Traveling home

As my last deposits to my stay in korea I was going to write about suicides in Korea. There was an incident at my school, where two chinese girls hung themselves in the in the school library, because the teacher was unfair to the chinese students. Also apparently every year a few students die out of alcohol consumption at the university's campus parties, which take about 3 days at every university, and have big stages and concerts which is actually pretty cool. In any case these people are usually forced to drink, so it does not really count for suicide. Also a former president of Korea had commited suicide. He had his driver drive him up on a mountain, and he had a suit on and everything. He couldn't do it at the subway like any normal person, and of course for the normal people it would be problematic, since almost every subway station in the city center has walls and automatic doors into the train tracks. In the south there is also a famous suicide cliff into the sea, where it says "han bon do senkak he chuseyo" which stands for "think one more time". No safety nets, no fences. A sign will do!


No pain, No China!


In any case, it is not like finland does not hold a track record for people dying of alcohol abuse, and would not easily compete with korea and Japan at the top of the suicide rates.

People should not be left alone.


Train tracks to Russia


This is what I think when I am right now writing this on the Olkhon lake at Lake Baikal. I voyaged here (got that word from the book Robinson Crusoe! :D ) from Irkutsk, on my way to my home town in Finland. I'm going to be on the train tracks, from Shanghai to Kitee, every meter of the way. Why I am writing this is because I have stayed here, without having a real conversation with anyone. Nobody speaks English! Not even the lady at the tourist information spoke english. So I wandered around, asked a hotel where my hostel is. They knew and pointed the way. Then this delusional lady lead me a good way out to a hotel she knew was the one I was looking for. We end up there and I curse in my mind as I read the sign and she says "bla bla bla, nizhnaiyou.." Aaaarrgghghh!


Olkhon Island


In any case, this island is one of the most beatiful places I've been to! I won't stay here long enough to see everything, but maybe I will be back. Today I ventured on this excursion and tried swimming in the big side of lake Baikal. F"#%&&ng cold I say! Never have I felt such freezing water! Maybe the 3rd summer in about 38 degrees has something to do about changing my standards of what is warm or cold...




As I crawl back in time and memories, China was very interesting again. I visited my good friends Emily, Caroline, Tom, Paul and of course met my brother there! My friends were working at the World expo and it certainly was something to see. The different countries were mostly trying to sell their countries though, and of course, Finland's pavillion was most successfull by selling pancakes. I never thought pancakes could make such an impact on foreigners, but as Jack and Emily testified, it is really good!




In Beijing I stayed one night at Jack's relatives. The grey sky of Beijing was almost pushing me to travel away, and so I took the train to Ulaanbaator, Mongolia. There I stayed with a family for a few days in a rural town on the edge of the Gobi desert, and stayed at a nomad family for a few days, trying to milk some goats and eating the most terrible food in the world. Smoked lamb and mutton is not something I want to eat for a while! The country of mongolia is simple. Blue skys, green or brown flat grounds with mountains in the background. Vodka, potatos, beer, milk, sheep, goats, horses, archery and wrestling. Thats it!





Nomad family moving


Somehow I felt this country is not different, it's just stripped! Like they took all the good stuff away! But maybe I did not realize how much of a third world country this really is. The water for our hostel came from a well. This is in the capital of the country, with 1 million people, and the hostel was about a 20 minutes of a walk from the center of the city. I don't think I've came across something like that so far.


Our hostel had a Gher (a yurt).

Just now trying to wash myself with ice cold water in pitch dark shower I thought "why am I here?".. "why haven't I been to a warm shower for 10 days?" but then it occurs to me. Traveling is being in a different place. Being somewhere where you haven't been before. Getting to know things that you heard about, you saw on tv, you wanted to see. Seeing things that nobody talks about, nobody could talk about, nobody thought of talking about.


Starfish for eating at Beijing market

Well, I have to reside back to eating some more smoked and dried fish. This stuff is so good I CAN NOT express in words. You have to travel to Lake Baikal, because ..



-- If you don't try, you will never know! --

These and a few more pictures, click here.

I just bought a film SLR! I blogged about it on my Hiskishow productions blog here:

My first roll of film!

On other news, I have to start moving right now! On Monday I have to be out of the dorm, and then 2 weeks later out of Korea. My plan is to travel to China, Shanghai to meet my brother there, who comes from Thailand for a visit, and we will see some of the World Expo! After that it is off to Mongolia, Russia and finally Finland! Frankly, after 13 months, I am starting to miss the rye bread.

Here's one of the pictures from my first roll of film on my age old film SLR :)



Not bad Huh? I took a few pictures of the school jazz club GrooV. You can check all of them here:

Hiski's first roll of film - Picasaweb

I hope I get to write soon! It's been too long again!

-Hiski

 Hey again!

Ok, so this has nothing to do with Korea, BUT I have been listening to this excellent radio program called Radio Lab from WNYC, an American public radio broadcast that you can listen to as a podcast for free at  http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/  by streaming or downloading.

