Not the FULL meaning of life, but a good chunk of it, I think.

Finally: yes, it's true. Fall is gasping into winter here in Korea. Last night I chatted with friends, eating sushi, and looked out the window as the wind showered leaves down from the trees onto the street.

Huge floppy leaves streamed into a dark little side street. No picture, but it was sure beautiful. Fall is waning, and the multicoloured leaves are falling fast, to make room for winter's starkness.

(PS: A bald tree in front of a streetlight is a really beautiful thing -- the way the thinnest twigs catch the light in a halo makes me think of spiderwebs.)

Next morning, street looked like this:


Unfortunately, some of those leaf piles concealed restaurants' compost bags, so it was a bit risky to stomp through them, and this pile (and many others) were big enough to conceal a sleeping hobo (who prefer to be left alone, rather than kicked by big kids like me), so I was a little cautious dragging my feet through them and letting the leafy crunchy sound fill my head up with happy-sauce and happy-sense.

I love the vein pattern of these kinds of leaves.


Today is Sunday. I walked with Matt for a good two hours this afternoon, on a riverside, a hill, and a university campus, talking (which was nice) but basically just being out in the middle of fall, letting the wind blow around us, and being alive. Fall in Korea is heaven, I swear. Even in the city, and even more in the country.

Trees are so beautiful. In the words of Annie Dillard: "You are God. You want to make a forest, something to hold the soil, lock up solar energy, and give off oxygen. Wouldn't it be simpler just to rough in a slab of chemicals, a green acre of goo?" Sure glad God decided to go for the glamour and make something really, really, ridiculously good-looking instead. My friend Anna once used the word gratuitous, as in "We have a gratuitous god" and I'd have to say the beauty set into the world around us is absolutely gratuitous -- totally unnecessary! Beauty for beauty's sake alone! Almost shocking to my sensibilities, if I actually think about it, and definitely an apalling degree of overkill -- one tree ought to be enough beauty for any city in its entirety, yet instead, we're just overwhelmed by them, so much that we don't even think twice about cutting down these miracles of beauty and function!

Trees and colours against the sky: here's late fall in Seoul (today was the first properly cold day in Seoul -- gloves instead of pockets, heavy coats instead of layers).


Yet somehow the bamboo trees kept ALL their green.


Next: a path. With colours. I wish you could have been there. The green and red on the path is recycled car tires or something -- it makes the surface very pleasant and springy for walking or jogging.


Certain trees' leaves curl up like a hand when the cold gets to them. It's a bit hard to see this one, but imagine an entire tree where instead of falling, the leaves have curled up into fists -- not unlike some people who curl themselves up in the cold (instead of just going inside). Almost like Christmas tree ornaments.


This was a little tree grove in Kyunghee university: every leaf colour imaginable was somewhere in the grove, layered above and below the other colours. The leaves hadn't been swept up or rained upon, so they gave a really nice crunch underfoot. Matt and I lay down on our backs and stared up at the layers of leaf-colours and bare branches.


Like this. There were a few hundred birds in the grove, pipping and singing away, and the people walking by gave the ground a rustle. The sun was just low enough in the sky to come in from the side, and it was as if the sunlight plugged the colours in, threw a switch and set them blazing.



This (below) was the view from on our backs, looking up at the leaves. The sun and the leaves and the breeze and the birds joined together in an act either of love or of worship (or maybe both, if that's not too blasphemous or superlative for you). It was cold enough to see our breath, and every direction had a different mix of colours. The picture is two dimensional so it's hard to see how the leaves were layered one above the other, but I tell you, the rocks and trees were singing today.


After five or ten minutes (or maybe it was thirty seconds, or maybe it was five days -- it doesn't matter) Matt stood up and said to me, "Congratulations. You have taken part in a perfect moment in time." And he couldn't have been more right if a voice from the sky had spoken along with him, and then a mysterious hand had materialized and given him a high-five.

