Caveat: Blame Siberia

Banalities & Journaling

Bitterly cold.  The high today was around 16 F (-7 C).  And yet, that's not so bad, by Minnesota standards, where the high today was apparently -1 F (-18 C) in Minneapolis.   Yet we have the Siberians to blame for both of these… the same "Siberian Express" weather system drives both cold systems, half-a-planet apart from one another. 

In completely unrelated news… I recently discovered that a man who I went to grade school with (and middle school and high school) is now a folk singer who lives in Alaska.  I downloaded some of his songs.  Not too bad.

I remember Kray Van Kirk pretending to attack other kids using his imaginary sword, in 7th or 8th grade.   But he always seemed so much more confident than I felt.  Although, a bit wacky, too.  And now…

Caveat: Midterms

Banalities & Journaling / The Wonders of Work

Midterm grades are due this week through next Monday.  As usual, I have a lot of unfinished grading to plow through, though nothing as bad as last term's.  But I'm having a difficult time motivating and getting to work earlier than absolutely required, to do the extra work;  meanwhile, I still stand firm on my "no work comes home with me" policy.  Hmmm. 

Caveat: Serial Non-serialist Ceases Seriality!

Banalities & Journaling / Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc) / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism

Per my usual habits, I'm reading more than one book at once.  I tend to read non-fiction books non-serially, for the most part — by which I mean that I don't just start at the introduction and read chapter by chapter until I get to the end, but instead kind of browse my way through the book, eventually covering almost all of it, but in my own discovered order.  I have read non-fiction that way most of my life, but it occurred to me recently that mostly I read non-serially, serially.  Meaning I do it with one non-fiction book after another… since most books I have going at any given time are generally fiction, which is less forgiving of the non-serial approach.   Lately, though, I haven't been enjoying fiction as much.  So, it turns out, I'm not only reading non-serially, but I'm doing so simultaneously with multiple books.

Currently, those books are:  John Horgan's Rational Mysticism, Alan Weisman's The World Without Us, Obama's Audacity of Hope, and Chomsky's Chomsky on Anarchism (which is actually a collection of essays, therefore exceptionally forgiving of the non-serial approach).  

Caveat: Comics n Pics

Banalities & Journaling / Kids / The Wonders of Work

My student Sydney “borrowed” my cellphone and snapped the following picture of me in class this evening.
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At least I don’t look quite as geeky as I normally do.
She also drew the comic below. Not a great pic of it, but it shows Peter-teacher and Jared-teacher and Jared’s alligator (known by the monicker “Number Six”).
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Caveat: Fish

Quotable

More wacky quotes:

"You give a man a fish, that man knows where to go for fish.  You teach a man to fish, and you've just destroyed your market base." –  Jackie Kashian, attributed to her father, who falsely attributed it to Jesus.

"We are all in some way or another going to Reseda someday to die." – Ruby Vroom's song, "Screenwriter's Blues (5 AM Listening to Los Angeles)"

Caveat: Something or Other

Banalities & Journaling

I'm not sure I have much to say.   I've been sleeping a lot, lately… more than normal.  Probably still recovering from that flu I had.  But when awake, I've been feeling better about things.  Work is a bit of a grind, especially sitting in that staff room, grading papers and prepping lessons, but the kids have been a lot of fun, and I always seem to end the day in a higher mood than I start it.

Is that just because I'm fundamentally not a "morning person" and therefore the world tends to look exceptionally horrible during my first 6 hours of consciousness?   Is it because the kids and their antics always cheer me up?   I'm inclined to think at least partly, it's the latter, because I don't always follow the exact same trajectory on weekend days. 

