Saturday, September 4, 2010

Mook Of The Week

When Koreans move house, it is quite a sight. There are two vehicles involved. One is the van with all the furniture, etc., and the other is a lift which can reach as high as the top of a 15-20 story apartment building. The movers load as much stuff as they can onto a platform that goes shooting up into the air, to be unloaded through the window into the "balcony."
I say "balcony," because most Korean apartments have a storage space/laundry room where you and I expect a balcony. It seems very strange to me to waste the area that would provide a view of the outside world.
But then most Koreans seem to close off their windows rather than open them up. Businesses cover them with signage, like my hagwon. Instead of a big window, my students and I get to look at the reverse side of "CIA."

But anyway, the mook that we're looking at this week is the driver of the moving van parked squarely in the only travel lane available to anyone who wanted to use this road. The driver and his two children were milling around in front of the truck, selfishly oblivious to the bottleneck they had thus provided.

I had first seen this truck from the rear, at the far end of the street. As I approached I thought surely he must move before I got there, but no. He was still there by the time I had passed on up the street to my con-apt, about the same distance the other way as when I had first sighted the vehicle. The driver and his kids were still milling around, seemingly wothout a care in the world, and still selfishly oblivious to the world around them.
What a mook!

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