In other news, I've decided to start another blog, which will details more of the adventures and Koreany things that i do and that happen to me. i will keep this blog but it will be more of a journal, a place to rant and write about the girl I like (imaginary) etc etc. the other option is to keep this the public blog and create another blog for rantings, which i might do, but blogger just isn't that pretty.
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Swine flu
Well...i laughed at it, i made jokes about it, i refused to wear a mask (I may have even made fun of the masks) and now I'm paying for it.
honestly though, wouldn't you have mocked? the paranoia!
I got the swine. It's a nasty nasty thing. It's been over a week now. I got booted from my school for a week and spent it in a local, struggling coffee shop (with much comfier seats than Starbucks thank you). I read Robert Jordans new book which was both bizarre and delightful. I think two different amazon opinionators put it best. It's good in that the stereotyped female characters are gone and Sanderson stayed true to the overall plot admirably. The bad is that Sandersons writing is tediously modern, which is very shocking after the more tolkienesque style writing of Jordan.
I'm left with a pounding headache, why? why why why? I don't know. blah.
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honestly though, wouldn't you have mocked? the paranoia!I'm left with a pounding headache, why? why why why? I don't know. blah.
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Charles Lindbergh Chokeslams a Korean!
Last night was Halloween, and what an epic Halloween indeed. My costume was pretty awesome, even if it was pretty unoriginal. I went as charles lindbergh. here's a picture:
the night started real chill though, we went to haebongcheon and listened to some good bands (and some bad ones too). There was a smoking hot bartender at the orange club. amazing! And most importantly, whiskey sours were only 5,000 and they were making them strong. At some point in my coming to Korea I became an enthusiastic drinker of whiskey. How and why that happened i'm unclear on, but there you have it. Come to think of it...it's probably just cause the beer is so goddamn awful. We were throwing down pretty good when we decided to head to hongdae to meet up with the rest of the crew. it was really fun to hang out with a bunch of waegooks in costume while the rest of Korea just went about it's regular business. Korean's don't celebrate Halloween and i think they just barely tolerate us. We met at a club called FF, which is right above my favorite club, Gogo, but always seemed like a sketchy snotty place. It always has a cover is one problem I have with it. But anyways, we pay the cover and head in, things are going pretty great. FREE DRINKS! For one solid hours drinks were free. That hour is why it took me so long to remember most of the night, it's still coming back in pieces. The bands were pretty good too. When i first got there they were playing daft punk! I love that Koreans love daft punk. It makes everything a little more bearable. I'm basically bebopping all over the place up and down the stairs and in and outside the building. If alcohol brings out the real you then i'm a crazy dancing fool.
Anyways, this is when this happens
Yea, so i'm coming up to the group, making faces at this one girl (names excluded), when this dude comes out of nowhere and starts dancing up on her. It being Korea we both figured this was both safe and hilarious. Then the dude gets all grabby and (later learned) biting her. Basically I intervened and the spock method was how it went down. It only last for maybe 5 seconds of me having him in a choke hold before the bouncer came flying up and locked him up and dragged him out. The bouncer was pretty damn impressive. Of course he came back to get me but the girl had my back. that was pretty much the end of it. We never saw the dude again. The bouncer later asked me to explain what happened, concerned about a fight or whatnot. by this point I was preeetty drunk and i was politely trying to use "simple english" so that he would understand, though i'm pretty sure he spoke good english. The conversation went like this.
Bouncer "You fight?"
Me: "no, no fight. Girl say no, stop. dude says yes, don't stop. So I say stop (I gesture the choke hold), then you (gesture the head lock he put the dude in). No fight."
and that was that. thankfully it was brief and other then a little scare for the poor girl no one was hurt. I'm pretty sure the guy was plastered and thought he was being a cute vampire or something. I'm not making excuses for the guy, i'd do the same thing again in that situation, cause it wasn't funny or acceptable, but i don't think it was maliciously done.
Anyways, the rest of the night is pretty much a blur of dancing and reveling. we actually left pretty soon after that, for some reasons people were a little hot headed that night. Sometimes it goes that way though i can't understand the purpose behind it. I did the walk of shame back home this morning, all the way across seoul, alone, in my halloween costume, and I'm sure I looked like shit and smelled like whiskey. Oddly, rather than stares Koreans were studiously ignoring me. That is until I got back to shillim and my students saw me, THEY never ignore me ;). I think the real win of last night was that I didn't smoke a single ciggie and my clothes don't reek of smoke. yay!
Happy Halloween America.
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the night started real chill though, we went to haebongcheon and listened to some good bands (and some bad ones too). There was a smoking hot bartender at the orange club. amazing! And most importantly, whiskey sours were only 5,000 and they were making them strong. At some point in my coming to Korea I became an enthusiastic drinker of whiskey. How and why that happened i'm unclear on, but there you have it. Come to think of it...it's probably just cause the beer is so goddamn awful. We were throwing down pretty good when we decided to head to hongdae to meet up with the rest of the crew. it was really fun to hang out with a bunch of waegooks in costume while the rest of Korea just went about it's regular business. Korean's don't celebrate Halloween and i think they just barely tolerate us. We met at a club called FF, which is right above my favorite club, Gogo, but always seemed like a sketchy snotty place. It always has a cover is one problem I have with it. But anyways, we pay the cover and head in, things are going pretty great. FREE DRINKS! For one solid hours drinks were free. That hour is why it took me so long to remember most of the night, it's still coming back in pieces. The bands were pretty good too. When i first got there they were playing daft punk! I love that Koreans love daft punk. It makes everything a little more bearable. I'm basically bebopping all over the place up and down the stairs and in and outside the building. If alcohol brings out the real you then i'm a crazy dancing fool. Anyways, this is when this happens
Yea, so i'm coming up to the group, making faces at this one girl (names excluded), when this dude comes out of nowhere and starts dancing up on her. It being Korea we both figured this was both safe and hilarious. Then the dude gets all grabby and (later learned) biting her. Basically I intervened and the spock method was how it went down. It only last for maybe 5 seconds of me having him in a choke hold before the bouncer came flying up and locked him up and dragged him out. The bouncer was pretty damn impressive. Of course he came back to get me but the girl had my back. that was pretty much the end of it. We never saw the dude again. The bouncer later asked me to explain what happened, concerned about a fight or whatnot. by this point I was preeetty drunk and i was politely trying to use "simple english" so that he would understand, though i'm pretty sure he spoke good english. The conversation went like this. Bouncer "You fight?"
Me: "no, no fight. Girl say no, stop. dude says yes, don't stop. So I say stop (I gesture the choke hold), then you (gesture the head lock he put the dude in). No fight."
and that was that. thankfully it was brief and other then a little scare for the poor girl no one was hurt. I'm pretty sure the guy was plastered and thought he was being a cute vampire or something. I'm not making excuses for the guy, i'd do the same thing again in that situation, cause it wasn't funny or acceptable, but i don't think it was maliciously done.
Anyways, the rest of the night is pretty much a blur of dancing and reveling. we actually left pretty soon after that, for some reasons people were a little hot headed that night. Sometimes it goes that way though i can't understand the purpose behind it. I did the walk of shame back home this morning, all the way across seoul, alone, in my halloween costume, and I'm sure I looked like shit and smelled like whiskey. Oddly, rather than stares Koreans were studiously ignoring me. That is until I got back to shillim and my students saw me, THEY never ignore me ;). I think the real win of last night was that I didn't smoke a single ciggie and my clothes don't reek of smoke. yay!
Happy Halloween America.
0
China
Almost a month ago now I visited China for several days. The following is a stream of conciousness retelling of that visit and my thoughts during and after.
China is awesome. Not in the new use of the word, denoting high fives and cheers, but in the original sense, of inspiring awe. Every single historical aspect of china could only be described as epic. That said, i kinda despise China.
We got into the airport at around 9 pm. Trained our way from the airport to the city. Nothing special about that. We had taken the subway from Seoul out to the international airport. However, right off the bat something was different. That something was cleanliness. All joking aside the subway was damn dirty, dirt literally piled up in the seats and hair and dirt in the aisles. It was rather surreal actually after the cleanliness of Seoul subways. As you'll see as you continue to read, this trend toward comparisons was prevalent during the trip and also common place amongst other travelers.
Walking out of the subway at 10 pm we thought we were doing good, we had a map with chinese instructions (supposedly clear), phone numbers and cost estimates for a taxi. Immediately upon exiting the subway we ran into our first major obstacle. third world taxi predators preying on tourists. We were given clear instructions both by the hostel owner AND the guide book that he price was to be 30 yuan. Sitting outside the station was a number of taxi drivers, all looking old and shabby, who demanded 100 yuan and wouldn't go lower. Quite frankly I would have spit in their face only I was revulted by the image of them spitting back in mine (third world hygiene and all). As you can see, my initial impression (and post) was not postive. To be fair a uniformed lady was incredibly helpful in flagging down, and negotiating with a legitimate taxi. I was quite surprised by the proficiency of her english which (again will be discussed further on) was not quite as shocking as i would have thought from the guide books dire warnings.
So were in the taxi going to our hostel. The thing to remember through this story is that we went during Red China's 60th anniversary. So they had EVERYTHING locked down around the cultural sites (eg the forbidden) which was a five minute walk from our hostel and thus also locked down from traffic. The reason being the threat of terrorism from tibetans, uighurs, repressed religious minorities or just the crazies. However, our taxi driver is pretty great and takes care of us and calls our hostel lady and we meet up and walk to the hostel. I attempt to speak some chinese (while looking at the words in book) and come up short. That's after two years of taking chinese in college. ah well, blow it.
Now the hostel is sweet, real sweet, go to my facebook profile and follow along in the pictures. The hostel was just hella awesome. I'd almost call trendy except it wasn't, it was just super cool.
Day 1: Forbidden City, Tianamen Square, Temple of Heaven (are you following in the pictures?). We got up pretty early, for us, and had a nice little english breakfast and headed out to see the forbidden city. We were slightly nervous but it turned out that it was pretty easy to find the forbidden city as, again, we were five minutes north of it by foot. On our way there we watched an epic fight in broken english between a chinese hotel clerk and a portuguese bitch over 2 yuan worth of water. Semi-tragic comedy in terms of the human race that was. The forbidden city wa s just epic. I will allow you to explore the pictures. We literally spent the entire morning in there and probably only saw half of it, maybe only a quarter. I think you could fit all the palaces in all of korea into the forbidden city. it's just that big. tianamen square was a bit of a let down as it was PACKED with tourists (han version) but we did get to see the portrait of mao and snap a shot of the meridian gates which wouldn't have been allowed until recently. One thing to mention is that most of the sites in tianamen were shut down, and just getting into the square was a bit of a fight. alright, i'm going to move on the great wall.
HOLY FUCKING SHIT THE GREAT WALL OF FUCKING CHINA! we decided (by which i mean i decided) to do the Wild Tour up in the simatai jinshanling section. Its a 10 km hike up and down steep sections of the wall which is crumbling in some parts. It was AWESOME for the first 2.5 hours. But the second 2.5 hours I began to truly hate china, mongolians and the wall. Why mongolians? Well because the descendants of mongolians make their living selling cheap tshirts and water and snack along the wall. they are literally posted at every watch tower because they know that eventually we fat whities will break and pay for it. I broke. Twice. But i also got an awesome revolutionary style picture and screamed obscenities off the wall southpark style. Oh yes, there's video. To FB! Finishing the great wall was pretty amazing. I think i used half my camera's memory on it. it really is an incredible engineering feat but the entire time i was there i was thinking about what it would have been like to have actually been posted there as a soldier. Imagine being illiterate, uneducated, poor and hungry, pressed into the army at the age of 16 and shipped to this god forsaken wilderness. Daily you stare out over the mountain ranges with the real possibility that raiders on horses could come pouring through the passes. In the winter you have next to no shelter and you have to walk up and down the sections of wall in sleet and hail. Fuck...that... so yea, yay for being born american in the 20th century. wooh!
Day 3 saw me almost decide nuking china was necessary. We went to the zoo. I should have known better. You don't go to zoo's in a country wherethe people still happily butcher it's occupants for medicines and food and or the hell of it. Anyways, we saw pandas' and bought some stuff and were walking around and then we went to the big cats cages. all throughout the cages were waterbottles. what were waterbottles doing in the cages? Motherfucking ignorant ass hick chinese people decided it was a good idea to throw their waterbottles at these caged animals so that they would move and entertain them. no seriously, i wanted to throw one of them in. We left then. Fuck you china, i will always remember how god awful you are. This kinda soured the trip for me. honestly, treatment of animals isn't a HUGE issue of mine. I don't mind using animals in the laboratory for instance, i prefer it to humans. But at the same time I don't abide by unnecessary wanton animal cruelty, and quite frankly I'd be happy to put a bullet in the head of anyone that would mistreat an animal, just as i would someone who would abuse a child. I firmly believe that the way you treat an animal is the way you would treat others if you could get away with it. We'll discuss the incredibly bizarre way koreans treat animals in another post. it's not awful like the chinese, it's just...emasculating is the closest word i can think of.
well that's pretty much all i wanna talk about. We went to the summer palace but it was basically a theme park selling crap whichwas kind of a let down. Oh also we watched some kid take a crap in the woods in front of everyone. that's common in China by the way, at least he was in the trees and not in the bus or subway, which does happen. I'm leaving out a lot actually. Let me briefly mention the food. The food was literally exactly like american cheap chinese food, only the quality wasn't as good. I shit you not you could taste the same flavors. Did you know that asians' identify a 5th root taste (other than salty, sour etc)? they call it unami, which means savory. Basically in china that means the taste of MSG, which is in EVERYTHING. Compared to korean food (so bizarre to say this) it was absolute shite. the best meal we had was the 80 yuan peking duck. the second best meal we had was a 10 yuan hamburger from mcdonalds. That was the first mcdonalds i'd had in 5 years. it'll probably be another 5 years before i have another. sigh. such a disappointment in terms of food. Oh the last thing was language. Everyone seemed to speak english. I got our asses lost the first night trying to walk around the forbidden city (I wasn't actually lost, i just underestimated how colossal the city was) and some random dude came up and started speaking english. He was a middle school teacher like me and he taught himself english by listening to the radio, which is actually a fairly common way for chinese people to learn english believe it or not. Everyone we asked for help knew enough english, and spoke clearly enough, for us to easily understand. it was brilliant and unexpected and made life a lot less stressful than it could have been.
Final thoughts? the sites are definitely worth seeing (not getting into the amount of abuse of common labor and imperialism necessary to create such monuments both in china and all other such nations), and i have to say i recommend visiting if you can, but you have to remember that it's still basically a developing nation with customs and attitudes that are entirely different from our own (especially MY own). the people were average, some very friendly, some certainly not, most ignored us, just like all humans everywhere. I'm glad I visited, now I can say I saw it and never have to visit again.
Read more
China is awesome. Not in the new use of the word, denoting high fives and cheers, but in the original sense, of inspiring awe. Every single historical aspect of china could only be described as epic. That said, i kinda despise China.
We got into the airport at around 9 pm. Trained our way from the airport to the city. Nothing special about that. We had taken the subway from Seoul out to the international airport. However, right off the bat something was different. That something was cleanliness. All joking aside the subway was damn dirty, dirt literally piled up in the seats and hair and dirt in the aisles. It was rather surreal actually after the cleanliness of Seoul subways. As you'll see as you continue to read, this trend toward comparisons was prevalent during the trip and also common place amongst other travelers.
Walking out of the subway at 10 pm we thought we were doing good, we had a map with chinese instructions (supposedly clear), phone numbers and cost estimates for a taxi. Immediately upon exiting the subway we ran into our first major obstacle. third world taxi predators preying on tourists. We were given clear instructions both by the hostel owner AND the guide book that he price was to be 30 yuan. Sitting outside the station was a number of taxi drivers, all looking old and shabby, who demanded 100 yuan and wouldn't go lower. Quite frankly I would have spit in their face only I was revulted by the image of them spitting back in mine (third world hygiene and all). As you can see, my initial impression (and post) was not postive. To be fair a uniformed lady was incredibly helpful in flagging down, and negotiating with a legitimate taxi. I was quite surprised by the proficiency of her english which (again will be discussed further on) was not quite as shocking as i would have thought from the guide books dire warnings.
So were in the taxi going to our hostel. The thing to remember through this story is that we went during Red China's 60th anniversary. So they had EVERYTHING locked down around the cultural sites (eg the forbidden) which was a five minute walk from our hostel and thus also locked down from traffic. The reason being the threat of terrorism from tibetans, uighurs, repressed religious minorities or just the crazies. However, our taxi driver is pretty great and takes care of us and calls our hostel lady and we meet up and walk to the hostel. I attempt to speak some chinese (while looking at the words in book) and come up short. That's after two years of taking chinese in college. ah well, blow it.
