Children's Day
The concept of a holiday for recognizing children is nearly unthinkable to me as an American. "Children's Day"??? What day isn't? I'm still not sure why Korean society sees a need to set aside one day a year to treat kids. Compared to American kids these kids are doted on, indulged. Sure, what's expected of them is a lot higher, more study, more pressure to succeed. But really...when you're expected (not just allowed) to live at home until you're married, a sheer luxury to most Americans I know, it's hard for me to feel much sympathy for you. Despite vying for the world's highest suicide rate. I just don't get it.
For this, and for two other things I intend to write about today, you have to understand something about society, Confucian-style. Elders are better than youngers. Men are better than women. Children are allowed to do pretty much whatever the Hell they want on the theory that they're too young to understand social expectations. Yeah, this chafes at me. So in practice the young adult is at the bottom of the totem pole, and the ajoshi at the top. Thankfully unlike their female counterparts the ajummas, most adjoshi are pretty nice guys, even when they're not sober. I've had nothing but good experiences with older Korean men, unless you count the assault on my sense of smell. In all this foreigners are Outsiders, guests in the family home. Giving respect is nice, but you can't really expect it. Courtesy, yes. Contempt, sometimes. But respect doesn't happpen.
So there's a news story today, and it ties into a different one about my favorite Korean band DBSK. DBSK is five members and they've had a dispute with their management company. They claim that they were required to pay for their own hotel rooms out of pocket on tours, and were otherwise getting ripped off. These guys are huge in Korea, China, and Japan so they deserve a bit of respect. Three of them have settled but the other two are holding out. One of the stories going around is that the two are not allowed to speak to the other three, even though supposedly they're friends outside of work. That sounds simply incredible to a Westerner--how can a management company dictate who you speak to on your own time? Aren't they free to...??!!
Does anybody else remember Backstreet Boys and Lou Perlman? Ike and Tina Turner and Motown? I often compare the music scene here to Motown, because the music is safe and pretty and the management of it is (or seems to be) strangling.
So I see this article in today's paper www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/special/2010/05/178_65326.html and Super Junior, a thirteen-member band (which BTW is not the largest of them.). Three of the members aren't on the current tour--one is doing his obligatory military service, one has gone into acting, and the third ..."Han Geng, a Chinese member of the group facing contract issues with SM Entertainment; .. 'Even our fellow members can't get in touch with Han Geng. It's a regretful situation and we hope he can join us again as soon as possible,''" Read between the lines here. It really is that constricting.
Which makes me like the guys from DBSK even more. Aside from being men, they're at the bottom of the social totem pole here. Suck it up, do what you're told, work for the greater good, don't demand anything for yourself. This is the message they've been getting all their lives, and have had to adhere to since late high school. To break out of that, at the cost of being separated from your bandmates, ostracized, to fight for your own rights...wow. Go guys. Go go go go. Of course I want to hear DBSK music again, but if you can bring the studio system down a notch to where they can't exploit (really hot) guys like you, more power to you.
Now it is Children's Day, and I dislike crowds and I'm not sentimental about entitled little kids, so I thought about staying home. I didn't--I'm at PC 방 right now. There's the Goyang Flower Festival that I missed the past couple weekends because I was too sick, and now I'm feeling human. This weekend's trip got postponed so I can catch up this weekend. So I went, bracing myself for brats. And I didn't get them. The kids around were generally the younger ones and they were well-behaved. No screamers. No crying. Only one tantrum. And one that made me snicker...
In the outside section of the flower show (LOL I'm pink--I'll bet I'm sunburned!) were three little enclosures. One had three very jaded chickens, unmoved by the toddler stomping and making noises at them. Another enclosure had guinea pigs on Prozac--as nervous as those animals normally are they seemed unbothered by the crowds. Might've been the warm weather. The third enclosure had a pair of monkeys, a 'squirrel monkey' and a 'Japanese monkey''. Might as well have been wearing a 'kick me' sign, but most people were cool. But not this one couple and their son, oh no. The cage was tepee shaped with coated chicken wire for bars, and a ribbon acoss the door that spectators were supposed to stay behind. Which of course, this kid was special and the rules didn't apply to him. Yeah. So Mom puts the kid in front of the ribbon, right up next to the wire where he could get a really good look at those two little monkeys. Now I'm feeling bad for the monikeys--they're intelligent creatures who can't just ignore things like those chickens. They've got a little curtain to go behind, but still, that kid was right there by the wires...so the cheeky monkey walks across the enclosure, sticks his paw out of the wire, and slaps the kid in the face. I swear it--I saw it. The kid wore a look of pure horror as Mom picked him up and got him away from that enclosure. To his credit he didn't scream! Sadly when I doubled back a little later the kid was standing in front of the rope again, this time with Daddy holding his shoulders, though not pressed up against the wires again. --snicker--
But one thing Koreans do very right, something that as a crowd-phobe I definitely notice, is they've got a great sense of photo etiquette. I took this shot to give you a sense of how crowded it was in that place, not enough to make me panicky but definitely enough for me to notice.
