Anyway, now that the rains have stopped, the humidity now soars and the cicadas (pictured) chirr from the trees. When the humidity goes up, so does their volume and lately I've noticed the shrieking chirr, much louder than the chirr of cicadas in the northern states, has started as early as 5:30 a.m. Yes, it's blazing! But exercise is needed so in the early a.m. before kids and drunk old men populate the riverside walks, I strap on my rollerblades and fly along the paved paths, feeling the rush of wind and adrenaline. Zipping along, I made a strange discovery. Some trees along the path would be loud with chirring and others silent, so I started paying some attention to the reasons for the crescendos and gaps of silence. It seems that cicadas don't chirr, and perhaps don't populate, the acacia trees [not the stickery acacia trees common to Africa but the acacia trees that trail white lupine-like blooms with heavenly perfume for 10 glorious days in the spring]. Poplars and pines are favorites as well as a unknown specie of gum tree. The chirr of the cicadas has become such a comforting sound that I associate it with Korea, but unfortunately, I also associate it with a climbing and unpleasant level of humidity.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Cicadas and Humidity
The summer has been staggeringly hot, well, when it wasn't raining and it sure has rained too much this particular summer. It's rained so much in fact that Seoul made international news for flooding within the city, but almost 2 months of nearly non-stop rain is a bit much. However, I might add that the rain wasn't quite as bad as 2 years ago when the rivers flooded to overflowing and walking and bike trails paralleling the rivers completely disappeared. At least there were intermittent days this year when the sun would peep through and which allowed the waters to not back-up so badly. Housing in the low level areas were the ones badly affected again with homes being flooded and foundations being undermined causing structures to collapse or mudslides to appear where mudslides were not known to be.
Anyway, now that the rains have stopped, the humidity now soars and the cicadas (pictured) chirr from the trees. When the humidity goes up, so does their volume and lately I've noticed the shrieking chirr, much louder than the chirr of cicadas in the northern states, has started as early as 5:30 a.m. Yes, it's blazing! But exercise is needed so in the early a.m. before kids and drunk old men populate the riverside walks, I strap on my rollerblades and fly along the paved paths, feeling the rush of wind and adrenaline. Zipping along, I made a strange discovery. Some trees along the path would be loud with chirring and others silent, so I started paying some attention to the reasons for the crescendos and gaps of silence. It seems that cicadas don't chirr, and perhaps don't populate, the acacia trees [not the stickery acacia trees common to Africa but the acacia trees that trail white lupine-like blooms with heavenly perfume for 10 glorious days in the spring]. Poplars and pines are favorites as well as a unknown specie of gum tree. The chirr of the cicadas has become such a comforting sound that I associate it with Korea, but unfortunately, I also associate it with a climbing and unpleasant level of humidity.
Anyway, now that the rains have stopped, the humidity now soars and the cicadas (pictured) chirr from the trees. When the humidity goes up, so does their volume and lately I've noticed the shrieking chirr, much louder than the chirr of cicadas in the northern states, has started as early as 5:30 a.m. Yes, it's blazing! But exercise is needed so in the early a.m. before kids and drunk old men populate the riverside walks, I strap on my rollerblades and fly along the paved paths, feeling the rush of wind and adrenaline. Zipping along, I made a strange discovery. Some trees along the path would be loud with chirring and others silent, so I started paying some attention to the reasons for the crescendos and gaps of silence. It seems that cicadas don't chirr, and perhaps don't populate, the acacia trees [not the stickery acacia trees common to Africa but the acacia trees that trail white lupine-like blooms with heavenly perfume for 10 glorious days in the spring]. Poplars and pines are favorites as well as a unknown specie of gum tree. The chirr of the cicadas has become such a comforting sound that I associate it with Korea, but unfortunately, I also associate it with a climbing and unpleasant level of humidity.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Apt Complex Roof Repairs
My cat was fascinated by the movement on the rooves in my apartment complex and would daily watch the roof tile repairmen as they migrated from building to building overhauling the rooves: removing old tiles and shingles, retarring and then reshingling. They worked either before or after teams of painters came in, rigged up long ropes and descending over the sides of the buildings for giving the complex a whole new look. They painted over the tired wintry colors popular in the last couple of decades and put on a fresh autumn color scheme.The painters were fast, team painting an entire building in about 2 days. There were the spray painters [they must have terrible lungs and carpal tunnel from breathing in all that continuous spray and repetitively squeezing the spray nozzle for hours on end.] My cat especially loved these guys because they would swing to and fro lowering themselves slightly with every other pass, repetitive movements that cats who have all the classic symptoms of autism love. Following the spray painters were guys descending on ropes also but they didn't swing so rhythmically back and forth but instead had several sizes of paint brushes fixed to them or their bucket and they would touch up the edges around the windows if needed and make the perpendicular lines as straight as possible.