Now the hostel is sweet, real sweet, go to my facebook profile and follow along in the pictures. The hostel was just hella awesome. I'd almost call trendy except it wasn't, it was just super cool.
Day 1: Forbidden City, Tianamen Square, Temple of Heaven (are you following in the pictures?). We got up pretty early, for us, and had a nice little english breakfast and headed out to see the forbidden city. We were slightly nervous but it turned out that it was pretty easy to find the forbidden city as, again, we were five minutes north of it by foot. On our way there we watched an epic fight in broken english between a chinese hotel clerk and a portuguese bitch over 2 yuan worth of water. Semi-tragic comedy in terms of the human race that was. The forbidden city wa s just epic. I will allow you to explore the pictures. We literally spent the entire morning in there and probably only saw half of it, maybe only a quarter. I think you could fit all the palaces in all of korea into the forbidden city. it's just that big. tianamen square was a bit of a let down as it was PACKED with tourists (han version) but we did get to see the portrait of mao and snap a shot of the meridian gates which wouldn't have been allowed until recently. One thing to mention is that most of the sites in tianamen were shut down, and just getting into the square was a bit of a fight. alright, i'm going to move on the great wall.
HOLY FUCKING SHIT THE GREAT WALL OF FUCKING CHINA! we decided (by which i mean i decided) to do the Wild Tour up in the simatai jinshanling section. Its a 10 km hike up and down steep sections of the wall which is crumbling in some parts. It was AWESOME for the first 2.5 hours. But the second 2.5 hours I began to truly hate china, mongolians and the wall. Why mongolians? Well because the descendants of mongolians make their living selling cheap tshirts and water and snack along the wall. they are literally posted at every watch tower because they know that eventually we fat whities will break and pay for it. I broke. Twice. But i also got an awesome revolutionary style picture and screamed obscenities off the wall southpark style. Oh yes, there's video. To FB! Finishing the great wall was pretty amazing. I think i used half my camera's memory on it. it really is an incredible engineering feat but the entire time i was there i was thinking about what it would have been like to have actually been posted there as a soldier. Imagine being illiterate, uneducated, poor and hungry, pressed into the army at the age of 16 and shipped to this god forsaken wilderness. Daily you stare out over the mountain ranges with the real possibility that raiders on horses could come pouring through the passes. In the winter you have next to no shelter and you have to walk up and down the sections of wall in sleet and hail. Fuck...that... so yea, yay for being born american in the 20th century. wooh!
Day 3 saw me almost decide nuking china was necessary. We went to the zoo. I should have known better. You don't go to zoo's in a country wherethe people still happily butcher it's occupants for medicines and food and or the hell of it. Anyways, we saw pandas' and bought some stuff and were walking around and then we went to the big cats cages. all throughout the cages were waterbottles. what were waterbottles doing in the cages? Motherfucking ignorant ass hick chinese people decided it was a good idea to throw their waterbottles at these caged animals so that they would move and entertain them. no seriously, i wanted to throw one of them in. We left then. Fuck you china, i will always remember how god awful you are. This kinda soured the trip for me. honestly, treatment of animals isn't a HUGE issue of mine. I don't mind using animals in the laboratory for instance, i prefer it to humans. But at the same time I don't abide by unnecessary wanton animal cruelty, and quite frankly I'd be happy to put a bullet in the head of anyone that would mistreat an animal, just as i would someone who would abuse a child. I firmly believe that the way you treat an animal is the way you would treat others if you could get away with it. We'll discuss the incredibly bizarre way koreans treat animals in another post. it's not awful like the chinese, it's just...emasculating is the closest word i can think of.
well that's pretty much all i wanna talk about. We went to the summer palace but it was basically a theme park selling crap whichwas kind of a let down. Oh also we watched some kid take a crap in the woods in front of everyone. that's common in China by the way, at least he was in the trees and not in the bus or subway, which does happen. I'm leaving out a lot actually. Let me briefly mention the food. The food was literally exactly like american cheap chinese food, only the quality wasn't as good. I shit you not you could taste the same flavors. Did you know that asians' identify a 5th root taste (other than salty, sour etc)? they call it unami, which means savory. Basically in china that means the taste of MSG, which is in EVERYTHING. Compared to korean food (so bizarre to say this) it was absolute shite. the best meal we had was the 80 yuan peking duck. the second best meal we had was a 10 yuan hamburger from mcdonalds. That was the first mcdonalds i'd had in 5 years. it'll probably be another 5 years before i have another. sigh. such a disappointment in terms of food. Oh the last thing was language. Everyone seemed to speak english. I got our asses lost the first night trying to walk around the forbidden city (I wasn't actually lost, i just underestimated how colossal the city was) and some random dude came up and started speaking english. He was a middle school teacher like me and he taught himself english by listening to the radio, which is actually a fairly common way for chinese people to learn english believe it or not. Everyone we asked for help knew enough english, and spoke clearly enough, for us to easily understand. it was brilliant and unexpected and made life a lot less stressful than it could have been.
Final thoughts? the sites are definitely worth seeing (not getting into the amount of abuse of common labor and imperialism necessary to create such monuments both in china and all other such nations), and i have to say i recommend visiting if you can, but you have to remember that it's still basically a developing nation with customs and attitudes that are entirely different from our own (especially MY own). the people were average, some very friendly, some certainly not, most ignored us, just like all humans everywhere. I'm glad I visited, now I can say I saw it and never have to visit again.
0
Korean Pride
I've been meaning to blog about a number of thoughts for a while now. I'll get to them, and my trip to china, over the following week. Tonight I'm going to briefly touch on the bizarre amount of pride korea has in simply being korea. If you should ask a Korean are they proud to be Korean I would be willing to bet that there isn't a single one who wouldn't say yes. Korean's take an enormous pride in their country, their language, and their culture. Outside of the stalled war with the communists there isn't much they are ashamed of regarding their nationality (that i've found so far). take a moment to read this article on what it means to be korean.
http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2008/06/what-makes-person-korean.html
now the thing that weirds me out about all this isn't the fact that koreans have pride. I mean, even i have some pride in america. It's more the overwhelming, fawning/fanatic pride that was stereotyped in Southpark back when it was still good. "if you don't like you can git out". you remember that episode? where the rednecks just had absurd pride in everything that was, or claimed to be, american? It's a lot like that here. Ask a korean what their favorite food is and be damned if they don't say korean. Mind you, maybe that's not fair, Korean food really is better than most other asian foods i've tried here in korea, and a helluva a lot better than the food in china. Will see what further travels reveal on this issue. But I'm digressing.
the point that weirds me out is the overwhelming fanaticism of Korean pride. For a country that's basically spent it's entire existence as a subject nation of China, routinely getting it's ass kicked by Chinese, Mongols, or Japs I wouldn't feel a lot of pride in Korea's power. For a nation that is trailing behind China and Japan economically there isn't a lot of pride there. It's still divided by the most guarded military border in the world. It's not particulary friendly and it's historically been rather boring and unimportant (they call it the hermit kingdom for a reason). I don't know, i just don't see what there is to take pride in. At least, not the kind of pride I see from Koreans, which is all encompassing.
To put this in context I should say that I don't have a particularly great deal of pride in being American. In fact, I can't wait to get out permanently.
Then I got to thinking that maybe it's just the way they were raised, the culture. Redneck American pride was stereotyped for a reason in southpark, because it exists in that form to a greater or lesser extent. I think that too is cultural. Perhaps it's as simple as not being brought up to value indepence and critical thought. I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the more conservative, prideful, sections or our country live in cultures that value respecting authority and tradition and god and guns and country more than rights and independent thought and equality. In fact, studies have confirmed that that is the main difference between conservative thinking and liberal thinking. for more on that see (or search on google):
http://psychcentral.com/news/2007/09/10/brains-of-liberals-conservatives-may-work-differently/1691.html
http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/04/21/liberals-and-conversatives-hold-different-moral-foundations/5460.html
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html
Now this is obviously a generalization but its fair to say that Korea as a whole is basically Wyoming. They are extremely xenophobic, closed, conservative, traditional, and proud of who they are, they also all pretty much look the same ;). They aren't "ignorant" but their learning is completely based around memorization and regurgitation of facts, going from teacher to student. Personal opinion is not encouraged, possibly not even permitted (though I haven't confirmed that latter) and students are unable to think outside of a narrowly defined box. I know this for a fact actually as I'm helping a teachers kid prepare for studying in america and he literally has no idea how to write an opinion paper. As in, he doesn't know how to assert his opinion, or possibly how to even form his own opinion. it's sheer craziness. But on the other hand its the same thing you find in the conservative party, where all hands agreed that bush was the right cat to reelect in 2004. It literally took the destruction of our nation to realize he wasn't the right guy and you can STILL find around 20% of the nation that thinks he was a savior, most of them conservative christians who fit the same mold as koreans. It hasn't even been a year and Obama has already lost roughly 16% of his support. I think conservatives as a culture just follow along and take blind pride in who and what they are, sans independent thought.
It's creepy living here, I've kept away from politics and thankfully religion isn't much of an issue, but it really is like being a closet liberal in Wyoming. It's not as bad as Wyoming would be because religion doesn't really factor in, and they aren't conservative because they are ignorant, as I mentioned before. It's just really hard for them to form new opinions and become part of the global community. Gay rights for instance, is still almost unheard of outside of western establishments. In fact, most Koreans still hold the same opinions of gays that ahmadinejad was berated for having. I'm very interested in how I will view Europe when I finally get there.
Read more
http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2008/06/what-makes-person-korean.html
now the thing that weirds me out about all this isn't the fact that koreans have pride. I mean, even i have some pride in america. It's more the overwhelming, fawning/fanatic pride that was stereotyped in Southpark back when it was still good. "if you don't like you can git out". you remember that episode? where the rednecks just had absurd pride in everything that was, or claimed to be, american? It's a lot like that here. Ask a korean what their favorite food is and be damned if they don't say korean. Mind you, maybe that's not fair, Korean food really is better than most other asian foods i've tried here in korea, and a helluva a lot better than the food in china. Will see what further travels reveal on this issue. But I'm digressing.
the point that weirds me out is the overwhelming fanaticism of Korean pride. For a country that's basically spent it's entire existence as a subject nation of China, routinely getting it's ass kicked by Chinese, Mongols, or Japs I wouldn't feel a lot of pride in Korea's power. For a nation that is trailing behind China and Japan economically there isn't a lot of pride there. It's still divided by the most guarded military border in the world. It's not particulary friendly and it's historically been rather boring and unimportant (they call it the hermit kingdom for a reason). I don't know, i just don't see what there is to take pride in. At least, not the kind of pride I see from Koreans, which is all encompassing.
To put this in context I should say that I don't have a particularly great deal of pride in being American. In fact, I can't wait to get out permanently.
Then I got to thinking that maybe it's just the way they were raised, the culture. Redneck American pride was stereotyped for a reason in southpark, because it exists in that form to a greater or lesser extent. I think that too is cultural. Perhaps it's as simple as not being brought up to value indepence and critical thought. I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the more conservative, prideful, sections or our country live in cultures that value respecting authority and tradition and god and guns and country more than rights and independent thought and equality. In fact, studies have confirmed that that is the main difference between conservative thinking and liberal thinking. for more on that see (or search on google):
http://psychcentral.com/news/2007/09/10/brains-of-liberals-conservatives-may-work-differently/1691.html
http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/04/21/liberals-and-conversatives-hold-different-moral-foundations/5460.html
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html
Now this is obviously a generalization but its fair to say that Korea as a whole is basically Wyoming. They are extremely xenophobic, closed, conservative, traditional, and proud of who they are, they also all pretty much look the same ;). They aren't "ignorant" but their learning is completely based around memorization and regurgitation of facts, going from teacher to student. Personal opinion is not encouraged, possibly not even permitted (though I haven't confirmed that latter) and students are unable to think outside of a narrowly defined box. I know this for a fact actually as I'm helping a teachers kid prepare for studying in america and he literally has no idea how to write an opinion paper. As in, he doesn't know how to assert his opinion, or possibly how to even form his own opinion. it's sheer craziness. But on the other hand its the same thing you find in the conservative party, where all hands agreed that bush was the right cat to reelect in 2004. It literally took the destruction of our nation to realize he wasn't the right guy and you can STILL find around 20% of the nation that thinks he was a savior, most of them conservative christians who fit the same mold as koreans. It hasn't even been a year and Obama has already lost roughly 16% of his support. I think conservatives as a culture just follow along and take blind pride in who and what they are, sans independent thought.
It's creepy living here, I've kept away from politics and thankfully religion isn't much of an issue, but it really is like being a closet liberal in Wyoming. It's not as bad as Wyoming would be because religion doesn't really factor in, and they aren't conservative because they are ignorant, as I mentioned before. It's just really hard for them to form new opinions and become part of the global community. Gay rights for instance, is still almost unheard of outside of western establishments. In fact, most Koreans still hold the same opinions of gays that ahmadinejad was berated for having. I'm very interested in how I will view Europe when I finally get there.
2
찜 질 팡 A Korean Bathhouse
Hey, That says jjimjilbang. I typed that shit. hell's yea.
So I went to a Korean Bathhouse yesterday. I was hanging out with some new friends at Seoul Forest (which isn't a forest) and we were eating Pizza hut pizza (which isn't real pizza) and listening to a drum festival (which was terrible) when we decided to go do something else. I shall speak of these friends only in nicknames seeing as we all have them now. It was me, the bunny, the chainsaw, the hammer...and the visitor(?). the visitor was excited about visiting this HUGE bathhouse that he found in lonely planet. Quick interlude; the new lonely planet is apparently much more informed/baller than the old one. Anywho, the dude is going with the hammer but they're trying to convince the chainsaw to go to. Unfortunately the chainsaw is irish and a bit of a prude/never has done this kind of thing before. I'm sitting their trying to nonchalantly get myself invited (i'm still a newbie). My nickname is "the german spear" by the way.
So finally they convince the guy to go if i go. Were both a little nervous about the whole nudity thing but...wtf, were in korea and i'll never see these guys again. I could never see them again starting tomorrow if i wanted so it's not like its a big deal. So we go.
First off, this place is like a little mini casino. It's all decked out in lights and fountains and statues and big drive up parking areas. Crazy. We get in and we get our stuff in a very professional setting. I gotta say I wasn't all that nervous until I realized that the promised pair of shorts for the sissy's would not be forthcoming. Oh shit! everyone was going to see my laddy (as chainsaw calls it)!. So be it. I've already paid and I would lose all cred if i bailed now.
Well, we go up and make our first mistake by putting on our uniforms right away. As cool as we looked in them they were apparently not made for the men's section. Have I mentioned that the mens section is on the 5TH FLOOR! hella huge bathhouse. Oh, during changing i got boxed in by an old naked man. I felt like crying but thought that would only make things worse, so i simply cried on the inside. (kidding, but it did freak me out). It was pretty funny, they only have these little towels and i was clutching it to my man junk, I'm sure I looked foolish. Then we entered the actual bath section and all bets were off. with an internal fuck it I threw my towel in a bin and did the naked thing (which...really, wasn't that exciting).
Now let's be clear, I'm not comfortable around naked men. Especially old naked men. It's one of the reasons I won't go to the YMCA. That said, this didn't seem that bad. As in, you got past the nudity real fast. I think it was because of the freaking awesome baths.
One bath was literally a green tea bath. Another was a super steamer of some sort that was 43 degrees C. That's Celsius mind you. Well. So yea, awkward at first sitting around with a few naked dudes your own first name basis with, but again, it didn't seem to matter after a little while. I think ti was becausethe institgators of all this had done this before and were so chill. Anyways, the baths worked like this. You showered, got in the green tea, moved to the ultra hot, jumped in a slightly cooler one, than plunged into a big pool of ice cold water (18 C is ice fuckin cold). There was also a sweet menthol steam room right next to the pool, it might have been the best part all around.
After doing about 5 rounds we decided to investigate other parts. Downstairs we found a full snack bar, a lounge/sleeping area. A bunch of different sweat houses including but not limited too: an ice room, a charcoal room, an herb room of some sort, and an egyptian pyramid room. Outside was a unisex pool full of shrieking children. It's crucial to understand that there were little naked kids EVERYWHERE in the mens section. They just frolick around, in one of the worlds most conservative societies, without a care. Another oddity. Oh, there was also a roof top bar with liquor AND you could get naked mansagges. None of us were quite brave enough to be rubbed down by men while naked. maybe next time? maybe never.
