Much ado about moo and Tzu

Sometimes the things you like best about people are the same things you hate the most. I am often turned on by a simple, even simple-minded, uneducated girl who is blissfully unaware of things like politics or world events. I think it might be envy. These girls are usually very happy. And it's hard to keep that happiness from rubbing off. Whatever it is I find it really cute and even sexy. I'm NOT the only one.

But then you become more intimate with a girl like this and you find that the innocence you found attractive has become a stumbling block in your relationship. You find that after doing what she's been told her entire life, she is utterly incapable of making a decision for herself and you begin to feel more like her father than her boyfriend. You start noticing her trying to bait you into arguments with the purpose of causing you to physically harm her and leave bruises as evidence to her friends and family that you are "passionate" about her. Then when you don't take the bait she slips into an alcohol fueled depression her friends and family blame you for. You can almost read the dirty looks they give you as meaning, "Just slap her around a bit, you heartless bastard! Then you can buy her an expensive apology gift, have make-up sex and everything will be fine." Or you discover that she is, for example, oh I don't know, huffing window caulking with no concept of the damage she is inflicting upon herself.

As you may have guessed, I'm not just making these examples up. And, yes, there are two sides to the story. I suppose the difference between charming innocence and enfuriating stupidity is the amount of patience in the beholder. But sometimes it's so hard to be patient!

The same can be said on a national scale. Depending on how you measure such things, Korea has the 13th, 11th, 10th or whatever, highest economy in the world. Yet in international trade relations it is still viewed as the charmingly innocent trade partner due to its developing culture. As Korea's international trading partners become more intimate with her, the perception may be edging toward the enfuriatingly stupid. And with billions of dollars involved, patience is an expensive virtue.

I read in the Korea Herald recently that a March OECD, (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), report defined the relationship as follows: "Koreans need to grow their understanding of international economics to relieve deeply instilled xenophobia, and specifically, their negative sentiment against foreign capital."

There's a huge problem with this. The people in Korea who are educated are aware of this situation and I believe they are trying to improve and catch up with the rest of the world. But the vast majority of the people in Korea, local diplomas and degrees notwithstanding, aren't educated. There still remains that blissful ignorance and the general happiness that comes with it. Sometimes cute and charming, sometimes irritating.

The recent mad cow protests where shouts of "No violence!" are followed by fights and vandalism are a seemingly endless source of local and now even international entertainment. Like many issues that put Korea in the international eye, most Koreans don't realize that these news stories don't show Koreans in a positive light. The Korean people's single-mindedness in the face of all that is reasonable is a modern illustration of a very old, Sun Tzu military tactic. Keep the soldiers well trained, (not educated), and they will think and behave in one accord. It is translated as "moral unity" in The Art of War in English. I think this is a misleading translation because a lot of deceit falls into the category of morality.

The Art of War is often used as a basis for economic tactics as well. It is more often than not MISused in this fashion. For example Sun Tzu advocates deception in a situation where a soldier's life would be saved by it. In business, (and I'm only MOSTLY talking about Asian business here), deception is a favourite tactic but it's used to save money or face, not lives. This "moral unity" is something Korean people excel at. Ask any military person who has served with Koreans, they all agree that they make excellent soldiers. Especially officers will agree. For the exact same reason they make excellent consumers. That reason is because they do as they're told.

Military and economic tactics can be very similar. The commanding officers in the military are the CEO's and business owners in business. Here they need to be legitimately, (not locally), educated so that they can make the tough decisions. The rest of the soldiers are the consumers. All they do is follow orders. As Tennyson put it, "(their's) is not to reason why, (their's) is but to do and die." That's from The Charge of the Light Brigade. It's seen as the poetic description of some of the best soldiers ever. And when Forrest Gump's sergeant asked him what his purpose in the U.S. military was he said, "To do whatever you tell me to, Sergeant?" The sergeant replied, "Goddammit, Gump that is the finest answer I've ever heard!"

For a long time Korea's economy has thrived due to this Utopic situation. They have a huge, obedient market that will buy whatever, whenever and how often they are told to. This has made them the economic powerhouse that they are. But for a long time Korea has also been trying to globalize. The only way I see this as being possible is through proper education. But will the leaders of industry in this country be willing to mess with this beautiful situation they have now? It's hard to say. But their window might be closing.

