WTF.?

In Korea this summer, I encountered a lot of “interesting, weird, wtf?” people out there. In means of w.t.f,,,,,I literally mean w.t.f. You’ll probably say “wtf” while reading my story, at the end of my story and even after the story is over. You’ll be pondering about this moment of my life through your sleep.…. or maybe not.


So, this is how my wonderful “wtf” story began. One charming charismatic evening, my cousins and I decided to go out for shopping since we were bored out of our minds. Well, not technically, because I actually had to beg them to take me out. Back to the story! It was on a Friday night, so we decided to take the subway instead of taking the car.

The compartments were packed with so many people, that we actually had to skip two consecutive trains that were coming in and out. Finally, when it seemed a bit spacious, the 3 of us made a hurry entrance to the far end corner of the compartment. My 2 cousins were speaking in English about their jobs while I was on the phone with my friend from the academy.

Then out of nowhere, this drunken man comes up to me and asks if he could use my cell phone. I’M ON THE PHONE HERE! IN MIDDLE OF A CONVERSATION! Besides, I really REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY DIDN’T want to let him use my cell phone so I started to speak to my friend on the other line in English, telling her not to hang up because there was a drunken man besides me, asking to use my cell phone.

I guess I talked with my friend for good 10 minutes and when decided to hang up, I glanced besides me and saw the man glaring at me. Yea, it was CREEPY ASS…….so my friend already hanged up on me and I was on my own, trying to think of ways to save my cell phone, when all of a sudden, he starts yelling at me. YEA. WTF?!?!?!??!!??!?!?!?! WHAT DID I DO TO YOU??, YOU DOUCHBAG?!?!??!

I couldn’t pretend to actually remember the exact words that this guy said, but it was something like how I degraded his personal moral him by speaking in English and how I should speak Korean because I’m Korean.…………….yea; W.T.F.

So when our destination finally arrived, I got off the train and yelled at him when the door was closing on his face. “If your God damn jealous; LEARN HOW TO SPEAK ENGLISH YOU BASTARD!!!!” He gave me that puzzled look and I poked my tongue out to meet his expression. Although, I fulfilled my satisfaction at that moment, my life was hanging by a thread that second because the door swung open. And that’s when I decided to scream and run, “WTF?!?!??!!”

Korean mama ep.2

Okay, I finally decided to finish my episode of Korean moms in today’s blog. In this entry, I analyzed about Korean moms. I believe some of the entries here will apply to all moms but I’m narrowing the focus only towards “Korean moms”.

When I was in Korea, I rode buses or underground subway for my transportation. One thing I realized about Korean moms is that, anywhere or anytime, there’s always at least one Korean mama reading her bible. NOBODY loves Jesus more than Korean moms; well, maybe besides black moms. And “kee-doh-ha-ja” is ALWAYS the answer to every problem on earth.

Korean moms are very sensitive about their skins. As Amy would say, “In Azia, Bronze is a very agly colour skins.” They would spend so much money on anti-aging face cream or “whitening” cream. They believe in albinos, seriously; they are so obsess with being white. People say Asians are yellow. But in my opinion, when you compare Milin with Kai,,,,,I’ll say Milin is the white one and Kai is the yellow one. (no hard feelings here man.)

Most typical hardcore Asian parents have this in common. They don’t like to see their kids having their “free time”. They would create additional homework for the kids because five hours worth of homework is not nearly enough. No wonder if you think about the word “nerd”, an image of dorky Asian kid with glasses would pop in your head.

Korean moms LOVE to bargain. They would bargain at anything, anywhere, at anytime. If something’s worth 2 dollars, they WILL LOWER the price into 1 dollar or less. They would NEVER buy anything in one stop either. Their motto is to go around every store, looking for the save object for a cheaper price. One of the common phrase you’ll hear most frequently from them is, “Unni/oppa, jom gak ga jo~~”

Korean moms love to pay for dinner when they’re out with a guest. After a peaceful dinner, Korean moms would “go to the bathroom” to pay the check or have a full on argument in middle of the restaurant. While they body tackle and wrestle to get the check away from each other, the kids and the dads would just sit as still as they can keeping their mouth shut.

