Back home

December 30, 2008

This is first, and probably only post from back in Australia.  I attended Christmas with the family and then my brother’s wedding, all went well and it was great to catch up with my family and relatives. My brother’s wedding was held up in Blackheath, a beautiful spot located on the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. I’ve got a whole stack of great pics to post for when I get back to Korea.

I’ve been home over 10 days now and it’s often only when you leave Korea you realise just how crazy a place it is for a non-Korean and how seemingly normal back home is.  It’s only when you get back home that you fully realise just how marginalised and discriminated non-Koreans are in Korea. Australia – or any Western country – is not perfect by any means. But, living in Korea, you get used to and often expect the derogatory comments, hostile stares, grunts, and occasional spits as you walk by. In Australia, or big city Australia at least, this almost entirely doesn’t exist. However, I always experience a tad of anxiety and reverse culture shock returning home, adjusting to the multiple differences in almost any and every interaction, and this time has been no different.

I went shopping this morning in a large shopping hub not far from my childhood home and saw what was seemingly normal for a suburban Western location, hundreds of shops and restaurants selling anything and everything from almost all points of the globe, people of many different ethnicities living, shopping and working side by side, acceptance of cultural and religious differences, several different tongues being spoken and a general willingness to try and experience different foods and cultures.

As I said before, Australia’s not perfect – its history has been largely despicable in terms of race relations – and there’s definitely an undertone of xenophobia under the surface of many. But, with that said there’s a significant understanding in that you should judge by the individual not by their race, religion or colour. That’s still largely missing in Korea.

Granted, Australia is an immigrant nation with sustained high levels of immigration for the last 50 years. Korea only really opened its doors, reluctantly, 10 years ago and still has to come to terms with just what it really wants to be in terms of its place in the global society. So, you can’t be too harsh on the place I suppose. I just hope that Korea eventually heads further along the path of acceptance towards different people, cultures, beliefs and races. It would make the place a lot more pleasant and livable for non-Koreans.

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Posted by elcanguro76

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and all that shit …

December 20, 2008

Tomorrow I’m flying to Sydney for Christmas and my brother’s wedding so it’ll most probably be light blogging on my end for the next two weeks as the Internets in Australia, at my parent’s abode at least, is hella slow!

I hope you have a nice Christmas, or whatever you happen to celebrate – if anything, and a good ending to the year. 2008 for me was a decent year all in all, not the best, not the worst, but I learnt a lot about myself and others which I value. I see life as a journey of adventure, travels and learning, if you ain’t learnt learning you ain’t living, if you ain’t living you ain’t learning – or something like that. High point for me was joining Suncheon FC, it’s been great to be active, play sport and make more friends. Low point, my previous relationship breaking down, but that’s how the cookie crumbles I spose and it’s water under the bridge now.

I think 2009 will most probably see me move on from Suncheon, my home for the last three and a half years, onto new horizons elsewhere. I’m a traveller, I need to move once in a while and don’t like to get set somewhere when I feel it’s best to move on. Just where I’m heading is yet to be fully decided …

2008 has proved to be a tough year for many with the prospect of 2009 being tougher. I guess when times are tough, it’s best to reflect on the things we have – or at least, that’s what Disney always told me. As such, I’m looking forward to spending the Christmas/New Year period with my family, especially my eleven month old nephew who I haven’t seen since his birth.

And now, for the obligatory Christmas song. As always this one is apt.

But, I personally prefer Wham’s Last Christmas to set you off on the right note for the end of the year!

Have a good one!

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Posted by elcanguro76

Mr. President, I throw my shoes at you!

December 15, 2008

You know the most important thing about being a President even if your days are numbered is to be agile, nimble and able to think on your feet!

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Posted by elcanguro76

Is modern society turning us into self-indulgent twats?

December 15, 2008

Is modern society turning us into self-indulgent twats?

This is a question I’ve been pondering lately and I believe unequivocally that the answer – for the vast majority of under 35′s – is Yes. I beleive I am a prime example myself, and I’ll tell you why …

It seems as life has drifted further from the analog world into the digital world, people too have made the change and adapted to their new virtual environment. People with their laptops, PDA’s, GPS’s, Blackberrys, iPhones etc. are spending more time accessing information and communicating digitally rather than face-to-face. What used to take hours, weeks or months in the past century now takes place in a matter of minutes, moments and seconds. The end result is we have less time for people in the ‘real world’ and instead want instant gratification, right now God damn it! We’ve become a society of impulsive, attentionally defecit, instantly gratifying consumer whores. And, I’m as bad, if not worse, than most.

It’s always existed and has gradually increased over the decades in volume and magnitude through images, innuendo and ideas via mass media, advertisements and other mediums. Thinking about other people is not cool. Go out and buy that new car that makes you look cool, God damn you! That’s been changing somewhat with the greater attention paid to the environment and less fortunate peoples’ plights elsewhere these days, though largely people still do gratify themselves first and think about the consequences to themselves and others later, if ever.

