[Sæternes-dæg] Annotated Links #24: Strangeness in the Sciences

1. Rosner, Hillary. "A Chemist Comes Very Close to a Midas Touch." The New York Times 15 October 2012. Web. 3 November 2012.

Paul Chirik, a chemist at Princeton University, has successfully managed to make iron react like platinum in certain chemical reactions. Though shy of changing the base metal into gold, Rosner describes this as a kind of alchemy and gives a brief glimpse at some of the implications of this discovery - including how it's contributing to new fuel-efficient tires. writes in a clear conversational style.

As a medievalist and someone interested in modern discoveries that either look or wink back at medieval beliefs and/or ideas, I just had to include this article.

2. University College London. "Virtual reality puts human in rat world: 'Beaming' technology transforms human-animal interaction." ScienceDaily 31 October 2012. Web. 3 November 2012.

Computer scientists at UCL and Barcelona have managed to create the technology to add a physical dimension to long distance interaction. The article details how this technology works (a mix of virtual reality and robotics), and includes some quotes from the scientists leading the project about its implications. This one is written in a clear style while making use of block quotes.

As someone who's been in a distance relationship for several years, this kind of technology is beyong intriguing. So, this one had to be included.

3. Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI). "Asteroid belts of just the right size are friendly to life." ScienceDaily 1 November 2012. Web. 4 November 2012.

Rebecca Martin, a NASA Sagan Fellow from the University of Colorado in Boulder, and astronomer Mario Livio of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md, have published a study that suggests that a perfectly placed asteroid belt is necessary for life-sustaining planets to develop. The article summarizes these scientists' hypothesis, and walks readers through the possible asteroid belt-related scenario that lead to the formation of Earth, as well as suggesting that asteroid impacts can help to spur on evolution. This article is written in a clear, matter-of-fact style.

The necessity, and usefulness of asteroids is something curious to ponder. And what better way to stir thoughts on space rocks than to read about them? That's why this article is included in this week's Annotated Links.

4. Adams, James. "It’s high time: The Dreamachine is no longer just a dream." The Globe and Mail 31 October 2012. Web. 3 November 2012.

Adams' article provides a quick overview of the history and cult popularity of the dreamachine - a device that simulates light undulating in a regular pattern, as when passing by evenly spaced trees at sunset. Adams also gives some insight into the celebrities that have used it in the past, and uses the case of Margaret Atwood's recent receipt of one to provide a slightly cynical perspective on the device. This article is written in a steady going style.

Anything that offers a "drug-less high" is a curiousity. Not because it's possibly a legal way to get such a high, but because of what it suggests about the brain and its ability to, put simply, entertain itself. This article is included in this batch of links because of the insight into this phenomenon.

5. Kim, Sam. "Elephant in South Korean zoo imitates human speech." Bradenton.com 1 November 2012. Web. 3 November 2012.

Scientists have confirmed that an elephant in South Korea's Everland Zoo can imitate human speech. Kim explains how this phenomenon came about and why it seems to be isolated to just a couple of elephants. Kim's article is designed for the internet with simple sentence structure and short paragraphs.

Various birds can mimic human speech, but elephants? That's just plain weird, and so it just plain had to be included in this article.

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Closing

Next week on the blogs watch for another poem on Monday, the second to last stanza of "Dum Diane vitrea" on Tuesday and more Beowulf on Thursday. As always Tuesday's and Thursday's updates can be found over at Tongues in Jars, and Monday's can be found right here at A Glass Darkly!

By the way, because of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and how my work week's rolled out, I'm not going to be reviewing a movie this coming week. But, watch for a review of something the next week!

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[Sæternes-dæg] Annotated Links #22: Different, but the Same

1. Ramstad, Evan. "Are Koreans the Irish of Asia? Here’s a Case." Korea Realtime (Wall Street Journal) 16 October 2012. Web. 20 October 2012.

Ramstad recounts the recent visit to Seoul of Eammon McKee, Ireland's ambassador to the Koreas, and a speech he made there wherein he fleshed out the Korea-is-Ireland cliché. He quotes McKee's speech selectively, compiling a brief list of the ways in which the two nations are similar. This article is written in a pure journalistic style, this article reports on the idea of the two nations having shared traits.

An article about how two disparate nations actually have quite a bit in common is a great way to start of an Annotated Links about different things that, upon further analysis, can easily be considered similar. Thus, this article was an easy pick for this week's batch.

2. Lorditch, Emilie. "Using Science Fiction to Educate." Inside Science 17 October 2012. Web. 20 October 2012.

This one is a brief article that provides an overview of the basic argument for using science fiction in science education: to show the relevance of science to young people so that more of them will take an active interest in pursuing the sciences at college or university. It makes specific reference to science fiction and super hero films while leaving out anything about science fiction literature. Lorditch writes in a direct style of reportage, with an effective use of quotes.

Science fiction and science fact are definitely different, but the limits of human technology are always making gains on the limits of human imagination. This article doesn't make a direct comparison between science fiction and science in the classroom, but mining science fiction for examples to show how science does and doesn't work bridges the two nicely.

3. Houpt, Simon. "IBM hones Watson the supercomputer’s skills." The Globe and Mail 19 October 2012. Web. 20 October 2012.

In this interview with the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center's Eric Brown, Houpt explores the different uses for IBM's Question Answering supercomputer Watson. Specifically, Houpt asks about IBM's work with the US healthcare insurance provider WellPoint and how Watson will figure in with that. It's written as any interview is bound to be written - in a conversational tone.

Though comparisons between Watson and human personalities don't come up until near the end of the interview, this piece is included in this week's Annotated Links because it underscores how a stripped down version of human thinking (parsing sentences, taking certain elements and understanding the relationships between them) is being emulated by computers.

4. Taylor, Kate. "Picnicface: Why are we laughing? I don’t know, but it sure beats crying." The Globe and Mail 20 October 2012. Web. 20 October 2012.

Taylor's article offers some quick background information on the Picnicface story, along with a very quick rundown of where the three-person comedy trio is today. Her article also offers some thoughts on the matter of internet fame vs. old school fame, and how being popular on YouTube does not necessarily translate being popular on the boob tube. This one is written in a straightforward style, with quotes from players in the Picnicface story sprinkled throughout.

Including this one in the Links for this week was necessarily partly because it fit and partly because of personal prejudices. Picnicface is an hilarious troupe, and the ways in which culture on the internet is different from culture on TV or radio or in print is something that needs more mainstream attention.

5. Strickland, Eddie. "Red Potion (The Legend of Zelda cocktail)." The Drunken Moogle 14 October 2012. Web. 20 October 2012.

Simply a recipe for a cocktail inspired by the Legend of Zelda (clicking on that tag at the bottom of the recipe shows another 4 pages worth of Zelda-inspired booze bombs). This recipe is written in a direct style without any extra notes.

This one's included for the obvious reason that video games ('The Legend of Zelda,' perhaps especially) are not the same as real life. However, it must definitely be noted that medieval medicine (and therefore medicine in a high fantasy setting such as the one in 'Zelda') would invariably involve alcohol in some way - so the two different worlds of the real and the virtual are bridged by the cause of and solution to all of life's problems: alcohol.

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Closing

Next week, watch for a poem post for Monday, and Part Four of Shocktober, when I'll make the call for the conversion of the campy horror flic The Convent.

Plus, over at Tongues in Jars, watch for the fifth stanza of "Dum Diane vitrea" in Tuesday's Latin entry, and Wiglaf's tongue lashing of the cowardly thanes in Thursday's Beowulf entry.

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[Sæternes-dæg] Annotated Links #21: Simple Solutions

1. "Scholars finish dictionary of ancient Egyptian language." ScienceBlog 19 September 2012. Web. 13 October 2012.

The Chicago Demotic Dictionary, developed at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute, has finally been completed. The article details how the Ancient Egyptian common language has contributed to Modern English, as well as how it sheds light on how the common people of Ancient Egypt lived. It is written in a fairly conversational style.