In an atmosphere of insufficient, or improper education, "Hooray for us" and "Boo for everyone else" are virtually identical. There are still those who are truly afraid of getting mad cow disease from American beef but that's just a product of improper education. Many believe the mad cow protests have degenerated into protests against America. Also bad education. Remember, that's what I do here. I'm teaching at a national university where I had to grade students on a curve designed to create bloated marks. Then two days ago I was told my grades were STILL too low so 5% is being added to every student's final score. It's not just the English teachers who are doing this. The way I see it, Koreans should be marching in the streets protesting their abysmal education system. Overhauling their education system in Korea may make Koreans unhappy in their wisdom, but with a better chunk of the global economy, they could sop up their tears with wads of money. It'll be interesting to see what the people choose.

Anyway, when you see stories on CNN about Korean protests and candlelight marches against foreign products, don't blame the citizens. They are just following orders.

A cuppa Korea

I stayed at a motel in Gwangju last night. At the motel they provide two free packets of instant coffee in each room. I got up this morning and decided to have a cup. So I took the coffee and the coffee cup out of the fridge. Why they kept the cheapo, 1000 won store, bargain Chinese glass coffee cups in the fridge is beyond me. But I left it out for what I thought would be sufficient warming time then made some coffee. I didn't even get a swig before the bottom of the cup popped off and the coffee scalded my left leg from thigh to ankle. Like Marcel Proust's madeleine only a tad more vitriolic, what followed was a tour-de-force of emotion, (and choice cursing), that unleashed some memories of Korea.

Well, actually I just wish it was like that. Okay it was nothing at all like that. I just wanted to reference Proust. And use the words "vitriolic" and "tour-de-force". And "swig". I like "swig". It just sounds like a nice word. Doesn't it? Not like "brush" or "trumpet". They sound a bit ominous to me. "Swig" sounds friendly and harmless. So anyway please indulge my trying to get my money's worth for all the studying I did to get my B.A. in Lit. Well, that's not true either. I didn't study that hard. And actually I didn't read Proust. I just heard about him on The Sopranos. Whatever, cool coffee stories coming up. Well not cool in the sense of temperature, but... God I've completely ruined what was a pretty impressive, pretentious, literary intro to this post haven't I?

I remember the first cup of coffee I had in Korea. I was out with my two co-workers at the time, Kim and Karen. It was probably February or March of '97, about 6 months before the I.M.F. crisis would effectively cut foreigner's salaries in half. It was my first weekend in Korea so, of course, we were drinking. The girls were a hoot! Wish I could talk to them now and see what they're up to. They showed me a few of the bars around Yong In where I started my E.S.L./E.F.L. career. They had done their best, (and succeeded), to make me feel welcome. It was closing time and we were walking, not to say staggering, back to the apartments where we all lived. (Separately, mind you.(They didn't want to make me feel THAT welcome!))

It was chilly but not snowy. Somebody suggested a coffee and it sounded good to us all. I thought to myself that it would be a good way to beat the chill while at the same time easing the hangover I would probably have the next morning. Little did I know that since that night was my introduction to not only Korean beer and soju but also ginseng wine, I would DEFINITELY have a hangover.

But it was 2 or 3 AM. The street we were walking down was just a block off the main road through the part of Yong In we lived in but it could have been any of the residential streets around. Nothing but parked cars, telephone poles, discarded garbage/furniture and soft, yellow street lighting. There and then coffee seemed like a long shot. But I was ready for anything in the new country I was in. At least I thought I was.

We came upon an outdoor coffee vending machine. I think it was probably 100 or 150 won for a little paper cup of coffee. Seemed reasonable to me. That worked out to less than a quarter at the time. The cup was also less than a quarter full so jokingly I complained and asked for my money back. Then I tried it. I spat it out and poured what remained in the cup onto the street. HARSH!

It's one of many acquired tastes in Korea and much like kimchi, soju, bean paste, rice cakes, moo, colbangi, tofu, (but not yet ginseng wine), I have learned to consume and even enjoy the mud puddle, vending machine coffee from time to time.

I think possibly the first time I actually enjoyed the coffee was later that year in September or October. I had spent the entire night before in Seoul, (about 45 minutes by bus from Yong In), drinking, dancing and playing darts with friends. All I had left in my pocket was enough to buy a ticket on the first bus back to Yong In at 5 or 6 AM. I got my ticket, got on the bus and promptly crashed out. I woke up as the bus came to a stop... in Incheon.