But out of 72 shots, only seven had unwanted people in them, even a hand or a shoulder. Given the crowd that is pretty amazing, and I was not the only one. People were careful to stay out of each others' shots. I couldn't get close to the cactus exhibit at all, which would be happy-familiar to me and exotic (and with sitting benches) to the other tourists, but otherwise I got every shot I wanted. And this on a holiday dedicated to indulging little kids' whims. Try that at Disneyland, I dare you. Granted I got there a little early on purpose, out by 1pm, but it still amazes me.
It wasn't all sweetness and polite though--I was a little stinker. Remember what I said about the heirarchy here? This is part of why ajummas are such pushy beings. They've spent most of their lives below most people by virtue of being female. They've lost their attractiveness so they can't wheedle to get what they want like a 20-year-old can. "Oppaaaaaa!" But now they're Old, so they're going to throw that weight around. They also know that foreigners tend to be courteous in crowds, and that Americans, Canadians, Japanese, and certain others will go to great lengths to avoid confrontation. So you've heard me complain about them. Well today I'm leaving the exhibit, footsore but feeling good otherwise, and I'm walking a straight and steady line to the exit. The exit is near the entrance, and at that moment a pack of ajummas comes in. They're talking among themselves, cool, but one starts to break off and head directly into my path. It's possible she doesn't see me, but "I didn't see..." is a very common excuse for plowing through a crowd without looking, social order be damned. Young women with cell phones, or arm in arm in a conversation...But this ajumma is doing this on Children's Day, when in theory she should be looking out for and yielding to rugrats and their parents. I decide I'm not going to go out of my way to get out of her way. Her brochure is pointed out directly in front of her and it's quickly cutting off my exit, so I just keep walking, pretending I don't see her. I bump the brochure--I'm still too polite to bodily bump a stranger, and she shouts something at my back that sounds like "yori!!" Now I'd like to tell myself that that means "Wow, that insolent foreigner is not a pushover!" but I suspect the actual meaning is less kind, and wouldn't be found in a standard dictionary. But I felt good. I felt strangely assimiliated. If you're going to get in my way because you're not watching me, because your culture tells you you can do that when it suits you, well I'm going to show you that I'm outside of that culture when it suits me. I'm not generally rude, but dammit I didn't walk into her path. I simply didn't alter my course to compensate for her thoughtlessness., was simply minding my own business and not going out of my way to mind anyone else's...as I usually do.
And it felt good.
So, some of those 72 pictures. They're all in this album, but here's some thumbnails to tease you with.
For this, and for two other things I intend to write about today, you have to understand something about society, Confucian-style. Elders are better than youngers. Men are better than women. Children are allowed to do pretty much whatever the Hell they want on the theory that they're too young to understand social expectations. Yeah, this chafes at me. So in practice the young adult is at the bottom of the totem pole, and the ajoshi at the top. Thankfully unlike their female counterparts the ajummas, most adjoshi are pretty nice guys, even when they're not sober. I've had nothing but good experiences with older Korean men, unless you count the assault on my sense of smell. In all this foreigners are Outsiders, guests in the family home. Giving respect is nice, but you can't really expect it. Courtesy, yes. Contempt, sometimes. But respect doesn't happpen.
So there's a news story today, and it ties into a different one about my favorite Korean band DBSK. DBSK is five members and they've had a dispute with their management company. They claim that they were required to pay for their own hotel rooms out of pocket on tours, and were otherwise getting ripped off. These guys are huge in Korea, China, and Japan so they deserve a bit of respect. Three of them have settled but the other two are holding out. One of the stories going around is that the two are not allowed to speak to the other three, even though supposedly they're friends outside of work. That sounds simply incredible to a Westerner--how can a management company dictate who you speak to on your own time? Aren't they free to...??!!
Does anybody else remember Backstreet Boys and Lou Perlman? Ike and Tina Turner and Motown? I often compare the music scene here to Motown, because the music is safe and pretty and the management of it is (or seems to be) strangling.
So I see this article in today's paper www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/special/2010/05/178_65326.html and Super Junior, a thirteen-member band (which BTW is not the largest of them.). Three of the members aren't on the current tour--one is doing his obligatory military service, one has gone into acting, and the third ..."Han Geng, a Chinese member of the group facing contract issues with SM Entertainment; .. 'Even our fellow members can't get in touch with Han Geng. It's a regretful situation and we hope he can join us again as soon as possible,''" Read between the lines here. It really is that constricting.
