Ruminations in Korea

An Unnecessarily Long Post on The State of Education in Korea.

I have ranted for years about the uselessness of the rote memorization system of education that prevails in Korea.  I had never really formulated an articulate way of expressing myself in this regard.  I have always relied on something I read in one of the English-language papers here about 10 or 11 years ago.  I believe it was in an article written by Gary Rector.

The comment basically is that Koreans study English for 13 years.  They literally read the dictionary.  However, although a large number of Koreans know the word “hypothermia,” very few can say, “I’m cold.  Please close the window.”

Unfortunately, this is not limited to just English.  I have seen it in every area of education that I have been exposed to in this country.  There is memorizing and pure knowledge being accumulated, but there is very little, if any, true learning and educational growth occurring.  I do not know to what extent this is true in the US or other countries.  I majored in Philosophy with emphases in logic, ethics, and the philosophy of science.  Then, I went on to law school to get my Juris Doctor.  In both fields, philosophy and law, I was trained to take a piece of information and analyze it critically and extrapolate practical results there from.  Because of this, I was exposed to very little “sit down, shut up and memorize” type of education.  Perhaps it is occurring everywhere in the world, but I have only witnessed it in Korea directly as student, professor, and friend of both students and professors.

As a student, I was not allowed to ask questions of the professor during class because the Professor is The Omniscient and Keeper of All Knoweldge on the subject, and to question him would be rude and unheard of.  As a visiting professor (more of an adjunct professor, really), teaching WTO and WTO trade dispute resolution, I could not for the life of me get a student to ask me a question about what I was teaching.  They simply would not do it.  The only questions that seemed appropriate from the students was, “can you write that on the board,” “will you repeat that,” and “will that be on the test?”

As I said, I had not found a good way of explaining my frustrations to the alleged educators and the purported learners.  That changed this evening. I heard a marvelous example of this.  I owe my dear friend, Jane, webmistress of Seoul Scene, my thanks for indirectly leading me to this discovery.

A little background.  Simply put, I have a brain that is full of generally completely useless trivia.  I am a killer Trivial Pursuit player, but I really do not know a lot about any one particular subject.  I just act like it.

While sitting in the Bliss wine bar in Itaewon last month, buying my friends a round of wine as I nursed my club soda, someone mentioned something about “those guys that can sing two notes at once.”  My trivia switch flipped on and I said, “Oh. You mean the bi or tri-tonal harmonic singing that is native to Tuva.”  Jane looked at me like I was from Mars.  She thought I was making everything up.  She questioned the existence of Tuva.  Others at the table suggested that I had actually meant Tuvalu.

I insisted that Tannu-Tuva did exist. I went on to explain that they were most famous for their singing and their exotic stamps. Jane continued to look at me like I was from Mars.

I then explained that it was the stamps that brought Tuva out of obscurity by Richard Feynman, a 1965 Nobel Prize winner for his work on quantum electrodynamics, and his friend Ralph Leighton, who went looking for Tuva after Feynman remembered collecting stamps from Tuva when he was young.

By now, everyone at the table, except Jane, was looking at me like I was from Mars.  Jane was looking at me like I was no longer human.  I decided it was well past time for me to just shut up.

That experience prompted me to read a book about Feynman that I had been considering reading for quite some time.  I decided to order it.  A little more than half way through the book, there is a section about a lecture given at a university in Brazil.  He was expressing concern about the fact that Brazilians were studying physics from elementary school, but they could not take what they were memorizing and apply it in even the most simple real-life situations.  I thought it sounded quite a bit like the situation in Korea.  It summed up my feelings exactly.  So now, I turn my blog over to Richard Feynman and ask you to replace “Brazil(ian)” with “Korea(n)”

In regard to education in Brazil, I had a very interesting experience. I was teaching a group of students who would ultimately become teachers, since at that time there were not many opportunities in Brazil for a highly trained person in science. These students had already had many courses, and this was to be their most advanced course in electricity and magnetism - Maxwell’s equations, and so on.

The university was located in various office buildings throughout the city, and the course I taught met in a building which overlooked the bay.

I discovered a very strange phenomenon: I could ask a question, which the students would answer immediately. But the next time I would ask the question - the same subject, and the sane question, as far as I could tell - they couldn’t answer it at all! for instance, one time I was talking about polarized light, and I gave them all some strips of polaroid.

Polaroid passes only light whose electric vector is in a certain direction, so I explained how you could tell which way the light is polarized from whether the polaroid is dark or light.

We first took two strips of polaroid and rotated them until they let the most light through. From doing that we could tell that the two strips were now admitting light polarized in the same direction - what passed through one piece of polaroid could also pass through the other. But then I asked then how one could tell the absolute direction of polarization, from a single piece of polaroid.

They hadn’t any idea.

I knew this took a certain amount of ingenuity, so I gave them a hint: “Look at the light reflected from the bay outside.”

Nobody said anything.

Then I said, “Have you ever heard of Brewster’s Angle?”

“Yes, sir! Brewster’s Angle is the angle at which light is reflected from a medium with an index of refraction is completely polarized.”

“And which way is the light polarized when it’s reflected?”

“The light is polarized perpendicular to the plane of reflection, sir.” Even now, I have to think about it; they knew it cold! They even knew the tangent of the angle equals the index!

I said, “Well?”

Still nothing. They had just told me that light reflected from a medium with an index, such as the bay outside, was polarized; they had even told me which way it was polarized.

I said, “Look at the bay outside, through the polaroid. Now turn the polaroid.”

“Ooh, it’s polarized!” they said.

After a lot of investigation, I finally figured out that the students had memorized everything, but they didn’t know what anything meant. When they heard “light that is reflected from a medium with an index,” they didn’t know that it meant a material such as water. They didn’t know that the “direction of the light” is the direction in which you see something when you’re looking at it, and so on. Everything was entirely memorized, yet nothing had been translated into meaningful words. So if I asked, “What is Brewster’s Angle?” I’m going into the computer with the right keywords. But if I say, “Look at the water,” nothing happens - they don’t have anything under “Look at the water!”

Later I attended a lecture at the engineering school. The lecture went like this, translated into English: “Two bodies . . . are considered equivalent . . . if if equal torques . . . will produce . . . equal acceleration. Two bodies, are considered equivalent, if equal torques, will produce equal acceleration.” The students were all sitting there taking dictation, and when the professor repeated the sentence, they checked it to make sure they wrote it down all right. Then they wrote down the next sentence, and on and on. I was the only one who knew the professor was talking about objects with the same moment of inertia, and it was hard to figure out.