We go back for one more round and there's some old weagooks in the far pool being all old and fat and nasty, kinda of a buzz kill but we chased them off (i think) quickly. Another key aspect. Almost none of the dudes were fat. Sure maybe a few granpa's had a beer belly, but overall NO ONE was fat. most of them were damn fit. there's something you won't find in america.
Well anyways we ended up spending 3 hours, planning on only 30 minutes and we easily could have stayed longer. You pay for blocks of time. It's 10,000 for day time and 12 for night. You can sleep there too. It's really a pretty amazing deal/event. I'm DEFINITELY going back, though I don't know with who, it's a bit of a trek for the dudes I went with this time. As for the issue of "sausage fest", well...you aren't there to hook up with ladies, you're there to relax, and MAN does it relax you. If all you can think about is the dick issue well...you got issues, work'em out, this isn't america. Next time though, I'm bringing a beach ball and inviting the girls to go a few rounds.
Now the all consuming question: yes the korean dick is indeed slightly small but not RIDICULOUSLY so... It's like with their height. I thought they'd all be midgets but they aren't. I think its the japs where the stereotype originates and may still hold true over all.
The other curious thing was the healthissue. having a mom in infection control i had to wonder how they kept it clean. I mean, i watched "spirited away" and so I assume they do some shit like that but honestly, it seems like such a health issue for a large number of men to be bathin in the same water. It's constantly being recycled...but even so.
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So I went to a Korean Bathhouse yesterday. I was hanging out with some new friends at Seoul Forest (which isn't a forest) and we were eating Pizza hut pizza (which isn't real pizza) and listening to a drum festival (which was terrible) when we decided to go do something else. I shall speak of these friends only in nicknames seeing as we all have them now. It was me, the bunny, the chainsaw, the hammer...and the visitor(?). the visitor was excited about visiting this HUGE bathhouse that he found in lonely planet. Quick interlude; the new lonely planet is apparently much more informed/baller than the old one. Anywho, the dude is going with the hammer but they're trying to convince the chainsaw to go to. Unfortunately the chainsaw is irish and a bit of a prude/never has done this kind of thing before. I'm sitting their trying to nonchalantly get myself invited (i'm still a newbie). My nickname is "the german spear" by the way.
So finally they convince the guy to go if i go. Were both a little nervous about the whole nudity thing but...wtf, were in korea and i'll never see these guys again. I could never see them again starting tomorrow if i wanted so it's not like its a big deal. So we go.
First off, this place is like a little mini casino. It's all decked out in lights and fountains and statues and big drive up parking areas. Crazy. We get in and we get our stuff in a very professional setting. I gotta say I wasn't all that nervous until I realized that the promised pair of shorts for the sissy's would not be forthcoming. Oh shit! everyone was going to see my laddy (as chainsaw calls it)!. So be it. I've already paid and I would lose all cred if i bailed now.
Well, we go up and make our first mistake by putting on our uniforms right away. As cool as we looked in them they were apparently not made for the men's section. Have I mentioned that the mens section is on the 5TH FLOOR! hella huge bathhouse. Oh, during changing i got boxed in by an old naked man. I felt like crying but thought that would only make things worse, so i simply cried on the inside. (kidding, but it did freak me out). It was pretty funny, they only have these little towels and i was clutching it to my man junk, I'm sure I looked foolish. Then we entered the actual bath section and all bets were off. with an internal fuck it I threw my towel in a bin and did the naked thing (which...really, wasn't that exciting).
Now let's be clear, I'm not comfortable around naked men. Especially old naked men. It's one of the reasons I won't go to the YMCA. That said, this didn't seem that bad. As in, you got past the nudity real fast. I think it was because of the freaking awesome baths.
One bath was literally a green tea bath. Another was a super steamer of some sort that was 43 degrees C. That's Celsius mind you. Well. So yea, awkward at first sitting around with a few naked dudes your own first name basis with, but again, it didn't seem to matter after a little while. I think ti was becausethe institgators of all this had done this before and were so chill. Anyways, the baths worked like this. You showered, got in the green tea, moved to the ultra hot, jumped in a slightly cooler one, than plunged into a big pool of ice cold water (18 C is ice fuckin cold). There was also a sweet menthol steam room right next to the pool, it might have been the best part all around.
After doing about 5 rounds we decided to investigate other parts. Downstairs we found a full snack bar, a lounge/sleeping area. A bunch of different sweat houses including but not limited too: an ice room, a charcoal room, an herb room of some sort, and an egyptian pyramid room. Outside was a unisex pool full of shrieking children. It's crucial to understand that there were little naked kids EVERYWHERE in the mens section. They just frolick around, in one of the worlds most conservative societies, without a care. Another oddity. Oh, there was also a roof top bar with liquor AND you could get naked mansagges. None of us were quite brave enough to be rubbed down by men while naked. maybe next time? maybe never.
We go back for one more round and there's some old weagooks in the far pool being all old and fat and nasty, kinda of a buzz kill but we chased them off (i think) quickly. Another key aspect. Almost none of the dudes were fat. Sure maybe a few granpa's had a beer belly, but overall NO ONE was fat. most of them were damn fit. there's something you won't find in america.
Well anyways we ended up spending 3 hours, planning on only 30 minutes and we easily could have stayed longer. You pay for blocks of time. It's 10,000 for day time and 12 for night. You can sleep there too. It's really a pretty amazing deal/event. I'm DEFINITELY going back, though I don't know with who, it's a bit of a trek for the dudes I went with this time. As for the issue of "sausage fest", well...you aren't there to hook up with ladies, you're there to relax, and MAN does it relax you. If all you can think about is the dick issue well...you got issues, work'em out, this isn't america. Next time though, I'm bringing a beach ball and inviting the girls to go a few rounds.
Now the all consuming question: yes the korean dick is indeed slightly small but not RIDICULOUSLY so... It's like with their height. I thought they'd all be midgets but they aren't. I think its the japs where the stereotype originates and may still hold true over all.
The other curious thing was the healthissue. having a mom in infection control i had to wonder how they kept it clean. I mean, i watched "spirited away" and so I assume they do some shit like that but honestly, it seems like such a health issue for a large number of men to be bathin in the same water. It's constantly being recycled...but even so.
0
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Seoul Moves to the Right! (bout time)
Seoul Moves to the Right!
The time has come to 'walk right' in Seoul. On October 1st, Seoul City will be launching a campaign to encourage people to walk on the right. We should soon begin to see signs encouraging people to walk on the right side of the sidewalk, while escalators and moving walkways are supposed to become 'right-sided'. Direction switches are planned for 1,109 escalators in 163 subway stations on lines No. 1 through 9 as well as for 20 moving walkways in 6 subway stations.
In order to let Seoulites get used to the changes, implementation began in September in some less busy stations. We should soon start noticing changes in signs leading to tickets booths and directions lines for subway transfers. The city will also have staff on hand, especially in the more crowded stations, near escalators and walkways to reduce confusion (Hopefully, this well-meant service won't have the same 'opposite-effect' as traffic cops do at intersections).
I read with interest some of the background information provided by the city regarding this new 'direction'. It seems that 88 years ago a law was enacted obliging pedestrians to walk on the left. However, because the vast majority of Koreans are right-handed (88.3%), walking on the left is difficult for them and apparently slows them down. According to a city official, “When people walk on the right side they go 1.2 to 1.7 times faster.”
Those of you living outside the capital need not despair - the central government announced back in April that it intended to take steps to change the Korean custom of walking on the left in order to bring Korea into 'line with international practice'.
According to government data, 73% of Koreans say they prefer walking on the right. "Many people complain they feel so uncomfortable walking on the left they bump into others." Now this is the first time I've heard this explanation this tendency, which has been commented upon by most foreign residents and visitors.
With all the broadcasts and banners hammering home the message of this move to the right, it will be next to impossible for any Korean speakers to miss it. I wonder, though, if the word will also go out in English and other languages. If not, I can just picture all the expats who have been in Korea for longer than a few months and who have gotten used to moving left on the sidewalk, but even more so in subway stations, on escalators, etc. Now that I've learned from the position of the feet and the arrows, that I truly do belong on the left, here goes Mayor Oh telling me, along with all the other Seoulite lefties that it's now time to shift right.
Should I start practicing now? Or should I wait until Thursday next? I guess I'll just go with the flow for now.....Let's see how things go on October 1st.
0
A Night to Remember (well...nevermind)
Ah yes, what is the most fundamental lesson you (hopefully) learn from freshmen year of college? Don't drink too much! Preferably this is the most painful lesson you learn in college, i know i learned it, but with hangovers and a broken wrist (another story!) but apparently I forgot.
Here's the set up, First of all i've finally made some friends. I know I know, 5 months and you've only just found people to hang out with?? Eat me. But i have friends now and more importantly I now know what joints to hang around to meet people my age and with my predeliction towards conversations (I have no idea if that's coherent). One's South Africa, and he's...he's something but i'm not sure what. One is Irish and about as straight Irish as they come, accent, angry drunk, party guy, generally awesome, etc etc. and ONE is a huge fuckin dude who is 27, has a masters, his students call him "Tiger" and he's already learned a good deal of Korean. He totally comes off as a bro at first glance but he's chill. the reason i'm expostulating about him so much is that he forms the punch line of this evening. Let's dig in.
So it's probably my first night goin out for drinks in...oh...a month? about that. A long time, and before that "going out for drinks" meant going and having a whiskey sour and talking about the weekend. Well it's willie's Bday (another friend) and amanda and I have put our heads together and decided that its the perfect night for getting shitty. So we start off with whiskey sours, which is always a good choice. Within an hour I'm back to the bar ordering my third only this time, I'm actually watching. I still have total recall of this time of the night, everyone was chill and having a good time. I watched this crazy amero-korean lady mixing my drink and realized she's been throwing two or three shots of whiskey into each glass (that'd be 6-9 shots in one hour, keep up). Now any intelligent, rational human being would have watched her make this drink and decided to take it easy but that shit went right out the window. I pretty much chug it. I think (I THINK) that they were leaving by the time I got back and that's what happened.
From here it gets hazy. It was all of 1030 PM. Glory.
Our next stop (I THINK) is a swanky little place on hooker hill where we all pitch in for a round of Cass (the korean equivalent of PBR or worse). We chug that but we can't feel the atmosphere. The atmosphere consists of old drunk korean prostitutes dancing with GI's to western in a redneck establishment (...in Seoul, South Korea). At least, that's my recollection. At this point I start chatting it up with this beautiful girl from Alabama. We go outside to get some air and I realize "shit, this girl is over 6 feet tall." And so she was. I also came upon the radical notion of calling her "alabama" which she took fairly easily.
Onwards and outwards. Things are getting mighty fuzzy by this point, but i still have snatches.
We end up at a gay bar in this redlight district. Actually, it's kind of an awesome bar. I've lost most of my conversational abilities so I'm just enjoying watching Alabama dance on a bar stool and wishing she was slightly more level with me (this is going somewhere). It is at this point, in a gay bar in Seoul South Korea, that i make the tactical decision to start mixing drinks. And what do i order? some manly concoction? No...I get a Sangria. WTF? I think I was thinking of that movie Eurotrip, but the dude offering sangria turned out to be a bi-pervert (...my...ideal?).
Well after that the night is gone. We somehow got divorced from the other half of the group and wandered around for a good hour doing...something. Like I said, I can't really remember anything but snatches of light and faces at this point.
We somehow found the other group, it seemed like magic at the time, like Bilbo finding the Ring under the mountain, but now i realize they just used their cell phones. At this point...i'm pretty sure I was spending a lot of time on the walls or on the ground. Not pleasant. I got stuffed in either the 3rd or 4th cab we approached and sent home. I remember the number of cabs because I was thinking how rude it was for people not to take me home and dead I'd be if I was on my own.
The next morning was pure death. Pain...pain pain. I wanted to do shit, but pain. I took a shower and drank some water...and through up, painfully. I preceded to repeat this pattern for the next 6 hours. Sleep, wake up, Drink a little bit of fluid, go to sleep, wake up, vomit, go back to sleep, repeat. Cheers! I alternated between the couch, and the floor of amanda's apt.
By 6 I was feeling better though I chickened out from spending another night out on the town. Somehow amanda managed it cheerfully, and of course, the hagwon dudes (new friends) are lethal drinkers. But the next day I get this story. Cameron, the guy the students call "tiger", had gotten a tug job in an alley by Alabama. He described it as one of the most terrifying moments of his life. As he describes it, "She had one hand on my chest pushing me up against a wall and the other yangkin at my junk. she played power forward on the basketball team in highschool, emphasis on power." Now maybe you won't get the humor here because you can't picture the kind of people I'm talking about, but I'm talking about giants. Cameron is a big man, Bama is a big woman and the idea of this is somehow vastly amusing to us (and him). crude yes. funny...yes.
anyways, it's monday and i'm still feelin it a little, I must have killed off a signficant quantity of hopefully nonimportant brain cells. I have been having some vocabulary difficulties...hmm. But most importantly I've made some friends and found some great places to spend time in Korea!
Other updates (suggested by a friend). I haven't talked to the girl i was interested in in about a month, I think we passed on each other. I'm starting this photography project called 365 (google it) to try and get myself to take more pictures. My mom and sister have had swine flu and both have successfully survived. The first years I'm teaching this semester are relatively low but they have "high classes" which are damn decent and they're a lot friendlier than the surly fuckin third years or the insane second years. let's see...oh, Check this out. You remember "The Three Ninja's" right? Well Mr Fuckin Miyagi was actually friggin Korean. You remember those masks tum tum, rocky and cole wore? Yea, those are traditional Korean masks. ...BALLA!
holy frig, they don't look so tough!
Read more
Here's the set up, First of all i've finally made some friends. I know I know, 5 months and you've only just found people to hang out with?? Eat me. But i have friends now and more importantly I now know what joints to hang around to meet people my age and with my predeliction towards conversations (I have no idea if that's coherent). One's South Africa, and he's...he's something but i'm not sure what. One is Irish and about as straight Irish as they come, accent, angry drunk, party guy, generally awesome, etc etc. and ONE is a huge fuckin dude who is 27, has a masters, his students call him "Tiger" and he's already learned a good deal of Korean. He totally comes off as a bro at first glance but he's chill. the reason i'm expostulating about him so much is that he forms the punch line of this evening. Let's dig in.
So it's probably my first night goin out for drinks in...oh...a month? about that. A long time, and before that "going out for drinks" meant going and having a whiskey sour and talking about the weekend. Well it's willie's Bday (another friend) and amanda and I have put our heads together and decided that its the perfect night for getting shitty. So we start off with whiskey sours, which is always a good choice. Within an hour I'm back to the bar ordering my third only this time, I'm actually watching. I still have total recall of this time of the night, everyone was chill and having a good time. I watched this crazy amero-korean lady mixing my drink and realized she's been throwing two or three shots of whiskey into each glass (that'd be 6-9 shots in one hour, keep up). Now any intelligent, rational human being would have watched her make this drink and decided to take it easy but that shit went right out the window. I pretty much chug it. I think (I THINK) that they were leaving by the time I got back and that's what happened.
From here it gets hazy. It was all of 1030 PM. Glory.
Our next stop (I THINK) is a swanky little place on hooker hill where we all pitch in for a round of Cass (the korean equivalent of PBR or worse). We chug that but we can't feel the atmosphere. The atmosphere consists of old drunk korean prostitutes dancing with GI's to western in a redneck establishment (...in Seoul, South Korea). At least, that's my recollection. At this point I start chatting it up with this beautiful girl from Alabama. We go outside to get some air and I realize "shit, this girl is over 6 feet tall." And so she was. I also came upon the radical notion of calling her "alabama" which she took fairly easily.
Onwards and outwards. Things are getting mighty fuzzy by this point, but i still have snatches.
We end up at a gay bar in this redlight district. Actually, it's kind of an awesome bar. I've lost most of my conversational abilities so I'm just enjoying watching Alabama dance on a bar stool and wishing she was slightly more level with me (this is going somewhere). It is at this point, in a gay bar in Seoul South Korea, that i make the tactical decision to start mixing drinks. And what do i order? some manly concoction? No...I get a Sangria. WTF? I think I was thinking of that movie Eurotrip, but the dude offering sangria turned out to be a bi-pervert (...my...ideal?).
Well after that the night is gone. We somehow got divorced from the other half of the group and wandered around for a good hour doing...something. Like I said, I can't really remember anything but snatches of light and faces at this point.
