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The BBQ Pit
61

I have read the whole thread, and I must state that I didn’t get much enlightenement or pleasure ot of it - just couldn’t let go till the end, that is all.

The aftertaste of reading this “soap opera” of a thread is like…

like…

Poor Techchick68!!

I mean all the ranting and raving here ,IMHO, was just not worth the energy spent in putting them all together, but the only poster that made me feel sad was Techchick68!..

She does not write one sentence regarding the issues discussed in the thread - neither have I as yet , but i will deal with it very soon, just be patient - but states some “unbreakable/divine laws of life” - like not bringing the chat stuff to the boards etc…

And the genuine horror she feels about two posters getting in some heated argument about an instantly forgettable issue disturbs her so much, she is afraid a friendship that was so hard to form is about to break!!

The problem I have with her attitude is this: She treats the SDMB as life itself - I mean, of course this is life itself but not all of it! She just sounds as if there is no life outside the boards! She was so protective about the SDMB traditions, relations and people that all else seemed to have lost their significance.

I hope I am in a state of misconception! I hope this place is not the sole source of meaning and pleasure in her life.
Anyway, as for people not liking other countries, or people from other countries, I am cool with that. Being from a nation that is not very highly regarded worldwide, I can take such rants easily. And see the truths in the rants, so I take the words at face value, in which case there is no big deal.

By the way, after meeting quite a few of them during my 6 month long stay in the USA, the image of an average Korean is not very attractive to me either! Nor the Chinese for that matter. And I do have some very valid yet quite personal reasons to come up with my feelings. SO I do not agree with the Eusabian bashers. Quite pointless to get angry at him if you really nderstand what you read!

So, when something happens and I need a place to rant about this, I think the SDMB does constitute a very good channel for my energy to flow. The place is full of intelligent people, people who actually understand what you say, in fact in a higher ratio to total than the outside world but…

If many people start to think of these boards as “all of life” and sound that way, I gueass many people that could help each other “fight ignorance” will start to get alienated.

And I must confess Mark Serlin sound much more coherent and intelligent than some jerks on the boards. Like… who was that dumb bastard Chief Scott chased off the boards???

62

One typo I just have to correct:

Who was that dumb bastard THAT Chief Scott chased off the boards??

63

Eusabian may have been intemperate in his OP in the other thread, but he was factually accurate. As a six year veteran of the Korean hagwan system, I have been on the receiving end of racial prejudice and wholesale xenophobia.

Example: I was walking from work with a female Korean teacher. A Korean man decided we were a couple and started to rank us out in Korean, calling her a whore for foreigners and a host of other bad names. I made the SOB back down.

I have had Korean guys start fights with me on numerous occasions for being “a foreign sonuvabitch” (waygook sangnom shippal seki). I have been refused entrance to gay bars in Chongno because “all foreigners have AIDS.” Korea is an extremely racist country. They are openly proud of being one
pure race, and they are disdainful of anyone with a dark skin. I have heard Koreans discuss blacks in terms that would make George Wallace blush, and you should see how they treat their guest workers from the Philippines, Bangladesh, and Thailand.

On the other hand, koreans can be firecely loyal friends and incredibly generous hosts once you get to know them. As you can tell, I also have a love/hate relationship with the place.

Astroboy, are you at Kodae?

64

People have different ways of dealing- getting out unhappiness, negativity, or even hate is an excellent way of dealing with it.

And after all, that’s exactly what the pit is for.

(This is completely aside from whether or not thi is what Eusabian was doing. Point is, like SPOOFE said in another thread- ‘I say I don’t like the color pink. Now argue with that’. This was a similar situation. I congratulate Eu for being real, letting something show for once that isn’t oh-so-pretty)
Regarding the chat-board division thing- just last week there was a thread, I think in MPSIMS, by astro I think, which referenced the whole text of a session where a certain Fran was gleefully made sport of. Nobody seemed to mind that reference, or first time it showed up in it’s original thread…

65

[in-joke for those who’ve been around the boards a while]

You mean Brithael?

He bites.
[/in-joke for those who’ve been around the boards a while]

66

Whoa! Goboy! Them’s fightin’ words! I assume you know that “sangnom”= a very low, base, despicable person; “shipal seki”= (literally) animal child of a seller of pussy (IE: son of a whore (but, in Korean society, WAY more vitreolic!!))… so, the net effect of that is extremely insulting! Much more than just "foreign son of a bitch…

I hope you friggin’ punched whoever called you that!

I was called “shipal seki” by a group of little boys one time (they were probably about 7 or 8 years old)… obviously they didn’t expect me to understand what they said as I walked by! I stopped dead in my tracks and turned around to glare at them (keeping in mind that I stand 6 feet 4 inches tall, and weigh 300 pounds); it was most comical to watch them scurry for cover when they realized that this friggin’ HUGE, ugly foreigner understood what they had just called him! :smiley:

No, I don’t teach at Kodae… (on the #3 ranking of our University, I’m just going on the word of my friend who read the recent school rankings in a Korean newspaper, and said to me: “Hey, did you know we’re ranked number 3 now?” Surprised me, as last year we were number 4 or 5…) I’m at Hanyang Univ.

67

So what’s ‘waygook’?

68

Sorry, inor!

“Way-gook” is Korean for “foreigner” (not an insult or a curse…)

69

I might have a new handle…

:wink: