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Not Good, Good Man
12/12/07
Not Good, Good Man
There are a lot of things about Korean culture I don't understand. There are things I dislike. There are few things I hate.
A 회식 (wayshik), forced coworker and/or boss binge drinking outings, would fall under the hate category.
To make a long story short, Good Man told me he would meet me at 9. At 950, having ignored multiple phone calls and text messages, he texted me that he would meet me around 1020. He finally showed up at 1100.
Completely drunk.
I. Was. Not. Happy.
Not happy that he was two hours late, not happy that he refused to answer the phone, not happy that he ignored text messages, not happy that he was swayingly drunk. Not happy that he didn't even bother to bring the Diet Coke I asked him to bring.
I told him to go home and he wouldn't listen. He just stood in my complex's hallway. Swaying.
Now, drunk people in Korea are treated differently than in America. In Korea, it's considered that drunk people don't have any control, so you forgive them for whatever they do. Also, being drunk is an excuse to tell the truth. After all, face saving and lying like Koreans do, all day long, day in and day out, gets mighty tiring. Drunk people are generally ignored. Similarly, Koreans' domestic spats and familial abuse (spousal, child, whatever) are "family matters" and thus ignored, even when they happen in public.
I am not Korean. All of my neighbors know I am white. I could not get away with leaving my Korean boyfriend's drunk butt in the hallway (I tried, and he wasn't leaving). They would not ignore that. My school would hear about that.
I had him come inside. And then I yelled at a drunk guy. A drunk guy who could not go back in time and fix it. I mean, this wasn't like he forgot to take out the trash, "now go do it and make it better." What was he going to say that would make it better?
I am loathe to admit a few things here, but I will.
One: The number of text messages I sent in two hours is probably equal to the total number I read/send in a day. The number of times I tried calling him is probably equal to the number of calls I make/receive in two weeks.
Ugh. I briefly turned into the type of girl I hate. And the type of girl I would hate to date. Ugh.
Two: I screamed at him, why couldn't he answer his phone or text messages and demanded to know if he was with some prostitutes, because "I can't really think of any reason you could pretend that you didn't notice all those calls and texts from your girlfriend unless you were with another woman."
(Prostitution, while being illegal, is rampent here. It is common for men to have sex with prostitutes during their military service, and these male-only forced-drinking things often end at juicy bars, songrooms with "helpers," and the like. I have a Korean friend who is married to his second wife. During his first marriage, his boss demanded he use a prostitute his boss hired for him or he would be fired. My friend was fired.)
Two and a Half: In fact, I made Sung Hyun (Gym Guy, Jennifer's boyfriend) ask him in Korean what the hell he'd been doing, because I thought maybe he'd tell the truth in Korean. His story stayed the same, nonetheless.
Jennifer, bless her, who had tried to calm me down pre-1100 entrance, told Good Man, "Amanda is really upset with you."
"I know," he mumbled.
Three: I knew it was pointless to argue with him because he couldn't go back in his magic time machine and make it better, but I did anyways. And I called him some really nasty names. Ugh.
Well, arguing/ranting at a drunk person is an infinite waste of time, so I went to bed and he fell asleep on the couch. I woke him up a few hours later for round two, when he was a bit more sober.
I asked him how Korean women deal with this. He said he thinks they give up. I told him I am not a Korean woman and he fell in love with me because I'm not a Korean woman. I told him I fell in love with him because he's not a traditional Korean male.
("Giving up" in fact, matches what a coworker told me months ago. Her husband had been out until 7 am drinking and spent 500,000 won at the bar. I asked her how she deals with the wayshik culture and she said she just ignores it, tries to swallow her anger, and hopes her husband isn't doing anything behind her back. "It's the culture, I know," she said, "but I really hate it." And like Master said, "All Korean woman hate wayshik, all Korean man know, OK!")
He said it would be different if we lived in the US, where they don't have these parties. I do not care about that excuse. We are not in the US. I still don't deserve to be ignored for two hours and then greeted by a sloshed boyfriend.
After some sleep and more talking this morning, I feel mostly OK. But damn. Damn.
8 comments
Jealousy has ways that I know of. These are ways of jealousy.
Jealousy hurts love.
Trust builds love.
Just a thought...
Had he NOT told me he was meeting me (he asked, not me), I wouldn't've been mad that he was at the wayshik. But to tell me "I want to meet you at 900," then NOT call for nearly an hour after you were supposed to meet, then to have lied a second time about what time you're going to come over? And then to come over totally drunk so we can't even enjoy time together? (It's no fun being sober with a drunk person.)
I wasn't jealous, I was pissed.
And to lie, especially multiple times in a short period of time, that doesn't build trust, to me.
All you want is for him to do what he says that he will do...it would have been simple to just see you another time.
I'm betting that he really did want to see you and basically have his cake and eat it too. You are, after all, wonderful.
Peer pressure sucks at any age. I don't do drunk people either - Bleah.
Robbin
I joked, "Probably the same subset of young men that didn't use prostitutes in the military."
And the thing is (and I'm going to write about this today), I KNOW how work culture works here--especially for men. I KNOW how much pressure there is here on them to be "part of the team" and to go to wayshiks and all that shit. This whole wayshik/face saving/not leaving early because it destroys the group and "jeong" thing...I didn't really believe it when I first got here, and it's one of the harder aspects of the culture to get used to. It's easy for non-Koreans to think "oh, it's just guy's night out," but it's NOT like that. And it's easy to think, "He can just stand up to them," but really, you can't. It's so, so weird. (Like I said, I'll be writing more detailing this later.)
And I even KNOW that he wouldn't go to dabang (coffee) girls or doumis (helpers) at song rooms or prostitutes. I KNOW that, but when I'm raging pissed, I also know it's an easy target of this culture. And since he's part of this culture, I use that target on him.
Which is totally unfair.
I DID admit to the nasty stuff I did, "loathe" as I was to do so. I didn't want to present it like I was some angel, because I wasn't.
I think he lost face with you and has some of that to make up. Even if you got angry and said some things you regret.
I picked that up from my recruiter. Whenever I was having problems with my school she'd text me, "Call me from the bathroom!" :)
Either way, the rule is--she's always right.
He didn't mean Korean women give up when they're upset, he meant that Korean women are more understanding of wayshiks/work culture/office politics/money etc.
Sort of like my coworker's response. And my other coworker telling me that I was very lucky because Good Man doesn't cheat on me, implying that her own husband does and she knows it and she's still with him.
He said he thinks often (not always) money takes priority over love, especially when you have kids.
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