Joaquin Del Mundo

Shinjuku: Another Scary Place

Shinjuku and Roppongi are two places that Japanese police have told me to avoid.  In Shinjuku you'll find a smattering of Nigerian that try to aggressively get foreigners to go to some small bar, where they charge a cover charge like some extravagant night club, except there place has no people in there.  You'll also find a lot of Japanese and Chinese street hustlers that try to convince you to go to some bar.  Whatever you do, don't go!

The Japanese there in the streets for the least part are nice and helpful, and the Chinese seem rather passive.  However, if you go to their bar, even to just have a look, they right away charge you money like $100 even though you have not had a drink.  I've heard stories from my Japanese friends, that they have been known to beat people up for not paying up.  Just avoid Shinjuku is my advice. 

But undoubtedly, I'm sure you'll go anyways, many guys (and maybe even women) look for attractive Japanese model-like prostitutes that operate in that region.  There'll be pictures on some door where you can order the girl by picture.  That's the only think I know about this thing; I have seen packs of foreigners and Japanese going for that thing.  I am not into this sort of thing, so I cannot offer any advice, but I can say, stay away from the clubs there in general, as they'll scam you, or worse.

Roppongi: A Scary Place

There are a few night clubs in Roppongi worth visiting, like A-Life, Feria, and Muse, but overall the place is scary.  I cannot walk down the street without being harassed by about a dozen Nigerian or African people that get insulted that you are not interested in some "titty" bar or interested to pay $30 walk into their small dump of a bar where you can drugged or otherwise scammed by those inside.  I get insulted because I wonder where does it say on my face that I want to go to as they call it a "titty bar".

There may be a few actual dance bar-clubs, but then many of these owners that collude with ladies that speak Chinese and drug or scam those in the clubs, and steal their money and run up their credit cards.  A simple search on Google, will show  many accounts of these horror stories.  My advice to any travelers is to one just avoid Roppongi altogether, but if you really insist to go to the smaller African run clubs, then be very cautious and mistrustful.  Don't bring credit cards or a lot of money there, just enough to have a few drinks and the cover charge.  If the girl that you talking to are with insists to go to another place, drop her fast, as she is probably a prostitute or scammer disguised as a good wholesome girl that became magically lovesick over your unique characteristics.

After the night of festivities, walking down the streets of Roppongi, there'll still be mostly Nigerian guys trying to lead you their bars and empty your wallet, and you'll encounter many scary looking, mostly chubby and older Chinese prostitutes whose faces light up when their see a white foreigner by himself in Roppongi.  Originally, I was insulted, wondering if I had a plaque on my face that says: I want a prostitute" (something that is repulsive to me), but worse is that these Chinese ladies in the streets , I hate to say it, are really hideous to look at even when drunk.  If any person that wanted this type of service, why for Heaven's sake would anyone choose them.

Anyhow, before I was quite angry because they would grab you and try to pull you  in some direction.  But then I thought well, a little kindness would be better, and it seemed to work, they started to remember me, and recall I do not do this sort of thing.  So, I used to be friendly to them, and politely refuse them, but now after getting harassed with this year's batch, I am getting annoyed at tell them that I don't like Chinese: "中国人好きじゃない", and then amongst themselves in either Chinese or Japanese, they say, oh, he likes only Japanese or something like that.  The pack of Chinese prostitutes then at least don't accost me on that block.

Now the next block awaits with packs of scary and desperate Chinese prostitutes and more packs of Nigerian scam artists and others that try to get you into their location.

Contrasting Japan and Korea

I wanted to organize my thoughts on this, as I don't want to say that either Korea or Japan is better.  They are both different.  I am just communicating the emotional feeling that I have when I come to Japan, after living in Korea for a while.  My Korean friend said that her other foreign friends had similar feelings.

I explained to my friend something to this degree.  In being from Korea, I have a sense of pride that I cannot readily explain.  I am not Korean obviously, but I am from the community in Korea.  Thus, by people a member of the community, interacting and living there, I have this sense of being, this identity.  I'm a foreigner of Korea, not a foreigner in general, if that makes sense.  Thus with pride I say, I live in Korea: 韓国に住んでいる and that I study in Korea: 韓国の大学を勉強している.  I don't need to belong or integrate here, but I can enjoy and share.

I get all kinds of surprises and interests in me.  I try to tell them that I often traverse between Japan and Korea, so if they had friendship or other relationship, it would last longer than a simple vacation.

