With a Side of Kimchi

Credits

Written by Gord Sellar.

This playset is from my itch.io page: http://gordsellar.itch.io/fiasco-playsets.

Boilerplate

This playset is an accessory for the Fiasco role-playing game by Bully Pulpit
Games. Its contents are copyright 2012 by Gord Sellar. Fiasco is copyright 2009
by Jason Morningstar. All rights to Fiasco are reserved.

For more information about Fiasco or to download other playsets and
materials, visit www.bullypulpitgames.com.
Note:
This playset was designed for a to make Fiasco usable among TEFL teachers in
South Korea. It's specially designed to be playable by mixed groups of players:
while most playsets can easily be used by a group of expats, once Korean players
join the game, it's sometimes harder for them to catch the culture-specific
nuances of most of Fiasco's popular playsets.

This playset helps to integrate South Korean players into the game by setting the
story in Korea—more specifically, a cram school where Koreans and foreigners
alike stereotypically collide in all the same ways central to Fiasco: greed, lust,
ambition, ineptitude, and stupidity.

In these cram schools, called hakwons, Korean children and adults study English
with foreign teachers, who work along side Korean teachers, Korean office staff,
and Korean bosses, while Korean parents (mostly moms) obsessively track their
kids' progress. In Korea, these cram schools have a notoriously bad repuation:
the teachers (foreign and Korean alike) and the owners are widely maligned by
both Korean and expat cricles alike. Other familiar features of Korean urban life
appear here: tented street bars, culturally-specific sex trade venues that are
notorious in Korea, different stereotypical relationships, and so on.

Even if you've never lived in Korea, you may be a fan of Korean films like Park
Chan-Wook's Vengeance Trilogy (that is: Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy,
and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance), and you may want to try play a story set in
Korea. For that case, I've included a glossary of useful Korean terms and
footnotes on a few unusual places, objects, and relationships specific to this
setting... or which are known by other names, anywhere in Asia that there's a
Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) industry.

It's very likely this playset could be adapted to any English-teaching institution
in any country, however, not just in Asia. though aspects of it are designed to
facilitate play with Koreans, and to resonate with English-teaching expats.

If you've never taught English overseas or lived as an expat, and want to try the
playset on more familiar terrain, you can set it in any private language school in
your own country, like those afterschool Hebrew or Chinese schools that kids
sometimes attend in the States, or an "international" language school or
language program in a university, and so on.
The Score
Playset location

This playset takes place in Seoul. The characters are all related to the TEFL
industry in some way or other, either as students, teachers, business owners,
staff, or whatever else you can come up with.
Depending on your group's tastes, you can set the story at a number of different
times:
• in the 1980s, when only a handful of non-military foreigners were in
Korea--former Peace Corps volunteers, a few professors, and a few other
oddballs...
• through the 90s, but before 1997, at the height of the English-teaching
cash cow and before Korea became a haven for unemployed college grads...
• during the "IMF Crisis" of 1997-98, when the nation's economy collapsed
and most foreigners fled the country, though a few stayed around, even
after the paychecks stopped coming... not always for good reasons...
• after the economic recovery, when a flood of expat teachers arrived in
South Korea, and competition got more stiff...

Movie Night
There aren't any films (yet) detailing a Fiasco-like situation in a cram school, but
the best film dealing with such a setting is definitely the language-learning
comedy Please Teach Me English, which explores some of the dire interracial
lust and hangups that can figure into games played off this playset. So does the
romantic-dramedy comic book series Love as a Foreign Language by J. Torres
and Eric Kim.
As far as neo-noir, Park Chan-Wook's aforementioned Vengeance Trilogy
(Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance) are
highly recommended, and there are plenty of Korean films about corrupt cops
and gangsters, of which the best recent one is Yun Jong-bin's 2012 hit Nameless
Gangster: The Rules of the Time.
Meanwhile, Saving My Hubby (also known as Be Strong, Geum-Soon) presents
an amusing depiction of a Korean housewife battling gangsters, hookers,
salarymen, and other lowlifes to rescue her idiot salaryman husband.
Relationships
4. Crime
1. Work
a Recently-fired coworker a Kidnapping
b Supervisor/employee b Prostitution

c Office staff/teacher c Drug smuggling

d Workplace frenemies d A hydroponic pot-growing

operation
e Student/teacher
e Blackmail/extortion
f Student's parent/teacher
f Theft
2. Romance
5. Family
a One-night-stand
a Siblings
b Ex-lover
b Parent/child
c Romantic rival
c Grandparent/grandchild
d "Horizontal dictionary"1
d In-laws
e Spouse
e Distant cousins
f Flirtation
f Spouses
3. Friendship
6. Community
a Drinking buddies
a A local evangelical Church with
b Manipulator/victim services in English & English Sunday
School
c Old hand/mentor
b The Korea-expat blogosphere
d Friends with benefits
c The barfly expats down at "The
e Language tutor Drunken Maple Leaf"
f Ex-lover in common d A prominent TEFL teachers'
association
e An English study group
f An international soccer league

1 Horizontal dictionary: a partner who

exchanges free language lessons in
exchange for sex, or vice versa. An older
slandg term, not much in use after the
90s.

