The ‘Zenpats of Korea’ — Expats who seem to be able to deal with anything without getting upset.

While surfing the Kblogosphere tonight I came across this post, Sucks to your Internets, Korean Immigration. or: dealing with HIKOREA.or.kr was extremely frustrating today. I was pretty surprised to see it because the blogger is one of the ‘Zenpats of Korea’–a neat little term I came up with while writing a comment . . . and I decided to run with it a little more here.

What is a “Zenpat”? Well, I kind of see Zenpats as being a little analogous to these guys,

To run with this even further I’d then have to say that the Zenpats of Korea have learned how to use the “Kimchi”–yes, with a capital “K”! Using The Kimchi requires many years of training and experience in Korea. There are, like The Force, two sides to The Kimchi: the Light and the Dark. However, unlike The Kimchi’s distant cousin The Force, it can have more than one Dark Lord of the Kim at a time . . . and of course, the Zenaders (another name they have been known by) have their own aesthetic,

Zenaders also have an evil Emperor who answers to the name of “Yobosey-itty” (they wear her image on their chests) and she lives on the dark isle of Takeshima in a cave where she toils night and day producing a vile poison called ‘kimchi coolaid.’ Zenaders do not have need to use anything as mundane as a lightsaber, but rather they carry at their belt long flasks full of the kimchi coolaid, and whenever they sense Zenpats are near them they consume copious quantities in order to tap into the Dark Side of the Kim.

Emperor Yobosey-itty, by the way, has begun training a new and elite force of K-poopers. All K-poopers have a special tattoo on their arm to identify themselves to each other. It looks like this,

The K-poopers have an elite leader known as General Boba-itty . . . one of the most lethal and dangerous followers of Emperor Yobo-itty and the Zenaders.

Zenaders used to be Zenpats, but once they began down the path of The Dark Side of the Kim, and drinking the kimchi coolaid, they cannot stop. Whenever there are any problems in Korea the Zenaders draw on the power of this drink and can destroy the parts of their brain that might otherwise slow them down in combat from doing and saying things that Zenpats will never do.

But Zenpats have their own powerful drink called Zoju. It is also carried in long flasks on their belts, and when there are any problems facing them they use it judiciously. One can see the power of the Zoju in the famous Zenpat training exercise with which one prepares to deal with being unable to see beyond the here and now in Korea,

This ability to see without seeing, to anticipate the unexpected is perhaps one of the Zenpats most powerful abilities. Since many Zenpats often teach K-woks (a term of endearment used to refer to the tiny little creatures that run around in their work places), they have developed The Kimchi to aid them whenever the elder K-woks change the times they are supposed to teach the little K-woks. Once upon a time, though, a Zenpat asked an elder K-wok to explain why changes were made and the Zenpat ended up as the head K-wok’s new desk.

Anyways, to see a rather famous Zenpat fall under the sway of Emperor Yobosey-itty tonight was rather shocking. But I can’t believe that even the most powerful Zenpats don’t have the rare Zenader moment like this,