I wandered by a large political rally today for one of the nine presidential candidates. I have to admit that I am not sure exactly which candidate it was, given that I can't speak Korean. I felt bad about this. But I do think it must have been one of the more important ones since there were secret service guys all over the place. I also saw many young guys dressed like Sichon-typical students, but with the curly communicators in the ears. I would have taken a picture but I thought that wouldn't be a good idea...

In tomorrow's paper hopefully I will figure out who I was seeing.

The rally featured snychronized dancing while the crowd waited for the candidate. Dancers on stage showed the move and dancers in the audience (dressed in orange, the candidate's colors) danced in the crowd. It was quite racuous and strange, at least my my political rally standards. This footage is bad since I was far back, but you get the idea.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
Americans don't get riled up to protest. Give away billions in taxpayer money to financial fatcats with no accountability--no worries. Refuse to punish war criminal torturers--no problem. The battle cry is...moo. Koreans, on the other hand, live in a vibrant democracy and their political action is a bit more direct. Here is a striking photo of union protesters in Daejeon using sharpened bamboo spears to attack riot police. (an article about the current state of rioting in Korea, quoting a Sogang professor, is here )
Read more

CHAOS WASHING MACHINES

My apartment comes with a washing machine called, imposingly, a Goldstar Chaos Hi Tech Washing Machine. I thought it was a dryer too but that doesn't seem to be the case. Korean apartments have these alleys between the living areas and the outside wall in which clothes are dried. There are sliding doors between the apartment and the alley, and large windows between the bedrooms and the alley. I thought I wouldn't have to use it but if the washing machine is also a "hi tech" drier I sure can't find the right combination of buttons. Not that I haven't looked. I tried to decipher everything with the help of my dictionary and limited knowledge of the hangul alphabet (which includes only a dim understanding of the actual letter order--still working on that). The word pronounced (I think) "saw" is a simple two letter word. But according to my dictionary, it means, "a cow, a bull, an ox" or "dressing, stuffing," "little, few, ...
Read more
Image
In case you didn't see that county map indicating increased Republican voting between 2004 and 2008 before they took it off of the NYTimes page, here is an image of it: This is a fascinating document that I think will be the focus of many studies. Explaining increases only in these areas in the entire country could be very instructive. Andrew Sullivan notes dryly: "Ah, yes, Appalachia and Arkansas. Obviously concerned about marginal tax rates for those earning over $250,000 a year, I suppose."
Read more