Oh man
I've actually had stories published about some of the characters we get passing through the Korean expat community. But I know what this site likes so this post will be about my friend Sean.

I first met Sean through an old defunct message board I used to admin. He seemed eager, even peppy, and lacking in an internal censor or common sense. He had met a Korean girl who was on a working holiday in America, fell in love, and decided to follow her back to Korea where we all are.

In order to work in Korea, as a foreigner, all you really need is a university degree and you'll find someone willing to stick you in front of a class of kids -- it doesn't matter if the degree is in education or engineering or sex ed. Sean hadn't completed it yet, and was heavily in student debt as is the American way, but no big deal -- there are ways to work illegally, and student loans apparently grow on trees in 'Murica.

His first time in Korea, he stayed for three months, the maximum tourist visa for Americans. I arranged to meet up with him and do a bit of urban exploring, as is my thing. We met up and immediately I could tell he wasn't the peppy keener I was expecting. In person his mind and speech patterns moved at the speed of an iceberg, and he sounded kind of perma-fried.

It turned out actually that the night before, he had gotten in a bit of trouble. There was a Korean-American girl who hovered around our social group and preyed on guys in relationships (and at a later date gave a handful of guys the herp, some of whom passed it on to their own girlfriends). She had been fizzing after one Polish guy all night, and when that didn't work, Sean swooped in and offered to bring her back to his goshiwon.

So...a goshiwon is sort of like a hostel, usually used for students, usually over many months, and costs as little as USD 11 per day. The bed is about the size of an ironing board and there's barely enough room to fit a TV in too. Apparently he brought her back there, they boned, and in the morning they went out for breakfast, only to come back to the closet-sized room to find Sean's actual girlfriend inspecting a suspicious pair of panties.

He told me he'd sorted it out with the love of his life, and then proceeded to show me a picture of the girl he'd boned which he'd taken of her nude while he slept. Classy.

He left Korea soon after, but came back after not too long, this time as an exchange student at a Korean university in the city of Suwon, a little south of Seoul. To cut a long story short on this front, he failed all his classes and was nearly evicted from the dorm. Let's look at some of the highlights of this visit.

Of course he and his girlfriend broke up many times over this time. What's worse, he cheated on her numerous times over the course of their relationship. I and many of my friends were fuming by now, me especially because I'd recently gotten divorced for far less than anything he was ever caught for.

During this time, he formed a band with some of my other close friends, named Brothers of the Hole (a loose translation of a very lurid Korean phrase referring to the relationship between two guys who have slept with the same woman; actually due to the girl he'd slept with on the previous trip he was in fact brothers of the hole with two of his three bandmates). He actually had a talent for writing the guitar parts for songs, and while they were lasted they were very entertaining (at least to me, as they had a song dedicated to me).

For their debut show, the lead singer put a show together in a small neighbourhood bar. It was supposed to start at 7 in Seoul. Around 5:30, we got a call from Sean, who had just woken up in his university town of Suwon, two hours away. He had woken up in a love motel with a strange girl he didn't remember meeting. We got the news while sitting around a table with his girlfriend, so for the next 2+ hours we all had to bite our tongues so she didn't catch on.

I really wanted to tell her, but ultimately the rule is "bros before hoes" and I didn't want to become a participating member in their relationship.

A couple months later, I went on a trip to North Korea, and while I was gone I had my Australian friend Nik housesitting for me and feeding my cats. Sean had wanted to but I flat out told him no. After I got back, my place was a bit cramped for me and Nik, so Nik moved down to Sean's dorm in Suwon for a few days.

While he was there, he related this story. Sean brought him out drinking with a big group of exchange students, during which Sean started hitting on one (unrelated to the first) Korean-American girl there. At some point, someone else in the group fed up with his behaviour shouted "Hey Sean, what about your Korean fiancee?" (by this time they were engaged)

Sean looked forlorn for a moment, and said, with no clarification or further explanation, "She was hit by a bus!" then went back to hitting in this girl.

Around this time, there was a new business in my neighbourhood, known as a "Kiss bang" (literally "kissing room"). It's kind of a prostitution establishment where the guy can go to town on the female worker but absolutely can't undress her. Out of curiosity Sean and another friend went there. The other friend was fluent in Korean and asked the worker many questions, mainly "Who would come to a place like this?" to which she answered "Lonely old men."

Sean, meanwhile, paid a bit extra for an HJ, which was as far as they would go on him. He was unsatisfied and unable to finish.