I still don't know how the mix-up occured. I maintain that I had bought a ticket to Yong In. I'm sure of it. I mean it's gotta be pretty hard for the ticket agent to mistake the words "Yong In" for the word "Incheon". I DO know that the Yong In bus and the Incheon bus parked side by side at the old bus station in Seoul. So I probably got on the wrong bus. And the person who collected my ticket either didn't notice it was for the wrong city, or didn't want to stress herself out trying to explain it to me in English. Either way I had never been to Incheon before so it was all new to me.

In '97 there wasn't much to Incheon. The airport wasn't built yet and in Incheon, as well as the rest of Korea, there was no such thing as a 24-hour bank machine. I tried two bank machines in the terminal to no avail. I had two hours to kill while I waited for the cash machines to open at 9 AM. So to keep from falling asleep in the bus terminal and looking worse than I already felt, I did some reconnaissance. I walked as far as I could without getting lost and scouted out a few bank machines in the area. None were open, but I had to give it a try. I also remember one other curious thing. It was the very first time I had ever seen it: a SEVEN way intersection. There was a Korea Exchange Bank, (my bank), across a few of the seven roads. It was impossible to know which lights to look at to know when to cross but since it was early and there were few cars, I made it to the bank without incident. The doors were locked.

I got back to the bus station, sat on a bench and waited. I had been up for at least 24 hours. It was characteristically humid and I was wearing a five o'clock, (in the morning), shadow and clothes soaked in several hour old sweat that were hanging off me like slime. And if that wasn't bad enough, the hangover was beginning to kick in. Time crawls in a situation like this. But when you're a stranger in a strange city in a strange land time inches, (no - centimeters), along at a glacial pace.

Nine o'clock arrived like an ice age. I got in line for the nearest bank machine but was not encouraged by what I saw. Sure enough, like the people in front of me, I was unable to get any money from the machine. All I got was an incomprehensible message on the slip of paper that usually included my bank balance. I knew I had plenty of money in my account. I thought maybe the machine was out of order so I tried another. Then another and another. Then I left the terminal and tried several of the bank machines I had located during my recci mission. No luck with THEM either. From bank machine to bank machine my heart was pumping harder and harder, I was walking faster and faster, I was sweating more and more and I was about homicidal when I reached the seven-way intersection for the second time. I think my appearance more than my hand signals for traffic to stop made navigating the intersection to get to the KEB on the other side a whole lot easier! Fellow pedestrians on the way to the "chil-go-ri" had been giving me a wide berth and even crossing the street as I approached them.

I reached the doors and again they were locked. But that did not serve as any dissuasion. This was the last bank machine I knew of in Incheon so I pulled the doors and I think I almost got them open on a few of my pulls, which were accompanied with maniacal expletive yelling. I would pay KEB a good chunk of change to see the security films from that day. I doubt I would even recognize myself if I saw them. I was a mess!

Completely defeated, embarrassed, frustrated and at a point where my give-a-shit meter was registering zero, I returned to the bus station and flopped onto the dirty floor since it was now quite busy and there were no available benches. Still homicidal I was reluctant to look up when I saw the feet of someone shuffle up to me. If it had been a person who wanted to practice their English or tell me not to sit on the floor or just about anything else, I think I might be in a Korean prison right now. But I DID look up and saw a 70, 90-year-old man wearing a festive hanbok offering me a quarter of a cup of steaming mud. He said nothing when I thanked him. He just smiled then shuffled away. And that coffee really DID taste good.

If you've spent some time in Korea you may have noticed from the signs, (time of year, hanboks, empty bank machines), that it was Chuseok, the biggest Korean holiday of the year. Since it was my first Chuseok in Korea I didn't know people emptied out bank machines and traveled all over the country to meet with family and give thanks for the year's harvest. But to make a long story a bit longer, I found a helpful girl who spoke some English and she led me to a machine, IN THE BUS TERMINAL that had some money left in it. So I made it home and slept for about two days.

Bank machines and coffee have both improved in Korea since then. I left my hotel without my morning coffee and went to a Dunkin Donuts in the bus terminal this morning. I met a retired Korean guy named Sung Ho, who has lived in the U.S. and speaks perfect English. We had a nice chat and a cup of coffee together. GOOD coffee. He didn't ask me about my pink left leg.

