Month: August 2011

Caveat: And so begins a fifth year

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / Life is a Dream / My Photos

At the risk of boring everyone with a third blog post in less than 24 hours, I feel compelled to observe that today is the fourth anniversary of my arrival in Korea. On September 1st, 2007, I landed at Incheon and made my way to Ilsan, where I was met by my new employer, Danny, of the eventually-defunct Tomorrow School, to begin my new teaching career.

I have spent all of the last four years in Korea, with the exception of a three-month, unemployed hiatus back in the US in the fall of 2009, and several shorter vacation trips – two to Australia to visit my mother (with side-junkets to Hong Kong and New Zealand), and one to Japan to resolve a visa issue.

I like Korea, But I’m not really a Koreanophile. Although my linguistico-aesthetic infatuation with the Korean language refuses to go away, I’m actually only lukewarm when it comes to Korean culture in more general terms. It has a lot of shortcomings, and I’m not always happy with it. But… I will attach two caveats to that statement: 1) I think the Korean polity is less dysfunctional that the US polity, and that’s a notable achievement (the current state of the US polity is so depressing as to leave me feeling embarrassed to claim US citizenship); 2) I reached a level of alienated “comfort” with life in Korea that is at least equal to the perpetual alienation I have always felt within my own country and culture.

The consequence of these preceding observations is that, as things stand, I have no interest in (and no current plans for) returning to the US – except perhaps for brief visits. For better or for worse, for now, Korea is my home. If, for whatever reason in the future, my life in Korea has to end, I will seek to continue my expat life elsewhere.

I have changed a great deal in the last four years. I have acquired some confidence as a teacher; I have built some good habits; most notably, I have embraced a sort of meditative buddhist zen (선) atheism that works well for me.  Although I’m hardly content – often lonely, often aimless in a philosophical or “spiritual” sense (as much as I dislike the concept of spirituality) – in fact I have found a kind of inner peace that my life prior to this most recent phase utterly lacked.

So, there you have it.  And so begins a fifth year…

I took the picture below on a long hike in October 2007. It shows some scarecrows in a field of cut rice, across the highway from the former Camp Edwards, in Geumchon, Paju-si (about 7 km northwest of where I live), which incidentally is where I was stationed in 1991, during my time in the US Army as a mechanic and tow truck driver. Thus, you see, my “roots” in Northwest Gyeonggi Province go “way back.”

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Caveat: Self-determination

Teaching & Methodology / The Wonders of Work

 

pictureDebate Proposition: “All people have a right to self-determination.” This video is of the month-final debate test for our debate class with the TP1 cohort (7th graders), which I recorded on Monday. We worked on this topic for about 6 classes (2 weeks).

This class is my strongest class, intellectually. I realize they don’t always make perfect sense, and sometimes in this video they’re hard even to hear clearly… but I think considering they’re non-native-speakers, navigating a very grown-up, complex topic, they really are doing quite well.

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Caveat: 85) 부처님. 저는 화내지 않기를 발원하며 절합니다

Buddhism & Zen / The 108 / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

“Buddha. I bow and pray not to get angry.”

This is #85 out of a series of 108 daily Buddhist affirmations that I am attempting to translate with my hands tied behind my back (well not really that, but I’m deliberately not seeking out translations on the internet, using only dictionary and grammar).

…
83. 항상 스님의 가르침을 따르기를 발원하며 절합니다.
        “I bow and pray to follow always the teachings of the monks.”
84. 부처님. 저는 욕심을 내지 않기를 발원하며 절합니다.
        “Buddha. I bow and pray not to be greedy.”
85. 부처님 . 저는 화내지 않기를 발원하며 절합니다.

I would read this eighty-fifth affirmation as: “Buddha. I bow and pray not to get angry.”

Today, I thought of getting angry but really there was no point. There was no copy machine. Which is also the main printer (so there was no printer except for the slow slow color one). I asked, “what happened to the copy machine?”

I was told we didn’t have one today.  Maybe it’s being serviced?  My boss pointed at the whiteboard that serves as a bulletin board in the office.  “Didn’t you see?  I wrote it, right there.”

Here is what was written on the white board:

picture

“Ah,” I said. “That should’ve been obvious, then.” I guess I was being a little bit sarcastic.

Because, no, I didn’t read the notice on the bulletin board. I didn’t even try.

Setting aside that fact that I tune out Korean in these contexts to some extent, the handwriting is exceptionally messy, too. I just didn’t see the point in trying to decipher it. Obviously, I made a mistake.

Looking at it, now, I can see it says something about the copier, and about copying beforehand. I still can’t figure out the last verb – but yes. I can get the drift.

I’ve learned a small lesson. It’s one I’ve learned, repeatedly, before: the “Korean communication taboo” isn’t as all-encompassing as it appears to foreigners. But overcoming it does require one to put the effort into understanding the language and paying attention to the appropriate channels of communication.

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Caveat: Progress in Idleness

Banalities & Journaling

Life is kind of boring, these days, and I guess I'm OK with that.  I've spent the summer in a kind of workaholic hibernation – while working, I've been working hard and pretty focused, but I'm not actually working that much, at least relative to the kind of hours I used to put in as a database programmer.  So, never exceeding 50 hours per week, certainly, whereas there was the spring of 2006 when I easily put in well over 80 per week.

You'd think, then, that I have lots of free time, still, to do various things.  … pursue various hobbies.  What are my hobbies and pasttimes?  I claim several.  Here is a progress report on my hobbies and pasttimes – I assign points on the basis of how I feel I'm doing in these pursuits relative to how I wish I could be doing, ideally.

1) I blog.  Evidently – you're looking at it.  Progress: seven out of ten points.

2) I write.  Not this blog, I mean, but my novels and stories.  Progress:  one of out ten points.

3) I study Korean.  I really do… not as well or as dedicatedly as could be hoped, though.  Progress:  four out of ten points.

4) I hike (both rural / mountain hiking and "urban" hiking, which is really just exploring-on-foot).  Progress:  two out of ten points.

5) I read.  Books.  Stories.  Texts.  Progress:  six out of ten points.

6) I jog.  I was jogging really well at the first part of summer.  3 or 4 times a week, 3 to 5 km each time.  Then it got rainy.  Then it got hot.  And I got lazy, or something.  Actually, I hate jogging.  But I really need the exercise.  Really, really, really.  Progress:  one out of ten points.

7) I cook.  I like cooking for myself, I like messing around with food in my underequipped "kitchen."  But I don't do it much, even though whenever I do I'm satisfied and pleased with having done so.  Progress:  two out of ten points.

8) I meditate and do "buddhist"-type things.  In an entirely atheistic way, of course.  I have a semi-lapsed zen practice, of sorts.  Progress:  two out of ten points.

So much for progress.

Caveat: una forma de tratar a mi propia vacuidad creativa

Banalities & Journaling / Español Aleatorio (Random Spanish) / Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc) / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism

pictureSueño despierto

Yo sueño con los ojos
Abiertos, y de día
Y noche siempre sueño.
Y sobre las espumas
Del ancho mar revuelto,
Y por entre las crespas
Arenas del desierto
Y del león pujante,
Monarca de mi pecho,
Montado alegremente
Sobre el sumiso cuello,
Un niño que me llama
Flotando siempre veo!

