A Long Way Gone

source: Internet

“I would always tell people that I believe children have the resilience to outlive their sufferings, if given a chance.” – Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone

Esther, the nurse, keeps telling Ishmael that it’s not his fault. I feel that if we don’t even have awareness and if that small awareness doesn’t lead to an opportunity for children to outlive their sufferings, then the fault lies with us. From the many child soldiers in Africa to the many young victims of war in the Middle East who’ve seen so many things that such young souls should never have to see and go through, I hope that we feel the responsibility to stop a Lost Generation from arising.

“Some nights the sky wept stars that quickly floated and disappeared into the darkness before our wishes could meet them. Under these stars and sky I used to hear stories, but now it seemed as if it was the sky that was telling us a story as its stars fell, violently colliding with each other.”

common sense? chew, digest, make it your own

I used to read only one newspaper. Then I realized that that’s the worst idea ever for a non-party affiliate like myself, especially in Korea. If you, like myself, do not have a specific party affiliation or would like to get a panorama view of current events rather than a glimpse from one corner, I would advise you to read more than one newspaper that will give you a better understanding of the Korean political spectrum.

Case in point: the on-going controversy over the planned construction of three transmission towers in Miryang, one of which will be built within a kilometer to a village, causing disruption and evacuation.

The photos of the story on the front page of the newspapers make the difference clear from the get-go. Chosun Ilbo shows a photo of the construction site and the pit dug by protesters (not-people-centered). Hankyoreh, on the other hand, shows a large photo of the protesting senior citizens and villagers (people-centered).

 

October 7th, 2013
Chosun Ilbo’s front page photo of Miryang transmission tower protest coverage

October 7th, 2013
Hankyoreh’s coverage of the Miryang transmission tower protest

 

Chosun’s article focuses on the unnecessary intervention of the Unified Progressive Party and ‘outside parties’. It chooses to center its story around a certain police officer’s Facebook updates which emphasizes the ‘warm relations between the police and villagers’ (“We are confronting the situation with respect to our villagers”) and how outside forces are ruining a respectful confrontation to a political swamp. Hankyoreh’s article revolves around the voices of the elderly citizens (“we are not outside forces”) and the emphasis on the political power game that is at play to which people like Lee Chi-woo (73) who took his own life as an act of protest are a pawn and victim.

Both are geared to evoke emotional responses. One for sympathy toward police officers, who are humanized and only doing their jobs, and trying to introduce objectivity to a situation that is portrayed as nothing less than political. The other towards the ‘innocent’ elderly citizens who have a right to go on living in peace without needless transmission towers and power games.

See the danger of reading only one story yet?

Facts are not mere facts. Media has biases, platforms, and different colored lenses that can shape one’s views unknowingly. So make sure to try on a couple of glasses to appreciate a comprehensive landscape. Unless you have strong political affiliations that are stubborn to opposing views. In which case, just patiently enjoy life until a shutdown.

 

(Postscript: Does this piece of writing have a bias? You bet. I’m being biased toward “un-bias” and objectivity. So don’t take it for word value; chew it, digest it, and then make it your own.)

Public Opinion on the U.S. Government Shutdown

My favorite comments thus far:

“If I were a panda in the National Zoo in Washington, I would be outraged that my zoo is closed because of the government shutdown and my zookeepers aren’t being paid, while the House Zoo on Capitol Hill stays open with its members still paid. I would petition to have the animals take over law-making, and the House members put in cages and fed bamboo shoots. Then we could watch pandas on C-span and would have budgets on time, too. Win-win!” – Nicholas Kristof for the New York Times

 

“Our government may be shutting down in a few hours. So, folks, get ready for absolutely no noticeable difference.” – Conan O’Brien

 

“The shutdown would be less expensive if the Obama administration didn’t have workers setting up barricades around the World War II memorial and the Lincoln Memorial and if guards weren’t stationed to prevent citizens from walking on federal paths and trails.” – from Brooklyn

 

“And who are these people, exactly, who will realize how useless most of the government is? Surely they are not low-income preschoolers and their parents who benefit from Head Start. They are not the poor, elderly, or disabled who need efficient resolution of their Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security claims. They are not people who visit national parks. They are not veterans. They are not people who believe in the correct apportionment of the House through the Census. They are not people who care about a safe workplace or civil rights enforcement. I don’t recognize this as the profile of anyone I know. Maybe they’re all in Rep. Blackburn’s district.” – from Los Angeles

 

“‘Listen, we’re going to pay you. We’re just not going to pay you today, but we’re going to pay you with interest, and we will pay everybody that’s due money’ [Florida Republican Representative Ted Yoho’s word for America on the worries of the current shutdown’s effect on global markets]

If I told my credit card company that they’d raise my interest rate.” – from New York

 

I’ve always wondered…

Link to article: “Plastic surgery in North Korea: More common than you’d think” 

 

PHOTO CREDIT: David Guttenfelder/AP
Source: The Telegraph

 

But you know what, pretty NK women that I’ve glimpsed in photos or on NK state television always come across to me as having a certain simplistic natural beauty that perhaps plastic-surgery-mecca SK is losing.

baby white lions

Everland Zoo’s two new white lion cubs

 

it was the first time that the cubs went outside

 

the cubs’ first media appearance

 

behind all the cute pictures, is all the hard work :)

 
“Everland Zoo shows off two recently born rare white lions. The zoo says there are only about 300 white lions in the world. With the birth of the two male cubs, the zoo now has eight.” AP Seoul coverage

beauty of nature, and rockets

September 25th, 2013 Wednesday

LOCATION: Cheolwon, South Korea

There are such beautiful huge butterflies in this part of town where the US  forces practice their MLRS fire drills. Clear skies, pretty mountain ranges, tranquil weather. Irony.