Which makes me like the guys from DBSK even more. Aside from being men, they're at the bottom of the social totem pole here. Suck it up, do what you're told, work for the greater good, don't demand anything for yourself. This is the message they've been getting all their lives, and have had to adhere to since late high school. To break out of that, at the cost of being separated from your bandmates, ostracized, to fight for your own rights...wow. Go guys. Go go go go. Of course I want to hear DBSK music again, but if you can bring the studio system down a notch to where they can't exploit (really hot) guys like you, more power to you.
Now it is Children's Day, and I dislike crowds and I'm not sentimental about entitled little kids, so I thought about staying home. I didn't--I'm at PC 방 right now. There's the Goyang Flower Festival that I missed the past couple weekends because I was too sick, and now I'm feeling human. This weekend's trip got postponed so I can catch up this weekend. So I went, bracing myself for brats. And I didn't get them. The kids around were generally the younger ones and they were well-behaved. No screamers. No crying. Only one tantrum. And one that made me snicker...
In the outside section of the flower show (LOL I'm pink--I'll bet I'm sunburned!) were three little enclosures. One had three very jaded chickens, unmoved by the toddler stomping and making noises at them. Another enclosure had guinea pigs on Prozac--as nervous as those animals normally are they seemed unbothered by the crowds. Might've been the warm weather. The third enclosure had a pair of monkeys, a 'squirrel monkey' and a 'Japanese monkey''. Might as well have been wearing a 'kick me' sign, but most people were cool. But not this one couple and their son, oh no. The cage was tepee shaped with coated chicken wire for bars, and a ribbon acoss the door that spectators were supposed to stay behind. Which of course, this kid was special and the rules didn't apply to him. Yeah. So Mom puts the kid in front of the ribbon, right up next to the wire where he could get a really good look at those two little monkeys. Now I'm feeling bad for the monikeys--they're intelligent creatures who can't just ignore things like those chickens. They've got a little curtain to go behind, but still, that kid was right there by the wires...so the cheeky monkey walks across the enclosure, sticks his paw out of the wire, and slaps the kid in the face. I swear it--I saw it. The kid wore a look of pure horror as Mom picked him up and got him away from that enclosure. To his credit he didn't scream! Sadly when I doubled back a little later the kid was standing in front of the rope again, this time with Daddy holding his shoulders, though not pressed up against the wires again. --snicker--
But one thing Koreans do very right, something that as a crowd-phobe I definitely notice, is they've got a great sense of photo etiquette. I took this shot to give you a sense of how crowded it was in that place, not enough to make me panicky but definitely enough for me to notice.
But out of 72 shots, only seven had unwanted people in them, even a hand or a shoulder. Given the crowd that is pretty amazing, and I was not the only one. People were careful to stay out of each others' shots. I couldn't get close to the cactus exhibit at all, which would be happy-familiar to me and exotic (and with sitting benches) to the other tourists, but otherwise I got every shot I wanted. And this on a holiday dedicated to indulging little kids' whims. Try that at Disneyland, I dare you. Granted I got there a little early on purpose, out by 1pm, but it still amazes me.
It wasn't all sweetness and polite though--I was a little stinker. Remember what I said about the heirarchy here? This is part of why ajummas are such pushy beings. They've spent most of their lives below most people by virtue of being female. They've lost their attractiveness so they can't wheedle to get what they want like a 20-year-old can. "Oppaaaaaa!" But now they're Old, so they're going to throw that weight around. They also know that foreigners tend to be courteous in crowds, and that Americans, Canadians, Japanese, and certain others will go to great lengths to avoid confrontation. So you've heard me complain about them. Well today I'm leaving the exhibit, footsore but feeling good otherwise, and I'm walking a straight and steady line to the exit. The exit is near the entrance, and at that moment a pack of ajummas comes in. They're talking among themselves, cool, but one starts to break off and head directly into my path. It's possible she doesn't see me, but "I didn't see..." is a very common excuse for plowing through a crowd without looking, social order be damned. Young women with cell phones, or arm in arm in a conversation...But this ajumma is doing this on Children's Day, when in theory she should be looking out for and yielding to rugrats and their parents. I decide I'm not going to go out of my way to get out of her way. Her brochure is pointed out directly in front of her and it's quickly cutting off my exit, so I just keep walking, pretending I don't see her. I bump the brochure--I'm still too polite to bodily bump a stranger, and she shouts something at my back that sounds like "yori!!" Now I'd like to tell myself that that means "Wow, that insolent foreigner is not a pushover!" but I suspect the actual meaning is less kind, and wouldn't be found in a standard dictionary. But I felt good. I felt strangely assimiliated. If you're going to get in my way because you're not watching me, because your culture tells you you can do that when it suits you, well I'm going to show you that I'm outside of that culture when it suits me. I'm not generally rude, but dammit I didn't walk into her path. I simply didn't alter my course to compensate for her thoughtlessness., was simply minding my own business and not going out of my way to mind anyone else's...as I usually do.
And it felt good.
So, some of those 72 pictures. They're all in this album, but here's some thumbnails to tease you with.
