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A Little History Outside the Library

I have had some of the most interesting conversations talking to random old people and as someone who is interested in the history of East Asia, I especially enjoy those who I have met while on this side of the Pacific pond.

There is the retired farmer in Tateyama city who told me about his wartime experiences as a sailor delivering supplies to Japanese troops in China and the almost decade long romance he had with a Chinese woman there. Although he married a Japanese woman after the war, he got very emotional when he told me, a complete stranger, about that relationship that ended with Japan’s defeat.

There is the very old man I befriended in a park near the zoo in Yokohama who told me all about growing up in the city. He claimed to have been “saved” by American generosity twice, once as a mere baby, when some food packages sent from the US after the huge earthquake of 1923 reached his family, and once when he attached himself to a US occupation soldier after showing off some elementary English. The soldier apparently gave him some kind of ration cards that he claimed saved his family from starvation. He told me about watching Japan’s gradual wartime collapse from the accounting office of a Mitsubishi airplane factory during the war and later became my personal guide through Kamakura (even showing me some of the back entrances to my favorite temples). He boasted that he had over 20 pen pals in various English speaking countries. My favorite conversation with him was in a graveyard in Kamakura just after he had told me about all the places he had visited in Japan. I asked him why he had never travelled outside of Japan, despite working several decades after the war as a photographer for SAS and other foreign airlines. I remember his reply, in English, as, “Why do I need to go outside of Japan when there is so much left around me that I have yet to see.”

There was the old man who caught me taking notes at Yushukan (the nationalist museum attached to Yasukuni shrine) in front of their (as usual) very twisted portrayal of the 1939 Nomonhan incident. He nonchalantly leant over my shoulder, consulted my notes, and then said in Japanese, “I was there.” We sat down and he told me about his experiences stationed on the Manchurian borders working in some kind of artillery unit. I don’t remember much from his brief description of the actual confrontation except the fear that he and his fellow soldiers felt when faced by the formidable Russian forces.

Today I had another one of these experiences, this time, sitting just across from the entrance of Korea’s National Library.
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A Frog Fable

I had to read a little story for Korean class today which I guess is a fable or fairy tale of sorts. It is one of those “origin of natural phenomena” stories with an added moral message urging filial piety. I had forgotten how much I love these kinds of stories and would love to write a few of my own some day. The story is called 청개구리 (靑개구리) or “The Tree Frog” and I have found a dozen or so variants online. Here is a rough summary of the version we were assigned for class:

The Tree Frog

Once upon a time there was a family of tree frogs who for a time lived happily enough. However, the son was a mischievous little frog and never did what his mother told him to do. One day, when the wind was blowing hard, she told him to play inside, but he disobeyed and played outside. When the rainy season came and the rain poured down, flooding everything, his mother again told him not to stray far from their home but again he disobeyed his mother because he thought that all the water would make it even more fun to explore.

In this way the misbehaving young tree frog brought no end of worry to his mother and she became gravely ill and deeply depressed. And yet still the son paid no attention to his mother’s commands and did as he pleased.

The mother frog’s condition continued to get worse and she asked her son to hear her last wishes. While her son had disobeyed her all his life, he was made to promise to obey her last request. Instead of burying her in a mound on the mountain, she wanted to be buried along the water’s edge. Upon uttering these last words, the mother frog passed away.

At that moment the son was overcome by grief and realized that his mother’s death was due to his own selfish behavior. All his life he had ignored his mother’s commands and this was why her sickness eventually consumed her. He resolved to be faithful to her wishes in this last command and buried her in a tomb by the water’s edge.

That is why, when the rain pours down, the tree frog will go to his mother’s tomb by the water’s edge and cry out in grief, “kaegol, kaegol” (개골개골)

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Frog in a Well – China Blog Launch

The new academic group blog at Frog in a Well, 井底之蛙 launches today. It will primarily focus on the study of Chinese history. Postings will be in English, Chinese, or a mixture of both. We have over half a dozen contributors, all graduate students and professors studying China, and I hope that this new academic group blog will take off and produce some high quality postings soon. Keep an eye on it in the next few days as our starting lineup introduce themselves.

