Sunday, May 07, 2006
Some Interesting Events.
Ok so 4 months here in Korea, living on my own, meeting new people, and creating a life. You must be thinking, there must be more going on there then what's been posted so far! Well you are right, but I've been finding it hard to post alot of it down for you to read. When someone tells a story, or relives an experience, the story is usually tailored for the specific audience that is listening. My stories range from scary to creepy and from fun to exciting, and telling them is difficult because so many different people read this blog. What is appropriate and what is not? Who will appreciate this situation and who will not? I'm going to forget about these problems for now for the sake of sharing some of my more 'interesting' experiences so far. Bear with me.
SCARY
I'll start with my first hand experience with the Korean (non-international clinic) healthcare system. My good friend Julie, who is a native Korean, had some health issues recently that forced her to quit working and studying. She got appendicitis. What started with loss of appetite and stomach pains ended up being full emergency surgery with side effects. Since I was with Julie at the time, I got to go with her to the private clinic where she was diagnosed and treated, and I got to be there for her operation and recovery.
Let me explain to you the Korean healthcare system. It is all private, meaning that there is no social healthcare. If you need help, you need to pay for it, or have insurance. There are large, quality facilities, but they always have long lineups and tend to be expensive. There are also tons of not-so-large, low quality, private clinics where you can get treated as well.
We ended up at one of these not-so-large, low quality, private clinics and Julie decided, despite my objections, to get her operation done there. 2 hours after her diagnosis they had her on a table for what would be a routine appendix removal. After a few hours it was done and I got to see what an appendix looks like outside of the body, (Think Alien and the thing that pops out of that guys stomach) and Julie seemed to be getting better. Unfortunately 2 days later she was rushed to a 'real' hospital because she was having some serious stomach issues as a side effect to the operation. It turned out to be Acute Hepatitis as a reaction to the anaesthetic that was given to her at the clinic, but it took the doctors a week to figure this out. I was there for most of this and got to experience some of the Korean bedside manner when at one point the doctors told Julie that she had 2 days to live.. THANK GOODNESS THEY WERE WRONG! In the end it all worked out and 2 weeks later she was much better, no longer yellow (side effect of hepatitis), and released from the hospital. It was a scary 2 weeks not knowing what was going on and not really being able to do anything about it, but after it all I have to say that I learned a lot about myself, and a lot about her, and those are some of the main reasons for coming to Korea in the first place.
CREEPY
That was my scary story, here is my creepy. At my work, there tends to be a bit of a revolving door with the Korean teachers, it seems that many of them take up teaching in private academies as a stepping stone to bigger and better things, so there are many that come and go.
During one of these changes, the school hired a seemingly nice, but strange Korean teacher named Kami. Right away you could tell that she was a bit different from the other Korean teachers I had met. Comments such as 'Only after 2 months do Korean girls hold hands in public with their boyfriends, and only after 2 months do they kiss.' made me and my fellow foreign teachers think that maybe this girl was a bit sheltered, because we had both had first hand experience with Korean girls, and they usually did more than kiss after just 1 date... but THAT'S a different story!
Anyways, after about a week Kami seemed to be paying a bit too much attention to me and was not acting like the good little church girl that she pretended to be.. She would keep on trying to follow me home and would constantly ask me out on a date. Now at first I was flattered but definately not interested, so I did my best to be polite but not return the interest, but she kept on insisting and didn't seem to take the hint. I was about to play my 'I'm gay' scam to get her off my back when, as luck would have it, she got fired.
I thought it was all over so I let my guard down, but wouldn't you know it, on her last day at work she managed to find my cell number and save it. That night I got 12 calls from her trying to get to know me. At this point, the situation got a bit weird and I made sure not to pick up my phone. I didn't want to give this strange Korean girl any openings to continue to harrass me. Finally the phone stopped ringing at 4 am and I fell into a disturbing sleep. the next morning I felt better and headed to work, my phone didn't ring again, Kami would not be at work because she had been fired, and I would not have to deal with her anymore. RIIGHT.
As I got out of the elevator to work I was intercepted by a determined looking Kami with a present. Normally this would be a cute thing, but after the phone calls the night before and some of the creepy things that she had said, I was not very happy. I talked to her in the hallway as fellow workmates walked by giving sidelong glances. I tried to tell her that I was just not interested in her in that way and that I could not accept the gift. I told her that I could not be friends with her because it made me feel uncomfortable and my 'girlfriend' would not like it. She seemed to take the hint and let me pass. I finally got to work and into the teachers lounge to face smirks and giggles from my workmates who knew what was happening. It seems that Kami had shown up to the office an hour before I got there to wait for me... At this point I was a bit embarrassed but relieved that it was over, or so I thought. 5 minutes later Kami walked into the teachers lounge asking to talk with me again. We went outside, but not before passing the vice-president who gave me a very unimpressed look and I had to be more firm with her telling her that I was feeling very uncomfortable with everything and that I could not talk to her anymore. I told her that the following me home, the phone calls, and the waiting for me at work had made it impossible for us to be friends. I felt really bad for her because she wasn't a bad person, but I was also very angry at being embarrassed in front of the people I work with and in front of my boss. She finally left and I had to suffer the jokes and comments at work for a week but it had finally ended. Of course I still recieved 3 text messages from her after asking to talk again but after they were done it was finally done.
This was not the first time something like that had happened to me, but this was very uncomfortable because of where I am. When it happened to me before in Toronto, I had friends, family, and a car to escape in, where as here I am isolated. Anyways, it ended and my firm belief, that all women everywhere are to some extent crazy, stands.
Ok so you heard my scary story and my creepy story, I have more but I have to save them for another time. My next post will have my fun story and maybe my exciting story as well.
