Saturday, May 22, 2004
Dinner Parties and the Suicide Craze
What a contrasting and miserable landscape that even while the proprietor of the Presidential Palace called Blue House and his cronies were savoring gourmet dishes and enjoying vintage wines during early evening hours, scores of frustrated lot in the nation were hitting the road for the Abyss. They were trudging along the precipice of life and heading for the dark bottomless pit.
It is presumed that truncated souls, cornered and downtrodden by the financial losses, and deprived of all available means of survival, end up dragging their feet and setting their hearts and souls up to the crevice. What kinds of worldly sorrow will top this lone apocalyptic progression?
The nation deserves the designation of "The Suicide Republic." 40-odd South Korean people take their lives each day. Resources for deprivation of life are not rich enough, bordering on being primitive. The use of gravity on metropolitan high-rises has been on the top list, followed by self-strangulation and diving into the river and sea.
Subterranean suicides are in vogue these days. Some pilots of subway cars are alleged to have been consternated off and on at the unsightly scene of pop-up human body thrust into the dashboard of the car, after having smashed the window panes. Subway stops are a severe problem which has been devoid of any guard fences which could frustrate the impulse to end life.
What a contrasting and miserable landscape that even while the proprietor of the Presidential Palace called Blue House and his cronies were savoring gourmet dishes and enjoying vintage wines during early evening hours, scores of frustrated lot in the nation were hitting the road for the Abyss. They were trudging along the precipice of life and heading for the dark bottomless pit.
It is presumed that truncated souls, cornered and downtrodden by the financial losses, and deprived of all available means of survival, end up dragging their feet and setting their hearts and souls up to the crevice. What kinds of worldly sorrow will top this lone apocalyptic progression?
The nation deserves the designation of "The Suicide Republic." 40-odd South Korean people take their lives each day. Resources for deprivation of life are not rich enough, bordering on being primitive. The use of gravity on metropolitan high-rises has been on the top list, followed by self-strangulation and diving into the river and sea.
Subterranean suicides are in vogue these days. Some pilots of subway cars are alleged to have been consternated off and on at the unsightly scene of pop-up human body thrust into the dashboard of the car, after having smashed the window panes. Subway stops are a severe problem which has been devoid of any guard fences which could frustrate the impulse to end life.
Tuesday, May 18, 2004
Double-Dealing Folks in the Establishment
Somebody has to make a record of this shameful custom, however so it might be. Somebody has to document and convey idiosyncratic practices highly in vogue in the upper crust of Korea (Republic of). Since when have those snobbish practices become a national trait, I wonder?
What on earth is that high society people have taken advantage of the U.S. immigration system for their own sake, turned around and spat on the Immigration Office official (figuratively speaking), behaving as if the U.S. government had not done anything for them? Since when and why have they become such an ungrateful lot? What on earth is that they speak one thing and act another?
There have been scattered common specimens of double dealers in political, social, cultural and media establishments which used to keep so-called "two-house families,"--one in Seoul and the other in L.A. and other U.S. cities. Let me take one example. The cadre members of the press and broadcasting stations above the desk level, especially the television media people, have tended to go anti-American, blaring every dark aspect of U.S. society and the military.
Kim Dae Jung has been the one example who turned his back on the U.S. after all the gamut of benefits and benedictions showered on him by his American political allies by looking the other way while the anti-U.S. demonstrations were under way during the winter of 2002. They had literally saved his life from the political persecution of Dictator Park government and given him strong backup on his return to the Korean political arena. Even Nobel Peace Prize of the year 2000 would not have been possible without strong recommendations from the U.S. establishment.
Why do they, having gone through all the procedures of sending their kids to the United States in order for them to gain academic achievements or citizenship status, make a sudden metamorphosis from pro-American to anti-American activists? Sociological and psychological pundits please come forward. Would you please help us Koreans with an ample explanation for those brazen, ungrateful and back-stabbing human beings?
Don't mistake us Koreans for the ungrateful lot. The rest of the ordinary people appreciate all the U.S. efforts military and otherwise. We know what we are today is mostly indebted to the aid and good offices from the U.S. We regret and deplore all the negative aspects going on in the high society in the nation.
