The dirtiest kids' show clip ever

You hear that? That was my childhood innocence meeting its bloody end.

Weekly trivia, Jan. 23-29

On my Twitter, I recently started the habit of posting some trivia facts. I'm going to collect them and post them here for those interested, complete with sources.

• In Full House's earlier seasons, the Olsens were credited as one person -- "Mary Kate Ashley Olsen." (Source)
  
• McDonald's McNuggets contain trace amounts of... lighter fluid. (Source)
  
• The Japanese parliament is called the National Diet of Japan. (Source)
  

How a fire and the "rape tax" convinced me to get a Mac

South Korea is not a Mac-friendly country. Most people who know anything about this country will tell you that. 99% of the country uses Microsoft Windows, and 99% of those people use Internet Explorer. I already knew that when I came here, so I wasn't surprised to find that almost everything computer-related for sale in Seoul is designed for PCs.

Therefore, it is with great irony that earlier today, I bought a new MacBook here in Seoul.

Why get a new computer? Well, there were a few reasons why. My HP Pavilion laptop has had its share of problems in the past, and it has been showing signs of wiring problems since September. For example, the monitor would blink and you would hear a high pitched noise every time it did. The batteries and adapter were both dying -- it wouldn't charge more than 25% to 35%, and even before this started happening, the batteries had a tendency to consume a lot of power sometimes and little power at other times; in other words, battery consumption was unpredictable.

And yesterday, the monitor blacked out. Yet, it wasn't completely black -- I could still see the windows on the screen and everything, but it was just blacked out. And every time it happened, I would smell something similar to burning, and the smell would be coming from the fan. That was quite scary. Fixing all of these problems would likely cost more than the laptop itself.

Coming home from work today, I was surprised to find that my usual view of Namsan from my shortcut was obscured by a HUGE fire. It was a clear day, but the smoke covered the whole view of Namsan. A firefighting helicopter had to come in to drop fire retardant on the area, like in a forest fighter. The fire probably destroyed at least 3 or 4 buildings. After the burning smell from my laptop, seeing the fire freaked me out a little, and convinced me that it might be a good time to get a new laptop. I already said that my next laptop would be a Mac, so it was a no-brainer.

I saw a good price at a Seoul electronics market called TechnoMart the other day. The price was identical to Future Shop back in Canada. However, TechnoMart was cheaper because of the incoming HST sales tax in British Columbia this summer -- or, as I like to call it, the "rape tax," because it feels like the government is raping us for money. And it appears like the tax rate is increasing even more very soon. Partially thanks to the rape tax, I was convinced to buy a Mac in South Korea -- one of the most Mac-unfriendly places in the world.

With the rape tax in mind, it was already cheaper. But Seoul's electronics dealers usually give you a deal if you say that you want to pay in cash, so I got it reduced by another 100,000 KRW ($100 Canadian) -- and it was already cheaper than Canada!

This was surprising because it seems that Apple products tend to be more expensive in South Korea, generally speaking. It's rare to see a Mac in use over here, but there is an increasing number of Apple specialty dealers. The dealer I bought my MacBook from basically said that South Korean technology is changing quickly in favor of Apple products (especially after the iPhone's debut this past winter), and a lot of Apple dealers are trying to get ahead of the competition.

Spring weather for the Winter Olympics and other tidbits

I just realized that in less than a month, the Winter Olympics will start in my hometown of Vancouver. And apparently, there's no snow in the mountains.

Those who know Canadian weather will know that Vancouver is the second-warmest major city in Canada in winter (the other being nearby Victoria). It almost NEVER goes below freezing there, and snow in the city is very rare (and usually melts in less than a day).

However, the city gets loads of rain in winter and all the rain turns into snow in the mountains, making for prime skiing and snowboarding conditions. From what I heard, this year, that hasn't materialized and there is almost no snow in the mountains. One of the Winter Olympic venues, Cypress Mountain, has apparently been closed to the public so they can MAKE snow (which is unusual in itself for Vancouver's ski mountains) and maintain it until the Games.

Above: A photo taken in the summer of the Olympic rings between Vancouver International Airport and the Arthur Laing Bridge leading to the City of Vancouver.

The opening ceremonies will be at BC Place Stadium, and it'll be the first-ever indoor opening ceremony in Olympic history. With the buckets of rain that the city gets in winter, that's a good choice, and probably a good way to deter the TV viewers from looking around the stadium's exteriors and wondering, "Where's the snow?"