I can't find the exact quote, but I came across a spot where Steven Hawking said something to the effect that, of all the possible universes that could have existed, isn't it interesting that the one we live in, the one that DID come about, was one that contained creatures who could contemplate it, and wonder at it. Whether this leads us to proof of some creator or not, the fact remains, the universe constantly screams out "HERE I AM! BE AMAZED!", and we, humans, are lucky enough to have the capacity to do exactly that, and from there, even to search for a meaning to it all. Thank God! Framed in religious terms, the entire world was worshipping God today, and calling all the people in Seoul to worship with it. It was absolutely transcendental, and yet also absolutely embodied, rooted in the Here and Now of creation, and I don't know if there needs to be any more meaning to an autumn day than "Autumn is beautiful" and "Here I am! Be amazed!".

Here it is. Be amazed.



The earth is visible in this picture of Saturn.







And look at this one again, too. Just soak it in. It's as beautiful as a liturgy. . . I don't know if the picture is, but the moment sure was.

A chapel is a beautiful place to worship, sometimes (I'm thinking of those cathedrals that create a space of holiness by their mere design). . . but when God builds a place of worship, it's never exactly the same for two days in a row, and that says something.


Sometimes I think that's enough meaning for life -- just that it's so darn full of beauty. Some stories have no real meaning except "here's a great story" and some autumn days are the same, and seeing that, and accepting and enjoying it for exactly what it is: breathtaking beauty -- is an act of worship to whichever deity one chooses to credit. I'm glad I'm alive! Thanks, God, for giving me senses!



Other stuff:

The trivial:

how many song references can you spot/recognize in this chart?

It's Autumn in Korea. . . hang in there and I'll tell you about it. If you remember Josh Barkey from university, here's his blog, and a post that I really enjoyed -- a cool perspective on sin, if you will.

Some pictures, just to increase the tease.

In a city as crowded as Seoul, sometimes parking solutions get creative.


From a hostess bar: white fetish, schoolgirl fetish, the name of the bar (if you can't see it) is "better than beer". Matt and I decided there were probably no white girls OR school uniforms on the premises. . . and it wouldn't take much for it to be better than beer anyway, given the quality of Korea's local brews. Won't find me in there checking, though.


A little konglish

Combing through. . .

I've decided, in a similar spirit to people choosing to read their old diaries, and see what insights/points/issues defined them at some past time, and maybe even re-collecting something that nearly got lost in the shuffle (what if I had some great insight that I set aside because I was too busy with X, Y, Z, or Giraffe, and never got back to it, to think more on the topic? What if I never properly incorporated some event into What I Learned This Year?)

So, I'm digging through my old e-mails, especially the ones between me and my dear friends Ma, Me, Ta, and EJ, who corresponded me during the time Mom was sick, and also the year after that, as I grieved Mom and Exgirfriendoseyo. It's been interesting, but it's going to take a lot of boiling down. I want to create something -- some kid of testament to loss and grief and connection and sorrow and vulnerability and disillusion -- but I won't know what kind of shape that might take until I've been through it all. There are literally hundreds of pages to go through, trimming the fat and digging through the peripherals to the heart of things, but I think what I'll have at the end of it will be quite valuable.

You may get some scraps here on the blog of some of that stuff, but some of it might need to go in some other place.

Do YOU ever read your old diaries?

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.

I'm really just adding to the cycle.

When people get their news from the internet, with its 24 hour coverage, things get silly, with journalists clamouring for column inches on the relevant topics.

My favourite example of this phenomenon is the meta-column. This actually makes me think back to my University days, and the idea of primary and secondary texts.


Here's how the ladder goes:

Top:
Primary texts, like "Hamlet" by William Shakespeare.

