Monday 17 September 2012

(Day 59) Hwaseong Immigration Detention Center-day 46

Although I kept the menu from the prison, I should have thought of this a lot sooner-- keeping track of the daily menu and my exercise. Even though the menu is the basically the same every day... rice, kimchi & soup. Some days have better options. So, without further adieu:

sit-ups push-ups chairlifts
1 x 100 reps 5 x 20 reps 5 x 20 reps

Breakfast 2 hard boiled eggs
Almond soy drink
pastry with red bean filling
Lunch rice
kimchi
spicy chicken
soy bean paste stew (daejon chigae)
Dinnerrice
kimchi
bean sprout soup
seafood & fish cake in spicy sauce

I got some notebooks from L. Proper notebooks. With lines and margins and shit. Now my daily writings will have some semblance of order and organization instead of a pile of paper with writing of different sizes, going off in haphazard directions as I try to use as much paper space available in fear of running out of paper. Transcribing all this will be a nightmare because the writing order is different than the page order, since, when I started running out of paper, I went back to use up all the blank pages I skipped over to keep everything organized in the first place. I know that makes no sense to anyone but me, but since I'm doing all the work, it doesn't have to make any sense to anyone but me.

Other than the rude, channel-changing Chinese that are starting to become a stereotype, the group of detainees I'm with now are pretty decent. There's an old meditating Chinese-Korean from previously, a now typical assholei, channel-surfing Chinese and another young Chinese dude with tattoos that apparently signify his rank in his gang, a young, over-eager Vietnamese kid, a quiet guy from Uzbekistan, a guy from Nepal, a long haired Pakistani who used to be a night shift supervisor before he got screwed by his former employer, and the American from Guam with a Filipino wife also got screwed by their former employer.

The American, Nepalese, Pakistani and Uzbekistan have marathon rummy card sessions to pass the time, sometimes getting the huge arguments in a mixture of Korean, Hindu and English over points. The night guard comes by late at night to tell them to go to sleep. We all ignore him. The smaller or fatter the guard, the more they try to assert their non-existent authority.

 The Nigerian tries to sleep all day as the channel-changing Chinese flips through channels all day, occasionally pausing long enough to watch some Korean drama (girls crying, boys yelling) or k-pop variety store show.

 The Vietnamese boy has a strange habit of dealing cards for hours. He doesn't actually play any games, he just shuffles and deals the cards over and over again. Then he takes a short break and starts over again. I imagine he's in training for the Las Vegas dealer's Olympics.

The gangster Chinese kid sometimes takes part in the late night rummy sessions, but mostly he seems to sleep the day away.

 The old meditating Chinese-Korean play solitaire and mostly reads. he recently taught me how to play his version of salt air. I think the English name is called spider solitaire.

 It's kinda nice to be able to talk the same language with someone who sort of shares the same culture, although I imagine island life on Guam is much different in city life in Canada. On the other hand, it's been a long time since I lived in a city in Canada.

Still no word on court dates. And I was right about the notebooks. Now, I have way more than I need, but I'm sure I'll eventually use them all.

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