Furthermore, with the invention of cell phones, the Internet, blogs, messenger systems, Skype, YouTube, webcams and social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, we can communicate, transmit information, pass ideas, pursue and keep relationships, or pass gossip instantaneously to all points of the world. – This is particularly true for someone like me who lives overseas away from his established network of family and friends back home.

The end result, of which I am more than guilty – a poster-child in fact, is a society of people obsessed with being noticed in the cybersphere, who seek gratification by being noticed in cyberspace by using various platforms such as weblogs, social networking sites, YouTube or messenger systems. We have upcoming generations who are more active in their cyberworld than their real world, as it’s easier to fake in the cyber world and it’s easier to create a new, more intriguing personality online than it is in person.

Furthermore, the end result is largely self-indulgent drivel that doesn’t really move the human race as a whole any further but rather is just replacing, or indeed enhancing, established traits and behaviours via new modes and mediums. Perhaps I’m being a bit utopian – particularly as I find myself being swept in by the whole phenomena of wanting to be ‘noticed’, wanting to be ‘seen’ on the Internet. I guess a lot of it comes from never being all that popular in person and wanting to be noticed, to be seen, to be ‘approved’ of. There are many exceptions of course and many who keep blogs, use social networks, and other mediums largely do so to serve their community and the causes they support. Two examples off the top of my head here in Korea are Robert and Brian.

Clearly, these new technologies and modes of communication are highly useful, entertaining and addictive. A case in point, we’ve had reports recently of Barack Obama having to wean himself off his Blackberry as it’s seen as a potential security threat for the President to use such an easily accessible device.

Anyways, I’ve gotta go. I’ve go a new friend request on Facebook I’ve gotta approve, I’m so popular. Pity, I’m a twat in person!

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Posted by elcanguro76

The clock is ticking …

December 14, 2008

A funny thing’s happened to me seemingly after since I reached the age of 30, just on two years ago. In my teens and twenties, I was always interested in the opposite sex with mixed results – usually unsuccessful, short romances followed by long, sustained periods of singledom. Though, throughout it at all whilst I always wanted to be in relationships and enjoyed them whilst in them, I never had this yearning longing for a relationship when out of one. I never had this persistent loneliness that would seemingly set in past 10pm. That was until I turned 30.

I’ve always been a bit of a loner and am fine with my own company and lots of spare time on my hands. I could always get up to something and not get bored. Granted I wasn’t a complete loner and I did enjoy other people’s company, it was just that I was more than fine and happy by myself. This trait can be very useful when you live as an outsider in a very closed, homogeneous society.

However, once I reached 30 I seemed to commence experiencing this longing for finding a partner, settling down and getting married. As I rested to go to sleep at night, I could hear the clock on my wall constantly ticking second after second, seemingly just as my biological clock was ticking and saying ‘it’s time to get a move on‘.

My late-night loneliness evaporated seemingly as soon I re-entered a relationship with my Korean girlfriend of before. And, never re-entered unless I experienced prolonged periods away from her. Things moved quickly towards marriage – as they have a tendency to do here in Korea, and I was happy until it got to the point where I could see that things weren’t and would never be equitable in the relationship. - A long story and if you really would like to know just what went down, shoot me an email.

So, we broke up, she no longer speaks to me and I find myself back where I was when I was previously single – past 30, having the clock persistently tick on me and being overwhelmed by a dull, persistent lonelinees and need to be coupled.

I thought I might be alone on this though I was interested when a Korean friend of the same age mentioned exactly the same thing, that he feels increasingly lonely these days – despite a good company of friends – and that he  just wants to find a partner, settle down and start the next chapter or his life. So, guess it must be just a natural occurrence where us humans are biological geared to seek a partner and procreate, and where these urges increase as time goes on.

I’ve known many people who were adamant in their 20s that they weren’t getting married only to marry a year or two later into their 30s. Likewise, I’ve known several late-twenties, early thirties individuals who were dead against children only to procreate once they passed the magic age of 35. So, I guess this biological clock really is in all of us, and many – no matter how much they try – cannot resist its calling.

I don’t mind being lonely, I just don’t want to be crazy lonely. Crazy lonely’s when you rush into relationships – often with the wrong type of person – just because you need someone, doesn’t matter who, just anyone. One of the toughest tasks of a lonely person is not to go too far and become crazy lonely.

Sometimes I wonder just how many people end up marrying in the thirties because they’re got emotionally exhausted of being single. Particularly here  in Korea – where it’s still common for a couple to marry after a 3 to 4 month courtship following a pre-arranged meeting organised by their respective parents’. The impetus to marriage is still very strong in Korea for traditional, social and economic reasons. The result, unfortunately, is a lot of sham marriages where neither partner loves the other, though they persevere as divorce is social suicide in this culture, and society dictates that you marry and procreate irregardless of whether you love your partner or not. Things are changing here, though this is still largest the case, particularly out here in the provinces.

No, thanks. That’s not for me. I guess I just have to endure the post 10pm loneliness for a while yet …

2 Comments | Musings, Random shit, The Ben | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by elcanguro76

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