A Few Notes on Traffic in Seoul

I don’t drive in Seoul so I don’t have to face any traffic jams and such. The subway system in Seoul is fantastic, easy to use, and is very cheap compared to Tokyo and even New York and Boston. The network is in my opinion far superior to New York and Boston. One of the things I find most annoying about New York is its annoying design which effectively segregates the East side of Manhattan from the West side and has such inconvenient connections that almost everyone has to go through Times Square to get anywhere interesting.

Though the nasty smelling and polluted streets of Seoul will fill your nostrils alternatively with the scent of sewage, tobacco, and car exhaust, Seoul subways are also far cleaner than New York’s smelly and dirty subways, where conductors occasionally yell at passengers, make bizarrely grumpy announcements, and the summer months are plagued by cars whose air conditioning is broken. The one thing that we can all appreciate about the New York subway is the fact that they very conveniently run 24 hours.

Since I have only been in Korea for a week so I shouldn’t be too confident about my observations but two things I have noticed so far about traffic rules: First, as if the pollution isn’t bad enough, scooters and motorcycles often drive on the pavement. This is perhaps partly because many of the streets make it difficult for them to cross over to the direction they want to drive. They billow out foul smelling exhaust from their tailpipes and I’m not the only one to cough and hack as they drive past. The scooter exhaust mixes with the smoke that flows out from street venders selling various kinds of orange colored food. In Taipei I remember them sticking on the road mostly, often in the hundreds as they collect at intersections. Some of the streets in central Taipei even have “no scooter” streets (such as the one near the central train station).

Secondly, red lights seem to be optional in Seoul when they are by crosswalks. On many occasion I have been happily crossing the street at a crosswalk with a green man showing (and a red light for cars) and the cars will drive by me (albeit somewhat more slowly) both in front and behind. I know they must be annoyed at waiting for pedestrians, but this can’t be a very safe practice. I like to be able to cross crosswalks when the man is green without having to be too paranoid about being run over.

Visa Troubles and the Seoul Immigration Office

I went into the language institute at my school to inquire about changing my 30 day visa here to a D-4 student visa as described on the website of the school. I had all the paperwork I thought I would need in the form of pictures, school admission and enrollment letters, tuition receipt and bank statement.

“Oh you have that stamp in your passport. Hmm…you’ll need to go to Japan twice and come back since you don’t have the short-term stay visa.”

What? I have to what? Leave the country, once or maybe twice in three months? I was supposed to have applied for a special tourist visa before I came? What…are you serious? What the…

This is a pretty good summary of my first 20 minutes of conversation with the administrator. My friend Craig and I both seem to have missed this whole C-3 visa application thing and came to Korea thinking the stamp we get on arrival is a standard tourist visa.

I was not happy about further complicating my already crazy travel schedule this summer and dishing out hundreds more dollars to go to Busan, hop on a boat to Fukuoka, Japan and either apply for a C-3 visa there or go to Japan twice.

This would not have been an issue if I simply used my Norwegian passport and I could always go to Japan once and come back to Korea on the Norwegian passport. Norwegians get 90 days in Korea, along with most of the developed world. Canada gets 180. Why does the US get 30? To put it simply, it is because we treat the world like shit. To be specific, we probably give Koreans 30 days so that is what they give us. Serves us right.

That’s it, I’m no longer traveling on my US passport by default when I go anywhere outside the US. Gone are the days when Imperial Citizenship provided the most convenient way to travel. For example, I have discovered that traveling as a Norwegian saves me money on visa applications to China, gets me into Chile for free (instead of $70 or something), and probably slightly lowers my chances of being shot or blown up.

When will this whole nation-state madness end? Probably not in my lifetime but we can all do our part in contributing to its peaceful and gradual destruction. For now it is mostly selfish traveling bourgeois types such as myself who complain about it on the practical side. Now let me tell you about my adventures at the Seoul Immigration Office…
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Gender Free Wonderland Japan

Sayaka posted about the recent statements made on gender in education made by Minister of Education Nakayama Nariaki. He is the same minister who last November was pleased to report that in this year’s history textbooks, “it is good that such terms as sex slaves of the Japanese Imperial Army and forced Asian labor were less frequently mentioned in school history books.”

