Clayton McNeil

(1) Ok, at first I thought I was either homesick or paranoid, but now I’m pretty sure that a large part of Korea’s music industry involves copying American music. I don’t mean importing it (although they do that too), I mean copying it. I first recognized this in passing. For some reason, a lot of the music seemed familiar to me. I kept swearing I knew the song but couldn’t quite place. I eventually chalked this up to the fact that most pop music is structurally similar anyway. Then it happened. I was in the E-mart and a song started playing. I knew I knew it. I began bobbing my head and just when I was about to let out the first verse, damn it if the singing wasn’t in Korean! I’ve since notice that many signature tunes have been either been translated to or redone with Korean lyrics.

The other thing I find funny is how they stick random English choruses into songs. A popular one now has the phrase ‘lolly, lolly, lollypop’ right in the middle. I have no idea what the song is really about. This isn’t an isolated occurrence either, many songs do it. Call me a conspiracy theorists, but this sort of goes along with my thought that the English in many of the signs are more for exposing Koreans to English than providing English speakers with information (I base this off the observation that they always translate the most obvious word. For instance a a bag of potatoes chips will have a picture of a potatoes on it and the word, but not anything useful the flavor).

I have to admit, Korean’s also like their American music straight-up, although I’m not always sure they know what the words mean. I’m reminded of a time I was at the store and a Boys2Men song came on about being ‘loving’ with your special someone. Great song, just a little out of place for the toy section I thought.

(2) With the expectation of returning home in the next couple weeks, I’ve turned my attention to wrapping up loose ends. The last major hurdle was the HLMC tutorial which is now complete and fully available. I now need to collect all the work we’ve done in the last six months and start archiving it.

(3&4) A common thread running through most of my conversations with Koreans speaking Korean is I’m in the position of needing something. Whether it’s ordering food, telling a Taxi driver where to go, or just asking a general question, I’m usually the one making the request and that tends to add a bit more stress to the situation. Recently, I was in the opposite position though. While cooking in the kitchen (which is coin operated), a Korean student came up to me holding a bunch of 500 Wan coins. I could see the awkwardness in his face and immediately felt a pang of sympathy. Even though I initially thought he wanted change, it took me a moment to confirm that and explain that I had to go upstairs and get it. What I found most fascinating about the exchange was I didn’t feel the initial stress I usually get when someone starts talking to me in Korean. Reflecting upon that, I’ve noticed I’m feeling it less and less in general. Anyway, I was happy to help and it was clear the guy was grateful, so much that he stopped me in the hall today to say thank you again.

(1) Many in Korea are mourning the death of Kim Dae Jung, the former South Korean President known for his ‘sunshine’ policy when dealing with the North. While his passing is very unfortunate for many reasons, it presented an opportunity for me to learn a little bit about his very interesting background. It also exposed another perspective of the conflict between the Koreas.

Prior to becoming president, Kim Dae Jung led a life of opposition to the threat of military rule in South Korea. His opinions forced him to overcome many struggles: arrests, prison, beatings, kidnapping and multiple assassination attempts (at least one of which was only narrowly averted by US pressure). Through all this, he managed to be elected president after three previously failed attempts.

In 2000, he became the first and only South Korean to win the Nobel Peace prize for his work in bringing the two Koreans together. His approach involved fostering cooperation wherever possible and often resulted in the South providing unconditional humanitarian aid. This led to warmer relations, although the degree of this warmth is apparently disputed by critics.

Interestingly though, this policy more or less continued until the current president, Lee Myung-bak, took office in 2008. Rather than providing unconditional aid to North Korea, Lee Myung-bak has taken a much harder stance by requiring the North to give up its nuclear weapons program.

Lacking much of the historical and political context needed to really evaluate these policies, I don’t think I’m qualified to comment on how appropriate either is/was. But in all fairness, I will say this. The North isn’t in great shape economically, and I’m sure it knows it. I’m also sure that its leaders have more than a touch of pride. So although they need assistance, when it comes with a bunch of strings attached it becomes less and less attractive. It also causes them to grab even more tightly to the one equalizer they think they have – nuclear weapons. It would seem with the sunshine policy, the North saves a little bit of face by ‘choosing’ when to disarm.

