Is That Mud on Your Penis or Are You Just Happy to See Me?

In a recent international study, Korean students ranked in the top 1% among math and science learners worldwide.  (To be fair, they all sat next to the Asian kid during the exam.)

Korean students also achieved one other feat of academic notoriety: last place in the Creativity category.  (What did you expect from a country where 1/4 of the population has the last name Kim?)

This last statistic is not only evident in elementary school classrooms--where a complete lack of hand-turkeys during the month of November reflects this deficiency--but also in the nation's festivals, which often seem the result of a lackluster game of "I Spy" during a trip to the supermarket.  Since I've come to Korea I've been to the Rice Festival, the Ricecake Festival, the Kimchi Festival, the Fermented Seafood Festival, the Tea Festival, the Ginseng Festival, and the Soju Festival.

There are also a number of nature-based festivals, which were incorporated with much of the same "Hey look at that thing, let's make a festival out of it" mentality, like the Sand Festival, the Butterfly Festival, and the Herb Festival.  (The upcoming Snow Festival in Taebaeksan might just be the dark horse I've been waiting for.)

This July I made my way over to west-coast town of Boryeong for their annual Mud Festival, a relatively new amalgamation of the older and less popular Dirt Festival and Water Festival.  Now while mud might not seem particularly appetizing to a majority of individuals over the age of five, the Korean government has come up with a potent cocktail to combat this natural aversion:

1. Take 1 million foreigners
2. Mix dirt and water together
3. Employ mediocre local Korean punk bands
4. Add liberal amounts of soju
5. Subtract any remaining sentiments of shame or self-preservation

"Whoo college!  I mean, Korea!  And fo-hawks!"

Top this off with Korea's mythical Midas Touch--instantly making any animal, vegetable, or mineral manufactured in Korea the best in the entire world--and you've got yourself a powerful source of revenue for local merchants and transportation authorities.

Pay a visit to the official Mud Festival website (not porn) and you'll be greeted by two things: images of smiling cartoon characters who look disturbingly like Korean children in blackface; and anonymous testimonials (might be porn) confirming the superiority of Korean mud to all other muds of the Earth.  Words like "minerals," "germanium," and "eruption" are used coherently enough that it must be true, contrary to reported cases of a hookworm outbreak during the 2009 festivities.

But that was 2009.  This year's festival would prove to be the wildest, muddiest, least-parasitic one ever!  (With the exception of a few Italians hanging out by the parking lot, this actually turned out to be true.)

Who doesn't love a good mud fight with strangers?  Or a mud slide with a penchant for snagging bathing suits and making people strangers no more?

$10 says you didn't notice the mud on her face.

There really is something for everyone at the Boryeong Mud Festival, as long as your hobbies don't include being clean, having self-respect, or not peeing in the ocean because porter potties are in dire short supply.

And if you do ever find yourself in Boryeong, Korea--or any other coastal town whose fishing industry has been crippled by pollution and needs an instant cash-cow--remember these five basic rules so as to avoid any unnecessary stays in Mud Prison:

Did you think I was joking?

1. When the provided mud supply is exhausted during a mud fight, it's not okay to throw water on dirt from the parking lot and use that as ammunition.

Italians are absolutely NOT excluded from this rule.

2. When consuming alcohol during the festival, try to avoid getting mud in your bottle/can and ingesting it repeatedly.  The result will be an even dirtier mud pie after breakfast the following morning.

A '97 Bordeaux nicely complements the taste of shit in your teeth.

3. Contrary to popular practices, mud is not slimming.

 Sorry buddy.

4. If you don't like feeling dirty, try colored mud!  It's just like regular mud, only with lots of artificial dyes that are applied directly to your skin!

English: Make me look like the sky!

Korean translation: Turn me into a Smurf with vitiligo.

5. Mud is not meant for personal consumption.  Avoid contact with eyes and mouth.  If mud is accidentally consumed, please inform the nearest person with a camera.

Easy fellas, she's spoken for.

One more time..

 There we go.  Who's the coolest kid in school now?

Six Ways of Looking at Kim Jong-Il

Kim Jong-Il is a bad dude.  You won't find many people in the free world who would disagree with that.  But taking the paradigm of evildoer one step further, you get a lot of different opinions as to what type of bad guy he really is: tyrannical, soulless, bat-shit crazy?  I've heard a number of varying and equally valid depictions of the North Korean dictator since I've been in Korea, most of which were reiterated to me over the past week.  Starting with...

