There's a feral kitten on my bed :-)

Now if he would just stay there when I entered the room...

My birthday present to myself

For my birthday on Saturday I took the bus to Andong (about an hour and a half northeast of Daegu) for the Andong Maskdance Festival. In this case, photos are definitely worth more than a thousand words. I've selected my favorites to post below, and you can see the complete set of 143 photos by clicking here. Enjoy!

Booming Banyawol

Lest you read my post from the other day and conclude that the Banyawol area of East Daegu is merely a crumbling relic of days gone by, here are some images of the booming side of Banyawol.

(As you can see, backalley and booming Banyawol coexist - for now)

Dubious Jack the Pumpkin King

My friend Christopher Esing has written a wonderful Halloween tale entitled Dubious Jack the Pumpkin King, and it has been illustrated by Mary Manning. It is currently available for reading and viewing for free online - you can check it out by clicking here - and it will be available for hard-copy purchase soon. Also, please visit and "like" Dubious Jack's facebook page! If you're interested in contacting Christopher or Mary, Chris can be reached at christopheresing@yahoo.com, and Mary can be reached at mary.mnnng@gmail.com.

Backalley Banyawol

Today, day three of my six-day Chuseok vacation, started out kind of dreary, as yesterday's storm was still in the process of moving on out. As such, I decided to stick close to home, in case said storm decided to stick around. In the end, today proved to be an absolutely incredible day weather-wise. I used this opportunity to walk around and take photographs of my neighborhood of East Daegu, Banyawol. Being out near the edge of the city, Banyawol is in many ways very laid back, underdeveloped, and decaying - despite the recent arrival of 4000 new apartments in complexes such as Gwen's and the absurdly enormous and overpriced Lotte Plaza. I had expected, after seeing the recent development in Banyawol, that the abandoned buildings I had photographed back in 2007 would've been torn down by now. Oddly enough, they hadn't been. Unfortunately, they had been walled off so that I couldn't get in and poke around like I had done before. Nonetheless, I did get some interesting photos. The complete set can be viewed by clicking here, and a selection of my favorites is below.

A day in Gyeong Ju

Yesterday was the first day of my 6-day long Chuseok vacation. [Chuseok, a holiday commonly explained to English speakers as "Korean Thanksgiving" is held in the fall, dates varying in accordance with the lunar calendar. It's a time for honoring one's elder family members and one's ancestors. You can read more about it on wikipedia.] Yesterday I decided to take a day trip to the small town of Gyeong Ju [see wikipedia], one of my favorite places in Korea. The Weather Channel had been forecasting rain... but aside from about thirty minutes of clouds around 1pm, the day was gorgeous. I took nearly 400 photographs, and ended up with 143 edited and uploaded to flickr - you can view them all by clicking here, and I've posted some of my favorites below. Enjoy!

Bulguksa Temple [wikipedia]

Bulguksa

Bulguksa

Bulguksa still has their 2007 Year of the Golden Pig decor on display

Orchids at Bulguksa

View from Seokguram Grotto [wikipedia]


Flower fields with tombs in the rear, different focal lengths

Ancient tombs

Sometimes it's good to get on the wrong bus.

I got up early Saturday morning, planning to take the bus up to the Donghwa Recreation Area on Palgong Mountain (near Donghwa Temple) for the purpose of riding the cable car up to the top of the mountain in order to do some hiking along the ridge. Well, best laid plans and all that...

For some reason I got on the Palgong 1 bus instead of the Rapid Bus 1. I realized this when, about halfway up Palgong Mountain, the bus turned off the large, well-traveled, main road and turned onto a steep, narrow, winding road. I could've gotten off right then and there, but I decided instead to see where it would take me. The road wound up the mountain, and grew very narrow - to the point that whenever a rare car would approach from the opposite direction, it would have to back up and pull into the nearest driveway to allow us to pass. The road paralleled a small mountain river, and passed through mountain farmland and small mountain villages, before arriving at its terminus: an intersection with a larger road high on the mountain. At that point, the last of the remaining passengers disembarked. The driver then parked the bus and motioned for me to exit the bus. I asked him in my broken Korean what time the bus would be going to Daegu. His answer - not containing anything recognizable as a time - was not helpful, not even when I asked him twice more.

