Thailand Part 2

On the morning that Matt and I left Koh Pagnon we were shook down by the police for a large sum of money and threatened with prison.  I'm not going to discuss the details of the incident but perhaps people who've known me for a long time can form a few theories.  "What could Eric have done to be extorted by the authorities in Thailand?"  Here's a picture of me sending out an SOS the moment I could make international calls in Koh Phi Phi...and some beautiful pics of the island itself.

 

Front row seats for Thai Boxing at the Reggae Bar.

 

Monster Mid-Afternoon Mojito

 

Cargo ship parked right on the beach

Floating Market

My Trouser Snake

Two snakes get pretty heavy.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I have a soft spot for big felines and while the beaches and nightlife in Thailand are to die for, the tiger temple is the real reason I came.

This 4 year old male weighs in at over 400 kg.

Hey Mom and Dad...who knew that all you had to do to get me to smile in childhood photographs was to sit me next to half a ton of muscle and teeth?

Bridge over the River Kwai...for all you history buffs.

Thailand Part 1

Thailand is awesome.  The people you meet.  The scenery.  The attitude.  It may be the coolest place I've ever been.  Highlights thus far include the nightlife at Kaohsan Road in Bangkok, getting a bungalow on the beach for $10/day, fighting elephants for bananas, racing motorbikes across an island that has no DUI/helmet laws with a pack of foreigners at 1am because you are dedicated to a mission, and having a bar deep in the jungle open up just for you and the people you're with despite the uncivilized hour.  This place is somewhere that I can see losing myself in for years.  And many people do.  I can't tell you word for word how excellent every part of my day is here.  I can't possibly weave a narrative that would help you come any closer to understanding the magnitude of this place.  You've either been here and experienced it...or you're stuck looking at other people's vacation photos.

If you don't hear from me for two weeks I'm in a Thai prison. Call the US Embassy.

Oh how I love life.  Let me count the ways.

1.)  Though it is foggy and raining out the cold front has finally broken.  At one point it was around 5 degrees Fahrenheit.  Today I'm comfortable in just a hooded sweatshirt.
2.)  My job is great.  While some people I know are still teaching classes I'm catching up on Random House Classics, playing video games, and stalking Facebook.
3.) The gorgeous people I involve myself with, by virtue of their cerebral and physical endowments, have time and time again proved themselves to be genetically superior examples of the species and I'm blessed to have them as friends.
4.)  I got a really dignified, pristine condition, red leather arm chair for free the other day.
5.)  Been trying to find some new independent hip-hop to rock to for sometime now and I finally got turned onto Aesop Rock.  Check out this sic video.
6.)  Some stateside comrades finally got webcams after much deliberating.  Expect cyber-power hours to follow shortly.
7.)  Oh yeah...I'm leaving for Thailand tonight.

     That's right Thailand, Siam, the Unity of Thai Blood and Body.  The only country in Southeast Asia to never come under the rule of a European power.  I haven't really made solid plans for the trip yet but this is how I imagine it will turn out:

     Shortly after landing I'll be approached by a strange westerner in a bar talking about a secret island paradise.  He'll give me a map to the island before disappearing into his room and committing suicide.  Despite the horrific nature of the event and going against my better judgment I'll head south to Koh Phangan where I'll meet a charming French couple.  Together, the three of us will follow the map to the island, encountering near-death experiences such as a two-mile long swim that could potentially cause us to drown, a bone crushing jump from a water fall, and having to evade AK-47 weilding guards on a vast marijuana plantation.
     Eventuallly we'll come upon a community of travelers who accept us as their own and for a time everything will be great.  We'll play volleyball all day, go fishing, I'll earn everyone's respect by killing a Mako shark with my bare hands, and under a star-lit sky the beautiful French mademoisselle will fall inescapably in love with me.
     Unfortunately, it will all fall apart.  I'll break the French girl's heart after the matriarchal leader of the commune seduces me on a supply gathering expedition.  Then a Swedish member of the group will develop a gangreanous infection in his leg after being bit by a shark.  We'll leave him in the woods to die but it will ultimately be up to me to smother the life out of him so that the rest of us can attempt to continue our utopian existence.  Finally, a group of surfers who will discover the island only because I stupidly gave them a copy of my map will be murdered by the plantation guards.  They'll demand that, as the one responsible for disclosing the location, the community do away with me or everyone must leave the island.  In an attempt to restore utopia the matriarch will put a gun to my head and pull the trigger.  Fortunately, the gun will be unloaded.  But after realizing the price at which paradise must be purchased the remaining members of the community will be filled with regret and disband.  I'll return to Korea shortly after and go back to teaching but forever , the memories on that island will be imprinted on my soul.


