some dude I named "Jared" because he didn't have an English name) went out to eat. I got everyone drinking suju as I am apt to do and when Pam did a shot or two she turned BEET RED!

And stayed that way.

It was one of those things were it's funny, and yet I was afraid she was going to hate me now because she lost face in front of her friends. Pam is probably one of the coolest people (expat or Korean) to date (we had a long discussion about the changing place of women (and their sex lives) in Korean society before she asked me "Why are we talking about this?")

Besides the whole "easy" episode, her English is pretty good -- she stayed two years in New Zealand, I think.

About the same time, I talked to a teacher at another one of my hogwons about Chinese. She taught me a few basic phrases and I asked her how hard it was for a Korean to learn Chinese

(Eve and I want to stay in Korea a few years and it would suck if all the English jobs vanished.)

Anyway....to my relief she showed me that Chinese is actually pretty hard to learn for virtually anyone who isn't Chinese. Yes! Take that you future world dominating Chinese!

It was while living in Nova that I decided that if and when Eve and I ever leave Korea, there is one thing I'm going to miss: being able to drink Cass on a Saturday afternoon on my way to Carrefour.

Thing I will not miss about Korea -- having to dodge someone on a PizzaHut motorbike as I drink my Cass in the afternoon on my way to Carrefour.

EnglishSpectrumGate

2005-01-29T22:39:00.000+09:00

By BOBBY "SOJU" TUTTLE
Ahssa! Staff Writer

Living in Korea as a non-clued-in expat (read: no friends), life is sometimes similar to what I imagine sex would be if you were wearing saran wrap over 99 percent of your body, mitten gloves and ducktape over your eyes -- you know something interesting is going on, but you don't quite not know what it is.

The latest instance of this is the whole EnglishSpectrum.com scandal.

Our first indication that Something Was Up was when I was hanging out with Zelda this weekend and she mentioned that her older sister had warned her that all foreign guys wanted from Korean women was sex.

Whey?

I had to explain to her that her sister was wrong for a number of reasons, among them being that Zelda is older than me so there is a whole different power dynamic at work between us. Besides, if I were some evil, lecherous howgon teacher ("Dirty, teacher, dirty!) I certainly would have gone for someone a younger than me.

Then, on a lark, I headed to Ujieongbu bukbu just to be able say we'd been there, the last stop on the Seoul subway in the north. I was looking at the subway map, as I am apt to do when I'm bored, when a youngish Korean woman with braces suddenly struck up a conversation with me.

She said something about "....I was reluctant to talk to you because I thought you were an English teacher...."

Woah...woah..woah..woah..

What's all this about? Our journalistic spidy-senses began to do some serious tingling.

She said that many Koreans were upset with expat English teachers because of something that was posted on this Website called "EnglishSpectrum.com" from a "sexy dress" party. I knew about the site and remembered that there had been a message on the site that said something like:

As a result of negative newspaper reports depicting but a small percentage of user opinions, we at English Spectrum have decided to pull the offensive forum and are taking steps to re-organize how these forums are operated and monitored.

I felt horrible.

She said the someone posted to the site that all Korean girls were whores and they would have sex with expat guys at the drop of a hat.

Oh, Jesus.

Does this mean the Ahssa! staff are going to lose their jobs and we're going to have to back to that most red of red states, Virginia and suffer the "quiet desperation" of a blue stater in a red state? (Ok, Virginia could be thought of as somewhat "purple," but humor us.) I know how Korean society is -- everything can change amazingly quick and suddenly all the ahjewmas will wake up and want their kids to learn Chinese and not English.

With that in the back of my minds, I arrived at Ujieongbu bukbu and walked around. It was a nice place. It was a lot bigger than I expected -- I was expecting a village and a sign that said "Welcome, North Koreans."

We totally, utterly, randomly ran into a tall, dark and handsome English expat guy who we ended up going to Itaewon with for no other reason than we had nothing better to do. On the ride there, he told us the EnglishSpectrum story:

There was a party, there was a wet t-shirt contest that involved Korean girls. Then some sort of orgy in a backroom involving said Korean girls. There was a videotape made that was passed around via the Internet. Somehow, something was posted to EnglishSpectrum involving young, scantily-clad Korean girls...and at the same time an email was circulated in which some guy talked about how you could have sex with your older female students if you gave them money.

Jesus H. Christ, no wonder the Koreans are upset!

Apparently, the Korean press got ahold of this...something bad happen to the EnglishSpectrum Website at the hand of angry Korean "netizens" and generally Bad Vibes were left over because of what had happen.