Another thing I felt, is that Korea has some advantages that Japan does not have.  Many Koreans are very educated and well aware of things that are happening in the world.  I feel though in some ways, that though Japan has this very modern advanced and system in place, far more advanced and sophisticated that Korea or other parts of the world, but most citizens here are not cognizant of this.  There seems to be a minority elite that are the movers and shakers of Japan, while most just go about their programmed lives.  In Korea, there's a higher awareness as to how things work, and many opportunities, if not in Korea, in the world.  Unfortunately for Korea, painfully obvious is that most of the economy is in the control of a few families: 80% of GDP controlled by 10 families, and 60% of GDP controlled by 4 families that control biggest Chaebols (財閥 or 재벌).  These families (the neo-yangban per say) lock of the resources and stifle innovation, which probably encourages masses to explore opportunities abroad, or allow their children to marry foreigners (something that was considered unfathomable a decade ago).

Oooh, I am getting way to intellectual.  I only wanted to describe the feeling I had, but then well, I guess studying at Yonsei and doing my own research, a simple feeling or intuition turns into a thesis paper. 

Another thing of interests were social patterns.  Many here in Tokyo have rigid forms of social protocol, which causes many people to see Japanese as mindless robots.  Though this is not the truth, but the conformity to social protocol of society is strong.  In Korea, there is a conformity as well, but this is toward smaller groups.  I felt that many Koreans act like herds of animals, always doing things in packs, rather than acting individually.  In Japan, many act as individuals, as long as they conform to the social norms.  And in Korea, it seems that many seldom do anything outside of a collective group. 

In Korea, doing anything as an individual is considered rather awkward.  Even many bars are often devoid of a bar, where singles can sit and mingle.   Some bars that I found that do have a bar, but are typically empty, and if they are occupied, it is usually two seats with a couple there discussing some topic because the tables are all full.

The Princess Complex and Aegyeo

These days you can see Korean girls go to the extreme to be cute and adorable, play acting like a child (Aegyeo), or using cute rehearsed facial expressions to attract guys, or just embrace the cuteness.  You can see countless girls staring at themselves all the time with their cellular phones or pocket mirrors, sometimes up to a 30 minutes or more.  There are also numerous girls that snap photos of themselves or with friends that try to look cute together, all cuddly and what not.

Many girls go to the extreme, and feel they are some delicate princess that needs to be hampered.  They wear sparkling or glittering shoes, purses, sometimes put glitter in their faces, and have expensive clothing to portray that they are a princess.  The Korean guys call this "princess complex", in that girls become so obsessed in dressing up and acting out this princess role.  Many guys pander to it, buying girls whatever they want.  Sometimes it gets really competitive.  My one charismatic friend Maeri described a friend that yelled at her: why doesn't he like me, you are not pretty, he should like me...

Several years ago, you can tell when a girl received a call from a guy that she likes, as her voice gets soft and delicate, and all giddy and giggly.  Now, it is more extreme, as they act more child like in front of their perspective mates, and sometimes they act this way all the time.  They call this Aegyeo (pronounced approximately Ay-Gyo), which is child-like play acting to be cute and adorable.  We can see girls in the street pout to try to get attention from guys, then slap him for not giving him attention, or a girl hit a guy over the head with her huge purse, too drunk to realize that it can hurt him.  Guys ignore them and get more attention, whether play fighting, or being cuddly with each other.  It is all fun and games, the more the girl acts cute and child-like, the more the guy should like her more.  My Japanese friend Mami dated a Korean guy and she got annoyed when he chopped up her food for her, and fed her each bite, and wiped her face.  She felt like she was helpless and feeble, but understood that this is the culture, where the girl is expected to act like and be like a little girl that needs to be fathered and dominated by strong secure man.

Here's a video called Gee by Girls Generation that I like, and it shows these girls with their practiced adobable looks that you see many Korean girls try to mimic to snag a guy's heart:

South Korea Looses $250 billion due to social conflict

I just read this interesting article in The Korea Times, which stated that Korea looses $250 billion a years to GDP (gross domestic product) due to social conflict in the form of political feuds, militant trade unions and "rent-seeking" activities of the government officials.  South Korea is rated below Slovakia, Poland, and Turkey in the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries ranked by the SERI (Samsung Economic Research Institute) report.  According to SERI researcher June Park, Korea could jump to a $24,000 GDP per capita.  Last year's per capita was $18,602, and in 1962, South Korea's per capita was something like $87 if I recall my history correctly...

