As long as I could remember I've never struggled to make or find new friends. Ascending each class all the way from grade school to university, I've always found myself hanging out with the 'popular crowd', or at least, the self-confident sport playing, half-hazard experimental type. Popularity and self-assurance seem to be a ubiquitous pair in the manner of insecurity and meekness. Despite having more attributes of the latter, I've continually 'fit in' or have been accepted- whatever that means. In Korea however, I have few people that are worthy of calling friends. My dearth of friends stems not from opportunity- ironically I live in a small 'rural' (by Korean standards not ours) community called, Shinchang, that is the epicenter where virtually all of the English teachers in the region live. Collectively, there are probably 50-60 'foreigners' living throughout my apartment complex which consists of nine high rise apartment buildings. A friend and I derisively call the people that live around here the 'Star Trek convention' for all the eccentric oddballs that happened to congregate in this part of the Korean peninsula. Being a newly minted twenty-five year old I'm actually quite young vis-a-vi most of the other foreigners. If I had to place a median age for the people living here it'd probably be around thirty-five. If only you had a chance to meet some of the neurotic characters that live around here. A psychologist would have a field day diagnosing all the sundry neuroses. Most of the people that I've met in our town and Korea come to here to teach English because of some sort of problem or insecurity back at home. They sort of fled or escaped in way. Only the honest ones will actually admit this. Naturally everyone says they're here because they love to travel or they came here to pay off their college loans- you can save at least a grand a month if you don't travel and live penuriously (I don't btw). Truth be told though, that's only the official convenient reason why people come. Many come here because they were the ones that were never included back at home; euphemistically you could say they're the loners or the introverts; I would label them, the dorks, tools, douchebags, etc. Whatever the case may have been these people graduate college totally devoid of meaning or direction and decide to come to Korea. Was I a part of this group you may ask? I don't think so, at least, not in terms of being a social outcast or Holden Caulfield type (Catcher in the Rue main character). Another group which I flippantly confess I'm apart, of came to Korea because they have a thing for Asian women and depressingly, probably came up on the short end of the stick when it came to getting laid. Like a couple others I thought surrounding myself with a race I find quite sexually appealing would be a fine idea. So far, I haven't been disappointed. When someone asks me why I came here, provided its within the realm of propriety to tell them the truth, I tell them the truth rather blatantly. 'Came here for the beautiful women'. When I say this people usually chuckle nervously and gently try to move the conversation elsewhere out of fear that I'm a perverse sexual deviant or are simply disinterested in talking about my erotic escapades. Next you have another type of person who came to Korea for some really dramatic reason e.g. rape, latent homosexuality, acute delusional psychosis and loss of reality itself. The vast majority of women here I'm sorry to say, are here because they nearly have to pay for sex back at home. Yea, they're generally not your cheerleader, sorority dunce types. A friend of mine told me a Korean thought all foreign women are overweight. A completely understandable observation made by this Korean seeing that a plurality of them here indeed are.

The people living in my town are as eclectic as they are bizarre. I'll try and describe some of them if I can. We have this one middle-aged Australian guy who even my good friend whose Australian says, he's Australian as they come. On the wagon, he has a pretty thick accent but when he gets drunk and rest assured, he often does, becomes completely incomprehensible. On top of this he speaks to everyone like he's speaking to his best mate back in the bush which is to say he uses Australian colloquialisms that only crocodile Dundee would understand. If you're lucky he'll tell stories of him sodomizing transvestites in Thailand. One night after the bars I had the unfortunate task of escorting him home and he tried coming on to me; needless to stay that left me stupefied beyond belief for the next week or so. The next day I told my friend about what transpired that night and learned that apparently he has tried successfully or not to come on to nearly every male or female in our town. As one might imagine this only happens when he's inebriated. Next we have a upper-twenties Kiwi (New Zealander for all you yanks that don't know) who came to Korea in order to teach English and pursue her 'rock-star' aspirations. That's right, rock-star like Bonjovi (incidentally a favorite of hers). Literally, within an hour of meeting her she invariably drags her wanting to become a rock-star somewhere into the conversation. I emphasize 'rock-star' because for some reason that's what she wants to become; not a musician or singer song writer but a sex, drugs, and rock n roll crazed rock-star. Now granted I'm not a psychologist, hell, I haven't even taken a psych class in college but she definitely has 'delusional psychosis' tattooed across her forehead. She's in a band made up of other foreigners (teachers). One night I felt like wasting my time so I went to see her band perform. She's the lead singer of course, and as fate would have it she's the definition of sub-par mediocrity. Forgot to mention her looks. When you're eight beers down she's mildly attractive if you're totally desperate. I'm not, thankfully. My friends and I try and avoid long conversations with her just so we don't have to incessantly hear about her wanting to become a rock-star. My friend was spot on when he said, that she's one of those people that have watched the movie, 'The Secret' way too many times. A fitting analogy would be those people that believe anything at all costs- reason or reality be damned; I suppose you could call them fundamentalists. It'd be like if you're jogging on the 405 at 3:30 in the morning and you believe you're not going to get hit by a car because you will yourself not to do so. Last time I spoke to her we were discussing our future plans. After asking what her plans were she replied, 'I'm gong to teach in Korea if I don't get signed by a major record label to do a European tour' (mind you we're in the middle of nowhere in Korea).