Going over to ConnectKorea.com, the person who apparently runs the site wrote, in part, about the controversy:

On another teacher discussion board, many teachers reported that they received harassment today from Koreans. One guy stated:

"I was walking with my Korean girlfriend in Seoul. We were holding hands when a man in his 30s knocked our hands apart and yelled at my girlfriend that she shouldn't be with me"

Well, 'The Playboy', I think is just a character. He just says that for more readers/viewers. I never took him seriously.

I think Koreans netizens have two problems in this situation. First, they follow the media too much. The media has a history of directing rage towards something. Rage sells newspapers and the media like to make Koreans angry at someone or something.

The second probelm is that Koreans are too sensitive to foreigners dating Korean women. So what if they date and use Korean women for sex. Korean men do it more than English teachers in Korea. This is the same story in every country.

I just hope Zelda and I don't run into any problems. That would really suck.

Hmm... Maybe I could shave my beard and pretend to be a G.I.

Better Living Through Technology

2005-01-28T10:05:00.000+09:00

From Staff Reports

If you want a map to The Bar* in Seoul, click here.

We always knew this World Wide Web thing would get us drunk somehow.

*Yes, we know that "The Bar" is actually on the second floor, but that's what we first heard it
called.

I love Flickr

2005-01-26T01:15:00.000+09:00

I've known him for awhile.
Originally uploaded by tearhereyes.

From Staff Reports

I don't know these people, I just found this picture amusing. Another, similar photo exists, but I couldn't quite bring myself to use it.

Am I breaking some sort of blog taboo by posting this to my blog simply because I can?

I mean, it is, like, public and stuff.

But given how clueless I can be about annoying people, I'm sure a vicious blog war will erupt once they find out that I've posted this to Ahssa!

Sigh. You just can't win sometimes.

Maybe I should email Jennifer 8 Lee or danah "SanDeE*" boyd and ask them to do a 6,000 word fluf...uh.. "think peice" on the subject. SanDeE* is all into the "sociable media" aspect of Friendster and Flickr, it should be right up her ally.

It's not a bug, it's a feature!
The caption reads:

I've known him for awhile.
Originally uploaded by tearhereyes.

Ok, This Is Just Funny

2005-01-26T01:13:00.000+09:00

From Staff Reports

This video, and our reaction to it was able to cause the hangook next to us at the P.C. Bang (bong) to actually communicate with us! This is unheard of! Megooks and hangooks never, ever talk to each other that way at a P.C. Bong if they don't know each other.

I guess it's true -- video of people falling down during a public musical performance will cause the twain to meet over a good laugh, if nothing else.

Excuse Us While We Talk Nerd

2005-01-25T23:38:00.000+09:00

By COY ASKEW
Ahssa! Copy Editor

For some reason, our workplace is big into Rubik's Cubes. I don't know why, it just is. Hell, Shelly can do one of the damn things behind his everloving back! And we have kids come in all the time with them, showing us how far they've gotten. We've even had cube's with flags on them that you had to make sure were pointing the right way in order to be "finished."

Cubes are fun and all, but I find them so frustrating that I want to bang my head against my desk until blood comes out of my ears. (You're just lazy, envious...and...and STUPID!-- Shelton.)

One of our Korean teachers suggests the quickest way to finish a Rubik's Cube is to either 1) take it apart and put it back together correctly 2) take off all the colored stickers off and put them back on the cube correctly.

Anyway, the whole point of this post is this video featured over at ConnectKorea. I say it once, I say it again -- I fear Korea is not only just "The Land of The Morning Calm" and "The Land of the Waiting For The Other Shoe To Drop," it's also "The Land of Nerds." ("No more yankie my wankie," right? -- Soju)

Note, you may need to install Microsoft Media stuff on your computer to view the video, blah, blah, blah.

I'd say they need someone like me over there to "enhance" their links to Korean media with snarky comments like those found at Gawker Media sites, but they appear to want to be a more "serious" journalistic endeavor than would be my natural inclination. And they're doing just fine without me as it is.

The Attack of the Six-Year-Old Korean Ninjas

2005-01-25T22:43:00.000+09:00

[Author's Note: There is a nugget of fact in this "true" story. In fact, the picture is from the actual "real" event. --LSB]

By SHELTON BAUMGARTNER
Ahssa! Editor

It was an unusually warm winter's day recently and Coy, Soju and I decided to sit out in front of the Buy The Way and, well, drink.

As the afternoon began to turn into evening, they struck! We were attacked by six-year-old Korean ninjas!

I don't know how it happened. We were just there, minding our own business when the next thing I know I'm hearing that funkying sound from the Six Million Dollar Man in my mind as a very small Korean boy is beating the shit out of me.