Cool Thing About Korea #44: Immaculate Public Restrooms...in theory.

Hoggin!

Snapped awake to a foreign alarm clock.  A hellish wind up device that rang with the urgency of an air raid siren.  Found the pants I'd been wearing all weekend, crumbled on the floor with the belt still in the loops and slipped them on in a hurry.  Shirts, hoodie, jacket, hat then the essentials: cell phone, wallet, and keys.  Ran out into the cold , shoulders hunched, collar up.  It occurred to me that I hadn't shaven in three days but I wasn't too concerned with appearances.  No students at work today so no real need to perpetuate the illusion of being a "role model". 

I ducked into a GS25 on the way to the bus stop exchanging an "Anyongaseyo" with the clerk.  Grabbed a sandwich and a can of coffee.  Paid for it with a handful of uncounted change before chasing the #9 bus down the slush covered street.  Orange backhoes swung snow filled buckets out over traffic and into the backs of idling dump trucks.  Civilian cars were driving dangerously close to this unchecked operation and the part of me fascinated with carnage hoped to see the hydraulic arm shear the roof off of a passing minivan.

The fog was dangerously thick when I got off the #9 and after the giant green mammoth labored away the street was left in an eerie silence.  Behind me the cabs and booms of yellow cranes hovered magically in the sky, their triangular towers lost somewhere in the mist.  As I approached the school from the deserted country boulevard the silence was cut with a slamming repetition like that of a .50 caliber machine gun.  I made my way to the third floor of the unheated building unalarmed, knowing that portions of the complex were scheduled for cosmetic makeovers yet completely unaware as to the extent.  I stood slackjawed upon reaching the level where my classroom should have been.  What had been explained to me as minor construction resembled damage consistent with that of a Tomahawk cruise missile.  Crumbled brick, plumbing, and load bearing columns haphazardly exposed.  Entire walls obliterated, cement floors disintigrated down to their rebar skeletons, stripped black wires hanging from busted conduits and ravaged ceiling panels.

Hurriedly I made my way past degenerate, jack-hammer wielding laborers to get to the teachers lounge where the few remaining faculty huddled in the only space warmer than the rest of the defunct building.   I wondered what transgressions had kept them in the confines of the school while the majority of the employees were on holiday.  I gave a respectful nod to the vice-principle who, despite the day's events was looking sharp in a three piece suit.  Then, as best I could manage in my ragged state, a seductive wink to an attractive co-worker I knew to be married before gracelessly dropping into a generic, five-wheeled office chair.  I gave a cheerful spin in the plastic seat, saluting the rest of my compatriots before firing up my ever praiseworthy Samsung notebook.  As the computer lazily loaded it's grocery-list of pre-installed Korean software (the function of which I can not yet fathom) I took the assembly-line sandwich out of my pocket and pulled back it's date-stamped plastic sheath.  Biting into the soft white bread, soggy lettuce, pressed ham, and imitation crab meat I imagined that somewhere a world away, someone was enjoying a fresh, made to order mixed-meat turkey club with thick bacon, real cheese, juicy tomato, and creamy mayonaise on three crisp pieces of golden-brown rye toast.  Then I cracked open a sweet can of T.O.P. brand espresso.  Now with more polyphenol than the leading competitor!  When I was in college I had quite a regular coffee habit.  Now, a world away from a decent cup of high-test organic I barely touch the stuff.  Still, on the rare occassion that I do decide to dabble with a can of trimethylxanthine it's got to be name brand.  None of that no-name grocery store junk.

Lunchtime, day one of winter break and there is absolutely nothing that I am expected to accomplish.  I have exactly 72 working hours of time left to kill before I leave for Thailand.  So far today I've read half of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, watched about 25 Youtube videos involving professional replicas of K.I.T.T. from the show Knightrider, began writing a draft of, "The Korean Dream: Observing Modern Korea Through the Lens of 1950's America," ran five laps around the school, sent prank job applications to American defense contractors, facebook chatted with my brother, and wrote this blog post.  It's an endurance marathon against boredom and bordom is winning.  If anyone needs a research paper written, life problem solved, or even an anonymous accopmlice in a decent prank please cut me in.  I'm dyin here.

