My computer crapped out, so I'm doing this on the work computer. I'll add details, amend, edit, and polish this when I have a chance. For now: pictures! Official estimates vary from 60 000 people (bull) to 400 000 (maybe a bit high) people showed up. The candlelit rally in Gwanghwamun: (In roughly chronological order.)
Freight containers blocked off the main road. This is where water cannons were used before, and I think where one riot bus was dragged away from the frontline and trashed completely by protesters. Last night's protest was blessedly nonviolent (though noisy -- even from my apartment).1987 was the last bout of pro-democracy protests in Korea; they toppled the Chun Doo-hwan dictatorship; people are comparing Korea's current president to Chun Doo-hwan. . .but they have the freedom to compare him to Chun Doo-Hwan without having their names put on a list, and cars parking outside their houses, watching.
lot of people came. there's the famous lee sunshin statue. Better photo here.The corner store nearest the protest epicentre: they know what's what, and there's money to be made. Buy your protest gear here! Right next to the barricade, still out to make a buck. I love Korea! People sitting in circles. It felt like a street festival. Really. This guy brought his kids. The storage containers are five across, two high, and two deep, greased for difficult climbing. My favourite poster of the night. Suddenly, they all started walking. Right at me. A taekwondo demonstration. This is candle girl, the unofficial mascot of the beef protests. this guy was having a smoke: take a break from protesting (the mere, however-slim possibility of) mad-cow-infected beef, which has killed about 200 people worldwide in all medical history, to puff on a cigarette, which kills thousands a year, in Korea alone. (In 2000, 29.8 people per 100 000 died of lung cancer.) it sounds like a pun on "ambitious" if you read "MB Shuts" out loud; MB means "myung-bak" or "Lee Myungbak", Korea's president. The Korean below says "boys: tell Lee Myungbak to shut up." Basically, it makes no sense. There's admiral lee again. Many people.
wait a minute. . . this movie's been in Korea for about two months, but is still waiting for its North American release. . . what an interesting thing, to be both after the fact and before the fact at the same time.
Movie #1: Taken
Taken is a movie where a retired secret service agent's daughter gets kidnapped in France, and he pulls out all the stops, leaving a trail of death and destruction, to rescue her from the Algerian human traffickers who meant to sell her into slavery. If you care that I gave away the ending, you aren't the kind of watcher who enjoys this kind of movie anyway, because it's not a movie for the plot-twist surprise-ending clever story-line unexpected-revelation crew (go watch The Usual Suspects again, instead, or Oceans' Eleven, or even Fight Club).
This is a movie for people who like to see shit get blew up good (sorry: is that blowed up? I always get my dick-flick diction confused), this picture is for you. Giving away the ending of this film doesn't really matter much, just as long as shit still gets blowed up. Basically, take Die Hard, take out Bruce Willis, and put in a salt-and-pepper-haired Jason Bourne with an absentee father complex instead of amnesia, and you'd have Taken.
While Liam Neeson may be a bit past his Rob Ray/Schindler's List/Best Thing About Star Wars Episode 1 heyday, he still has the gravitas to sell a film, and maybe even to make it better than it should be (cf: Star Wars). Who's to say how Taken'll do in North America? Regardless, it's been surprisingly successful in Korea, for reasons that elude me: it's no better or worse than other action movies that usually last three or four weeks in the cinemas, but this one has been around for a good two months, now.
There are three levels on which the movie works, and this is interesting.
First of all, as a movie you can watch to see shit get blowed up reeeeal good, it is a wild success. While not written or filmed with as much wit and style as Kill Bill I, the action is nearly as non-stop, the plot is linear enough not to confuse any mouth-breathers in the crowd, and the body count is bloody high (pun intended). The fighting sequences are gritty and real (especially the hand-combat stuff, which is almost as impressive as the stuff in The Bourne trilogy, which I think had the best non Kung-fu movie hand-combat ever) Liam Neeson is convincing as the penultimate aging asskicker -- not quite Bill Munny from Unforgiven, but not too far off, either. He's now on the shortlist of candidates to play Batman if they ever decide to put The Dark Night Returns (the greatest Batman story, and maybe the greatest graphic novel outright) on screen.
On the second level, it plays as a morality tale, and it's abysmal: manipulative, lurid and kind of cruel. A man's daughter sneaks away on a tour of Europe under false pretenses, and as punishment for disobeying her father, she gets kidnapped and nearly has her virginity auctioned off to a rich oil shiek, but fortunately, her patriarchal protector happens to be a papa bear as vengeful as Wyatt Erp in Tombstone. This reading of the movie is xenophobic (the darker-skinned Algerian kidnappers: illegal immigrants in a foreign country, to stack evil upon evil for all the adventureless homebodies who never felt wanderlust, or who want the wanderlust to be scared out of their sons and especially daughters). The movie is sexist: the females in the movie are all passive: the ex-wife is now a trophy-wife, and a manipulating bitch, and all the other females are kidnapping victims strung out on drugs and chained to beds to be sold as whores, for the sin of travelling alone. It belittles women, especially the daughter, who is sixteen, played by about a twenty-four year-old, acts fourteen, and dresses as if she were seven, in polka-dot one-pieces. The big bad world is full of big bad dark-skinned baddies who want to kidnap and rape you if you dare wish to see the world. . . better to stay home in your drawing room and cultivate more feminine arts like drawing, needlepoint, conversation, and swooning.
