Saving energy...

In this time of economic crisis, the mayor of Seoul has announced that we'll be using natural energy to light our streets...

Korea Sparkling Flashing

Korea's altest ploy to lure foreign tourists is to open a nude beach. For me, it'd be a bit of pain to trek down to Jeju, so how about we have a unisex 목욕탕 in Seoul...

Apples and Oranges Blackberries

I suspect that Stafford will be having wet dreams tonight...

Now if only they'd start importing Granny Smith's apples for me...

We are top of the league...

After my last post about England lagging behind East Asia in maths and science league tables, I managed to find something else where we whip East Asia's arse...

Research suggests that British men and women are the most promiscuous in the Western world. They found that when it comes to one-night stands, numbers of partners and attitudes to casual sex, Britain leads the field, ahead of even liberal nations such as the Netherlands and the passionate Italians.

Not really something to be proud of I suppose but still first is first...

More than 14,000 people in 48 countries were asked to fill in questionnaires where they were quizzed about numbers of partners and one-night stands. Their attitudes were assessed by asking them how many people they expected to sleep with over the next five years and how comfortable they were with the idea of casual sex.

The results of the study were combined with an index of 'socio-sexuality' - a measure of how liberal people are when it comes to sex. Most people scored between four and 65, with higher scores showing more liberal approaches. In terms of countries, Finland had the highest rating with an average score of 52 and Taiwan the lowest with just 19.

Britain scored 40, placing it 11th overall, behind countries such as Latvia, Croatia and Slovenia - but it was highest among major Western industrial nations with a population of 10million or more.

No specific mention of Korea but it didn't make the top 15 of OECD nations listed in the report and I guess it's somewhere down by Taiwan...although I wonder if Korean results would be a reflection of the reality of Korean society. One might assume that female respondents may easily lie on the questionnaires and male respondents maybe visiting massage parlours but not considering it as casual sex...who knows. I did forward the article to James (it seemed right up his street) to see if he could dig up any info but I don't know whether he'll have time to get around to it.

Of course, many Koreans would have us believe that all you debauched, itinerant English teachers are doing your best to improve Korea's ranking...

To school or not to school...

Our son is due to start school after Christmas. We've decided to send him to the local primary because unfortunately I don't have the kind of ridiculous benefits package that a lot of expats get. My wife says we need to send him to some hakwons for two reasons. Firstly, some of the things he needs to know will not be taught in school and secondly, every other kid will be in hakwon so he'll have no friends if he doesn't go. Now, I'm of the opinion that hakwons can be ok if the kid is having fun while attending. If the kid is not enjoying learning English he'll just grow up resenting it and he'll not learn much so you'd be better off saving your money.

So, we're currently thinking of what if anything our son should do outside of school time. My wife suggests Art and Taekwondo. I suggested Cub Scouts but I'm having trouble conveying the concept to my wife and also finding out about any packs in Seoul.

People often ask me whether I'm worried about my son attending a local school. I have to say that, apart from the potential for unwarranted corporal punishment, I'm not particularly worried. Time will tell I suppose.

Anyhow, from the looks of this report, my son will at least be more competent than his English peers in maths and science. The report says that despite slowly improving scores in maths and science, English pupils still lag far behind those of East Asia.

Mind you, the Korean education system is widely regarded as being a form of living hell for the kids and so it is a bit worrying to see the Schools Secretray saying:

We have much to learn from their success and will continue to look closely at the education systems in the best of the best Asian economies.

However, it is not clear what these tests prove.

England's high ranking comes despite failure in an alternative league table published last year. In that study, 15-year-olds slumped in both mathematics and science.
Jim Knight, the Schools Minister, insisted last year's test was more focused on the application of knowledge, while the latest study concentrated on more traditional elements, such as geometry and algebra in maths.
It raises fears that pupils are skilled in basic sums but lack the ability to apply subjects to every day situations.

And that is a common criticism of Korean university students...

For all the trumpeting of the high standards of East Asian school systems, we have seen plenty of evidence that they a\have their own problems with the number of violent incidents and sexual assaults occurring in Japanese and Korean schools. However, these figures coming out of the UK are truly mind-boggling...

Official figures show 1,540 nursery pupils in England were handed fixed term exclusions over a 12-month period.

