The holy Ganges

A few weeks ago I was walking down the riverside of the Ganges and was staring at a bone on the shore and I was thinking to myself, "Is that a human bone?" And when I saw a pack of dogs wildly biting into a piece of flesh - their faces red with blood - I was thinking, "Is that human flesh?" When I chose to sleep on a caged rooftop that overlooked the entire city, open to the air, and I woke up in the middle of the night, face to face with a monkey, and I saw the massive burning ghat smouldering into the night, and I smelled that strange smell, I was thinking, "Oh yeah, I forgot about those burning bodies down there." And when a local man pointed out the raw sewage pouring into the river, then took a handful of Ganges water, smiled at me, and drank it, I was thinking, "I wonder if he got a few bits of burnt human bone in that gulp."

Truth of the matter is, a lot of dying Hindus have been going to Varanasi, over a lot of centuries to gain their ensured release from the endless cycle of reincarnation. Once burned, their ashes are tossed into the holy river. And for various reasons, a lot of dead bodies are not burned, but simply tied to a rock and thrown to the bottom of the river. Add in some serious industrial waste and sewage waste, and the fact that most residents of Varanasi drink the water daily, and you've got a recipe for "What the fuck." With all those bits of bones, at least the people don't need to worry about a calcium deficiency.

Here is my heart-stoppingly incredible rendition of Varanasi in MS Paint:

Why fans are going to kill you in your sleep

In South Korean, there is a widespread belief that leaving a fan on at night can kill you. There are at least a few media reports each year about people dying from this, and all fans in Korea are apparently outfitted with timers so the fan will stop running after a set period of time. Even the Korean government warns consumer against fan death, particularly in the summer time.

There are a range of reasons that you should learn to fear the fan: fans create dangerous levels of CO2 in the room, fans can cause you to die from hypothermia, fans can cause you to die from heat exhaustion, fan blades chop up oxygen molecules so you can't breath them, and fans change the air pressure in a room, creating a vacuum of pain that will cause your heart to explode. Of course, all of these beliefs are refuted by scientific evidence, but science shmience. Fans are evil.

One of my Korean students brilliantly portrayed why you ought to run for the hills when you see a fan:

 And don't even think about getting into a UFO with a fan, fool:

Making a living from death

A few years ago I traveled through Vietnam and was constantly amazed by the beauty and ugliness of the place. While visiting the ancient capital of Hue -- also the site of one of the bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War --  I was shocked by the scene of roadside vendors selling helmets, medals, and other equipment or insignia from fallen Vietnamese and American soldiers. In particular I was disturbed by the sale of rusted American dog tags, some 40 years after the battle. The men who sold these artifacts looked poor and downtrodden, not selling the items for spite but simply to survive. They smiled at me with tired faces and tried to sell me their wares, murmuring vague phrases in English. They seemed to have no idea that anyone would be offended by their enterprise.

Out of respect for the dead, I've blurred the dog tags in this photo:

Nuclear Boy wears a diaper

Japanese MS Paint artists have created a lovely video to educate Japanese children on the plight of Nuclear Boy. I found this video highly informative and in no way misleading:

Our Demystified World

Our relentless pursuit to master the world provides us with much. Modern science explains to us everything from from this week's weather, to eating a heart-healthy diet, to the origin of the formation of the cosmos. Yet our world mastery also demystifies what was once wild, exciting, and unknown about our planet.

In the Meili Xue Shan mountain range at the Southeastern edge of the Tibetan plateau, even villages to which no roads lead have now begun to be reached by the long arm of China's tourist industry.  When I traveled to this region, I befriended travellers and made the arduous hike up 1000m and down again to the distant village of Yubeng. Sharing our path was a steady stream of Han Chinese tourists riding pack animals, all while inhaling excessively from compressed oxygen canisters.  Along with them, Tibetan-run facilities for food and drink had sprung up along the trail.

Yet while the overall traffic on this journey was small, it was enough for one local Tibetan to remark on the state of affairs.  He said that the sacred peaks of the Kawo Karpo -- ever-shrouded within the clouds -- choose not to reveal themselves to us because there are too many tourists about. The man bestowed god-like attributes upon those mountains, and I thought it was an amazing way to think about the world. Yet this statement caused an outburst of laughter from Chinese passerby, and perhaps predictably so.  In our modernity we believe not in spirits, but in science, and science tells us that the weather and the mountain are two seperate agents...yet where is the excitement in that?  I wanted to believe there was some truth in what the old Tibetan said.

