Blog Archives - Yuletide

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

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

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

#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

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

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

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

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

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

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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Post-257: [Korean] "Our Second Winter Vacation": Recollection of the Blizzard of '96

12/7/2014

Those of us born before 1990 or so and who lived in the northeastern USA at the time will remember it.

The Blizzard of '96.

I was reminded of it in the first three days of December 2014, as snow gently fell on us in the Seoul region. I wrote the below in Korean on the third consecutive day of snow. I post here a revised version (after some corrections) and a translation to English.

겨울에 대한 추억: "2차겨울 방학"
어렸을 때 겨울에 대한 추억이 오늘 생겼다.

미국에서 태어나고 살았던 나는 1996년 2월에 초등학생이었습니다. 그때, 공부하고 있었던 우리에게 "2차 겨울방학"이 갑자기 생겼다. 어떻게 할 수 있었을까? 눈이 참 많이 내렸기 때문이다. 즉, 눈이 100cm이상 오던데 정말 많았지 않았니? 보통 우리는 크리스마스에 방학이 1-2주일 동안 있는데, 2월에 있으니까 이것은 "2차, 1995-6 겨을 방학"라고 할 수 있다.

우리 도시의 길들은 빠르게 눈이 쌓였다. 눈이 너무 많기 때문에 "학교버스"가 동네마다 들어갈 수 없었고. 그럼으로 학생들이 학교에 가지 말라고 했다. 뭐니뭐니해도, 학생의 안전이 제일 중요한다고 생각 한다. 그래서, 모든 학교들은 일주일 동안 수업을 취소하기로 했다. 눈이 너무 많이 왔기 때문이다. 그때는 우리가 얼마나 기뼜는지 모른다! "눈의 천국"이라는 말 밖에 놀랐었다. 눈사람 만들기 뿐만 아니라, 재미있는 썰매타기도 많이 할 수 있었다. 공부는...하지 않았다.

하지만 한국에 수업이 위에 설명했던 취소되는 일이 별로 없는 것 같다. "학교버스"가 없는 것이 그런 이유라고 할 수 있다. 또한, 한국에 눈이 심한 것이 아니다. 한국은 수도권에 2014년12월1~3일에 눈이 왔지만 교통이나 대한 문제가 별로 없는 것 같았다!

Winter Recollection: "Winter Vacation, Round Two"
Today I was reminded of a pleasant winter memory from my childhood.

I was born in the USA and was in elementary school there in February 1996. At that time, we students suddenly got a "second winter vacation". How could it have happened? Because a whole lot of snow fell. Actually, more than three feet of snow fell, which we have to say is a lot. Normally, we got 1-2 weeks of vacation at Christmas time, but this was February, so we can call it "1995-6 Winter Vacation, Round Two".

Snow quickly piled up on our city's streets. School buses could not go into any neighborhoods because of the snow. Therefore, students were told not to go to school. Students' safety is, after all, thought to be the most important thing. All the schools decided to cancel classes for a week because of the snow. What joyful news this was to us students! We played outside in the "winter wonderland". We not only made snowmen but also could enjoy a lot of sledding. As for studying...we didn't do any of that.

In South Korea, though, it seems to me that there are almost no days on which school is cancelled like this. We might say that the reason for this is that Korea has no school buses. Additionally, in Korea snow is not a serious problem. In South Korea's capital area from December 1st to 3rd, 2014, snow fell but there seemed to be almost no disruptions at all to transportation or such things.

Post-256: Like Bitcoins in the Bank (In Which I Enter the "Bitcoin" World)

12/6/2014

The words you are now reading were written by a "Bitcoin" owner. By which I mean me. It happened in Gangnam, Seoul on Saturday December 6th. I'll relate the story here.

Bitcoin is a "digital currency" not tied to any government or bank. I wrote about Bitcoin way back in #28 ("Bitcoin Buyer") and #30 ("Bitcoin Remorse"). It's an interesting idea but I'd never bought any until today.

Bitcoin ATM (Insert cash, get bitcoins, or convert Bitcoins into cash)

I bought 0.0232339 BTC (Bitcoins) for 10,000 South Korean Won, cash, via a Bitcoin ATM machine. One Bitcoin (1.00 BTC) was being sold for 430,000 Korean Won (USD $384) at the time of my transaction. This is up from $60 in April 2013.

My two-hundredeths-and-some of a Bitcoin were uploaded to my newly-created virtual Bitcoin account on the Internet, accessible via phone or computer.

