I walked into Yonhap News Agency today, like any other average day, a little out of breath from running from the subway station not to be late. As I was was eating my daily peanut butter and jelly sandwich and drinking my cold calcium-enriched soy milk, I heard the copy editors next to me talking about a shooting in Mumbai. A shooting in Mumbai? My ears perked, since I have several friends with connections to that city, the hub of finance and tourism of India.
What I saw while browsing through the NY times, CNN, and the BBC was far more horrifying than the "shooting" I had imagined in my head. It was a massacre. As I sorted through hundreds of photos and eyewitness accounts of the terrifying incident, I felt chills running up my back and cold sweat dripping from my forehead. Young boys, aged 20 to 25, spraying rounds of ammunition from their AK47s with completely emotionless expressions on their face. Almost a look of content and entertainment. A complete, inescapable nightmare.
I guess being American, I couldn't help but be struck by the fact that the attackers were singling out people with US and British passports. If I had been in that crowd, I could have probably passed for being Korean, but still, the situation made me wonder what motives were behind their particular selection. What explanation was there for their incredible hate and deploration of Americans and Britons? Even after hearing several hours of news reports concerning this attack, I'm not sure whether the terrorists were planning on killing the hostages or not. But if they weren't, perhaps their goal was to keep them for ransom, or perhaps even a spit in the face of two supposed superpowers.
While thinking about this attack, I realized that the tactics of military power and hegemonic rule of the US had once against met its match--the untrackable, intangible, transnational strategies of terrorists who challenged the state's monopology over the use of violence. More force and military hard power's not going to fix the problem. It will only create greater strife and violence. So what's left for the world to do?
I guess that's the problem left to our generation to find out.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Vote for ( )
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: November 1, 2008
NY Times
Here’s what strikes me this election eve: I can’t remember a presidential campaign that was so disconnected from the actual challenges of governing that will confront the winner the morning after. When this election campaign began two years ago, the big issue was how and for how long do we continue nation-building in Iraq. As the campaign comes to a close, the big issue is how and at what sacrifice do we do nation-building in America.
Unfortunately, you’d barely know that from the presidential debates. Watching them in the context of the meltdown of the financial system was like watching a game show where the two contestants were kept off-stage in a soundproof booth and brought out to address the audience without knowing the context.
Since the last debate, John McCain and Barack Obama have unveiled broad ideas about how to restore the nation’s financial health. But they continue to suggest that this will be largely pain-free. McCain says giving everyone a tax cut will save the day; Obama tells us only the rich will have to pay to help us out of this hole. Neither is true.
We are all going to have to pay, because this meltdown comes in the context of what has been “perhaps the greatest wealth transfer since the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917,” says Michael Mandelbaum, author of “Democracy’s Good Name.” “It is not a wealth transfer from rich to poor that the Bush administration will be remembered for. It is a wealth transfer from the future to the present.”
Never has one generation spent so much of its children’s wealth in such a short period of time with so little to show for it as in the Bush years. Under George W. Bush, America has foisted onto future generations a huge financial burden to finance our current tax cuts, wars and now bailouts. Just paying off those debts will require significant sacrifices. But when you add the destruction of wealth that has taken place in the last two months in the markets, and the need for more bailouts, you understand why this is not going to be a painless recovery.
The Bush team leaves us with another debt — one to Mother Nature. We have added tons more CO2 into the atmosphere these last eight years, without any mitigation effort. As a result, slowing down climate change in the next eight years is going to require even bigger changes and investments in how we use energy.
Given that Times columnists are not allowed to “formally” endorse candidates and given that the context of this election has changed so much from the policy positions the candidates started with, all I can suggest is that you vote for the candidate with these character traits:
First, we need a president who can speak English and deconstruct and navigate complex issues so Americans can make informed choices. We have paid an enormous price for having a president who could not explain and reassure us during this financial meltdown. We wasted a huge amount of time pretending that we could punish Wall Street without punishing Main Street — when, in fact, they are intricately intertwined.
A major money market fund — Reserve Primary — failed in September because the extra interest it offered customers derived, in part, from the $785 million in high-yielding Lehman Brothers commercial paper and notes it was holding. Depositors who told their congressmen to just let that greedy Lehman Brothers fail were shocked to discover this meant that their own money market would be frozen. No, we don’t need a president defending greed on Wall Street, but we do need one who can explain that we are all in the same boat, that a leak at one end can sink everyone and that while we must regulate, we don’t want to kill risk-taking and the rewards that go with that — which are essential to growing our economy.