Secondary texts, like "A Structural Analysis of the Dialogues Between Hamlet and Ophelia" by Dr. Hoight D. Toity

Tertiary texts, like "A Critique of Dr. H.D. Toity's Structural Analysis of the Dialogues Between Hamlet and Ophelia" by Dr. Ivy ReTower

and possibly, if the controversy gets heated enough:

a Quaternary text, like "The Flawed Reasoning in Drs. H.D. Toity and Ivy ReTower's Analyses of Dialogues Between Hamlet and Ophelia: A New Perspective" by Dr. P. Arasite. (aka: I couldn't think of an original article, but I need to publish to stay on the tenure track)

And so it goes. I don't know if you ever reach bottom in this kind of self-reflexive cannibalism.


The crazy thing is, these days, the same self-reflexive feeding is happening in the news. I like to call this meta-news. Meta-news is news that comments on news -- rather than discussing world events, you discuss news coverage of world events, the method, emphasis, responsibility, integrity of such.

Think about it:

Primary news: "Paris Hilton (or Michael Jackson, or Lindsey Lohan, Britney Spears, Tom Cruise, Mike Tyson, or whoever the latest pop-culture whipping person is) Does Something Disgusting but Not Altogether Surprising." by Associated Tabloid Press.

In a move that disappointed thousands of loyal fans, _______ committed a shocking act of ________ in a ___________ last night, in an incident that lasted __________ until ________ showed up and calmed everything down.

(Sometimes the real headline here is "Hey Everybody! Look Over Here And Get Distracted From The Mess We've Made In The Middle-East By Wasting Your Attention on Useless Crap!" by the G.W. Bush Administration and Fox News.

Hey Everybody! Look over here! She has blonde hair! Blonde hair! You like blonde hair! Your sons and cousins are dying in a needless war, and we're only just beginning -- the Iran scheme is already in the preparation stage -- but THIS GIRL IS FAMOUS, and she has a little dog with pink ears and Blonde Hair! She was in a sex video once and she has blonde hair! Look at her! She's rich and reckless with blonde hair! Grab your ankles while we stomp on your freedoms because she has BLONDE HAIR!!!!!)

The next wave:

Meta-news as analysis: "A Publicist Discusses the Implications of This Latest Non-Scandal" by Headlin G. Rabber.

It seems nobody is advising her on managing her image. She's obviously addicted to flashing cameras. If I were her publicist I'd say she. . . but doesn't her blonde hair look great!


Meta-news as commentary: "Why Are We Paying So Much Attention to Such A Waste of Copy?" by M. Oral Soapboxer

This isn't news! I can't BELIEVE so many people are reporting on this! What a society of clowns and hypocrites we are when we think THIS is important! Pay no attention to the irony in the fact I am adding to the coverage on her, by criticising it.

Look at this. Ahh, grandstanding. The sweet sweet smell of righteous outrage on national television!




Next: Meta-meta news: "Columnists Grabbing For Column Space by Claiming To Be Above It All are Phoneys!"

Don't even click on the link everybody. Don't even read the article. Let MY article be the last one you read on the topic. The only way we can make her go away is to ignore her. And read my article. And send it to your friends. Just click on the e-mail to your friends button, and the press agency sends me a thousandth of a penny. They add up. Really.

and finally, Meta-meta-meta news: Old Roboseyo

What a farce this is. I can't believe I clicked on the link, too. I can't believe I'm putting it on my blog.
Yes, even adbusters etc. is part of the cycle when they criticise it.

What's to be done? Our lives are filling up with useless information. How do we get back to caring about what's important, and getting others to care, too? Seriously, all it takes for us to stop thinking about Blackwater, Guantanamo, Pakistan and Myanmar, is for Paris Hilton to climb out of a car without wearing panties. . . AGAIN? THIS, and we settle back into our duoback chairs and forget about writing letters, attending protests, and storming the lawns of our leaders to get things sorted out?

I don't even know what to say, except that when I think about it too much, I think that if there's real estate for sale on Mars, I'd think about going.

the Korean saying for being too stuck in your own perspective, your own point of view, your own comfort zone, so that you can't think outside the box, and can't think accurately anymore, is "A Frog in a Well"

So how do we get out, and get angry, and actually do something?

leave a meta-meta-meta-meta comment if you like.