Caveat: Birthday Cake at the Galbi Joint

Banalities & Journaling / My Photos

Monday a few of us went out to dinner after hagwon closed at a Galbi joint, to celebrate Christine’s birthday. Here’s a cellphone pic of Jenica, Christine, and Joe. Joe and Christine are a couple who were hired together, from Indiana. Jenica’s from New Jersey.
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Caveat: Symbols

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / My Photos

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What does it mean that a mostly Buddhist and Christian nation lives nationalistically under a flag composed of Taoist and Confucian/Pagan symbols?
The giant flag at Juyeop plaza, one subway stop west of my “home” station at Jeongbalsan, and a short 7 minute walk from my place of work. I took the picture after leaving work early on New Year’s Eve. The day was bright, windy,  and very, very cold. Maybe around 15 F (-10 C).
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Caveat: Perennial Peripheria

Banalities & Journaling / Politics, Economics & Current Affairs / Teaching & Methodology

I noticed that California’s perennial water politics controversy, the Peripheral Canal, is in the news. It’s actually been on my mind, on and off.  The reason is complicated.
Since I came to Korea, some of the aspects of the EFL curricula I have been provided with to teach from that I have most liked have been the various “debate programs.” I think debate is a great way to teach not just language skills, but also to address important, related issues such as critical thinking and general confidence.  And when I think about debate, I always think about the debate class I had at Arcata High. It was in 10th or 11th grade, I think. Funny that I don’t remember that.  Nor can I recall the teacher’s name.  But, what I remember with great clarity and vividness was that the topic I ended up with, back in the beginning of the 80’s, was the Peripheral Canal:  to build or not to build? I remember trudging up to the Humboldt State University library repeatedly to study such archana as tracing the lobbying money being spent by the MWD (Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, a semi-private institution despite its name, kind of like the Fed of water politics), and feeling like I was uncovering some scary scandal, like in a movie.
The issue has always been interesting. I view it as the sort of archetype of the typical exceedingly complex environment vs human debate.  It has always had sincere environmentalists positioned on both sides.  On the one hand, the current extent of ongoing environmental degradation in the California Delta is unsustainable without some major change or human remediation. This has been recognized and essentially uncontroversial for 30 years (i.e. since before I was debating it in high school!). But other people fight the idea of building a canal to help “save” the delta, because the same canal will be able to support even further and faster degradation, unless properly managed for the benefit of the Delta ecosystem instead of simply to slake the ever-growing thirst of California’s cities.
pictureOne interesting feature of the current push is that some groups are pushing for an amendment to the California Constitution to make sure that the Delta (meaning its ecosystems) get representation of some kind on the board that oversees the management of any canal that is built.  Meanwhile, the governator, with characteristic recklessness, is pushing beginning of actual construction very hard.  Wanting it to be part of his legacy.  And, arguably, with the economic crisis creating a positive political environment for big public works spending (stimulus!), there’s some brilliant tactics on display there.  The canal would be the largest water-related public works project since the California Aqueduct was completed.
Some things have changed.  It’s no longer South vs North — Sacramento, lurking right on the eastern edge of the Delta, is thirstier now than L.A. was 30 years ago.  And many locals who opposed the canal in years past are now so desperate to see something done to save the Delta that they are more in a mood to compromise.  At least, that’s my perception.  I still don’t know what the right answer is… I think the Delta is doomed, regardless, at least as it is….  Canal or no canal, rising sea levels (global warming) will push salt water farther and farther inland (people forget that the Delta area between Sacramento and Vallejo is at exactly sea level… and Sacramento is the U.S. city most vulnerable to rising sea levels after only New Orleans, despite being 150 miles inland) unless other steps are taken that dwarf the canal both in terms of ecological impact and cost:  some kind of barrier will have to be built, a la Netherlands’ giant seawall, to keep San Francisco Bay from invading the Valley.
Anyway, all of which is to say… as I teach kids debating skills, I think back to that class.  I hated the teacher… probably it’s a good thing I don’t remember him.  But it was my first real academic-style “research” experience, and it generated what appears to have evolved into lifelong interests in a) the issues of the California Delta, and b) formal debate as a pedagogical method.
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Caveat: “헨젤과 그레텔” 영화를 촣아헸어요

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc) / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism

pictureI watched a really good movie yesterday. A 2007 Korean release, titled 헨젤과 그레텔 (hen-jel-gwa geu-re-tel = Hansel and Gretel) is considered a horror film in genre terms, but it’s really a bit more (and less) than that.

