Lee. Fann Lee.

This is not Fann Lee. This is a happy drunk Korean man I saw passed out on a bench at 1am a couple of weeks ago. This is actually a fairly common sight. He is the 2nd person I've seen smiling while passed out.



So the past weekend was very uneventful (as usual).

During an emergency on Sunday I was forced to use a squat toilet for the first time - the nerve, the balance, and the leg power it requires not to just give up and fall over is unreal. I imagine it gets easier with practice, but it was still quite the accomplishment - feeling like a young boy who has just used the big toilet for the first time I wanted to run out and find the nearest adult to let him know how proud I was of myself. But alas, my legs were far too weak from the exertion it took to stay in this military style position so instead I just sat exhausted on a bench and had some ice cream (inciting a 2nd trip to the squat toilets).

I was also forced to pay for toilet paper. Imagine freaking out when you need a quarter for the phone and times that by a million - hands shaking, fumbling around searching for the proper coins - very scary.

So my usual poo fiasco's aside, I paid the down payment for my trip to China at the end of September, so thats one thing out of the way. Now I just have to give them all of my passport information (and Kevins, and my buddy Court who is coming in September to visit!)

Today was memorial day in Korea so I had the day off - which was good considering all the beer I drank last night.

I also got my hair cut at that same place where as soon as you walk through the sliding doors you can literally hear the scissors drop as customers and stylists stare at you in amazement. One of the stylists assistants expression kind of read, "he's - he's not Korean, so what is he? His skin is so sickly and pale, his eyes a dull blue...I think I love him, but how? it is wrong but feels so right".



Anyways I just said 'short', pointing all around my head and moments later the faux-hawk disappeared back to the ground from whence it came. After I was finished they all gathered by the desk as I shuffled through my man purse to find the money to pay, there was 8 of them just staring at me about 2 feet away, it was incredibly awkward. Also, he cut my hair quite short so I think I look a little lesbianish.

The big news is that I finally got a phone...but I went through hell and back to get it. This where Fann Lee comes in.

There are basically 2 ways you get a phone here. One way as far as I know, is to put down a $200 deposit and pay a monthly fee - the other is to buy a used phone off of a foreigner who is leaving and do a pay-as-you-go thing whereby you put money on the phone and get phone stores to top it up when you need to. Air time is very expensive so I just planned to text.

For the past 2 months I have been looking through the classifieds for a phone on a website that is only about my city Busan. I saw that a girl was selling her phone for $50, and after haggling her down to $40, we decided to meet up a few days later at Starbucks. When I got there though she told me that the phone was a monthly plan, but her Half-Chinese friend (its important to tell you that shes Asian, I'm not just describing her) offered to sell me her used phone for $20, and it was a pay as you go - but I had to wait until Saturday. Sure, thats great!

So Saturday rolled around and she sent me a last minute email explaining how she won't be able to give me the phone until Sunday. Fine. Sunday night comes and I get an email telling me that she missed her train and doesn't have her other phone yet so we would have to meet Monday morning. Monday morning comes and with no email I go downstairs to meet her at 10am (she lives in my building) - 10:50 and shes still not there so I run upstairs hoping that shes sent me some kind of email - she had, now switching it to Tuesday at 10am. Fine. 10am Tuesday it is. I get downstairs at 10:04 and no ones there. So after waiting for 20 minutes I got annoyed and was on my way upstairs when she came out of another elevator.

Un-named girl- Were you waiting long?

Ken- Since 10

Un-named girl- (thinking shes caught me in a trap) Ha! I was here at 10!

Ken- (not impressed and showing it) Fine, 10:04.

I didn't bother to say, "You couldn't wait for 5 minutes you inconsiderate cow? And why make me wait for 20 more minutes?!". I just wanted her phone, not an apology.



So after making small talk we headed off to this phone place nearby as we had to switch the registration on the phone from her name to my name, an easy process (I was told) - I would get a new number, as she wanted to keep her old one. Fine. I don't care. So once we get to the store she suddenly pulls out a black cellphone and asks excitedly if I want to buy the used black cellphone instead. Confused I asked her why she was buying one used cellphone for another (had she dropped the one I wanted to buy in the toilet after a night of Indian food?) - pausing far too long to make anything excuse remotely believable she explained that her friend was very ill and needed money so she, being gracious, bought the phone off of him for $90 - and was now willing to sell it to me for $90. She was shocked that her practiced sales-pitch didn't snag me as she quickly asked me confused and annoyed, "well, why not? Are you trying to save money or something?".

