My Cat Mar 27, 2005 2:55 am Mood: thankful, 1170 Views I know that in Korea cats are not thought too highly of. However, I love my cat. His name is Fritz. But I call him Lover, Smoochers, He-Devil, Crazy Man, and My Little Cuddler. He is truly a loving soul. I adopted him from the veterinarian's office at the Yongsan Army Post. He had originally been abandoned and left alone outside. Some caring individual brought him to the pet clinic. Thank God to that person because Fritz may never have known the happiness he has now. I hope that everyone who is thinking of owning/raising a pet thinks about all the animals that are abandoned and left to fend for themselves outside. Maybe you too can be lucky and find your perfect soulmate-pet from the pet clinic. Paying 200,000 won just is overpriced when you can get a little bundle of fur-joy from the local pet doctor. 6 Comments

An Excellant Poem Mar 18, 2005 2:48 am Mood: sad, 1215 Views I was taking a Korean Culture college class and one of the topics was Korean literature. I'm not going to pretend that I can write amazing poems and stories... so I will share one by someone who can. There is a famous poet in Korea named Ko Uri... and I fell in love with many of his poems. But the one that truely, TRUELY wrenched my heart was titled, Early Morning Road. Of course the poem was originally written in Korean... and the English translation has probably lost some content... BUT IT IS BEAUTIFUL. Even though I cannot imagine the pain of being separated from my family, such as North and South Koreans must feel, I am obsessed with trying to understand it. I often think about this poem when I consider what meaning I have here in Korea. Please, let me share the poem with you: Early morning road Mother! First, you sold a few handfuls of scalded greens, some bunches of radishes from your vegetable basket. Then, as your son was leaving home, kicking the dew along the early morning road, mother, you said, 'Go up to Seoul and make good, really make good!' You gave him a ball of salted rice, and the fare. Then, after your son had left home, mother, you set the Seven Stars of the Great Wain on your white hair, though those stars lost their miraculous powers a thousand years ago, and you prayed and prayed, firmly fixed before a bowl of cold water, and mother, thanks to all those prayers you said your son became a drunken lout. Seoul? Nothing but a foreign colony, and then again, a new colony where sunset is a rotten pumpkin sinking into the lower reaches of the River Han! For thirty long years he served the Yanks, grew old and sick working as their houseboy. Whenever he drank there was so much to say, and always a reborn breast, as well, but when the next morning dawned, lo and behold, there in his breast a gaping hole again, and clearly visible through that hole the early morning road of a day long ago. Mother you can clearly be seen gazing after your son as he goes on his way, standing long on the village hilltop. Now that's enough, go back home to your mud-walled poverty, don't keep counting off on your fingers the days and the months, waiting for your son to appear. There was a blizzard, a blizzard and a downpour. Your son became a drunken lout. Not a rich man in a house with twelve front doors, only press a bell and it all gets done, with powers that devour the rights of a thousand, commandeering the goods of thousands more. Your son has nothing, nothing at all, his leper's eyebrows are all gone too, and when your son turned forty one day as he roused himself from a drunken stupor he smashed the glass in his open hand then grasped it, blood flowed red, red as a new-made world. He beat his breast and beat his brow, the blood poured down. No, he must not wait any longer now. He must not wait, a drunken lout. I have abolished the coming day, that day awaited for five thousand years, after such long ages, five hundred years, fifty years, ages with South and North chopped in two at the waist, rifle barrel to rifle barrel, ages with this one and that one acting as puppet; that day will come, it will certainly come, if you only keep waiting -- I have quite abolished it. Mother, do not ask when that day will come, that day when each family will be united in one embrace, when the sun will rise in every heart, do not ask. Now mother's drunken loutish son is on his way to the battlefield, to the battlefield where only the fight can make life possible. In the bitter wind on the early morning road, with fists clenched I kneaded the ball of rice you gave me. My heart is brimming full with bitterness, full of that money you gave for the fare. This present day is your long long waiting. At break of dawn, setting out along the early morning road, my body has turned into a sharpened knife, turned into a blaze of fire in the dark; after the fight I will return with that day loaded on my back. With a blood-stained banner waving, that tattered banner streaming out, with my wounded leg roughly bound up, I will return, bearing that day. That day is your son. That day is every mother's son. No, mother, I can't say that. I recall the sorrow of your blasted breasts swaying as you pounded barley in the days of our youth; now your son has died and reduced to blanched bones whimpers for the milk of your sorrow again. Mother, in his old age your son sets out for the battlefield and surely that day will come, sustained by five thousand years of history. Our nation will be one. 4 Comments

 sunniegirl

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