Diplomatic Immunity? Went to Uijongbu, bleary eyed, this morning. The place was humming with people applying for Visas. The man I spoke to said I had come on the very last day - he says you have 90 days after coming back in from Japan, and I was on day 90. I pointed to a date on my E2 stamp, and he shook his head. Didn't make sense to me. 90 days is 90 days, and obviously the E2 stamp gave me 90 days aswell. He seemed to imply that I was lucky.
Well, maybe I was. I have to go back in 2 weeks to pick up my alien card.
The card basically has a picture of me on it, with this message:
The bearer of this card is an alien. Please treat it as such.
Just kidding. I must say, if you walk around Korea smiling, and greeting people, people are really very nice, and very friendly. But they may be true anywhere. Except possibly England. I found the English pretty cool, unless you were a friend of a friend.
Are you proud of your country?
Sometimes. I was thinking today that I am not really proud (or ashamed) to be South African. I think it's a beautiful country, but I can't say I am terribly proud of its history, if you take it as a whole. Some elements are inspiring. Like Mandela's struggle for truth and justice and equality for all the country's people.
And the Boers did very well, outnumbered and outgunned as they were against a much more powerful foe - the British - where Paul Kruger was Saddam Hussein, the British were the Coalition, and the Boers were the insurgents. In the end, the British gave the colony back, but left their puppets behind, in the form of Anglo and so on.
If the beauty of a country is the only quality we look for then why not be proud of New Zealand or Australia? But both these countries have treated their aborigines quite shamefully, and still do.
If I was an American I wouldn't be proud to be American (or maybe I would be, if I didn't know any better). As a westerner in the East, I'm often mistaken for an American, and I always make the distinction that I'm not a megook, that I'm not American.
Many American's who travel through Europe find themselves facing a world that approves less and less of what it is doing. Many American tourists pretend that they're from Canada, especially when they're in Europe.
I am not sure what America really stands for right now. I know what they say they stand for (peace, democracy, freedom). But I don't support the agenda behind the spin. I don't support pre-emptive war, especially not pre-emptive nuclear strikes, or unilateralism, or Imperialism, or Elitism, or the pre-eminence of industry over the environment, and the ignorant government presiding over its domain and the electorate. It's simply a system out of balance, out of whack, ignorant and unenlightened. A leadership that is so eager to go to war, to deceive, so unable to balance its own budget, is simply corrupt.
The same can be said for corruption in probably every other national government. Is China's leadership any less corrupt, or Canada's or France or Germany? Well, Canada seems pretty harmless. Almost every powerful country today has some pretty awful human rights records, or, some other atrocity. In the case of the French, their decades long experiments with atom bombs, blowing up atolls and raining nuclear fallout all over vulnerably island tribes belonging to France.
Now that I think of it, very few nations appear to be intrinscially good (or bad for that matter). So it comes down to this. An unenlightened world.
Few seem to really stand out as shining examples of nationhood, of a people with timeless integrity and decency. At one time though, America certainly did. Their Declaration Of Independence, and the ensuing American Dream, captured the hearts and minds of the world who flocked there with the pursuit of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in mind. It once was a genuine and wonderful dream. Today that dream is not what the leaders (of America)seem to have for their citizens though. Today theirs is a dream of wealth, control and the pursuit of power, and only for themselves.
But there may be one or two exceptions. The Dutch for example. I'm not suggestion the Dutch are perfect. Once upon the time they did a lot of colonisation, just as bad as the British, but for me there was something very courageous about their setting out into an unknown world, and exploring as far and as wide as they did. Perhaps the distance to those times blurs the misery that went alongside it. The Dutch seem to me to be one of the first people to truly move about in the world, all over the world, with confidence and intelligence and ingenuity. They produced some amazing artists and culture. They seem to me today to be a very civilised people, and you don't hear them stirring much. They seem to quietly get on with it. A very enterprising people.
And then the Northern People. The Danes, the Finns, people from Iceland. I think especially the people from Iceland have a very real democracy because their living conditions are simply too harsh to attempt anything else.
And I think people have it in them, to co-operate fully and openly. When we do its a an encouraging spectascle, and a hopeful picture. It's just a choice, and it's the best choice when most other choices have run out.
I am appealing to a collective sense of enduring principles. Imagine if a whole nation could employ and believe in enlightened ideas, from the lowliest beggar, to the most decadent elite.
What's also certainly true, is that every country today has beautiful people and beautiful examples for the world, of union, of colorful songs and celebration, of harmony. We need to see the things that we have in common, not focus on what divides us. We need to find our common humanity and connect that into the magic and nurturing power of nature, so that we can thrive, as a whole and happy system that takes care of its whole self.
Smile
Seems like the tooth fairy is descending en force upon the students. Quite funny to see them showing you their teeth. Quite a few of them have missing front teeth, making them look like little pirates.
When you ask a question like, "What can you make using cotton?" you realise how easy it is to make mistakes listening to the English language. Cotton sounds a lot like 'carton', or 'cartoon' or even 'curtain' if you say it quickly, and if you've never heard it before. The kids also mix up 'kitchen' and 'chicken' in the initial stages of aquisition.
North Korea's Agreement To A Deal Lasts One Day
North Korea has wasted no time in turning the protracted negotiations into an absolute waste of time, by demanding the day after the negotiations ended with some progress, that the USA supply them with a Light Water Reactor. They demanded a LWR in 1994 and then used the one supplied then, as far as I know, to develop the current plutonium. So to do their bidding again is just silly.
I think they (like Iran)are just stalling for time, and deceiving, and bargaining. The bottom line, is that I think they do a lot of talking but will do virtually nothing anyone asks them to. This has been going on for 50 years and maybe they (the leaders)deserve the destiny they want, unfortunately a large populace suffers for the greed and machinations of their Dear leader.
The best way to deal with North Korea, I'm guessing, is to leave them alone. Not to negotiate, not to trade, but then to block weapons sales they might make.
Sadly they have a lot of people suffering in their country, but falling for their 'today we say this, tomorrow we say that' characde just makes their audience into a bunch of fools. And going to war with the country will probably not bring a quick end to the collective suffering there, since the leadership will simply galvanise the more than one million strong army, one of the biggest in the world. Who pays? The poor pay for the sins of the rich. I'm guessing they should just be left alone, and isolated. Let the country's leadership eventually choke on its own deceipt and pride.
If the world withdraws, the North Korean leadership have only one audience left, and that's their own people. How will they explain permanent electrical blackouts, and no food, summer after summer? Perhaps they will tire, eventually, from hearing the same rhertoric. The Dear Leader's message is, after all, merely empty noises based on nothing but fear and manipulation.
In Sickness and in Health
Lots of people around here are getting sick. Last night I had dinner with 6 other teachers, 4 of whom have colds or flu.
Three people have gotten birth flu in Jakarta as well, and one of the teachers from around here went to Indonesia for the weekend. Things can change very quickly, when the ball is in play.
I see a western lady is talking to the director? Possible replacement perhaps? He does have to give me 30 days notice by law, so we'll see if he does. Or perhaps she is here to replace Abraham Lincoln (that's really the English name of Alicia's husband). She worked here until she gave birth, and now her busband (Abraham) is working here. He needs to leave soon to devote himself fully to his studies.
It's getting cool now. Too cool to wear just a t-shirt. I was almost shivering when I left my apartment at 10 'o clock this morning. Very sleep deprived today again.
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