Most of the amateur reviews of the movie (written in English, anyway) that I saw online seemed to harbor a fundamental misunderstanding of the film, stating either overtly or implicitly that it was an unfaithful adaptation of the fairy tale “Hansel and Gretel.”

The fact is, it’s not an adaptation at all.  Rather, the fairy tale “Hansel and Gretel” might best be viewed as a protagonist (or antagonist) of the film.  The film doesn’t tell the story “Hansel and Gretel” but instead tells a story about the story “Hansel and Gretel.” That makes it a sort of metafairytale.  And everyone knows how I love all things meta. It’s not a reading of that story, but a completely new narrative about the reception of the text, in a postwar Korean cultural context.

I’ll leave plot summaries and all that to others. See imdb, for example. But I enjoyed the movie partly because it had me constantly wondering about to what extent the dreamlike (nightmarelike) events of the film could be read as a metaphor for some aspects of Korea’s relationship to the West and to its own history.

As an example, consider the fact that the physical book “Hansel and Gretel,” that wreaks such psychic havoc in the film, is brought to the children by a very western Santa Claus (santa haraboji) in the 1960’s, the era of the quasi-fascist westernizing dictatorship. He is clearly, in fact, just a Korean in a Santa suit. And decades later, the children, psychically wounded beyond belief when young (by the Korean War?  by the dictatorship?) are living in a sort of self-regenerating fantasyland of material plenty and affective vacuum. “Adults” come and go, but the kids simply can’t move on.

These are just some notes, not meant to be pat answers or allegorical readings of the movie. And there are some things I don’t like about it – I’d have preferred, personally, if the causative links between their childhood abuse and current situation (established with flashbacks) had retained more of the antirationalist (surreal) character of the first half of the film.  But perhaps that serves an important purpose, too.

Overall, it’s a coherent movie, perhaps a bit pat, psychologically, but full of the sort of small, spine-shuddering moments that good “scary movies” require but with very little gratuitous gore or meaningless jacks-in-the-boxes. The actors are amazing, especially the kids, and also that creepy born-again serial killer. Alleged serial killer, that is… he never gets to kill any serial in the movie – don’t worry, it’s not a slasher show.  Although… several adults do die, including the nasty abusing guy that gets shoved in the oven, and several dysfunctional mother-figures. And what’s that about, anyway?

The cinematography is spectacular.  All kinds of inanimate things become full participating characters: the forest, the house, the book, food, a television set. Like some novel full of oversignifiers by Gombrowicz.
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Caveat: 새해복많이 받으세요

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / My Photos

My student Eunice sent me a text message sometime after midnight last night (above). Roughly, it means “Happy New Year,” of course. Don’t my students have anything better to do? Hah… no, seriously, it was nice of her to do that, I guess. I haven’t had a very productive day today, though.
The random picture shows sunset in Gangnam.
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Caveat: 13 Stone

Banalities & Journaling / My Photos / Quotable

I have a bathroom scale I bought for 12000 won at the Home Plus store. Apparently it was a leftover something originally intended for the U.K. market, as the weight is marked in stone and kilograms, but not pounds. According to that scale, I started the year 2008 with a weight of just a little over 13 stone, and I’m ending the year roughly the same.
That may seem inconsequential. And 13 stone and a fraction (it’s about 84 kg or 185 pounds, I think) is still more than my ideal weight, probably. But it’s really a major accomplishment for me to have kept my weight so stable this year, given it was only a few years ago (I think 2003 or 2004) when I peaked at around 245 pounds, and that my long-term year-from-year weight hasn’t shown a lot of stability, having mostly fluctuated between 200 and 250 over the last 15 years. So keeping it so stable, and at well under 200, feels like a major accomplishment to me. And basically, I have only one rule: “Eat less than you want. Always.”
Anyway, that’s my observation for this last day of the year. I have tomorrow off. No big plans, though. I ran across the following quote in an old file of snippets and notes of mine, but can’t figure out where I might have found it… I’m pretty sure it’s not mine. But I definitely think there’s something to it.
“Forget about all those years of therapy, just pretend you’re okay and you will be.” – unattributed.
The random picture below shows the changing of the guard (i.e. change of drivers) at the Jichuk station on the Orange Line of the subway, on a Daehwa-bound train – which is what I take from downtown Seoul to my home.
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Caveat: 2008