#6 Crazy old man

At 69 years old, it can be said that Mr. Kim is no spring chicken.  It can also be said that in his golden years he's evolved into a full-fledged cuckoo bird, ignoring any advice or warnings from the outside world, including that of China, North Korea's only remaining ally.  And even they seem to be reaching their breaking point these days.  Like the disgruntled son-in-law who has gotten one too many phone calls from the police informing him that Pops has been shooting at the squirrels on his front lawn again, at some point you've just got to make that decision to put him in a home.

#5 Cold War relic

Like nuclear winter, martian invasions, and Beat poetry, communism has proven itself over the past 60 years to be nothing more than passing fear, a temporary nuisance diverting our eyes from the true threat to our freedom: terror babies.  But apparently when the Communist Party was being broken up by the world police in the early 90s, Kim Jong-Il was in the bathroom combing his hair and practicing pickup lines in the mirror to use on that cute Vietnamese girl.  And now that he's been ditched by all of his comrades, he's intent on bringing this party back to life, lip syncing to Journey and dancing the night away until everyone realizes what a cool guy he really is.

#4 That weird annoying kid in the back of the classroom

What do you do when you're not smart enough to be the valedictorian, not athletic enough to be the star quarterback, not big enough to be the bully, and not funny enough to be the class clown?  You become that kid who sits in the back of the classroom and shoots spit balls at the guy in front of you.  Now a bully would follow it up with a quick ear flick or an inflammatory hand gesture, just to remind you that shitcake tastes better with a nice glass of go-fuck-yourself.  But not That Kid.  That Kid just looks back down at his book when you turn around, trying to hide his smirk as you face the blackboard again and peel the wet glob of paper off your neck.  And when he does get caught--which is every single time--he's always got the same excuse ready for Teacher: "He started it!"

#3 The Joker

First off, push any thoughts of Heath Ledger out of your mind.  He had his moment in the sun, let's just retire his memory to the vast Halls of Famous People Who Forgot That Ambien Can't Be Ingested Like Skittles.  Secondly, remove any preconceived notions you may have that being an individual agent of chaos is better than being one more rank-and-file superhero.  It's not, and you don't have the shoulders to pull off that black trench coat.  Rather, being the Joker is a miserable existence.  You spend all your time trying to piss people off for no good reason, never get laid, receive fewer Christmas cards than Charlie Brown, and probably sleep in a shithole motel every night because your poor credit history prevents you from renting from a respectable co-op.  But what's most infuriating to any comic-reader or movie-watcher or pop culture-knower, is why the hell they didn't give this guy the chair years ago.  Granted comic book characters seem to live in a Groundhog Day-esque world where mass murders and killing sprees are forgiven and forgotten like Paris Hilton's prior cocaine possessions.  But at some point one of the senior officers at Gotham PD must have said to himself, "You know, Arkham's security is suspect at best, rehabilitation hasn't seemed to work the past 50 times...let's just fry the fucknut."  And yet every few months, like clockwork, there he is again, creating mischief and causing problems ranging from bad-mouthing mainstream society to murdering innocent civilians.

#2 A Dog That's Just Been Fixed

When my dog Frankenstein got spayed, the doctor apparently removed the part of her brain that regulates bladder control.  She pissed on everything within reach in my apartment.  She pissed on my couch, she pissed on my bed, she pissed on my windowsill.  She even pissed next to her water bowl while getting a drink of water, apparently wasting no time with hydration or digestion.  (She also took a poop behind my dresser, the logistics of which action have remained a mystery to this day.)  The point is that at first it seemed like she didn't know any better, that she wasn't in her right state of mind following the operation.  But after a few days, when she had returned to her old self in every other conceivable way, she still pissed on my stuff.  I don't know if she was doing it out of spite or if she had figured out that she could get away with it, but it took a few raps on the nose to break her of the habit, again.  And while that might have been effective when dealing with going number one in the house, something a little more direct might be necessary when we're talking about artillery shells.

#1 This One's Pretty Self-Explanatory

 

Some things just are what they are.

Five Things I Don't Hate About Busan

Despite the pejorative content of my Spirit Award-nominated play, Busan: The Bar Skank of Korea, there are actually several things about the city that make it not the worst place in the world.  Five things, to be exact, and I feel that I owe it to those five embodiments of mild satisfaction to give credit where credit is due, and debunk any rumors that Busan is a total hot pile of donkey spunk.

#5: Haeundae Sand Festival

Every year during the first week of June, Haeundae Beach (the Rio of Korea, except not at all like Rio) is transformed into an outdoor gallery of sand sculptures so technically advanced and superfluously ornate that they could only be engineered by Koreans.  Sand artisans--or as their known in the arts community: douche bags--travel from all over the world to build their one of a kind masterpieces for all to admire endlessly or until high tide rolls in, whichever comes first.