Language news is always fascinating news, and so this one had to be included.

2. Knight, Chris. "From Doctor Who to Looper to Robot & Frank: The best sci-fi is made on a shoestring." National Post 7 October 2012. Web. 13 October 2012.

Knight uses Doctor Who (the Daleks, specifically), Looper, and Robot & Frank as examples of effective science fiction that's financially successful because of its small budget. These are contrasted with blockbuster movies of the past summer, and the take away is that good science fiction needs to be more substantial and referential to our own present to be successful.

This article is included because it shows that substance is more often appreciated than flash.

3. McGinn, Dave. "The $55K, 2,900-square foot, eco-friendly home – with no electricity bills." The Globe and Mail 10 October 2012. Web. 13 October 2012.

This article explains just what an "earthship" home is (one built from recycled materials, and that uses natural heating and water) and how they're more economically and environmentally feasible than your standard home. Its focus on a couple from Tilsonburg, Ontario lends this story a human interest element, and it's written in a simple style that makes broad use of quotations.

Wild designs and neat aesthetics combine with practicality in this subject, and so it's something I've got to share.

4. Baumann, Chris, and Shu Setogawa. "Korean teachers preferred." The Korea Herald 10 October 2012. Web. 13 October 2012.

This one is a report on a study of teacher preferences among Koreans. It shows that Koreans do prefer Korean teachers, even when it comes to English language instruction, because they are believed to be the most apt to demonstrate the proper etiquette and cultural values. Baumann and Setogawa's report is written in a formal, academic style and includes a handful of charts.

Although this report addresses the issue of ESL teachers, I included this one to help spread these findings and because it very quickly details how the Korean approach to ESL teaching is changing.

5. Everett-Green, Robert. "1K Wave: Can a great film be made for $1,000? Ingrid Veninger thinks so." The Globe and Mail 10 October 2012. Web. 13 October 2012.

Ingrid Veninger, Toronto filmmaker, believes that local filming and at-home editing mean that anyone who wants to make a movie can - and for only $1000 up front. Veninger has already run the 1K Wave contest, and five films were created as a direct result. This article is written in a conversational style with quotes from a variety of local filmmakers.

Creative contests that stand out like this one deserve to get attention. So, since this one also works with this Annotated Links' theme, it had to be included.

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Closing

Next week check the blog for a new polished draft of fiction (Monday), a look for the lurking in Silent House (Friday), and the next Annotated Links (Saturday).

And to keep your reading going throughout the week, check out Tongues in Jars for translations and commentary of the Latin poem "Dum Diane vitrea" and the Old English Beowulf.

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[Sæternes-dæg] Annotated Links #20: Bending Borders

1. Koh, Yoree. "Novelist Murakami Weighs In on Japan Territorial Rows." Japan Real Time (The Wall Street Journal) 28 September 2012. Web. 06 October 2012.

Koh recaps Haruki Murakami's stance on Japan's current territorial disputes as they appeared in an essay that made the front page of the Asahi Shimbun. Murakami argues that these territorial disputes are threatening the cultural ties that the three Asian countries have established over recent decades, and that they're "like getting drunk on cheap sake." This article is written in a plain, direct style.

Haruki Murakami is an amazing writer, and the matter of Japanese-South Korean-Chinese territorial disputes is one of interest since I recall how passionate many South Koreans were about their owning Dokdo (Takeshima, in Japan), so inlcuding this article was a must.

2. Stusinski, Melissa. "‘Looper’-Like Time Travel Possible, Scientists Say." The Inquisitr 28 September 2012. Web. 06 October 2012.

A misleadingly titled article that suggests that time travel to the future is possible, while time travel to the past is much more problematic. This one is written in a very conversational style that makes it seem like a token blog entry.

Despite its brevity, this article is included because it is a solid summary of time travel mechanics.

3. Tozer, Jessica L.. "Sensors on Scan." Armed With Science 2 October 2012. Web. 06 October 2012.

Dr. Chris Field at the Naval Research Laboratory is currently working on technology that does just what Star Trek's tricorder does - scan an area for any and all vapours it contains. Various applications for this quarter-sized technology are discussed, ranging from carbon monoxide detection to airport security applications. Tozer writes in an informal style.

Anything about such amazing science simply has to be included. It's practically the law.

4. Oh, Young-Jin. "Coming out on Psy." The Korea Times 2 October 2012. Web. 06 October 2012.

This one offers a thought-provoking look at the Psy phenomenon from the perspective of someone who thinks that Psy represents nothing Korean. In it Oh relates his thoughts on Psy and how they've evolved to his current stance that Psy represents more of global pop culture than Korean pop culture. It is written in a prim, yet conversational style.

Because of the wild popularity of Psy, this one had to be included to offer a counter-argument to his apparent bolstering of the Korean cultural wave that's supposedly swept over the world in recent weeks.

5.Clayton, Nick. "Scientists Look to Use Bee’s Brains to Control Flying Robots." Tech Europe (The Wall Street Journal) 4 October 2012. Web. 6 October 2012.

Researchers at the universities of Sheffield and Sussex are looking into using bee brains to power flying recon robots. Among the uses for these robots, the article focuses on their being used to gather information to help rescue teams figure out what the next best option is. It is a short article, written in a plain style.

This one's included because it's some exciting news from the world of robotics, and it's not often that social insects are thought of as being as useful to science as social mammals.


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Closing

Next week, watch for another (much more recent) poem on Monday, and a prowl for the palatable in Leprechaun In The Hood on Friday!

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[Sæternes-dæg] Annotated Links # 18: Cultural and Career Vehicles

1. Skelding, Conor. "K is for Kapital, and Not in a Marxist Way." BWOG 22 September 2012. Web. 23 September 2012.

Professor John Lie gave a talk at Center for Korean Research’s Colloquium Series on Korean Cultural Studies in which he didn't speak about K-Pop. Instead, Lie spoke about how Korean pop music is an entirely market and capitalist driven endeavour that is hollow culturally. His evidence is all of the financial backing that the industry receives and its stark contrast to Korea's straightforward and simple traditional music.

This piece is written in a casual style befitting a blog, but with authority. It's included because I find the different perspective on K-Pop's importance refreshing.

2. Cho, Chung-un. "Hallyu can help spread Korean: Minister." AsiaOne 18 September 2012. Web. 23 September 2012.

Choe Kwang-shik, Korean Culture Minister, claims that the world's initial interest in K-Pop is spreading to other cultures. Yet, he posits that even more important than the spread of K-culture in general is the spread of the interest in the Korean language, what he calls the "most important cultural product."

Written in a direct, journalistic style, this article is included because it celebrates the Korean language, a thing truly worth studying.

3. Sofge, Erik. "What Would a Starship Actually Look Like?" Popular Mechanics 20 September 2012. Web. 23 September 2012.

Real physics and space dangers are considered in what an interstellar ship might just look like. The fact that there is no air in space, and so aeordynamics aren't relevant, as well as the problem of space dust perforating sails and hulls because of ships' high speeds are among the things considered.

Sofge wrote this piece in a technical style, but in a tone that is readable - even if some of its paragraphs tend toward lumpiness. Its included because the realities of space-travelling vehicles are excellent things to know for writing science fiction.

4. Hanna, Jeff. "Fantastic Poetry: W&L's Wheeler Uses Terza Rime to Spin a Sci-Fi Story." Washington and Lee Universities: News and Media 20 September 2012. Web. 23 September 2012.

Leslie Wheeler, the Henry S. Fox Professor of English at Washington and Lee University, has just published a collection of speculative fiction poetry. The title poem ("The Receptionist") is set in a fantastical academia, where fantasy creatures and figures stand in for the usual group found in universities.

This article doubles as a light overview/review of the collection and an informative piece. It's included because I find it encouraging that something close to one of my own projects has been carried out and published.