For days and days, instead of watching and cackling at pigeons on the distant rooves, the cat supervised the movements of the men. The roofers had no safety ropes and I couldn't help but wonder how much their life insurance policies would cost, especially as they cat-walked on the slanted roof tops 20 to 25 stories above the earth.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Several weeks later:
A friend just told me that the government has "suggested" (in Korean, 'suggested' but in English 'required') certain color schemes in construction with the overall attempt of "beautifying Seoul" and making it look harmonious, kind of like living in the familiar environs of a single organism wherever you may live in the great metropolitan city.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
The Japanese and Indicators of Social Change
Dr. Karl Moskowitz gave an exceedingly informative presentation on the Japanese occupation of 35 years and the resulting Japanese influence on Korean society. As he puts it, the colonial period raised two, if not three, generations of Koreans and current cultural change and social practices are not as homogenously Korean as Koreans would like to believe. In his lecture, he explores some of the rites of passage that the nation underwent during the 35 years of colonization. With authority he speaks. He received a PhD in History and East Asian Languages, Harvard and has particular interest in Korean and Japanese modern history. {Lecture given November 9, 2010 at the Royal Asiatic Society}
Colonial Period (1910~1945)
Population Statistics
Population in 1910 was 13,300,000 according to police records, which were consistently undercounted, e.g. people didn't register their babies for a couple or years. Other indicators show that perhaps the population was 15,300,000 in addition to some Japanese and a Chinese minority (based on a census). At this time there was no displaced diaspora excepting the 2 boat loads of Koreans who had gone to work in the sugar cane fields of Hawaii some time between 1903~1905. And of this 15 million population, only 3~4% were urban (including the Japanese), concentrated in Seoul, Daegu, and the ports. Kwangju and Daejeon did not as yet exist.
Control Policies (1910~1919)
Early in the occupancy, Japanese brought Japanese farmers to Korea (on the premise that Korea did not have enough population for agricultural labor), but then the Japanese went into "control mode" and became landlords and so rented land out to the Koreans. However, the March 1st Movement in 1919 made it clear that the control policy in Korea was failing.
Agricultural Policies (1920~1935)
Rice inflation in Japan had resulted in the infamous Rice Riot of 1918, and with the Japanese political need to bring more rice into Japan, policies overseas (particularly in Korea and Taiwan) were made for rice production. Rice policies in Korea included the making of small dams and irrigation systems; improving seeds for production; teaching more productive ways to cultivate and produce rice; the making and use of fertilizers; investment into land (e.g. in the 1920s, claiming land on the western coast). As rice became cheaper, the market prices determined in Osaka kind of collapsed, and so investments were then expanded to the sardine industry for making fertilizer to take back to Japan. Economic stimulation was necessary and the production of fibers to stimulate the economy became evident in the slogan "cotton in the south and wool in the north".
The occupational structure in 1920 was 87% agricultural, 6% commerce, and 2% public/professional (these numbers need to be read with caution - see comment near end on interpreting numbers).
Industrial Policies (1927~...)
1927 is the pivotal year for agricultural production with the completion of a fertilizer plant in (North) Korea, soon followed by the creation of the Chosin Reservoir also in the north. In 1931 the staged Manchurian Incident which fueled the Japanese to take control and form a puppet government in Manchuria resulted in upping the exploitation of its other colonies, particularly Korea to provide natural resources, fibers, rice, etc to fund further expansionism.
War Mobilization Policies (1937~...)
By 1930 Korea had become a mixed economy, no longer completely dependent on its agriculture, which had declined by 30%. An increasing push was for industrial development, and the Japanese were mobilizing manufacturing to support its Manchurian war front. In 1942, super mobilization began with most of Korea's production being exported leaving Koreans to eek out a minimal living in many places.
In 1938, the occupational structure had greatly changed from when Japan first began to occupy the colonies. Korean mixed economy comprised 76% agriculture, 6.5% commerce, 4% mining and industry, and 3% public/professional. Again read these numbers with caution as they reflect an interpretation which could be interpreted quite differently at present if we could know how the data was collected, interpreted and categorized. In 1940, 14% of the population was urban (urban meaning that 15,000 people or more occupied a town).
