shameful

This is shameful. According to one of the English-language newspapers, several mothers are bringing babies in strollers to protests. In this case, the mother put her child in front of water cannons that were being used on crowds that have become increasingly violent (hundreds of people - protesters and riot police - have been taken to the hospital. From the reports, several of the riot police left with pretty serious injuries).

I am without words. When the protests were mostly peaceful, that is one thing, but to put your child in danger? For this? Horrible.

From Brian.

Oh, and the riot police? Are kids serving their mandatory military service. And according to Wikipeadia (yeah, I know, not the most valid of sources, but still...) receive very limited training before being put in pretty stressful situations.

(Dear Mom, this is happening in Seoul. Seoul is very far away from where I am.)

I just found out that there is no way my vice-principal or principal is able to let me leave early, so even though I have the vacation time, I'll need to quit in order to be back in the States for the beginning of the school year in both Indiana and Tennessee (I'm hoping for a job in Indy, but will be sending off resumes to Memphis just to be on the safe side).

Right now, I'm waiting to get quotes from travel agents here, but it looks like I will be flying into Chicago the second week of August.

I'll end up losing the cost of my return flight and two weeks of salary, which sucks and is really annoying, but given the cost of flying home then coming back to close everything out, I'd about break even and not have to spend about 30 hours on an airplane. My pension/bonus should be pro-rated, so at least there is that.

Ugh.

So, this beef thing is still going on. This was happening in Seoul, and I haven't heard about anything bad happening down here, but then I live in a bubble and most of the time wouldn't know if something WAS happening. My guess is that there are still rallies being held in bigger cities, and probably smaller things locally, but like the article said, with the numbers greatly reduced.

I have a question about this quote, "Officials could take measures such as the use of liquid tear gas, which has been banned in South Korea since 1999." Is there a difference between liquid tear gas and any other form of tear gas? Because I remember protesters getting gassed last summer at rallies against Homever/Kim's Club, mainly because we had to scurry into a friend's apartment to avoid the full impact of it.

To show how deeply ingrained dislike of the new president (who was elected with the greatest victory margin in Korean history) is, a little story. My 6th grade class is learning about different jobs. My co-teacher put together a slideshow of people who were representative of different professions - a famous singer, a driver, that kind of thing - and when the picture of the president came up on the screen, the entire elementary class started to point, yell, and laugh at the t.v. The 6th graders are getting ready for mid-term exams, and this was the most excited I've seen them get about anything that wasn't prize-related in a long time.

life

I think I have been in Korea for long enough that I so many things that used to be new and exciting are just same-old. What was and adventure is now just life. I could tell a story about how I had a group of about 7 kids saying "teacher! black/brown!" and wiggling around the hallway today, and I was able to figure out there was a bug in their classroom, or how a moody 6th grader actually was able to tell me that he was in a bad mood but didn't want to tell me about it, or how kids freak out and act like I'm magic when I'm typing an email - IN ENGLISH OMG!! - but they are the little things that would make up a school or a class or a student anywhere.

I will be back in the States in less than two months. I have resumes and emails and all that stuff out, and am playing the waiting game, which does not bring me joy. This weekend, a good friend is leaving, which drives home the point that _I_ will be leaving soon, too. I am SO ready to be home, but there are many, many things I will miss deeply about this strange little place.

More Crazy Cow

(crazy cow is how it has been translated into Korean and then back into English)



This blog has done a pretty great job of summarizing the protests last night, and has linked some amazing pictures. It seems (thankfully) that things stayed peaceful for the most part, which, when you think about the numbers of people, is pretty amazing.

My students have pretty limited English beyond "can I have" and "go straight and turn left" - basically, about the same as my Korean ability - so talking about this with them hasn't been much of an option. I know that many of them went to the local protests last night, and even 6th graders realize this isn't about beef.

mooo

Things don't seem to be calming down in terms of protests against US beef imports. Protests are becoming more violent, including some cases where there are allegations that people are setting themselves on fire (though there is a question if the self-immolation is in protest of the beef, or if the protest provided a venue - thanks Brian).

I'm all for people standing up for what they believe in. What I find fault with is that this isn't based on science or a real threat to the populace, but rather, on xenophobia, propaganda, and fear-mongering.

I've typed and deleted a couple of rants here, and right now I'm just not sure if I am angry that people refuse to listen to logic and reason, if I'm sad that people (both the riot police and the protesters) are getting hurt, if I'm sick of anti-foreigner sentiment here, or if I just am ready to leave. Maybe all of the above.

Last week, I left school and got in a cab to go to one of the big grocery stores. The driver went about a block, pulled over and told me to get out of the taxi because he was going to get a coffee. I don't know for sure if this was related to the news coverage or if this was just one idiot, but still. Drivers used to try to talk to me the entire drive to wherever, and in the past week or more, I haven't had a single one try to talk to me at all.

Clinton and conflict

I have to admit some conflict. Watching the election coverage from a distance I'm sure limited what I saw in both good and bad ways, and while there were many ways in which I didn't support Clinton, the misogyny I saw in response to her campaign almost swayed me back to her camp. A friend linked this article from the nation which says it a lot better than I can:

Iron My Skirt

"There's another reason to be grateful to her. Clinton's run has put to rest the myth that we are living in a postfeminist wonderland in which all that stands in women's path is women themselves. Like a magnet--was it the pantsuit?--Clinton drew out the nation's misogyny in all its jeering glory and put it where we could all get a good look at it. "Iron my shirt" hecklers. Wearers of Bros Over Hos T-shirts and buyers of Hillary nutcrackers. Fans of the Citizens United Not Timid website (check the acronym). Vats of sexist nastiness splattered across the Comments section of hundreds of blogs and websites. It's as if every obscene phone caller and every exhibitionist in America decided to become an amateur political pundit."

