America, Art, and Animal Rescue (6/13)

Back at Yeungnam-- a shot of the campus taken from the library, if I recall!

Even though a "regular" day at Yeungnam involved less travel and overt thrills than, say, a trip to POSCO, this one was pretty eventful.

In the Classroom: The United States in East Asia

The day began, as so many did, with class. Today our topic was the good 'ole U. S. of A. We took a rather clinical approach, beginning with a discussion of CINC scores. CINC scores are basically social science's way of taking the utterly baffling world of international politics and fusing it with the accessibility of a video game-- by running a state's capabilities through a nifty formula which includes factors such as population, production of strategic resources such as steel, and military expenditure, one ends up with a convenient score that can then be used to roughly compare the material capabilities of different states, as well as the world at large.



To get more specific, the total power of every state in the world adds up to 1. The United States' CINC score is .142149; as the second largest CINC score in the world, the US is, strangely enough, #2. First place goes to China, with a score of .198578 (wikipedia). This seeming inversion leads numerous western scholars to proclaim that CINC is an outdated metric-- the US doesn't need a population or military as large as China's to be as powerful due to its superior military capabilities, they claim. Nevertheless, CINC scores give an interesting insight into the military capabilities of a state.

We started with CINC scores because they are zero-sum-- since the total power equates to 1, any increase in a country's score necessitates a decrease in that of another. We used this perspective to frame our discussion of the interests of the United States within the East Asian region-- what does the growth of China and the modernization of other regional actors such as Korea and Japan mean for the United States and its power?

At the time of this class, the US had about 30k troops in Korea, 40k in Japan, and 25k in Australia-- and this was before the mysterious Asian Pivot became a thing! Most of these troop levels have been maintained since WWII, establishing a persistent US strategic presence in the region. What do we make of this? Is this gunboat diplomacy? Are we keeping the Open Door open? Laying the groundwork for the KORUS FTA? Perhaps all of the above.

Many things have changed since WWII. Institutions have mushroomed (ASEAN, plus dyadic economic and diplomatic agreements). This means that although the region maintains a hub-and-spoke alliance relationship wherein the US, as the "hub," establishes treaties with numerous "spokes," such as Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, the spokes themselves do not share such treaties with each other (wikipedia). All of this growth and development seems to be beneficial, especially from a positive-sum perspective, where advances are actually possible. But since the spokes themselves are growing, does this mean from a zero-sum, CINC-based perspective that the US is losing? That's precisely what the pessimists argue, that institutional growth is squeezing the US out of its relevance. A strong Japan balances the region, and economic increases in the leading countries threaten US power and prosperity. If the US helps China rise, what will the other actors in the region think about that preferential treatment?

Whether one views the region through a positive- or zero-sum lens, some things hold true. Over-accommodation on the US's part isn't in its best interest, as it would destroy the system as it is today. Yet neither is over-containment, as acting against the growth of the states that are growing could be nothing other than an act of overt aggression.

At the end of the day we were left with a better understanding of the workings of the region and its strategic interactions, but did not have many answers to our questions of what's next for the US. That's mostly because it's on policymakers to decide. Either way, we concluded that the chances for conflict (economic, political, etc.) are high, but the chances for war are low. And then we broke for lunch.

That's me!

On My Own: The Art of Living and Living for Art

Since practically all the rest of my time at Yeungnam had been structured, I decided to strike out on my own after class. I was feeling a bit pent up and needed some space to myself. I started some laundry in the dorm's dryerless laundry room, proudly patting myself on the back for interpreting the settings on a foreign washer, and then went for an excellent trail run on the winding trails behind our dorm. We really were lucky to have such a well-furnished place to stay, with such nice amenities in such close proximity!

After my run, I picked up some snacks at a local convenience store and set out in search of some art. This was an instinctual practice I'd developed in my time at UGA-- whenever I felt a little off and wanted to recharge, I'd simply make my way to the art building on campus and wander around it, taking in all its majestic work until I felt better. I figured I might as well try the same here at Yeungnam, but boy was I wrong! I ended up spending the rest of the afternoon searching for some art, to no avail.

My first destination was the art building itself, which, of course, was locked up tight. I forget how exactly I did it, but I ended up climbing up some railings to an inaccessible second story, which miraculously had an open door. The door let me into a stairwell that was itself locked off from the rest of the building, resulting in me climbing up and down the length of the multi-story building, peeping through stairwell doors in hopes of spotting some art. I didn't see a single piece! Yeungnam's art building seemed way more like a classroom than like a studio, like UGA's building-- at UGA there's work everywhere, but at Yeungnam, it seems like they just talk about art rather than making and enjoying it! Or at least that's how it seemed from my locked stairwell.

After giving up on the art building, I came across some english-speaking students who, after hearing about my search, directed me towards the library-- all 21 floors of it!!!! And I thought UGA's 6-story library was a monstrosity!! I had trouble getting around this building as well-- I needed some sort of access card or something to use the elevators from the main floor, but I managed to find out that by going down to the bottom floor, I was able to get around that and take the elevator wherever I pleased! I was really proud of myself for figuring that out, even though it didn't result in the discovery of any art. I'm sure there was art in art history books somewhere, but the people I'd talked to made it sound as if there was art on display in the library!

At the end of my adventure, I'd successfully navigated some pretty inaccessible buildings, but hadn't found a single piece of art. Of course I would have liked to, but at the same time, I sure did enjoy the adventure, even despite its failures.

ANIMALTIME!

On the way back from my wanderings, I ran into the rest of my study abroad group, who happened to be going downtown to get some food. I ended up going with the first thing I saw-- a cute little food truck that served delicious squidballs!

That was only the beginning of animaltime, though, because as I began to eat my squidballs, I noticed a faint mewing coming from under the foodtruck. It turned out there was a cute little kitten under the cute little foodtruck! This little fella was FREAKING OUT-- what the hell was it doing under a truck in the middle of downtown!!! It was right off of a four-lane main road! My friend Jack and I ended up spending a good 20 minutes trying to coax the poor little kitten out of its hiding spot without accidentally scaring it into the street. It seemed for so long that there was no way we'd ever get it out-- it was probably even more terrified of us than it was of the roaring road behind it. Finally, we did chase it out, and out did it ever come! It shot out from under the truck towards the student building, where it got caught between an open door and a glass window, bouncing around between the panes of glass. It was really quite painful to watch how terrified the poor animal was. We got it out of the corner it'd taken to, only to accidentally let it into the student building itself. It wasn't until after some scooby-doo level chasing that we were able to capture the darn thing and calm it down.

Jack cradling the kitten

It looked so terrified and exhausted! :'(

We had absolutely no idea what to do with a stray cat-- we considered taking it back to our dorm for the night and trying to find a local animal shelter the next day, but figured that'd be a terrible idea. We ended up asking a passerby who'd witnessed the daring cat rescue if they'd take it for us, and they said yes. I wonder if they kept the kitten or passed it off to animal control! I hope the little fella is still alive-- it was adorable, and we fought hard to keep it alive!