A house in Suwon
October is becoming firmly entrenched. It is indeed my favourite month, even surpassing my birthmonth of July. All around fall is settling in. The heat of summer is dissipating and people are beginning to industriously prepare for the onslaught of winter. For the ancient Celts it was the new year time. The herd was thinned to prepare for the feed shortages of winter and thusly, it was a time to be guaranteed fresh meat-- amidst the other feasting that culminated in the great New Year's festival now known as Hallowe'en. All around, things were dying, hibernating, changing... the year itself was passing away. At the moment between the two years, the veil between realities thinned and for a brief moment, the worlds of the dead and living mixed, intermingled, partied, and were blogged about. I can't believe I wrote about 'death' in Korea in my last post yet missed mentioning that this year's stats have shown the death rate for foreign workers in Korea is now nearly *double* that of Korean workers. Thankfully, teaching is not a high risk labour classification yet.
My life may also be prolonged by 'staying off the roads'. The Korean government is now refusing to give licenses to expatriates from countries that do not reciprocate by validating Korean licenses. Applicants from countries such as the U.S., Great Britain, (and I hope to God, Canada) must now write a written test before having theirs issued. I think this is a fantastic idea. Every foreigner who is kept from driving on the streets of Korea is one more foreign life saved. I remember reading around the time I came to Korea, that Korea was #1 in the world for traffic fatalities but apparently they lost their lead to Malaysia last year and are now tied with Thailand for second place. Check out some of the accident statistics for Asia. See also the Canadian Embassy advisory.
There were no brushes with death for me today-- although for a minute I was a bit concerned. Today was a day to take care of some of those fall chores I mentionned. I woke up early this morning and headed to Nowon to pick up my cell phone which was finally ready at the repair shop (after more than a month). I was heading in a cab toward the Midopa Department Store which is now apparently a Lotte Department Store. There must have been some aggravation over that because at the exact spot where the taxi driver let me out-- I ran smack dab into a DEMONSTRATION. As I exited the cab, I kept repeating to myself, "Meegook animneeda... I am not an American... Meegook animneeda... I am not..." but it turned out they weren't Anti-US demonstrators but rather just disgruntled workers.
The whole thing looked kind of odd in retrospect. There was a stage area set up in front of the door with gigantic Che Guevara-styled images and a posse of guys in black Tae Kwan Do suits, with red headbands, that were doing some sort of synchronized dancing to the shouts of whatever it was the protestors were shouting. Some staff of the store were all lined up facing the stage, wearing their sales uniforms but with the addition of similar red headbands. There was a bit of a dichotomy here in that, you must understand, an upscale department store, like Lotte or Midopa, only hires sales girls who are under about 100 pounds (before makeup)-- yet to see them stand there in uniform, with blood-red headbands tied tight across their brows, completely rigid, their eyes fixed on the placards and their fists raised and clenched into the air... it was a uniquely terrifying thing. Then I got the mental image of an episode of "Are You Being Served?" and it spoiled the whole experience for me.
Oh. And in case you're wondering. The cell phone that had been sitting on their shelf for over a month was NOT fixed. When I went in to ask for it, the girl had to usher me away for sam ship boon (30 minutes) while they actually did fix it. Yep, the whole thing took less than half an hour... yet I'd been waiting weeks for it (*off-colour joke witheld*). I have it now anyway and the service should be connected back up to it on Monday.
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