Soju saw them first and starting giving them a hard time in Korean as he is apt to do.These two little kids somehow got Soju to fight them and once I saw how much "fun" he was having, I decided to joined him.

Then I realized that yes, Soju was having fun, but he was also experiencing pain, too.

Those little fellas knew how to throw a punch! They were also into kicking too. I kept expecting one of them to kick Soju in the crotch at some point, but he was able to avoid it.

Coy said, "There are going to be tears before bedtime and they're not going to be mine." The whole thing was painfully cute, no pun intended. At first I tried to avoid being hit, but once Soju said, "What, are you afraid of them?" I decided to engage the enemy.

Several times in my minds eye I saw a slow-mo vision of a little kid jumping really high to punch me. "Jesus, I spent my entire childhood trying to avoid a situation like this," I thought to myself.

The Koreans who were walking by obviously got a huge kick out of what was going on.

The kids kept acting like they were leaving.

I kept expecting a well dress black man to put a cape on them, like what James Brown does in his stage show.

At one point, one of them, with great flare, took his coat off and acted like, "Bring it on megook. Can you smell what the hangook is cooking?"

I ran into people walking around the Buy The Way during the fight. I probably earned the good old U.S. of A a few thousand dollars worth of good publicity in our neighborhood when I accidently ran into one guy's wife. I said sorry several times and after a moment's concern, her husband looked at me with what looked like respect for putting up with the highjinks of these violent little Korean kids.

I almost ran into the road several times. I had this image of my body being crushed by a very large truck as I sought to avoid being felled by one swift kick to the groin. Although it was amusing though that through hand signals I was able to establish with my opponent that kicking Was Not Cool.

Eventually, the clerk from the Buy The Way yelled at the little kids and made them say "I'm sorry." in English.

They didn't look like they really meant it.

Disposable Camera Fun (Korean Edition)

2005-01-25T21:06:00.000+09:00

By SHELTON BAUMGARTNER
Ahssa! Editor

Taking pictures by disposable camera in Korea is extremely frustrating.

You take all these great shots and they don't develop them.

It's like the pictures don't even exist, like you didn't even take them (they're not even on the negative roll!)

I can't figure out if it's that the shots were bad and the developer is making an editorial decision for you (Haven't they ever heard of photo manipulation software?) or whatever it is you took a photo of is considered some sort of state secret that they don't want you to post on the Internet for the North Koreans to look at. (Don't those guys have, like spy satellites or something? -- Coy)

Anyway, I need a digital camera.

Bad.

I'll get one, one day.

But until then, I have to wonder every time I take a picture if it won't be there when I look at the negative roll.

Sigh.

Itaewon at Its Best

2005-01-24T03:08:00.000+09:00

Itaewon at Its Best
Originally uploaded by ahssa.

By Shelton Baumgartner
Ahssa! Editor

The shot on the right is one of my favorite pictures of Itaewon. It pretty much sums up the place in a picture. Another picture of it can be found at ConnectKorea. It was shot with a better camera, but mine was shot at night so you can see what's going on better.

Itaewon, as you may know, is the little America of the Seoul area that is right next to a big U.S. Army base in the middle of Seoul. (I'm sure Chinese spies have already stake the place out for when their inevitable move to the base comes 10-20 years from now.) Imagine someone taking all the worst aspects of American life and boiling them down into one neighborhood and you have Itaewon.

I have to say, however, that the bar Seoul Pub is pretty good. It has a great atmosphere. It's a good place to start the evening off before you head to the Sinchon/Hongdae area.

Coy, Soju and I still need to go to Jbar and get some money for Soju's coat that they lost late last year.

A Period Post

2005-01-24T02:48:00.000+09:00

Under a Ministry of Education proposal, adolescent schoolgirls will be eligible to take a day off every month when their menstrual period occurs.

--Joong Ang Daily Jan. 13, 2004

By SHELTON BAUMGARTNER
Ahssa! Editor

Sometimes, you just can't make this stuff up.

This is kinda late, (Are you pregnant? -- Soju) and embarrassing because I know someone who works at the Joong Ang Daily so I should have been reading his paper (but the IH-T doesn't have the greatest circulation in Incheon, ya know -- Coy.), but on Jan. 13, there was a story about "period day" for girls being proposed by the Korean Ministry of Education.

What's more, apparently there are "period days" for women in the Korean workforce!

Woah!

I find this a serious hoot.

This line is even funnier -- "The new policy would allow girls who have reached puberty to skip classes in elementary, middle and high school, if they provide written assurances from their parents that they are menstruating."

Giggle. Snort. Giggle.

Given how serious Koreans take school, I'd simply _love_ to find out how they are able to provide such "written assurance."

