Happy New Year

I hope that 2007 brings happiness to all.

We need a plan

The Seoul city government has done a lot to develop Cheonggyecheon and Namsan by making them more accessible and pleasant for walkers. They've added a number of other parks, and I think that this devopment plan for a parklike plaza in front of Gwanghwamun is nice.

Widening the boulevard will reduce the number of lanes of traffic, however. Personally, I don't care. If fewer people drove, the reduction in air pollution might actually make the city nicer to live in. But,..this is not a plan.

"To prevent traffic jams, the city government plans to encourage drivers to avoid Sejongno."

Most people just ignore things they don't want to hear. Realistically, how are they going to "encourage" the drivers?

(Photo from the Seoul Metropolitan Government website - Traffic artery to make way for public plaza)

Meat

I read this article in the International Herald Tribune, Meat and the planet. It's one of the many things that we should be concerned about but usually don't think it's really very important.

Greenhouse Gases: 14% automobile, 18% livestock

Global livestock grazing and feed production use "30 percent of the land surface of the planet." Livestock — which consume more food than they yield — also compete directly with humans for water. And the drive to expand grazing land destroys more biologically sensitive terrain, rain forests especially, than anything else.

Reference to the original study was also made in the Red Orbit, Cow 'Emissions' More Damaging to Planet Than CO2 From Cars.

Cows also soak up vast amounts of water: it takes a staggering 990 litres of water to produce one litre of milk.

The full 400 page study is available at Livestock's long shadow. This is just one more reason for me to cut back or cut out meat entirely. I've done it before. Perhaps my leanings towards Buddhism will help. It's always easy to say that it doesn't really matter or that the science is flawed, but, in the midst of the mildest winter I can recall in Korea, I think we need to start thinking about it.

Random thoughts at the end of the semester

Every time I give oral exams to my students (midterm and final), I'm impressed by how nice and interesting many of them are. I give them half a dozen general questions and half a dozen related to units we have studied, and they have to choose questions from each group and talk for ten minutes. I find out all sorts of things about them: part time jobs they have/had and whether they like them, places they have traveled (North America, Europe, Asia), things about their families and hometowns, hopes for the future. I have had students who have trekked Nepal and wandered through India. Some do charity work. They are often thoughtful and sensitive.

(What happens to them after they go into the military, graduate, and/or get jobs in big companies is beyond my comprehension and will probably be the subject of another rant at some future time.)

At any rate, I've always liked teaching students here.

I submitted my grades yesterday, so I'm officially on vacation now. In the past, I've always had one or two students email me asking for higher grades; however, that hasn't happened so far this time. Perhaps knowledge of my consistent refusal (and inability because the school computer forces us to give no more than 30% A and 40% B) to bump up grades has gotten around. I did have one student ask me to lower his grade. We have an odd policy at the university that allows students who get a C or lower to retake a course. So, one of my C+ students emailed me and asked me to reduce his grade to a C (I did it). I will have to ask my students next semester what the majority of Korean professors do. I'm assuming that they never give C+ grades but I'll have to double check. I think we have a policy that everyone works around thus defeating the policy.

Last semester, I had a student email me and tell me that he needed and A+ (not an A or and A-). He said that, if I didn't give him an A+, his company would fire him and he would never for the rest of his life be able to get a good job. This is the same company which had hired him one month before school ended and expected him to get an A+ average while missing a quarter of his classes and his final exams (a common occurance which drives me crazy). I had given him a chance to do the work outside of class and submit it by email, but he never did it. At any rate, I never replied and I didn't change his grade. I never heard from him again, so I don't know whether I really did destroy his life or if he was just yanking my chain. These students are irritating but, fortunately, few and far between.

Look up, way up

I had heard that the soldiers assigned to the DMZ were chosen because they were tall. I'd be willing to bet that the American and South Korean soldiers' heights were taken into account when this North Korean who was rescued at sea was repatriated across the DMZ. (Photo from JoongAng Daily)

Wikipedia has North Korean males average height at 1.63 m (5 ft 4 in) with the average South Korean male at 1.71 m (5 ft 7 in).

How bad does it have to be before...

Ministry Rewards Men for Staying Away From Sex Trade

The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family is offering Korean men money not to pay for sex.

What do you say to your wife when she asks you why you didn't get the money?

And, you can win movie tickets and restauraunt vouchers if you answer the trick question, "What does it mean "to go for another round?" (nudge, nudge, wink, wink)
(a) go to a bar and have another drink
(b) go to the nearest hostest bar and pay someone for sex

Gee, let me think...is the answer (a)?

