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Post-267: U.S. General Walker's Site of Death (1950) in Seoul

12/30/2014

On Monday December 29th, 2014, with temperatures in the 40s Fahrenheit, I and an American friend, M.P., hiked up a section of Dobong Mountain (도봉산) in northeast Seoul. We ended near a dramatic high rock outcropping, atop which a few dozen birds were squawking at long length to each other about I cannot imagine what. I was puzzled why these birds hadn't migrated south. That was afternoon. We'd arrived by train at Dobong Station that morning.

The area around Dobong Station, still within the Seoul city limits (barely), felt more like a backwater country town a hundred miles away than it felt like Seoul.

While we were still near the station, M.P. did a "Hey, let me show you something," and waved in a particular direction. M.P. had lived in this area before. I followed. We came to a little building housing a bland cell phone shop and a piddling, unremarkable cafe with a typically-ostentatious name ("Cafe Lucile"). I wasn't impressed. But just then I looked up.It was a museum in honor of a long-forgotten American general killed nearby many years ago. Now I was interested.

Looking at the near corner of this building, up near the roof, you see a memorial stone. This is it:

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Post-266: "Notorious" Movie (1946)

12/27/2014

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I watched a 1946 movie directed by Hitchcock called "Notorious". It presents us with a U.S. plot to infiltrate a group of Germans who had escaped from the fiery end of the Reich in Europe the previous year and had set up shop in Brazil -- a kind of safehouse for mid-to-high-level escapees. The safehouse also harbored escaped scientists who were continuing some kind of covert research program interrupted by the defeat in Europe, surrender, and occupation.

The movie is actually a romance story between the lead American agent (Cary Grant) on the case and the German-American young woman (Ingrid Bergman) whom the FBI asks to infiltrate the safehouse.

Ingrid Bergman's character's father had been some kind of fascist agent in the USA who, in the opening scene, is jailed by a U.S. court for treason and soon dies in jail in mysterious circumstances. Through her father, the girl had had contacts with the "international fascist" world but was "pro-American" personally, these two facts being why American intelligence wants to recruit her. Cary Grant becomes her handler, and they fall in love...

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Post-265: Yuletide 2014 (Thinking about Yule and Christmas)

12/26/2014

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Yule 2014 has come and gone. I was too busy with work and other things to mark it on these pages as it happened. I write this four days later.

This is the second "Yule" that has passed during the life of this blog so far. (See here for Yule 2013.) Those who know me know why I might be interested in Yule (spelled with a 'J' in the Scandinavian and other related languages).

The actual meaning of this word is originally "Winter Solstice", i.e. the point at which the Sun's rays, travelling southward for the previous six months, hit their southernmost maximum and then begin to come back north. This is why the day on which the Winter Solstice (Yule) occurs is "the shortest day of the year". Tide is another old word for "time" or "period". Yuletide simply means the time around the Yule moment (Solstice).

The exact moment of the "Yule" (Solstice) in 2014 6:03 PM Sunday December 21st 2014 Eastern U.S. Time, or 8:03 AM December 22nd 2014 Korea Time where I still find myself. I was typically very busy in the days leading up to this day, including unexpectedly having the opportunity to help a Syrian student of the Korean language living in the UAE (and now back in the UAE) visit around the Seoul area (more on this later, perhaps). I also worked full-time Monday through Wednesday of this week, back in Ilsan, and had the chance to revisit some old friends. I have no classes of my own till January 7th.

Three days later, Christmas morning, I was at the top of Gyeyang Mountain (계양산) with three others. I don't know what the ancient Northern Europeans did to celebrate Yule, but trudging up a mountain in the windy cold with the sun rising at our backs seems appropriate. We had a meager meal of chocolate-coated wafers and bottled orange juice at the top. My main activity besides trying to keep warm was trying to decipher the historical sign posted at the top, with more success than usual.

Here is the "Yule Plus Three Days" sunrise:

Sunrise over Gyeyang Mountain (Incheon, South Korea), looking east, December 2014

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Post-264: Korean English Newspapers Contrasted, Part II (Cases in Point)

12/21/2014

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#263 was a long comparison of the two English newspapers of South Korea, the (basically) left-wing Times and the (basically) right-wing Herald. (Don't think that the adjectives that preceded each newspaper title in the preceding sentence give you any full or clear idea about in line with U.S. or other Western politics. Notably, for certain complicated reasons, racialism is more associated with the political Left in Korea. The DPRK regime itself is certainly racialist.)

