When Snickers headed out for two meetings -- one in Suwon and one here in Cheonan -- I stayed home and tried to deal with setting up the accounting bookkeeping for our company. Figuring out if I wanted to go old skool and do manual pen and paper bookkeeping or invest in a software program was my first decision. I decided to go with the software but then I had to pick among the many, and yes, it was just as much fun as it sounds -- not fun at all.
I may come from a line of accountants but I'm a boxer, a sports lady. The extent of my numbers are counting the rounds, keeping track of the kilometers I ran and counting down the days till sparring practice. In the wonderful world of a boxer, the number doesn't regularly go in the double digits with of course the exception of 12 (max number of rounds for a fight).
In all my grand joy over the excitement of picking out an accounting bookkeeping program, I got sidetracked, distracted. I totally blame Facebook... hahaha.
An image popped up on the Facebook news feed. It was from Gamble Tattoo; a picture of our tattoo artist's most recently inked customer. The instant distract sidetracked me from all the "fun" I was having sorting through the bookkeeping program and next thing I knew it was texting Snickers, asking him if it was a friend's back I was looking at on the computer screen.
Next thing I knew it, I was wrapped up in a huge conversation about Kkangpae -- Korea's street gang scene.
Back in the Joseon Dynasty period (1392-1910), the Confucian philosophy of the time stressed keeping your body whole -- your body clean. Because tattooing was highly viewed as opposing this philosophy, it became a common practice for criminals and many slaves to be tattooed. It was a branding system they used -- an easily visible sign for commoners to know that these particular people were social outcasts. Then, in the 20th century, many members of Kkangpae adopted Japan's idea of tattooing their members. They decided to do this as a means of proudly displaying the fact that they were different from commoners, to show intimidation and to distinguish between who belong to which gang.
Cheonan has four street gangs, each with about 40-50 members-- Midu-Pa, Sinmidu-Pa, Namsan-Pa, and Sunghak-Pa. The names all have different meanings but nothing dangerous sounding or intimidating like you'd expect. I have many friends that are in Namsan-Pa, their gang is named after an area and they too have been branded with such gang tattoos. For the most part, their tattoo is almost like a full body tattoo, covering their entire back, extending down their arms to their elbows, like a shirt, and then continuing on down their legs to their ankles.
Unlike biker gangs in Canada, like Hells Angels and Foundation, Korea gang members aren't flashy with their gang branding and, for the most part, they keep their gang tattoos hidden. They are very much Korean in that they're very image conscious. They put a lot of effort towards looking respectable and professional. A couple of Cheonan's Namsan-Pu members who are friends of mine joined me for bowling with some of the Flipside Fitness ladies and, besides some of the ladies noting that some of them were a bit overdressed for the event or very gentleman-like, none of them suspected a thing.
There was a movie on the TV tonight, depicting the Kkangpae situation in Korea in the late 80's, early 90's. It was in Korean and had no English subtitles but I sat down with Snickers to watch it because I remember a lecture in my Korean culture university class that dealt with Kkangpae. I'm fascinated by stuff like this and Snickers thinks I'm strange because of it.
As we sat there watching the movie, Snickers then let it slip that his meeting in Suwon, ironically enough, ended up dealing with the very issue we had sat there discussing -- Korean gangs. A local gang member had loaned money from our sponsor out in Suwon but hadn't paid it back yet so he made Snickers go help him collect.
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