Social Conflict Index from SERI (created on Excel 2008 for Mac)

Semester is Finished, Now what do I do?

This is the first week after the semester.  This semester has been really difficult as I had roughly 7 courses.  I don't regret it, because I increased my knowledge in Korean history, Korean politics and economics, as well as accounting and organizational behavior.  I also learned a thing or two about the Korean language.

Now, I am up in the air, as I am sort of lost about what to do.  At first I started to play my game, because I never had the chance to do so, but now I am thinking, I am free to explore Korea, what am I doing playing this game? 

I started to meet some friends, and try to cement new friendships, as well as divorce myself from the numerous flakes on my phone list in my address book.  It is hard to generate genuine interests from Koreans, mostly due to the language barriers.

For this reason, I want to get really aggressive about studying Korean, and keep up with my Japanese studies as well.  The other thing I want to do is start some of my educational planning, and secure more finances as I have only $68 in the bank.

Finals Week at Yonsei University

I have just finished up with Organizational Behavior, North and South Korean Politics, Modern Korean History, Topics in Korean Language and Culture.  I have two more courses to go: an essay for Korean Business and Politics, and a super stressful and difficult test for Principals of Accounting.

I was extremely stressed and focused on a major Accounting project where we (our team of 5 people) had to analyze and calculate ratios for our designated company Tyco.  I created a spread sheet and entered in the numbers for Tyco, Honeywell, and GE, and calculated common ratios like Debt to Asset Ratios, and later I produced graphs to compare between years, and between companies.  I never did anything like this before in my life, so I am actually glad I did this exercise.

For history, I am a total history dork, and so I cranked out a 29 page paper with maybe upwards to 10 sources of information, including books on Chinese History, Korean History, and Japenese history during the years of 1870s to 1890s, when the Western powers were kicking Asia's butt with more advanced technology and weapons that they developed after the first Industrial Revolution (iron and coal) and then the second Industrial Revolution (oil, chemicals, electricity, steel).

Continuing Thoughts are US-NK Relations

Now I know I might have been too kind towards North Korea.  I mean, it was North Korea that sponsored terrorist activities against the South Korea, the bombing in Burma, and blowing up the airplane.  And it is these days, that they are trying to build nuclear bombs and missiles to sell around the world. 

However, we should at least try to negoiate with them just from a sheer cost perspective, that amount of money we could give them in the form of aid or energy is peanuts compared to the amount we may save in further aggravation.  That is just from an economical perspective.

But the other thing troubling from our perspective, is that we don't meet our commitments and treat them like they are insignificant, and the North Korean state is extremely paranoid.  I think if we showed them we were serious in trying to make peaceful relations and maybe help them, and actually have the integrity to stick by our commitments, I think they would edge out of the darkness, and sort of normalize.  But at this moment, they have really nothing to loose, as they are so in dire straits, but we have something to loose.  South Korean economy, Japans, as well as Chinese economies would be affected by any destabilization in the region, and these big economies affect world's economy.  We are all interdependent in some degree.

North Korean Situation

I wrote this to the Whitehouse:

I have learned that both South Korea and USA have never made their promised commitments to North Korea.  I obviously do not support North Korea's belligerent defiance, but they are desperately poor and backed into the corner.  I think we should make good on our commitments, to show we as Americans have honor and integrity.  We should also document clearly that we do not plot to invade them or ever use nuclear weapons on them.  As absurd as it sounds, they are really paranoid.  I think if we show them kindness, that we may disagree, but we support the people of North Korea, then they know, after being alienated, that USA can be counted on as a supporter and proponent of peace.  We can chart a course for them, give them a little, see improvements, and give them more.  The cost for us to try is next to nothing, but the cost to push to a conflict is unfathomable.  If any president can earn North Korea's trust it is Obama, and if any nation can bring them out of darkness and foster the spirit of democracy, it is USA.

Approaching the Finals

I am approaching toward the final days at Yonsei.  I am not sure what I will do in the end here.  At this moment, I am so focused on studies.   It is hard to stay afloat, remembering what I need to do on a daily basis, determine what studies I can do in the day, so that I can get some sleep.  Most classes I am fine, but I have two classes I am worried about: Accounting and Korean Business and Politics.

These days, I have been out of sync with my energies, which I suspect are related to the intense pressures from a lot of homework and exams.  I joke with my friend, saying that he has some demonic powers and stole my energy, and exchanged it for his.  Before, my calm tranquil demeanor has been replaced with a chaotic randomly emotional state of mind.