I didn’t see how they were going to learn anything from that. Here he was talking about moments of inertia, but there was no discussion about how hard it is to push a door open when you put heavy weights on the outside, compared to when you put them near the hinge - nothing!

After the lecture, I talked to a student: “You take all those notes - what do you do with them?”

“Oh, we study them,” he says. “We’ll have an exam.”

“What will the exam be like?”

“Very easy. I can tell you now one of the questions.” He looks at his notebook and says, “‘When are two bodies equivalent?’ And the answer is, ‘Two bodies are considered equivalent if equal torques will produce equal acceleration.’” So, you see, they could pass the examinations, and “learn” all this stuff, and not know anything at all, except what they had memorized.

Then I went to an entrance exam for students coming into the engineering school. It was an oral exam, and I was allowed to listen to it. One of the students was absolutely super: He answered everything nifty! The examiners asked him what diamagnetism was, and he answered it perfectly. Then they asked, “When light comes at an angle through a sheet of material with a certain thickness, and a certain index N, what happens to the light?”

“It comes out parallel to itself, sir - displaced.”

“And how much is it displaced?”

“I don’t know, sir, but I can figure it out.” So he figured it out. He was very good. But I had, by this time, my suspicions.

After the exam I went up to this bright young man, and explained to him that I was from the United States, and that I wanted to ask him some questions that would not affect the result of his examination in any way. The first question I ask is, “Can you give me some example of a diamagnetic substance?”

“No.”

Then I asked, “If this book was made of glass, and I was looking at something on the table through it, what would happen to the image if I tilted the glass?”

“It would be deflected, sir, by twice the angle that you’ve turned the book.”

I said, “You haven’t got it mixed up with a mirror, have you?”

“No, sir!”

He had just told me in the examination that the light would be displaced, parallel to itself, and therefore the image would move over to one side, but he didn’t realize that a piece of glass is a material with an index, and that his calculation had applied to my question.

I taught a course at the engineering school on mathematical methods in physics, in which I tried to show how to solve problems by trial and error. It’s something that people don’t usually learn, so I began with some simple examples of arithmetic to illustrate the method. I was surprised that only about eight out of the eighty or so students turned in the first assignment. so I gave a strong lecture about having to actually try it, not just sit back and watch me do it.

After the lecture some students came up to me in a little delegation, and told me that I didn’t understand the backgrounds that they have, that they can study without doing the problems, that they have already learned arithmetic, and that this stuff was beneath them.

So I kept going with the class, and no matter how complicated or obviously advanced the work was becoming, the were never handing a damn thing in. Of course I realized what it was: They couldn’t do it!

One other thing I could never get them to do was to ask questions. Finally , a student explained it to me: “If I ask you a question during the lecture, afterwards everybody will be telling me, ‘What are you wasting our time for in the class? We’re trying to learn something. And you’re stopping him by asking a question.’”

It was kind of a one-upmanship, where nobody knows what’s going on, and they’d put the other on down as if they did know. They all fake that they know, and if one student admits for a moment that something is confusing by asking a question, the others take a high-handed attitude, acting as if it’s not confusing at all, telling him that he’s wasting their time.

I explained how useful it was to work together, to discuss the questions, to talk it over, but they wouldn’t do that either, because they would be losing face if they had to ask someone else. It was pitiful! All the work they did, intelligent people, but they got themselves into this funny state of mind, this strange kind of self-propagating “education” which is meaningless, utterly meaningless!

At the end of the academic year, the students asked me to give a talk about my experiences of teaching in Brazil. An the talk there would be not only students, but professors and government officials, so I made them promise that I could say whatever I wanted. They said, “Sure. Of course. It’s a free country.”

So I came in, carrying the elementary physics textbook that they used in the first year of college. They though this book was especially good because it had different kinds of typeface - bold black for the most important things to remember, lighter for less important things, and so on.

Right away somebody said, “You’re not going to say anything bad about the textbook, are you? The man who wrote it is here, and everybody thinks it’s a good textbook.”

“You promised I could say whatever I wanted.”

The lecture hall was full. I started out by defining science as an understanding of the behavior of nature. Then I asked, “What is a good reason for teaching science? Of course, no country can consider itself civilized unless . . . yak, yak, yak.” They were all sitting there nodding, because I know that’s the way the think.

Then I say, “That, of course, is absurd, because why should we feel we have to keep up with another country? We have to do it for a good reason, a sensible reason; not just because other countries do.” Then I talked about the utility of science, and its contribution to the improvement of the human condition, and all that - I really teased them a little bit.

Then I say, “The main purpose of my talk is to demonstrate to you that no science is being taught in Brazil!”

I can see them stir, thinking, “What? No science? This is absolutely crazy! We have all these classes.”

So I tell them that one of the first things to strike men when I came to Brazil was to see elementary school kids in bookstores, buying physics books. There are so many kids learning physics in Brazil, beginning much earlier than kids do in the United States, that it’s amazing you don’t find many physicists in Brazil - why it that? So many kids are working so hard, and nothing comes of it.

Then I gave the analogy of a Greek scholar who loves the Greek language, who knows that in his own country there aren’t many children studying Greek. But he comes to another country, where he is delighted to find everybody studying Greek - even the smaller kids in the elementary schools. He goes to the examination of a student who is coming to get his degree in Greek, and asks him, “What were Socrates’ ideas on the relationship between Truth and Beauty?” - and the student can’t answer. Then he asks the student, “What did Socrates say to Plato in the Third Symposium?” the student lights up and goes, “Brrrrrrrrr-up” - he tells you everything, word for word, that Socrates said, in beautiful Greek.

But what Socrates was talking about in the Third Symposium was the relationship between Truth and Beauty!

What this Greek scholar discovers is, the student in another country learn Greek by first learning to pronounce the letter, then the words, and then the sentences and paragraphs. They can recite, word for word, what Socrates said, without realizing that those Greek words actually mean something. To the student they are all artificial sounds. Nobody has ever translated them into words the students can understand.

I said, “That’s how it looks to me, when I see you teaching the kids ’science’ here in Brazil.”

