Caveat: 52) 이 세상을 높고 낮음으로 분별하며 살아온 죄를 참회하며 절합니다

“I bow in repentance of any misdeeds lived and discerning this world high or low.”

This is #52 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).


50. 나만을 생각하여 꽃과 나무를 함부로 자르는 어리석음을 참회하며 절합니다.
        “I bow in repentance of all the stupidity which comes alive to cut trees and flowers randomly [by] thinking of only myself.”
51. 이 세상을 많고 적음으로 분별하며 살아온 죄를 참회하며 절합니다.
       “I bow in repentance of any misdeeds lived and discerning this world, more or less.”
52. 이 세상을 높고 낮음으로 분별하며 살아온 죄를 참회하며 절합니다.

I would read this fifty-second affirmation as: “I bow in repentance of any misdeeds lived and discerning this world high or low.”

This gave me a little bit of insight to the previous one, too – I made a small adjustment to the translation of that one (just in word order, to capture the developing parllelism). It doesn’t work perfectly – I still can’t quite see what the implied subject is for “more or less” and “high or low.”

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: Remain In Light

pictureI’ve been messing with my 6000-odd mess of mp3 tracks, trying to organize things, and ended up listening to Remain In Light by the Talking Heads, all the way through. It’s from a time when album meant something more than “collection.” It’s a coherent work of art, and though I have many individual songs that are favoriter, I can’t say there is any album I feel more strongly about – even after all these years.

It makes me think of Duluth, and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and being down-and-out on the streets of Ottawa, and living in my car in Boston.

Remain. In. Light.

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: Why is it dark?

I think I've managed to acquire that "new school flu."  I slept very restlessly, last night, and woke up wondering why it was dark, thinking it should be morning, at one point.

I spent the day yesterday unpacking and trying to sort through some of my "stuff" – I have a lot of books, but no book case yet.  Need to look into that.  I have all these papers I saved – lesson plans, kids' work – I'm sentimental, I guess.  I will look into paring this down to essential.  I want to get around to scanning and posting some of the "goodbye letters" that my students at Hongnong made for me – they're very cute and often touching.

Anyway.  More later.

Caveat: Consumption and Environmental Impact

Last week I posted a blog entry in which I mentioned my belief that a high-density urban lifestyle is more “sustainable” and has lower environmental impact.  This was in the context of a cartoon which I posted there, which included the words:  “Do you use roads?  Do you live in civilization?  You are responsible for cruelty to animals.”

An old-new acquaintance of mine, Jeannine (really, my absolute oldest friend – she was my best friend sometime around second grade), commented on facebook as follows: “I think that whether high-density urban living vs. country living is “more impact” depends on how one lives one’s life in either environment. And well, then, there is ‘do you use roads?’ So it’s probably a draw.”

Now, the thing is, I respect her opinion highly, on this matter, because I happen to know that she is a professional ecologist of some kind. I’m not one of them types o’ people. The best I can say is that I completed a minor in botany in college (which I failed to declare because I already had two other minors and the paperwork was annoying, but trust me, I did the course work, and it was fun). Oh… and I was once a card-carrying member of the Green Party.

But I have thought long and hard about this stuff, and all during the past week, I tried thinking through just how strongly I believe this. Here’s a modified (somewhat caveat’ed) version of my statement:

All things being equal, a high-density urban lifestyle has lower environmental impact than a rural one.

The key phrase is “all things being equal” – I mean by this, that “to the extent we can make the same lifestyle choices in different environments.” Lifestyle, obviously – in the broadest interpretation – is where the greatest environmental impact comes into play. And lifestyle includes a great deal more than the binary choice of urban vs. rural.

Here’s my thought experiment, at its most simple.

It’s related to the Econ 101 idea conveyed by the phrase “economies of scale.” If you live in a giant apartment building, with your workplace near by and/or easily accessible by good public transportation, your day-to-day existence will have less impact on the environment, overall, than if you tried to live a basically equivalent lifestyle in a single-dwelling house in the suburbs or out in the country. That’s because, for example, in an apartment building, you use less energy to heat your apartment, since you share resources with your neighbor. And you drive less to get the same results in terms of commuting for work and leisure.

But it’s key to remember that I’m assuming equivalent lifestyle – to the greatest extent possible.

Obviously, one can make choices about how one lives, in either context, that increase or decrease one’s environmental impact. Some of those choices are easier in the country, and some are easier in the city. My personal choice of recent years – not to own a car – is much easier in the city, now, than it was living in the country, last year. Someone else’s choice, say, to consume only locally grown, organic produce would maybe be much, much easier in the country.

The thing about country life that perhaps makes it seem like it has lower environmental impact is that you’re not surrounded by millions of others also having an impact on their environment. The other thing about the rural life that must be noted is that, unlike the urban lifestyle, it can be “unplugged” completely – which obviously is a very, very low impact lifestyle. But just because such a choice is possible in a rural environment doesn’t mean many people actually bother to make such a choice, and the fact of the matter is that in developed countries, country people and city people mostly make very similar lifestyle choices, which means their overall impact is quite comparable.