In fact, the reason I saw it at all is because Girlfriendoseyo's friend recommended it to her. . . after the movie it occurred to Girlfriendoseyo that this very friend is the same one who disapproves of her wish to travel and her love of walking around her neighbourhood alone at night, for fear of rapists and organ harvesting kidnappers (I kid you not). She'd sent her friend to see Taken to have the wanderlust frightened out of her. This read of the movie is cruel, brutal, ugly, xenophobic, and would have us all glance at darker-skinned people with suspicion, suspect government officials of corruption, and never vacation farther than the nearest beach, because we all know that rapists and creeps live in some other town and not here.
I'm not sure which of these reads is the one that appeals to Korean viewers so much: the movie's still playing here in Korea, after two full months -- a surprisingly long run.
The third read of the movie didn't come out until about halfway through, and it was interesting. See, there's this torture scene halfway through, where papa bear needs to get some information (I think it's a name), in order to move to the next notch on the "rising action" plotline arc. Pardon the graphic description, but at least you didn't have to see it: he does it by tying his prisoner to a chair, jamming iron spikes into his thighs, attaching jumper cables to the spikes, and connecting the cables with the light switch in the room. He comments casually how the power grid in France is excellent, so the supply of electricity will never falter and ruin the rhythm of the interrogation. . . isn't that nice! Much better than messing about with extreme rendition, outsourcing torture to Syria or something, where the infrastructure isn't as reliable. The torture scene ends with papa bear getting the information he needs, turning the power supply on, and leaving his prisoner anyway, to die of electrocution/pain/thirst - whichever comes first; he doesn't really care. Now here's what that scene accomplished:
2. it was disgusting. It really was. It was shocking and brutal and the way the tortur-ee acted stirred up real pathos: yeah, he did bad things, but. . . to be treated like this?
3. That fact -- the fact I was disturbed by this torture scene, pointed out to me the fact that, up until that point, I had basically written Papa Bear a moral blank check to act however he wanted, because he was a retired special agent looking for his daughter. All it took for the filmmakers, was to play the family card -- the papa bear ploy, if you will, and suddenly (as in Kill Bill, with the elemental "revenge" narrative) we moviegoers happily suspend all moral judgment, and justify any behaviour, because he's doing it for his family. . . given the ability and the circumstances, wouldn't you do the same? Later in the movie, he goes into someone's house, threatens his family, shoots his wife in the shoulder, and threatens to finish her off, if he doesn't tell him where to find the traffickers. Violating someone else's family, to defend his own family? So what if the other guy's a creep -- Papa Bear's lost any moral high ground, any hero cachet he once had. Now he's just the merciless avenger -- the Man With No Name from Clint Eastwood's old trilogy, ready to kill for money, for pride, or just because I'm Clint Eastwood, who the hell are you?
(badass quote of the day: from Unforgiven: "That's right. I've killed women and children. I've killed just about everything that walks or crawled at one time or another. And I'm here to kill you, Little Bill, for what you did to Ned.")
and finally, once I'd had that realization, back to point two. . .
4. It wasn't OK to give him a free pass. So what if he's doing it for his family. Does that final scene where he rescues his daughter from the dark-skinned baddies and their lupine-faced, morbidly obese boss, justify the fifty or seventy people he killed? No, it doesn't. Curb-stomping fifty other people, often brutally, to save the virginal daughter isn't inherently OK, even if his daughter is really great and pretty and innocent. Papa Bear's methods sapped whatever moral authority he had at first, and his short time-frame (ninety-six hours from kidnapping to losing his chance to recover his daughter) didn't justify it; what he did was still shocking and cruel.
By the way: (Another great exploration of moral authority is Spielberg's movie "Munich," which gave an honest and complex enough look at the terror/counterterror, "you kill my guy, I kill yours" war of retribution Israel fights against its enemies, that Spielberg was criticized for being both too pro-Israel AND too pro-Palestine [and then criticized again by those who thought the movie suffered because he didn't take a side]...a paradox interesting enough to make me want to see the movie.)
So, in the end, the reunion between father and daughter was unsatisfying to me, because the means had gone so far beyond the pale, that the end was hollow. Now, maybe I was looking too far into this one, and maybe I'm giving Luc Besson too much credit, but regardless, that's what I got out of the movie.
And so, masked in this shoot-em up kicker, and a cloying morality tale, by the mere fact it goes beyond what we're willing to forgive under the Papa-Bear clause, back again into the realm of the disgusting and shocking, and highlighted by the brief discussion of American torture methods, is an interesting critique of the U.S. "better your children than ours"/"security by any, and we mean any means necessary" foreign and domestic security policies, wherein it's OK for Iraq to live in a police state, and for Iraqi kids to be afraid to walk to school, so long as American kids can feel safe when THEY walk to school, because the rest of the world (or at least those looking to stir up trouble in the rest of the world) looks at the mess in Iraq and goes "Holy hell! That's how far they'll go if we piss them off. Let's try to bully England instead: those crazy Yankees are NOT to be F*CKED with!"
A pertinent quote:
"Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business."
- Michael Ledeen, holder of the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute
Interesting movie, though. Much more thought provoking than I thought it would be. And yeah, I've been told I think too much before. Why do you ask?
P.S.: Liam Neeson's most badass scene, from Rob Ray: arguably the best film sword fight ever, certainly the best since The Princess Bride. (and mercy me, I remember absolutely despising the bad guy in this movie) -- is the correct term "badassitude" or "badassery"? Anyway, in case you ever doubted Liam Neeson's badass. . . ness, here you go.
and from The Princess Bride (did you know in the screenplay, it actually says, "And what we are starting now is one of the two greatest sword fights in modern movies (the other one happens later on)..."
