Tuesday, April 21, 2009

The Seomyeon Diddler

I go to Dunkin' Donuts more than I ought to, but there really isn't anywhere else near work that I can find a satisfactory morning sandwich. Satisfactory morning sandwiches are composed of bread, eggs, bacon, and cheese. Nothing more. Nothing less. Satisfactory morning sandwiches do not include pickles, random sauce, or "fruit" of questionable quality. They are not made at McDonalds. Nine in the morning is not a time to get cute with my food. I suppose that I could cook my own damn morning sandwich and bring it to work, but the odds of me having a temper tantrum and throwing my toaster oven at a wall are quite high before noon.

As I've noted in previous posts, Seomyeon is a disgusting cesspool littered with pissants. Not a day goes by here that I don't feel the urge to regurgitate as I pass by some of the degenerate, sojued-up locals. That being said, even my low expectations of Seomyeon couldn't have prepared me for what happened today.

Most of the folks that I pass on my walk to Dunkin's Donuts are students, workers, shoppers, running around, bumping into one another and everything, trying to get somewhere or other. Every now and then one of the local pissants can be found passed out near the curb or looking gross while hanging out in one of the doorways to a closed shop. What the pissants are not usually doing, is standing in one of the doorways facing the main street, masturbating towards everybody walking by.

Were it not for my habit of suspiciously eyeing up every other person I walk by, I probably wouldn't have even noticed The Diddler. Were I at home, I could have called the police or subtly alerted other passersby. I would like to make this story awesome by telling you that I responded to this perversion in a violent manner which rendered The Diddler impotent, but obviously I didn't. Had I responded in that fashion, I'd probably be spending less time on the blog and more time dealing with legal matters at the moment. As it is, I am what I am, I am where I am, and I did nothing.

I continued to Dunkin' Donuts as usual, fought back some very confused tears, and opted for the usual breakfast sandwich. I was confused as to what the crying thing was all about. I also wasn't particularly hungry at this point, but I'll be damned if The Diddler is going to ruin my breakfast sandwich. I contemplated talking a detour back to work in order to avoid him, but I'll be damned if The Diddler is going to inconvenience me. So, I bought my damn sandwich and walked it back to work. I kept my eyes ahead of me the entire time. Little time had passed, so it's likely that he was still there but I can't say for sure.

When I returned to work I checked in with a coworker to vent about the incident and get over being alarmed before proceeding to class 15 minutes later. Throughout the day I alerted the rest of my coworkers to keep an eye out for this sort of thing. A few of them giggled uncomfortably, because that's what people do. It's what I did, after the initial shock wore off. One of them advised me that were I to poll my students I might be surprised to find how many of them have similar experiences. I'll take her word for it, for now. A few of us ended up debating what the correct slang for somebody who masturbates in public is. I could have gone with flasher and it may have been most appropriate, but my mind had already labeled him The Diddler at that point, so it stuck.

This experience was hardly just my own; easily 100 people pass by The Diddler's chosen spot every couple of minutes. There are probably more diddlers running around Seomyeon being repulsive, and there are certainly countless diddlers exposing themselves elsewhere. I'd been fortunate enough not to notice, until now.

25 comments:

Phoenixstorm said...

Wow Cesspool is seeming more and more appropriate for your area. I can't believe the police weren't all over that.

Next time maybe passerby can all turn and laugh at the diddler with a good old fashioned public shaming.

nb said...

Be careful, Barb. As a foreigner, we are targets of the not so normal indigeonous population. Ok....let me qualify that....they are all not so normal....what I mean are the real freaks, nuts and tards. If he saw that you saw him, he might fixate on you.

dave said...

You must have one seductive ass walk.

Anonymous said...

As a man, i'd really love to see a young woman masterbating on the street. Would i feel offended? No.

Have some respect for the more mentally challenged Busanites.

Big White Barbie said...

PhoenixStorm - I, too, wondered why the police weren't all over that. Then I figured that it was at least in part because everybody responded more or less how I did - by doing nothing at all. I would like to think I would respond differently were I in a country where I could communicate effectively, but who knows?

nb - fortunately, he wasn't specifically targeting me. He couldn't have known I was approaching until I got right beside the stoop. This doesn't make it any less gross, of course. I agree with you that there may have been a further problem had he noticed that I noticed... this is part of why I didn't go back and respond differently; I feared what may happen if I were I bring attention to it.

dave - That's what you took from this? Really?

