What the...?

I've been following the Korean Professional Volleyball league all season with great interest (and, no, Poop, not just because the women are hot). Last weekend, the best-of-5 championship round started. Saturday, the two underdog teams won (Hyundae Capital Skywalkers - men; Hyundae Construction Foxes - women), which was kind of cool. Sunday, the Skywalkers won again and the Foxes stunk up the gym (if it's possible for a bunch of women to stink up a place). All throughout the Sunday matches, they had the times for Wednesday's matches at the top of the screen. The women's match was to be at 6:30PM and the men's match at 9PM. So, I rushed home to catch the games, arrived at 6:45, turned on the TV, and.....caught the last 5 points of the men's FINAL championship game. . The men's game must have started around 5:30.

The match went 5 games and the final game ended up 15-12 for the Skywalkers. It was probably a great match. I'm sure that it will be on the TV tomorrow morning but it's not the same watching a game when you know the score already.

I thought that it was cool that trash-talking Alejandro's team on the men's side lost. What was that you said at the beginning of the season, Alejandro? "Rooney's nothing special." Ha, he must have really studied the game tapes because he had you blocked almost every time. Just as a side note, while Alejandro was the league's dominant spiker all season, he can't serve to save his life. He's kind of the Shaquille O'Neal of volleyball.

Who plays a professional championship match at 5:30 on a Wednesday? People are working. Who changed the time? Some bigwig who wanted to make sure that he had time to go out drinking after the game? I'd like to say that I was surprised but I'm not really. Last Sunday's matches didn't start at the times they were supposed to either.

How can a professional sports league expect good fan support if they can't get the schedules straight?

I have really enjoy watching the games, and I hope that next season will be even better. I hope that the interest that was shown this season will allow the league to expand from 6 men's teams and 5 women's teams. I really want to support the league. I hope that they get the kinks worked out, but, at this time, it's not really very professional.

I hope my favorite women's team, Hyundae, win, although that's not very likely. I realize that I'm being petty, but I still haven't been able to get over the fact that the coach of the strongest team on the women's side, Heung Kuk, was suspended for two games and he sat in the stands during both matches signalling his assistants. He might be a nice guy, but I just wish he would lose. Besides Hyundae have the nicest uniforms in the league - maroon.

The Korean...Japanese...Wave

When the world is riding the Korean wave, Korea seems happy.

Fuji TV Producing Special on Korean Wave Star
Japan’s First Lady-to-Be an Avid Korean Wave Fan
Asian English paper editors gather in Seoul
K-pop makes another leap forward
South Korea adds culture to its export power
A rising Korean wave: If Seoul sells it, China craves it

But wait...

Fresh Japanese Wave Threatens Korean Pop Culture

Some experts fear that enthusiasm for Japanese pop culture is headed for a renewed domination of Korea.

It must be a slow day at the newsdesk.

A new job?

I've been thinking of a new job recently - perhaps even a different field. I have to say that I was inspired by this headline: Harlequin books seeks "real men" for covers". I'm a real man. Ask my friends (and, as soon as they stop laughing, they'll tell you it's true).

The picture accompanying the ad was a little disheartening.








But, when I read the article, I thought that perhaps I could do this.

"We're looking for some guys that are not your usual models, but have that iconic look that women go for -- sexy, sensitive, beautiful and fit," said Harlequin spokeswoman Marleah Stout, who attended the open casting.

"We want real men ... exactly what you think in your mind when you're fantasizing or imagining that ideal man." [Every morning on the subway, I can tell that the women are fantasizing - I'm sure.]

...

"A lot of the models were too young, men in their twenties ... and our audience likes men a little bit older, a bit bigger, than the runway models." [Hey, that's me.]

CDN$250/hour is a lot more than I can make tutoring. I just need to cut out the cheese burgers and beer for a couple of weeks. I'm sure I can wittle my keg down to a six-pack.

"From what I understand, (Harlequin) readers are women who want to escape from the relationship that they're in," said auditioner Carlos Troccoli, 30, who was tall, sturdy and muscular. "I can bring that to them." [Ooh yaah! Where do I sign up?]

Ponderous pondering

I sometimes think too much (not always well, just too much). Recently, I've been thinking about my teaching philosophy. I had to sit down and think about this a month or two ago when I was prepping for a video conference job interview (didn't get the job, and, no, they didn't ask me for my teaching philosophy); however, events in the last couple of weeks at my university have had me discussing (arguing) about our programs and the university's direction.