– José Martí, en Ismaelillo (Nueva York, 1882)

A veces llevo la misma impresión que me ofrece ese poema: la de existir en una clase de sueño despierto por las rutinas de la vida diaria.  Anoche leía a Coleridge, y hoy en la mañana a Martí.

Son cuerpos de obra poética algo relacionados por lo temático onírico.  Pero aunque me encantan los rítmos de e.g. “Cristabel” de Coleridge, su contenido proto-romántico – digamos místico – me es difícil.  Prefiero el contendio martiano, tal vez igualmente místico pero ya plenamente proto-modernista.  Además, los poemas de Ismaelillo, por su fundación en la vida real del poeta – inspirados por su hijo – celebran algo del mundo real.  Es un onirismo cotidiano y realista – una vida de padre amoroso inmigrante en Brooklyn – en lugar de un onirismo evasivo y anti-realista, opiático.

Hace mucho tiempo que me dedico a leer tanta poesía como en estos días.  Tal vez es una forma de tratar a mi propia vacuidad creativa.

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Caveat: Implicit Association Tests

Internet & Blogging / Language & Linguistics / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism / Politics, Economics & Current Affairs

I found a website (named “Project Implicit,” by something called IAT Corp, hosted at Harvard) that makes some claim to evaluate the kind of unconscious mental associations between categories like race, gender, sexual orientation, etc., and other semantic fields (like good vs. bad, American vs. not-American, etc.).

You do these rapid response categorization tests and then the test tells you how you tend to lean in your alleged “automatic preferences.” I harbor all kinds of skepticism about this sort of test, on multiple counts. I might discuss some of these skepticisms later, but for now, I’ll present my personal results on two of the tests (in the spirit of disclosure and for those curious).

The first test I took was with regard to the African-American category (Black) vis-a-vis the European-American category (White). Impressionistically, the alternation between labeling as Black vs. African-American on the one hand and White vs. European-American on the other hand struck me as inconsistent or random, although I can’t say for sure that wasn’t a designed inconsistency (e.g. something intentionally random as a built-in part of the test’s brain-probe, so to speak).

Below is the interpretation of your IAT performance, followed by questions about what you think it means. The next page explains the task and has more information such as a summary of what most people show on this IAT.
Your Result

Your data suggest a slight automatic preference for African American compared to European American.
The interpretation is described as ‘automatic preference for European American’ if you responded faster when European American faces and Good words were classified with the same key than when African American faces and Good words were classified with the same key. Depending on the magnitude of your result, your automatic preference may be described as ‘slight’, ‘moderate’, ‘strong’, or ‘little to no preference’. Alternatively, you may have received feedback that ‘there were too many errors to determine a result’.

I quickly felt that I was aware of “how” the test worked – it’s hard to explain so I suggest you just try it for yourself. I admit that from the start, I felt wary (on guard, so to speak) with regard to my own possible prejudice, and once I felt I understood how the test worked, I perhaps attempted to compensate. Assuming that the underlying prejudice I presumed myself to be battling (as a White American raised in a 90%+ white community) was one of preference toward European-Americans, it appears (and I can only say “appears” as I hardly know what all was operating, both in the test and in my own brain) I compensated successfully.

I found the first test unpleasant. The business of matching Whites with “Good” words and Blacks with “Bad” words (and then subsequently vice-versa) left a bad taste in my mouth.  It was like the underlying message was: “everyone’s a racist, we just want to see what kind you are.” It was an exercise in reinforcing stereotypes, whether positive ones or bad ones.

The second test wasn’t really unpleasant so much as downright ridiculous. It was supposed to look at the European-American/Native-American contrast vis-a-vis the American/un-American (Foreign) contrast. The visual images drew on stereotypes even worse than the first test (see screenshot below). Of course, stereotypes are the point, and therefore it’s utterly conceivable that they’re intentional. Still, it’s awkward for someone who tries to be analytical about these things.

The whole business of what words were “American” vs. “Foreign” struck me as silly – they were all place names – essentially, European place names versus American place-names of Native American etymology. What is this contrast supposed to show? That Americans know the names of American cities? What about the allegedly atrocious geographical knowledge of average Americans? Is this test trying to link bad geographical knowledge with some type of racial (or racist) stereotype or another? Or is it assuming good geographical knowledge? They’re aware that Miami is in Latin America, right? And that Seattle is in Canada? And Moscow is “Foreign” – but what about the guy sitting in Moscow, Idaho, taking the test? I’ve been there. It’s near the Nez Perce Reservation. Did they take that into account?

What does this test really mean? What is it looking at?  What does it have to do with nativism, white-supremacism, pro- vs. anti-immigration stances, etc.? It’s obviously complex, but I felt immediately that the test designers had at least as much ideological baggage as I personally brought to the table, and they didn’t even do much work to conceal it. I certainly doubt they had made much effort to evaluate their own prejudices, in the design of the test (especially in light of the apparent socio-linguistic naivety on display in the onomastics).

I felt a strong impulse to try my best to “game” the test. I have no idea whether my effort to game the test worked, but it appears to have, since I got the result I intended: I got myself to show up as a nativist, roughly. But of course, the test designers could argue that I was merely “aiming for” the “automatic preference” I was already ideologically inclined toward. Here is my result.

Below is the interpretation of your IAT performance, followed by questions about what you think it means. The next page explains the task and has more information such as a summary of what most people show on this IAT.
Your Result

Your data suggest a moderate association of White Am. with Foreign and Native Am. with American compared to Native Am. with Foreign and White Am. with American.
The interpretation is described as ‘automatic association between White Am. and American’ if you responded faster when White Am. images and American were classified with the same key than when White Am. images and Foreign were classified with the same key. Depending on the magnitude of your result, your automatic association may be described as ‘slight’, ‘moderate’, ‘strong’, or ‘little to no preference’. Alternatively, you may have received feedback that ‘there were too many errors to determine a result’.

So what does it all mean? I’m not sure. I might take some more tests and report back – they’re nothing if not interesting.

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Caveat: 84) 부처님. 저는 욕심을 내지 않기를 발원하며 절합니다

Buddhism & Zen / The 108 / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

“Buddha. I bow and pray not to be greedy.”

This is #84 out of a series of 108 daily Buddhist affirmations that I am attempting to translate with my hands tied behind my back (well not really that, but I’m deliberately not seeking out translations on the internet, using only dictionary and grammar).

…
82. 항상 부처님의 법속에서 살기를 발원하며 절합니다.
        “I bow and pray to live always in the heart of Buddha’s dharma.”
83. 항상 스님의 가르침을 따르기를 발원하며 절합니다.
        “I bow and pray to follow always the teachings of the monks.”
84. 부처님. 저는 욕심을 내지 않기를 발원하며 절합니다.

I would read this eighty-fourth affirmation as: “Buddha. I bow and pray not to be greedy.”

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Caveat: fuzzy spam

Banalities & Journaling / Internet & Blogging / Life in Korea

Today marks a new milestone on my blog:  I have received my first bit of "targetted" spam in my blog comments.  Up to this point, all the spam received in the comments sections on my blog have been what you might call "widecast" – just throwing out advertising for cheap internet shoes or jewelry or other products, willy-nilly, showing zero awareness of my blog's content, potential audience, etc. 

But today I received a spam comment from someone (something) named Jenny, in not-bad Konglish, advertising some kind of cultural event (or coupon club – I can't quite figure it out).  I'm not going to do her (he? it?) the favor or reproducing the comment's web address, but I felt some reluctance simply to delete it from the record without observing its passing.