And, what does it say about you if you get the answer to this one wrong?

Christmas Dinner

I come from a large family and Christmas dinner has almost always resulted in a large gathering. As a result, I don't really want to eat dinner alone. Fortunately, a few friends were available, so I ordered a turkey with all the fixings from the Hyatt Hotel. I do this mostly for myself, but I think my friends enjoyed it as well.















As usual, I forgot to take a picture of the turkey uncut. By the time I remembered, I had already wittled it down a bit.















The clean up - with a little help.




















After the dinner.

Counting the days till Christmas

At an intersection near my home, I came across Santa today. Probably scoping out the neighbourhood - checking his list twice to see who's been naughty and nice. It's Itaewon. I doubt that he'll be lingering long is this area. I suspect my house was crossed off long ago. I may just have to buy presents for myself.

Here's Santa at night.















At my university (a Jesuit university), they have a manger scene. It's similar to last year's, but it has drifted away from the traditional theme a bit. If you look closely on the lower left, there's a snowman and Christmas tree. The traditional Korean house is nice with its paper door, a kimchi pot, a rice scoop, a string of garlic, and a string of peppers. There's nothing wrong with a bit of local color. But just to the left of the angel is an old wooden sled with a picture of Santa Claus. What????

And, unfortunately, the cradle is empty. Did someone steal the baby Jesus? Or are they waiting until Christmas Eve to put him out?

It's kind of nice that they go to all the trouble to put this creche together, but I'd like it to be a little more traditional.















Below is a picture from Winter 2005 (note that Jesus is in his bed and the whole scene is somewhat more basic)

Too much of a good thing

It's winter vacation and all the parents are trying to find things to help their kids learn more and keep out of trouble. All of the camps, including English camps, are worth looking at, and, if I had kids, I would be checking them out and trying to find some good ones.

I might give Mr. Kim's camp a miss though just for his idiotic suggestion. "Mr. Kim suggests parents establish an 'English Zone [in their homes].' For example, in the morning, English could be mandatory when in the bathroom."

Now I have thought long and hard - as befits such a serious issue - but I can't imagine that there's much need for English (or any language) in the bathroom. Most people are in the bathroom alone. Are they going to talk to themselves in English?

Min Soo: Good morning, Peter (or whatever little Korean kids call their thing).
Peter: Hi, Min Soo.
Min Soo: What you doing now?
Peter: I just hang around. Later I going with you. OK?
Min Soo: (looking in the mirror) Hey, good looking. You hot today.

I just don't see a lot of English being used in the English Bathroom Zone. Perhaps all songs sung in the shower could be in English. And, is there really an important difference between, "Nnngghh!" (English) and "Yaahh!" (Korean)?

Who'd of thought it?

When I saw this "study" in the news, I thought, "There must be an incredibly disproportionate number of Libras (born September 23-October 22) and Aquarians (January 20-February 18) living in Seoul." A study by InsuranceHotline.com found that Libras and Aquarians have the most traffic accidents whereas Leos and Geminis (that's me) have the least. Perhaps being a Libra or an Aquarian is a requirement for taxi drivers and motorcyclists.

However, if you go to the original site, you see that almost everyone (except Leos and Geminis) is bad. Most of the descriptions explain the behaviour of 90% of Korean drivers. I guess the other 10% are Leos and Geminis.

Aquarians are "...impulsive, and ruled by the Planet of speed and rebellion." Now I know I saw at least one of them today on the way home.

Aries have a "me first" child-like nature... Oh, yeah. I saw a couple of them, too.

Taurus are stubborn, and have an urge to charge at red lights. There must be a lot of bulls in Seoul?

Sagittarius is a talkative group, and they should consider putting their cell phone down and just driving.

Capricorns...feel that the rules of the road are for other drivers to follow so that Capricorns can get to their destination faster. This actually sounds like everyone's philosophy of driving in Seoul.

Innocent until proven guilty

The fact that a Chinese diplomat locked himself in his car for 8 hours to avoid taking a breathalyzer test shouldn't be proof that he was driving drunk. I'm sure there might be a good reason for locking yourself in your car for 8 hours. Waahaa! Right!

The Chinese did their own internal investigation.

"Our internal investigation has found that the diplomat did not drive under the influence of alcohol," an official told the AFP news agency.

They don't offer any reason why their diplomat would lock himself in his car for 8 hours when the police were telling him to get out of the car. Of course, they might be right. Eight hours is a long time to go without a bathroom break especially if you've been out drinking all night.