Almost 1,000 were suspending for attacking teachers and fellow pupils, while hundreds more were barred for verbal abuse and disruptive behaviour. A small number of children aged three and four were also kicked out for racism, sexual misconduct, theft and damage. Twenty children aged just two were suspended for physical or verbal assaults, it was revealed. According to figures, pupils aged five and six were suspended 3,370 times for attacking fellow pupils or staff. Forty infants were also removed from school due to "sexual misconduct" and more than 20 were suspended for racism.

WTF?!?!? Twenty 2 year old kids suspended for physical or verbal assaults? Forty infants expelled for sexual misconduct? Is an infant even capable of sexual misconduct? Is this ultra-pcness gone crazy or is it a breakdown in society?

Boobies, bad, penis worse...

Another bit of harmless fun...based on my posts in the past few weeks my blog is:

It seems to analyse the number of vowels and consonants and assigns each word and phrase a score accordingly. It then tries to derive ways of dividing each number by 7 and 13 to determine whether it is a good word or a bad word.... And it goes to the trouble of listing them all along with whether they fall on the side of 7 or 13...

Here are some examples of the innate goodness/evilness of words found on my blog:

Value of word "lao" 91 91=7x13 91=13x7
- Yikes! Better watch out for Lao-Ocean Girl, she's bad!
Value of word "birthday" 1014 1014=13x13x6
- It obviously knows that all my fun birthdays are behind me...
Value of word "fun" 356 3+5+6=14=7x2
- Someone should tell Korean mothers that fun is good...
Value of word "lefties" 355 3+5+5=13
- OK, now I think there's a bug in the programme. I mean, sure, Hitler and Stalin aren't the best examples of decent lefties but we're not all like that...
Value of word "righties" 428 4+2+8=14=7x2
- Typical...you righties will try anything to keep us down...
Value of word "swfc" 609 609=7x87
- Ah yes, the owls are almost all good...

Now what about the blades??
Value of word "sufc" 409 4+0+9=13
- Could you get any more evil than that? It's a straight 13, doesn't even need any manipulation...99% evil

Value of word "england" 147 147=7x7x3
- Well, generally good although many citizens would tell you different...
Value of word "korea" 176 1+7+6=14=7x2
- Also quite good

Of course I then used my about 4% of my evilness to scroll through and pick out rude words:

Value of phrase "hey motherfucker, move your fucking vehicle, you're blocking the fucking junction you stupid fuckwit." 9457 9457=7x7x193
- Swearing good...
Value of phrase "fuck." 329 329=7x47 3+2+9=14=7x2
- Swearing still good
Value of word "abortions" 572 5+7+2=14=7x2 572=13x44
- Abortion could be good or bad
Value of word "sexual" 1036 1036=7x148
- Sexual good (although it didn't find sex at all)

Finally I used my remaining 30% of evilness to input other rude words directly into the website using the search text function:

Value of word "Mother-in-Law" 993 9+9+3=21=7x3
- 99% Good? You've obviously never met mine...
Value of word "boobies" 238 238= 2+3+8=13
- What? How can this be? How can boobies be bad? Quick change the spelling...
Value of word "boobs" 224 224=7x32
- OK, my world view is restored...for a moment it was if someone had told me Father Christmas isn't real...

And now the last two...avoid if you're of a nervous disposition...
Firstly, the worst word in the english language
Hmmm...only 74% evil
What about a male equivalent?

What? 99% evil? It must be good for something...

A man after my own heart...

The traffic in Seoul is a lot better nowadays than it used to be. However, in my opinion it could be a lot better still because I think a fair few of the traffic problems are caused by selfish drivers being caught in the middle of junctions when the lights change (ever heard of box junctions??). There are quite a few hot spots like this including the South West corner of the Express Bus Terminal (avoid the road between Seocho Station and Express Bus Terminal at all costs on the weekend). I was in the area today and noticed one of those traffic greeters working at the Songmo Hospital just beneath the Bus Terminal. His job was to enable South-bound traffic to turn left across the North-bound traffic to enter the hospital and to enable traffic leaving the hospital to turn left out of the hospital across the North-bound traffic to heard South.

Although he was not one of those ornamental greeters whose sole job is to welcome you to the store or wish you farewell, I still kind of expected him to give a nice pleasant greeting. Instead I was assailed by a stream of invective against any Northbound vehicle that was blocking the hospital junction when the lights changed.

Hey Motherfucker, move your fucking vehicle, you're blocking the fucking junction you stupid fuckwit.

It didn't half work though and he kept a good stream of sick people entering the hospital.