Did I mention Korean moms love to give you food more than you can possibly eat? It’s called disrespect when you leave one piece of rice in the bowl. They would wrap the food whenever you visit their house for dinner to take it home with you. Even though you decline and don’t want to eat it because it tastes bad, they’ll just think your being modest.

SCREAMING names even though they are 3ft away; either to take out the trash, to answer the phone or to eat dinner. I don’t get why they do that. Your daughter/son’s like RIGHT THERE. One time, while I was walking to the bus station, I could hear Korean mom yelling to his son to take out the trash. WTF?! I’m literally 20ft away from their apartment and I could hear it clearly.

Last but not least, whenever they are stuck, sick, happy, surprised, angry, or whatever, they will always use this two words. “Aigoh” and “Uhmanah”.

You gotta love them!!!!!!!!

Korean mamas and their golf wear

Due to the game of “Greed” we played the other day during Pre-calculus, the “losers” have to write a blog while the “winners” have a day off. Through this lesson, Mr. Lee emphasized how important it is NOT to gamble…..okey, so the point is made, I learned my lesson and all I need to do now is to finish writing this blog containing 500 words.

How was my blog about Korean moms? I’m pretty sure you are confused if you are not Korean. So ask one of your Korean friends to translate it “out loud” for you. Now, on to my next episode, I remember telling you guys about a sneak peek that the setting is going to take place in Gangnam, Seoul. But I changed my mind. Instead, I am going to write about Korean mums and their golf wear. Yes….the ridiculous golf wear that you will soon hear, and it is based on true facts.

Whenever I go out to play golf, I have this group of ladies whom I play golf with. Well technically, they are not ladies but they like it whenever I call them one (all Korean moms do). You all know Saipan weather, it is hot, humid, dry, and nasty. Imagine yourself covered in cloth, playing a sport. Yea, I know, pretty crazy unless you want to get a heat stroke. However, there’s only one type of group who can perform this magical impossibility. That’s right: our Korean mamas! They are the group that makes us question about the world and prove to us the meaning behind “Nothing is impossible”.

Have you ever seen a group of Korean ladies at the golf course? Here, let me paint the picture for you. It’s 100 degrees outside, and there is no wind; not even a single breeze. Our Korean mamas would wear anything to help them avoid the sun. My definition of “avoid” goes way beyond sunscreen, sunglasses and a hat. They would wear long pants, long sleeve shirt with their collar popped up, gloves on both hands. Trust me, they are not for the “extra grip”, but to make sure the hands don’t come out like Oreos. They would also wear the giant visor (and I mean a “GIANT” visor), sunglasses that cover the top half of their face, a mask that covers up their bottom half, and about 10 pounds of sunscreen/makeup on their face. Okay, let’s zoom out the camera a little bit; visualize the full picture in your head. If Obama saw this, I’m pretty sure he would send his marines thinking our Korean moms were terrorists. (Mr. Tessen: “Whoa~how cool is that?!”)

You literally can’t see and clarify who they are. And when you pass them, staring so hard, trying to figure out who they are, they scold at you for not bowing 90degrees to greet them. WTF?! But the funny thing is that amongst them, they know exactly who is who. Now, how the heck do they do THAT. Trust me, if you line up 5 ladies exactly the same shape and height as my mom, dressed in their golf wear, even YOU wouldn’t be able to find my Korean mama.

Although, my irony in this whole story is that, even though they work so hard to cover themselves against the sun’s radiating glare, they are still black. God bless their hearts.