I'm fairly certain that the larger road near which the bus had deposited me and my remaining fellow passengers was the road that connects Chilgok (the northernmost part of Daegu) with the Donghwasa area, in which case, going either left or right at that junction should probably have returned me to an area with which I was familiar. However, being "fairly certain" is not the same as being 100% positive, and as the larger road somehow managed to lead uphill in both directions, I opted for going home the way I arrived: walking down the long, narrow, winding road.

Taken from the "larger road" looking down at the road I'd come up.

It was a perfect day for a long walk in the mountains, sunny and warm (but not hot or humid), with gorgeous blue skies overhead. The walk down took about three hours - although I certainly could've done it faster if I hadn't been continually stopping to take pictures of every little thing: farmland, the river, insects, flowers, dogs, rich mountain chalets, poor rural dwellings, you name it. The entire set of photos can be viewed by clicking here, although here's a sampling for you:

However, by far the most intriguing thing I found on my trek out of the mountain was the Yongsu-dong Dang-san. In the middle of nowhere, about halfway down the mountain, nestled in between the river, the road, and some farmland, was a grove of trees. In the center of the grove stood a large mound of stones, surrounded by several flat altar-like rocks. There was also a sign in both English and Korean bearing the following text:

Koreans have traditionally believed in guardian spirits that protect their villages. A Dang-san is a type of stone altar in a sacred grove near a village where the guardian spirit is believed to temporarily reside. In the hopes of a bountiful harvest and the peace and prosperity of the entire village throughout the year, the people invoked the help of the protective spirit by performing a collective ceremony at the village Dang-san each year. It is said that the Dang-san of Yongsu-dong is some 300 years old, and that it originated when two people, with the family names of Bae and Gu respectively, planted a tree and piled up stones at the entrance to the village, and conducted a ritual at dawn on the 15th day (full moon day) of the first lunar month of the year. Unfortunately, the village ceremony, called Dang-gut, was suppressed as an irrational superstition under the Sae-maeul movement, a government-led modernization movement that was spread throughout the country in the 1970s under the former military dictatorship. Currently, only the old trees and the stone structure are left to remind people of former happier days, but the altar has been maintained in such a good state that it provides a precious asset of historical importance.

Obviously I had to explore it thoroughly and take numeous photographs. If you're interested in seeing the entire group of Yongsu-dong Dang-san photos, click here, although I've included some of my favorites below.

On one of the flat altar-rocks, someone had left an offering of fruit and nuts.
Before I left, I added a packet of crackers, as that was the only food I'd brought.


In a couple of places, prayer rags had been tied to tree branches.

The sign had essentially said that worshipping at a place such as the Yongsu-dong Dang-su was a silly superstition no longer practiced in Modern Day Korea - however, the presence of an offering of fruit and nuts, the prayer rags, and even recently melted candle-wax certainly belie its words!

Matiz, Konglishized

Sometime since the other day when I took photos of the green Matiz
in my neighborhood, the owners had it Konglishized.

I took the photo at night with my old camera, so it's not the best.
Here's what it says:

Demon Member
Deluxehon Introduce

V.I.P. hon is truly a worldwidedrand

renowned for itsbritish style and taste,it is

proud of its history and britishstyle and tate

it is proud of its history and itsplace

in british society

Bwahahahahaha!

Charlie Kitler's new spot is inside my couch. I was worried that s/he would use the interior of my couch as a bathroom, but it comes out not just to eat, but to use the litterbox! Hooray!

Comparing education in South Korea and the USA

I just found this article, and it's so accurate that I figured I'd just post the whole thing below.

Korea's kids just like ours, 100 years ago
BY MITCH ALBOM
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST

SEOUL, South Korea -- "If they can do that in South Korea, we can do it right here in the United States of America."

President Barack Obama said that last year. He was talking about school. He was talking about hours. He was talking about how hard South Korean kids work, how long they study, how much time they put in -- more than a month longer per school year than their American counterparts.

I am writing this from South Korea, where I have spent a week, much of it speaking to high school kids. And I can tell President Obama pretty confidently that we can't do what they're doing here.

Because we don't believe in it.

South Koreans treat school like a full-time job plus a full-time marriage. They put in day hours and night hours, followed by weekend hours. It is not uncommon to see children in school uniforms walking home late at night. It is not uncommon to see them studying through weekends. There is private English education on top of the public education. Families split apart to improve a child's training. You hear stories about schooling that runs from sunrise past sunset, with breakfast, lunch and dinner being served in the building.

What you don't hear is cheerleading squads. What you don't hear is spring break trips to Cancún. What you don't hear is classes to boost self-esteem, to celebrate an ethnic group, to explore the arts. What you don't hear is "Glee" or "High School Musical" or other coolness-driven entertainment fantasies about high school fashion, sex, talent or jockdom.

How are our kids supposed to mimic these kids when this place doesn't look anything like the American school system?

It's funny, because most of the kids here want to be American.

Battling to get ahead in life
Not in the citizenship sense. They don't want to join our army. They want to be American in speaking English, in gaining wealth and status, in rising to the top. One of the questions I was asked by media here was, "What do our children have to do to become global leaders?" That's not a common question in the U.S. -- not to a visiting writer, anyhow.

There is an obsession with getting ahead here that begins with the classroom and permeates the adult workplace, where rigid hours and meager vacation days are the norm. The attitude mimics one you heard among American immigrants in the early 20th Century: "If you don't do well in school, you won't get to college, if you don't get to college you won't get a god job, and if you don't get a good job, you'll be a loser."

There is no shame in that lecture here. It is not viewed as corny or clichéd. It is part of the national pride, if not the national obsession.

How are American kids going to copy that? We're not disciplined enough, we're not hungry enough, and, most importantly, either parents don't say it enough, or if they do, kids ignore them.

That also doesn't happen in Korea. Respect for elders is paramount in Korean society. There are actually different words used to reflect deference to age -- a much older person is addressed one way, a slightly older person another.

They don't make comedies here where the 10-year-old is the brilliant family member and Mom and Dad are bumbling knuckleheads -- and divorced. The family dynamic is different. And as most educators will tell you, family is where future school performance begins.

Struggling to find meaning
Which, by the way, doesn't mean Korean kids are happier. It may be quite the opposite. Everywhere I went, I encountered teenagers in love with my book "Tuesdays With Morrie," because the teacher in it showed compassion and encouraged humanity, not just grades. Many kids told me, "I wish in my life I would meet a Morrie."

Many older kids wondered how you find meaning in your life if you are studying and working almost every spare hour.

And studies show that while Korean kids do amazingly well on certain standardized tests, those who come to America for college often drop out, unaccustomed the approach we take.

All of which suggests that Obama was a bit naive to think an extra month in school is going to put our kids on par with the high-scoring South Koreans. Their success runs much deeper than that. Their issues do, too.

Our kids laugh more, play more sports, express themselves more openly. The kids here are serious beyond compare, and they are driven to succeed. I'm not sure which system I'd prefer, but I know they are apples and oranges, and the length of a school year is only a tiny difference. It may take a village to raise a child. But it takes a country to educate one.

Contact MITCH ALBOM: 313-223-4581 or malbom@freepress.com. Catch "The Mitch Albom Show" 5-7 p.m. weekdays on WJR-AM (760).

Some better Charlie Kitler pics

Charlie Kitler is still scared and in hiding, although I managed to get a couple decent photos of him/her hiding under my bed, Enjoy!