Saturday, June 18, 2005

Fear Factor

Another show I can (and do sometimes) watch is Fear Factor. In this American show, contestants are pitted against one another to perform scary tasks. The one who does these tasks the best and/or fastest is the winner and gets 50,000$. Whoo-hoo!

Tasks range from tests of physical ability, like climbing up a rope ladder into a helicopter as you swing through the air, to "stunts" like driving a car through the wall of a house, and there's always a challenge to eat and/or drink things that are,...well,...disgusting.

Watching these things can be upsetting to the viewer. I know I got serious willies seeing people stick their head up into a plexi-glass cube and get their noggins covered in millipedes and scorpions. Dat's scary shit. Or being covered in snakes. The insects and slithery things always get me. Agggghhh.

Some fool actually wanted compensation from NBC for the damage he suffered while watching people eat rats. Ha ha. The poor little lamb became disoriented, threw up, and then ran into a doorway, causing "suffering, injury, and great pain." He wanted a 2.5 million dollar band-aid from NBC. A judge threw the case out.

I should sue the show "Who Wants to Marry My Dad," because watching it's over-dramatic sappiness and bad-acting caused my eyes to bleed and for me to finally go insane.

Anyways...

I was watching Fear Factor this past week and was giddy to see the contestants, when shown what they'd be dining on for their disgusting chow-down, be given a big bowl of bondeggi!! The host called it "silk worm cereal" (it was a breakfast theme) but in the Land of the Morning Calm, those babies are BONDEGGI!!!

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To be honest, the participants also had to drink big glasses of pureed cow liver, and eat balut, a fertilized duck-egg with a dead baby duck inside. I would have been out as soon as I saw the silkworms. I've eaten some strange things in my travels, but I can't even touch a bondeggi.

I was just about to start class a couple weeks ago and realized I had a few extra little students. I smelled them before I saw them. "Alright, who has bondeggi?" One little girl smiled at me and produced a dixie-cup of the bugs she had hid on the empty seat beside her. "Uh-uh, no way, bye bye bondeggi," I said, opening the door for her to go put them somewhere, anywhere, else.

I don't think she realizes, as she eats her bugs with a toothpick, that if she were in America she could be that much closer to 50,000$ on a reality game show! Life here is sometimes like an episode of fear factor. You can take a taxi ride, eat silkworm larvae, puppies, and drink snake soju, and then wrestle a bunch of adjummas at a visor-sale.

I love Korea, but life here, sometimes, is not for the faint-of-heart. Koreans would make outstanding competitors on Fear Factor. They're determined and tough. I wonder what sort of stunts there would be on a Korean version of the show. Hmmmmm.

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