. . . more discussion of the "greatest cinematic sword fights" topic here.
Other Nominees:
Kill Bill 1
Highlander
Star Wars, Episodes 1, 3, 5, and 6
Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
Only a person who's been truly alive could compose this.
(embarrassing update: Anonymous, who seems to be visiting my blog a lot lately, has informed me that this is a prose poem by Charles Bukowski) I've never been much of a Bukowski fan, but the way this one is delivered is really lovely.
the text:
Not much chance, completely cut loose from purpose,
he was a young man riding a bus through North Carolina on the way to somewhere.
And it began to snow.
And the bus stopped at a little cafe in the hills and the passengers entered.
And he sat at the counter with the others, and he ordered, the food arrived.
And the meal was particularly good.
And the coffee.
The waitress was unlike the women he had known.
She was unaffected, and there was a natural humor which came from her.
And the fry cook said crazy things.
And the dishwasher in back laughed a good clean pleasant laugh.
And the young man watched the snow through the window.
And he wanted to stay in that cafe forever.
The curious feeling swam through him that everything was beautiful there.
And it would always stay beautiful there.
And then the bus driver told the passengers that it was time to board.
And the young man thought: "I'll just stay here, I'll just stay here."
And then he rose and he followed the others into the bus.
He found his seat and looked at the cafe through the window.
And then the bus moved off, down a curve, downward, out of the hills.
And the young man looked straight forward.
And he heard the other passengers speaking of other things,
or they were reading or trying to sleep.
And they hadn't noticed the magic.
And the young man put his head to one side,
closed his eyes, and pretended to sleep.
There was nothing else to do,
just to listen to the sound of the engine,
and the sound of the tires
in the snow.
We've all felt like that for half-seconds, minutes, and the lucky of us, entire stretches of five minutes at a time, been perfectly in the moment. Tom [and Chuck] not only experienced it, but managed even to communicate it back to us.
--say what you like about Tom Waits. This little spoken word piece is perfect.
(and here's a tom waits original, in case that one didn't convince you of his brilliance)
Step Right Up is about the funniest snake-oil holler I've ever heard.
sounds like he's running for office.
Step right up, step right up, step right up,
Everyone's a winner, bargains galore
That's right, you too can be the proud owner
Of the quality goes in before the name goes on
One-tenth of a dollar, one-tenth of a dollar, we got service after sales
You need perfume? we got perfume, how 'bout an engagement ring?
Something for the little lady, something for the little lady,
Something for the little lady, hmm
Three for a dollar
We got a year-end clearance, we got a white sale
And a smoke-damaged furniture, you can drive it away today
Act now, act now, and receive as our gift, our gift to you
They come in all colors, one size fits all
No muss, no fuss, no spills, you're tired of kitchen drudgery
Everything must go, going out of business, going out of business
Going out of business sale
Fifty percent off original retail price, skip the middle man
Don't settle for less
How do we do it? how do we do it? volume, volume, turn up the volume
Now you've heard it advertised, don't hesitate
Don't be caught with your drawers down,
Don't be caught with your drawers down
You can step right up, step right up
That's right, it filets, it chops, it dices, slices,
Never stops, lasts a lifetime, mows your lawn
And it mows your lawn and it picks up the kids from school
It gets rid of unwanted facial hair, it gets rid of embarrassing age spots,
It delivers a pizza, and it lengthens, and it strengthens
And it finds that slipper that's been at large
under the chaise lounge for several weeks
And it plays a mean Rhythm Master,
It makes excuses for unwanted lipstick on your collar
And it's only a dollar, step right up, it's only a dollar, step right up
'Cause it forges your signature
If not completely satisfied, mail back unused portion of product
For complete refund of price of purchase
Step right up
Please allow thirty days for delivery, don't be fooled by cheap imitations
You can live in it, live in it, laugh in it, love in it
Swim in it, sleep in it,
Live in it, swim in it, laugh in it, love in it
Removes embarrassing stains from contour sheets, that's right
And it entertains visiting relatives, it turns a sandwich into a banquet
Tired of being the life of the party?
Change your shorts, change your life, change your life
Change into a nine-year-old Hindu boy, get rid of your wife,
And it walks your dog, and it doubles on sax
Doubles on sax, you can jump back Jack, see you later alligator
See you later alligator
And it steals your car
It gets rid of your gambling debts, it quits smoking
It's a friend, and it's a companion,
And it's the only product you will ever need
Follow these easy assembly instructions it never needs ironing
Well it takes weights off hips, bust, thighs, chin, midriff,
Gives you dandruff, and it finds you a job, it is a job
And it strips the phone company free take ten for five exchange,
And it gives you denture breath
And you know it's a friend, and it's a companion
And it gets rid of your traveler's checks
It's new, it's improved, it's old-fashioned
Well it takes care of business, never needs winding,
Never needs winding, never needs winding
Gets rid of blackheads, the heartbreak of psoriasis,
Christ, you don't know the meaning of heartbreak, buddy,
C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon
'Cause it's effective, it's defective, it creates household odors,
It disinfects, it sanitizes for your protection
It gives you an erection, it wins the election
Why put up with painful corns any longer?
