I Want To Kill The President (just kidding)... Free Speech and What NOT to Joke About In Korea

OK. So there's this interesting subplot going on right now, where a Korean blogger named Minerva has been arrested... basically for being popular, and right. He wrote stuff that seemed to show access to inside information about Korea's economic policy, and his predictions were so uncannily accurate that some think his soothsaying turned into self-fulfilling prophecies (or so the prosecution claims) as his following began to use his posts to guide their financial decisions.

Now, he never claimed to be an insider...he just happened to be right, again and again and again, speaking as if he were one, until people assumed he WAS one, until one of his correct predictions supposedly led to a big drop in the Korean won, costing the government a bunch of money needed to restabilize it. (So sez the article.)

I took a shortened, simplified version of this article from the Korea Times into my conversation class this evening (it was written by Sean Hayes of The Korean Law Blog), along with this story, about three bloggers in Suncheon who are being investigated for manipulating their posts' readership statistics in order to get on web-portal DAUM's "Most-read articles" list and gain wider readership for their anti-Lee Myung-bak articles.

The basics of the article I brought to class:

1. Foreign bloggers are nervous about Minerva being arrested basically for being popular, and right: a lot of us write stuff that might actually be illegal, naming names, saying bad things about public figures, and such. However, it would be a big black eye, and possibly cause an international incident for Korea if a foreign blogger is investigated for pure speech.

2. There are so many people writing material on blogs that might be construed as illegal, that the bigwigs pretty much get to pick who to prosecute and who to ignore. Unsurprisingly, they pick on people who disagree with them.

3. Free speech in Korea is not protected in the same way it is in the West. Korea's free speech laws balance freedom of speech against the limitation that "neither speech nor the press shall violate the honor or rights of other person nor undermine public morals or social ethics" (quoted from my shortened version, not the original article)... not to mention, rights may be restricted again as necessary "for national security, law and order, or [the public good]"

Now I'm not a lawyer, so I might be getting this all wrong. If I am, please correct me in regular English, not legalese. However, being a Westerner, it makes me nervous that such vaguely defined terms as "honor" "rights" "public morals" and "social ethics" are included in these laws, because terms like "public morals" can be twisted to fit pretty much any definition, if a clever enough sophist is involved.

Anyway, some interesting things came out of the discussion, which I brought into two different classes.

A few of the things I gathered:

1. In America, truth is the ultimate defense against libel: that is, if what you say is true, you're protected from charges of libel. Not so in Korea: as my friend Joe discovered when he got sued by his ex-boss for blogging his attempts to get his contractually-guaranteed severance payment, you can still be found liable for libel, even if you're telling the truth, if you damage someone's reputation, here in Korea. Calling his boss a crook got him in hot water, even though his boss WAS a crook!

2. Now, I'm not a lawyer, but what I gathered from the article and the conversations is basically that in Korea, freedom of speech is balanced against the public good, and social harmony, where in the West, generally truth is the final arbiter of freedom of speech, and other than hate speech or things like holocaust denial, you're pretty much free to say what you like.

3. We discussed the difference between bloggers and journalists, and whether the government just painted themselves as the bogeyman by picking on bloggers, making bloggers who disagreed with the government's policy into sympathetic figures. On the other hand, we also discussed who, if not the government, was to hold journalists to account for distortions, yellow journalism, or agenda-driven writing.

North Korea came up here: see, comparing the USA or Canada, which have enjoyed democracy and a free press just about forever, with Korea, enjoying democracy since 1987, is a case of apples and oranges. Sure, USA can have lots of free speech laws: they don't have an open enemy bordering it, sending spies across their borders with instructions to use whatever means possible to stir up civil unrest and destabilize the government.

4. We discussed some other aspects of what is and isn't discussed in Korea, and how it is or isn't discussed, and I came across this:

First of all, I mentioned how mocking our leadership is practically a national sport in Canada: one of the high points of my week back in high school was the weekly episode of the "Royal Canadian Air Farce," a comedy troupe that deliciously skewered the leaders of the day, and I asked, "I've watched some Korean comedy...do Korean comedians imitate politicians and laugh at them, or make fun of them?"

Blank stares.

Nope. No, they pretty much don't, according to my class.

I showed them this clip, as an example of just. how. far. people push free speech in America, and how these guys got away with giving instructions on how to kill the president (hence the post title: I seriously don't want to kill anyone except that mosquito in my room), under the banner of free speech, and the defense that "I was only kidding!"




