Trekking

We went to Inle lake area  because a wonderful, funny  friend of ours, Camille, was there and we really wanted to spend time with her.  She suggested trekking for three days. 

The real attraction was hiking through and staying in small villages. At night, we slept with local families in their homes which were quiet nice by Burma standards, but did not have electricity or running water. Some of the families were really interested in talking with us, so got to learn a good bit about their lives.

The weather was remarkably cool (nearly freezing one night) so we just tried to stay under the blankets.

 Our guides prepared meals over open fires inside the house.  There was no ventilation for the smoke, so we had to eat and sleep in remarkably smoky environment.

While hiking through farming villages, we found that nearly every family had animals.  Ox carts were the principal means of transportation and water buffaloes were common sights working in the fields and cooling off in the streams.

Bagan

I must be honest, I had never heard of Bagan prior to contemplating my trip to Burma. This is really remarkable since it is an equal to Anchor Wat by nearly any measure.

There are about 4000 temples of varying sizes spread out over an area the size of Manhattan. It is really awe inspiring to be standing on a temple, made in the 1200's, and seeing hundreds of beautiful temples in every direction. Standing there, I thought, "damn that's a lot of temples". I also thought it is strange that a great tourist attraction can come from an obsession, building thousands of temples over a couple hundred years can not be a good use of a communities resources....just an obsession.

For all its' beauty, the area is blighted with sellers of all sorts of trinkets. They surround the larger temples and even some of the small ones. They hound you until you feel like you can not wait to get away. It is the same at Anchor Wat, but it is still too bad. Still well worth it.

One of the greatest sites I have seen.

This one is special, not because of its' size or grandeur, but because of its' age...300 AD.

Yangon

Yangon is like so many other big cities in developing countries, and also so unlike them.

It is crowded and hot, the air is not clean the sidewalks look ok until you look away and fall into an uncovered drainage ditch. People rush around like they do in every big city and the taxi cabs have taken the mandatory overcharging of tourist training.

It is really unlike other's because it is safe, there are few street dogs, and there is not much garbage on the streets.  People have an easy laugh and are generally friendly.

Another thing that makes Yangon special is the Shwe Dagon temple.  It is a very old (between 1500 and 2500 years depending on who you ask) gold encrusted temple visible from throughout the city.  It is truly spectacular and one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. 

A very pleasant way to spend a day or two.

Burma: Go or no go

I have so many Burmese friends who have told me stories of the slaughter during the Democracy movements, the massive number of political prisoners (2100+/-) and the complete repression in Burma. I went expecting to see people completly beaten down and miserable.  After spending 8 days there and talking talking with a friend who is working as an aid worker, I came away much more confused than when I started. 

The government is total crap, repressing the people while enriching the military elite. They imprision their people for expressing opposition. They block much of the internet and restrict the movement of its' people and foreign tourists.  Tourists end up seeing the best of Burma, which is pretty fabulous, and do not see the dark underside.

That said, my friend, who has worked as an aid worker in Congo and Sudan and has been exposed to much more of the country than tourists are, thinks that the government is less repressive than other regimes and has created an enviroment which at least provides safety for its' people. She does not support the government, but she says it is much less bad than others.  Another aid worker told me she has seen a noticable difference in the governments level of repression since the saffron revolution. She posed an interesting question, "Why boycott Burma when other governments are worse? It is becoming harder to justify." 

I suppose if the coming elections (the first since 1991) are somewhat free, that will be a clear sign the direction the country is taking.

Vacation

We are heading to Burma and Thailand over the next few weeks.  I am not sure how much I will be able to update the blog in Burma, but I will get back to it in Thailand.

Korea a Good Place to Live

I was looking at my blog and it seems that there are a lot of posts recently that express things that could be seen as negative about Korea.  When I am writing, I try to look for things that are funny and interesting...not so interesting to say a million times that this person or that person was remarkably helpful or kind (it happens nearly everyday), that things are safe and clean and it is a nice place to live with good healthcare.

So...when I write something that does point out some negative things about Korea, do not misread this as anything negative about my overall feelings about living here.