It feels like a milestone, because, instead of being utterly random spam, it's spam-with-a-target – it obviously was placed by someone (or some program) that had a minimal awareness of my blog's "location" and audience.  We can call it contextualized spam, as oxymoronic as that sounds.

Here is the text of the spam comment, with the original business name cleverly disguised and with the website address expurgated (because I don't want to reward the spammer).

Come and visit SejongBlahblah on Sunday of the last week of the month. You can find many different artist and singers' performances that are free to anyone! Also, SejongBlahblah is currently having 1+1 ticket event for foreigners. You can purchase one package from ten different packages and get one free ticket with your purchase! If you are interested and want to find out more about this event, you can come out website: https://??? SejongBlahblah is a combination of about 30 culture & art organizations including performance halls, museums and art museums located in the walking distance centering around Sejong-no, where Gwanghwamun Square is located.

This is almost relevant.  More so than regular spam, anyway.  It got me to reflecting on the possibility that the boundary between spam and not-spam might be somewhat fluid… somewhat fuzzy.  Which, of course, makes me think of spam sitting too long in a refrigerator:  fuzzy spam.  That reminds me of the Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) gift I received from my boss at LBridge a few years ago.  A gift set of spam.  Chuseok is fast approaching.

Caveat: Looking in the wrong place, maybe

Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc) / Politics, Economics & Current Affairs

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Gawker had a screenshot from CNN the other day, showing CNN making a horrible geographical mistake. They were indicating the wrong Tripoli, on the map. Instead of Tripoli, Libya, they were apparently reporting on the Libyan insurrection from Tripoli, Lebanon.  Which might explain why no one could find Qaddafi, come to think of it.

That’s really a pretty gross geographical error. It makes me wonder if maybe they’ll throw up a map of Iowa, next – after all, there’s a town in Iowa called Tripoli, too.  It would be funny if they found Qaddafi there – after all, I recently heard he was declaring as a Republican candidate – Tripoli, Iowa, is a very logical place to do this, one would think.

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Caveat: Hangoogledoodle Ranting

Internet & Blogging / Language & Linguistics / Passive-Aggressive Lunatic Ravings

<rant>

Yesterday when I landed on the google homepage, I was interested in the googledoodle (“google doodle,” the customized, constantly changing logo-artwork around the word “google”), because it was obscure and artistic in a style that caught my attention. So I went to hover the cursor over the googledoodle, which will give a short explanation of what it’s about.

Googledoodle_호르헤 루이스 보르헤스 탄생 112주년 Lo, to my dismay, the googledoodle hovertext was hangeulized. It was a han-googledoodle. This struck me as annoying, but fortunately, I can read a little bit of Korean.  It said:  “호르헤 루이스 보르헤스 탄생 112주년” – [horeuhe ruiseu boreuheseu tansaeng 112 junyeon = Jorge Luis Borges’ 112th birtday]. Charming. A nice bit of googledoodling, to be sure (see picture). And… I love JLB, of course – how could I not, given my literarophilosophical predilictions? So, that’s a given.

But I felt a sensation of annoyed, impending rantiness about the issue of the hovertext, itself. I have been annoyed, before, because of a website’s laziness (that’s my perception of the site programmers affect, I mean) with respect to what I would call “language detection issues.”

Yes, it’s true that I’m in Korea. And my IP address says so. But there’s plenty of evidence available to the browser’s page-rendering software that can tell the webpage in question that I would prefer presentation of information in English – after all, that’s my computer’s OS installation language, and that’s my browser’s default language. Both pieces of information are in no way concealed from the browser, as far as I know. Most notably, I have visited plenty of sites that recognize my language (even before I log on – and I never save cookies so that’s not what’s going on, either) – inlcuding, lo and behold, gmail, which presumably shares programming expertise with googledoodlers, coxisting together in the same giant chocolate-factory-by-the-bay, as they do.

So when I see things like that – let’s call it “IP-address-driven language defaulting behavior” – it just pisses me off. It’s not that I don’t like the Korean – I even welcomed the brief puzzle that the hovertext presented. But it’s the fact that it seems to represent a parochial, lazy approach to solving a much more elegantly solvable web programming problem – that’s what annoys me.

Hence my desire to make this little rant, here.

</rant>

And, P.S., Happy Birthday to that benevolent bonaerense, blind prophet of postmodernism!

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Caveat: 83) 항상 스님의 가르침을 따르기를 발원하며 절합니다

Buddhism & Zen / The 108 / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

“I bow and pray to follow always the teachings of the monks.”

This is #83 out of a series of 108 daily Buddhist affirmations that I am attempting to translate with my hands tied behind my back (well not really that, but I’m deliberately not seeking out translations on the internet, using only dictionary and grammar).

…
81. 항상 부처님의 품 안에서 살기를 발원하며 절합니다.
        “I bow and pray to live always in the Buddha’s arms.”
82. 항상 부처님의 법속에서 살기를 발원하며 절합니다.
        “I bow and pray to live always in the heart of Buddha’s dharma.”
83. 항상 스님의 가르침을 따르기를 발원하며 절합니다.

I would read this eighty-third affirmation as: “I bow and pray to follow always the teachings of the monks.”

I’m never comfortable with vows to follow people. I think of myself as a loyal person, but I’m not sure that I really am. I’m loyal to my friends in my heart, but because I go off and do my “own thing” so much, I’m not really there for the people I care about.

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Caveat: Debatable

Teaching & Methodology / The Wonders of Work

Last Thursday, for my special summer debate class for the elementary kids, we staged a final debate. I made a video of it, and I finally finished putting it together earlier today, and loaded it to youtube – not even really much edited at all.

pictureThe debate proposition is: “Hurting someone in self-defense is OK.”  Pretty heavy topic, right? It’s because of a story we read in a well-done elementary ESL debate textbook (pictured, right), which uses Korean folktales (in English) as a jumping-off point for debate topics. This means the kids are already familiar with the storylines, which increases comprehension and allows us to focus on the concepts and topics.

The debate was between a “Pro” team (two 6th grade girls who go by Ally and Catherine) and a “Con” team (the teacher – me). I’ve come to realize that when we have debates, the kids really get a lot out of me being one of the debate speakers – it allows me to model language patterns and argument styles, and it unexpectedly causes them to focus more on the topic – I’m not sure why this works but I’ve noticed it.

So here is the debate video. Ally is a really good speaker and very high ability. Catherine has excellent English, too, but she speaks very quietly and is hard to understand in parts – sorry for the poor sound quality.

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Caveat: City Is A Flower

Found Online / Internet & Blogging / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism

Sullyblog talks about one of my pet subjects, density, and posts this amazing little video.  Too awesome not to share.

Lilium Urbanus from Joji Tsuruga on Vimeo.

In an entirely implicit way, the video demonstrates the underlying organicity of cities.  Plus, how cool is it, to imagine a city shaped like a flower?  Samsung Engineering could build it  – probably in some oil-statelets back yard.