Korea and Koreans in 1945
Population in 1945 was 26,500,000 plus 500,000 Chinese and 2,200,000 Japanese (a number which had tripled in 35 years of colonialization). 100,000 Koreans were in Manchuria as economic and political refugees, for pursuing occupations, and as military conscripts who had been drafted (or volunteered) into the Japanese military.
Political Memories
Two particularly sensitive periods concerning fellow Koreans rankled among the larger Korean community as resulted by Japanese occupancy. The first occurred roughly between 1905 and 1910 when "traitor" Koreans sold the country. Those Koreans were progressives who either got dragged in with the Japanese or who were out for their own personal gain. The second group cropped up from the mid-1930s onward and were the Koreans who were mixed in economically with the Japanese as overseers, employees, etc. These were also traitors and were feared and hated and yet envied, those conflicting emotions being strangely entwined.
Colonial Period (1910~1945)
Population Statistics
Population in 1910 was 13,300,000 according to police records, which were consistently undercounted, e.g. people didn't register their babies for a couple or years. Other indicators show that perhaps the population was 15,300,000 in addition to some Japanese and a Chinese minority (based on a census). At this time there was no displaced diaspora excepting the 2 boat loads of Koreans who had gone to work in the sugar cane fields of Hawaii some time between 1903~1905. And of this 15 million population, only 3~4% were urban (including the Japanese), concentrated in Seoul, Daegu, and the ports. Kwangju and Daejeon did not as yet exist.
Control Policies (1910~1919)
Early in the occupancy, Japanese brought Japanese farmers to Korea (on the premise that Korea did not have enough population for agricultural labor), but then the Japanese went into "control mode" and became landlords and so rented land out to the Koreans. However, the March 1st Movement in 1919 made it clear that the control policy in Korea was failing.
Agricultural Policies (1920~1935)
Rice inflation in Japan had resulted in the infamous Rice Riot of 1918, and with the Japanese political need to bring more rice into Japan, policies overseas (particularly in Korea and Taiwan) were made for rice production. Rice policies in Korea included the making of small dams and irrigation systems; improving seeds for production; teaching more productive ways to cultivate and produce rice; the making and use of fertilizers; investment into land (e.g. in the 1920s, claiming land on the western coast). As rice became cheaper, the market prices determined in Osaka kind of collapsed, and so investments were then expanded to the sardine industry for making fertilizer to take back to Japan. Economic stimulation was necessary and the production of fibers to stimulate the economy became evident in the slogan "cotton in the south and wool in the north".
The occupational structure in 1920 was 87% agricultural, 6% commerce, and 2% public/professional (these numbers need to be read with caution - see comment near end on interpreting numbers).
Industrial Policies (1927~...)
1927 is the pivotal year for agricultural production with the completion of a fertilizer plant in (North) Korea, soon followed by the creation of the Chosin Reservoir also in the north. In 1931 the staged Manchurian Incident which fueled the Japanese to take control and form a puppet government in Manchuria resulted in upping the exploitation of its other colonies, particularly Korea to provide natural resources, fibers, rice, etc to fund further expansionism.
War Mobilization Policies (1937~...)
By 1930 Korea had become a mixed economy, no longer completely dependent on its agriculture, which had declined by 30%. An increasing push was for industrial development, and the Japanese were mobilizing manufacturing to support its Manchurian war front. In 1942, super mobilization began with most of Korea's production being exported leaving Koreans to eek out a minimal living in many places.
In 1938, the occupational structure had greatly changed from when Japan first began to occupy the colonies. Korean mixed economy comprised 76% agriculture, 6.5% commerce, 4% mining and industry, and 3% public/professional. Again read these numbers with caution as they reflect an interpretation which could be interpreted quite differently at present if we could know how the data was collected, interpreted and categorized. In 1940, 14% of the population was urban (urban meaning that 15,000 people or more occupied a town).
Korea and Koreans in 1945
Population in 1945 was 26,500,000 plus 500,000 Chinese and 2,200,000 Japanese (a number which had tripled in 35 years of colonialization). 100,000 Koreans were in Manchuria as economic and political refugees, for pursuing occupations, and as military conscripts who had been drafted (or volunteered) into the Japanese military.
Political Memories
Two particularly sensitive periods concerning fellow Koreans rankled among the larger Korean community as resulted by Japanese occupancy. The first occurred roughly between 1905 and 1910 when "traitor" Koreans sold the country. Those Koreans were progressives who either got dragged in with the Japanese or who were out for their own personal gain. The second group cropped up from the mid-1930s onward and were the Koreans who were mixed in economically with the Japanese as overseers, employees, etc. These were also traitors and were feared and hated and yet envied, those conflicting emotions being strangely entwined.
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