Drivers License Part 2

After finding out we needed a letter from the embassy to get our driver's license, we got up at 5:20 today and  paid the $170 to make the 6 hour round trip to Seoul (we had to go in person).  We paid our $60 dollars and got the letters. We made our way back to Daegu drove an hour to the Driver's License Bureau to get our licenses.  So far, so good...at least we think.

We presented our documents to the woman behind the counter, who could not speak English but was really friendly,  she looked at mine...no problems.  She looked at Sandy's...big problem.  When we went to Seoul the woman signed the letter, but forgot to emboss Sandy's.  Not embossed, no license.  If you have ever seen a cartoon where a characters head starts to enlarge and then explodes, you got a pretty good idea of Sandy's reaction.

They let Sandy complete the rest of the requirements including the physical test which had deep knee bends (this is not a joke).  The multiple choice test was 20 questions that made no sense.  The English was so bad that in a third of the questions we had no idea what they were talking about.  Another third had one or two choices that made no sense.  The final third was understandable. When I mentioned this to the proctor of the exam, she said, "yeah, all the foreigners complain about the bad English".

Somehow we both passed (barely) and I got my license.  Sandy will send her documents to the US Embassy and they will send them back to her.  Then, she make the one hour drive for her third try for the drivers license.

Urinal, Toilet, Deek

Out for a walk on Friday and happened upon the child's toilet and urinal.  I can just imagine dad teaching his son, "just pee in the character's mouth"

The phallus thing in front of a restaurant was kind of funny, but nothing compared to when I showed the picture to some colleagues.  Because I displayed it on the small screen on the camera, they could not see it well.  I said, "It is a penis".  Strangely, they did not know the word, "Penis", so Sandy, in her infinite wisdom, points at mine.  All the ladies start laughing and one yells, "Is this a deek?" .  "What?" Yell #2  "Is penis also called a deek". Squirm, Squirm, Squirm,  "Yes it is".

Middle School Beatings

I wrote a while back about discipline in schools.  I guess I did not understand how wide spread the practice of beating students is in middle schools.

I asked a group of girls who will be coming to my school next term how many were beaten in middle school.  All of them...the loud and naughty girls, the quiet and studious ones, all of them.  I understand the tradition of disciplining students here, but I have to say that I am shocked, and a bit dismayed, that kids are beaten across the board in middle schools.

Pre-chewed food for the ultimate pampered pet

Just got back from having a snack at a nearby market.  Outside the window of the shop they had a little stand.  A woman was holding her little dog next to her face.  Nothing so strange in that.  Then I saw the dog licking her lips...pretty strange I thought.  Then,  the woman finished chewing some food which then stuck out of her mouth for the dog to take. Luckily for me (and my picture taking) the woman sat in front of us for 5 minutes doing this. Excellent.

Haiti, US and Korea

16,000 US troops have opened up the port, have the airport operating at 10 times the previous capacity, and are operating a 1000 bed hospital ship. I am so proud of our troops.


I read an article in USA today that says that the American people are donating like crazy and are on a pace to beat the previous record of 2 billion dollars for the Asian tsunami. 

I am sure there will be those (like the idiot in Venezuela) who will find a reason to be critical of us, but this is one of the best things about our culture and something that few other countries seem to understand: Americans are willing to spend enormous sums of money and risk lives to help others.  In some cases, we make mistakes, but the American people are incredibly generous in this way.


According to an article in today's paper, Korea is now joining the effort. Next week they are sending a due diligence team to Haiti and by the end of March they will have 250 troops, mostly mechanics, there. The article says  "Foreign Ministry officials yesterday said it was critical to move the forces to Haiti as quickly as possible in order to help make a true difference in Haiti." They will contribute 10 million, 2 of which is expected from the private sector, in long term and short term aid. 


Update: On Monday, another newspaper article said the number is up to 15 million dollars.


I am hoping that this article is mistaken because this is really a pittance given the number of troops they have here and the wealth of the country.

41...nothing to celebrate

Yesterday Mass. elected a Senator who ran against the Senate healthcare plan.  Korea and Japan feature health insurance systems with mandated universal coverage with public/private partnerships...the programs are significantly different than the Senate one, but there are big similarities. 

After living in all three countries, I can tell you my personal experience is it is much easier and cheaper to go to the doctor in both countries than the US. My insurance here costs $52 a month. I go to the doctor (usually without an appointment), see him/her within 20 minutes, make a co-pay (usually about $1), get my Rx (about $5). Finished, there is no paperwork.