Caveat: Things I’m Not Doing

Banalities & Journaling

So anyway, after I got off work yesterday, I did a little whirlwind rare-grocery shopping tour into the city.  I took the subway to Dongdaemun, where I visited my favorite Russian bakery and bought two fresh loaves of the best dark rye bread in Seoul.  Then, having been craving lentils for a while, I decided to go to the somewhat infamous "Foreign Grocery" in Itaewon.  It mostly serves the halal needs of Seoul's muslim community, and I have a sort of love-hate relationship with Itaewon.  On the one hand, it's fascinating – it's Seoul's equivalent of New York City's Canal Street, maybe.  It's the only place I know of in all of Korea where Koreans are frequently a minority in the neighborhood.  There are Russian nightclubs, Indian and Pakistani and Argentine restaurants, a Taco Bell, US military on leave, Nigerian street-vendors.  A real mish-mash.  And as such, it's fascinating.  On the other hand, it's the only place in Korea where I instinctively transfer my wallet to my front pocket.   I'm not sure if that makes me guilty of racism – I suppose it does.  But it's not the foreigners I'm afraid of – it's the shifty Korean element that makes me nervous.  It's like the old "down-range" neighborhoods that can be found outside US military bases, but times 10.

Well, anyway.  I found my lentils.  Product of India.  And and split peas, too.  Product of Indonesia.  Then I hopped back in the subway and was home by 8:30.

I worked on my writing today.  But didnt' make much progress.  Per usual, these days, I know.  I'm allowing myself to feel a little burnt out, at the moment.  But there's work I need to get done, too.  I took a video of my debate-class kids debating, last week, and I need to edit that.  I've been watching episodes of American crime dramas – e.g. The Mentalist.  I really would rather be watching some of the Korean dramas I like, but I really prefer to have subtitles, and the website I've been using to watch the subtitled versions is too unreliable.  I'm feeling annoyed about that.

Caveat: 82) 항상 부처님의 법속에서 살기를 발원하며 절합니다

Background Noise / Buddhism & Zen / The 108 / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

“I bow and pray to live always in the heart of Buddha’s dharma.”

This is #82 out of a series of 108 daily Buddhist affirmations that I am attempting to translate with my hands tied behind my back (well not really that, but I’m deliberately not seeking out translations on the internet, using only dictionary and grammar).

…
80. 가장 큰 힘이 사랑이라는 것을 알게되어 감사한 마음으로 절합니다.
        “I bow with a thankful heart and become aware that the most powerful thing is love.”
81. 항상 부처님의 품 안에서 살기를 발원하며 절합니다.
        “I bow and pray to live always in the Buddha’s arms.”
82. 항상 부처님의 법속에서 살기를 발원하며 절합니다.

I would read this eighty-second affirmation as: “I bow and pray to live always in the heart of Buddha’s dharma.”

Unrelatedly…

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What I’m listening to right now.

Röyksopp – “What Else Is There?”

[Update: apparently this video is disabled in some parts of the world, due to copyright enforcement. Youtube’s copyright enforcement is incomprehensible to me, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ve had so many vidoes that I tried to view that were disabled in Korea, but that had been linked by people I know in the US, where there was apparently no enforcement. This is not the first time I heard of it going other way around. It probably boils down to who’s suing who in what country’s courts. Sorry. There are other versions online that might work. More update (2013-05-29): In doing some blog-maintenance work I found that the video posted here did not exist anymore. I’ve replaced it with a new version that seems roughly the same.]

The lyrics:

It was me on that road
But you couldn’t see me
Too many lights out, but nowhere near here
It was me on that road
Still you couldn’t see me
And then flashlights and explosions
Roads end getting nearer
We cover distance but not together
I am the storm I am the wonder
And the flashlights nightmares
And sudden explosions
I don’t know what more to ask for
I was given just one wish
It’s about you and the sun
A morning run
The story of my maker
What I have and what I ache for
I’ve got a golden ear
I cut and I spear
And what else is there
Roads and getting nearer
We cover distance still not together
If I am the storm if I am the wonder
Will I have a flashlights nightmares
And sudden explosions
There’s no room where I can go and
You’ve got secrets too
I don’t know what more to ask for
I was given just one wish

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Caveat: 미쳤어…

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc) / The Wonders of Work / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

I survived Grace’s vacation. My coworker came back from vacation this week, after having been gone for a little over a month. So my 35+ classes per week will end. I put in a few long days this week getting caught up on getting my grades and student performance comments posted to the computer, and as of 9pm this evening, a new tentative schedule is published where I return to a more normal class load.

I feel like I survived the past month with very little stress, comparatively. I kind of approached it “heads-down” and just plowed through, but it helped that there were no major crises, and no serious issues. Things went more or less smoothly.

It’s worth observing that I’ve reached the conclusion that hagwon work, in crisis mode, is equivalent to Hongnong Elementary in normal mode. And Hongnong Elementary in crisis mode, is like… well, it’s like being on the losing side of a major combat simulation. I’m not talking about workload – obviously, there’s no comparison: hagwon work is WORK, Hongnong elementary wasn’t really work. But I’m talking about atmospherics, stressors, incomprehensible dictates from on high, etc.

I felt like I really accomplished something, this week, having completed the increased class load, and getting my July grades posted, and writing out comments on all my students. And then I came home, went on a little jog in the park at 11 pm, and came home and made some tomato and pesto pasta for a late dinner. Yay.

What I’m listening to, right now.

손담비, “미쳤어” [Son Dam Bi – Michyeosseo “crazy”].

The verb michida (conjugated into an informal past tense michyeosseo in this song) is generally translated as “crazy” but I don’t think that’s accurate at all. It means “crazy” so that captures the semantics, but the pragmatics are quite different. “Crazy” in English is quite mild, and can be used positively quite casually: e.g. “Oh, man, that was a crazy fun time.” Etc. But in Korean, you really can’t use the word that way – not in polite company, anyway. It’s not as strong as “fuck,” but I’ve had Koreans react to my use of the word as an American might to an unexpected use of that word. So I almost want to come up with some different kind of translation for the song title. Not sure what to use, though, that would capture the lower social register of the Korean. Maybe something as simple as “Fucked up.”

Here are the lyrics.

pictureyes yes, no no, which way to go,
2008 e to the r i c , let’s go
내가 미쳤어 정말 미쳤어
너무 미워서 떠나버렸어
너무 쉽게 끝난 사랑
다시 돌아오지 않는단걸 알면서도
미쳤어 내가 미쳤어
그땐 미쳐 널 잡지 못했어
나를 떠떠떠떠떠 떠나 버버버버버 버려
그 짧은 추억만을 남겨둔채로 날
후회했어 니가 가버린뒤
난 더 불행해져 네게 버려진뒤
너를 잃고 싶지않아 줄것이 더 많아 나를 떠나지마라
죽도록 사랑했어 너 하나만을
다시는 볼수없단 미친생각에
눈물만 흐르네 술에 취한밤에 오늘은 잠을 이룰수없어
내가 미쳤어 정말 미쳤어
너무 미워서 떠나버렸어
너무 쉽게 끝난 사랑
다시 돌아오지 않는단걸 알면서도
미쳤어 내가 미쳤어
그땐 미쳐 널 잡지 못했어
나를 떠떠떠떠떠 떠나 버버버버버 버려
그 짧은 추억만을 남겨둔채로 날
사랑이 벌써 식어버린건지
이제와 왜 난 후회하는건지
떠나간자리 혼자남은 난 이렇게 내 가슴은 무너지고
죽도록 사랑했어 너 하나만을
다시는 볼수없단 미친생각에
눈물만 흐르네 술에 취한밤에 오늘은 잠을 이룰수없어
내가 미쳤어 정말 미쳤어
너무 미워서 떠나버렸어
너무 쉽게 끝난 사랑 다시 돌아오지 않는단걸 알면서도
미쳤어 내가 미쳤어
그땐 미쳐 널 잡지 못했어
나를 떠떠떠떠떠 떠나 버버버버버 버려
그 짧은 추억만을 남겨둔채로 날
Rap by Eric:
너 의 memories 이런 delete it 매일밤 부르는건 your name 들리니? 몹시 아팠나봐 이젠 시작이란 말조차 난겁나 open up a chapter man i’m afaid of that 전화기를들어 확인해 니 messages, 떠나줬으면 좋겠어, catch me if you can but i’m out of here
내가 미쳤어 정말 미쳤어
너무 미워서 떠나버렸어
너무 쉽게 끝난 사랑 다시 돌아오지 않는단걸 알면서도
미쳤어 내가 미쳤어
그땐 미쳐 널 잡지 못했어
나를 떠떠떠떠떠 떠나 버버버버버 버려
그 짧은 추억만을 남겨둔채로 날

