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Stranger in a Strange Land Newsletter April, 2004

Stranger in a Strange Land Newsletter April, 2004

Ladies and Gentleman,
Here’s Eli Gerzon with his travelling newsletter, indeed: I am not in America, to begin with. I must repeat this for nothing shall seem wondrous if this fact is forgotten: I am not in America. Ya man, my plane ticket is for Tokyo to Boston April 21st, 2004 but I’m sitting here in Osaka right now, quite relaxed. The truth is I went to Korea and I found work, but (and this is important) not in that order.

The job which I was so anxiously waiting for in the last newsletter fell through but another job, a strangely perfect job, appeared right as I was wondering if they would EVER call me back (they did NOT call me back, but I’ll address that later). Basically, I don’t have a boss: I have an agent. I have to fill-out a silly form every lesson I teach for ABCkara.com and the students pay extra to the company but I still get a good hourly wage, so I can’t complain. They find me students to tutor and I tutor them.

Wonderful.

Well, it is now: I’ve grown to be totally ready for plans to fall through. Maybe "expecting" is a better word. Although truthfully, it seems that all the jobs that I didn’t really want but I was trying to get, only because I needed a job, fell through. And now I have a job that’s flexible, boss-less, and under-the-table: that is the way Eli Gerzon was MEANT to work! Yes!

Further, my large, hefty, sizeable reserve of cash was flirting with nothingness and is now on an upward slope. I love an upward slope of income, LOVE it.

In addition Korea was great. Korean people (and this is important) eat food! Japanese people, by some freakish anomaly, do not. They have many pretty pictures and plastic models of food in the front of restaurants but when one actually enters the establishment and sits down to dine one finds the shocking truth: you have just paid an arm and a leg for a SNACK. (You would have done better to actually EAT your arm and leg than to have paid for food with it...)

But Koreans on the other hand eat lots of food. And if you really want to get serious about the Atkins diet move to Korea: they live on lots of barbequed (right at your table) meat and pickled and spicy vegetables.

Yum. But overwhelming at times: so much assembly, so hot. Anyway, whatever you order, it’s cheap and there are large portions. Also, rooms, streets, and I think people, are all bigger in Korea. It reminded me more of America than Japan even though it was still Asia.
Lastly, they love metal: metal serving bowl, metal bowl to eat out of, metal scissors to cut the meat, and metal CHOPSTICKS. Metal takes out the flavor some, I’m all about wood and the hand (yes indeed, I believe in auto-erotica).

So, I have about a dozen students I’d say and I keep getting more. My busy days are actually coming up now, while today was finally a Sunday for me.

There’s a lot more I want to say about Japanese culture that I’ve been more and more conscious of (perhaps it was just overwhelming before), anyway I’m hungry. And about the insufficient expensive meals: it’s not all bad in Japan because people so often treat you to lunch. The last few days I’ve been treated to two lunches and a dinner and they will not listen to protests of personal payment: they insist. Anyway, it’s always a mixed bag wherever you are. I’m glad I’m here right now though. Learning a lot.

Thanks for reading this thing,
Take care of yourself!
-Eli

p.s. The Gerzon Weekly was not actually a joke and I’ve written four in the last four weeks believe it or not: one about a Buddhist funeral I was intimately involved in, second about Korea, third about Japanese culture (which as I said I want to write more on), and the last one was my speech from a couple years ago about my experience homeschooling and my ideas on education. I gave the speech exactly two years ago and it one of the most important things I’ve ever done I think. Also, the format was got really messed up in transmission: sorry about that. I’ll fix it up and send it again folks. Anyway, feel free sign-up by sending me an e-mail and feel free to share any of my Weeklies or Newsletters with other people: I write them, people might as well read them, indeed. Thanks.