He apparently believes (link in Japanese) that “gender neutral [lit. gender free] education and extreme sex education are running rampant. There are those who might say that this is wrecking Japan.” His comments apparently continued to critique Japan’s gender neutral education system.

Sayaka points out that this is one of many similar comments by the minister and laments the fact that no one seems to have gotten across the message to the Japanese minister the importance of the foundations of an education system.

She also talks about the bewildering “return to Confucian values” movement in Japan. There is a movement to change or get rid of article 24 of the Japanese constitution which states that:

Marriage shall be based only on the mutual consent of both sexes and it shall be maintained through mutual cooperation with the equal rights of husband and wife as a basis. 2) With regard to choice of spouse, property rights, inheritance, choice of domicile, divorce and other matters pertaining to marriage and the family, laws shall be enacted from the standpoint of individual dignity and the essential equality of the sexes.

Opposition to this comes in the form of those who argue that, “Japan has gone too far in promoting individual rights and should return to the duties of family, community and nation.” Fortunately, however, there is a counter campaign against an effort to alter the clause.

UPDATE: Jae over at Tianan saw Sayaka’s posting and decided to look up the related clause in the Korean constitution. Read more on his blog.

Dexterity and Chopsticks

At a dinner recently, I was told by a Korean friend of mine that the now famous Korean stem cell researcher Hwang Woo-suk recently claimed that the Korean metal chopsticks (which I find admittedly relatively hard to use in grabbing greasy noodles and other slippery food items) have developed the dexterity of the Korean people to such a high extent that it allows them to be better at the detailed work of science at a microscopic level.

Ah yes, I found Hwang’s quote online here :

Their secret weapon? A mastery of wielding steel chopsticks. “This work can be done much better in Oriental hands,” he says. “We can pick up very slippery corn or rice with the steel chopsticks.”

It has been mentioned many other places as well, including a Wired news article. Also, it apparently isn’t just manual dexterity, it is our very mental capacity for concentration which is at stake here in chopstick use:

To use chopsticks, the use of some 30 different joints and 50 muscles is required. The use of chopsticks thus stimulates the cerebrum far more actively than does the use of a fork. The everyday practice of using chopsticks is said to enable people to improve vital developmental functions, such as muscle control, coordination for handling small objects, and mental concentration. It is a well-known fact that practicing certain hand movements during early childhood, such as playing with string or molding clay, are helpful for developing the brain. Some have conjectured that the reason Korea was able to become a global leader in semiconductors, despite a late start of some 30 years, was because of its people’s manual dexterity, which is especially well suited for delicate work. Moreover, they claim that such manual dexterity is a product of Korea’s chopsticks-user culture. A similar interpretation is used to explain the exceptional success of Korean athletes in such sports as golf and archery.

When I did Kyûdô archery in Japan, I was told that the fact I came from Norway, which is made up of a “hunting and gathering people,” contributed to the speed of my improvement in skill. If only we used metal chopsticks in our hunting villages along the fjords.

Second Full Day in Korea

I’m slowly getting settled in here. I went shopping for basic living materials today. I had a success rate of 3/4 today for getting my meaning across in Korean. First getting my luggage from the hostel to the dorm I had to navigate a taxi driver. I would like to thank my old 初めての韓国語 textbook that I studied in Japan for the taxi survival Korean needed to achieve this miracle. My second conversation was to ask where they sell lots of electronics in Seoul since my friends and I all need adapters for our computers fit the wall outlets. I knew there was a place full of stuff like that from my last trip here but couldn’t remember where (it was Yongsan Electronics market).

My third conversation was a complete failure. In my painfully broken Korean I tried to explain to a bewildered electronics salesman that the outlets in the wall are different in the US and Korea and we wanted to buy a little piece to make our electronics (which can handle the conversion without a transformer) fit the wall here. The poor attendant stared at me throughout the entire exercise like I was asking him for directions back to the moon. When I finally finished what I thought was an explanation, and asked him if he had such adapters, he said, “Ya ya, show me your camera.” I tried again but he had this look in his face which seemed to say, “If I just stay completely still maybe this freak will not know I’m still here and will go away.” Ok, I completely botched that one.

