Clock Teacher

Ladies and Gentlemen...behold....the thesis.

 

     

Well it is finally done.  116 pages.  Two years in the making.  All the research, writing, discussions that I have been doing and honestly I have mixed feelings.  I say that because I know it could be better, but I also know it is way beyond good enough.  I have a bit of separation anxiety.  I'm glad it's done but I don't want to finalize it.  I know it could be better.  Part of the the issue for me is the confines of a thesis.  There were many directions that I wanted to go, aspects that I wanted to explore, but I needed to stay on scope.  My review committee was an amazing experience.  I knew I was going to pass, but what I wanted most...I got: the respect of my professors.  It meant so much to me to feel like I could talk at their level, bring up points that they hadn't thought of, and defend my ideas with confidence and precision. When Linda and Grace were here I took them to Changdeokgung, which for centuries was the main palace of Chosun Korea.  When you visit the palace, you are required to have a guide.  I visited the palace once before (see the pics here).  This time, I could have given the tour.  Our tour guide was very impressed, but for me, it was also amazing at how alive the place felt, because now I knew so much more of what actually happened there.  For better or worse, no matter how much I end up applying it in life, it feels really good to really know a lot about something, and have that be recognized, and to write really long run-on sentences, that feels nice too. 

So a big thanks to everyone that helped me out, it was an incredible experience.  It's not perfect, there are many things I would still like to change.  But for now, I am happy.  I got an "A" on it, and ended grad school with a 4.27 gpa.  I worked hard for it, and it feels good, but yeah, it feels strange to be over. 

It's crunch time, and I need some dedicated volunteers

Hey all, well I am in the home stretch for my masters program.  I have an EXTREMELY raw draft of my thesis done.  I will be going over it the next few days and then turn my first draft in to my thesis adviser so he can properly shred it to pieces.  While of course I will be getting the bulk of input from him, I would like a few volunteers, if there are any interested, to help me out as well.  Now before any of you say yes, let me be clear what I need.  This is going to involve reading the same paper more than once. Right now it clocks in at about 55 pages single space in 12 point font so this is not exactly a minor read.  I only have a few weeks to revise my draft so I will need input as soon as possible. If you are interested, send me an email and I will send you a copy of my draft. My title is The Neo-Confucian Foundation of Modern Korean Culture.  Basically I am looking at what parts of the Neo-Confucian culture from the Chosun dynasty has survived into modern Korea today, focusing on the three areas of politics, education, and Christianity.  I hope its a good read.

My term paper on Christianity in Korea

Here is my term paper from my comparative religion course last semester.  This paper will be the basis of one of my thesis sections.  So now I will expand on many of the concepts I talk about here.  My thesis is on the Chosun neo-Confucianist culture foundation of modern Korea.  Basically I am writing about how even though modern Korea does not officially call itself a Confucianist country, there are still a deep Confucian foundation and many Confucian holdovers that are often not even recognized in Korea today.  I am focusing on three areas: Education (the easiest to see my point), Politics, and Christianity. 

  Some of the points that I found interesting in my research was that Christianity was mostly homegrown here due to a lack of foreign priests (since outsiders were not allowed into the country), I also talk about how Christianity made the jump from being an outside cultural intrusion to being associated with Korean nationalism and seen as a local force against the indoctrination of Japanese religion during the occupation.

Now since this is one of the three branches of my thesis, I welcome your comments and criticisms so please either post them or email me.  I hope you find it interesting.

Here is my opening paragraph:

What began as a small trickle has quickly become a raging stream.  Today, one fourth of the population of South Korea identifies themselves as Christian. Many company CEO’s, prominent actors and actresses, and the last four elected presidents have been Christian.  While not the majority, a large portion of the most visible who’s who in Korea practice monotheism with the number rising each year.  This is a far cry from 200 years ago, when Christians were executed en masse by the government.  While Christianity is certainly on the rise in South Korea, it’s place alongside Buddhism and Confucianism is often not a question of either/or but a conglomeration within the people who openly practice one faith, while still paying homage and acknowledging what came before. This paper will look at the first meetings between Christianity and Confucianism, how they evolved against each other, and the subsequent rise of modern Christianity over Confucianism in South Korea.

