nobody panic!

i'm not sure if you've been following the world news lately - but there's been a rather important story unfolding on this side of the globe ...

to catch you up, basically there are two countries - north korea and south korea.  in the last century, there was an armed conflict between the two, which came to an end in 1953.  however, no peace treaty was ever signed and as a result, the two sides are technically still at war.

since the fighting ceased, the south has flourished into an internationally respected nation.  the north, run by a nutcase (kim jong-il) has been sanctioned to the hilt, and has receded into complete isolation from the rest of the world.

kim jong-il ... fruitcake

same-same.

their brothers in the south used to send them aid, with the intention of repairing relations. however, two years ago they stopped the "sunshine policy" as the north became ever more resistant to co-operating with the world and it's anti-nuke efforts.

so the people in the north hate the world, and the world pretty much hates the people in the north.  china is kind of fencing-sitting and the americans (obviously) have set up camp and made themselves quite comfortable on the south's border, guns locked and loaded.

about a month ago, there was a south korean military ship that cruised into waters of a disputed territory between the two sides.  there was an explosion, and the ship sank - tragically claiming the lives of 46 south korean soldiers.  the nation went into mourning, whilst the south korean president vowed that a full investigation would be conducted, and if foul play was proven, he would respond "resolutely".

courtesy of bbc.com

i'm sure you can guess where this is going?  so, they put together an international task team (so that the findings would be objective), and the findings were (surprise, surprise) that the explosion was a torpedo from the north.

the north are denying it - but just for good measure, are also saying that if they are given any trouble as a result of it, they are ready and more than willing to go to war.

america has said that the north will not be excused from this act, and will be sent a very clear and strong message that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated by the rest of the world.

china are just repeating the sequence of events in a factual, impartial voice - while japan have joined the american band-wagon.

and the south are holding their breath - waiting for their president, lee myeung-bak, to address the nation with his solution.

what this "solution" will be, in unclear - as the south have a slight dilemma on their hands:

• they don't want to go to war, if not for humanitarian reasons then financial ones. 
• further sanctions on the north would be futile - as there's pretty much nothing left for them to sanction, and it would only provoke the north's trigger-happy finger.  
• adult discussion is completely out of the question, as the north's leader is even more balmy than that syphillis-ridden mugabe twat. 

on the ground, the feeling is un-phased and maybe somewhat oblivious.  life goes on as normal, and we probably would not have even heard about all this had it not been for world news broadcasters.  i'm still trying to decide whether to find comfort in the calm, or be concerned by it.  i'll let you know when i've come to a conclusion.  but for now, we keep our eyes glued to the headlines and our fingers crossed.  i have no doubt that should things take a turn for the worst, we'll be on the first flight out - and we're only here for 5 more weeks, so we should be fine. i'm pretty sure we'll be fine ... here's hoping. 

basically all they need to do is save face, avenge the murder of their soldiers', fulfill international expectations, live up to their promise of "resolute response", maintain the strength of the currency, avoid world war III and send a message to a leader who refuses to hear it.

but like i said, "nobody panic" ...

the glass is half full (of rain)

lately, most of our time on the interwebs is spent researching our future destinations.  it's amazing how many hours you can lose trawling travel blogs, forums and on-line visa providers. lonely planet's website is seeing more traffic, than the koeberg interchange on a friday afternoon.

i've just stumbled upon this article, which i absolutely love. it has such a refreshing way of looking at monsoon season (during which we will be experiencing most of our travels).

let it rain (click to view)

a note from the author

there's been a marked decrease in the frequency of my posts on this here blog of mine.  the reasons are varied - from periods of internet-less-ness (due to server crashes), to bouts of blogger's block. 

i've also been doing a lot of back-end maintenance on the blog, while i still have the chance - heaven only knows how much internet access i will have once we're backpacking.

for future reference - all facebook albums will be linked to the F@head files via the strip of pink links you'll find in the sidebar on the right.  these take you directly to the complete collection of my most recent photos. 

changing view

spring has finally arrived and our world has been completely transformed.  this is the view from our room, and its various phases of metamorphosis.

well, blow me down

when you first get to korea, just about everything is new and different.  you spend most of your time people watching, gazing in awe at the countless examples of strangeness that ooze from every nook and cranny in this odd country.

once you've been here for a few months, the novelty wears off.  things that used to floor you, are now largely unnoticed.

you forget that it's not normal to drink beer from a plastic bottle.
you stop having to remind yourself to get toilet paper on your way out of the restaurant to the shared, public toilet.
it no longer strikes you as disgusting to have to throw used toilet paper into a bin, as opposed to flushing it down the bowl.

by now, forks and flattering female footwear are a distant memory.

so once you've reached this stage, it is both refreshing and surprising when you stumble upon something that still tickles the western cynic within.  for me, this topic of fascination and amusement has provided us with hours of hilarity.  and the funny thing is, it's not a joke.

