영국사람

Where will the Bus Drivers Come From?

This article from the JoongAng Daily made me smile. It tells the tale of a Korean who has worked as a driver all of his life, and is still active on the buses of Seoul at 68 years old.

it also got me  thinking about something I often argue: The university experience has become severely undervalued due to there being too much opportunity for Higher Education. What we now have is a young population who are heavily in debt, and a labour market that is saturated, meaning that most people are overqualified for jobs what may be available. This is as true back ‘home’ as it is here in Korea.

This was discussed in a paper I recently read: “Causes and Countermeasures of Youth Unemployment in Korea” by Kim Hea-Kyung (MS Word file). Here are some nice stats gleaned from it:

• Employment of young people stood at 42.8% at the end of 2007.
• Small business tend to pay an average of 2,490,000 for a 201.8 hour working month, compared with 3,819,000 fir a 191.4 hour working month in a larger company. Graduates will do anything to avoid working at these smaller companies.
• Graduates expect 5-10 million won/year more than the market actually pays.
• In 1990, 32.2% of young people went on to college or university (with 25.8% of young people graduating). In 2006, that number had increased to 82.1% (with 52.6% graduating).
• The Quality of Korean University education has decreased due to the increase in quantity, so more businesses prefer to hire experienced workers.

Kim calls for better education of students, in order to give a more realistic picture of what their future will likely entail.

The Korea Times recently printed an article about the unhappiness of Korean Teens when compared to their peers in Japan and China.

Korean teens value money more than reputation or academic career, and tend to look up to rich people the most. About 92 percent said money was most important and four out of 10 said the rich were to be admired.

I blame the parents. Children are not allowed to dream any more. They move from school to hagwon, then into University, all in the hope that they will gain a job that, usually, doesn’t exist when the only thing they like about the job is the pay. No wonder there is such correlation between key academic milestones and suicides in young people.

As for where the bus drivers will come from: The chances are, they will come from some of the better Universities in Korea, bitter at their lot in life. Jang E-in is a man who probably receives nothing more than a cursory glance from those that board his bus in Seoul. The Ajumma’s who dread the prospect of their children ever leading such a ‘poor’ life would do well to give him more consideration, for he is probably more content than their children will ever be.

Michael Jackson

I was born in 1976, grew up in the 1980’s, and have always had a great love of music. Some of my earliest memories are related to music . I remember an early fascination with Debbie Harry and Blondie. My dad says used to ask me if “I’d give her one” and was happy when I said I would. The happiness was shortlived though, as I also said I would give Adam Ant “one” too…

I remember remember singing along to the chorus of “Don’t Stand so Close to Me” at the Charles/Diana wedding party in Gran’s street, blasting out over the PA system. There are photo’s of that one still doing the rounds!

I also have memories of my mum blaring out “Jack U Off” by Prince, or my dad’s Zappa songs that were talking about someone asking someone called “Gay Bob” for something called a “blow-job”… I had no fucking clue!

The first ‘real’ song I learned all the words to was Thriller. My mum sat listening to it and scribbled them down for me so I could sing along to it all. I still remember them now, and often freak people out by singing along to it all (even the Vincent Price part) whenever I hear it.

I remember my uncle Colin coming around one Wednesday night with the Thriller video. This was in 1984, before MTV had really hit the UK, and he had managed to get a copy before anybody else. We all sat around to watch it. My dad was in his seat, my mum was in hers. Colin was at one end of the sofa, and my brother (Philip) and I were sat on it too. I’m not sure if the two youngest were there, though Paul was probably sat on the floor next to dad, and Nicci perhaps near mum. She would have been approaching her first birthday, so may well have been in bed.

Anyway – we watched it. I shit myself. The scene where he looks up with the yellow eyes and growls “go away” frightened the life out of me. I got over it, and we all enjoyed watching it too the end. I was feeling pretty cocky and was telling anybody who would listen that “it wasn’t even scary”. Then, as we were going to bed, Colin said to us “see you next Wednesday”. The bastard!

I had the Thriller and Bad albums when I was young, and though I don’t remember listening to them too much, I must have done. I know all of the songs, but can never remember which songs are from which album, so that tells me I probably got them around the same time and listened to them together a lot. Maybe I even had them on different sides of the same cassette, copied from my mothers LP’s (“Big black CD’s”, as I heard a youngster once describe them).

In ‘86, I discovered the Beastie Boys, after that came guitar driven rock music. Jackson was on the outs, even when I was forced to watch him a few times to hear Slash play his solo’s.

I remember sitting with friends in Oxford and watching the Bashir documentary in 2003. After watching it I felt that Jackson had come across well, and I felt pity for him. He struck me as a boy who had never been allowed a childhood, and with all the wealth that fame had brought, he was desperately trying to recapture what had been stolen from him. I also felt that the ending, which was later a cause for lawsuits and a rebuttal was ‘tacked on’ for shock value, and undermined Bashir’s integrity. I felt that Jackson was stupid, and that his innocence has misguided him, but that he never molested any children. I could be wrong.

In my mid-to-late 20’s I gained a new-found appreciation for the pop music of my youth. (Classic) Michael Jackson has a place in my itunes library, wedged in there between (Classic) Metallica and Minnie Riperton.

Breaking News: North Korea still don’t like America!!!

The North have also threatened to wipe out the US:

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Arseholes!

And no, this is not about ATEK!

There has been a lot of reporting in the news this week about the Korean woman who was kidnapped and soon murdered in Yemen, along with a group of other foreigners. Her family quicly moved to get the body back to Korea, and provide her with a funeral. Her family are arseholes.

The woman has been portayed in the media here as an aid worker, travelling alone. The impression my wife got was that she was a student. The news is reported by arseholes.

The dirty little secret, the thing that her family are not speaking of, and that the newspapers are not reporting, is that the woman was kidnapped along with her husband, referred to in the Korean press as “one Briton”. Whilst he is feared dead, there is still no body. Without considering what his wishes may be, or waiting to have the funerals together, the Korean family have claimed the body and her funeral is being held on Sunday.

Arseholes! Arseholes! Arseholes!

House-hunting in Korea (Continued)

I thought I would post a quick update as to how people can overcome house-hunting woes in Korea. After we decided to simply stop paying rent, it was amazing how helpful our landlord became. Within a few days of informing him that the rent had been stopped, he had a replacement lined up for us. We pay the finders fee (expected) but it has cost us nothing more than that. We get our deposit back the day we move out. Happy days!

The bank was not quite that simple… More »