LATENIGHT - KOREA

Tuesday, August 26, 2003

The God of War

So here he comes. Mars, the God of War will be closer to the Earth tomorrow, than at any time in the last 60,000 years. The last time around, it found us in the midst of an inter-species war with Neantherthals. What will it bring this time?

Astrologers look to Mars as a source of aggression, combativeness and competitiveness. It also exerts it's powers over physical action and movement. It controls birth, sacrifice, and death. It a creator and destroyer. With that said, I can't help but wonder what the outcome of the six-nation negotiations with North Korea will be, since they have coincidently been planned for months to begin on the exact same day.

Tensions are already high, leading into the discussions. Japan has impounded a North Korean ferry on its first trip to Japan in seven months. The ferry had to be banned for suspected espionage. U.S. negotiator, Jack Pritchard has inexplicably dropped out of the talks at the eleventh hour. On the weekend, a fight broke out between human rights activists (called "Conservatives" in Korea) and North Korean reporters at the Daegu Universiade Games, that resulted in another threat by North Korea to pull out of the games. North Korea first expressed it's desire to pull out of the games last week, after anti-North Korean protestors had the audacity to burn their flag in downtown Seoul. This time around, I think their threat carried less impact. What they don't like publicizing heavily is that Seoul is footing the entire bill for bringing the North Korean team to the games. Now that they're already here, they can hardly throw a tantrum and then turn around and beg for airfare home, can they? I suppose transportation may have been one thing that Kim Jong Il might have paid for... but I wouldn't be surprised if he had been counting on filling up his planes at the Kimhae pumps for free.

Of course, talks haven't even begun and North Korea is whining out a defeatist tone about how the U.S. intends to scuttle the talks, anyway.

China is being rather non-committal on their expectations of the negotiations although some media report that they have voiced optimism. Russia seems to have stated a slightly greater degree of optimism... but then again, they admit that they're just there to watch. Meanwhile, South Korea is left confused as to its planned stance. From one corner of their mouth they are promising a unified front with the U.S. and Japan while from the other, they're already promising to cash cheques and give in to nuclear blackmail. (Thanks to the Marmot for that last link.)

...And with their recent military expansions and constitutional reform, who knows what the Japanese are up to? The Japanese Self Defence Force has also stepped up recruiting efforts recently with a new campaign using 13-year old girls to entice new soldiers. Of course, there's the off-chance that might attract the wrong kind of soldiers... Far more alarming is that experts suggest scientists of the Rising Sun are only years away from developing Gundam technology. If there's war... it could get interesting.

Of course all of that might be better suited for if we follow the advice of the Herald Tribune in Sarasota and go after the real culprit in this mess-- by launching a pre-emptive strike on Mars.

[Note: Biographies on the major players at the talks have been published both by Reuters and the Joong Ang Ilbo. Just click the links.]

Pusan, from a boat in the harbour near sunset

Drew, over at Library Tech Guy ran a series of questions a while ago from a sort of 'pass-it-on' interview experiment. The idea is explained in the following rules:

THE RULES:
1. leave a comment, saying you want to be interviewed.
2. i will respond; i'll ask you five questions.
3. you'll update your website with my five questions, and your five answers.
4. you'll include this explanation.
5. you'll ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.

Here are the questions Drew posed to me:

1. If you could choose to be any other nationality other than your own Which would you choose?
My first inclination is to say British. I've always fancied getting a title someday (Sir/Baron/Lord) and Canada has been a bit cold on letting people accept them lately. For the last three and a half decades, we have only had about a year and a half's worth of prime ministers who were non-Quebecois and those French PM's seem to detest the idea of letting any Canadian get a genuine British title (referring to a non-law called the Nickel resolution from over 80 years ago.) I suppose I'd have to earn it first, but what can I say? I'm really an old-fashioned imperialist at heart. God Save the Queen.

Outside of the Commonwealth, I'd have to go with Icelandic. I've always loved Icelandic saga literature and the old Norse mythologies. Iceland has one of the most intact sets of old pagan traditions and histories going. They also have some pretty cool titles too, like "Knight of the Order of the Falcon". I could just imagine introducing myself at cocktail parties...