It's a redeemable coupon, no obligation, no salesman will visit your home
We got a jackpot, jackpot, jackpot, prizes, prizes, prizes, all work guaranteed
How do we do it, how do we do it, how do we do it, how do we do it
We need your business, we're going out of business
We'll give you the business
Get on the business end of our going-out-of-business sale
Receive our free brochure, free brochure
Read the easy-to-follow assembly instructions, batteries not included
Send before midnight tomorrow, terms available,
Step right up, step right up, step right up
You got it buddy: the large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
Step right up, you can step right up, you can step right up
C'mon step right up
(Get away from me kid, you bother me...)
Step right up, step right up, step right up, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon
Step right up, you can step right up, c'mon and step right up,
C'mon and step right up
I had to turn on word verification on my comment board. Sorry: the spammers were starting to smell. You'll also notice my blog suddenly goes back to 2003: blogger added an option where I can change the date of posting, so that I could retroactively date the early posts, which were e-mails sent to friends and family about Korea during my pre-blogging days, on the dates when I sent them, instead of having thirty-one posts on November 26th 2006, or whenever it was I started this blog. I'll also re-date things like supplementary or background posts, eventually, so that they don't clutter things up.
I've been meaning to put this up for a while, just so you all know what a nice guy I am, but I've been putting it off to be snarky (see previous post).
In case you ever doubted. . .
This happened a while ago now (back in April, in fact), but I wanted to write about it, because it was a nice experience.
I was bopping around with the staff-room nutter, Danielle, one fine afternoon. I showed her a nice little bakery by piccadilly cinema, and then, as we headed down one of the lovely little narrow alleys in that area, I saw a young, obviously foreign girl (white), and her friend, looking around with a kind of upset, worried, "what do I do now?" face.
Seeing as I've lived downtown for a while, I consider it my karmic duty to help out lost tourists, when I have the time -- because back in my first year, I'd have wanted somebody to come by and say, "Are you looking for something?" to me when I was lost. So I went up to the two young ladies, and asked exactly that.
"Uhh, yeah, um, I lost my wallet in the movie theatre, and my flight back to America leaves in five hours."
Oh gee.
Well, first I helped her find a PC room where she could find her bank's phone number, and then lent her my calling card so she could cancel her card.
Next, we brought her and her Korean friend down to the nearest police box to report the missing wallet. It was a cute little scene in there, as we went in, and Dani and I sat in a corner to watch, and slowly, the police box filled up with officers checking out the pretty young American girl in making a report. When we showed up, there were about four police officers in the room, and by the time we finished, there were about eleven in the small room, just milling about, glancing surreptitiously, and obviously smitten.
After that, we checked one more time at the cinema: no dice, and I suggested, "Well, we could stay here and worry a little longer about something we can't change, or we could go for a walk in a really nice park. What say you?"
We decided to go walking around in a nice park.
Right next to picadilly, where Jenny lost her wallet, is a really nice place called Jongmyo Shrine. I've written about it before, and it's one of my favourite places in all of Seoul, and it was close enough to take Jenny around a pretty piece of Korea's history before she had to catch the bus back to the airport. (Luckily, her plane ticket and her passport were in her bag, so she was out cash, some ID, and some pride, but not missing anything really crucial). In the end, it was a really pleasant afternoon. We gave her some cash for the bus to the airport and some munchies (practically had to force it on her), and wished her happy trails.
We told her to pay it forward, and pass our good deediness on to someone else, and I was glad to have a chance to help someone have a somewhat better experience of Korea. Frankly, helping out a down-and-out pacific northwester made me happy for a good three days, too.
So, all you veterans in Korea: when you see someone with the "where am I right now?" face on, go forth and do likewise. Remember: you were a newbie here once, too.
Subliminal soundtrack time. . . hit play and start reading. Banditos, by The Refreshments
I have good news for all my Korean friends, and even concerned citizens in America.
See, after I got home from a lovely date with girlfriendoseyo, and a delightful walk through all the friendly protestors offering me red signs, and walking like docile cattle through the winding streets around Gwanghwamun, I checked my e-mail.
I got an e-mail from an actual, real scientist. . . I forget his name because I was so excited that I deleted the e-mail without thinking after I read it, but he went to Harbard or something, I swear, and here's, like, totally the best news I've ever heard, and it's absolutely totally true, because a real, actual scientist from Harbard told me.
He says that I don't have to worry about Mad Cow disease, because kimchi makes you immune to it! He said Kimchi's special combination of garlic, han, spicy chili, and jung kills the prions that cause Mad Cow, and he showed me some serious, like really actually real science that totally proves it's true. Here it is: see!
That totally proves it! If you don't want to catch Mad Cow Disease from American Beef, all you have to do is eat it with kimchi, and the kimchi will kill the prions!
Here. For those not well versed in the real, hard science above, I'll put it in simpler terms, too, so that all your worries can disappear like a bad memory:
Remember to forward this good news to everyone on your contact list it's your patriotic duty for public health!
And breathe a sigh of relief: it's safe to be a beefeater again.
In the afternoon, all of Sejongro was blocked off by "chicken cage" buses loaded with riot police. The atmosphere was kind of like one of those early evening aqua-skies where you just know it's gonna rain like a banshee later that night.
I walked around the protest today, and it was weird. It was the happiest protest I've ever seen. People were sitting in circles, holding candles, playing chanting games like "sam-yuk-gu" together, people brought their kids. . . and there were lines of buses and hundreds of riot police lined up, waiting for stuff to get out of hand. Absolutely surreal.