5. Hagy, Jessica. "20 Ways to Find Your Calling." Forbes.com 26 June 2012. Web. 23 September 2012.

This article gives readers a list of 20 questions to ask and things to think about to figure out what you want to do with their lives. The things on this list aren't earth shattering but they're the sort of things that can help to shake loose what might be rattling around in your head.

Written in a casual, easy-going style, this article is included because it offers a way to potentially figure out where your natural skills lay.

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Closing

Check back here tomorrow for the week-in-review/week-ahead entry!

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Annotated Links #17: Writing of Rarities and Hard Finds

1. Doctorow, Cory. "Great writing advice from this year's Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy writing workshop." Boing Boing 14 August 2012. Web. 16 August 2012.

The title really says it all for this one: it's a short collection of some great advice from this year's Clarion workshop. It's written in a straightforward style and includes a link to the blog of Sam J. Miller, one of this year's participants and a stalwart notetaker who's been benevolent enough to post most of his notes online.

Because this one showcases some great writing advice that will probably still be new to you if you've only read how-to guides and gone to a few general writing workshops it's leading off today's Annotated Links.

2. "South Korean writer to take 'Persian Myths Tour.'" Tehran Times 7 August 2012. Web. 16 August 2012.

Briefly relates the plans of Gong Wonkuk, the South Korean "walking mythologist," to visit historical sites in Iran as part of his Persian Myths Tour. It also explains that Gong will give lectures and interviews during his travels, and will ultimately write a book in 10 volumes that summarizes his tour called "Eurasian Myths." The article is written in a bare-bones style with a handful of grammatical and stylistic errors - but nothing that gets in the way of coherency.

This made it into today's Annotated Links because it offers a look into the literary culture of South Korea, and into what one of the country's literati is up to at the moment.

3. Kennedy, Maev. "Soldiers injured in Afghanistan make surprise find on UK archaeology dig." The Guardian 7 August 2012. Web. 16 August 2012.

Soldiers who had returned to the UK after serving in Afghanistan found the remains of an Anglo-Saxon warrior on a dig as part of their rehabilitation to civilian life. Their find is in the area of an ancient burial monument dating from 2000 BC. Because of the thrill of a successful dig, eight of these soldiers are now going on to study archaeology at Leicester University. This article is written in a straightforward, journalistic style.

It's rounding off today's set of links because it shows how transformative discovering something can be. In this case the discovery is archaeological, but I think the same thing can happen if you discover something amazing to write about (as Gong Wonkuk might) or how to write more effectively (following that advice from the Clarion workshop).

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Closing

Have your galoshes ready for tomorrow - Part Three of All-Request August will be posted then. This week's movie is the Deep-South horror venture Squirm!

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[Moon-dæg] Two Takes on North Korea - Part 4

Recap & Introduction
The Same
Basic Differences
Differences in War
Truly Curious
Wrap Up
Closing

{Where is that camera pointed, and what will it see? Image from the Agnes Kunze Society Hope Project website.}

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Recap & Introduction

Two weeks ago we looked at how the North American media reacted to the Bombardment of Yeonpyeong. Last week, we looked at the South Korean treatment of the same. So what’s the same? What’s different? And what can be told from all that? Let’s find out.

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The Same

Both North American and South Korean news sources covered the Five Ws: Who, What, When, Where, Why. This is practically a given, but an important thing to lay down. So both sources reported the facts, in one way or another. However, aside from this, there aren't many remarkable similarities between these two sets of articles.

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Basic Differences

North American coverage often buried its facts in analysis, and this analysis was always the core of the story. Why was Yeonpyeong bombarded? What was the North’s motivation for doing it? What does it all mean?

Because of this, North American news sources were much more likely to trumpet various conclusions: the North was growing hostile and dangerous, it was a show of power to help usher in Kim Jong Un’s ascension to power, it was deeply related to North Korea’s growing nuclear testing and supposed capabilities.

On the other hand, South Korean news sources stuck closer to the facts. They reported what happened, and sometimes added in extra details for various effects: official statements, personal anecdotes, etc.

Plus, no real assumptions were made in any of the South Korean sources looked at. Since the event directly affected them, South Koreans were more concerned, or interested in, what the attack meant for them specifically and what their leaders had to say about it.

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Differences in War

Curiously, though, none of the three North American sources that were looked at cited Kim Tae-Young, the South Korean Defense Minister, replied to a question about being at war by saying “Didn’t it start already? We must stop it from expanding.”

Since this quote appeared in an article from 23 November 2010, it wouldn’t have been difficult to work it into the slew of stories that came out around the incident. And it even has an action movie kind of a ring to it. But perhaps this omission speaks the loudest to the difference of the two in their coverage of the event.

Not including the quote suggests that it wasn’t deemed newsworthy over here. Even though it is a reflection of present reality in the Koreas – an armistice was signed, but there never was a peace treaty. So, technically, the Korean War carries on, though in a definitely colder sort of way.

But that’s not how North Americans see war. Even something like the Cold War strikes fear into the hearts of many, and for the most part that fear was the product of the media.

The people of South Korea didn’t need to speculate about Kim Jong Il’s plots or ploys or machinations behind the bombardment. They just viewed it as the tragic even that it was and declared it an action that is unforgivable and spoke of how it’s necessary to keep things from getting worse.

But those are the people in power, those completely unaffected by it might have hardly blinked at the story – the same way that something about a shooting in a different part of the country might cause the average North American to simply turn to the next page in the paper, or to scroll onward to the next story.

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Truly Curious

This also illuminates another essential difference between reporting styles. For better or worse, the North America news media is all about finding out the “why” of an incident, whereas South Korea news media seems to be more about the “what.”

While the articles that have been looked at are about the same length, North American coverage dwelled on speculation about motivation, and South Korean sources focused on just what happened and how it effected the people involved.

But that’s exactly it. That’s why the media can inspire so much fear in North America – because it works on the imagination. It relies on thinking of things that may or may not be true, and the human imagination is ingenious at scaring the human wielding and/or listening to it.

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Wrap Up

So, at heart, the difference between the two is really the North American media's social curiosity calling itself out.

North American news doesn’t just look into the abyss and paint a picture of what it sees, it stares into it with all of the steady focus of an open-eyed stone gargoyle and all the tenacity of a determined squirrel. And nothing can terrify like that which looks back from the abyss, especially when it’s put under so much scrutiny it could be called duress.

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Closing

Check back here on Wednesday for a look at the newest news, and on Friday for another search for the good in a terrible movie.

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[Moon-dæg] Two Takes on North Korea, Part 3

Recap & Introduction
The Korea Herald
The Chosun Ilbo
The JoongAng Daily
Wrap Up
Closing

{Smoke rises from Yeonpyeong Island. Image from The Korea Herald.}

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Recap & Introduction

Today’s entry takes a look at the Korean coverage of the Bombardment of Yeonpyeong, a maritime skirmish between North and South Korea that happened on 23 November 2010.

In last week’s overview of the North American coverage of this event, all of the news outlets looked at included fairly extensive analysis of their reports. There were points raised about how the incident fit in with the impending ascension to power of Kim Jong Il’s son Kim Jong Un, and the incident also offered the chance to mention North Korea’s continuing nuclear experimentation.

Let’s see if coverage in South Korea is any different.

The three news outlets featured (The Korea Herald, The Chosun Ilbo, and The Joongang Daily) are all considered major South Korean papers, and each has a distribution of at least 1.96 million.

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The Korea Herald

The article from The Korea Herald wastes no time getting to the facts. It begins with a quick outline of the incident, and moves onto more facts and reports from relevant sources. However, this article does talk about how tensions were high since the sinking of the Cheonan on 26 March 2010, and states that a “Seoul-led multi-national investigation team” had since concluded that North Korea was entirely responsible for the sinking of the corvette.

There are also passages like those about the shelling happening after South Korea’s exercises were finished, and that South Korean experts on North Korea expected North Korea to extend the olive branch rather than the bayonet to help stabilize themselves on the eve of power passing from Kim Jong Il to Kim Jong Un. Crowning these statements, though, is a single paragraph:

"Foreign press quickly reported the attack as a major news, producing a flurry of interpretations about the motive of North Korea. Reuters quoted an expert as saying that the attack is "unbelievable.""

