Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Kill'n Time



It took a little trial and error, navigating through a Korean replica of this still unfamiliar site. It*s 4am, I*m sitting in a *PC Bong* in Busan (Korea*s second largest city), killing time with my friend and fellow teacher Christa while waiting to catch the subway to the port and then the ferry to Fokuoka Japan! Initially, I was going to spend the time playing Warcraft 3, however, a lot has changed since War Craft 1 came out 10 or so years ago. Computer games used to be relatively simply and thus intuitive... these days are gone. The mere fact I was unable to understand my mission, let alone figure out the controls, was enough reason for me to give up.

Korea has made me realize all electronics tend to speak roughly the same language. For example, bank machines seem consistent wherever you are. I was a little reluctant to use the trail and error method with something as dear to me as finances, but as long as you remember Red = Cancel, Green = Ok and Yellow = Correction then the characters are irrelevant. In the rare event none of the above work then press the top right hand corner button to proceed.

Anyway, I actually had a story to share:

Today in class I was scribbling on my chalkboard as usual when the entire class erupted into laughter. When this happens I usually get nervous. Baffled, I peered around the room in the hopes someone else was the source of their laughter. But of course they were all staring at me and speaking rapid Korean while gasping for air. Wearing a puzzled look on my face I shrugged my shoulders and asked *What?* When she finally recovered, Ginnie, an typical short, sweet and occasionally obnoxious 10 year old Korean girl pointed at where my t-shirt met my pants. I checked my fly, it was in the fully upright position – what else could it be?

I remembered my sweaty armpits had amused them in earlier classes and as reached for the sealing to look the bright orange and white checks on my boxer shorts came into full view. Girls were turning their head in nervous embarrassment, boys were pointing and laughing, everyone was in hysterics. But then the class quickly fell silent... something wasn*t right... my boss, Ms Hong, had been staring through the window. From what little I could decipher after the incident, she was there for most of the show.

Interestingly, Ms Hong never even mentioned the incident. It*s not that I was worried about my boxers being seen but rather I didn*t want her to think I was intentionally showing my boxers to a bunch of nine-year-old boys and girls.

So I*m off to Japan, this won*t be posted until I can either figure out how *Publish Post* is spelt in Korean/Japanese or am back on my own computer. In the mean time I*m going to look for some Japan-ime boxers.

-Comatose

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