I happened to listen to one of the shows called "Where am I?". The show philosophically and scientifically researches different metaphysical dilemma and lots of things that have to do with every day life as well. This show talked about the human body, and how we perceive ourselves. Where are we? I won't tell the whole story, you can listen to the show yourself, I'll just bring out a couple of interesting facts.

How do you think your body influences your mind and your feelings? Apparently there was a research about paraplegics, people who's body sensations are cut off from the neck down. After their accidents these people were carefully followed, and eventually the researchers noticed they felt less happy and less sad than normally functioning people. It seems that your body is more than just a tool for you head. It is a living part of your whole being. In a way almost like a part of your brain. A person that is happy will jump around, dance, have good posture  and on the other hand a person that is sad will hunch over on his desk and not even move. If you didn't have a body to be emotional with, what would you do? Smile? Of course you could, but just imagine that situation. How happy or sad can you be without a body? People are used to showing their emotions through all their movements, rather than just a smile or a frown. People even smile when they are not happy, and you can still tell what their emotions are through their movements.

If you say you feel tired, you mean your body and your mind are tired. People who have been to the army have fallen asleep and kept walking, but have you ever kept thinking but your body has fallen asleep? You might start seeing dreams of course, but in any case, if you are sad your body will be sad as well. If you're excited, your body will be too!

After a long night out, how do you feel? At night, your body might have been fooled by alcohol to have fun, but eventually you have to pay back. The morning after your emotions might seem gloomy and dark, even if nothing bad happened.  That's your body feeling. Then again after a nice workout or a jog you might feel tired, but very good in your mind as well as your body. Even if you had some real problems in your life, making your body feel good can automatically make your whole being feel better as well! Is it psychosomatic? That word has such a 'crazy-person' ring to it. A person in fooled by sugar pills or someone losing their hair out of stress.  Actually it should be quite the contrary. Your body tells you how you are, and how you feel. The idea of course is that people should be able to live emotionless and effective lives in order to be more profitable and not so annoying to other people. People should be able to detach their body from their mind. Work without limits.

This makes me think of dancers as well. I once watched TED talks and there was a man talking about school systems. [1] He brought up a story of a girl who seemed to have a bad case of ADD. Her parents took her to a psychologist. The doctor took a look at her, and told her to wait in a room while him and her mother went to another room to talk. Actually what he did was he put a radio on, and they went to another room to watch what would happen. The girl started moving around. The doctor told her parents to put her to a dancing school. He told them she moves around so much because she has to move to think! Years later she became a world famous dancer with her own dancing school.

Dancers seem to have an extra need to express themselves through their bodies. They can't think without it. Many bboys have told me how they become irritable and uneasy if they cannot go practicing for some time. Many dancers have also told me that if they have a really bad day, or if they have some tragedy in their life, simply by having a practice session they can let a big part of that anxiety out of their system. I've experienced this myself as well. 

So now, I will have a rest, since I am tired. My body and my mind!

-Hiski

[1] Sir Ken Robinson on TED talks. A story of Gillian Lynn, @14.40:

 Hey!

I haven't written for a while. Didn't have anything to write here I guess! Just other things on my mind. Just recently a few things piled up in my head to be put up here, so here it goes. Sort of more like in a storish fashion :P.. (what word should I use instead of storish?) Everything didn't really happen in this order, but I just fix it together ok?

---
So I go to my 동방 better known as club room at the student center building at the school. I walk inside and play the drums. I see a new kid, he wants to play drums. His wearing a shirt with a big cannabis leaf on it, says "cannabis leaf.." and something else quite positive about it. Now I can bet you this kid has not even seen drugs being used, would not use them anyways, and doesn't have any kind of real relationship with this in his life.. Why is he wearing that shirt? And why does everyone from freshmen to the 40 year old teacher in school start laughing when talking about drugs, and act like people around 12-16 year old back home in Finland? (notice where I'm from drugs are not prevalent at all..) Why was there also a shirt at the last jam that had a small cannabis leaf on it and some Konglish about the hip-hop spirit on it. Next jam everyone was wearing it!


Except it wasn't like this, it had no message, no stance back or forth,
just information about the plant itself.

Well, I play some drums and in walks this girl. She is great at piano. We play a bit, but she seems stressed. I ask her 밥 먹었어? = Have you eaten? And she replies "No, I don't want to eat lunch, I'm fat!" I look up and down her, and sure enough, to my standards this is not true! To me she looks just about right. Let's just say, if I'd be into her I wouldn't be worried about her weight. Well in any case as we proceed outside she seems quite stressed. A friend of mine says as she walks away "she's crazy!". I think she just seems quite stressed. When we sit outside I ask my friend "Am I fat?" He replies "No Hiski, you're athletic." "Are you fat?" At this point he flinches just a bit and replies a bit slower: "No.. I'm.." Honestly I don't even remember if he replied me. I proceed of course to inquire the state of this poor stressed girl who won't even eat lunch. The answer is a fiery "She's FAT!" finger pointing included. The girl is clearly hit again, and she was already going crazy of stress. People laugh to make lighter of the situation. And of course everything is just a funny game. But why would he say that to her face? Doesn't he know that she feels bad about it. Maybe his fat himself and needs to find someone to point at..? Mostly I think it's just a group thing. The boy is older so he gets to tell her she is fat. So why not? It's funny..