One of my students found this video laugh-out-loud hilarious. One was visibly bothered, and several just glazed over with quizzical looks.

5. When harmony instead of truth is the main currency of discourse, identity suddenly becomes important again, doesn't it? After all, if words must be balanced against one's responsibility to play their part in a harmonious society, how is one to be held accountable? Well...maybe the way Koreans are required use their ID numbers to log onto web portals starts making sense then.

6. When I asked two of my students, "If a Korean blogger wrote a page that seemed anti-government, but was actually all a satirical piss-take (I didn't use the word piss-take, but you know)... if the police came to arrest that blogger, and he said, 'but it was all a joke' - what should we do?"

And I was floored by their response. Both my students agreed that the comic intent was beside the point when spreading dissension, even sarcastically, and wouldn't have a problem with that satirist being brought to account. Does this reveal a focus on the effects of one's words, rather than the intentions... I'm not enough of a sociologist to say, nor to fit that into a larger context, but it's something I'll be watching for in the future, and maybe also asking others to weigh in on. It should be noted, and even they mentioned, that they belonged to an older generation, and that it's possible "the young kids" wouldn't have a problem with that kind of satire, even though they, the fogeys, did.

7. In asking about a person's freedom to tell a joke about assassinating a world leader, one of my students spoke up quite passionately, saying that it's not fair -- apples and oranges (I provided that idiom) to compare Canada or America's tradition of free speech with modes of discourse in Korea, that comparing Korea with China or Japan, rather than the USA, gave a more fair context for comparison.

On the other hand, I responded, globalization is pulling societies out of their comfortable contexts, and shining spotlights into dark corners and unspoken social contracts that nobody wanted to mention, in all kinds of countries, and making things way more complex than they used to be, before the days of instant communication.

If a South-African is arrested on Korean soil for running a website through a British portal that uses satiric humor to mock the Korean president, and he says, "I was just kidding: don't you understand my quirky South-African sense of humor?"...which country's rules should we use to judge him?

Personally, I'm torn. Even for a Korean on Korean case, for example, if Jang Ja-yeon, the Korean actress who committed suicide, knew that the truth was an iron-clad protection against libel, she might still be alive and fighting against the bastards who mistreated her, instead of her dying, and her manager facing a libel lawsuit from the same @$$holes who (allegedly) abused her. On the other hand, is my hard-nosed "The truth will set you free" wish for such unflinching truthspeaking just a leftover of my upbringing, and an unfair judgement on a high-context culture I ought to judge from the inside instead of the outside? Ech. I don't know. I think I'm not against free speech being balanced against responsibility. As a blogger whose real name is on his blog and circulated out and about, I know that my words will be attached to me. And I'm OK with that. In a way, yeah, I think people shouldn't write stuff online that they wouldn't want attached to their real name. Unless, for example, you're getting information about police suppression of Tibetan citizens out to the world. But you know, if your idea of fun is to write the most offensive blog you possibly can (and no, I'm not linking it), well, that's being irresponsible with your right to speak freely, frankly, and while I suppose you're free to do what you like as anonymously as you wish, buddy, I have nothing but contempt for your cowardice and pettiness.

I have a much lower "delete comment forever" threshhold for comments left anonymously, compared to commenters who leave a name and a link.

Let it be known that my students are not stupid. They know that the system ain't perfect, that right now the person in power gets to define what "the social good" means -- I asked if they thought those Suncheon bloggers would be in trouble if the articles they'd cheated to promote were pro-Lee Myungbak, and I got the kinds of knowing smiles that said they knew who had the power, and exactly how it was being wielded. I also asked what they think the president should do instead of arresting bloggers, but didn't have much class time to tease that out.

But until next time..."I was only kidding" doesn't quite carry the water it did back home, so be careful and all.

Now that I think about it, it might be another step towards understanding why discussions with Koreans about hot topics are often fairly humorless: When I joked back in World Cup '06 that the winner of the next Korea-Japan soccer game should keep Dokdo, my Korean friend snarled, "But DOKDO belongs to KOREA!" failing completely to catch my attempt to make light of a hot topic. Even just last Saturday, a friend's offhand Dokdo quip got girlfriendoseyo's hackles up a bit, the topic had to be changed rather than things smoothed over. Sure, she was tired at the time...but still. This might well be a language gap, or a gap in types of humor...but might a cultural tendency not to make light of current affairs (at least not in a mocking way) play a part of it?