I'm a somebody!!!

I feel like The Jerk. Remember that Steve Martin movie? I loved it. A classic! Remember the part after he's worked at the gas station for a while and the new phone books come in? So he's all excited and he finds his name in one of them and he says, "I'm a SOMEBODY!" Well that's similar to how I felt just a couple days ago when I saw the most recent edition of the Gwangju News magazine. Not one but TWO pages for my story and pics. PageS 34 and 35. And if the ambassador from Nepal wasn't in town this month, I probly woulda made the cover. I'm pretty sure I gave old Kamal Prasad Koirala a good run for the top story. But politics beats out sport in journalism. A travesty if you ask me!

So here it is: If you want to read it you can click on it and I think it'll be big enough. See if YOU don't think it's an issue more vital to the human race than countries moving from monarchies to democratic states, terrorism, Maoist election victories and such. Yeah, I didn't think so either. Come on! They don't even have a rectangular flag in Nepal yet! The GIC, who publish the Gwangju News, took the ambassador from Nepal for a hike up Moodeung Mountain. Hello? Nepal! That's just a little hill to him! He probably thought they were taking him to fetch a pail of water. Somebody shoulda taken Mr. Koirala to Moodeung STADIUM to see a Tigers game. THEN he'd witness some REAL news being made!

Actually his article was pretty interesting I guess. And I am sure his stories of conflict in Nepal are compelling but the Kia Tigers have had two bench-clearing brawls in a month! That's unprecedented in the KBO! And, yes, Lumbini in Nepal may be the birthplace of Buddha but Gwangju is the birthplace of Lee Jong Beom!

I noticed the ambassador was pretty slick calling the Gwangju News an excellent resource for the international community and stating that there is no other magazine like it in Korea. How could I compete with that? No wonder he got top billing! I didn't have ANYTHING like that in my story. Politicians eh?

Mokpo update

I'm still in Mokpo working for Mokpo National University but I won't be here much longer. Only a couple more months. I took a job at my favourite school, Seogang College in Gwangju. I'm really looking forward to moving there. When I worked at Seogang back in 2005 I really didn't want to leave. I was downsized. So now that they're bringing me back, (upsizing me?), I'm pretty happy. And from the sounds of things, they'll be almost the same as they were when I was there. I'll get the full vacations in summer and winter probably. I may have to work a couple of weeks out of the 10 week holidays. So that won't hurt at all. And I'll get extra pay if I do I think. I'll be making pretty much the same money, (actually quite a bit more), for a 12-hour week instead of the 22-hour week I work here at Mokpo U. And if I want, (and boy oh boy do I want!), I can get a letter of release to work at kids camps during the breaks. You can get like 3 grand for 3 weeks at one of these camps. Plus my normal salary will be coming in AND I won't be spending any money cuz I'll be at the camp. Those are SWEET months! I can probly get two of those a year at Seogang. And the staff are really cool at Seogang. They respect me enough to let me do my thing, and that's all I ask of them.

I told my supervisor here at Mokpo U. last monday that I want to go back to Seogang in September. I'll need a letter of release from them in order to do that because I will have to leave half way through my contract. This is the first time I've ever done this so I'm not sure what to expect. I'll just expect lots of crazy, silliness. That way I won't be as surprised or angered when it happens. And if it doesn't, I'll be pleasantly shocked. It's called Korean self-preservation.

I haven't yet heard anything on that front. But on another front, all the teachers received a memo last week outlining stuff like the grading scales we have to use and things like that. It's really serving to downgrade our positions from professors to day care workers in my opinion, but that's Korea. Showing up is far more important than learning, even at a national university here.

Let me splain. If I'm interpreting this letter correctly, (the explanation makes no sense at all), I am supposed to give 60% of the students in all my classes 80-100%. To me that's all A's. But I think maybe those might be A's and B's here. Either way NObody will have classes that have that kind of ratio I'll guaran-damn-tee you. I'll let you know what kind of percentages I got in my classes, i.e. the REAL marks, when they are tabulated.

But these are the kinds of sacrifices we make as teachers in Korea to try to fit into a fledgling education system. Some teachers feel they have developed a way to get around this by making all their assignments, tests, homework etc. mind-numbingly easy so that it really LOOKS like students are earning those high marks they are going to end up with. I don't favour that kind of crap myself, but have been encouraged to practice it by several employers and fellow teachers. I don't support this sort of anti-education. It's immoral, unprofessional and unreasonable. But I'm not going to try to change the Korean system. At the end of the term I submit the real marks to my school and let them do whatever they want with them. If they give me a curve like this, sometimes I can make the adjustments for them.

