Hey. I know I've been missing in action for the past two days. Nothing bad, just not inspired. Also, a lot of work at work, unexpectedly and suddenly.

I know I've complained about this to individual friends and on this blog, but to heck with it -- I'm gonna complain yet again, 'cause I'm just reckless and fixated that way. I just can't seem to get a decent night's sleep and it's driving me up the wall!!! Added to the triptich of mosquitoes, daylight at 5:15 am, and heat, my back's been acting up and I actually have to get up so as to alleviate the pain that builds up by morning.

So I get up very grumpified and go to work very unwillingly and face badly written English with a very frightening snarl. Often the document contains not only grammar mistakes, but also mistakes in logic as well.

The problem is that the Korean education system does not emphasize analytical skills. My mother's critical thinking skills have improved immensely with two years of classes in the States, but when I edited her first masters' degree papers, I was surprised at how poorly she wrote, even factoring that English is not her native language. She explained that she never had to write papers in college.

I wrote that off to an antiquated post-war system of education, but a generation later, the same problem exists. People my age also lack quite basic paper-writing skills, for the simple reason that they were never required to develop them in school. If they did write a paper, it was usually a report on what they had read, rather than an analysis.

Now, the Korean education system produces a nation that is 99 percent literate and far outranks the U.S. in standardized tests in nearly all subjects, if not all. But coming from the best of the best in the U.S., I can't help but look at the lack of emphasis on critical thinking with a good amount of dismay. (There plenty of Americans who also have poor skills in this area, which is also a bleedin' shame.) The worldwide respect that Koreans crave may be captured temporarily by events like the World Cup, but in this rationalistic world, I don't think that Korea can compete without an acknowledgement of the thinking patterns that have characterized western thought for so long.

That being said, Koreans do understand the philosophical difference between east and west. In an essay I recently re-proofed (I'd seen it several months ago), a famous Korean traditional music artist described western thought as "predominantly rationalistic" and eastern thought as "predominantly mystic." As my father is fond of pointing out, the west values precision, definition, scientific process, while the east, well, doesn't. This is why the green stoplight here is usually referred to as "blue."

"But it's not blue," I and all other westerners argue. "It's clearly green."

"Well, blue and green are pretty close," my father said, "and it doesn't really matter, does it?"

While my western-trained mind recoils at this casual misnaming, I see his point. What does it matter, in the end?

In the matter of global competitiveness, though, I do think it matters. The problem is, instituting this kind of lesson in Korea would require a full-blown overturning of the current status quo, in which teachers are never questioned and students are not asked for their opinions. When my friend Hyo-jung spent a year in Australia, she said that she was most surprised by how freely students asked questions and challenged the books they read, and most of all, how the teachers encouraged this. In Korea, she said, she never asked questions. If she didn't understand the lesson, she would just ask a friend later.

There have been plenty of times when I've done this during my schooling in the States too, but it was more due to my shyness and fear of looking dumb than a restrictive school atmosphere.

So... yeah. I think I... um, just ran out of steam there, so I'm just gonna wrap it up now. Logic is good! Go logic!
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Yesterday I went to see two exhibits, thanks to the Fellowships Team, who invited me along with the language and research fellows that the KF sponsors every year. The Picasso exhibit, while shocking for its sex content, wasn't nearly as interesting as the "Yes Yoko Ono" exhibit. I think I'm in love with conceptual art! (Either that or I've been out of the academic environment so long that I'm mistaking bullshit for genius.)

The Picasso (and whenever I see that, I think of how the judge on Ally McBeal pronounced it PIK-asso) exhibit included a pink room with the unintentionally (or maybe intentionally) hilarious "Raphael and La Fornarina" series, in which Raphael and his model/lover "perform acrobatic sexual intercourses, during which Raphael never loses his grip on the palette and brushes.

"The Pope Julius II, a cardinal, and Piero Crommelynck, who helped Picasso with printing, are watching the scenes. Michaelangelo, who was jealous of Raphael's success, is hiding under the bed and eavesdropping on the happenings, but is unable to view the scenes as the Pope does.

"It may be said that the series ... manifests Picasso's psychological state at the time. The artist was at the advanced age of 87. Now unable to play the leading role, Picasso can only be a voyeur. And looking at these prints, we the viewers join in the voyeuristic act."

If ever I forgot why I decided against majoring in art history, this kind of bullshit reminded me exactly why.

On the other hand, why I found myself captivated by Ono's brand of bullshit is a mystery to me as well. It wasn't just me -- all the KF staffers (4 other women) agreed that it was a more interesting exhibit. Perhaps it does have to do with the sometimes aggressively male view in Picasso's work, versus the "feminine" aspect of Ono's... though it didn't seem particularly feminine to me, just more interesting.

Of course, the collaborations with and stories about Lennon did add a certain frisson to the exhibit. The story goes that Lennon attended one of her exhibits way back when, and asked her if he could hammer in a nail in one of her pieces (the work featured a white wooden board, with hammer and nails nearby; visitors were encouraged to hammer in a nail, and when the board was filled, the piece was considered finished). Unaware of his identity and unimpressed, Ono replied, "For five shillings you can hammer in a nail." He countered, "If I give you an imaginary five shillings, can I hammer in an imaginary nail?" They locked eyes and the rest is history.

Among my favorites was the series of conceptual “paintings,” which consisted merely of instructions in Japanese for various paintings the viewer could create in their head. For example: A. Plant a vine in a rock wall. B. When it withers, the painting is half over. C. When the wall crumbles, the painting is finished. (Or something like that.)

Another similar mindf**k was the mornings for sale piece, in which Ono “sold” mornings to people in the shape of shards of a glass bottle, on which she would affix typed labels such as “Tuesday, December 15, 1966/ the whole morning”. The deal was that people would buy the glass shard, and on the morning they “bought,” use the shard to look at the sky.

See what I mean? You can’t decide whether it’s brilliant or bullshit. All I know is that it makes me want to use words like “subvert” and “commodification” and “epistemological.” And I don’t even know what “epistemological” means!

I could have done without the film that tracked a fly’s movements on a naked woman’s body (to the soundtrack of Ono’s interpretation of sexual release), but the film that consisted of 365 buttocks, shot while the subject walked in place and talked with the film crew, was pretty funny.

But my favorite was the first piece, consisting of merely a ladder, a square piece of glass attached to the ceiling, and a magnifying glass. Although we weren’t allowed to do so in this exhibit, the original 1966 exhibition permitted visitors to climb the ladder and peer at a tiny word etched in the middle of the glass with the magnifier. The word is “YES”.