Spitting on Michelangelo

The Seattle Times published a letter I wrote to the Editor last week. There's many people who are skeptical of human-caused climate change, and many who view Climategate as vindication for their views. This Letter to the Editor is my response to them:

Conspiracy theorists are like suicide bombers — loud and dramatic — but there are only a few of them, and they are soon forgotten by all but those they injure [“Hacked e-mails heat up Capitol Hill,” News, Dec. 3].

In the case of Climategate, the conspiracy theorists are wearing WMD and may injure us all. They’re generalizing a few pieces of doctored data in an attempt to impede the entire sustainability movement.

While it may be true that a few scientists in the U.K. have manipulated data, and while it may or may not be true that the climate is warming, what is crucial to realize is that both climate-change science and Climategate are red herrings, distracting us from specific, vital issues that threaten humanity.

Whether in climate change humankind has created a monster or a myth couldn’t matter less. Beyond the issue of global warming, readily verifiable facts show we’re running out of fish, forests and fresh, clean water.

If we continue to abuse the Earth, we in the developed world will certainly encounter a drastic decrease in the quality of our lives, while witnessing the excruciating deaths by starvation and poisoning of hundreds of millions in developing regions.

To improve the likelihood any response is well-aimed, allow me to clarify: climate-change and sustainability are two different things. Climate-change as caused by the Greenhouse Effect is not the same issue as overfishing, acidifying oceans, deforestation and desertification, or the exhaustion and poisoning of aquifers.

The issues connect, though they originate from varying causes and are fallaciously generalized as a unified crisis ("Global Warming", et al). Thus, if you claim you can refute one of these crises, you have not achieved victory. You still must face all the others, individually.

One last question I'd like to add: I know many of you are Christians and believe that God gave earth to humanity, choosing Adam and his descendants to subdue the earth as its Steward. If I grant you that, will you explain to me how you justify current human behavior as "stewardship"?

As far as I can tell, we're all spitting on The David, which is like spitting on Michelangelo.

Lego Houses with Plastic Figurines

If our childhoods are analogies for our adulthoods, then my symbols are toys.

I loved, loved stacking the Lincoln Logs together into fantastic houses with cantilevered balconies and secret chambers. Or I'd set up the entire PlayMobile zoo complete with grass as fodder imported from the yard. I'd build ships from wood scraps with my Dad and position MicroMachine humvees and helicopters in strategic locales.

Then I'd walk away.

When the normal child turned puppeteer and animated their creation, I left off, unsure how to proceed. What should the Humvee say to the Helicopter? Who should inhabit the balconied cabin? To where should the ship sail?

Attempting to slip inside my childhood mind, I find I knew how things should be -- I could see that clearly and entirely -- but not how they should progress.

Then adulthood. I publish websites and wander away for a month or two years. My novel's characters bore me to death, but the overall form intrigues me -- I've got a house for them, but they refuse to move between its rooms.

I've developed a Self with skills, ideas and general understanding but nary a concrete goal to pursue or destination to seek.

My friend Trevor posed the questions to me, "What do you NOT want to regret when you're 90?" and, "What do you want to be doing in 10 years?"

I'd rather he'd have asked me to solve the travesty of Industrialized Food. That's a question I can answer.

I'm in Sartre's rowboat (or was it Nietzche's?) on the infinite, vacant sea, with two oars and an indefinite period of time to row. It's not a bad rowboat, and the oars are sturdy, but which direction is progress, and where does it go?

Crowdfunding Lobbyists

There's a line in a recent Rolling Stone article that incited some very silly thoughts in my idealistic mind.

Here's the line:

"... actual people are not really part of the calculus when it comes to finance reform. According to those close to the markup process, Frank's committee inserted loopholes under pressure from "constituents" — by which they mean anyone "who can afford a lobbyist," says Michael Greenberger, the former head of trading at the CFTC under Clinton."

"Actual people" are not taken into account when drafting financial regulations, because we can't afford Lobbyists. Not individually at least. But if a significant chunk of Americans in favor of financial regulations donated $5 each -- microfunding -- to hire lobbyists, we could provide a counterweight to the Banks. Not a large counterweight, but at least the scales of financial justice might stand straighter and walk a slightly less tipsy line.

A quotidian day

I just got home from school. I walked in, took off my cardigan (which proved suffocating after ten this morning), set a litre of water boiling -- to drink later, since the tap water is rumored to be unpotable -- rinsed a handful of cherry tomatoes I bought on the way home, opened a Pilsner Urquell and sat down to write.