What I WON'T do is take credit for this nonsense. It certainly isn't MY idea! So when the school I work for starts asking me, or requiring me, to sign phony marks or attendance, or affix my signature to any document outlining fraudulent grading systems, it gets my hackles up a bit. I must admit I was a little surprised to see a document from a national university here that said we are expected to pass students who have good attendance and have done all the assignments. No matter how well they've done those assignments. I was also a little surprised to be handed the document and told to sign it right away without reading it because what was on it wasn't very important. But only a little. This was not the first, or even the SECOND time I've had this happen to me.

So what I did was I sent an email to the "Vice-Director of the Foreign Language Education" department at Mokpo U. outlining what I've just written here. And something happened that truly DID surprise me! I tell you, just when you think you've seen everything here in Korea, they throw you a change-up. It keeps life interesting anyway.

The Vice Director's name is Lee Jong Kun. He wrote me an email saying that it is NOT the policy of Mokpo U. to pass people as it was outlined on the memo and he said the person who circulated the memo will be talked to and a new amended memo will be sent out. Just the fact that Lee Jong Kun had a week earlier given all the foreign teachers a letter of introduction inviting us to contact him and/or offer any suggestions to improve the English program was a breath of fresh air. But when he actually REPLIED to my email and told me this news, I must admit I was impressed. This gives me hope for Mokpo U. I hope he makes Director before he changes his philosophies.

Anyway, I'm meeting with him this week to talk about the program at Mokpo U. I don't really know what that may entail but I hope I will receive news on my letter of release. Even though this is a bright spot at Mokpo U. it still isn't close to enough to make me stay.

So, I have two days left in the official semester. I'll be giving my final exams Monday and Tuesday next week. I am hoping to have my letter of release before the week comes to a close but who knows? Things haven't been blindingly prompt at Mokpo U. to this point.

I will be cloistering myself in my quarters for the rest of the week trying to mark the finals, add up all the various marks that my 190 students have worked for throughout the semester and figuring out accurate assessments of each of my students' English abilities, only to have them changed. But to me it's well worth it to maintain my academic integrity. I will give every student his or her REAL grade if they ask me for it. But they never do. I know it's extra work for me to do this and it seems almost fanatically honest but I just don't want to develop any bad habits. I intend to return to Canada someday and teach in an education system that, (hopefully), hasn't yet turned into the diploma issuing adult daycare system they have here. But I see scary signs that Canada might actually be heading in that direction.

But before you think things are cut and dried here. Or before you think I think that, I understand some of the reasons why things are like this in Korea. In fact if I were like the Minister of Education or whatever the equivalent in Korea might be, I'm not so sure I would even change things. There are reasons why the education system is the way it is here and it'll take a lot more posts to explain them. It may make me look like a creep to explain these reasons too. There would be plenty of people who would question my sources and they would be clever to do so because my experience is almost all I have to rest on. And that just wouldn't be scientific enough for most people. But be that as it may, I have taught at every level in the Korean education system and I have a pretty thorough understanding of it. And I maintain hope that Koreans will someday make it right. I will relish the chance to relive these stories about the crazy old Korean education system after they make things right. I think that day will come. In my lifetime I believe.

As things are now, we have to make do with what we have. And being the conscientious teacher that I am, I feel confident that I've given my students the best course and the best marks that they can hope for within the present system. As my student evaluations always reflect. HOLY! Toot toot tooot toooot tooot toooooot!!!

So after a two-week break I'll be teaching July and August here too. But as far as I know the courses won't be actual university credit courses and may involve teacher training or children's camps. I don't yet know.

And what, you might ask, will I be doing on my two-week break? I have decided not to go anywhere since I won't be finishing the contract here at Mokpo and that will cost me a month's pay. I'll be staying in Korea and looking for a place to stay in Gwangju. Probably doing some banking and DEFINITELY watching lots of Kia Tigers games too. I STILL think they're gonna make the playoffs this year. Maybe even win it all. Although the SK Wyverns look pretty solid. We'll see.

Bye for now.