Among this year's notable sand-sations were:

 The Taj Mahal

The Batmobile

Whatever the hell this is supposed to be

 And the worst portrait of the Obamas ever

Sand sculptors work with ninja-like focus, even when faced with admirers shouting, "Give her tig ol' bitties!"

#4: Beomeosa Temple

Korean temples are sort of like vaginas (bear with me on this one).  Some are bigger than others, some are more colorful, but once you see three or four the mystery wears off a little, and they all start to blend together.  Still, you always have fond memories of the first one you visited, and for me that first one was a special lady by the name of Beomeosa Temple.  I was also fortunate enough to come during the right time of the month--the guys know what I'm talking about--that's right, Buddha's Birthday, when the entire complex was decorated with festive lanterns and prayer cards.  It more than made up for the fact that an overnight rainstorm, coupled with the temple's proximity to the ocean, brought about a distinct fishy smell throughout the area, the kind that you can taste and can't completely get rid of, even after you use mouthwash.

 

 

#3 Night Beaches

Darkness provides many overlooked advantages over light: it allows Batman to fight crime unobstructedly, my grandpa once told me that he could see stars back in his day, and overall stuff is pretty much black all around.  This last one is especially handy when you're in a city, or a country for that matter, that apparently sent all of their architects and civil engineers to the front lines during the last great war, leaving only technical college drop-outs and cement truck drivers to design and build their nation's skylines.  The results were beachfronts that look like this:

Luckily at some point over the past fifty years someone came up with a plan: Rather than rebuild these structures to make them look more aesthetically pleasing and less like futuristic low-income housing, let's just attach a bunch of lights to them so they glow all pretty at night.

I didn't say it was a good plan.

#2 This Shirt

What I love most about this shirt is not the fact that it looks like it was made in the early 90s (tubular man!), nor that it's a crude Korean attempt at a casual piece of Americana attire; nor even that the ethnic stereotype taco appears to have sour cream coming out of his ass.  No, what I love most about this shirt is that even though Korea is approximately 6,000 miles and an ocean away from America, they still somehow know that all Mexicans, every last one on the planet, has a dirty, dirty mustache.

#1 It's Not Pohang

Even a bucket of shit can look at a bucket of bloody diarrhea and say, "Glad I'm not that guy!"  This is very much the case with the relationship of Busan and Pohang, two industrialized coastal cities that pride themselves on their "world-class" beaches and seafood.  Which is technically true, in that the two cities are in fact part of this "world," the Earth, and that a "class" can refer to any level of a social hierarchy, like medieval feudal serf or crack whore.

 

 In Busan I can at least pretend that I'm not swimming in gallons of industrial waste.  Kind of hard to do when you can actually see the industrial waste being pumped into the beaches in Pohang.

The Bar Skank of Korea: A Play in Three Acts (Conclusion)

Act 3

Scene 1

[Boardwalk exterior.  George stumbles out of the restaurant.  Vomits Jello.  Looks up.]

George: By my mass...!

George: She...she is beautiful!  The octopus was right all along, I have been a prize fool!

[Sees Busan in the distance.  Runs over to her in slow motion.  Air Supply plays in the background.]

George: Fair maiden, I bear myself before you a wretched and ignoble man, a heartless and foolish doubter of your virtue.  Forgive me, heavenly dame, I beseech you.

Busan: As Virgil once spoketh, "Love begets love, love knows no rules, this is same for all."  No malice lies within my breast, Good Sir George Mugin, not for thouest.

George: Indeed, for "Even virtue is fairer when it appears in a beautiful person."  Oh Busan, your beaches are breathtaking in the moonlight.  Your skies bright with neon bridge lights like the effervescent dawn.  Come, let us bask in our new love, as green and verdant as the grass that I remember seeing when I lived in a country that wasn't afraid of grass.  Let us steal away now, so we may live forever in eternal bliss!

[They kiss.]

George: Since the invention of the kiss, there have only been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure.  This one has left them all behind.

Busan: Didst thou compose that?

George: Shhhhh...no more words.  Our chariot awaits!  And it has a basket in front for your purse and a banana seat, built for a queen.

Busan:  Ohhh...

Scene 2

[Hotel room interior.  The following morning.]

Busan: Good morning lover.

[George opens his eyes.  Sees...]