Ultimately, in my thinking at least, it comes down to the issue of per capita environmental impact. And that’s crucial. I think the inhabitants of Seoul City have devastating overall environmental impact in comparison with, say, the residents of Molokai (which I choose since Jeannine lives there, and which happens to be almost exactly the same size, in square kilometers, as the area enclosed by the Seoul City limits).

But, if you look at per capita impact, I bet Seoul, with its 10 million, has Molokai, with its 7,000, beat. Hands down. I mean, I can’t guarantee that, obviously – I don’t know enough about all the components of what environmental impact really even means. But how likely is it that a individual Seoul resident, on average, has more impact on his or her environment than an individual Molokai resident?

One thing I do when I think about this, is that I try to find some intellectually comfortable, more simple proxy for the concept of overall environmental impact. I think one good proxy is the much touted (recently touted, anyway) concept of carbon footprint. Again, Seoul’s carbon footprint is greater than Molokai’s – but on a per capita basis, and accounting for inflows and outflows (meaning imports and exports of goods made by / consumed by inhabitants), I would bet that Seoul’s is lower than Molokai’s.

This is really just a thought experiment. Another thing that I think about, a lot, is that for most of us, figuring out our overall environmental impact is stunningly difficult. There’s carbon, of course, but there’s also all the other chemicals we put out, directly or by virtue of what we buy. There are disrupted ecologies, due to infrastructure ranging from farms to factories to highways to human-oriented “parks.”

I remember reading somewhere that, perhaps coincidentally and perhaps by causation, our rate of overall consumption, in dollar terms (or in terms of whatever currency we’re using), is an almost perfect proxy for our carbon footprint. Which is to say, if someone consumes at a rate of $40000 per year, their carbon footprint for everything they do (travel, food, etc.) will be double a person’s who consumes at $20000 per year and half of a person’s who consumes at $80000. It’s just a more or less perfect statistical correlation, obviously grounded in the way our human ecology (which we call economy) happens to match up with our natural ecology (which includes our carbon footprint). Of course this is hardly an accident – just as it’s not an accident that both “ecology” and “economy” start with “eco-.”

I therefore imagine that there might, in fact, be a strong correlation between our rate of economic consumption and our overall environmental impact, too. This makes it much easier for amateurs in ecology to think about, and evaluate, their environmental impact. It boils down to a simple question, with easy ways to make changes and adjustments in behaviors.

We can ask ourselves: how much am I consuming, in dollar terms? And, in most societies for most people, this isn’t that different a number than what we’re earning – very few of us are socking our income away at high rates and spending low proportions of it.

The end of this metaphor or analogy is that we can simply look at our tax return and decide what our environmental impact is. I mean… very roughly speaking.

Some time back, once I decided this analogy or way of thinking made sense to me, I made a very conscious decision, starting in about 2006, that I was going to lower my environmental impact by simply attempting to reduce my rate of consumption. I set for myself a somewhat conscious goal of lowering my income. That sounds horribly un-American.  But it’s not hard to do – you have to admit that. I changed careers from something lucrative (computer programming) to something unlucrative (teaching – and overseas, at that!). I gave up driving – except for road trips. I happily live in a smaller apartment than an average American would consider acceptable. I limit meat consumption (as I’ve described here many times before, I basically only eat meat when in the company of others, in the context of them deciding what to order). I buy mostly locally grown produce (easy to do in Korea since they grow everything here in hothouses and discourage food imports through massive tarriffs – those Chilean grapes in the store ain’t cheap like in the US). Etc.

I don’t mean to come off sounding “high and mighty” or superior. I am certainly not blind to the irony of the fact that my previous post was about consumption, and about my “stuff” and how happy I was to have some “stuff.” My only point is that trying to understand and control our overall environmental impact is incredibly difficult, if not impossible, without degrees in economics or ecology. But if we just think in terms of consumption, then we have a ton of options in front of us, and anyone can make lifestyle changes that lower consumption, and thus, almost inevitably, also lower environmental impact and/or increase sustainability. And to return to the urban vs. rural dilemma, I can say that urban lifestyles are more easily adaptable to patterns of lowered consumption in the context of maintaining certain minimum “privileges,” vis-a-vis the Western, modern lifestyle, and thus they’re more sustainable.

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: Stuff!

My stuff arrived, today. Rather than going and fetching it, I paid to have some 택배 (delivery) people to bring it to me from lovely Hongnong Town. It was easy to arrange with my friend Mun-chan mediating the interaction. Here is a picture of my stuff, in my apartment.

picture

Now, with all this stuff, my apartment isn’t so bare.

I have a sofa, too. I bought a used sofa. It is comfortable. Does this symbolize my commitment to staying in Korea for the long term? Maybe.

picture

That’s a quilt that my mother made, that she sent back with me from my visit to her in January, from Australia. My mother makes nice quilts. It’s thrown over the back of the sofa. My apartment will become very homey, I think.

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: 51) 이 세상을 많고 적음으로 분별하며 살아온 죄를 참회하며 절합니다

“I bow in repentance of any misdeeds lived and discerning, more or less, this world.”

This is #51 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).


