Christmas Photos

Arlene and David and I behind the flowers and candy our friend Terry sent us
Arlene, me, David and mom
David riding the tractor my parents gave me when I was little
Dad showing David how to use his John Deere tools
David wearing the jacket our friend Yoori sent us.

Merry Christmas!

(image from http://karenswhimsy.com/public-domain-images/nativity/nativity-5.shtm)

In defense of toddlers

Recently at a conference I was having a conversation with a colleague and she asked how old our son was. I said he was two and she said something like "Isn't that a difficult age?" It's interesting because I would have asked the same question before and I think our image of toddlers is like that--very difficult time. Part of that is because we usually don't notice them until they are crying or throwing a fit in a public place. However, living with a toddler is very different. There are indeed fits, even melt downs but there are other wonderful things as well.

For one thing, I think toddlers end up lauging a lot more than crying. David often laughs and takes joy in very simple things. When people laugh we feel happy too and there is something very innocent and magical about a toddler's laugh that reminds us just how amazing it is to be alive.

Similarly, even when they aren't laughing toddlers give us a lot to laugh about. The essence of a joke is a humerous contradiction. This morning David tried to eat my hair and then said "Num num, good grass." Similarly he likes to build elaborate castles out of blocks and then jump up and down shouting "cupcake!" It's very entertaining.

Finally, as for emotional outbursts like fits, they have a reverse which are outbursts of real affection. When my dad gets up in the morning David will jump up and down and shout "Appa" and then go to him immediately. It's the same with my mom. She had to run some errands one day and he hadn't seen here much. She came in and sat down on a chair and David saw her. He instantly jumped up and down shouting amma in a very happy voice. He then ran over and jumped in her lap. I swear each time he does something like that it adds another day or two to my parent's life expectancy.

Thus ends my defense of toddlers!

Interviews

I applied for a total of nine positions. I heard back from four schools. I had two rejections and two conference interviews. So thanks be to God for that. I'll be interviweing January 8th and 9th so please keep me in your prayers!

Attempted Visit to Santa

Our parish had a breakfast with Santa. We went a couple of years ago and had fun so we thought we would do it again.

Unfortunately David was afraid of Santa so we had to leave.
We stopped by the parish and David lit a candle (with help). It's never to early to learn about fire!
Since Santa didn't work out we went to downtown Neburgh to see the Ohio river.
Someone parks a converted trolley in front of the library and it's open and there are no signs saying not to go in so we had some family pictures inside.
Never too early to learn to drive!

A curious article

I just found out that my entry for the "Encyclopedia of Infanticide" was accepted. My entry focused on Infanticide during Choson Korea (1392-1910). Though a disturbing subject, I've always been intrigued by it after studying it for a class on Japanese history. In Tokugawa Japan (1603-1868) the population became very urbanized (more so than the England of that time) and infanticide became common enough to significantly affect the population (instead of growing it leveled off). Curiously this was largely not from poor people committing infanticide but from urban middle and upper class people doing so who wanted to maintain their status.

I thought I would just be able to summarize some articles for my entry but it turned out that no one has really written on this subject in Korea. When I asked around I was told that it was because Korea was an agricultural country so infanticide was not that common. In addition, the Korean government didn't keep the kind of records that Japan did and so it's hard to measure. However, there was a constant cycle of population growth-disease/famine-population loss which indicates that what infanticide there was did not significantly affect population growth.

I ended up basing my entry mostly on primary source detail from the court records. One was really odd because it was an attempted infanticide. How many attempted infanticides are there; infants can't defend themselves. In this case it seems like the woman, the wife of a slave (so actually probably lower than a slave) went crazy because she couldn't feed her child and tried to kill the infant. The neighbors apparently witnessed her doing this or heard it and stopped her. So she must have done it spontaneously. When asked why she said she had been begging and didn't have any way to feed the child. The officials debated over what to do with her. Some wanted to punish her harshly because what she had done was against nature ("Parents should love their children.") Others said the fact that it was against nature was proof itself that she had been driven by cold and hunger and that doing such a thing was not her "original intention". So they ended up just banishing her. Then, a few years later the people in banishment were in danger of starving and so they released her. The legal system in Korea is really interesting because the highest officials in the land had to make a lot of these decisions (no one could be exeucted without the king's permission).

This case seems to have led to a devate over what the punishment for parents who murder their children should be. Some wanted the death penalty. Others said no because children who killed parents were already punished with execution and punishing them in the same way would have blurred the lines between superior and inferior! It was the latter view that won. In pre-modern Korea it was very important to discrminate based on hierarhcy.

I hope to expand this research some time after I finish my dissertation. The Catholic missionaries in the 19th century received funds from a France-based organization that had the mission of baptizing abandoned babies and seeing that the ones who survived were raised as Catholics. I wonder if they kept records on how many babies they baptized. I think abandonment would have been a lot more common than infanticide. Unfortunately I can't read French (yet!). Maybe in a few years I can pursue this.