I'd like to preface this by saying that I love the possibilities that computers and the internet have for education. I've had my own student-centered homepage for years (www.geocities.com/mbrown_ae). I've created a lot of interactive materials that I have on a department homepage. I show my students where all of this material is and I strongly encourage them to use it. HOWEVER, I don't check up on them. If they don't want to use it, that's their choice as adults.

Our new president is a business man and undoubtedly thinks like a business man, not as an educator. To be fair, some of his beliefs are not that far from some of my Korean colleagues. The thing that has struck me most is that the president seems to think that the main thing that stands in the way of us becoming a world class university is that our students don't do enough homework, so he has told our department (and presumably all departments) to assign more homework and to do it online so that the students can be tracked and given a grade based on this homework.

This will assuredly make our university a world-class one (koff, koff).

I may be remembering poorly as I sometimes do, but I don't remember my university professors gathering and marking university students' homework on a regular basis. Certainly homework was assigned and it was expected that you would read Ch.1 and come to class prepared to discuss it. We were assessed by one or two exams and by several assignments. If we didn't do the homework, we expected that we might do poorly on the exams and assignments.

Another thought is that old people who have little or no understanding of computers shouldn't be allowed to make decisions about computer use. To be sure, there is tracking software that can show if "someone" has logged in. It's possible to see what links were clicked on by "someone", but there is not necessarily a correlation between looking at something and actually studying it and learning it. (How many times have you read a couple of pages in a book to then realize that you have no idea what you read?) There is no way to be sure of what students are doing when they are out of your sight. It's hard enough to control them sometimes when they are in the same room. Even if "someone" has logged in, you can't be sure who it is. I could certainly see some enterprising young man getting a list of everyone's user names and passwords so that he could log them in for a fee. You also can't be sure that they haven't logged in and then turned on a computer game. I can just imagine some teacher looking at little Moohyun's tracking log and seeing that he spends an amazing 5 or 6 hours every night on the university website. WOW!!! Amazingly Moohyun's English isn't getting better, but he's well on his way to becoming a professional gamer.

Although I still assign homework, I've stopped grading it. I still walk around the classroom and mark who has something written on the pages I've assigned. They get one mark for doing it and nothing if it isn't done, but I'm getting increasingly uneasy about even this. I like to think that my tests and assignments reflect the students abilities. I try not to trick them. My students know what they will be assessed on and how. Homework helps, as does extra online material that I provide for them.

I don't assign much out of class writing anymore either. This bothers me a lot because I like teaching writing, and, as a student, I always wrote better outside of class than in. Now, I alternate take-home and in-class assignments. The take-home assignments are for feedback. The stuff done in class is for "big" marks.

I have disagreed on more than one occasion with colleagues about online quizzes. And, again, I feel really bad about this, but cheating is common and it is a problem. If the teachers allow it, they are disadvantaging the honest students and teaching them that only cheaters prosper.

At my university, we grade on a strict grading curve. 30% get A; 40% get B, and 30% get C or lower. Allowing a "B student" to cheat and take an A from a deserving "A student" (who gets bumped down to a B+) really bothers me.

My colleagues say that cheating isn't such a big problem and that there is no solution anyway. Sometimes I wonder if we deserve to be called a profession.

Plagiarism.org has this to say (the emphasis is mine):

A study by The Center for Academic Integrity found that almost 80% of college students admit to cheating at least once.

According to a survey by the Psychological Record 36% of undergraduates have admitted to plagiarizing written material.

A poll conducted by US News and World Reports found that 90% of students believe that cheaters are either never caught or have never been appropriately disciplined.

The State of Americans: This Generation and the Next (Free Press, July 1996) states that 58.3% of high school students let someone else copy their work in 1969, and 97.5% did so in 1989.

A national survey published in Education Week found that 54% of students admitted to plagiarizing from the internet; 74% of students admitted that at least once during the past school year they had engaged in "serious" cheating; and 47% of students believe their teachers sometimes choose to ignore students who are cheating.

Now, this article at Plagiarism.org dealt with plagiarism, but I think that people who plagiarize would not have second thoughts about cheating in other ways if they knew that they wouldn't get caught.

I found this article in The Harvard Crimson:

Problem Set Problem: Cheating

Let’s be upfront: cheating—most commonly in the insidious form of copying or other illicit collaboration—happens quite a bit at Harvard on take-home assignments...