I moved onto fresh prey at the next electronics store. After drawing a detailed, albeit barely recognizable collection of pictures of the plugs and wall outlets in Korea and the US and a picture of how the adapter would fit together with our American plug, I showed it to the next attendant and said, “I want to buy this.” He said it was called a Pig’s Nose or something and pulled out one from under the table. When we said we wanted several he ran around to other stores and collected them up and sold them to us for a thousand a piece. Excellent.

First Report from Korea

I’m sitting in small café called “Fango” at Seoul University’s Language Education Institute (LEI). I arrived in Seoul yesterday and I’m here until mid-August to study Korean.

A storm is raging outside while some ’60s-sounding Norwegian song (the second one in less than half an hour!?) is playing over the café speakers. Although I’m not sure when this blog posting will hit the net, at the present moment (June 1st), I’m homeless. The room in the International Student dormitory that I was supposed to move into this afternoon is still occupied by the resident I was to replace. After going to the dorm and discovering my room still occupied, I was informed by phone the details by the LEI office and summoned back to the school for consultation on my predicament. There were some half dozen things about this program that had already angered me so I was prepared to take a hardline with the office administrators about my dormitory predicament.

I was completely disarmed when the dormitory administrator told me, “he took complete responsibility” and offered to let me stay in his room in the same dormitory that evening if the former resident had not moved out by the evening (he is apparently trying to get a ticket out of the country). “I’ll take the floor and you can have my bed.”

It isn’t the first time I have experienced generosity here. If I stop too long on the streets with a map in my hand someone offers, in English, to help me find my way. At the airport, a random stranger stepped up to tell me I was trying to use a phone card in the wrong brand phone and then walked me over to the correct phone. Today, after discovering that the buses don’t give change for a 10,000 won note when you pay a 900 won fare, the bus driver refused to drive on without me and told me he would wait while I popped into a nearby convenience store to get some change, which I promptly did.

I spent a wonderful couple of days in Takarazuka hanging with Sayaka‘s family. We made a trip into Osaka to give me a look around the city and in addition to recovering from jet lag, I felt like I was being fed delicious food constantly.

Here in Korea, I’m completely lost. I had some bizarre Korean-Japanese fusion food yesterday at a “Hot Noddle” shop where I ordered some Kimchi Udon and Fish Dumplings. I wanted to order a drink but the only option on the wall menu was “Cock / Cider” (this item was only written in English) and I wasn’t 100% confident that they meant Coca-cola.

In all of my half dozen or so “in the field” conversations in Korean so far, I’m suffering from a huge problem: I’m usually getting across, in some way or other, what I want to say in my broken Korean and perhaps a bit of wild gesticulation. Then, after kindly complementing me on my horrible language skills, they reply to me in lightning fast Korean and I have no idea what they are saying. Asking them to slow down reduces the speed to something a little bit short of Mach 5 but still too fast for me to distinguish one word from the next.

Classes start next week so I have plenty of opportunities to get a bit more accustomed to daily life here, assuming of course, I have a place to live sometime in the next few days. I’ll post this and other postings when my laptop gets some internet access.

UPDATE: The resident I was to replace moved out this evening so I am moved into my room in the international student dormitory.

Seoul Backpacker’s Hostel

I spent my first night in Korea at Seoul Backpacker’s Hostel which was really great value for the price. It is located only 15 minutes walk from Insadong and only five from one of the royal palaces. It is easily accessible from the airport, and their directions, both online and available in pamphlet form from the Tourist Information booth at the airport are great, and it is only 10 minutes walk from the Anguk-dong bus stop on Airport bus 602-1. The hostel is just around the corner from the Japanese cultural center, which since I got here has been defended by at least two dozen Korean riot police with really big sticks and riot shields.

Single rooms cost only 27,000 won when I stayed there, and you can stay in a “dormitory” style room for only 17,000. They have a whole range of free services like a kitchen, toast for breakfast, free internet, up to 2 weeks storage for baggage after you check out, a refund on your airport bus if you stay more than five days, and various discounts on tours and cultural activities. The rooms are nothing fancy, youth hostel quality, but have a private bathroom and my room had a fridge and TV. The staff are super friendly, helpful, and speak English and apparently Japanese as well. They also have half a dozen beautiful dogs they keep around.