Dec. 5, 2012

Today I swam and had a sauna at the Vernon Rec. Centre where I met Lusia, my new Korean best friend.  This time I took her to the Bean Scene for coffee and our second lesson.  In spite of the fact that I couldn’t connect to the site that she had sent me for learning Korean, we had a good class and helped each other.  I am so far behind her that I’m sure she will benefit much more from the language exchange than I will, but I’ll be happy to learn ‘survival Korean.”  I got that expression from her; she says that her husband has, ‘survival English.’  I met their son Martin at 4:30 today for our first tutorial; he’s in grade 11 and seems to be a willing, if not overly eager student.  He told me that the move to Canada 4 years ago was based considerably on his desire to escape the stress of the Korean school system.  We worked on the basics of essay writing, and for our next class, he’s going to write a five, paragraph essay comparing Korean and Canadian societies and their educational systems as he has experienced them. 

All this working with Orientals has encouraged me to think about my stand on Canada’s position in relation to trade with China, Chinese takeovers of Canadian companies and the hiring of Chinese miners to work in BC mines.  It’s a complex issue, and I’ve been encouraged by Avaaz, of which I’m a member, and some of my friends to sign up against the takeover deals especially.  But I’m not sure.  Our economy needs the investment.  There is, of course, a difference between a take over by a private company and one by a state owned company.  It’s the latter that most people seem so worried about in the case of China, but we have eagerly accepted the same type of investment by Norwegian state owned companies.  It makes me wonder if we’re going back to the old days of William Randolf Hearst and the fear of the ‘yellow peril’.  I read a good article in the Globe a couple of Saturdays ago in which a book, China’s New Confucianism , by Daniel Bell was reviewed and the ideas in it discussed.   I don’t know enough about the subject to make any serious comment on it, but I was interested in the fact that he thinks that what is happening now in China presents the world with an alternative to Western Liberalism that is worth considering, given China’s vast population and consequent economic and political challenges.  Oh well, I’m not going to sign any ‘no truck or trade with the Chinese’ petitions yet. 

Now to the weather report.  I went cross- country skiing again on Monday at Silver Star.  It was sunny, and the downhill conditions even looked good.  There was a light layer of fresh white powder.  I talked with the Walkerton Van de Vyveres this week, and Cathy told me that Mark and David were both off hunting.  It’s black powder season there.  Yesterday, Jay sent me a photo taken with his iPhone of the snow in Incheon, and this afternoon I took a picture of a violet blooming in Vernon, a rather lonely little specimen, but none-the-less a violet in December.

Snow in Incheon

A violet in Vernon