Interestingly, South Korean media was much slower to produce it’s own interpretations of the event.

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The Chosun Ilbo

The article from the The Chosun Ilbo is originally in Korean, and the translation offered by Microsoft’s translation service is decent, but not entirely clear.

Nonetheless, from the translation it's plain that the attack was unsuspected. The article also notes that North Korea’s actions put it squarely in the wrong in the eyes of the UN, and even suggests that the armistice between the two Koreas has been broken.

On the matter of war re-igniting between the two nations, though, the article is apparently quiet.

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The JoongAng Daily

Just like The Korea Herald article, this one from the The JoongAng Daily starts with a summary of events. Curiously, this includes the number of shots fired by North Korea, and the casualties and wounded on the South Korean side - both military and civilian.

Also interesting, is that this article includes the relation of a local who fled her home when the shelling shattered her windows.

The article also goes the most in depth of the three on the question of war reigniting. It notes that Joint Chiefs of Staff set the country to the highest level of military alertness. Even the Defence Minister, Kim Tae-Young, is brought into it as he is reported as answering a question about war breaking out with: “Didn’t it start already? We must stop it from expanding.”

The article winds down with a myriad of voices. These run from the South Korean Democratic Party and their call for co-operation with the ruling Grand National Party, to Japan on the tension between the nations, to China’s call for caution, and to Reuters’ reporting on the attack causing the Hong Kong stock exchange to suffer significant losses. But, going the furthest to prove its uniqueness among these three articles is the article's final paragraph.

In this paragraph it is stated that 11 days before the attack on Yeonpyeong, North Korea had been showing an American nuclear scientist its uranium enrichment facilities.

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Wrap Up

All in all, then, the local reporting on the incident offers quite a different take on the Bombardment of Yeonpyeong. Rather than the hunt for a motive and speculation on said motive found in North American coverage, there’s a much greater emphasis on facts. Any kind of elaboration on them is left entirely up to the reader.

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Closing

Check back here next week for Part 4 of this series, an analysis of the difference between these reporting styles and some reasons and theories for that difference.

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[Moon-dæg] Two Takes on North Korea, Part 2

Background
CNN
CBC
TIME
Closing

{A caricature of Kim Jong Il by David Baldinger.}

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Background

The Bombardment of Yeonpyeong is the latest military incident between North and South Koreas which raised tension on both sides. Apparently, North Korea did not want South Korea to go through with a training exercise that they had planned for November 23rd, 2010, however, South Korea ignored the North’s cease request, and so they attacked the island barracks.

Yet, the incident also goes deeper than just a single ignored request.

The maritime border between the two countries has been contentious for quite some time. Since 1973, in fact, when North Korea redrew the border on the heels of the redefinition of “territorial waters” from 3 nautical miles to 12. However, South Korea and the UN continued to only recognize the border they had drawn up at the end of the Korean War (1952).

Because the idea is to limit each of these four parts to as few words as possible, only three major news outlets will be examined: CNN, the CBC, and TIME. The first and the last of these are American outlets, while the second is Canada’s national channel. Though small, the purpose of this range of news outlets is to get a general cross-section of how the issue was treated.

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CNN

CNN presents a fairly balanced portrayal of the event. The news outlet constantly quotes sources that are representative of the groups that it’s making statements about. However, the way that it deploys these quotations is interesting.

On the one hand, the Koreas and the US are quoted more or less in full sentences or phrases that read naturally as parts of a statement.

On the other, the presentation of some quotes from Hong Lei of the Chinese government is quite different. The man is quoted three times, and two of these are placed to seem euphemistic. This is the sentence in question: “Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said China had ‘taken note of relevant reports’ and expressed its ‘concern.’” The quote that follows this sentence in the article is on par with the others, but this selective quoting suggests that China’s integrity is being called into question.

The CNN article also takes the chance offered by reporting on the bombardment to note that North Korea, days earlier, had made it public that they had built a new nuclear plant.

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CBC

The CBC approaches the story in a similarly straightforward manner, but makes no real mention about the nuclear tie-in. Instead, it is just a general overview of what the incident means for Obama, of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s response, and of Canada’s and the UN’s reactions policy-wise.

There is a twist, though. Rather than revealing the entire incident and then reporting on the details, the article takes a backwards approach. It reports on the details first and then, at the end of each of its sections, presents the basics of what happened. It’s a strange method that emphasizes the outcomes rather than the incident itself, as if the CBC is trying to say that it’s not going to judge what happened, only what’s resulted.

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TIME

The article published on TIME’s website, is very clearly from a magazine rather than a newspaper. For, despite the incident’s serious nature, the TIME article presents North Korea as a kind of dangerous clown at both its beginning and end. It also uses some fiery rhetoric, referring to the attack as “commenc[ing] a fusillade of artillery fire,” and outrightly calling it a “bombardment” (which is a little bombastic, but makes sense since North Korea fired 170 shells at the island).

TIME’s treatment of the nuclear aspect is also vamped up as it is stated that, according to US intelligence, North Korea already has 8 to 12 nuclear bombs. Interestingly, though, rather than just connecting the bombardment and North Korea’s revelation of its new nuclear plant, the TIME article suggests that these two incidents are part of Kim Jong Un’s training to be North Korea’s next leader.

Nonetheless, just like the CNN article, China is also painted as vaguely sinister, though with a bit of a broader brush. The article states that China’s reaction to the incident was delivered with “a blandness that approached indifference.”

Despite the lack of explicit fear-mongering in these articles, it’s interesting that the two of American origin mention North Korea’s newest nuclear capabilities and frame China as being a player in the incident, but a very aloof one. The mention of nuclear power definitely calls back to fears of nuclear war, and the portrayal of China just coolly looking on while the incident happened suggests that the country is lax on politically tough calls.

The lack of these two aspects in the CBC article suggests that American coverage is more sensational and more about making a story of something rather than reporting on the facts of something.

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Closing

Next week, we’ll see what South Korea itself has to say. As per the rest of the week, this blog will not have any new entries. So, until 4 June rolls around, you can check out older articles in this blog or my translation blog at tonguejar.blogspot.ca.

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[Moon-dæg] Two Takes on North Korea - Part 1

Preamble
Two Takes on North Korea - Part 1

Preamble

I've decided to change the format for Monday's entries.

Instead of a series that includes four different entries (one that lays out all the facts, one that attempts a logical approach, one that looks for "truthiness," and then one final entry that returns to logic), each four part Moon-dæg series will now be a standard length essay of 2000 words split into four parts.

Periodically, short stories and poetry cycles/mini-epic poems might also be posted, so be sure to keep reading.

All of that said, onto the first of the new format four-part series, an opinion on modern perceptions of North Korea.

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Two Takes on North Korea - Part 1

{One of the few allowed to look out from the Hermit Kingdom. Photo taken by Marcella Bona}

North Korea, from a political standpoint, is a strange remnant from the post-WWII era, and really, in some ways, the last vestige of the Cold War. The Berlin Wall fell, the USSR collapsed. Nuclear power continues to be a problem both as a source of energy and as a weapon, but it's something that nations at least have a handle on. Sanctions are in place where needed, and most countries take these sanctions seriously. Not so much North Korea, according to this Australian Federal Police (AFP) article from 21 May.

However, North Korea's recent failed rocket launch has caused it to lose face internationally. Nonetheless, and as that AFP article points out, North Korea will try again. And this persistence is in the face of more and more information coming to light about the country's regime and living standard.

Two examples of these information leaks are Guy Delisle wrote and illustrated a graphic novel called Pyongyang, all about his time working for an animation studio in the North Korean capital and Mike Kim's Escaping North Korea: Defiance and Hope in the World’s Most Repressive Country.

As it is now, North Korea is seen as a place of social backwardness, starvation, and demoralization. But there's a curious angle on this story if you go south of the North's border.