Somebody arrived at my quiet corner of the Internet here, I presume via a Google search, and left a comment asking for specifics on the broad tendencies I discussed in #263. I had stated in the post that as this is just for my own "entertainment" and kind of a personal reflection on things I'd observed over a long period, I didn't want to dig through archives to tendentiously and/or pedantically prove everything. Why do it? It would turn into a big research project for which I have no time.

But I'll do it anyway, in a limited way because he sort of challenged me to. I can use examples from this very week to show that Times is left-wing Herald is right-wing. This will prove to be very easy to do, as you'll see if you read any more below.

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Post-263: South Korea's English-Language Newspapers, Contrasted

12/16/2014

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There are two English newspapers in South Korea, the Korea Herald and the Korea Times. Both were founded during the Korean War and have drifted all over the place in editorial opinion, focus, target audience, tone, professionalism, and ownership over the decades, or so is my impression.

Below I'll compare the two, as they exist today, at some length. Both newspapers are totally Korean-owned and almost-totally Korean-staffed, and both probably get a lot more revenue from Koreans who want to practice English in a "live" setting than from people like me (native English-speaking foreigners). A lot of the below should be viewed within this framework.

Within the foreign community in South Korea, both newspapers are influential, moreso than any other Korea-focused, English-language news media, I think. More importantly, though, when the big players in media abroad want to run a news story on something related to Korea, they will often quote one of these papers because they are in English, so the influence of these two newspapers is much bigger than you'd think. In a given month, I expect that many millions "get information" from these Korea Times and/or Korea Herald, indirectly, via material these newspapers originally reported on Korean affairs in English which is then quoted by other media abroad. This happens, for example, in December 2014 in the Korean Air "nut" fiasco.

Here are my impressions of the two newspapers as they have existed from the late 2000s to the early-to-mid 2010s when I've known them and occasionally read them. I base the below on years of off-and-on observation. (Note: On a desktop computer, the two lists should display side by side. On other devices, they probably won't be side by side, but the numbers will match up for comparison.)

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Post-262: European Identity Circa 200 AD (and Beyond)

12/15/2014

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Last week l I finished the enjoyable and informative book I'd mentioned in #252 (The Birth of Classical Europe), a 2,500-year guided tour of Western Civilizational history ending around 400AD.

I felt the authors skirted around a key question, namely what the nature of European/Western identity is. We might expect a book with such a title to address this. We have to make our own inferences. Towards the end of the book, they report a very interesting Latin inscription recently discovered in London, dated to "the late second century AD".

Num(inibus) Aug(ustorum)
Deo Marti Ca-
mulo Tiberni-
us Celerianus
c(ivis) Bell(ouacus)
moritix
Londiniesium.

To the divine will of the emperors
And to the god Mars Camulus:
Tiberinius
Celerianus
citizen of Beauvais
seafarer
of the Londoners.

These few words say a lot, as the commentary from the authors explain well:

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Post-261: But Which Twin is the Elder? (A Korean Dilemma)

12/12/2014

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In the case of twins, which is the elder? Say one is born at 7:00 PM and one at 8:00 PM. If one must be called the older brother, which one is it? Our Korean reading textbook talks about this at long length and declares that it is a point of difference between East and West.

In Korea, who the superior is and who the inferior in any relationship is highly important even for the basic mechanics of how sentences are constructed. It would take a while to fully explain this. I can say the same exact same sentence in lots of different ways, altered depending on my relationship with the listener(s). It means constantly having to evaluate relative positions within a hierarchy, shifting forms as context dictates. I told you it's complicated.

One layer to this (certainly not the only one) is titles. Koreans will generally always use titles for anyone higher in a hierarchy; many times people don't even know each other's names because they just cruise along using titles.

Age is one of the most powerful natural hierarchies in the Korean mind. Here's how it works:

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Post-260: What's Wrong With This Picture?

12/10/2014

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A philosopher asks what's wrong with a picture of teenagers (presumably American) in an art museum who are -- Ah, let me just repost the picture:

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Post-259: [Korean] To Each Country Its Own...Alcohol Culture

12/9/2014

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In September, I wrote something very brief about differing attitudes towards alcohol in different countries. I posted it here as #235. I've now expanded the argument into a full essay, directly below. Grade not know yet.