Around this time I was unemployed and suffering from insomnia and not really connected to the 24-hour day. So when I got a phone call from Sean the next morning at 8am I wasn't too bothered.

He said something like "I was hanging out with {redacted} the night before and I was trying to explain to him about this red-light district in Suwon. We're at Suwon Train Station and I want to show it to him, but I can't remember where it is. Can you help?"

I knew very well, as I'd accidentally discovered it while on the very first ever date with my ex-wife when we took a wrong turn while trying to find a particular restaurant. So my directions were basically "From Suwon Train Station, go to the big front steps, stop, and tilt your head about 45 degrees to the left. You'll see a bus terminal, and right behind that is an alley that leads straight there."

An hour later, he called back. "I can't find it."

I sigh and am about to start repeating myself.

"I just want a blowjob," he replies.

Uh, yeah, no, I'm not going to intentionally help you cheat on your girlfriend. I ended the call, but heard he'd also called up two other friends (who didn't know the way) asking for directions.

Anyway, his second time there he was never caught cheating, but his girlfriend had really called him out on being a shitty boyfriend. He was extremely low on money, as every spare penny he got went toward makgeolli, a type of rice beer. Once he had one drink, he'd basically forget about sleeping and just keep drinking and drinking and drinking, which isn't hard when you're buying super-cheap Korean alcohol.

She tried to get him to stop drinking a couple times. But always, after he reached a milestone like one week, she'd want a drink herself, or they'd decide it was worth celebrating, and they'd have one drink, and 48 hours he was still awake and drinking.

His money drained out and he was unable to take care of her, so she took care of him. One night, they met up to go drinking, and she was eating an ice cream waffle when he arrived. He grabbed it out of her hands, saying "If you eat this, you won't have room for beer." He then ate half of it and threw the rest away.

Yeesh, I could keep going, but I have to head out. His third visit was much more sedate, but it led to their inevitable breakup. He took out another expensive loan, this time returning "as a rock star" in contrast with previous visits as a tourist and as a student.

The only memory I can relate right now is sitting in our favourite bar with a third Canadian friend, when he starts talking about smoking crack and meth and any other drug you can name. Me and the other guy both had never done anything harder than shrooms so we really couldn't relate. He just saw us as sheltered prudes, not ever reflecting on his burned out state.

I think it was this third visit where he was hanging out with a group of our friends in the main park in Hongdae, the center for nightlife in Seoul, when he met up with a really crazy Korean woman who you can tell just by listening to her rant or by smelling her that she's not sane. He however was fixated on her chest, and they ran off together. We don't know what happened next; he says they went to a bar, where he realised she was literally nuts and ditched her, but who knows. As another friend was berating him for being so unfaithful, he remarked "But she just has big tits!" Way to cover your tracks there.

I heard he was five figures in debt, and had no hope of paying off his student loans in his lifetime. He's since moved back to the US where he has a much less active social life, and following the inevitable breakup, he's stopped coming to Korea.

I genuinely like the guy despite all of this, and he always did it in kind of a naive way rather than a particularly cynical way. Who knows, maybe he'll finish his degree and move back.
(racetraitor has an alibi for, Wed 25 Sep 2013, 15:00, 10 replies)

tl;dr

( The Doveston haunted by the memory of his own amnesia, Wed 25 Sep 2013, 15:16, closed)

^

( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Wed 25 Sep 2013, 15:18, closed)

There doesn't seem to be a pun at the end.
That's something.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Wed 25 Sep 2013, 15:35, closed)

It's bog standard North Americans and Europeans in Asia stuff.

( The Awful Puppy Bakery is still bored, Wed 25 Sep 2013, 15:57, closed)

Well that went on for a while

(Eukanuba, Wed 25 Sep 2013, 16:51, closed)

Ouch
And I actually felt bad because I didn't think I'd written enough when I posted this.
(racetraitor has an alibi for, Wed 25 Sep 2013, 17:37, closed)

Alright Tolstoy,
Wind your neck in.
(Eukanuba, Wed 25 Sep 2013, 19:08, closed)

Do you ever shut your gob for long enough for somebody to tell you what a dull cunt you are?

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Wed 25 Sep 2013, 22:46, closed)

Says the pristine stainless steel pot to the kettle.

(s0ckpuppet logging out to reply to you if you're not careful, Thu 26 Sep 2013, 7:12, closed)

God, I hope The North invades you soon.

( stuj (^(^;;^)^) GO TEAM SPIDERS!(^(^;;^)^), Thu 26 Sep 2013, 8:18, closed)