Metafiction (Modified)

Note: I found the chain writing thing to be simply impossible to use as part of my metafiction, so I decided to use "The Way I View My Life." The link is here.

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Looking back on my high school “philosophy”

           

Samuel is a student at the Yonsei University, and left the arms of his family after entering the university. And today, he decides to visit his home that he hasn’t seen for three years.

His home was located in Jeolla-nam-do, and as his school is in Seoul, the travel to his house almost took three hours by car. When he arrived parking lot and went outside, he found the atmosphere to be somewhat humid and annoying.

However, as he entered the house gate and started walking through the front yard toward the house, he saw a warehouse, a large steel container box. Somehow, the storage that was so unfriendly before seemed to be asking for him to enter it. Soon, he found himself standing in front of the rusty door.

The door opened with a creaky sound. A cloud of dust released into the air from the steel structure. After leaving the door open for few minutes for ventilation, he stepped inside.

As soon as he turned the light on, he found himself in a complete chaos. The whole place was covered with things that were no longer used. Tools that his father used to use when he was fixing the roof were wandering around in the floor all rusted.

He started slowly walking through the mess, his childhood reminiscences constantly coming to him. And then he found a small notebook that read "My Philosophy" with his handwriting. Hmph, he thought, had I ever had things like a "philosophy"?

Quickly shaking off the dusts on the notebook, he started reading through the first paragraph, which said:

Roll up a boulder to a top of a hill. See the huge, heavy piece of rock roll down the hill. This is the infamous punishment King Sisyphus had to face for infinite times in the famous Greek myth.

“I know this myth, a good one.” Samuel murmured. His eyes started to scan through the second paragraph:

And indeed, I believe that my life doesn’t share much differences from this frustrating penalty that King Sisyphus had to suffocate every day. My life is also consisted of hundreds of “boulders” that I have to mount towards the top of the “hill” with so much effort and simply sit and watch them falling back down with hopeless, frustrated eyes. When I am just about to think that a boulder tagged “Academically successful life in elementary school” is over, “Good grades in Middle School” appears, while “Entrance to KMLA” is idly waiting on the queue.” Even after the “Entrance to KMLA” boulder (that used to so easily fool me that ‘this one would be the end’) is successfully located on the hill top, suddenly a series of huge, colossal rocks named “Good GPAs” or “Entrance to Ivy League Schools” appears.

Samuel was now starting to find the essay to be pretty much intriguing. Though the handwriting obviously showed that it was written by himself, it seemed as if he had forgotten about all this over time. He then went on to the third paragraph:

Yes, I’m starting to get extremely bored and somewhat “immune” to the mental (and sometimes physical) pain I feel as I see all my effort invested in pulling up the rock go into vain. The frustration and fatigue I feel has now become so evident that I’m almost in the state of “expecting” an another objective to pursue by the time I’m done with my work with the previous rock. Now, as I see the boulder running away from me down the hills, the pain I feel is finally almost close to nothingness. I’ve grown so numb out of it.

And the essay stopped here suddenly. The last sentence of the notebook, separated from the essay by about four lines said:

Hell to the world for giving me this cursed fate.

And when he finished reading these lines, suddenly, the light bulb flickered and then went out. Maybe it was too exhausted.

The whole place was now consumed with absolute silence and darkness. Samuel sat down on the couch that used to stay in the house.

Is my life really that bad? Is it really something to “give hell to” and something to be “cursed”? It took him some time spent in meditation to come up with the answer.

And then he realized that himself as a high school was actually wrong. The biggest thing that the 17 -year-old Samuel was not able to consider was that it is basically the task of everybody to pull up the boulder to the hill. Everybody has a boulder to move up; it’s just that the notoriousness of such tasks that is different.

And since it is something that every human being has to do, the job that seems to be so repetitive and meaningless is no longer that of foolishness; instead, it is something that can be enjoyed as one sees the color and the shape of the boulder changing depending on the work he invest on pushing up the heavy rock.

My life is not a cursed one, Samuel thought.