Korean moms

What comes to your mind when you hear the word, “Korean mama”? Well, let me tell you what I think all Korean moms have in common. They all love to gossip. Yes. Not just any kind of gossip, they take it to the next level. Which level am I talking about? When the story starts off with a boy scraping his girlfriend’s arm, the story wraps with a murder case. That’s right, they are THE PROS. One day, you are alive, the next day, you are dead. If you mess up with one of them, you are basically messing up with the whole pack. This summer, when I was in Korea, I encountered quite a few funny incidents. Here, let me draw you a lovely picture in your mind.


There I was, in a gym, riding my bicycle, when all of a sudden two Korean moms come in and start the show. First, they would scan through the crowd with their squinty small eyes. Then, one would whisper to the other one and that’s when you know that they caught their prey for the night. They would go to the stretching corner and stretch for like 2 minutes and do their “sit down stretching”. Cycling section was right besides the “stretching corner” so I was able to hear their conversation. Hey, I wasn’t eavesdropping; they were just God damn loud.

So I’m just casually doing my exercise when I hear their conversation. First, their tone starts off very small, and then it gets louder as they get excited. First, I didn’t quite understand what they were talking about, because they were speaking Konglish. Yes, you know what I mean, Mr. Lee. The Magical combination of using Korean and English in a same sentence. Maybe they wanted to brag about their one-on-one tutoring English skills? Probably. That would stay forever a mystery. When I stared towards the victim following their sight, I saw a young chubby lady, maybe around her mid 20s or so, who had pink thong underwear pulled up above her low Britney Spears baggy pants. One lady turned to the other one and said, quote “Jeu yeu ja THONG nuh-moo SHOW euh. FAT sa-ram THONG WEAR ha-myun DISGUSTING yi- yeah.”

I think I repeated that phrase over in my head probably hundreds of times and finally got it when they were about to leave after their “exercising” so they call. Quote, “ TODAY eun-dong ah-joo FUN haet-saw, nan HOUSE gal-saw nam-peun FOOD hae jo yea dae.” And the ladies left without a single hesitation, their bottles lying visibly on the counter. And so I thought to myself, what a wonderful world…..

I’ll be back tomorrow with another funny episode of mine that I had in Korea so, stay tune! And yes, this is from my own, true experience. To show you guys a little glimpse of my next story, the event takes place in Gangnam, where 98% of the female population carries either fake or real Louis Vuitton bag. Yea. No kidding.

Stupid Questions

You know when you’re young, your teachers will always say stuff like, "Don't be afraid to ask, there's no such thing as a stupid question."......................................That’s retarded. Who thought of that? Of course there's such thing as a stupid question. People should not be promoting these dumb questions.


The other day, I was feeling very nice and bored so I agreed to babysit my mom’s friend’s kids for the night while they go out to celebrate the mom’s birthday. One thing I didn’t realized was the death threat that I was about to face very soon. I thought I had to babysit only two kids for the night, but that was just my very wild birthday wish. Guess what?! The girl was having a SLUMBER PARTY!!! Yea. A freaken S.L.U.M.B.E.R. P.A.R.T.Y. and I had no idea about the whole show. I had to babysit 17 of them through the night.

When the clock birds announced that it was 9o’clock, which means putting the little buggers to sleep, I was more than thrilled to finish my job. I told the kids to go to bed and of course they wouldn’t listen. So I literally had to chase around yelling at them to go to bed for God’s sake. In that moment of heat, I slipped on God know what and fell awkwardly on my hand. So I’m like a Dram Queen okay? So after I fell down, I yelled, “ahhh my wrist!” trying to make it obvious that I was in pain. But I guess these little beggars didn’t really “catch on” that I was in pain because one of them came up to me and asked, “Is something wrong?”……………………….. “No No! Nothing’s wrong, I just like to randomly lie down on the floor and cry out in pain.” So this Einstein over here finally figured out that I was hurt and was like, “Oh, I’ll get you some icepack.” So I was like, “………………thanks.” But you know, stuff like this, should be automatic. When someone’s in pain, they don’t have time to answer your dumb questions. You should be already thinking how to help them out.