I realize you know little of my daily life, so because today was so average, I find it apt for sharing.

Since we've started at the current time, let's work backwards from here. I bought the tomatoes at a roadside truck selling at least 10 different native fruits and vegetables (and kiwis and bananas from some far-off land). They cost 5000won ($4) for about three kilos. That's enough to feed me for a week, if I make sauces every dinner, eat some at lunch, and snack on them like I'm doing now. Produce is cheap here, so long as it's grown in the country. Beef, on the other hand, is not. There's not much space for cows so they demand a premium. Tariffs and protectionist policies (which I heartily approve of) keep the Korean ranchers from being undersold by the American Meat Machine.

On the way to the tomatoes I passed a number of other street vendors selling maternity and baby clothes, cell phones from some national Telecom, and more, but I wasn't paying attention. I met a number of students on the way, in groups of twos and threes. Most of them just yelled, "Samporduh!!" and waved, while a couple of them asked how I was and replied to my query, "Finethanksyou?"

I have two favorite student interactions. First are the ones where I ask them a question in Korean and they answer in perfect English. For example, the third grader I saw today who, when I asked her "Odie ga-yo?" (Where are you going?), gave me a look of puzzlement, and said as clearly as an American kid, "My house."

The second favorite interaction is where they ask me obvious questions in Korean, like, "Weigookin?" (Are you a foreigner?) Umm... probably?

For the last four hours of school following lunch I did two things: 1) I emailed a couple of people and chatted with my parents, my girlfriend and a friend in Iraq. 2) I read about how to make Japanese ponds -- my first project on arriving home in Covington is to reform our prodigal backyard. (Prodigal, as in it keeps coming back in horrible shape.)

[On a side note: since Tomatoes are semi-poisonous, just how many of these things can I eat before I suffer their negative effects?]

For lunch I ate PB&J, a banana and a chocolate bar. Which is a bit juvenile, but I didn't feel like exerting effort. I read a chapter of Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake as well.

In the morning I had four nearly identical classes in a row. I started each class with my co-teacher, saying Hello, and What's The Date Today and those sorts of things, while I loaded the CD from the national curriculum. I administered a reading test to the few students who were away at science or water-rocket launching competitions yesterday. Once the CD loaded, I clicked on various videos and we asked the students to explain what they saw / heard. I gave a pop quiz on one of the longer videos, with mind-rending questions like, "Where was the boy?" (Possible answers: gift shop, toy shop, New York City, the USA) and "Why didn't the boy buy the toy helicopter?" (It was too expensive. He was in the Statue of Liberty gift shop -- what'd he expect?)

I'd arrived at school just after 8:30, gotten up just after 7:30 and slept last night around 4:30 (with the summer heat comes insomnia). Breakfast was frosted flakes composed of 74% corn (the rest is...?) and soy milk.

Back to the present: on the docket for the evening: maybe meeting friends after they get off work from the hagwons around nine tonight. In the meantime, putting some finishing touches on the beta of my new website, http://sharearchy.com, watching the rest of From Here to Eternity and practicing my French.

Yes, French, because it's just about time to depart this country -- perhaps for good, perhaps not. And French is a useful language, not to mention it's easier than Korean for a native-English speaker.

How to Teach in Korea in 3 Easy Steps

A steadily increasing number of you have asked me how you too can teach English in Korea. I suppose there aren't too many jobs floating around in the United States or something.

Well, at the moment there are a lot of "Teaching English as a Foreign Language" jobs in Korea.

First, the basics. There are three sorts of TEFL jobs in Korea:

1. Public Schools
2. Hagwons (privately owned academies)
3. Universities

Next, the details.

You do NOT want to teach at a hagwon.

I don't quite understand why anyone does. Hagwons are where parents send their children after school in a desperate attempt to boost their child's chance at success, at the cost of their child's happiness. My students attend classes from 8:20 am to as late as 11pm. They're exhausted and not especially prepared to learn when they're falling asleep on their desks. From a pedagogical perspective, I'm not sure if hagwons are effective or not, but, as someone once said, "Just because torture works, doesn't mean it's right." Which is not to fault the teachers (and my friends) who work at hagwons: some just didn't know; others are merely meeting market demand.