Banalities & Journaling / Year-In-Six-Sentences

Tomorrow School got taken over by LinguaForum. LinguaForum, in turn, got taken over by L-Bridge. Working at L-Bridge was really challenging, and I nearly quit. My boss, you see, was psychotic. But I discovered something about myself, which, retrospectively, I labelled “Zen With a Red Pen.” I spent a week in Australia with my mother in August – with a brief visit to Hong Kong, too.
[This entry is part of a timeline I am making using this blog. I am writing a single entry for each year of my life, which when viewed together in order will provide a sort of timeline. This entry wasn’t written in 2008 – it was written in the future.]
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Caveat: 배달시도했으나 미배달

Banalities & Journaling / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

pictureI sent a package to my sister (and nephews – see picture at right) for xmas.
When I send a package using Korea Post’s overseas expedited mail service, I get little text messages on my cellphone telling me about the package’s progress. Well, I didn’t realize when I sent the package that my sister wasn’t in town over xmas. So, they are unable to get a signature for the package I sent. The message sent to me was “배달시도했으나 미배달, 수취인 수령대기.” See? Isn’t it obvious that they are tried but were unable to deliver the package, and are awaiting someone to receive it? Well, maybe not obvious… it took me a few minutes with a dictionary to work it out. The crucial part is “미배달” (mi-bae-dal = [UN]-deliver-[FUTURE PARTICIPLE]).
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Caveat: Bumpy Things and Unplanets

Banalities & Journaling / Kids

The new year approaches.  In the hagwon biz, that means extended hours with special extra offerings for students who will be on their winter vacations from public school.  Two weeks ago, I was asked if I would volunteer to teach a morning class three days a week to go along with the standard 2-11 grind.  I was actually planning to say yes… mostly because, as I've observed before, even when I'm not liking work, I tend toward workaholism as a way to escape the fact that when I'm not liking work, I'm not liking life.  Kinda circular, I realize.  But it sorta works for me, at least some of the time.

But then, literally within minutes of having to give my yes/no answer to the question of whether I would volunteer, LBridge pulled another one of its "look at us, we couldn't manage to find our own butts in broad daylight" type mismanagement stunts.  And so, in fit of pique, I said nope. 

On Friday, I learned that a student had turned down enrolling the extra class, having stated to the person making the call that, since I wasn't the one teaching it, she wasn't interested.  That was mildly flattering.  And it was one of those little snarky revenge moments:  "see, I showed them, ha!"  But in retrospect, I don't feel very proud.  Just kind of annoyed and sad with the whole process.  I was planning to say yes, after all. 

Anyway.  I spent the weekend with a fever and so I was pretty disengaged from the world.  Sorry I haven't updated for a while.

Another student, a 2nd grader, had to write something describing the differences between stars and planets.  Actually, she showed a great deal of intelligence, not to mention good English ability.  Of stars, she includes the observation "It doesn't have bumpy  things."  And in defining planets, she points out, telegraphically, "It becomes not a planet -> Pluto."  Diagrammed exactly like that, with an arrow.  And, perhaps without realizing it, she's using strong irony to point out the arbitrary nature of the classification of "planet."  Isn't semantics fun?

Caveat: Woodsmoke and Wind

Banalities & Journaling

Well.  That was a pretty crappy xmas.  I would have rather been made to work, honestly.

Walking to work today, I passed a spot where they've been doing some construction, a big hole in the sidewalk.  They were burning some scrap wood in a barrel, and the wind was bitingly cold.  The smell of the burning wood and the temperature evoked some late fall camping trips in northern Minnesota.  Fond memories.

I went into the Rotiboy (a Malaysian / Indonesian chain of coffee/"bun" vendors that seems to be doing well in Korea).  I got a caffe latte and a rotibun.  They were delicious.  I'm high on cold-medicine at the moment.