The status quo would be acceptable, though still unattractive, if cheating were a victimless crime. But most large science classes—incidentally the places where copying on problem sets is most apt to occur—are graded on a curve. This creates a zero-sum situation, where any points people gain by cheating do not simply help them, but hurt others.

A look back

Redemption comes too late for many accused during S. Korea's red scare

This article in the International Herald Tribune was interesting because it reminded me of what it was like here in the 70's and 80's. I first came to Korea as a tourist in 1976 and then later returned in 1983 and stayed until 1986. During my first visit, Korea was controlled by a military dictator, Park Chung-hee. On my second trip, Korea was being run by another military dictator, Chun Doo-hwan. As might be expected, the government ruled with an iron hand.

At my campus in Seoul, the students demonstrated almost every day (except during exams). They went to the back gate, threw stones at the riot police, were hit with pepper bombs, and then they moved to the front gate and did the same thing. For most of the students, it didn't seem really serious. It was just something to do. By 5PM, everything stopped and returned to "normal". The demonstrations generally stayed on campus.

The riot police, armed with shotgun pepper-bomb launchers, usually fired these canisters in the air where they exploded over the students. The canisters were about 6 inches long and about 3 inches thick. They were full of powdered pepper which was irritating when it got in your eyes and nose. In some of the pictures, you can see yellowish clouds. That's the pepper bomb. It was irritating but not debilitating. It was no where nearly as strong as tear gas, which was rarely used because it was expensive and also caused fires.

I've posted some pictures that I took during one of the demonstrations. I was taking these pictures from a window in the top floor of the gymnasium. There were students playing basketball, and, when the police saw me taking pictures, they launched a pepper canister through the window beside me. It landed in the circle at center court and exploded - effectively ending play for that day. I later stopped taking pictures when the students started throwing rocks at me.

You can see the riot police in green padded uniforms with helmets and shields. They couldn't move very fast, so there were sometimes plainclothes policemen who would come onto the campus and try to catch students.

It was a very strange time. People were being arrested. Many of the student activists were living on campus because they would be arrested if they left. I can't remember the exact dates, but around '85, a student leader was killed "by accident" when the police had him bent over a tub of water and they were ducking his head under water. They "accidentally" strangled him on the edge of the tub. In early '86, partly because of this incident, things started to get a bit ugly. A student threw a molotov cocktail into one of the police buses that have wire over the windows. One police officer couldn't get out and died. The police then started firing the pepper bombs directly at the students. At least one student, took one to head and suffered serious brain damage.

I left in the middle of 1986 so I didn't see how things developed. However, the international news coverage showed demos moving off campus and becoming much more violent. I still remember watching a news program that showed riot policeman being pushed off of a highway overpass. This eventually led to Chun stepping down in 1988.

For many people, the demonstrations were ignored, and life just went on as normal. However, there was a really dark and depressing side to the military dictatorships. I think that most of us cannot imagine what it was really like.

"They tied me naked in a steel chair and attached an electric cord to my genitals," Bogwang said in his last interview. "When they threw the switch, electricity bolted through my spine and jolted my brain. It was as if my body jumped a meter off the floor."

By the time the military interrogators were done with him, Bogwang had signed a confession that he was a Communist spy...
...
On Jan. 23, a court acquitted, posthumously, eight men who were hanged in 1975 on charges of organizing a "People's Revolutionary Party," ostensibly to overthrow the government at North Korea's behest. The court found that the men were executed on the basis of confessions extracted under torture.
...

Interrogators deprived him of sleep for days and then made him sit in front of high-intensity lights, he said. They tied him to a rod like "a pig being roasted," put a wet towel over his nose and eyes, and poured water laced with mustard or pepper into his mouth.

"Such methods of torture were commonplace," said Kim Byung Jin, 51, who worked as an interpreter for interrogators at the Army Security Command. "They could make the victim say whatever they wanted him to say. Truth was irrelevant." (my emphasis)

...
"I still hear them saying to me, 'You ready? Here we go!' as they cranked up the generator to send electricity to the wire tied around my fingers," Kim said in an interview last month. "I had to admit to their nonsensical charges against me after they threatened to send my wife to a brothel and my 100-day-old son to an orphanage."