In South Korea, even in the capital of Seoul (just about 35 miles (56 km) from the border between the two Koreas) people seem almost indifferent to their Northern neighbor. In fact, it's more likely for South Koreans to express a wish for reunification in some form or another than to say that they feel hounded by a constant nagging fear.

The case that will be made over the next three Monday entries is that the disparity between the South Korean and North American view of North Korea is a lingering result of the Cold War. Not necessarily directly, but in the sense that the North American news media has wakened to the importance of finding and pleasing a target audience.

Most young people get their news from blogs, websites, or specialized channels, whereas most of those over the age of 40 get their news from television, radio, and newspapers. The old means of getting news are well aware of this demographic shift and have no intention of letting their base demographic - the Baby Boomers - lose interest in what they have to say. Thus, as a means of replicating the same kind of fear that many Boomers are familiar with from the cold war conventional news media try to play up the fear angle in their coverage of North Korea.

The next two entries in this series will look at the tone and style of coverage of the Bombardment of Yeonpyeong, and through these investigations attempt to show that conventional North American media spins such stories for their fear effect.

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[Wōdnes-dæg] Classic Korean Films for Free on YouTube

{A poster from a Western release of Chan-Wook Park's OldBoy - a popular example of great Korean cinema. Image from 85 Anti's tumblr.}

This isn't as new as many of the things that have been posted here on Wednesdays in the past, but it's too big to keep quiet on. Thanks to WebProNews for getting this story in front of me.

The Korean Film Archive (KOFA) did something truly amazing on 10 May 2012. Taking full advantage of the internet’s communication and distribution capabilities, and in partnership with YouTube, KOFA released 70 classic Korean films on YouTube. These movies are available in their full versions with subtitles provided by Google and are an varied display of the world of Korean film. And, they're available for free.

Along with Japan, Korea is among those nations that are the most eager to promote their culture abroad, a trend among most financially strong Asian countries that might just be interested in the soft power approach to international relationships.

Putting this large piece of their film history out on the internet for all the world to enjoy is definitely a master stroke in Korea’s cultural export game. All 70 films are available on KoreanFilmArchive's channel.

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[Wōdnes-dæg] (Korean) Robots on the Rise

{The robotic Maria from Metropolis. Image from Dear Rich: Nolo's Intellectual Property Blog}

Introduction
Robots in the Workforce
Robots in South Korea
Closing
References

Introduction

According to an article in the Korea IT Times South Korea is really pushing to become a major player in the field of robotics.

And why not? More and more robots are entering the workforce in various ways: "lights-out" factories that can operate for up to thirty days without any human intervention (and so the lights and air conditioning are turned off); surgeons operating on patients hundreds or thousands of miles away via robotic arms; teacher and health care robots; as cleaners and cooks.¹

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Robots in the Workforce

The transition into a much more robotic society seems inevitable. Granted, the article is from April 2011, but Rodney Brooks - a professor emeritus at MIT - robots will make the American economy more efficient and competitive.² He bases these point on the facts that robot labor can be quicker, and a robotic manufacturing base on American soil will cut out the cost of bringing in goods from China and elsewhere.²

Plus, increasing the presence of robots in manufacturing might make the overseas production of Apple, and Sony products much more ethically palatable to those who care about such things. A fact that Foxconn seems well aware of, since they plan to employ 1 million robots by 2014.³

However, though Brooks and Bill Gates have said that the robot revolution is happening in a way similar to the computer revolution (slow and specialized, marching towards quick and ubiquitous), Brooks said in 2011 that the robots of the near future will have an eight year old's social skills, a six year old's dexterity, a four year old's language skills and a two year old's object recognition² - not exactly as dexterous or quick witted as a T-1000 or a Bending Unit 22.

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Robots in South Korea

Still, the ambition and drive of countries like South Korea when it comes to robotics makes it seem like advanced robots are not so far off.

After all, Korean society's "pali-pali" mentality is indeed evident in plans to spend 322 million US dollars between 2012 and 2016 to turn the city of Daegu into a "robot city and hub to the nation’s robot industry."¹ Perhaps, in some way, this push for robotics is meant to complement the global spread of its culture.

As wind turbines crop up in more and more places, and with robots apparently well on the way to becoming everyday fixtures, one question that comes to mind: Does this mean we're going to be getting flying cars soon?

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Closing

Check back here on Friday for the hunt for the good in The Darkest Hour

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References

1. Ji-Hye, Shin. "KIRIA Robotics - The Future is Here." Korea IT Times 24 April 2012.

2. Young, Grace. "Are Workforce Robots the Next Big Thing? Rodney Brooks Gives a Definite Yes." MIT Entrepreneurship Review 12 April 2011.

3. Schroeder, Stan. "Foxconn To Replace Some of Its Workforce With 1 Million Robots." Mashable Business 1 August 2011.

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[Wōdnes-dæg] The Korean Wave: Soft-Power-ful K-Pop Culture

Introduction
Soft Power
Soft Power too Soft?
Closing

{A visualization of the Korean Wave. Image from eyeswideopen21.wordpress.com.}

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Introduction

Something that's been in the news here and there over the past few years is the presence of a cultural Korean Wave.

This Korean Wave, or Hallyu, refers to the slow spread of Korean pop culture throughout Asia, Europe, and North America.¹ When the National Post reports on something, you know it's got to be good, right? Plus, there's even a North York couple that moved to Korea, started out as teachers, but that now blog full time about Korean culture and music.¹

In some sense, this trend could be compared to the rise in the popularity of Japanese culture abroad in the 80s and 90s in the form of increasingly easily accessed anime and the console wars between Nintendo, Sega, and Sony. Perhaps Korea has less that's unique to offer in the realms of animated TV shows and video games, but both cultural spreads are definitely prime examples of "soft-power"

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Soft Power

Soft-power "is the ability to obtain what one wants through co-option and attraction."² This definitely describes the kind of cultural influence that foreign lands have had on Western culture and aesthetics for quite some time. Rather than trying to do what the West itself did in many colonial instances and force their culture back on the West, places like Korea and Japan are merely creating things that appeal to Western consumers.

In some cases, this means creating a hybrid culture. As Kim Seong-Kon points out, the Korean Wave is just such a hybrid form since K-Pop and K-Drama tend to be combinations of traditional Korean and Western cultures.³

Kim argues that this sort of hybrid culture is not a true representation of traditional Korean culture (the "high brow"), but he also cedes that the hybrid culture that's set off the Korean Wave is something like "John the Baptist, preparing the path for Jesus’ arrival."³

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Soft Power too Soft?

Yet, with soft-power, and the appeal of hybrid cultures, is introducing someone to a 'lite' version of a culture really going to entice them into a full-blown interest in more traditional forms? Not everyone who watches anime is going to try to learn about the Sengoku period or try to find out just who Bashō is.

Likewise, the current rise of Korean pop culture isn't going to necessarily lead people to delve deeper into traditional Korean culture. At least not in the numbers that people who say that "hallyu will conquer the world" or that compare the current Korean Wave to John the Baptist imply. Watching My Girlfriend is a Gumiho or listening to the latest by Super Junior, won't necessarily bring people to look into Dangun or research the poetry of the Goryeo period.

That's the thing with soft power, it can be the hand that brings a horse to water, but the horse is ultimately the one who will either dip its tongue in the water, slurp a few waves, or just stare at its own reflection.

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Closing

Check back here Friday for a search for the good in the series stalling I Am Number Four.

And for some insight into what the big news stories are in South Korea itself (the dark side of hallyu, some may say), check out KoreaBANG

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References

1. Donnelly, Aileen. "Riding the Korean Wave: Latest cultural trend driving Kanadians krazy for music, dance moves." National Post 8 April 2012.

2. "Soft Power." Wikipedia.

3. Kim Seong-Kon. "Future of hallyu: Pop to highbrow." The Korea Herald 4 April 2012.

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[Wōdnes-dæg] What's Korean for Rainbow?