We somehow found the other group, it seemed like magic at the time, like Bilbo finding the Ring under the mountain, but now i realize they just used their cell phones. At this point...i'm pretty sure I was spending a lot of time on the walls or on the ground. Not pleasant. I got stuffed in either the 3rd or 4th cab we approached and sent home. I remember the number of cabs because I was thinking how rude it was for people not to take me home and dead I'd be if I was on my own.
The next morning was pure death. Pain...pain pain. I wanted to do shit, but pain. I took a shower and drank some water...and through up, painfully. I preceded to repeat this pattern for the next 6 hours. Sleep, wake up, Drink a little bit of fluid, go to sleep, wake up, vomit, go back to sleep, repeat. Cheers! I alternated between the couch, and the floor of amanda's apt.
By 6 I was feeling better though I chickened out from spending another night out on the town. Somehow amanda managed it cheerfully, and of course, the hagwon dudes (new friends) are lethal drinkers. But the next day I get this story. Cameron, the guy the students call "tiger", had gotten a tug job in an alley by Alabama. He described it as one of the most terrifying moments of his life. As he describes it, "She had one hand on my chest pushing me up against a wall and the other yangkin at my junk. she played power forward on the basketball team in highschool, emphasis on power." Now maybe you won't get the humor here because you can't picture the kind of people I'm talking about, but I'm talking about giants. Cameron is a big man, Bama is a big woman and the idea of this is somehow vastly amusing to us (and him). crude yes. funny...yes.
anyways, it's monday and i'm still feelin it a little, I must have killed off a signficant quantity of hopefully nonimportant brain cells. I have been having some vocabulary difficulties...hmm. But most importantly I've made some friends and found some great places to spend time in Korea!
Other updates (suggested by a friend). I haven't talked to the girl i was interested in in about a month, I think we passed on each other. I'm starting this photography project called 365 (google it) to try and get myself to take more pictures. My mom and sister have had swine flu and both have successfully survived. The first years I'm teaching this semester are relatively low but they have "high classes" which are damn decent and they're a lot friendlier than the surly fuckin third years or the insane second years. let's see...oh, Check this out. You remember "The Three Ninja's" right? Well Mr Fuckin Miyagi was actually friggin Korean. You remember those masks tum tum, rocky and cole wore? Yea, those are traditional Korean masks. ...BALLA!
holy frig, they don't look so tough!
0
First Week Back
Ok, so wow, my first class was devastating to my sense of purpose. Summer camp spoiled me. Not only could i keep control of the kids alone, but they could understand my lessons alone. The better classes could correct me if i made a mistake.
Then back to Danggok middle school where the order of the day is blank stares and silence. These kids don't know jack. and you get about 5 minutes of respect before they scatter like chaff in the wind.
damn, my sense of purpose in being in korea has taken a huge blow. What's the point in teaching at this school? Is there any value to me being here or am I just doing another 9-5 job? Would I be happier at another school? At a private institute? I don't know. I'm teaching first years this term and that should have it's share of surprises, hopefully I can maintain their interest. I know i kinda flubbed last semester just because of poor planning and lack of experience.
well, let's see how this one shapes up
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Then back to Danggok middle school where the order of the day is blank stares and silence. These kids don't know jack. and you get about 5 minutes of respect before they scatter like chaff in the wind.
damn, my sense of purpose in being in korea has taken a huge blow. What's the point in teaching at this school? Is there any value to me being here or am I just doing another 9-5 job? Would I be happier at another school? At a private institute? I don't know. I'm teaching first years this term and that should have it's share of surprises, hopefully I can maintain their interest. I know i kinda flubbed last semester just because of poor planning and lack of experience.
well, let's see how this one shapes up
0
Who Rules America: Wealth, Income and Power
Definitely worth a read
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
Read more
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
by G. William Domhoff
September 2005 (updated May 2009)
This document presents details on the wealth and income distributions in the United States, and explains how we use these two distributions as power indicators.
Some of the information might be a surprise to many people. The most amazing numbers come last, showing the change in the ratio of the average CEO's paycheck to that of the average factory worker over the past 40 years.
First, though, two definitions. Generally speaking, "wealth" is the value of everything a person or family owns, minus any debts. However, for purposes of studying the wealth distribution, economists define wealth in terms of marketable assets, such as real estate, stocks, and bonds, leaving aside consumer durables like cars and household items because they are not as readily converted into cash and are more valuable to their owners for use purposes than they are for resale (Wolff, 2004, p. 4, for a full discussion of these issues). Once the value of all marketable assets is determined, then all debts, such as home mortgages and credit card debts, are subtracted, which yields a person's net worth. In addition, economists use the concept of financial wealth, which is defined as net worth minus net equity in owner-occupied housing. As Wolff (2004, p. 5) explains, "Financial wealth is a more 'liquid' concept than marketable wealth, since one's home is difficult to convert into cash in the short term. It thus reflects the resources that may be immediately available for consumption or various forms of investments."
We also need to distinguish wealth from income. Income is what people earn from wages, dividends, interest, and any rents or royalties that are paid to them on properties they own. In theory, those who own a great deal of wealth may or may not have high incomes, depending on the returns they receive from their wealth, but in reality those at the very top of the wealth distribution usually have the most income.
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The Myth of American Self Reliance
from: bluecomics.com
A friend forwarded the following message to me:
This memorable quotation, from the 1801 collection of his lectures, is from Sir Alex Fraser Tytler (1742-1813), Scottish jurist and historian, widely known in his time, professor of Universal History at Edinburgh University in the late 18th century:
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence:
from bondage to spiritual faith;
from spiritual faith to great courage;
from courage to liberty;
from liberty to abundance;
from abundance to selfishness;
from selfishness to complacency;
from complacency to apathy;
from apathy to dependency;
from dependency back again to bondage.
To that I can only say: What a conservative crock.
This is Anglo-American myth-making at its most egregious. Most civilizations start with greed, folly, and suffering, not more noble sentiments. Let's look at an example we're all familiar with, America:
* Columbus: Sought fame and riches for himself. Bumped into a continent he barely knew existed. Immediately began enslaving the natives. Died in poverty and disgrace.
* The English at Jamestown and Plymouth: Outcasts, dissidents, fortune-seekers. Would've died if not for the help of Pocahontas and Squanto. Believed in religious authority, not individual freedom.
* The Founding Fathers: Didn't want to pay their fair share of taxes. Unwilling to provide enough money to feed and shelter their troops. Lost most of their battles. Won only because of outside aid.
Doesn't sound like a perfect record of faith, courage, and liberty when you put it that way, hmm? Miguel de Cervantes, of all people, summed up America nicely when he described it as:
The recourse of the ruined, the refuge and shelter of the desperate men of Spain, the sanctuary of the fraudulent bankrupts, the pardon of murders, the haven of loose women, the last trick of gamblers, the common cheat of many and the remedy of few.
Others agree. In his review of Freedom Just Around the Corner by Walter A. McDougall, Gordon S. Wood describes the nature of Americans (NY Times, 3/28/04):
Americans, according to McDougall, have always been scramblers, gamblers, scofflaws and speculators. Nearly everyone in early America, it seems, wanted to know not what's good for the English crown or the colony or the nation, but "what's in it for me." Of course, there were honest righteous people, religious and high-minded people, who spoke out against excesses and abuses. But their idealistic voices only made Americans feel good about themselves without seriously diminishing the overall scramble for profit.
Democracy in action
One glaring flaw in Tytler's quote is his confusion between democracies and civilizations. So what if "the average age of the world's great civilizations has been 200 years?" How many of those great civilizations were democracies? No doubt many of them failed because they weren't democracies, which makes the statistic irrelevant to Tytler's thesis.
Democracy has a fine track record once it takes root. Iceland's democracy has lasted 800 or 900 years. Switzerland's has lasted several hundred years. The English and American models have lasted a couple hundred years each.
True, the Golden Age of Pericles didn't last long. But one could argue that Greek civilization extended from the Mycenaean era to the Hellenic era of Alexander the Great and beyond—perhaps to the fall of Constantinople. The culture persisted even if its government didn't.
Meanwhile, the ancient Egyptian and Chinese civilizations each lasted a couple thousand years. What does that tell us? That dictatorships and democracies both can last for centuries? Or that dictatorships last the longest? Should we emulate Egypt and China and establish rule by a despot?
United we stand....
Tytler was asserting the Anglo-American myth of self-reliance—that rugged individuals make it in the world, while those who need aid and succor don't. It's an attitude that would be right at home in today's conservative movement. It's based on a falsification of history.
If democracy "can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury," the United States must be doomed. Because Americans have voted themselves largess from the beginning. One of the biggest myths around is that we the people have opposed government and its aid until recently.
The United States wasn't born because the Founding Fathers hated government. It was born because they wanted their own government. It succeeded because they worked collectively, not individually. They depended on each other and on other nations, notably France, whom they begged for charity.
Both Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson had limited views of the scope of private property. Neither one had much sympathy for pure libertarianism. Let's hear them in their own words.
From Bruce E. Johansen's Forgotten Founders on Ben Franklin:
Franklin used examples from Indian societies rather explicitly to illustrate his conception of property and its role in society:
All property, indeed, except the savage's temporary cabin, his bow, his matchcoat and other little Acquisitions absolutely necessary for his Subsistence, seems to me to be the creature of public Convention. Hence, the public has the rights of regulating Descents, and all other Conveyances of Property, and even of limiting the quantity and uses of it. All the property that is necessary to a man is his natural Right, which none may justly deprive him of, but all Property superfluous to such Purposes is the property of the Public who, by their Laws have created it and who may, by other Laws dispose of it.
And from the same work on Thomas Jefferson:
Societies that gave undue emphasis to protection of property could infringe on the peoples' rights of life, liberty, and happiness. According to Jefferson: "Whenever there is, in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so extended as to violate natural right."
Views such as these pointed the way for a progressive view of government—which Jefferson's Democrats spearheaded, despite Jefferson's populist bent. His Louisiana Purchase was probably the biggest government gift to American citizens until...I don't know when. Hamilton's Federalists were even more government-minded. They believed in federal taxation—"...the federal government must of necessity be invested with an unqualified power of taxation in the ordinary modes" (Hamilton, Federalist No. 31)—and created the first national bank to help regulate the economy.
Guns...a good example
Surely private gun ownership is an example of how Americans originally brooked no government interference. As one book reviewer wrote, "The image of the citizen-soldier taking up his musket to defend his home and community is so deeply ingrained as to seem axiomatic. Even most who advocate repealing the 2nd Amendment assume that it originated at a time when a musket hung over every mantel."
But as a new book, Arming America: The Origin of a National Gun Culture by Michael A. Bellesiles, demonstrates, that just ain't so. From the LA Times's review, 9/17/00:
...Bellesiles denies the accuracy of those deep-rooted assumptions, marshaling evidence to demonstrate that early Americans in fact owned comparatively few guns and seldom used them effectively. Expensive, hard to maintain and often unsafe, the unrifled muskets of the 17th and 18th centuries made poor hunting arms; most were military weapons that colonial governments distributed to militiamen. Virtually all were imports.
Because "those eligible for militia duty" in most colonies were free white Protestant men between 16 and 50 years of age..., this level of gun ownership suggests that on the eve of the Revolution, no more than about 4% of colonists were armed. Formal arms censuses conducted by the federal government in the early 19th century show that this modest level of gun possession was slow to rise, if indeed it rose at all. In 1803, the United States had enough weapons to arm 4.9% of its white citizens; in 1810, 4.3%; in 1820, 4.7%. (The 1830 census showed that the level had fallen to 3%.)
[Bellesiles] argues that the federal government was the single greatest advocate of an armed population and that it did everything it could to promote an arms manufacturing industry in the first half of the 19th century. This stemmed in part from the desperate need for self-sufficiency in national defense. The Revolutionaries had faced critical shortages of guns and ammunition in 1775 and 1776 and could never have held out against the British army without massive transfusions of French muskets, lead and powder.
Imagine that. A citizenry that couldn't even defend itself unless the government gave it weapons. Talk about your basic lack of self-reliance.
Note: Historians have criticized Bellesiles's book for his shoddy or undocumented data collection methods. From what I've read of these critiques, they implicate other parts of Bellesiles's thesis, but not what's written above. Therefore, I've left his arguments in place.
A nation of laws...lots of them
As the nation grew, did people become less reliant on government? Hardly. Here's a commentary adapted from the University of Chicago Magazine, April 1998:
William J. Novak had garnered acclaim and serious attention for his assertion that the prevailing view upholding 19th-century America as a folkloric golden age of small government, unfettered individual rights, and laissez-faire economics is sheer myth.
"I had always learned the old story that American regulatory history begins with the shift from a laissez-faire approach to the modern welfare state in the 20th century," says Novak. "But I kept uncovering 19th-century precedents in every area of regulation. I don't see a period from the mid-18th century to the present in which government and public policy weren't playing a key role in economic and social life."
Awarded the Littleton-Griswold prize by the American Historical Association as 1997's best book on law and society, "The People's Welfare" presents reams of 19th-century municipal, state, and federal laws that sought to affect the economy, the use of public spaces, social and cultural conditions, and public health and safety.
Wrote University of California law professor Reuel Schiller in "Reviews in American History": "If...any historical evidence can destroy the myth of the stateless 19th-century, it is in this book."
"Welfare" includes a list drawn up by the Illinois legislature in 1837 of 34 governmental powers that granted the fledgling city of Chicago the authority to prevent obstructions in public waterways, to restrain and prohibit gaming, to regulate the sale of spirits, to oversee the management of slaughterhouses, and to enforce a range of other rules.
In one of numerous similar examples, Novak points out how, as early as 1801, New York's legislature regulated lotteries, guns, rents, ferries, attorneys, and lumber inspections.
Novak's conclusions have implications for today's political debates. As one book reviewer noted, Novak's views, though supported by exhaustive research, "will come as heresy to any politician who got into office, or is trying to get there, on the usually reliable platform that the liberals, the do-gooders, the good-government crowd, and the meddlers have invented an overbearing and intrusive government of a kind we never had before."
Although historian Novak refrains from taking a political stance on whether regulation is good or bad for the country, he goes so far as to warn that reliance on references to a golden age of statelessness represent, at best, a simplistic way of viewing history and, at worst, a disingenuous appraisal of American governance history.
When were all the laws passed regulating whom you could marry (not blacks), when you could open your store (not on Sunday), even where and when you could spit? Since the 1960s and the advent of the "nanny state"? No, in the "libertarian" 19th century.
Welfare for the West
What about the settling of America's so-called Wild West? Surely that was accomplished by John Wayne types who disdained the help of their fellow men? Nope. From the LA Times, 9/3/00:
...[C]an the West face up to the complexity of its relationship to the federal government? From the earliest exploration, the settlement of the West hinged on federal support. As Western historians have said repeatedly, the federal government played a central role in every aspect of Western history: the conquest of the Indians and Mexicans; the surveying and distribution of the land; the construction of wagon roads, railroads and highways; the provision of grazing resources to cattlemen; the creation of immigration policies more often than not friendly to the interests of large Western businesses; the designation and maintenance of national parks and national forests, now the foundation of the region's tourism economy.
In the never-matched formulation of Bernard de Voto, the West's response to the feds has been: "Get out, and give us more money."
In many ways, the federal government has given the West vital money and support, and the West has given, in return, a hearty and sustained supply of resentment. The reasons for this are hardly mysterious. The attitudinal workings of teenagers provide a useful model: They are deeply dependent on their parents and that often makes them deeply resentful of their parents.
The territory distributed via the Homestead Act and railroad land grants was perhaps the biggest government welfare program ever. Unfortunately, the Indians already owned the land through treaty rights and legislation. How Government Shaped the West explains how the government made Westward expansion possible by eliminating the Indians as a factor.
The pattern continued as cattlemen and sheep men beseeched government bodies to back their claims on rangeland. Ranchers, miners, and loggers paid pennies for water, grazing, and mineral rights worth many times more. Many of these 19th-century giveaways are still in effect, and these freeloaders are still grabbing public resources for a fraction of their value.
And when these hardy individuals overgraze a range, clearcut a forest, or strip-mine a mountain, do they take responsibility and rectify the destruction they caused? Do five-year-olds voluntarily clean up their rooms? No. After destroying topsoil and dumping toxic waste, these "self-reliant" Westerners leave it to the government to straighten up their mess.
Want a good example of Western (and American) dependence today? Watch a forest fire burn out of control. The demands for government assistance during the fire, government relief after the fire, and better forest management by government before the next fire will singe your ears.