Hee hee.

Periods, for a dude, are innately funny (unless, of course they're late then they're thought provoking and kinda scary.) They're a bridge between The Land of Women and the Land of Men because men find their lives greatly effected by that particular 28-day cycle.

One of my most amusing memories about such things is among my first.

For most of my elementary school career, I had one of those amusing characters that only the South can produce for a elementary school principal. One day, I was in the teachers lounge after school doing something when in walks Mr. Principal with a young girl student about my age. She was sick or something and he dropped the "p" word into the conversation about why she couldn't do her homework.

"Little pitchers have big ears" as they say where I come from and my eyes about bugged out of my head at the mention of the word. His use of the word was so unjustified that it makes me grin to this day.

It's been my experience that Korean women have serious problems with menstrual cramps. You often see them bent over at a bar or at work with their hand against their side. When you ask what the problem is they say "Women problems." Haven't any of them heard of, like, Midol and stuff?

Gilmore Girls, you rock!

2005-01-23T23:16:00.000+09:00

By SHELTON BAUMGARTNER
Ahssa! Editor

It took me forever to get into the TV show "Friends."

In fact, it was almost in its last season by the time I started obsessing about. Several things prevented me from getting into the show. The first, and biggest reason, was I just couldn't see a girl like Rachel Green ever dating a guy like Ross Geller. And the show was too popular for me to like it.

But eventually, when I had a lot of time on my hands, (You mean unemployed, right? -- Soju) I found myself really liking Friends. In fact, my entire life began to revolve around watching repeats in the afternoons.

So it is with that in mind, I wonder if one day I'll ever get into "Gilmore Girls."

Right now, I find the damn show too cute by half. It's just too precious to be taken seriously. It reminds me of this girl back at Hargrave who was The Perfect Girl and so many guys hated her. In fact, one guy in particular I remember took a great deal of glee in describing all the horrible things he wanted to happen to her in the near, near future.

Gilmore Girls have all the elements of a show I should like -- lots of talking, a well written script and eye candy (Yes, I'm talking about the mother, not the daughter, you sicko.) So I often sit down and tell myself I'm going to watch it -- it's actually available on Korean cable TV. That is amusing since when they aren't watching "Gilmore Girls" or "Ally McBeal" Koreans are watching extremely unsettling porn that involves violence to women.

Anyway, what got me thinking about the show is there is a interesting interview with its creator,
Amy Sherman-Palladino, in The New York Times. She looks kinda like a mixture of Slash from Guns&Roses and the lead singer of "Three Non Blonds."

It does have this interesting bit, which I plan to comment on in a separate post.

...To be really good, you have to be willing to have everybody in the world hate you. That's hard to do, because this is a small town, and everybody plays golf together. And if you flip off the guy at CBS, he's going to be having lunch with FOX, NBC and ABC. And that is your reputation. And that's my reputation - I know it.
Q. Really?
A. People say, "Oh, Amy - great. Comes with a lot of baggage." But my job is not to come to you and say, "How would you like me to do this?" I can't fix your refrigerator. I have no skills - I can't inject you with medication. All I can say is, "O.K., you're paying me to create this world, craft this show, run this show, and if that means sometimes I have to say no to you to give you a better product, that's
what you're paying me for."

It's Official: I'm old

2005-01-23T11:35:00.000+09:00

By SHELTON BAUMGARTNER
Ahssa! Editor

We and the rest of the Assha! staff went into Seoul this weekend and as we were shaking our bootie we were struck by the fact that there were young ladies in front of us who....well..seemed like children.

They were obviously not legally children, and there was a 99 percent chance that they were college graduates teaching at a hogwon (there is that small chance that they were there children of G.I.s,)...but despite their obvious beauty they didn't interest me because they looked like individuals who could be my daughter. Yes, we know that is a near biologically impossibly given hold old they were and all, but still. (Maybe an uncle? -- Soju)

I have met girls in the past who didn't strike me that way. Even though they were in their early twenties, they just seemed like some girl. Maybe it was their mojo. Yet girls like that are dangerous because you think they're going to think and act like an adult woman when in fact they live in a whole different universe than you do. They don't have the life experiences you assume women your age have and so the way they think is all screwy relative to what you're used to.

I'm just glad I have a woman in my life and I don't have to worry about chatting up a lovely young lady at a club.

How Frustrating

2005-01-19T23:53:00.000+09:00

How Frustrating
Originally uploaded by ahssa.

This is one of the single most frustrating things I've seen in my short time in Korea.

I have visited this McDonald's many, many times and as I wait for my hamberger, I notice these nice leather manbags.