Then I held up the elementary physics textbook they were using. “There are no experimental results mentioned anywhere in this book, except in one place, where there is a ball, rolling down an inclined plane, in which it says how far the ball got after one second, two seconds, three seconds, and so on. The numbers have ‘errors’ in them - that is, if you look at them, you think you’re looking at experimental results, because the numbers are a little above, or a little below, the theoretical values. The book even talks about having to correct the experimental errors - very fine. The trouble is, when you calculate the value of the acceleration constant from these values, you get the right answer. But a ball rolling down an inclined plane, if it is actually done, has an inertia to get it to turn, and will, if you do the experiment, produce five-sevenths of the right answer, because of the extra energy needed to go into the rotation of the ball. Therefore this single example of experimental ‘results’ is obtained from a fake experiment. Nobody had rolled such a ball, or they would never have gotten those results!

“I have discovered something else,” I continued. “By flipping the pages at random, and putting my finger in and reading the sentences on that page, I can show you what’s the matter - how it’s not science, but memorizing, in every circumstance. Therefore I am brave enough to flip through the pages now, in front of this audience, to put my finger in, to read, and to show you.”

So I did it. Brrrrrrrup - I stuck my finger in, and I started to read: “Triboluminescence. Triboluminescence is the light emitted when crystals are crushed . . .”

I said, “And are there, have you go science? No! You have only told what a word means in terms of other words. You haven’t told anything about nature - what crystals produce light when you crush them, why they produce light. Did you see any student go home and try it? He can’t.

“But if, instead, you were to write, ‘When you take a lump of sugar and crush it with a pair of pliers in the dark, you can see a bluish flash. Some other crystals do that too. Nobody knows why. The phenomenon is called “triboluminescence.”‘ Then someone will go home and try it. Then there’s an experience of nature.” I used that example to show them, but it didn’t make any difference where I would have put my finger in the book; it was like that everywhere.

Finally, I said that I couldn’t see how anyone could be educated by this self-propagating system in which people pass exams, and teach others to pass exams, but nobody knows anything. “However,” I said, “I must be wrong. There were two students in my class who did very well, and one of the physicists I know was educated entirely in Brazil. Thus, it must be possible for some people to work their way through the system, bad as it is.”

Well, after I gave the talk, the head of the science education department got up and said, “Mr. Feynman has told us some things that are very hard for us to hear, but is appears to be that he really loves science, and is sincere in his criticism. Therefore, I think we should listen to him. I came here knowing we have some sickness in our system of education; what I have learned is that we have a cancer!” - and he sat down.

That gave the other people the freedom to speak out, and there was a big excitement. Everybody was getting up and making suggestions. The students got some committee together to mimeograph the lectures in advance, and they got other committees organized to do this and that.

Then something happened which was totally unexpected for me. One of the students got up and said, “I’m one of the two students whom Mr. Feynman referred to at the end of his talk. I was not educated in Brazil; I was educated in Germany, and I’ve just come to Brazil this year.”

The other student who had done well in class had a similar thing to say. And the professor I had mentioned got up and said, “I was educated here in Brazil during the war, when, fortunately, all of the professors had left the university, so I learned everything by reading alone. Therefore I was not really educated under the Brazilian system.”

I didn’t expect that I knew they system was bad, but 100 percent - it was terrible!

Since I had gone to Brazil under a program sponsored by the United States Government, I was asked by the State Department to write a report about my experiences in Brazil, so I wrote out the essentials of the speech I had just giver. I found out later through the grapevine that the reaction of somebody in the State Department was, “That shows you how dangerous it is to send somebody to Brazil who is so naive. Foolish fellow; he can only cause trouble. He didn’t understand the problems.” Quite the contrary! I think this person in the State Department was naive to think that because he saw a university with a list of courses and descriptions, that’s what it was.

I firmly believe that Korean education will continue to stagnate until there is teaching that shows the students how to learn through understanding and doing, not just regurgitation of memorized drivel from which it is impossible to deviate.

The Lee Seung-Yeon Saga Continues

Another chapter in the Lee Seung-Yeon saga is in progress.  According to this article (in Korean) appears that she will soon be fleeing Korea for, where else, but that big evil country that causes all of Korea’s problems, the USA.  She will live in either LA or New York for at least three months.  Although one may suspect that she was leaving Korea due to the shame, ridicule, and destruction of her career for attempting to commercialize the sexual about of thousands of women at the hands of Japanese soldiers through a series of nude photo spreads, you would be mistaken.  Ms. Lee says that she is going to America because her lower back hurts.  Sure…Whatever.

So, does this mean the story is finally over now that she has subjected herself to voluntary exile?  Not hardly.  According to news reports (in Korean)  Ms. Lee had signed a one-year modeling contract with “H” company.  However, according to the company, because of Ms. Lee’s actions, any product with her image associated with it is completely unusable, and as a result of their association with Ms. Lee, their company’s reputation and marketability has suffered enormous damages.  They are prepare to file a lawsut seeking damages from Ms. Lee.  The amount is likely to be more that USD 1,000,000.

Also, according to reports (in Korean), last Friday, it became apparent that there is a 3 1/2 minute promotional video that was or is in the possession of a cable company.  As a result, one of the REAL surviving comfort women has filed an application for an injunction preventing the release of the video over the internet (and presumably other media).  Ms. Lee is expected to appear in court on February 27.

In related news (in Korean) it’s nice to know that Lee Sabi has informed the world that her laying down naked for a porn mag Playboy and marketing her naked body all over Korean and the world has not been negatively impacted by Ms. Lee Seung-Yeon’s actions.

Kamelian has a nice little snippet dealing with anti-Nork activist Norbert Vollertsen’s often misguided and misfocused demonstrations against the Norks.

Elizabeth at Travelitch provides us with updates on her paintings, 10:00 am Soju guy, clarifications on the abbreviation “BF”, and other tidbits.  I am still trying to get her to do a couple of paintings for me.

The Marmot gives us a Lee Sabi update and some other news stuff.

Over at Incestuous Amplification, we have postings about Unification Minister Hyun’s face, and Professor Ahn’s balls.

Seeing Eye Blog blasts Kim Jong-Il for being absent from his own birthday party and then Seeing Eye Blog absents itself from updated due to a trip to Formosa…unfortunately, he has been unable to check the comments to his site.

Cathartidea gives a good heads up on a No Gun Ri massacre-related book. 

Drambuiman expounds on MREs (Meal Ready to Eat…Military food).

Shawn over at Korea Life Blog gives us more food pictures and some drawings by the cutest little homicidal maniac you’ve ever seen.

Big Hominid learns to tell time, and needs to discover the quiet, relaxed atmosphere of Nashville.

