Departures

Last night after doing my routine of jogging at the park I watched the three episodes of the Departures Series. The third episode was in Japan after they toured around the isolated island of Ascension where Justin has been broke up by his girlfriend in Hawaii. Uh, I really enjoy watching Departures. It's just like travelling around the world with those three adventurous and talented voyagers. Andre, the cameraman has impressed me so much how he does the shooting and photography. Stunningly impressive. The hosts are brill crazy tandem. Scott is earnest and very talented in doing the narration while Justin is like a crazy clown who does the comic for the show. The show has a perfect packaging for entertainment to people who love exploration.

The city of Tokyo is pretty much the same as the city of Seoul. Though, other people say that Tokyo is one step ahead of Seoul. I'm not sure about that info because I haven't been there personally. But staying and working in Seoul is somewhat likely having the taste and experience of how Tokyo life is. One of the Japanese girls who toured them around the city of Tokyo admitted that the city is very tough for living. It was the same statement told to me by one of my officemates. In Tokyo, they work 11 hours a day with only 2 days of rest in a month. It's unbelievable isn't it? Well, that is something ordinary norm for those who live and work in Tokyo as well as those who are in Seoul. The work style in Korea is also the same in Japan. They say that Japanese are more industrious than Koreans but they work in the same mode. They are crazy laborers. They work for very long hours. Really punitive and exhausting! Such a stressful lifestyle!

In Seoul, some students are studying in school from 8 o'clock in the morning until they finished their studies in the academy at 10 o'clock in the evening. Sometimes, when they are cramming for their major exams they stay in the academy until 12 midnight then wake up at 7 o'clock in the following morning for another exhausting and aching day of study. Sounds crazy but that's the way how they spend their school days.

That Japanese girl said; she's working 11 hours in their office pretending as if she really likes her job and love her company. lol! Is it the same thing as how Koreans do in our office? Hahahh.. Sounds funny but it is the real thing. The only pay off for the hard work is perhaps the competitive compensation on the payday. Luckily, I don't work for 11 hours in our office neither 8 hours. It's gonna be so exhausting for me. At this time, I do my work for almost two hours a day then I need to stay at the office for another three boring hours staring to my PC reading all the news in the Net then after the crippling boredome of three hours I go home.

Basically, I do 5 hours in my work place. It was almost the same thing when I was working in a call center. Whooaa! I was like a salesman on the telephone who never stop rapping like a jeepney barker in Quiapo. The only rest is the little comfort of swallowing saliva to lubricate my throat when the person on the other line does much of talking and complaints. It was so disgusting especially when I handle continuously irate callers. At the end of the day, I am already an irate person too. I usually go out of the floor and roam around the Ortigas Plaza. A six hours of work handling numerous irate callers and a two hours of stroll. Terrible!

In 2005, the time when the politics in our country were so much deluged in unspeakable shame of graft and corruption. The time when being a politician is like a ignominious profession but it was publicly accepted because the common people were helpless in such kind of government. I left the country and went to Korea. I was thrown out in the city of Ansan. Atlas! free from the wicked government but not from the wicked society. In Ansan, I've seen people from my country who are like psychopathic birds freed from their cages. They screw each other. They change sex partners as if they're changing shirts. I remember a woman who looks like Ina Raymundo a sexy star when she turns her back but looks like Ina Ni Jaya when she shows off her face. And she changes her partner every 3 months! What a shit cow, how could she do that? All I know is one of my co-workers was her victim. Yakks.. so abominable! If there could be a city in Korea where I wouldn't like to see again. It is there! I never visited that place since I moved.

In 2005 was my first time to experience working 12 hours a day when I landed a job in an electronics factory in Korea. Could you imagine that agonizing long hours of work? In fact, some people in Korea work 24 hours a day. I remember an instance when my boss was comforting my back while I was sitting on my post doing the inspection at my machine in the twelf-hour of my work in that day. He knew that I was typically exhausted because I really don't like overtime. The malicious intention of the massage was to ask me a favor if I could continue my work for another 12 hours because one of the workers to serve for the next shift is absent. Whooaat?? It was like the stars are rumbling in my head. What the heck is that? I hastily left my work place and bid no goodbye to my boss. Anyway, I don't do Korean greetings neither saying goodbye after work. I was barely ask for resignation on that moment.

I admire those people who are really industrious and terribly hardworking. People who work more than 12 hours a day in seven days a week with only one or two holidays in a month. They are worthy for a noble commendation. Though, I may say that kind of work style is a crazy stuff. Because it's like punishing their ownselves, and I bet that their salaries they earn will not be enough to cover a medical compensation when they reach the verge of self-abuse.

But is it really the sense of being industrious or hardworking that matters? Or it's because of having no option of convenient and better career to pursue? The pay off is that they're earning money for their families which they couldn't earn even if they will work 24/7 in a crooked government of Pinas. Whatever may be, we are adaptable beings capable in any form of work for survival. And surviving in a competitive and tough work style in Tokyo or in Seoul is like having an ability to surpass living to any other work places in the world, just like what the Japanese girl said in the Tokyo episode of Departures.

Have a nice day folks!