Does that mean they should resort back to that policy? I’m not sure. Some of the critisms I’ve read, such that it reinforces Kim Jong-il’s regime, make sense. Regardless, there defiantly seems to be an emotional component to this conflict that needs to be addressed. As I mentioned in my previous post, a strategy calling for the North to use nuclear weapons isn’t one built on rational thinking. Therefore, a response which requires them to act rationally may or may not work so well.

On a slightly different note, but defiantly related, there have been reports that the North and the South are resuming discussions about arranging reunions for families separated by the Korean Ware. I submit this as another example of things not being as bad as they might appear.

(2) I’m presently wrapping up the HMLC tutorial I’ve been working on. All the sections are written and its now just a matter of converting it to HTML (I still do this by hand for some reason. Would you believe me if I said I found it therapeutic?) At the moment though, I’m pretty happy with the finished product overall.

(1) Early last week, former President Clinton traveled to North Korea to secure the release of two American journalists that were arrested some five months ago and subsequently convicted of espionage and sentenced to twelve years of hard labor. Less than a day after his arrival, North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Ill, pardoned the journalists and they were boarding a plane to come home. While this is a great outcome for what was sure to have been a terrible ordeal, the speed at which it occurred seems a bit inconsistent with North Korea’s tone and actions as of recent. Or is it?

Over the last several months, North Korea has pulled out of international talks and fired several missiles without regard to warnings from other countries. It has even gone so far as far as to threaten South Korea and America with something akin to total destruction. And after all this, we see Kim Jong Ill is all smiles in this photo with Bill Clinton.

There were reports that discussions between the US and North Korea had been underway for weeks and that Clinton was more of a representative figure sent there to bring them back than a negotiator. Interestingly, North Korean news agencies were reporting that Clinton carried a message from Obama to Kim Jong Ill and the two had ‘exhaustive’ negotiations. So what’s going on? Politics and propaganda of course!

The fact of the matter is that North Korea doesn’t have a whole lot to gain by nuking anyone. In a worst (or best, depending on the point of view) case scenario, they might be able to fire a few nuclear weapons before a retaliation strike they could not possibly defend against was launched. They might destroy South Korea or a part of the Hawaii (the possibility of the latter being far less likely), but in doing so they would undoubtedly seal their fate.

That said, any time a nation threatens such action and has the potential capability to carry it, they should be taken seriously. It this point that North Korea is seeking to exploit. Because the country possess so little in the way of economic or scientific merit at the moment, their solution to bolstering their relevance is with the threat of using nuclear weapons. However, because their intention is not really to blow anything up, once they receive the attention they desire they are suddenly all smiles and run with it in their news.

My reasons for bringing all this up is to show that fear is powerful and history is full of those willing to exploit it for personal and political gain. I’m not suggesting that North Korea should be ignored or taken with a grain of salt, but I do know that there are those who are far more terrified at the prospect of North Korea taking over the world than is reasonable. As someone who has spent the last few months walking among the citizens of South Korea, I can honestly say I’m not afraid; and there’s a decent chance you shouldn’t be either.

(2) The first three sections of my Hubo Lab Motor Controller tutorial are now posted. We have been able to successfully connector a motor to a board and get it to spin, so the next step is to go through and boil down the code to the bare essentials for use in the tutorial. Hopefully, that will only take a day or so (knock on wood) and another section of the tutorial can be pushed out by the end of the week.

(3 & 4) After years of only infrequently shooting hoops in my driveway, I somehow found my way into a full court game of basket ball with a group Koreans. Although I didn’t completely fail, it was clear that I was out of practice and a little out of shape. As I was sucking air in between possessions, I did learn a very interesting thing about Koreans - they aren’t above trash talking and in English at that (they also like cursing in English too, but that’s a different story).