Each time, I move towards them to causually look at them and then realize the entrance way is blocked.

It's obvious that you could once just go over there and look at stuff, but no more. I wonder what happened.

Interlude: Sucky Macroeconomics on a Microeconomic Scale

2005-01-17T22:10:00.000+09:00

By SHELTON BAUMGARTNER
Ahssa! Editor

Coy, Soju and I were all hungry tonight after work so we decided to go to the KFC that we walk by each day to and from work.

We had ordered, with me doing my usual "may-on-naise--opsoyo" shtick, when an older woman with her sister/daughter nearly demanded that we speak English with her.

The three of us exchanged knowing looks and decided we didn't have anything to lose so we agreed to sit with the two of them.

As we suspected, the woman had an interesting story -- we knew she was interesting because 1) her hair was gray and she didn't look like the traditional ahjewma 2) she spoke passable English and 3) she was actually _nice_ to a stranger (many Koreans don't do the whole nice-to-strangers-thing very well.)

Turns out, she was involved with the Olympics when it came to Seoul and the World Cup when it came to Korea.

But as, with 99 percent of the rest of Korean population, she had fallen on hard times and was hocking what was obviously a very beautiful, very expensive, very real black mink coat (the would-be PETA activist in me was approached by men in white coats and forced into a very small, dark, padded room where he could cause no trouble.) "Don't you people have Society Security?" I wanted to ask. (What do you think? --Coy)

"As you may know, the Korean economy is very poor right now," she said mater of factly. (That's the understatement of the year, eh? -- Soju)

With those words, I was reminded of something the headmaster of my private elementary school said way back when, "One of the only things people are willing to spend money on regardless of the state of the economy is education."

The incident got us thinking, yet again, about what exactly is wrong with the Korean economy.

We know they had a problem in the late 1990s with the Great Asian Currency Crisis...and then they had the Credit Bubble Burst problem a little later...but what's wrong now? It appears as though Korea collectively is suffering from a serious case of The Blahs. Korea has a mature economy now and there is nothing to get people excited and out there buying stuff.

I often wonder if unification would help or hurt the South Korean economy. (Dude, you can't be serious! You think about stuff like THAT? No wonder you don't have any friends! You should be busy figuring out ways to drink more soju for less money or something. -- Soju)

In one sense, it would obviously hurt the Korean economy because, well, there might be a war and if YOUR country were to suffer a few trillion dollars (US) in war damage it might hurt YOUR country's economy in the short term, too. Even if there wasn't a war, there would be a lot of money the South Koreans would have to pump into the North just to get it third world standards.

On the other hand, nothing gets people's juices flowing like either a war or unification. Yes, I know unification didn't exactly do wonders for the German economy...but...Korea isn't Germany. The Koreans have a whole different world view. They love to build shit and they love the idea of Dreaming That Impossible Dream (that's why they make such great missionaries.)

Just think of all that fiber optic to lay...think of all the cars to be sold...all the stuff that would need to be built and rebuilt. (Of course, on the downside, if the North Koreans collapse and the Chinese not only prevent unification but make the North their bitch then the poor North could be a direct economic competitor to the rich South. )

Ok. I think too much.

Now You're Talking!

2005-01-16T13:22:00.000+09:00

More of them can afford to traipse around Asia for a year or pursue a career in film-making. It could be that the already rich and comfortable are simply less interested in pursuing careers in large corporations than their less-comfortable public-school peers for purely economic reasons.

From Daniel Gross' piece in Slate about why fewer Ivy leaguers are heading up big companies.

The major point of his piece is -- young members of the global "overclass" don't really need to work, so they don't work so hard.

The Lat Pack

2005-01-16T13:17:00.000+09:00

By BOBBY "SOJU" TUTTLE
Ahssa! Staff Writer

So I hung out with Zelda this weekend and we watched "Lost in Translation" in a DVD Room. (No, we did not have sex.)

At one point, Charlotte (played by Scarlet Johansson) asks, "Why do they switch the 'l's' and the 'r's' here?" I got frustrated and yelled at the screen, "They don't switch the letters, they don't have them!" (At least in Korean, they don't have a "l/r" distinction.)

Also -- despite what everyone says, the ditzy blond character who flirts with Charlottle's husband HAS to be based on Cameron Diaz. She talks about "Kuba," and having a relative who landed at the Bay of Pigs. And given that Sofia Coppola's exhusband Spike Jonze directed Diaz in "Being John Malcovlic," there is no other person it could be.

In other Ratpack news, I have my kids singing "That's Amore" from Dean Martin. How cool is that?