The signs read: "No Discrimination Against LGBT." Image copyright M. Solis, 2008.

South Korea is a curious country. Socially conservative, yet technologically super-progressive. Think America of the 1950s but add things like LG and Samsung and the internet you've basically got South Korean society as it appears to an outsider. And though the country maintains its traditional exterior, all of that technology allows a number of sub-cultures to thrive.

Among these subcultures is the homosexual set.

What drew my attention to this subculture in particular is an article from the LA Times,¹ discovered through a Google Alert for "Korea Culture." The article tells the tale of Seok-Cheon Hong, a prominent actor who came out in 2000 after struggling with the issue for a number of years.

Hong's move led to the destruction of his career, and to a nosedive in his own feelings of self-worth. For as an openly gay celebrity he was ostracized,¹ and in a society that prizes community and the group as a whole, to be shunned is more than just getting dropped from your "scene" or city - it's like being an exile within your native land's borders.

Luckily, a 2003 scriptwriter with an idea for a show about a gay man coming out and facing complex social issues revived Hong's career.¹ Now he is probably the most prominent gay activist in South Korea.

But what came before? What's the history of homosexuality in South Korea?

Somewhat unsurprisingly, it's a history similar to that within Western culture.

In South Korea's past, homosexuality was regarded as being entirely abnormal and anomalous. Not because of Christian ideas (as is the case with the West, at least after Christianity's rise), but because of Confucian ones. For part of the filial piety that Confucianism so stresses regards marriage and procreation as essential parts of a son's duty to his father (pressures on to continue the line, produce the next generation of your family, etc.).²

Yet, as early as the Silla dynasty (57 BC to 935 AD) homosexuality was practiced among an elite warrior class known as the hwarang. At least, that's what's inferred from contemporary poetry about this class, and from the different meanings and mutations of the word down through the centuries.²

The Goryeo period (918-1392) also saw homosexuality practiced among the upper classes. Also, during this brief period, a new euphemism for it came about: yongyang-chi-chong (meaning the dragon and the son, a mix of two male symbols).²

In the Joseon dynasty that followed (1392-1897) the upper middle class completely eschewed homosexuality publicly, but engaged in it privately. Interestingly, it was also practiced at the opposite end of the class spectrum in rural Korea, where there were travelling male prostitutes.² The term used for these men is namsadang, which more literally means actor or theatrical performer.²

In spite of this thread found throughout much of South Korea's history, the country's Confucian ideals are slow to change and homosexuality remains something regarded as "psychologically deviant, sociologically detrimental and morally corrupt."²

Jumping ahead to the nineties, students at Yonsei and Seoul National Universities were organizing themselves and getting gay rights advocacy groups together.

It's super significant that these students were at Yonsei and Seoul National Universities because those are two of the three most prestigious schools in the entire country (the other being Korea University). These schools' prestige meant that their students weren't uneducated lowlifes, but instead bright up-and-comers - thereby casting serious doubt on an old South Korean stereotype that homosexuals are depraved misfits from only the lowest rungs of society.²

These student movements were met with a media response that ranged from neutral to positive - a subculture was given a voice.

Several TV shows and campaigns and rallies followed, but the movement continued to be attacked by the more conservative South Koreans (yes, generally older), and by Christian groups.

For when Confucianism has been passed over, any major shift in South Korean society needs to get by the second most influential philosophy in South Korea: Christianity (of a Protestant and Catholic conservative sort). As such, at least according to Sang-Hoong Song, the arguments against homosexuality by Christian groups are based in the Bible rather than stats or other data which makes them seem less than sturdy.³

Thus, the fight for gay rights continues.

What's rather extraordinary about all of this is that any conservative, sex segregating society (like South Korea) paradoxically provides a socially acceptable set of limits that can act as a veneer over homosexual relationships.

After all, closeness between men is definitely something entrenched in South Korean culture - Confucianism might condemn homosexuality as much as the Old Testament does, but it also highly values close friendships. That's why it's not weird for men to walk down the street in Seoul or Busan or Incheon holding hands (though possibly buzzed or drunk while doing so), and women do the same (alcohol apparently less of a factor in this case).

Of course, that's not to say that all men holding hands on the South Korean streets at night are secretly gay, nor that Confucian mores are some kind of subterfuge.

Rather, such a strict philosophy creates a very fine line, and as long as nothing runs afoul of that line publicly, then no harm is done to anyone's public image. It's only when something leaks into, or someone bravely opens up in public as Hong Seok-Cheon did that the person's place in that society is jeopardized.

Having no veneer at all is definitely a better option, and one that's slowly becoming the case for South Korea. Older and more traditional South Koreans might still wonder what a homosexual is or think that it's an act against nature, but the younger generation is sure to encourage and create a South Korea that is more accepting and open.

What do you think about the fight for gay rights in conservative societies like South Korea's? Just toss your thoughts into the comment box below.

And check back on Friday for my review of S. Darko: A Donnie Darko Story.


References

1. Glionna, John M. "Gay South Korean Actor Throws Open Closet Door." L.A. Times. March 5, 2012.

2. Kim, Young-Gwan and Sook-Ja Hahn. "Homosexuality in ancient and modern Korea." Culture, Health & Sexuality, January–February 2006; 8(1): 59–65.

3. Song, Sang-Hoon. "The gay situation in Korea." Yawning Bread. November 1999.

[Wōdnes-dæg] Breakin' Eggs Over Bibimbap

Maybe there's only so much that can be done with the combination of rice, vegetables, and meat. Maybe sushi, congee (or jook), and fried rice are variations enough on uses for the staple grain. But Korea has a dish that all it's own and that is unbelievably simple.

It's called bibimbap (literally, "mixed rice"). It's something that I learned of while in Korea, and that I'm now trying to re-learn, as it were. This dish involves an array of vegetables laid around a fried (or, in some cases raw, hence the title) egg with the meat of choice or convenience placed on top. Sesame seed oil and ssamjang (hot pepper paste) are are also necessary, but don't necessarily get seen.

My recent experiment with this dish proved successful, but the lack of a good ssamjang substitute made from Western ingredients left the whole tasting a little bit bland. Though the lack of punch and pleasant umami-ness (from the usual strips of seaweed) were made up for by my use of an avocado.

But onto my other ingredients already.

I made a relatively small bowl of Dainty brand Gem long grain rice, steamed in the same way that it is when I make sushi, julienned carrot, sliced romaine lettuce, an avocado, butter fried crimini mushrooms, sardines, and of course a single fried egg (sunny-side up). These vegetables aren't generally used in bibimbap except for the carrots and usually the mushrooms, but limited ingredients forced me to improvise.

Along with the more traditional carrots and mushrooms, bibimbap found in a Korean restaurant will likely have seaweed, bracken fern stems, spinach, sprouts, cucumber, zucchini, and or daikon. Sardines are also an unusual pick since the canned fish that might be used is tuna, though chicken and beef are more common.

The construction of the dish is pretty straight forward. Steam the rice, put it in a bowl, drop your ssamjang onto the rice's middle, add your vegetables around the middle, then put down the egg, the meat, and the sesame seed oil.

However, it is important that the yolk of your egg is soft (but not broken!) so that the yolk can freely mix in with the other ingredients. This is where breaking an egg over the bibimbap and then using the rice's heat to cook it would be most practical, but this works best if you also cook all of the vegetables. Cooking mushrooms and bracken fern stems is definitely necessary, but carrots and avocados, not so much. Ditto with seaweed.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the bulk of the flavour of your bibimbap is going to come from the ssamjang and sesame seed oil.

If you use too much of either, or of both, you'll not only make the dish super nutty and super spicy, but you won't be able to taste any of the vegetables - maybe not even the meat. Rather than the symphony that bibimbap can be you'll wind up with a solo or duet played awkwardly over a dampened, full band accompaniment. My rule of thumb is one tbsp of sesame seed oil per serving of bibimbap, and 1 1/2 to two tbsp of ssamjang.