2. What would you say is your favorite comfort food and why?
I guess that'd be chocolate. I can't relax after a long day until I've had a chocolate bar or something for dessert. I'm not really partial to the expensive Swiss or Belgian stuff either. If I could find either here, my choice would be Neilson's Goldenbuds, or a good ol' Mars bar.

3. If you could choose to be someone else, anyone else for a day who would it be?
The Pope-- albeit a healthier, younger version if possible. I'd love to learn what secret histories are hiding in the vaults of the Church of Rome. Almost certainly they go back two thousand years, although some suggest they might go back a substantial bit further and would shed light on a lot of the mysteries around the globe. The Vatican also holds the world's largest collection of Occult literature in the world (the world's second largest collection is held by the Amazing Kreskin who I actually met backstage at one of his shows in Halifax.) Sure, I could say President of the United States so that I could learn the truth about extra-terrestrials-- but why stop at Roswell when you could go back to Atlantis?

4. When did you realize what you wanted to do for a living (or what lead to your current career choice)
Well, right now I have two jobs. I've been teaching English in Korea since 2000, and since this past May, I have held the position of editorial cartoonist for my hometown newspaper. Korea's really a stepping stone for me. It's given me some time to focus, a healthy income, and a chance to get the wanderlust out of my bones before going home to settle down.

On the other hand, being an editorial cartoonist would be one of the few vocations I could see myself doing when I am 70 years old. When did I realize that? I've always drawn or sketched but I was never convinced it'd earn me any money in these days of computers. Before I left for Korea however, I was interviewed for a gig as an editorial cartoonist which came up out of the blue, and I did on a whim. Now there was no way I would've gotten the position. I didn't have enough experience and there was already another local guy waiting in the wings who was phenomenally qualified. Still, it got me to thinking. My New Year's resolution this year was to do an editorial cartoon each week for this blog, as an attempt to get the experience and portfolio I needed. As it turned out, another position came up, at a different paper where I used to work, and I was offered the spot flat out. I accepted and now I am doing two cartoons a week. It's my hope that I can expand that a bit further. Two cartoons keeps me quite busy in my free time outside of my day job, but the ones I do now are strictly provincial in theme (New Brunswick, Canada) as they are for a community newspaper and not a daily. I am eager to try my hand at something national or international.

5. What is your favorite historical time period.
Hmm. I'm going to answer the Seven Year's War/French-Indian War. I have a strong passion for studying the early colonization of North America. The period of the Seven Year's War is, to me, the most exciting-- and more so if you add the decade before it during which the city of Halifax was founded (1748). It was also these events that brought my ancestors to the continent. In the case of my mother's family, they arrived with Cornwallis at the founding of Halifax and later went on to found Lunenburg (now a UNESCO World Heritage site). My first paternal ancestor to cross the pond, did so to fight at Ticonderoga, under Wolfe at the Plains of Abraham, and elsewhere, in Major Reid's company of the 42nd Highland Regiment, the Black Watch. All that and I really loved The Last of the Mohicans which is set in 1756.

When I get home someday, I want to take up tomahawk throwing.

Oh yeah, and the mid-eighteenth century was also the heyday for pirates-- and every Maritimer loves pirates. HARRrrr.

Sunday, August 24, 2003

Nampodong, Pusan at dusk

My eyes are blurry. It has nothing to do with it being 4:30am since I am already back on my night shift schedule and couldn't be happier. It's more to do with the humidity. The weather has been a bit rough to bear. Overall the summer has been better than last year though-- and the worst should be over. Today however, the forecast was thundershowers. Some claps were being enough and close enough that the whole building shook.

With the return to nights I find I have a bit more time on my hands. I'm also eager to go back to expanding my blog to cover some of the events that might be outside my own sphere but that are occurring around me in Korea. For the longest time I have been coasting and not wanting to rock the boat but I find that I often use my blog when posting elsewhere, to find dates and records of occurrences that I'd otherwise forget about. So even if it only serves as a reference point for me, I think I'll go back to running down some of the week's events.