Moral Authority and Soft Power, or Nobody Listens When the Pot Calls the Kettle Black, part 2

Here's another example, one that cuts both ways, from where I see it.

(Leading in:) After World War II, the US came clean on the Japanese internment camps they'd run, made reparations, made a public, official apology, and so made it possible to start healing. Germany did the same in Europe regarding the holocaust, making it possible to normalize relations between them and the other countries of the EU.

Over in East Asia, though, relationships between Japan, China and Korea are strained these days because Japanese history books and politicians are smoothing over, or flatly denying a pair of disgusting blots on Japan's wartime history. There was a huge civilian massacre in Nanking during the war, the seriousness, and the very veracity of which Japan has disputed, and Japanese soldiers also kidnapped hundreds or maybe thousands of young women out of their villages in the territories they occupied during the war (Korea, China, Indonesia, etc.), housed them outside the soldiers' camps, and basically forced them to be sex slaves for the duration of the war. They were euphemistically called "comfort women" because that sounds better than "sex slaves" or "rape-bunnies". Japan's politicians have been saying that these women went voluntarily, or that they were amply compensated. Nationalist Japanese politicians are grumbling "I'm about fed up with being asked to apologize" when nobody's ever owned up to it specifically, and Japanese history textbooks have been de-emphasizing or trivializing such events. The Japanese emperor made a number of blanket apologies and such after the war, but Japan has refused to make the kinds of reparations and official statements necessary to allow China and Korea to move on . . . and when they HAVE made apologies, they've often been loaded with vague words, and evasive qualifiers, not ratified by any official bodies, or (former Prime Minister Koizumi caught a lot of flack for this) immediately after apologizing, the apologizers went and paid respects at a war memorial that honoured, among the others, dead war criminals.

At the same time as it refuses to come clean on its own war atrocities, Japan is campaigning to become a permanent member of the U.N. security council. Is there something wrong with this picture? Could anyone seriously trust Japan in concerns of world stability when it won't even play straight with its own history?

Michael Honda is the American politician who led a resolution through congress formally urging Japan to come clean, and he says, among other things (read the article) that "If you want to be a global leader, you have to first gain the trust and confidence of your neighbors."

Here's one article about Japan's comfort women history.

Here are some pictures of former comfort womenI saw in a display outside Seoul's City Hall about the comfort women. Many of them were ostracized as "damaged goods" when they came back to Korea, and never married.


This next one especially breaks my heart because her face reminds me of my mom. It could have been anyone's mother -- that's the shocking thing about it.


Here's a painting that expresses the terror and degradation pretty clearly.



And here's the article about Michael Honda.

On the other hand, Korea has its own problems with moral authority: Koreans cry for an apology and compensation to the surviving comfort women (and their numbers are dwindling as many pass on from old age). It's a shame that Korea waited so long to begin campaigning for their vindication (the comfort women issue was hidden like a shameful secret until the 1990s), but the Korean agitation for an apology is toothless, in my opinion.

You see, the Korean government's refusal to enforce their own laws against prostitution cut Korea's protests to Japan off at the knees. How can Korea claim any moral authority, how can their criticism that Japanese soldeirs violated these young women's basic human dignity hold any water, when it's still common for Korean businessmen to visit "business clubs" and "massage parlours" and "barber shops" where the services for sale degrade the women forced to work there? Sure, there isn't a gun to these women's heads, but it doesn't wash for Korea to demand recompense for women who were degraded in the past, when Korea today STILL degrades their own women through the sex industry, and even the government turns a blind eye to it (after passing some token laws to divert international criticism).

Some links about prostitution in Korea from a site that translates articles in Korean newspapers.

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South Korean movers and shakers also find themselves suddenly looking at the floor, afraid to confront anyone about anything, when faced with topics like this.