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Caveat: when Sejong made Hangle

Language & Linguistics / Life in Korea / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

Koreans often make hyperbolic statements extolling the virtues of one or another of Korea’s historical accomplishments, and, like nationalist narratives anywhere, they are often rather implausible, or at the least, fudge the truth.

But one thing that I completely agree with (and speaking as a linguist) is that their writing system, hangeul (or hangul or “Hangle” as my student spelled it in an essay the other day) is utterly remarkable – by far the most logical writing system in general use by any people on planet Earth. Arguably, it was the first time a writing system was made “scientifically” – by a committee of scholars put together by King Sejong the Great in the 15th century, after getting fed up with the difficulty of promoting literacy in a language written using ideographs borrowed from an unrelated language (i.e. Chinese characters – which is, for example, how the Japanese still write their language, today).

pictureIf I were tasked with developing a writing system for some newly discovered human language from scratch, I would almost undoubtedly start with hangeul as a base, and then develop whatever new jamo were needed to cover whatever sounds that might exist in that new language but that don’t exist in Korean, and build from there.

Hangeul uniquely captures at least two aspects of human phonation that most writing systems fail at (including, most notably, the IPA (the International Phonetic Alphabet) which is supposed to be the be-all and end-all of scientific writing systems): 1) hangeul is at least partially featural (there are progressive graphic relationships between related sounds); 2) it transparently indicates syllabicity.

I particularly fantasize that this last element of hangeul could be incorporated into the English writing system. Despite the fact that the syllable (or, alternately, the mora, depending on the language – there are some technical differences in the two concepts) is central to the way spoken languages work, no other writing system so transparently shows syllable divisions. So while American schoolchildren struggle with the concept of syllable (and syllabification) well into high school, explaining the idea of “syllable” to a literate Korean first-grader is trivial.

Even the supposed inconsistencies of hangeul, from a phonetic standpoint, end up reflecting morpho-phonological characteristics of the Korean language when viewed from higher up the “generative” chain, so to speak.

So, while there are many points on which I would challenge the Korea-centric narratives put forth in the media here, or in public education, I have no quibbles with the notion that “when Sejong made Hangle” was one of the greatest moments in world cultural history.

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Caveat: The Force Is Crowdsourced

Found Online / Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc)

The best remake of Star Wars, imaginable. It’s called Star Wars, Uncut. The conceit is that they chopped the entire movie into 15 second chunks, and then “crowdsourced” youtube-like remakes of each individual clip. Then it’s all strung together back into the movie, again. Phenomenal: funny, insightful, satiric, intelligent, banal. I can’t embed it, but go to the website, and check it out. A screenshot.

picture

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Caveat: 81) 항상 부처님의 품 안에서 살기를 발원하며 절합니다

Buddhism & Zen / The 108 / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

“I bow and pray to live always in the Buddha’s arms.”

This is #81 out of a series of 108 daily Buddhist affirmations that I am attempting to translate with my hands tied behind my back (well not really that, but I’m deliberately not seeking out translations on the internet, using only dictionary and grammar).

…
79. 가장 큰 재앙이 미움, 원망이라는 것을 알게되어 감사한 마음으로 절합니다.
“I bow with a thankful heart and become aware that the greatest misfortune is hatred [and] resentment.”
80. 가장 큰 힘이 사랑이라는 것을 알게되어 감사한 마음으로 절합니다.
“I bow with a thankful heart and become aware that the most powerful thing is love.”
81. 항상 부처님의 품 안에서 살기를 발원하며 절합니다.

I would read this eighty-first affirmation as: “I bow and pray to live always in the Buddha’s arms.”

The pattern changes now – the biggest shift in the main clause since the start. Fortunately, the ending -며 [myeo] isn’t very challenging: it just means something like “and” or “while” – hence, “I bow and pray…” or “I bow, [while] praying…” It’s a concatenator (which abound in Korean).

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Caveat: National liberation and other historical paradoxes

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / My Photos / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism / Politics, Economics & Current Affairs

Today is Liberation Day in South Korea. It’s the day that Japan surrendered to the Allies, and 35 years of subjugation to Japanese colonialism were brought to a close.  What followed was the division of the peninsula by the victorious powers, and a bifurcated, two-sided neocolonial regime (Soviet and American) that, arguably, persists even today, 20 years after the end of the Cold War.

The North is the world’s only surviving even vaguely Stalinist regime, and the South, despite having shifted to a sort of neolibral democracy (such as it is, and, erm, perhaps not coincidental to the moment in history when the Soviet Union fell), remains the largest “peacetime” host of American troops on foreign soil (i.e. discounting the active war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq).

Despite my cynicism, I continue to believe that South Korea may be the sole genuine success story in America’s highly questionable exercises in “nation building.” I think that this is true, in part, because of the unique geopolitical moment that followed World War II and that the Korean War consolidated – a moment when “democracy” was happily represented around the world by repressive neo-fascist regimes (such as Syngman Rhee and subsequently Park Chung-Hee) – true – but where the lip-service concepts such as freedom were paid would eventually result in an evolution toward more inclusive (if never perfect) political systems.

I think that one reason why the current neoconservative efforts at nation-building (in e.g. Iraq) have been such utter failures is because of the historical myopia that is unable to recognize that “nation building” is, in fact, almost never a democratic enterprise. Democracy can take root in nations, undeniably, but nations are rarely constructed as a result of truly democratic impulses – because true democracies are full of people who are not, in fact, interested in being part of this or that nation.

And don’t try to sell me on some kind of American exceptionalism in this matter – the “American” nation was built by a very narrow demographic of middle-aged and elderly white, male landowners, over and against the objections of all kinds of embedded subjugated peoples (Native Americans, women, Catholic immigrant-laborers, Jewish small-scale merchants, etc.), who were only subsequently, through several centuries of struggle and brutal war (e.g. the Civil War), ideologically homogenized into some degree of inclusion.  Never forget: even now, Obama talks white – and that’s how he got elected.

Nationalism is – as movements such as Nazism (not to mention Teapartism) should make obvious – all about the imposition of some totalizing ideological regime across an inevitably heterogeneous population. It’s only as a retroactive construct that such homogeneous nation-peoples (such as Koreans or Mexicans or even Americans) choose to perceive themselves as such. 

All of which is my way of saying that I have, in fact, come to believe in a certain strain of South Korean exceptionalism, if only in that its relationship to the United States is utterly unique in the history of neocolonialism. There are lots of caveats attached to that, too.

