Oh, the Timing was Perfect!

One evening, last week, as I was walking back to my apt. building from the academy, something happened.

I was walking up behind two youngish (20? 23?) Korean women. They were chatting with each other, in Korean, loud enough that, even from behind, I could hear them.

Just as I was about to pass them by, one spoke to the other--as in maybe "my friend said to me so I said to him . . ."--in a rather loud voice and in clear English. What she said was, "You son of a bitch."

At this point I was even with them/passing them, and, as the timing was perfect, I turned to them and mock exclaimed "What?" as if (I pretended) the insult had been said to me.

The young woman who had spoken the words covered her mouth with both hands, then said, in English, "I'm sorry!"

I was laughing too hard to reply, as I entered my building, but I did tell her it was "ok".

Funny, and I bet she considers her words more carefully in the future . . .

CNN "Discovers" Haiti

Yesterday CNN was trumpeting the "news" that its reporters had "discovered" a mass grave site in Haiti, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince.

That focus very much disgusted me, as it suggested that there was some sinister event involved, as in past wartime atrocities.

This is obviously not war, but rather a natural disaster.

With reports of 30,000-100,000 dead, I believe it would be utterly stupid, if not physically impossible, to avoid mass graves.

Where is the news in this? What is the "discovery"?

With their continued (today you can read about the "Mass Pits [that] Hide Haiti's Dead") exploitative coverage of this tragedy, CNN has shown, once again, that all they really care about are the sensationalistic features of the story and, ultimately, the profits that such "reportings" support.

Shame on CNN.

Alphabet Sticky Board

Some of my friends in Korea, a couple who are both teachers, set this up in their apartment, where they do some teaching.

They pasted a large mat on the wall and individually cut out the alphabet letters so that young learners can exercise and experiment with their growing English language abilities.

Pretty cool, huh?

Note: the socks drying in the foreground are just that, drying, and they are there because of the Korean "ondol" heating system, which basically provides underfloor heat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ondol). To put it simply, the socks dry faster when they are lying on the floor:)

Apartment Recycling--The Way it Oughta Be?

Here are some pics of my apartment building's recycling area. Grungy, yeah, but it makes me think that more places should have the options for recycling that we do.

Here, we can sort trash by:

*General (green)

*Biodegradable (blue)

*Plastic

*Glass (2 types)

*Plastic bags

*Styrofoam

*Cardboard

Now, I'm not sure where it all winds up, so I can't claim that the system is great, but it is nice to think that my efforts to divide my trash/recyclables are worthwhile.

The Crane Vase

Here's another advertising image, this one of a historical product, one of South Korea's National Treasures: a 12th century Goryeo porcelain vase.

http://antiquealive.blogspot.com/2008/04/celadon-prunus-vase-inlaid-with-crane.html

Picture Me

While I think my university professors would have wanted me to ask, "Do you think there is a possibility that this advertising image uses sex to sell its product?", all I could really think about was, "Hmmm . . . I think that camera is nicely positioned in the middle of the picture.":)

Speaking of Snow . . .

Time magazine published a report in its January 18, 2010, edition that, "Seoul received 11 ft. (3.3 m) of snow, the most it had seen since 1937".

11 feet!

Wow!

Even though it is only a short walk to school, that would have been tough, were it at all true.

Are there any fact checkers at Time? And even if there aren't, couldn't the person typing the copy maybe have thought that 11 feet in one day would be something of a universal record, perhaps something so far beyond belief that we could not even attribute it to global warming?