under threat of deportation*

ko pi** talk

Doesn’t matter what they call you-

whether Migukin** or your name

Cause to them you’re still a waygukin**

To them we’re all the same.

To be a wayguk in Korea

is a double- edged sword

You’ll never want for chingus**

If your time they can afford

“Please friend,” they’ll say

“besides the chance to make a couple won,

why do you fly so far from home?

Why exactly do you come?”

These questions that they ask me,

I often ask myself the same.

They want to be enlightened

and so I tell them why I came

To waste my education

As i share this verbal pox.

To feed my own pretensions

spreading Westocentric thought

We sell this gift we call a skill.

Like teaching how to walk-

Imagine being paid

for simply knowing how to talk.

“if this is how you really feel

can you please tell me why-

why are you in my country

with a conscience so denied?”

Some come for love of money,

Some come for the cheap booze

Some come for the shopping-

though they can’t buy any shoes.

We come for many reasons-

no two stories are the same.

Some come for an adventure,

Others fleeing from the pain.

“Friend you tell me tales of others

but it’s yours I want to hear,”

I came so I could see the world,

I stayed for the cheap beer.

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*the title has absolutely nothing to do with content of the poem. i was forced under threat of deportation asked to write a few poems for a wayguk event held by my recruiting agency. like most of my poetry it isn't so much a reflection of my personal experience but a compilation of different wayguk perspectives thrown into one convenient self indulgent "poem".

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**And now for a brief lesson in basic Korean

kopi = coffee (not to be confused with ko pi which means nose bleed)

Migukin= American

waygukin= foreigner

chingu= friend