Caio For Now, Saja
Saja

Profanity is a feeble mind's attempt to express itself.

For my birthday give me a web page. It does not have to be 
perfect, because nothing in life is. However, 
it should challenge me to be more civilized in both 
positive and negative ways. It should encourage, 
inform and help me to dream about going places in 
Korea and around the rest of the orient. 
It should have many writers, both regular 
and occasional. It should have four self posting 
sections: the, Classified, Employment Review, Konglish 
and Graffitti Wall. All opinions should be tolerated, 
just as point and counter point should occur. That way
we and our hosts can be MORE honest with each other,
about the way we feel and what we think, with out 
having to tell everyone our names. It might ever serve 
a psychological, social and spiritual purpose. 
SOMETIMES NAMES ARE IMPORTANT, ESPECIALLY IN OP.ED. 
DELETION SHOULD ONLY OCCUR WHEN PROFANITY, THREATS 
OF VIOLENCE OR DUPLICATES ARE POSTED. THAT WAY
NO ONE IS TEMPTED TO ISSUE A BILL OF ATTAINDER 
OR BECOME AUTHORITARIAN IN THE DELETION PROCESS.
If you have one of these and it is house trained,
contact me. I mean we can not have the thing going
on the rug, now can we? That would be as embarrassing
as air our dirty laundry on a Sunday. 

Respectfully, Saja

PS. Thank you for a this Web page as it keeps me form
going loopy.
Saja 

And quick before another bridge, apartment building, airport or subway falls through and crushes many more people under the heavy consequences of greed and vanity.
Oh my, I smell smoke. Is the building on fire? Probably not, there are no high schoolers and beer around here. 

Guha, it is time for you to start working for a living with us common peasants. Is what you wrote honest "leadership?" Have you failed? Koreans foreign workers have more rights in America than I have rights here. Perhaps I would retitle your op.ed. "The Weak Excuses Given By People Who Know Better." In this age, people only pretend to be surprised because they want to be. Perhaps their lives are boring. 

Even in America I knew that a human being was and is a human being. Foreigner or not, they deserve and get the standard socially civilized and in some instances court mandated same treatment as everyone else. Even in your op.ed. your declared the major differences in treatment. While many of them are based on citizenship there are others that are not. 

The two that have me the most upset as of lately are the fact that contrary to the law, it is a matter of policy that only women get F2 visas after marrying Korean men and highly educated foreigners who have suffered under "bated and switched" contracts never get to go to court for their case is decided on by a lower level ministry of imigration lacky who is usually on the take or angry due to his own inadiquit capabilities. 

Every time I go on a date with my fiancee, we get glared and scowled at. Many times we have been sworn at, once for five minutes. I can cope with everyone talking about how "strange" I look and saying "mi gook" or "way guk." However, do not expect me to be a fool. 

I was a fool when I thought that I could start my own business here. Evidently, someone is afraid of me, even though I could offer many jobs and the economy is not a zero sum game. So, I am a professor. I was a fool when I thought that a Korean University would be honest and academics are of a higher moral and ethical code. Now, I just wonder how much my fellow Korean professors paid for their degrees and tenure. How many western professors have tenure here or in Japan? 

Enough Said. 

Remember, you have many oppertunities to free your soul and shame evil people. Perhaps, being a reformed southerner I am more sensitive to this than most others. We should be developing each others plans, as we are all playing chess. If we do not take joy in this as well as other constructive persuits during our stay, then we will eat each other alive. Look at the direction this board is going. This is the opinion of a 4 year veterin to this place. 

If we fail, Korea goes backwards and it will be tougher the next time. Come on, you know that with mission (in the general sense of the term) focus and tolerance of our own small "western" differences, we could make our presence here something both profitable and beautiful. 

If you are working at a sweat shop, do not be an uncle tom, but get together with your coworkers and quietly run things your way. That may require some compromise. What can anyone do against you if you all support each other? Nothing! 

I was lucky in that, this was the case with four other professors at my school last semester. We kept each other informed and in a few situations coordinated our demands and information dissemination. Even the one lonely evil Aunt Tom who has no place else to go was fed dissinformation and shamed herself really bad. Just wait until after vacation. Now, we all have the schedules that we wanted and even better 5th column games to play with "the man." 

We may even go nuke as evil people get caught in their own lies, forgeries, other law breaking, gossip, bribery, etc. maybe I should record it all and put it on the web in the form of a soap opera.

Of course you know that I intentionally chose that language to drive the point home. Play and have fun or learn a new skill. Make money and laugh all the way to the bank. 

With the Korean language skill you might be able to work for a big foreign company and free the people here from the bad apples and/or themsleves even more. Show them how guitar is to be played or anything else is to be done, but as a form of your own expression and not in spite with something to prove. 

Bad people and ways are eventually seen as bad, and often with some forthought you can help that along. Be a catylist. If not, then swill some more suju and die one thousand deaths (more than just physical).

In the words of the great Lenny Kravitz.

"Live." 

windysummer

No games, no bullshit and no 'friends'

pusan area

Pusan is far south of the DMZ where the nasty million man north Korean People's Army is massed. You will be protected by the most powerful and victorious army in the history of the world - The US Army. Together with the Republic of Korea Army and the other services of both nations (plus forces from the other free world nations in the UN Command), you will be able to teach safely during the day and sleep soundly at night.

Go for it!

Mike Davino

Burning Daylight, Saja

[email protected]

[email protected]

I worked at PNU, 1992-1993. Anyone still around 
from those times? I know Jeff Harrison and Mike 
Duffy are still lurking around!

Drop me a line...

On a different note, does anyone know anything about the 
Korean Assistant Language Teacher programme that ran a 
few years ago? I work in conjunction with the JET ALT 
programme here in Japan and would like to get some details
on the Korean programme...

thanks!
in