... With a Side of Kimchi

Needs
1. To Get Out 4. To Get Back
a ... of debt a ... your lost mutual passion

b ... of this relationship b ... every last cent of your severance

pay
c ... of Korea
c ... to your home country in one piece
d ... of this hakwon
d ... to what you do best
e ... of your losing streak
e ... at the one you hate most
f ... of the red-light district
f ... to Bangkok, with money to burn
2. To Get Rich
5. To Get Even
a ... by ripping off someone
a ... with your boss
b ... by blackmailing someone you hate
b ... with your ex
c ... so you can support your family
c ... with the co-conspirator who
d ... through the shiny new drug stabbed you in the back
business
d ... with everyone who laughed at you
e ... by taking everyone else's share of
the spoils e ... with the professor who took
advantage of you
f ... by kidnapping someone for
ransom
f ... a hundred times over

3. To Get Laid 6. To Get Respect

a ... by someone you actually want to a ... from everyone at work, by
screw, for once showing them you really are a
badass
b ... to get what you want
b ... from a lover, by following through
c ... to avoid getting fired on promises
d ... one more time by your one-night c ... from the blogosphere, for blogging
stand partner amazing-but-true exploits
e ... by as many people as possible d ... from your family, by bringing
home the bacon
f ... as soon as possible
e ... from the world, for your criminal
audacity
f ... from yourself, for finally putting
yourself first

... With a Side of Kimchi

LOCATions

1.. American English #1 language hakwon2 4. residences

a The communal teachers' office a A decrepit one-room studio
apartment
b A classroom
b A palatial apartment with a view of
c The smokers' balcony the Han River
d The department office c The steps of the foreign professors'
residence building
e The public washroom
d A Korean family home
f Where the school's minibus stops
e A college student's dorm room
2. The Drunken Maple Leaf — an Expat f A goshiwon3
Dive Bar
a On the steps outside 5. the subway
b At/behind the bar a Subway platform
c In the back room b The ticket booth
d The pool table c Entranceway steps
e In the "DJ booth" d Subway car -- priority seating area
f At a table in the corner e The lost and found office
f The station's ice cream stand
3. A local university
a A college classroom 6. trouble spots around town
b A professor's office a The gangster-frequented public
bathhouse
c The smokers' corner outside
b Hongdae (the night club district)
d The English department office
c A "room salon"4
e The campus coffeeshop
d The local pojangmacha5
f The administration building
e A brothel in the nearest red-light
district
f The local crappy pizza joint

3 Goshiwon (n): an extremely cheap, horrible,

micro-apartment, commonly rented by
people studying for a major exam.
2 Hakwon (n): a private educational 4 Room salon (n): a drinking place/brothel
"institute"; a Korean "cram school" for wealthy, profligate Korean businessmen.
where (among other subjects) English is 5 Pojangmacha (n): a plastic-sheeting tented
often taught by expats. Could alternately stand serving street food and hard liquor
be a public school. on a sidewalk.

... With a Side of Kimchi

Objects...
b An apartment full of pot-growing gear
1. documentation (and pot)
a Fake diplomas/transcripts c A USB drive full of scandalous "molka"7
b A "letter of release"6 sex videos starring...?
c The business deed sale contract for the d Keyboard logger records from the
hakwon department office computer
d Paternity test results e All employees' bank account
information (including passwords)
e A stolen passport
f A left luggage receipt/pickup slip from
f A will the airport

2. unspeakable 5. connections
a A locked drawer full of hardcore gay a A local mid-level Korean gangster
porn DVDs
b An uncle in the provincial police force
b A duffel bag of hallucinogens
c A drug dealer
c A freshly-used condom, small-sized
d A corrupt immigration official
d A drugged & comatose college girl
e A member of a Chinese-Korean phone-
e A giant, unplugged fridge crammed phishing ring
with rotten kimchi
f The pastor's bored, gossipy wife
f Photographic evidence
6. Sentimental
3. weapons
a A photo of a romantic getaway to Jeju
a A screwdriver Island8
b A set of low-quality golf clubs b Misplaced underwear
c A sharp kitchen knife c The knife that saved grandpa's life in
d A vial of projectile pepperspray the war
disguised as a pen d A teacher's day present, unopened, with
e A fire extinguisher a card

f A vial of rat poison e A coffee mug from an alcoholic lifer9

who died on the job
4. valuables f A beloved book you live your life by
a A bag full of US money
7 Molka (adj.): contraction of "moreu-neun
6 A letter of release is a document, often withheld kamera" – illicit hidden camera videos/pics.
by unsavory employers, which is required for 8 Jeju Island: An island in South Korea with
foreign teachers seeking to quit a job before the cheesy "honeymoon" associations; think
end of their year-long work contract. Without it, Niagara Falls.
they cannot legally change jobs within the 9 A "lifer" is a life-long expat: someone whose
country, and risk deportation if they do it life has mostly been spent abroad, and is
anyway. unlikely to return "home" anytime soon.

