Well I'm sitting back watching CNN and wondering what happened to the world this week. My Easter bunny, Molly, has presented herself as a genius rabbit, now capable of opening her cage door by herself from the inside. Happy Easter Weekend everyone. This weekend in Christianity commemorates Christ dying for your sins. In Christlike parity, many people of the Middle East, off many faiths, are also dying.
Now I'm not a politician. I'm not a Jew. I'm not an arab. Maybe somebody has to explain to me what the hell is going through Sharon's head. This is no longer about balancing military force to peace initiatives-- this is about insulting the whole process and thumbing your nose in the face of the world. The Arab world has just presented its most unified front in history, and luckily for Israel it was to present a peace initiative. To heck with that though-- seems like a great time to send in the tanks! They claim Yasser Arafat is in no personal danger, they only want to confine him to a few rooms in the building. Are we to assume that if he gets out form behind his desk, any of the Israeli soldiers currently taking pot shots into his office are going to miraculously hold fire? Maybe Arafat started out 20 years ago like a punk, but he established himself, with Rabin, as being a statesman bent on resolution-- and I don't want to see him 'go out like a punk'.
Who will take the reins of leading the Palestinians when he is gone? I have a feeling that the leaders at the Arab conference have an idea. I can only imagine what is going through their head as they gather together in Beirut. Apparently the city is showing hope and promise as it rebuilds itself from the years worth of war rubble. In fact I bet it is bringing a tear to the eye of many as they look around. I also bet it is engendering a bit of bile as they remember that much of the damage was cause by Israeli invasion and the coastal bombardment of U.S. battlewagons. The whole meeting of Arab leaders started off like a dogfight, but quickly turned into a love-in.
Saturday, March 30, 2002
Wednesday, March 27, 2002
Just sitting around having lunch and getting ready for school. I haven't updated much lately but I am running out of things to say. Molly is out, jumping and playing on the bed. She's been a bit grumpy lately so we make for a good pair.
The dust is settling but I am assured that it will be back in May, probably in time for the World Cup.
The school has recently started showing CNN on the overhead TVs in the lobby. It's making for a nice spot to sit and have a coffee. Children gather around me in amazement as they try to comprehend the language of the newsanchors... but moreso they stare in amazement that I actually enjoy watching the news.
Friday, March 22, 2002
More dust. Apparently public schools are cancelled today, but academies, like mine, continue on.
Tuesday, March 19, 2002
Blech. I woke up this morning and my nose and throat are killing me. In the U.S., everyone is worried about white powder-- here it's yellow dust. I was warned about the dust clouds coming in from the Gobi. I guess last year it was especially long lasting. Everyone says that if you wear white clothing you will find it brown by the time you get home at night. With my pathetic washing machine acting up all the time-- I'm used to that though, so I didn't put two and two together until I read the story in the paper about the dust.
In other news, I found out that I am one of 331,000 foreign workers in Korea and luckily I am one of the 73,000 (22%) who are working legally. I wonder if they are including the 38,000 or so U.S. soldiers in that statistic.
*cough*
Also, the school year is about to change for Korean students. As of next year, they will no longer have a December vacation. Instead, vacation time will be pushed into February to form a more concrete block of time for spring break. Extracurricular classes will be revived (during the periods that students normally go to hagwons). This is to offset the recent concerns over the failures of the public school system, and also to restrict or discourage the reliance on private schools, such as the one I work at. In other words, students will have to spend more time in the system that they feel is failing them and less time in the schools they put their faith in to prepare them for high school or university entrance exams. JoongAngIlbo also reports that corporal punishment is to come back into vogue. One thing I did note in one story is that holding private school classes after 10pm is illegal in Seoul... something I am filing away and remembering for the next time.
*hack*
What else... this lemon story was funny.
Now onto the final piece of news. I didn't blog about this yet as I was waiting to decide on an outcome-- but so far it looks like she is staying.
