An 아저씨 War

Something interesting happened on the subway the other day. While on my way to meet-up with a couple of friends for lunch in Myeong-Dong, I hopped on the subway at Ssangmun Station as I do a couple of times a week and I noticed that nearly everyone, on this moderately crowded subway car, was silent.

That's a fairly normal state of being on the Seoul Metro. People here tend to behave not unlike how they do in Calgary - stare straight ahead, ignore the face of the person in front of you, and just exist in your own little 2' x 2' space and hope that there will be no need to interact with another human being. Some might argue that Calgary transit riders at least respect others' personal space a bit more than they do here, but there seems to be more offering of seats to elders here in Korea - even on a crowded subway, more people seem to be generally aware of older folk who board looking for a place to rest while they ride. Watching or taking part in this ritual makes that elbow in your side a tad more bearable.

Last Thursday, I saw something completely new on the subway - well, new to me anyway. As I took my seat, I heard two voices raised in anger: one coming from the far end of the car, and the other coming from the closer end of my car - about 20 feet to my left. From the very little that I could glean from my very limited understanding of the Korean language, well... actually, about all I could understand was that the two older men from whom these angry voices were coming were severely pissed off at each other.

It went on for about 10 minutes, which, on a silent subway ride, is a fairly long time. For those in the know, it lasted without pause from Ssangmun until somewhere around Hyehwa. I glanced down to both ends of the car from time to time to see what, if anything, was progressing as the voices seemed to be getting louder and more fierce. Others around me were exchanging awkward glances - some rolling their eyes and some chuckling quietly to themselves. Both men seemed to be attempting to drum-up support from others sitting around them - some nodding in understanding, others seemingly trying to calm the men down.

The whole thing was just bizarre - why these two men were sitting at opposite ends of the car and engaging in a long-distance shouting match was quite literally ,considering the language barrier, beyond me. I wish a Korean friend had been there to translate. All went quiet somewhere around Dongdaemun Stadium, when suddenly, the older man to my left got to his feet. He was no taller than my grandmother on my mom's side - like a little jedi master - well-dressed in a three piece wool suit complete with matching cap.

I know that it's politically incorrect to refer to older folk as being "cute", but dammit, he was... at least until he reached down and grabbed an orange peel that was uncharacteristically left on the subway floor, balled it into an angry fist and began a speedy charge to the other end of the car where another angry old man was presumably about to get a face full of citrus zest.

The little old dude let out a battle cry as he charged down the aisle, until he was interrupted by an ajuma who was clearly up to the task. Nobody wanting to see a pair of old men bloody each other in a public place, this woman grabbed both of his arms at the wrist and announced "Ajushi! Hajima!" (Sir! Stop!). He struggled with her until a couple of university-aged students joined in the fray and turned the charging beast back from whence he came. The man from the other end of the car got off at the next stop, and the man from my end of the car, still armed with orange peel, came and calmly stood at the door beside my seat, looking out the window from behind his giant glasses and slowing his breath. He was a pretty frail old dude in a brown tweed suit. I sat their puzzling over what could have possibly angered this man so much to behave in the way that he did.

I wish I had known what was being said. It's fascinating to me. Riding the C-train in Calgary, I have seen, and at times been involved in, more than my fair share of weird encounters with other riders. Most of the time however, these C-train loonies are high on something. This old man didn't seem to be. I wish I had known what was going on. I wish I could have taken a photo of both combatants just to show on this blog how incongruous the whole thing seemed. But I didn't want to get involved, and, as intrusive as their behavior was, I didn't want to become intrusive in return. Besides, ajumas can handle such things in a far more effective way, and I wasn't about to begin my day with a Christmas orange facial.

Weird.

A Change for the Better

I've had a certain disagreement more than a few times with more than a few people since coming to Korea in August of 2007. Korean or foreigner, I usually just can't seem to see eye-to-eye with many on this issue.

When I arrived then, the process for obtaining a working E-2 visa to be an ESL instructor at a hagwon (private after-school academy) was actually relatively simple. I don't remember the specifics of that process, but I do remember that the following year, the process changed dramatically. I won't bore with all of the details - they involved multiple visits to the Canadian embassy here in Seoul, very specific background checks from my hometown police department, signing and double signing, waiting for documents from Canada to arrive in Seoul, signing them, sending them back to Canada and waiting for them to return to Seoul again.