Ok so 4 months here in Korea, living on my own, meeting new people, and creating a life. You must be thinking, there must be more going on there then what's been posted so far! Well you are right, but I've been finding it hard to post alot of it down for you to read. When someone tells a story, or relives an experience, the story is usually tailored for the specific audience that is listening. My stories range from scary to creepy and from fun to exciting, and telling them is difficult because so many different people read this blog. What is appropriate and what is not? Who will appreciate this situation and who will not? I'm going to forget about these problems for now for the sake of sharing some of my more 'interesting' experiences so far. Bear with me.
SCARY
I'll start with my first hand experience with the Korean (non-international clinic) healthcare system. My good friend Julie, who is a native Korean, had some health issues recently that forced her to quit working and studying. She got appendicitis. What started with loss of appetite and stomach pains ended up being full emergency surgery with side effects. Since I was with Julie at the time, I got to go with her to the private clinic where she was diagnosed and treated, and I got to be there for her operation and recovery.
Let me explain to you the Korean healthcare system. It is all private, meaning that there is no social healthcare. If you need help, you need to pay for it, or have insurance. There are large, quality facilities, but they always have long lineups and tend to be expensive. There are also tons of not-so-large, low quality, private clinics where you can get treated as well.
We ended up at one of these not-so-large, low quality, private clinics and Julie decided, despite my objections, to get her operation done there. 2 hours after her diagnosis they had her on a table for what would be a routine appendix removal. After a few hours it was done and I got to see what an appendix looks like outside of the body, (Think Alien and the thing that pops out of that guys stomach) and Julie seemed to be getting better. Unfortunately 2 days later she was rushed to a 'real' hospital because she was having some serious stomach issues as a side effect to the operation. It turned out to be Acute Hepatitis as a reaction to the anaesthetic that was given to her at the clinic, but it took the doctors a week to figure this out. I was there for most of this and got to experience some of the Korean bedside manner when at one point the doctors told Julie that she had 2 days to live.. THANK GOODNESS THEY WERE WRONG! In the end it all worked out and 2 weeks later she was much better, no longer yellow (side effect of hepatitis), and released from the hospital. It was a scary 2 weeks not knowing what was going on and not really being able to do anything about it, but after it all I have to say that I learned a lot about myself, and a lot about her, and those are some of the main reasons for coming to Korea in the first place.
CREEPY
That was my scary story, here is my creepy. At my work, there tends to be a bit of a revolving door with the Korean teachers, it seems that many of them take up teaching in private academies as a stepping stone to bigger and better things, so there are many that come and go.
During one of these changes, the school hired a seemingly nice, but strange Korean teacher named Kami. Right away you could tell that she was a bit different from the other Korean teachers I had met. Comments such as 'Only after 2 months do Korean girls hold hands in public with their boyfriends, and only after 2 months do they kiss.' made me and my fellow foreign teachers think that maybe this girl was a bit sheltered, because we had both had first hand experience with Korean girls, and they usually did more than kiss after just 1 date... but THAT'S a different story!
Anyways, after about a week Kami seemed to be paying a bit too much attention to me and was not acting like the good little church girl that she pretended to be.. She would keep on trying to follow me home and would constantly ask me out on a date. Now at first I was flattered but definately not interested, so I did my best to be polite but not return the interest, but she kept on insisting and didn't seem to take the hint. I was about to play my 'I'm gay' scam to get her off my back when, as luck would have it, she got fired.
I thought it was all over so I let my guard down, but wouldn't you know it, on her last day at work she managed to find my cell number and save it. That night I got 12 calls from her trying to get to know me. At this point, the situation got a bit weird and I made sure not to pick up my phone. I didn't want to give this strange Korean girl any openings to continue to harrass me. Finally the phone stopped ringing at 4 am and I fell into a disturbing sleep. the next morning I felt better and headed to work, my phone didn't ring again, Kami would not be at work because she had been fired, and I would not have to deal with her anymore. RIIGHT.
As I got out of the elevator to work I was intercepted by a determined looking Kami with a present. Normally this would be a cute thing, but after the phone calls the night before and some of the creepy things that she had said, I was not very happy. I talked to her in the hallway as fellow workmates walked by giving sidelong glances. I tried to tell her that I was just not interested in her in that way and that I could not accept the gift. I told her that I could not be friends with her because it made me feel uncomfortable and my 'girlfriend' would not like it. She seemed to take the hint and let me pass. I finally got to work and into the teachers lounge to face smirks and giggles from my workmates who knew what was happening. It seems that Kami had shown up to the office an hour before I got there to wait for me... At this point I was a bit embarrassed but relieved that it was over, or so I thought. 5 minutes later Kami walked into the teachers lounge asking to talk with me again. We went outside, but not before passing the vice-president who gave me a very unimpressed look and I had to be more firm with her telling her that I was feeling very uncomfortable with everything and that I could not talk to her anymore. I told her that the following me home, the phone calls, and the waiting for me at work had made it impossible for us to be friends. I felt really bad for her because she wasn't a bad person, but I was also very angry at being embarrassed in front of the people I work with and in front of my boss. She finally left and I had to suffer the jokes and comments at work for a week but it had finally ended. Of course I still recieved 3 text messages from her after asking to talk again but after they were done it was finally done.
This was not the first time something like that had happened to me, but this was very uncomfortable because of where I am. When it happened to me before in Toronto, I had friends, family, and a car to escape in, where as here I am isolated. Anyways, it ended and my firm belief, that all women everywhere are to some extent crazy, stands.
Ok so you heard my scary story and my creepy story, I have more but I have to save them for another time. My next post will have my fun story and maybe my exciting story as well.
