For some reason in Korea the laws of gravity just do not apply to odashi. Take for example the picture to the right. Odashi can just drive around with two cars piled on the back of his truck with minimum bracing with no fear of them falling over into the road. The same thing can be said for the thousands of Bongo trucks that drive around every day in Korea with oversized loads of everything from chickens, toilets, and furniture piled up in the back up to 12 feet hight with minimal ropes and bracing to hold it in place.
For whatever reason the stuff does not fall. You can actually see the loads swaying in the wind back and forth and yet they do not fall. Odashi will even pile propane tanks on the back of little motorcycles that drive all over the sidewalks and swerve to avoid pedestrians. Yet none of these propane tanks ever fall of the motorcycles. How does he do it? Is there some secret odashi gravity warping device on sale at E-Mart? If an American tried to pile the stuff on his truck like odashi does it would all fall over once the vehicle began moving. I don’t know what it is but the mystery of odashi’s gravity defying abilities.
Today I saw some rather strange things on my way to Dongducheon. I was stopped at a light in Uijongbu when this presumably drunk ajimma was walking down the sidewalk kicking trash cans, the side of a building, and cars. She kept walking up the sidewalk and approached a telephone pole and head butted it! I couldn’t believe it. However the solid head butt she gave that pole sobered her up real quick because she quit kicking things. Then later we saw a broke down car in the middle of the road blocking traffic. Three ambulances and a police car responded to the broken down car. They must have nothing better to do.
Then later in the drive my driver saw flashing lights again and thought maybe another ambulance or a police car was responding to the broken down car. No it was the KTF internet man! This guy had his service car decked out with police lights and siren. He was hauling ass down the road to presumably respond to an internet emergency! Just imagine how many more people would jump off of buildings in this country if their internet didn’t get repaired in a timely fashion to play Starcraft again. Watching the KTF squad car fly down the road made think of Jim Carry in the movie Dumb and Dumber. I just picture the KTF guy flying into a parking lot and jumping out with his badge and saying, “It’s okay, I’m the KTF man.” I hope other companies don’t pick up on this guy because pretty soon everybody in this country will have squad cars with lights and sirens so they to can cut through traffic. I’m just wondering if there is some law that allows the internet repairman to have a squad car? Is losing your internet for a while enough of emergency to warrant a squad car? I guess if you are a Starcraft gamer it is.
Then when we got to Dongducheon some old lady flashed us as we were driving by. In Dongducheon I have seen plenty of weird things but never an old ajimma flashing me. Now I can say I have seen that to. Now all I need is an adashi to flash me and I can say I have officially seen it all in this country.
Anyone who has driven on Korean roads knows that they are extremely dangerous and almost follow a Darwinian survival of the fittest philosophy. The undisputed king of the food chain on the Korean roads are the Terminator semi-trucks and the public buses. These oversized behemoths will run you over and cut you off without a second thought. The next tier of Kings of the Road would be all the taxis in Korea.
All the taxi drivers have some unwritten pass to break any and all traffic laws. I have never seen a cab driver ever get ticketed for committing a traffic violation. On the Korean roads, we GI’s have learned to always yield to these guys and let them have the road. However, my battalion commander learned that another vehicle that another vehicle also has earned a higher place on the highway food chain. My battalion commander’s driver merged his vehicle in front of a tow truck cutting him off. He didn’t think anything of it until the tow truck pulled up along side of him and the driver began to curse him out in Korean.
My battalion commander’s driver is a Korean-American so he understood everything the guy said. The driver yelled back at him and the tow truck driver got more angry and cut off my battalion commander. They ended up stopping at a stop light and the tow truck driver then put his vehicle in reverse and slammed my battalion commander’s vehicle repeatedly with his tow truck and the driver then called the police saying he had been rear ended by some American GIs at a stop light. Fortunately my battalion commander’s driver could speak Korean and rounded up some witnesses at the scene to speak with the police varifying their accounts. Initially the Korean police were going to give my commander a ticket before the witnesses gave their side of the story and the Korean police changed their minds. If my commander did not have a Korean speaking driver he probably would have been found guilty of rear ending the tow truck. Fortunately they were not but the police let the tow truck driver go.
Didn’t he committ assault by attacking my commander with a tow truck? If an American did that their would be a candle light vigil demanding my commander be tried in a Korean civilian court for assault. Once again assaulting an American soldier is not a problem here because it is open season on us here. But for future reference, I am never going to cut off another tow truck driver. They have moved up the highway food chain.