For some reason, the online article is not the fully version that was in the newspaper. The newspaper version had more information that was particularly saddening. Bogwang's family disowned him because they were afraid of what his connection to them would do to their futures. Even recently, just before his death of natural causes, his family wouldn't speak to him. I don't understand this. Most Koreans know what was done. They must realize that many of the confessions were coerced. Under torture, most people will say and do anything.

A little egg on their faces

After leak, 900 students’ SAT scores canceled

About 900 students who took the Scholastic Aptitude Test on Jan. 27 in Korea will have their scores canceled because questions were leaked ahead of time, the Educational Testing Service announced yesterday.
...
“Our investigation confirmed that the security breach only occurred in South Korea,” said Ray Nicosia, executive director of the firm’s Office of Testing Integrity, in the press release.

Exam scandals are a common occurance here. Of course, it is the students who cheat, but it is teachers and administrators who are responsible for selling the test questions. The unscrupulous people who are making money from this need a real swift kick in the ass.

For the technologically challenged

If you, like me, sometimes just don't get computer stuff, this should hit a nerve. (Thanks to a colleague for showing me this.)

Once more on the bandwagon

Seoul's Air Pollution Worst Among OECD Members

Seoul’s air pollution is the worst among countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the Environment Ministry said yesterday.

The capital’s particulate matter (PM), which can cause various respiratory problems, was measured at 71 micrograms per cubic meter at the end of 2001, the ministry said.

Now this data was from 2001. I've Googled and used other search engines to try to find something more recent, but 2001 is the only thing that comes up. I find it hard to believe that no one is doing research now (Well, actually, it's not that hard to believe.). 71 micrograms in 2001 - although I can't prove it, I think that the air is worse now than it was when I came 3 years ago. Bangkok has 43 micrograms.

I thought about this again because I've just returned from Bangkok, and this morning I read this article (Bangkok's template for an air-quality turnaround) in the International Herald Tribune. While Bangkok still has the pollution that one would expect in a city of 10 million, it is a 100 times fresher than Seoul, a city of about 12 million. Now, I know that there are some environmental differences that make some difference in pollution levels, but Bangkok has nowhere near the level of public transport that Seoul has. Seoul has an excellent subway system that spreads like a spider web throughout Seoul. It also has an extensive bus system. However, the number of SUV's and other large private cars in Seoul far outnumbers the number in Bangkok. The streets in Bangkok are orderly and seem less crowded. In Seoul, traffic jams often leave tens of thousands of cars idling on the roads.

I know that some of the air pollution blows in from China and there is little that Korea can do about that. But, most of the problem is vehiclular (in my humble opinion).

Perhaps it's time that Seoul looks at the model that Bangkok provides. Unfortunately, every time I talk to my Korean friends about this, they just give me a blank look as though they don't know what I'm talking about. "Air pollution? In Seoul? Really?" If the people don't care, the politicians won't.

Korean Volleyball League and misbehaviour

Several days ago, I was watching a volleyball match on TV. The Hungkuk Life women's team was playing, and their best player ended up in a shouting match with the referee over what, on instant replay, was clearly the correct call by the referee. The player ended up with both feet almost completely over the center line. This was NOT a toe-on-the-line type foul. She was clearly well over the line. She ended up getting a red card and was ejected and suspended for one game. The coach also got upset and pulled his team off and put them in, then pulled them out again - for a good 5 to 10 minutes, this went on before he finally let them continue. It turns out that he was suspended also. He was clearly wrong to let his player continue arguing and then to continue disputing the call himself.

Today, I am watching the same team play and the coach, who was suspended, is sitting in the stands calling strategy down to his assistant coach. This coach was clearly wrong. I'm sure he watched the replays. He must know he was wrong. Here he is ignoring his punishment (probably correctly believing that nothing will happen to him).

For the league to let him in the building when he is suspended seems bizarre. For the league to let him continue coaching from the stands is also bizarre. Now, he was caught on camera. If he doesn't receive a further sanction, the league will lose credibility (with me at least).

I'm back

Actually I got back last Wednesday. I'd like to say that I've been busy, but, the fact is, I ordered Seasons 1 and 2 of Numb3rs from Amazon and just had to watch Season 1 over the last couple of days.

On vacation in Cambodia, I spent endless hours with a couple of friends wandering through ruined temples. I've added pictures from the first day to the sidebar. We went to Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, and Bayon. I had wanted to go to Angkor Wat for many years, so I was really looking forward to finally seeing it. I wasn't prepared for the vast scale of Angkor Wat and all of the other temples and buildings around it. It was really mind boggling to think of the many tons of stone that were moved from the distant sites and the 10's of thousands of stone blocks that were hand carved using the tools available a thousand years ago.