And as he walked to the creaky door and pushed it open, Samuel found the air and the sun to be more pleasant than as it was when he first walked into the storage. Because he had work to do. A work that could be awarding later on if he keeps up with his effort. His life was a blessing of the god.

My insight on Korean Education

     One of my English teachers back when I was a middle school student used to say education in South Korea is one of the things that we are fully authorized to reproach about. Her rationale was that we the students are the ones who are directly being affected by the government policies on the education.
     And having been one of those "directly influenced" by the education policies for 10 years, I have a lot of things to talk about the problematic features of the South Korean education's current state.
     The biggest problem of South Korean education is with the fact that most of the South Korean students' education is heavily dependent on private education. 3 trillion won, approximately 30% of the national budget, is yearly invested for private education tuition fee. 
     Called "Hagwons", the private education institutions in South Korea has been successful in taking a great part inside the students' education. Currently, almost every student in the country goes to at least one hagwon, and it is close to sheer impossibility to get a good grade in school without the help of those private education institutions.
     These hagwons are especially concentrated on a region named "Gangnam" in Seoul. As a student who has lived in the Gangnam region for about 4 years before coming to KMLA, I will briefly illustrate the lives of normal South Korean "Gangnam" students.
     
      The typical life of a Gangnam student begins approximately around 7 o'clock in the morning. After getting up, students put on their school uniform, have breakfast, and then leave for school.
     An ordinary high (or middle) school in Korea finishes its daily curriculum around 5' o clock in the afternoon. The students, after being released from school, mostly go to "hagwons" until around 10 P.M. After coming back home around 10:30, the students spend the rest of the night doing assignments for the school and the hagwons. Majority of the Gangnam students go to sleep around 2 A.M. in the morning.


     Though there is a little bit of extremity added as it is an example of Gangnam students' lives, the daily routine of a typical South Korean consisted of "school-hagwon-assignment-go to sleep" stays the same.
     
     And the biggest problem with this way of life is, of course, the enormous amount of psychological and physical distress that students receive daily. The students are subjugated to extreme fatigue after being exploited all their soul by the everlasting cycle of school, hagwon, and assignment.
     However, perhaps another colossal cost that the country has to pay for possessing a deformed education structure is the enlarging of the gap between the rich and the poor. And as the tuition fee that the students have to pay for going to hagwons is mostly high and could be very burdensome to poor, a lot of those students living in the rural sides or those in a plebeian household are unable to go to multiple hagwons, unlike those who are rich.
     Such difference in the level of education between the rich and the poor, of course, leads to the expansion of the gap based on the difference in the position between the rich and the poor.


     And the government, after receiving huge amount of complaints from the social minors, came up with a policy: to restrict the private education in South Korea. Based on this theme, the South Korean government came up with a series of acts that hindered the growth of private education, such as regulating the hagwons that teaches students after 10 P.M. or collecting more tax from hagwons.

The head of the ministry of education, science, and technology, Lee Ju Ho

     Some might praise such behaviors to be minor-friendly and pursuing equality amongst students. However, I believe that these acts actually brings about larger amount of disadvantages compared to its benefits. Here's a reason why.
     As explained above, the private education in South Korea takes up the majority of the students' education level. And if the government happens to hinder the growth of such important factor in students' lives, all they are doing is simply stopping the future leaders and scholars from being competent.
      Plus, there is an error in the logic that the left-wing parties use when asking for policies hindering private education, which is that there should be an equality amongst students, no matter how they are born. 
     What they are failing to consider is the difference that evidently exists among students. There can be a student who is born with a physical or psychological ability best for figure skating, and there can be a student who is born with an aptitude for a plumber. And private education is the best way to satisfy such differences, as there are obvious limitations of the school education, for it is "universally" applied to all recipients. It was not the standardized school curriculum that brought about Kim Yuna or Ban Ki Moon; the private educations' help was there to maximize their innate talents. And to me, the idea of treating Kim Yuna and Ban Ki Moon "THE SAME WAY" just for mere "EQUALITY" seems to be nothing more than that of insanity.
      Yes, I know. It's harsh, and it's unfair to see students being discriminated. But c'est la vie. Such is the way the life rolls, and maybe it's the job of the school to teach the students how discriminatory the society is before they are tossed into the harsh reality, unprepared.