I still think that each junction should be a giant set of trapdoors and when the lights change the trapdoors open and any fuckwit that is still on the junction is immediately sent to a gruesome death...

Catch up: Regret of the Year...

My biggest regret of this year has to be my failure to make the most of the quarterly Hi Seoul Festivals (website on the blink right now?).
I completely missed the Spring one (I forgot). The Summer one offered a rather entertaining programme, to which I took the wife and kids but which was pretty much rained off the day we went. The Autumn one I was away for and I'm not sure what the dates will be for the Winter one.
Anyway, here's a rundown of the Summer one to entice you to attend next year. The first event was the Inaugural Han River Birdman Contest (offering $100,000 to anyone managing to cross the Han River). I actually umm'd and ahh'd with some colleagues for a couple of weeks about whether to enter or not (we figured it might be relatively easy to win a prize in the first one) until we finally missed the deadline.
Hope this guy wasn't pinning his hopes on the $100k for sending his kids to college as he pretty much dropped like a stone from there...
The evening included a JCV ballet with characters such as this... and the other evening event was some kind of aerial ballet/acrobatic concert which was pretty much abandoned as it was too dangerous for the musicians to be playing electronic instruments while suspended 20 feet in the air in a thunder storm...the first few minutes looked great though...I'd advise you to bookmark the website (if it ever starts working again) and check out the wide range of events they have on each quarter.

July catch up: Dubai

Towards the end of July I went to Dubai for a week on business. I managed to grab a day during the week to actually see a few of the sites. Dubai is a bit of a strange place. During the daytime it looks like a giant building site (which I suppose is in truth what it is) yet at night it looks quite pretty. During the day it is very dusty and hot (although not as bad as I expected) and at night the dust is less noticeable but the heat is not.

Dubai: like an ugly girl, not bad-looking in the pitch black...
I got to the see the original 7 star hotel...
I got to see the partially constructed tallest building in the world (note the yellow dust)...
I managed a quick dash out to the desert...
and realised that although my point and shoot camera is quite good, sometimes it just can't handle what I want to do...eg. trying to take a photo of sand blowing of the ridge of the dune...
Watch out mate!!
Finally, I even managed to squeeze in a few hours on the slopes...
Although if you're any good at skiing, then Ski Dubai is really only good for the novelty value of saying you've been...

July Catch up: Korea

A review of photos taken in July reveals that we don't appear to have done much at all. The highlight was taking the kids to a collection of bouncy castles in Ilsan. This was great for me cos I could indulge my inner child while pretending that I was just being a fun dad...

Not me...
Trying out some camera trickery...

Holiday! Celebrate!

Madonna once sang

If we took a holiday,
some time to celebrate,
just one day out of life,
it would be so nice

and I'm sure we all echo that sentiment. Well unfortunately we're going to be doing a lot less celebrating in 2009.
Whereas this year we enjoyed 11 mid-week bank holidays, next year we'll only have 6 as five of them (March 1 Independence Movement Day, Buddha’s Birthday, Memorial Day, Independence Day and National Foundation Day) will be on either a Saturday or Sunday in 2009. Moreover, one day each of Lunar New Year and Chuseok will be over the weekend so you miss out there if your company is not in the habit of giving you an extra day instead. Finally, Chuseok coincides with National Foundation Day although since both are on a Saturday, we're not really missing out any further. Anyhow, don't be looking to book that long weekend to South East Asia cos you probably won't have any long weekends....

Catch up: June 2008...

June, for me, was sandwiched by a trip to the UK at either end as I flew the kids back to spend a month with the Grandparents and then went to collect them. I was lucky enough to be able to schedule a couple of meetings on the first trip to grab a couple of days break but the return trip I was out of the country for only 65 hours with 25% spent flying to England, 50% being in the UK and 25% flying back to Korea. And my 30 odd hours in the UK included 2 nights.

Anyway...some photos (click each photo for larger versions):
Somewhere over Russia and someone's in my seat!!!

Just enough time to eat a couple of meals and take in a sunset...

...then back to Korea for our monthly hike in the mountains.

Went to see Korea again and regretted it again...

and got back from England for the second time just in time to celebrate my birthday.

Vot a load of Vank...

A german company has produced a map where place names are displayed in the English translation of the original etymological meaning of the name. However, they're likely to get in trouble with VANK for they have translated the sea to the East of Korea as "Sea of the Sun's Origin" and they have left Dokdo off altogether. The places from Korea that do make it to the map are Capital (Seoul), Mount Cauldron (Busan) and Land of the High Serenity for Korea itself.