49. 나만을 생각하여 산과 바다를 더럽히며 살아 온 어리석음을 참회하며 절합니다.
        “I bow in repentance of all the stupidity which comes alive to dirty the mountains and the sea [by] thinking of only myself.”
50. 나만을 생각하여 꽃과 나무를 함부로 자르는 어리석음을 참회하며 절합니다.
        “I bow in repentance of all the stupidity which comes alive to cut trees and flowers randomly [by] thinking of only myself.”
51. 이 세상을 많고 적음으로 분별하며 살아온 죄를 참회하며 절합니다.

I would read this fifty-first affirmation as: “I bow in repentance of any misdeeds lived and discerning, more or less, this world.”

I’m not really comfortable with this translation. I may think of a revision, but it’s the best I can come up with, for now. I’m not liking the “more or less” (which is “많고 적음으로”) – literally, it might be “by means of being more and being less.” What (or who) is being more and less? The implied subject (I)? The discernment? The object (this world)? The living of the following clause? Well, anyway.

More or less.

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: What If Testing Didn’t Matter At All?

A few days back, I ran across a review in a Forbes magazine blog that discussed Finland’s educational system, which apparently foregoes most standardized testing and yet produces some of the best results of any educational system in the world. I have my own skepticisms about the usefulness of standardized testing, but in my curiosity, I found a chart on another website (geographic.org) that I reproduce via screenshot, here.

picture

A little fact in the above chart leaped out at me, and blew my mind.

Yes, Finland is near the top of this little chart. But look what country is right above it, in position #1. Korea (which one has to assume means South Korea, and not the charming utopia a little bit to the north of here). And you see, this blew my mind because South Korea’s educational system is far from free of standardized testing – rather, the Koreans’ obsession with testing of all kinds is unparalleled and downright obnoxious.

And so I had an insight – a moment when everything became clear. The two top countries on the chart achieve their stunning world rankings in education with widely divergent approaches to standardized testing. What if standardized testing actually didn’t have any impact, either way, on education? What if not only was standardized testing useless but also relatively harmless? That would explain a lot.

My personal opinion, or gut feeling, about what we see on the chart, is that what drives countries like Finland and South Korea to the top of charts like this has very little to do with education policy and a great deal to do with cultural valuations of education – which is to say, what the government does about education (or fails to do) is much less meaningful to outcomes than what individuals and families feel about education.

By the by, this doesn’t bode well for the sorry state of American education. Because if it’s a cultural problem, and not a policy failure, the solution is much more difficult.

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: More Random Linguistics

I like to pick up those free community newspapers when I see them lying around, like in the lobby of my apartment building. I will scan through, looking for examples of Korean that I might actually understand.

Opening at random, I found an advertorial alongside an ad for an English hagwon that was actually quite intriguing – a discussion of that question that utterly fascinates Koreans: “why is English so freaking difficult?”

The answer, according to this particular hagwon owner, is that it’s all about grammar and sentence structure. This is a commonplace, and hardly controversial, although it’s a rather one-dimensional argument. English and Korean essentially have maximally divergent sentence structure, on the spectrum of all the world’s languages. In syntactical terms, one might generalize that Korean mostly builds its (chomskyan) parse trees right-to-left, while English builds its parse trees left-to-right, or maybe center-out (English is more complicated in that it has trees growing in either direction, in this matter, but it shares this trait with all of its Indo-European siblings).

What intrigued me were a pair of graphics, which showed mappings of Korean phrases to various other languages. The first graphic shows how all the phrases had to shift position in the movement from Korean to English, but how those phrases and grammatical elements essentially “stay in position” in the mappings between various European languages. The second graphic shows how the phrases and grammatical elements “stay in position” between Korean and Japanese. The take-away is that, for Korean speakers, European languages, including English, are therefore more difficult, while Japanese is easy. This is an observable phenomenon, but I’m genuinely impressed with how clearly these simple graphics illustrate what is a difficult concept to explain.

Here is a picture I took of the article – you can click it to see a larger image and hopefully make out the two graphics I’m talking about.

picture

I mean, if you’re interested. I’m kind of weird.

And since I was unloading my camera, here’s a random picture of some springtime blooming trees in a parklike area not far from here.

picture

picture

Caveat: Híŋhaŋni wašté!

The phrase "Híŋhaŋni wašté!" means "good morning!" in the Dakota language, one of the Siouan dialects spoken historically by the Native American people who live in western and southern Minnesota.

Back in 1992~93, I studied the Dakota Language.  There's an actual community of speakers in Minneapolis (a city that has a Native "name" that's different from it's modern name:  Bdeota – a term etymologically connected with the name "Minnesota," believe it or not).

The University of Minnesota had (still has?) a department of Native American Languages that teaches not just Dakota but also Ojibwe as living foreign languages.  As a habitual language geek, how could I resist?  So I took Dakota as a night class, for a semester.  Dakota is a rich and complex and, in my opinion, beautiful language, and I have often thought that someday I would like to return to studying it.

Yesterday, I spent part of Buddha's Birthday online, researching Dakota pronunciation – as I sat on a rainy holiday Tuesday in my apartment in South Korea.  Why was I doing this?  The story is a bit complicated.

My best friend, Brother Bob, is a music teacher and choral conductor in Wisconsin.  Sometimes, he sends me these "Ask A Linguist" styled emails, where he tries to get my insights on things that will relate to a piece of music he's working with.  Over the weekend, he sent me an email about a choral music piece that included some bits in the Dakota Language.

