Venice, AFN, & Christians on Crusade

Seoul has a newly uncovered Venetian part of the city! Cheonggyecheon is a river that was covered during the Korean war by a road in order to make way for military equipment and whatnot to be brought in. The roadway was recently broken apart and the water beneath unveiled for a new, hip, touristy section of the city. It makes the businesses there more attractive and profitable, while they are sure to get rid of bums who are also attracted to the area. Have I mentioned that this country does not have good social programs for their poor? You’ll see them sleeping in the subway station, playing music as they walk through the train with a stick to tell them where they are going. It’s very sad, and you can’t take the “go to a home” attitude, because it isn’t quite that easy here.

I must give props to my students who are up with current affairs. They know their capitals and they even knew the American president! Maybe I shouldn’t be this impressed, but I hardly think that 90% of any classroom of elementary students in the states could name the president of another country. One of my students tonight had to make a sentence about someone he’d like to meet and why. He said his father, because he’s in Uzbekistan for work. I asked the rest of the class if they knew where Uzbek is, and everyone did! Remarkable!

My first “big” purchase after my first paycheck was a radio. I thought that I would be able to keep up with American music and in the event of something largely newsworthy when I don’t have a TV, this is my medium. I have found the American Forces Network (AFN) station, whose call name is the Eagle. It's not the official station of LSU sports, and the music isn’t all that great or always new (and there’s no country, which some would consider a benefit), but it’s in English and there are several different news reports, including CNN, and a weather report while I get ready in the mornings. Sufficiently exciting for my foreign-language-saturated environment. The commercials have very little variety, though. Some are funny: “Just your friendly local terrorist here thanking you for not shredding your mail. Now I know where...” and “Please turn in your library books on time. It saves paperwork and time...” Not that I want to hear a lot of advertisements, but I find myself getting weary of the same three incessantly replayed. Many of them apply to military and not to me! Not that I respond to radio ads anyway, but there’s one thing they talked about that I thought might be worth a trip over to the base if I could attend. Donald Rumsfeld will be in town on Friday. I’m not much into the life of Secretary of Defense, but I think it’s kinda cool that he’ll be in these parts. Yeah USA!

One other bit that I feel represents the US is all the Christian missionaries. They hand out tissues, flyers, play music in the subway stations, etc. On Saturdays, these guys are in full swing, complete with yellow sashes from shoulder to waist, Miss America style, bearing a red cross and some words I haven’t bothered to read. I went to meet Amy a few weeks ago at the War Memorial, and I was nearly knocked down by a man and a woman. I kid you not, the woman RAN after me! They had me fill out some questionnaire (full of leading and loaded questions, as I’m all too familiar with from Marketing Research/Statistics classes) even though I tried to tell tem to save their resources for someone who isn’t already Christian. I gave them my junk e-mail address after they insisted I not leave it blank. I checked it just the other day, and sure enough, they were recruiting me for one of their services, “Three hours time consuming.” I responded and said I’d like to attend an Episcopalian service, but after finding a list of churches here without my own on it, didn’t know where else to look to find my own and asked for their help. The guy writes back and gives me their schedule again with a time change. I tried again, knowing it was completely in vain. Since then, no response. Oh well, I don’t find out about my own church, but I get no more emails from them, either!

Copyright 2005 Olivia R. Reed