I am not good enough at Korean to write fully-nuanced, coherent, smooth (much less grammar-error-free) arguments. In my translation here I try to preserve the awkward wording.

나라마다 다른 "술문화"

많은 사람들은 나라마다 다른 문화가 있다고 알지만 대표적인 좋은 예는 모릅니다. 밑에 쓴 글에서 미국/한국/이슬람국가의 술문화를 비교하겠습니다.

우 선, 미국에서 온 저는 미국의 술문화에 대한 설명을 하겠습니다. 사실, 미국의 전통문화는 술을 싫어하는 편입니다. 특히, 옛날에는 술을 싫어하는 사람들이 많은 것 같습니다. 여러 주에서는 일요일에 술이 팔리는 것을 법으로 금지합니다. 그리고 밤에 너무 늦게 술이 팔리는 것도 법으로 금지합니다. 또한, 미국에서 술의 세금이 다른 나라에 비해 높습니다. 마지막으로, 미국 경찰은 밖에서 술을 마시는 사람을 보면, 그 사람을 꼭 감옥에 데리고 가야 합니다. 따라서, 미국의 문화는 술에 반대라고 할 수 있습니다.

한국과 미국의 "술문화"를 비교하면 한국문화가 술을 더 좋아한다고 할 수 있습니다. 한국은 술에 반대하는 법이 별로 없는 것 같습니다. 예를 들면 한국에서는 24시간 동안 술을 쉽게 살 수 있습니다. 또한 술을 자주 마시는 한국사람들이 미국사람들보다 많은 것 같습니다. 많은 한국 회사원들은 "회식"에서 술을 많이 마신다고 합니다. 미국에서는 그 관습이 없습니다. 미국사람들은 한국의 술이 관계가 있는 회식문화를 알면 놀랍니다.

반대로, 이슬람 국가에서는 술을 법으로 늘 금지합니다. 이스람 종교 때문입니다. 전통적인 이슬람교인 나라에서는 "술문화"가 없다고 볼 수 있습니다. 그래서 우리는 이슬람 교인 사람들이 "회식"할 때 뭘 할지 궁금할 수 있습니다!

Each Country Has its Own Alcohol Culture

Although a lot of people know that each country's culture differs, they don't know any representative examples. In the below essay, I will compare American, South Korean, and Islamic alcohol-drinking cultures.

First, as I am from the USA I can explain about U.S. alcohol culture. In fact, American traditional culture tends to dislike alcohol. It seems that, especially in the past, there were many people who disliked it. In some states, alcohol sales are banned by law on Sundays. Also, sale of alcohol in the late evening is banned. Furthermore, in the USA taxes on alcohol are high compared other countries'. Finally, in the USA the police have to take people whom they see drinking alcohol in public to jail. Accordingly, we can say that American culture is "against alcohol".

If we compare American and South Korean "alcohol culture", we can say that Koreans like alcohol more. In South Korea, there seem to be almost no laws against alcohol. For example, in South Korea people can buy alcohol 24 hours a day easily. Furthermore, it seems to me there are more heavy drinkers among Koreans than among Americans. In many Korean companies, drinking with coworkers is common. In the USA, we don't have this custom. If Americans learn about this alcohol-drinking culture in Korean companies, they will be surprised.

On the other hand, in Islamic countries, alcohol is always banned by law. It is because of the Islamic religion. Traditional Islamic countries have no "alcohol culture". Therefore, we might wonder what the Muslims do during outings with coworkers after work!

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Post-258: Pearl Harbor from the Japanese Perspective

12/8/2014

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I was sent this article today from a relative:

So Japan's official museums don't treat the famous attack on December 7th as something shameful, a sucker punch (there was no declaration of war). We ought not be too surprised. Who wants to depict their own history that way?

Our historical memory of Pearl Harbor is something like this: "The sneaky Japs attacked us without any shred of provocation at all just because we were there; Imperial Japan was so irrationally hyper-aggressive that they would attack anyone, given half a chance".

From my reading (especially a book or two on this subject by historian John Toland), the Imperial Japanese government in 1941, though definitely aggressive, was not irrational.

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