The unfortunate thing about Dakota is that is part of a broad spectrum of Siouan dialects, which are very different among themselves.  Further, much extant Dakota and Sioux literature was written down by non-experts.  The consequence of these two factors is that spelling is quite non-standard, if not downright obscure (somewhat like English spelling, right?). 

So Bob was asking me about how to pronounce the snippet of Dakota he had.  Here's the original text he sent me.  It includes a close translation by the transcriptist.

Sioux Ghost Dance Song, transcribed by Louis Ballard

ÄH-THE HEY-EY OO-YOU,
MÄH-KOH CHĒ-WU W’SH-TE CHĒ’CH’OO (p)BĒ-CHÄ,
YÄH’-NEH BEEKT’EH OO-YOU,
ÄH-THE HEY-EH OO-YOU.

When Ballard gives the translation, he omits the diacriticals and prints the text in lower case. “Vocables” refer to non-sense syllables that are common in Native American songs.

ah-teh (father) hey-eh-oo-you (vocables) mah-koh-che-wu- (the earth) w’sh’te (good) che’ch’oo (p) be-cha (which I gave you) yah-neh beekt’eh oo-you (you’re going to live again) an-teh (father) hey-eh-oo-you (vocables).

Bob followed up with a different version/spelling of the same song, yesterday morning.  Here's what he sent me.  I've "activated" his link.

I found a reference to a recording of a song that may be the one used by Louis Ballard:  
 
 
Now I'm trying to find the actual recording. Chances are it's available online somewhere, or at a library near me, but I haven't located it yet. Anyway, on p. 11 of these lp liner notes (which is what's available from loc.gov online), the song is transcribed thus:
 
Ate heyelo, Ate heyelo
Makoce wan waste ni cu
pi ca yamipika
 
meaning
 
Father said, Father said,
A Country that is good is given to you
So that you will live.
 
Let me know if this jogs your memory of Dakota phonetics further!

So the question is, how are these things pronounced?  Neither of the above matched my recollections of canonical contemporary Dakota orthography such as it was taught to me during my study of the language at the University of Minnesota.  So I wasn't very helpful.  I remembered, vaguely, some things about difficult consonant clusters and de-voiced (whispery) vowels.

Bob finally sent me the phrase "Híŋhaŋni wašté!" which means "good morning," along with the link to its pronunciation that he'd found.   I remember this phrase from my Dakota class, vividly.  You can hear the de-voiced vowels clearly, at that link – it sounds like Japanese, a little bit, which makes sense, since that's another language with prominent de-voiced vowels (think of the final -/u/ in a phrase like 元気です [genki desu = "I'm fine"]).

I sent him some of my observations, which I've repeated above.  I wish I was in Wisconsin – I want to hear how this piece sounds when he performs it.

That's the story up to this point.  And this is the strange way I spend some of my free time.   Habitual language geek, indeed. 

Thanks, Bob.  Love ya.  Good luck with that piece of music. 

Caveat: 50) 나만을 생각하여 꽃과 나무를 함부로 자르는 어리석음을 참회하며 절합니다

“I bow in repentance of all the stupidity which comes alive to cut trees and flowers randomly [by] thinking of only myself.”

This is #50 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).


48. 나만을 생각하여 하늘과 땅을 더럽히며 살아 온 어리석음을 참회하며 절합니다.
        “I bow in repentance of all the stupidity which comes alive to dirty heaven and earth [by] thinking of only myself.”
49. 나만을 생각하여 산과 바다를 더럽히며 살아 온 어리석음을 참회하며 절합니다.
        “I bow in repentance of all the stupidity which comes alive to dirty the mountains and the sea [by] thinking of only myself.”
50. 나만을 생각하여 꽃과 나무를 함부로 자르는 어리석음을 참회하며 절합니다.

I would read this fiftieth affirmation as: “I bow in repentance of all the stupidity which comes alive to cut trees and flowers randomly [by] thinking of only myself.”

This strikes me as a “stewardship” message, useful for environmentally aware thinking.

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: 부처님 오신 날

[bucheonim osin nal]: literally, “the Day the Buddha came.”

So.  Happy Buddha’s Birthday, everyone! Or…  “Vesak,” as it’s called in South Asia. Kind of a Buddhist Christmas, conceptually, but celebrated in a more low-key day.

pictureIt’s my second holiday in less than a week (after Children’s Day, last Thursday), but not terribly easy to exploit, given that I had to work on the interleaved days.

I felt useful at my new job for maybe the first time, last night – and it wasn’t even for my teaching, which is still reliant on the old schedule and therefore random substitutions. I was helping with a spreadsheet. Shades of my last career.

It’s pouring rain and feeling summery, here. There are pigeons battling in the puddles on the ledge outside my window – I’m not sure if it’s a territorial battle or something related to pigeonish procreation. Or maybe both.

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: …and no matter what, don’t think about elephants

Another excellent comic from “pictures for sad children.”

picture

Now, take the concept above, please, and invert it. Sorta. Make it something wonderful, something positive, that you’re not supposed allow to change your behavior. It’s not a bomb – it’s the potential loss of nirvana.

I have a weird theory that this is how enlightenment works. Or salvation. Or grace. It’s something that changes everything, but you’re not really supposed to change what you do – because it’s what you’ve been doing, that brought it on.