Flying Yangban wades into the geo-political arena to offer comments on competing or beting destroyed.

Well…only made it through half my blogroll… maybe more later.

There’s a new blog in town:  Northeast-Asian.  So far there seems to be a good mix of current events and other items.  The blog has some good, solid links…and one particularly ghastly take on the Lee Seung-yeon nude photo fiasco.

UPDATE:  Wow… That didn’t last long.  About an hour after I posted the above message, the owner of Northeast-Asian made the comment below and pulled all of the posts off the site.  That is too bad.  It really was a good site with a lot of potential.  TO THE OWNER OF “NORTHEAST-ASIAN”: put your stuff back and keep doing what you were doing. It is good to see fresh ideas and new stories.  Geez.  If I had known that the site would disappear, I wouldn’t have said anything. I hope the site comes back, I really do.

…To be developed and expanded upon over the weekend.

UPDATE: Greetings to the people visiting from Chief Wiggles. To read more about my views on things after 15 or so years in Korea, please visit my main page and look around.  Please also visit the other Korea-related sights listed in the right-hand column.

ALSO: Thanks to Plunge at Chief Wiggles for providing an excellent link on the Comfort Women issue.

“It’s funny because I don’t know him.” - H. Simpson

I do not know what gets into people sometimes.  I cannot for the life of me figure out why some people are just completely unable to check themselves before doing something stupid and revolting.  I often find myself observing a certain behavior and thinking, “At what point did this seem to be a good idea” Even with some of the most ridiculous and offensive ideas, it is often possible to see how it may have started out with good intentions as a decent and perhaps even worthwhile endeavor, but somewhere along the line things went terribly bad.  Most of us seem to have a filter buried deep within our minds that prevents us from acting on some of the things that find their way into our thoughts, but some apparently do not.

Often times, in smaller matters, ignorance can be an excuse.  We do something or say something in innocence and ignorance.  Someone else points out to us why that is wrong or offensive.  We then reply, “Wow.  I had no idea”.  When then apologize and undue what we have done as best we can.

However, other times, ignorance is not an option.  There are some images, themes, historical events, etc. about which it is virtually impossible to be ignorant of if you have reached a certain age.  Where ignorance is not an option, the use of these things in marketing is a horrible effrontery that can only be ascribed to greed, selfishness, hate, meanness, stupidity, and/or racism.

While it is unfortunate that far too many people in the world are ignorant of the rape of Nanking, the comfort girl issue, the nightmare of Stalinist Russian (there is a shocking number of people who have no idea that Stalin was a bad guy), the persecution and slaughter of American Indians, and other such tragedies, there is virtually no one that can claim ignorance of Hitler and his Nazis.  The very name “Hitler” or the very word “Nazi” brings images of death, destruction, murder, and torture.  These are two words that are the embodiment of Evil.  The ghastly holocaust that was perpetrated against the Jews, other groups, and the psyche of the world under the power of those two words, is quite nearly incomprehensible. They are words that should not be used lightly, and if you are one of those people, usually liberals, who brand anyone that is politically different or more conservative than you a Nazi or if you compare anyone that you disagree with to Hitler, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Given that virtually everyone alive in any sort of civilized society knows who Hitler and the Nazi were and what they did, why then is it acceptable to use them as themes and marketing tools?  It is not, but some people do not seem to understand that.  They seem to be missing the mental filter that tells you if something has crossed a line or is not acceptable, or perhaps the quest for money dampens the effectiveness of their filter.

This leads me to question why it is that the whole country of Korea is in a uproar because some former Miss Korea fading actress tries to commercialize the sexual abuse of thousands of women, but the same people are quite as dead church mice and even defensive when it comes to the commercialization of icons representing the torture, starvation, and murder of millions upon millions of people. 

What I am talking about is all the flap surrounding Lee Seung-yeon’s incredibly stupid and utterly shameful decision to do seductively posed nude shots of simulated rape and abuse at the hands of Japanese soldiers in order to make money.  She claims this was done to honor and commemorate the suffering of the comfort women who were forced to serve as sex slaves for the Japanese army during WWII.  Koreans went ballistic over this, and rightfully so.  It was a horrible publicity stunt designed to go set her apart from the other actresses, singers, and celebrity women that are all rushing to remove their clothes for a few bucks.  She wanted to be a bit edgier, to stand out, to get more attention than the others.  It blew up in her face and has essentially cost her a career.  She is done.

At that same time, every year or two, someone with absolutely no sense of decency will make a music video, produce a commercial, or open a bar with some sort of Nazi or Hitler theme.  There was a clothing commercial that featured Vanessa Mae playing violin on top of a bomber superimposed over Nazi soldiers goose-stepping in formation.  There was a snack commercial showing how Hitler liked the chocolate cakes so much he spoke Korean.  There was a gum commercial that showed a maniacally screaming Hitler break into a computer-generated smile to show that the gum was so good it even made Hitler smile.  There has been the Hitler bar in Seoul, the Third Reich bar in Seoul, the Nazi cafe in Masan, the Hitler hoff in Pusan, and others.  But these moneymaking ideas have been perfectly acceptable to the Koreans.  The only reasons these were stopped was because of the outcry from foreigners.

Was there any head-shaving going on?  Was there any bowing in apology to Jewish organizations?  No.  Just a lot of defensive comments and attempts to explain that they were just kidding, they were just having fun, they were just this and that.

Is it ignorance?  No.  It is the simple, yet utterly stupid view that because it is not us, it is acceptable or is not such a big problem.  Many Koreans will say that the Hitler stuff happens because they do not feel it in their bones or psyche.  That is a ridiculous copout.  As far as I know, I do not have a drop of Jewish or German blood in me and I do not personally know anyone who was killed in WWII or concentration camps, but the images and ideas make me sick.

I have talked to a few of the people behind the Hitler Hoff, the Nazi cafe and other such establishments.  They all initially insisted that they had done nothing wrong as it was only a marketing ploy.  However, they unanimously bristled at my comment that I would go back to Pusan an open a restaurant with Rising Sun flags on the walls and call in the Comfort Girl Cafe

So why does it happen then?  Why is it not acceptable market things using Korean tragedy and horror, but the horror and tragedy of other countries is fair game for Koreans to use to their economic advantage?  Arrogance.   Utter disregard for others who are “different” than you and not part of your “Homogenous” society.  These things foster the Homer Simpson view that ”It’s funny because I don’t know him.”