No Reservations

I was watching Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations on You Tube this afternoon, and thought that it gives a pretty accurate snapshot of pieces of life in Korea. If you have the time and the patience to watch a whole tv show in You Tube-quality video, it is worth a look.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Mad cow

In the past few weeks, there has been a growing number of protests about South Korea's plans for importing beef from the US". Many people believe that there is a strong likelihood that people will get Mad Cow if Korea resumes imports. The protests are becoming so violent that in Seoul water cannons were used against protesters, there are claims of significant force being used by police (I can't link to the English language Korean newspapers because it is a mess of stupid Flash so you can't go to a specific article), people are being arrested, and there are charges of police brutality being brought against the riot police in Seoul.

This seems to be going deeper, in that people feel that the president not listening to their concerns is greater than the concern itself, and the president has put his (IMHO, absurd) plan to build a canal across the entire country on hold for the time being, again because of public discontent.

This is another example of the power of propaganda. Although there is no science on their side, every time I speak with someone about it, there is a different reason for why it is so much more dangerous for Koreans to eat US beef, from the idea that the US will send the meat from cows that are over 30 months old (and therefore more likely to transmit the disease, though research doesn't support this theory) to Koreans being more susceptible to the virus (though how they would know this, I have no idea). While at the same time there is a very real outbreak of Avian Flu sweeping through South Korea that no one is talking about or protesting, although there have been instances where humans working with infected birds have contracted the disease.

Jeju Marathon 2008

Last weekend, we went to Jeju-do, an island about 4.5 hours by ferry south of Mokpo for the Jeju Marathon. Last year, this was my first 10k race ever, and I was psyched to go back. I had even entertained thought of training for the half there (lack of time on the roads and some minor injuries made me rethink the wisdom of that one).

Sloane and I took the afternoon ferry on Friday, and got in at about the same time Vanessa and Monique landed (they flew from Gwangju). We all met up at the airport where we picked up the rental car (and really? Get the car. It is far and away the best way to get around the island.)

The next morning, we started off pretty slowly - Sloane and I went to the gym across the street (which, compared to were I work out now, was SWEET) and then we went off for brunch and met up with my friend Dan:


who went with us for a drive along the coast road on our way to the lava tubes. We stopped when Dan noticed that the haenyeo, the lady divers of Jeju, were out working and we got out to watch for a few minutes. They are pretty famous in Korea, and it was something I had wanted to see. I felt a little invasive just watching them work, but they ARE sort of famous for the work they do, and I'm willing to bet this wasn't the first time tourists had watched them at work.



We went to the lava tubes, which were actually pretty cool (figuratively and literally). In the center of Jeju is Hallasan, a dormant volcano, and the entire island is volcanic rock. Basically, the volcanic flows have formed underground tubes all over the island, and a section of the tube system has been declared an UNESCO natural heritage site. It has been lit (somewhat) and there are some signs (in multiple languages) pointing out certain features of the tube. I think I read somewhere that it was about a kilometer each way (out and back), but that seems kind of far for how long we were down there. While there are lights, they keep it dark to preserve the site, so unless Dan's fancy camera was able to see more than ours were, we don't have any images from inside the tube.

After the tubes, we headed to the beach:


We maybe watch a little too much America's Next Top Model.

The marathon was having a pre-party in what we determined was either a past or a current drama/movie set. There was going to be a dinner, but it wasn't going to start for more than an hour and a half, and looked like it was going to be an awful lot of raw fish and speeches in Korean, so we decided to take off for the Indian restaurant in town, after taking some pictures of the park.


We had to leave the next morning at 7:30 to get to the starting line for the race. We were maybe not too happy about that:


And maybe got a little lost along the way.

We got to the stadium with enough time to check our bags and get ready to head to the line, but I wasn't able to get in touch with a friend who ran the full, and I was pretty disappointed about that. Also, because of distance and time and our departures, there was no way we were able to make it back to the stadium and still make our ferry, and I'm still really bummed about that.

Anyway, the race course was beautiful, and I had a good run - there were more rolling hills than I remembered, but nothing overwhelming, and after the last race that was HARD, this one felt really nice. Monique took her camera along, so I have some shots of the course:
passing after Monique did the turn-around

Garlic drying on the side of the road.

Squid drying along the road.


I think Dan got a shot of my finish, which was a personal best time (still 1:09:04, but that is great for me, and the course was exactly 10k - 6.25 miles) but here is a picture of all of us:



After we finished, we walked over to a nearby beach and went into the (cold) water for a few minutes:


After, we went back to the hotel, showered, and then went for Mexican for lunch. We dropped Vanessa and the car off at the airport, lamented that we would be on the boat for 4.5 hours instead of flying, and then (after realizing all the flights were booked and there wasn't a chance of catching a last-minute seat) headed for the ferry terminal. On the way back, we had booked two business-class rooms and one lower-class seat. The rooms were a little small, but we thought we would have been fine if we had bought one room and two of the lower-class seats (just for future reference for anyone who has made it this far and might be taking a ferry to or from Jeju). It was like a little barrier between us and the soju-fueled revelry on the other side of the door, and it was worth the money, by far.

I have said this before, but our little running club has been such an amazing part of my time in Korea, and will miss the people and the experiences deeply.