... With a Side of Kimchi

A spicy and sour
Insta setup
Relationships in with a side of kimchi
For three players...
• Supervisor/employee
• Office staff/teacher
• One-night-stand
For four players, add...
• Workplace frenemies
For five players, add...
• Romantic rivals

Needs in with a side of kimchi

For three players...
• To get laid again by that one-night-stand
For four or five players, add...
• A letter of release

Locations in with a side of kimchi

For three or four players...
• American English #1 Language Hakwon: The department office
For five players, add...
• A decrepit one-room studio apartment

Objects in with a side of kimchi

For any number of players...
• An apartment full of pot-growing gear (and pot)
Glossary (Cheat Sheet):
Expat Lingo:

Foreigner Bar: A bar frequented by expatriates and a small but oddball mix of locals looking
to meet, practice English with, harass, or have sex with foreigners.

Horizontal dictionary: A partner who exchanges free language lessons in exchange for sex, or
vice versa. Can be mutual or one-sided; the language teacher may understand he or she is
being used, or may not...

Letter of release: a document, often withheld by unsavory employers, which is required for
foreign teachers seeking to quit a job before the end of their year-long work contract.
Without it, they cannot legally change jobs within the country, and risk fining, deportation,
or immigration blacklisting if they change jobs anyway.

Lifer: A life-long expat: someone whose life has mostly been spent abroad, and is unlikely to
return "home" anytime soon.

Severance pay: A month's salary due an employee at the end of a contract. Infamously
difficult to obtain from some hakwon owners.

Korean & Konglish Lingo:
People:

Agashi: An unmarried Korean woman under thirty: a "young woman," not necessarily a "lady".
(Pronunciation: ah-gah-shee.)

Ajeoshi: A middle-aged Korean man, usually married and "over the hill." Stereotypically
conservative and uptight. (Pronunciation: ah-juh-shee.)

Ajumma: A middle-aged woman, married with permed hair; past her sexual prime. Pushy and
tough. (Pronunciation: ah-joo-mah.)

Ggangpae: A gangster. (Pronunciation: gang-pay.)

Migukin: American. White people are often presumed to be Migukin. (Pronunciation: Me-
gook-in.)

Sunsaengnim: Teacher. (Respectful term of address. Pronunciation: sun-seng-neem.)

Wonjangnim: Boss. (Respectful term of address some employers for employees to use.
Pronunciation: Wan-jahng-neem.)

Things:
Gag Man: A comedian, an entertainer. (Konglish.)

Hakwon: a private educational "institute"; a Korean "cram school" where (among other
subjects) English is often taught by expats. Could alternately be a public school.

Handphone: A cell phone. (Konglish.)

IMF Crisis: The term used by Koreans for the 1997-98 financial crisis, during which aid from
the IMF was "forced" onto South Korea under conditions that led to mass layoffs,
unemployment, and economic hardship that continue for some to this day.

Konglish: A bewildering admixture of Korean and English words, which Koreans think are
English words but which native English speakers don't understand.

Molka: contraction of "moreu-neun kamera" -- hidden camera; photos or video in which the
subject is unaware of being photographed. (Pronunciation: mole-kah.)

One-Piece: A one-piece dress. (Konglish.)

Pojangmacha: a plastic-sheeting tented stand serving street food and soju on a sidewalk.

Soju: Ubiquitous, cheap hard liquor. Like vodka, but nastier. (Pronunciation: Soh-joo.)

Talent: A poplar entertainer; a star. (Konglish.)

Places:
Gangnam: A wealthy district in Seoul populated by rich, trendy Koreans, many of whom are
obsessed with their kids' education. Yes, the same Gangnam as in "Gangnam Style."

Hongdae: Hong Ik Dae University district: nightclub central, casual sex, sleaze, indie rock
clubs, an artsy flea market, and enough liquor to drown a small country.

Itaewon: the sleazy foreigner-oriented district of Seoul. Bars, American GIs, foreign food
restaurants, a couple of bookstores, and touts working for nearby tailoring shops. In recent
years, upscale microbreweries and restaurants have appeared as well.


Curses:
Sshibbal!: Fuck! (Pronunciation: Shee-pal!)

I gaesaekiya!: You fucking sonofabitch! (Pronunciation: E kaesekkiya!)

Micheosseo?: Are you fucking crazy? Serious fighting words. (Pronunciation: Me-chuh-suh?)