They set it up so that it looks like Admiral Lee Sunshin is on the side of the police. p.s.: New definition of Irony: Mad Cow beef protestor taking a break from shouting slogans, for a nice, relaxing cigarette.
p.p.s: It's not a protest if you can/want to bring your kids. Sorry, that's the rule. What with the marching and the candles, the event this reminded me of the most was actually the Buddha's Birthday Lantern Parade, not any of the protests I've seen. Korea is really completely off its rocker sparkling and interesting these days. So just make sure you eat your beef with Kimchi, and you'll be fine! I swear! It's science! Science is true!
Soundtrack: hit play and start reading. Sammy Davis Jr.
mr. bojangles. One of my favourite songs.
My mouth is frozen from a dentist's appointment, and I'm sitting in the doorway of a coffee shop by Piano Street in Jongno, because it suddenly started dumping rain; it looks like it might be one of those twenty-minute showers, so I'm going to try and wait it out before I decide I need to make an umbrella-free run for my school and get a case of saggy-wet-t-shirt-itis. Blast you, Danielle, you office harpy, for talking me out of bringing my umbrella with me to Gwanjang Market for Kalkuksu. Blast you with Thor's mighty hammer. (Don't worry. She thinks it's funny when I talk to her like that. In her mind, she might well be living in a Victorian Farce.)
A few things:
I love the way the word "piss" is used in the U.K.; it's so much better than the way we NoAms use it.
North Americans use it to tell someone to go away, as a term of derision, or to mean upset: "piss off" or "this beer tastes like piss" "that's a piss-poor excuse for skipping out on our meeting" "we were pissed off when the ticket prices were higher at the box-office than they were advertised in the poster". It can also mean extremely drunk: "he was piss-drunk" or "we got so pissed last night"
However, the U.Keeners use it in a much more interesting way (to me -- maybe they're amused by how NoAms use the word): Taking a piss means joking. "Are you taking a piss?" Piss-take means a prank or joke "I read the article and started to get upset, but then I realized it was April Fool's day, and the whole story was just a big piss-take. Take the piss out of X means teasing X, quite a lot.
I used to have a roommate who was a proper Brit, through and through, from a little town called Preston. Nice guy. Really classy.
(These are from a halloween party. They're on facebook, so he's already ok with the fact the whole internet can see these pics; however, I'm not publishing his name here. If you know it, kindly don't mention it in the comments. . .) Despite the pictures, I'm quite serious that Englebert was classy as anything, and one of the best roommates I've had. Top three, for sure, and one of the nicest guys to hang out with, fun as heck, until he got so drunk his legs stopped working.
Anyway, he had a cool way of using the English language that was different than we Canadians. Once, our friend was sick, and he said, "Oh, she's a bit gentle today," which I liked.
(this Canuckistani accent is a bit more Prairie than Vancouver, but it'll have to do).
Anyway, one day, a student invited me to his house for lunch, and during lunch, I talked about my cooking ability: I cook a few things very well, a lot of stuff alright, but the one thing I constantly bungle (bad one to bungle in Korea) is rice. I always put in too much water, or not enough, cook it too long or too short, or too hot or too cool, so it's scorched or crunchy or both. A while later, that same student teased me in class about my inability to get rice right.
Later, I was talking to my classy roomie, and my excellent Irish coworker Lorraine, and because both of them were from that region (warning: never mistake Ireland for being part of the U.K.; that's like calling Canada the fifty-first state, except with 600 years of oppression mixed in. Northern Ireland is part of the UK, but the Republic of Ireland is a sovereign state), I figured I'd try to speak in their style, you know, to show my cosmopolitan flair. Except in my excitement over using the phrase (and despite having used it properly numerous times before and since), I just right bungled it that day.
I should have said, "My student Willy really took the piss out of me today for not being able to cook rice." Would have been totally acceptable.
Instead, I said, "My student Willy took a piss on me because I can't cook rice."
(Hopefully, that three seconds of idiocy will not now undermine all my heretofore unassailed (snicker) credibility as an essayist and Korea blogger, and will be taken instead as an example of my ability to laugh at myself, a feature I consider helpful in life [see point 3].)
Back to botching idioms: that's why I tell my Korean students, "Don't waste your time learning English slang and idioms well enough to use them -- increase your vocabulary instead." Using slang and idioms is high-risk, no-reward, because if you use it wrong, you look stupid, but if you use it perfectly, it fits into the conversation so seamlessly your conversation partner won't even notice you've used it. Nobody ever stops a conversation to comment, "Hey! Great saying! That was the perfect idiom for this situation!" Learn slang well enough to understand it when it's used by others, but don't waste your time trying to incorporate slang seamlessly into your lexicon. Stumbling to find the right word will bog a conversation down, more than using perfect idiom will improve it, so improve your vocabulary instead of your slang, and speak as simply as possible.
Also to my Korean readers: if you know some slang, don't twist the conversation around just so you can use the phrases you memorized. I once had a lunch with another student's mother, and she was a chatterbox, constantly apologizing for her (quite good) English (another pet peeve -- don't apologize; just talk), and twisting the conversation to lob her idioms into the chat like hand grenades.
For example: Mom: (changing the topic out of the blue) Do you think I'm speaking politely enough? Me: Sure. You don't have to worry about that with me. Mom: (pounds table with open hand) LET'S NOT STAND ON CEREMONY!!!!!! (does 'look what I did!' grin, like a kid who hit a bulls-eye on her first try) Me: Pfffft! (nearly empties mouthful of cola into lap)
High comedy.
From the Hire a Proofreader, Nimrod! files: at my own school. . .