The occasion for my purchase was a meeting by Bitcoin enthusiasts in Seoul. I was invited by my friend N.R. from California. It was a small group, a mix (by my impression) of "tech-oriented" Western expatriates conceptually fascinated by Bitcoin, and crafty Koreans looking for a business opportunity.

Unexpectedly to me, two young, garrulous Iranians were present, with whom I spoke a lot. One is trying to establish Bitcoin in Iran. He helped me set up my account.

The nearby cafe accepted Bitcoin payments so was a natural testing ground for my new Bitcoins.

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Post-255: DokiDoki Postbox

12/5/2014

My favorite subtype of student at the Korean language program at which I study is definitely the Singaporean. (I might also say the Japanese, but I know only one so it fails to qualify as a subtype.) I perceive the Singaporeans to possess optimism, humorousness, and openness, even though they study hard they seem basically relaxed, unlike some of the Chinese. It also helps that we can communicate freely, as their English is as native level as my own.

A few days ago, two of the Singaporeans (H.P.G. [Level 4] and T.S.S. [Level 3]) were crowded 'round a phone in the hallway in-between classes. I peered over a shoulder. It was "DokiDoki Postbox" out of Japan; a phone app.

What is Doki Doki Postbox? I didn't know but soon learned and got on board.

The premise is simple. You write a "postcard" -- a short, text-only message -- which, once sent, is delivered to a totally unknown recipient (randomized by computer algorithm within the program's database of anonymous accounts). You have no way to identify each other once (if) contact is established, except by nationality (displayed as a flag) and gender. Once contact is established, you can continue the exchange of "postcards" with the same person until he or she stops responding. You may send only one postcard at a time and must wait for a reply. If the other person breaks contact by not responding to your postcard, you lose all possibility of contacting that person ever again.

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Post-254: Iraq's Hollow Army (Or, Why Don't they Just Partition Already?)

12/4/2014

The Iraqi Army revealed itself to be almost completely useless this year, as a relatively small Islamic revolutionary group, ISIS, easily captured city after city. Mosul, Iraq's second biggest, fell almost without resistance. ISIS now has a de-facto Islamic fundamentalist state, sliced out of the Syria/Iraq chaos. (The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was vaguely sold to average Americans as being to prevent exactly this. Yet ISIS types were efficiently and thoroughly suppressed by Arab fascist Saddam Hussein, so overthrowing him was probably a big....can I say it?).

How pathetic is the Iraqi state's army? It had 15 divisions, each of 20,000-some men (on paper), but experience shows it may as well have had no army at all. ISIS captured Mosul with an assault force a fraction of the size of one Iraqi Army division (allegedly under 2,000 fighters). This week, the Iraqi government has finally admitted that its army is full of fake soldiers. This has been pointed out many times by the excellent Middle East journalist Patrick Cockburn whom I have followed for much of this year.

Iraq's 50,000 Ghost Soldiers
By Patrick Cockburn [The Independent, UK]

The Iraqi army has long been notorious for being wholly corrupt with officers invariably paying for their jobs in order to make money either through drawing the salaries of non-existent soldiers or through various other scams. One Iraqi politician told The Independent a year ago that Iraqi officers “are not soldiers, they are investors”. In the years before the defeat of the army in Mosul in June by a much smaller force from Isis, Iraqi units never conducted training exercises. At the time of Isis’s Mosul offensive, government forces in Mosul were meant to total 60,000 soldiers and federal police but the real figure was probably closer to 20,000.

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Post-253: [Korean] Christmas Tree at the DMZ

12/3/2014

Here is something else I wrote originally in Korean. English translation by me just now. It's from the news today.

북한정부가 크리스마스트리를 싫어한다면서요?

오늘 "코리아헤럴드"라고 하는 신문에 따르면, 어떤 한국 ("남한") 기독교인 협회가 비무장지대(DMZ)에서 정말 큰 크리스마스트리를 만들기로 했어요. 올해에는 한국 정치가 그렇게 해도 괜찮다고 해요. 기독교협회가 트리를 준비해서 어느 비무장지대근처에 있는 높은 산의 정상에서, 북한사람들이 트리가 보일 수 있게 트리를 놓을 거래요.

북한정부는 이 뉴스 때문에 다시 귀찮아 질걸요...

I Heard that North Korea Doesn't Like Christmas Trees...

Today, according to the newspaper called the "Korea Herald", a South Korean Christian group has decided to build a really big tree at the DMZ. This year, the Korean government has said that doing so is alright. The Christian group will get the tree ready and will set it up on the summit of a high hill near the DMZ, so that it will be visible to North Koreans.