My Insight on Korean Politics

     So last time I wrote something about the things that happened in South Korea recently. I'm going to proceed such writing and talk about my overall insight on the status quo Korean politics.

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     About three days ago, I scribbled about the controversy over free lunch service that dominated South Korea (especially Seoul) for about three months. (From June to August) And one thing that Mr. Garrioch had asked me was: Why is free lunch service being such an issue in Korea?

     And I tried to come up with a reason why. Why do the South Korean politicians had to be obsessed with free lunch service out of a sudden? Weren't there other more important issues that could have been more closely dealt by the DP (Democratic Party, the most influential left-wing party in South Korea) and the GNP (Grand National Party, the largest right-wing party in the National Assembly), such as the low quality of public education in South Korea or the poor treatments toward those with a distressful job? Why did the free lunch service suddenly have to be a subject of extreme quarrel?

The mark of the Democratic Party (DP)

The mark of the Grand National Party (GNP)

     Honestly,  I didn't know. And when I asked the same question (why the "free lunch service" had to be an issue rather than other urgent welfare issues like the minimum wage) to my peers, the answer was also the same.
     Coming to think about it, I think the mere reason that made the politicians to be extremely enthusiastic about the free lunch service was the fact that it was something dealt importantly during the Seoul mayor election in 2010. Out of a sudden, Myung-sook Han, the official candidate of DP as a Seoul mayor, happened to bring up the issue (which almost nobody in the society, even the students, cared about) and since then the free meal idea has been a matter of severe altercation.

     And this, is the type of problem that I find in South Korean politics. The politicians are too busy fighting about the things that people don't even know why they should care about. Even to me, a person who was one of those attending public middle schools in Seoul, the free lunch service simply seemed simply out of place, out of time.

     Another good example of South Korean politicians' foci being deviated from the public's wants could be the Four River Project. The Four River Project basically aims to promote the quality of the four major rivers in South Korea (The Han River, Kum River, Yong-San River, and Nak-Dong River). This project was put onto open dispute after its proposal as one of the promises that the current president of South Korea (Myeong-bak Lee) made.

The mark of Four River Project

     Many people in South Korea simply assume that 'promoting the four rivers in South Korea' is something worth being done, for it is an issue passionately dealt with in the National Assembly. But if we stop and think about it for a moment, it is not hard to realize that the project referred to as "Four River whatever" by South Koreans is not something to be so crazily fighting over about. Before being proposed as part of the presidential election promise, there was basically no noteworthy public appeal neither a renown survey on the public asking for an improvement on the quality of the four rivers. In other words, the politicians have been being frenzy about something that nobody in the public really cares (or should care) about.

     In this piece of writing, it is not of my intention to censure a specific party for making foolish proposals. Rather, my intention is to criticize the overall South Korean politicians for being so uncommunicative with the public. Every now and then in "election seasons", we find Congress member candidates babbling about "being a good listener to public's needs," and then find them on the news for being involved in a corruption after a few months.

     One of the cardinal premises of a representative democracy (a form of democracy in which politicians "represent" the public) is that the politicians are able to correctly analyze the public's desires and reflect them in upcoming policies. And if that's not something being done in South Korea, I have to say, it is time for a reformation to be made inside the National Assembly Hall, not on the Four Rivers of South Korea that nobody even "gives a damn."