Also, there's the issue of the Downtown Eastside (DTES). For those outside Vancouver, the DTES is known for being possibly the poorest area of Canada and has a high rate of crime, prostitution, drug deals and open drug use. The previous mayor of Vancouver didn't really do much to fix it, and now it's too late to do anything. It's just a stone's throw from the "good" part of downtown, where a lot of visitors will be staying. Just wait -- there will definitely be some media coverage about this and many will ask, "Why is there a huge open air drug den in the middle of this city?"

This is going to be one interesting Olympics.

English names

Teaching English winter camp this week has been interesting so far. One of the unexpectedly interesting points were not so much with the teaching or the material, but rather with something quite trivial -- names.

In an article from William Cheung (a researcher at my alma mater, UBC) called "The Economics of Post-Doc Publishing," he states (emphasis added):

In my field and most other disciplines in science, English is the dominant language for publishing (Ammon 2001). Being a Chinese person from Hong Kong, my original name was, of course, fully Chinese. I was also given an ‘official’ English name translated by the government from the Cantonese (the Chinese dialect spoken in Hong Kong) pronunciation of my Chinese name (i.e. Wai Lung Cheung). However, non-Chinese speaking people often have problems pronouncing, spelling or even remembering my Cantonese-translated name.
...
Thus, in recent years, I changed from using my Cantonese-translated first name (Wai Lung) to my English name (William) in scientific publications and academic communications, while keeping the Cantonese name as a middle name. Such changes may be seen as ‘caving in’ to the dominant culture. However, when Hong Kong was under British colonization (until 30 June 1997), most students in Hong Kong were asked to acquire an English name. Hence, the use of an English name is psychologically easy for me to accept. On the other hand, this may be considered a violation of one’s culture to some colleagues.

• From: Cheung, William W.L. "The Economics of Post-Doc Publishing." Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics. 8.41-44 (January 2008). Print.

While most Koreans, like the Chinese in Hong Kong, have Korean-translated first names, I've found that it was next to impossible to remember them. I try to remember, but it's quite the mountainous task, especially when you have hundreds and hundreds of students. (My inability to remember faces easily is also an obstacle here.)

However, I have avoided forcing students to adopt English names for the exact same concern that Cheung mentioned. I don't feel comfortable forcing students to choose English names because it feels too much like cultural colonization to me. I would never ask a Korean for his or her English name, unless he or she volunteers it to me. In other words, I leave it up to the students whether or not they want English names. I won't force them to do it, but I won't stop them if they really want to choose one.

I have also heard of instances where "forcing" the students to choose English names has backfired. Some students decide to choose outrageous names. For example: "My name is Barack Obama!" Sometimes, if a parent decides to choose an English name for the student, it might also backfire. For example, I read about some parent who decided to bestow upon his child the English name "Grand." While the intentions are there, naming your kid Grand is just a little... strange.

For those reasons, I have decided not to bring up the issue. However, during this week's English winter camp, some students asked me if I would like to call them by their English names. I was a little hesitant to answer, but informed them that it was up to them as long as it's not like the "Barack Obama" example. Thankfully, the two students who volunteered their English names had normal-sounding ones: Ron and Michael.

That got me thinking -- why is it that they have normal-sounding names while others that I've heard of have chosen to be "Barack Obama" or "Michael Jackson"? Over the past several days, I realized that this week's class is VERY GOOD, despite the fact that they're my youngest students. They were so good, in fact, that some of them watch TV shows on AFN (the US army television channel), which doesn't offer any Korean subtitles. I was surprised to learn that despite not being fluent in English, they didn't need the subtitles and would prefer not to have them. They were just that good.

They also seem serious and willing to learn English, despite its challenges. I think that might be the determining factor here; the students who are more willing to learn and are serious about learning English seem to realize what's "acceptable" in English and what's not. They know that choosing a name like "Barack Obama" is unacceptable. They seem to want to know how to conduct themselves in an English-speaking atmosphere, which is quite cool. This group gives an honest effort, which is what I've been wanting to see from my students; to me, it doesn't matter if they are wrong every time, as long as they give an honest effort.

So perhaps forcing the students to use English names is the wrong way to go, and thank goodness I didn't do that. When a student is serious about learning English, I think he would be capable of deciding whether or not to choose an English name. Otherwise, it might be best to just leave their names alone for the time being.

