Watching your back, won't cut you any slack.

South Korea is always full of surprises.

This week, my roommates and I learned (a tad too late), that we had the week off. This week is Korean Thanksgiving. A major advantage of living in NYC, is how diverse NYC is. New York is a place that functions 365 days a year, twenty-four hours a day. I have spent every single holiday possible in NYC, and never had a problem finding a wide variety of businesses that stay open during these holidays. There are so many people in NYC with different cultural backgrounds, it is impossible for the entire city to shut down all at once. However, South Korea is incredibly homogenous. Everyone celebrates the same holidays. When I heard I had the week off, I was initially excited. There are still a lot of things I want to do here, that I simply haven't had time for. However, it didn't occur to me that everything would close for the entire week. When I say everything, I mean everything. ATMs don't even work this week. This is the reason I say my roommates and I found out about this holiday a little late. If I would have known ahead of time, I would have made a trip to the bank, and made sure I had extra cash. Oh, the joys of being a foreign model in non-English speaking places. Not so glamourous, I assure you.

Not only is everything closed, but we were hit with a huge storm that lasted over four days. So bad, our area (and other areas) flooded. This made a couple of my Korean friends send me alarming messages telling me not to go outside. One of my friends even sent me an email warning me not to take any walks near the Han River. That email made me laugh a bit. Anyway, public transportation was shut down for a bit, and for once, the streets of Seoul were not jammed with cars. However the torrential rain was not fun to walk in when I decided to brave the weather and see if everything really was closed (the answer to that question is that yes, everything was closed). The storm finally broke today, but it's been cold and dark outside all day.

My Polish roommate went back to Poland as she needed to return to high-school. My agency neglected to make sure she had a way to get to the airport. They told her to take a bus, and they gave her a time of when to be there. She made it to the bus stop on time. At this point, it had been raining hard for two solid days. She waited for the bus for a good forty-five minutes. No bus. She borrowed a phone to call one of our bookers, only to find out buses sometimes don't run in the rain. My roommate was paid in American dollars. The holiday had started without any of us knowing. Meaning, no ATMs were working, and no banks were open. The airport is in Incheon, and she didn't have enough Korean won on her to get to the airport. Eventually, one of my bookers showed up drunk to the bus stop. He gave her cash for a cab. However, when she finally arrived to the airport, boarding was closed. She found another phone, and called the same booker. The booker offered her no help, and told her that she had screwed everything up. Keep in mind, this girl turned seventeen two weeks ago. She called her mother agent in Poland. Our booker then responsibly ignored all calls from her mother agent. Eventually, hours later, the owner of the agency picked her up. However, at this point, an email had been sent to her mother agent. This email stated that my roommate had not only gone to the wrong bus stop, but she had left over an hour late for the airport. Now, I have seen her flight itinerary. Our agency had written on the itinerary what time she should leave for the bus stop. The email also stated that she made our agency pay for the cab, even though they had paid her in cash less than forty-eight hours prior to her leaving. Again, they paid her in USD. They also paid her after four PM on Friday. Banks close at four PM, and as soon as the weekend started, everything shut down for this holiday we were never told about. Essentially, the email stated they weren't going to help with this situation at all. They said it was her fault, and she needed to sort it out (and pay for it) herself.

My roommate walked through our apartment door around 3 AM crying. It was heartbreaking. I stayed up late and researched Korean labor laws for minors. I was surprised to find out that females and minors have the same labor laws. Asia can be incredibly progressive and "ahead" in a lot of ways. However, in some ways they are still very, very far behind. However, the law did work in her favor. The law clearly states that any employer who hires a minor (or female), foreign or not, has to cover all home-coming expenses (when the work contract is over). In fact, employers are still responsible for females and minors for fourteen days after the employee is finished working for the employer. I also found out that females and minors are not legally allowed to work more than seven hours a day, or forty-two hours a week, unless they have received written approval from the Ministry of Labor. My roommates and I were pressuring her to send an email to our agency, stating she was aware that what they were doing was illegal. Now, my roommate is the nicest girl on the planet. However, being assertive is not one of her strong points. By morning, our entire agency had left Seoul. They left without saying a word to her. This is what the modeling industry can be like, and it's wrong. It's socially irresponsible, fuck, it's a crime against humanity! Anyway, I went to dinner with a couple of friends. I ran into my Brazilian roommate a few hours later. She informed me that our roommate's mother agent had sorted something out, and that she had to leave in a hurry to the airport. We are still waiting to hear from her. We know she flew into Berlin, and was taking a train to her hometown. This doesn't seem right for a minor who just wants to go home (and needs to be back in school). Not to mention, a tiny minor who could barely carry her one suitcase, let alone both of her suitcases. I am hoping something legit was worked out, and she is not out of a ton of money. We pay a lot of money for a driver, and I don't understand how this doesn't include a driver to the airport. It seems clear to me that our agency screwed up. They had one obligation for the entire weekend and week of holiday, and that was to make sure one of their models made their flight.

Sigh.

If you don't watch your back at all times in this industry, you will get screwed with. If you watch your back at all times in this industry, you will still get screwed with.