My friend wants to look like this I guess..

I proceed to talk to some other friends. They talk in Korean, and there is a girl asking me if this friend of ours is cute? I feel a little bit uncomfortable telling her if a boy is cute. I look around and answer "I don't know..?" Before the girl gets to interrogate me more she gets a lesson from the boy in Korean, and I could guess what he told her "It's gay for him to tell you that a boy is in his opinion cute!" And well, it is for me. I feel a little bit awkward giving an answer. And to be honest, growing up in my culture and my sexuality, I haven't learned to analyze these kind of thoughts. To really ponder who of the guys are cute and who isn't. I mean I could probably figure it out even though I'm not attracted to them, but in my culture there is no need to do this. Here it seems, things are different. Looks matter, and not only relationships with the ones you are attracted to, but relationships to everything. Jobs, social groups, clubs, boards, school ect. ect. The lookers generally are put up to the pedestal. Or the older ones. Being qualified is not the only reason to give people positions. Then again it is also not like that anywhere else either! So is it really that people in Korea simply aren't as naive or 'superficial in a politically correct way'? They tell the truth: "I'd rather have a tall and handsome chairman!" and in my country people just don't say it? Well, I don't think this discussion is so simple. People who are tall might get into places through their confidence, which is gained from their audience giving them the confidence. I think this can happen in both countries. The difference is that in Korea, being superficial is not such a big deal!

Well I walk around and get to the Business building, bump into some friends looking at the arm wrestling competition. Now there is one Korean guy who to a westerner.. well he would be pretty girly. He talks like a girl, holds his head, chest, face, emotions, everything more like girl, and doesn't arm wrestle, because in his words "I'm a girly boy. I'm not gay though!"

In Korea though, you can run into people who just announce to you "There are no gay people in Korea". Last year I heard they held the first gay parade. The media was only allowed to take pictures of the sky. Of course in order to protect these people. What baffles me here is the difference of this compared to some European countries. Two years ago I was doing internship in Bosnia. I was also visiting Serbia back then, and I heard a story that during the gay parade in Serbia's capital Belgrade, the people from the crowd simply come out and attack the people attending the parade. They wouldn't give them any safety measures, or try to keep it low key, they would just let them come out and beat the daylights out of these guys. So different treatment. Here people are give their space.


Immigrants learning the traditional Korean bow.. [1]

So why does all of this happen?

Well people in Korea don't really know anything about drugs. They just see that in the states people have these shirts, so someone produces a shirt with a leaf on it. Means nothing to anyone, except that it's just cool. People also wear baseball caps with the NY logo on it, not even knowing it's the New York Yankees. (Source, Aaron Schumacher) They really just wear it to look cool. Nobody is really affected by drugs, and nobody knows anything about it, so it's just a shirt. It's not a stance, it's not a joke, it's just a shirt here.

The shirt from the jam might go into cultural importing. Kids in Korea listen to these cypress hill songs ect. and eventually learn that these singers as well as a lot of bboys are high as a kite half the time. They need to get into that. It is sold in the songs. Probably some of them are already. The shirt just stands for that "I'm hip-hop, and this leaf here is hip-hop too" idea. Still, the other people who see the shirt worn a) might not know what it means b) might know, but still only see a shirt, and never see the drugs, while in Finland.. well everyone would know what this person likes.


Cypress Hill with they're dj Dr. Greenthumb.

People in Korea eat pretty much a lot of slim food. Not healthy, just stuff that makes you slim. There is so much fried and scorched food as well, and people die from cancer a lot. Also the genes help the people in Korea stay pretty slim. To me this girl is slim. Back home there are lots of actually fat people. They have trouble staying on their feet, and pointing fingers and shouting the F word would not be cool. People in Korea just haven't actually seen fat people very much. So, fat? Are they really fat? Maybe the word fat for them means something different. Fat as in 'more fat than most people' or 'a bit chubby'. Not fat as in 'your gonna have some problems if you don't lose that weight'. Koreans are not exposed to seeing really big guys having some real problems with it, so they feel that it's OK to joke about it.


Some Korean pop-star. Guys need to be skinny and look good in Korea.

So why did she ask if I think this guy is cute? To me that question really asks "do you like him.. in that way?", but of course thats not what she means. Then this guys proceeds to explain that I will feel it's gay. She is baffled just as much as me! She has no idea I would react this way. She never heard anyone imply that some guy would like another guy in that way. Not really, maybe as a joke, but still this question is so common. It doesn't have to do with sexuality.