George: Eegh.  Oh...hey there...you!  Listen, you're really swell and all, but I gotta get to work and...yeah.  But hey I'll definitely call you.  Real soon.  Just gotta...you know...a lot of work stuff right now.  Anyway, you take care now!  Thanks for everything.

[Exits.]

[End]

The Bar Skank of Korea: A Play in Three Acts (Cont.)

Act 2

Scene 1
[George arrives at the Busan train station, smiling and reanimated.  He hops out of the train car, brushes dust off of his jacket sleeve, and looks up to see...]

 

 

George: What the fuck?

Scene 2

[George sits outside of a raw fish restaurant in which patrons can pick out the fish they wish to eat, watch as a loud, thick-armed woman kills it in front of them, then dine on it five minutes later.

(There are several such restaurants along Haeundae and Gwangalli beaches.)  George holds a half-empty bottle of soju, looking out at the "beach."]

George: I've been had!  Hoodwinked!  Butt-fucked by life once again!  To think, a few meager hours could transform my beautiful muse into a common harlot, a woman of easy virtue.  Damn these silly revelries; these impish wishes that leave a man's heart more soaked with melancholy than before!  Ay!  Curse mine eyes!

[Busan enters, stage left.  She is drunk and provocatively dressed.]

Busan: [To a group of young men] Hey boys, lookin' for a (hiccup) good time?  Welcome to Busan, home of bitches, babes, and boos.  Haa haa (hiccup) haa!  You guys wanna make out?

George: Enough!  In the immortal words of the poet-warrior Popeye, "That's all I can stands, I can't stands no more." I am off!  To the deep, quiet grave of the East Sea (don't call it the Sea of Japan, Koreans will get mad) I resign my empty heart, which beats now merely in procedure, for there is no passion nor purpose left in its chambers.

Busan: [To George] How 'bout you stud, wanna like feel me up along the boardwalk?  I'm famous for my (hiccup) authentic American-style boardwalk.  Don't mind the weird smell, that's just the local (hiccup) fried squid vendors.

George: Be gone, vile temptress!  You've made a cuckold of me!  This hideous mermaid's call has drowned its last victim!

[George beings running toward the sea.  Busan blocks his path.]

Busan: Why don't you check out my aquarium?  [Lifts up her skirt.]  We have like (hiccup) twenty different kinds of fish or something.  And you can swim with the sharks, only 80,000 won...

George: Oh God!!

[George shields his eyes in disgust.  He turns around and runs up the stairs toward the raw fish restaurant behind him.]

Scene 3

[Raw fish restaurant, interior.  George sulks at a corner table, surrounded by happy, chattering Korean couples.]

George: Stupid...rasrfrn...no good...frsnrs...Yogio!  Soju chusayo!  Another soju over here!

[The waitress enters with a bottle of soju and a plate of food.  George looks at the plate quizzically.]

George: What is this monstrosity?  I ordered nothing of the sort.

Waitress: (Loud Korean gibberish.)

[George pokes the plate with a chopstick.]

George: Ugh..it appears to be some sort of wretched sea creature.  I don't know which is more deleterious to my appetite, the look of this insidious bile or the ghastly odor emanating from it.

Voice: Mind your tongue young man!

[A light appears from within the plate.  The restaurant goes dark.  George is frozen with fear.]

George: Who...who are you?

Octie: I am called Octie, the magical talking octopus.  And you are George Mugin, English teacher from Yeongcheon.

George: How do you know that?

Octie: There is no earthly span that my enchanted tentacles cannot reach.  I know all about you George Mugin; I know why you're here, and I know how you've failed in your quest.

George: Failed?  It was not I Octie; it was Busan.  Or rather, there was no Busan to begin with, only the fleeting thought of her..

Octie: Fool!  Your eyes deceive you.  Are you so callous as to be blind to the beauty in the everyday happenings of this world?  Or are you a mere vagabond in nobleman's clothing?

Geroge: I...

Octie: Silence!  [Lifting her tentacles.]  I feel the good in you yet, George Mugin, but you must learn to look past mere aesthetics, to see beyond Busan's rash exterior.

George: How do I do that?

Octie: Here, drink this.  It will help you realize your hidden love for Busan, the bar skank of Korea.

George: What is it?

Octie: It's a magical concoction called..17 jello shots.  It will relax your mind's eye and leave a wonderful cherry aftertaste on your tongue.  They sell them at The Fuzzy Navel for 1,000 won each.

[George drinks 17 jello shots.]

George: Then I shall seek the fair Busan once more and retry my love,
But first, to Family Mart, for surely I will not touch her without a glove.

[George exits.]

[End Act II]