With all this talk of pets, I was starting to be drawn to an animal that has a shorter lifespan and one that, should I choose to lose interest in it at any time, would make for a nice supper. After walking by the pet store near my school one evening last week, I noticed a poor little critter trying to keep warm while being forced to stand on the heads of all it's brothers and sisters in the cage. I felt a pang of sympathy and shortly thereafter, I ended up home with...
...a rabbit. It looks like her name is going to be Molly, on account of her dark eyes and the Archie Fisher song. She doesn't do much except for eating but lately she's started moving and can actually get up to quite a top speed. Needless to say, the vacuum cleaner is getting full of her little pellets. She enjoys phone cords and making a mess out of the new blanket. If you think the picture is out of focus-- just remember she's naturally quite fuzzy.
Monday, March 18, 2002
Another story caught my eye today. Apparently manufacturers are scrambling. There is new legislation in Korea that will come into effect on July 1st. As of that date, Koreans will be able to sue a manufacturer for a defective product. I noticed conspicuously that elevator companies were mentionned. If you've ever visited Korea you know what the elevators can be like. They are usually filled to capacity and for some reason, the door guards never seem to kick in. So almost every day you see someone get crushed as they try to squeeze into the elevator.
Time for class.
Happy St. Patrick's Day. I know I missed the posting by an hour but I was out in Itaewon tonight with Brian and some others, for a folk/poetry getogether that meets every two weeks or so-- the Seoul Artist's Network. Home now, I am going to have a cup of tea and then go to bed. I just wanted to wish you all well, and post this humourous link to another article on the War on (Irish) Terror(ism) by Monty Python's, Terry Jones.
Friday, March 15, 2002
Happy Brithday to Brian who is leaving Korea at the end of this month. He also doesn't know this, but he's going to miss the April 2nd concert put on by Roger Waters at Olympic Main Stadium.
Thursday, March 14, 2002
HAPPY WHITE DAY!
Today is the thematic opposite for Valentine's Day in Korea. No... it's not a day full of cards that say, "I hate you"; it's the day that men are expected to give candy to the girls, since Valentine's Day is only for the girls to give chocolate to boys. Being a teacher, I ended up giving candy to all my students (some that I had picked up in Canada for occasions like this to make it extra special)... I got some back too which I didn't expect so now I have a couple snacks for some latenight computering. I don't want to spoil my appetite though-- pizza's on it's way.
There was a scheduling change again today-- that no one informed me of. They called at 4:15 to tell me I had a 4:00 class. That's about 4 times I think now that I have had that happen to me here. Of course it happened a number of times at the other school too. It seems that the people whose job it is to tell me are usually the ones in the office who are too timid (or disinterested?) to speak English. That's changed now and the person who will be informing me in the future is quite dependable and great to talk to.
Sunday, March 10, 2002
노래방 (Norae Bang) is a lot of fun. It's been a while since I have gone but for those of you who don't know what it is... it's a private singing room with a karaoke machine. They are all over Korea. Prices usually range from about 10,000 to 12,000 Won an hour at night (cheaper in the day).
So while cruising through the net, someone found this video posted and showed me. I didn't even know you could make videos there! (Now that I do...) As far as I know, the person posting it has no connection to the two high school girls in it, but you just have to watch it-- it's TOO funny !!!
Click here to see the 3 minute 20 second video...Not much to tell about. Lots has happened behind the scenes but I don't think I should get into it yet until I know more. I think I am going to be the only foreign teacher at our school. I met Kevin's replacement yesterday, but she is actually Korean, and having only studied for a few years in Canada. No word on if any other foreigners are en route.
Wednesday, March 06, 2002
Queen Elizabeth II's Golden Jubilee
Canadian Heritage's site for the Queen's Golden Jubilee is online and accepting congratulations and warm wishes from the public in the form of an online messaging service. Go to this site, or click on the logo above to visit the UK government's site for the event. Highlights of the Golden Jubilee will include a Royal Visit by our monarch to Canada (October 4th to 15th), although she will not be visiting Korea *frown*.
...for all else there's Rolls Royce and Supermarine
If you are a monarchist, a royal watcher,. or just a plain old Anglophile, I also apologize for being a few hours late to commemorate yesterday's anniversary of the maiden flight of the Spitfire, on March 5th, 1936.
