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!

Introducing Charlie Kitler!

I remarked the other day how my repeated attempts to catch stray cats in this country were continually thwarted by their wariness and swiftness... Well, tonight with a little help from a nice fresh can of tuna, I snagged one! This was the one I'd gotten the closest to before, because it seems to be the smallest/hungriest. This time, I hung on for dear life. Even when it buried its teeth into my knuckle. Heh. Anyway, the little scamp is currently hiding behind my fridge. I got this picture of it while it was still hiding behind the couch. Obviously not the best photo, but I'll certainly post a better one when I get the opportunity to take one :-) Also, in case for some reason you don't get the name reference, he (or maybe she) looks like Charlie Chaplin... Or a kitler.

The "learning" continues

Last month I posted some interesting selections from The Learning Times. The Learning Times is continuing its use of The Office and Little Miss Sunshine as teachable tools, thus enabling them to choose utterly ludicrous headlines. I'm beginning to think this must be done by a waygook with a rather absurd sense of humor.

My favorite Korean car, now available from Chevy

Ever since my second trip to Korea in 2004, I have been in love with a Korean car made by Daewoo called the Matiz. One of the most popular colors this car has come in since its release into the Korean market is green... and y'all know how I love green.

There were green Matizes (Matizi?) in Russia in 2005, and I arrived in Korea in 2006 to discover that my friend Gwen had bought herself one (here's her husband posing with it). I even found a green Matiz in Osh, Kyrgyzstan in 2008 (click here and here to see!), namely due to the fact that there's a Daewoo plant just across the border in Uzbekistan. [Check out the wikipedia article for more Matiz info!]

I utterly adore the newly redesigned Matiz - which comes in not only normal colors but green, pink, and light blue as well. There's a green one that belongs to someone in my neighborhood. Check it out:

And best of all, this model Matiz is now being sold in the USA as a Chevrolet! They're calling it the Chevrolet Spark, not the Matiz, and it comes with the Chevy logo as opposed to the Daewoo logo, but otherwise, it seems pretty damn identical. Check it out!

A couple of things bother me about this, however. For starters, the name. What was wrong with the name Matiz? Not to mention that the name Spark evokes images of an electric car, which it simply isn't.

The main thing that bugs me though is this quote from the official Chevrolet website: It's 100% Chevrolet from the ground up. Ok, so General Motors owns Chevrolet. General Motors owns Daewoo (now officially called GM Daewoo) - but the Koreans began making the Matiz several years before GM joined the party, and they'd been making its predecessor, the Daewoo Tico [see wikipedia], since 1991.

To say that the Spark is 100% Chevrolet from the ground up is completely disingenuous. Not that it makes me want one less, mind you, but it totally bugs me.

A very American Saturday in Busan

Yesterday I took a day trip down to Busan to meet up with Steve, Rob (no worries; not that Rob!), and a couple of some of their coworkers (all American). I took the bus down there - forgetting until I was already on the bus that the terminus for the Daegu-Busan route is at Nopo-dong, the northern-most subway station in Busan, and rather a long way from Busan Station where I was planning to meet the guys. Ooops. C'est la vie.

A view from the bus window

From Nopo-dong, I took the subway an hour long ride down to Busan Station. I took a bunch of photos of the new fountain in Busan Station Plaza before meeting up with my travel companions of the day. The image below is my favorite of the fountain shots.

The five of us took the subway out to Haeundae Beach ("the Riviera of Korea"). The guys got set up with hotel rooms, and we spent the remainder of the afternoon and early evening wandering about the Haeundae area. Some of the photos I took are below; the full set of pictures can be viewed by clicking here.

Since I'm currently pet-sitting Songi, I had to make it back to Daegu in time to feed her and take her for her evening walk, so at 8:30 I left Haeundae, and took the subway back to Busan Station in time to catch the last train of the day back to Daegu.

Critter Tales

It has been strange adjusting to life without any pets, considering that when I was in Waycross I had access to roughly 60 animals at all times. While I must admit that I don't miss cleaning litter boxes, I definitely miss coming home to a menagerie of fuzzy companions. After Diana left Korea for the US, taking her two kitties with her, her husband brought me her kitties' litterbox, food and water bowls, and half a container of kitty litter. I now have everything I need... except a cat!

Korea isn't a particularly cat friendly culture, so stray cats tend to be much warier than in the US. As such, even armed with numerous cans of tuna, I have yet to catch a single cat. I've fed a bunch, however. Not far from my house is a bar/restaurant known as the Loss Time Bar / BHC Chicken. The owners put out chicken scraps every day for the stray kitties, so there often several kitties in the vicinity of the bar. The other evening I (accompanied by LTB/BHC's owner and his wife and daughter as well as two drunken Korean men) attempted to lure several kitties to me... without any luck.

Often there are kittens where that copper colored car is.


These are the two I see most often. I took this picture on my way to work one day last week. They were hanging out in the street next to Loss Time.


And since of course I had tuna in my purse, I fed them.
Yes, I realize that is a little insane.


That evening, there were not two but three kittens next to Loss Time!
While I was feeding them - with the help of a bunch of Koreans - an adult tortishell showed up and ate, too. Didn't catch any, although I came close with the black and white and the tabby.

Meanwhile, I am pet-sitting Gwen's yorkie, Songi, which is going a little way to alleviate the loneliness of not having any pets. But surely she'd like a kitten to play with, right?

An update on Typhoon Kompasu

Well, despite the rather alarmist image I posted yesterday and the even more frightening one I saw this morning, Typhoon Kompasu had essentially no effect on Daegu whatsoever. We got very little rain last night, and today we had bright blue skies filled with puffy white clouds. Meanwhile, those near Seoul definitely felt the impact of the storm.

Look what's on the way!