Yes, Lee Seung-yeon should be ashamed of herself.  She should grovel at the feet of the real comfort women and beg their forgiveness.  Likewise, the Koreans who build marketing strategies around Hitler and the Nazis, Osama Bin Laden (anyone remember Osama Bin Ramyeon a few years ago?), or other Evil should be humiliated and publicly shamed for their disgraceful behavior.  Furthermore, Koreans should be ashamed of this double standard that is prevalent in so many layers of this society.  Far too much of this society is based upon the idea that it is ok if we do it to you, but don’t you dare even think about doing it to us.

It is that attitude that gives us the ridiculous statements like those in this article from Time Asia a few years ago. 

A small photo of Adolf Hitler adorns the entrance to the Fifth Reich, an upscale watering hole in Seoul’s Shinchon university district. A larger picture of the Fuhrer hangs across from the bar, where waiters and waitresses with swastika arm badges mix drinks that have names like “Adolf Hitler”and “Dead.” Young people chat at booths surrounded by statues of golden eagles, Romanesque columns and large glass display cases of SS insignia. Nazi pins and Iron Crosses are on sale beside the cash register. It almost looks like a quiet shrine to the man who sent 6 million Jews to their deaths in the Holocaust.

 That is a typical description of places like this.

But this isn’t a neo-Nazi hangout. Some, . . . like regular patron Chung Jae Kyung, 22, are aware of the evil the Nazis did but not especially moved by it. “I don’t hate them, I don’t like them,” says Chung, a neatly dressed English-lit student with an easy smile. “But at least they dressed well.”

The systematically tried to wipe out an entire ethnic group along with other religions and groups.  They murdered more than 6,000,000 people, but they dress nice.  So did the Japanese army.  Nice browns.  Cool-looking hats. 

An unthinking fascination with the icons and imagery of the Third Reich is a small but troubling trend in South Korea, a country that suffered enormously under the harsh colonial rule of Germany’s ally, Japan.

 I disagree that it is unthinking.  It is unfortunately, very calculated to try to get money.

For many of the young people at the Fifth Reich, it’s simply a fashion statement, with part of the appeal being the taboo nature of the symbols.

 Again, the Rising Sun flag of WWII Japan is a taboo symbol here.  Where is the ”chic”, the fascination, and appeal with that?  Nowhere.

Following complaints from the German and Israeli embassies, the government pressured the bar, which was originally called the Third Reich, to shut down, . . . the big Nazi flags came down and Hitler’s Third Reich morphed into the Fifth Reich. But the Nazi theme still dominates, and the menus and matchbooks carry the old name beneath an image of a menacing black eagle. Kim still hangs the Hitler portrait because, he says, “I don’t have anything to put in its place.” Anyway, he adds: “It’s just for decoration.” (He hung three new Hitler photos in recent weeks.)

 

 Emperor Hirohito’s picture is “Just decoration”. Heihachiro Togo’s picture is “Just decoration.” Aren’t they?

And what was Crown Confectionery thinking when it kicked off an ad campaign for chocolate covered cakes? Inspired by Charlie Chaplin’s Hitler in the 1940 movie The Great Dictator, the ad featured one of Korea’s top comics as the Fuhrer. After taking a bite, Hitler suddenly switches from German-sounding gibberish to fluent Korean and his mood mellows. The campaign was pulled after the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles protested to Korean diplomats in the U.S. Stylist Koh Jung Won, who designed Hitler’s wardrobe (she used an East German army uniform and sewed on Nazi patches bought in Seoul) says the ads weren’t meant to offend. “It was a fun thing,” she says. “We were trying to portray Hitler in a funny way.”

Will someone please show me the humor in these photos?  I seem to be missing the joke, the fashion statement, the decoration, or whatever other justification people try to make.

Someone should actually open the comfort girl cafe in the US or some other place and use the excuse, we are just trying to portray the forcible sexual abuse of Koreans by the Japanese army in a funny way and see how far that goes.

Attempting to defend the indefensible is stupid and just makes it worse.  At lease Lee Seung-yeon had the decency to quit justifying and explaining herself and simply apologize.  Now, if Korean society in general will learn what is and is not appropriate as far as the representation of foreign events and notorious individuals are concerned, it would go a long way toward bettering its image abroad.  There is an unfortunate lack of treating others as you would like to be treated here in Korea.

Brief Observations

I have noticed that the nature of my writing has changed over the past 3 1/2 months that I have been maintaining this site. 

My original intent was to write about what was of interest to me and to provide me with a cathartic outlet for some things that were in my head.  However, I have noticed that the vast majority of my writing is motivated by what I think others will want to read. 

I have also noticed that If I am not one of the first Korean blogs to report or comment on something, even though it is something that is important to me or strikes a nerve/chord, I will pass on writing  something about it. 

I noticed this particularly strongly during the past few days of the Lee Seung-yeon idiocy.  My work schedule doesn’t permit me to do much writing until the late evening or wee hours of the morning, long after the topics of the day have been hashed to pieces by other commentators on things Korean.

I’m going back to my roots.  I’m going back to writing for myself and what interests me.  If no one else cares or if a topic has been beaten to death several times over, I am going to write about it anyway.  I’ll be Reporter Guy, Bitter Angry Guy, Commentator Guy, Funny Guy, or whichever of the various other muses are eating away at me on a particular day.

On another note, as a Nintendo Game Cube and several games have come into my possession, I am going to have to find a way to deal with the blisters and calluses that are forming and making typing uncomfortable.

Now that all of the above has been said, my brother, who is teaching English here in Pusan, alerted me to a van he saw yesterday with the words “Elohim’s Nursery School Bus” on the side.  I asked him where he saw it.  The reply was, “In front of Elohim’s Nursery School.”  I am now trying to get a picture of the van and or the school to see what sort of rig God Almighty cruises around town in and where  he gives lessons.

Two Places to Visit

I have been hounded for months by my dear, dear friend Jane Cooper, the mistress of the Seoul Scene web site to throw a link to Seoul Scene up on my website.  I neglected to mention or add Seoul Scene until now.  If you live in Seoul, check out Seoul Scene to get good and useful information about the city, groups and organizations, events, restaurants, foreign food shopping, etc.  There are also several videos of various goings on.  Check out Seoul Scene.  Give the site your love and input. 