… and no matter what, don’t think about elephants, either.

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: Clusivity

Clusivity, in linguistics, refers to a semantic atttribute of the plural first-person.  Some languages divide the plural first-person into two "sub"-persons:  an inclusive and exclusive.  Hence the term clusivity.   The inclusive plural first-person is a "we" that includes the listener.  The exclusive plural first-person is a "we"  that excludes the listener.

The Korean language has several terms for "we," and they're normally presented as differing in usage related mostly to levels of deference and formality.  우리 [uri] is a sort of familiar or friendly "we," while 저희 [jeohui] is more of a formal, deferential "we." 

Last month, talking with my co-teacher at Hongnong, however, I had a sort of insight, as I was trying to sort out why the one I was using was "wrong":  maybe there's a difference in the dimension of clusivity?  Specifically, 우리 [uri] seems to be inclusive, while 저희 [jeohui] is exclusive.  This could easily semantically transform, over time, into a perception of greater semantic deference for the exclusive version of the pronoun.

I tried to google references to clusivity in Korean and couldn't find any.  So if this has any linguistic validity, it hasn't been discussed in academic settings as far as I can tell.

 

Caveat: Never doing anything

“I don’t know why you want to live in the city.  You never do anything.” This is what my friend (and now boss), Mun-chan said to me, once, when I was telling him about the trials and tribulations of my life in exile down south.

And.  He’s right.  Now that I’m back… I don’t do much.  I sometimes develop a plan to do something, but then, I don’t do it. Yesterday, it was raining, and I lost my motivation to go out and about.  So, what’s the point of life “in the city”? I like the accessibility of things. And, I’ve come firmly to believe that urban life – especially high-density urban life – is actually a lower-impact, higher-sustainability type of lifestyle. That means something to me, I guess.

pictureOn that note, I found the most awesome webcomic (called “pictures for sad children” [NOTE: The original comic is offline, but is archived by US Library of Congress]), while surfing, earlier. And this little two-frame (at right) really puts the idea animal rights and veganism related movements in perspective. It’s totally accurate – the things we do in “building and maintaining” our civilization has just as much impact on animals’ lives as our specifically food-producing activities – and on a much broader range of species, too, I’m sure. I’m not meaning to turn this into a rant – it’s just a funny, thoughtful little comic.

So I guess I’ll get back to not doing anything.

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: Pensando en pochismo

En la radio, estaba escuchando un reportaje sobre un creciente problema en México:  el regreso de muchas familias deportadas o re-emigradas desde los EEUU.  Entre estas familias, hay miles de jóvenes que no saben bien el español.  Así ya en México tienen un problema-espejo respecto al problema de los niños hispanos en EEUU – estudiantes migrantes que no saben español, pero que a fuerzas tienen que sobrevivir en el sistema educativo a pesar de la falta del idioma. 

El fenómeno del pochismo (el regreso de hispanos a México y la inversión del movimiento cultural) siempre me ha interesado.  Acá en Corea, suelen llamar a los retornados 교포 (gyo-po), un término bastante paralelo al "pocho" – hasta incluso sus sentidos negativos y positivos.  Igual que tengo la idea de que el flujo-en-revés cultural benifica a Corea, ojalá este flujo de mexicanos agringueados pueda benificar a México. 

Caveat: No Children

Today was that remarkable Korean holiday called "Children's Day."  Families spend time with their children.  It's charming.  I have no children – only the surrogates, who are my students.  But it being a holiday, I didn't see my students.  Hence that sad, ironical experience:  I saw no children on Children's day.

Caveat: 49) 나만을 생각하여 산과 바다를 더럽히며 살아 온 어리석음을 참회하며 절합니다

“I bow in repentance of all the stupidity which comes alive to dirty the mountains and the sea [by] thinking of only myself.”

This is #49 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).


47. 세상의 물을 더럽히며 살아 온 어리석음을 참회하며 절합니다.
        “I bow in repentance of all the stupidity which comes alive to dirty the world’s water.”
48. 나만을 생각하여 하늘과 땅을 더럽히며 살아 온 어리석음을 참회하며 절합니다.
        “I bow in repentance of all the stupidity which comes alive to dirty heaven and earth [by] thinking of only myself.”
49. 나만을 생각하여 산과 바다를 더럽히며 살아 온 어리석음을 참회하며 절합니다.

I would read this forty-ninth affirmation as: “I bow in repentance of all the stupidity which comes alive to dirty the mountains and the sea [by] thinking of only myself.”

This is really a repeat of the last one, with the nouns-to-be-dirtied switched out.

Speaking of dirtied mountains and sea, today is the 21st anniversary of the day I signed the paperwork in which I joined the US Army.

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: Walking Home in the Dark

A defining feature of working at hagwon on an afternoon/evenings schedule:  walking home in the dark.

So far, it's been pretty unstructured.  My new job mostly has involved me being a substitute teacher for my overworked and stressed out fellow teachers.  That's OK.  It gives me a chance to get to know the students a little bit, and get a feel for how things work.  But there are all these snippets of familiarity, of course – unlike any "new" job I've ever had, before.  I know my boss, he's a friend.  I know all the other people who work there, from my many visits over the years.  And even some of the students know me – some were my students way back at LinguaForum, and there's even a refugee from LBridge's apocalyptic collapse. 