Download confucian_christianity.doc

 

 

My Korean Politics Class-end of the year dinner

Here are some pictures of my Korean Politics class.  We went to Mr. Pizza after our last lecture.  I have really enjoyed these classes because not only do I get to learn about Korean politics in detail, but I get to learn from someone who was actually there, plus I get to interact with Korean students and learn about how they have learned.  It is fascinating to hear their opinions and what they have learned from the Korean school system.  So here are some pics.

The girl in beige is Undaryia from Mongolia.  We have another 3 students coming from Mongolia next semester.  The pizza was a really delicious shrimp pizza.  And for fun, here are some old pics of our professor from the past.

Here he is with former president Kim Young-sam from back in their younger days and from recent times.

Then here are some pics through the years including a picture with Teddy Kennedy.  I have been collecting the stories he tells in class.  Some of things he has done, some of things he saw.  Next semester he is offering a class on international affairs, focusing on crisis.  I will also sit in on his US/Korean relations class even though I have already taken it.  I would like to hear the discussions, and hopefully learn more stories.  As I get to know him better, and vice/versa, I am thinking about asking him if I can interview him next year.  Oh, and I will again plug his book, "Divided Korea" by Joungwon Kim. It's a great book. 

My School, Sejong University in the fall.

Sorry for taking so long to post these, unfortunately by now the leaves are almost all gone, but here are some shots of my school in the Fall.

The last shots were from a few months ago at the end of summer.  While nowhere as big as UCSD, it is a lovely campus.  I can't wait to get some shots after it snows.

My new class schedule

I am REALLY looking forward to this semester at Sejong.  Last semester was a good start and so far I have a 4.25 gpa(woohoo), but the real point is the knowledge that I gained about Korean culture.  I think this semester may define the course of my future studies.  My first class is Monday mornings, Culture and Economy.  I am taking this course with Professor Jensen who is one of the two American professors at the school.  The only other student in this class is Christian from Canada, so it will be an intimate time.  No sleeping in class(not that I can in any other class here).  This course has already really sparked my interest and made me realize that one of the focuses of all of my studies and time at UCSD was about Culture.  The concept of culture has always intrigued me, most likely from living in LA and from the wonderful opportunities I have had my whole life to travel.  At UCSD I was the chair of the Multi-Cultural Student Network for 4 years and also participated and planned many cultural events at the school.  I also was a participant and then instructor of an inter-cultural communications workshop.  I mention all this because I think I am finally starting to see some of the patterns of my life come together and perhaps I am finally heading towards a set direction.  The world-wide culture clash will only become more prominent in the future and the role of culture is just as important, only today it is not recognized.  This course will discuss how culture DOES effect the economy of a country, or how the economy of a country DOES effect its culture.  It turns out that this is a fairly recent economic topic. 

There is so much here I want to go into, but I am going to wait until I have more than one lecture under my belt.  However right after that lecture I was inspired to head off the library and check out a few more books about the subject. Fascinating stuff.

One of the most difficult challenges of this topic is how un-PC it is these days to talk about culture.  It seems to me that we celebrate diversity, and then claim that it has no meaning which does not make sense.  Oh we're different and come from different traditions, but we are all the same. If you make a statement about a culture other than your own, you can be instantly labeled a racist, bigot, or other fun words. One of the topics we are going to explore is why has decades of aid and economic restructuring failed in Latin America.  One of the possible reasons that we briefly touched on(and is the focus of our first book that we are reading) is about how within a culture that emphasizes only family bonds and obligations, and without a broader sense of civic duty or interest, economic change is difficult to enact.  The book is called The Moral Basis of a Backward Society by Edward C Banfield.  In 1955 he and his family lived in a small rural town in Southern Italy where the citizens live in immense poverty.  So far it is a fascinating read.  As I am just starting this course I am just laying out some of the issues we will discuss.  I don't have my opinions formed yet but by the time I do my final paper I will probably post it here.