I know that some worry about access to medical devices and I think that it is a legitimate concern, especially in Canada, but I needed a non-emergency Cat-scan and got it in a few days in Japan.

Because it is cheap and easy, nobody worries about going to the doctor.  You are sick, you go.

The quality of care in all three countries is uneven. We had good and bad doctors in Japan. I know that there is a significant medical tourism business in Korea, so I guess that others think the quality is pretty good. I have had great and terrible doctors in the US. After my mother's passing and the mistakes in her initial treatment, I am not nearly as certain of the "great" care we get in our system.

In the big picture, we Americans 

• live shorter lives than most developed countries and some developing countries (37th overall)
• have many more babies die (twice the infant mortality rate of Korea and Japan and behind most developed countries)
• spend much more (16% of GDP versus 6% for Koreans and 8% for a much older Japanese society).

Which systems have the hallmarks of a broken system and one that is working? Which system work to care for people and which work to care for special interests?

I have no idea if the Senate plan is great or terrible, but I am certain what we have is leading to people dying early, children dying at birth, and our country being bankrupted. There should be no celebrating the decrepit system we have being kept on life support unless you own stock in the companies who are bleeding us dry.  

Kids, School, and Life

There is an article in today's paper about growing discipline issues in the classroom.  It says:

• 13.2% chatted in class in 1988 compared to 47.9% in 2008 (this seems too low)
• 1.5% read other books in class compared to 13.9% in 2008

It mentions a huge increase in kids going to cram schools and cites this as one reason kids were screwing off in class because they already studied the material in their cram schools.  Bored kids=bad behavior.  This could be somewhat true. Could be they are trying to get leisure time where they can.


I think there are a few more likely reasons. Many classes are boring lecture style classes and kids get bored and act badly. This is probably exacerbated by change to a faster moving/shorter attention span culture. As I mentioned before, kids sometimes sleep in class.   They fall behind and then they do not understand anything and become bored.  Again, bored kids act badly. Finally, the respect for teachers, while still much higher than the US, is diminishing. Too many kids feel it is OK to be disrespectful to their teachers.

Another paper has a story of another teacher who has solved this problem: "He dashes curse words in the classroom. He beats students with a shovel."  Only in Korea would this sentence be followed by "and the students love him".


Teachers complain about the students, they do not know how to improve their behavior besides what they have done in the past (beating them) which is kind of against the rules (but still widely done).  There does not seem to be training going on regarding this (I asked)...seems like there is a desperate need for it.

Collaborating

Last week I was working at an English camp at a nearby Elementary school.  I did a camp at the school last summer and I liked the kids a lot, but the school was not well organized and I decided I would not do a camp there again. A month ago the Vice-Principal of my school asked me to help the elementary school.  I agreed simply because the VP has always been so nice to me and I like him alot.

I was told they would provide the lesson plans and another teacher and I would just teach.  I got the lesson plans and they were in Korean. Not easy for me to deal with, but I had a meeting scheduled with the school a few days before the camp and I would get things cleared up then. I went to the meeting with a colleague, and we were alone...not as an effective meeting that way. I hate shooting from the hip in class because it goes badly too often, so I spent the weekend preparing lessons.

I got to the school a half hour before the lessons were to begin and nobody was there.  Crap.  I finally found a computer dude who did not speak English and asked for the keys to the room, and he said he gave them to a kid.  So I started looking for a kid with a key.  No luck.  15 minutes before class began, I return and he remembers that he did not give the key and he had it.

10 minutes before camp is to begin the kids are showing up but not the other teachers.    I ran across the street to my school and asked if someone could call the Principal for the Elementary school.  Finally, I got a call at 2 minutes before, "Where are you Steve?".

I have a bit of an obsession about being late and I am in full stress mode because the camp is supposed to begin at that moment.  I run into the teacher who is just walking into the school, "Hi Steve",  I was just thinking, "You have to be kidding me".  We got to the classroom on time and he says, "Let's have a meeting". Of course I thought this was an excellent idea, but the week before, not at the start of class time.  We had a short meeting and got on with the camp.