The things is, pain-in-the-ass that it certainly was, I didn't really have a big problem with most of it. Background checks are pretty much a given for anyone working in a "care-giving" position. The Criminal record search for applicants looking for an E-2 visa to work in Korea is now to include a "Vulnerable Sector Search" - basically a check to see if anything that might have been excused from an actual criminal record, but involved indiscretions with children, elderly, or anyone else in a "vulnerable position". I really have no problem with those with a criminal record for an criminal act involving children NOT being allowed to work with children in the future.

What I've always had a problem with however is the medical tests that were instituted as part of the visa application process last year. Upon your arrival in Korea, you are submitted to two tests (through blood and urine samples) - one for any presence of cannabinoids (basically - "Are you a pot-smoking hippie? Or, "have you been one within the last two months?"), and a test for the HIV Virus.

I get the initial intent behind both tests, I suppose. But that doesn't mean that it's right. I'm going to leave the drug question out of this blog - mainly because it's the other one that I want to deal with, and it's the other one I have the biggest problem with.

I guess I should start by saying that I find it offensive that a country could dictate whether or not a person can enter its premises based on their carrying a disease of the nature of the HIV virus. Basically, this is my problem - those concerned with the immigration of HIV positive people into their country, it seems to me anyway, are doing a great deal of assuming. They are assuming that these "carriers" not only have let the disease compromise their ability to do their jobs properly, but they also seem to be suggesting that by carrying the HIV virus, this pretty much guarantees that the carrier is going to engage in massive amounts of deviant behavior - spreading the disease like wildfire while on the Korean peninsula - "Close our borders! He'll rape your children with his mouth!"

Let's just call this what it is, shall we? It's discrimination - pure and simple. Why is that so? Once you submit a foreigner to a medical test that you wouldn't submit a national to, you are discriminating. No teacher who is a Korean National requires such a marijuana or HIV test - care-giving position or no - yet any foreigner who arrives to do that same job, goes through a series of tests. Should you test positive in either category, expect to be denied entry quicker than Andrew Dice Clay applying for a position in prenatal care.

And it's not just teachers. Today, not one, not two, but three different teachers posted this link to a New York Times article about how South Korea is "struggling" with race. Read it - it may surprise you. In addition to the Death-Eater-like teaching of "pure-blood" desirability among many Koreans, you will also read that the now plentiful Southeast Asian workers who are taking the labor jobs that few Korean-born people want, are also subject to HIV tests that their Korean co-workers do not have to deal with. As Andre 3000 said: "I know you like to think yo shit don't stank...". But, seriously... lean a little bit closer, people.

The mere suggestion or assumption that "outsiders" are not only carriers, but deviant and anarchy-bent parasites is a very dangerous one to hold. I wonder what the government is able to do with all of the HIV-positive Koreans who don't know they carry the disease, or do know and don't want to do anything about it. Presumably, as the immigration regulations will reveal, the government could care less, as long as you are a Korean National.

The good thing is, good and powerful people are recognizing this as a fault. Just today, I was reading that Barack Obama has lifted the travel ban on HIV infected persons entering the United States. Apparently this has been in affect since 1987. Forget getting a job - without special permission, HIV patients wouldn't even be able to set foot on U.S. soil. I had been told this was a common thing, but I didn't think it could be possible. South Korea is apparently not alone in its prejudice.

But there is a movement afoot to turn things around. I couldn't be more pleased. To assume that some HIV-infected guy or gal entering your country is going to be a threat to your citizens, is just plain ignorant, offensive, and backward. To deny them entry is to play Minority Report - you are telling that person that they cannot come to your country, because you believe that they will one day commit a crime. Said crime has a name: The Criminal Transmission of HIV. While people capable of such crimes surely exist, it's simply a mistake to suggest that all carriers will, or even tend-towards such acts. People abhor the use of racial profiling in airports, but many seem to not see the same folly here.

Well, I guess some of the people who legislate change do see it. South Korea's own Ban Ki Moon, the UN's current Secretary General, applauds the move. The following is from an Associated Press Article found today at The Huffington Post:

"Such restrictions, strongly opposed by UNAIDS, are discriminatory and do not protect public health," the program said.

Ban has made the lifting of stigma and discrimination connected with AIDS a personal mission, first calling on countries to lift their travel restrictions in 2008 at a UN meeting on the disease.

The travel restrictions "should fill us all with shame," Ban told a global AIDS conference in August 2008.

According to UNAIDS, Ban's home country of South Korea is "in the last stages of removing travel restrictions," while China and Ukraine are among countries considering following suit.