In the news...
There's some good financial news coming out of Korea. Overall, Korea has entered a recession, unrivalled since the currency crisis in 1997. That's not the good news. Frankly, I don't care, though. It's the obvious outcome of all that B*S* last year, which continues to this day, whereby South Korea panders to the North and alienates it's largest trading partner and ally, the U.S. Good on them. The good news is that the U.S. government has anounced intentions to investigate certain Asian countries that it suspects are artifically keeping their currencies low to aid their export business. Why is that good news? Because to escape the dragnet, the Korean Won has been going up, and up and up... As far as sending my savings home goes, we're back in the money.

How will Korea deal with this recession or ones in the future? The government has unveiled it's top ten technologies for growth engines. These include robotics, next-generation biomedical products, and automobile technology. As soon as someone shows Korea how to make them, their production should lead Korea to riches.

Meanwhile, University students are begging to avoid entering the workforce (employers prefer to hire finishing students as opposed to recent grads to the degree that a student actually gets extra credit for landing a job before graduation but become tainted if you graduated unemployed) and Korea has, once again, achieved it's number one ranking as a source for U.S. foreign adoptions. Nearly one quarter of foreign-born adoptees in the U.S. are from South Korea-- more than double those of second-place finisher, China.

Part of the reason for this the family register system. Children are registered as a part of the husband's family. Wives sign onto the husband's family at marriage. If a divorce occurs, the woman is deleted and essentially becomes family-less. The children are not considered hers so their is less incentive for either parent to take custody. Often, a woman's settlement in a divorce wouldn't allow her to support the children anyway. Additionally, in both the man and woman's case, extra children would hurt their chances to remarry. It comes as partial good news to see that the government is looking at abolishing the family register system once and for all.

In other alarming news, the Dong-A Ilbo reports that foreigners now account for land ownership in Korea, 17.2 times the size of Yeoeuido Island! That's a whopping 0.0000866% of all the land mass of Korea! Yeoeuido is a very little island. Bring out the pitchforks anyway, I guess.

Monday, August 18, 2003

Nampodong, Pusan

I have some time to kill before going to teach. I figured I might as well throw up another picture and experiment with getting back to the blogging swing of things. The problem is that my weekend was essentially domestic (I stayed in for the remainder of the weekend save for a short excursion to buy some new bedding for when winter comes). The news today is absolutely benign.

I do have a question on my mind, though. What am I supposed to say to our new/ex-foreign teacher today? I know that I am going to be the one grilled as to why she was cut from the school and I can't explain it myself. I don't know why. I can't even venture a guess. Up until now, I had been doing my best to help her overcome any of the cultural differences. How am I going to explain this one?

Any insight would be appreciated.

Oh yeah, and I am going to plug my other website one more time. I finished Tuesday's cartoon for the Miramichi Leader and will be uploading it tonight. For those of you, especially back home who are on dial-up, I have since changed the pictures to Lo-res versions so the loading time should be much faster. For Netscape users, click on the link at the bottom of the left sidebar and it will take you to a page where you can find current and archived cartoons, outside of frames. The comment box is working too. I'm editorially restricted to *not* do National themes but some of the subjects might be familiar to Maritimers.

Okay... off to inquire as to the wrath of a woman scorned.

Saturday, August 16, 2003

Taejongdae, Pusan

The summer schedule is finished for Middle School classes. That means my overall course load will relax a bit as I am no longer teaching extra "interview" classes at the end of each day. In another week, elementary goes back to the nightshift too and my whole schedule will return to normal. I can't wait.

I am picking up one more new class, though. Starting on Monday, for an hour each day, I will be teaching the other teachers in a sort of SAT preparation course as a bit of an experiment. The subject is American History and Social Studies. My qualifications are suspect. I'm not American and I've never had to take an SAT. Oh well, I am eager to go through the material also. Glancing through the text, there are lots of great things to cover.

Yesterday (Friday) was Liberation Day in Korea. We ended up teaching anyway, although only for a middle-school classes. At 2pm, the staff hopped into a bus and headed out to the other side of Bulam Mountain where some "famous" bulgalbi restaurants are located. The tables where we cooked our food were outside and under big tents. It was nice to have a breath of fresh air with the meal. In that way, it was a bit more like the kind of barbecues I was used to.