Back row (L to R): Dylan the Australian, Me

Front Row (L to R): Susan the pool/dart shark, Jane, two of Jane’s other friends

Cameraman: Hadyn the Australian

Seoulover’s Westlaw is a new blog that appears to focus heavily on Korean issues.  Nothing much is known about Seoul Lover, other than he/she is a 2L student at UCLA law school that has some sort of connection to Korea.  The initial posts are on a wide variety of subjects including Asian issues, Korea, international law, and politics.  Give some hits and show some love.

Sandwich Worth a Fortune

During my outing in Seoul this past weekend, the group I was with passed by Schlotzsky’s Deli in Itaewon.  I couldn’t help but notice the giant sign in their window.  Beautiful.  This is an advertising campaign you wouldn’t see everh day back home in Utah:

Bloodshed in Korea as Protests Turn Violent Yet Again!

20,000 farmers and protesters took to the streets of Seoul to protest a proposed free trade agreement with Chile.  They were joined by 2,000 other protesters who were protesting the dispatch of 3,000 Korean troops to Iraq.  They were confronted by 9,000 riot policemen in front of the National Assembly Building.  The government, who promised the Chilean government that it would pass the free trade agreement bowed to the pressure of the protesters and delayed the vote again until February 16, 2004.  This move brought swift statements of displeasure from the Chilean government.  The violent protests are expected to continue.

I know I said this before about the Buan nuclear dump riots and the building riot, but this is some of the worst rioting I have seen in many years.  Below is some graphic video and pictures of the demonstration. At times like this, it is easy to see that the Korean mantras of “we are one people”, “we are a homogenous society”, “we are a law-abiding country,” and “We love each other,” are utter crap!

I will never understand why some farmer or “peace activist” would try to injure or kill young policemen by beating them, throwing acid at them, firing bolts from slingshots, shooting at them with air rifles, throwing rocks at them, hurling fire bombs at them, etc. simply becuase they dislike a piece of legistation.  Damnit, Korea!  Stop doing this to yourselves!  You want prestige in the international community, you want respect, you want to be recognized as a powerhouse country?  You should be, but it will never happen as long as things like this continue to happen and as long as you continue to ignore the rule of law and interfere with the legislative process through intimidation and violence rather than at the polls.  Just stop it!

Click here for disturbing video of the incident:  Note - click on the top link next to the little television. Thanks to Kevin at IA for the link

          Here I sit in Seoul.  Next to me stands a man of perhaps 45 years of age with his hair dyed the most disturbing hunter orange color.  I wonder what he does for a living that he can wear his hair that color.

         After settling in, I begin an important task in earnest. I must find a suitable earphone for this Palm Pilot.  Whilst awaiting a taxi, I watch a street vendor attract a crowd by twisting balloons into various critters.  This takes place to the accompaniment of religious hymns being played badly on a trumpet by some guy walking around with some sort of Doomsday warning sign around his neck.

         A taxi takes me where I am supposed to go.  I exit the taxi in front of two girls in their early 20s.  They are wearing pink witch costumes with tall blue pointed hats decorated with big orange stars.  Why are they dressed like this? Because they are selling mobile phones, of course…

         Two hours of tramping around this area of Seoul and I find absolutely nothing that is useful or helpful.  A situation that I could have resolved in a matter of minutes is apparently unresolvable here.  Oh well.  Such is life.

         I jump into a taxi and head to Itaewon to hook up with my friends Australian Hadyn and Englishwoman Jane (who oversees the Seoul Scene web site). We have a delicious dinner at the Nashville with an Australian named Dylan, who remained throughout the evening.  We head up to Seoul Pub, and more friends show up, Englishman Keith and his Korean girlfriend, Anna.

         Jane knows everyone in Seoul it seems.  She is busying saying hello to absolutely everyone else in the pub.  It is good to just hang out and talk to people in a fun, relaxing atmosphere.

         Suddenly, a pool shark / killer dart player, a Korean who goes by the name “Susan”, asks me to be on her team as she takes on two Canadian guys name Bill and Ted. . . really.  Having never thrown a competitive dart in my life, I decline.  She persists and somehow I am convinced to relent.  I know that I am just there to be used as a source of humiliation.  She is good enough to take the both on without me being there, but she needs another person on her time.  Thus, she sends the other team the message that she can beat the other two guys single-handedly, even with me on her team.  Something happens and it turns out that I am getting to be fairly good at the dart game.  After one loss, we take the next four games, but lose the final one.  

         During the night at the pub, Jane’s hand is impaled by a shard of broken glass from her beer glass and Susan gets a second degree burn on her hip from a cigarette (Don’t ask how that happened).

         2:30 am arrives, Hadyn goes homes, and we head out of the pub.  We walk down the street to Bliss, a quiet wine bar with a wonderful atmosphere.  As we share more conversation over the next hour or so, we prevent a scuffle between two drunk patrons and the owner and witness a semi strip-tease by the goateed, leather-clad owner.

         By 3:30 am, the party dwindles to me, two Australians (Dylan, and a guy we ment on the street named “Cookie” that everyone know but me), the Englishman and his girlfriend. We head to the King Bar and have a good laugh our first political discussion of the night.  We are having a good time, and I read from a P.J. O’Rourke article that appeared in National Lampoon magazine back in1976 that states:

AUSTRALIANS

Racial Characteristics:

Violently loud alcoholic roughnecks whose idea of fun is to throw up on your car. The national sport is breaking furniture and the average daily consumption of beer in Sydney is ten and three quarters Imperial gallons for children under the age of nine. “Making a Shambles” is required study in the primary schools and all Australians are bilingual, speaking both English and Sheep. Possibly as a result of their country’s being upside down, the local dialect has over 400 terms for vomit. These include “technicolor yawn” “talking to the toilet,” “round-trip meal ticket,” and “singing lunch.” It is illegal to employ the aboriginal inhabitants as anything but toilets, and some of the peculiar forms of native wildlife have up to nine assholes. The recent destruction of Darwin by a hurricane was actually a cover story for the regrettable coincidence of paydays on three separate sheep stations.

Good Points:

Amusing zoos.

Proper Forms of Address:

Steady there, Cool off, Not in the sink, Stay back, I’ve got a gun!

         The Australians think it is funny.  However, some oddly Gollum-looking Australian fellow saunters across the bar with beer in hand and stands directly in front of me.  He jams his free hand into his pocket, scowls drunkenly, and says, “Oy! You got a problem with Australia, mate?”

         “Of course not.” I reply.  “these two Australians on either side of me are my best friends.”