if i told you that it was a cultural belief, you'd be hard pressed to find it polite to laugh about - right?  what if i told you that it is also afforded the reputation of taking many korean lives every year?  a recognised killer of the elderly and young.  it strikes in summer and leaves families traumatised is its wake of destruction.

not a laughing matter, you're thinking.
you'd be right.

until i told you that this ruthless killer was this guy:

fan death

i shit you not.  this is a real, medically accepted cause of death in korea.  no joke.

as the temperatures rise in the summer months, so too do the levels of fear and caution around this very dangerous appliance.  i'd love to tell you that the fatal blow ('scuse the pun) is a manufacturing fault that causes the fan to burst into flames, engulfing everyone and thing around it in a fatal explosion.  however, that would make too much sense.  instead, this killing machine uses a far more subtle method of slaughter.

to convince skeptical westerners of this phenomenon, koreans will provide one of the following explanations:

theory 1: when left on overnight in a sealed room, a fan creates a vortex, sucking all the oxygen from the room - hence leading to suffocation.

theory 2: the blades of a fan chop up the oxygen particles in the air, leaving none left for the sleeping victim to inhale.

theory 3: the fan itself somehow uses the oxygen in the air, as fuel - leaving dangerously high (fatal) levels of carbon dioxide in the air.

theory 4 (and my personal favourite): fans cause hypothermia.   now i don't know about you, but there are nights in africa where the temperatures are so unbearably high that i would pay good money for a fan effective enough to cause hypothermia.

i will forever treasure the look of utter perplexity, that the kids had the other day, when i shattered their worlds with one simple truth:

"did you know that no other people in the whole world have ever died from fan death?"

"but teacher ... why?"

"well, no one dies from fans anywhere else but in korea"

"haull" (annoying throat noise they make to indicate surprise)

"i don't know ... why do you think that is?"

blank blinking stares.

the belief in fan death is not an out-dated myth, held only by the inbred and village idiots.  no,no.  fan death is a medically accepted cause of death.  it is regularly reported on in the media.  well-educated, credible public figures acknowledge and fear it.

so serious is this matter, that the government-funded Korean Consumer Protection Board issued this public safety alert in 2006:

"If bodies are exposed to electric fans or air conditioners for too long, it causes [the] bodies to lose water and [causes] hypothermia. If directly in contact with [air current from] a fan, this could lead to death from [an] increase of carbon dioxide saturation concentration [sic] and decrease of oxygen concentration. The risks are higher for the elderly and patients with respiratory problems. From 2003 [to] 2005, a total of 20 cases were reported through the CISS involving asphyxiations caused by leaving electric fans and air conditioners on while sleeping. To prevent asphyxiation, timers should be set, wind direction should be rotated and doors should be left open."

to combat this crisis, all fans are sold with health warnings and switch-off timers.

a few weeks ago, a friend of ours was down with a very bad bout of the flu.  to counter her raging temperature, she slept with her fan on all night.  and to counter that, she kept her windows wide open.  she did this, not because she had bought into the myth - but rather to ensure that if she did peg in the night her death certificate would not be delivered to her welsh mother stating that her daughter had lost her fight for life, to a fan.

when i decided to write a post about fan death - i gave it a considerable think.  cultural differences are very often at the centre of a heated debate over here.  especially in the multicultural community we are in.  words and their meanings are often interpreted out of context.  offense is easily caused without intent.  being a westerner in korea, you have to be especially careful to not pass judgment and always be aware that somethings are neither wrong, nor right ... only different.

i could have approached this with more objectivity, yes.  i'll admit that it lacks a respectful tone.  but had i tried to present this matter to you in any nicer way, i couldn't have given it the ridicule it deserves.

63 years on

our team co-ordinator and friend is rather actively involved in a voluntary international outreach team who work tirelessly, to grow the awareness of the little-exposed issue of "comfort women".

in the asia-pacific war (1931-1945) an estimated 200 000 asian women (most of whom were korean) were forcefully recruited (through deception and kidnapping) into sexual slavery.  these women are / were known as comfort women and for many years, were held hostage, raped, abused, tortured and deprived of food and adequate medical care.

on sunday, we attended the screening of a documentary made about these women.  it was shown at this temple in insadong.

the juxtaposition of this peaceful sanctuary of worship and the disturbing personal accounts we heard, only made this issue even more deeply moving and frighteningly eye-opening.

such an atrocious part of history has, for decades, been kept a dark and sordid secret.  only decades after the war, one woman spoke out - exposing the harrowing truth about what had happened to her during those years.  it was the first time the world had heard of comfort women.   following this, other women (now well in their twilight years) have slowly come forward.

in korea,  220 former comfort women identified themselves - only 89 of these are still alive.