If you happen to be short on sesame seed oil you can just mash toasted sesame seeds in cooking oil. Vegetable/canola oil works best for a straight-up sesame seed taste, while olive oil adds complexity to this taste.

If you're short on ssamjang, however, the exact spice is difficult to quickly approximate. Ssamjang itself is a fermented bean paste mixed with red peppers (think chilis) and garlic. It also comes in two varieties, heavy garlic:

Or heavy spice:

As a substitute I mixed some horseradish with chili powder and paprika. The spice isn't exactly the same, but this mixture still brings the bite. As per proportions, a mix of one tbsp horseradish to 1/4 tsp chili pepper and paprika worked well. This mix didn't give quite enough spice over all, though, so the next time I make this dish, I'll definitely make a double batch.

Nonetheless, this is the edible essay created from my tasty research (before it was all mixed together):

If you've got a suggestion for homemade ssamjang, for something you want me to try to cook, or for a topic I should research for one of these entries related to Wōden, then let me know about it by leaving a comment.

[Moon-dæg] Like Red Pepper Paste to Rice: Returning to Overseas ESL Teaching (Moon-dæg)

As the moon once more fades into the end of its cycle and stands in the sky as a giant "C" for "crone," my focus on the topic of this lunar month begins to wane. This means a wrapping up of my working through the pros and cons of going overseas to teach ESL and the introduction of the next cycle's topic: going to teacher's college.

Bearing in mind the facts that I dredged up, my first lines of reasoning, and my relatively free form musing, I can decisively say that going abroad to teach ESL is definitely a serious option for me.

I've got past experience that I can refer to, it'd be a great experience for my fiancée and I, and it'd give us some actual earning power in a place where enjoyable jobs aren't so difficult to come by.

Yes, it would also put a substantial distance between us and friends and family, but that's what being young is all about. And on a grander scale, it's also a reflection of the fact that you can't actually be everything to everyone, nor can you (or should you) live according to another person's wishes. After all, once that person leaves your life, then you're stuck with a life that's not your own and that lacks its old anchor.

So, if we suddenly had the money to marry and were considering what we'd do next, teaching overseas is definitely the first thing that would come to mind. Unlike teacher's college, it's something that we'd be able to do together (adding to my remaining hesitance, however, is that she's not keen on training to be a teacher in spite of the ESL job being a teaching one), and from which we could honeymoon somewhere crazy.

All that holds us back is that marriage thing - neither of our parents would be particularly pleased or still be on speaking terms with us if we just took two friends and went to the nearest justice of the peace. But a modest affair should come in at a smaller price than that quoted by the Ontario Wedding Blog.

Actually, that there's such a cost to going overseas entwines the options of ESL teaching and teacher's college for me.

Both of these experiences would cost roughly $20,000, one way or another. Teaching ESL at least would only cost me roughly $10,000, but so too could the cost of teacher's college be split by semester.

The problem with going to teacher's college is that, given demand for English teachers, I probably wouldn't be making any money from it for a few years. And so a loan would only lead to debt. Having avoided that so far, I'd prefer to keep it that way. Especially since once creditors find out that I'm trying to also live by writing they'd probably break my wrists before my legs. And I need these wrists...for things.

Going back would be for longer stretch of time than just a year, however.

If I go back I plan to be there for as long it takes to either secure enough money and make enough of a name for myself to live off of my writing full time back in Canada, or long enough to become so established in Korea as to not be able to leave. The second possibility sounds dismal, or somehow shadowy, but I'd at least be able to opt out after two years if it turns out that post-secondary ESL teaching isn't for me.

Honestly though, thoughts of teacher's college at this point make me seriously consider just going and getting hands-on experience overseas. Teaching high school is something to get by on, but teaching at a Canadian college would be better. And post-secondary teaching experience from abroad would be comparable or better training than a certification program specializing in teaching high school.

Nevertheless, there's a risk involved in both.

In going to teacher's college I would definitely need to take out a loan with my current income projection, and that loan would not get paid back immediately. There's also the risk that even with proper training and certification I'm left hunting for a job again. Trying to do so in Small Town Ontario to save on living expenses wouldn't put me at much of an advantage, either.

Going overseas would also require a loan (that marriage needs to happen first), but this loan would get repaid much more quickly. So there's very little financial risk in going overseas. Direct financial risk, at least.

After all, we could land in sub-standard overseas jobs. Nothing terrible, it *is* South Korea, after all, but not getting paid on time, or working serious, uncompensated overtime, or having materials constantly change at the last minute would all be terrible for multiple reasons. The risk of working at such a school is certainly lessened by going with a public school instead of a hagwon, but even then there's a chance that we'd end up in different institutions or with strangely suspicious administrators or both.

Given my fiancée's reluctance to take the teaching path at home there's also a chance that she'd not enjoy the work, meaning that she'd be more interested in staying for a year (unless she could do something other than teach) rather than for two or more.

Nonetheless, the risk of overseas teaching seems much smaller. Even if this size is an illusion created by the promise of a relatively substantial income.

We'd be employed. We'd be able to quickly cover any debt that we created by going over. We'd actually be together while we got a taste of the wider world and some hard and fast experience that could be used back in Canada if/when we came back.

Teacher's college would very likely mean more time apart while I study and then look for a placement while she continues on with things as they've been. It would mean that neither of us would really be making anything more than we are right now. It would mean, really, that the only secure, sure, positive, progressive thing that we'd have is closeness to friends and family.

That's definitely valuable, but hardly the sort of thing that can directly help a young couple move out of their parents' houses and establish themselves once and for all in the world. Sure, maybe one of our friends wins the lottery and decides to share the winnings because we're still in province. But, given my past experience, I'm comfortable saying that we'd probably have the same chance of winding up in questionable teaching jobs in South Korea.

So, though for the next four weeks I'll be laying down the facts and weighing the pros and cons of going to teacher's college, it seems that overseas ESL teaching is the way to go.

But, perhaps my mind, like the moon, will change yet again.

If you've got any comments, drop them in the box.

[Wōdnes-dæg] Jook - Korean Luxury Porridge?

Hearing about porridge might send people's minds to the food of monks, rural old school farmers, or hermits. But maybe the fault of these foods' reputation should fall on the oats fro which its usually made rather than the porridge itself. Rice porridge is a completely different animal.

Asian rice porridge, jook, is a dish that I first encountered over in South Korea (also known as "congee" on Chinese menus). Making rice porridge is relatively easy. Though where there's less effort there's more time. This is what the recipe (modified from this one) entails.

You'll need five things: 1/3 cup of regular long grain rice, approximately 1 cup of water, 1 tbsp toasted sesame oil, one egg, a small pot. Everything else is up to your own personal taste.

For the jook in the photo below I fried up some mushrooms and sardines, added both shredded ginger and horseradish (on opposing sides), and sprinkled toasted sesame seeds over it. I added some soy sauce to it in the last few spoonfuls, but it made the dish far too salty.

Making jook is just as simple as the necessary items list. Optionally, you can let your rice soak in water for an hour or two before cooking it. If you choose to do so, your rice will cook a little bit faster since it will already be saturated with water.

After you've soaked your rice (if you've done so), toss it into your pot and put it on medium high heat. Add your sesame oil to the rice and mix the two together. Sauté the rice for a few minutes.

Once you're satisfied that the rice is nicely coated in the oil, add the water to the pot and turn the burner up to the max. As the water boils wildly turn the burner down to medium low (3, on a scale of "Warm to 6") and tilt the pot lid so that the smallest crack possible is left.

Let the rice simmer until all visible signs of water are gone (between 30 and 45 minutes). But. Also, stir the rice regularly throughout its simmering. The goal here is to let the water evaporate, while also keeping the rice moist so that by the time most of the water is gone the rice has a paste-like consistency. That might turn your mind back to ideas of porridge and blandness, but bear with me.

