Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Two new posts. Read them.

Konglish.


How to park in a crowded city.


Little corners like this are littered through the side-streets in Seoul. I had a bunch of other pictures of the city at night, but my camera just can't quite hack it.


Here's another way Japan really desecrated Korea's culture while they colonized them (for which Korea still hasn't forgiven them, cheerfully forgetting that Japan also built a lot of infrastructure, like roads and institutions that have helped Korea reach its current state).

This is a temple on a mountainside. I have NO IDEA how they got it up there -- it wasn't an easy climb -- but there are some seriously impressive temples on mountainsides here. Make a special note of the rock on the left. You'll see it again in the next pictures.


A lot of temples in Korea are on mountainsides: mountains are holy in Korea, they carry great spiritual power (just climb a mountain -- see if you disagree when you're looking across an entire valley). Colonial Japan nailed iron spikes into big rocks like this, at the most consecrated places on the mountain peaks, as an attempt to ruin the geomancy (geographic energy -- kind of like feng shui on a macro scale) of Korea's mountains, and break the spirit of the Korean people. They also outlawed the Korean language. As we all know, threaten a culture's language if you REALLY want them never to forgive you -- French Canada still hasn't forgiven English Canada for Lord Durham's report in 1838.

Here's a close-up of one of the iron spikes. It's on the bottom corner of the giant rock above, and this rock is right next to one of the most important mountainside temples in Seoul -- where the king used to come for spiritual counsel.


Another thing Japan did was slightly move a lot of the palaces and important buildings in Seoul: the buildings' locations were also chosen by geomancy, so changing their dimensions or orientations poisons the energy flow through the capital. These days a lot of these buildings are being re-oriented to their original places, or rebuilt entirely, to put Korea's colonized past behind them.

Also. . .

Chicken feet, anyone?


Hey! What's that?


In the subway station. . .


Oh. Nevermind. Nothing special.


(p.s.: I'm famous. Just a little, though. See here also. Let the pictures on the homepage scroll. This is what happens to you if you stick around in Korea long enough, and have curly hair to the right person.)

This clown took up three spots. An old man was poking him with his cane, and he still didn't wake up. I laughed.

6 comments:

Deb said...

What are you saying...?

Come to our school or we'll punch you out?

We not only teach you English, we also support corporal punishment?

We smile when we punch people, because punching makes us happy?

Or is it more along the lines of... we believe in a culture of diversity - we can ALL punch people, regardless of race colour and creed...?

Just curious.

Roboseyo said...

Actually, it's trying to say, "Our teachers are too tall for the invisible hanging hand-grips on the subway: they only come up to their chests."

melissa v. said...

I miss you. My mom is driving me insane and i can't vent about it on my blog because she reads it. INSANE!! She's a head case, rob. I don't have the TIME or the ENERGY for her head caseishness and she won't leave me alone.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.....
I know, your mom is gone so I should be grateful to have one. But seriously, your mom was not a head case like mine is and some days it is hard to be grateful.
I swear I have a poltergeist in my house, too...someone keeps messing with my computer, and moving things around when I'm not home...
congrats on being famous, btw. I always knew I wouldn't regret putting up with your friendship all those years. Now you're famous, so it was all worth it
{sarcastic tone}
haha!

Roboseyo said...

hang in there with your mom. . . and all the other stuff too, eh?

yeah, i guess the whole friendship thing paid off for you -- I'm still waiting for YOU to make good, though -- what's the use of saying "I knew her when" if you're not known anyway? Any thoughts on a timeline for your OWN subway station?

Katy said...

Rob I love reading your blog.

Just thought you should know.

I feel informed :-)

melissa v. said...

Haha! New game: you have to spot me in a subway station somewhere in the world. When you do, you get to pick the subject for my next post.
Good luck.

I've sold some paintings but not yet made my big 15 minutes of fame. Hopefully I will someday get to shake my fist against a yellow background as well.

xo