No stars to see at night
My Lady Friend and I spent a considerable amount of time applying for jobs to teach in Korea. I just found this story, which lends support to our desire to work away from the major metropolitan areas in East Asia (or at least to live near the coast).
"During my time in Korea, I would never become accustomed to the severity of the air pollution where I lived. The pollution from Seoul's 11 million cars all running at the same time would come to settle each rush hour in our area. I would often bring my umbrella in the mornings, convinced it would rain - only to understand later in the day, it was just the haze of the pollution appearing time and again like heavy rain clouds. I would also become used to scrubbing my skin each evening when I returned from work to remove the greenish colouring of pollution from my body - much like the green residue I used to find as a young girl on my finger after wearing costume jewellery.
"After a lively discussion, I turned to the class material and took out a large picture that they were each to write down five sentences about it and then share with the class. The first picture showed a young girl and boy inside a home playing, with many things happening around them -- a dog spilling over a fishbowl, a cat jumping up on a bookshelf that was falling overm, a bird flying out of its cage, and the list goes on. In a very small corner of the picture was a small, insignificant window showing a black, nighttime sky with stars.
"The instant I showed the picture all the children gasped very loudly as if to be impressed -- making a 'w-o-w' sound with their voices. I didn't understand. There was no laughter at the picture depicting all this distress, there was not an 'oh no' sound in their voice. It was if they were looking at something beautiful.
"One student asked me if it looked like that in Canada. 'Looked like what? Animals on the loose?' No. 'Many pets in the home?,' thinking it was unusual in Korea to see many pets. No. Did she mean the way the home looked? No.
"She walked up to the picture and pointed to the small window. She was asking -- all the students were asking -- if I could see stars in Canada like in the picture. I still didn't understand. 'Stars?' Yes. 'How is it different here?'
"No one, not one student in my class in all their eight years of living had seen stars in the sky. One student reported proudly he had gone to an IMAX film the summer before, and saw stars in the film -- but no one had seen stars in the Korean sky. Why? I didn’t understand. Well, they explained, because the air pollution was so high that all they saw were dense pollution clouds.
"That moment in Korea, in a classroom of eight-year-olds, I had been the student and they were my teachers, and I had been taught a lesson of a lifetime."
From Sprol via Magpie
"During my time in Korea, I would never become accustomed to the severity of the air pollution where I lived. The pollution from Seoul's 11 million cars all running at the same time would come to settle each rush hour in our area. I would often bring my umbrella in the mornings, convinced it would rain - only to understand later in the day, it was just the haze of the pollution appearing time and again like heavy rain clouds. I would also become used to scrubbing my skin each evening when I returned from work to remove the greenish colouring of pollution from my body - much like the green residue I used to find as a young girl on my finger after wearing costume jewellery.
"After a lively discussion, I turned to the class material and took out a large picture that they were each to write down five sentences about it and then share with the class. The first picture showed a young girl and boy inside a home playing, with many things happening around them -- a dog spilling over a fishbowl, a cat jumping up on a bookshelf that was falling overm, a bird flying out of its cage, and the list goes on. In a very small corner of the picture was a small, insignificant window showing a black, nighttime sky with stars.
"The instant I showed the picture all the children gasped very loudly as if to be impressed -- making a 'w-o-w' sound with their voices. I didn't understand. There was no laughter at the picture depicting all this distress, there was not an 'oh no' sound in their voice. It was if they were looking at something beautiful.
"One student asked me if it looked like that in Canada. 'Looked like what? Animals on the loose?' No. 'Many pets in the home?,' thinking it was unusual in Korea to see many pets. No. Did she mean the way the home looked? No.
"She walked up to the picture and pointed to the small window. She was asking -- all the students were asking -- if I could see stars in Canada like in the picture. I still didn't understand. 'Stars?' Yes. 'How is it different here?'
"No one, not one student in my class in all their eight years of living had seen stars in the sky. One student reported proudly he had gone to an IMAX film the summer before, and saw stars in the film -- but no one had seen stars in the Korean sky. Why? I didn’t understand. Well, they explained, because the air pollution was so high that all they saw were dense pollution clouds.
"That moment in Korea, in a classroom of eight-year-olds, I had been the student and they were my teachers, and I had been taught a lesson of a lifetime."
From Sprol via Magpie
No stars to see at night
mr damon, 04:36
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