So the question of the post, after all that meandering, is:
I've heard it said before that Korean comedy shows are pretty much devoid of political humour. What about conversations? Especially for those of you who are behind the language barrier (because Koreans who have learned English very well have adapted more to western modes of discourse, so as a sample group, they're spoiled): is there such thing as a Dokdo joke behind the language barrier? Are politics made light of, laughed about and mocked, or does the awful earnestness of Dokdo advertising campaigns, for example, or humourless political discussions in English conversation classes, carry right through into the Korean language discussions of the same?

Other food for thought about limitations on free speech: you might enjoy checking out South Park's brilliant two-part "Cartoon Wars" (Part 1) (Part 2) series in season ten, not long after the controversy over Danish cartoons mocking the prophet Mohammed, which ends with Jesus, George Bush, and a pregnant, single woman all crapping on an American Flag, and gets away with it because of the context in which they framed it. (See the clip here. Warning: there's crap.)

(speaking of censorship:)

I'm looking forward to an interesting conversation about this topic, readers. Don't let me down.

WTF? A Korea Times Cartoonist Capable of Irony? Oh. Unintentional.

source
Am I the only one who finds it ironic that the comic portraying Obama supposedly casting ideology out of the realm of science, chooses to portray the archaic and anti-scientific ideologues as a dinosaur...


when one of their biggest ideological flash-points was the teaching of creation and evolution in school, along with the denial of dinosaurs' existence by some?

Portraying anti-scientific ideologues as dinosaurs would be kind of like portraying Salem's Puritans as warlocks, wouldn't it?

China Triposeyo: Part the Last: Hanoi

Before we get into Hanoi, there's one video -- one of my favorites, no less, which I forgot to post in the Beijing post.

As I mentioned before, Beijing was hella cold, and it took all our gear to keep everyone mostly warm. The best was this guy, just standing around at a newsstand, trying to stay warm.

He made me smile, is all.



So after a great time in China, and a bit of down-time in Korea chillin', Girlfriendoseyo and I got a chance to take a trip to Vietnam.

Soundtrack: this has nothing to do with Vietnam, but Regina Spektor is making me happy these days. On The Radio: Hit play and start reading.



Cool song, except that the melody's pretty much the same as this one. (Bowl of Oranges, by Bright Eyes)

Now, we went during the Lunar New Year holiday, got our tickets, took the plane down, and all the usual.

We got into the airport, got oriented. Now, Vietnam was quite a bit cooler than we expected -- temperature-wise. We were OK, but it wasn't quite the beachy-beach.

The first night was also the last night of serious shopping before the Lunar New Year holiday got rolling. Now, we were in the French Quarter -- the old old part of town in Hanoi, and also a totally nutso market area, to begin with, and even more so on, pretty much, the Christmas Eve equivalent in Vietnamese culture. Flowers are really important on New Year's, as are the tiny orange trees which were all over the place (and which are really difficult to make to produce oranges exactly at the lunar new year, and very expensive for a large one)...


I really like the energy in these pictures.


It was crazy busy. Too busy. Bikes everywhere, and junk and/or merchants blocking the sidewalks, so that you had no choice but to take your chances on the streets. After an hour walking around, it was too much for both of us.

The next day we piled onto a bus and headed out to Halong Bay. Yes, that's right. Halong Bay. I said it twice, so I could link to pages with information, and most importantly, photos, twice.

On the way out, we saw these flags on the side of the road. That was a little jarring to me, personally, growing up in capitalist Canada, and uber-capitalist Korea.
The houses were almost all tall and narrow and really deep, even free-standing ones that weren't competing for space on the street-front, and done up with really fun colours.
(this hotel's grey and baby blue, not TOO wacky, but a lot of buildings were yellow, red, orange -- fun colours!)

The tour guide was funny: we tourists had packed out a bus, and the guide stood up and said, "We have twenty more people to pick up" when the only remaining place to put them was either on laps or the roof. He was cool. Except when he tried to overcharge us for the Kayak ride, even after agreeing to a price before we got in the boat. (Nope, he didn't get away with that, folks. I'll pay for cool experiences, but I won't let myself get taken.)

We got on a boat, after a couple of hours on the bus. The boats were cute.

Halong Bay was misty, but still very nice.

I've mentioned how I like taking pictures of other people taking pictures of people. Right?
Some of the islands in Halong Bay have caves. Impressive.

