UPDATE: There’s no more reason to be cautious now, so I’ll just come out with it, and hope Google gets used in the hiring process in Korea soon.
The seemingly-alcoholic, clearly racist, sexist, and scummy foreign English teacher I discuss in the post below is named Patrick Stewart, who worked in South Korea at the Catholic University of Korea during 2008. (I think from 2007-2009, or maybe from 2006-2008?)
I know personally of at least three cases in which he sexually harassed female instructors at our university, the Catholic University of Korea, including very late at night at their apartment doors in the foreign residence, while both sober and drunk.
He was notorious for his habit of regularly drunk driving–a crime I saw him commit several times–and displayed all of the stereotypical characteristics of a “low-quality foreigner” in Korea. He should not be hired for any teaching position, indeed should not be issued a visa in South Korea. The fact that he has managed to stay in Korea so long ought to provoke embarrassment and reflection. He is walking, talking scum.
ORIGINAL POST: I know I complain about badly behaved middle-aged men in Korea every once in a while, but I have to say, I just had an argument with one of the most degenerate people I’ve met in Korea, and it was a Canadian.
But I want to say, before telling the story, that I’ve made a personal decision to ignore people who behave like pigs and dogs. A human who behaves like an animal should not make me feel the need to defend my dignity. Honestly, I think it’s just stress, but I’m going to make a bigger effort to ignore the world’s morons. I’d get more work done that way.
I have books to write: no sense wasting that energy on fools, even if they live just down the hall.
The guy was asked politely not to blare music when starting his car and driving away, or parking his car in the middle of the night. What did he do? Started declaring that he didn’t care and didn’t give a shit, followed by calling Lime “crazy fucking bitch” and insulting her appearance — giving her beauty tips, for God’s sake, so she wouldn’t be so “ugly” — and then commanding her (and me) to return to our apartment.
Of course, he pushed my buttons too, and I gave as good as we got, but it was Lime who really got the verbal barbs in, telling him that people in the building have been talking about him in his absence for a long time, pointing out how irrational it is to describe everyone else’s complaints about his parking, his music, his stalking of the Japanese teacher next door (who came to me for help because she didn’t know what to do), and so on. Her best rejoinder to the musclehead was pointing out, “Hey, maybe I’m not beautiful, but I can get plastic surgery… you can’t get a brain upgrade!”
It was a lucky thing that someone upstairs was so annoyed by the noise that they called the campus security people, to whom we explained the situation. But when she was making her point clear, the guy kept interrupting, and a neighbor who turned up was trying to smooth things over, and he started in on the beauty tips and calling her “fucking bitch” again. He was saying it in this way that I couldn’t tell if he was dismissing her because she was a woman saying it, because she was a Korean saying it, or, perhaps, because she was both. Anyway, he really showed himself to be both stupid and rude, plus just as inconsiderate as any bastard who’s behaved badly on the street.
The kicker line that seals my opinion of him as a moron, though, was one he said to me: “Look at you, man! You’re obviously stupid, with a warped mind, because you’re all out of shape.”
My rejoinder, which didn’t have enough snap but which Lime amplified later on?
“Oh yeah? I’m stupid? What’s the last book you read?” To which he just kind of blanked, and you could see it on his face, which was funny, him standing there with his bag of cold McDonald’s in his hand, blanked because he can’t remember the last time he read a book.
Anyway, I’m glad campus security was there, because Yae Rim said she could smell liquor on his breath, and he was essentially trying to get me to pounce on him — and had a talent for pushing buttons, at least mine. Even though several people told me I was better than to let him provoke me, I let him get to me. Left alone, he probably would have succeeded, and that would have been a big mistake for me. (Stupid and degenerate as he is, he is in very good shape and a fair bit taller than me.)
Goddamned glorified hakwon teachers. No class.
But I think maybe an anger management course would be good for me, all the same. And yeah, my dear readers, it means that I do think it’s my own fault things got that far. Then again, I don’t know if I’d have acted out as much if there’d been nobody to hold me back. I guess I’ll never kniow, though, since I’ve decided to get better at holding back on crap like this.
What sucks more is knowing I’ll be running into this moron again and again for the rest of semester, or maybe the rest of the year.
Yay.