There’s a perhaps-relevant quote, frequently misattributed to Sinclair Lewis (similar to something said by Halford E. Luccock, but probably invented in its misattributed form by journalist Harrison Salisbury).  The recent proto-primarial antics of Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry set me to thinking about it:  “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”

To which I will add: Yay, nationalism!  Oh, and maybe, as a dash of seasoning, the old Samuel Johnson line:  “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”

Speaking of freedom… What I’m listening to right now.

Kris Kristofferson, “Me and Bobby McGee.”

Kris Kristofferson wrote the song, and this is an early demo version that is currently one of my favorite renditions.   There’s a Willie Nelson cover I like, too. I never actually cared for the famous Janis Joplin version that topped the charts in the early 70’s, for example, and I suspect the version that I grew up on was probably one of the Greatful Dead’s covers of it – I couldn’t find anything that sounded exactly right in surfing around youtube, though.

Here is a view of Ilsan’s Jungang-no [Central Avenue], a block from my apartment at the Juyeop subway entrance. I took the photo earlier, shrouded in drizzle – there are a few limp South Korean flags hanging from light poles. I took a long walk today, but didn’t really do a lot. Trying to find inner peace.

picture

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Caveat: Some Quotes

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This quote is the closest thing I have to a guiding principle. It is succinct but philosophically profound and has layers of complexity. It summarizes Deleuze’s ethical thought, in the context of his work on Spinoza.

  • “Ethical joy is the correlate of speculative affirmation.” – Gilles Deleuze

Here is a compilation of other quotes I like.

  • “Poetry is not a civilizer, rather the reverse, for great poetry appeals to the most primitive instincts.” – Robinson Jeffers
  • “Fantasy love is much better than reality love. Never doing it is very exciting. The most exciting attractions are between two opposites who never meet.” – Andy Warhol
  • “Love is not for the faint-hearted, or for the self-possessed” – I think Rumi (Persian poet)
  • “Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice.” – un attributed internet meme.  (This is a corollary of Clarke’s law, I guess. )
  • “Live each day as if you will live forever.” – Unknown (to me, anyway)
  • “Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear.” – William E. Gladstone
  • “Long live freedom and damn the ideologies” – Robinson Jeffers
  • “But two Kwakiutls in the same blanket…” – Tony Curtis (as the Great Leslie, in The Great Race)
  • “If they can get here, they have God’s right to come.” – Herman Melville
  • “So unprincipled are judges and lawyers that they will even tell the truth if it serves their purposes.” – Robert C. Black
  • “I think we all agree, the past is over.” – George W. Bush
  • “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool.” – Richard Feynman
  • “we are the world’s first adolescent civilization.” – David Brin (in a comment on his blog, regarding our own civilization)
  • “With enemies like libertarians, the state doesn’t need friends.” – Robert C. Black
  • “Life is dangerous. No one has survived it yet.” – Unnamed Siberian tour guide quoted in The Economist, Mar 24, 2007.
  • “la vida es un río que pasa y que deja sólo la tierra húmeda” – Augusto Pinochet (en su autobiografia Camino Recorrido, book 1)
  • “La vida es corta… pero ancha” – autor del blog “futuroperfecto”
  • “Pero la vida es un rio / Que te moja con la edad” – Synteks Aleks (musical group) song: La historia de un hombre
  • “nuestras vidas son los rios que van a dar a la mar, que es el morir” – Jorge Manrique (poeta s. XVI).
  • “Mundus Vult Decipi [the world wishes to be deceived]” – James Branch Cabell
  • “The time of your life is the one commodity you can sell but never buy back.” – Robert C. Black
  • “the great redeeming feature of poverty: the fact that it annihilates the future.” – George Orwell
  • “The global economy is like a zebra roller-skating through a Volkswagen factory in China on the Fourth of July and it’s snowing.” – Max Eichler (parodying Thomas Friedman)
  • “Life is a partial, continuous, progressive, multiform and conditionally interactive self-realization of the potentialities of atomic electron states.” – John Desmond Bernal
  • “So many words, and so often I grope for them knowing that there’s a correct one but lacking the nous to bring it to articulation. Fearing senile decay. Errrrgh.” – Ann Gillidette
  • “En el fondo el cínico es un cartesiano y un kantiano derrotado: le gustaría disponer de un conocimiento absoluto y una voluntad recta, pero lo considera imposible.” – D. Innerarity (filósofo español – en Dialéctica de la modernidad)
  • “Me get it, cookie is sometimes food. You know what? Right now is sometime!” – Cookie Monster
  • “Good bye, New York. Howdy, East Orange.” – Bob Dylan
  • “Oprah is transcendent; she is a cultural treasure.” – David Letterman.
  • “when the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done.” – J. M. Keynes.
  • “Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.” – Mark Twain.
  • “With only 300 bits, you could assign a unique barcode to each of the ten-to-the-ninetieth elementary particles in the universe.” – Seth Lloyd.
  • “It is possible to serve honorably in a dishonorable war.” – Unknown (to me, anyway)
  • “Boredom is your ‘fuller life’ calling you, and your fear of hearing that call.” – Gary Zukav
  • “Religion is like a penis.  It’s fine to have one.  It’s fine to be proud of it.  But please don’t whip it out in public and start waving it around.  And PLEASE don’t try to shove it down my children’s throats.” – Unattributed internet meme
  • “no existe la seguridad, solo existe el amor” – overheard in a trance track
  • “A libertarian is just a Republican who takes drugs.” – Robert C. Black
  • “It’s a good deal, but some poor people remain, oddly, un-fucked.” – Jon Stewart
  • “A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.” – James Madison
  • “…doors open to anyone with the will and heart to get here.” – Ronald Reagan (on immigration)
  • “Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.” – Oscar Wilde
  • “Cake’s existence is have eat cake.” – One of my middle-school students in 2007
  • “There is great chaos under heaven, and the situation is excellent.” – Mao Tse-tung

 

Caveat: The Remarkable Chilean Polity

Politics, Economics & Current Affairs

There are possible solutions, within a system-of-government framework not unlike our own (i.e. presidential, bicameral, republican, more-or-less two-party), to the never-ending U.S. deficit/budget crisis. Why is it that the best, clearest explanation of these budget options comes not in any recent news article on the topic of the actual budget/deficit situation, but in a discussion of how Chile, in contrast, seems to have gotten things “right”? Despite the “Great Recession,” the country is currently still running an underlying structural budget surplus!

I found the article fascinating, extraordinarily clear, and refreshing – I very much recommend it. Despite being posted on an economics blog, it’s entirely accessible to those unversed in the obscurities of the dismal science. The blog’s author, economist Ed Dolan, summarizes:

The centerpiece of Chilean fiscal policy is a balanced budget rule of a much more sophisticated variety than the one endorsed last week [relative to timestamp on blog post: 2011-07-24] by the U.S. House of Representatives. The House bill calls for strict year-to-year balance of total receipts and outlays, whereas Chile’s rule requires annual balance of the structural budget. The two are not at all the same.