Drinks come in really small cans here: it's nice, sometimes, when you aren't that thirsty, and once you pop the top, you just can't stop (that's why I prefer screw-cap drink bottles: you can close it up and finish it later if you want). But the small portions are nice, too. Especially compared to North American drink sizes. (from google images)
Climbed a mountain with these people last weekend. They were really fun, and we laughed a lot. The starbucks had stuffed "bear-istas" you could buy, which seemed like a cool celebration of Starbucks' new international ubiquity. . . The problem was, unless the barrista uniforms they wear are totally unique to Korea, there was nothing about these bears that was Korean except the word "Korea" on the flag they held. Something about across-the-board uniformity could, doubtless be said here, but I'll leave it at this: unless the bear smelled like garlic, (Korea's origin myth involves a tiger and a bear hiding in a cave and eating only garlic for 100 days) there's really nothing Korean about it except the word on the flag.Went to Ganghwa Island, where seagulls follow the ferries to eat the shrimp snacks people throw at them. Boy they were fun. And I enjoyed watching them fly, because Jonathan Livingston Seagull is one of the better "read-it-in-one-sitting" books I've come across.
In fact, like "Full Metal Jacket," if the second half had been anywhere near as good as the first half, it would have been on my top five books of all time. Unfortunately, the second half of JLS (starting about when Jonathan meets The Great Seagull) kind of drifts off into some weird, mystic left-field. It starts as a beautiful metaphor for the pursuit of excellence, and finishes off in some kind of messianic non-sequiteur that doesn't quite ring true to me. That said, the first forty pages or so comprise one of the most beautiful parables I've ever read, full of poetry, simple wisdom, and great seagull photography.
People were holding up chips, and the seagulls were snatching them right out of their hands.
Even this little kid go in on the action. It was also cool seeing one snatch a tossed chip out of the air. All right. that's enough for now. Until I get a better camera (and maybe even after that), I've decided to set my filter a little higher, and only publish the better pictures I take, instead of just publish all the pictures I take.
Anybody out there who can recommend a reliable camera with decent battery life, that fits into a pocket? I don't mind dishing out some coin for something I can count on, and I'm not looking for anything too complex, but a few features (like that foreground focus one where you can hold the button half-way down to keep the focus, and then adjust the picture's composition before taking the picture), compact size, good battery life (girlfriendoseyo's camera is ALWAYS running out of battery life - that's why I'd prefer one that takes AA's over one that needs to be plugged in to recharge) and a big memory card would be nice. So, uh, let me know. Especially if you want me to start posting better pictures, eh?
Later, blogosphere! I need to get ready for my one year anniversary with Girlfriendoseyo now.
Ahh, kids. Sometimes I wish I could just throw the "grown-up switch" off for a while, or take a gee-whiz pill, and experience things as completely as this:
El Presidente (hope my music choice isn't too cheeky)
Sorry: I'm too busy to spice this one up with pictures.
Now, the Metropolitician recently had an interesting thing happen: Immigration Korea announced a shift in its policy that had a surprising similarity to an A-OK Visa proposal he'd made a while before. Whether the policymakers, or somebody with the policymakers' ear gleaned a few ideas from Mr. Hurt's page may never be known for sure, but Met started a meme, and who's to say where it ended. His "Ajussi's Ruin Everything" meme has alsopopped up (word for word, no less) on a few other blogs I respect.
The good Metropolitician's been around longer than I have, he knows more about Korea than I do, speaks the language, and also gets way more hits and comments on his site than I do: he even has anti-fans, people who skulk around his site just waiting for him to say something to which they can respond in white-hot, typo-inducing anger. I'm a tiny potato next to that big kahuna, but today, I have a meme of my own, which means more to me than coining the word "Kimcheerleader". It might take a while for it to gain traction, and that's OK; the idea might get separated from the source, and even that's OK, because I'm saying this for Korea (ain't I self-important), not for blog hits. If you like my idea, cool. Blog about it. Tell your friends about it. Translate it into Korean, or just blog about it in Korean. Share it with your friends around the samgyupsal grill. Post it on Naver comment boards. Tell your journalist friend who writes in a Korean daily. Pretend it's your idea if you want; I really don't care, as long as it spreads.
Without further ado, an open letter to Korea's President, Lee Myungbak.
Dear President Lee Myung-bak
So right about now, you're probably asking, "Why did I want this job in the first place?" People are protesting, signing the impeachment petition, your own party is divided, and your opponents are having a field day attacking you over US Beef, the Free Trade Agreement, your communication style, and your ability to manage a crisis. Meanwhile, your big project -- which you wanted to be your legacy -- is being roundly criticized either as a way to help your old buddies in Hyundai Construction out, as an ego trip the size of Korea, or as an ecological disaster on an epic scale, just waiting to happen.
It seems like you're having a lot of trouble convincing people that you can see any point of view other than your own -- people are accusing you of being a bulldozer in the BAD ways instead of the GOOD ways, and suddenly being President of a Country seems like a much bigger job than being Mayor of a City.
You're probably looking for a way to fix all these problems, and to set up a legacy that will be treasured and respected by Koreans, all through time.
Well, have I got an idea for you!
As you know, Korea is obsessed with education: Koreans see education as the key to survival in a competitive world. As you also know, Korea recently ranked 53rd out of 55 countries in a comparative study on how well education prepares students for social and economic participation. The very system in which Koreans put their faith for improvement is failing in its most important goal!