"Placing travel restrictions on people living with HIV has no public health justification. It is also a violation of human rights," said UNAIDS executive director Michel Sidibe.

On Friday, as he signed a bill reauthorizing funding for a federal program providing HIV-related health care, Obama announced the repeal of the travel ban, describing the 22-year-old policy as a "decision rooted in fear rather than fact."

"If we want to be the global leader in combating HIV/AIDS, we need to act like it," Obama said. "We lead the world when it comes to helping stem the Aids pandemic - yet we are one of only a dozen countries that still bar people with HIV from entering our own country.

"On Monday, my administration will publish a final rule that eliminates the travel ban effective just after the New Year."

Mr Obama added: "It will also take an effort to end the stigma that has stopped people from getting tested, that has stopped people from facing their own illness and that has sped the spread of this disease for far too long."

Back in Korea

Sorry it's taken me so long to update. It seemed easier to write about Japan while I was there - perhaps because I could just duck-out of my dorm room and find an available computer while my parents were sleeping.

We are back. After an afternoon and evening of organizing and laundry, we settled down to a cozy dinner at my place with Sung Sook and checked-out our photos - LOTS of them. We will definitely have to whittle things down.

Yesterday, a trip to Namdaemun market, then dinner at Casa Maya with friends, and the great "Parent-Off" of 2009 as Lexi's parents joined us too. We finished our evening in Hongdae with a quick trip to Oi - a familiar favourite and just a cool place to show our folks. It was good - 10 of us, two generations, and my dad trying out the tree sink in the restroom: "This is cool!"

Today, we are off for breakfast at Butterfingers with Johnny, a picnic at Olympic Park, and a private concert with Sung Sook and her musical friends at Yonsei University, only that is a secret for my parents.

I can't believe I have to teach tomorrow...

Hiroshima - Day 2

Leaving Japan in the morning. The trip here lived up to my expectations, and they were high. As I did with my parents in Seoul, I did a lot of returning to familiar places. It was fun. Innocent World is still there, as is The Wonder Cafe, but of course they are populated with new people and new experiences. Lots of good things to remember. Wacky stuff, beautiful stuff, harrowing stuff, and peaceful stuff.

We spent our last night here with a walk through the covered arcade, bought some weird Japanese shite for myself and some people back home, but not nearly as much as I wanted to. There is something about obscure Japanese characters that makes me want to shop for stuff I do not need. The bear and the chicken are cute, but I was strong. Miyajima this morning. The weather has been perfect - blue skies, and cool enough for sweaters, but warm in the sun. The gate was floating this time - high tide. Good to see.

Walked by the river tonight and had an Asahi by the A-bomb dome with my dad. A school group was passing-by and they stopped to sing-along with a random musician below the bridge. Miyajima, deer, good food and music, my parents telling stories about their youth, and thinking of the people I met here last year, wondering where exactly Shannon and Andrews apartment was - it all made for a better condition. Hiroshima is a good place.

I want to come back to Japan. This trip confirmed that which was once just a second thought. It is a very cool place, but there is so much more to explore. I need to get back to Tokyo - perhaps by myself, and back to Kyoto with a lady who has never been. For now though, I am just glad that I got the chance to do this with my parents. It means a lot to me and I feel pretty lucky to have had the time and opportunity to see this through. My parents world got a little bit smaller and a whole lot bigger on this trip. I guess I could say the same about my own, even though it is my second time around. Some things are worth another shot.

Hiroshima - Day 1

Today was a travel day, and a day of melancholy. I suppose melancholy is not the most accurate word to describe what one feels while walking around Hiroshima after having visited the Peace Park and Atomic Bomb Museum. It is not in my nature to attempt something vague, poetic, or both, since this place sucks the value out of clever sound bites. So, I will just say that it felt the same as it did last year. The power of that place never really goes away - even on repeated visits. Greater minds convey the meaning in a greater way than I could possibly offer.

Certainly there is lots to say about the place and the things memorialized there, but here I will just say that I am not sure if I feel the same way others feel upon visiting this city. It was just over 64 years ago that the bomb was dropped, and I suppose the fact that Hiroshima is now a thriving city gives people hope.

I think I would have to stay here longer than two or three days - maybe even live here - before I could share the same feelings about the place. It is just too much for me to walk by the river the night after visiting the museum, seeing the A-bomb dome lit-up as it is. It is just too easy to imagine what was happening by the river all those years ago. I cannot decide if I am proud or somewhat ashamed that I dont immediately sense the hope that others seem to feel when they come here. So, I suppose it is a bit of both. Wishing to take ownership of one feeling or another, I sit firmly on the fence.