We were then informed that we had to go to a different store (a short cab ride away) to get the registrations changed - so off we went to a huge beautiful place that sold high-end cell phones (many Koreans will happily spend over $500 on a new phone every few months - it is a huge status symbol here). The sales people, unimpressed with our crappy used phones and taken aback at the girls rude aggressiveness tried to be as helpful as possible. It was at this point that she informed me that the text messaging on my phone wouldn't work unless I always left one message in the inbox, some other things problems I didn't catch - and most importantly that the phone had been registered under a Chinese girls name for a very long time and that she never had never got it switched to her name ("it was the phone companies fault" she whined pathetically several times), but would use the girls Chinese name when she would put money on the phone (you have to give your name when doing so). "I've never had a problem though". "Yes, because you are a Chinese girl" I told her angrily. "Are you okay?" she inquired after seeing me put my hands on my face and groan. "Bet your glad I'm here to help you with all this registration stuff eh newbie?" (she arrived in August).

So after handing over our Alien Registration Cards it came as no surprise when we were informed that the phone could not be put in my name, as neither of us were the actual person "Fann Lee". "Don't worry" the girl assured me while they put her name on the black phone, "just say her name confidently and they probably won't even question you". "riiiiiiight..." I replied a la Dr.Evil. So while the exasperated employees were working on the phones and hating foreigners more and more she offered me the black phone one more time ('you can send multiple texts!') and then told me that since she had just put money on my phone I owed her an additional $20.

With a patronizing stare and rolling eyes, I refused to give her any money as there was no way to see how much money was actually on the phone - and she had been texting and calling on it since I met her that morning. So after a few more annoyances she got her name registered on the 'new' phone and I officially became "Fann Lee" covert Chinese cell phone user. Needing to go and work out so I wouldn't kill her she explained how since she had gone through so much trouble over the past few days to get me the phone quickly that she hadn't the time to copy all of the addresses and numbers from the old phone (now mine) to the new one. So she agreed to drop off my phone in an hour after she had transferred over all of her unfortunate contacts in my mailbox (I told her I didn't know where the keys were, but managed to find them later and unlock it so she could just open it and drop my phone in and not have to fit it through the little slot). Of course it wasn't there by the time I left for work but I was told in a brief email 2 hours later that she was again too busy to change the numbers, but would get me the phone before she went to work at 4pm (her work had recently fired her for incompetence I was later told by co-workers)...oh and she also informed me that my mailbox WAS open! So she basically went to my floor (she was on 11, I'm on 19), phone in hand - opened my mailbox but decided for some unknown reason not to put it in.



Since I was now at work I couldn't scream when I opened my Gmail to be greeted with a 2nd email from her telling me to now 'confidently' "expect the phone at 10:45pm". So I sat there and thought about how much money she was wasting on my phone while I was at work (I had put an additional $40 on it before I became Fann Lee). 10:45pm rolled by and as I had been sitting outside of my apartment building drinking beer I kept running up to check to see if she had dropped it off in my mailbox whilst taking a quick wee.

No phone. Coming downstairs I ran into her and her friends leaving the convenience store below my apartment, and being drunk I bellowed, "where's my phone!?" to which she snottily replied "can you just wait for 20 minutes, I need to copy the numbers and addresses still - come up to mu apartment". "No, you come down here" I argued drunkenly.

20 minutes later I was banging on her apartment door and had to sit and talk to her unfortunate co-workers for an additional 20 minutes while she wrote her lucky friends numbers down by hand. As I walked out the door she actually offered me the black cell phone once more, and now for only $60! So aside from being an inconsiderate, annoying liar she was also a scammer (bought it for $90 my ass). What goes around comes around I reminded myself.

Triumphantly joining my beer friends back downstairs, phone held high I cheerfully answered the phone when Kyle (sitting across from me, beer in hand) called me to say "hello" - but before I could reply my phone suddenly said in a loud female voice (everyone could hear) - "charge the battery" and then it died moments later.

Today I have received multiple texts and calls from her contacts. If I didn't want to save money and didn't mind spending cash on the air-time I would tell them stories.

Me so happy.