These days, I write whenever I want to – or when I’m not busy exploring the world with my wife or kids or grandkids. I write and read constantly. Then I discovered that I was writing longer and longer pieces. My new focus is to write shorter; and to write HUMOR. On purpose. Maybe I can still irritate people while being funny. It works pretty well for John Scalzi! We’ll see what happens.
Some five years ago, I went to stay with my son, his wife, and two kids in Waegwan, South Korea ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waegwan) for a month. As a family, they LOVED nothing better than to travel…and travel we did! A short distance from the North-South Korean border all the way to the “Hawaii of South Korea”, Jeju Island, they made sure we visited everything of interest (and even NOT so interesting) and stopped at any museum we happened to drive by (have you ever heard of the Museum of Banned Writers? Apparently it’s disappeared from the internet…hmmm…The most sobering day was when we went to the Hill 303 Memorial not far from where they lived (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_303_massacre#Monument).
At any rate, I had a fabulous adventure and was shaken to find out that South Korea is immensely proud of its FUTURE…yes, you read that right. They are proud of their future because they see themselves in SPACE – on the Moon, Mars, and eventually launching to the stars. Several of the museums we went to were the history of Korean interest in space.
For example, we stopped and read the plaques at a stone tower, Cheomseongdae that was, emphatically an astronomical OBSERVATORY “the oldest surviving astronomical observatory in Asia, and possibly even the world’ and not some kind of horoscopes, spiritual guides, nighttime clocks, alarms tracking cosmic cycles – Egyptians worked to predict the exact timing of the annual Nile flooding, navigational guides for the dead, celestial maps to help a deceased soul navigate the night sky and reach the afterlife, tracking seasons by precisely record the movements of the sun, moon, and planets; establishing accurate 365-day calendars for religious festivals, helping the government organize tax collection, drafting labor, and harvesting; tactical lookout points for invading forces and sacred spaces to honor protective deities; gateways to eternity; tombs for rulers; as well as astronomy; literal launchpads for the soul; eventually aligned to true cardinal points (N, S, E, W) with mind-boggling precision; and permanently mirroring the order of the universe on Earth.”
ALL of this to reach the point of this essay to introduce something I “foresaw” after the whirlwind tour of museums in South Korea – and even something as odd as the South Korean definition of “wealthy digs”. Apartments on the ocean are consider HIGHLY desirable, while living in a home is for poor folks. At first blush, you might shrug and say, “weird”, like I did. Then, as I experienced greater and greater emphasis of the South Koreans visioning of themselves in SPACE, I started to realize that they are not just IMAGINING themselves there – they are PLANNING on being there.
Starships of all types will be small compared to Earth – or even minor asteroids – quarters will be cramped, and whether they did it intentionally or not, South Korean society has created a plan where the WEALTHY and SMART live in apartments. Small ones. They have prepared themselves by shifting the paradigm. As an American, I look in my neighborhood – I live in a what was once called a single-story “ranch-style home”, plus apartments. The “mansions” are in the next suburban ring out and are lavish and much, much larger than the houses of me and my neighbors. The area I live is regularly referred to as “the hood”, and the city I live in has one of the highest crime rates in non-core city: “Brooklyn Center frequently ranks alongside core urban centers for higher relative rates of violent and property crimes due to its inner-ring location and regional economic pressures.”
South Korean sees themselves in space – and Elaine U. Cho is one of the first authors I read that sees South Korea in space as well. NOT just as residents, but as movers and shakers; as important PLAYERS in interstellar space. The multiple rave reviews are perhaps best illustrated by Booklist: “…satisfying cultural-background details for the characters and the world and plenty of room for development.” I’ll be rereading this book again and I will certainly be adding TEO’S DURUMI (which you won’t understand at ALL unless you read OCEAN’S GODORI…)
OTHER South Korean Posts: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2025/03/possibly-irritating-essays-of-nasa.html
Starships of all types will be small compared to Earth – or even minor asteroids – quarters will be cramped, and whether they did it intentionally or not, South Korean society has created a plan where the WEALTHY and SMART live in apartments. Small ones. They have prepared themselves by shifting the paradigm. As an American, I look in my neighborhood – I live in a what was once called a single-story “ranch-style home”, plus apartments. The “mansions” are in the next suburban ring out and are lavish and much, much larger than the houses of me and my neighbors. The area I live is regularly referred to as “the hood”, and the city I live in has one of the highest crime rates in non-core city: “Brooklyn Center frequently ranks alongside core urban centers for higher relative rates of violent and property crimes due to its inner-ring location and regional economic pressures.”
South Korean sees themselves in space – and Elaine U. Cho is one of the first authors I read that sees South Korea in space as well. NOT just as residents, but as movers and shakers; as important PLAYERS in interstellar space. The multiple rave reviews are perhaps best illustrated by Booklist: “…satisfying cultural-background details for the characters and the world and plenty of room for development.” I’ll be rereading this book again and I will certainly be adding TEO’S DURUMI (which you won’t understand at ALL unless you read OCEAN’S GODORI…)
OTHER South Korean Posts: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2025/03/possibly-irritating-essays-of-nasa.html
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