The Creative Arc of Great Bands

2005-01-15T23:03:00.000+09:00

By COY ASKEW
Ahssa! Copy Editor

Listening to Goo Goo Dolls doing a cover of Supertramp's "Give a Little Bit," I was reminded yet again of the creative ark of all great bands.

Step One
They rock! They're creative, interesting, "underground," cool and a joy to listen to.Totally ahead of the curve. At this point, they sing about organic, thought provoking things. They talk about wanting to get laid. They talk about how much being an angry young man sucks.

Step Two
They get success with one big hit and then they decided that they have to make A Statement, using their new found success. This usually happens just about the time they get co-oped by The Man.

Step Three
The Statement album is a huge hit, they have a successful world tour and once it's over they come back to the studio have a band meeting and just stare at each other (if, of course, the lead singer hasn't bolted from the band by this point).

Step Four
Having run out of ideas and the creative impulse (I mean, how difficult is it to write about being rich, getting laid a lot and having all the drugs you want for virtually free?*) they do one of the three things

1. Breakup
2. Release a greatest hits album with one or two moderately good songs
3. Do a cover.

Step Five
Coasting. Depending on how old the band members are, they just coast from this point on. A prime example of coasting is any band by an exBeatle or Sting (who, I think, is coming to Korea soon).

*Yes, I know, you can get laid a lot and be extreemly creative. In the song writing, business, however, it might be just a little different -- your typical 17-year-old guy has one thing (no pun intended) on his mind and being able to write songs for a garage band is a great way to meet the ladies.

Yellow Fever

2005-01-15T22:23:00.000+09:00

If this were a "minihopy," like all the Koreans via their www.cyworld.com account, the song "The Blower's Daughter," (written and performed by Damien Rice) would playing as you read this.

By COY ASKEW
Ahssa! Copy Editor

I, over all, have a pretty strong consitution.

Back in the States, I might get sick once or twice during the course of the winter.

My first winter in Korea, however, I have been entirely healthy maybe a handful of days so far.

Looking back, I realize what it is -- it's my kids. They get sick then give it to me. I probably get sick because I do the whole "High Five/ Down Low/ Soul Snap" warm up exercise then rub my nose and eyes when they frustrate me. Slick move, dumbass.

The reason I realize it's my kids -- on Thursday one of them simply would not do anything in class. He's something of a character, so I thought he was just faking. Turns out he was really sick and the little booger gave it to me.

Of course, it's possible that not only it's my kids -- it may be the difference in Korean medicine. Maybe Korean doctors, rather than treating a cold will hand their patient some blessed herbal medicine and call it a day. "Take two of these blessed roots and call me in the morning," I imagine them saying. (Ok, that was the Ugly American in you talking. Koreans wouldn't do that. Would they? -- Soju)

Yellow Fever goes like this -- you start to feel really tired, have a runny nose and feel miserable. In general, you just feel horrible.

The words of the Assha! staff recruiter begins to float into my conscious mind up from the depths of our mind's murk -- "Oh...each of you don't need your own individual appartment...you may need someone to bring you water one day."

Late this afternoon, lying in my bed with an obvious fever, Shelton was kind enough to knock on my door and give me just that -- some water. For that, I am forever grateful. At this stage in the process, I don't want to drink (!), eat, move, do anything...ok maybe write.

I started moaning something to Soju about getting me some Canadian Ale. Staggering to the P.C. Bang (bong) tonight, I did find something similar -- it really hit the spot.

Truer Words Were Never Spoken

2005-01-09T23:25:00.000+09:00

Mr. Scowcroft appeared at the New America Foundation with Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's national security adviser, who declared the Iraq war a moral, political and military failure. If we can't send 500,000 troops, spend $500 billion and agree to resume the draft, then the conflict should be "terminated," he said, adding that far from the Jeffersonian democracy Mr. Bush extols, the most we can hope for is a Shiite-controlled theocracy.

From a piece by Maureen Dowd
that can now be found on The New York Time's website.

The Porn Bus From Busan

2004-12-21T01:44:00.000+09:00

By Bobby "Soju" Tuttle
Ahssa! Staff Writer

This fall, during the traditional Korean Thanksgiving known as "Chusok," the Ahssa! staff decided not to be complete losers and headed toward the lovely southern city known as Busan (or Pusan).

It is somewhat amusing that we went to Busan and pretty much did the same stuff we would do in Incheon. The staff went to this cool ass bar called "The Basement" near Pusan National University. (Busan and Pusan are the same place because the Koreans have an issue with the "b" and "p" sound.) They had this cute miniature pool table. We went to another bar that had a little dance floor on it.