 

rocket blast.

daebak.

internal reverberation.

 

September 25th, 2013
a beautiful my kinda day,

 

can you spot the big butterfly?

 

The camera crew always has my utmost admiration for always trying to get the best footage possible.

 

The MSLR is LOUD. The smoke from the MLRS fire drill

 

I have nothing but utmost respect for our AP sunbae-nim

 

lets go home

September 24th, 2013 Tuesday
Journal entry: “The Day My Hands Shook Like a 7.8 Magnitude Earthquake Under the Violent Tremor of Intense Pressure”

After the second announced delay of the Defense Acquisition Program Association (DAPA) spokesperson’s briefing at the Ministry of National Defense, following the prolonged 2+hour wait, the room of press journalists, reporters, and camera crew responded with a synchronized echo of deep sighs and swearing to the impeded ‘let-us-finish-our-job-and-go-home-time.’ It was a most beautiful harmony. After all, it’s all about going home.

 

Source: Yonhap News
National Defense Ministry spokesperson, Kim Min-suk

 

Link to Associated Press article:

http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_306485/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=8mGcPLVI

Dreams change. Hopes change.

When I “grow up”,

As an elementary student, I wanted to be a teacher.
As a middle school kid, I wanted to be a writer.
As a high school kid, I wanted to be a humanitarian aid activist.
As a college student, I wanted to become a conflict resolution expert in the Middle East, with a focus on refugee issues.

Dreams change. Hopes change.
And then there’s reality – which is the biggest change.

“Grown up” now and 2 years out of college,
I’m grateful for the opportunity I’ve had to teach English to kids (fun for the most part), and I’m really grateful for this learning experience in journalism.

I’m not sure where all these turn of events will take me –
further down the road in journalism or media-
or perhaps a sudden U-turn elsewhere,
but I really hope I end up in humanitarian aid and conflict resolution somewhere along my timeline,
however long it may take.

 

Nablus, Palestine / October 2012
photo courtesy of Dal-lim Hwang

깨끗한 그릇

<디모데후서 2:20-26> 2013.05.15

본문에서의 하나님:

– 우리를 그분의 선한 일 가운데 부르시고 사용하시는 분

– 진리

“큰 집에는 금그릇과 은그릇뿐 아니라 나무 그릇과 질그릇도 있어 귀하게 쓰는 것도 있고 천하게 쓰는 것도 있나니 그러므로 누구든지 이런 것에서 자기를 깨끗하게 하면 귀히 쓰는 그릇이 되어 거룩하고 주인의 쓰심에 합당하며 모든 선한 일에 준비함이 되리라” (20-21절)

“시련과 연단은 우리를 하나님이 귀하게 쓰시는 깨끗한 그릇으로 준비시킵니다…”

어쩌면 ‘사랑’과 ‘섬김’을 배우는 이 시간들이 나의 ‘더러운’ 구석들을 속속히 드러내지만, 성령님께서 오히려 깨끗게 하시길 원하시고 깨끗한 마음으로 하나님을 찾고 나오기를 바라시는 시간들일지도 모른다. 그리고 어떤 일들에, 어떤 그릇으로 사용하실지는 말씀해주시겠지.

이 시간도 하나님께서 쓰실 것이다. 하나님을 구하자, 믿음을 구하자.

하나님께서 허락하신 이 상황 가운데서도 귀하게 섬기며 사용해주시고, 앞으로는 더 귀하고 선한 일들에 쓰일 준비가 되도록 이 시간들을 통해 빚어주세요. 솔직히 내일이 보이지도 않네요. 보이는 오늘이라도 주님 붙잡고 주님과 함께 동행하는 하루되게 해주세요. 

curiosity,

2 little girls with heart-warming smiles and curiosity-filled eyes stop in front of me as I’m texting on my phone on the streets of my neighborhood.

“بياعة ده؟ بكام ده؟”
I’m not quite sure which part of my appearance resembles the Chinese ladies I occasionally come across on the Dokki streets selling random items such as cell-phones and remote controls.
“ماعرفش بالضبط عشان اشتريت ده من زمان.”
“انتي صينية؟”
“لا، أنا منين؟”
I love playing this guessing game. They ponder and inspect my face.
“انتي أميركية؟”
Either I speak Arabic with a strong American accent or some facial feature I have makes me look Caucasian because I get this from time to time.
“!لا”
“انتي من مصر؟”
This puts a big smile on my face.
“.لا”
“انتي منين؟؟”
(:”أنا من كوريا الجنوبية.”
“أههه”, they say. Their polite smiles make me wonder if it’s out of simple courtesy or genuine recognition of the small peninsula some thousand miles away. Their curiosity has been satisfied and “مع السلامة” we part our ways.

What cute role-models, I should be more like them – throwing those questions that itch my curiosity. Good to know I look 1) Chinese, 2) American, and 3) Egyptian.