Still, this was a place I wanted to take my parents. I feel that anyone who can, should come here and see the things the museum wants to show us. Regardless of how it might make you immediately feel, or feel after a day or two, I humbly suggest that the city is worth your time.

One person who agrees is Tadatoshi Akiba, Hiroshima's mayor. Akiba dedicated his 2009 memorial speech to a new term coined after Barack Obama's proposal in Prague this year to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

Yes, they are just words - they even feel like a sound bit,I suppose - but it should be noted that no previous US president has spoken so clearly or pointedly about such a contentious topic as this - the turn away from a nuclear deterrent policy. Hiroshima's mayor is taking and looking to make these words a reality by taking them at face value. Good move.

People are pissy about Obama receiving a Nobel Peace Prize so early in the game. Surely though, such a stance is an important one. No sitting US president has ever visited Hiroshima in an official capacity. Perhaps that is about to change. This is what the mayor of Hiroshima since 1999 has to say on August 6th of this year - the 64th anniversary of the dropping of the bomb:

That weapon of human extinction, the atomic bomb, was dropped on the people of Hiroshima sixty-four years ago. Yet the hibakusha's suffering, a hell no words can convey, continues. Radiation absorbed 64 years earlier continues to eat at their bodies, and memories of 64 years ago flash back as if they had happened yesterday.

Fortunately, the grave implications of the hibakusha experience are granted legal support. A good example of this support is the courageous court decision humbly accepting the fact that the effects of radiation on the human body have yet to be fully elucidated. The Japanese national government should make its assistance measures fully appropriate to the situations of the aging hibakusha, including those exposed in "black rain areas" and those living overseas. Then, tearing down the walls between its ministries and agencies, it should lead the world as standard-bearer for the movement to abolish nuclear weapons by 2020 to actualize the fervent desire of hibakusha that "No one else should ever suffer as we did."

In April this year, US President Obama speaking in Prague said, "...as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act." And "...take concrete steps towards a world without nuclear weapons." Nuclear weapons abolition is the will not only of the hibakusha but also of the vast majority of people and nations on this planet. The fact that President Obama is listening to those voices has solidified our conviction that "the only role for nuclear weapons is to be abolished.

In response, we support President Obama and have a moral responsibility to act to abolish nuclear weapons. To emphasize this point, we refer to ourselves, the great global majority, as the "Obamajority," and we call on the rest of the world to join forces with us to eliminate all nuclear weapons by 2020. The essence of this idea is embodied in the Japanese Constitution, which is ever more highly esteemed around the world.

Now, with more than 3,000 member cities worldwide, Mayors for Peace has given concrete substance to our "2020 Vision" through the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Protocol, and we are doing everything in our power to promote its adoption at the NPT Review Conference next year. Once the Protocol is adopted, our scenario calls for an immediate halt to all efforts to acquire or deploy nuclear weapons by all countries, including the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, which has so recently conducted defiant nuclear tests; visits by leaders of nuclear-weapon states and suspect states to the A-bombed cities; early convening of a UN Special Session devoted to Disarmament; an immediate start to negotiations with the goal of concluding a nuclear weapons convention by 2015; and finally, to eliminate all nuclear weapons by 2020. We will adopt a more detailed plan at the Mayors for Peace General Conference that begins tomorrow in Nagasaki.

The year 2020 is important because we wish to enter a world without nuclear weapons with as many hibakusha as possible. Furthermore, if our generation fails to eliminate nuclear weapons, we will have failed to fulfill our minimum responsibility to those that follow.

Global Zero, the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament and others of influence throughout the world have initiated positive programs that seek the abolition of nuclear weapons. We sincerely hope that they will all join the circle of those pressing for 2020.

As seen in the anti-personnel landmine ban, liberation from poverty through the Grameen Bank, the prevention of global warming and other such movements, global democracy that respects the majority will of the world and solves problems through the power of the people has truly begun to grow. To nurture this growth and go on to solve other major problems, we must create a mechanism by which the voices of the people can be delivered directly into the UN. One idea would be to create a "Lower House" of the United Nations made up of 100 cities that have suffered major tragedies due to war and other disasters, plus another 100 cities with large populations, totaling 200 cities. The current UN General Assembly would then become the "Upper House."