Neither does the feminine boy's behavior and lifestyle. He can live out his life like this even if he is gay or not. His allowed. He doesn't have to explain to people he is not gay, because people don't think so immediately. Actually, looking back at Serbia again, my friends slept in the same bed with their arms on top of each other. Had pictures on Facebook with guys literally kissing each other on the cheek. And these people were not gay as well. Some of that stuff happens here in Korea too, but it's not all alike. Actually, it seems like the further the gay culture is from a society (or is pushed into the corner), the more 'gay' (emotional, feminine, touchy ect.) the straight guys are 'allowed' to act like! 

So in the end in my perspective Korea seems a bit strange. It is sort of a weird place where people fall in these gaps. Being gay - only not sexually, being fat - still skinny enough, standing for drugs - never even seen them, being superficial openly - not feeling guilty about it. I think later on it will get harder and harder for people to stay in these gaps when the western culture kicks in here. And it will. Different sexual orientations, and sexual identities are presented on TV, people are eating more junk food and gaining more weight, and drugs are coming as well.


So again, in Korea today, there are hardly any instances of drugs, fat people, gay people and probably numerous other things so prevalent in our society. So in not so many words:

-------------- Ignorance is bliss --------------




To enjoy this sentence a bit more you can click the the text above the picture and watch how a character called Cypher says it in the movie called The Matrix.

[1] Korea spectrum: Bowing the Korean way

So, about 7.5 months served in Korea. Anxiously waiting for my culture shock. In Finland we had an orientation for going abroad, and the lecturer told us that the first shock happens in the first days and weeks coming into the country. I guess for me coming from spending 3 weeks in china the shock was somewhat positive. Hearing actual music on the streets, seeing people smiling and enjoying they're lives gave me a sense of safeness in Korea. Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit, but not that much really!

Anyways, the second shock should come right about 9 months into the country. At that point a person should really start noticing how they fit in here, what kind of things start to annoy them like how people act and behave, or the food ect. So far I have noticed not so long ago how annoying the people can be sometimes. How they often behave in front of foreigners seems to be a sort of a play that gets rewound every time again and again. It differs relating to the context, but often times I just get so pissed off by how interested they get, and how keen they are to show how Koreans are. I mean this doesn’t really happen with the youngsters, and it depends on the situation. But to think of it, being pretty much forced to drink alcohol while at a random dinner is actually quite weird! Also, lately I drink at least a couple of shots during dinner at least two nights a week. Normal? I used to drink milk! But well, Finland is quite healthy..


Having BudeJike at a restaurant after a jam with random Koreans.


Other things include people smoking everywhere, having an ashtray in the dinner table and spitting in it while people are still dining. Also what amazes me are Korean people who are a lot older than me, but still are almost crying to tell me that something that I badly want will not happen. How come it's so hard? Because they are used to submissive people, and when one comes along that opens they’re mouth, they don’t have an answer.

Actually all this stuff is still pretty much in control though. The crying 30 year old house manager is a source of daily humor, cigarette smoke smells ok for me and spitting is nothing really.. I'm guessing the worst thing is the drunken older Koreans, which happens rarely anyways. All in all, at least for now the shock is not so far that I would be thinking of going home because of that. I just have to wait a couple of months more, and we'll see.

Actually this brings to mind some discussions about Korean culture with Jocelyn and Jana. Apparently an acquaintance of theirs had been a loud mouth in school, questioning everything the teacher says. In response he had got beat up by the teacher using everything from metallic rulers to baseball bats. In fact, to Koreans this is not violence, its control. People should behave and most importantly submit to their elders. This is a very strong Confucian ideology. Everyone has their place and spot, so nobody will start acting up. This is what Koreans learn in school, and after school they go to the army and the men have their last lessons on this. In the army the people are actually put in to order by even the date of their birth. If someone is one year older than the other, they have the command.

So seeing my Korean friends one day, I noticed an interesting turn of events. A freshman was sitting on a sofa, and the older student came around to talk to him. Then he brushed his hair around with his hands and sort of teased his nose with his hand a couple of times and left. Basically something that if it would happen to me in Finland I would just jump the guy! No matter how big he was ect. But of course here, the boy just sat on his sofa. Clearly this was not amusing to him, but it was his place, and there is nothing he could do.

Of course you could think of this as a bad thing for the society. Everyone follows their elders, so everything stays the same, because nobody acts up and tries to make a revolution right? True, for example strikes are very rare in Korea. Also being afraid to tell the elders that something is wrong has lead to such sad events as a 250 passengers dying in a preventable plane crash.

But is the western world any better? What about when people don't listen to their elders at all, complain and bigger, don't study or even work or just waste their time dreaming and not doing anything.

Koreans are getting bigger and richer because they move. They are in constant motion, always working never giving up. Even if they run in one place, they are still running and getting stronger, and one day they will go far.

Both ways have bad sides to them, so I guess trying to find a golden mean will be the challenge for Korea and other societies to find.

Hey!

At my school here in korea I recently started a class called introduction to improvisation held by Fumihill Yao from the states. The class is very interesting since breaking has a lot to do with improvisation and also life!