The motel we stayed at rocked. It was 20k won a night (less than $20US) and it was very close to the beach. Monday morning about noon an ahjooma (sic) came in and said "Either pay up or get out." I paid up and went back to sleep.

There was porn on TV at night, too. Apparently one thing is universal -- girl on girl action makes men the world over hot and bothered. You see, these two hot chicks are on the beach when the short haired one just begins to sexually ravage the long haired one. Fem runs away, meanwhile, three naked men are playing drums on the same beach. "You know George, we're all playing drums nude. Doesn't that strike you as odd?" One of the nude Korean men notice the same sex sexual assault taking place and rather than stopping it just stares in disbelief I got bored at that point. (The phrase I use to describe Korean porn is "My eyes! My eyes!" They always find someway to obscure what we would refer to as "the money shot.")

We hung out at the beach a lot. We drank in glass containers. We thought it was ok, but walking around one night I saw a sign that said, well, "no class containers on the beach." I could totally see where places like Haeundae Beach would be the Busan version of hanging out at the Buy The Way. You would see all these people to whom you could talk. While Jeju Island is probably the best place in Korea to go on a honeymoon, Busan would be pretty sweet.

Right before the Incheon gang left, we were all hanging out on the beach when Coy turned to me, said jokingly "You know, Soju, this is pretty romantic. Can you help me out?" Two which I quipped, "I'm afraid you're going to have to help yourself out on that one, buddy."

Old women were selling fireworks (another thing banned by the sign I saw). We bought some. I shot fireworks off. I felt like like that famous scene of Saddam Hussein shooting off a shotgun as he reviewed the troop. The whole thing made me nervous, though...reminded me too much of North Korean artillery.

We went to the Busan Metropolitan Art museum and saw a very odd thing -- a video of this guy walking around butt nekkid acting like a dog. He was a white dude and the video was pretty graphic. (While his willie was in the shadows, it wasn't too hard to make out. No pun intended.) We spent most of yesterday wondering around Busan, saw a few of the sights. I am definitely going back down there before my year is up. I want to go there in, like, June. I quite curious as to what type of swimwear the Korean women (and expat women for that matter) wear.

While the bus run down to Busan was quite pleasant (a pleasant 5 hour jaunt), the bus ride back was a different story. It was horribly long (12 hours). And we got to see old, fat people have sex! I was in the back and it was about midnight. I look up and what do I see on the TV screen but a fat Korean couple going at it, butt nekkid. I wanted to look away but couldn't...and it wasn't one of those brief shots you might see in an arty American film. Imagine if in the movie "About Schmitt" if we hadn't just see a brief shot of Kathy Bates nekkid...but if we had seen Jack Nicholson nekkid body on top of hers for about 3 minutes just going at it. It was kinda cute in a "good god that's icky" kinda way. I did want to say to the woman, "Move your hips just little bit honey, don't just lie there like a limp noodle."

The Ahssa! Backstory: Christmas, 2003

2004-12-19T18:01:00.000+09:00

The birth of Ahssa! can be traced to Christmas Day, 2003 when the 71-year-old publisher of the Richmond, Virginia alternative weekly "The Zinger" got a computer for Christmas.

Bryan Stewart was bought the freshly minted Mac by his children to help him overcome the grief he was experiencing celebrating Christmas for the first time without his beloved wife of 51 years who had died of a stroke in October.

Stewart, who also owned the art house movie theatre "The Seagull" in the Carytown neighborhood of Richmond, was tired of losing money with "The Zinger" and awoke Christmas day having decided to cease publication in the next few months. He knew his beloved daughter Emily would be heartbroken (it had been her idea to start The Zinger six years before), but it was something he had to do. He was getting older and he feared he wouldn't be able to leave behind even the modest fortune he had accumulated over the years if he continued pouring money into the money pit that was The Zinger.

He didn't know how he was going to tell his three-person staff, though. He really liked the editor he had hired, Shelton Bumgarner, even if he was a little weird and was somewhat damaged goods. He tolerated production manager and copy editor Coy Askew and got a kick out of how personable and quirky Bobby Tuttle was.

Stewart, who as a boy had worked on a Linotype to make extra money in his hometown of Blackstone, Virginia before moving to Richmond in his early 20s, loved the newspaper business and was still a member of the Society of Professional Journalists. He was active in the SPJ, even though the last time he wrote for a living was during his brief stint as a cub reporter for the Richmond Times-Dispatch after he got back from Korea in 1953. He had won the SPJ's coveted Mason Award in 1983 and he considered it one of the greatest honors of his life.