         “You’re being awfully loud with your opinions, mate,” he retorts.

         We all ignore him until he eventually wanders off. We talk until the place closes at 4am.  Then, the Englishman and his girlfriend say goodbye.

         The Aussies and I move across the street to an air rifle shooting range for the next hour or so.

         I excuse myself at about 5 am.

         My drink tally for the night? One club soda and more Diet Cokes than I can count.

BoA is BiG…A BiG, Artificial Creation

The first time I read this article in January 2004’s edition of the Invest Korea Journal, I thought it was a hilarious piece of overwrought propaganda.  Now, having read it a few more times over the past week, I am frightened.  Frightened not so much by BoA as I am frightened by the mad Dr. Frankensteins that have created her and her Igor parents that sit back and serve those who created BoA. 

As I read the article I realized that BoA and a box of Lucky Charms cereal have a lot in common, artificial colors, artificial flavors, preservatives, additives, sugary marshmallows, etc.  While the article is funny in its portrayal of BoA as the All Being, Master of Time Space and Dimension.  The story between the lines is quite amazing.

he stands 5 feet 3 inches, a willowy girl of just over 92 lbs who looks no older than her 17 years.

She is Boa, Korea’s teen singing sensation, the country’s leading exponent of the “K-pop” phenomenon that is taking Asia by storm on account of its originality and vitality.

In Asia, Korea is cool, Korea is hip, and the selfconfidence among its young people that has arisen out of a newly wealthy society of has produced a popular culture that has ignited an insatiable continent-wide demand.

Spearheading this cultural paradigm shift is Boa,

who by the force of her talent and personality is generating vast amounts of foreign currency,

helping to heal ancient enmity between Korea and Japan and raising the international profile of her country as an unofficial goodwill ambassador-at-large. 

To date, she has earned more than US$1 billion from her 15 releases in Japan including the chart-topping single, “Shine We Are” of May 2003, and album chart-toppers of ” Valenti” of the previous January and “Listen to My Heart” of March 2002. In all, she has had Japanese hits with two regular albums, three special albums and nine singles. She won Japan’s 2003 Golden Disk Award for two of her albums that together sold over 1.3 million copies. 

A billion. $ 1,000,000,000.  THAT’s how much money she can make.  And that is just in Japan.  So, she must have made a lot more than that.  After the government gets their chunk, the promoters, the agencies, the record companies, the managers, the industry people, and all of the others in the BoA Machine get their cuts, how much does she get?  I don’t know, but I would guess that it is a very very very small amount.

Behind Boa’s undoubted talent lies a game plan by the Korean entertainment industry, long considered the Cinderella of the business establishment to leverage itself and its entertainers to global prominence.

And it is that game plan that and its creators that created this thing that is BoA.

TALENT SEARCH FOR A GLOBAL STAR Born Kwon Boa of Gyeonggi province in November 1986, she came into show business almost by accident when at the age of 11 she tagged along with her brother to one of a series of talent shows (in reality, scouting opportunities) being held across the country at the time by Korea’s biggest star management agency, S.M. Entertainment.

Enter one of the masterminds.

S.M. was aware of the growing interest and curiosity with which the Japanese viewed their neighbor across the East Sea.

Nice completely unnecessary use of the words “East Sea”.  We must make sure that everyone understands that the Koreans will dominate in all areas, not just in music, but in geographical terminology as well.  I was disappointed by the lack of any reference to DDokdo, in the article.

To capitalize on this interest, the agency began searching for a young talented female who could effectively compete with the 13 to 16-year-old “idol” girl stars of Japan who were the biggest forces in the fractured Asian music scene of the time.

Wait a minute…Hold your horses.  They were looking for little boys and girls to complete with the little girl stars of Japan?  I thought that Korean music was taking the world by storm because of it’s “originality and vitality.”  If by “original” you mean doing exactly what the Japanese do, then I guess Korean music is original and its stars are original.

Ultimately, the aim was to create a star who would represent Korea in the Asian pop market. However, success in Asia was planned as a stepping-stone to global stardom, and in the process, promotion of the international prestige of Korea.

Promotion of the international prestige of Korea?  What is wrong with this place?  It smacks of East German, Soviet Russian, and Communist Chinese bullcrap mental masturbation to overlook the corruption, lawlessness, political and economic failures and blantantly racist and sexist social structure while somehow saying that they should take their place among the prestigious nations of the world because a few can play golf, one guy won a marathon about a hundred years ago, some can sort of play baseball, several people play badminton and ping pong well, and some 13 year old girls can sing.  Sports and pop music does not make a country prestigious.

To achieve this end, S.M. was prepared to invest two to three years in training and grooming their acolyte.

I don’t know if the choice of the word “acolyte” was intentional or accidental, but it certainly is accurate.  She clearly became the devoted attendant of S.M. Entertainment, her parents, and other handlers.

All the talent show contestants were asked if they had a younger sibling, and if they did, to bring them in for an audition. When Boa’s brother was asked the question, he naturally introduced his sister, then in sixth-grade. Standing beside her brother she proceeded to dance and sing her way though her rendition of “Perfect Reason” by Korean singing group S.E.S., and the rest as they say, is history.

Sucks to be her brother, I guess.  I wonder how bummed out he is about having brought his sister along.

With the consent of her parents, Boa was then immersed in an intense educational program that was to make her fluent in English, Japanese and Chinese. A good student who had been bringing home good grades, she was enrolled in Seoul’s Korean Kent Foreign School where all instruction is given in English. Before entering the school she spent a six-month sojourn in Japan. Besides learning the language with help from NHK broadcaster Gumiko to perfect her pronunciation, she perfected her singing and dancing skills under the tutelage of entertainer Yungsung Akanemi, and leading choreographer, Nakajawa Gajehiro.

I am sure that this list of things she has done is supposed to tell us how wonderful, intelligent, magnificient, and amazing this girl is.  However, it just says to me that a child was stripped of her youth and forced to do what her handlers and crafters did.  Her parents seemed to be ok with it.  I guess you don’t want to hurt the gravy train.  I don’t see anything about BoA wanting to do any of the things she was subjected to.

SYMBOL OF KOREA/JAPAN AMITY Once she started at her international school, she was provided with a private tutor who gave her lessons in English and Japanese, and was even sent to Japan during her vacations for more intensive language lessons. In the meantime, preparations were under way for the production of her debut album, ID: Peace B. Sakuma, recognized as Japan’s best dancer, gave Boa dance lessons, and Japan’s top hip-hop dancer Kazeu personally came to Korea to choreograph the video for the album.