I was reflecting as I walked home tonight, that this business of coming back to a job in such a familiar context is, in itself, something new for me.  Normally, once I abandon a job and "move on," I never go back.  This business of circling back… well, I do it a lot in my travels, but almost never in my career.  Experiment. 

Caveat: Proverbs 24:17

"Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, And let not thy heart be glad when he is overthrown."

All the celebrating is wrong.  Sorry.  It's wrong.  No death should be celebrated.  Not even that murdering man's.  Otherwise – in what way are we better than he?  Are we as God, to judge and dispatch another without trial, without qualm, without an ache in our heart?

"Conduct your triumph as a funeral." – Lao Tzu

Caveat: … as usual

No first day at a new teaching job in Korea is complete without at least one schedule change and/or at least one unplanned-for new class.  These types of things don't really bother me, actually.  But it's worth noting that all other differences aside, some things are always the same, this being Korea, and all.

Jus' sayin'.

Actually, I'm in stunningly high spirits.  We'll see how that pans out in the face of actual students.

Caveat: Gaack!

pictureI woke up feeling congested and flu-ey. And then, looking at the local weather online, I saw why: 황사 [hwang-sa = yellow dust] – Seoul’s spring scourge, fresh from the Gobi Desert. See the cute, yellowish, disgusting cloud icon, at left?

The sky definitely has a yellowish cast to it. I closed my window.

Today is my first day of actual teaching, at my new job. I will have middle-schoolers – I haven’t taught middle schoolers since I was at LinguaForum, in 2008. I remember that my success with this age group was much less of a sure thing than with the elementary students – so I feel some anxiety, I suppose.

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: 48) 나만을 생각하여 하늘과 땅을 더럽히며 살아 온 어리석음을 참회하며 절합니다

“I bow in repentance of all the stupidity which comes alive to dirty heaven and earth [by] thinking of only myself.”

This is #48 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).


46. 세상의 공기를 더럽히며 살아 온 어리석음을 참회하며 절합니다.
        “I bow in repentance of all the stupidity which comes alive to dirty the world’s air.”
47. 세상의 물을 더럽히며 살아 온 어리석음을 참회하며 절합니다.
        “I bow in repentance of all the stupidity which comes alive to dirty the world’s water.”
48. 나만을 생각하여 하늘과 땅을 더럽히며 살아 온 어리석음을 참회하며 절합니다.

I would read this forty-eighth affirmation as: “I bow in repentance of all the stupidity which comes alive to dirty heaven and earth [by] thinking of only myself.”

I’m not sure about the “[by] thinking of” in the above. The ending -여 is most likely a simple finite verb ending – normally 하여 is contracted to the extremely common 해, but I seem to recall reading somewhere that in formal discourse (such as Buddhist affirmations?) it stays uncontracted. The real question is, how does such a simple serial verb, tacked onto the front, function semantically? – at the very least, I didn’t really see how it fit in with what follows, syntactically. But the “[by]” is the only interpretation that broadly makes sense, philosophically, to me. So I made it a sort of “adverbial of manner” from a semantic standpoint.

Or maybe I’m thinking too much of only myself?

Lately, here, heaven and earth have seemed mostly dirtied by the vastly huge quantities of rain we’ve been receiving. Over the long, long winter, one always forgets how much rain falls in Korea during the non-winter parts of the year. I mostly associate the deluge-like rainfalls like we had yesterday with high summer – but I guess the monsoons are starting early this year.

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: Courage and Conviction [Not Really]

This morning, it dawns rainy and thundery.  I sit in my new apartment and watch the water droplets pattering on my windows.  I may go to work today, although my contract doesn't actually kick in until Monday, because I'd like to have as much advance notice as possible with respect to my teaching schedule.

So.  Meanwhile.

Typically, if I follow the upheaval in the Arab world, I do so with quite a bit of distance.  I love the Arabic Language, and would someday hope to study it more (I did pursue it, briefly, while in grad school).  So I've long held a lot of interest in the culture and the region, but it's often been tempered by a feeling of despair with respect to politics:  the chances of ever flourishing what one might term progressive dreams.  The never-ending stream of news about repressions and demonstrations and military interventions and resistances all seem circular and futile.  To be frank, I don't spend a lot of time following the region's news, because it's generally depressing.

In my web-surfing last night, I happened across a blog entry that moved me to hope, however.  Hope for humanity and progress and genuinely ethical (meaning unhypocritical) behavior.  I recommend reading it – if you care about rational political discourse (amazing), if you care about human rights (very human), if you're interested in questions of true human equality regardless of religion or gender or sexual orientation (each of these relevant and addressed), if you believe in the possibility of genuine unconditional love of a parent for a child (stunning).

The Syrian woman's conclusion showed such a degree of personal courage and conviction that I felt moved almost to tears:

"So, when my father says he will not leave until either democracy comes or he is dead, I have no choice but to stay. Not because he is making me, but because he is not making me."

I have hope for Syria.  I've long thought of it as a much more nuanced place than it is typically portrayed in the Western media.  Read it – be inspired. 