So, though the public school day lasts only six hours, the after-school school day can last until 10 or 11pm for a third grader. After school and during vacations children attend hagwons -- private academies. As my friend Lauren writes (she's so much better at expressing indignation):

"During vacations, students go to their academies (one for every subject), taking extra classes all day long. And then of course have homework all night. This is on top of the homework assigned by their public school teachers for vacation. They literally have no break from studying. From the time they are 6 until the time they finish high school, they will be studying continuously without one break - they do these classes during the summer vacation too. It's absurd. How do they not crack and go crazy?! No wonder there is little excitement in my students during our classes. It's because they're just off to more classes after I'm done with them."

Lauren continues, "On top of the normal subjects they study, they also generally study 2 instruments, art, and sometimes Chinese or Japanese on top of English. Beyond that, I have students (13 years old) studying computer programming. Every night of the week she tells me she spends 2 hours working on her programming homework. SHE IS THIRTEEN."

As far as actually teaching at a hagwon, it's not the best situation. There are a few excellent hagwons, but most are run by Koreans with little international experience. They're running a business and you're their commodity. They'll pay you about what a public school pays you, but you'll have to teach twice as much (up to 40 hours a week), either in the early mornings or after school into the late evenings. Hagwons are notorious for dodging their responsibilities to you, like paying your pension, deducting the correct amount of taxes, paying you on time, offering you a clean, sanitary, furnished apartment.

Yes, I'm describing the worst possible scenario -- not all hagwons are hellholes. Some are reputable, friendly and treat you well. But it's not worth the risk, especially when there's such an obvious alternative.

You DO want to teach at public schools.

Public schools are not profit driven. That makes them immediately better.

• You'll teach 22 hours a week at the maximum, though you may be required to stay at school a full 40 hours a week. I've heard of people using that time for naps, for side projects, for reading, for dying of boredom, etc. How you use your free time is up to you. I recommend getting a laptop and reading all the free books available from Project Gutenberg.
• Your pay will be at least equivalent to the hagwons. Public schools pay you on time. My base wage is 2,000,000 won a month.
• You'll get anywhere from 2-6 weeks vacation (I've heard of people getting 8 weeks). Some districts pay that vacation, some pay part of it, some pay only two weeks of it.
• You may have to work summer or winter camps, but they'll pay you overtime for that. I made an extra 500-600,000 won off of camps this winter. That's on top of the base salary.
  
• They get a budget for hiring you, which includes paying for an apartment. Hopefully you'll be placed in a new apartment, like the teachers in my city were.
• You teach the state curriculum with a co-teacher, which means any curriculum development you do is voluntary.
• You're not contributing to student exhaustion, because public school is compulsory. The better you teach, the less need for a hagwon the parent perceives.

Universities require experience / certifications / advanced degrees. I'll let you know about those if I ever find out.

I recommend Footprints Recruiting to help you find a public school to teach at.

A few more tips:

• Do your own research. I spent probably 20 hours researching everything I could find about Korea and teaching here.
• For more information, look around on Dave's ESL Cafe. The forums are full of advice and good and bad experience.
• When you still have more questions (which you should, because even after all that research I was still unprepared for Korea), contact me.

Day 106: Notes on a Country

One of my childhood friends moved when we were teens from Seattle to Muscatine, Iowa. His affection for the home of our youth grew through the years. The longer he was away, the more he found his identity in what he'd left. These days he lives in L.A., but even now he seems to have more zeal for my region than I do.

For perhaps the first time since my friend moved, I can commiserate with him. I'm finding my identity is founded more in what I left behind, than in the reasons why I left. Like the philosopher Hegel said, I'm examining my surroundings to find out which of it is not me. That which I don't reject, that which I affirm, I hold onto as the vague outline of my identity. In Korea I reject a lot. Not much of the culture here resounds with me. Instead, after my years of criticizing my home, I'm surprised to find that the silhouette remaining, my core identity, resembles the US.

I realize now that there's a lot of United Statesian inextricably woven into me. It seems, for all my syncretism, I can't get the American out of me.

Having been out of the US for 9 of the past 11 months, I've very gradually become fond of the hobbling, optimistic people and complex, chaotic, confusing land I left behind. Part of that fondness is fed by the stark contrast Korea presents. Part of it grows from brief moments of hope inspired by small people doing grand things.

I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised. It's the very core of the United States that encourages my criticisms, both in opening a podium for discourse via the first amendment and by enamouring me so I'll come critically to its defense when that podium is threatened.

I love that everyone in the US -- immigrant, CEO, religious, Daughter of the Revolution, bourgeois, ex-con, or student -- is, at least theoretically, allowed a soapbox and equal access to the air that will gladly carry their cries.