The Supermarine Spitfire...
Tuesday, March 05, 2002
I just found an online quiz that might be considered rather illuminating... shocking even; It's FFRF's Bible Quiz. There are about 50 questions. I only batted .500 on it, getting an even half of them right. Some of these answers are downright scandalous but backed up with verse and chapter. I'll give you guys a few hints to the answers if you like. If anywhere you are given the opportunity to select "stoned to death" as a punishment for anything, no matter how small an offence-- select it! And yes, the Bible actually says...
"O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones." (Psalm 137:8-9)
This was taken from a King James Bible but to be fair, I also consulted the New World Translation which, as I have said before, is awkward in it's rythm or poetic considerations, but does keep the essence of this verse essentially the same-- kill the babies of your enemies via geocide (my word-- not theirs). In the case of the Jehovah's Witnesses however, the concept of Babylon is, in practice, extended to include the forces of evil, chaos, and disobedience up to the present day and into the future-- whether they be political or religious (I know that's a metaphor and not the literal interpretation they usually prefer but you'll have to ask them to explain that). Mind you, one could argue that since unlawful sex is part of this all-encompassing Babylon... this would make the Jehovah's Witnesses pro-choice.
If you want to stick to a truly literal interpretation, I guess you could just have it refer to the babies of modern day Iraq-- and this would give President Bush full power to dash babies against rocks in a future Gulf War sequel, right?
I've spent the last couple weeks working on my Family Tree rather than developing my websites. I have a few folksongs to transcribe andand I'm still looking for submissions of folktales and sci-fi stories. What has gotten me hooked however is that I recently signed on to Ancestry.com which has sent my genealogy skyrocketing. Basically, you get a family tree program which you can use to create a GEDCOM file and/or upload to the main servers. Those servers also hold the data of hundreds of thousands of researchers and an automatic search feature allows you to cross reference your ancestors with those added by other amateur genealogists. It's fantastic and costs less than $20 US to join for a year. I figured a good genealogy program costs at least that much or more, but with Ancestry.com, you get access to all that shared data as well-- which will basically become the core of your research right away.
So why haven't I added a link? Because I also joined the affiliate program and I want you to go through the advertisement on my web page to sign up *smirk*
Sunday, March 03, 2002
Today's post: Shopping for a pet in Korea
Note: This photo was taken last year in Pusan, not during today's excursion. The shops we visited were actual shops (not streetside vendors such as this) but the animals we saw were very similar to the ones being sold here.
I'm already in a bad mood because a new schedule came out on Friday and all of a sudden, my school expects me to teach 6 classes of overtime, including a full day on Saturday. This is not temporary either. They want this to be permanent because they are too cheap to hire another foreign teacher to deal with the influx of students we've been having. The classes are overcrowded as it is, so they can't add more students in. If the classes get any bigger, mothers will complain-- mind you no mother will complain if they overwork the foreigner. My contract says 25 hours, Monday to Friday, and as far as I am concerned I am sticking to the contract-- but I've already learned that contracts are only a mere illusion in Korea.
Immigration was closed when I got there today. That means making another, less convenient time-wise trip on Monday. After walking away from the empty corridors of the government office, we headed by taxi to the 63 building (said 6-3 but in Korean - Yook Sam Bihl-ding). We had lunch at a place that looked not so much like a Subway, but a restaurant built after someone had bought out a Subway at a firesale. It was called SubSandwich in the same font so I have no idea if it was the same chain or if it was changed to give clarity to Koreans. They use Subway napkins however.
There's lots of things to do at the 63 building. First, we took in an IMAX show, "Lost Worlds". I want to go on the record right now as saying I am sick of IMAX's false advertising. They did the same stupid thing with the dinosaur movie a couple years back. After coming up with a flashy and exciting poster, title, etc., they only show about 5 minutues on the subject and the rest just blows. The dinosaur movie had about 5 minutes of dinosaurs and 35 minutes of a girl running around a museum after dark. This movie, which was narrated by Harrison Ford, started off in a Mayan temple, lost deep in the foliage of South America. Within five minutes, they switched to talking about the food chain and biodiversity. Halfway through (or less, I forget) Harrison Ford even disappeared. Tell me what the use is? Is it some secret ploy by members of the WWF or PETA to lure people into a movie theatre with promises of the dark, forgotten monuments of the ancients, and then to turn around and stick animals in their faces, guilt trip them, and remind them of where their tap water comes from !?! It was a stupid movie-- just like everything else I have ever seen at IMAX. What a waste of film.
