Christmas in Korea

I've never been much of a crusader, I think crusades create a momentum that blur and dull the causes that spurned them. People just get caught up in the blood and iron. Operation Enduring Freedom as it may now be called (I heard they stopped calling them wars in the 90's to save money on pensions...unconfirmed rumour of course) was originally called operation Holy Crusade. That lasted about 6 hours until the one guy in the white house who actually had a history degree (I think he maintains the fixtures in the east wing) mentioned the potential misconstrutions with a name containing "crusade".

So, back to Christmas and my angst over having to work Christmas day. Oh yeah, I have to work Christmas day. Everyone in my company does. It is a statuatory holiday in Korea, replete with deparment store music and seasonal kitch. There is no real family element to it though. Those sentiments get taken care of on other holidays. Yet still, it is a day off for all, except those in my company. My company...ahh, what to say. They pay well, but they don't really believe in acknowledging holidays. Now, I know that they have in past year made some exceptions in the Busan chapter and granted some extra days off around Korean thanksgiving.

So, I approached the branch manager and inquired as to the possibility of calling Christmas, which falls on a Monday, off. He said no. Then he got one of the office staff to arrange invitations to a "christmas tree decorating party" at 12 freakin'3o this friday afternoon. Clearly the point was missed, nay, it was all together dodged. It would be like throwing a Korean a pack of go-stop cards and a cup of green tea and then saying "Happy Lunar NewYear M#*&'er F#*^'er, now get back to work!"

Ah, blogs are fun. I had no idea I could rant like this. I was going to go all out and make a big issue. I mean raise shit tactically. I've read a lot about social agitation and the promotion of subversive political agendas. The Soviets were pretty good at it, I even wrote a paper on the Comintern in University. I decided against it though, it would more than likely just cause a lot of malaise and bitterness in people who didn't already feel that way about the company. I've been there long enough now to know that will come naturally.

I'll guess I pin a piece of plastic on a fake plastic tree and then choke back another slice of pepporoni and crab pizza covered in corn.