The tour wasn't that illuminating (though the cave was well lit) -- most of it amounted to, "See those rocks? They look like a couple. See those rocks? They look like a dragon. See those rocks? They look like a rabbit."

This is the part that looked like the Madonna and Child (that's madonna mother of Christ, not Madonna the popstar) Whaddaya say?
We came back to town, and got off the bus near a lake called "Turtle Lake" right in the middle of Hanoi. It's famous and important there, and may or may not have a 300 year old giant turtle paddling around in the water. There's also a little temple/shrine in there. It's cool. Here's the lake during the day.
And here it is during the night, during the New Year's Festival countdown.
As midnight approached, and after, people were releasing these amazing paper lanterns into the sky, with a bit of burning cotton or something suspended at the bottom, to heat the air and cause it to rise. I took a ton of lovely pictures...

just lovely.

Including this one: one of the better pictures I've ever taken.


Here's a little video about the night.

It was lovely. Just lovely.

The next morning we set out and tried to have authentic Pho noodles, and on New Year's Morning, nothing, but nothing is open. Well, a few places, but not many. One we did find was a little street corner spot where the sliced meat and veggies waited in bowls, a huge pot of broth simmered, and noodles waited to be dropped in the bowl.

Different from the Pho noodles available in Seoul.That's how they do it in Hanoi, baby!
We ended up coffee...ing in a shop that was somehow open, and also quite charming. Girlfriendoseyo discovered the joys of french crepes (which I'd take over a crappy belgian waffle from most of those dumb waffle houses in downtown Seoul. Yech.)

But what I'd REALLY take over a dumb belgian waffle, is stuff made the way South-asians do bananas. Ever had a Thai-style banana/coconut milk dessert? Best part of the meal...and that's saying something with Thai food. Ditto for these fried bananas glazed in caramelized sugar syrup. I can't even begin to tell you how good they were, except that I'll say this: Seoul needs more people who know how to cook up a proper banana.We bummed around a coffee shop, and went onto the shrine island in the middle of the lake. It was New Year's day, so of course it was an important day for people to go and pay their respects to the Buddha, and the ancestors and such. The place was a madhouse, but it was really neat being able to attend a day that had a lot of importance for these people. Really cool, indeed.

This guy was outside the entrance to the island. I like the contrast between his face and the cow's. I don't know what Moses would have thought of all the golden cows around: it's the year of the Ox on the Chinese zodiac (which they call Year of the Buffalo, because water buffalo are more common than straight-up cows there)
This poor guy was trying to take admission tickets to let people on the island, but mostly he was just getting inundated. Look at his poor, beleaguered face.

We got tickets to the water puppet show, which was really nifty: these puppets are almost up to my hip, being operated by performers manipulating really long sticks. The stuff they can do is pretty amazing, and each of these puppets must have been really cleverly built.


The only problem with the Water Puppet show is that the theater was obviously designed for profit, and not for comfort: this lineup of (paying, so who cares) foreigners' knees gives you an idea of my degree of comfort during the last third of the show, gangly cur that I am.


We headed down to another eating district for dinner, and witnessed a scooter accident wherein the angry mom (her daughter had been knocked off the bike) tried, and nearly managed, to punch out some dude while carrying a baby on her hip. It was loud.

Then we got to the other food area . . . navigation is hard in the old quarter of Hanoi, because each street is named after what is usually sold on that street, so from one block to the next, the street might have a different name, and you might be on the right street, heading in the right direction, but without a map and a north/south orientation, you'd never know it.

Well, this other eating district was a complete washout: seriously, every place was closed. We spanned three blocks lengthwise and three sideways, and there was nothing open except one or two unsanitary-looking places serving the same Pho we'd already had that morning.

We headed back to the French Quarter, where we knew of a few places that'd be opened, and Girlfriendoseyo insisted on riding a pushcart just once, for the sake of the story. I negotiated a price, and he took us to a place called Cha Ca street.

The driver was nice, I guess. We didn't have exact change (mistake), so I needed to get change from the guy to get our agreed upon price. Without speaking any English but "beer" and "friend" and some cute body language, he pleaded for me to let him keep the change (so he could drink beer with his friends). The funny thing is, when I was insisting on getting all my change (because if he gets away with it on me, he's going to be emboldened to try something worse to rip off the next foreigner on his cart), I realized I was using the same voices and faces I used to use in trying to insist my little kiddie students obey my instructions to their fullness.

