holiday sentiment

it is only the beginning of november, but it is already starting to feel like holiday season – my least favorite yikes! shortly after i achieved autonomy to manage my own schedule for holidays, i realized how manipulating the holidays are to sell companion for candies and carols! i have to admit the time i probably started hating it even more than when i faced valentines’ day without a date was when i moved out to the states far away from family. the excitement and joy produced by social setup was harsh to aliens.

i shouldn’t be bitter about the core sense of the beautiful holidays such as christmas or thanksgiving. having a chance to gather around with family sharing stories and warm food is a wonderful tradition. but everyone knows how capitalism made it into a ugly monster where everything is wrapped up in red and people are forced to shop with unimaginable amount of pressure. there has been too much manner added into the meaning. there’s no nature’s rule that everyone is scheduled to be happy around this end of the year just like trees shed leaves in winter. but the happy carols make you feel like you ’should’ be happy, otherwise there’s something wrong with you. that’s what i hate about holidays. the artificial joy.

korea shares some of the American holidays celebrated world-widely like christmas, and new year’s. we also have thanksgiving but on different date – we go by lunar calendar (august 15th), which changes every year on solar calendar (it was september 15th this year.)

the general idea is the same anywhere for holidays i suppose, families gather and share food and laughter. but i feel the implication is stronger in America because people leave home when they enter college possibly to another city hours and hours away, and don’t get to see their family too often.

whereas koreans stay home normally until they get married. i think it is largely to different size of a land – half of korean population lives in Seoul. So there’s not many other places you would move to. i’m sure there are many other social factors – i.e. koreans are one blood, family-oriented, historically origin village matters, etc. – but i’m more interested in the outcomes generated by the different distance from family.

it is definitely a major social factor when it comes to analyze different behaviors of two culture. it is significant because it is a subject not on the individual level (whether you are cool enough to leave your parents), but it is a social setting (’everyone’ lives with parents). dating, getting a job, spending money, planning your whole life shapes in a different way due to this living condition.

i hope to continue posting small analysis with interesting episodes on this subject.

the more i compare two cultures, the more i realize it is so important to completely eliminate biased judgment on any side of the culture. it is very easy to favor one you had more fun with, but it is absolutely non-sense to judge just becuase it looks better or you were taught that way. if judgment has to come, it should be coming from your sincere values of life not from your ancient habits or custom. the problem is it is quite tricky to remove your habitual concepts from your valuation. and that is the challenge i am working on back at home these days.

Filed under: Versus , culture, holiday, sentiment, values

my another obsession

tiles.
lovely glossy tiles perfectly organized and glued on the wall.

beauuutiful pictures that reminded me of my long-time obsession (from Design*Sponge):

Filed under: fascination , design, love, obsession, tiles

this is the Subway

One thing I never appreciated but started to since I lived in New York was the subway in Seoul. Whenever I visited Seoul from New York, I was always impressed with its clean and nice facility.

Seoul is a gigantic metropolis (the second largest in the world according to wikipedia), and now it’s looking at 10 subway lines. I used to commute to school on green line which is a circle one, and from home to school it was almost exact opposite point of each other and it took me about an hour each way.

A few facts I found between New York vs. Seoul subways:
1. Since few years ago, Seoul started building the glass walls at every station claiming it prevents suicidal or accidental falls.

Even before the walls, there were arrow marks on the floor indicating where the doors will be. Not sure how much effective it has been in stopping people to jump off to rails, but at least it probably would stop people from throwing garbage (if it was in NYC). Stations are nicely cooled with A/C, it was almost shocking when I first experienced how hot and chocking it was at subway stops in NYC.

2. There are reserved seats for the elderly just like in New York, but people’s respect for those seats are very strict. If you are not over 40ish, you don’t want to bother looking at the empty yellow seats. I’ve witnessed some old man yelling at a boy who was resting at the ‘unqualified seat’ scolding how rude he was. It is very unproductive to leave the seats empty while there are no old people to fill in with, but people take it as a gesture to show their (enforced) respect for the elderly.


As far as I noticed in NY, people was most of the time reasonable in yielding their seats to the elderly or pregnant women. The ‘respect’ is rooted very deeply in the culture starting way back (like over 1000years?) from Confucianism, which has been updated and watered down over time, but there are still plenty things remained such as this one.

3. A couple of more shots of my home station showing rails and elevator for the handicaps. Hardly notice anyone using it however.. nice to have in case I guess.

4. Most people use RFID cards, usually a general feature of credit cards here or SIM cards in cell-phones.

5. We do get reception on cellphones in subway cars in Seoul. I’ve seen a poll in NYC when the city once considered getting the antenna in the cars, but people were concerned if it would get loud and obnoxious with people talking on the phones. I have to say although, it was true even several years ago, but I feel like the morale has been established, and now it’s hard to find people talking loud in the car. People rather do texting (a lot) or watch TV (through earphones) on their satellite DMB phones.

6. One thing I wish we had here is express lines. It would have made my life so much easier when I had to ride subway for like 2 hours last week to visit another side of Seoul.