I will definitely return some day soon for a more leisurely tour of the sites. I'd first like to study the history and then tour the temples in the chronological order of their construction.

I was awed by what the people of that region did, but, as with all grand religious edifices (temples, cathedrals, and mosques), I was uncomfortable when I imagined what it must have been like to be a common person forced to do that work and use those resources when I could have spent my time better growing crops or building a house. I guess the fact that I don't have any really strong religious beliefs to support with a house of worship may make me a poor judge of what is necessary. (As a lazy Taoist, I think that you should just be - don't do.)

I really enjoyed Cambodia. I don't think that I met a surly or unfriendly person the whole time I was there. The hawkers and touts at the sites were sometimes a little too persistent, but they never got angry.

While on vacation, I did a little bit of reading. My first book was superb and I highly recommend it. The Kite Runner is a wonderfully moving tale of friendship and betrayal. It was both sad and uplifting. It was an unflinching look at real people's frailties. The author has a style that I really like. His characters are well-developed and interesting. The plot very plausible. In Bangkok, I picked up the lonely planet story. I've used many of The Lonely Planet travel guides over the years and I've always found them useful and interesting. I thought it would be interesting to read the founders' story. However, the lonely planet story is one of the most boring and poorly written books I've read in recent years. I've gotten about halfway through and I keep going because there are a few little interesting tidbits and I keep hoping that it will get better, but it hasn't yet. It's just a long, boring list of "We went here and felt good, and then we went there and there and felt bad." The story itself may be interesting, but the writers' style is not interesting. I also read A Loyal Character Dancer by Qiu Xiaolong. This was just a light murder mystery of the type that I often read when on vacation. It was okay, but a little too clever (or perhaps I'm just not smart enough to get it). However, when the main character has to take the whole last chapter to explain how he figured out who did it, I think the author is a little too clever.

Vacation

I've been in Bangkok for a couple of days. It's a little different from when I was here 31 years ago. It's very modern and pleasant. Now, I'm in a huge PC room in a huge mall with a multiplex theater and an incredible food court.

People here, as in Cambodia, are generally so pleasant and relaxed that I'm dreading my return to gloomy city next week.

The Cambodia part of the vacation was excellent. Angkor Wat and the surrounding area was incredible. When I get back to Seoul on the 21st, I'll post some pictures (more that 300 - all excellent, of course) along with a full description.

I went to Jim Thompson's house this morning and I have to say my silk boxers are tres comfortable.

Light blogging

I've been on vacation for what seems like forever. I've been spending far too much time at home. Since I haven't been out and about much, I haven't been taking a lot of pictures or doing much of note. So, there hasn't been much to blog about.

As well, I've been working on HTML and CSS (which is actually really cool). When I go out, I often take my laptop and my computer book and sit in a coffee shop.

Next Wednesday (the 7th), I'm off to Cambodia to see Ankor Wat, something that I've wanted to do for a long time, then a few days in Bangkok, where I haven't been since 1976, and then a few more days somewhere in that area - no firm plan yet.

I'll be back in Seoul on the 21st. I'm sure that I'll have a few gigabytes of great pictures to share.

--------------------------------------------

I've also decided that I need a news break. I know that the news tends to be negative, but I'm finding it very depressing.

Kids here have a hard enough time (lost childhood and all that) without this.

"Study Pill" Abuse Rampant Among Korean Students

There's already enough pressure on them to do well in school. This seems abusive, though. I know that parents will say that it is for the benefit of the kids, but it makes me sick.

A medication used to treat sufferers of ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) is being abused by Korean students who want to improve their concentration. Called a "wonder drug" for its power to improve study abilities, increasing numbers of students are taking methylphenidate (MPH) to boost the grades.

I'd like to recommend that Korean parents take a sedative themselves and leave their kids alone - or perhaps if they legalized marijuana we would all lighten up. Forget the soju and poktanju. I would like to recommend the calming effect of a night out combining grilled meat and a bong.

