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
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.
---
*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".
--
**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