Perhaps I'm a bit self-righteous when it comes to our constitution and our incorrigible, polyphonic disagreeability. The same brutish, self-unconscious rudeness I despise in some United Statesians when it occurs in a quiet pub or museum, I love when it heralds fierce patriots parading some cronyist injustice or US-government condoned oppression to the chagrin of the supposedly patriotic.

The US is a noble culture and a fetid culture, but there's room for both. There are plenty of governments-by-the-people-for-the-people doing parts of it better. How I'd love Poland's universal free education all the way through university. How I'd love Canada's extensive support for the arts. How I'd love to see individual states defy the central government more, in the spirit of Ireland, Sweden and Connecticut. I'd love to see more legal equality and social acceptance for minorities.

I love that the US constitution protects both the rights of the majority to dislike the minority and the minority to challenge the majority. At the end of all the name calling, bickering and outright conflict, the constitution prescribes civility and allows enemies to dialogue til they become friends or go to dinner as enemies. It allows universities to explore risque subjects. It's the constitution itself that makes allowances via the court system for resistance, defiance and outright disobedience when such freedoms are threatened.

There's little open discourse in Korea. Friends of mine who teach adults English via topic based conversations complain that in consecutive classes, the same basic opinions are rehashed repetitively. Nor is discourse encouraged. Technically the founding contract of Korea protects freedom of speech, but the government doesn't go in for the whole constitutional law thing much: they're a majority party and they've stacked every piece of government machinery with cronies. Just yesterday a blogger was arrested for speculating Korea's currency, the Won, might collapse.

Beneath the government level, the culture itself discourages dissent. At my school, often horrible ideas proceed without questioning, refinement or improvement. For example, a 4th grader was hit by a car when walking across the street. The next day the school banned 3rd graders and younger from riding bikes to school. I was the only one who pointed out the non-sequitur nature of the mandate. Other teachers said, "It's ok, it's ok!" and "Don't you think this makes sense?" giving me a chance to come to their side. No one is expected to embarrass a leader by questioning their wisdom.

Young people are constantly coerced to do as their elders deign, even when decisions are completely non-sensical. For example, in Korea, boys are circumcised when they're in the 5th and 6th grade. Leading doctors here acknowledge the surgery is pointless at that age, as sanitation is no longer an issue for a 12 or 13 year old.

However, according to a friend who's been advocating against circumcision in Korea for the past 4 years, the majority of doctors know little about the procedure beyond how to actually sever the foreskin. Fathers are too busy at work to take their sons' side, and too harried to be approached. Mothers aren't informed on the details of the operation and so mandate their children undertake it. The boys of course understand the ramifications: weeks bedridden, the embarrassment of bloody pants and the effects of heavy painkillers taken for up to a month. Ignorance and corrupted doctrines of Confucianism perpetuate genital mutilation, which is certainly child abuse.

It's the freedom to dissent and the equality of all humans that I identify most with the in US. Children and adults, principals and teachers are equally defended under the law. There's an ingrained, fierce defence of humanity with all its forms, creeds, lifestyles and ideas. It's this aspect more than others that differentiates the US from Korea. Korea often seems juvenile and uniform. It feels like middle school, whereas the US feels like a university full of disagreement and discourse. That aspect alone makes the US rare and worthy of preservation.

Maybe I only feel this idealism at a distance. I have a feeling one day back in the US would dampen my affections. Yet, many of my cricitisms rose in reaction to Bush administration gaffs and big corporate handouts due to traditional politics. Perhaps later this month, that will begin to change. Maybe, maybe not: new ways and old ways have equal opportunity in the US.

I'll end with a summary statement that concisely conveys my current perspective. It rose from the mind of a British man during a similarly convoluted time in US history: the Vietnam War era. Aptly enough, I discovered the statement through another foreigner, a fellow blogger and traveler from Singapore and Malaysia, when she summed up her study abroad experience in the US. She wrote:

After only 4 months [in the US], I am ill-equipped to form a conclusion on America and I suspect that it'll be a nation that will perpetually baffle me.

One man can, though. And that man is Alistair Cooke, a BBC correspondent who had a weekly radio show about America, Letter from America. Never before have I heard such an articulate and moving description of the country, and a timeless one at that- for it holds true almost 40 years later:

In a self-governing Republic - good government in some places, dubious in others...with two hundred million people drawn from scores of nations, what is remarkable is not the conflict between them but the truce. Enough is happening in America at any one time - enough that is exciting, frightening, funny, brutal, brave, intolerable, bizarre, dull, slavish, eccentric, inspiring and disastrous - that almost anything you care to say about the United States is true.

