Expectations

This is going to be a little bit of a whinge. SO if you think I might offend you particular sensibilities then just head along to The Brick Testament to rather interesting interpretations of Bible stories. I especially like the 200 foreskins saga.

I had my first blind date today. After over a year living/working in Korea and countless offers of being set-up, and you really are set up like a trap, I finally agreed to one. This might not sound like such a strange thing except that here they have at least three different types of blind dates.

Anyway, she didn't show up. Which didn't really surprise me because

a) I'm a foreigner, so who cares anyway??
b) I had very low expectations.

You see, if you have very low expectations, like almost dragging-in-the-mud low expectations, then anything is bound to exceed those expectations which will make everything that much better.

The other thing I was thinking about was of all the things that one may do to disrespect me, wasting my time is the worst simply because the time wasted will never come again. I don't mind people being tardy if I am to meet them somewhere since I usually have a book to read while I wait or I choose a meeting place with lots of things to do, the latter in the case that I am late. However, a simple phone call or message saying "I'll be late" (I don't even need a 'sorry' with that) would suffice.

At least tonight wasn't a total loss. I bought some novelty pens for my students that got full marks for their spelling tests this month because what is rewarded gets repeated. And I also 한국어를 헸어. I really need a template stylus computer writing thingy because typing in Korean takes forever.

Tomorrow I need to write 8 valedictory letter for my kindergarten class for their graduation albums. Yes, graduating kindergarten is a HUGE achievement in Korea. One of my colleagues read the 'example' letter from a teacher of LCI Gangdong. She, rather accurately, said it read like a eulogy for the Dalai Lama.

Speaking of the Dalai Lama, they show Kungfu on TV here. I didn't realise how anti-Chinese that show was. There was one on last night where the Dalai Lama, played by Uncle Benny from Lethal Weapon 4, asks Caine to 'take over' should he fall. Though I remember the show was set in the old west these ones are set in a city and Caine has a son.

The other thing that irks me about those graduation albums is that two of my students are not buying the album. At 100,000 won it is not cheap. One girl will not be going to kindergarten next year as she is one year too young, yet of the brightest students in my class, while the other girl's parents can't afford to buy the album according to the other students. So what do the enlightened supervisors of my school do? They basically remove all reference to those two girls. It's as if they are all admirers of Stalinism and felt they had to label them as a non-person and deport them to the gulag.

I read an article on Kevin Rudd AGAIN today. The Korea Herald has had an article about Australian politics every day this week. Which is great since usually the only time I hear the word 'Australia' here is in close proximity to the words 'koala', 'kangaroo' and 'Opera House'. It was an interesting article because it was written by a former Indonesian ambassador to Australia and he was reminiscing about Paul Keating. Aside from myself, not many people do that these days. Basically, Keating was trying to move Australia further away from Europe and the USA and closer to Asia, which geographically is the logical choice for both trade and security. At the time, this proved very unpopular (and massive interest rates did not help either, though most of the time there are many other external factors that influence those) and any progress made for closer ties to Asia were turned on their ear for the last 11 years under John Howard, the USA's 'sheriff' in Asia.

Two things from the article which piqued my interest were the author's assertion that Australia has an inflated sense of importance in Asia and his optimism for a new re-engagement with our Asian neighbours. On the former, I have to agree with him. Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said it most succinctly when he said

"This country stands out like a sore thumb trying to impose its European values in Asia as if it is the good old days when people can shoot aborigines without caring about human rights" and

"If Australia wants to be a friend to Asia, it should stop behaving as if it is there to teach us how to run our country. It is a small nation in terms of numbers and it should behave like a small nation and not be a teacher."

I guess only time will tell. But as Kevin Rudd is the first Western leader that can speak fluent Mandarin (he served as a diplomat to China before heading to parliament) perhaps there is hope for us Sinologists.

The weekend is certainly looking interesting. I'll be going to 금강산 Keumgang Mountain for hiking (I guess) over the weekend.