Chain Writing

Once upon a time in KMLA, there was a boy who thought he was really good at singing, but actually wasn't. Every night, he tortured the ears of his roommates with his terrible singing, but the roommates were so gentle and kind that they weren't able to tell the truth. And one day, he happened to... (written by Seung Min Kim)

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try audition for the Minjok Festival. The boy sang proudly in front of the festival planners. The planners hated his singing, but they were just too kind to reject him. So they decided to put him as a substitution, so that if the other singers happen to be sick he would take their place. The boy was disappointed and swore to do anything to sing at the Minjok Festival. ANYTHING. (Written by Sungwoo Bae)

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He ran to the giant hall and started to run towards the top of the Duck-Go Mountain. He fell to his knees and tears were flowing down his cheek. Performing in front of all the students and teachers in KMLA was one of the biggest dreams he had. This was in part because he wanted to be recognized by his fellow comrades but more importantly, he was eager to show his musical "prowess" to his lover, Mary. Suddenly he felt someone's hand being put on his shoulder. "Don't be too depressed. Life is like a box of chocolates. When you open the box, juicy opportunities will be provided for you." (Written by Seung Jun Juny Kim)

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He whirled around but saw nothing. The voice said,

"I am the phantom of NAB. I will make you the best singer in KMLA. You will find me under the Dasan Building. Go to Dasan building and put your head on the coffee machine." 

The boy went to Dsan building and stood in front of the coffee machine. He put his hand on, and the machine took him inside, falling into the depths of Earth. (Written by Kang Gun)

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Urgh. This is a mess. I will make sure that I modify the content and the structure so it would be appropriate for a meta fiction.

A scribbling about Seoul mayor Oh's resignation

     It all started with the Seoul Mayor and city council member election about a year ago. At the regional election, though the mayor seat was taken by the right-wing (conservative) Grand National Party's candidate Sehoon Oh, the majority of city council member was given to the left-wing (liberal) Democratic Party. 

     And one of the most important topics that were dealt in the 2010 Seoul Mayor Election was the "free lunch service to public school students" policy. Proposed by the Democratic Party's candidate Myungsook Han as one of the mayor election pledges, the offer received severe criticism of the Grand National Party for its huge costs.
     The public and the media seemed to forget the free lunch issue after the victory of Oh as the Seoul mayor. However, the controversy promulgated its revival about half a year after the election, when the Seoul city council, ruled by the liberal Democratic Party, passed a law promising free lunch for all public students until 2014.
     And such independent act of the city council was, indeed, more than enough to infuriate the conservative mayor Oh. As soon as he heard the news of the law passing the city assembly, he held a press conference and publicly called for a referendum on Seoul citizens upon the issue of free lunch service.
     Mayor Oh's party, Grand National Party (this will be abbreviated as "GNP" from now on), also showed a fervent attitude. The head of GNP, Junpyo Hong, appeared on a press conference with red face and severely censured the Democratic Party for using the majority in the city council to randomly establish a law that "needed some talk over."
Democratic Party(will be shortened to DP from now on), the source of all this louse noise, did not stand still of course. Hakgyu Son, the head of DP, came up with a clever plan: to ask people to NOT vote in the referendum. The election law of South Korea asked for more than 33.3% of Seoul citizens participating in the citizen voting, and it was Son's tactic to make the number to fall below 30%.

The members of the left-wing Democratic Party asking citizens to deny voting for the citizen referendum.

     For the next few weeks, the media was bombarded with the news of the right-wing politicians clashing with left-wing politicians everywhere: from public places like press conferences to informal places such as the streets.
     And two days before the day of the long-expected referendum, mayor Oh, who had (rather obviously) been the most ardent one in asking people to advocate the free lunch service, suddenly made a bold declaration: he would resign immediately if the participation rate falls below 33% or the majority of the referendum asks for a free lunch service.
      The whole Seoul and of course the GNP was suddenly gulped in chaos. Right after Oh's announcement of his gambling, Hong (the head of Grand National Party) opened up a press conference and proclaimed that such actions of the mayor was not something sincerely talked over before.
     Nevertheless, the next day, Oh appeared on his last press conference before the referendum and cried crazily while his speech asking for the Seoul citizens to vote. He even bowed (which is considered as an action containing the highest kind of respect to the receivers in South Korea) three times.
     And finally, the day of the days came. The referendum was held everywhere inside Seoul. Placards asking for citizens to not participate in the public vote still on the streets, the strangest type of election (in which people were asked to NOT participate in the vote, not GO AGAINST it) that I have ever seen in my life had at last commenced.
     For the whole day, "participation rate" was the top search keyword in Naver (a search engine that is like the Google of South Korea), and the GNP and DP silently waited for the results to come out. Both of the parties, respectively representing the conservative and liberal side of South Korea, invested enormous amount of time and support to this referendum. The party that would lose in this election would wreak havoc evidently.
And finally the number came out after the termination of the election at 7 p.m.


