let's start with the masturbation first, always a good icebreaker. i had to catch the subway very very early this morning to make it to work by 8. still commuting whilst training. starting to get old, but i won't dwell on that. it's good productive time for reading and listening to some jammy jams, provided i can stay awake long enough to make the most of it. something about all forms of transportation makes me really sleepy.
so this morning i pass out. nothing out of the ordinary. zooming along. i wake up two stops before where i need to depart (notice how i decided not to say "get off..."). i was sitting in the very corner of one of the rows of seats. across from me was the very end of the other regular seats, with the doorway and then the handicap seats. some really old man was dozing in and out of consciousness in the old peeps section, but we were both awake enough to see the middle-aged man masturbating not 5 feet from where i was sitting. quite the shock in the am to see a korean man's penis on display in my mode of public transportation. so needless to say, i wasn't quite sure if i was seeing what i was seeing. i sort of just saw his profile (all things included), and then he turned toward the sliding doors, his back to me. the doors opened, so i assumed he was going to exit the car, but he didn't, he just kept jerking off while the doors opened and closed inches away from him. then he turned back towards me, eyes sort of glazed over and looking up at the ceiling. and there's his dinkus in his hand, excitedly poking out of his shorts. so then i turned away, horrified. the old man in the handicap seat and i made eye contact and we both stood up and walked away.
i can sort of make light of the situation now, x number of hours later, but at the time i was really fucking freaked out--this, yet another bout of sexual misbehavior i've been privy to in the last year. i'm all for sexual harassment in jest, but when it comes down to the real deal and a situation being out of my control, i don't deal well. actual sexual perversion and deviance freaks the living shit out of me. unless it's hot and consensual in the bedroom. but a subway car in seoul is not my bedroom (not to mention the fact that it would never ever be a middle-aged korean man with a small dong in my hot, consensual world), and i definitely would not have agreed to be a witness in his scenario. i foggily stumbled up the stairs to get the fuck out of that subway station, trembling and actually nauseaus. i still haven't shaken that imagery from my brain. i dunno. just what if there had been kids on the subway? that would have been horrifying.
in other news, i went to the monet exhibit at the sorry excuse for an art museum that's in seoul. i dunno. i'm just glad i had my mp3 player. in japan, there were hardly any people there, it was a rainy day, it was perfect. here, it was a national holiday, so everyone and all their children were at the art museum. the regular rules of no rules or discernible turn taking or general decency applied. people pushing and shoving, kids and adults (some with corn on their fingers)getting way too close to the art while the aloof girls who were supposed to monitor that shit sighed audibly and stared off into the distance, clearly distressed by their assigned roles. art lovers, all of them, i'm sure (yeah, yeah, like i'm one to talk). what should have been a serene and potentially reflective environment looked like a "play date" organized by all the bored housewives of seoul. and hey, young people, here's some art to play with. plus the inherent whininess of a room full of small children. so yeah, me and the dirty three took in some monet. what i realized, besides the reiterant disappointment in/ confirmation of several stereotypes about koreans that have held true in any public setting, is that i actually like monet more than i thought i did. so that's good i guess. i think my whole day was sort of bound to have a downward, pessimistic slant after the events of the very early morning. had the masturbating man not materialized, i might not have had such a negative impression of my afternoon. moving on...
it was mudfest this weekend, where it was dismally revealed to me that douchebags transcend gender, culture, race, etc. don't get me wrong, i had a great time, but your average foreigner here in the korea is a total fucking alcholic (myself included) who thoroughly enjoys making an ass out of him/herself, much to the chagrin and already arguably heightened judgement of koreans. sure, they should be happy that their festivals are a way for foreigners to spend lots o' money in korea, but it's a double edged sword of sorts. we spend lots of money, but ultimately display a lot of totally regrettable, irresponsible behavior in the process. yes, korea, we are what military personnel and english teachers look like. seems to exacerbate what already seems like a pretty superficial layer of cultural tolerance on both sides. we do stupid shit that begs scrutiny, and then we resent the scrutiny that inevitably ensues. and shit, see the prior paragraph about my complaints. i hate that i've been reduced to this judgemental, culturally insensitive asshole as my very judgment and cultural insensitivity make me the exact same kind of asshole that i silently loathe (i'm not talking about very obvious legit reasons like subway masturbation, i'm talking about my general, everyday sentiments that i try not to speak of because they make me feel guilty, despite their increasing prevalence. i guess i spend a lot of time feeling guilty for not being as culturally sensitive as i would ideally envision myself to be). oh yeah, but a bunch of fucktards kept saying shit when they walked by me on the beach like "yeah, i'd totally fuck you." hey, chad, i speak english. fucking alpha males. so yeah, foreigner alpha males and public masturbation. good times for a gal here in korea. i guess i could argue this whole situation in circles. seems like i've done that since i've been here. problem is, admitting any guilt doesn't make things any better.
anyway, parts of mudfest that were fun...drinking with fike and erica, getting muddy (albeit for a very brief amount of time), hazily navigating my way back to seoul on sunday, with the help of a dude who was a lot smarter than me. oh, and always that initial, startling taste of salt when you wade out into the sea after so much time has passed. the beach at night, being honestly and decently flirted with (aforementioned tactless douchebags aside). so those were the good things.
fuck, i sound negative. i know that, at least today, all my bad vibes should be borne on the shoulders/penis of one guy on the seoul metro.
No comments:
Post a Comment