Xmas eve I spoke on the phone for a long time with Basil.  I like Basil well-enough, and I know he's a well-meaning and decent person.  But he seems to obsess on and dwell overmuch on the shortcomings of hagwons in general, the negatives of life in Korea in general, and on the admittedly numerous horriblenesses of LBridge (my current and his erstwhile employer) in particular.  I found myself feeling very depressed after talking to him.  I often find myself depressed after talking to him, so when he called me on xmas day, I ignored his call and turned off my phone.  That's rude, I know, but I just didn't want to cope with his obsessive negativity — I was feeling low enough as it was.  I stayed at home and watched some downloaded episodes of Hawaii Five-O (really?  why?). 

And I finished that novel, Native Speaker, by Chang-rae Lee.  A pretty good read, and an interesting take on the immigrant experience in the U.S., specific to the Korean experience but hardly unique to it, I'm guessing.  All cached in a spy/politics thriller type plot.  I wonder if sometimes one of the reasons I like living in exotic places (like Mexico or Korea) has to do with my desire to somehow understand better that "immigrant" and/or minority experience, which, as a native-born American of the majority, I never really can.

Caveat: And… why?

Quotable

Last lines, at the end of the pilot episode of Hawaii Five-O:
Ms Quong:  "To cops."
McGarrett:  "To hippies."
Ms Quong:  "Peace?"
McGarrett:  "Peace."
Now there's some 1968 zeitgeist for ya.

"There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread." — Gandhi

Caveat: Bah humbug

Banalities & Journaling / The Wonders of Work

Yes, it's xmas eve.  No, I'm not particularly thrilled about it.  I do get the day off tomorrow (which was not, in fact, the case when I was at LinguaForum).  But… I almost wish I didn't have the day off, as I'm currently sick with a minor cold, it seems, and not very happy.  So having work to distract me seems like a potentially good thing.  Oh well.

I had fun, happy xmases as a child.  But mostly, now, I associate xmas with long, drawn-out, never-ending battles of words with Michelle – that was how we celebrated, I guess.  So… I'll spend it alone, mulling over potential exit strategies from my not-much-liked job.

Caveat: into the sunset

Banalities & Journaling

"Turns out this isn't one of these presidencies where you ride off into the sunset, you know, waving goodbye."– George W. Bush

Maybe in the end, he turns out to have at least some actual self-awareness, after all.  Better late than never?

I bought these little decorative paper clips today, they have messages in Korean in them.  Two of them I understood immediately:

안녕 = hi

사랑해 = love you

The other two I had to look in the dictionary:

두근두근 = beating (as in "my heart is beating fast…")

보고싶어 = miss you

Cute.  Maybe they'll make a nice gift or something.

Caveat: Good to get out of the house

Banalities & Journaling

It can be good to get out of the house. 

I went to work for a few hours.  That part… wasn't so great.  I was trying to prepare some lesson plans for next week, and doing a little bit of correcting.  But when I left work, I decided to stop by my friend Curt's hagwon, down the road a few blocks.  On the way, I ran into my former student Tom, who talked to me excitedly of his Ubuntu-Linux install.  In a country that's 99% Microsoft, Tom has the distinction of having successfully installed Linux on his home PC, partly at my suggesting.  He and another boy I had had while back had become very excited to learn that I knew a small amount about computers and especially Linux, and we had had some conversations about it before.

At the Karma Academy, Curt's new hagwon (that he's trying to start from scratch, basically), I chatted with him a bit, and with his daughter too, who's about 6 or 7, and is very shy about trying to speak English – so she gives me opportunities to practice Korean.  Then Curt's daughter went home with his wife and he and I had dinner together.  All kind of dull to recount, but I felt more content than I have in a while chatting with him about the hagwon biz and hanging out.

So anyway.  Good to get out of the house.

Caveat: 200% return?