Wacky. The old guy was a rascal, though, and he made me laugh.

We went into this restaurant and got the best meal of our trip: cha ca fish cakes, fried and prepared with peanuts and some kind of magical sauce. The restaurant is called "Cha Ca La Vong" and they've been in business for about five generations now.

Happy Seyo.


Remember how I said streets in the French Quarter were named after the items sold on that street? Well. . .
If the street you operate on is named after the dish your establishment serves, you're probably doing something right.

Finally, before catching a flight home, Girlfriendoseyo and I decided, spontaneously (and traveling spontaneously is still something GFOseyo is working on), to head up to the North gate of the French Quarter, and take a look at the huge market complex. Buddy, the spontaneous decisions have been the best ones, all the way through these epic journeys.

Now the market was closed, but the north gate was lovely in the dark. Really dark, though: this picture was a four second exposure, just to catch enough light to show you something.

Some kids were letting off fireworks in the empty (New Year's Day, remember?) market parking lot, and we saw this lovely tree on the side of the road.

However, the two highlights of the walkabout were the highway overpass/gate we found at the end of a quiet alley that looked like it should have dead ended instead: it wasn't as fancy as the old market gate, but having it right in the middle of sleepy little residential streets made it really charming.
The clear winner, though, was when I saw a fancy looking gate, and felt prompted to head inside. It was a buddhist temple, and not one of those "six hundred years ago, noblemen prayed to their ancestores here" temples, but one of those "two hours ago, a delivery man paid respects to his dead father right where you're standing now" -- and somehow, that authenticity rings true. What percentage of the visitors to Notre Dame de Paris actually go to worship God? I bet less than 10%. Probably 95% of the people at this place WERE there to call out to Buddha, either for themselves, or on behalf of someone. The garden, and the rooms inside reeked of real devotion, and in a back room, I could hear what sounded like the Buddhist equivalent to one of those bible studies that filled up my teens and early twenties. It was. . . real.

and beautiful. the interior pictures didn't turn out. There were statues in there and stuff, and they were nice, but they weren't impressive: that was kind of the point, really: they DIDN'T wow us; they just created a space for people to call on Buddha. The ornate lamps were covered with plastic protective coverings.
The garden was kept, but a little wild, and there was mildew on all the structures' corners.

Finally, we made our way back to the taxi waiting to bring us back to Korea. At the airport, they warned us. . . take a look. Apparently, I can't bring guns or tripods on the plane. . .

(look just right of center) nor medieval weapons.
Durn.

OK, folks. That was Hanoi, and with that, my epic Winter '08-'09 China/Vietnam Triposeyo is concluded.

Thanks for reading, if anybody still is.

Probably nobody's still reading this. I could say all kinds of stuff and nobody would notice.
Pubic hair. Boobies. Wiener.

See I bet nobody even read that, because the post is so long. You've all tuned out and are just looking at the pictures.

That's OK. Hope you liked'em.

Laters, friends.
Bum bum.
--Roboseyo

Two Things I Like and One Thing I Don't Like

Thing I like one:

These birds, feeding on the rice a dude scattered for them, near the Anguk end of Insadong, and scattering whenever something startled them.



Thing I like two:

These fiber-optic Christmas lights, in Myeongdong, Seoul. I'm bummed that the usual Christmas Lights were not up over Chunggyecheon Stream this year (Girlfriendoseyo said they were cancelled due to the bad economy... I say boo! I didn't notice myself, because I was on vacation in China. [sucka])

Previous years, absent this year:

(Image from Seoulman)

Lights I like, from Myeongdong this year.


Thing I like two point five:
Also: an impressive Christmas Tree I saw in Beijing, where I traveled. (Yeah!)
In front of a Lotte Department Store, on Wangfujing Street (hope I spelled that right).



Finally, something I DON'T like.

I'm looking around Seoul for a really good Spanish paella rice, and as I have learned, when one goes to a Spanish restaurant, one really ought to order the Sangria.

Twenty minutes after the pitcher of Sangria arrived for our party of four, we were left with this.



Rather than rant for two hundred words about it, all I'm gonna say is, I'm not paying for ice, nimrods. I can make that at home.