Bailouts for Western homeowners
The Western fires of 2002 nicely prove the point. An excerpt from A Dream That Dares Disaster explains how Westerners react to such hardships. From the LA Times, 7/7/02:
Fire sweeping through Western forests and grasslands is the oldest story both in and outside town. It's a story that began long before rural subdivisions spread into the forests.
Before we had the federal government and aggressive fire protection to blame for our troubles, Indians often watched smoke fill the air as trees and grasses burned. Sometimes lightning started the fires; sometimes the Indians used fire to encourage conditions more favorable to game. Either way, the Western forests burned. Combine lots of biomass (aka, plants) with an arid or semiarid climate and fire is an entirely predictable feature of regional life. Yet an unwillingness to let the recognition of risk restrict individual freedom is an equally predictable feature of Western life. In the summer of 2002, these two dynamics have collided: Never before have so many Western homes been located, voluntarily and even willfully by their builders and owners, in the line of fire.
At the core of the Western dream is an individual who insists on making his own choices and refuses petty regulation. The Western landscape is rugged and tough, but the Westerner is more rugged—and tougher. He settles where he wants to and lives according to his own, self-reliant terms.
Until, that is, he needs help.
The Western dream has a golden parachute, a bail-out sequence, an escape clause and an exit plan. Pioneers intruded into Indian territory, and when they got themselves into a mess, the Army arrived to protect them and remove the Indians. Farmers tried to grow crops in places with low rainfall, and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation built the dams and reservoirs that filled in for the rain. Homeowners wanted to live in houses with stunning views, and counties built the roads and supplied the services to make these sites accessible and livable.
Western risk-taking has often relied on this back-up plan: We get ourselves in a pinch and the government—local, state and federal—rushes to get us out of it. Nature presents challenges that are at once dangerous and appealing, but human ingenuity and government funding quickly drain the danger out of these challenges and leave only their appeal.
So much for self-reliance
Tytler's complaint is like that of so many Americans today. People sue because they aren't getting their fair share of the pie. Corporations are capitalists in good times and socialists when they're in trouble, actor/activist Tim Robbins once said. Conservatives want to slash government funding—except in the case of defense, security, agriculture, school testing, and religous subsidies.
Ever since about 1980, we've become a nation of self-centered whiners. "Boo-hoo!" wail all those who complain. "They're getting 'largess' and I'm not. My special interests are what matter, not theirs!"
It takes more than self-reliance to make a country. It takes a village, not a collection of individuals working at selfish cross-purposes. People from the Hopi and Osage Indians in the US to the natives of West Africa have recognized this truism. Let's hope Anglo-Americans catch on someday.
Read more
A friend forwarded the following message to me:
This memorable quotation, from the 1801 collection of his lectures, is from Sir Alex Fraser Tytler (1742-1813), Scottish jurist and historian, widely known in his time, professor of Universal History at Edinburgh University in the late 18th century:
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence:
from bondage to spiritual faith;
from spiritual faith to great courage;
from courage to liberty;
from liberty to abundance;
from abundance to selfishness;
from selfishness to complacency;
from complacency to apathy;
from apathy to dependency;
from dependency back again to bondage.
To that I can only say: What a conservative crock.
This is Anglo-American myth-making at its most egregious. Most civilizations start with greed, folly, and suffering, not more noble sentiments. Let's look at an example we're all familiar with, America:
* Columbus: Sought fame and riches for himself. Bumped into a continent he barely knew existed. Immediately began enslaving the natives. Died in poverty and disgrace.
* The English at Jamestown and Plymouth: Outcasts, dissidents, fortune-seekers. Would've died if not for the help of Pocahontas and Squanto. Believed in religious authority, not individual freedom.
* The Founding Fathers: Didn't want to pay their fair share of taxes. Unwilling to provide enough money to feed and shelter their troops. Lost most of their battles. Won only because of outside aid.
Doesn't sound like a perfect record of faith, courage, and liberty when you put it that way, hmm? Miguel de Cervantes, of all people, summed up America nicely when he described it as:
The recourse of the ruined, the refuge and shelter of the desperate men of Spain, the sanctuary of the fraudulent bankrupts, the pardon of murders, the haven of loose women, the last trick of gamblers, the common cheat of many and the remedy of few.
Others agree. In his review of Freedom Just Around the Corner by Walter A. McDougall, Gordon S. Wood describes the nature of Americans (NY Times, 3/28/04):
Americans, according to McDougall, have always been scramblers, gamblers, scofflaws and speculators. Nearly everyone in early America, it seems, wanted to know not what's good for the English crown or the colony or the nation, but "what's in it for me." Of course, there were honest righteous people, religious and high-minded people, who spoke out against excesses and abuses. But their idealistic voices only made Americans feel good about themselves without seriously diminishing the overall scramble for profit.
Democracy in action
One glaring flaw in Tytler's quote is his confusion between democracies and civilizations. So what if "the average age of the world's great civilizations has been 200 years?" How many of those great civilizations were democracies? No doubt many of them failed because they weren't democracies, which makes the statistic irrelevant to Tytler's thesis.
Democracy has a fine track record once it takes root. Iceland's democracy has lasted 800 or 900 years. Switzerland's has lasted several hundred years. The English and American models have lasted a couple hundred years each.
True, the Golden Age of Pericles didn't last long. But one could argue that Greek civilization extended from the Mycenaean era to the Hellenic era of Alexander the Great and beyond—perhaps to the fall of Constantinople. The culture persisted even if its government didn't.
Meanwhile, the ancient Egyptian and Chinese civilizations each lasted a couple thousand years. What does that tell us? That dictatorships and democracies both can last for centuries? Or that dictatorships last the longest? Should we emulate Egypt and China and establish rule by a despot?
United we stand....
Tytler was asserting the Anglo-American myth of self-reliance—that rugged individuals make it in the world, while those who need aid and succor don't. It's an attitude that would be right at home in today's conservative movement. It's based on a falsification of history.
If democracy "can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury," the United States must be doomed. Because Americans have voted themselves largess from the beginning. One of the biggest myths around is that we the people have opposed government and its aid until recently.
The United States wasn't born because the Founding Fathers hated government. It was born because they wanted their own government. It succeeded because they worked collectively, not individually. They depended on each other and on other nations, notably France, whom they begged for charity.
Both Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson had limited views of the scope of private property. Neither one had much sympathy for pure libertarianism. Let's hear them in their own words.
From Bruce E. Johansen's Forgotten Founders on Ben Franklin:
Franklin used examples from Indian societies rather explicitly to illustrate his conception of property and its role in society:
All property, indeed, except the savage's temporary cabin, his bow, his matchcoat and other little Acquisitions absolutely necessary for his Subsistence, seems to me to be the creature of public Convention. Hence, the public has the rights of regulating Descents, and all other Conveyances of Property, and even of limiting the quantity and uses of it. All the property that is necessary to a man is his natural Right, which none may justly deprive him of, but all Property superfluous to such Purposes is the property of the Public who, by their Laws have created it and who may, by other Laws dispose of it.
And from the same work on Thomas Jefferson:
Societies that gave undue emphasis to protection of property could infringe on the peoples' rights of life, liberty, and happiness. According to Jefferson: "Whenever there is, in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so extended as to violate natural right."
Views such as these pointed the way for a progressive view of government—which Jefferson's Democrats spearheaded, despite Jefferson's populist bent. His Louisiana Purchase was probably the biggest government gift to American citizens until...I don't know when. Hamilton's Federalists were even more government-minded. They believed in federal taxation—"...the federal government must of necessity be invested with an unqualified power of taxation in the ordinary modes" (Hamilton, Federalist No. 31)—and created the first national bank to help regulate the economy.
Guns...a good example
Surely private gun ownership is an example of how Americans originally brooked no government interference. As one book reviewer wrote, "The image of the citizen-soldier taking up his musket to defend his home and community is so deeply ingrained as to seem axiomatic. Even most who advocate repealing the 2nd Amendment assume that it originated at a time when a musket hung over every mantel."
But as a new book, Arming America: The Origin of a National Gun Culture by Michael A. Bellesiles, demonstrates, that just ain't so. From the LA Times's review, 9/17/00:
...Bellesiles denies the accuracy of those deep-rooted assumptions, marshaling evidence to demonstrate that early Americans in fact owned comparatively few guns and seldom used them effectively. Expensive, hard to maintain and often unsafe, the unrifled muskets of the 17th and 18th centuries made poor hunting arms; most were military weapons that colonial governments distributed to militiamen. Virtually all were imports.
Because "those eligible for militia duty" in most colonies were free white Protestant men between 16 and 50 years of age..., this level of gun ownership suggests that on the eve of the Revolution, no more than about 4% of colonists were armed. Formal arms censuses conducted by the federal government in the early 19th century show that this modest level of gun possession was slow to rise, if indeed it rose at all. In 1803, the United States had enough weapons to arm 4.9% of its white citizens; in 1810, 4.3%; in 1820, 4.7%. (The 1830 census showed that the level had fallen to 3%.)
[Bellesiles] argues that the federal government was the single greatest advocate of an armed population and that it did everything it could to promote an arms manufacturing industry in the first half of the 19th century. This stemmed in part from the desperate need for self-sufficiency in national defense. The Revolutionaries had faced critical shortages of guns and ammunition in 1775 and 1776 and could never have held out against the British army without massive transfusions of French muskets, lead and powder.
Imagine that. A citizenry that couldn't even defend itself unless the government gave it weapons. Talk about your basic lack of self-reliance.
Note: Historians have criticized Bellesiles's book for his shoddy or undocumented data collection methods. From what I've read of these critiques, they implicate other parts of Bellesiles's thesis, but not what's written above. Therefore, I've left his arguments in place.
A nation of laws...lots of them
As the nation grew, did people become less reliant on government? Hardly. Here's a commentary adapted from the University of Chicago Magazine, April 1998:
William J. Novak had garnered acclaim and serious attention for his assertion that the prevailing view upholding 19th-century America as a folkloric golden age of small government, unfettered individual rights, and laissez-faire economics is sheer myth.
"I had always learned the old story that American regulatory history begins with the shift from a laissez-faire approach to the modern welfare state in the 20th century," says Novak. "But I kept uncovering 19th-century precedents in every area of regulation. I don't see a period from the mid-18th century to the present in which government and public policy weren't playing a key role in economic and social life."
Awarded the Littleton-Griswold prize by the American Historical Association as 1997's best book on law and society, "The People's Welfare" presents reams of 19th-century municipal, state, and federal laws that sought to affect the economy, the use of public spaces, social and cultural conditions, and public health and safety.
Wrote University of California law professor Reuel Schiller in "Reviews in American History": "If...any historical evidence can destroy the myth of the stateless 19th-century, it is in this book."
"Welfare" includes a list drawn up by the Illinois legislature in 1837 of 34 governmental powers that granted the fledgling city of Chicago the authority to prevent obstructions in public waterways, to restrain and prohibit gaming, to regulate the sale of spirits, to oversee the management of slaughterhouses, and to enforce a range of other rules.
In one of numerous similar examples, Novak points out how, as early as 1801, New York's legislature regulated lotteries, guns, rents, ferries, attorneys, and lumber inspections.
Novak's conclusions have implications for today's political debates. As one book reviewer noted, Novak's views, though supported by exhaustive research, "will come as heresy to any politician who got into office, or is trying to get there, on the usually reliable platform that the liberals, the do-gooders, the good-government crowd, and the meddlers have invented an overbearing and intrusive government of a kind we never had before."
Although historian Novak refrains from taking a political stance on whether regulation is good or bad for the country, he goes so far as to warn that reliance on references to a golden age of statelessness represent, at best, a simplistic way of viewing history and, at worst, a disingenuous appraisal of American governance history.
When were all the laws passed regulating whom you could marry (not blacks), when you could open your store (not on Sunday), even where and when you could spit? Since the 1960s and the advent of the "nanny state"? No, in the "libertarian" 19th century.
Welfare for the West
What about the settling of America's so-called Wild West? Surely that was accomplished by John Wayne types who disdained the help of their fellow men? Nope. From the LA Times, 9/3/00:
...[C]an the West face up to the complexity of its relationship to the federal government? From the earliest exploration, the settlement of the West hinged on federal support. As Western historians have said repeatedly, the federal government played a central role in every aspect of Western history: the conquest of the Indians and Mexicans; the surveying and distribution of the land; the construction of wagon roads, railroads and highways; the provision of grazing resources to cattlemen; the creation of immigration policies more often than not friendly to the interests of large Western businesses; the designation and maintenance of national parks and national forests, now the foundation of the region's tourism economy.
In the never-matched formulation of Bernard de Voto, the West's response to the feds has been: "Get out, and give us more money."
In many ways, the federal government has given the West vital money and support, and the West has given, in return, a hearty and sustained supply of resentment. The reasons for this are hardly mysterious. The attitudinal workings of teenagers provide a useful model: They are deeply dependent on their parents and that often makes them deeply resentful of their parents.
The territory distributed via the Homestead Act and railroad land grants was perhaps the biggest government welfare program ever. Unfortunately, the Indians already owned the land through treaty rights and legislation. How Government Shaped the West explains how the government made Westward expansion possible by eliminating the Indians as a factor.
The pattern continued as cattlemen and sheep men beseeched government bodies to back their claims on rangeland. Ranchers, miners, and loggers paid pennies for water, grazing, and mineral rights worth many times more. Many of these 19th-century giveaways are still in effect, and these freeloaders are still grabbing public resources for a fraction of their value.
And when these hardy individuals overgraze a range, clearcut a forest, or strip-mine a mountain, do they take responsibility and rectify the destruction they caused? Do five-year-olds voluntarily clean up their rooms? No. After destroying topsoil and dumping toxic waste, these "self-reliant" Westerners leave it to the government to straighten up their mess.
Want a good example of Western (and American) dependence today? Watch a forest fire burn out of control. The demands for government assistance during the fire, government relief after the fire, and better forest management by government before the next fire will singe your ears.
Bailouts for Western homeowners
The Western fires of 2002 nicely prove the point. An excerpt from A Dream That Dares Disaster explains how Westerners react to such hardships. From the LA Times, 7/7/02:
Fire sweeping through Western forests and grasslands is the oldest story both in and outside town. It's a story that began long before rural subdivisions spread into the forests.
Before we had the federal government and aggressive fire protection to blame for our troubles, Indians often watched smoke fill the air as trees and grasses burned. Sometimes lightning started the fires; sometimes the Indians used fire to encourage conditions more favorable to game. Either way, the Western forests burned. Combine lots of biomass (aka, plants) with an arid or semiarid climate and fire is an entirely predictable feature of regional life. Yet an unwillingness to let the recognition of risk restrict individual freedom is an equally predictable feature of Western life. In the summer of 2002, these two dynamics have collided: Never before have so many Western homes been located, voluntarily and even willfully by their builders and owners, in the line of fire.
At the core of the Western dream is an individual who insists on making his own choices and refuses petty regulation. The Western landscape is rugged and tough, but the Westerner is more rugged—and tougher. He settles where he wants to and lives according to his own, self-reliant terms.
Until, that is, he needs help.
The Western dream has a golden parachute, a bail-out sequence, an escape clause and an exit plan. Pioneers intruded into Indian territory, and when they got themselves into a mess, the Army arrived to protect them and remove the Indians. Farmers tried to grow crops in places with low rainfall, and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation built the dams and reservoirs that filled in for the rain. Homeowners wanted to live in houses with stunning views, and counties built the roads and supplied the services to make these sites accessible and livable.
Western risk-taking has often relied on this back-up plan: We get ourselves in a pinch and the government—local, state and federal—rushes to get us out of it. Nature presents challenges that are at once dangerous and appealing, but human ingenuity and government funding quickly drain the danger out of these challenges and leave only their appeal.
So much for self-reliance
Tytler's complaint is like that of so many Americans today. People sue because they aren't getting their fair share of the pie. Corporations are capitalists in good times and socialists when they're in trouble, actor/activist Tim Robbins once said. Conservatives want to slash government funding—except in the case of defense, security, agriculture, school testing, and religous subsidies.
Ever since about 1980, we've become a nation of self-centered whiners. "Boo-hoo!" wail all those who complain. "They're getting 'largess' and I'm not. My special interests are what matter, not theirs!"
It takes more than self-reliance to make a country. It takes a village, not a collection of individuals working at selfish cross-purposes. People from the Hopi and Osage Indians in the US to the natives of West Africa have recognized this truism. Let's hope Anglo-Americans catch on someday.
1
First off, apparently ernest was a junkie. While this is fairly unsurprising as an adult I feel like I would have been in complete denial if i learned this as a kid. I fucking loved Ernest!