At class Fumi, our teacher was explaining how improvisation can be good or bad. You cannot say someone does not improvise, but you can tell if it's good improvising or bad improvsing. One can get on stage, look around at their friends and giggle a little bit not knowing what to do, or a dancer can take the stage and dance with clarity and intention. Nobody will gain anything from the first one, but the second approach will result in an enjoyable performance.


Matthew "Device" D practising at an event in Seoul.

Bboys practice a lot of sets from single moves to entire one minute routines alone or with partners. In the end, the best bboys still know how to mix the stuff they practiced hard with being aware of the music. They are able to change their set at any point. A bboy might end up doing anything from adding an extra freeze to their routine in the end or come up with an entire set on the spot to accomodate the music.

Sometimes bboys run out of sets and have to rely on a basic structure of what they usually do, and hope they come up with something. Though many bboys go out into the battle and have no idea what their going to do. Even the most successfull bboys often say they do this. Afterwards they just explain "I don't really know what happened!"


Aaron "Aerospace" Schumacher practising at Namguro.

How is it possible to come out so clean and seem so rehersed? Actually the ones that see these bboys at practice might say "oh, he did ok.. was a little bit sloppy for his level", when someone who sees them the first time might be completely astonished. 

The secret of course is to make your moves with clarity and intention. This applies of course for any situation in life.

Every day people come to situations where there is no right or wrong, there is no set action that would save the day, there is no practice or rehersals. People have to react on their instincts. When the action comes with clarity and intention nobody will stop and direct their attention to how they are doing it, but what they are doing. What you are doing will be clear to people, and they won't think you have a doubt in your mind. In the end you might have no idea what you are doing, but as long as it seems so, as long as 'how your doing it' is right, things will start to happen to that direction!

Thanks Fumi, I will no go and collapse in my bed.. tired from practice and improvising! :D

Peace!

 Hey!

Ok, so I haven't posted for a while. I should start writing again some stuff. I have finished 6 months in Korea now. 1 normal semester of random studies and 1 winter semester of 200 hours of Korean language class. I survived the cold winter of Korea even in the harsh environment of the Sungkyunkwan university international dorm, sometimes going on for days without heating.. In the night the temperatures went down to -15, and day time was not that much better. This week already there were 2 days which at least felt like Finnish summer though. In February! In Finland the degrees would be the same, but with a minus in front! Now its raining, and also my beloved Heidi left back to Germany a few days ago. Now I'm looking for teaching jobs as well, but we will see if I can find anything.

Anyways, whatever will happen I have learned a lot about Korea and East Asia. I traveled to Japan twice with Heidi and saw some amazing things. Also by studying Korean I learned many many things about East Asia from the foreign students in the class.

Lets talk about Japan first!

Japan and Korea

So when an exchange student from Japan comes to Korea, they are amazed by the food, and generally they seem to think it looks pretty much the same as Japan. Of course it's true, Japan has many places quite similar.
Seoul:

Tokyo, Shibuya:



Sometimes in Tokyo I felt there were more people than in Seoul.. but nevertheless, you can't deny the similarity.
What people coming from Korea realize when arriving in Japan though, is the amazing difference in the development of all kinds of aspects;
-Japan is clean while Korea has trash everywhere in sight. (You get used to it though. )
-In Japan you walk into a restaurant, your not gonna generally find plastic chairs and low roofs. You most of the time just find nice designs and comfortable settings. In Korea on the other hand I remember eating some food for quite a lot of money in a really messed up setting, on plastic chairs in an upstairs of the restaurant with ventilation pipes going everywhere, and the food served on foil. And I paid 6 euros for the plate! Expensive! 
-People dress up in different ways. Some old men even have a beard in Japan! This doesn't actually happen in Korea! Only young reckless people might have a beard :) But generally, people dress more relaxed openly in Japan, in different ways. In Korea, suits are so normal it just bothers me. Also all girls wear skirts. Sometimes it seems nothing else! Miniskirts and high heels to school. It's ok for the guys though :) But where is the variety? Everything goes with the fashion. You can color your hair yellow now if you want to. Other colors would be nuts!  No short hair for girls in Korea, that would be unfeminine! In Japan though, a lot of things go, and you see it in lots of places.
-Sex doesn't seem to exist in Korea. There are sex shops, but they would never be in the open. Apparently they cover they're windows with cardboard in most places. In Japan it is almost the exact opposite with pornographic Manga everywhere even in convenience stores. In Tokyo I stumbled upon a sex shop with 6 floors...

In another shop I found some other kind of magazines also.. somewhat disturbing though:...





This is why I don't always like japan.. Anything goes! :(

Anyways!
- Japan is mostly much warmer!
- Japan is Bigger!
- There is much more to see in Japan. Why? Because the Japanese and the Korean war destroyed most of the stuff around the Seoul area... and also Japan just had more things in the first place. Everything from gold covered temples to amazing beaches ect. ect... Also in Korea there are some beaches, but the season is much shorter.