As you also noticed when you prematurely rolled out your previous education reform plan, there are a lot of politics to be considered when we take on education. It's a plain fact, as you must know, that a true, systemic education reform plan, one that changes things right to the heart, instead of just moving around the furniture, is nearly impossible to implement in a single, five-year presidency, especially because it seems that the first thing each new president does is to reverse the previous president's education policy.
It might seem surprising to you, Mr. President, if I gave a suggestion that would solve all these problems: the problem of your wish for an unforgettable legacy, the problem of having too short a time as president to truly effect change, AND the problem of people's perception that you surround yourself with yes-men and never listen to the other side of a debate, as WELL as Korea's education crisis, but that is exactly what I have for you today.
President Lee, if you want to be remembered as an open-minded politician, an effective president, and as a great visionary who, like Park Chung-hee, took the difficult steps necessary to prepare Korea for future success, here, sir, is what you must do.
Swallow your pride, and ask Korea's people to bear with you as changes come into place: change is never easy.
Reach out both within your own party, AND TO THE OPPOSITION, and
Negotiate a twenty-year, bi-partisan education reform program to which both your party AND the opposition can agree.
Here is my reasoning:
It must be a twenty-year plan, because you will need to do it in several steps: a. gather information b. get recommendations, c. set out a plan for implementing these recommendations, and d. phase in those changes gradually.
It must be bi-partisan, because if it is not, then the next government will make it their first act to cancel it, and Korea, the country you serve, will have gained nothing, except another lost generation of high school students who don't know whether to improve their grades or focus on test scores to get into a good university. If you can negotiate a reform plan that both sides agree upon, then no matter which party takes office after your term, they will follow through with the plan. Heading to the negotiating table instead of starting up your bulldozer will also change your reputation for being stubborn and arrogant, and prove that your concern for Korea's future is your top priority, and not just your OWN legacy. Engaging the other side will show that you are open-minded and truly pragmatic, despite what your critics say.
You must ask Korea's people to bear with you, because during the implementation of the plan, there will be some years of shift, some years of confusion, and things will probably get worse before they get better, as everybody grows accustomed to the new system. As we have seen before (think of the 1997 Economic Crisis), if Korea's people can see the goal for which they wait and work, they can come together and support a major project. . . IF YOU ASK THEM TO.
The four steps must be as such:
First, gather information. Offer up big money, in order to recruit the world's top education experts. Put together an international team of educators and analysts to inspect Korea's education system from top to bottom, from the first year of pre-school to the final year of graduate school. Talk to educators, parents, experts, students of all ages, and people on the street. Talk to laypeople from other countries with highly-regarded education systems. Hire retired Ivy League University presidents and faculty chairs and top educators and education experts worldwide to design and conduct the surveys, and to analyse the results. Do not only bring in North American experts: search Europe, India, and the entire developed world, as well as emerging countries that have successfully implemented English learning programs in their school systems, to find experts in both developed and developING education systems. Pay well enough that it is clearly worth it for them to bring their expertise to Korea. Do not just hire foreigners as "token" place-fillers, but take their advice and analysis VERY seriously: for Korea to become internationally competitive, she must begin taking advice from international experts as well as home-grown talent. As well, Korea's education system is cluttered with too many activists masquerading as teachers, whose ideologies prevent them from true teaching and leadership. If the international experts complain that some Korean team member is bringing politics into discussions about education, cut him or her from the team. Do not limit this team to Koreans, because Koreans have been IN the system for too long to think outside of it. It has become obvious that an outside view is necessary to get to the root of Korea's educational system's flaws.
Hire top Korean and international analysts and planners to form recommendations from the information gathered, on how to get Korea from its current system, to a new system that will raise Korean children up to be internationally competitive. Do not accept "but we've done it this way for hundreds of years" as a valid objection to a change: the world changes. Every culture changes, but, like an intelligent old lady who refuses to learn how to e-mail out of stubbornness, a culture can also limit itself, blocking itself from changes it is CAPABLE of doing, but unwilling to do, locked into a self-made cage. Sure, introduce and implement the changes in ways that make sense within Korean culture, to Korean people, but don't let "This is how we've always done things" and the same old boilerplate objections carry the day. (for example: "But essays are so subjective! Multiple choice is much more cut and dry!")
Create a plan for implementing these changes in stages: too much change, too quickly, will confuse everyone, and lead to total failure, before the reforms have a chance to truly change Korea's education culture. Set a schedule to introduce reforms year by year, maybe starting in Kindergarten and moving up, each year, so that everyone knows what is happening, and can prepare for the new system. Train the teachers well, not just with flyers and handouts. They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks, so if necessary, urge early retirement on some of the older "dogs" who won't "learn new tricks" (educators and administrators). Bring in some of the fresh young talents that are currently wasting their lives away studying for the teacher's exam, who would be thrilled at a chance to learn some new tricks, to replace them.
Put the plan into action, and expect a bumpy transition. (This is why you MUST ask Korea's people to bear with you.)
In 1965, physical infrastructure was Korea's great need: roads, railways, highways, and factories brought Korea from abject poverty into prosperity. However, diligence alone is no longer enough, when South-Asia and China can underbid on labour prices, and the international market is full of flexible, innovative thinkers, team-workers and problem-solvers: eight months of twelve-hour days studying for a four-hour exam that's 80% multiple choice will no longer produce the workforce Korea needs. In the same way Park Chunghee created a physical infrastructure that brought Korea into the developed world, Mr. President, you could be the leader that forges the intellectual infrastructure needed to make Korea a global leader. Then, though your legacy will not be a physical feature on the landscape, you will always be remembered, like Sejong, as a visionary leader who knew that intellectual capital is far more valuable than a physical monument or an engineering feat, and leads to a more enduring legacy.