It's common here for Russian or Indonesian or Philippino women to come to Korea to work in the lucrative sex trade: travelling to Korea and selling herself for a year will bring a woman enough profit to support her family back home for two more years! The "entertainment" districts are well known in Seoul (Mia, Chongnyangni, Yongsan, there was one in Bangi-dong where I lived before; there are many more), and range from places where you can pay for a woman to simply entertain you (a little like a geisha in Japan - she'll sing and converse and pour your drinks), to (in and) outright brothels. Though it's getting better in recent years, it's common enough that a few years ago, there was actually a campaign where an organization was handing out free movie tickets as an alternative to bosses taking their employees to "business clubs" for their Christmas bonuses. It's never spoken in polite company, but a student told me (and the male student who'd completed his military service turned red, but didn't deny) that when a Korean man is about to begin his military service, a common initiation custom is for his friends, or his senior soldiers, to take him to a brothel, if he's still a virgin, and make sure he loses his cherry before he goes out defending his country! Korea's stand on comfort women doesn't wash to me, because their own record for defending the human dignity of women over in Chongnyangni is pretty poor, while Japan's petition to become a permanent member of the security council rings hollow, too, because of their denial of the past.

All this is not to say that the speaker's character is the ONLY concern in discourse -- the fact Nietsche died in an asylum doesn't mean his ideas aren't worth serious consideration, and the fact some particular writer/poet/politician/artist was gay/a pedophile/rude/a plagiarist doesn't mean we can ignore their ideas completely (the ad hominem attack is an ancient, and petty trick). Shakespeare's sexual orientation has no effect on his genius, and more than a big nose would have!

But in certain arenas, especially those on a national and international scale, where practical action is required, and where a lot of people are affected by movers' and shakers' opinions and decisions, and especially in cases where the people effected by those decisions have little or no power, or voice, or wealth, I think one DOES need to look at the entirety of a group's choices and decisions, sniffing around for ulterior motives, in order to lend them credence. If Nike is planting trees to make up its carbon debt, that's good, but they're STILL running sweat shops in Cambodia. Megaphones and mufflers! I wrote in one of my notebooks in highschool (I'm not sure if I stole this from somewhere or not, but. . . ) "Our words show what we want to be; our actions show what we are."


What say you?

Moral Authority and Soft Power, or Nobody Listens When the Pot Calls the Kettle Black, part 1

So I've been thinking lately about different kinds of power and influence.

There's a theory of diplomacy that says there are three ways to influence people: hard power, financial power, and soft power. We might also call them sticks, carrots and models. Here's how it works.

If I want you to do something, here are my possible methods:

The Hard Power Way: I threaten to hit you with a stick. Obey me, or you will SUFFER! Internationally, this means military power.

The Financial Power Way: I offer you a carrot -- think of a donkey pulling a cart in order to reach the carrot dangled in front of its nose. If you do what I ask, I'll make it worth your while! Internationally, think of aid, lifting sanctions, lower trade tariffs, free trade agreements, opening doors for investment. This is certainly a more positive kind of power than hard power.

The Soft Power Way: I model the behaviour I'd like to see you try, and hopefully my way helps ME so much that you try it too, in hopes that it'll help YOU, too. Think of how many more people a cheerful, kind, peaceful monk will attract to his religion than a prosletyzer with a big sign saying "No Jesus: Hell!" (to say nothing of a suicide bomber). I want to get my marriage advice from an insanely happily married counsellor, not from one going through her third divorce.

This kind of soft power has no relationship to my ability to punish or reward you -- the richest countries are not necessarily the ones with the most soft power (other than in their economic infrastructure).

Countries like Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and Canada regularly top worldwide lists of the top places to live, because of education, health care, social support and diplomacy, so when Canada's prime minister, Stephen Harper criticizes China's human rights track record, people listen a lot more carefully than if, say, your friendly South American despot does. Maybe the best measure of a country's soft power is simply this: how would it go if you backpacked around the world with their flag on your t-shirt, and what kind of conversations would it bring about?