Well it appears that I have a little bit of retracting to do. It's so hard to find good scientific advisors nowadays!

In my previous post I may have said some things that were not very well researched. I may have quoted some articles that were written by folks who may not have known what they were talking about. But it was not my intent to write a scientific post, just a general complaint. Something I'm far better at.

But on the heels of not one but TWO in depth comments by braddotcom taking issue with my scientific accuracy, I think I should qualify my already qualified statements that may have been made in error. First of all I did say that mad cow disease dies when it's heated. It's important to note that I wrote this AFTER mentioning that the I am no scientist, all the reports I was reading seemed very vague and often contradictory and even warning readers not to believe me due to my bias. But after further research it does look like this was wrong.

I'm not sure but I think it might have been this article that led me to the wrong conclusion. I think when I was reading it I wasn't paying very close attention to the "scientificness" of it so where it says that normal prp is easily destroyed with heat, I thought that was talking about the misfolded prp. My bad. This is most likely where I got the idea that pressure treating can make prions unfold then recoil in safer ways. Something braddotcom sees as "factually untrue". I'm not making this stuff up! Just misquoting it a bit.

This prion stuff hasn't been studied for long but I'm not dismissing the unknown due to any agenda. What makes me confident about eating meat now is the laws that have been passed, tests now regularly administered and recall policies used to make meat as mad-cow free as possible. Whether we know a lot about the science or not, these processes are what make me believe that meat is now much safer than before. Maybe completely safe. Things like no longer feeding cattle with food that may contain diseased parts of other animals. The outbreak is believed to have been caused by cows eating feed that contained parts of diseased sheep. At least that's what I've read. It's now illegal in the U.S. to feed ruminant animals most proteins made from mammals. And parts of the cattle with higher concentrations of prions, brains and spinal chords are now removed to reduce chances of contamination. And of course there are the regular mad cow tests. But this kind of stuff isn't sensational enough to get a lot of attention. Kind of anti-sensational.

Because of long incubation periods it may be a while before we know if these tactics are working. It took about 5 years after banning the ruminant animal feed and doing the testing in the UK before a steady decline in mad cow disease began. And in 5 years it's likely that there will be other deadly diseases that make us completely forget about mad cow and CJD. But before these tactics were employed anywhere there was a minimal chance of contracting CJD, no matter how you contracted it. Now, I would expect it's so low as to be negligable when compared to the quality of life improvement beef brings to me.

I was faulting Koreans for protesting before knowing the facts and I guess that's sort of what I was doing. Yikes! But as I recall the gist of my post was not a complaint about beef bans it was all about cheese. And that is still pretty scientifically solid. Milk and milk products are not believed to pose any threat.

Cheese PLEASE!

I was hoping to avoid a post on this, the latest hysteria in Korea, but now it has affected me. No, I do NOT have mad cow disease. Nor am I worried at all about catching it or the related sickness, Creutzfeldt-Jakob, that humans are thought to possibly get from eating the flesh of tainted cows. I JUST WANT PARMESAN CHEESE!

I have searched all the major stores in Mokpo, and in Gwangju, that usually stock Kraft parmesan cheese only to find, in a few stores, tiny containers of a FAR inferior product called Paesano, (I think), that's from Italy, (I think). First of all let me warn readers who may have access to this product, in desperation I bought some of it and it tasted like plastic. And the danger of ruining a pot of spaghetti by sprinkling this stuff on it FAR outweighs any danger I certainly will NOT expose myself to by consuming THIS cheese.

My buddy Kasia and I recently went to downtown Gwangju on May 18th. We saw a very large protest against American beef. We saw videos on truck mounted entertainment systems "educating" the people on the closed-to-traffic streets of downtown Gwangju on mad cow disease. We saw political cartoons about it, people of all ages lighting candles in protest against it, letters such as this about it, and people who were just plain angry about it. Then we went into a completely deserted nearby Burger King and enjoyed our Whoppers in quiet solitude.

What we DIDN'T see were any people honouring the memories of protesters who were killed in the Gwangju uprising in 1980. This is a very important event in Korea, especially in Gwangju. They just call it "oh il pal", which means "5 1 8". They even sell cola called 5/18 cola. I think you might be able to get orange 5/18 pop too. I would say that if concern about mad cow disease has grown to the point where the people of Gwangju are not going to Burger King, not honouring their relatives who died for democracy during the uprising, and taking one of MY major food staples off the shelves, it's to the point of hysteria.

