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| "Wish you were here son, although population control might say otherwise" |
You are probably wondering where I have been for the past few weeks but my reasoning for my disappearance is just, I can reassure you. I have not been sleeping to well after receiving a postcard from my old man with a letter attached and I cant make odds nor ends of it. It is all very confusing so I thought the best thing to do with this rather personal letter is to post it on my blog.
Below is the said letter...
HELLO SON!I just wanted to let you know that everything in Korea is just grand. Now your probably thinking "Korea?! but I thought he was expanding his conciousness with the robed ones from the far east?!" Weeeellllll, sadly I got bored and gave up on being a monk shortly after the Tibetan uprising a few years back. Lot's of monks shouting about money trees and stuff and it just wasn't for me. I decided what better to do than to become a ping-pong champion in Korea, so I packed my robes and headed south to the land of cheap wares. Which reminds me actually, enclosed is a gift which I just know you will put to good use! (I got it from a wonderful Korean fellow called Reginald in the most amazing flea market in the heart of Pang Tocky Tock Pangtango, you would have loved it there m'boy!)
Anyway, so I entered the capital of Korea (or for all you non-meteorologists out there it's a large place called Bloomsbottum i believe) and I started living with a local family by helping them out with chores and such like cleaning the dishes and washing the dog before eating it.etc. The communicational barrier was hard at first but both languages had one thing in common, they both used the same words for no it would seem, so by the power of deduction we would eventually be understanding what was asked of each other.
They treated me with such love and devotion when I was there that one day I plucked up the courage and I asked them a question which had been on my mind ever since I arrived. Needless to say, they said something which I assume was a yes and they are now my new adopted parents! Yes, you have a new Gran and Grandad and they are dying to meet you and I'm sure you're dying to meet them!
Anyway I'll let the tale continue. One morning during my chores i was scrubbing away at the Woks when all of a sudden my new father tripped over the step and sent an Onion hurtling towards me from the wicker shopping bag he was carrying. My quick reflexes I'd gained from dancing made me raise my arm and I bounced the strange vegetable off the Wok and back into his shopping bag. He then stared at me with the most intense look for a few seconds then he dragged the table into the center of the room. He picked up a wok for himself and shouted "HUI!!" whilst pointing to the other end of the table. I knew what I had to do. He threw the vegetable up into the air like Venus Williams and we proceeded to hit the vegetable back and forth between us again and again and again.
No words were spoken for the whole 5 hours we played and it would have went on for longer if it hadn't had been for the two massive dents in both Woks and my mother shouting strange foreign words at the two of us while throwing noodles everywhere.
It wasn't until later that evening during dinner that I realised what I had set into motion. I was one step closer to realising my dream of becoming ranked a number one seed in the breath taking sport of Ping-Pong. Now, as much as I liked to think that I was chasing my own dream It turns out I wasn't, my dreams where actually chasing me. It was like I was Indiana Jones, my parents were the small Asian boy and my dreams where the proverbial boulder rumbling after us all eventually bring all three together in unity. This was destiny unfolding right before me.
Father and mother were bickering at the table which was a regular thing in this household, but there was something different. They were pointing at me while shouting at each other in Korean. There were a few words that I could decipher, and they were "son", "pong-ping", "table tennis", "secret" and "club". This raised some eyebrows from me but I passed it off as just a coincidence and continued eating my noodles while wondering why there was bits from the floor in it.
It took 15 days of cleaning until I was relieved of my duties when father took me into town early one evening. He put bean sprouts in my ears and a potato sack upon my head and I got pulled towards somewhere through the blackness. We walked for what seemed like years in silence as I could not see or hear a thing thanks to the beansprouts and sack on my head. I knew it, I was about to be taken hostage by the Korean mafia. I tried to escape and wriggle free but all I received was a karate chop to the back of the neck and then I blacked out.
I eventually came to and saw my captors in all there entirety. There were 6 Koreans stood in front of a train in a semi-circle wearing the most elaborate gowns I had ever seen. (I know what you're thinking son, cross-dressers. But don't worry, it wasn't the case thank all 4,000 gods)
"You'll never take me alive! I won't tell you a thing!" I yelled. "DAAAAD!!"
