(Day 84) Hwaseong Immigration Detention Center-day 71 C-12

sit-ups	push-ups	chairlifts
2 x 50	2 x 50	40 + 2 x 30

Breakfast	2 hard boiled eggs soy milk bread with cream filling
Lunch	kimchi spicy pork soybean stew with tofu
Dinner	kimchi spicy squid and fish cake bean sprouts in hot water

The Chinese certainly don't disappoint. They are just as rude and inconsiderate assholes in this room as they have been in all the other rooms I've been in.

First, one asshole was awake and talking nearly half an hour before the normal waking time. Another asshole started lecturing the Vietnamese about washing up and roll call when it's clear he doesn't understand any Korean and didn't really do anything wrong in the first place. Off to a first class start today...

How exciting! We are actually having pork for lunch. Usually, we only get chicken or fish because all the people (Muslims) who won't eat pork. How sad! The highlight of my day so far, is that the lunch menu has pork on it.

If you ever want to try to escape from Korean prison turn on a Korean drama. Our guard is enthralled with watching the one on TV right now.

Apparently, just before I came to this cell, there was a young Mongolian whose father is a famous Mongolian artist. This kid was pretty good at drawing, too as evident by the various illustrations adorning the walls. He was also limited by materials a pen and whatever paper he could find, in this case the back of a calendar. I would be interested in seeing some of his art because although his drawings are very good, they look like they came out of a how-to-draw manual. The technique and rendering a top-notch but I'm not feeling the soul.

Irony or coincidence? Last night I was talking to JU and I mention my altercations here. He related to me that he wouldn't tell a Korean or Chinese or anybody from any country not to spit on their own floor, in their own house, in their own country, but if they spit on his floor, he'd be pissed and all hell would break loose. Then, this morning, for the first time since I've been here, even after dealing with the horker who hacked up a lung every and all night-- at least had the decency to do it in the bathroom-- the local TV remote Nazi in this room just hacked up one right on the floor in front of him and not one person out of 16 said anything. If I had done that, you could be sure I'd be changing rooms again right now, instead of writing this down in semi shock. He later cleaned it up but still, committing the act in the first place... Disgusting-- and they call us barbarians.

It's only noon and we've already nearly reached capacity for this room. This room is capable of holding 18 people. So far we have 17. One of the Chinese went home this morning. He was replaced with a Vietnamese Thai and Filipino, so now we have 1 Canadian 1 Nigerian, 1 Indonesian, 1 Filipino, 1 Thai, 1 Kyrgyzstan,  2 Vietnamese and 9 Chinese. The Pakistani was moved to a new room. I heard two buses of new detainees arrived so they may have opened a new cell block. If they needed to shift some people around they should take a few the Chinese or even put me in a room with less.

Listen to me!!! This is what living in this country has turned me into-- a total racist pig. I never thought or talk this way when I lived in Vancouver. My roommate and good friend was Chinese and Here I am spewing out the hate against two entire ethnic groups. I feel so ashamed, but I can't seem to help it. Some of these guys are really selfish assholes and it really has been limited to the ethnicity. With the exception of the unchristian Nigerian, everybody else of different ethnicity seem really nice and go out of their way to be considerate. They were all curious about where you are from, how you got here and where you were going. We play games, watch TV without argument, shared snacks and coffee, discussed politics and religion, all done using a mix of languages that none of us know well, but have in common, whether it be English, Korean or even Russian, Thai or Vietnamese. The only thing I've gotten from Chinese is scorn, fights over TV shows, arguments about etiquette, and accusations of rudeness. All of which are the same things I complain about dealing with them-- spitting on floors, loud horking in the middle of the night, the constant K drama or variety talk show-- more often than not, a repeat of a program shown earlier in the week, the scolding in Chinese or Korean about some faux pas I've committed while using the bathrooms, wearing slippers or eating my food... I've probably met well over 50 different Chinese in 3 months and with confidence I can say only two were decent human beings-- the one who meditated every night and the one married to a Korean a girl with two kids that I drew a pictures for.

I don't go into these rooms looking for a fight or confrontation. In fact, I go out of my way to avoid it. I try to keep my interactions to a minimum. I don't speak unless spoken to and I spend the rest of my time reading, writing, drawing, and sleeping.

It seems I have a secret benefactor I got some bread from Paris baguette and a yogurt drink. I think it was from one of the guards who wanted to look at my sketchbook earlier. Now, if only I can get him to bring me a cheeseburger...

The 15 Asians I eat with must think I'm crazy throwing away the rice at every meal. It seems like a waste, but I know they just feed it to the pigs. I can smell them at night.

The local TV remote Nazi just got into a huge shouting match with the Nigerian about watching K-dramas all the time. This is not the first time. Rwanda pointed this guy out to me as the guy he argued with about the same thing. The room supervisors have advised the Nigerian to call him if he has any more trouble with the TV remote Nazi and they'll deal with him to avoid any physical altercations. We don't need to watch K-dramas we got enough of them right here.