The True North, Woo... Big.

Korea has become Woo Big's home. There are things about this place I may never know... things so hard to know I may never even know I never even knew... And yet...

I came from Canada, where there were likely as many unknowable things, if not more. In Korea, there is one very difficult language to learn. In Canada, I saw streetsigns in Sushwap, college courses in Halkomelem, films in Kwakwakawakwa, house parties in Tagalog, bus conversations in Mandarin, Bollywood movies in Hindi, Junior High classes in French, Christmas parties in German...

The thing I like about Korea that marks it as a superior living experience in the Life and Time's of Woo... is that when I meet other white people here, most of them have a pretty good idea just how out of touch they are with the culture. By contrast, the wonderous land of my birth is filled with ignorant honkies that have no clue just how much goes on around them.

Every time I go back to Canada, I walk down Broadway in Vancouver and realize how many of those "Asian" restaurant signs I can actually read - because they're in Hangeul, which I can now distinguish from the ones that are in Chinese or Japanese.

Don't get me wrong. I love Canada. It has a lot of potential. One suggestion I have is that, anyone who is born on Canadian soil should be sent abroad to work or study in a non-English environment; preferably somewhere in Asia or Africa. This is the only way they are going to realize what the first-generation immigrantas already know, which is just how much they DON'T know.

Of course, some people will never learn. They're THAT content to remain... well, STUPID. I know an Auzzie who was married for about a year to a Korean lady, and barely knows any Korean. But he LOVES Korea. He studies the history and the art and architecture voraciously, as though his life depended on it... or more specifically is life WERE it... which it is... that is... life is what you make of it. He's making much of his life. On the other hand, I've met people who spent a year here, learned even less Korean, and wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a pagoda and a pavillion... sigh.

Then there are the soldiers. What good could possibly come from putting a gun in the hands of someone that STUPID? Most of these kids don't appear to have finished highschool. I am reminded of a kid I once knew in Vancouver, who had made a career of being a thief. He was very competant in dealing with contingencies and company in which such a path tended to land him, but he stalwartly thought I was lying when I tried to explain that Christianity was not the oldest religion in the world. Yet he was still marginally more intelligent than most of the soldiers I've met.

So. What is Woo Big's point? I guess my point is, if you were born in Canada, and you love your country, and you want it to fulfill its potential of becoming one of the best places in the world... stay in school. Then, get out of Canada. At least for a little while...