My other classes are Korean politics which is extremely timely as they are having their elections this December for President.  It is also taught by Professor Kim who I had my Korean/US relations class with.  He is very connected in the Korean government and has a lot of insight.  He was an Ambassador at large as well as high up in the international wing of the KCIA.  He impressed the class on Monday by saying "I had breakfast with Yongsam this morning and we discussed this issue".  The "issue" we were talking about was how one of the Korean students said he was taking this course because he was very concerned about the current state of Korean politics and "Yongsam" was Kim Yongsam, as in former President of Korea.  So this promises to be interesting.

My final class is Youth and Society.  My professor said that he will be using the UN definition of "youth" as 15-24 years of age.  We will discuss the current state of "youth" around the world and how they effect and are affected by society throughout the world.  Interesting stuff.  There will be five of us in that class: 3 Americans, 1 Canadian, and 1 Uzbekistani.  This class is going to be Thursday evenings.  So basically I will be spending all day on Mondays at school and then rush off to class after work on thursdays. Busy busy buy. 

So this is going to be an interesting semester.  I will keep you all informed.

YAY!!! The papers are done!!

Well, I just turned in my last term paper, so it's time to get back to blogging.  I have a lot of posts that I have wanted to write, so that's my mission this weekend, well, that and cleaning up the place.  My apartment tends to get messy when I am writing papers.  Really, that's the only time its messy...yeah.  Anyways to kick things off, here is another fun video I found.

(EDIT: after seeing how long I went on I came back here to the beginning to warn you that the following is all about video games, so continue at your own peril, and yes, I am trying to convert all of you)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkj28_TVFss&mode=related&search=

I find it extremely interesting that Nintendo's main marketing strategy is to show people who are actually playing the games, not the games themselves, but the people. 

Here is the original wii video shown that first revealed the controller, notice how NO game footage at all is shown, yet you feel exactly how the system will function.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaUvbncE3Gk&mode=related&search=

Here in Korea, I see kiosks for the DS .  They have videos playing and they are all just showing people playing BrainAge and laughing.  In Japan, on Nintendo.com you can watch videos of people playing the games, it is their main marketing strategy.  Needless to say, Nintendo put the JOY back into video games.  Now I love my Xbox360 and it is lots of fun, but I don't laugh when I play, I don't see that spark in people's eyes when they play it for the first time.  Would I give it up? HECK NO! I need my hi-res graphics and epic games too.  What is bringing this on is that I am reading interview with some video-game insiders that still believe the Wii is just a fad and will fade out by 2009.  They also say that the Playstation3 will dominate by then.  Just so you know, last month the PS3 sold 82,000 units in the US.  The gameboy advance(yes, the old one) sold 81,000.  Wow.  The biggest seller was of course the DS with over 400,000 units sold followed by the Wii.  Here is the data from April

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/789/789618p1.html

And this is in the US.  In Japan, Nintendo is killing! In April, Nintendo accounted for 76% of all video game business(system and software).  Now, does this mean Nintendo is king again? No, it means right now they are doing very very well, but they could blow it by not thinking long term and just making mini-games for the rest of the system.  The scary part for games like me is that it appears that Nintendo is thinking complicated games are not selling well, and they need to dumb down all their offerings.  Now I will be the first to admit that video games can get over-complicated, but a large part of their target likes it that way.  I have no problem with Nintendo making fun games that I can share with everyone and anybody, BUT, I also want to be challenged too. But back to the main point, Nintendo is making really FUN games right now, get a Wii and a DS, you won't be disappointed(probably). 

Back in the students chair (thank goodness I fit)

Hey All,  I know I got connected a couple of days ago and you probably thought I would write something sooner. Sorry about that, I have been working on some technical difficulties, so no pictures yet. (I brought the wrong camera CD so I need to download some software).  Anyways time to talk about life as a grad student.