25.8%.
The GNP had miserably lost.
     And that day, on his way to home, mayor Oh told the media that he will state his official stance the next day after "arranging his thoughts."
     The next morning, mayor Oh called for a press conference.
     With voice of somewhat indifference and calmness, the mayor formally announced that he would resign from the seat.
     The DP and other liberal media hailed Oh's choice, while the GNP was, of course, extremely incensed by mayor Oh's random actions. Hong openly said that the life of Oh as a politician is over, and he tried diverse measures in effort to buffer the aftermath of referendum (which actually ended up in a failure in fact.)

Former mayor Oh stating his resignation in a conference.

     So what's my whole idea about this referendum?
     My idea about is that I am extremely disappointed at how the GNP and DP both acted to this issue.
     I didn't like the kind of strategy DP used. A true "democratic" party would ask for people to participate in the vote and exert their sovereign party named "election right." But instead, what they did was telling people to not appear on the poll places. They asked for people to stay silent.
     But did I like GNP's attitude? No. Especially the attitude of Mr. Hong, the representative and the head of GNP. He was thoroughly emotional in the matter of this referendum, always appearing on public places with reddened face. He easily made errors in public talks, a typical example being him saying that the GNP has actually won this referendum as 25.8% is a pretty high number. This (obviously) became a figure of extreme mockery by the liberals in the society. Personally, seeing the whole fuss that Hong created over during the referendum season, I started to become skeptical about his suitability as a representative for the biggest conservative party in South Korea.

The Shawshank Redemption Reading (and Film) Journal

A book version of Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King

                  Before I started my reading upon the book Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King, the one--and only--information I had about the novel was that it was reformed into an extremely famous film. And to be honest, I was actually unwilling at the first to start reading the novel because (as long as I knew) Stephen King was an author known for his outstanding skills in depicting horror and thriller scenes, while thriller is one of the literary genres that I don't like the most.

                 And as I begun my journey on reading about the exciting life of Andy Dufresne, one thing constantly came to the mind: How did he [Stephen King] know all these things? How did he happen to know about the prison "cons" calling someone new a "fresh fish"? About the intense sexual abuse being practiced by the "sisters"? And what about all those minor details such as the warden's inside-out policies (which truly did exist) and the successful "prison break" cases? How could a simple novel be this much realistic and authentic? 

                  And of course, there is no need to mention King's excellent skills in establishing a truly interesting plot and his descriptive skills that made the novella a brilliant one indeed. The novella, interestingly, had a former murderer, Red, as the narrator. I believe this choice has enabled the author to fully utilize his priory knowledge (which was extremely pragmatic and detailed) about prison life, though objectivity as a third person was something that had to be sacrificed. The slight tinge of humor in the phrase "Oh s*** it's s***!" also cracked me up while reading through the process of intense search for the escaped prisoner.

                    Then there was the movie. So great and so awesome. Honestly, when I heard Mr. Garrioch saying that the movie is one of those movies that are better than the original work, I doubted it because the book was so nice and I believed nothing (especially "nothing" for a movie, regarding how the Harry Potter had deteriorated my beautiful fantasy about Hogwarts) could be more awesome than the way it was.

                    However, I realized what Mr. Garrioch has been talking about when I finally saw the movie. Not only the acting of the actors were great, but also the slight variations and modifications were significant in emphasizing the main theme of the novella (which I will be further explaining in the later parts of my writing). A good example could be Bradley being depicted as somewhat more violent figure, which showed the cruelty and the inhumane reality in prison life. 

