November 10 Noontime Position: Lat 38deg 46,0 N; Long 135deg 43,5 E
In the Sea of Japan

At breakfast, the Captain yelled at the Steward. “What’s this? Ten minutes it takes for bullshit eggs!” The Steward meekly said nothing. In Busan tomorrow, his contract ends, prematurely. Not because of the eggs. But it appears his performance overall has been found wanting. Later on, when the Chief Engineer and I were the only ones remaining in the officers’ mess, he told me another of his seafaring stories. An unpopular Captain ordered rabbit as a special Christmas meal for himself and his wife. The ship’s cook secretly prepared a feast of cat instead. The old man and his lady ate it all up, none the wiser.

It’s dangerous to generalize about relations between the world’s rich and poor based on one ten days on a container ship. And I don’t know whether conditions on the Hanjin Copenhagen are typical of the merchant fleet. But for the people who work here, this is no pleasure cruise.

The gulf between the Europeans and the Filipinos is immense. The Germans and Poles are physically large and in command. There is a blunt directness to these men. As I mentioned yesterday, meals are usually a glum, silent affair. Their vocabulary does not include “please”, or “thank you”, and they rarely smile. It is all about doing the job quickly, correctly, staying safe and on schedule. Building long-term relationships with shipmates means nothing. Contracts are only for a few months and you’ll likely never see the others again, so fuck ’em. Competence and cold cynicism are the professional requirements of the sea.

And then there are the singsong, sentimental Filipinos. They too are out here for the money, and they readily admit they earn at sea much more than they could back in Manila or Mindanao. But by global merchant marine standards, they are cheap labour. Not as cheap as the Chinese, but they at least speak English. And they do as told.

In stark contrast to the Europeans, the Filipinos are small, and they smile. There’s a steady flow of chatter from the crew mess during meals. When the recreation room isn’t filled with the sound of karaoke, it’s because they’re watching a phenomenally melodramatic Filipino movie. Despite their apparent good cheer, they tell me about missing home and family, and that the job is robbing them of their lives. The 2nd Officer will be leaving the ship in Shanghai. The tale of how he met his wife illustrates the storybook tenderheartedness of the Filipinos. He had seen her from afar and it turned out they were neighbours.  Introducing himself, his first words to here were: “I saw you on the bus and in my heart I knew right then you were the
woman I will marry.” She made him earn it through a long courtship, but they now have three children.

It seems there is some dispute brewing over wage payouts between the Captain/company and the seven crewmen who are leaving the ship in Korea tomorrow. Whether the romantics can ever prevail over the realists remains to be seen.