I expect VANK to use the Land of the High Serenity's superfast "between mesh" to do some damage to the atlas-maker's "woven fabric place"...

Catch up part one of ??

Scanning through my archives I noticed that I pretty much stopped blogging in May and so over the next few days or weeks I'll make a few posts so you can catch up with everything I've done in the past six months...

At the end of May I went to the Philippines on business. We were quite busy so I see that I only have pictures of sunsets...(click on the photo for a larger version)


Tomorrow, back to the UK.

World! Stop discriminating against me...

In these days of equal opportunity and political correctness whereby everything must be done so as not to discriminate against minorities, physically handicapped and any other disadvantaged party I have often wondered why nothing is done to alleviate the plight of lefties.

Not only do we have to suffer years of taunting about being left-handed but we continually have to use equipment which is set up for right-handers. From scissors to school desks to sports equipment everything is geared for optimum use by a right-hander. I used to suck at video games when i was a kid be cause the controllers required you to hit buttons quickly for an extended period of time or in a complex combination and those buttons were always on the right-hand side. My highly tuned left hand was used for nothing more than steering. Last week I went bowling and after bowling three frames I had three crap scores and severe pain in my left hand from the awkward position my fingers had to take to bowl the damn ball.

I could go on and on but I'm sure you get the point...suffice to say that when I'm ruler of the world, you righties had better watch out.

Rough Justice...

There has been outrage in the Korean blogosphere this week about the fact that a court in Cheongju gave suspended jail sentences to family members who repeatedly raped a handicapped girl in their care over a period of 7 years. There were two major points of disgust, namely that the sentences appears to have been suspended due to the advanced ages of some of the defendants but mainly because the girl cannot look after herself and will need the continuing care of her rapists.

The court acknowledged that their crime was "sinful" as they used the young girl, who is their family member, to satisfy their sexual desires. But it gave the suspended terms, saying, "The accused have fostered the girl in her parents' place. Considering her disability, she will also need their care and help in living in the future." The court added it took the accused people's old age and illness into consideration.

To my mind this beggars belief but i was also wondering if my perception of what should coincides with what actually happens in my own country...unfortunately there was a similar case that hit the news in the UK this week which enabled direct comparisons.

In this case a 56 year old man was found to have made his two daughters pregnant 19 times over a period of 25 years. Between them they gave birth to nine of his grandchildren, two of whom died at birth, and suffered five miscarriages and five abortions. He was given 25 life-sentences for his crimes, although this only translates into a minimum sentence of 19.5 years (hardly life). The case was summed up by the judge as follows:

"I can say that in nearly 40 years of dealing with criminal cases and 14 as a family judge the combination of aggravating circumstances here is the worst I have come across. I have little doubt that many members of the public hearing the facts of this case will consider either you should never be released from prison or only when you are old and infirm. I agree with that view."

Of course, my impression, from the limited media coverage of the Korean case that I've seen, is that the outcry relates to the sentencing itself, rather than the heinousness of the crime whereas in the UK, there are mutterings about a relatively light sentence and a lot of outcry about how he could have got away with it for so long and so overtly without anyone noticing; the difference I suppose between thinking that you have a decent social security system and knowing that you do not.

Mind you, before I start patting myself on the back for coming from a country with an enlightened attitude towards sentencing criminals, I feel obliged to point out this article showing the asinine treatment of a thief and his boss who made a citizen's arrest. The boss and some fellow workers who marched a thieving worker to a police station with a placard round his neck have been charged with false imprisonment. Yet the criminal himself has escaped with just a slap on the wrist in the form of a police caution. Even the thief has expressed surprise that the men had been arrested, admitting: ‘I’m the criminal here.’

So as we continue to search for the ideal criminal justice system, perhaps we should consider that of Iran.

A jealous lover who blinded a woman with acid is also to be blinded with acid under the country's Islamic law. A 27-year-old named only as Majid confessed to attacking Amenah Bahrami in 2004 to dissuade anyone from marrying the woman he loved. Wednesday's ruling was issued based on the Islamic law system of 'qisas,' or eye for an eye retribution.

Of course, if prison dramas are to be believed then the UK man will receive his own version of 'qisas' as he spends the 19.5 years of his prison sentence being raped as somebody's prison bitch...