So I decided to do a SMOE summer camp. My principal was fairly blunt in wanting me to hold classes at the school but the thought of more blank stares from students i needed a break from was just too unappealing. I have to get out of here!! (was the thought). And hey, maybe I'll meet some people.
First day of camp I was ecstatic, the kids were good, they could comprehend me fairly well and they seemed motivated. But would it last? Well sort of. I was fairly strict with my kids, I had a lot of lesson plans and I made them do the activities. Course i also played blind tag, chain tag, and a number of other fun camp activites.
But my other co-teachers were not so motivated (you'll see why). They did have lesson plans, and fairly interesting ones, but they were very lethargic and generally spend the class playign games. While this sounds like they had it easy and I was working myself to death (relatively speaking) it would come back to haunt them. By the end of the camp I was the only teacher in my group that seemed to be able to maintain control of the class. One class actually made a teacher cry, prompting me to quite literally beat them on the head.
just like this
What did I get from it? Well i got a nifty book with a few interesting ideas for teaching I'm going to try. I got the opportunity to observe and evauate other NET's at work. I got the opportunity to meet some new people, sadly most of whom are leaving (thus the apathy) who were pretty damn cool. And I got paid 450 for it, which is totally going to a few more adventures before school starts. What did the kids get? Well to be honest it was a fairly unproductive camp. Bullshit seems to run rampant in Korea and the gov is just pouring money down the drainhole without any real system. So the kids got a book which they'll probably throw away, and they got a gorgeous "certificate of completion" which was just...so god damn ridiculous. maybe I'm just jaded and expect too much.
All in all I give the experience a B
Read more
Ernest goes to camp!
First off, apparently ernest was a junkie. While this is fairly unsurprising as an adult I feel like I would have been in complete denial if i learned this as a kid. I fucking loved Ernest!
So I decided to do a SMOE summer camp. My principal was fairly blunt in wanting me to hold classes at the school but the thought of more blank stares from students i needed a break from was just too unappealing. I have to get out of here!! (was the thought). And hey, maybe I'll meet some people.
First day of camp I was ecstatic, the kids were good, they could comprehend me fairly well and they seemed motivated. But would it last? Well sort of. I was fairly strict with my kids, I had a lot of lesson plans and I made them do the activities. Course i also played blind tag, chain tag, and a number of other fun camp activites.
But my other co-teachers were not so motivated (you'll see why). They did have lesson plans, and fairly interesting ones, but they were very lethargic and generally spend the class playign games. While this sounds like they had it easy and I was working myself to death (relatively speaking) it would come back to haunt them. By the end of the camp I was the only teacher in my group that seemed to be able to maintain control of the class. One class actually made a teacher cry, prompting me to quite literally beat them on the head.
just like thisWhat did I get from it? Well i got a nifty book with a few interesting ideas for teaching I'm going to try. I got the opportunity to observe and evauate other NET's at work. I got the opportunity to meet some new people, sadly most of whom are leaving (thus the apathy) who were pretty damn cool. And I got paid 450 for it, which is totally going to a few more adventures before school starts. What did the kids get? Well to be honest it was a fairly unproductive camp. Bullshit seems to run rampant in Korea and the gov is just pouring money down the drainhole without any real system. So the kids got a book which they'll probably throw away, and they got a gorgeous "certificate of completion" which was just...so god damn ridiculous. maybe I'm just jaded and expect too much.
All in all I give the experience a B
0
I shoulda known it would be a bad day from the beginning
I had this really vivid, intense dream basically simply about snuggling with an ex in a hammock. Powerful emotions were sweeping through the dream me as I gazed down at our embraced bodies...and then i woke up. Fuck, I talked to my dad about dreams like this once, he said I'd probably have them till I was at least 30. Fuck, that's messed up. Fuck you subconscious. ...fuck
So I have two days off until I start camp and no one is around. I missed my opportunity at friendship making and the two dudes I thought I had connected with, well, i guess I was mistaken. whatever, so i decide fuck it, I'm off to Muuido, which is an underdeveloped island that supposedly has decent beaches. I'm traveling almost the entire way by subway so I figure it can't take that long, two hours tops. I leave at 10:30. I don't get to the actual beach until 1:45. hell's bells! And what do I find? Well, a lovely strip of sand, quite nice actually, but for some reason the ocean is so friggin far away I can't even see it (slight haze). like for real, there's a beach, with a standard beach slope...and then there's just a mud pit...as far as the eye can see. I was like "durrrrr, wheres the ocean". So I went hiking out over the pits, yay chako's (foreshadowing bitch!!), to find the ocean. Eventually I did...and it was nice. It didn't smell like an ocean, but it didn't smell like a marsh either. The tide turned basically as I got to it so I started walking at a slight angle back to the shore, towards some sweet cliffs. Lot's of seagulls snoozing, lots of little dead (and live) crabs in the little waves. I had classical music on, it was pretty great, and the backdrop of the island is green and beautiful. And lo and behold what's bobbing in the waves? If it isn't an unopened bag of potato chips. As I've only had a .75 cent ice cream cone all day this seemed like quite a gift from poseidon. well done ancient greek gods, well done. somehow, even with the bag in tact they were a little soggy, but delicious (no stomarch problems several hours later either). well I get ot the cliffs and they're awesome, I noted that someone had actually attached climbing anchors to several cliff faces so this was a completely legit climbing area (note). I almost climbed a face to get a lily but then I realized how stupid that was A) out of voice range over big jagged rocks and B) complete language barrier and no real hospital on the island. Yay for reason! So I'm coming back and I started sweating a bit from the brief bouldering/rock hopping. The idea crossed my mind to head into the forest and shade. WRONG sweat city when you're outta the wind even if you are in the shade.
Alright, I'd been there about 2.5 hours and seen just about everything worth seeing. Oh, the tide finally came in and water reached the beach! that's what the beach was missing! Ya'know, with the water it's actually a pretty sweet ass place, except the tide doesn't come in until at least 4 PM which means to really spend "a day at the beach" you have to rent one of the little camping villas for a night. Oh i'm sorry, did I say villa, I meant 5 by 5' box on poles. No thanks! But it would be nice to come back with friends so before I go I decide to check out the strip of local restaurants along the beach. this is where it gets just...spiffy. SUPER spiffy!
I'm walking along looking for prices, no prices to be seen and I'm about to head back when my eye catches both little speed boats and sand buggy's. Fascinated I begin to head towards them when WHAM! you know how sometimes you stubb your toe and it feels like you split your fucking toenail in half but you look and it's not even red, you're just being a pansy? haha, and you know how sometimes you aren't being a pansy and you're bleeding everywhere and sand is sticking to a huge gash in your toe? yea, this time it was the latter. I hop around, thrust my foot into the first water bucket I see to try and get the sand out of my wound and then realize just how bad it is. At this point I make the strategic decision to try and get help. Not from the police sitting 20 meters away. No I ask for a bandaid from a 50 year salt'o'the earth korean ajima who probably was a little girl when the NK swept through destroying everything. I ask for a bandaid, point at my foot and mime kicking the stupid fucking post in the ground that destroyed my balancing toe. So she goes and gets a bandaid (and I think) was saying it would cost me 500 W. Then she looked at the cut, then at my face, and then she dragged me into the restaurant. At this point I was getting woozy. See, I can take pretty much any kind of damage pretty much anywhere on my body relatively well, even needles now. But for some reason if I get a deep cut on my fingers or toes I panic. guess what happens.
I'm sitting in the chair breathing hard trying to prevent it from coming on, the lady has gotten out a for serious med kit and is dabbing at my toe and then SMACK! I come back around to her smacking my leg, I'm sprawled halfway out of the chair and I don't really remember what happened. I literally went into shock. Every, single, time. I have no idea why, but getting deep cuts on my fingers or toes panics me seriously enough that my body literally responds by shutting down. this is stupid, fuck you body, you're gonna get me killed one day. Anyways, I'm also cold sweating like a mad monkey, I mean like dripping. I HATE cold sweat, hate it. it's happened three times in my life. One when I was 10 and cut my finger (the only other time I fainted or came dangerously close), the other today, and the third time watching the Ring. That movie scared the crap outta me in theatres (now it's pretty lame, I was so innocent).
well I come back to and she's got me all duct taped up, my toe is practically twice as large with all the tape in fact. I manage to mutter thanks as she heads back to the kitchen. No charge, I think because it happened on a half buried piece of rusty metal sticking out of the front of her property. anyways, no idea what she was saying (she hummed at one point i think) but she did a good job taping me up. After a few minutes I get my breathing back under control and, really really painfully) manage to put my chako back on. Oh, one more fuck you, to chako. my toes woulda been nice and protected in gators OR tivo's. don't think I won't remember this epic foot failure. bastards. Oh, the most fun part is I can't remember when my last tetanus booster was...so...i could die soon. unless I get some shots. le sigh.
anyways, the ride back was fine expect for my toe literally throbbed the entire way. I remembered something almost immediately. When I was in college I remember learning that the only toe we actually need to walk is our big one. We only use the big toe to balance, the rest are fairly superfluous. Well when the big toe is down pretty much the entire foot is down, I literally gimped 50 KM back to seoul and then home (on the subway I mean). Had a nice dinner, watching transformers 2 (which is just...so so retarded, thank god I bought it black market) and talking to shanners and man am I zonked now.
but if i have another dream about my ex tonight I'm getting neuro surgery. It's cheap here in korea.
Read more
So I have two days off until I start camp and no one is around. I missed my opportunity at friendship making and the two dudes I thought I had connected with, well, i guess I was mistaken. whatever, so i decide fuck it, I'm off to Muuido, which is an underdeveloped island that supposedly has decent beaches. I'm traveling almost the entire way by subway so I figure it can't take that long, two hours tops. I leave at 10:30. I don't get to the actual beach until 1:45. hell's bells! And what do I find? Well, a lovely strip of sand, quite nice actually, but for some reason the ocean is so friggin far away I can't even see it (slight haze). like for real, there's a beach, with a standard beach slope...and then there's just a mud pit...as far as the eye can see. I was like "durrrrr, wheres the ocean". So I went hiking out over the pits, yay chako's (foreshadowing bitch!!), to find the ocean. Eventually I did...and it was nice. It didn't smell like an ocean, but it didn't smell like a marsh either. The tide turned basically as I got to it so I started walking at a slight angle back to the shore, towards some sweet cliffs. Lot's of seagulls snoozing, lots of little dead (and live) crabs in the little waves. I had classical music on, it was pretty great, and the backdrop of the island is green and beautiful. And lo and behold what's bobbing in the waves? If it isn't an unopened bag of potato chips. As I've only had a .75 cent ice cream cone all day this seemed like quite a gift from poseidon. well done ancient greek gods, well done. somehow, even with the bag in tact they were a little soggy, but delicious (no stomarch problems several hours later either). well I get ot the cliffs and they're awesome, I noted that someone had actually attached climbing anchors to several cliff faces so this was a completely legit climbing area (note). I almost climbed a face to get a lily but then I realized how stupid that was A) out of voice range over big jagged rocks and B) complete language barrier and no real hospital on the island. Yay for reason! So I'm coming back and I started sweating a bit from the brief bouldering/rock hopping. The idea crossed my mind to head into the forest and shade. WRONG sweat city when you're outta the wind even if you are in the shade.
Alright, I'd been there about 2.5 hours and seen just about everything worth seeing. Oh, the tide finally came in and water reached the beach! that's what the beach was missing! Ya'know, with the water it's actually a pretty sweet ass place, except the tide doesn't come in until at least 4 PM which means to really spend "a day at the beach" you have to rent one of the little camping villas for a night. Oh i'm sorry, did I say villa, I meant 5 by 5' box on poles. No thanks! But it would be nice to come back with friends so before I go I decide to check out the strip of local restaurants along the beach. this is where it gets just...spiffy. SUPER spiffy!
I'm walking along looking for prices, no prices to be seen and I'm about to head back when my eye catches both little speed boats and sand buggy's. Fascinated I begin to head towards them when WHAM! you know how sometimes you stubb your toe and it feels like you split your fucking toenail in half but you look and it's not even red, you're just being a pansy? haha, and you know how sometimes you aren't being a pansy and you're bleeding everywhere and sand is sticking to a huge gash in your toe? yea, this time it was the latter. I hop around, thrust my foot into the first water bucket I see to try and get the sand out of my wound and then realize just how bad it is. At this point I make the strategic decision to try and get help. Not from the police sitting 20 meters away. No I ask for a bandaid from a 50 year salt'o'the earth korean ajima who probably was a little girl when the NK swept through destroying everything. I ask for a bandaid, point at my foot and mime kicking the stupid fucking post in the ground that destroyed my balancing toe. So she goes and gets a bandaid (and I think) was saying it would cost me 500 W. Then she looked at the cut, then at my face, and then she dragged me into the restaurant. At this point I was getting woozy. See, I can take pretty much any kind of damage pretty much anywhere on my body relatively well, even needles now. But for some reason if I get a deep cut on my fingers or toes I panic. guess what happens.
I'm sitting in the chair breathing hard trying to prevent it from coming on, the lady has gotten out a for serious med kit and is dabbing at my toe and then SMACK! I come back around to her smacking my leg, I'm sprawled halfway out of the chair and I don't really remember what happened. I literally went into shock. Every, single, time. I have no idea why, but getting deep cuts on my fingers or toes panics me seriously enough that my body literally responds by shutting down. this is stupid, fuck you body, you're gonna get me killed one day. Anyways, I'm also cold sweating like a mad monkey, I mean like dripping. I HATE cold sweat, hate it. it's happened three times in my life. One when I was 10 and cut my finger (the only other time I fainted or came dangerously close), the other today, and the third time watching the Ring. That movie scared the crap outta me in theatres (now it's pretty lame, I was so innocent).
well I come back to and she's got me all duct taped up, my toe is practically twice as large with all the tape in fact. I manage to mutter thanks as she heads back to the kitchen. No charge, I think because it happened on a half buried piece of rusty metal sticking out of the front of her property. anyways, no idea what she was saying (she hummed at one point i think) but she did a good job taping me up. After a few minutes I get my breathing back under control and, really really painfully) manage to put my chako back on. Oh, one more fuck you, to chako. my toes woulda been nice and protected in gators OR tivo's. don't think I won't remember this epic foot failure. bastards. Oh, the most fun part is I can't remember when my last tetanus booster was...so...i could die soon. unless I get some shots. le sigh.
anyways, the ride back was fine expect for my toe literally throbbed the entire way. I remembered something almost immediately. When I was in college I remember learning that the only toe we actually need to walk is our big one. We only use the big toe to balance, the rest are fairly superfluous. Well when the big toe is down pretty much the entire foot is down, I literally gimped 50 KM back to seoul and then home (on the subway I mean). Had a nice dinner, watching transformers 2 (which is just...so so retarded, thank god I bought it black market) and talking to shanners and man am I zonked now.
but if i have another dream about my ex tonight I'm getting neuro surgery. It's cheap here in korea.
0
Correcting culture miconceptions while buying illegal DVD's
I'm compiling a list of some of the most common misconceptions about Korea. Enjoy!
1) Korean's are poor. Basically everyone knows about asian mail order brides, and most know that they come from places like SE asia but most especially Korea. I'm pretty sure the chick married to the nerd in glasses in Dodgeball was a South Korean, based on both appearance and attitude.
X Wrong. Korea is the 11th largest economy on the planet (or was before the market crash in the 90's and in 2008). In a nation of just about 50 million that means people are doing fairly well overall. The nation has a very decent healthcare, retirement, and transportation system and while Koreans aren't swimming in wealth like say...luxembourgers, they're doin pretty damn good. Avg monthly salary is about 2.4 million won. I make 2 million, which will be bumped up when I finish my TEFL in 3 weeks and will also get bumped up additionally if/when I resign next year. And with 2 million alone I'm making enough to live happily and adventurously AND bank half, and I could easily bank more.
2) Height: Koreans are asians. Asians are short. It's pure math.
X: goddamn I wish this were true but asians avg out at about the height as american's nowadays. There is a LOT of emphasis on being tall if you're a guy, and skinny if you're a girl. It's not a world of giants but I am still on the relatively short side of life. oh well.
3) Tourist Sites: Korea is in Asia, asia has a ridiculously long history and there are tons of monolithic monuments to the past every where that are perfect for travelers to take a quick snapshot of to impress their weigugin friends.
