Coryo Body Language

L ook at the above image, what can you tell about the body language you see? For example, can you tell why the girl on the right is holding a notebook up close to her face, or more directly, why the girl on the left is holding her hand up to her mouth? People from the west may look at the girl on the left and assume she had said something embarrassing or perhaps she accidentally said a bad word and covers her mouth in a gesture which says, "oops..I said something wrong." It's very common for people without knowledge of the ways of another world, to quickly interpret an unknown with the knowledge they possess the moment perceived. There is a word in English which clearly explains this action as "pre-judging" or making a judgment 'before' considering the additional knowledge regarding the people and / or situation being judged. This is summed up in the word prejudice.

Now to begin unscrambling misinterpretations. In the above picture is a bit of information about a culture and way of life that is so different from western thinking that explaining the depths of this culture would make most think the people in the image came from a different universe, much less a different planet. I believe there may be two parts to explaining something that to me is worth more than anything money can buy in term of richness; first there is simply saying what the gesture means and the second more difficult part is explaining "why" the gesture means what it does.

First, the reason the girls are blocking the ability to see their face under their hand or notebook is a mark of cultural and societal refinement; the gesture women use by covering their mouth occurs not just when a photograph is taken but when they laugh or smile in public. After spending my entire eleven years in Korea without exposure to English or western thought and having help from my Korean wife made understanding this easier. I can tell that the girl on the left comes from a very traditional Korean family that holds stricter adherence to Confucian values than the girl on the right. How can I know this? Again, it is reading body language in the context of Korean culture refined and purified in the teachings of the Chinese scholar Confucius.

During my graduate studies involving ethnology, I came to understand that culture is conveyed by language; that is to say, by learning and using a specific language, one acquires the understanding and practices associated with the language that defines the culture. Koreans who know little or no English, conveyed greater and clearer expressions associated with Korean culture. So, in the above photo, the girl on the left didn't speak much if any English and therefore expressed the deeper cultural refinement associated with Korean culture by using her hand to cover her mouth.. The girl on the right knew how to speak English with a fair degree of fluency, so her appearance and gestures are less Korean than her friend on the left. It was a bit shocking to watch how the acquisition of English eroded the depth and beauty of Korean culture. In truth, it now occurs to me that my time in Korea only served to help the cultural erosion process as my native language is English. However, as my level of fluency with the Korean language developed, my acquisition and understanding of Korean culture developed. At this juncture in time, after longing to have an intellectual conversation with someone in English for eleven years, my return to the west and a totally English speaking population has been a literal collision of cultures. Having an intellectual conversation requires a person to be intelligent, and by this I mean has a "philosophy" and speaks English with more than a rudimentary vocabulary.

My return to the west and my hopes of intellectual conversation have been dashed by events which transpired during my absence, events I don't understand like the September 11, 2001 incident; the only thing that remains the same and has reached chronic levels, is the amount of control and influence that many men (through their weakness for the sensual over spiritual) have allowed women to assume.  In Korea I had reached the level of understanding Korean culture to the point that I could emulate the complicated levels of courtesies, honor and respect that must be shown according to age, social position as well as gender. With the acquisition of these Korean values, I could turn around and try and convey Korean culture through English, though the effort becomes more a guide to how to acquire the values of Korean culture because English conveys the values of those who speak English. My efforts to convey Korean culture using English would certainly be an exercise in futility. For people who desire to understand the depth of beauty associated with a culture that is ten thousand years old, would require that they abandon the use of English for the time of learning and go to a part of the world where English hasn't distorted the true beauty and purity of Korean culture. Before a nuclear holocaust destroys this chance. I would encourage all philanthropic minded individuals to consider an unbiased trip to North Korea where the devastation of western capitalistic frenzy currently being transmitted through English in South Korea hasn't ravished the culture.

