Deception!

So I've been holding back a tale of intrigue for just the right time.
Because I have made you wait long enough, now is that time.
Relax a while, reader, as I weave a tale of intrigue shadier than a ... shady....shade.

You remember, of course, the boss I mentioned at the beginning of the year?  The wounded military veteran professional gambler with a few aggravating traits?
 I read the book American Shaolin a week ago, and it mentioned that in Asian societies (specifically Chinese, but applicable elsewhere), feelings are not expressed at surface level, so that a man can get a leg up on everyone else around him.  And no one asks whether a person is lying, they ask why he is lying.
Well, fresh off the plane midwestern me was not worldly enough to know these details intimately.  So when my boss would tell me about himself (and I could put down my bible and apple pie long enough to listen), it never occurred to me that he was telling anything but the truth.  But after he left, about a month ago, the truth began to come out.

His Masters in English? 
From a nonexistent university in England.

Wait a minute, I cried, he actually did live in England!
As it turns out, he did.  He fled the country with his uncle who was under suspicion of drug charges, while still in high school.  Meaning not only did he never get that masters degree, he may've never had a diploma either.

But he MUST have had some value as a teacher!  As soon as he left, students started to quit the school.
Word began to come in from parents a few weeks later, that before he left, this man had told the parents that the other teachers at my school lacked college degrees.  Sinister.  But not as sinister as insinuating that the NEW school he was starting would  be run by he himself who they could trust.  Can you almost feel the snake oil?

Finally, A new teacher that had been called in right as he was leaving had been quiet around me.  Not unusual.  We didn't primarily communicate in the same language, so that's normal, right?
Turns out, he'd told her I didn't talk to her because I looked down on her English skills.

Turned the staff against each other?  Check.
Turned the students against the staff?  Affirmative.
Bamboozled everyone with forged documents?  You got it
Funneled the runoff into his own school?  Perfectly
Step five?  Profit.

Also that "pro gambler " thing was actually just him having a betting problem.

Am I upset about all this?  You bet I am! 
I was working under a Master of the Art all along and had no idea because I didn't speak the language!  Oh the disappointment!  There was so much I should've been learning!  I mean, he's not a TRUE master because he was found out, but that's still a stunning amount of bluffing your way past everyone.  The saying in the school now is that the only truth ever heard from his mouth was the sound of breathing, and we're still checking the certificates on that.

So that's good news.  My story needed a villain.   A plot twist of sorts, so that everyone can go back the the scene selection on the 14HoursAndAWorld DVD and go "oooooh yeah, I totally saw this coming".


While we're on the subject of deception, there one other cruel trick I'd like to point out, and it's more general, and not leveled at a single person.  Because it's leveled at a group, it may sound like I'm generalizing.
I am.
I do. 
I will continue to do so. 
I'm sure you can find exceptions to my generalizations, but they are based on observations.  Never fabrications.  Wow, Jeff-poet, congratulations.

Anyway, I saw this comic recently

The accuracy is astounding.  Even down to the granny-perm and tracksuit.  And it made me pause to think.  I have been told that Waygooks (us foreign people) look old more quickly than Koreans.  Which brought up the idea of aging gracefully- it seems to be rarer here.  Aging seems less like a gradual adding of laugh lines and crows feet and senility, and more like one day the Wisdom delivery truck arrives but it crashes directly on them while making its delivery.  That may be in part due to the harder life lived here and later retirement age, but either way, one thing jumped out at me.

I do see many foreign men here take local girlfriends.  However, when I see a man in his fifties walking with his Korean wife, rarely do I stop and think "He chose....wisely". 

So I believe I've found the cruelest deciever of them all, and that's beauty. 

Don't despair, men in the audience!  Yes, you can still choose a beautiful girl and be happy with her.  But the moral of the story is- you should check out her mother first.  Maybe get some indication of whether she's going to keep that lovely figure when she-- ok you're checking her mother out for too long.   Yes, everyone can see what you're doing.  But in all seriousness-- Safeguard yourselves with this one simple check.  Just long enough to make sure there's no granny perm should be fine.

Til next time
Jeff-Teacher

Americanism Part II, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Overpaying

Last week I talked about what living in Korea has taught me about being an American, and I hinted that I might have some more about American values for you this week.  Well, I am a man of my word, so here's the heart-stopping conclusion! I'll begin with a couple thoughts about Korea.

So I went shopping this week. For a birthday present for my little sister. I ended up with a nice enough (though trinkety) little thing and, full of myself for another successful present purchase, I asked the cashier the price. He rattled off a nonchalant Korean number, and (after processing what it was he meant), I was very surprised. Surely he couldn't have meant THAT much. He did. I looked at the gift in my hand. Yep. It was still the same one, the one I wanted to give my sister. I paid and walked out without so much as a regretful should-I-or-shouldn't-I. Later, on the street, I saw similar gifts being sold at a much lower cost. Similar, but not quite the same. Clearly, the one I had bought was not superior enough to merit the price difference, but I found myself absolutely not caring. The money meant little to me. I wanted the one I had, and I had enough money for it. The specifics were a non-issue.