X 2 different reasons for this being wrong. Most predominantly Korea never had that many monuments. for the majority of the last millenia it has been ruled by confucian/neo-confucian doctrine which emphasizes conservatism and reduction of wants and needs. Basically Korean royalty never invested in mega-public structures like the buddhas in the mountains in afghanistan or the great wall of china. That aside, there are beautiful natural wonders...but most of them are in the North which is sort of off limits at the moment (at least to americans). The second reason there isn't even a lot of temples and palaces is that other nations kept coming in and burning them down (fuck you japan, fuck you mongolia). Korea has a long history of being assaulted by the fuckin japs who would basically come in and burn everything and try and make everyone look and act (and speak) japanese. the last time was only 60 years ago. Koreans dont like the japanese.
3. They wear those weird clothes right? According to nerds who spend a month or less traveling in asia people still where traditional clothes (and these nerds think it makes sense for them to buy them as well).
X well honestly it's a yes and no but mostly no. People do still wear them for ceremonies and sometimes for holidays but the majority of the people, especially the young crowd, make me feel quite...dirty hippy. It's basically like Madison Ave...everywhere, god I don't even like to go out on Saturdays.
4. Aren't they socialist? I mean...China is.
X Korea is about the most hyper free market capitalist nation on the planet. They do have things like big gov spending programs and gov healthcare but in terms of the economy it's enough to make a libertarian splooge (sorry).
5. Traditional beliefs, don't they believe in weird earth gods and whatnot?
X Sort of, almost exclusively they follow a cult of ancestor worship. There are small gods in their cultural mythology but nobody really believes in them and they were mostly imports of China. But goddamn if they don't believe their ancestors are watching them and need to be venerated. Severe punishment and death await those who fail to placate the ghosts of the past. Seriously, it's almost funny except they take it really seriously. There are still a large number of shamanist priests whose soul job it is to take care of spirits. I mean like hundreds of thousands.
6. Don't they have weird customs like bowing and honoring the old?
Why yes they do in fact. And when your in the presence of someone older or of higher rank then you you will feel this. They will bow and they will brown nose to stay in good favor with their bosses. This is largely a holdover of confucianism and as soon as the old or powerful disappear so does the custom. Amongst themselves there really is no difference other than that, in a almost wolf like way, the group comes first and the individual second.
The main difference really is simply that they all look asian, they speak fucking korean (fuck you korean language) and of course they eat hella spicy (but delicious) food, which always comes with soup. The old people are bizarre but even the 30 year olds think they're bizarre. In 20 years Seoul will be indistguishable from NYC, it practically is now except for all the old people and their wily old people ways. ...and street stalls, but that's fun.
I thought about all this while I was wandering around trying to find a fan for a friend and buying black market DVD's. I spent 20,000 and then found the exact same goddamn fan 1 block away for 10. it's a difference of about 5 dollars but it pisses me off that I keep doing this. When shopping in Korea take some time to go store to store comparing prices. they will try and rip you off insanely if you aren't careful.
Read more
1) Korean's are poor. Basically everyone knows about asian mail order brides, and most know that they come from places like SE asia but most especially Korea. I'm pretty sure the chick married to the nerd in glasses in Dodgeball was a South Korean, based on both appearance and attitude.
X Wrong. Korea is the 11th largest economy on the planet (or was before the market crash in the 90's and in 2008). In a nation of just about 50 million that means people are doing fairly well overall. The nation has a very decent healthcare, retirement, and transportation system and while Koreans aren't swimming in wealth like say...luxembourgers, they're doin pretty damn good. Avg monthly salary is about 2.4 million won. I make 2 million, which will be bumped up when I finish my TEFL in 3 weeks and will also get bumped up additionally if/when I resign next year. And with 2 million alone I'm making enough to live happily and adventurously AND bank half, and I could easily bank more.
2) Height: Koreans are asians. Asians are short. It's pure math.
X: goddamn I wish this were true but asians avg out at about the height as american's nowadays. There is a LOT of emphasis on being tall if you're a guy, and skinny if you're a girl. It's not a world of giants but I am still on the relatively short side of life. oh well.
3) Tourist Sites: Korea is in Asia, asia has a ridiculously long history and there are tons of monolithic monuments to the past every where that are perfect for travelers to take a quick snapshot of to impress their weigugin friends.
X 2 different reasons for this being wrong. Most predominantly Korea never had that many monuments. for the majority of the last millenia it has been ruled by confucian/neo-confucian doctrine which emphasizes conservatism and reduction of wants and needs. Basically Korean royalty never invested in mega-public structures like the buddhas in the mountains in afghanistan or the great wall of china. That aside, there are beautiful natural wonders...but most of them are in the North which is sort of off limits at the moment (at least to americans). The second reason there isn't even a lot of temples and palaces is that other nations kept coming in and burning them down (fuck you japan, fuck you mongolia). Korea has a long history of being assaulted by the fuckin japs who would basically come in and burn everything and try and make everyone look and act (and speak) japanese. the last time was only 60 years ago. Koreans dont like the japanese.
3. They wear those weird clothes right? According to nerds who spend a month or less traveling in asia people still where traditional clothes (and these nerds think it makes sense for them to buy them as well).
X well honestly it's a yes and no but mostly no. People do still wear them for ceremonies and sometimes for holidays but the majority of the people, especially the young crowd, make me feel quite...dirty hippy. It's basically like Madison Ave...everywhere, god I don't even like to go out on Saturdays.
4. Aren't they socialist? I mean...China is.
X Korea is about the most hyper free market capitalist nation on the planet. They do have things like big gov spending programs and gov healthcare but in terms of the economy it's enough to make a libertarian splooge (sorry).
5. Traditional beliefs, don't they believe in weird earth gods and whatnot?
X Sort of, almost exclusively they follow a cult of ancestor worship. There are small gods in their cultural mythology but nobody really believes in them and they were mostly imports of China. But goddamn if they don't believe their ancestors are watching them and need to be venerated. Severe punishment and death await those who fail to placate the ghosts of the past. Seriously, it's almost funny except they take it really seriously. There are still a large number of shamanist priests whose soul job it is to take care of spirits. I mean like hundreds of thousands.
6. Don't they have weird customs like bowing and honoring the old?
Why yes they do in fact. And when your in the presence of someone older or of higher rank then you you will feel this. They will bow and they will brown nose to stay in good favor with their bosses. This is largely a holdover of confucianism and as soon as the old or powerful disappear so does the custom. Amongst themselves there really is no difference other than that, in a almost wolf like way, the group comes first and the individual second.
The main difference really is simply that they all look asian, they speak fucking korean (fuck you korean language) and of course they eat hella spicy (but delicious) food, which always comes with soup. The old people are bizarre but even the 30 year olds think they're bizarre. In 20 years Seoul will be indistguishable from NYC, it practically is now except for all the old people and their wily old people ways. ...and street stalls, but that's fun.
I thought about all this while I was wandering around trying to find a fan for a friend and buying black market DVD's. I spent 20,000 and then found the exact same goddamn fan 1 block away for 10. it's a difference of about 5 dollars but it pisses me off that I keep doing this. When shopping in Korea take some time to go store to store comparing prices. they will try and rip you off insanely if you aren't careful.
0
Belt Tests and toddlers
I took my belt test for my green belt in Kumdo (kendo) today. I was surrounded by about a dozen kids under 7 years old, 3 of whom were red or black belts (wtf??). I gotta say I was shocked by the pure enthusiasm these kids had for kumdo. We did our basic warmups and I'm used to half-hearted kiyoeps and groans during pushups but these kids were fucking SCREAMING they were so excited, including the one girl.
Now there were two kids around 12-15 years old (i know this cause one of them is a student of mine) and they were about as lethargic and half-assed as they could get away with (which is to say, what wouldn't piss off the sensei).
So here's the dillemma reiterated facing Korea. The young kids are just like all other kids everywhere on the planet; excitable, enthusiatic, hard to control but eager to please and generally fairly sweet natured. By the time their 12 they make american potheads look eager. Something is very wrong with the system here.
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Now there were two kids around 12-15 years old (i know this cause one of them is a student of mine) and they were about as lethargic and half-assed as they could get away with (which is to say, what wouldn't piss off the sensei).
So here's the dillemma reiterated facing Korea. The young kids are just like all other kids everywhere on the planet; excitable, enthusiatic, hard to control but eager to please and generally fairly sweet natured. By the time their 12 they make american potheads look eager. Something is very wrong with the system here.
0
If it's red don't try to eat it...
Lesson from Korea, if the food is red and you don't like cajun food, order something else. Red equal's spice death. As in, full sweat in two bites. Oh and they only have water, which they serve in little cups that you have to keep refilling. DEATH!
Imagine what that does to your stomach, legend has it that koreans have one of the highest stomach cancer rates in the world. wonder why.
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Imagine what that does to your stomach, legend has it that koreans have one of the highest stomach cancer rates in the world. wonder why.
0
Class in 5!
I was under the impression for a solid 3 weeks that exams (which are currently going on) were going to start on monday and go through friday. during exams i have nothing to do. i sit in my chair and work on my TEFL or whatever. it's very boring but relaxing.
So on monday i come in at 8:55 expecting to spend my day on my butt. I'm bleary cause i stayed up till 2:30 watching the end of wimbledon (4 hours! good job federer). I haven't had any coffee, i forgot the key to my desk and my jump drive at home and I'm in shorts, sandals and a t-shirt. In other words, i'm a mess. So my teacher looks at me and says "mmm, that's a little informal" and i said, "do you want me to go home and change?" "No you can't now, you have first period." "no, I don't think I have to be in class for the exams so I can go change anytime." "No you have first period." "What do you mean? Like I have class?" "Yes of course"..."but exams!" "haha, exams start on tuesday!" (general laughter in the room).
So i had to get a lesson together for one class for the week in 5 minutes. that was bullshit.
i got more compliments that day in my college clothes than any other time. one kid randomly kept shouting "i envy you" because of my hair.
so bizarre
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So on monday i come in at 8:55 expecting to spend my day on my butt. I'm bleary cause i stayed up till 2:30 watching the end of wimbledon (4 hours! good job federer). I haven't had any coffee, i forgot the key to my desk and my jump drive at home and I'm in shorts, sandals and a t-shirt. In other words, i'm a mess. So my teacher looks at me and says "mmm, that's a little informal" and i said, "do you want me to go home and change?" "No you can't now, you have first period." "no, I don't think I have to be in class for the exams so I can go change anytime." "No you have first period." "What do you mean? Like I have class?" "Yes of course"..."but exams!" "haha, exams start on tuesday!" (general laughter in the room).
So i had to get a lesson together for one class for the week in 5 minutes. that was bullshit.
i got more compliments that day in my college clothes than any other time. one kid randomly kept shouting "i envy you" because of my hair.
so bizarre
0
Two Major Problems
There are two incontrovertible problems with the current Korean education model.
1) Memorization. Korea is the second best education system in world, but only in math and science. Here's how, they ram facts down these kids throat like whoa. They start school at 8 or 9, they finish at 3 or 4 and then they basically have an hour or so before they go to hagwon (private academy) which they stay at until 8 or 10. If they aren't at hagwon they are at home with their parents hovering over them. So they're excellent at textbook questions and standard solutions. But I challenge you to ask them something that they'd have to find on their own. I challenge you to give them a problem that they have to think about rather than just answer by rote. The truth is they can't, they have NO critical thinking facilities (as far as i can tell). Now this isn't god awful, in fact, comparatively speaking it's not bad at all. At least they CAN do these problems, whereas many kids in america can't answer basic algebra and geometry questions regardless of their difficulty.
2) Control. These kids have no freedom. At school they sit in class and the teacher lectures them. They aren't asked any critical questions and they aren't supposed to think about various answers. You follow the guidelines, simple as that, and they almost never speak unless they're giving a carefully structured class presentation. At home they are controlled by their parents, everything they do is controlled basically. So what happens when that control disappears? Well I just got out of class 309 which is the perfect example. They go insane. Literally. One kid in every class has the personal motivation to read or study on their own initiative (at this school that's, again, literal). All the others are either smacking each other around in a retarded (i mean that) version of rock/paper/scissors or are discussing meaningless pop news featuring such distuinguished individuals as Big Bang and Wonder Girls. Most of these kids spend all of their free time playing computer games and when they grow up they do the same thing. There's no motivation for them to do more, for personal achievement, only as much as they are pushed by someone in a higher authority to do. Though they do want to be rich, it's like a nation full of wanna-be bankers. god help them.
it's rather pitiful and depressing honestly. Though to be fair i'm writing this after a particularly bad time with 309 which is probably the worst class in all of korea.
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1) Memorization. Korea is the second best education system in world, but only in math and science. Here's how, they ram facts down these kids throat like whoa. They start school at 8 or 9, they finish at 3 or 4 and then they basically have an hour or so before they go to hagwon (private academy) which they stay at until 8 or 10. If they aren't at hagwon they are at home with their parents hovering over them. So they're excellent at textbook questions and standard solutions. But I challenge you to ask them something that they'd have to find on their own. I challenge you to give them a problem that they have to think about rather than just answer by rote. The truth is they can't, they have NO critical thinking facilities (as far as i can tell). Now this isn't god awful, in fact, comparatively speaking it's not bad at all. At least they CAN do these problems, whereas many kids in america can't answer basic algebra and geometry questions regardless of their difficulty.
2) Control. These kids have no freedom. At school they sit in class and the teacher lectures them. They aren't asked any critical questions and they aren't supposed to think about various answers. You follow the guidelines, simple as that, and they almost never speak unless they're giving a carefully structured class presentation. At home they are controlled by their parents, everything they do is controlled basically. So what happens when that control disappears? Well I just got out of class 309 which is the perfect example. They go insane. Literally. One kid in every class has the personal motivation to read or study on their own initiative (at this school that's, again, literal). All the others are either smacking each other around in a retarded (i mean that) version of rock/paper/scissors or are discussing meaningless pop news featuring such distuinguished individuals as Big Bang and Wonder Girls. Most of these kids spend all of their free time playing computer games and when they grow up they do the same thing. There's no motivation for them to do more, for personal achievement, only as much as they are pushed by someone in a higher authority to do. Though they do want to be rich, it's like a nation full of wanna-be bankers. god help them.
it's rather pitiful and depressing honestly. Though to be fair i'm writing this after a particularly bad time with 309 which is probably the worst class in all of korea.
1
A Date!
I went on a date!
...with one of my co-teachers 19 year old nieces. so sketchy sounding but it was a lot of fun. It went down like this:
My co-teacher apparently heard I was looking to make friends with some koreans. Apparently she assumed i meant...like...dating. You don't set up your niece to meet with a co-worker unless it's dating stuff, not here in korea anyways. So at first I was a little sketched out but then I decided to just take a chance and see what happened. Worst possible outcome was it would be horribly awkward and I would laugh at it in a couple weeks and have a good story.
I got to the meeting point a little early and realized two things; I had chosen a really terrible meeting location (chongshin is ugly as shit) and it was hot as fuck. So I waited inside a glamour store (that was also a convenience store??) looking just terrifically creepy I'm sure, eyeballing every young woman that walked out of the subway. I'll admit to being a little nervous, first real date in years, first blind date ever.
So a challenge was immediately presented to me, I had no idea what she looked like. and sadly I'm still unable to identify age so every "youngish" looking woman walking out of the subway was potentially her. Finally a young, but not too young, looking girl comes out and starts looking around. We make eye contact but she grabs for her phone and turns around. 1 min later she turns back and comes and says hello. Apparently she called her aunt to make get a description. Does this kinda thing happen a lot I wonder?
Well the first couple minutes were pretty darn awkward, but we went and got some coffee and donuts and chatted. and chatted, and chatted and chatted. We chatted for about 3 hours. We chatted about basically everything, family (she has a younger brother, freshman in highschool), friends, school, work life, future. Lots and lots. Considering that I can't speak Korean it must have been pretty exhausting for her. She spoke remarkably fluently and we were able to laugh over the mildly frequent grabs for the translator in her cell phone. She likes rap and electronic (like daft punk), that was probably the biggest surprise, she really likes american rap too. I recommended Ludikris (?), we'll see how that plays out. Another surprising thing was her attitude. apparently she was quite the tomboy growing up and now as an adult she's quite the determined, pratical young woman. If you ever meet a young korean woman I think you'll understand why i'm surprised, the majority of them are full of fluff and nonsense and care more about how they look than anything else. While she is quite attractive it didn't seem like she worried too much about it either. ...which makes her even more attractive to me at least.
We eventually ran out of steam. So we decided to take a tour of her school. It was very nostalgic to be back at a university; even with all the differences there were still enough similarities to ASU to bring back memories. And it was cute how excited she was to talk about classes and teachers and the like. She likes to swim for the school club team.