Second, we need a president who can energize, inspire and hold the country together during what will be a very stressful recovery. We have to climb out of this financial crisis at a time when the baby boomers are about to retire and going to need their Social Security and eventually Medicare. We are all going to be paying the government more and getting less until we grow out of this hole.
Third, we need a president who can rally the world to our side. We cannot get out of this crisis unless China starts consuming more and unless Europe keeps lowering interest rates. Everyone is interconnected, and everyone is still looking to America to lead.
So, bottom line: Please do not vote for the candidate you most want to have a beer with (unless it’s to get stone cold drunk so you don’t have to think about this mess we’re in). Vote for the person you’d most like at your side when you ask your bank manager for an extension on your mortgage.
Vote for the candidate you think has the smarts, temperament and inspirational capacity to unify the country and steer our ship through what could be the rockiest shoals our generation has ever known. Your kids will thank you.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Christmas wish list
a soft dreamy kiss from my hubby bubby
holding my fluffy white puppy in my arms
a digital camera to take pictures of my memories
hearing the words i love you from the people i love
someone's favorite book
realizing my passion in life
a surprise phone call from my college friends and flagship sisters
a special song sang by a special someone to me on christmas morning
snuggling in the warmth of a big hug
a CD of favorite songs
holding my fluffy white puppy in my arms
a digital camera to take pictures of my memories
hearing the words i love you from the people i love
someone's favorite book
realizing my passion in life
a surprise phone call from my college friends and flagship sisters
a special song sang by a special someone to me on christmas morning
snuggling in the warmth of a big hug
a CD of favorite songs
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Stuck
I'm incredibly restless right now. I have been sitting in the LG-POSCO "global lounge" for the last three hours, surrounded by other tired looking KU students studying for their midterms under the dim lamp light. My mind is wandering back and forth from having to write my article at Yonhap about the North Korean Human Rights Reauthorization Act and studying for my flagship midterms.
Most people, if they get stuck on one task, would move onto the next task of importance until they feel they are ready to return to the first one. Unfortunately, I'm completely uncapable of doing this, which means I spend hours dwindling unproductively on one assignment until it's time to do something that doesn't require thinking, like eating, or sleeping. Then, when I lay down in bed, I hit myself on the head for not at least getting half of my other responsbilities completed. Why I can't get myself to fix this problem despite my complete awareness of it is a mystery to me. They say where there is a will, there is way. But I think willpower is only the prerequisite to getting started. If your abilities don't follow, all you do is sit around worrying, like I do.
Why can't I make progress on my article about the NKHR Reauthorization Act? Well, for one, I'm trying to make it too perfect. It's the first article that Yonhap is letting me write on my own, so although I know I'm only in the process of training, there is an unspoken pressure that this piece will determine people's perception of my writing skill for the rest of the time I am there. Even as I am typing that statement, I know it's not true. To tell you the truth, though, I'm not as much worried about the English North Korean team's evaluation of me as much as I care about what the English-speaking copy editors think of me. It's a complex about language I've had for my entire life. As a Korean American who has always been noted for my difference from mainstream America, I feel like I have to prove myself to other Americans of my English ability. It may sound ridiculous, but try growing up in Louisiana, where the color of your skin and the shape of your eyes automatically elicits taunting from those around you. Then, you'd perhaps understand where this conscious effort to master English comes from. While it would be easy for me to write an article tracing the facts about the reauthorization act, I know that without some deeper analysis or thought-provoking argument, people are going to read my article and chuck it away in the trash. I can't stand the thought of that.
The second thing that's stopping me from completing this article is the fact that I know too much. It's too complex. The way the U.S. uses human rights as a political tool is a much more complex issue that what it seems at first glance. Although many human rights groups and activists lauded the reauthorization act as a step closer to freeing the oppressive state, I see it as lip service to appease the neoconservatives who are criticizing Bush for being too soft on North Korea. So behind the rhetoric of freeing the North Koreans from human rights abuses is an even stronger political motive to uphold the image of a righteous America using soft power to change the world. In multiple cases, the U.S. has used the human rights discourse as a red line in the sand to prevent nondemocratic countries from having the moral authority to challenge the U.S.'s hegemonic position.
However, we've seen from history that bringing up human rights on a national level serves more as rhetoric than actual change. Take, for example, China. The U.S. has criticized China on several occassions, including right before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, about their human rights violations. China, as always, replied to the U.S.'s outcry with the same message they've been saying over and over again: that meddling with domestic issues is a violation of China's sovereignty. In the midst of rapid economic growth and compressed modernization, the last thing China wants is domestic instability due to complaints about human rights violations. It is also interesting to note that despite China's attempt to grasp an iron fist over the country's domestic problems, the people have been demanding basic rights for themselves, not because democratic countries such as the U.S. have criticized China, but because the economic development has created a middle class able to protest the restriction of their freedoms.