After that, we headed to the aquarium. Maybe having seen such a hippy-loving, tree-hugging film beforehand made me a bit hyper sensitive, but when the first thing you see in the aquarium is a dolphin swimming around in an 8 foot pool of water so narrow that he has to turn himself around vertically instead of horizontally... The penguins weren't much better off and as far as I know, none of these animals have ever seen daylight or breathed fresh air-- nor will they ever. As a side note, does anyone know what happens to a shark's natural magnetic anomally sensors when people trap it in a small tank with a large amount of metal coins for display?
We went to the observatory after that. It was enjoyable. They had lots of historical photos of Seoul from the turn of the century. They all seemed to have foreigners in them though. Of course there were shots of the Japanese occupying troops, but there were also photos of British soldiers putting out a fire in a temple, a photo of the German who was the doctor of the emperor, and a picture of a Russian officer training Korean palace guards. There were no shots of Koreans in professional roles however, which I found curious. It reminded me of Changwon where all the engineers in the factories seemed to have been foreigners contracted in.
On to the pets...
Lastly, just as I was getting the animals and fish in the aquarium out of my mind, we went shopping around for a cat. We went to Dongdaemon which has a pet store district. They ranged in price from about $1000CAD for a Siamese to about $1800CAD for a perky grey Persian. That amounted to about 1/6th the price of a brand new Kawasaki Ninja motorcyle that was being sold in the cycle district across the street.
Most animals for sale were those genetically inbred pocket pooches that I mentionned before. There were puppies of other breeds, but to maintain the standard of having miniscule sized dogs for sale, they were all about 3 weeks old, which is about less than half as old as they should have been before being removed from their mothers. The poor things barely had their eyes open. The only exceptions were the husky and chindo pups which are expensive. People did seem to take a little bit better care of them, especially since as I mentionned before, the Chindo is basically the national breed.
Passing by one store however, I saw a black Labrador retriever about 8 to 10 months old. It looked just like my dog Brandi back home, except that Brandi was never stuck in a 3 foot by 3 foot cage and she was never covered in her own urine. By that moment, I really wanted to go home, and I don't mean my little apartment in Haggyedong.
We checked out a less expensive place a few blocks away. This one was tucked underneath an overpass (similar in appearance to the bar district I showed you in my pictures from Osaka). We walked for a little while and found the pet stores. Mostly they were selling birds, fish, mice, hamsters, various other rodentia... but no cats. We were told that cats are out of season (which is maybe why they had so many mice). There was one there but it was pregnant and not for sale (I don't think). It resembled a female Morris the Cat from the old 9 Lives commercials, if Morris had spent the first 8 of his lives with a heroin addiction. This was one of those places where you could also buy chickens and assorted fowl. I suggested getting a chicken for the obvious reason but after getting a flat, "NO," we went to an Indian restaurant around the corner and had supper there instead.
Friday, March 01, 2002
Today is special in Korea. It commemorates a massacre of Koreans, demonstrating against Japanese occuptation in 1919. One of whom, a girl named 유관순 (Yoo Kwan Soon), has been elevated to the level of a folk hero and martyr for her stand against the Japanese. Korea's freedom came many years later, in 1945, but the spirit of the unsuccessful rebellion of 1919 is remembered fondly on this holiday.
There isn't much other news. I have spent the week working on my family tree and on my websites (as I will be doing later tonight also). Tomorrow I am going to make my way to the Immigration office to pick up my card; then I am going to the aquarium at the 6-3 building in 여의도 (Yeoido). After that, I have been told we are going shopping for cats. I think we should go for the cat first and then take it to the aquarium...
