Tucked into my daily copy of the International Herald Tribune is a copy of the Joong-Ang Daily, which affects to provide a regular dose of Korean news but which usually succeeds only in riling me up with its pisspoor reportage and disingenuous social commentary. I'm not sure how much it costs to fold the Joong-Ang into my IHT, but I can assure you that its inclusion, on most days, devalues the package as a whole and I like to think I'm doing the publisher a favor by taking a copy off their hands everyday - a guaranteed point in my karma column, six days a week.

I write as much after reading this feature in yesterday's edition of the Joong-Ang, in which the paper profiles Kim Byeong-Cheol, a former branch manager for Dongwha Bank who, at 50 years old, lost his 80 million won per year job when Shinhan Bank acquired Dongwha in the wake of the 1997-98 Asian Financial Crisis. Since that time, he's sputtered and lurched from one failed business venture to the next and now relies on the income from his wife's noodle shop to pay the bills each month.

In the last decade, Kim has also gone to the mat with alcoholism and cancer - a hard-knock life, to be sure. The writer of this piece, Choi Joon-ho, however, chalks up Kim's adversity to every factor - inflation, energy prices, corporate consolidation, decline of the middle class - except Kim's life choices. No one will argue that Kim asked to be laid off from his job, but neither did anyone ask him to become an alcoholic and check out for six months. As a result, the reader is left scratching his head, wondering what men like Kim would have us do for him. Would he prefer that the government insulate everyone from the swings of the economy, or that it limit his chances strive for improvement, even at the risk of failure? A government can certainly do this, but I don't think Kim would be too happy with the resulting standard of living.

Just when I was ready to pitch the paper into the shredder in frustration, the article went me one further and quoted Kim Mun-jo, a sociologist at Korea University. Full disclosure: I don't have much time for the field of sociology, a discipline filled largely with doctoral grumblers who either failed or never attended their economics courses in university. I was little surprised, then, when I read the following:

Kim Mun-jo, a sociologist at Korea University, said the Korean middle class used to make up close to 70 percent of the country. That figure has shrunk to 40 percent.

Kim says many Koreans have given up hope of climbing the social ladder. “Before the financial crisis, people hoped they could enter the upper classes by studying hard. There was a positive attitude prevailing in society,” said the professor.

“But people have given up the belief that if they work hard, they can buy an apartment in Gangnam [southern Seoul] by the time they are in their 40s,” he says. He estimates that only about 20 percent of people in Korea these days are future-oriented and have a positive attitude.

The questions begged in this excerpt are numerous, so let's hit them one at a time. First, how is Kim measuring his income for his definitions of the middle class? Is he using household income? Per capita income? There are, as Mark Twain noted, lies, damned lies, and statistics, but no one at the Joong-Ang felt compelled to explain these numbers.

As for consumption, it's human nature to want more than we have, but this doesn't mean that anyone should be guaranteed an apartment in Gangnam. Hell, I'd like to think that if I work hard, live a virtuous life, and floss regularly, that I'll be able to afford an apartment on Central Park West, but I choose to be realistic and know that it will likely never happen. Am I bitter that someone else can afford that apartment? Not especially. One cultural factor exacerbating the financial woes in Korea is that every Lee, Park and Kim wants the same apartment, the same job and the same goddamned car, thus putting a premium on these items. There are, however - and contrary to popular Korean belief - livable areas of Seoul other than Gangnam. The Korean obsession with living in Gangnam, then, is not an economic problem for the government, but rather a trace of that nasty human tendency toward envying what others have.

And finally, how exactly does one define, much less quantify, the percentage of "future-oriented" people with positive attitudes? Sounds like a job for a sociologist to me.

I'm not, in all of this, ignoring the fact that much of society is being squeezed by the current rise in energy and commodity prices. They pinch - believe me, I know. I'm not rich and I have to pay them, too. Still, by virtually any measure, the middle class - and, I would argue, the lower class - of Korea is better off today than it was ten, and certainly twenty, years ago. I defy anyone to walk into an "average" Korean house in 1988 or 1998 and honestly tell me, after evaluating the standard of living, that you'd rather live in those bygone times.

The writer of the Joong-Ang piece also fails to note that one of Kim Byeong-Cheol's chief obstacles in the past ten years has not been economic hurdles, but rather cultural ones. With its obsessive, Confucian focus on age and hierarchy, Korea is a terrible place to make a fresh start when you're in your fifties. My mother, to fight anecdote with anecdote, returned to university, earned a graduate degree and completely changed her career while in her forties, a feat which would be almost impossible in Korea. Most companies are reluctant to hire a person who would have to work under a younger boss, which, in addition to stalling the lives of folks like Kim, deprives the Korean economy of workers with valuable experience and knowledge.

...and, as we know, depriving Korea of knowledge is the Joong-Ang's job.

1. One of your own South Korean citizens was shot to death last week, not by Japan but by North Korea. I hope you'll make some time for that protest when you're finished chucking your groceries at the Japanese embassy.