Why all these differences? Well studying the history in classes it seems that Korea simply never really wanted to step up. The countries in East Asia were terrified of colonization from around 15-19 century, and each country had different approaches to prevent this. China it seems, like Japan and Korea were a bit of a mess of kingdoms, and it was not so hard for the Europeans to get they're foot between the door. In China, Shanghai there were areas where the Europeans had their own rule and they could have commerce with China. The Europeans and Americans usually wanted to have so called unfair agreements, where they were allowed to do pretty much anything on their area, killing the natives and judging things themselves. Korea at these times was almost non-existent to the outside world. Korea signed they're first treaty's with Japan and USA in 1882. 1882! Thats only a 128 years ago that this country had any official commerce or contact with anyone else than China! They also did not have any other exchange, so they did not develop very fast. Meanwhile in China, the foreigners kept bringing new items and inventions from Europe to show to the Chinese. In Japan though, there was another tactic..
  Japan knew that the only tactic to hold their own against the western world was to become like them. So in 1636 after having wars civil wars with the local Christians, Japan entered what was called Sakoku, Closure. During this time no foreigners were allowed to Japan. This way they could keep the bad influences away, but kept learning about the development of western world through the dutch who lived on an island south of Japan. They fed them with detailed information about everything happening in Europe. When a telescope was invented in Europe, Japanese made one a couple of years after. This happened with most things, and Japanese developed inside they're own country with the speed of Europe. In the 1900 century they had to surrender when USA forced them to make agreements with them, but after that when the country restored its emperor and unified the country with a religion and a school system, they slowly turned to the direction of taking over the whole world!

Meanwhile in Korea.. Well, it was finally just taken over by Japan. Then trampled in the wars and split into two. Finally USA had the southern part to them, and the Soviet Union taking over the northern part. So Korea was like the little brother in everything. Getting teased by the big brother Japan, and China, didn't want to come out to play, and finally ripped apart by bigger forces.

Now Korea has gone through so many changes in such a short time. Foreigners are pouring in to teach Koreans English, and opening new companies ect. Foreigners are trying to marry the Korean girls with little success. In this patriotic society Korean men have hundreds of thousands mail order brides from other countries, while Korean women have a fraction of that in foreign husbands. Korean families expect the foreigner to become a fully functional member of the Korean society before even meeting their daughters boyfriend, and needless to say, if the daughter then decides to act against the family anything might happen.

Then again Koreans are simply sending their kids into the foreign countries. Just now I read a very interesting article about the Korean school system. Parents send their kids to foreign countries to study, from the elementary, middle and high school ages. They claim it is cheaper or same price but better quality, than to educate them with tutors and extra schooling in Korea.

Now someone might think, wait? What extra school? Well in Korea, despite the fact that the public school is maybe the best in the world, the parents don't think it is enough. Also the real reason why a kid might study 18 hours a day from six or seven years old until the end of their university studies is because of the competition. Koreans simply must be the best, and earn the most money out of everyone. It seems like people cannot simply be this or that, they must be at the top! That is the ideal, not finding your own thing, and what you enjoy. Of course they still might choose out of the few options what they want as their career, but still they have to be the best at that as well! This makes everyone want to be at the best university, and to get there you have to dedicate your entire life to studying.

What does the government think of it though? They don't like it! They know it's just a waste of the elders money and time. The best students will still be best, and only studying will not make the youngsters succeed in real life. Reports also show that elite university students have a hard time in work life, when they are suddenly treated as normal people, and not geniuses!

"Sleep 4 hours, pass. Sleep 5 hours, fail" [1.]

Also after school finding your job might not be that easy. There might be thousands applying. Latest invention by the companies was a stress test where they call the possible new employee and tell them an urgent news "You're friend is in trouble, he needs money" or "Someone has died, what should I do?" etc.. And needless to say the working habits of Koreans are quite awful. No pay for extra hours, working over time all the time, etc..

So Korea right now is going through many changes. The youngsters are curious of the western world, and once they really learn English and become fully functional members of the international society they will change Korea forever. Right now the old generations still have heavy influence in everyones behavior. People in this country oppress mostly themselves. Hate, bitterness and revenge are almost normal aspects of life.. its is seen through some funny, but sad habits of Koreans. There is a saying:

"Smile to people you hate, but curse them inside you"

How should this then effect society? Why do you have to smile? Because of the unconditional respect for elders. Even though how dumb or irresponsible your elder is, you have to respect what they say. So nothing but hate and bitterness develops. Then the only thing for the Koreans to do is to develop themselves. And thats what they do, to the fullest.

So good things result in bad things and vice versa. 

Next time I will write in maybe a little bit less length.

Check out some pictures of japan here:
Picasa - Blog

-Hiski

1. You'll never guess what South Korea frowns upon.

Hey everyone!

I havent been posting for a long time, because I have been sort of lazy to get on the computer.. of course some things have settled and are the same as usual, so there has not been such a supply of new crazy things to write down. In any case I still have a few ideas of what to write, but right now I've been asked to review the classes I took in the fall semester here. So I'm gonna paste some course descriptions from the web, and write down some comments about it.