The political scene irks most of us Koreans, me included. The one irony is that they pass for liberals and progressives. They are propounding the need for reform. They are making targets of public hatred and inciting the public and friendly broadcasting media to attack "the public enemies", which are Samsung (target for industrial reform), Chosun Ilbo (the most conservative newspaper of the highest circulation) and GNP (the politically conservative opposition). They are making chasms and crumbling the very foundations of society with the wrecking ball of so-called reform. The other irony is that almost all the dear kids of those hypocritical and superficial anti-American activists are being raised, trained and educated in various U.S. cities. How weird.
Somebody has to make a record of this shameful custom, however so it might be. Somebody has to document and convey idiosyncratic practices highly in vogue in the upper crust of Korea (Republic of). Since when have those snobbish practices become a national trait, I wonder?
What on earth is that high society people have taken advantage of the U.S. immigration system for their own sake, turned around and spat on the Immigration Office official (figuratively speaking), behaving as if the U.S. government had not done anything for them? Since when and why have they become such an ungrateful lot? What on earth is that they speak one thing and act another?
There have been scattered common specimens of double dealers in political, social, cultural and media establishments which used to keep so-called "two-house families,"--one in Seoul and the other in L.A. and other U.S. cities. Let me take one example. The cadre members of the press and broadcasting stations above the desk level, especially the television media people, have tended to go anti-American, blaring every dark aspect of U.S. society and the military.
Kim Dae Jung has been the one example who turned his back on the U.S. after all the gamut of benefits and benedictions showered on him by his American political allies by looking the other way while the anti-U.S. demonstrations were under way during the winter of 2002. They had literally saved his life from the political persecution of Dictator Park government and given him strong backup on his return to the Korean political arena. Even Nobel Peace Prize of the year 2000 would not have been possible without strong recommendations from the U.S. establishment.
Why do they, having gone through all the procedures of sending their kids to the United States in order for them to gain academic achievements or citizenship status, make a sudden metamorphosis from pro-American to anti-American activists? Sociological and psychological pundits please come forward. Would you please help us Koreans with an ample explanation for those brazen, ungrateful and back-stabbing human beings?
Don't mistake us Koreans for the ungrateful lot. The rest of the ordinary people appreciate all the U.S. efforts military and otherwise. We know what we are today is mostly indebted to the aid and good offices from the U.S. We regret and deplore all the negative aspects going on in the high society in the nation.
The political scene irks most of us Koreans, me included. The one irony is that they pass for liberals and progressives. They are propounding the need for reform. They are making targets of public hatred and inciting the public and friendly broadcasting media to attack "the public enemies", which are Samsung (target for industrial reform), Chosun Ilbo (the most conservative newspaper of the highest circulation) and GNP (the politically conservative opposition). They are making chasms and crumbling the very foundations of society with the wrecking ball of so-called reform. The other irony is that almost all the dear kids of those hypocritical and superficial anti-American activists are being raised, trained and educated in various U.S. cities. How weird.
Monday, May 10, 2004
Falling, Falling and Falling
Just falling, falling and falling
Spring rain is drizzling down
Rainy tears are streaming down my cheeks
Elderly folks are stooping
Their legs are staggering
Oh, my stuff is drooping down
Just falling, falling and falling
Graphs are falling, falling and falling
Hearts are sinking down and out
The nation is limping
Why do they keep falling and falling?
Why do they keep falling from high-rises?
Why parents with poor kids keep thrusting
over the pier into the sea?
Oh, where could be the Savior
Who will keep them from falling?
Where could be the merciful hand
Which spans the nation
And will wipe tears from the nation?
Just falling, falling and falling
Spring rain is drizzling down
Rainy tears are streaming down my cheeks
Elderly folks are stooping
Their legs are staggering
Oh, my stuff is drooping down
Just falling, falling and falling
Graphs are falling, falling and falling
Hearts are sinking down and out
The nation is limping
Why do they keep falling and falling?
Why do they keep falling from high-rises?
Why parents with poor kids keep thrusting
over the pier into the sea?
Oh, where could be the Savior
Who will keep them from falling?