[UPDATE 2011-06-13:  I have learned that this woman's blog was a hoax – the author was not a woman, not Syrian, and not gay.  The compelling nature of the writing remains, but one feels a bit bit less inspired, eh?]

Caveat: Returned From Exile

My self-imposed one-year exile in Hantucky is officially ended. 

The incontrovertable sign of this:  I have internet DSL in my new apartment.  Instead of the almost 2-month waiting period I was subjected to in Hantucky, metro Seoul does these things in about 12 hours, from moment of request to installation.  Admittedly, the delays in Hantucky were due to my employer, not due to the internet provider. 

Nevertheless, these differences are meaningful and worth comparing – my employer here is on my side.  That's really the difference.

Nevertheless, I'm really missing my Hongnong kids, at the moment.  I received the following message on my cellphone, last night.  Charming.  Heh.

안녕하세요~

Caveat: 47) 세상의 물을 더럽히며 살아 온 어리석음을 참회하며 절합니다

“I bow in repentance of all the stupidity which comes alive to dirty the world’s water.”

This is #47 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).


45. 내가 살고있는 지구를 생각하지 않은 것을 참회하며 절합니다.
       “I bow in repentance of not thinking about the world in which I live.”
46. 세상의 공기를 더럽히며 살아 온 어리석음을 참회하며 절합니다.
        “I bow in repentance of all the stupidity which comes alive to dirty the world’s air.”
47. 세상의 물을 더럽히며 살아 온 어리석음을 참회하며 절합니다.

I would read this forty-seventh affirmation as: “I bow in repentance of all the stupidity which comes alive to dirty the world’s water.”

Simple substitution: air -> water. As when I was living in Mexico, in Korea, I trust the water more than the air, generally speaking. The day was beautiful and sunny today, though.

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: Coming Home

Moving back to Ilsan is like moving home, a little bit.

The new apartment isn’t perfect. I knew it would be very small – it’s marginally bigger than my last Ilsan apartment and it’s about the same size as my Yeonggwang apartment, but it’s older and a bit more run-down on the edges than either of those. Smallness, per se, doesn’t bother me at all. I wholly desire and approve a compact lifestyle, for the most part – the only reason I can think of to want a bigger apartment would be in the event that people came to visit me that wanted to stay with me – but in my almost 4 years in Korea, only one person has ever done that.

It’s also nice to have “full kitchen” which this place, like the Yeonggwang apartment, doesn’t have. But I can cope. I will buy some inexpensive furnishings that can help make up for that. Once I get the rest of my stuff here, it will feel like home. As it is, it’s pretty “bare” – I told Curt I would buy my own furniture, so I have to do that. Not going to buy a bed – I’ve gone native on that, and have no issues sleeping on the floor. It’d be nice to have a sofa of some kind, but that’s not super high priority. A small table or desk, and some shelves, I definitely need. I already bought a hanger-thing for my clothes – there’s no closet, which I may miss a bit – the thing I liked best about my previous Ilsan apartment was the relatively generous closet and storage space.

Okay. Enough of all that. No complaints – it’s entirely within the parameters that I was expecting. And of course, it’s in Ilsan. That boils down to the old dictum: location, location, location. Going across the street to the “Orange Mart” is like an entire day-long trip to Gwangju, as far as shopping opportunities. I bought some french whole-grain mustard, spinach and tricolor pasta, and cheddar cheese this morning. Plus the infinite variety of more typical Korean things that are buyable.

The building is about a kilometer northwest along Jungangno from my previous Ilsan apartment – which places me about 2 blocks from the Juyeop subway station and about 1.5 kilometers from my place of work.

Here are some pictures. The first one, I’m looking up at my building from the outside, from in front of the Orange Mart – I’m standing on the southeast corner of the intersection of Jungangno and Gangseonno (and isn’t it amazing, I know the names of all these streets now, which I once-upon-a-time didn’t, for several years, even).

I drew a giant green and gold arrow pointing at its location on the 7th floor – that’s my window that you can see open, there.

picture

Here is from that little window, looking almost straight down and a little toward the street (note the “rooftop garden” on the next building across).

picture

Here is a view from a less precipitous angle, looking toward the Orange Mart and the intersection (roughly east-north-east).

picture

Here is view from the corner by the window, looking toward my kitchen and the entryway – bathroom door is open on the left middle.

picture

Here is a self-portrait of me sitting on my bedding in the corner by the window, pirating an unreliable wifi connection. I’ll get internet of my own soon, I hope – meanwhile, this is uploaded from a wifi in a nearby cafe.

picture

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: Hangoogopolis (Capital City)

I came to the capital.   Tomorrow, I will hopefully get to see – and move into my new apartment.  For tonight, I'm hotelled – my standby "love motel" in Ilsan was full! – so I had to use a different one around the corner… slightly higher price, no wonderful view of Jungangno.  How aggravating – must be springtime or something, so everyone's using the love motels.  Ha.

Word of advice:  don't give your cell phone number to 200 first through fourth graders if you have any issues whatsoever with a constant stream of phone calls that consist primarily of "hi teacher!… what?  OK, bye teacher!" and mysterious text messages in Korean with many emoticons.  Actually, I don't really mind.  It's sweet, in a way.