Appreciating Seoul

It's no secret that places annoy me. I get annoyed with Vancouver. I get annoyed with Southern California. I get annoyed with... well, almost every place I go to. I don't know, but the more familiar I become with a city, the more I get annoyed with it. (It's not always annoyed in a bad way though.) So it seems inevitable that I will get annoyed with Seoul.

Before the snow came and hit the city, I used to like making trips out to far places, like in Gyeonggi-do (the province around Seoul) or in Incheon. I had no idea why, until the other day.

There is such a large contrast between Seoul and the areas outside of Seoul. I was on my way to Anyang the other day, and once I was outside of Seoul, there was a large atmospheric change. Suddenly, I really started to feel conscious of the fact that there is a lot less English. Even ordering a burger proved to be a mountainous task. Even though the area looks like a much better neighborhood to be in, it doesn't seem to be a place where a newly-arrived frightened foreigner (ie. me) would want to be to start out in South Korea; the areas outside the big cities don't seem to be well-equipped for non-Koreans. Why should they be? It's not like non-Koreans find these areas to be large tourist hotspots.

On the bus ride back, it was getting dark. As the bus crossed from Gyeonggi-do to Seoul, there was again the huge shift in atmosphere. There was suddenly a lot of English (some of it incorrectly used). There were signs that it was an international city, even though some of them weren't entirely successful, like the cellphone store that had a banner outside advertising some deal to foreigners -- but the banner was written in Korean. But at least the effort was there, which is more than I can say for the areas outside Seoul.

Back in Vancouver, I remember how many times I would go somewhere far from the city, just to re-energize myself. I would get away from Vancouver and go somewhere far like White Rock or Langley, where it's so quiet and so far from everything that you feel like you can scream and there's a chance that nobody would hear you, before coming back to the city, where things are convenient and faster-paced.

I guess here in Seoul, I need to find that release once in a while too. I need to go somewhere drastically different from the norm once in a while, only to come back and appreciate the fact that I live in Seoul. In comparison to its surroundings, Seoul is actually quite worldly, despite the large number of improvements that can be made. Is Seoul the best place for foreigners? I don't think so. Is it heading in the right direction in terms of internationalization? Probably. Would I be happier working in Seoul than elsewhere? Definitely.

---

In other news:

• The temperatures are finally back above freezing today. It's amazing how 2 degrees Celsius (36 degrees Fahrenheit) suddenly feels warm after a week of terrible weather.
• It's also amazing how much snow can melt in 6 degrees C (43 degrees F). The streets are wet out there and it looks like it rained, but it didn't.
• Yesterday was an awful work day. The students were almost scared of the material, and actually bailed on me after their scheduled classroom cleaning. But ironically, today was brilliant. They cooperated and didn't need me to force them to work on the stuff I assigned to them. It was amazing how one day was awful and one day was brilliant.
• I really want to make sushi, but can't find out how to prepare the rice.
• My laptop battery is doing weird things. Windows Vista said the battery is "plugged in, not charging." Jay suggested that it's an adapter problem. I hope so, because replacing an adapter is certainly a lot cheaper than replacing an entire battery.

Brrrr, it's cold in here...

I woke up this morning to a balmy -19 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit). According to the Korea Times, it was the lowest official temperature for Seoul in six years. (You might remember that last week, it was -21 degrees Celsius. It was not an official figure.) "Even the usually warm southern resort island of Jeju registered minus 0.9 degrees," says the article. Thankfully, it's supposed to get warmer starting this weekend, possibly back to above-freezing temperatures.

But in comes Murphy's law -- because of the cold temperatures and how many people here have no gas heating and must heat their homes with electricity (me included), there is a warning that there might a possible power blackout next week due to high energy consumption. In fact, earlier today, South Korea set a new record in peak power use.

The current forecast for the rest of the week:

Tonight: -11 C (12 F) <-- the weather gadget on the right side of this page says -13 C as I write this.
Day Thurs.: -10 C (14 F)
Night Thurs.: -6 C (21 F)
Day Fri.: -2 C (28 F)
Night Fri.: -8 C (17 F)
Day Sat.: -3 C (26 F)
Night Sat.: -10 C (14 F)

With that said, I can't wait until my trip to Hong Kong... It's like the light at the end of the snowy ice tunnel.