 

In the following days we continued our hiking along cliffside trails that were in dangerous decay, making our way to the glacial lake at 4100m.  Perhaps afterall we did earn the respect of the mountains, since the snow-capped peaks of the Kawo Karpo eventually decided to show themselves to us. It's a prospect I cling to in our demystified world.

The fish that judge you

A few years ago I studied the existential philosopher Martin Heidegger and his teachings continue to shape my experiences as I live and work in South Korea. One of Heidegger’s fundamental principles is that all people are governed by a basic, underlying culture that shapes the way they think, the way they act – that dictates a realm of possibilities for their everyday life.

Every day, I'm amazed at how the Korean way of thinking and acting is different from my own American way of thinking at a very basic level. I've heard clichéd interpretations of a "collectivist society," but these explanations are too simple to adequately explain everything I've experienced. Recently, through conversations with my Korean girlfriend I've stumbled upon an intriguing allegory – a story that made me feel as though I could see directly into her heart.

My girlfriend told me that when she was a child, she was wary of being near a fish aquarium because no matter where she stood, the fish seemed to be staring at her, and more importantly, unceasingly judging her. She said she was always on her best behavior in front of those fish. 

This is a really cute story and I love to imagine my girlfriend acting well-mannered in front of pets. However, when I (as an American) start to think about how alien this thought process is to my own childhood, it quickly becomes apparent that Koreans are thinking differently at very fundamental levels.

Stories stick with you easily, and ever since she told me about the judging fish, I view everything my girlfriend says and everything Koreans do through the judging fish prism. Below I've outlined some Korean cultural curiosities and stories from my girlfriend which elaborate on the fish that judge you.

Don't jaywalk

Jaywalking is a normal phenomenon worldwide, and indeed is often necessary. When I traveled through Vietnam (also a "collectivist society") I learned to jaywalk like a pro. Yet in Korea, even on the smallest of streets, Jaywalking is extremely rare. I was always told that there was a "collectivist" propensity to obey rules, but the difference in Korea is deeper than that.

Whenever I'm with my girlfriend, she never wants to jaywalk with me and one day she explained why. She said that in Korea, no matter where you are, there will almost always be children around. If you jaywalk across the road and children see you doing it, they'll get the idea that this behavior is okay. They'll do it in the future, and they might even get hurt doing it. This fits with the judging fish allegory because the belief is that no matter where you are or what you do, you're being scrutinized, so you'd better keep your behavior up to par.

The ubiquitous camera

Walk the recesses of an ancient fortress, stroll through the halls of any building, stand at any street corner. Chances are you're on camera. Whereas in English-speaking countries we have a strong concept of "big brother" and other 1984-inspired concepts, as well as a strong aversion to the invasion of our privacy, in Korea it's perfectly normal to be constantly on camera, purportedly as a measure to deter crime.

Indeed, every classroom that I work in is rigged with a camera and microphone. At any time, interested parents can view the class from reception area of our school. Parents know this, teachers know this, and students know this – everyone is aware of this but also thinks little of it. That's because the cameras are simply an extension to the judging fish; it's already normal to live a life of perpetual scrutiny, so the ubiquitous camera is a technological enhancement to an already-accepted cultural phenomenon.

Hard work is good because people think hard work is good

Korea has a national obsession with education. In addition to their core public schooling, Korean students attend a mishmash of private academics on a range of subjects including English, Math, the Sciences...even martial arts such as Taekwondo. Because of their time spent traveling from one academy to another, and because of their huge homework and study workloads, it is not uncommon for students to get less than 5 hours of sleep each day. Many finish their school "day" at midnight or 1am, at which point they take a bus home and begin their homework. When asked what their favorite thing to do is, many Korean students have told me that they simply "love to sleep."

My girlfriend told me similar stories about her years in high school. She went to one of the best high schools in the city, which meant that she endured seemingly unceasing work. She went to class 365 days a year, slept 5 hours a day for a year, memorized 200 English words every day, and the list goes on. To my amazement, my girlfriend described a world that was completely alien to my American childhood of video games, school dances, long vacations, and relative leisure.

So in the end, was it all worth it? After detailing all her trying high school years to me, my girlfriend admitted to me that she knew her workload was unnecessarily large. She said that this brute force method of learning was "inefficient" – that she forgot much or even most of what she learned. Yet she said that whenever she meets other people, especially older Koreans, and tells them where she attended high school, she feels that they actually treat her much better. They show her respect for her hard work, and because of this respect she said, of course, that her hard school work was definitely worth it. If the judging fish approve, that's all that really matters.