courtesy of www.houseofsharing.org

although these women were taken from all over asia, the majority were from here.  most of them were between the ages of 14 and 19.  comfort stations were established all over military routes - including bases in laos, cambodia, korea, vietnam, the philippines and many in china. 

they "serviced" japanese soldiers.

the documentary told the first-hand accounts of 5 of these women.  the halmonies (respectful korean term for "grandmothers") spoke of their sexual slavery - being raped day and night by soldier after soldier.

over and above the torment they had to endure during the war years, their stories continue beyond the end of the war. when it finally ended, these women were either massacred or abandoned.   left stranded in foreign lands, with no money, no identity papers, no means of communication, they had no possible hope of ever regaining the life that had been taken from then.  some were able to return to their homes, or remarry - but often they were rejected in shame and stigma, by their new husbands and families, once the truth of their wartime experiences emerged.

i had only heard very brief mention of the issue, prior to watching the screening - and as i my understanding if it grew in detail, it was an incredibly hard pill to swallow.  watching this documentary makes you feel so angry, sick to your stomach, passionate and helpless all at the same time. the reason for it's screening was to grow awareness of what happened.     

actually, to simply state that it did in fact happen in the first place.

to this day, the japanese government refuses to acknowledge its existence.  they offer no explanation for these women and their stories.  they deny any involvement in the abduction of these girls - despite documented proof that the comfort stations were the "brain child" of the japanese government (established as an initiative to control the spread of STD's amongst their troops).  it goes without saying that they also refuse to apologize, or include it in the historical textbooks ... seen as, according to them, "it never happened".

the house of sharing (which is a home for healing for some of the last-remaining survivors) dedicates it's time to supporting the women, both in care and activism.   every wednesday, volunteers and former comfort women hold a peaceful protest outside the japanese embassy in korea.  inside the house, there is also a public museum showcasing photographic and video evidence, documents and artefacts, as well as therapeutic artwork by the survivors.

in their protests, programmes and awareness events - they ask only that these war crimes be acknowledged by the japanese government.  63 years on, they have yet to receive a personal apology.  63 years on, the history books remain silent about this sickening truth.  63 years on, and the last remaining survivors (whose entire lives have been shattered, molded, determined and destroyed by this) - are the only, diminishing, voices who are brave enough to come forth and take on a powerful national government like japan's.

as a child of south africa - i only know a history that is filled with violation of human rights, protest, uprising and reconciliation.  to come to this seemingly "random" place, all the way "over there" on the other side of the world - and hear of human degradation of this magnitude is mind blowing.  why the hell doesn't the world know about this?  this was one war, in one part of the world. how many other wars have had similar comfort women systems - how many female lives have been shattered in their wakes? how many women are comforting soldiers right now?

the helpless feeling i mentioned earlier hasn't gone away.
but in a way, this post will help to grow awareness of these war crimes:    if you didn't know about comfort women three minutes ago - then at least you're one more person who does know now.

and that's important - not because you know something about what happened to those people, over there on the other side of the world.  but because this is living history.  this is part of our shared, world history.  and even though it's 63 years on,  it's not a past reality, but one of the present.

if the truth of this issue isn't spread across the globe, then we run the very real risk of it becoming a future reality too.

to learn about comfort women and the house of sharing, click here.

gallery for the technologically-challenged

my relationship with the interweb goes through different phases.  some weeks are blogging weeks.  some are facebook weeks. some are weeks when id' prefer to avoid the interweb all together (usually when the laptop comes down with a virus and i spend most of my time with a finger pressed down on the reset button).

last week was a facebook week, hence the lull in activity on the F@head files.  now, i realise that not everyone has access to this part of my virtual life (hi mom and dad). so, below is a series of links which you can click to access all of the albums i've posted since we've been here.

our first few days in south korea

the first fortnight

following this, the next two months 

exploring insadong, and the knife gallery

our lunar new year trip to gyeongju

snippy snaps of february

skiing in gohan

party nights in itaewon and gangnam

the SNET team

quiz nights with our team, "the social livers"

st paddy's celebrations

sabiha's visit

the last snow of winter

 

a pinch of old friendship

last year, when i told a work friend that i'd be resigning and moving to south korea, she immediately said that she'd make a plan to come via sk on her way to japan.  at the time i thought she was spicing (she does make one hell of a biriyani, afterall).  it turns out, she was entirely serious, and true to her word she popped in to see us last week.

the day she arrived, it snowed (obviously) and then pee'd down with rain for the next few days - but good ol' sabiha didn't let this get her down. 

we were working during the week so i recommended that she go visit gyeongju (you'll remember this post with the night ponds and tombs and temples?).   she spent a couple of days there, which she really enjoyed ... so i was rather relieved that i'd managed to point her in a worthwhile direction!