And that goes to every single place serving me cold drinks, too, all the way from the fancy schmancy Spanish place in Itaewon, to the Starbucks down the street, to the fast-food butt-burger. I want drink, not ice, and that watery no-longer-tastes-like-the-drink-I-ordered spuzz in the bottom of the cup twenty minutes after the drink is served? It might just convince me never to patronize your place again. thanks for listening.


roboseyo out

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Here is a post I wrote last year for advent.

Back then, almost nobody read my blog; it's a long post, but I'm also more proud of this one than most of the other writing on this blog. Thought I'd draw attention to it, now that I have readers other than my grandma.

It was written for a friend's blog, for advent, and it's a bit more personal than the expat musings and pictures of my awesome weekend. . . but it is what it is, and during the holidays, it seems like a good time for reflection. It's about my search for meaning during one of the most difficult times of my life.

Part one:
http://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2007/12/i-wrote-this-for-tamies-blog-but-ill.html

Part two:
http://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2007/12/part-two-advent-of-meaning-at-least-for.html

Ji Man-Won... Korea's Ann Coulter? How To Shoot at Someone Who Outdrew Ya

Post subtitle explained at the end.

Soundtrack: "I'm An Asshole" by Dennis Leary (uhh... warning: some bad words in this song)

so then, to balance out that unrestrained joy-down from the previous post...

Conservative Critic Ji Man-Won, and a bunch of netizens, actually attacked Moon Geun-Young for anonymously donating to various charities.

Add another item to the list of things to call "Korea's X" -- things in Korea that are like more famous things elsewhere.  Korea's Ann Coulter. (picture stolen from The Korean's site, but altered here at Roboseyo)

This goes to prove that many pundits, and (not all, but certainly enough) netizens are dicks.  I've written before about how too many netizens are dicks, and bring the dialogue down to the level of the lowest common denominator, instead of trying to raise their own level.  Here in Korea, where netizens have to use their actual ID numbers, and so the things they say can be traced back to their real identities, even that isn't enough to dissuade them from being duh-icks (read it out loud) online, and pundits will always be jerks if it can make them more famous. (photo stolen from Brian's write-up on the topic, but altered here at Roboseyo.)

Matt from Popular Gusts has a really great write-up about Moon Geun-Young's grandfather (one of the reasons she's being attacked is because he was affiliated with the communist party), and Ji Man-Won, the obnoxious conservative pundit who led the attack on her.  He also directs our attention to Mike Hurt's article, "My Stomach Hurts" where the Metropolitician talks about how envy at others' success brings out the worst in Koreans.  

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Moon Geun-Young, like Tiger Woods before her, when somebody said something stupid and ignorant about him, has responded in the only appropriate way: by remaining silent about the whole fustercluck.  Now she has doubly impressed me as a class act, rising above a whole bunch of ugly with grace.  I might even start liking her TV spots, and forgive her voice for being so. darned. cute.. 

Post subtitle explained: this is a line from the lovely Leonard Cohen song Hallelujah, as sung by John Cale:

"Maybe there's a God above, all I ever learned from love

Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya"

Which is exactly what these petty parasites are doing, for fame, or for release of the frustration at their own unhappy lives, or for the sheer lulz of being a dick anonymously.  They're taking aim at someone who outdrew them, who accomplished more in life, lashing out in spite, rather than taking aim at the kinds of accomplishments that Ms. Moon has been achieving with her success.

To all such netizens, and the pundits who sic them on classy people trying to make their way as best they can:

Go fester.

Now here's something beautiful, to put you (and me) back in a good mood.

The Peak of Suicide Season: A Prayer for Korean Students

Today is the day of the Korean College Entrance Exam.



Last night, I went downtown to see Girlfriendoseyo, and we had a very pleasant night. However, on the way through the winding alleys of Samchungong, we passed the entrance to a high school, and saw a cluster of underclasspersons sitting together, wrapped up in blankets.

You see, every year, High School Seniors take the High School Entrance exam, basically the most important test of their lives. Their score on this exam determines what University they can enter, and which university they attend, in this credential-obssessed society, basically determines your employability for life.

For example, despite all the efforts of the Education ministry to reduce the dominance of the three top universities in Korea (SKY: Seoul National, Korea, Yonsei Universities), 80% of the judges appointed between 2003 and 2008 were SKY graduates: a veritable stranglehold. You would find similar unbalances in most other sectors where power, money, and influence concentrate.

Because of the importance of the exam, students NOT in their senior year gather at the entrances of their high schools to cheer on their seniors, as they enter the school.