Snowy wonderland

Because this was a "work from home" week, I've been staying inside for almost the entire week to avoid the snow outside; my friend Kavita knows, but I'm in an EXTREMELY hilly area and snow has made my area quite dangerous.

But yesterday, I finally wandered outside. Some areas are still quite dangerous and slippery (and resemble skating rinks), but some of the areas have been cleared.

Near the Lotte Mart at the Seoul bullet train station (where I do my shopping), there was a large snow bank. How large, you ask? Well, this picture will tell you:

Above: The large snow bank outside Seoul Station's Lotte Mart.

I really feel sorry for the teachers who had to teach winter camp this past week. Mine starts on Monday, so I got to skip the huge snowfall and stay home. I didn't even go outside for lunch. The snow has made me a cook, as I learned how to make several new dishes ths week. I guess there's a benefit to all of this.

The coolest/creepiest music video I've seen in a while

I came across this great music video earlier today, and thought it was probably among the best I'd seen recently. The song is "Where the Wild Roses Grow" by Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue. (Seeing Kylie's name on this was somewhat of a surprise; this isn't really a song you'd expect her to do.)

The only thing about this video is that it's one of the CREEPIEST ones you'll ever see. Here it is:



Basically, the story is that a man has obsessive romantic feelings towards a woman. He finally goes out with her but partway through, he realizes that her beauty won't last forever. He decides to preserve her beauty by killing her with a rock and laying her down in the water (in the same manner as the Ophelia painting by Millais).

Very creepy stuff, but very cool at the same time.

So this is what -21 degrees C feels like...

Last night, the temperatures here reached -21 degrees Celsius (-6 degrees Fahrenheit). I was having a late night Skype phone conversation with my friend Larry from Rowland Heights when I suddenly said, "Holy shit!" Why? Because of this:



This was my kitchen window last night. It was as if the iceman from X-Men came in and touched it.

I survived the great snowstorm of 2010 and all I got are these pics and videos

Article from the Korea Herald yesterday (emphasis added):

Heavy snow blanketed the Seoul metropolitan area yesterday, causing traffic chaos on the first work day of the new year and delaying or canceling scores of flights.

According to the Korea Meteorological Administration, the snow that began falling early in the morning piled up around the nation's central regions, with more than 25.2 centimeters accumulating in Seoul, as of noon yesterday.

The snow in Seoul was the heaviest in 41 years and second heaviest since the nation started observing snowfall back in 1937, the weather agency added.

Albert told me it was snowing in Beijing. The storm was supposed to lose power over the Yellow Sea but that didn't happen. Luckily, the night before, I went out and had bulgogi (marinated beef stew mixed with rice) for dinner, and also did some grocery shopping on the way home. My apartment has always been well-stocked with food in case of weather emergencies (and also because I don't think going out in cold weather is a good idea). Also, this is a "work from home" week for me, so staying inside in my relatively warm apartment was an obvious choice.

Here are some photos...

Above: the view outside my apartment.

My apartment has a very small population -- there are about six units in total. Everyone else left for work earlier in the day, so it was very quiet. I went downstairs to see if the postal delivery person managed to make it through the snow. Because everyone left for work, the front door was left alone during the snow and it was partially blocked. I had to work hard to get it open.

Needless to say, nobody got their mail yesterday or today.

Above: My apartment building's front door -- trapped by snow.

The snow had briefly stopped when I went downstairs, so I got to open the front door and take some photos of my street during this brief pause. Shortly after these photos, it continued to snow even more. The final measurement I took later that night was 10.5 inches (27 centimeters) of snow.

Above: My side street, during a small pause halfway through the snowfall.

Above: This car was definitely not going anywhere. By the end of the day, it was 100% covered with snow.

And here's a little video I took shortly before the photos:

SOS

SOS

trapped by snow

SOS

ramen and dumpling supply dwindling

SOS

running out of dvd material and books

SOS

send kimchi

SOS

Happy New Year

New Year's Day is almost over here, but I decided to wait until the people back in Vancouver have reached midnight before posting a New Year's note. Anyways, Happy New Year and let's hope this decade doesn't become a waste of time like the 2000s turned out to be.

Anyways, I have made a small website for my best photos. The new gallery can be reached here and was created at the suggestion of several friends who liked some of the photos. So I will post my best photos on to that site.