I suppose it’s very possible that, in a month, or a year, or a decade, we’ll see some collapse of the Chilean polity, putting a lie to its current apparent functionality (as opposed to the U.S. dysfunctionality). Recent geopolitical developments have certainly been full of interesting surprises. But based on my own time in Chile, back in 1994 (when the dictatorship was still quite fresh in everyone’s mind), there was something about the way that country had emerged from its recent political/economic trauma with a sort of “never again” resolve that impressed me profoundly.


pictureChile is not devoid of problems – the recent clashes between the new, conservative Piñera government and student protesters is a good example of the kind of tensions found there. And like most “tiger”-type, neoliberal economies (including my current home, South Korea), it has huge difficulties balancing economic growth with unequal distribution of wealth and difficult-to-eliminate structural corruption. But having traveled extensively in the world, Chile remains at the very top of my list of favorite places, and though I haven’t been back since 1994, hopefully someday I’ll get back there.

Unlike anywhere else I’ve been in Latin America, in Chile I never had any feeling of impending anarchy, I had no sense that authority is inherently not-to-be-trusted – indeed, one of the striking things in the way that Chileans talked to me about the dictatorship and social unrest of the 70’s and 80’s was that they all deemed it to have been so exceptional vis-a-vis the “normal” Chilean national character. If you study the country’s history, you quickly realize this is, largely, self-mythologizing – but that doesn’t invalidate it as a national self-perception. In fact, it makes it all the more remarkable. It is such a contrast to the way dictatorships and official corruption seem to perceived in most of Latin America, where these things are always taken as “well that’s just the way things always are.” In that way, Chile always felt “first world” to me, despite  lacking that “first world” level of general prosperity.

In other Chile-related news, I recently read that the town of Arica, in the desert north of Chile, recently received 6 millimeters of rain – a typical amount for an hour or two on a summer’s day in Seoul – and set a new record for most precipitation ever. Arica is notoriously the driest place on earth, with some outlying areas having no recorded precipitation in all of history.

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Caveat: Our Potemkin Planet

Buddhism & Zen / Internet & Blogging / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism / Politics, Economics & Current Affairs / Quotable

I'm not even close to agreeing with everything blogger IOZ writes, but this little summary in a recent post really captures a lot of information and ideas in a very compact bit of prose.  I must quote:

The problem is in fact not that people need jobs but that people need money, and hobbling them to a desk or factory floor is the only moral and legitimate means of funneling currency into their empty jugs.  We need to have fuller employment so that more people are getting paid so that the consumer economy expands ad inf[initum] and repeat as necessary.  There are, if you consider it even briefly, a half million or so unexamined assumptions underlying all of this.

He goes on to declare that both democrats and republicans are silly, which I can marginally agree with, but also that Barack Obama is a murderer (which I will grant is provisionally true, but only in the same sense that every modern American president trying to manage an empire ultimately beyond his control has been a murderer).  I'm less comfortable with such rhetorical flights.  But the preceding thought about jobs cuts to the core of the limitations of life on our increasingly Potemkin Planet. 

His conclusion:  "Beyond the merely pecuniary and the venial: what does your life mean to you beyond your paystub and your appetites?"

I'm working on the answer to this, and feel I'm making only a little progress.  But I agree it needs to be sought.

Caveat: 80) 가장 큰 힘이 사랑이라는 것을 알게되어 감사한 마음으로 절합니다

Buddhism & Zen / The 108 / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

“I bow with a thankful heart and become aware that the most powerful thing is love.”

This is #80 out of a series of 108 daily Buddhist affirmations that I am attempting to translate with my hands tied behind my back (well not really that, but I’m deliberately not seeking out translations on the internet, using only dictionary and grammar).

…
78. 가장 큰 축복이 자비심이라는 것을 알게되어 감사한 마음으로 절합니다.
        “I bow with a thankful heart and become aware that the greatest blessing is compassion.”
79. 가장 큰 재앙이 미움, 원망이라는 것을 알게되어 감사한 마음으로 절합니다.
        “I bow with a thankful heart and become aware that the greatest misfortune is hatred [and] resentment.”
80. 가장 큰 힘이 사랑이라는 것을 알게되어 감사한 마음으로 절합니다.

I would read this eightieth affirmation as: “I bow with a thankful heart and become aware that the most powerful thing is love.”

Like some kind of Beatles song. But this translation marks a new milestone. I knew with 100% confidence what this meant – no dictionary, no checking. Just plain obvious. Having the pattern of the preceding helps.

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Caveat: Flash! (?)

Found Online / Internet & Blogging

The humor in this picture I found online is very geeky, very inside-jokey, but it made me laugh out loud. Do you see it?  It’s pretty subtle. If you see it, you’re a geek. If you laugh, you’re a nerd, too.

picture

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Caveat: Looters Just Looking for Love

Politics, Economics & Current Affairs

RE the recent rioting in London, I ran across the following telling observation reported by blogger Penny Red:

In one NBC report, a young man in Tottenham was asked if rioting really achieved anything:

"Yes," said the young man. "You wouldn't be talking to me now if we didn't riot, would you?"

"Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you."

I remember the 1992 riots in L.A.  I was living in Pasadena at the time – they were pretty much an immediate part of my environment.  My thought at the time was that part of it was about that feeling of simply not having any way of being heard.  And so giving up on efforts to be heard, on efforts at dialog, and just letting it vent into pure rage.  I suspect something similar must be what's involved in London.

Given the increasing stratifications (gap between rich and poor) of most Western societies, and the troubled economy and the emphasis everywhere on "austerity" as opposed to expansive (i.e. Keynesian) government responses, we will only be seeing more of this, in the future. 

I saw another blogger (I uncharactistically neglected to bookmark so I don't recall who) who observed that it's quite ridiculous that we don't view social welfare spending as a component of the supposedly critical (and generally uncuttable) national security budget.  Obviously, the recent and ongoing cuts to social welfare in Britain were major contributors to the conflagration in London this past week.  How is that not "national security"?

Caveat: Something Banal About My Day

Banalities & Journaling

pictureI had a pretty good day today.  Not any bad classes. The ET kids (just a name for an elementary-age cohort, I’m not trying to imply they’re aliens) are smart and fun, and I bought them cup-o-chicken thingies from the fast-food joint downstairs (they made the menu selection) because they’d all done their homework. The middle-schoolers were all well behaved and engaged – not a single rude or inattentive individual among them, at least today. I felt good about how things went.

And I even went for 3 km jog in the sauna-like evening when I got home, and then had some rice with beans and kimchi. I feel tired now.

That was perhaps surprising – the day didn’t start that well, since I woke up from a rather unpleasant dream in which I was working as a cashier at that hardware store I worked at in the fall of 1985, living in Chicago. Which I guess is typical random sort of dream, except that in the dream, I was unable to figure out how to work the cash register, which made working as a cashier pretty stressful.

Random.

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Caveat: 79) 가장 큰 재앙이 미움, 원망이라는 것을 알게되어 감사한 마음으로 절합니다

Buddhism & Zen / The 108 / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

“I bow with a thankful heart and become aware that the greatest misfortune is hatred [and] resentment.”

This is #79 out of a series of 108 daily Buddhist affirmations that I am attempting to translate with my hands tied behind my back (well not really that, but I’m deliberately not seeking out translations on the internet, using only dictionary and grammar).

…
77. 자연이 우리들의 스승이라는 것을 알게되어 감사한 마음으로 절합니다.
        “I bow with a thankful heart and become aware that nature is our teacher.”
78. 가장 큰 축복이 자비심이라는 것을 알게되어 감사한 마음으로 절합니다.
        “I bow with a thankful heart and become aware that the greatest blessing is compassion.”
79. 가장 큰 재앙이 미움, 원망이라는 것을 알게되어 감사한 마음으로 절합니다.