He had heard rumors through his children about the amount of information available on the Internet. He hated computers (what writing he did these days was on a beat up Royal he bought in the early 1960s) and it was only after he had started hinting about being interested in using the Internet that his children had bought him one for Christmas. (They still remembered his disastrous experience trying to use WebTV in the mid-1990s and so they had gotten him computer classes at the local library to go along with the computer) So that Christmas evening, after drinking his Jack Daniels and warming his feet in front of the fireplace, he went downstairs and finally turned his computer on.

In a life full of interesting and amazing experiences, one of the greatest was his participation as a marine in General Douglas McAuthur's brilliant landing at Incheon in September 1950. He still remembered how devastated the country had been when he left and wondered what it was like now.

So he spent the next few hours (once he figured out how to turn the computer on and actually get on the Internet) looking up stuff about modern day Korea. He realized it had changed dramatically since the early 1950s. It was about 3 a.m. when Stewart stumbled across the link that would change the lives of the staff of The Zinger. The site mentioned something about how there was a huge need for native speakers to teach English in Korea. All someone needed was to be a native speaker and have a college degree. Something in the back of his mind told Stewart that he might have found the answer to his problems with telling The Zinger staff about the impending death of their newspaper...

A Word From the Author: Welcome

2004-12-14T15:44:00.000+09:00

Updated, June 10th, 2005.

By Shelton "Lee" Bumgarner
Ahssa! Author and Creator

What a long, strange trip it's been.

Ahssa! orginially was sort of a fusion of news and fiction.

But now that I have several different options available for writing "straight news" I have decided to make Ahssa! very simple -- it's a novel written in blog form. Once the process is complete, you should be able to print it out and read like you would a novel. You'll have to read it "in reverse" from the way you would read it in blog form, of course.

Here are the main characters:

Shelton Baumgartner
Shelton is in his early to mid 30s and has worked in the newspaper business his entire adult life with varying degrees of success. He is obsessed with the media, politics and the state of affairs between the DPRK, RoK and everyone else. He also knows a little bit about everything, or at least enough to get him in trouble. He has had a life-long interest in Korea and coming to Korea was a chance to see the place first hand. He stole Coy's girlfriend and the two kinda hate each other, even though in some ways their each other's best friend.

Coy Askew
Coy is "cloyingly annoying," and is kinda "big boned." He is a little older and taller than Baumgartner and is even more cynical and world-weary. He is the copyeditor of Ahssa! but he does such a bad job of it that Baumgartner is always thinking of firing him. He has known Baumgartner for years. Coy is something of a loner and can sometimes be argumentative for no reason other than he wants attention and he wants to feels the joys of being placated.

Bobby "Soju" Tuttle
Tuttle's grandfather fought in the 6.25 War and married a beautiful Korean girl. Tuttle is also Jewish and can speaking something akin to fluent Korean. Tuttle also drinks way too much. Tuttle is about 23, just out of college and is aiming to get a job at a newspaper somewhere in Virginia once he leaves Korea.

If you really all that interested in what is going on, you can click here for the "expanded universe" of "lost posts."

The Best Bar In Korea

2004-12-14T15:39:00.001+09:00

By BOBBY "SOJU" TUTTLE
Ahssa! Staff Writer

No matter where I go in Korea, Unyoung Dong will always be mine, and the rest of the Ahssa! staff's "hometown in Korea."

The center of our hometown is the Unyoung Dong Buy The Way. You can see our apartment from the the shot shown here.

We here at Ahssa! have so many fond memories of this Buy The Way, we really don't know where to start.

A TopPoint nearby where The Russian Whore works, which is pretty nice, but there is something about sitting out in front of the Buy The Way and feeling the warm breeze as thousands of people walk franticly past you that will always be special to me.

You just never know who will show up. The folks in that "village," both expat and Korean are just really, really nice people. They remind me of my home back in Illinois. What makes the Buy The Way bar nice is you never know exactly who is going to pop up and sit down for a chat.

Anyway, I have had many, many great conversations in front of the Buy The Way, probably some of the best conversations of my life. It's in front of the Buy The Way early one morning that I learned how to use chopsticks. Learning chopsticks changed my life! (Show me, don't tell me. -- Shelton)

Also, there is just so much to do within walking distance of the Buy The Way. You can shoot pool on one floor in the building, go to at least two PC Bangs and I think there might even be a noraebong floating about somewhere.

If you ever find yourself in Unyoung Dong, you should stop by that Buy The Way. You won't regret it.

A Word From Our Sponsors

2004-12-13T15:25:00.000+09:00

Do you like to write? Do you live in Korea? Well we at the Greater Seoul Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists WANT YOU! We like to talk about writing, sing our hearts out and drink up a storm (what journalist/writer doesn't.) Please hunt down Shelton Bumgarner and tell him you're interested.