I then saw the one in the center mumbled something so quiet I could barely hear it.
"Whaaat?" I shouted. "Stop whispering, I can't hear your lies!"
Then a small man to the left of me came right up to my ears and removed the 2 beansprouts from earlier which I had forgotten about and placed them back in my pocket.
The Korean man in the center now spoke loud and clear.
"We are 'The Inter-rail Table Tennis Institute for East Seoul', or 'T.I.T.T.I.E.S' for short and we have heard much about you Yung-Ping. You look allot more western than I had imagined but your birth father Huan-Ping has assured us that you are Korean but you lived in England for many years where they force fed you Beef until you were British, hence why I am communicating in your dialect."
Confused by this whole event I decided to role with it as all I ever wanted (well, for the past year) was to become a pro at Pong-Ping/Table Tennis/Ping-Pong. Well son, I'm sure you know me well enough m'boy so you'll know that I told the leader to stuff his stupid club and that I want to go wash a dog. It worked. He was impressed by my stamina and wondered if I had the girth to take on there best player. If I won, I would be aloud to become a full time member of T.I.T.T.I.E.S.
"Nattak-Huigonk... He is the best" the robed Korean spoke
As the head honcho uttered his name the whole room gasped, some even dropped to the floor in shock while fainting like an Asian Gillian McKeith. The small man to my side who had removed the vegetables from my ears told me that his name means 'to flatten all felines whom barketh at the moon of pong-ping'. As shockingly strange as that name was it didn't quite have the same effect on me, so I accepted.
"Then enter the train." The leader said. "The match ends when the train stops. The most points wins"
Yes, it was an endurance match, my forte. He handed me a ping-pong club and I walked into the open doors of the train. This club felt much better than the Wok from before and I just knew I would excel in this match, all I had to do it get more goals.
The train was empty and the doors shut behind me. The train started to move as I stepped aboard and I looked around for where to go. At the end of the carriage was a ping-pong table with the smallest man I have ever seen, this was going to be tough.
"Nattak-Huigonk I assume..."
He bowed and sent a ping-pong ball immediately hurtling towards me, I countered and chipped it into the farthest corner only to see him back flip towards it and hit it mid-flight. He was like a snuffed-up midget.
The match continued on with him flipping around for many many hours and by the 12th hour our speed had decreased significantly. I was down 40 points and at this rate I had no hope of winning. Then I remembered something which might give me the edge I needed to win, the two beansprouts from earlier! I delved into my pocket with my spare hand and furiously ate the vegetable's. I Immediately boosted back to life and to the shock of the tiny ninja I started to strike back much like the Empire did in those films you loved which are set in Tokyo.
An hour later the train grinded to a halt back at the station and I was still firing balls towards my opponent. The leader came on board and said that it is done and congratulated me on my clear victory as the other fellow had actually collapsed half an hour ago. They said they had been watching the match via the cameras on board and were astounded at my skill. They had never seen anything like it and had never known a man to out endure Nattak-Huigonk. Then they said that they has also seen me eat the beansprouts which is an obvious sign of cheating. They said that they never wanted to see my ugly hideous westerner face again and that if I showed my disgusting mug here ever again they would turn me into Pâté.
I met up with pa-pa and we went on our way back home in silence once again. At least he still loved me even though I let him down. We got home and your new grandparents had a small argument and almost threw me out but I managed to convince them to let me to stay by miming me cleaning the Woks.
So that's whats happened to me since last time we spoke I hope you are well m'boy and tell your mother that she needs to change the address that she is posting the free gravy granules to. Post them to my new address which is below.
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Speak to you soon!
Your father Pete
Make of it what you will but I think I'll just put it up there with his other letters. Silly bahsterd forgot to even write his bleddy address!
Signing off for today
Happy farming farming enthusiasts!
P.S - Here is fathers gift he enclosed
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| A dead Flea named Gerome from the Flea market... |