Where could be the merciful hand
Which spans the nation
And will wipe tears from the nation?
Friday, May 07, 2004
Excessiveness Could Be a Sign of Lack
"Excessiveness could be a sign of lack," an ancient sage warned the world. It's deplorable that a star anchor-turned politician in his middle fifties has made a mistake again this time. Which was politically incorrect but avoidable only if he heightened the sense of alert and consideration for other compatriots.
His initial emphasis on the youngsters' voting participation had gone too far. He then and there had gone out of his way to assert that the elderly folks who were sixty years or older had better not go to polling stations. He had paid a dear price for his slip of tongue by making rounds of the aged people of the nation, offering apologies.
He went to a welfare home which takes cares of people with disabilities the other day. He decided to make a show of his devoted public service. He then and there disrobed, scrubbed the wrong way the back of a paraplegic young man in his thirties and bathed him in an odd way which might have been politically correct.
A weird footage at issue has been aired. He originally took a photographer and an electee into the bath and let the photographer take shots of very intimate baths. When the star politician lifted the poor young man's naked leg high in the air, the novice Congressman made derogatory remarks to the captive publicity target, saying, "It's your honor that you're being served from the most remarkable person in the nation."
"Excessiveness could be a sign of lack," an ancient sage warned the world. It's deplorable that a star anchor-turned politician in his middle fifties has made a mistake again this time. Which was politically incorrect but avoidable only if he heightened the sense of alert and consideration for other compatriots.
His initial emphasis on the youngsters' voting participation had gone too far. He then and there had gone out of his way to assert that the elderly folks who were sixty years or older had better not go to polling stations. He had paid a dear price for his slip of tongue by making rounds of the aged people of the nation, offering apologies.
He went to a welfare home which takes cares of people with disabilities the other day. He decided to make a show of his devoted public service. He then and there disrobed, scrubbed the wrong way the back of a paraplegic young man in his thirties and bathed him in an odd way which might have been politically correct.
A weird footage at issue has been aired. He originally took a photographer and an electee into the bath and let the photographer take shots of very intimate baths. When the star politician lifted the poor young man's naked leg high in the air, the novice Congressman made derogatory remarks to the captive publicity target, saying, "It's your honor that you're being served from the most remarkable person in the nation."
Tuesday, May 04, 2004
Where Is All the Money Gone?
A handsome young man, who was filing in front of a public latrine, threw me a glance the other day and asked me to give him some pieces of toilet tissues. What a surprise. There must be no extra coins and alas, no pride left of him. I gave him some and he returned me a light bow.
Where is all the money gone? What's the problem? The reality is that although the nation is not, most of the people are depleted of bank notes. The grim fact is the money doesn't flow, not to mention "rotate." In brief, liquidity is not liquid enough to "wet the nation," not to mention to soak her.
I feel the need to check the hideouts. A considerable portion of the national wealth has been passing through the sieves of stock markets into the hands of foreign investors, that is, foreign speculators. High interest rates under the IMF bailout banking system have taken the money from the poor and given it to the super rich, who have not deposited in banks but stacked in a very "classic" manner. It turns out that the upper class people numbering 100 thousands or so have had their bank notes and cash dollars in private safes, sometimes even in huge refrigerators.
A handsome young man, who was filing in front of a public latrine, threw me a glance the other day and asked me to give him some pieces of toilet tissues. What a surprise. There must be no extra coins and alas, no pride left of him. I gave him some and he returned me a light bow.
Where is all the money gone? What's the problem? The reality is that although the nation is not, most of the people are depleted of bank notes. The grim fact is the money doesn't flow, not to mention "rotate." In brief, liquidity is not liquid enough to "wet the nation," not to mention to soak her.
I feel the need to check the hideouts. A considerable portion of the national wealth has been passing through the sieves of stock markets into the hands of foreign investors, that is, foreign speculators. High interest rates under the IMF bailout banking system have taken the money from the poor and given it to the super rich, who have not deposited in banks but stacked in a very "classic" manner. It turns out that the upper class people numbering 100 thousands or so have had their bank notes and cash dollars in private safes, sometimes even in huge refrigerators.
