July

 

June was the month I realized what the off-season is like. I took over running the restaurant while my wife returned to Korea to care for my sister-in-law, who has cancer. So, I don't have high expectations for this July, which is still the off-season. However, the day after business is slow, I feel like a loser. It feels just like being a general defeated in battle.

But come to think of it again, this is just another day in paradise. Life has its ups and downs, and right now, it is just a downhill slope. As always, time will flow and circumstances will change. I can guarantee it on my life.

The World Cup began in the United States, and Europeans witnessed firsthand the true face of America, quite different from what they had seen and heard through their own media. Just how many blatant lies the press had spread! Claims that America is dangerous or that everyone is poor—what bullshit!

The country that rules the world is poor?!?! The country everyone wants to live in is dangerous?!?! Please, let's think about this with common sense.

Europeans were simply astonished by the enormous quantity and taste of American food, even though these things were taken for granted by Americans. Europe lacks such a scale. They have never experienced such immense size. Just how vast a country America is! The United States has as many as 50 states, each the size of the country they live in. How could Europeans possibly comprehend that? The foolish ones, in particular, know even less.

I left the U.S. because I grew bored with life there. And now I live in one of the poorest countries in the world. Looking at it from the outside, I finally realize just how great a country America is! Almost everyone here lives on sticky rice dipped in salt, and there are no Big Macs or Super-sized Coca-Cola. It is impossible to even compare them!

The problem lies with the media. Marshall McLuhan was right when he said, "The medium is the message." The media's constant lies are accepted as truth by those who consume them. The older generation in Korea accepts anything that appears on TV as the truth without question. "It was on TV!" Then it automatically becomes the fact. Hahaha.

Globalization has screwed the world! One tribe cannot coexist harmoniously with another. They have their way, and you have your way. They simply cannot mix.

Travel is meant to experience how other tribes live, not to live with them.

If you moved to another country because yours was a complete mess, you must follow that country's rules, not cling to the rules of your old one. Didn't you leave because you hated those rules? You cannot maintain old rules in a country that has different rules.

Islam is trying to convert everyone to Islam. Why? Have we gone mad enough to believe that women are less valuable than men? In this world that never stops for a moment, are we supposed to stop what we're doing at a set time every day and bow down to Allah in droves? That we will be killed if we don't believe in Islam? What a twisted belief! Do that in your own country. We will visit if we feel like it.

I can't believe that 25% of the world's population is Muslim and that number is increasing. That simply means 25% of people are still living in the Stone Age. And yet, that number is growing! It means the number of stupid people is increasing!

I do not intend to disparage Islam as a whole. They have the right to believe whatever they want. Nor do I think all Muslims are bad. It is the anachronistic types who ruin religion.

Religion is a matter of interpretation, and too many versions exist. They all believe in a being called 'God,' that there is only one God. However, that belief has varied from person to person. This is because it is something created in the human mind!

How can you trust a human being?

This story seems like it will go on endlessly. I should stop now and wrap up my thoughts amidst the rainy season of July.

If you decide to leave your tribe and live in another tribe's territory, follow their rules. You are merely a guest, so do not act like the master.

They said it would rain last night but it didn't, yet it rained in Bangkok. Look, even though it is only an hour and a half away, and right next door, everything is so different.