Courses:
East Asia Seen through Photos and Movies (6ECTS)

"Through examining East Asian media, this course aims at grasping the realities and issues faced by East Asian countries. One exciting frontier to be challenged by the youths from East Asian countries to seek for ways for creating higher culture by mutual impacts, departing from unilateral impacts. This effort can be supported by analysing multifold aspects of cultural communications conducted by young generations of East Asian countries through movies, pop musics, fashion, comic strips, animations, and games. This course is to find ways to understand the youth culture enjoyed by the students and their peer group in East Asian countries, as well as to form a common ground for cultural communication among them."

Comments:
The class offered extensive information into the history of east asia (China, Mongolia, East-russia, Korea and Japan) and revealed many things to the students about how the situation in war, politics and society has developed from hundreds of years ago up to today. We watched movies, presentations and made essays reflecting on the topics. In the end we had to make a 20 minute presentation about a chosen topic. I made a very long, probably one hour presentation about Japanese invasions in the beginning of the last century. The class was very interesting, and I recommend to people who are interested in learning about why East-Asia is how it is in the world today.


Digital Design Studio 2 (6ECTS)

"Understand basic compurter system, pracitice 2-dimensional images and get familiar with softwares such as Photoshop, Illustration and Quark."

Comments:
We consentrated on learning the basic skills in Adobe Illustrator and InDesign. The class was very interesting and offered a chance to really get to learn the tricks behind these programs. To prove our skills we had to make posters, charicatures, flyers and a short newspaper and print all of these in real size and design. I recommend to anyone who thinks that they might need basic graphic skills that go beyond the paralizing windows paint or microsoft word shape drawer, to make more confident and presentative works.

Experimental film and video (6ECTS)

Comments:
In this class we learned about the history of experimental videos, scripted, planned, shot and edited a short film based on a poem. Each student had to make storyboards for a movie, and 4 of the best storyboards were picked to make the movie. We learned small things about almost everything related to movie producing. Since I made internet video commericals for my department in my University in finland, this was a perfect class to get some more skills for my hobby and work.

Korean classes I took:

1. The intensive class (Depends, maybe 4-6ECTS, you have to remember to ask for them)
During the fall semester I took an intensive Korean class comprising of 6 hours a week for 10 weeks. We learned basic tools and words to form basic sentences. The class was intensive, so there was almost no time for practise, which made the class's effect weaker, since the students learned maybe too many things compared to practice. The results depends fully on the students, but everyone passed and learned something. I recommend to anyone taking any other classes at the school if possible, since in Korea even reading is impossible without taking classes! The language is not easy, but with no skills the experiences in this country for any student will be so much less!

2. The regular class (18ECTS)
Once the semester ended we have a winterbreak of 2.5 months. I desided to stay in Seoul and take what the school offers me which is a 4 hours per day, 5 days per 10 weeks korean class. This is called a level 1 class. There are about 6 levels in korean school usually, and one class is actually quite expencive, something like 700 euros. For exchange students they are free in sungkyunkwan. The first level classes are good, I still have one full week left. The students get lots of practice and learn basic skills in reading writing, grammar and talking. The school offers classes for all nationalities, but mostly for asian people. There is always some europeans in every class, but the teaching methods are quite asian. Everyone can learn in the first level through english, and its ok, but sometimes it takes patience, since the chinese and japanese have to learn too, and they dont speak Any english. This is ok though, our class had a great spirit and now everyone has quite a good basic command of korean.


Space Harmony (4ECTS)

"Space or the Space Harmony is a system to look at the route drawn in the space and analyze its form and design. Laban believed that there is a harmonious form even in all the movements like music or fine art, and thought that the trace forms created by the physical movement through the effort and shape in space have formal and measurable association in the harmonious and natural relationship."

Comments:
Since my hobby is breakdancing, and I had enough time to make many classes I took this class to learn something about space harmony. We went through movements of people in everyday situations and analyzed how and why different movements give people different feelings. All this was once theorized by Laban, and space harmony is just one part of all the theories he invented. The class offered me some insight into movement theories, and I would recommend it to someone who is really into dancing, and especially don't mind analyzing and thinking about things that are not always so concrete.

Dance composition (4ECTS)

"This course will examine basic principles in dance composition, providing students with knowledge in choreographic expression, structure and approaches to creating dance."

This was another dance class I could take. It offered me a great chance to learn basic principles into choreographing dance, and intellectually and professionally thinking and talking about choreaographing. It was purely recreational of course, but gave me some good skills for my hobbies.

And so it has been really interesting. Now I am in the middle of choosing classes for next semester... 얼여웡요!! (Oryowoyo = Hard!)

Heres footage of me at a battle I recently entered. Was fun!

 Hangul.. what is that?

Korean language. I've been trying to come up with a lot of intresting facts about Hangul.. and here they are!

The language is a good old asian language, expect it isnt.

In korean you have some characteristics, like the verbs don't conjugate according to the subject, so you would think that in order to know who is doing you would have to always say "I" or "him" or whatnot, but you usually don't. That is because Asian languages deal with context. If you don't know one thing about the context, the information is not transfered. Same thing applies in Chinese written language, where losing one character will lose the information to written langauge, because the words don't conjugate.