But, apart from unnecessary to incite Korean protests, what are the facts? Here are a few:

1. Korean beef is more expensive than American beef. Up to 4 times as expensive.

Koreans have a belief called 신 토 불 이. That's "sintoburi". It's the idea that when Koreans eat food that is raised in Korea, it's better for Koreans. Because ancestors have died and returned to the earth here, vegetables and grains farmed here are believed to be indirectly, or, (ugh), directly from their ancestors. Rice here is expensive too. There really is no rice from other countries readily available. And animals fed Korean-grown feed are believed to be better for Koreans. I'm not sure whether it's the spirit of the ancestors or their fertilizing effect that is supposed to be infusing the food with goodness. I don't think I want to know.

Korean rice farmers have long been fighting the introduction of foreign rice into the Korean market. It would absolutely have a major impact on the Korean economy. Koreans religiously eat rice with every meal. I once taught at an English camp where we had Korean food with a generous scoop of rice every day. The foreign teachers requested one meal that wasn't Korean. So we all got spaghetti. With a generous scoop of rice. It's almost like a tax here. And since taxes are so low, I don't mind it at all.

I think there may be more of an economic issue behind sintoburi than a health issue. If so it's an interesting commentary to me on the opinion makers of Korea, and more specifically their perception of the intellectual capacity of their people, that they would rather perpetuate mystecism like this and put "sintoburi" stickers on food and have "sintoburi" restaurants than tell Koreans to buy Korean.


I also think the mad cow protests may be spurred on for economic reasons more than any perceived health concerns.

2. Number of Creutzfeldt-Jakob-related deaths in the United States: 1.

The patient died in 2004 and was believed to have contracted the disease in the U.K. where it is a bigger problem. As of June, 2007 the number of deaths caused by, or possibly caused by the virus was 161.

3. Because Mad Cow Disease is something new there is very little difinitive evidence on it.

I'm not going to start playing the scientist here. All I know is that every report and study I've read, (and I try to screen out the bogus and biased, (none written by Koreans or beef companies etc.)), contains lots of ambiguity. They say things like "there seems to be a correlation between this and that", "It seems possible that...", even, "There is no scientific evidence, but...". And anything you hear from me should be disregarded because I have a strong bias too: I want my Kraft parmesan cheese!

That said, it looks to me like cases in which Mad Cow Disease leads to Creutzfeldt-Jakob and death are INCREDIBLY rare. Regular MCD dies when you heat it. Like when you cook your steak or pasteurize your milk or cheese. It's only the variants of MCD that "seem to be" resistant to heat and they are even rarer.

As far as meat is concerned all I want is a steak or a burger made from meat that meets or exceeds internationally recognized standards. I'd be willing to bet that Koreans have a higher chance of dying from eating Korean beef than American. Since Korean beef is kept in Korea, those standards don't need to be met. They have some strange standards in the beef industry here that are different from anywhere I've heard. In fact Koreans probably have a higher chance of dying from fan death than American beef. And the chance of death by parmesan cheese is Zero, as near as makes no difference. And if Korean concerns were based on health, not money or anti-Americanism that Italian cheese should be viewed as more dangerous than the Kraft parmesan. I read a report written in English but on a Korean site that was about some diseased animals in Parma, Italy. I can't find that report on any non-Korean sites. Maybe this could be the cause of my cheeseless spaghetti woes. Because Parma-parmesan cheese-take it off the shelves! They still have other Kraft cheeses on the shelves in Korea.

I have to say that I am not positive the lack of Kraft parmesan cheese has been caused by the mad cow hysteria, it's just a personal hunch. Maybe I should light a candle for Kraft parmesan or have a one-man protest or write a letter. If anyone with my current address reads this, send cheese soon. I'm dying here!

"Hallyu"

No, I'm not yodelling from the top of a mountain. This is an Asian word I recently learned about through researching one of my classes. Can you believe THAT? Not that I learned a new word but that I RESEARCHED a class! What I mean by an "Asian" word is I think it's the Korean pronunciation of a Chinese word. The rough translation is "cold current" but it's the word now used for the Korean wave. What's this Korean wave? I've seen a few waves in Korea. Waves from motorists who have just done something incredibly ignorant or are just about to; waves at Moodeung stadium during Kia Tigers games; waves in the hair of ajummas fresh from the salon; waves of Chuseok traffic, but none of these are what Hallyu refers to.