Later, more than a dozen of us made it to a Noraebang near the school. The new teachers seem to be quite friendly. Many of them mentioned that they were looking forward to my class on Monday. Building a better relationship with coworkers may also prove to be a benefit of the class.

There was one oddity however. I don't know if I even got a chance to mention yet that we hired a new foreign teacher. She arrived about three weeks ago to coincide with the summer session. Since then, the school's been busy getting her visa sorted out, her apartment set up, getting her integrated into the elementary classes-- and then handing her a pink slip. Yep, I understand it about as much as you do. So for you folks whom I mailed recently, and told you the position was filled: it ain't... but I don't think I'm comfortable endorsing it to anyone I like, right now. Maybe there's something I'm not aware of, but if given a chance, I am sure she could have become a good teacher. She's only been in Korea for a little over a month and this is the second school to pull the rug out from under her. I feel really bad for her. I guess it's just another crash-course case of "welcome to Korea".

On the plus side: I received an unsolicited raise in pay. I'm not certain exactly what my new salary is but it will come in handy. I got an email this past week from Sheffield University, in the UK. The admissions counselor said that I would qualify to enter their one-year MA research degree in Archaeology. Friends of mine in the know had told me they are the top ranked Archaeology department in the world. I know I am trying to save money to build a house and start a business when I return to Canada in a couple years... but boy oh boy, this is tempting. Either way, the plan is to stay on track and just bank money. When I have the money, then I will have the option to follow any path.

Saturday, August 09, 2003

Glancing up at Yongdusan Tower in Pusan

I'm cheating again and changing back the time on this post a bit, just to give a hint at the activities for the week of the 3rd-- but more specifically the weekend of the 9th and 10th. Yeji and I had a fantastic trip to Busan/Pusan and both of us have a tonne of photos to begin posting. I haven't gone through hers yet to see if I am going to steal any, but I managed to pick up a new 128Meg Memory Stick for my camera and I just about filled it what with videos and all.

I'll post a bunch more soon, dated more appropriately to the posting time. Actually, this might be the encouragement I need to post more often. My unpublished collection was starting to get a bit sparse but now I have some reasons to update more frequently.

I'm off to class now though... ugh... gotta hurry.

Saturday, August 02, 2003

Got a little too *into* Photoshop today... it was a nice diversion though.

Nothing's new in Korea today and if there was anything new... I'd know better than to blog about it. Somedays it just seems that you can't blow your nose without someone trying to gauge the political ramifications.

I had two days off this week for our summer vacation. I feel a little bit relaxed, moreso after I got the artwork done for the paper back home, but that caused a bit of stress and grumpiness too. I wasn't really happy with any of the work that went in this week. We had an early deadline which meant I needed three cartoons (though my next isn't due for almost a week). The first cartoon was so-so but I'm still having trouble drawing caricatures of the premier. The second I really liked, but emailed to me in reply was a concern the paper might be sued over it. I think that was an overexaggeration. I ended up changing it at the editor's request and in it's present published form, it's virtually devoid of humour. Now, remembering that I was pressed for time to do an extra cartoon-- which was negatively affected by having to do changes to the one before-- I am now fretting over the third cartoon. The artwork was up to snuff but the caption was too wordy. I was rushed at getting it in and didn't have the time to really develop a concise punchline. So there you have it. Three duds in a row.

And the side problem: my email is down. I was expecting a confirmation email back after I submitted the last cartoon but it didn't arrive for hours and then, overnight, my own email server stopped functioning. At first it was not recognizing passwords, now it's checking accounts at lightning speed with no resulting mail being delivered. I have no idea if the cartoon for Tuesday made it through, if there were changes to the one I submitted, or if it's even going to run at all (and if it does, which version as I mailed in a couple revised copies). It all just moved to fast last week and now I have to sit back with the distaste of a job poorly done. Oh well. Five days to plan the next 'toon.

Now if you don't excuse me, I'm off to play Mechwarrior IV.