Background Noise / Politics, Economics & Current Affairs

I can't find the link or article now, but I really did see this:  apparently the Argentine government recently paid $3 (yes, 3 dollars) to nationalize Aerolíneas Argentinas (apparently in bankruptcy).  The previous owner was upset, although he´d acquired the bankrupt airline sometime previously for only $1.  I don´t see why he should be upset… that´s a 200% return on his investment, which is damn good, in these difficult times.  I´ll keep searching and post a link it if I can find it.

Soundtrack:  Moody Blues'  "Blue World"

[Embedded youtube added later, as part of Background Noise.]

<iframe width="480" height="390" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/I1x2JnoRF-4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Caveat: That’s very hard to get a girlfriend

Banalities & Journaling / Buddhism & Zen / Kids / The Wonders of Work

One of my third graders was quizzing me about my marital status.  This is not uncommon, but generally I am less offended than many foreign teachers seem  to be by the seemingly personal nature of some of the questions kids tend to ask.

I always answer fairly honestly:  Not married… actually, "widowed" (which is technically true, and is less likely to offend anyone's un-western sensibilities than to say "divorced," which is technically untrue, and the real, in-between reality of the situation would be infinitely difficult to explain to a bunch of kids, anyway).  And no, I don't have a girlfriend.  In response to this, the third-grade boy sighed deeply and said in a world-weary voice, "That's very hard to get a girlfriend."  Such is life. 

My day's trajectory followed one that is typical, for me.  I was miserable, earlier in the day, sulking and grading and stressing in the staff room.  Discovering, via the bilingual rumor mill whispered from desk to desk, of L-Bridge's latest affront to the concepts of humane management or post-medieval pedagogy.   Plotting an early exit, in a fantasy-oriented sort of way.

But then, through a series of 6 classes, climbing slowly from 2nd and 3rd graders up through to my supersmart 6th graders, I suddenly find myself, at the end of my last class, feeling cheerful and happy, if not actually any more positive about my place of employment.

One of my fellow teachers commented that sometimes hearing my laughter or the funny noises I make in my classes makes the students in her class laugh.  And that she laughs too.  That's pleasant feedback.  I'm aware that I make funny noises sometimes — it's one of my "gimmicks," I suppose, as a teacher.  But I'm surprised, once again, to hear that others hear me laughing often.  I think to myself, "really?"  "Despite being really annoyed and pissed off at this place of employment, I'm laughing all the time?"  Interesting. 

And this process of stepping up, from staffroom gloom in the afternoon to late evening effervecence… is not uncommon.  I don't think so, anyway.  How does it fit in with the big picture?  What is my life for?  Am I ever going to really actually learn some Korean?  Argh.  In retrospect, argh.

Caveat: From the inside…

Banalities & Journaling / Food & Drink

picture… looking out…
onto my dinner:  tteokbokki from the corner puesto when I walk past TaeYeong on the way home from work.  They put it in a plastic bag, and I dump it into a bowl to eat when I get home, it’s still hot.    I was pleased to actually understand and answer correctly (as opposed to not understand and answer correctly anyway, which is my standard approach):  가저가세요?  네, 가저가요.   Simple stuff, but nevertheless a fulfulling minor linguistic triumph.  We take what we can get, right?
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Caveat: Alien Nation

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc)

I went to my work Xmas party this afternoon/evening.  I felt very alienated and lonely, there.  Frustrated with my linguistic inabilities.  Isolated because I simply don't have a basis to relate to my coworkers. 

Actually, I've been feeling alienated a lot, lately.  I'm very conscious of being "older," here.  More than I have been.  Korea is a very ageist society, in some ways, and the majority of my coworkers are clearly unsure what to make of my being an "older" person without a clearly wrought space in the complex social hierarchies here.  It's perhaps easier to be a younger foreigner in Korea, because youth in general have more freedom in some ways to behave as they wish, and are more forgiven for failing to meet social expectations.  Perhaps.

Then again, as I sat watching the very alien proceedings of the Xmas party, I reflected that I'd likely have felt almost equally alone and isolated and alienated in a work-related holiday function if it were in the U.S.  Or anywhere.  So the fact that I'm here is no excuse.  In general, the fact that I'm here (here in Korea… here at hellbridge working…) offers no real justification for my feelings.  These are endogenous, right?