The writing system of Korea was invented in 1443 AD. Pretty long time ago. It was a change from difficult Chinese characters to an easier writing system that any commoner could read, and therefore information could be spread to any citicen in Korea. 

In this writing system it is possible to write almost any language, and it will be readable. Unlike the roman letters which have different applications in almost each language through out the world. Each letter in Hangul stands for one spesific sound, and it doesnt change over time. Some words are of course read differently more directly, but it is not so many words, and still you can just omit a letter here and there and come to the right pronounciation.

Hangul has many languages inside itself. One big aspect is that Chinese is actually a part of Korean. Many words can be said with a Chinese, as well as a Korean word. Inside Korean it is of course written in Korean letters, and it has mostly a completely different pronounciation, but it still is said to be a Chinese word. This is of course just like European languages, where words are put into different languages sometimes even with the same writing format. 

A lot of Korean words have very very small differences. Vowels and soft L's/R's play a huge role, sometimes with small changes changing the meaning of a word completely. It takes a lot of time to really get the different sounds into your system.

And finally, on top of Chinese being on of the langauges inside Hangul, there is also different ways of speaking in informal and formal ways. I'm not yet sure how many.. but there is some for children, older people, and the same aged people at least. It completely changes the endings of the active verb in the sentense. Sort of like in European langauges the subject of the sentence changes by the pronoun, in Korean the status and position of the Subject as a person conjugates the verb!

How interesting!

Other than that, had an exiting weekend, with not a lot of sleep.

First went to Noise Basement 1 and 2 with "the girls". Was fun, except that these two clubs were so packed! Especially the NB2 was so packed, that you could barely move. People were shoving and pushing, and there was a 20 meter line all the time walking in and also getting in. This place is all about the idea of being there, not about having fun! So typical Korean superficiality! Pfft...
Anyways, have no pictures from there of cource.. sorry!

Then went to Bboy Challenge, and even got to battle. In the finals there were Floorgangs, and Rivers (who were also floorgangs members) so it was not a big surprise that we didnt advance, the level was high! Heres the battle, thanks to Daniel Zhu from Strife.tv and Bboyworld!


Then on Sunday we went to visit some.. place.. Heidi, where were we?? I just went  along with the girls, the names are hard in Hangul to remember. Anyways it took 2-3 hours to get there, there were some caves and really nice nature!

Hey!

I've just been breaking and studying Korean, as well as other arts at the school.

If I must continue my earlier thoughts about Korean culture, I could delve into some topics I earlier mentioned. As I thought about confusious, and how his thoughts changed the whole of east asia, I already mentioned that he was like Jesus here. Then I thought, well, then what did Jesus do for Europe and the western world. Of course many people will find endless accounts of bad things, but what about the wisdom that lies deep in the books, that has been brought out in the end by what people consider to be well-fare states. 

Of cource I might be taking this a few steps too far, but I think just like Confusious probably didn't think that 90% of Koreans will go to University, Jesus didn't think that even women will have rights 2000 years from when he was born. But both their ideas have gone all the way to the modern ages and effected us in many ways in our daily lives. It is not the holy trinity, heaven or hell that makes much difference to everyday lives anywhere, its the thoughts about unconditional love, pure thoughts ect. ect..

Now someones out there thinking already, wouldn't it be the same in East Asia? Couldn't people reason into these thoughts without the help of some scholar?? Well the answer is unfortunately no. People are animals and will do anything that they think is right. The Japanese army thought that the Japanese race was gods, and everyone else was the demon, so one time in Vietnam they skinned alive hundreds of red cross workers in the second world war, tied them up on trees and did god knows what to them. I'm not saying it might not happen in the western world, all I'm saying that there must be a higher thought behind it all for people to want to do these things. 

And unconditional love? People just giving and getting, it doesnt really happen everywhere.. On my East Asia seen throught mass media class we were told that Christianism was brought to China in the 16th century. The chinese were not interested, and it never got big, especially in the 20th century with all the communism. An Australian friend of mine who's parents are from China told me: "Chinese people care about their closest family, and everyone else can Die!"

Would you get that in Europe?

I leave everyone with that thought.

Now for breaking, last saturday I was clubbing, came home with the subway, went to sleep 8am.. got up to go to Dynamic Bboy champs, and got an offer to fill in my friends crew.. So I did, and it went well. 16 crews were in, with some of the best bboys in Korea. Not nearly all of them though. Our teachers Rivers crew with Physicx, Born and Redfoot took the competition in the end. Morning of owl was their biggest contender, and Soul Kings took their way to the final. We were taken out by a semi-finalist in the first round, but we got one vote out of 3!

Here is our battle:

And here is the most interesting battle, first round of Morning of owl (left) vs. Rivers (right)


The final wasnt that interesting, so heres just the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nmq6bG4qMTc&feature=channel

Big shout outs to STRIFE.TV and Daniel Zhu for the footage. I took some too, but its not as good!!

That was it, comments please! 

-Hiski