Caveat: 얄러뷰

Two of my first-grade students, Min-gyeong and Dan-bi, wrote “I love you 얄러뷰” in a big heart in their good-bye message.
I was trying to figure out “얄러뷰” – but it’s not Korean. I think “yal-leo-byu” is a transliteration of “I love you” – sound it out!
picture
I got portraits of the fourth-graders today. Here they are.
4-1:
picture
4-2:
picture
4-3:
picture
The 4-2 class did some role-plays today, and I took a few pictures.
picture
I am going to miss Ye-won especially (on the left, below).  The other day, she said to me:  “I will hate the new teacher, already, because you are the best teacher.”  That’s way too good for my ego.  Plus, her English is pretty good, eh?
picture
Here I am goofing around with some fifth- and sixth-graders during recess today.  Note that the girls provided me with a disguise – can you tell it’s me?
picture
Here are some memento photos of the cafeteria during lunch time.
picture
picture
My lunch tray, and my co-teacher Ms Lee across from me.
picture
Here are some boys hamming for the camera.
picture
Finally, here are some kids brushing their teeth at the communal teeth-brushing place:
picture
I am going to miss this school so much. Should I have stayed?  Maybe.
I will not miss the feeling of isolation, which was exacerbated by a school administrative office that is xenophobic and stunningly incompetent, and which conducted itself without exception with utter disregard for my status as a fellow human being, despite my substantial dependence upon them for my outside-of-work day-to-day living.
I think that one way to put it is that I will miss the weekday 9am~5pm part of this experience intensely, but I will not miss the weekday 5pm~9am part of it not at all. And that, when you get right down to it, is not a good proportion for a sustainable lifestyle.
I have learned hugely, this past year – about myself, about teaching, about children and about what’s important in the world. I hope I can keep these lessons alive in my heart and carry them back to Ilsan and my next job.

Caveat: Countdown, 24 Hours

Today is my last teaching day here at Hongnong. The feeling is bittersweet. I hope I’ve made the right choice, in deciding to move on – one always has those moments of second-guessing oneself.

I was originally planning to jump on a bus tonight, but because some of my coworkers wanted to take me out to dinner tonight, I have decided I’ll be leaving tomorrow morning.  So the countdown to leave Hongnong is 24 hours. I will be back at least once, to fetch the rest of my stuff – I’m only taking what I can carry on the bus, tomorrow – I’ll have to fetch my boxes of books and kitchen stuff (meanwhile stored with a friend here in Hongnong) with a car (maybe a friend’s, or worst case, rental) over some weekend in the near future.

A view of the alley on which my apartment building (owned by the school) is located.  My student Seon-yeong actually lives in the farmhouse on the right – it’s one of the old-style courtyard farmhouses.

picture

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: Lotus Flower, Paper Boat

pictureNo, I mean nothing Buddhist.

I’m packing. I’m listening to Minnesota Public Radio’s “The Current” (dumb name, great programming). Radiohead’s “Lotus Flower” comes on. Nice track.

So. Where did I get all this crap? Wait… don’t answer that. I’m packing.

I went to Gwangju for a few hours, today. It was stupid – I needed to get some cash, and my bank has no local branch in Yeonggwang County. So I used it as an excuse to say “goodbye” to the City of Light, and procrastinate on some packing.

Inside the Gwangju subway, they post poetry. At the 송정공원 station, I saw this poem (above, right).

I had brief feeling of linguistic victory, as I managed to parse the first two lines of the poem without having to resort to a dictionary. The poem’s title is “Paper Boat.”  I think that’s what it’s about. The narrator launches a paper boat into a stream from a bridge.  Etc.

The Gwangju subway is desolate and not very useful. It only has one line. Mostly old people ride it. Here is the context of the poem I saw on the wall – note – there’s no one in the subway on a Sunday morning.

picture

When I was leaving my home (well, my apartment, and only for two more days!) earlier, I walked past the school’s playground, and took a picture of some springy trees.

picture

What I’m listening to right now.

Radiohead, “Lotus Flower.”

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: 46) 세상의 공기를 더럽히며 살아 온 어리석음을 참회하며 절합니다

“I bow in repentance of all the stupidity which comes alive to dirty the world’s air.”

This is #46 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).


44. 삼생의 모든 인연들을 위해 지극한 마음으로 참회하며 절합니다.
        “I bow in repentance with a sincere heart, taking care of all ties to past lives.”
45. 내가 살고있는 지구를 생각하지 않은 것을 참회하며 절합니다.
       “I bow in repentance of not thinking about the world in which I live.”
46. 세상의 공기를 더럽히며 살아 온 어리석음을 참회하며 절합니다.

I would read this forty-sixth affirmation as: “I bow in repentance of all the stupidity which comes alive to dirty the world’s air.”

This is more of that “purity narrative,” of course, which is perhaps one of the aspects of Buddhist thinking that I find least appealing.  The metaphorical relation between concepts of cleanness and moral or virtuous behavior is, of course, almost universal in ethical systems, but I think that overthinking these kinds of purity-obsessed metaphors is insiduous vis-a-vis a social system’s ability to promote tolerance of otherness and difference. I have a lot of ideas on the topic, but I’ve never done very well at setting them down in writing – most notably, during my 10 day Vipassana retreat in December, 2009, I tried to develop this thinking and failed miserably.

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Back to Top