And just tonight, I watched a man in a business suit walking in front of me down the street plug a nostril and blow his nose across the sidewalk. Repeatedly, and without a backward glance, he purged his nasal passages all over the walkway until he was satisfied, then walked on. Such occurrences are commonplace here, as it's not unusual to see Koreans hawk up and spit in internal walkways in buildings. So recently I've decided- by the time I leave this place, I will have developed the vocabulary to inform the practitioners of the phlegmatic arts that this is not only disgusting and dirty, but rude to all around. After announcing my intention to a friend, I was rebuffed with a phrase I've often heard (but rarely stopped to consider)- It's not worth it. I've always found this phrase strange. If I'm able to do something about a problem, whether or not I'm guaranteed success (and indeed, in this situation I'm guaranteed failure, since I can't really stop this practice altogether), then the right thing to do is to do my part to fix the problem. Yes it may cost me time, effort, money, or a potential friend in the form of that Korean businessman I’ve just offended-- but the practice is not a good way for people to go about life, and I have the capability to begin combating it-- so I don't see any other option but to act.

Prepare yourself for this next part if you are easily offended, or if you have been on mars since about 1776. It may shock you with its offensive stereotypes and sweeping generalizations.

Americans

Are not known for being

Very savvy

Tourists.

They routinely overpay for things that any local (or really, even foreigners from other countries) would look at and ask “Are you crazy? There's absolutely no way that little tourist toy is worth even half of what you just paid for it.”

There, I've said it. Have I started any fights yet?

Even though you, noble Reader, are probably the exception to the rule, the One American who Proves they're Not All the Same, it's hard to disagree that the stereotype exists. American tourists tend to be favorite prey for tourist traps because they know the Americans can and will pay whatever prices they set. And why is that? Because they routinely say things like

“Oh I know it's only a paper figure of a tortoise, honey, but it's a Mexican paper tortoise. We can't get those back home. What's twenty dollars going to hurt? We're on vacation!”

How did this come to be? How did a nation born with the value of Thriftiness carved into its psyche come to be the nation known for outlandish expenditure?

The answer to that question was best articulated by English author Philip Pullman who wrote “If you can, and you should, then you must”. America is a nation blessed with the land, population, and natural resources to create, build, and spend on levels the world has never seen. This was publicized to the assembled spectators of nations worldwide in 1907 when President Theodore Roosevelt ordered the circumnavigation of the globe by the Great White Fleet, America's capital ships. Essentially the entire American navy was painted white for high visibility, and set out to visit the nations of the world as they steamed all the way around the globe. Excessively expensive, an operation that committed the full function of the U.S. Navy to a mission that didn't require any combat. Nevertheless, President Roosevelt had decided that the United States had reached a point where it should show the world that it was a global power. And because power was projected internationally at that time by naval forces, the way to do it was a naval world tour. Being full of the prosperity that would last until the Great Depression, they also had the cashflow to do so. With the funding, he realized they can. With the need to bring his growing nation into a place on the global stage, he realized they should. Can. Should. Must. So they did.

Today, the United States is the largest military spender in the world, coming in at about six times the expenditure of second-place China, and with higher total military spending than the next 20 ranked nations combined. It seems we still buy into the idea that if we can and we should, then we must. Of course, this philosophy has its ups and downs- we can and should do many things for which we have the money, it just means we have to give up money elsewhere. But a decision maker bent on doing the right thing can't dismiss an opportunity because it has a cost or a commitment. I would challenge you to think of a reason that includes the words “it's difficult” to avoid doing the right thing in a situation where you have the power to do so. Now try to say that reason without making a pouty-face.

So yes, the gift I bought my sister does not have the same value as the cash I paid for it. And no, I do not expect to clean up the streets for my efforts with nose-blowers. But both are worthwhile causes, and within my capability to pay the cost.

Last week, when Osama bin Laden was killed by US Navy SEALS, I heard a minority outcry online. Many were reticent about a victory that had cost the US massive amounts of money, soldiers, and political capital. “Was it worth it?” was the rallying cry taken up on Facebook statuses that day. However, I stand behind the efforts of Presidents Bush and Obama, both of whom understood that the removal of World Enemy Number One from the Earth was something that should be done. And both knew very well that United States could do it given time, men, and money. Because as Americans, our spirit is not one of “Is it within my price range?” It's a spirit of “Is it good? And am I able?”

Can. Should. Must.

'Til next time,

Jeff-Teacher

Wagon Train to the East

A year removed from your homeland puts you in a unique position. As a foreigner living in a strange new world, all of the differences between the home you left and the new world are lit up with miniature spotlights. You're able to see things the locals take for granted and wonder why and how their society lives the way it does. I've had plenty such musings this year on subways, metal chopsticks, rudeness, pepper-flavored peppers, and the Hangul alphabet. And all of these insights have been truly helpful to understanding my place in the world.

But this week I realized something was missing from this year of discovery. Yes, an American living in Korea is able to see clearly the little-things of life that a Korean would dismiss as ordinary, because they are the addition of something unfamiliar. But this American would also notice, for the first time, the absence of many things he had simply taken for granted as part of life in America. Taking time to think on this subject this week, I've learned a lot about what it is to be American.