Dad's new car

Dad and mom drove to North Carolina to pick up his 2002 Zo6 corvette.

Bethlehem

After going to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher we had lunch and then went on to Bethlehem. It's in Palestinian territory so we had to go through a security check point to get through and we were given a new Palestinian guide.

This is the outside of the Church of Nativity. We had to wait about half an hour to get in. While we were waiting we heard gun shots but the guide just said they were fire crackers.

The door is really low. I heard before that it was so people had to stoop down and be humble to get in. Our guide said it was because some knights would go in on horseback so they made it smaller.

This is the inside of the Church of the Nativity. Our guide is holding the number nine sign.

There is a grotto under the Church of the Nativity where Jesus was born. It's divided in half. One one side its really decorated but you have to wait a long time to get in. So we went to the other side which isn't decorated like that so we wouldn't have to wait. It was really cool to be where Jesus was born. You can see the natural stone ceiling above. We think of Jesus being born in a wooden manger but the people of this area actually used caves as mangers.

This is where the body of Saint Jerome used to pray. He translated the Bible into Latin and so is the patron of translators (I don't know if that's official but I treat him as such^^). The Crusdaers took his body to Rome.

"Here lies Saint Jerome, priest and doctor of the church"

A cool statue of Saint Jerome. I love the skull at his feet.

Halloween

We went to a Halloween party at a friend of Arlene's house. Then we did some Trick-or-Treating.

Arlene carries David away from the house while he admires the candy he received. He sure learned the word "candy" fast.

David holds a piece of candy while I hold him. You can see from his legs that he was dressed as a skeleton this year. They are pjs so he had to wear a jacket which kind of kills (haha!) the whole skeleton effect.

New Blog

I started a blog on Korean Religious History in hopes of forcing myself to write down what I am learning and opening it up to criticism. I put in an entry on my recent trip to the American Academy of Religion in Montreal. Have a look if you like. Please make lots of comments and criticism!

http://koreanreligioushistory.blogspot.com/

Dad's birthday

Dad celebrated his 64th birthda. Here are some pictures!
David likes Dora so Dad's cake has Dora and Boots rings

Dad asked for toys for David for his birthday.

This actually isn't from Dad's birthday but a few days later.

An Chunggun Conference

From October 21st to the 27th I was in Korea for an An Chunggun conference.

Here is the room I presented in.

From left to right are Professor Cho, who was my advisor while I was in Korea and who arranged for me to be part of this conference, Professor Simirtseva, me, and two professors from China.

The old Fulbright building.

My hotel was only about 100 feet from the Orthodox Cathedral. This is the inside.

Here is the outside.

I had to go to Myeongdong to run some errands. Someone here is giving out free hugs. http://www.freehugscampaign.org/ .

I stayed until the 26th to see An Chunggun's official commemoration ceremonies. They were really amazing. Usually they are just in a little auditorium but this time they were outside with a jumbotron and dancers. Usually you just go but this time I had to have a ticket. They even had security: I had to go through a metal detector.

My hotel.

They had a special An Chunggun mass that evening.

It was good to go back to Korea but I was sad because there was not enough time to meet everyone that I wanted to. I apologize to anyone who reads this that I wasn't able to meet.

I also have some good news. There is a good chance that Jimoondang will publish me and my co-translator's translation of the works of An Chunggun!

Wailing Wall

I forgot this picture in my last post and it's easier just to post it separately. It's of the Wailing Wall. I went down to it (I had to put on a cardboard skullcap as your head is supposed to be covered and I didn't think my An Chunggun baseball cap was appropriate!). Please notice the three well armed and armored police/soldiers on the lower left. You might see also in the middle a low partition (not the big one on the right). That marks off the woman's side of the wall from the men's.

Jerusalem

I will be going to Korea early tomorrow morning to present a paper at an An Chunggun conference and I wanted to post at least one entry on our trip before going. In this entry I will focus on our second day in Israel. We visited Jerusalem and Bethlehem but so may was going on I will only discuss the former in this entry.
This is Jerusalem as seen from the Mount of Olives, which is a place Jesus often visited before his crucifixion and it was there that he ascended into Heaven.

This is the Church of all Nations (I think it's named that because of the international funding for its construction) just below the Mount of Olives where the Garden of Gethsemane is located. The church is very beautiful inside but is also very sad, which is appropriate since this is the place where Jesus was so overcome with emotion that he sweated blood. I didn't get a good picture of the inside and I think it's one of those places you really have to be there.

Here is a rock where it is believed that Jesus prayed. I'm guessing though that the identification is a bit shakey. In any case, it was very moving to be there. I always find "the agony in the garden" to be very sad since Jesus asked the disciples to stay up with him but they kept falling asleep. I think that's one of the few times in the Bible when he actually asked for anything and, I suppose to make his Passion complete, it was denied him. I always wish I could have been there with him but I'm made of much less stronger stuff than the disciples and so I probably would have fallen asleep too (or just ran away).