ID: Peace B was launched in Korea in August 2000 and was an instant hit, making Boa an overnight star at the age of 13. Six months later, she performed in front of an invited audience of 1,000 of the world’s media at what was billed as her debut convention.

In May 2001 Peace B was launched as her Japanese debut album, her vitality, confidence, looks-beyond-her-years and Korean market appeal, attracting the attention of Japan’s Avex label that subsequently signed her in a bid to improve its fortunes. Under the deal, Avex would release S.M. recordings in Japan, while S.M. would perform the same function for Avex albums in Korea.

Looks-beyond-her-years?  That was one of her drawing points? Her Looks-beyond-her-years was what attracted the attention of the Japanese label.  Weren’t we told at the beginning of the article that she didn’t look older than her years?  Another thing to note is that the Japanese label, and undoubtedly all of the Korean agency and representatives, signed her in a bid to improve its fortures.  It is clear to me that they were in it entirely for themselves and that BoA is simply a tool to make them rich.  It is disgusting to me to have the view that you should make me rich and maybe you can have some too.  A good agent is someone who takes the position that if I can make you fabulously wealthy, then you will, in turn, make me some money too.  I don’t see any of that here.

After a string of singles and commercials in Japan, Avex’s confidence in Boa was rewarded the following year when her next album, Listen to My Heart, rocketed to no. 1 in the charts compiled by Oricon magazine, the leading Japanese music journal. The timing was perfect since Korea and Japan were co-hosting the 2002 FIFA World Cup, so cementing Boa’s position as an icon of cross-East Sea amity and reconciliation.

Someday, many years down the road, my family will sit at my feet while I tell them how the many centuries of hatred between the Japan and Korea was healed by BoA, who brought reconciliation on her wings to the World Cup.  Oh by the way, did anyone mention the East Sea?

Her importance in this regard was recognized in June 2003 when she was invited to attend a conference dinner with 100 leading Korean and Japanese politicians and diplomats including president Roh Moo-Hyun and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, and sang her hits “Waiting” and “Every Heart” before the gathered assembly. 

Wich is correct:

a) Boa is a Mandela-esque icon of amity and reconciliation between Korea and Japan whose undoubted talents, explosive energy, near acrobatic dancing drive people to the heights of rapture and heal the enmity between to the two countries, so we should invite her to a Korea-Japan political conference; or

b) Hey, Koizumi, we’ve got this little girl that can sing.  She’s very popular in Korea and Japan too.  want to hear her sing?

My money is on “B”.

BEATING OUT BRITNEY Her success in both Japan and Korea has been noted in the Western media, with Le Monde and the BBC recently running features on her. Boa appeared on a special edition of the PBS TV show “This Is America with Dennis Wholey” in 2003 to commemorate the centennial of the arrival of Korean immigrants to the United States. Selected as one of 15 leading Koreans and the sole representative of the nation’s entertainment industry, she was joined by Prime Minister Goh Kun and Kim Myong-Gon, president of the National Theater of Korea.

How sad is that when one of your country’s top 15 leading people is a then 16 year-old girl who had been singing less than three years.  That is just about as sad as president Kim Dae Jung saying that winning a soccer game during the World Cup was “the greatest accomplishment in Korea’s 5,000 year history.”

In addition to becoming a political asset, Boa is also of immense economic value. On Dec. 17th at an official convention on the cultural industry and political vision held at Korea’s seat of government, the Blue House, S.M. Entertainment head Lee Sae-Min stated that singer BoA’s economical value is over US$800 million. In the meantime, the beat goes on. Boa released her third album, “Atlantis Princess” in June 2003 to chalk up total album sales in Japan for the first half of the year of US$350 million, the third-highest level ever achieved. Boa has since replaced Britney Spears at the Sketchers sneakers model for Asia, and the two divas of pop have even appeared together on stage in Seoul during December 2003 to record a Christmas special.

Lest anyone think America is better, or that Korea isn’t the greatest, don’t you forget that BoA replaced Britney as a shoe seller in Asia.  Not only did she replace Britney, but she was also honored to be able to appear together with Britney.  Huh?

Boa has thus helped to power the once languid entertainment business to new heights and at the same time has come to symbolize its success.

BoA has been created.  She is a sugar-coated cereal that has been manufactured into a tool to make others rich.  “They” would have us believe that BoA is respected world-wide diplomat, financial powerhouse, and all around Master of the Universe.  However, I feel badly for her.  I had it in my mind to write something much different the first time I read the article, but this is the result.

Pusan Mayor Commits Suicide

Accused of taking 400,000,000 won in bribes and Kickbacks, the mayor hung himself in his cell early this morning prior to his sentencing, which was scheduled to be held on Monday.  Read a related article here in the Korea Times.

The debate on TV, Radio, Blogs, Other internet sites, and everywhere else in the world seems to be whether Janet’s Superbowl breast revelation was intentional or an accident.

There is no doubt in my mind that it was completely intentional.  If you sing about getting naked before the end of the song and intend to have Timberlake make a grabbing motion at your clothes, you would probably made sure that the breast cup of your leather Hellraiser costume was sewed, tacked, glued, nailed, stapled, taped, and/or riveted in place.  In fact, her clothes seemed to have rivits everywhere except where it mattered most, her right breast.  Below is an englargement of the large photo I have seen.  Notice that the two rivits visible under her right breast are actually not rivits, but rather they are SNAPS!   Yes.  her breast cup was snapped on and designed for quick release.  I do not believe for a single second that it was unintentional.

BoA UPDATE!

OK OK OK!!!!  Due to an enormous amount of email and one blog comment from people concerned that I bumped the BoA article to focus on Justin Timberlake’s exposure of Janet Jackson’s mostly naked breasts.  Although that may have been done for Lee Sa-bi, Lee Hyori, Bada, or a few others, it was not the case this time.  The reason that BoA (her world-saving name be praised) was not the focus of my blog today is purely and simply due to my laziness and lack of ambition.  The article that I will be reviewing is in a magazine.  Unfortuantely, the current month’s edition is not yet up on their web site.  I thought I would give them one or two days to post it on their site.  If they do, that will save me the effort of having to retype large portions of the magazine article.  So, I am simply wasting time to see if the magazine’s site updates the edition.  If it’s not there soon, I will just have to retype bits of it.