Watch this space . . .

Coming soon (once my employer has it on the wire first) - the sad saga of The Pacific Land Five . . .

Tracie in Training . . .

I moved apartment last week and have come to suspect the cat that owns one of my new room-mates may have been using my Internet to read The Oatmeal. Our relationship didn't start well. When I went to view the room, Luna (her pet's name for her, tho I suspect her name for herself is much more impressive) had thrown up on the bed. The bed was moved out, I moved myself and my own bed in and I've been trying to explain politely to Luna (the mighty Empress of all) that I don't dislike her, I'm simply allergic.

Felines are abnormally attracted to anyone allergic to them.

We're developing this odd stalker relationship where she comes running from her pet's room most times she hears my bedroom door open, and I explain yet again she can't come in. Sometimes she's smarter than that, and lays low when I get up late at night then slips under my bed, and I only realize she's sneaked in when she appears by my head as I'm falling asleep.

She allows me, before I leave for work each morning, to pet her in the living room. I can't help but feel I disappoint her, though.

Musings on the Norks . . .

I was asked to write a piece for Lanterloon this week, thus joining some very good company . . .

Black Money

A fact of life well-known to any man that's ever married a Korean woman is that the finances are the wife's responsibility and one she takes very seriously. It is the norm for the entire paycheck to be turned over to the wife, from which she gives her husband a small allowance. (Even Nicholas Cage, when visiting with the VFW here some years back, commented about his then-new wife that Korean women are very different about money.)

So how's a man to fund all-night soju sessions with his colleagues, not to mention visits to room salons (where the female "hostesses" offer a range of services starting at singing with their male guests and going through to "happy endings") or, for the wealthier gents, the upkeep of one's girlfriend (a necessary status symbol for many)?

The solution? Black money.

Every large Korean company I have worked for here, remembering that traditionally men were the sole business class, has a version of black money, outside of the regular salary. At my first newspaper here, I was told to open an account with the company's credit union, despite my salary going directly to my own bank account. I did so and was surprised to find it already had a good sum deposited - my first encounter with black money. From then on, any extra compensation, including overtime, yearly bonuses and recompense for business expenses went into my "secret" account.

Here in my current job, I get paid extra for working weekends or overtime, in addition to extra payments for editing a monthly publication on North Korea (which to me is akin to being paid to study a favorite subject, although it can be difficult to edit). So every few weeks, the office girl comes around distributing envelopes stuffed with man (10,000) won bills (KRW10,000 is usually close to US$10). I do love those yellow envelopes and probably should never have told the boyfriend they existed.

I have no idea if any of this is taxed as my taxation is all Korean to me, I just smile, thank her and for the publication money sign a receipt. It almost makes me feel as I did in my long-ago and much-loved career as a waitress when I'd go home with extra money each day from tips. I love my job because of the talented people I am privileged to work with and the appreciation I receive for my skills, but it certainly doesn't make me love it any less by tossing me cash-filled envelopes on a regular basis.

Dinner and drinks, anyone?

For the record, the wives are aware of the existence of these accounts, just as many are aware of the existence of room salons and girlfriends, but it's a socially agreed upon construct in Korea that so long as something is not acknowledged or discussed, it does not exist. Opseyo.

In Total Agreement, Well, Sorta . . .

The 2012 Nuclear Security Summit ended last night and the Big O and most of the other Big Talking Heads have departed the peninsula after making fresh commitments toward building a safer world without nuclear terrorism. (The full text of the "Seoul Communique" can be found here, if you need to be underwhelmed.) Ukraine has completed the removal of its last highly enriched uranium, sending it back to Russia where it will be totally safe - but hold on, then what's with the "unusual and extraordinary threat" Big O cited when he extended the national emergency over Russian atomic material last year.

Fat Boy, our next-door-neighbor some 30 miles North of Seoul, did his best to spoil the party by announcing a planned rocket launch next month as part of the Norks' "peaceful space program." The Big Talking Heads at the adults' table all chastised the Norks firmly, with even China openly displeased with this latest toddler tantrum. CNN ran the Norks' announcement it would go ahead with the launch as "Breaking News," while those of us who've spent more time than a two-day summit in Korea know it's simply Same Shit, Different Kim. As one journalist friend wrote on Facebook, "the DPRK regime has threatened to make Seoul 'a sea of fire' more times than I can remember." Obama warned the Norks there would be "no rewards for bad behavior" but it's not surprising Fat Boy and Co. don't believe them as Daddy Dearest, Kim Jong-no-longer-ill, was constantly rewarded for such bad behavior.

