Filthy Beast: The Diary of an English Teacher in South Korea

Chapter 23

Yesterday, I woke up at eight a.m. and drank a cup of freshly brewed coffee. But I decided not to take a nasty shit. I held in my fecal matter in order to avoid getting skid marks. It was nice to go through an entire day without experiencing anal itch. However, I did feel a bit bloated by the time six o'clock rolled around.

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.

I read the paper as usual. Three young Korean women flew to Taiwan for a short vacation. A Chinese cabbie gave one of them drugs, and she passed out in his taxi. He then proceeded to rape her as she lay unconscious in the back seat. The suspect was apprehended by the powers that be. He faces up to seventeen years in a Taiwanese prison.

Some men will simply do anything to get their rocks off. I'm just glad that I don't have daughters. These are the types of stories that scare parents to death.

I went to work with my wife. (I can't wait till my real job starts.) We visited the naughty boys who live on the 26th floor of a high-rise apartment. Once again, I marveled at the rhino horns. Chinese dragons are carved into the sides of the horns. The craftsmanship is exquisite. They must have cost a pretty penny.

Culture is a weird thing. If I showed these trophies to hunters from Texas, the redneck Texans would be aghast. They'd probably call me every name in the book—even though they're very much into killing animals. They've got this thing about eating the meat. It's almost a religion to them. They're worse than the fucking Native Americans on the subject of Mother Earth.

But Koreans simply aren't like us. They have their own morality when it comes to animals. For instance, I often go to the fish market with the Dragon Lady. Like most of her people, she adores seafood. And I regularly see whale meat being sold to the locals.

On paper, this is illegal—even on the peninsula. But nobody follows the law. The cops certainly don't care. So this illicit food is sold in the open for everybody to see. Supposedly, all these unfortunate mammals were killed in fishing nets. Therefore, eating them is a wonderful act of conservation. Wink, wink.

But I'm not an animal-rights guy, so I don't get all bent out of shape. Some foreigners get quite nonplussed by the dietary habits of Asians. They hold signs and stage protests. However, I've got my own problems.

We went to McDonald's for lunch. The place was crowded with middle-aged women. The ladies use McDonald's as a cut-rate coffee shop. They sit in their chairs for hours and hours, milking their cups of Joe. This practice annoys the fuck out of me. I don't know why. Maybe I need a life.

Rice-Boy Larry ordered a hamburger and French fries. Then he found a phantom hair on his beef patty. It didn't look like hair to me. I thought it was gristle.

I said, "Just pick it off and get back to munching."

He said, "How can I eat this shit? It's so dirty."

I worry about my young son. My wife is constantly on guard against grime—as I told you before. I don't want him to get all fucked up like her. A little strand of hair never hurt anybody.

I said, "Don't tell your mother. You know how she is."

So what did he do? He showed her the hair as soon as she stepped out of the bathroom. My wife marched straight to the counter and got a free hamburger.

Maybe I'm the asshole.