Caveat: Ritualized Humiliation

Yesterday at the close of work, I was feeling rather depressed. 

One thing that happened, was that after I finished my afterschool classes, which end at 4 PM on Wednesdays, I went over to the gym to try to put in a social appearance at the staff intramural volleyball event (which includes a lot of traditional things to eat, too, and soju and makkolli and beer and things like that).  I'm just rying to fit in, I guess.  Anyway, the volleyball game seemed to be in suspension, due to the fact that one of the teachers is recently engaged to be married.  She'd brought her fiance to introduce him to the school staff.  And after forcing him to drink some alcohol (common enough in Korean social events), they tied him up, put him on a table, took off his shoes, and began hitting him on the feet.  Hard.  I'd heard of this before – vaguely – it's some kind of pre-wedding ritual that is common.   Maybe like the way a bachelor party is a ritual that is common before Western weddings.  But, this being Korea, it's got a very strong component of humiliation, and seems to be a lot about establishing social chains of dominance… that kind of thing.  I felt more alien than I normally do.  I felt like I could never truly understand Korea.  I was very puzzled, and dismayed by what seemed the cruelty of it.  I felt I couldn't relate to these people who I worked with every day.

And then I got mocked in my efforts to speak Korean – by a group of students (not students who I have in any class – I'm not even certain they attend my school).  I just felt self-conscious and hopeless, in that moment.

I wrote yesterday that I'm not making progress on the things that are important to me.  Someone asked, what are these things that are important to me?  Maybe it would be a good thing to try to map these out.

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