Now, how to articulate this opinion in a noncontroversial and organized way is the problem. I know what I want to say and it's all in my head, but I can't figure out the "right way" to do it.
Most people, if they get stuck on one task, would move onto the next task of importance until they feel they are ready to return to the first one. Unfortunately, I'm completely uncapable of doing this, which means I spend hours dwindling unproductively on one assignment until it's time to do something that doesn't require thinking, like eating, or sleeping. Then, when I lay down in bed, I hit myself on the head for not at least getting half of my other responsbilities completed. Why I can't get myself to fix this problem despite my complete awareness of it is a mystery to me. They say where there is a will, there is way. But I think willpower is only the prerequisite to getting started. If your abilities don't follow, all you do is sit around worrying, like I do.
Why can't I make progress on my article about the NKHR Reauthorization Act? Well, for one, I'm trying to make it too perfect. It's the first article that Yonhap is letting me write on my own, so although I know I'm only in the process of training, there is an unspoken pressure that this piece will determine people's perception of my writing skill for the rest of the time I am there. Even as I am typing that statement, I know it's not true. To tell you the truth, though, I'm not as much worried about the English North Korean team's evaluation of me as much as I care about what the English-speaking copy editors think of me. It's a complex about language I've had for my entire life. As a Korean American who has always been noted for my difference from mainstream America, I feel like I have to prove myself to other Americans of my English ability. It may sound ridiculous, but try growing up in Louisiana, where the color of your skin and the shape of your eyes automatically elicits taunting from those around you. Then, you'd perhaps understand where this conscious effort to master English comes from. While it would be easy for me to write an article tracing the facts about the reauthorization act, I know that without some deeper analysis or thought-provoking argument, people are going to read my article and chuck it away in the trash. I can't stand the thought of that.
The second thing that's stopping me from completing this article is the fact that I know too much. It's too complex. The way the U.S. uses human rights as a political tool is a much more complex issue that what it seems at first glance. Although many human rights groups and activists lauded the reauthorization act as a step closer to freeing the oppressive state, I see it as lip service to appease the neoconservatives who are criticizing Bush for being too soft on North Korea. So behind the rhetoric of freeing the North Koreans from human rights abuses is an even stronger political motive to uphold the image of a righteous America using soft power to change the world. In multiple cases, the U.S. has used the human rights discourse as a red line in the sand to prevent nondemocratic countries from having the moral authority to challenge the U.S.'s hegemonic position.
However, we've seen from history that bringing up human rights on a national level serves more as rhetoric than actual change. Take, for example, China. The U.S. has criticized China on several occassions, including right before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, about their human rights violations. China, as always, replied to the U.S.'s outcry with the same message they've been saying over and over again: that meddling with domestic issues is a violation of China's sovereignty. In the midst of rapid economic growth and compressed modernization, the last thing China wants is domestic instability due to complaints about human rights violations. It is also interesting to note that despite China's attempt to grasp an iron fist over the country's domestic problems, the people have been demanding basic rights for themselves, not because democratic countries such as the U.S. have criticized China, but because the economic development has created a middle class able to protest the restriction of their freedoms.
Now, how to articulate this opinion in a noncontroversial and organized way is the problem. I know what I want to say and it's all in my head, but I can't figure out the "right way" to do it.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
living in the binary
it's difficult for me to be gray about the way i feel for people. i either care a lot about them and want them in my life or i could care less about what they do. i wish i could find some kind of balance in the middle, especially when it hurts so much like this to be apart from the person i care about. because for me, to not be so effected by his absence means to stop caring and even though i'm trying to find a balance, my heart is not letting me do so. i don't know what to do
Friday, July 4, 2008
Finding hope again
Living Water retreat 2008. It was held in the surreal calmness and beauty of Lake Junaluska, a Methodist community in the heart of the mountains of North Carolina, just over the rolling hills and winding roads of Tennessee.