When the rice is finished, take your pot from the heat and bring out the egg. Crack that egg, and put the yolk and white into the pot with the rice. Mix thoroughly with a spoon. Make sure that you mix your egg in while your rice is still white hot - the idea is to cook the egg with the heat of the rice, which makes it warm more gradually and all over at once so that it works with the little water left in the pot to give your porridge a creamy base.

Now that the rice is ready, put it into a bowl if that's how you roll, and then add your extras. If you need to cook them, I recommend doing so while the rice is simmering since it's important to have all of the elements of jook together while still hot. And, enjoy!

One last thing to consider is the necessity of toasted sesame oil. This is something that might be hard to find, (I know it is here in Small Town, Ontario) but from my experiments with an alternative, I'm confident that I've come across a substitute. As long as you can get sesame seeds of one stripe or another, anyway.

For the oil used in my last jook I mixed one tablespoon of olive oil and one tablespoon of toasted sesame seeds. In lieu of mortar and pestle, I used the bottom of my spoon to crush as many of the seeds into the oil (or vice versa) as possible. The olive taste of the oil remained, but it was tempered by a mild sesame taste. This came out nicely in cooking, since, even before I added the extra sesame seeds on top, I could make out the sesame flavour in the rice. In the future, however, I will try the same with lighter oils in the hopes that I can get more of the sesame seed sensation into my jook.

Alright. If you have any questions about jook, want to suggest something for this recipe, or just want to drop me a line, toss it in the comments. And stay tuned - I'll be trying to redeem "Jonah Hex" in Friday's entry!

[Moon-dæg] My Gut-Feeling on Teaching ESL in Korea

This is the third entry in my write up on going back to teaching English overseas. The first part gave some hard stats and numbers. The second built on these figures and involved a little bit more information relevant to me. This entry, since this is the entry closest to the full moon, is one that will involve as purely an emotional line of reasoning as I can manage. It may sound oxymoronic (har har), but this is coming right from my gut.

Finances figure largely in this decision of mine. The "start up" costs are pretty much negligible - even if I go over after marrying my fiancée and she comes with. Loans would be needed, but these loans would not linger long enough to stress us out given the kind of cash that we could raise working over there. And who doesn't like making lots of money? This guy definitely does!

But what's my gut feeling about the money I'll make overseas?

I feel really good about it. I mean, I'm not going to be able to go away for five years and then come back a millionaire or anything like that, but that's not what I'm after. Writing can be done while teaching - especially university teaching, since it's not necessarily time consuming (10-20 hours a week, often including prep time). And that means that I could actually be making money while also making a name for myself as a writer.

I've been writing lately (welcome to my blog!), but money making has generally taken a hit as a result. Making money and getting my writing out there, among other writers especially (I have very fond memories of the Seoul Writers Workshop and the Seoul Writers' Collective) and among other people would be awesome. But, then. What's to say that I wouldn't be able to get that kind of flexible employment here in Ontario?

This presents a quandary. But. The plentiful nature of ESL positions overseas is what draws me. And where am I going to find a "city of lights" to quote the Deep Purple song in South-Western Ontario? Granted, they were singing about Tokyo, but Seoul (and even Incheon, my old haunt) are just as bright. So there's still that pull of adventure.

And the fact that I could bring my fiancée with me is icing. Delicious, sweet, strangely nutritious icing.

But then I'd also feel a little bad.

I'd feel that I might be pulling her along with me rather than being joined by her. And I have the sense that as much as she says that she wants to try teaching overseas or to just be with me rather than constantly apart as we've been for the last few months and years before that, she'll be doing something that's outside of her comfort zone.

Stepping outside that zone is a good thing, but then her parents aren't young. Though, her mother is so "Old Country" that with one hand she offers amazing coffee and delicious cooking, but with the other hard criticism and an overbearing opinion. So pulling my fiancée away from that is good - Tauruses within families seem to clash more than cooperate - but it's also bad.

I mean, it's her mom after all. She used to email her nearly everyday when she was in university. They're close. And if something happened while we were away I would carry that with me forever. Not to mention her dad - much cooler, but also just as "Old Country." Though, it's unfair to say that old dogs can't be taught new tricks - years into our relationship they finally let us stay in the same room when I'm over there.

So, having my fiancée with me means that we'd be in for super sexy adventures abroad. But it also means that we'd be away from those close to us. Honestly, though, and this is something that I discovered when I was away the first time, were it not for her I'm not sure that I'd have come back in the first place.

Sure, there was graduate school and friends to come back for, but really, were it not for my fiancée, outside of the temporary situation of grad school, I'd probably have had very few reservations about going back overseas afterwards. I'd still visit regularly (those long summers off (two months once you're a fixture) from university teaching would be excellent for long visits) and I'd have the money to actually *do* things with friends while visiting.

So moral dilemmas aside, I think that there's nothing but benefit for going back from a social perspective. I've lived with my fiancée for a year and we're still together - heck, for a large part of that year we shared a two bedroom basement with another couple. Weathering that took much more than I expect a few years in Korea would.

But then what about the other friends we'd be leaving behind? Skype would work well - it did in my first round - and visits would be possible once we both had more vacation time. Really, I feel that this would be a negligible problem. Some of my collaborative work with friends here, on a fortnightly YouTube skit channel (watch for the first skit this weekend!) and on a Doctor Who podcast, TelosAM, might get more complicated because of the dateline and timezone differences, but co-ordinating schedules is always manageable.

Ultimately, I think that the reason why this is still an option that I'm taking so seriously is that I know that it works. When I was teaching in Korea last I did suffer a little bit of well, not burnout, but I began to feel undervalued by the end.

It was all well and good being a celebrity and probably featuring in one of my young co-teacher's fantasies (she blushingly asked if she could put her arm through the crook of mine when we all posed for a picture on my third to last day), but I was also dogged by the feeling that my students really weren't learning. Maybe that's an argument for not going back - I might just wind up adding to the pile of complaints that some Koreans have about the ineffectuality of foreign teachers.

But this feeling is more likely because of a change to my job description after my first few weeks. What I did in those early days seemed to bore students more than enthuse them. I was totally new to the teaching game then and that my revamped job description dictated that I should make my classes fun rather than purely educational was a welcome break.

But my new m.o. was exactly why I felt as I did near the end of my contract. I wanted to teach my students. I wanted to give them the skills and knowledge necessary to really get English as best as they could. But I had to marry entertainment to education. And my personality made that a little bit difficult to execute.

Nonetheless, going back offers adventure, money, and a chance to actually be self-sufficient. All through my undergraduate years it was almost a bi-monthly occurrence to email my parents and ask them to kick a few bucks my way. But that never happened in Korea. Yes, the three hundred I took as "start up" money quickly ran out and I had to take a small loan from my recruiter to last until the banks opened after my first weekend, but I never had to ask anyone for money after that.

As a student of English who once considered a career in academia, parents and advisors warned me about the dangers of working and making money. And I succumbed to those dangers.

I also know that working overseas is a great way to make lasting friendships. Graduate school certainly was, too. But working in Korea didn't cost me nearly as much. Yet, both have a certain air about them that forges friendships that I can best describe by comparing them to the kind of friendships made amongst soldiers in combat, though I've never been in that line of work.

Honestly, even if I were to stick around Ontario and move to a major city my feeling is that my current friendships would remain and others would spring up anyway. Why not let the others be with people from all the many corners of the world rather than just a few or a couple?

In the end, what I fear the most about going back is that I can't say for sure what my fiancée and I will be getting into. It's one thing if I went over alone and wound up at a crappy school. But I know that potentially bringing my fiancée into the same situation would make me feel directly responsible. I'm sure that she wants to go for her own reasons as well as those involving me, but it does seem to be solely my idea, and so I would feel terrible should anything go wrong for the both of us. If we kept to the public school system, though, that probably wouldn't be a problem. Public schools and big international recruiters (EPIK, GEPIK, JET) tend to be much more legit than many ma and pa out-of-house recruiting agencies.

If you've got any questions or comments about teaching ESL overseas leave them in the comments. And stay-tuned for the last part of this series, coming in next week!