I have now had my first full classes.  I have class on Monday and Tuesday, they canceled my Friday class because there were only two students and you need at least three.  Unfortunately I think that was due to a mistake made in publishing the syllabus where an older one was used that mistakingly said there would be 5 pop quizzes.  One of the guys in my other classes said that he wanted to take the Buddhism class, but he didn't want to do quizzes and a paper.  Turns out the professor only gives quizzes in his undergraduate classes, not his grad classes. The new assistant is brand new and of course she gets no training so mistakes are made.  Oh well.  The part that bums me out though is that this class worked with my schedule, now I will have to take three classes next semester which might be a problem.  And, in Korean universities, you have to pay a full tuition your first semester no matter how many classes you take, so if I take 2 or 3 I still have to pay the same, but every semester after that it is on a per class basis, so I lose money this way too.  It frustrates me that such a small mistake could make me have to stay here 4 more months but there is nothing I can do about it. By the time the class was canceled, registration was closed(the first class was on Friday, and registration closed on Thursday) so I couldn't even call the other student to let him know there were no quizzes.  Well, that's Korea.

My Monday class is US/Korean relations.  It is taught by a Korean professor that was educated in the US (attended Harvard and Columbia, got his Masters and Ph.D. at John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and his J.D. at Harvard Law School).  The class is made up of about 5 international students and 15 Korean students.  Four of us are American.  We started with learning about the treaty of 1882 where Korea signed its first treaty with a Western power(the US).  I am not going to repeat all the technical stuff here,(I will save that for another post if I feel like it). There is only one Korean student that fully opened up on the first day, but a few others started talking more later in the class. It's hard because it is all in English, but I really like getting the Korean perspective direct from the products of the Korean educational system.  It's very interesting to hear what they were taught in high school and such.  The professor made an interesting point about the Korean soldier that was just killed in Afghanistan.  He said that one soldier has died but that 50,000 American boys died for Korea, is it fair for the press to be demanding an apology from the US.  Now, that debate aside, I give this example to show how it is clear that this professor is not a product of the pure Korean system.  We also spent the second part of the class talking about the current FTA and about how trade today compared with trade in the first 20 years of the Korean/US treaty.  FYI from 1882 to 1905, Korea made up 1/100th of 1% of total US foreign trade.  Today they are our 7th largest trading partner.  For next weeks reading, I will be preparing a summary(about 2 pages) to be passed out in class and will present it.  Each student has to take a turn doing this. 

I find an interesting difference with my classes this time around(as opposed to my undergraduate).  In this class I am ahead in the reading, because I want to read the material.  I just remember so many classes that I read because I had to, not because I wanted to.  I don't know if the difference is just time, or subject material.  Most likely a mix between the two. 

My Tuesday class is a bit different.  There are four students including myself.  So we sit in a little circle and discuss the readings.  This is a class on Confucianism and its shaping of Modern Korean Society.  It is part 2 so I borrowed the reader from one of my classmates and I am trying to catch up, though I think I will do just fine in class.  The professor received her Doctorate of Theology from Basel University in Switzerland (which explains her tendency to quote European history when comparing Confucianism to Christianity)  We had a very....spirited discussion on Tuesday.  Mostly between the professor and one of the students who has lived in Korea for about 27 years(yes, his Korean is excellent).  He wears hanboks(Korean traditional clothing) all the time and believes in a lot of Confucian teachings, but had some strong feelings on the differences between traditional Neo-Confucianism and Korean Confucianism.  I will now proceed to reconstruct that debate in three parts.

First, the Confucian system is built on a merit based system of government exams.  OK, I was just kidding about that whole reconstruction thing.  I hope nobody skips this paragraph, I will have to make it the most interesting so they feel bad if they do.  The interesting part of the debate was that these two took on almost the archetypes of the ex-pat and the Korean national.  Direct negativity towards defensive nationality.  This class promises to be interesting, and should also help me work on my debating skills, because if I am going to take Mike on I will have to on top of my game. The guy really knows his stuff.  I already feel bad when I made the claim in my Monday class the America's first territories came from the Spanish/American war, when Hawaii was much earlier.  Oh well, I was corrected, but my point was still valid. 

So I like my classes.  I have some possibilities I am thinking about for my thesis.  I hope to have some possible outlines done by the time I finish this semester. 

It takes me a little more than an hour to get to my school from my home but if the subway isn't too crowded I can do some extra reading, so it is not too bad.  In the spring, when the plant life is blooming, I will take pictures of the campus.  Things are kind of barren right now, so I am holding off.  I should get my student ID next week.  Let's see if I get student discounts anywhere.