The strongest kind of soft power, I think (is strong soft power a contradiction in terms?) is moral authority -- I've been thinking a lot about moral authority. Fact is, in the arena of moral choices and exercising of power (particularly where one's power effects the basically powerless), your actions act as a megaphone or a muffler for your words. Being a leader and/or taking a stand puts one under a microscope, and it ought to, I think. So, when Mrs. Bush phones world leaders about the urgent human rights situation in Burma, all it does to me is highlight the fact her husband has no leg to stand on when it comes to a question of human rights violations, and if he took a posture against the Burmese junta, he'd be laughed right off his high horse (Guantanamo, Abu Gharib, etc.)

I had some interesting conversations in my classes about the American multinational companies that run sweatshops in China and South Asia -- I asked the question, "Does a company have a responsibility toward the community where it operates?" and if the company, with lots of money and power, doesn't protect and help its employees living on barely-sustenance wages, who will?

I talked about the hypocrisy of Nike projecting an image of empowerment when their shoes are manufactured in sweat-shops where women (along with men) work in ugly, ugly conditions these links are outdated, and I can't tell whether it's because Nike has made positive progress to improving conditions, or because their lobbyists are doing a better job of burying such stories before they get to the papers. Anybody have anything more current than these articles?

Think about how much credibility the Catholic Church lost in America when the pedophilia/cover-up scandal broke, or Senator Larry Craig flushing his reputation in a men's room. On the other hand, when Bill Gates created the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, he set an example for the rich and powerful that really shames guys like the CEO of Samsung (Korea's largest conglomerate) who's catching heat now in a bribery scandal/coverup. Al Gore should have gotten rid of his private jet before he made "An Inconvenient Truth" -- sure, he was buying carbon credits, sponsoring woodlands in India or wherever, but why not protect the rain-forest AND get rid of your private jet, if you're throwing down in the environmental arena, anyway?

Interests can also act as a megaphone or a muffler.
Canada criticized China's human rights record officially, despite any consequences it might have on Canada's economic relationship with the world's fastest growing market.

Meanwhile, nobody buys it anymore when G.W. Bush talks about bringing freedom INTO Iraq, because his interests reveal that he cares more about getting oil OUT of Iraq -- if it were actually about freedom, he would have gone after Robert Mugabe, too; if it were actually about WMDs, he would have dislodged Kim Jong-Il in North Korea before he aimed his big guns at Sadaam.

Names like Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., and Ghandi STILL carry influence, far out of proportion with the ACTUAL power they had, because they spoke moral truth to power.

Stay tuned for Moral Authority and Soft Power, part two: indeterminate bat-time, same bat-channel!

Help me, help me, he-he-he-he-he-help me!

This is number one in Korea right now, or close.

The girls are high school age, and all I'll say is. . .

if Simon Cowell saw this, and was then told they were number one in Korea, the universe would probably explode.

Tell Me by the Wonder Girls. Listen to the quality of their vocals (at least we know it's not lip-synching, another common occurrence here), and the choreography (I think they invented the dance craze -- and it IS becoming a dance craze here -- at a slumber party).



David Hasselhoff likes them.



Here are some girls of a little higher caliber. Not sure about their vocal chops, but I'd take them over the Wonder Girls.




Yeah. It's a good thing Cowell and his cronies aren't over here in Korea making all the pop stars cry like this dude did: It'd be full-on K-pop-calypse!



anyway, imagine walking by that first song, playing out of 30% of the shops at any given time, every day on the way home from work. Like, EVERY day. (see title again)

Pictures from Chiak mountain and a few extras.

First of all: This is Creased Comics. Some web comics are obscure, or weird, or gross, or occasionally crass, and I won't guarantee this one is ALWAYS on the up and up. . . but sometimes it gives you something so unexpected and at right angles to reality, that it just cracks a fella up.


For a web comic that's ALWAYS clean, and actually, really profound, try this one instead. It's a little nostalgic sometimes, but often it gives a really profound metaphor for the way some people see the world. It's hopeful, instead of just weird.


Littering cigarette butts is against the law in downtown Seoul now -- fifty dollar fine! To create a culture of "not littering" here in Seoul (will take a lot of work, but ) the mayor's put up little butt stations around Jongno. They're interesting, because they just curl smoke all the time. It's kind of pretty, actually, as long as you stand upwind.