Do not bet your entire legacy on a canal project that is already damaging your credibility; if you want to be remembered with respect and gratitude, this is how to do it, sir.
P.S.: This is a good idea. It could even be a powerful idea, so you should handle it carefully. Do not unveil it in response to a crisis, as if it's an attempt to save your reputation; think it through, build it up, present it in as positive a light as possible, line up supporters from all ends of the political spectrum, right from the get-go, and plan carefully how to introduce and sell this idea both to Korea and to your opposition: if you present it as a plan for Korea's future, rather than as "MY Legacy," it will be easier to convince the opposition to sign onto a bi-partisan project; making it bi-partisan, rather than simply pushing it through on bald authority is crucial to getting Korea, and the opposition, to "sign on" to the idea. I am sure you have advisors who can help you present this idea as humbly as possible, in order to give it a chance at success, for the good of Korea.
I'll even let you pretend it was your idea.
P.P.S.: Green energy.
There you go, K-bloggers and netizens. Go forth and spread that around, see where it goes.
In my last post, I wrote, "Hundreds, maybe thousands of North Koreans die weekly in death camps or of starvation, and South Koreans save their outrage for American beef imports???" but it's a little more complex than that.
So as far as I can tell, the SeoulPodcast is pretty sure that the mad cow/US Beef/FTA thing is just a bunch of public panic over lies; they frame it in terms of nationalism and leftist manipulators bending facts for a bunch of credulous schlubs.
If you want to give the Korean people a little more credit than that, Gord Sellar gives a really thoughtful look at the way the public approaches a political issue, framing it as the sign of a still-developing democracy -- that's really worth a read. People are taking part in democracy here, which is interesting, even though they're doing it based on wrong premises. The one thing missing in this issue is informed discussion of issues . . . but the fact there's discussion this time, is actually a step forward, sez Gord.
President Lee Myungbak has gummed this situation about as badly as he could (which could also be applied to pretty much his entire first half-year in office): he recoursed to "Because I'm President, that's why"-type rhetoric, leaning on presidential authority in a kind of arrogant way, rather than by leaning heavily on facts, science, and dry information. This gives his opposition a chance to turn this into a suppression of dissent issue, rather than a mere safety/science issue. It's no longer a question even of mad cow beef or the FTA, but of how Korea's leader is going to lead the country, because the president pitted his authority against the protesters, arresting them and threatening legal action against the people spreading disinformation, instead of using dispassionate science, and overwhelming the hearsay with plain facts, while keeping his leadership style out of the discussion. Instead of facts vs. myths, it's now public emotion vs. presidential authority -- it's disappointing than neither side has turned to information, but that's not what it's about anymore, I think, to most of the people still holding candles.
Frankly, the whole thing's been beaten into the ground on the English language K-blogosphere (probably even more on the Korean one, but I can't read Korean well enough to get my finger on that pulse), but this whole thing has gotten bigger than American beef, the Free Trade Agreement, or even nationalism, I think.
I was on my way back home from a Salsa Dancing lesson in Hongdae (dang, that was fun. . . next time I really need to drag Girlfriendoseyo along), when the taxi just couldn't go any farther, right next to Gyungbok Palace.
This is why:
For whatever else it's worth, I had to walk fifteen minutes out of my way to circle around the scads of protesters holding candles and (interestingly) singing songs and shouting chants I last heard at a Korean soccer game (singing the Arirang and doing the Dae-Han-Min-Guk chant), along with other slogans.
Walking through a crowd of people protesting something at least tangentially (via the FTA) anti-American is a bit nerve-racking, because I look like an American, and you know, it only takes one angry drunk to shout, "There's one! Let's GET HIM!" and I wouldn't have a chance to defend myself. If it were a protest about China or Japan, I'd've gotten a bit closer, to take pictures with my crappy cameraphone, but for now, what a mess. I got home alright by doing my low-profile walk (stare at the pavement, make no eye-contact with people, but when no-one's approaching, glance around and check for people giving me hairy eyeballs). Things are off the handle here, ladies and gentlemen. It's a bit wild and woolly in the downtown these days.
I don't know where it's heading, but this thing is snowballing, this issue has way more legs than it ought to, and I'm not sure what to make of it.
Yellow dust: dust from China's Gobi Desert, spiked on Friday. It was pretty awful, and the facemask actually worked. Y'all Canadians from CleanWaterFreshAirtopia can't even imagine this.
Freight containers blocked off the main road. This is where water cannons were used before, and I think where one riot bus was dragged away from the frontline and trashed completely by protesters.
Last night's protest was blessedly nonviolent (though noisy -- even from my apartment).
1987 was the last bout of pro-democracy protests in Korea; they toppled the Chun Doo-hwan dictatorship; people are comparing Korea's current president to Chun Doo-hwan. . .but they have the freedom to compare him to Chun Doo-Hwan without having their names put on a list, and cars parking outside their houses, watching.
lot of people came.
The corner store nearest the protest epicentre: they know what's what, and there's money to be made.
Buy your protest gear here! Right next to the barricade, still out to make a buck. I love Korea!
this guy was having a smoke: take a break from protesting (the mere, however-slim possibility of) mad-cow-infected beef, which has killed about 200 people worldwide in all medical history, to puff on a cigarette, which kills thousands a year, in Korea alone. (In 2000, 29.8 people per 100 000 died of lung cancer.)
Many people.