I'm actually quite impressed that the police, who regularly do very little work, seemed to be doing it right even when they must have been a little worried about how it might affect diplomatic relations between Korea and China.

Sports

Lately, I've been watching quite a bit of sports on TV. The 2006 Volleyball World Championship in Japan was excellent - although it seemed poorly attended. The audiences at most of the games seemed to fill about 10% of the hall. I really enjoy watching and playing volleyball, so I don't really understand the lack of interest. Of course, the Canadian men's team lost most of their games, but they did win the one that counted most to me: Canada 3 - Korea 1. The game is much more interesting now with the new scoring rules, and the men's game, which I used to find boring because no one ever seemed able to return a spike, has really developed. There are a lot more blocks and spike pick-ups. This is a game that most people can play easily. It has lots of action. Where's the interest?

The Asian Games in Doha have also been on TV a lot. Which brings me to the original purpose of this post - boring sports. Now I used to think that darts (a pseudo sport if there ever was one - played by fat, out-of-shape middle-aged guys) was the most boring sport in the world. I have changed my mind. Taekwondo is truly the most boring "sport" that I've ever seen. In the Asian Games, I can't count the number of rounds I saw that passed without anyone throwing a punch or a kick. They just bounced on their toes for a couple of minutes and then sat down and got toweled off and drank a little more energy drink (It must have been hot in the arena because they never did enough to sweat). How many sports are there where the referee has to constantly tell the participants to fight? In the matches that I watched there were more penalty points taken off than points awarded. I can't say that I watched most of the fights until they ended. I suspect that most of the fighters won by getting scores like -2 compared to their opponents -5. When there was an occasional exchange of blows, no points are awarded for what looked like a good shot to me. People lashing out while falling on their ass seemed to be able to score. Maybe they should dispense with the padding, gloves, and head gear and just go at it until only one person is standing (Oh, wait. That sounds like K-1).

I practiced Taekwondo years ago, and I don't remember it being so boring. In fact, I think I got punched and kicked quite a bit.

How did this "sport" get into the Olympics? I'd rather watch synchronized swimming. I've certainly seen more action at a salsa contest.

Strawberry season

It's strawberry season in Korea. In Canada, strawberries are a summer fruit, but, in Korea, they are winter fruit, and all of the berries are grown in greenhouses. My understanding of the strawberries here was that they are all genetically modified organisms (GMO). I'm not sure where I got that information. I vaguely remember reading it in a newspaper. The fact that the strawberries are almost all huge and uniform in size, shape, and colour seems to support this; however, I've spent a lot of time googling 'strawberries,' 'GMO,' and 'Korea' to no avail. My feeling from reading everything that I could find is that Korea is strongly resisting the introduction of GMO food.

The strawberries may be the result of good agricultural natural selection. I think I'll just go with that and enjoy my strawberries on my breakfast cereal. The strawberries in the picture were very sweet and very tasty.

♫♫It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...♫♫

It seems a lot smaller than I remember it from last year. Do artificial Christmas trees shrink if they're left out on the balcony in a box?

I think I'm going to have to get some more decorations.

Now, if it would just snow...

Lunch

After a really pleasant walk along Cheonggyecheon today with a couple of worthy companions, we stopped for lunch. The weather was great today - a little cold, but not bad especially when we were in the sun and out of the wind. This has been a really mild autumn and winter so far this year. I'd like to see a little more snow (perhaps half a meter), but, if I can't have that, I'll take what we have now.

They were putting up Christmas lights along the Cheonggyecheon downtown. I bet that it will look great at night. Maybe next week, I'll go down in the evening and try to get some night shots.

New Goals

This semester's classes end on Dec.13th and exams finish a week later. I'm not going to teach this winter. When my grades have been submitted, I'm going to start studying Korean seriously again. I made a similar resolution about a year ago, but I didn't follow up on that. As a language teacher, I feel that there's something wrong with me because I haven't done a better job of learning. Oddly, the best conversations I've ever had in Korean have been with Japanese and American students of Korean. My Korean friends always say that they want to teach me or that they want me to speak Korean, but that only lasts about ten minutes, and, when they realize the limits of my vocab, they quickly switch to English. I'm going to be leaving Korea at the end of next semester, so it seems a little odd to make such an effort. I'm doing this solely for me - for my ego. Damn it. I should be able to do better. I'm not an idiot (but I sometimes feel like one).

I also want to take this last chance to travel around in Korea a little. I haven't been to Gyungju in years. I've never taken the KTX, and I've heard that it's really cool.