In many ways, my year in Korea has been the most American year of my life.

Allow me to explain.

America is a land founded by those who made a similar leap to mine. They knew only that opportunities existed across the sea that did not exist back home. The Mayflower was a ship full of people who left their native land behind for myriad reasons, the most prevalent of which were either idealistic (Puritans seeking religious freedom), or economic (about half of the passengers had simply taken the offer to ply their trade in the new world and were in fact paid to go to America.) They would, of course, suffer the hardships of an undeveloped land, but most brought their friends and family along for company.

The English teachers who have come to Korea also fall into these two categories, though not as evenly. Many do come with a passion for the teaching itself, making the trip because they have a strong desire to be one of the educators of the system. Many more, however, end up like the barrel-makers aboard the Mayflower: lacking in good opportunities back home, these teachers take an acceptable amount of money to take the one thing they are able to do well and leap-of-faith across the sea.

Of course, the experience of leaving behind the Europe of their time was changing for the very character of American society. Europe had nobility, philosophers, and orchestras. And as Frederick Jackson Turner noted in his Frontier Thesis, the character of the settlers became something new- something that , while keeping the Puritan values of simplicity, devotion, and thriftiness, was notably more violent and hardy, with many of the trappings of native life. Similarly, American English teachers here are often viewed as a rowdy element of America, who occasionally drink too much or pick fights in the pubs. But they learn and adapt every day. They take on the clothing styles, hairstyles, language, foods, and customs of the natives here, many of which would seem unseemly to the civilized world from which they had come (for one, they learn to eat the local foods by taking bites much larger than their mothers would've allowed at the dinner table back home).

Of course the metaphor of leaving Europe for America is an imperfect one, because it ends with the Boston tea party and some war. And because I don't fancy dressing in a Hanbok and dumping crates of Budweiser into Incheon harbor, I'm going to skip my metaphor ahead a few hundred years to when Americans were Americans, and the frontier was no longer the New World, but the West.

The time of Manifest Destiny was a time of opportunity and disappointment. Many in America were finding the America Dream held very little actual promise for them, were they to stay in their cities and work in a factory. The good news was twofold, however; the Homestead Act, promising them land and a place out West- all they had to do was give up whatever lives they had been living and take up the new career of farming; and the Gold Rush, tantalizing the dream-frustrated Americans with the promise of a new fortune and a new life if they'd just give gold mining a try. Once again, as before, Americans jumped at the call. They squeezed their lives and families into covered wagons, bringing only supplies and their now evolved values of hard work, determination, and the dream of riches, and set sail again. They sailed this time across the Great Plains instead of the Atlantic. Many of them had been failed by the system in which they lived, and conversely many had failed at the system. Regardless of the reason, they were off again. Somewhere beyond the Western horizon a new life waited. How could they stay?

Our times are not so different. Many students do finish college to find that their American Dream is not what once was promised. Many have put in their time, work, and money and come away with working degrees only to find that the jobs aren't there. These have been failed by the system. Some finish college and then don't find the work they'd wanted, or have a degree that's insufficient to get them into the promised dream. Sadly, this writer falls into that category, having a degree that's insufficient on its own, without significant effort put into the actual obtaining of a career. Whatever the reason, one day these unfulfilled graduates glimpse an offer they can't refuse. Maybe they see a job advertisement online, maybe they hear a rumor that so-and-so will be moving to Asia to be a teacher. And like the Homesteaders who saw the advertisements tacked on the general store walls, or the would-be miners who heard whispered rumors of prospectors who had struck it rich before, they were off into the sunset.

Trading wooden ships and Conestoga wagons for carry-on bags and 747s may not have the romance of sailing or riding into the unknown. But somewhere in it is a universal truth, and I believe that grain of truth to be something found in Manifest Destiny.

Manifest Destiny was the belief that America not only could spread from New England to the Pacific, but that it should. And not only that it should, but that it must. American spirit was forged in such a unique experience- becoming a civilized nation while still living on the Wild Frontier of the known world- that Americans need that journey as part of their life. That is the reason there is something so alien about seeing a Korean marry his sweetheart and move back in with his parents, who still live with his grandparents after having moved back in themselves decades ago. Manifest destiny dictates not only that Americans feel the need to make the journey, but that they bring something worthwhile with them when they do so. I'll touch on this assertion in next week's blog- that there's an American value worth spreading at any price. But for now, the journey is what's important.

Almost four hundred years ago, my 14^th-great-grandfather spoke to a small, frightened group of people soon to board a flimsy little ship that would be remembered forever. The ship was headed for a world these brave souls had never seen, and they needed his guidance to make the trip. Many generations, many wars, many cities and inventions after the Mayflower made its mythic voyage, after the closing of the last frontier, how could the founding fathers have known that alabaster cities gleaming far away would relentlessly call their descendents West? The spirit of Manifest Destiny didn't die at the Pacific Ocean, as Frederick Jackson Turner thought. It just waited there until Boeing could catch up.

O beautiful, for Patriot dream, that sees beyond the years.

Its been a good week to be American,

Jeff-Teacher