2. Speaking of groceries, you guys must be doing quite well financially if, despite the rising cost of food, you can nonetheless afford to throw eggs and tomatoes at embassies. I trust, then, that you're not among those complaining about these skyrocketing prices.

A few weeks after getting married I was looking through our wedding pictures in search of photographs worth preserving in the wedding album and, as I flipped through the images on my computer, I did a double-take and went back to one that caught my eye. In it, an unidentified woman is helping a young boy, his pants around his ankles, urinate into a bottle held by a man in a dark suit. At least, I assume the boy is pissing into a bottle. The boy has his back turned to the camera, so I suppose it's equally possible that the man in the suit is catching the urine - as much of it as possible - in his hand. This man, however, is my father-in-law and this child - this...this little urinator - is a distant cousin of my wife, so I prefer to think that they were at least using a bottle. I mean, come on, I have to shake this man's hand every time we meet.

As you might imagine, the fact that someone was helping a child urinate in the midmost midst of our wedding reception did not sit well with me; that one of these someones is my father-in-law made it all the worse. This young child isn't innocent either, and I fully intend to be at his wedding - when I'll be in my fifties or sixties - if only to fill a few bottles of my own. We'll see how he likes it when people show up and start urinating in the middle of his wedding banquet.

Pictures like this one beg any number of questions - who the fuck does that little twerp think he is? - not the least of which are those of etiquette and consideration for others. I, for one, am not keen on eating next to someone who is emptying his bladder, however small and young that bladder may be. And I'd like to think that most Koreans share my sentiments, that urinating in the middle of a dining space bespeaks, universally, a disregard for others that would get you ostracized in any human society.

If only.

Every country and culture bears its own peculiar norms and mores, and while I hate to superimpose upon Korea my own notions of decorum, that's precisely what I'm going to do. I hesitate to say that Koreans, as a people, are any more or less rude than, say, your average Dane or Angolan, but I will say that rudeness is exceptionally prevalent on this peninsula. Or perhaps "rude" is the wrong word, as this behavior never seems to be intentionally offensive. The most offensive actions - the pushing, the spitting, the urine-bottling - smack more of oblivion, a complete lack of awareness of how one's actions will affect others, than they do of any intended offense.

Take, for instance, the two young women, probably in their early 20s, on the subway last night. Both girls were wearing sleeveless shirts, Girl A's being a plain baby blue number while Girl B's shirt read, appropriately, "It's All About Me." They stood chatting for a few minutes until Girl A pulled a small spray bottle out of her purse. Girl B then held up each arm in turn while Girl A sprayed something into her armpits. The smell of deodorant quickly filled the subway car, which was not entirely unpleasant given that the train was busy and that the hot, humid weather doesn't make for pleasant-smelling crowds. But still, who sprays deodorant on their friend's armpits, much less in a crowded subway? Roll-on maybe, but spray? What's next, trimming their toenails on the train? Oh wait, I've seen that, too.

I doubt that any of these people intended to offend those around them; they simply never considered that perhaps their actions might be just a tad uncouth. Maybe no one ever told them that urination, toenail clipping and the application of deodorant can all be done quite conveniently and privately in one place - the goddamn restroom.

You know, in writing this, I've gotten myself so worked up that I nearly wet my pants. Now, where's my bottle-holder?

The missus and I were creeping along one of Seoul's expressways recently, mired as always in traffic, when a bus pulled alongside us. It was a green Seoul Milk company bus and it was full of middle-aged women.

"So that's where the milk comes from," I remarked to Na Young of this eureka! moment.

I'd always wondered, in a country that consumes its fair share of milk, why I hadn't seen more dairies dotting the limited landscape, and now I know. On its cartons, the Seoul Milk company touts its superior pastuerization process, which it claims contributes to LOHAS - a "Lifestyle of Health and Sustainability," whatever that means. In addition to purifying the milk, the company's R&D brains have evidently also concocted a secret formula that induces continuous lactation in women like these milk maids on the bus.

For my first six months in Korea I couldn't bring myself to drink Seoul Milk. It smells, for lack of a better word, funny, like it's gone off after sloshing around in some ajumma's teats under the hot traffic jam sun for a few too many hours. Several of my foreign friends claim that, even after years in Korea, this milk still gives them the runs when they drink it, but I haven't bothered to confirm their claims. And for me, the smell remains the product's greatest tripwire, though I've learned to ignore it and just eat my damn cereal.

Na Young was driving when I discovered, at last, from whence Seoul Milk came. She usually drives whenever we go anywhere in Seoul, not because I don't have a license (I do), but because when she drives I have more time and energy to annoy the bejeezus out of her. When we first got married, I was a terribly overbearing backseat driver, a trait made all the worse by the fact that I sat in the front seat. I'd get all bent out of shape when Na Young would take a wrong turn that led us over the bridge into the Mapo district, on the north side of the Han River, thus turning the fifteen minute jaunt from our house to Costco into a forty-five minute safari through vast wastelands of Hyundai and Doosan apartments as we searched for a way back across the river.