On the occasion of the Peace Memorial Ceremony commemorating the 64th anniversary of the atomic bombing, we offer our solemn, heartfelt condolence to the souls of the A-bomb victims, and, together with the city of Nagasaki and the majority of Earth's people and nations, we pledge to strive with all our strength for a world free from nuclear weapons.

We have the power. We have the responsibility. And we are the Obamajority. Together, we can abolish nuclear weapons. Yes, we can.

Kyoto - Day 3

This post will need to be a short one - new guesthouse and only two computers for a lot of people.

We are lucky to be staying at Nagomi Ryokan - a small but pretty converted guesthouse just north of Kyoto Station. The alleys are as narrow and well-kept with plants, flowers, and clean little stones as the alleys in Gion district. The only thing lacking are the Geisha girls.

Went to the Inari shrine south of the city this morning after moving into our place. This is the place where over 5000 red tori gates line the mountain side and you can walk through the tori tunnels towards the top of the mountain. Didn't make it all the way but didn't need to. It was good to see another new thing.

But I need some familiar too. Back to Merry Island for dinner tonight. Its strange the things I'm able to remember - just a little further down that road... and yes, there it is. Candle-lit table in the back and good Thai food in a Japanese restaurant.

Today I was able to exorcise the Astro Boy ghosts from last year as well. August 2008 saw me pleading at a closed glass door in Kyoto station, begging with the morning clerk to open the door and let me buy my over-priced Astro Boy shirt from the studio store. No avail, and I had to catch a train.

This year, I found the Neo Mart store downtown in the shopping arcade - perhaps the coolest store in the world - they have Barbapapa merchandise for the love of Pete! Well, the open everyday sign was lying as October 20th is apparently inventory day and they wouldn't open their doors. Sadness. So, it was back top flight to Kyoto station to the studio store. I can wear the Mighty Atom with pride this year.

Bullet train tomorrow. My dad loves trains. I love maps. I believe there is a map on the train which I intend to look at as we race by the towns between Kyoto and Hiroshima. Only a handful of days left on this journey with my parents and we are making the best out of each one.

Kyoto - day 2

...our second full day in Kyoto has been as grand as the first. Began our morning early - waking up with the sun and getting to Kiyamizu-dera temple before almost anyone else. It was empty - perhaps the most popular site in Kyoto. Walked the love stone walk, just caught the edge of it to the delight of a horde of Japanese school children who cheered my victory. Saw a rabbit - rabbits everywhere, or perhaps I am just better able to see them this time around. Rabbits on the brain. Drank from the healing waters below the temple and filled our bottles for the day.

A walk through old cobblestone streets lined with old wooden houses, and saw 5 geisha girls - the real deal, not the weekenders: full face paint and garb, hair done perfectly. They were on their way somewhere important, but after the batteries in the camera ran out, mom and dad staked-out a corner and I ran like a man on my own mission, keeping a giant pagoda in my sites for a point of reference and trying to find a store that sold batteries amid all of the stores that sold the finest finery. Where is a Family Mart when you need it? Got the batteries just in time. Looking forward to posting photos here.

Last year, saw a giant Buddha on a hill, but that was one stop too many, so we didn't make it. The three of us decided to go all the way this time and were rewarded with a moving experience. The shrine is dedicated to all soldiers who died in Japanese related conflict in World War II. The Memorial Hall contains sand, soil, and drawers full of names of the dead from all of the countries that were affected by Japanese colonial oppression leading up to and including the war. The flags are faded and the bottles of soil have lost their shine and clarity through the years, but it is a moving site. Close to the hall is a series of shelters housing thousands of small Buddhas representing the Japanese who lost their lives in the conflict. Like Hiroshima, there is a very respectful level of atonement at these places. It is humbling to see.

From there, lunch at a noodle house and then to Chionin Temple, maybe my favourite in Kyoto - huge, nightingale floors to warn of intruders, massive inner temple where monks were chanting and praying, incense everywhere. Relaxing and peaceful. Another good day.

I could make a long, long list of the things that mom and dad cannot get over, but today I will add this: they cant get over the size of the main gate of Chionin. Truly, an impressive sight. Philosophers walk tonight, and then to our new guesthouse tomorrow. Things are going as planned. It is nice to know that a trip you have though about for so long, can be filled with so many perfect little moments. We are fortunate folk, but we wish others close to us could be here to see the things we are seeing. Today, in particular, I really miss my sister. Wish you were here, Sandy - erase the cliche of that postcard phrase and you have the truth. I really wish you were here, Spankylosaurus.