One of my real weaknesses is I am a bit of a perfectionist and I want things done orderly and properly (which means the way I want of course). This means it is difficult for me to collaborate on anything.  I hate this about myself.

The camp finished and I reflected back on things.  I wonder how things would have gone had I not prepared everything. In the end, the kids had a lot of fun and learned a lot.  Once we got past me being frustrated at the start, the teacher and I got along pretty well.  I know that he is a good teacher and he just likes to do most things off the cuff.

Korea can be like that teacher, freewheeling unplanned but somehow things work out.  I guess I have to adapt.

SCB

A surprising recent discovery is that, from my personal observations, as much as 50% of Koreans are afflicted with SCB, Situational Color Blindness. It seems that people are afflicted the moment they get behind a steering wheel. The symptoms are most visible when they approach red stoplights. At some stoplights in rural areas nearly half the drivers will go through a red light. City dwellers do not seem to be affected by this.

I guess the biggest cause of this affliction is the stupid stop lights. There are no sensors in most areas. One light on my way to work stops me everyday. In 10 months I have only seen 4 cars cross. 3 minutes everyday sitting at a stop light. It makes perfect sense to run the light, except for the day when I was driving with a colleague and the woman behind us decided to run the light. She did not even see us! My colleague realized that she was going to hit us at 40 miles per hour. He gasped and quickly pulled into the middle of the intersection so we did not get hit. I guess it is no surprise that Korean roads are the most dangerous for drivers and pedestrians in the OECD.

I have been here too long

A sure sign that I have been here too long is I can still keep the flow going, so to speak, as the woman mops the urinal next to me. The first time this happened, the woman had the decency to giggle like a little school girl and say "sawlee, sawlee" but the other times (and there have been a few) the women just keep doing their business while I do mine.

Bad Advice for Tiger, for our country

After watching Britt Hume call for Tiger Woods to become a Christian because "Buddhism doesn't offer the sort of forgiveness and redemption Christianity does" I think I have lived in Buddhist countries too long because this really upsets me.

I am not an expert on Buddhism or Christianity, but my experience is that those who believe devoutly in either can be fine people. I know my Buddhist friends have taught me much about forgiveness (mostly because I do so many stupid things) and redemption. There is no need to change your religion, just practice the principles of your faith.

I have barely heard a mention of this in the newspapers.  Do you think it would be the same if Tiger Woods was a Muslim?  A Jew? A Christian and Buddhist's were trying to persuade him to change? Do you think Brit Hume would be on the air next week if it were about other religions.  I guess the Buddhist are more forgiving about these sorts of things.

Hume has a right to say whatever he wants, but I think that the last thing our country, fractured in so many ways, needs are zealots, whether they be Imams or TV announcers, trying to split the country even more.

Piss Border

I was teaching some children at an Elementary school camp today and noticed a decorative border used to teach them the alphabet.

I are a stupid furneir

It is quiet funny to see those shows where some foreigner is wandering around and someone wants to help them.  The foreigner does not speak English, so the American speaks loudly and slowly to them.  

I was just sitting in the office and the mailman comes in.  Everyone is away and he starts talking to me. I say that I do not speak Korean, so he starts to speak loudly and slowly at me.  I have to say, it is just as funny to me to be on the receiving end as watching on TV.

A more difficult circumstance arose at our market.  This remarkably nice woman was helping us.  I thought she understood that we did not speak Korean, but she must not have because she kept talking and talking to us.  After a bit, I did not have the heart to tell her I did not understand anything she said.  For weeks afterward, she would see us in the market, get a big smile, and start talking to us in Korean.  Since I did not tell her the first time, I felt like it would be embarrassing to her to say anything later, so I would just smile and like I understood. The funny thing is she actually speaks English very well and a month ago she started speaking to us in English.

New Years Day Korean Style

New Years morning I got up early and met my friend Seiphemo to see the sunrise on a new year in Korea.

We were told that people do this, so we went to a hill close to a temple. We joined a group of around twenty people who were as foolish as we were to brave the freezing weather.

As the sun rose over the horizon, some of the old people bowed as if to Buddha, others began prayers to Jesus.  The kids began began to take pictures with their camera phones. I guess it was a good representation of the change that is happening here.