In fond memory of All Your Base...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Lately there has been some discussion between the English teachers living in the “Second Student Living Place” (IE: second dormitory) here at bee-yoo-tiful Hanyang U. deep in the bustling heart of Seoul, S. Korea (just an hour by tank from the DMZ) and the dormitory management. Some of us are concerned for our safety should there knock on wood be a fire. You see, the dorm manager, in all his wisom, has LOCKED all of the firedoors as well as the door leading onto the roof.

The theory behind this move is that if the firedoors were left UNLOCKED, students living in the dorm might be able to :eek: move between floors or even go out onto the roof instead of staying on their own floors like good little sheep! (Let’s ignore the fact that the students can easily move between floors using the elevators or even the central stairwell)

We dwellers of the tenth, and top, floor (all foreigners, most English teachers with a smattering of Chinese physicists, German something-or-other teachers, etc.) want the door to the roof unlocked, that’s all. We want to be able to go up there if there is a fire so that we do not all die of smoke inhalation…

The dorm management does not agree. I shrug, and go about my life.

A few days ago, I noticed that the dorm management has placed a map of the tenth floor opposite the elevator with fire extinguishers, fire exits (let me repeat: LOCKED :rolleyes: ), etc., marked in various exciting and pleasing colors. Next to the map is a list of fire-related rules. In Korean. OK, I give it a glance. I can’t understand what it says… I have vague thoughts of getting a dictionary and figuring it out later, then think: Aw, screw it! If there’s anything important there, Astrogirl will tell me…

Someone must have pointed out to the dorm management that most of the people living on the tenth floor don’t speak Korean (or not well, anyways), because when I came home today there was a new list of fire rules translated into English. I paused to read it…

My beloved and esteemed Doping colleagues, I present for your amusement and edification Korean Fire Rules:

Read it certainly !!

  1. Don’t let a things around fire escape a fireplug, an elevalor.
  2. When you are not use an eletric machine, please switch off and when you pulg out that don’t give strong pull at electric wire.
    3a. Don’t use electric machine as an octopus spread its arms.
    3b. Annyong, Opar! (Even in Korea? Who woulda thunk it?)
  3. If you are not put a plug deeply , it will be generate heat. So you must put that completly.
  4. You can’t take a inflammables like gasoline, gas and chemicals.
  5. You can smoke only a smoking area.
  6. When you smoke cigarette, you must throw cigarette butts to an ashtray.
  7. Take special precautions to prevent fire when you use an heating equipment like eletric heater, iron or coffee pot.
  8. Know well how to use fire equipment.
  9. Keep on mind that 2,000 students are liveing here.

:smiley:

Excuse me, I gotta sneak down the hall and tape this list back up before I get in trouble!

2

Originally posted by Astroboy14

Porn comes to Korea.

3

Why am i so reluctant to believe that is an actual rule?

4

Be reluctant if you will, Evnglion, but I took down the list, carried it to my room, copied it EXCATLY (bad spelling and all) except for adding an “a” to number 3 and adding “3b” to keep within the conventions of the SDMB.

I’m telling ya, that’s what it says!!

5

Anyone else see the irony in this??

FTR: “Don’t use electric machine as an octopus spread its arms” WAS/IS on the list, and I think means not to plug too many things into the same outlet.

6

Hey, get a clue folks.

is an inside joke among Korean building managers. That is what they do instead of “Hi Opal”

7

There is a dragon called Elevalor who’s got something stuck in his throat and we must all rally round and place flammable objects round his fireplugged mouth lest they escape his attention. He loves to set fire to things and the more flammable objects he sees, the better his motivation to clear his throat.

So we’ve been using some kind of machine to ferry the flammable objects to Elevalor. It’s usually used for measuring elephants, but it works just as well for our purposes here. Suddenly, the pulging’s goes horribly wrong and there’s wires everywhere. We’re getting ready to tug gently at them, guiding them back into place when…

… it’s alive! Alive i tell you! The wires flail madly and we all skitter back, wary of this new and strange creature. Elevalor cowers in the corner, still fireplugged and now more frightened than ever. Is this the terrible ghosts of elephants past, enraged at the measuring that so goes against their sacred elephant religions? Perhaps it is one of the elephant gods himself, confused into the form of an octopus.

In his panic, Elevalor knocks against the wall, jamming the thing in his throat in tighter. With every second that passes the need for release presses harder and we can now feel the heat building up. If it’s not released in time, we could have a dragonbrainfireball on our hands. Desperate to help, we grab cans of gasoline and chemicals. Maybe if we oil his mouth, tinman-style, the heat will catch and we’ll create a little flame valve. But with dismay we realise…

… they’re terribly poisonous to dragons.