Cool Thing About Korea #43: The Korean hunts the tiger six months in the year and the tiger hunts the Korean the other six months.

Korea Perceived With Conceptions of 1950's America

I know people who have lived in Korea for as long as nine years while I have been here less than nine months, so be assured that I am in no way an authority on the cultural intricacies present within the country.  I also never lived during the 1950's in America but I took several college classes covering the Post War Era and the American Dream which I feel is at least enough to hold an amateur discussion on the issue.  It is with these novice observations that I continually draw parallels between the Korean peninsulla and my pre-concieved notions of the America my grandfather grew up in which I have for some time felt compelled to write about.  These similarities are numerous and dynamic, encapsulating issues such as industry, politics, feminism, and cultrual ethos.  I will do my best to discuss my experiences of these parallels but keep in mind, this is not a research paper.  I'm not trying to uncover hard cultural facts.  I'm just trying to pass some time at work by critically thinking through an issue that has occured to me for some time.  If you think some of my conclusions are wrong or dissillusioned please feel free to retort.  I love feedback.

Reflection 2009

     Allen I'm plugging your site.  Return the favor.

     One year ago I made a New Year's resolution to start a journal and write in it three or four times a week.  I've successfully fulfilled that promise to myself for an entire year now.  The Word document entitled "Journal" that sits inconspicuously on my desktop is now 122 pages long and 66,490 words.  For that I give myself a pat on the back.
     I started the project shortly after I graduated college as means of self-discovery I suppose.  I remember being a little depressed with the way things were going at the time.  Suffocating in a town I knew too well, going to the same old bars, working crappy jobs with no worthwhile prospects in sight (I was pulling double duty as a pizza delivery driver/ private investigator at the time).  I think the journal gave me a means of identifying my qualms with life, taking inventory, and in turn developing the necessary mental framework to tackle the looming monotony.  In a few months of documenting my thoughts it became apparent that what I needed to get out of life was not to be found in the lazy suburbs of south-eastern Pennsylvania.
     Towards spring of 2009 I heard about a friend of mine moving to Korea and all of the cool perks that goes with such a commitment.  Desperate for change and full of youthful vigor I pushed the paperwork through in under three weeks and, knowing nothing at all about Korea, I boarded a wide-body Boeing bound for adventure. 
     At the time, having graduated with a degree in English, it seemed that the natural evolution of my journal should be to bring it online in the form of a blog, not just so that family and friends might share in my varied experiences but also to develop some published credibility as a writer.  Sure, I still journal more personal reflections that I'm not keen on publishing but for the most part what energy I invest in my literary enterprises goes directly onto Deadly Quests.  It is an ongoing process of learning and though it is a relatively modest periodical I am proud of how far it has come from just a simple resolution only a year ago.
    So where does that leave me now?  Looking back at my entries from this time last year do I feel happier, more satisfied with life, content with the world around me?  I'm not sure.  So much drastic change has occured in only twelve months that I'm unprepared to reduce any of it to rhetoric or characterizable linguistics.  Too much meaning is lost between the sub-conscious and the pen that any attempt to compare two wholly different and paramount chapters of my life would be futile.  I definately feel more mature.  I feel a sense of personal satisfaction in my work that wasn't afforded from my years in various restaurants.  I feel fortunate for the things I've seen and honored that I have such diverse, intelligent, and attractive people in my life.  I think the most important thing I've learned however is to never settle for anything.  As soon as you start to feel comfortable in life it's time to pick up and move.  Explore new horizons and infiltrate more vibrant crowds.  I like Korea but I doubt I'll spend the rest of my life here.  I also love my home and I'm somewhat anxious to return but I doubt I'll spend more than a few months there.  Looking back it is hard to say whether or not my descision to come to Korea was right or wrong, but had I not come I wouldn't be in a position to ask that question in the first place. 

Cool Thing About Korea #42:  It's snowing right now and it's been snowing since last night.  There has to be about 12 inches on the ground already.  Ms. Huh says that this amount of snowfall is extremely uncommon and it may be the most she has seen in Suwon.  If we had this much snow back in Pennsylvania there is no question that school would be closed and yet here, despite the fact that there are no state snow trucks, snow shovels, or road-salt people manage to make it to work.  While at the bus stop I watched some people clear a driveway with sheets of plywood and brooms.  Korean dedication is comendable.