- From Cooke's broadcast, 19 October 1969 -

America, I have learned, is what you make of it. The freedom to do so is the most beautiful sort of freedom that I have ever encountered.
--------------

Yes. What is remarkable is not the conflict, but the truce. And yes, almost anything you care to say about the United States is true. One country of many nations, with liberty, opportunity, and at least half a chance at justice for all.

Love and peace to you all, and if you're experiencing extreme weather, stock up, hunker down, bundle up and don't forget to enjoy the novelty of the storm.

Galen

PS. Especially to those who disagree with or don't like the next President of the US: As Mr. Obama becomes President, keep in mind his understanding of the country. He sees space for your dissent, whatever your creed, beliefs or lifestyle. I hope this statement lifts your spirits and invites you into discourse: "During the course of the entire inaugural festivities, there are going to be a wide range of viewpoints that are presented. And that's how it should be, because that's what America is about. That's part of the magic of this country is that we are diverse and noisy and opinionated." - President-Elect Obama

An update, two weeks late

This is an email I sent on December 26. I didn't have time to post it here as I spent the next week traveling. Then I forgot it. Now, finally, an update, two weeks post. It's still fairly pertinent.

I'm drinking a Coke, High Fructose Corn Syrup and all. I just ate a Skippy peanut butter sandwich on the closest thing to white bread I've had in a decade.

I must be missing home.

I moved to the most Puget Sound-ish city in Korea in an attempt to allay the homesickness. Didn't work. Mountains here are 400 meters tall (I miss the sunset silhouetting the Olympics). Whole wheat bread means they didn't quite turn all the flour white (I miss Franz breads baked the same morning). The only non-Korean food here is quasi-Italian or pizza (I miss Ethiopian, Thai, Moroccan). Korea's homogeneous (I miss walking around Greenlake hearing 10 different languages). It RARELY rains here (and when it does you can't enjoy it for dodging the hordes of umbrellas -- Yesterday in Busan, every Korean I saw had an umbrella, save two who were carrying open wine bottles! :D). Most roads here are tollroads or full of traffic signals (I miss cruising for hours, through multiple climates, without slowing or stopping).

But, as I told my cousin, things are exactly how they should be. I've been sick a lot lately, which comes with new germs and new foods and new stresses, but that hasn't slowed me too much. I've been working on curriculum for a UN sponsored English camp to be held this January and trying not to miss the conveniences of the US too much. Things like warm cookies, aesthetics and carpet.

Korea and I are fighting right now. It's normal culture shock sort of stuff, but it's exasperated by the lack of tolerance I have when I'm tired, stressed and sick. I did find a ticket home for Christmas, a ~$170 round trip non-stop to Vancouver. A short train ride and I'd be home. Only the government taxes on the ticket totaled nearly a thousand dollars. ... So I'm spending Christmas in Tongyeong.

I've more journalistic entries in the works, but progress writing is quite slow as I don't have ready access to a computer. I'm scrounging to afford a computer during post-Christmas sales, but until then I have about 30 uninterrupted minutes a day on my school computer. The PC rooms I used to frequent are now off limits to me -- too much smoke, too little ventilation.

Vacation's just starting up here, and officially began the 24th. I'll have the 24th, 25th, 26th, 31st, 1st and 2nd off. Then I've two weeks of English camps. Following those Lauren and I have tickets to Thailand for two weeks. I'm very excited about the potential for warmth, Thai food and more people to more easily communicate with (from what I hear, there's more English speakers and foreigners in Thailand than Korea).

I've been silent so much here that now, after three months, whenever I get a chance to converse, I talk like a stampeding cow. My head shuts off and I dump a thousand word essay in the lap of the person I'm talking [at]. Then I realize it's been minutes since I inhaled and I relapse into silence. It's not the most effective way to win friends and influence people.

At the moment I'm headed to Busan, the closest metropolitan city (3+million people). Museums, Western food, and a doctor are all on the docket. It being Kwanzaa here, and Christmas where you are.

If you want a good laugh, here's an article about some Korean children, not unlike some children from the US. Politicians vary little, throughout the world.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-12/18/content_10525584.htm

Gotta go, the bus leaves soon.

Happy Hanukkah to Jews. Happy Kwanzaa to those of African heritage. Merry Christmas to Christians and consumers. And Happy Holidays for everyone who goes in for that sort of thing.