Today, roads will be blocked off to eliminate traffic noise around test sites. Airports will even re-arrange flight approach paths, so that airplanes' drone does not distract students in their seats, during the exam. Police wait by subway stations to speedily escort late students from the subway exit to their exam site, to help them arrive on time. High school seniors have been living on four hours of sleep a night for the months leading up to today; some parents even rent their kids a room in a goshiwon -- a cheap hotel -- so that they can study without distraction from their brothers and sisters, or from the TV or internet.

SeoulGlow made this video, interviewing students waiting outside a university's gates, a few years ago.


The dark side of the hope and expectations tied up in this one exam (and it's big: I've asked adults in their 30s, "What would you change about your past, if you had a magic wand?" and one of the most common answers was "I'd study harder in my last year of high school, to get into a better school: eighteen years later, people are STILL looking back at THIS test, as the turning point of their lives), is the depression and despair that comes with the fear of failure.

This article, "On a College Entrance Exam Deathwatch," suggests that probably 200 (mostly teen) suicides a year in Korea are directly connected with anxiety over this test. The stories the writer tells are sometimes shocking.

This is a story about students protesting the exam: they wore masks to hide their identities, because they were afraid they'd be put on some university admissions blacklist if their identities were known. They're just that afraid of not being able to get into a good school. A Korean Teachers' Union actually told their students to cheat as a way of protesting the exam. . . and were rightly called by Brian from Jeollanamdo for putting their students' careers on the line, rather than putting their OWN careers on the line, if they believed so strongly in their cause.

The exam is mostly multiple choice...and soul-killing, and emblematic of a lot of the things I criticize about Korea's culture (I even wrote about it on my "Five Things I'd Change About Korea" post. . . )

So if you know any Korean kids writing the exam, say a prayer today (their moms have been praying eight hours a day for a month now; you can at least spare one or two), and hope that this year, more students choose to skip suicide, and instead do that other awful things underperforming students do, and put their entire life on hold in order to study for ANOTHER year after graduating high school, just to get a better score and get into a better school.

The public school teacher exam was on Sunday, too, so a lot of people's futures are hanging on the results of this week's tests.

(the number of years lost to studying by Koreans taking these once-a-year-exam, including the civil service exam, the bar exam, the public school-teacher exam, and the high school exam, and the number of person-years of lost productivity, as well as the drain on the finances of the parents of these study-monkeys, ought to be calculated, in order for their impact/drag on Korea's economy to be quantified...I'd bet the only thing holding Korea's economy back MORE than all these years of work lost, from some of Korea's brightest people, is the gender empowerment gap.)

Props to Tiger Woods, and why I think people love sports

Soundtrack time: Eye of the Tiger, from Rocky III

by Survivor. Hit play and start reading.

Congrats to Tiger Woods, playing in visible pain (still recovering from knee surgery) to win the U.S. Open (more video after link), in a sudden death playoff: the regular 72 holes weren't enough, the next 18 on the playoff round wasn't enough, on the 91st hole, on a gimpy knee, Tiger finally finished off his upstart rival, Rocco Mediate. This was Tiger's ugliest, but also his most beautiful major. He had so many bogeys and double-bogeys that he got behind during the front nine of just about every round, but then pulled so many beauties like this one out of his hat to catch up again on the back nines:

This, to me, was the shot that won it -- somehow, despite ALL the strokes played, these golf tournaments still seem to turn on some one, unforgettable shot.

It hit the flag and went in.

Tiger has the eye of the tiger (bwahahaha) -- that smell for the jugular, like I've rarely seen (Michael Jordan. . .who else, really? Roger Federer)? He finishes. Period. Wills his knee to hold up, and gives us shots like the one above.

But jeez, Roboseyo, isn't this a Korea blog? I mean, why are you writing about sports?

Actually, while it's often a Korea blog, in the end, it's my blog, so I'll write about what I darn well please. Today, I'm impressed by Mr. Woods.

Some of my friends don't understand why I follow sports and watch highlights, go down to Rocky Mountain Tavern and watch hockey games, care at all about what a bunch of muscleheads get paid gajillions of dollars a year to do. Well, first, they're not ALL muscleheads, but even if they are, who cares? If you want somebody who says clever stuff on video, watch a stand-up comic, not a hockey game. If you want witty words, read me, instead. . . though Steve Nash is funny (wait for it: 42 seconds in)


For one thing:

Sports never asks more of you than you're willing to give. Somehow blogspot ate this part of my post twice, so I'm only giving you the summary now, but believe me, the first two tries were pretty darn funny -- maybe my best writing ever! Seriously!