It got to the point where Na Young refused to drive unless I promised to not say a word that wasn't, in some way, complimentary of her navigational skills. This being impossible, I focused my energies on operating the stereo and the selection of music or news. When I was growing up, choosing the music was the sole province of the driver, forcing my sister and I to slide down in our seats whenever we passed any of our friends, lest we be associated with the Michael Bolton song blasting forth from the T-top Camaro that my mother drove.

Na Young, however, has been willing to let me fiddle with her knobs, as it were, ever since she discovered that this keeps me from haranguing her about where we're going, why we made that turn, or whether she just ran over that cat/child/cripple back there.

We were listening to James Brown pound out "Get Up Offa Thang" when I spotted the Seoul Milk bus. According to the official rules that regulate our marriage, I'm not allowed to sing when Na Young is driving, but given that she's driving, there's not much she can safely do to shut me up and I thus tend to carry on like a ninny, adding my own accomponiment to whatever's on the stereo.

"Git up offa that thang," James and I implored Na Young, "and dance 'till you feel better."

"Motherfuck, Motherfucker!" yelled Na Young, as she laid on the horn to protest the driver of a Honda that had cut too tightly into the lane in front of us.

Despite having a driver's license, I was initially not allowed to drive our car, Na Young said, because I tended to get so worked up over the idiocy of the average Korean driver that I'd start swearing in a way that would make a longshoreman blush in shame. Over time, though, in the way these things happen between married couples, my foul mouth rubbed off on her and now mothers at crosswalks cover their children's ears when Na Young rolls up to the stoplight in her gray Hyundai.

Korea and I have a way of doing this to people: living in this country or suffering my asinine ways, much less both, could turn even Mother Superior into a fountain of vulgarity. What's remarkable - not only to me, but to anyone who knows me - is that Na Young, despite everyday inching deeper into that world of profanity, nevertheless does suffer my incessant jackassery - no small feat, I assure you.

I am suspicious, however, that she only tolerates me because I haven't yet farmed her out to Seoul Milk.

A friend of mine works in Seoul for a local bank where he handles the bank's relationships with a variety of companies. Some months back, one of his female colleagues was assigned as relationship manager to a Hyundai account, a decision which initially pleased the relevant men at Hyundai who quite enjoyed ogling a woman while slogging through the dry minutiae of, say, a bond issuance. That she was, from what I can gather, good at her job was merely an added bonus for these fellows.

Everything on the account went swimmingly until early this past spring when the Hyundai boys decided to take this woman golfing and, afterward, for drinks over lunch. As it turns out, she wasn't much of a golfer and, what's more, couldn't keep up with the immoderate drinking that so defined professional life for these fellows. Soon, Hyundai was ringing up the bank, asking that a male be assigned to their account - someone who played golf, drank to excess, and could belch, fart and swear like a real man. And so my friend, who hates golf and excessive drinking, ended up with the account.

Korean men of a certain generation, I've learned, only talk to women for one reason; luckily, every woman has one. Too many men in Korea are incapable of talking to a female - other than their relatives - if the possibility of sex is not somehow involved, and dealing with females as equals is certainly beyond consideration. Corporate offices in Korea too often have the feel of recess in elementary school, back when girls were stupid, weak, and never to be picked for the kickball team, and while some males outgrow this stage, it seems that many have simply packed up their callow notions and taken them into the boardroom.

In my experience, it's not enough for women in Korea to be intelligent, resourceful and motivated. No, for their talent to be recognized and for them to earn promotions, women in Korea must be exponentially more intelligent, more motivated and more resourceful than their male counterparts in similar positions. That most work in our modern economy no longer demands physical strength or a pair of testicles seems not to matter. Women, by dint of their unsightly golf handicaps, are presumed incapable of managing an organization of any size because, clearly, there's a direct correlation between golf scores and profits.

The population of South Korea is, at present, about 50% female, which leads me in a crude way to assume that about half of the best potential employees, managers, and leaders will similarly be female. Any company, then, that hires, fires or promotes based on genitalia is doing itself a great disservice, one that in a free market will almost certainly spell its demise. Milton Friedman wrote as much in Capitalism and Freedom:

...there is an incentive in a free market to separate economic efficiency from other characteristics of the individual. A businessman or an entrepreneur who expresses preferences in his business activities that are not related to productive efficiency is at a disadvantage compared to other individuals who do not. (109)

A few years back, Roy Adler of Pepperdine University provided some statistical ballast for this argument by showing, in an extensive 19-year study, that the 25 Fortune 500 firms with the best record of promoting women to high positions are between 18 and 69 percent more profitable than the median Fortune 500 firms in their industries. A number of explanations for this fact have been offered - for instance, that profitable companies are more willing to experiment - but I'd venture that the answer is obvious: these companies have instituted the strictest meritocracies. Performance and potential simply matter more than whether or not you menstruate.

May I be so blunt as to say, 'duh'?