The one where the wind comes whistling through the panes

I got up this morning and read the outside temperature as 38°F (3°C).  That's the lowest I have seen so far, and it's depressing.  But it's Korea, so having the windows closed doesn't necessarily mean the cold wind stays outside.  The window and door sealing products industry does a brisk business, pardon the pun, during the initial shock of winter.  Korean construction techniques are probably the worst in the world north of the 30th parallel.  They are shoddy, unsafe, and wasteful.  My friends and I often shake our heads when even the simplest room isn't square or plumb and floors crown or tilt.  Windows are placed in buildings where the openings vary in size so much that even an extra tube of silicon putty isn't enough to seal some of them. That is one of the drawbacks of their poured concrete method of building walls and floors.  In come the sealant products to the rescue.  Even our Homeplus, as small as it is, sticks three racks of sealant products in the middle of an aisle because they are guaranteed sales.

In 12 years, I have seen little let-up to the deplorable construction methods here.  Buildings have stopped falling down, though, so I suppose there has been some improvement in oversight.  Unscrupulous construction company owners would often scrimp on concrete quality to line their pockets leading to the deaths of innocent people when the bridge or store or housing unit collapsed.  It's probably only a matter of time before bribes reach the necessary level to allow for that again.  The public, instead of demanding better quality construction techniques, simply do what they've always done, take it in the ass and say "Thank you", then go spend too much money on temporary fixes every year that allow them to sit in their homes with a modicum of comfort.

Why don't they stand up to the construction companies and demand better quality or better building techniques?  Because Koreans seem to believe that they are powerless against such huge forces.  They are not a people of individual independence, ambition, or resolve.  They are not the kind of people who see a problem and independently make a point to take it on and solve it.  They are not the kind of people who see trash on a public floor and pick it up to throw it away.  They do not see themselves as actors within the play of society. They are passive and prefer to lie low hoping to be  overlooked by the terrible forces of life swirling about them.  Not all, but many, enough to create a national characteristic of acquiescent docility.  They are also fanatical about Korea appearing better than it really is.  They ignore problems and go out of their way to cover them up.  If Korea can save face by filling its country with jerrybuilt crap, so be it.  However, it's impossible to hide their characteristics from us who live here.  A Korean might break into tears reading this and wish I would leave their country and never come back because I say such "hateful" things. An independent thinker, a grown-up, would read this and say, "It's true" and try to do something, anything, to make things better.  Not to please foreigners, but to please themselves.  To make their own lives more comfortable, to save money in the long run, to enjoy good buildings that last more than a few years, to be able to say, "We do things right and we're proud of it."