East Asian Regional Politics and Korean Language (6/5)

D A Y S   L I K E   T O D A Y   granted my wish for academic rigor. Our East Asian Regional Security class was followed by an introductory class on the Korean language, meaning we had a day full of educational gold! I was a very happy student, but not a very happy photographer-- it's hard to take interesting pictures when you're in class all day!

Lectureface.jpg

In our first class, we took an extremely valuable regional-level look at East Asian security. Dr. Tessman outlined the abundant sources of potential conflict in the 21st Century. Much of this tension is readily apparent about the region, but doesn't necessarily register as a reason for pessimism, at least to my non-realist eyes. Regardless, there's a lot to worry about if one's really looking for it, and Tessman eloquently arranged these threats into five areas: 

• Radical differences in economic and political size and power that throw the concept of the balance of power to the wind;

• A lack of inclusive institutions for collective security and cooperation (think NATO or the EU)

• A mix of regime types including new democracies, quasi-democracies, authoritarian and communist states

• Historical animosities, such as Japan's colonialism, political tension between China and Vietnam, the Korean War, and the growth and prominence of the regional giants India and China

• Resources, including the Spratly Islands (those islands in the South China Sea that everyone is always sabre-rattling about), the region's Rare Earth minerals, and, as populations increase and our environment changes, the availability of water

Teaching, Learning, Singing: Korean Culture (5/25)

C O N T E N T S :

T e a c h i n g                     L e a r n i n g                    S i n g i n g

I .   T e a c h i n g

We got some fans!

 T H E   F I R S T  thing on our agenda was a return to Gwangnam Elementary in Busan to teach some more English. Everything went infinitely faster and smoother this second time around, due in no small part to the fact that I got to teach the older students instead of the younger ones. Our running, yelling, and games were replaced with conversations, which I hope was as rewarding for the students as it was for me! I got to talk to my group about what they wanted to be in the future, which really flaunted their language proficiency with tenses, professions, and the like.

There were two students whose stories stuck out to me, both of them young women. The first was obsessed with marriage and family life, and wouldn't stop talking about how excited she was despite her young age. I must have run into such people in my years in elementary school and either not realized it or not remembered them, because for some reason the thought of such a young person having such an adult focus caught me completely off guard. I don't know that many people with similar aims even now in college! I found myself wondering about gender roles in American and Korean culture while I fought back the urge to tell the first young woman about all the exciting possibilities out there for someone like her beyond marriage when the next student--also a young woman--spoke with equal excitement about her bright future as an astronaut. It felt good to encourage both of them after realizing that women can dream just as freely in Korea as in America.

Teaching English in Haeundae, Busan (5/23)

R O A D T R I P ! !

On the road to Haeundae!

TODAY WAS our first trip to teach English at a Korean elementary school-- Gwangnam Elementary in Haeundae, Busan.

Haeundae is a very nice area of Busan, known for its wonderful sandy beach, its colossal bridge, its (superinsaneworldfamous) shopping, and its open-air street markets. And by very nice, I mean extremely clean, wealthy, and prosperous. It is Haeundae that lays claim to the largest shopping mall in the world-- all 15 floors of Shinsegae in Centum City, including an indoor driving range, ice rink, and movie theater. Although I can't attest to the intensity of Shinsegae itself, the community around it was evidence enough for me to agree with Haeundae's hypercapitalistic excellence.

Our trip from the temple to Haeundae was very nostalgic and calming. We'd traveled by road some before today, but not as far, nor during the day. The experience was not unlike a roadtrip in the states: We hopped on the interstate, zipped past an array of other vehicles before an ever-changing backdrop--some rice paddies here, some residential areas there, some factories, high-rises, and other monstrosities breaking the horizon every now an then, increasing in frequency and density as we neared our destination-- and before we knew it, we were in the middle of the city, climbing out of the van that had carried us and into our first immersion learning experience.

The gorgeous school grounds in the middle of the city

Morning Meditation and Korean Culture (5/22)

M E D I T A T I O N .

[A N    E X C E R P T from my notebook:]

My handy dandy notebook!

"I knew it was early. I knew I should be asleep. I knew I couldn't sleep.

I found myself dressed and in the hall, failing miserably to close the door to my room quietly-- its hinges cried out unhappily through the still and silent hall. When the shriek subsided, I felt the silence and isolation surround me like a hug from the universe, as if to say, "You're the only one here, but I love you."

I knew not where I was going or why, and upon reflection I did not put much thought into who I was or where I was, either. None of this was important; none of it was real or present. What was was my movement through this weird and wondrous world in the wee hours of the morn. 

I thought of wandering through town in search of a mountain to climb-- Korea is 79% mountains, so one must not walk far before running into one. Phaedrus found great meaning on a mountain in America; imagine the meaning I could find here!, I thought to myself. 

The weather seemed to discourage such shenanigans: the wind was blowing constantly and with a worrisome intensity, as if a storm were coming. Something was ominous about the energy that I found outside our building, which encouraged me to head for the main Dharma hall.

Of course I tripped when entering the darkness of the temple. The thud of my foot on the raised floor broke the silence and my stumbling entrance to the hall snapped me out of my grandiose thinking and grounded me instantly in the present. It turns out I did actually have a body that was a part of the world I was fawning over.

After recovering my balance and regaining my composure, I bowed the traditional three prostrations (video) and headed to the altar at the front of the hall. Again, the silence closed in, and I let it consume me as I sat to meditate."

(Of course the hall looked much different in the wee hours of the morn.)

I've "meditated" before, but never really gone anywhere with it-- it's often a very temporary and self-conscious activity, perhaps even contrived. I can never really get my mind around the fact that I'm making myself sit and making myself calm and clear-minded, and all of that making seems to prevent me from getting fully into my meditation.

This time around, that was not the case. The dimly-lit hall and the early morning peacefulness eased me into a meditative state before I even sat in the hall, and although the wild wind outside could be heard throughout the hall, focus and peace of mind came easily to me. The wind, ever the trickster, took to playing the bell that hung from the eaves of the temple; not even that constant cacophony could hold my mind back.

With my body still in the temple, I wandered through thoughts of self, of others, and of the world's existential layers and extant entities; through the positive, the normative, the true and false; and also through as much nothingness and calm emptiness as the somethingness I mentioned.