2 PM on a Thursday.
Korean life July 2nd. 2009, 8:21pmI usually don’t gawk at scenes in the street, but there was a doozy of a showdown happening as I walked to work today. What I witnessed was a twenty to thirty year old woman with a track suit on grabbing a large garbage can. She was trying to smash it into a car window. That window had already been cracked. There was a metal food vending box with the lid off next to the car, which looks like it had been used to cause the initial crack in the front window.The woman had her hair up, and was wearing makeup, but seemed totally out of her mind.
The parking attendant had gotten the garbage can she was lifting away from her, but she was still trying to cause more damage. She tried ripping the side mirror off the car by hand, but couldn’t. She went looking for more things to use to smash the car. The woman was clearly intoxicated and enraged at someone. The parking attendant responsible for that side of the street was trying to stop her from causing any more damage by grabbing her wrist and stopping her from using any other objects on the street to break the window. Someone else was trying to call the owner of the car, who appeared a few minutes later with a golf bag. He had been practicing golf in one of the golf schools in a building nearby.
They kept trying to calm down the woman, but she kept trying to break away or smash things. They held her by the wrist, presumably to wait for the cops. She kept trying to get away from their grip to try to run away, but no one was helping her. She was slurring her words and eventually fell on her back to try to kick at the people detaining her. She got back up and then passed out on the hot concrete a few minutes later in frustraition. I have no idea what was going on that caused all of this craziness.
I don’t know if the owner of the car knew the person that had cracked the windshield or not. I don’t know why the woman was either piss drunk or on drugs at 2PM on a Thursday. It was a huge scene, and it was the only time I ever saw the parking attendants actually do something other than chase down people to make them pay for parking. The woman would have trashed that car, and had cracked the windshield before she was caught. I know there are some shady businesses in the area, and they might have come in contact at one of the bad night clubs, singing rooms, or golf rooms that are fronts for prostitution. If not, this might have just been random craziness. Either way, it was one hell of a scene to witness on the way to work and put me in a funky mood for the rest of the day.
2 Responses to “2 PM on a Thursday.”
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July 3rd, 2009 at 11:40 am
Hey there! I love reading blogs from korea esp english teachers like you. How’s the Korean currency rate turning out? I’m actually considering going there for a few years to explore a new environment and also cos I’ve always wanted to teach little kids! Do you know much about the economy in Korea at the moment? I have a good friend who’s teaching in Busan & he was telling me how people in Korea seem to be quite depressed by recent tragic events (ex-president’s death.. north korea.. recession.. unemployment..) does this mean that teaching positions will no longer be available as much?
My friend has been telling me that a lot of young korea esp university students are struggling with financial matters, future employment concerns etc.. I’ve always wanted to teach uni students as well..
I hail from NZ btw.. a small country.. anyway I like reading your blog quite interesting!
Cheers mate.
July 3rd, 2009 at 1:48 pm
The demand for teachers might slow from time to time if new schools aren’t opening, but it never actually stops because people go back to their home countries, or get fired, etc. They’ve upped requirements for visas, and they’ve generally started making the E-2 more difficult to get, but as long as you have a 4 year degree, have no criminal record, and don’t do drugs you can still get in the country and get a job somewhere. The requirements of actually “needing to know how to teach” aren’t required for a visa.
The financial/political stuff impacts the industry somewhat, but English has proven to be somewhat recession proof, as people want to send their kids abroad to escape the recession as much as they want to raise their English domestic reasons such as testing and college entrance examinations. The Korean education system of public schools is so fundamentally broken the alternative private school no matter HOW crappy it might be is better to the ^n degree.