I would read this seventy-ninth affirmation as: “I bow with a thankful heart and become aware that the greatest misfortune is hatred [and] resentment.”

Yes.

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Caveat: Mitt Lille Land

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc) / Politics, Economics & Current Affairs

pictureMaybe a week or two ago, I was surfing the internet looking at news or commentary on the Norwegian disaster. I don’t really have any profundity to contribute, but I ran across this video at some point, and the musical accompaniment has become a new favorite on my mp3 rotation. I’ve always had a thing for songs in languages I don’t understand, I suppose – so the fact that it’s in Norwegian doesn’t bother me at all – Norwegian is one of those languages that’s in the category of “gee I’d really like to study that language someday” – along with about 50 other languages, right?

It’s a haunting tune, and since the bombing in Oslo / massacre at Utoya, has become a sort of informal anthem that Norwegians apparently associate with commemorating the events. The original song is by Ole Paus, and I like his version too – almost better. But here’s Maria Mena’s version, set to video footage from the aftermath of the attacks.

Ole Paus’ version follows below – it’s set to a video made of photo stills from some who-knows-who’s Norwegian vacation – which feels oddly intimate and intrusive to look at, to me – but unfortunately it’s the only full version of the original that I could find. I like its almost vaguely Appalachian sound.

Here are the lyrics. Norwegian is possibly my favorite of the Germanic languages (well, I like Dutch, too, and English has a certain amibivalent popularity in my heart, I must confess – but that may simply be excessive familiarity).

Mitt lille land
Et lite sted, en håndfull fred
slengt ut blant vidder og fjord

Mitt lille land
Der høye fjell står plantet
mellom hus og mennesker og ord
Og der stillhet og drømmer gror
Som et ekko i karrig jord

Mitt lille land
Der havet stryker mildt og mykt
som kjærtegn fra kyst til kyst

Mitt lille land
Der stjerner glir forbi
og blir et landskap når det blir lyst
mens natten står blek og tyst

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Caveat: Plus or Minus

Banalities & Journaling / Internet & Blogging

I’m not in fact excited by this new thing out there called google+ (google plus).  It’s not entirely rational.  I use facebook, and in fact, I dislike it.  I’m a perfect profile of an early adopter when it comes to this type of thing.  Yet I don’t want to.  Here’s how I’m thinking about it.

For the last half decade, I have viewed google and how I use it as a rather “professional space.”  I rely on it, utterly, being an expat with only remote access to the servers that host my underlying internet domain names and email addresses.  It’s also where I keep my writing (such as it is – having once lost an entire novel to a hard drive failure), I now keep my writing in google docs as well as on two different hard drives, most of the time.

Meanwhile, my attitude about “social networks” such as facebook is that there is something, at core, deeply “unprofessional” about them.  So in google+ I find my “professional” webspace trying to elbow its way into my “unprofessional” one, and my gut reaction is: “no, these things need to stay separate.”

I don’t ever want to be in a situation where something involving my “social presence” online compromises my ability to access my professional webspace.  You hear horror stories about people getting banned from facebook due to some misunderstood post, which involves some controversial statement or even the behavior of some online “friend.”  I can’t risk losing access to tools such as gmail and google docs, at this point – they are integrated into my current lifestyle too deeply.

I’m not sure if this is entirely rational.  But even as it is, I sometimes dread having some online acquaintance post something embarrassing or inappropriate on my facebook – given it’s a space also accessible to many former bosses and coworkers as well as my current boss (not to mention former and current students!).  People will say, “well, but Jared, you post so much personal and deep and intimate stuff on this blog!  What’s the difference?”  And I will say, only, “that’s a good point.”  But I would differentiate only the following:  I have absolute curatorial control over my blog.  I own it.  I own the server it’s on (well, I rent it – but I control it).  Facebook, on the other hand, says right in its “end user agreement” that they are the ones with curatorial control of your content, and you hear stories about people who put things on facebook and can’t make them disappear or can’t edit them later.  Or about the people who get banned from facebook for some misunderstood post or comment.  More than once, I’ve gone back and changed some past post in this blog, after reconsidering the impact of the kind of impression it might make on some reader or another.

Well, that’s all not that relevant.  I’m feeling like this is a pretty rambling, incoherent attempt at a rant.

All I’m saying is that I don’t feel at all interested in trying google plus, despite despising facebook and yet being utterly “married” to it, at this point – I value its ability to keep me in touch with people.

Unrelatedly, what I’m listening to right now.

K-os, “Hallelujah.” [UPDATE: the following sentence is no longer true. Youtube embed was used, the German one had rotted anyway.] The embedded video is from some German website, since the youtube version was blocked in Korea (grumble annoyance grumble).

picture

picture

Caveat: …for endings, as it is known, are where we begin

Banalities & Journaling / Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc)

Yesterday, yes, a day of ending things. I finished reading a novel: Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore. That’s been an “in progress” book for… almost a year. I finished reading a novella, too: Seo Hajin’s Hong Gildong (in translation; not the medieval Korean novel, nor the modern TV reinterpretation – rather, a modernist novella with a thematically related character). I’m not that good at finishing books, these days, so these are major accomplishments.

pictureLastly, I finished watching the episodes of season 2 of the TV series Pushing Daisies. It’s kind of inconsistent in quality, but it’s by the same guy who created Dead Like Me, which was a very underrated series with some similar themes. Really well written, for the most part, and funny. The narrator, in his concluding words at the close of season 2: “…for endings, as it is known, are where we begin.”

I suppose yesterday was the kind of day where I live up to just how boring my life seems. But I’m OK with it being boring, for now.

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Caveat: 78) 가장 큰 축복이 자비심이라는 것을 알게되어 감사한 마음으로 절합니다

Banalities & Journaling / Buddhism & Zen / The 108 / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

“I bow with a thankful heart and become aware that the greatest blessing is compassion.”

This is #78 out of a series of 108 daily Buddhist affirmations that I am attempting to translate with my hands tied behind my back (well not really that, but I’m deliberately not seeking out translations on the internet, using only dictionary and grammar).

…
76. 자연이 생명 순환의 법칙이라는 것을 알게되어 감사한 마음으로 절합니다.
        “I bow with a thankful heart and become aware that nature follows the law of life cycles.”
77. 자연이 우리들의 스승이라는 것을 알게되어 감사한 마음으로 절합니다.
        “I bow with a thankful heart and become aware that nature is our teacher.”
78. 가장 큰 축복이 자비심이라는 것을 알게되어 감사한 마음으로 절합니다.

I would read this seventy-eighth affirmation as: “I bow with a thankful heart and become aware that the greatest blessing is compassion.”

This seems a little bit cliche, and I have a hard time contextualizing (conceptualizing) “blessing” – that’s a strictly athiest’s handicap, I realize. By “cliche,” perhaps all I mean is that it doesn’t seem very insightful. Also, I may prefer translating 자비심 as “sympathy” or even “empathy” over the word compassion.

The sun is out. It de-motivates me, because it means it will be beastly hot out (since it will do nothing to abate the humidity). I was planning on taking a day trip somewhere, today, but seeing that blue sky and sun makes me think I’m happier with just cuddling up next to my airconditioner. I know that’s a world-fleeing cop-out.  What can I offer in my defense?

I went out to dinner with coworkers after work on Friday, and I think I finally managed to convey to them just how boring a person I really am. I’m not sure if this is a relief, or just depressing.

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