Another type of questions that bothers me is when someone asks, "what for?" Haven't you ever asked someone to use something and they respond by saying, "what for?" Like the other day, I forgot to bring my pencil case so I asked my friend if I can borrow a pencil. Then he gave me that obnoxious question, “what for?” …………….. “I’m going to harass people with the pencil. I’m going to use the pencil, to harass people. Isn’t that what you use pencil for?”

So next time your teacher goes, “Okay children, rise up your hand and ask questions, there’s no such thing as a stupid question.” Rise up your hand and ask, “Hey, how come there’s no such thing as a stupid question?”

PMS

Before you start reading......just a heads up......this is....a....little bit inappropriate. BUT this is how I feel right now because the power went out while i was showering......so i had to rinse it off with a drinking water. Talk about wasting water. Seriously. Don't take this personally~ I honestly love Saiapn, just keep that in mind.

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SAIPAN

Have you ever dreamed about living on a utopia island? Wouldn’t it be just wonderful to live somewhere where you can leave your stress behind and enjoy your life in a tropical island drinking coconut juice, tanning your body until it turns ridiculously red to the point where you look like a f***en drunk piglet? Don’t you agree that Saipan is just the right place to be? Well….that’s BULLS***….Saipan is THE **** place you can ever live in your entire life. And I’m dead serious. There’s even a website call saipansucks.com. Now the title pretty much explains everything about the island. Located in middle of nowhere, stranded between another two wonderful islands, Saipan is the place to be. No wall mart or Barbie house, no decent place to hang out, not to mention any HOT guys at ALL pretty much completes your life…right?

Although not all aspects of living on this island is bad. We get special privileges where you cannot even dream of it in other places. For example, no other country put you out there on the team representing the CNMI just because there are not ENOUGH people participating. Now that’s pretty *****up….i mean….come on….this is IMPOSSIBLE in the states, in Korea, Philippines, or even in Disney Land. At least we found one positive aspects of this island.

Did I forget to mention the constant f***ing power outages? Well, we have them almost every f***ing day. We almost have like a f***ing season for it! Sure, if you love rolling around in f***ing 98 degrees of heat, I’m sure power outages will just f***ing make your f***ing already f***ed up day. I, on the other hand, enjoy light and the cold. Like today, I was taking a shower, right? Then all of a sudden, THE POWER GOES OUT! Great! that means~~~~ NO MORE WATER!!! YAY!!!!!! So i had to finish showering with a drinking water.

Saipan…..what comes to your mind when you hear the word….Saipan? Now, I won’t be surprised when you answer back “oh that  island in middle of nowhere”. Because I totally agree with you 190%. But I seriously wish somebody from here can do some kind of seriously messed up act where everybody knows exactly where we are located in, therefore I don’t have to freaken explain it to every breathing organism that I’m not from Spain. Damn. Seriously….Spain does NOT equal Saipan….

Now that pretty much concludes about the whole “introduce Saipan to someone who doesn’t know ANYTHING about it” part. Now I’m going to go back to the reality, face the fact that I’m one of those poor soul who landed on this place, and to study my A.P course in Saipan Chamorro history in which the world doesn’t give a damn about. Now that’s FML.

Behind the Scene

makeup backstage

“Get the boot!” “Somebody help Jerry with the buttons!” “Where’s Sally?! We need her right now! She’s going on the stage in 10 seconds!” Shouts of order were bouncing off of the walls as models left and right were coming on and off of the stage. Being behind the scene of a fashion show for the first time was so exciting. The back scene of a fashion show was something you would have never imagined.

I’ve always wanted to go to a fashion show ever since I got interested in the possibilities of taking my career down that path. Luckily, my cousin who works in the fashion industry and who is one of the top members that organize fashion shows in Korea, managed to bring me to the Adidas Summer collection this summer as her “helper”.