Plagiarism

And we wonder why students cheat:

Yonsei professor admits plagiarism

The writer of the original poem, Kim I-won, published the poem in 1983 in the Hongik University newspaper, where Mr. Ma was her instructor and the paper’s editor at the time.
In April, Mr. Ma included the poem, “Mare Daehayo” (“About Words”) in a somewhat shortened form and with a somewhat different structure in a book of his poetry published last April.
Mr. Ma admitted the plagiarism. In an interview with the JoongAng Daily, he said he had asked the publisher of the book to recall all the copies. “It is clearly my fault,” he said, explaining that he tried but was not able to contact Ms. Kim before publishing the book.
“I borrowed the poem because I thought the idea was great,” he added.
He called Ms. Kim a “special friend,” saying he told her what he had done after the book was published last year, and thought she understood his motives because she had no reaction. He felt “betrayed,” he said, at Ms. Kim’s belated accusation.

"Borrowed the poem" - this is not like borrowing money and then returning it.

S.Korean education minister resigns amid scandal of thesis plagiarism

Kim's scandal of alleged thesis plagiarism broke out just three days after he took office on July 21, when a vernacular daily disclosed that he was suspected of plagiarizing his student's thesis in 1987 while serving as a political science professor at Seoul's Kookmin University.

Following the plagiarism scandal, local reports said Kim is in suspicion of multiple publications of a single thesis and embezzlement of state academic subsidies.

This is/was the MINISTER OF EDUCATION.

KU’s President Plagiarized

The fact-finding committee of the Korea University professors’ association, which has been investigating suspicions of plagiarism cast on its new president Lee Pil-sang, announced on January 24, “After investigating the president’s papers and books, we concluded that the two papers under dispute were plagiarized, and in addition, there were three more of his works that had been copied from his students.”

Korea University President in Plagiarism Charge

Korea University president Lee Pil-sang published 12 academic papers that are almost identical to those written by students he supervised between 1983 and 2005, either under his name alone or as co-author with the students. He is also suspected of plagiarizing content and graphs from foreign textbooks in three of his books. Lee denies plagiarizing his students’ work, saying it was his ideas that served as the basis of their work. He said the foreign textbooks are as good as public property, “and I believed it was acceptable to refer to graphs, tables and content.”

This is the President of the number 2 university in Korea. They even developed a software program at Korea University to catch plagiarism. Perhaps the president's work should have been used as a test.

Sanctions

Can it really make a difference?

According to the BBC, these are the things that North Korea is no longer allowed to import:

1) iPods
2) cognac
3) jet skis
4) jewellery
5) designer clothes

I've seen what Kim Jong Il wears. A ban on designer clothes is really gonna hurt.

Besame Mucho (Kiss Me Much)

I've had this DVD on my shelf for a long time, but I hadn't watched it until last night. This was an excellent look at a normal, happy family that faces losing everything after the father loses his job as a trader because he won't manipulate stocks, then finds out that the loan he co-signed for his best friend has come due because his "best friend" has skipped town. When they find out that the family has fallen on hard times, friends disappear and others offer money for "favors".

The movie was slow-paced but gentle and often very sad. The acting was excellent. Lee Mi-Suk (in addition to being incredibly hot), her husband (Jeon Kwang Ryeol) and the children were wonderful. The other characters in the movie were all believeable and important in fleshing out the story.

I understand that this movie didn't do well in Korea, and I can understand why. It is a realistic and often uncomfortable look at Korean society. I liked the movie because the director didn't over dramatize the story, and he didn't cop out and take the easy way out at the end as so many directors do. There were no tricky artistic camera shots. It was just a good, thoughtful story.

The movie title is a little odd, but it is named after the coffee shop where the husband and wife first met. Besame Mucho is Spanish and comes from a Mexican song that seems to have been covered by just about everyone (The Beatles, Dean Martin, Diana Krall, Elvis Presley, Nat "King" Cole...)

It was interesting to see that parts of the movie were shot on the old Chamsu Bridge.

Mellow Music

I've always liked Jim Brickman's music. His instrument of choice, the piano, dominates all of his music, but he does wonderful collaborations with other great musicians and singers. His lastest CD, Escape, is really nice. Perhaps, many think of this as pop piano lite, but I like it (I also like George Winston and Kenny G, so...). As background music to my computer studies, it has been very soothing.

The Host

I've been pretty lazy for the last three weeks. I've been watching too much tv, reading a bit, lying around, and napping a lot. I started to get a cold (or the flu) a couple of days ago, and, today, I decided that I needed to get up and out and do something instead of just lying around feeling sorry for myself. So, in the morning, I took a subway and bus out to an area south of where I'm living now thinking that I could find some peace and quiet and a bit of fresh air. If I stay in Korea much longer, I need to get out the the city where I'm living now. Unfortunately, I never found anything I liked. I don't know how far out of the city you have to go to get a nice setting.

