Phewski! The leaking of my missives onto his World Nomads page has been a plus. Judging by the comments, everyone just thinks it's some incredibly self-indulgent pastiche. So. No harm done. Nonetheless, I've moved again and am sending this with triple encryption embedded in an ad about Hot Winter Getaways. I'm also testing a new program The Team gave me before I left. It should deflect any and all cyber-stalking and arrive in your inbox. As opposed to being posted on World Nomads. Gotta trust The Team. Let's see if it works.
By the way, this town also has a big “thing” to lure the tourists. Without giving my position away, you can eat it, and there's a famous ad campaign you'll have heard: “Throw another _____ at the barbie.” What are the chances I'd pull up at these two towns one after the other? Will send you the co-ordinates when this is all over. Starting to realise where Jeff Koons got his ideas. Yet another sculptor not referencing the enormous influence of Australia on modern art.
Also, here's one of the lost blogs as promised. Sorry I didn't do it sooner. I have been very drunk.
I spoke to (cracked onto...witnesses tell slightly different stories) the French head of some company at some whiskey tasting who told me they actually employ psychologists for Westerners spending a long time in South Korea because our inability to read Korean and communicate develops into a real malaise that needs treating. It's called Idontunderstandanyfuckingthingitis. Ordering a coffee is like doing your own tax. Confusing and taking much longer than it should. And no one has soy milk. Or 'tuyu'. And milk is 'uyu'. So picture me going into many, many coffee shops and raising my eyebrows and saying “tuyu uyu innayo?” Soy milk you have? I'm using the right words and structuring my sentence just like Yoda but maybe my accent makes it sound like “go f**k your grandmother” because I always get that polite-but-slightly-insulted face which makes me want to punch the pastries.
So, so illiterate. And no-one speaks English. Well, hardly anyone, and let's face it, in a lot of countries they just do. We get lazy. We expect everyone knows a bit of our lingo. Korea doesn't. And the alphabet – although around the same size as ours – is just a bunch of angles and circles to our King's English eyes. Their E is a T. Their C is a D. I is an 'ee' sound. A square is an M. And that's the shit that looks familiar.
I made an effort. I really did. But when you realise they're crow-barring adverbs and pronouns into their verbs without lube and that all verbs come at the end of the sentence except when they don't and that if I want two beers I have to add a suffix to the word “two” that is completely different to the suffix I would add if asking for two pens or two dogs or two hamburgers or two live octopii – all of which require their own suffix oh yeh they f**king do – well...I gave up. After a few months I kinda hear it. To get it. It's a brilliant language. Clever. Succinct. Economical. But a complete bitch.
Il. I. Sam. Sa. O. Yuk. Chill. Pal. Gu. S(h)ip.
That's one to ten in Korean.
IN ONE OF THEIR NUMBER SYSTEMS! Which you WON'T be using for dates, money, addresses, phone numbers, and numbers above 100. Discovering things like this is when the malaise (stabby feelings) start to surface. And breathing out...
I thought the whole reason he got the gig was because he spoke Korean. Or was this another brilliant piece of obfuscation? (It is one of his listed skills.) I look forward to decrypting your response.
a d @ ♣
Let's see if it works.