Station Five of the Via Dolorosa, (The Way of Suffering).

Station Five is where Simon the Cyrene helped Jesus carry the cross.

As you can see, the streets are very cramped. It was hard to keep up with our tour guide. Plus there was another problem. A few days before went to Jerusalem, at the Temple Mount/Dome of the Rock some young Muslims threw stones at a French tourist group that they thought were Jews who were there to carry out some sort of political activity that they didn’t like. Because of that, when we were in Jerusalem (Friday, the Muslim day of prayers) Muslims under 50 were banned from going to the Dome of the Rock (they wanted to keep out the young people). To get to the Via Dolorosa we walked through the Temple Mount/Dome of the Rock area to the Muslim quarter where we were caught in a confrontation between young Muslims, angry that they were banned from going to the Dome of the Rock and Israeli police. A disturbance broke out that split our tour group in two. We got through it ok but it was pretty wild. Thanks be to God we got through it ok. I don't understand the complicated political situation there but I hope and pray things will improve soon. There was a LOT of tension.

This is the inside of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which was built over both the site of the crucifixion and the empty tomp of Jesus. This part marks the crucifixion. Below the altar is a stone with a hole in it where it is believed the cross was placed.
Here you can see someone praying at the stone. After praying people would walk by the man on the left and buy a candle if they wanted. I wanted to pray at the stone but we had almost no time and the line was really long. So I just went to the exit part and bought a candle.
Here is the candle I lit, it's the middle one in the back row. Dad and I always tried to light a candle for the people back home whenever we could.
The tomb of Jesus is located below this structure. PBS did a really good documentary on it: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/previous_seasons/case_tomb/index.html
This is the stone of unction or annointing where it is believed Jesus's body was washed and annoited after death. I was able to pray there at last because there was no line!

The visit to Jerusalem was very moving. I find when reading the Bible or devotional materials that things often seem so abstract. One of the fruits of going to the Holy Land was seeing the physical realities of things. For example, the different places described in the Bible are actually in a lot closer proximity to each other than I had imagined. Thus, when Jesus prayed at Gethsemane he could have seen Jerusalem and where he was going to be crucified which must have made things a lot more painful.

Off to Korea soon! God bless!

Returned Safely

My father and I returned safely from our trip. We had a few interesting incidents on the way back. We flew out from Istanbul Friday evening and planned to spend the night in the Paris airport. I found a good place to sleep in at our gate but at 1am dad and I were told to leave and our only place of refuge was the smoking lounge (which smelled like smoke). The next morning we boarded the plan at 9am but our flight was repeatedly delayed because of a malfunction with the cargo doors. There were several delays and so people started getting things from the overhead bins. An elderly Frenchman dropped a box on my head which had something heavy in it. It hurt some but I was more surprised than anything and fortunately wasn't injured. He apologized profusely. That was the second time I had something dropped on my head like that. Eventually they gave up trying to repair the door but thankfully were able to move us to another plane so we ended up only being four hours late. We arrived at Atlanta and then drove back to Indy. The next day I had a fever and chills and today I am fighting jet lag but I think I will be able to go back to work tomorrow without any problems. I hope to start posting pictures soon. It was a wonderful trip and God blessed us a lot.

Heading out

Posting has been rather light lightly since I have been really busy trying to get a lot done before heading off to the Holy Land. I was able to finish a very rough draft of one section of my dissertation. I also had to do some work on some translation projects. I love translating but it's really tedious and takes a long time but the documents I'm working with are fascinating.

Dad and I will leave very early Sunday morning (I think 1am) and will return October 10th. Please keep us in your prayers. We'll be praying for everyone during our trip.

Some videos

Ducks



More Ducks



Still More Ducks



Opening gifts on Mom's birthday

Holy Land

My dad found a good deal on a cruise to the Holy Land and kindly asked me to come with him as a pre-phd gift so we will head out in late September and come back in early October. Please be praying for us to have a good and rewarding trip! We will be praying for everyone as we walk in the footsteps of Jesus and see where he was crucified and rose from the dead.

An article update

A couple more of my articles were published in the "Korea Times."

An and Western Media
An's Autobiography

Pictures from Mom's Birthday

Mom's birthday cake

My grandfather (Ozzie) used to tell a joke that went like this:

Ozzie: Ask me if I'm a fireman

Me: Are you a fireman?

Ozzie: No. Ask me if I'm a bandsaw.

Me: Are you a bandsaw.

Ozzie: Yes.

I miss Ozzie. I inherited a lot of his humor I think. This joke is just brilliant!

Ducks are awesome!

Enjoying a rocking chair at Cracker Barrel

Mom, Dad, and David on Mom's birthday

David helps grandma open her spice rack

Horsie rides!