January 2nd, 2006
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Backaches and bellyaches about society
There is a new variety of pain brewing in my shoulders. It is most undoubtedly from carrying X kilograms of cameras and tripod on top of an already burdensome full-length wool coat and three sweaters. I have walked the streets of downtown Seoul for roughly thirty hours of the last forty eight, and my eyes are beginning to grow heavy with pedestrian underpasses and kimchi. Of course, there is much left to experience. The city is over eight million people and the better part of a millennium old. There is little majesty here, but that is to be expected of a commercial metropolis I suppose. It’s easily cheaper than Tokyo food- and clothes- wise, though by both this is sans brand names. But for a utilitarian such as myself, this is hardly worth begrudging. There are many mirrors, in stations and stores, and they are often used, though I’ve noticed far more men than women frequenting them.
Seoul is at times equally as decadent and grand as Tokyo, but often much more hectic and haphazardly managed. Like the other mainland Asia cites that I’ve visited, there are vast amounts of trash scattered along over the streets and alleyways, and there is no public respect for cleanliness. Much like Shanghai, even the new construction and arcades are quickly soiled, often during the process of their ongoing, seemingly half-hearted restoration. After seeing this so many times and comparing it to my homes in America and Japan, I wonder where the mentality differs and what it means. Is this the result of an economy developing too fast? Is the money outstripping the education for its use?
I pore over the rationality for my disappointment and disdain again and again. Am I so wrong to be disgusted by this? Why does it bother me so? How can humanity as a civilization hope to master the pressing challenges of the globe such as war, disease, and poverty, when more than half of us seem to have no respect at all for the state of the environment we live in? How can a society shout and cry for acceptance and recognition among the world leaders while their masses defecate in squalor, so revoltingly parasitic, spreading filth and rot all about their “world class cities”? Tens of thousands of years on the planet, journeys to space and digital computation on the head of a pin and we can’t see past throwing cigarettes and rotten food to the ground. Mustn’t there be a set of ethics and self conduct that flow within naturally? A green sprout given at infancy that grows and flowers like a noble oak tree, taking in harmful CO2 and breathing out life–