Anonymous - I hope that your dream of seeing hot young women masturbating in the streets come true for you. Let me know how that works out when the hot young thing are suddenly replaced with a random ajumma who is missing a few teeth thinks that bathing is hard.

Frankly, I'll pass on viewing the genitals of anybody I didn't first consent to that behaviour with, nasty or not.

I don't use degenerate here as a substitute for mentally challenged. Based on my daily interactions with those who I have referred to as degenerate, I highly doubt that most of them are actually mentally challenged. If I wanted to make a point of insulting people the people in my neighborhood who clearly do have intellectual disabilities, I wouldn't be vague about it.

tharp42 said...

Hahahaha.

I luckily have yet to behold such a morning spectacle.

As for the nomenclature? "Diddler?" It works, though we usually use the word to describe someone who's touching someone ELSE, i.e., "The new priest is a kiddie diddler."

Anonymous said...

Sounds like you're the one who's fixated. Why not just look the other way and forget about it, or better yet, laugh your ass off and continue on your way. I'm sure you wouldn't feel inclined to share it with everyone you know and write about it if you weren't actually interested in it. BTW, your fingers are lookin' awfully waterlogged.

Anonymous said...

I just fapped myself to this story.

Big White Barbie said...

tharp - that's the argument that my coworker used, and I conceded that they were correct. May your luck avoiding morning diddlers continue.


Oh Anonymous #367, you're so right. I'm clearly the one with the problem here. There is absolutely no other logical reason that one might post about something like this.

Bobby McGill said...

Sorry you had to experience that... quite disturbing.

One of my students was in a private piano room at her hagwon practicing when an unknown drunk man, well dressed in a business suit came in, pulled down his pants and started masturbating.

She acted like nothing happened and continued playing. He finished and walked out as if nothing happened.

I guess when you spend your entire life living with your mom and then move out, you feel the need to do anything that comes to mind. Quite a system.

Bobby
www.idlewordship.com

Anonymous said...

Go back to Canada you complaining fatty hag.

Anonymous said...

"I was confused as to what the crying thing was all about."

Could it be that you cried because you were suddenly painfully confronted with the fact that you live in an alien place that you find utterly loathsome, yet, rather than leave, you stay and try to convince yourself that by blogging about it you are dealing with it in a positive way?

Why do you willfully live in a "cesspool" full of "pissants"? And why do you wonder why you burst into tears when yet another disgusting person in the disgusting streets of your disgusting neighborhood manages to disgust you?

Anonymous said...

I like "Fiddler", then you can call your first movie about Korea "Fiddler on the Porch".
A few years back in Busan, I was enjoying my breakfast in my kitchen which looked out onto a garden. The ground was at my eye level. I mixed my cornfakes and threw open the curtain to greet the day. I was greeted by the open legs of a random toothless Halmeoni, not 5 feet from me peeing on her lettuces. I didn't look directly at the action, but I knew what was going on and after 4 years I still feel it. Closequaters diddling, fiddling or piddling by seniors especially of the opposite sex is not a pleasant experience and Barbie, I empathize.

Anonymous said...

"Were I at home, I could have called the police..."

Or maybe you cry because after 2 years or so in Busan you still consider "home" to be somewhere very far away, and shit like this (and your helplessness in dealing with it) is a sudden painful reminder of that.

This ain't Kansas, Dorothy.

Anonymous said...

Hey, you guys/girls that don't enjoy Barbie's little gems; If you find no pleasure here, why don't YOU just fuck off back to whichever geek blog you normally frequent or at least add something wry. To the previous anonymous I say "This ain't Bobby McGill ... jerk!

Diana E.S. said...

This post made me laugh.

The commenters towards the end make me want to visit you in Busan, kidnap the Diddler and unleash him on them in their bedrooms. Fucktards.

Miss you!

Anonymous said...

Something "wry"? Like "jerk" or "fucktard"? Gotcha.

FYI, I don't frequent any blogs; I came to check this one out after hearing her speak about it on a local webcast.

I'm regretting it now, not least for the maturity level of her fan club/support group. If this is a therapy session, fine: have at it. Barbo sounds like she needs a shoulder to cry on in mean old Seomyeon.