On the way back home, I stopped at Yongsan electronics market and went to my regular DVD shop and bought The Host and The Wind that Shakes the Barley. The Host has been a really big hit here in Korea. It played at Cannes (didn't win anything) and they are thinking of distributing it abroad. I watched it and I liked it; however, I can't understand why they think it will do well outside of Korea. It got surprising good reviews at Rotten Tomatoes (88%), but it's not an art film, which is what I expect to show at movie festivals. Yes, I know that all of the movie festivals that used to show quirky, independent movies have gone pretty main stream. But, The Host is no Brokeback Mountain. Movies like Chihwasan, which has an interesting historical component and incredible cinematography, or Oasis, which is a love story of a mentally handicapped man and a woman with cerebral palsy, have a much better shot of selling in the foreign market.

The movie takes shots at the U.S. military (and the U.S. - but, hey, haven't we all?), the Korean police, medical people (both Korean and American), and the Korean military, but it doesn't say anything new.

The actors are quite good. I've always liked Song Kang-ho. His daughter in the movie(Ko Ah-sung) as well as the actor playing his father (Byun Hee-bong) were excellent. However, a lot of the stereotypical characters in the movie ring true IF YOU ARE FAMILIAR WITH KOREA, but I don't think anyone outside of Korea will get it.

There are some interesting characters, but there are no characters who develop in an interesting and believable way. Song's character seems a little different at the end, but that would be hard to believe since he is supposed to be mentally handicapped. The slap at the U.S. for using Agent Yellow to try to control a virus and the Korean government for rolling over was just too farcical to be taken seriously.

This is another movie like Typhoon, which Korea hopes will find an audience in the west, but I don't see it. The movie is worth watching because it's entertaining, but it's not worthy of a Palme D'or.
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After the movie, I went to the gym but my joints were aching so I had a pretty crappy workout. Then I went to the sauna and had a nice long soak in a hot tub. Now I'm going to lie down in front of the tv with a can of Pringles and watch another movie.

Bilingualism

If I needed another reason to study Korean

Bilingualism delays onset of dementia
People who are fully bilingual and speak both languages every day for most of their lives can delay the onset of dementia by up to four years compared with those who only know one language, Canadian scientists said on Friday.

I hope it's not too late for me.

Michelle Wie

This has to be a little galling for serious professional women golfers.

Wie is Top Female Golf Earner

Wikipedia has this to say about Michelle Wie.

By the end of 2006, her first full year as a professional, she had missed the cut in 11 out of 12 tries against men, and remained winless in all 33 professional women's tournaments she had entered, the last 9 as a professional...

Observers of golf have criticized Wie's efforts to play in PGA TOUR events through sponsors' exemptions. Wie has made only one cut in a men's tournament, and has made no cuts on the PGA TOUR.

And, still, she is the top earner. She hasn't even won anything as a professional.

I have nothing against her personally. She might even be a nice person. She has a nice smile. Numerous people have said that she has an incredible swing. Her father seems like a perfect asshole, but that says nothing about her.

But, from the BBC,

Australian Stuart Appleby has hit out at Michelle Wie's continued attempts to compete successfully on the men's tour.

But Appleby said: "She came five years too early to try to play the men's tour - she should just let it go for now.

"She's not ready for it. She's certainly not proving anything except that she can't play with the men at her level right now."

I just wish that she would win a few women's tournaments first. Annika Sorenstam deserved a shot. She didn't win, but she is the best the women's tour has to offer. She proved that by winning, and now she is back focussing on the women's tour.

Editorial control

Does no one watch over the journalists at the Chosun Ilbo. This story is disturbing enough: Juvenile Prostitution Moves Into Cyberspace, but the journalists choice of vocabulary leaves a lot to be desired.

The reason the sex trade is mushrooming online is because offline brothels are closing due to draconian new laws, forcing potential customers to seek alternative ways to buy sex, they added. (my emphasis)

"Draconian" - this implies that the laws are too strict. Let me remind you that this article is about juvenile prostitution. And, customers are being forced to find prostitutes through other than the normal room salons. Boo hoo. This too implies that the police are wrong in "forcing" the customers to go online. Perhaps none of this should be too surprising in a country where the government wants to pay people for not using prostitutes.