Filed under: Versus , comparison, culture, seoul, subway, transportation

your bike is safe here

I never thought of Seoul as ’safe city’ until I experienced New York. I was stunned when I noticed how loosely the bikes were chained on the street in Seoul. People simply chained one of the wheels not even to any post, and no one seemed to worry if they would get stolen. I am also surprised with the noticeable increase on the number of bike riders in the city. You see everywhere high school girls and boys riding bikes after school in their uniforms. Very Asian scenery like you would see in old Asian movies or comics.

If you may know, people are paranoid with their bikes in New York as no matter how heavily you chain them, thieves find their way around to steal them. People make sure to chain every single parts like wheels, seats, or any attachments when they park, and ridiculously enough, they would even carry the seats or wheels with them when they have to run to a deli. (Funny, definition of ‘Theft’ on wikipedia shows exactly how people steal chained bikes.)

Here are some numbers on crime rates in New York versus Seoul I looked up out of curiosity. Predictably, New York shows higher numbers on every crimes BUT rape.. hah?!

Additional news on the new artsy bike racks in New York that came across to me. Nice gesture for those New Yorkers who still love to ride bikes despite the danger of stealing and roadkill!

Another interesting article on Bike Ride festival that just happened in New York. Cute how these fierce New York people can get excited with quite simple courtesy like this.

Filed under: Versus , bike, comparison, crime, culture

‘versus’ 시작의 고. About this new category ‘versus’

기억도 잘 나지 않는 어린 시절을 미국에서 보낸 것을 시작으로, 그 후 한국에서 성년까지 자라면서도 항상 미국 문화에 익숙하고 관심을 많이 가져온 나였다. 최근 몇 년을 뉴욕에서 보내게 되면서 미국문화에 대한 관심이 실질적인 경험으로 바뀔 수 있었고, 다시 돌아온 한국에서는 최근의 미국에서의 경험을 바탕으로 한국을 새로운 관찰자의 시각을 바라보게 되었다. 이 새로운 느낌과 감상이 일상으로 또 익숙해 지기 전까지 비슷하고도 다른 두 문화에 대한 내 관찰을 적어보고자 한다.

I spent my very early childhood in America, and ever since I’ve been always curious and comfortable with American culture while growing up in Korea. After spending recent few years in New York, my curiosity on American life has become real experiences, and as I returned to my hometown Korea, I’ve been noticing my perspective has been changed as an observer on the culture once I was accustomed to. I would like to write about my new discoveries between two similar yet different cultures until my eyes get dull with this new sensation.

Filed under: Versus , culture

byebye Mayle

http://racked.com/archives/2008/08/18/say_goodbye_to_mayle.php

if you know me, perhaps you know how much i looooooooved Mayle. the store and their collection was my obsession for life, my sanity in new york.. this news is one of the sensational news of the year for me :’( all of my Mayle collection is soon to be vintage… sad..

Filed under: scribbles , fashion, news, sad

time

found a service(http://wordle.net/) where they create a visual map of the tags of your posts, and i got above from my blog. although it doesn’t seem that it crawled all the postings, interesting how it shows dense population of ‘time’ related words. i grew up in a culture that makes you to be aware of your age more than western culture. one of the first questions you ask to a new person is his age, so that you can figure out the hierarchy of your relationship with him and determine proper terms whether it should be respectful ones or regular. while i’ve been in the U.S. using english, i found it so much easier to make friends with people at different age and thought i’ve gotten less sensitive about age . but guess it is still in my unconsciousness that i do still think about my age and the stage in life quite a lot.

three years has passed in new york, and two days plus. kind of an awkward time span as it still gives me an opportunity to do something, but not quite enough to do anything. probably best to make use of it as moments for time forthcoming..

Filed under: scribbles , time

change

change can be exciting or nerve breaking, throbbing or heart breaking.

either way. bonne chance chère amie.

Filed under: scribbles

my first meditation lesson notes

ground

path

? (urg my short-term memory..)

gentleness = you are not squishing your thoughts

precision = you don’t fall asleep, keep your awareness

letting go = you watch your thoughts, create space, and come back to your awareness

no judgement

no perfection

no “should”

compassionate

on your thoughts and others around you.

Filed under: scribbles , lesson, meditation, notes, space, yoga

time passing

a note from a blog post -

“젊기는 쉽다. 모두 젊다, 처음엔. 늙기는 쉽지 않다. 세월이 걸린다. 젊음은 주어진다. 늙음은 이루어진다. 늙기 위해선 세월에 섞을 마법을 만들어 내야 한다.”
그렇다. 나이 듦은 시간이 간다고 저절로 되는 것이 아니다. 어떻게 나이 들 것인가. 지금 이 순간에도 우리는 나이 들고 있다.

“easy to be young. everyone’s young, at first. not easy to get old. it takes time. youth is given. aging is achieved. to get old, you need to produce magic to mix in time”
spending time is not equivalent to getting old. how to get old. even at this moment, time is passing.

i am not so old ‘yet’ to get sentimental on aging, but this note somehow makes me empathize.
admittedly, youth gives ruthless confidence and arrogance that makes you ignore this time passing. the difficult part is many don’t realize it was rash until they look back.

at the same time, however, this ill-advised bravery is only acceptable when you are young and perky – beginner’s luck. trial and error. only given once when it is your first time.

really, hard isn’t it to get old and wise.

Filed under: scribbles , age, aging, blog, old, time, youth