Hi,
Thank you for sharing your experience. I am sure you are learning a lot. Even if it’s not speaking Korean, the society and its daily life gives you an immersive experience that doesn’t necessarily have to do with language.
I was able to watch the movie Parasites on Friday. I was very impressed with it. Very distant from the typical South Korean movie I had seen. This one struck me as deep and full of meaning. I wonder if that gap between poor and rich really exists. We often create misconceptions when we don’t see things with our own eyes, from direct experience.
But also, from that inequality many things are derived in the film, the poor who suffer and are smart to become rich, or at least to have a job; the spoiled and foolish rich who like English as a means of communication and who are little sensitive to the poor around them, except when they smell bad, when they smell of poverty. I think it can be analyzed very deeply with the concepts of fault lines. It left me with the impression that the two Koreas are present in the plot and also that they are one, one with its differences and contradictions, but one nation at the end of the day.
It felt much more like a Japanese film to me than a Korean one. But I don’t really know anything about Japan, and even less about Korea. What I have heard of music seems to me to be equally profound and ancestral. Its drums and voices penetrate the senses.
In Venezuela things are still evolving. Yesterday on my way to a meeting I saw a couple of places with a person ending the night asleep on the street. That saddened me and made my night difficult. However, things continue to improve, in spite of all the suffering that is still going on. Today we were celebrating the anniversary of the Mexican Constitution with a flowers offering to Emiliano Zapata and visiting the beautiful art spaces in the center of Caracas. These days the International Book Fair is very popular, and although there is no money to buy there is a lot to see and enjoy. After all, although money is enough on our family side to buy books, money cannot by achieve knowledge. We already have books we do not read…
I am currently doing an essay on the peace building in Venezuela for a UN contest and it has helped me a lot to sort out my ideas. At home we continue to be resilient and to manage the day to day economy with Mexican food and community projects.
I think it is important that we have contact to exchange our experiences. Jurgen has responded to me and wonders about the Galtung Institute’s existence after the class we took a year ago. There is always a causality in things, sometimes we know it and sometimes we do not.
I also wish you a good season this winter, whatever you celebrate. Every new day is a great opportunity to celebrate.
Cheers