I bet the North Korean government is going to become annoyed again, about this...

Post-252: Western Civilization's Long-Forgotten Catastrophe (circa 1200 BC)

12/2/2014

We tend to think of "history" and "progress" as synonyms. But....

A few weeks ago, I borrowed a book from my friend Jared, on his recommendation. The title is "The Birth of Classical Europe: A History from Troy to Augustine". Chapter Two deals with the period 1100-800 BC. Therein I find this:

[T]he archaeology paints a depressing picture of the Greek world in the centuries after the fall of the Mycenaean palaces [circa 1200 BC]. Overall, the number of inhabited places in mainland Greece fell by two-thirds in the twelfth, and by another two-thirds in the eleventh century. This was the low point, and recovery then began: settlement numbers doubled in the tenth century, and doubled again in the ninth-eighth centuries.

Of course, settlement numbers on their own mean nothing: the crucial variable is settlement size. [...] [I]n fact, the scale of settlements in the early Iron Age [i.e., circa 1100-800 BC] is generally smaller than that in the periods on either side. [...] Not only did the number of settlements fall, but the places themselves were less complex than what had gone before.

This points to a major civilizational catastrophe for early Western Civilization, the scale of which is enormous -- of Old Testament proportions (and it is contemporaneous with Old Testament times).

Let me try to present the data in a simpler way:

Number of Inhabited Places in Mainland Greece
(Mid-1200s BC=100 [arbitrary; for easy comparison])
1200 BC: 100
1100 BC: 33
1000 BC: 10
900 BC : 20
700 BC : 40

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Post-251: [Korean] Election 2014 in the USA

12/1/2014

Here's something I wrote in November 2014 after the U.S. election. As in post-250, it is a Korean original that includes some corrections from native speakers (from a website called Lang-8 in which people get writing corrections from each other). I translated it into English just now.

미국 투표, 2014
미국에서 온 저는 정치에 관심이 있어서 최근의 정치 뉴스에 대해서 좀 쓰겠습니다.

지난 화요일(2014.11.4)에 미국에서 투표를 한 후에 가장 많은 결과를 알아볼 수 있었는데, 당일 밤에 아직 결과를 알 수 없었던 선거도 있었다. 그럼 Lang-8 회원 중에도 미국경치에 관심이 있는 사람이 좀 있을을테니 결과에 대해 설명하겠습니다.

수요일 아침에 일어나자마자 미국 투표결과를 확인해봤다. 여러 웹사이트들에 따르면 미국 공화당 (Republican Party)가 쉽게 이겼다. 앞으로 U.S. Senate이라고 하는 미국의 국회에서는 공화당이 의석 53개를 획득했는데 아직 모른 결과 하나도 있지만 공화당 이기겠다고 해서 의석 54개가 있을 것이다. 또한 무소속 입후보자 한 명이 공화당에 들고 싶다고 말했다. 따라서 투표를 이겼던 미국의 공화당은 55 의석이 생긴다고 한다. Senate에는 의석이 100 개가 있어서, 결국 공화당이 "대정당"이 됐다.

투표 하기 전에 공화당이 의석 46 개만 있어서 "결정적인 승리"라고 했다.

미국에서도 외국에서도 정치에 관심이 있는 사람들은 왜 미국사람들이 그렇게 투표를 했냐고 하고 있다. 오바마가 인기가 없다고 한다. 그렇다. 사실은, 오바마는 외국에 비해서 미국에서 인기가 적은 편이다.

U.S. Election, 2014
As I am from the USA and I follow politics, I will write a little bit about the latest political news.

On this past Tuesday (Nov. 4th, 2014) in the USA there were elections. Most of the results are now known, but late into the night some results were still not known yet. Well, as there may be some Lang-8 members interested in U.S. politics, I'll explain about the results.

On Wednesday morning, as soon as I woke up, I checked the USA's election results. According to various websites, the Republican Party easily won. The Republicans won 53 seats for sure, and one result is still not known but it is said that the Republicans will probably win it, too. Also, an independent senator has said he wants to join the Republicans [this didn't happen]. Consequently, the Republicans, having won the election, will now control 55 [actually 54] Senate seats. As there are 100 seats in the Senate, the Republicans are the new majority party.

Before the election, the Republicans had only 46 seats, so people are calling this a "decisive victory".

People interested in politics, inside and outside the USA, are asking why the Americans voted as they did. It is said that Obama is not popular. It's true. To be honest, Obama has always tended to less popular in the USA than abroad.

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