If I get involved with women's rights, or saving the environment, there might come a point where doing what I feel is right might not be convenient any more -- heck, what if I feel it's my moral imperative to turn into this guy? Sports is the perfect vent for my bottled-up passion, because it will NEVER ask me to go farther than I want -- buying the jersey won't necessarily force me to eventually go in for the season tickets, too. In the meantime, I'm more fun at parties, arguing about Tom Brady vs. Peyton Manning, A-Rod vs. Albert Pujols, and whether I'd want to build my team around Sidney Crosby or Dion Phaneuf, while the "sponsor acres of rainforest. . . think about the children" guy makes everyone feel guilty. That makes sports a perfect partner.

Reason 2:



I remember watching Dwayne Wade score that basket, back in 2005 and thinking "that's it. It's only the semi-finals, but that dude already won the championship, right there." Three weeks later, I was right.

Watching something amazing is sure a lot easier than digging the downers in the rest of the news, and dude, you NEVER KNOW when something brilliant might happen -- you turn on the TV, and you just don't know whether it's going to be a dull, dreary game, or a wild shootout that ends in quadruple overtime, or a no-hitter, or a historic record-setter -- that's the tease of sports. And if you bought tickets, it might just be another workmanlike win, loss, or tie for the home-team. . . but you might see something like Lebron scoring 29 points in a row for his team to break the will of the Detroit Pistons in last year's playoffs:



and be able, for the rest of your life, to say "I was there. I was at King James' Coronation Game." "I saw Babe Ruth's called shot." "I saw Manning to Tyree"
(superbowl 42)


"I saw Willy Mays make 'The Catch'" "I saw Tiger win the 2005 Masters on the 17th hole":



(with apologies to Billy Shakespeare)
And mild-sports-fans in houses now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That cheered with us upon Air Jordan's day.



That tease hooks you in more -- you watch more, to see something like that again. Humans are incredible, and what they can do is incredible, and sports packages that wonderful potential in a way you can see from your couch -- it's hard to gasp in wonder at specs on a new hybrid engine; it's much easier to see "Michael Jordan just jumps higher". (Yes, there are a lot of basketball highlights on here, just because in my opinion, basketball highlights are possibly the most fun to watch on youtube. Hockey's second. Soccer and Golf, (surprisingly), tie for third, and American football and baseball are just a little above car-racing. In my opinion.)

Sports gives us the chance to see something incredible, and to participate along with vast numbers of people seeing the same thing. Plus...
(an old MJ ad)


There are other reasons sports captivate us -- the collective experience is also significant -- I've met nary a Canadian who hasn't watched this game, for example:



You know the one. . .

And sure, there's bad stuff about sports -- it's sad when corruption, doping, or crimes by players dominate sports pages -- but joy this pure, shared with fifty-thousand people (Boston Red Sox vs. New York Yankees, Game 5, David Ortiz's walkoff hit) is hard to find. Twelve years later, anybody who was at that game might still share a giggle of glee, remembering that moment. What else can do that for two total strangers?



More fun than reading alone.

this never happens when you're reading:



(though this might: from Araby - maybe the most perfect short story I've ever read)

We waited to see whether she would remain or go in and, if she remained, we left our shadow and walked up to Mangan's steps resignedly. She was waiting for us, her figure defined by the light from the half-opened door. Her brother always teased her before he obeyed, and I stood by the railings looking at her. Her dress swung as she moved her body, and the soft rope of her hair tossed from side to side.

Back on topic, then:
Finally, sports are hopeful:

Every season, every team has a shot at winning. Unlike in the real world, where America positioning itself during 1900-1950 led to a ridiculous run of world dominance where nobody's had a chance at challenging for fifty years, in sports, in October, every Hockey Team has an equal 0-0-0 record, and (technically) a shot at the championship. This is different from the real world, where a new filmmaker trying to take on Disney, or a new programmer gunning for Microsoft has a ten, fifty, or hundred-game deficit before the first game of the season is even played. That's comforting: there's always next year, you know? Sports are ever-renewing, and that's nice. Even if the Leafs blew last season, they might just turn it around this season. Who can say?

That's why it's fun to watch. Not important. But fun.


(Update: by the way, in case it wasn't impressive enough already, here's an article about just how hurt Tiger was when he played.)