We finished up, rather tired, with a trip to get some ice cream from cold stone (nice). all told we spent about 5 hours talking. How'd it go? not sure. she complemented my eyes early on, she made it quite clear that she doesn't have a boyfriend. but i don't have a cell phone so we couldn't do the "exchanging numbers" routine. She also lives hella far away from me, in Nowon (no one), which i didn't realize until later that night. she traveled offly far for that date, somewhere around an hour or a little more. We shook hands once, and then again randomly. Sue me, i haven't been on a date in years and i wasn't sure what to do. I plan on writing her an email later tonight or tomorrow and maybe inviting her out to dongdaemon or myeong dong. something. I'd like to give props to emmy for giving me very down to earth advice on how to precede from the first date. Very helpful and soothing. Thanks gal!
Read more
...with one of my co-teachers 19 year old nieces. so sketchy sounding but it was a lot of fun. It went down like this:
My co-teacher apparently heard I was looking to make friends with some koreans. Apparently she assumed i meant...like...dating. You don't set up your niece to meet with a co-worker unless it's dating stuff, not here in korea anyways. So at first I was a little sketched out but then I decided to just take a chance and see what happened. Worst possible outcome was it would be horribly awkward and I would laugh at it in a couple weeks and have a good story.
I got to the meeting point a little early and realized two things; I had chosen a really terrible meeting location (chongshin is ugly as shit) and it was hot as fuck. So I waited inside a glamour store (that was also a convenience store??) looking just terrifically creepy I'm sure, eyeballing every young woman that walked out of the subway. I'll admit to being a little nervous, first real date in years, first blind date ever.
So a challenge was immediately presented to me, I had no idea what she looked like. and sadly I'm still unable to identify age so every "youngish" looking woman walking out of the subway was potentially her. Finally a young, but not too young, looking girl comes out and starts looking around. We make eye contact but she grabs for her phone and turns around. 1 min later she turns back and comes and says hello. Apparently she called her aunt to make get a description. Does this kinda thing happen a lot I wonder?
Well the first couple minutes were pretty darn awkward, but we went and got some coffee and donuts and chatted. and chatted, and chatted and chatted. We chatted for about 3 hours. We chatted about basically everything, family (she has a younger brother, freshman in highschool), friends, school, work life, future. Lots and lots. Considering that I can't speak Korean it must have been pretty exhausting for her. She spoke remarkably fluently and we were able to laugh over the mildly frequent grabs for the translator in her cell phone. She likes rap and electronic (like daft punk), that was probably the biggest surprise, she really likes american rap too. I recommended Ludikris (?), we'll see how that plays out. Another surprising thing was her attitude. apparently she was quite the tomboy growing up and now as an adult she's quite the determined, pratical young woman. If you ever meet a young korean woman I think you'll understand why i'm surprised, the majority of them are full of fluff and nonsense and care more about how they look than anything else. While she is quite attractive it didn't seem like she worried too much about it either. ...which makes her even more attractive to me at least.
We eventually ran out of steam. So we decided to take a tour of her school. It was very nostalgic to be back at a university; even with all the differences there were still enough similarities to ASU to bring back memories. And it was cute how excited she was to talk about classes and teachers and the like. She likes to swim for the school club team.
We finished up, rather tired, with a trip to get some ice cream from cold stone (nice). all told we spent about 5 hours talking. How'd it go? not sure. she complemented my eyes early on, she made it quite clear that she doesn't have a boyfriend. but i don't have a cell phone so we couldn't do the "exchanging numbers" routine. She also lives hella far away from me, in Nowon (no one), which i didn't realize until later that night. she traveled offly far for that date, somewhere around an hour or a little more. We shook hands once, and then again randomly. Sue me, i haven't been on a date in years and i wasn't sure what to do. I plan on writing her an email later tonight or tomorrow and maybe inviting her out to dongdaemon or myeong dong. something. I'd like to give props to emmy for giving me very down to earth advice on how to precede from the first date. Very helpful and soothing. Thanks gal!
0
On Iran
I basically expressed the same sentiments only he's much more eloquent and, more importantly...he already wrote the whole thing. so copy paste!
Washington and the Iran Protests:
The thrust of these comments is to deplore the Iranian state's interference in the people's right of peaceable assembly and nonviolent protest, a right guaranteed in the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
It is a good statement, insofar as it is phrased in terms that recognize an ongoing debate inside Iran and rejects US interference in Iranian domestic affairs.
But there are dangers here. Obama will likely be as helpless before a crackdown by the Iranian regime as Eisenhower was re: Hungary in 1956, Johnson was re: Prague in 1968, and Bush senior was re: Tienanmen Square in 1989. George W. Bush, it should remember, did nothing about Tehran's crackdown on student protesters in 2003 or about the crackdown on reformist candidates, which excluded them from running in the 2004 Iranian parliamentary elections, or about the probably fraudulent election of Ahmadinejad in 2005. It is hard to see what he could have done, contrary to what his erstwhile supporters in Congress now seem to imply. As an oil state, the Iranian regime does not need the rest of the world and is not easy to pressure. So Obama needs to be careful about raising expectations of any sort of practical intervention by the US, which could not possibly succeed. (Despite the US media's determined ignoring the the Afghanistan War, it is rather a limiting factor on US options with regard to Iran.) Moreover, if the regime succeeds in quelling the protests, however odious it is, it will still be a chess piece on the board of international diplomacy and the US will have to deal with it just as it deals with post-Tiananmen China.
And, the more Obama speaks on the subject, even in these terms, the more he risks associating the Mousavi supporters with a CIA plot. Iranian media are already parading arrested protesters who are 'confessing' that 'Western media' led them astray. In nationalist and wounded Iran, if someone is successfully tagged as an agent of foreign interests, it is the political kiss of death.
The fact is that despite the bluster of the American Right that Something Must be Done, the United States is not a neutral or benevolent player in Iran. Washington overthrew the elected government of Iran in 1953 over oil nationalization, and installed the megalomaniac and oppressive Mohammad Reza Pahlevi, who gradually so alienated all social classes in Iran that he was overthrown in a popular revolution in 1978-1979. The shah had a national system of domestic surveillance and tossed people in jail for the slightest dissidence, and was supported to the hilt by the United States government. So past American intervention has not been on the side of let us say human rights.
More recently, the US backed the creepy and cult-like Mojahedin-e Khalq (People's Holy Warriors or MEK), which originated in a mixture of communist Stalinism and fundamentalist Islam. The MEK is a terrorist organization and has blown things up inside Iran, so the Pentagon's ties with them are wrong in so many ways. The MEK, by the way, has a very substantial lobby in Washington DC and has some congressmen in its back pocket, and is supported by the less savory elements of the Israel lobbies such as Daniel Pipes and Patrick Clawson. I am not saying they should be investigated for material support of terrorism, since I am appalled by the unconstitutional breadth of that current DOJ tactic, but I am signalling that the US imperialist Right has been up to very sinister things in Iran for decades. A person who worked in the Pentagon once alleged to me that then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was privately pushing for using tactical nuclear weapons against Iran. And Dick Cheney is so attached to launching war on Iran that he characterized attempts to deflect such plans as a "conspiracy." Given what the US did to Fallujah, it strikes me as unlikely that a military invasion of Iran would be good for that country's civic life. And there are rather disadvantages to being nuked, even by the kindliest of WASP gentlemen of Mr. Rumsfeld's ilk.
Moreover, very unfortunately, US politicians are no longer in a position to lecture other countries about their human rights. The kind of unlicensed, city-wide demonstrations being held in Tehran last week would not be allowed to be held in the United States. Senator John McCain led the charge against Obama for not having sufficiently intervened in Iran. At the Republican National Committee convention in St. Paul, 250 protesters were arrested shortly before John McCain took the podium. Most were innocent activists and even journalists. Amy Goodman and her staff were assaulted. In New York in 2004, 'protest zones' were assigned, and 1800 protesters were arrested, who have now been awarded civil damages by the courts. Spontaneous, city-wide demonstrations outside designated 'protest zones' would be illegal in New York City, apparently. In fact, the Republican National Committee has undertaken to pay for the cost of any lawsuits by wronged protesters, which many observers fear will make the police more aggressive, since they will know that their municipal authorities will not have to pay for civil damages.
The number of demonstrators arrested in Tehran on Saturday is estimated at 550 or so, which is less than those arrested by the NYPD for protesting Bush policies in 2004.
I applaud the Iranian public's protests against a clearly fraudulent election, and deplore the jackboot tactics that the regime is using to quell them. But it is important to remember that the US itself was moved by Bush and McCain toward a 'Homeland Security' national security state that is intolerant of public protest and throws the word 'terrorist' around about dissidents. Obama and the Democrats have not addressed this creeping desecration of the Bill of Rights, and until they do, the pronouncements of self-righteous US senators and congressmen on the travesty in Tehran will be nothing more that imperialist hypocrisy of the most abject sort.
American politicians should keep their hands off Iran and let the Iranians work this out. If the reformers have enough widespread public support, they will develop tactics that will change the situation. If they do not, then they will have to regroup and work toward future change. US covert operations and military interventions have caused enough bloodshed and chaos. If the US had left Mosaddegh alone in 1953, Iran might now be a flourishing democracy and no Green Movement would have been necessary.
End/ (Not Continued)
posted by Juan Cole @ 6/24/2009 03:15:00 AM
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Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Washington and the Iran Protests:
Would they be Allowed in the US?
President Barack Obama had this to say about the Iran crisis on Tuesday:
' First, I'd like to say a few words about the situation in Iran. The United States and the international community have been appalled and outraged by the threats, the beatings and imprisonments of the last few days.
I strongly condemn these unjust actions, and I join with the American people in mourning each and every innocent life that is lost.
I've made it clear that the United States respects the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran and is not interfering with Iran's affairs.
But we must also bear witness to the courage and the dignity of the Iranian people and to a remarkable opening within Iranian society. And we deplore the violence against innocent civilians anywhere that it takes place.
The Iranian people are trying to have a debate about their future. Some in Iran -- some in the Iranian government, in particular, are trying to avoid that debate by accusing the United States and others in the West of instigating protests over the elections.
These accusations are patently false. They're an obvious attempt to distract people from what is truly taking place within Iran's borders.
This tired strategy of using old tensions to scapegoat other countries won't work anymore in Iran. This is not about the United States or the West; this is about the people of Iran and the future that they -- and only they -- will choose.
The Iranian people can speak for themselves. That's precisely what's happened in the last few days. In 2009, no iron fist is strong enough to shut off the world from bearing witness to peaceful protests of justice. Despite the Iranian government's efforts to expel journalists and isolate itself, powerful images and poignant words have made their way to us through cell phones and computers. And so we've watched what the Iranian people are doing.
This is what we've witnessed. We've seen the timeless dignity of tens of thousands of Iranians marching in silence. We've seen people of all ages risk everything to insist that their votes are counted and that their voices are heard.
Above all, we've seen courageous women stand up to the brutality and threats, and we've experienced the searing image of a woman bleeding to death on the streets.
While this loss is raw and extraordinarily painful, we also know this: those who stand up for justice are always on the right side of history.
As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people have a universal right to assembly and free speech.
If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect those rights and heed the will of its own people. It must govern through consent and not coercion.
That's what Iran's own people are calling for, and the Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. "
The thrust of these comments is to deplore the Iranian state's interference in the people's right of peaceable assembly and nonviolent protest, a right guaranteed in the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
It is a good statement, insofar as it is phrased in terms that recognize an ongoing debate inside Iran and rejects US interference in Iranian domestic affairs.
But there are dangers here. Obama will likely be as helpless before a crackdown by the Iranian regime as Eisenhower was re: Hungary in 1956, Johnson was re: Prague in 1968, and Bush senior was re: Tienanmen Square in 1989. George W. Bush, it should remember, did nothing about Tehran's crackdown on student protesters in 2003 or about the crackdown on reformist candidates, which excluded them from running in the 2004 Iranian parliamentary elections, or about the probably fraudulent election of Ahmadinejad in 2005. It is hard to see what he could have done, contrary to what his erstwhile supporters in Congress now seem to imply. As an oil state, the Iranian regime does not need the rest of the world and is not easy to pressure. So Obama needs to be careful about raising expectations of any sort of practical intervention by the US, which could not possibly succeed. (Despite the US media's determined ignoring the the Afghanistan War, it is rather a limiting factor on US options with regard to Iran.) Moreover, if the regime succeeds in quelling the protests, however odious it is, it will still be a chess piece on the board of international diplomacy and the US will have to deal with it just as it deals with post-Tiananmen China.
And, the more Obama speaks on the subject, even in these terms, the more he risks associating the Mousavi supporters with a CIA plot. Iranian media are already parading arrested protesters who are 'confessing' that 'Western media' led them astray. In nationalist and wounded Iran, if someone is successfully tagged as an agent of foreign interests, it is the political kiss of death.
The fact is that despite the bluster of the American Right that Something Must be Done, the United States is not a neutral or benevolent player in Iran. Washington overthrew the elected government of Iran in 1953 over oil nationalization, and installed the megalomaniac and oppressive Mohammad Reza Pahlevi, who gradually so alienated all social classes in Iran that he was overthrown in a popular revolution in 1978-1979. The shah had a national system of domestic surveillance and tossed people in jail for the slightest dissidence, and was supported to the hilt by the United States government. So past American intervention has not been on the side of let us say human rights.
More recently, the US backed the creepy and cult-like Mojahedin-e Khalq (People's Holy Warriors or MEK), which originated in a mixture of communist Stalinism and fundamentalist Islam. The MEK is a terrorist organization and has blown things up inside Iran, so the Pentagon's ties with them are wrong in so many ways. The MEK, by the way, has a very substantial lobby in Washington DC and has some congressmen in its back pocket, and is supported by the less savory elements of the Israel lobbies such as Daniel Pipes and Patrick Clawson. I am not saying they should be investigated for material support of terrorism, since I am appalled by the unconstitutional breadth of that current DOJ tactic, but I am signalling that the US imperialist Right has been up to very sinister things in Iran for decades. A person who worked in the Pentagon once alleged to me that then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was privately pushing for using tactical nuclear weapons against Iran. And Dick Cheney is so attached to launching war on Iran that he characterized attempts to deflect such plans as a "conspiracy." Given what the US did to Fallujah, it strikes me as unlikely that a military invasion of Iran would be good for that country's civic life. And there are rather disadvantages to being nuked, even by the kindliest of WASP gentlemen of Mr. Rumsfeld's ilk.
Moreover, very unfortunately, US politicians are no longer in a position to lecture other countries about their human rights. The kind of unlicensed, city-wide demonstrations being held in Tehran last week would not be allowed to be held in the United States. Senator John McCain led the charge against Obama for not having sufficiently intervened in Iran. At the Republican National Committee convention in St. Paul, 250 protesters were arrested shortly before John McCain took the podium. Most were innocent activists and even journalists. Amy Goodman and her staff were assaulted. In New York in 2004, 'protest zones' were assigned, and 1800 protesters were arrested, who have now been awarded civil damages by the courts. Spontaneous, city-wide demonstrations outside designated 'protest zones' would be illegal in New York City, apparently. In fact, the Republican National Committee has undertaken to pay for the cost of any lawsuits by wronged protesters, which many observers fear will make the police more aggressive, since they will know that their municipal authorities will not have to pay for civil damages.
The number of demonstrators arrested in Tehran on Saturday is estimated at 550 or so, which is less than those arrested by the NYPD for protesting Bush policies in 2004.
I applaud the Iranian public's protests against a clearly fraudulent election, and deplore the jackboot tactics that the regime is using to quell them. But it is important to remember that the US itself was moved by Bush and McCain toward a 'Homeland Security' national security state that is intolerant of public protest and throws the word 'terrorist' around about dissidents. Obama and the Democrats have not addressed this creeping desecration of the Bill of Rights, and until they do, the pronouncements of self-righteous US senators and congressmen on the travesty in Tehran will be nothing more that imperialist hypocrisy of the most abject sort.
American politicians should keep their hands off Iran and let the Iranians work this out. If the reformers have enough widespread public support, they will develop tactics that will change the situation. If they do not, then they will have to regroup and work toward future change. US covert operations and military interventions have caused enough bloodshed and chaos. If the US had left Mosaddegh alone in 1953, Iran might now be a flourishing democracy and no Green Movement would have been necessary.
End/ (Not Continued)
0
Cramped living
Yea, i saw this on current. I totally digg where this guy is coming from...
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2009/06/11/recessionist-living-a-tiny-closet-becomes-his-castle/
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http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2009/06/11/recessionist-living-a-tiny-closet-becomes-his-castle/
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