As well, I want to get a web domain and do some things with online material. For years, I've been fiddling around with some really basic HTML because I've been making exercises with Hot Potatoes, but I don't really understand it well, so I picked up a book called Head First: HTML with CSS & XHTML. It's only 658 pages. Luckily, it has a lot of pictures and graphics.

I have a geocities homepage that I've used to organize internet resources for my students, but I'd like to design and create my own homepage from scratch.

I also want to know how to work with Moodle as an administrator (this may be a monumental task). I've been using Moodle with my classes for a couple of years, but we have a very savvy computer guy in our department who has done all the serious stuff, so I'd like to put Moodle up there and play with it a bit while he is around to help me if I really screw up. Then I can use it with my classes no matter where I go.

People that I've worked with for years always seem to think that I'm this great computer guy, but I really just know how to do a very limited number of things with the computer. I'm sure that my spotty knowledge regularly shocks my computer geek officemate.

This is going to keep me pretty busy over the winter vacation (2 months).

I also plan to stop drinking so much, eat healthier, exercise more, and try to lose about 7 kilograms. I'm the heaviest that I've ever been (97 kgs/213 lbs) and I'm not as light afoot as I used to be. I have started meditating again and want to develop a daily routine. I also have dozens of books on my shelves that are just crying out to be read.

I little lightening up of my basic life attitude might also be thrown into all of this just to make life better.

Anti-smoking rant

As I get older and I get more concerned about my health, I get crankier and less tolerant. I am sick to death with hearing about smokers' rights. I can't walk out of my apartment on any day at any time and go more than a 100 meters without breathing second-hand smoke. I can't walk out of any building on campus during the break between classes without walking through a cloud of smoke because all the smokers go outside and mass around the doors (Thanks, guys. That really helps.). I feel like turning a firehose on them. The 2nd and 3rd floors of the professors' wing in our building stinks of cigarette smoke leaking out of the professors' offices - even though there is a ban on smoking in the building. I've even seen smokers standing inside a building by an open window as though that would really make a difference.

Although I recently read a news article that cited a study claiming that less than 50% of Korean men smoke, I doubt that this is true. I've talked to numerous students about smoking and many say that they don't smoke ("Well, except when I drink or hang around with a bunch of male friends who smoke.") and others who say they don't smoke at all ("4 or 5 cigarettes a day doesn't count, does it?"). I don't think that smokers tell the truth on surveys.

In Korea, this is all fairly recent research.

Age-standardized prevalences of smoking were 74.8% and 2.9% for men and women respectively, with no urban-rural difference. (from a 1992-93 study by Chung MH, Chung KK, Chung CS, Raymond JS School of Public Health, Seoul National University, Korea ).

South Korea has the largest smoking population of all OECD member countries estimated at 12 million out of 47 million in 2004. The smoking penetration in South Korea is fairly high as close to 55% of men are smokers. Women smokers are also not uncommon in these days. (from a Euromonitor study in 2004)

The cost of malignant tumors caused by smoking was $1.86 billion and cardiovascular disease accounted for $1.55 billion. Respiratory disease accounted for the lowest costs at $.51 billion.

Among Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, Korea has the highest percentage of males, ages 15 and over, that are daily smokers (Korea: 69.9 percent, Australia: 21.4 percent, Canada: 20.2 percent, France: 32.0 percent, Japan: 52.0 percent, UK: 28.0 percent, US: 20.2 percent). (from an ISPOR study presented in 2004)

So, it didn't help that I read this in the International Herald Tribune today - Puffing on Polonium.

When the former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko was found to have been poisoned by radioactive polonium 210 last week, there was one group that must have been particularly horrified: the tobacco industry. The industry has been aware at least since the 1960s that cigarettes contain significant levels of polonium.
...
Pack-and-a-half smokers are dosed to the tune of about 300 chest X-rays.

Is it therefore really correct to say, as Britain's Health Protection Agency did this week, that the risk of having been exposed to this substance remains low? That statement might be true for whatever particular supplies were used to poison Litvinenko, but consider also this: London's smokers (and those Londoners exposed to second-hand smoke), taken as a group, probably inhale more polonium 210 on any given day than the former spy ingested with his sushi.
...
The World Health Organization estimates that 10 million people will be dying annually from cigarettes by the year 2020 - a third of these in China. Cigarettes, which claimed about 100 million lives in the 20th century, could claim close to a billion in the present century.

So, to all you smokers out there demanding your smokers's rights, "F*** off."