I've always been an alien.

Yesterday I got very lazy and decadent.  I'd downloaded some movies.  I watched Apocalypse Now Redux (the 2000 re-cut of the 1979 movie).  Then, just to make sure I got plenty of perspective on the whole Southeast Asian nightmare, I watched The Killing Fields.

Both profoundly uplifting fare.  In compensation, I also watched a few more episodes of 옥탑방고양이 (rooftop cat), although I must say that although I enjoy the show, I've decided the theme music that they play is incredibly annoying.  I actually will watch it with the sound turned off when they play that theme music (no big deal, since I mostly rely on subtitles anyhow). 

Then I took a long walk, in the wintery.

Sigh.

Caveat: Spain surpasses Italy in per capita GDP

Politics, Economics & Current Affairs

We are mostly accustomed to thinking of Italy as the strongest of the economies of Southern Europe, but I have always suspected they were losing ground to the more dynamic Iberians.  Now an article I found today in El País confirms this suspicion of mine.  The Spanish, at least on per capita terms, are in fact richer than the Italians, and closing in on the French.  I think that's interesting, especially in this time of alleged global economic crisis.

 

Caveat: 금연구역

Life in Korea / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism

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The words on the small sign at the top are: 금연구역 = geum-yeon-gu-yeok = no smoking area. The picture is of my friend Curt at the noraebang last weekend, smoking under the sign that says “no smoking area.” This is a fairly typical Korean approach to things. I hardly intend any criticism by it – it’s just the way things are.
One thing that’s always puzzled me, is that in Korea, pedestrians meticulously obey traffic signals, but cars blatantly disregard them, whereas in the U.S., it’s the opposite, if anything: cars meticulously follow traffic signals, whereas pedestrians do as they please. I have been trying to figure this out, and walking to work today, I had a thought. It may or may not be accurate, but I was wondering if the difference has to do with “what’s transparent” and in front of whom it might be “transparent.”
In the U.S., drivers obey traffic laws because they are transparent in front of the authorities (i.e., the government), via their license plates. Meanwhile, pedestrians are anonymous with respect to the authorities, and therefore feel free to do as they please. In Korea, the behavior is the opposite because what matters isn’t what the authorities think (who cares what the authorities think?), but rather, what your neighbors looking at you might think: when you stand on the street corner, your neighbors can see you, but sitting in your car, you’re anonymous to your neighbors, and therefore you feel free to blatantly disregard society’s rules.
This line of reasoning doesn’t explain Curt in the noraebang, except that there, “that sort of rule” is irrelevant, maybe?
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Caveat: “self-inflicted ideological wounds in a largely ideological struggle”

Philosophy & Cultural Criticism / Politics, Economics & Current Affairs

Michael Gerson, writing about the Bush administration’s “war on terror,” summarizes many of the difficulties with the phrase “self-inflicted ideological wounds in a largely ideological struggle.” I think this is an excellent description the Bush administration’s overall effect on U.S. global image and identity, too. But I also wonder how different it will be possible for the up-and-coming Space Emperor to be: with Gates and Clinton as his representatives, it’s clear he’s not straining for a radical change or departure from the status quo. If he manages change at all, it must be something he hopes to effect gradually. Is he planning to do so? Or is it all smoke and mirrors? Is there any germ of ideological commitment of any kind, amid all the packaging? I’m disturbed by the recent mess in the Illinois statehouse, involving Blogojevich attempting to “sell” Obama’s seat in the Senate. How could the future Space Emperor not have been aware of these shenanigans? If he wasn’t, that seems nearly as criminal, from the standpoint of negligence, as if he had been aware of them but wasn’t addressing them. I’m unhappy… not that I was ever really wholly drawn into the Obamania in the first place. I’ve had reservations that it was all packaging and fluff around something less pure than people seem to have been hoping. Yet I still feel uneasy to find that I’m seeing those reservations confirmed.

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