Problem is, to discourage littering, the mayor also, counterintuitively, took all the public garbage cans out of downtown Seoul: "People are supposed to use the trash service in the residential areas, where they pay for special garbage bags to help fund the garbage truck fleet" . . except that instead of taking their trash home like the mayor expected, and putting it in a proper garbage bag like good, civil minded people, Seoulites are throwing it on the ground instead! Didn't see that coming! Or, here, near a street food stand, an ashtray has been adapted for another use.

I guess I admire that the mayor really did hope the best about people, rather than automatically assuming the worst, but . . . it's time to get litter off the streets.



That makes me laugh.



This is beautiful, though. Last weekend was the perfect time to climb a mountain in Korea and catch the fall colours. These are beautiful -- Chiak mountain is an hour train ride out of Seoul, and it's just goldurn beautiful. Difficult (the trails aren't as carefully maintained as the mountains in Seoul, and a bit cragged) but amazing.

We climbed up alongside a stream for a long ways.

At the peak were these kinds of towers; many mountaintops here feature big piles like this where, in ancient times, before cellphones, people communicated important news about the country back and forth using smoke signals. Think of the scene in Lord Of The Rings where the fire beacon is lit.



That's what these are for. Except in real life, violins wouldn't play.



A lot of the trees were already bare, so you can really see the shapes of the mountains -- tracing the ridgelines, the shadows of treebranches catching the sun.










At the bottom of the mountain was a temple.

Every Buddhist temple entrance in Korea (or at least most) is guarded by these four dudes. They're cool.




Also: look at the intricate detail work on the ceiling, and the lattices that support the ceiling -- the care and beauty just knocks me over. It makes me wish I'd gone to a Catholic cathedral while I grew up, and got to worship God surrounded by stained glass windows all my childhood, instead of protestant churches, which are relatively utilitarian.



I already posted this picture, but the episode with the bird was so cool I'm posting it again.


Finally, STOP THE PRESSES! it's a national emergency. . . THIS, this, THIS! makes headline -- FRONT PAGE news in Korea.

Gimchi/Kimchi is the ultimate Korean side dish -- it comes with literally, every meal. It's cabbage pickled in vinegar with garlic and hot chili sauce and a few other ingredients, according to the family recipy. It's an acquired taste, but once acquired, absolutely addictive. Kimchi in a Korean restaurant is like music in a coffee shop: if it's bad, I won't go back; if it's good, I'll probably return, especially if it has something else going for it, too.


They forget that 35% still can. . . and that young Koreans don't want to learn how to make Kimchi with their moms because the pressure to excel in school is so great that taking an entire weekend away from studying is unthinkable (and making kimchi IS a whole-weekend-long process). It actually IS a shame, because there are a lot of unique family kimchi recipes that are getting lost in the past as kids move to the city and get office jobs where they couldn't be bothered to learn how to make kimchi anymore, but even so, if I learned that Canadian men were losing the skill of backyard barbeque, I'd put that on page six, not page one: there are much worse threats to Korea's heritage and history (brand name invasions, all-consuming study binges and the test culture, mass urbanization) than the fact women are forgetting how to make Kimchi (funny, too, how it's never mentioned that 99% of MEN can't make kimchi.)


I'm well.

Gotta shower now.

Love you all
Bye
Rob

Chiak Mountain is hard.

I climbed Chiak Mountain in Korea, and it was hard. Two days later my legs still hurt. Matt and I climbed it together, climbed down, and at the most AMAZING bibimbap I think I've ever had.

Anyway, here's a picture -- Matt and I were eating cashews at the peak, and a bird came by, checking us out, and we broke up a few cashews and held them out, and here came chickadee orange, to store something away for the winter.

Feeding a wild animal is SO cool. (Just stick with birds -- not bears.)



More pictures later. Classes now. My schedule stinks this month.