A picture of Andy finally FREE!

                     So what did I think about the main theme of the novella (and the movie)? Well, I guess I should start by defining what the main idea was in the work.
                     After finishing the novella and seeing the credits of the movie go up, the one word that came to my mind was "institutionalized." The theme was briefly but significantly dealt in the novella by multiple of small cases such as Brooks' return to the jail. The movie went on to magnify this idea by details such as Brooks committing suicide, Red saying that "he couldn't go to a bathroom with ease if he didn't get the boss's permission", and such.
                     As I am (unlike Stephen King) nothing close to knowing how much the contemporary prison has changed from the 70s' isolating and institutionalizing system, it is hard for me to simply criticize the society's way of keeping care of its criminals. However, what thing is sure: the way the prisoners are living currently is hardly getting any attention from the "normal" and "ordinary" people.
                    And one thing more sure is that, if the government decides to leave the prisoners "just the way they are," the former criminals would not be able to successfully adapt to the society easily. And what happens if the criminals find themselves alienated and isolated from the normal people? They are motivated to take such actions which would bring them money and fame, a source of successful adaption to the society. Possibly another crime, perhaps.
                    Another problem with former-criminal exclusion is that the nation could end up losing a person of great potential and ability who could provide the society with colossal material (or somehow, psychological) help. Think about the type of person Andy Dufresne was. He was able to snowball warden Norton's money through useful investing skills, and he was known as a competitive banker in the world "outside the walls." But due to the nation's imperfect prion capacity, it ended up sending the talented banker to a some Mexican town when he could have dedicated so much to U.S.

The Way I View My Life

A Sisyphean Life

Roll up a boulder to a top of a hill. See the huge, heavy piece of rock roll down the hill. This is the infamous punishment King Sisyphus had to face for infinite times in the famous Greek myth.

And indeed, I believe that my life doesn’t share much differences from this frustrating penalty that King Sisyphus had to suffocate every day. My life is also consisted of hundreds of “boulders” that I have to mount towards the top of the “hill” with so much effort and simply sit and watch them falling back down with hopeless, frustrated eyes. When I am just about to think that a boulder tagged “Academically successful life in elementary school” is over, “Good grades in Middle School” appears, while “Entrance to KMLA” is idly waiting on the queue.” Even after the “Entrance to KMLA” boulder (that used to so easily fool me that ‘this one would be the end’) is successfully located on the hill top, suddenly a series of huge, colossal rocks named “Good GPAs” or “Entrance to Ivy League Schools” appears.

Yes, I’m starting to get extremely bored and somewhat “immune” to the mental (and sometimes physical) pain I feel as I see all my effort invested in pulling up the rock go into vain. The frustration and fatigue I feel has now become so evident that I’m almost in the state of “expecting” an another objective to pursue by the time I’m done with my work with the previous rock. Now, as I see the boulder running away from me down the hills, the pain I feel is finally almost close to nothingness. I’ve grown so numb out of it.

Yet, I do not think that my Sisyphean life would be that much different from others. Others would have their own boulders and rocks to roll up the hill; it’s just the color and the size that could differ. Even for those who seem to be worriless about their lives and future, they’re simply ignoring the rocks (which is probably growing in size as time goes by) that they would have to push up someday, somehow.

But no, I do NOT believe that my interpretation on life is too cynical or pessimistic, as some might assert it to be. The way I put it is this: it is everybody’s fate to roll up infinite amounts of boulder until he/she dies, so (since there’s no way to escape except for committing suicide) the best I could do is to make the boulder be more shining and colorful.

I now ask a question to myself : Would Sisyphus’s life have really been a "punishment" if he had the option to “choose” what kind of boulder he would like to push and be evaluated based on the quality of the rock? No.

My life is not a condemnation, a type of punishment, or something to be cursed and be bored upon. Rather, it is something to celebrate. To celebrate the choice, the freedom given to me upon what kind of life I want to live, what kind of boulder I want to put up on the top of the hill. Even if it would roll back down as soon as I put it up.