It was here that I began grasping for God with every tender longing in my body and it is here that I was found again in my brokenness. It was here, in the midst of my brothers and sisters--some of whom I had known since my more innocent days in middle school--that I began breaking down the wall that had separated me from God for so long. It was a wall made of pride, self-sufficiency, men, lust, and perhaps most importantly, fear. I was afraid to be Christian, because for me, that meant being radical, going against everything that society had taught me, and living a born again life that I couldn't control. But today, there was a short demonstration of what it was like to take a leap of faith in which a young boy jumped into the pastor's arms without any fear. God will never let you fall when you make that jump, the pastor said. That's what makes life exciting. If God had just picked you up from the edge and placed you down on safe ground, your life would be so boring! Those words resonated in my mind and were ringing, echoing in the back of my head. I imagined myself stepping up to the ledge, scared, timid, closing my eyes and taking a leap into the darkness of uncertainty. I thought I would fall straight to the ground, but I flew--through the cold and empty feeling of loneliness into the awesome presence of God.
Another pastor said last night that the biggest problem with our generation of Christians is not drugs, or alcohol, or the media. It is boredom. We have somehow became bored of Christianity and are no longer awed by the astonishment of God's love. God's love, the awesome power that lives inside each and every one of us that promises us to never leave our side.
I remember when I wrote in my New Year's resolution for 2008. "To be fearless in my pursuit of God." But I have been everything but fearless. I have shriveled at the face of society's expectations, my parents' expectations, my pride, my education, my lack of confidence in myself as God's child. No, I don't want to live hiding anymore from what I believe God is calling me to do. To reach out to those who are in pain, to share in their suffering, and to spread the good--no, awesome--news of LIFE to those whose souls are dying. And to reach out to my sisters, who I know have felt so much pain and have nowhere and noone to share their stories with. I lay my life out for you Jesus. Help me to become fearless in following you and what you have commissioned our generation to do.
O Lord, since Thou hast died
To give Thyself for me,
No sacrifice could be too great
For me to make for Thee.
Refrain:
Lord, send me anywhere, Only go with me;
Lay any burden on me, Only sustain me.
Sever any tie, Save the tie that binds me to Thy heart—
Lord Jesus, my King, I consecrate my life, Lord, to Thee.
I only have one life,
And that will soon be past;
I want my life to count for Christ,
What's done for Him will last.
I follow Thee, my Lord,
And glory in Thy cross;
I gladly leave the world behind
And count all gain as loss.
It was here that I began grasping for God with every tender longing in my body and it is here that I was found again in my brokenness. It was here, in the midst of my brothers and sisters--some of whom I had known since my more innocent days in middle school--that I began breaking down the wall that had separated me from God for so long. It was a wall made of pride, self-sufficiency, men, lust, and perhaps most importantly, fear. I was afraid to be Christian, because for me, that meant being radical, going against everything that society had taught me, and living a born again life that I couldn't control. But today, there was a short demonstration of what it was like to take a leap of faith in which a young boy jumped into the pastor's arms without any fear. God will never let you fall when you make that jump, the pastor said. That's what makes life exciting. If God had just picked you up from the edge and placed you down on safe ground, your life would be so boring! Those words resonated in my mind and were ringing, echoing in the back of my head. I imagined myself stepping up to the ledge, scared, timid, closing my eyes and taking a leap into the darkness of uncertainty. I thought I would fall straight to the ground, but I flew--through the cold and empty feeling of loneliness into the awesome presence of God.
Another pastor said last night that the biggest problem with our generation of Christians is not drugs, or alcohol, or the media. It is boredom. We have somehow became bored of Christianity and are no longer awed by the astonishment of God's love. God's love, the awesome power that lives inside each and every one of us that promises us to never leave our side.
I remember when I wrote in my New Year's resolution for 2008. "To be fearless in my pursuit of God." But I have been everything but fearless. I have shriveled at the face of society's expectations, my parents' expectations, my pride, my education, my lack of confidence in myself as God's child. No, I don't want to live hiding anymore from what I believe God is calling me to do. To reach out to those who are in pain, to share in their suffering, and to spread the good--no, awesome--news of LIFE to those whose souls are dying. And to reach out to my sisters, who I know have felt so much pain and have nowhere and noone to share their stories with. I lay my life out for you Jesus. Help me to become fearless in following you and what you have commissioned our generation to do.
O Lord, since Thou hast died
To give Thyself for me,
No sacrifice could be too great
For me to make for Thee.
Refrain:
Lord, send me anywhere, Only go with me;
Lay any burden on me, Only sustain me.
Sever any tie, Save the tie that binds me to Thy heart—
Lord Jesus, my King, I consecrate my life, Lord, to Thee.
I only have one life,
And that will soon be past;
I want my life to count for Christ,
What's done for Him will last.
I follow Thee, my Lord,
And glory in Thy cross;
I gladly leave the world behind
And count all gain as loss.
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