Soju and Onions

(I like living in Korea.)

Yesterday, I woke up at 8 a.m. and drank a cup of freshly brewed coffee. Then I read the headlines on my smartphone while taking a shit. The Korean language is catching on in Vietnam. In fact, it’s being offered as an alternative to English and Chinese throughout the local high schools. This shouldn’t come as a huge surprise. K-pop and K-dramas are taking all of Asia by storm. When I lived in Beijing, many of the Chinese teachers were studying Korean in order to have a better understanding of the popular television shows. On top of that, some Vietnamese ladies are looking for Korean husbands in order to improve their standard of living.

I ate hash browns for breakfast as I watched Fox News. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is accusing Tucker Carlson of promoting violence in America. She claims that his rhetoric is so inflammatory that it might lead to the death of innocent people. Of course, Ms. Cortez is completely full of crap. Like many libtards, you have to agree with her completely or you’ll be accused of a hate crime. For instance, I’m one of those old-fashioned assholes who doesn’t want to worship at a church filled with transvestites. So according Alexandria and her buddies, I’m just a filthy criminal who should be severely punished. Same old story, same old song and dance.

The Dragon Lady walked into the room. “You walk to da church today?”

I nodded. “Yes. I need the exercise.”

“You must buy da onion and da soju.”

“Soju? Are you planning to get drunk tonight?”

She frowned. “Are you da idiot? Of course I not get dwunk. I need it for da cook.”

And she wasn’t lying. My wife always uses that hooch in her recipes.

I said, “How many bottles?”

“Onry one.”

“OK. Not a problem. Soju and onions. Got it.”

“And ba-nah-nah.”

“Bananas, too?”

“Yes. Gleen ba-nah-nah. It foh you runch.”

I’m still on my diet. I only eat a piece of fruit at noon. Then I wait till the evening for dinner.

Later that afternoon, I left the apartment with Rice-Boy Larry by my side. We struck up a conversation as we strolled along the streets of Seoul. By the way, stretching your legs in this concrete jungle is no easy feat. I’m always afraid that an impatient driver will mow me down one fateful day.

I looked at my boy. “Do you know how to set up a PayPal account?”

He shrugged. “I’ve never done it, but I’m sure it can’t be too hard.”

“Do you need a bank account for it to work?”

“I’m not sure. Let me look it up on Google.”  He stared at his phone for about a minute as he surfed the web. “No, it says here that a bank account is not required.”

“What about a Bitcoin wallet?”

“A what?”

“A Bitcoin wallet.”

“I don’t know a thing about Bitcoin. I’m not even sure how you spend it. However, it’s probably not too difficult to set it up. If they made it tough, then it would hurt their business. We’d all be too stupid to use their products.”

I smiled at him. “You’re absolutely right. I never thought of it that way.”

The sermon was pretty solid. Our pastor is currently discussing The Book of Isaiah. He still believes that Korea is going to hell in a handbasket, and he has all kinds of negative stats to prove his point. But I disagree. I actually enjoy living on the peninsula. It’s free of crime, and the healthcare system rocks. Is it paradise? Of course not. Yet a guy could do a lot worse. I’m just happy that I wasn’t born in Djibouti. Praise Jesus.

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