The fashion show was scheduled to start around 8p.m on Saturday night in Kangnam, Seoul. Therefore, my cousin and I (the helper) started the day at 7a.m on an early Saturday morning to start preparing for the show. Well, I was just tagging along to see what and how she managed to do her job; she is the best after all. First, we went to the Kangnam square building, where the show was planned to take place. She managed to draw the place in 3D dimension on her notepad, forming set designs in her head and drawing it on her book. I was really impressed and awestruck by her artistic skills and knew that instant, why she is the best.

killer heels

When 5p.m came around, we went back to Kangnam Square building for the rehearsal. Models too big for my liking started to arrive one by one. This collection was especially interesting because the designer wanted all the models to reach exactly 195cms. Therefore, only female models whose over 180cms and male models who are over 190 were selected in this project. Imagine me amongst the giants, I barely reach 160cms. I tell you, they were not human beings.

Finally, around 7:30, things started to get crazy. My cousin reminded me to stick close with her at all times because the place is going to turn chaotic. The set preparation was done; all the models were ready with their makeup and clothes on. One thing I could never forget at that fashion show was the killer high heels the female models had to wear. The heels were personally designed for each female model in order for them to exactly reach 195cms.

8p.m came around and the show launched off. Doors opened, as the first female model walked down the runway with her killer boots. I observed in amazement as models ran down the hallway towards their booth, changing hastily to next piece of clothing for their next walk on the runway. Models were not the only ones who were busy runny around; hair, makeup artists, and organizers were helping them through the process, making sure that the clothes were put on properly in 8 minutes. The whole scene was a chaos, and visiting fashion show for the very first time in my life, I was bewildered and excited beyond words could describe. Who knows? Maybe, in couple of years, I could be taking my cousin’s footstep.

Bucket List

     Creating and setting goals in your life is a boring thing to do. But making a list of what you really want to do in your life can be very exciting and adventurous. Most people see bucket list as list of things one wants to do before one dies. Isn't it depressing when you think of it that way? Well, I see it in whole another perspective. For me, it is just a list of all the things I would like to do if money and time permits it.
     I believe exciting and mischievous moments stay in your memory the longest. Just because it’s a bucket list doesn’t mean it has to be something extraordinaire, but a memory that you can cherish forever in your life with someone who you care and love, whether that event may be big or small. I for instance, want to experience something what everyone can’t experience in their life, go to places where I can make memorable memories with my friends, and it doesn’t have to be somewhere in Europe or in South Africa. By eating crazy meals around the globe, and seeing crazy actions or stunts would make my own cherishable moments.
     If I could do whatever I want to do for just one day in my life, this is how I would do it. I would start the day by taking a cold morning shower under the pouring waterfall, I honestly have no idea how I’m going to do that, but I guess it never hurts to dream about it. Then, meet my friends in New York and have a lovely breakfast on top of the Empire Building, go straight to Paris and just have a tour around the country, checking out the hot guys. Around late afternoon, I would go to Denmark and have brunch there somewhere in a fancy restaurant, fly over to San Francisco and just walk around aimlessly down the street, dare one of my friend to wave and smile crazily at a random stranger, and go walk up to him/her and say, “Thomas/Salley, good to see you after that awesome nose job you got!” Then, watch the sunset, laughing our butt off. When evening arrives, I would buy shitloads of 1 liter ice cream and watch a meteor shower with my friends on Banzii Cliff. Now, that’s what I call bullshit, but once again, it never hurts to dream all those things in your mind. Who knows? Maybe one day, a handsome darling millionaire might make that dream come true. And it’s going to be a double plus if that handsome darling millionaire is a model.
     Did I mention that I also want to go to Brazil? Yea, I would like to add that to my bucket list please. Not only because Brazil produces the most charming models of all time, but they also have some very interesting culture that I want to experience before I die. Don’t forget to mention the most delicious food they make! No, seriousy!