and you lasted four years! you from the trailers?

—

This is true, but I am from St. Louis, Missouri, and so I lack dignity and aesthetic sense myself. When I travel to hoity-toity lawyers’ conferences I am often reminded of this as I crave hotdogs and Jack in the Box tacos, while the other lawyers cram the excellent restaurants.

2. again, why only ne asia? just loans and access to american markets?

3. speaking of loans and american markets, everybody in the world had access to both but only ne asians succeed.

4. yes, you’re right about korea not being able to rely on the old ways of growth and that it must innovate but then your implication is that they can’t. would anyone have believed 5 years ago that samsung would be giving sony a run for it’s money? you’re going to be disappointed again, arwrong.

One as yet overlooked point, though:

Even if Koreans were to totally revise their laws regarding foreign investment,

Even if the entire country were designated an FEZ, etc.,

Who in his right mind would actually WANT to spend a day–let alone a month, a year, a decade–in a country where SPITTING, PISSING, and VOMITING all over the street, in full sight of God and everybody, is common practice both night and day?

I’m writing from four years’ experience living in SK.

My last job, in Kimpo City, involved having to cross a major street by pedestrian overpass each morning on the way to work.

Time and time again, there were fresh pools of vomit to be sidestepped on either side of the bridge. Something about the steps up and down? the open air? Who knows! Koreans just couldn’t seem to resist throwing up all over the thing.

The previous apartment of mine, in Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, was inconveniently located near a half dozen or so chicken hofs, without a public toilet anywhere in sight. The sight, sound, and smell of a man energetically relieving himself against the concrete wall opposite the entrance to my home was a regular feature of my goings and comings.

Call me elitist, faux-sophisticated, racist, orientalist, I don’t care.

This is DISGUSTING BEHAVIOR–and it’s KOREAN BEHAVIOR.

Oh, and did I forget to mention the constant SHOUTING?

Why talk, when you can shout?

My mind drifts back to the occasional kalbi restaurant meal which would have been utterly delightful if it hadn’t been for the young Korean woman at the next table SHRIEKING into her handphone.

NO ONE WITH AN OUNCE OF DIGNITY OR AESTHETIC SENSE WILL LAST A DAY IN SOUTH KOREA WITHOUT BEING REVOLTED, and so long as THAT remains true Korea will NEVER be anything but, as my first ever Western contact in the country once described it to me, “the armpit of East Asia.”

Hub?

Hubcap?

GARBAGE CAN LID!

And then we could delve into the subject of ????, the “association”, a vineleaf term for money-sucking entity…