Inspiration or energy for blog stories come at the wrong moments. Usually they fall around midday in my little assembly room while I toil away on something, conversing with myself , reflecting on events or opinions heard. The MP3 player is my constant companion and could be utilized for recording these thoughts, but the motivation and import get derailed easily with so many simultaneous projects undertaken at Le MArais. The ever all-consuming shop has been very busy again this spring.

The business is growing well in scope and recognition and popularity. We've made several repeated items and slowly diversify the portfolio with orders from brave lady home-owners decorating their new locales. We are also known for slow pace of production as well , it's a one man show for manufacturing. This has to be resolved and currently we're trying to find a solution.

Among our expanding circle of allies is the 'master' of the hardware shop we frequent. When I find Korean guys I like, I'm so glad to interact with them ( yes I have difficulty relating to the common Korean man). This shopkeeper keeps a perfectly moussed salt and pepper late 80's style rock'n'roll pseudo hair metal perm. It's always perfect. This dedication is impressive. Anyway, he sends us his customers who have technical inquiries ( I'm regarded as an foreign expert of sorts with multi- talents and knowledge ) and thinks of us when he can help us as he daily talks business with members of the carpenter community. Last week we got the nod to pick up some reclaimed Hanok ( Korean traditional post and beam home) wood, and met another cool older lifetime carpenter. With the wood we've made a couple tables already.
Ye-gam master also inquired to our business, as the others have reported less work of late. This to us means we are doing much more work than other shops and that the over- abundance of DIY shops is saturating the market. This would not be good except we have a niche. DIY shops were listed in the top 5 new jobs/ business market last year in Korea .

I have been fairly homesick/sick of Korea for the past little while. It seems to be passing as usual. This is a dangerous time to write, as negativity could easily find itself on the eyeSage.
Frustration of operating in a foreign and still very developing country, in terms of modernity and forward thinking, frequently overwhelms me. Driving is the worst part of any day, but I level out once out of the car ( that's still an hour of angst, shock and horror daily).

Planning a repatriation to Canada for 2012 and the major challenges and decisions surrounding that weigh heavily. The shop future, sale, expansion etc. and the house/ land here- our hands and minds are full with no time to really ever think or talk about those issues. Life is rich and full, yet still dissatisfaction over whelms me all too often. Here are two tales- a positive anecdote and a dissenting example of frustration.

We went for a lovely drive to ease our minds on Sunday to Jiri mountain, one of Ym's favorite places. We had delicious trout sashimi for lunch, hit the 1000m view point and visited a smaller temple.Leaving in the morning, on the way out of the village towards the new expressway ( recently completed after 3 years-the tollgate is about 1km away) I bitched about another needless and heedless fire, this one smouldering rice grain husks. This has been one of my ceaseless negative mantras in Korea - the farmers and their endless burning. Insert cuss words at will.

Of late it has irked me even more so. Here in our village there are recycling receptacles, centrally situated so no home is more than 100m away and they are collected thrice weekly, yet the majority of residences burn all their trash weekly. All the trash. Albeit they have less trash than a household as ours who shop at supermarkets. They pick up metal and glass bits later , who knows where those go. So I wake up almost ever lovely bright spring morning excited to take in the aroma of blossoms , birdsong and retreat immediately indoors to avoid toxic smoke. Other villagers are taking down old homes and burning everything- no trucks to the landfill. I have seen no real composting in this village of subsistence farmers.

So much burning in Korea. The air is always grey. The governments' firefighting efforts are warranted as their are so many careless rural outlaws and smoking hikers. Walky-talkied firewatch volunteers hang out for weeks in spring and fall, keeping an eye out for smoke.

Upon returning from our lovely drive on the great new time saving expressway, we found the fuzzers in our village , doing paper work next to the singed remains of a 'garage' right across from the morning's fire spot. The wind blew hard that day and the idiocy consumed a neighbor's structure and pile of stuff, further polluting the air with burnt synthetic materials.

So if you ask me the reasons why I want to leave Korea I will answer , I want to live someplace where people don't burn trash as a rule of thumb.

If you're still reading, here's the good note.

Koreans are quite particular and expectant of retailers and service companies. Manufactured goods have amazing 'A/S' ( after-service or warranty care in regular English). Getting stuff fixed is usually so prompt , courteous and inexpensive. I especially love having the cars worked on..it is so cheap! You pay for parts pretty cheaply and the shop rate seems like 10$ /hr. There's no excuse in Korea to have any visible or audible flaws in your vehicle... yet there are.
We do live in the country; Jeonju- Iksan has over a million residents , but it is still a rural minded, traditional and superstitious, and unfortunately, still perhaps a have-not province. I digress.

My Musso "Suh-Po-che" ( Sports) model SUV/pick-up manufactured by SsangYong , had its second "pung-ke" ( puncture) in a week. Both were remedied in a few minutes. The first was done within 5 minutes of being discovered. The flat was pointed out by a cabbie and there was a tire shop the next block. At 9 am there were no other cars as we rolled up to the lift. They reamed out the hole and stuck in some toxic putty and voila ! after five minutes and five bucks it was as if nothing had happened. No inconvenience.

This morning I rolled two feet before stopping. Another punc! We called our insurer and they promised a man on the scene within fifteen. Promised. When he came, arriving in a Matiz, ( a tiny , microscopic hatchback with tools, jacks and compressor packed into a refrigerator sized car), he repeated the formula above, and I was rolling in five minutes for five bucks. And the fellow gave me bottled water for my inconvenience. The insurer, Samsung Anycall ( Anycar- same pronunciation) later gave us a follow up ring, asking us about the service with a satisfaction survey. Now that's customer service. I did, however, wait the entire fifteen minutes for him to find the hidden valley village. No complains here.