Seoul Man

[Roger E. Rustad, Jr.]

How about we shorten it to just "mynchon"?

(I'm sorry to say that I actually googled for that word to see if anyone 
else used it that context)

At 01:42 PM 11/25/2003 +0000, Burns, Erik wrote:
>foax:
>your Pynchon mention o' the day.
>etb
>
>++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
>Painting a sinking ship.
>745 Words
>26 November 2003
>The Korea Herald
>English
>(c) 2003 The Korea Herald
>
>"When I was young I believed in social progress because I saw chances for
>personal progress of my own. Today, at the age of 65, having gone as far as
>I'm about to go, I see nothing but a dead end for myself, and for my society
>as well." So began the recent confession a retired professor made to me
>while chatting over lunch. The retired professor was deeply disillusioned
>about the current situation in Korea where there is no sign of
>reconciliation between Right and Left, North and South, and even East and
>West. His bitter remarks reminded me of a similar passage in Thomas
>Pynchon's superb but gloomy novel "V.""I worked very hard for this company
>all my life, and now they kicked me out under the name of restructuring. I'm
>only 45. What am I supposed to do now?" sobbed a middle-aged man in a bar
>the other day, taking a few drinks alone. "This isn't normal. This society
>forces me to get drunk." "I am terribly disillusioned with the quality of
>education in this country.
>
>The purpose of education in Korea is nothing but passing the college
>entrance exam. The school system is ruining my children. I can't stand this
>inhumane environment anymore. In fact, I am considering of immigrating to
>Canada, Australia, or New Zealand, for my children's sake," complained a
>businessman to me a few days ago. Indeed, we have numerous fathers in Korea
>who live alone after sending their wives and children to the United States
>or Canada to provide them with a better education. The number of so-called
>"wild geese dads" who are migrating to the United States during vacations to
>see their families has increased considerably lately. Some of these dads
>even die alone due to overwork, strokes or heart attacks. And there are the
>so-called "widow villages" throughout the United States, where Korean wives
>gather to live for their children's education. Meanwhile, the "wild geese
>dads" in Korea send all of their paychecks to their families in the "widow
>villages." The amount of money that Korean husbands send to America is
>reportedly astronomical. All of this indicates that something is not quite
>right in Korea these days. Perhaps we can gain some insight once again from
>Thomas Pynchon who repudiates both Right and Left: "We carry on the business
>of this century with an intolerable double vision. Right and Left: the
>hothouse and the street. The Right can only live and work hermetically, in
>the hothouse of the past, while outside the Left prosecute their affairs in
>the streets by manipulated mob violence. And cannot live but in the
>dreamscape of the future." What, then, should we do about this sinking,
>disintegrating society of ours? Abandon the sinking ship and immigrate to
>another country? Or should we try to fix the damage and save the ship? At
>the end of Thomas Pynchon's novel "V" there is a powerful metaphor about
>what to do with a disintegrating society. A sailor is alone on the sea,
>painting the side of a sinking ship at nightfall. "What're you doing here?"
>people in another boat yell at him. "The master is gone, the crew is gone, I
>am here and I am painting the ship," he answers feebly. "Come aboard. Night
>is nearly on us and you cannot swim to land." People in another boat urge
>him to stop the painting and return to the harbor. The ship is sinking
>anyway. What's the use? The sailor merely continues dipping the brush in his
>jar in silence and slapping it smoothly on the creaking sides of the ship.
>Pynchon suggests that the sinking ship is our society. If so, are we
>supposed to mock the sailor who is stupid enough to paint the sinking ship?
>Or do we still need to give it a new coat of paint even though the ship is
>sinking? Nobert Wiener once suggested that in a sense, we are the
>unfortunate passengers in a sinking ship called the Earth. While going down
>slowly, we should do our best to slow down the process and maintain the
>integrity and dignity of human beings. That may be the least we can do for
>this bleak world. Dr. Kim Seong-kon is a professor of English and the
>executive director of the Language Education Institute at Seoul National
>University. - Ed.