once she was back in the city, we managed to meet up with her in itaewon.

unfortunately for her, this was the weekend of  st. paddy's celebrations ... and you know that Fathead and i hate to party in irish pubs.     so, with the rain threatening to wash out the st.paddy parade, we dragged her to the smoke-filled wolfhound pub ... where she had to endure a full day of drunkard irishmen wrapped in their flags, painted face and green beer a-flowing.

despite the fact that sab's was surrounded by booze and no-halaal pub meals, she was her usual trooper self.  it was just like old times, back in the G2 bar after work ... ciggies and tipsy tales, wobbly old men and loud sing along tunes ...

the next day the sun made a guest appearance, and to repay sabs for her patience and tolerance of the irish debauchery she witnessed the night before, we took her for a daytime tour of our neck of the woods.

we started at snet with a tour of our palatial abode and the surrounding school.   she even got to ring the "forbidden bell" (apparently installed for purely ornamental reasons and to collect yellow dust) ...

then we went for a peaceful sunday stroll around yuldong park.  along with the sun, came a korean families in their hoards - with two wheelers, three wheelers, baby strollers, walking canes and traditional kites in tow.

look at me with my widdle fwuffy ears ... could i be any cuter?

...and then, of course ended up in the "city centre" where we dragged her ass into another pub - to join our team, the social livers for our weekly sunday quiz night at dublins.

it was a brief time with an old friend ...  and it felt as if we were saying goodbye to her as quickly as she had arrived.  still, it is amazing how someone's presence (albeit fleeting) can bring with it, a sense of home.

hiking in seohyeon

the area surrounding our school promises to be quite beautiful (once the snow faks off long enough for the trees to attempt some greenery).

we try (whenever it is humanly possible to withstand the outside temperatures) to explore our surroundings ... and have done a pretty good coverage of it, so far.

a few weeks back, (also read "a few snowfalls ago") we decided to make the best of the sunshine, and headed out to explore the mountains next to our school.

it was so good to be outdoors again - the crisp air cutting through our lungs, leg muscles burning.  walking through the trees, it's hard to believe that just a 5min taxi drive away, you'll be in the heart of seohyeon's city.  we are really lucky with our location here.

anyhoo, these were the first pics i took with my new camera - so although a hike isn't exactly post-worthy ... i had to make up some kind of excuse to share the virginal shots, right?

footie and minx

maya and Fathead

i tin ari

in the three months that we've been in south korea, we've managed to save our targeted amount (to date) and seem to be on track.  it's been pretty challenging - and at times we've had our wobbly days where all we've wanted to do is break out and indulge in something that would bring us a bit of home comfort.

so it's taken a considerable amount of self-restraint, partner-restraint, sacrifice and season's of how i met your mother to achieve our budgeted target. 

anyone considering an adventure like ours, should be warned that it's not all snowflakes and cherry blossoms:

our living environment is ... intimate ... to say the very least.  we sleep one floor above the 200-odd children that walk through our doors every week.  on either side of our 3 x 5m bedroom, lives another two people in their own 3 x 5m space.  the kitchen is four floors down, communal and lacks the general convenience of one's own kitchen. so for this reason, and to save a substantial amount on food costs, we eat in a canteen, along with our colleagues / friends / foes / neighbors / children / management - and not only is the food canteen-quality ... but it's korean-canteen-quality.

the days are long when we work a night shift - but most of the time we view this as a positive way to make the time pass faster.

if you're a whiskey lover, i've got some bad news for you: scotch is so expensive here that there is no way you could indulge your taste buds and save the money you need to.   you'll have to switch to the local "beer" which is ... alright ... if you like the taste of synthetic fibers.

if you enjoy a good steak ... i'm afraid there's more bad news on the way.   meat is fairly pricey here (compared to back home) and the "meat" in the "food" at the canteen is not the kind you're looking for.  trust me.

but all this aside, if you can suck it up for a few months - you can save the funds you need to.  and when you do that, you could do something like this:

the F@head itinery:

south east asia

 
on june 26th fly out of seoul to hanoi (flights booked and paid for).

during july, travel down the length of vietnam and by august, cross the border into the bottom of cambodia, and travel up the country for three weeks.

once at the top border, cross into laos. spend september exploring there, and then enter thailand from the top.  

** at some stage, meet up with Fathead's sister and family for their holiday. 

travel all the way through thailand for the next month and a half, then cross into malaysia around mid-november.

meet long lost friends from varsity in kuala lumpur and spend 10 days with them as you island hop from langkawi.   use the remainder of november to move through malaysia, cross the ocean to indonesia and end your south east asian tour in bali.

on the 10th december, catch a flight out from bali (flights booked and paid for), to sydney.  from there, road trip through aus (to brisbane) to spend december and christmas with the Fathead clan.

sound rad?

... yep, i thought so.