There’s smoke coming out of Elevor’s ears and inspiration hits. Due to complex dragon physics, if we create smoke around an area that’s already smoking then a cancelling-out effect takes place and the pressure will be released. The danger would be if the smoke hits any area that’s not smoking - if that happens there will be a terrible gremlin-like eruption of little baby Elevalors on any non-smoking patch of skin hit. They would be bound to fly off at angles, bombarding us with a hail of baby dragons and perhaps even pelting the octopus-elephantgod machine, (which is, by the way, still flailing wildly) enraging it further. It’s a perilous situation.

So how do we create the smoke? Heroically, Astroboy steps up, cigarette in hand - it’s just the tool we need. As the man who is the most familiar with Elevalor, he volunteers to be the one to climb up on his back and apply the smoke to the ears. We prepare a tray to catch the ash of the cigarettes so that we can remove it quickly and lessen the peril of dragon babymaking. Astroboy reaches his hand out to Elevalor and he calms a little at his touch. Elevalor likes Astroboy.

Someone remembers that in addition to the eletric machine, we’ve got an eletric heater (for the measuring of the heat of elephants), and eletric iron (elephants can get terribly wrinkly) and an eletric coffee pot (after all the measuring, the elephants appease their gods with coffee and biscuits). We use these to fend off the octopus-elephantgod machine while Astroboy goes to work, all the while taking the special precautions necessary. The burlap sacks itch occasionally.

Astroboy has always been a quick learner and he’s doing wonderfully with the smoke application. Relief passes accross Elevalor’s face as the pressure slowly releases and the only very occasional pinging of baby dragons serves as proof of the excellent job done. Elevalor gives a little cough and to our surprise the fireplug tumbles out. It is a purple pingpong ball. We all sigh knowingly. Our attention turns back to the octopus-elephantgod machine and it looks hungry. If only we had something to feed it with to appease it. Then we remember…

8

… we are in the presence of brilliance

9

So, Astro, you’re pretty secure in your job right now, huh? Looks like you’ve got years of work ahead of you!

10

Why thank you gratefuldavidson. I was a student myself until last year, which bestows upon me the right to mock mercilessly.

It doesn’t really, i just like to use the word mock. Mock mock mock.

Fran

11

Reminds me of a fire extinguisher I saw when I was in Italy. It was in a steel box with a glass door. In neat stenciled letters it read “To crash glass in event of fire”.
Not quite as badly translated, but it was funny enough for take a picture.

12

[Dr. Nick]But it said inflammable!**[/Dr. Nick]

13

This makes perfect sense to me. And now I’m a little envious. I wish all signs here in the US read so poetically.

14

I am in the presence of greatness!

Astroboy quickly dons a hat so that he can sweep it off and bow deeply to Fran.

And, yes, thinksnow, I do have a certain job security here… possibly because no one in the administration can say “You’re fired!” in English! :stuck_out_tongue:

15

sigh I miss Korea!

My husband and I collected a few gems, such as the stationery with the inspirational “I love to learn and contact with this world I live in, sliding on the ice pleasantly with my poodle.”

I once saw a lady on the subway who was wearing a jacket that said on the back “Cross my palm with silvar bullets.”

We have a pencil box that’s made up to look like a big candybar. The name is “Intense Bit,” and in smaller letters it says, “This is not a chocolate but a pencilcase, so don’t have a mind to eat this.”

Perhaps the weirdest thing was when I was first there in 92-93 and I kept seeing girls in T-shirts that said, in fancy machine embroidery, “World Famous Abscess.” That one just seems too crazy to be a mistake.

16

My wife used to have a shirt, back when we first got married. It said “power doom all over the world”. I miss that shirt.

17

“Power doom all over the world”? What the hell does THAT mean?

Sounds like an Asian t-shirt, alright!

“Gag” is a popular brand-name here… it is endlessly funny to see a gorgeous Korean woman wearing a t-shirt that declares, in large bold letters, “GAG”.

18

:smiley:

19

Astroboy and Francesca, I have been highly amused at some of the strange and wondrous things posted on this board before, but prior to this thread I have never literally fallen off my chair laughing helplessly. That was marvelous – hilarious OP, and an “explanation” of it that was nonpariel in its logical insanity – building to the perfect[/ui] punchline. Truly we are in the presence of genius!

This is clearly a tribute to the fabulousness of scott evil. (See GQ thread by him paging Qadgop the Mrercotan for details.)

:slight_smile:

20

Thanks. I know it is not the mo(i)st valuable thread, but I got a laugh out of it. :slight_smile: