That's right ladies and gentlemen, my kitty is a girl - and you know what that means: yep, I have finally been able to pet her! She has finally decided that - as long as it's the wee hours of the morning and I'm still in bed - she wants nothing more than attention. She wakes me up, purring and kneading, and demanding to be petted. She also has a bit of the Brie in her, but Brie (who lives with my Aunt Mary) taught me well :-) Of course, as soon as I get out of bed Charlie goes back to acting like I'm some kind of scary monster, but still! A purring, snuggly cat is a long way from the terrified little feral I snagged, biting, kicking, and screaming off the street back in September!
Douglas Adams knew what he was talking about when he told everybody not to panic and that the Earth was mostly harmless. I've received numerous emails and facebook messages from people warning me to be careful and asking if I'm planning to come home... Um, no. And frankly, I don't think this is going to escalate into much of anything.
For starters, I live in Daegu, which you might notice is rather a long ass way from Yeonpyeong-do, where the shelling took place, as well as from the border with the north. Unless all hell breaks loose and North Korea decides to nuke the south's four largest cities, I'm pretty safe.
Secondly, all hell ain't gonna break loose. Kim Jong-eun, Kim Jong-il's young and inexperienced heir is up there throwing some weight around and generating some propoganda footage he can use to bolster his image.
Thirdly, if the South goes holding war games in disputed waters (click here to see a graphic showing where North Korea thinks the maritime border lies, as opposed to where the South thinks it's located), they shouldn't be all that surprised when the North uses this as an excuse to fire southward.
The following comes from a statement issued from North Korea's military supreme command: The South Korean enemy, despite our repeated warnings, committed reckless military provocations of firing artillery shells into our maritime territory near Yeonpyeong island beginning 1pm [yesterday]. Taken from here. Kinda proves my third point, huh?
Lastly, I don't know enough about North Korea to tell you if they really want a war of not. What I can tell you is that the South definitely does NOT want war, the government's post-Cheonan rhetoric notwithstanding.
My prediction? The South will talk tough. They'll cut off humanitarian aid to the North. They'll threaten. And they'll take no military action. The North will use this as a propoganda goldmine to show how Kim Jong-eun battled the evil capitalist forces of the South. And here in the South, life will go on, unchanged. (And well, if I'm wrong about all this, at least it will give me blog fodder until the internet stops working.)
This is something I’ve been ruminating on for a while now, and it seems fitting to post it what with North Korea strutting its stuff and firing across the border today. (In case you haven’t heard about this, please click here, here, or here. Thus far, the average resident of Daegu doesn’t seem too concerned. Also, if the south is going to conduct war games on an island that close to its border with the north, what do they expect? See map.)
Anyway, I brought this whole apocalypse question up on facebook last month when I posted the following status update: Jane Keeler wonders: What would you have in your apocalypse kit? I’m thinking tweezers. I’m not entirely sure where this thought came from, but I was plucking my eyebrows (surely you didn’t think those elf-arches were natural?) when it occurred to me that The Apocalypse is no excuse for a unibrow. I suppose one would then have to add a small mirror into the kit, otherwise the tweezers would be rather useless as far as the battle against the unibrow is concerned. Anyway, the following commentary ensued:
So, here’s the combined list: tweezers, mirror, hatchet, bottle of vodka, brownie mix, romance novel, laptop, camera, internet, dark chocolate, a cat, duct tape, twine, a good knife, a gun, beef jerky, sunblock, How to survive the end of the world as we know it by James Wesley Rawles, a sword, a dog, and rope. Hmmmm. That’s going to be somewhat cumbersome to pack, not to mention I’d have to include something for the cat and dog to eat, unless we’re all munching down on the beef jerky come chow time.
As my friend Ben pointed out, I should’ve set some parameters; it all boils down to how you envision The Apocalypse, and if by ‘kit’ you mean something portable or something more along the lines of a well-stocked bomb shelter. Do you, like Brenda, picture The Apocalypse as some kind of natural catastrophe? Or do you see it as the result of a nuclear (or even conventional) war? Zombies? Plague? EMP? (<-- There’s a fascinating, albeit poorly written, book on this topic called One Second Later, which is worth reading if you can tolerate the wooden characters and frequent use of would of, could of, and should of. Makes one wonder how a book can score a foreward by Newt Gingrich but not a decent editor.) What about alien invasion? And, of course, let’s not forget the Four Horsemen and ye olde Biblical apocalypse.
I have to admit that I was picturing my Apocalypse as something along the lines of a war zone, or perhaps an area in the aftermath of a war, and I was picturing my kit being something I could pick up and carry with me, which would help me to do some triage on the group list above.
Tweezers and mirror – in. I repeat: The Apocalypse is no excuse for a unibrow. Hatchet – in. Bottle of vodka – in, if I’m in the FSU, where shots could be used as currency. Out anywhere else. Replace with water bottle. Brownie mix – not going to be able to fit an oven in my backpack, so the brownies are out. Sorry Brenda. Romance novel – Out. I think I’d substitute The Silmarillion. It’s a long and entertaining read, and if it’s one of the few texts to survive The Apocalypse, my descendents might come to believe it to be a historical text. How awesome would that be? Laptop and Internet – Out. I suspect the internet would go out on its own, what with The Apocalypse occurring and all. My laptop, while I like it and find it useful, is not worth saving. I would, however, put my external drive in a ziplock bag and add it to my pack, in case one day I ran across a functioning computer. Camera – In... until the batteries die. I love my camera, but once the batteries give out (and I’m assuming an inability to recharge) it will just be a large chunk of heavy, dead weight. I would of course save the memory cards. You never know. Dark Chocolate – Sadly, out. It melts. I don’t want melted chocolate all over the rest of my kit. Not saying I won't have any on hand to calm me down at the beginning to The Apocalypse, however. Cat – if I have a cat with me at the time, yes. If not, no… until I find one. In which case I should probably add a cat-carrier to my pack. Duct tape, twine, a good knife, a gun, beef jerky, and sunblock – all yes. How to survive the end of the world as we know it by James Wesley Rawles – Maybe. I haven’t read it. Perhaps if I read it and could remember everything pertinent, I wouldn’t need to pack it. Sword – out. Sorry, Jacob. Now don’t get me wrong, I do love swords, and I’m still pissed over the Ghetto Sword Theft of 2008, but it would be rather cumbersome, and given how terrible I performed in my fencing class at Sewanee, why would I bother? Besides, I’m already packing a gun. Dog – only if I find one along the way that doesn’t want to eat my cat and that is willing to protect me. Rope – In! Sam Gamgee and his Gaffer would be proud.
I am not an economist, nor do I normally try my hand at playing one on this blog, but given the general financial state of affairs in the world at the moment, I feel the need to comment on the way things are going here in South Korea. See, right now the economy in South Korea is pretty good - it's been better, but it's definitely been much worse at other times in the modern history of this half of the peninsula.
Koreans love to shop. They love their fancy clothes and expensive gadgets. Smart phones? Hell, half my students (elementary and middle schoolers) have smart phones. They laugh at my several-year-old regular cell phone. ("Jane-teacher, why no touch screen??") And in a culture where appearances are so important... well, if you're not earning enough to keep up with the Kims, then you should definitely consider borrowing.
Nearly every commercial break has at least one (if not several) advertisements for quick cash loans - snazzy commercials with a sexy cast and a catchy tune that make borrowing money look hip and cool. (The exception to the 'hip and cool' loan company appears to be Rush and Cash, which seems to be targeting the 50+ crowd with their radish toting ajumma, and animated Korean radish.) I can sing along with the jingles to Hi Loan, Won Cashing, Welcome Loan, and Sanwa Money, just to name a few. You know how so many people (in the US at least) fell into the trap of re-financing their home for the sole purpose of getting extra spending money before the financial collapse? Here there are numerous re-fi commecials - several which have animations showing one's house/apartment (it is common to buy apartments here) serving as an ATM!
Here's an example of one of the Won Cashing ads (a spoof of the Korean pop group Wonder Girls):
The constant bombardment of ads such as the above makes taking out a loan - or loans - seem like such a fun and easy thing to do... so why not, right? Except that we know what sort of hole this kind of credit-based, mad spending, consumer-oriented economic model got the US into. This does not bode well for South Korea's economic future.
Already there are horror stories of loan sharks (private lenders; not the glitzy loan companies appearing on TV) forcing women who have fallen into arrears into prostitution (see here and here), and one wonders how long the fast-cash boom can be sustained...
Yesterday I went to Busan to meet up with Steve and Rob for the purpose of wandering around and taking lots of photos. Unfortunately, the weather was dreary and overcast, and totally without the sort of lighting that makes for good photography. Nonetheless, we made the best of it. We headed for Igidae Park, a cliffside park overlooking the water, located about a twenty minute walk from the Namcheon subway station, where we took a ridiculous amount of photographs. Some of my pictures are below. The entire set can be seen by clicking here.
After leaving Igidae Park, we walked along the shoreline to Gwangan Beach, where we ate a rather ridiculous amount of delicious Korean food (above), which left us feeling rather less like exploring Busan and more like curling up and taking a nap. We settled instead for a coffee shop, although when the coffee did nothing to perk me up, I figured it was time to return to Daegu. To see the complete set of photos from the day, CLICK HERE.
1) Get the zipper in my super-awesome green sweater replaced. Koala (my adorable idiot child) ate the zipper before I left the US, but I brought the sweater anyway. Now that it's cooled off, having a sweater that actually zips shut would be rather useful. Luckily the incredibly friendly seamstress (who remembers me from 2006-2007) seems undaunted by the task. And amused by the fact that a puppy ate the zipper. She is probably the only person in my neighborhood who will now associate me with dogs instead of cats!
2) Get roundworm medicine for Charlie. I had actually been pleasantly surprised by the fact that Charlie's poop had always been firm, and (until this last week) worm-free. This week, however, he started passing roundworms in his faeces, and he vomited up a live one as well :-( I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to find a vet willing to give me roundworm meds without actually seeing the cat and doing a fecal exam, but as I still can't catch Charlie, I figured I should give it a try.
I got Gwen to translate "My cat has roundworms; I need roundworm medicine" and "I can't catch my cat because he is feral" - 우리고양이 회충있어요. 회충약이 필요하는데요. 고양이가 좀 야생하는데 못잡아요 - and I set off in search of the new 동물병원 (veterinarian) in my neighborhood. You know the ridiculous new shopping center that was built in Banyawol in my absence? Well, on the fourth floor, there is a vet. Last time I lived in Korea I trekked all the way downtown for a vet... and now there's one a ten minute walk from my house!
The clinic is called Cool Pet (this is actually a chain, with clinics located throughout the country), and the vet in the Cool Pet at Lotte Plaza by Yulha Subway Station is cute, nice, and speaks enough English to clarify things that weren't in my translated note. You know, like how am I planning to give this medicine to my cat if I can't catch it, am I sure that it actually has roundworms, and how much does it weigh? Anyway, he sold me roundworm medicine for $2 - I love how the Korean vet system, like their human healthcare system, is affordable. And, while I didn't get proposed to - which happened in a previous overseas vet visit - it was a pleasant experience... and there were adorable puppies that crawled all over me :-)
I just mixed Charlie's first dose of medicine in with his (or her...) food, which the little fatty promptly wolfed down.
Joe Scarangella presents Abkhazia: Conflict in the Caucasus, consisting of a blog post and photo gallery about his visit to this rebellious corner of post-Soviet Georgia.
I get a little lightheaded and mangle Clash lyrics as I go Rockin' the Tash Ra(bat) while revisiting my journey along the ancient Silk Road in Kyrgyzstan with a blog post and photo gallery.
And our British Bens try to out-do each other: Ben Scott presents images from his whirlwind trip to Uzbekistan (here), while Ben Rich shows us life in the Kyrgyz fishing village of Balykchy (here).