I was actually surprised when I found out how popular Korean TV programs and music are in other parts of Asia. INCREDIBLY surprised actually since I think it's all craptastic. Students constantly ask me if I know "talents" and I never do. Then they tell me that I should know these people because they are really famous. I always assumed they meant like Muan is "famous" for onions or the "famous" hiking at Sorak San. But it turns out that guys like Bae Yong Joon really ARE famous in other places than Korea. He's got a massive following of middle-aged ladies in Japan who call him "Yon-sama". The TV drama, (I supressed my gag reflex long enough to read a synopsis of the series and it's just a soap opera or melodrama at best), Winter Sonata made him famous. It was filmed in Choon Cheon and tourism there has grown to a billion, (with a b), dollar a year industry in Korea from tour packages like this. And while in Choon Cheon visiting the site of this predictable, jeuvenile, Harlequin Romance on film, why not try some of the "famous" Choon Cheon dalk kalbi?

I shouldn't joke. If millions of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, Singaporean, Malaysian, Indonesian, Thai, and Vietnamese think it's good, it must be good, right? There's that gag reflex again. Maybe it IS good if you like that sort of stuff. I've heard that the directing is skillful and the budget was no object. In fact if you look at this phenomenon more closely you'll see that Korean music performances with pyrotechnics and never without a full complement of back-up dancers have just the level of high-budget schmalz necessary to make them attractive to the people who keep the industry alive: teenagers. It's clever marketing I have to say that. And the movies and TV shows Korea makes are also higher quality, (because of higher budgets), than some of these countries are used to. Korea now has the 9th largest film industry in the world. Didn't know that either.

But it's the SNAGs, (sensative new age guys), in the dramas and the sexy girls in the music videos that make people throng to Korea assuming Korean people are ALL like this. A lot of Asian women, (I've read), would love to have a boyfriend who they can berate and dump one day only to have him drive up to them in his BMW and Armani suit the next day teary eyed, bearing flowers and gifts and begging for their forgiveness. And Asian men, (I've read), would love to have a girlfriend who wears glitter-covered half shirts prone to wardrobe malfunctions, skin tight, leather pants and a come-hither tiger growl at all times too.

Then they come to Korea and find the super-conservative girls and guys about as sensative army sergeants. A friend of mine who was new to Korea once asked me where the best place was to find a quick one-night stand. I said, "Well you just walk down to the end of this street, then you turn... gay..." There are plenty of Korean girls who seem to ooze sexuality and maybe they aren't super-conservative but they certainly like to test their powers. My advice is not to encourage them too much. There is something Koreans call "gong ju pyeong". It translates into something like princess syndrome. For a "wonder"ful example, go to "Pipeful of dreams" on this blog and press play. I have to admit though, the song is a bit catchy isn't it?

And what of the poor women looking for the boyfriends in the BMW's? Here's a Korean guy's comment on his blog and it is almost identical to what I typed! They're not all like that folks. Don't take it from me, take it from a Korean dude. And for all the Asian, (mostly Japanese), ladies trying to hook up online with their own Korean "Yon-sama", I have two syllables: ACT ING! To quote a truly "famous" movie, "You want sympathy, look between "shit" and "syphilis" in the dictionary!"

I must say though, there is ONE good thing that came from this Korean wave: the rivalry between "Rain" and Steven Colbert. Aparently on Time magazine's list of most influential people in the world Steven Colbert has been at the top right behind Korean pop star, "Rain". I wish I knew how to put Youtube vids on here but I don't. You have to check it out though. The dance-off is classic! But I really like Colbert's song too. Hilarious! If he really wanted to zing "Rain" though, Colbert could find out what his name is in Korean. They spell it "Bi" but when most Koreans say it it sounds like "Pee". He anglicized it to "Rain" before going on tour in the States. A really good example of how finding out a little bit about the culture you are marketing your product in can help. Something not ALL Korean wavers have done according to the article in my next link.

Sadly, the Korean wave is in remission according to the latest reports. This last link is from a more serious article written by a guy named Pavin Chachavalpongpun. I don't know where he's from but it says he's based in Singapore. I'm gonna guess Thailand? If this guy hasn't been to Korea it is SCARY how well he knows the folks here! Enjoy.