I consider myself very fortunate to have arrived in Korea when I did, because there was a clear level of distinction to be found between the culture of older Koreans who still retained the untainted beauty of original Korean culture. After eleven years it was possible to watch the efforts of respected educational institutions become controlled more and more by western interests. Mothers in Korea have by cultural nature trusted highly esteemed educators to be their guides to help their children become successful. However, I was a commodity in Korean culture, being bought and sold like a desk or set of books for education. I moved with the businesses and for a time it was okay as I had a genuine interest in the preservation of Korean culture while teaching English, this was something of a great asset because most school directors had to deal with and try and roll with the side effects of trying to run a business that taught English while dealing with the negative influences associate with English speakers. I was witness to their terrible struggles and could relate to their difficulties. On one hand, the school directors were simply businessmen trying to make an income yet on the other hand they later found that they were unwittingly importing some very fowl social practices which worked to destroy Korean culture.

The most appalling to me was the mass influx of homosexuals to the educational market of Korea. All Koreans understand others by their age and who they are related to. For me, they asked my age, then quickly assessed that I was single and that just couldn't be at my age. In less than a year I was set up to be married but marriage to non-Koreans has a very powerful negative stigma to it; something I didn't know until five years after marriage. My Korean marriage conveyed legitimacy to the thinking in Korean culture, and with the help of my  Korean wife, many levels of friction were avoided. Nevertheless, the discovery of homosexuals from the west using Koreans fraternal associations as a cover for their totally non-Korean behavior was very evil. Koreans have no conceptual frame work to understand homosexuals because their society is knit together by a strict genealogical accounting system that is maintained by the Korean government. Every relationship in Korea is documented in what is called the Family Census Register, a very systematic way of recording the birth, death, and marriage of each and every Korean citizen in an ancient genealogical record.

Children in Korea are naturally curious about everyone's relationships and when school began hiring western teachers who were not married but just sleeping together, Korean children and society found this very hard to comprehend but soon learned the very terrible lesson that western men and women can live together without a binding relationship worthy of being placed in the Family Census Register.

The most terrible thing which negatively affected South Korean culture was the influx of homosexuals who never had a woman in their lives and refused offers to consider any Korean women as a mate. As well as the few strange women who refused to spend time with  Korean men as if they were too good to be seen with them. In reality, the problem was far more serious with homosexual western men who found Korea to be a veritable paradise of refuge from western prejudice. Some of these homosexuals made extra efforts to cover their filthy tracks by attending and participating in some of the Christian churches highest positions. Korean parishioners and pastors had no knowledge or even a slight hint that there was anything wrong with these men who were unkown  homosexuals who were always around their children who were always followed them home out of kindness and curiosity common to Korean children. When Korean children witnessed affectionate contact between men, it had a terribly negative effect upon the purity of their mind and thinking. 

By the end of my ninth year I had made an great effort to educate Church going Koreans, especially the pastors that they had homosexuals in the choir. I will never forget the day I got this point across to the pastor whose mind struggled with the very concept of homosexuality; after getting over the shock of homosexuals in Korea. the next major struggle was to try and understand that he had one in his church. Once the entire congregation knew about the homosexual, it didn't take long for them to turn off from him and he took off for hiding amidst the innocence of the Korean mind. However, the impact of gays and couples shacking up without a thought for public displays of affection (which is not found anywhere in pure Korean culture) was taking its toll on the cultural purity and clear thinking of South Korean society. Children of Korea who have been raised in a culture that tells them that teachers are to be revered and emulated, soon began to learn that people in English speaking countries believe it's okay to live worse than animals. It was also in the ninth year that the first traumatic event finally showed up like a giant earthquake that shook the nation when some school hired a qualified (by the frail criteria of private schools) teacher who was caught sexually abusing a child. The impact was so intense that it brought down a national demand for all prospective teachers to produce a police criminal background check before hiring. As terrible as this was, the Koreans enforced it most strongly with Canadians than with U.S citizens because the offender was Canadian.

I had to come back to the west to try and stop the spread of a disease at its source. I know for absolute certain that something significant must happen between this date of January 25, 2011 and July 31, 2011. My finger is on a leak in a piranha tank that is flooding the west especially the United States. I have fought for ten years to stop this leak from turning into a carnivorous tsunami but what will happen has a turning point somewhere in March 2011. By that time holding my hand on a leak will stop for one of two reasons, either the leak stopped on its own or the great carnivorous tidal wave will burst the retaining walls. My destiny remains in reform of the problems in the United States that are poisoning other nations with its base vile sickness. After living in and being cleansed within Korean culture releasing my U.S. citizenship out of simple desire to support my family, the U.S. will foster a haven for purity that I can join or the haven for purity will come to the U.S. by the same force that brought hurricane Katrina. 