Here's how it works: The Norks behave badly and threaten or provoke, even going as far as to blow up a South Korean corvette or bomb a border island. Leaders of other countries sit and cajole the Norks into agreeing to accept food aid in turn for suspending nuclear and ballistic missile development, the Norks seek to up the ante and possibly get a better deal by throwing a toddler tantrum. It's unfortunately a lose-lose situation for the South as, although the North would be annihilated in any full-out war, there is enough conventional artillery aimed directly at Seoul (the suburb my office is in has been included in the promised list of first strikes) to blast it back to post-Korean war scorched-earth status. SSDK.

To add some humor to their tired old act, the Norks did provide a superb example of the circularity of their thinking. The Nork's foreign ministry, when announcing they planned to go ahead with the launch, claimed the deal reached with the U.S. just two weeks earlier "specified a moratorium on long-range missile launch, not 'launch of long-range missile including satellite launch' or 'launch with the use of ballistic missile technology.'"

I'm tempted to compare the Nork's tantrum-throwing and unique reading of contracts with the South seeking to change the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement after they'd asked for and agreed to it (including riots and a tear-gas canister release by lawmakers during the pact's passage) but that could be misinterpreted as on-line criticism, which is frowned upon by those in power.

I will point out, however, that contracts are often viewed in Korea as a step in the negotiating process, not a terminus. That's a concept many Westerners don't understand, which can lead to all sorts of cultural misunderstandings. I've lost count of the number of teachers of English here who've felt gyped when asked to do something not specifically noted in their contract, while to their Korean counterparts, that contract is a broad outline only.

Perhaps someone needs to explain that to the Big O . . .

Deal With It

It's been a busy week once again in Aotearoa, New Zealand, with a tragedy still unfolding with whanau of a marae I have ties with after a boat was hit by a rogue wave and overturned in Foveaux Strait. Nine people, all extended family or close friends of each other, were heading from Bluff to Stewart Island for an annual muttonbirding expedition. As of this morning, one survivor had been rescued clinging to a petrol can, four to five bodies had been recovered (news reports often differ at this stage and I have not heard an official number) and the rest, including a 7-year-old, were still missing, in chilly, unforgiving seas.

Further north, here in Christchurch, a 27-year-old Somali-born man went on a 90-minute rampage during which he kidnapped and stabbed a delivery van driver then seriously stabbed a council worker whose car he jumped into after the van driver escaped. He is also accused of menacing a school caretaker and a teacher before kidnapping the driver.

I listened to the driver, Marteine Robin, yesterday morning on National Radio and read another interview with her this morning in the Christchurch Press and was struck by her earthy Kiwiness. She initially thought her attacker was a hitchhiker when she saw him walking down the road, "then the door flung open and he had a knife in his hand and he was pointing it at me, telling me to drive or he would stab me."  (Press)

"I told him to get out of my effing truck," she told National Radio, softening her, "I said, 'Get the f*** out of my truck', " quote she gave the Press. She explained to the National Radio host that she had asked him why he was doing what he was doing, and he said he had issues.

"I said, 'We all have issues. Deal with it.'," she told the host, in a matter-of-fact tone.

Those two sentences to me epitomize the Kiwi spirit, and explain the cultural divide between myself and many American friends, one in particular who means much to me. If a Kiwi or Aussie friend is annoyed or irritated or mad or frustrated by something, I'll listen for a short while and often agree the situation/instigator is at fault. But before too long, if it's something out of my or my friend's control, I'm likely to say, "Yeah, life bites sometimes. Get over it." It's just a blunter version of the Serenity Prayer in a way - "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference." In the terse, to-the-point and often taciturn culture I come from, we distill that prayer down to, "Get over it."

Probably not surprisingly, this often doesn't translate well when used with American friends. My blunt, "Get over it," statements (another is that all choices have consequences and, having made the choice, there's no point whining about the consequences) are taken as harsh and uncaring. They're actually anything but. To me, accepting and moving on is far healthier than continuing to be angry/frustrated/resentful/guilty/insert negative emotion. If you can change it or improve it, do so, but if you can't, don't allow it to negatively impact on your emotional well-being any more than it must. I'm not belittling the problems we all face, I'm merely refusing to let them dictate my happiness or unhappiness.

Having that attitude helps me immensely right now, as I visit with a dying friend for whom the medical community has given up intervention. "It would only prolong his life," they say. So his extended family, of whom I am privileged to be one, and friends gather to celebrate his life and achievements and the house is filled with light and love and laughter. We're all sad at what must come, but being sad does not prevent us being joyful.

Sometimes life bites. So we might as well enjoy every last second of it that we can.

To everything, there is a season . . .

The Kiwi has been quiet here of late, as many, many things in her life change and  she readjusts to a new reality

But she is about to have a period of introspection, communication and appreciation, in which there should be much time to think and write

watch this space . . .