But if you're going to choose to live in a cesspool and then write about how awful it is to live in a cesspool, don't expect too much sympathy or acclaim for your little "gems". You'll impress your auntie back in Canada and maybe a couple of other fucktards who think that an online diary that chronicles a harrowing life that one has freely chosen for oneself is gripping stuff.

What will Barbie hate next? Tune in next week. I sure won't.

Big White Barbie said...

Frankly, I'm stunned that anybody listened to me on the radio or webcast and thought to themselves, "I've just gotta check out that blog!" Seriously, words are hard. I don't even know what is coming out of my mouth half of the time. Regardless, at least Anonymous 34 (at 19:43) was eloquent in his/her criticism.

Thanks to those who appreciate that seeing somebody masturbating in the street is not a sexually arousing experience. Hearing similar tales helps.

Diana - you, too, are dearly missed.

John from Daejeon said...

Well, Anonymous, it must be a "gripping blog" for you to leave so many "gems" of your own while hiding your "shortcomings" behind the anonymity of a keyboard. It seems to this reader that it “Sounds like you're the one who's fixated.” It must be wonderful to live in an ivory tower where everyday crap like diddlers exposing themselves to small children, kidnapping, and assaults never happen. I know this is a fallacy because every month I get a Korea Electric Power bill with numerous missing children and adults posted on it. And as for calling the police, you’d need more than luck to get them to actually do their jobs.

Barbie, I don’t have any words of wisdom to leave, but if that lowlife had been in my line of sight, I’d probably have laughed my head off and pointed at his junk to publicly shame him and maybe cause him to lose whatever face he might have left. For all we know, this jerk could be a pedophile that gets off on watching small kids going to and from school. Asses who do this where small children can see need to be put in a mental hospital or locked up if they are a danger to society.

Anonymous said...

To anonymous: In the context of the original post "Jerk"..off is "wry" and from your reply,very apprporiate to you. I didn't write "fucktard" but if you dissect the word you could probably find "retarded old fucker" in there somewhere. Definitely appropriate, wry and humorous.

Anonymous said...

"Well, Anonymous, it must be a "gripping blog" for you to leave so many "gems" of your own while hiding your "shortcomings" behind the anonymity of a keyboard."

1) No, it's not gripping, for the reason I've already stated, but some of the responses are interesting for their vehemence and immaturity.

2) I posted anonymously, "John" (whoever the fuck YOU are (I know about 6 Johns, and it happens to be my name too, if you simply MUST know), because I didn't want to register to the site to leave a couple of comments.

"It must be wonderful to live in an ivory tower..."

I'll repeat this, "John", because you missed the point: I don't live in an ivory tower. I live in a nice neighborhood. However, I used to live in a shit neighborhood. My roommate was mugged. Our house was burglarized. Our motorbike was stolen. Guess how I dealt with it:

A) Moaned incessantly about how horrible the place I'd chosen to live was in a blog.

B) Moved to a nicer place.

Choosing to live in a shitty place, and then endlessly moaning about how shitty it is is stupid. Sorry, but it is.

To Barbie's credit, she aptly describes herself as "vapid" and "self-absorbed." I don't know if there was a little wink to the reader intended there, but I'll grant her the benefit of the doubt there and say Spot on!

Beth said...

anonymous,

to come on to some person's blog and leave such tactless comments [especially when you don't even know the person] makes you at least twice as vapid and narcissistic as you think she is. why else would you think that anyone would want to read what you have to say?

i have actually met her. she's quite a fantastic person, and generally speaking, blogs are meant for friends and family--not ass clowns who think they're bad ass.

enjoy your vanilla, friendless life. i hope you marry a korean woman who barely speaks english and is only using you!

Anonymous said...

"to come on to some person's blog and leave such tactless comments [especially when you don't even know the person] makes you at least twice as vapid and narcissistic as you think she is."

So, Anonymous can't comment on Barbie based on what she writes about herself, yet you feel confident enough to comment on Anonymous based on an even smaller body of writing?

Look up the word "irony" in your little picture dictionary, you jackass.

Anonymous said...

No need to resort to name calling, anonymous above me.

Not all anonymous people are rude.

Leena. said...

Not only is BWB a fatty hag, she also doesn't know how to serve. And her blog is mediocre.

Aw shit, I should have logged out so I could be an anonymous. :(