I'm well aware that my very negative view of western society (note I didn't use the word western "culture" for in comparison to Asia, the west is culturally desolate) indicating that I should simply go back to where I'm happy, but in accordance with Asian culture, returning to the U.S. is my divine wind. This kind of thought is so far outside the western mind that it can't be grasped; I must confess that I know what divine wind means but haven't let the experience flow to is full conclusion, something that God knows I look forward to with all my heart.

So I will say that investing two years of what life remains back here in the west has been my effort to bring the warmth, safety and love of Korean culture to a world in the west that is hurting too much to even hear; so far the only ones who have heard have kicked me out of contact with the children of the west that are very hungry for pure uncompromising love. I kind of catch a breath of divine wind whenever I teach children and feel I could go on and on without thought of time as I did in Korea. Yet there are some very serious fixed facts about the west that would need to change. One of these facts is the existence of teacher-less summer vacations. The many breaks, vacations and holidays that punctuate the western school calendar shove children into a time frame where they are out of contact with any positive benefits that can be gained by exposure to school time.

Ah Ha! The great revelation finally comes to me. The biggest problem that the west has that Korea doesn't, has everything to do with family integrity. It is the unity of mother, father, sisters and brothers forms the first link in a chain of stability. Once the family unit is stabilized. should then spread out to form interlinking families connected ultimately to an integrated national family culture.

Now it all seems to go back to an accident I had in 1995 while trying to help a nine year old boy carry his share of a mountain climb. I should have insisted that he carry his own pack as it was only a healthy physical burden. The weight of that pack of his, ultimatly broke a bone in my lower spine from the weight. The pain from that break in my spine would be something that would plague me till my final day. Ten years later in was hit by a car while high speed bike riding in Korea; this even literally broke my lower spine all the way right where it started back in 1995. Now it's 2011 and I find I left my life in paradise with loved children to try and come back to a world in need of what Korean children have. I'm beginning to believe that the error of trying to help children with their burdens is going to be my death. I have been two years in a veritable graveyard of morality, social decay filled with hurting children that I want to help but will not be permitted to help because the forces that controls the west has a hate for the Light I found in a glacial river last summer.

My divine wind waits for me. I'm waiting for the last few weeks to pass quickly. I have my sights on only One Light and in that Light all pain is gone all memory of where is gone and all knowledge of when in time it is is gone. I've been there only once before, but I do know where and when the Door opens with a timing in harmony with the music of the stars. I will never succeed in going home if I don't let go and return to a tiny little island in the midst of a raging river filled with water that fell to earth long lone before man ever appeared in this world. The water appears murky with silt, but the silt is from ancient mountains ground to dust by rivers of primordial ice kilometers thick. It's a place where no wild life can form a habitat, no vegetation can remain, where forest are destroyed to maintain a steady flow of dead trees that rip down and destroy anything found in the waters. It's an awesome place, a lifeless place it a natural pure amazing lifeless graveyard in Alaska's wilderness nature.

My heart feels peace when I consider my return to my place in the Convergence, because it is a very real, very frightening place with a hidden beauty for those who know the Lord of Nature's Dance and I must dance, dance wherever I may be for the Light plays on the River in the Dance said He.

Light Stream Words

From Eternity the seraphic Voice of the One whose name can't be lowered to mere words is heard saying, "I live in the place of Light no one can approach and I also live with those people who have quiet hurting humble spirits, to heal them and given them a power from My realm of Light.

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Without an end or boundary, Your life appears before us spreading out as an ocean of radiant Light. It is possible for us to feel Your life spread all around, making our weaknesses strong and our darkness bright; yet it isn't like the experience we feel while in the middle of a great wilderness or a vast sea, instead what we feel coming from You is the peacefulness of a very real and complete Eternity.

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