Busan Trip

Jessica and I took a trip to Busan, Korea's 2nd biggest city located in the south west corner.  It's featured attraction is the 3rd largest seaport in the world, and everything that comes with it.  Please visit Jessica's summary: it has all the best pictures.

http://rivoinkorea.blogspot.com/2011/11/busan-jalgachi-and-more.html

Cheers

Kay Ryan

If you haven't discovered the poet Kay Ryan (poet laureate from 2006-2008, I think?) allow me to discover her for you:

From the collection, "The Best of It"

This Life

It's a pickle, this life.

Even shut down to a trickle

it carries every kind of particle

which causes strife on a grander scale:

to be miniature is to be swallowed

by a miniature whale. Zeno knew

the law that we know: no matter

how carefully diminished, a race

can only be half finished with success;

then comes the endless halving of the rest--

the ribbon's stalled approach, the helpless

red-faced urgings of the coach.

Blandeur

If it please God,
let less happen.
Even out Earth's
rondure, flatten
Eiger, blanden
the Grand Canyon.
Make valleys slightly higher,
widen fissures
to arable land,
remand your
terrible glaciers
and silence
their calving,
halving or doubling
all geographical features
toward the mean.
Unlean against our hearts.
Withdraw your grandeur
from these parts.

Easter Island

It worked withouth
a hitch: the last
big head rolled
down the last logs
to its niche.
As planned,
a long chorus
of monoliths
had replaced
the forest, staring
seaward, nicely
spaced, each with
a generous collar
of greensward,
and prepared to
stand so long
that it would be
a good trade: life,
for the thing made. 

Photo Reel

The hallways of your typical Karaoke studio (small, intimate, private booths)

A tasteful photo from Ms. Jessica

An entire potato turned twisty-peel

Korean dishes are even more protein-centered than Americans'. How many species can you count on this plate?

A botanical garden, contained in a flower store.

Small vehicles obey no traffic laws; otherwise, the pedestrian-centered streets have a real charm, comparable to European promenades.

Just call me "Confucius the 2nd".  I could get used to this bowing practice...

Babe sponsors outside a baseball game. Not only has Korea adopted our sport, they've also adopted our team names. I count exactly 6 examples of "twins" in this photograph.

Walk in the Korean Park

A "traditional" Korean park, I was told.  Some parts are simply Zen, others feel like an Oriental miniature golf course: rolling greens with bizarre obstacles.

The shot below is what I meant by "Zen".  Long, winding, private stone-stepping trails, a common "motif" of public parks (this park had a small admission fee).  The stones force you to focus on your step, to pay attention to texture and form. Nothing puts you in the present faster than a hint of casual danger.

Have you ever seen a fountain like this before?

I'm a HUGE fan of the art style below; it can be found all over East Asia.  Consider the bonsai tree, a tree in miniature; below (I forget the style's name) is an entire mountain in miniature (you could say they "made a mountain out of a molehill," har har har).  But seriously: I love the idea of hypothetically having a mountain contained in your backyard, to both observe the world like a God and have bugs and birds magnified 1,000 fold.

Here was the "mini-golf" section I mentioned.

And to close the day: a traditional Korean meal.  Pity the dishwasher.

Muchos Musings

I sampled a simple but compelling Korean speaking game. Two teams of two; one team confers, then poses the other team a difficult preference choice: “Rat or cockroach?”  They then count 3, 2, 1  and the other team must simultaneously respond.  The responding team gets a point if they answered the same way.

         There is an American version of this game (if you can call it a game): individuals take turns generating the preference question, then all the other participants individually take turns answering the question. 

         The purpose of both games is to reveal things about their participants.  Additionally, the purpose of the Korean game is to see which team has the most harmony, accord, agreement. The additional purpose of the American game is to have each person argue why their position is justified, which, more often than not, becomes an argumentative contest for which answer is best. I have never witnessed the alternate version in either country.

         Both games generate laughs, but the Korean displays of the game are downright joyous, whereas the American format leads to scorn just as often ("You would rather be a poacher than be a vegetarian?! How could you!")  Perhaps the American game generates more insight and formal reasoning...  But is that insight worth a life of less laughter?

In many ways, my Hangaram teenagers are the healthiest, best adjusted young people I’ve ever encountered.  But about that word, “adjusted”:  I’ve spoken to several Korean twenty-somethings who claim their “adolescent rebellion” (their word choice)  did not happen until their late 20's, when they visited America or spent time overseas (Korea is proving to me that "adolescent rebellion" as a necessary stage is as great a myth as "mid life crisis"). Is it possible that Korean students (who are often described by my principal as “innocent” compared to American teens their age) are not required to “adjust” in some fundamental way Americans are asked to?  …And perhaps that is preferable?  In spite of some stereotypes, I find no deficiency in my students’ creativity or critical thinking; many of them demonstrate healthy skepticism time and again, all while wearing that genuine, considerate smile. As for their innocence, I’m working on it: we’re reading a novel about impotent, nihilistic, and amoral superheroes, debating the legality of prostitution, abortion ethics…

       Perhaps due to the milieu of Freud in my upbringing, I’m dumbstruck that my students don’t demonstrate more signs of "everyday neuroses;" I once thought there was a certain quota of mental imbalance any substantial cohort eventually betrays.  But if those neuroses in my students are hidden, or repressed, it’s buried deeper than my shovel can dig.

What could culturally account for this?  My mind turns to Eric Fromm's "Escape from Freedom":  perhaps it is only with freedom, the unbearable consciousness of unlimited choice in work and relationships (and the inevitable confusions that result from those choices), that these stereotypical adolecent neuroses form; perhaps depression comes primarily through comparing your life as it is with how it could be.  Because of their grossly crammed schedules, my students do not have the time to consider other lives for themselves; some don't even have the capacity, due to lack of world exposure (during school breaks, they do not see the world via internships, summer camps, or travel).  More generally speaking, they don't have time to think about themselves at all (a guaranteed cure for depression, unless the grades which do receive focus begin to fall).  As for relationships, two attitudes are universal: "Who has time for sex/romance?" and "We know how families and friends are supposed to behave."  Social scripts are stronger and more prevalent across the board (remember, my name is "Teacher," not Marnell).  This clarity yields security, and I'm beginning to think this is beneficial for teenagers, especially if it creates respect for adults and, by extension, education of all kinds. 

To repeat: what astounds me is that the moment I ask for original thinking from students, I receive it in torrents.  My students are exceptionally creative, and can be scathingly critical so long as their criticism does not have to be made public (though they are willing to share in small groups). Another peculiarity: my students are uncomfortable around the opposite sex (there is no mingling at lunch or in class); I suspect this results from the asexual culture at school (drab, concealing uniforms, no school dances, no health class).  But I would argue the asexual environment dramatically reduces the extremes of gender behavior which causes the majority of adolescent social scarring (it's no surprise that male hierarchical competition and female slandering is diminished in an asexual environment; when we consider the painful tolls of these tendencies, can we say the benefits of a sexual environment-- relationships, maturation-- are really worth it?).    

This all leads me to wonder: are there any flaws with this conservative system besides the over-emphasis on standardized tests and the inhumane work loads?  And is it possible to adjust those flaws while retaining the system's virtues?