Nat's wish is my command...
NJC wrote, "Post more!"
Yes ma'am.
Yesterday: Good. Today: time will tell.
Actually, the fact that yesterday was an enjoyable day is notable in that we had two lectures (most days it's just one) and, as I wrote, the afternoon one on Korean Traditional music wasn't exactly something that I was awaiting with baited-breath. But it went well. It was one of those occasions where the instructor's passion for the material carried me pretty far along -- it good inspiration of what I hope I can (sometimes) accomplish with 13 year olds who don't realize (yet) that studying types of government is one fascinating bag of tricks and drama.
The morning lecture was really good. The guy had two hours to give us a thumbnail sketch of Korean history -- all four thousand three hundred years of it. He failed miserably in the sense that toward the end he had to skip whole sections of his outline (alas -- it was mostly stuff from the last century that he didn't have time to more than hit briefly). I sat there and kept feeling really humble about how young the USA is compared to this ancient and proud culture that most of us know very little about. Stretching as far as one can with any degree of credibility, there's no way to claim that the United States is older than 400 years (okay, fine, 450 if you REALLY want to stretch it).
Compare that to Korea. Six major dynasties before 1910, stretching back over 4,000 years. One of those, the Shilla (or Silla), was a major geopolitical power a full 1000 years before the founding of Jamestown. The oldest college in Korea dates back to 372 AD. That's 1,300 years before Harvard. Books were printed en masse in Korea via metal movable type 200 years before Gutenberg.
I'm not engaging in back-handed anti-Americanism (sorry, all my lefty friends out there); I think the USA is pretty dang good, and though I'd never argue it is perfect, I think it has indisputably provided the most freedom, with the highest standard of living, for more people than any other nation in history. And I think many of it's tragic mistakes were not ill-intentioned. It's very interesting to hear Koreans speak of betrayal by America, first in 1905 when the USA secretly agreed to Japan's takeover of the Korean peninsula, and then in 1945 when the United States and Russia decided to divide the peninsula in half, without consulting the, er, Koreans. But as I say, those decisions, while perhaps full of hubris and and in hindsight misguided, were I believe done in the best of intentions (I'm not as sure about the first, but as far as the second goes I don't know that I would have decided differently than Rusk & Truman, despite the fact that 60 years later Koreans are overwhelmingly resentful of the decision). And I'll conclude this paragraph my echoing the professor yesterday who credited the 1953 mutual defense treaty between the USA & S. Korea as the catalyst for S. Korea's unprecedented economic and technological transformation over the last fifty years.
Okay, I'm sensing the glazing over of eyes in my readers so I'll stop the historic riff.
Human interest tidbits of the trip:
Yes ma'am.
Yesterday: Good. Today: time will tell.
Actually, the fact that yesterday was an enjoyable day is notable in that we had two lectures (most days it's just one) and, as I wrote, the afternoon one on Korean Traditional music wasn't exactly something that I was awaiting with baited-breath. But it went well. It was one of those occasions where the instructor's passion for the material carried me pretty far along -- it good inspiration of what I hope I can (sometimes) accomplish with 13 year olds who don't realize (yet) that studying types of government is one fascinating bag of tricks and drama.
The morning lecture was really good. The guy had two hours to give us a thumbnail sketch of Korean history -- all four thousand three hundred years of it. He failed miserably in the sense that toward the end he had to skip whole sections of his outline (alas -- it was mostly stuff from the last century that he didn't have time to more than hit briefly). I sat there and kept feeling really humble about how young the USA is compared to this ancient and proud culture that most of us know very little about. Stretching as far as one can with any degree of credibility, there's no way to claim that the United States is older than 400 years (okay, fine, 450 if you REALLY want to stretch it).
Compare that to Korea. Six major dynasties before 1910, stretching back over 4,000 years. One of those, the Shilla (or Silla), was a major geopolitical power a full 1000 years before the founding of Jamestown. The oldest college in Korea dates back to 372 AD. That's 1,300 years before Harvard. Books were printed en masse in Korea via metal movable type 200 years before Gutenberg.
I'm not engaging in back-handed anti-Americanism (sorry, all my lefty friends out there); I think the USA is pretty dang good, and though I'd never argue it is perfect, I think it has indisputably provided the most freedom, with the highest standard of living, for more people than any other nation in history. And I think many of it's tragic mistakes were not ill-intentioned. It's very interesting to hear Koreans speak of betrayal by America, first in 1905 when the USA secretly agreed to Japan's takeover of the Korean peninsula, and then in 1945 when the United States and Russia decided to divide the peninsula in half, without consulting the, er, Koreans. But as I say, those decisions, while perhaps full of hubris and and in hindsight misguided, were I believe done in the best of intentions (I'm not as sure about the first, but as far as the second goes I don't know that I would have decided differently than Rusk & Truman, despite the fact that 60 years later Koreans are overwhelmingly resentful of the decision). And I'll conclude this paragraph my echoing the professor yesterday who credited the 1953 mutual defense treaty between the USA & S. Korea as the catalyst for S. Korea's unprecedented economic and technological transformation over the last fifty years.
Okay, I'm sensing the glazing over of eyes in my readers so I'll stop the historic riff.
Human interest tidbits of the trip:
- So far almost every picture I've taken has been of food. The typical meal thus far comprises several side dishes, soup, and at least one entree. Here's a shot of lunch from our first day before the entree came (whoops, for some reason the photo won't upload -- maybe later).
- Our welcoming ceremonial dinner on Friday night included a whopping 28 side dishes, six or more choices of entree, and several desserts (it's rare to have dessert at a Korean meal -- if any it's usually fruit).
- Turns out that I've stumbled across some sort of teacher-traveling circuit. Most of the teachers on this trip went on the JFMF trip to Japan that I'm going on this October, but that's only the beginning. Europe, Asia, Africa, S. America -- these folks have been everywhere, it seems to me, and usually through expenses-paid programs for teachers. Yup, I'm making a list of the programs. (-: I may hate the idea of travel, and even while I'm doing it I can't help but look forward to getting home, but that doesn't mean I'm not gonna ride the circuit like the best of 'em.
- Figured out how to work the power adapter (shout out to SWT for lending it to me, and congrats on the now-official upcoming nuptials). Turns out one has to strong-arm the third prong into the converter, so I'm able to charge the laptop.
- Today we're headed to three cultural keystones -- Gyeongbok Palace and Changdeok Palace, then Insadong. I'm especially looking forward to wandering around Insadong.
posted by Cowells at 4:44 PM
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