M's secret life

M has lots of secret of her past. Noboby know much about her and we only know a little about her recent past days. What I know about her is that she is very beautiful and she seems to know it. When she needs something , she use her charming to people in order to get what she wants. However she is quite picky and has bad-temper, many people who first meet her or even her friends are often confused when she suddenly get upset. Because of this weakness of her charcter, she was no longer the most beloved one among her friends. In this reason, she was having not-so-good days when a good-looking, smart and warm-hearted guy,K, appeared. And then her boring life has changed. M couldn't help looking at him and falling in love with him. K also liked M at first sight. M's eyes were mysterious and seemed like they said something to him. However her bad- temper made him fed up with her soon and finally M was left alone again. Although her love was refused by him, she didn't simply give up showing her love to him. Ironically M has great time trying to get K's attention. Why is that?

When I first saw M, she was a mother with two kids. When they were about 3 months old, they found their new homes and families and finally left M. She was left alone but she wasn't depressed or felt sad because she knew that's the way they live. After a while, she became a member of my family. Now she has four human beings and four cats in her home - She seems to think this house is her's and the others are her belongings. As I know, M always wants love and affection on her from everybody. She's never given up making friends and loving them, even though there's lots of problems to maintain the relationships. K, her new furry family with beautiful tale, is her most interesting object these days.

She will have been ten years old this summer. I don't know about her first three years before she becam one of my family. Sometimes I really wonder how she was at that time. I wish she could say something what I can understand.

Jieun ( yakk@lycos.co.kr )

A Short Essay on Oshii Mamoru

Mamoru Oshii and the Soteriology of Cyborg

Why Japanese animation? First of all, one reason why Japanese animation deserves intellectual explication is its revealing "the marriage of heaven and hell"(this is originally the title of a book written by William Blake). According to Susan J. Napier who asks herself "why anime?", all aspects of society and culture for its material, not only the most contemporary and transient of trends but also the "deeper levels of history, religion, philosophy, and politics" are mined by Japanese animation. In this sense, it could be said that animation in general-and perhaps Japanese animation in particular-is the "ideal artistic vehicle for expressing the hopes and nightmares of our uneasy contemporary world", or the "perfect medium to capture what is the overriding issues of our day, the shifting nature of identity in a constantly changing society". For instance, Japanese animation pays much attention to the increasing fluidity of "gender identity" in contemporary popular culture in which women's roles are drastically transforming.
Japanese animation can be roughly classified into two groups; one is the Studio Ghibli line represented by Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata, and the other is the cyberpunk animation represented by Katsuhiro Ōtomo and Mamoru Oshii. While the former has been in pursuit of the humanistic family films, the latter has an orientation toward SF mania films with full use of computer graphics and digital technology. Among them, this paper is intended to review the films of Mamoru Oshii in terms of the issues of identity and border especially with relation to the religious implications. However, it does not cover every film he has directed, but focuses instead on some masterpieces such as Angel's Egg(1985), Ghost in the Shell(1995), Avalon(2001), and Innocence(2004).
Oshii, born in Tokyo in 1951, is well known primarily as an animation director not only in Japan but also in the world. He is said to be a pioneer who suggested a new direction to Japanese animation in early 1980s, and is often called 'a warrior of cyberpunk', 'a philosopher of anime(Japanese animation)', and even 'the founder of anime as a religion' among the animation maniacs. Probably he is worth while to be considered as one of the next generation leaders of Japanese animation in post-Miyazaki era together with Satoshi Gon. Actually, Oshii's animations have influenced world film creators over the world. In addition to working in film, Oshii has written for manga(Japanese comics), video games, and even two novels. Oshii is indeed talented in many ways and has multifaceted career as a director, script writer, concept ideator and producer as well. However, unlike his contemporaries such as Hayao Miyazaki or Hideaki Anno, Oshii is rather an outsider who has been known to refer to himself as a 'stray dog'.

What is at stake in the fundamental narrative structures of Oshii's films, is the component of complicated philosophical and psychological weaving from reality and fiction. Thereby, we are apt to feel confused at an emotional clash between reality and fiction in his films. And the moment when the boundary between reality and fiction becomes vague, we come to doubt if what is real and who really I am. Besides, his films have a specific artistic style that reflects his psychological states. For instance, in high school, he autistically used to daydream the ruined future, while denying to attend the school. Maybe that's why images of ruins and decaying cities, from the abandoned city of Angel's Egg to the run down grit of Avalon, are a common element in Oshii's films.
In addition to this, dogs, birds, fishes, water, angel are also the visual elements characteristic of Oshii's films. Notably, Oshii is a great lover of animals, and they are a recurring motif in many of his films; the fishes and birds are perhaps symbolic of a sense of freedom from the mundane. And dogs, especially Oshii's beloved basset hounds, appear in a number of his later films and represent the director himself. For instance, the dog is a genuinely pivotal character and the world is perceived largely through his eyes in Innocence. Yet above all, Oshii's films are rich with religious mood and symbolism.
Nearly all of Oshii's films have allusions to or make use of elements of religion and mythology. Religious references in Japanese animation are often superficial and used to impart an exotic and mysterious flavor. Oshii, on the other hand, utilizes his religious motifs "in a much more meaningful way". In effect, Oshii's films abound with images and symbols drawn from diverse religious traditions, including Shinto, Buddhism, and especially Christianity. Christianity is the religion Oshii most often uses and alludes to in his films such as Angel's Egg, the two Patlabor films, Ghost in the Shell, and Innocence. For instance, a genius hacker Hoba Eiichi, a hidden but the most important character in Mobile Police Patlabor(1989), represents God(E. Hoba, an English abbreviation, stands for Yahwee).
More remarkable are the metaphorical meanings involving religion and myth in Angel's Egg. For instance, the Christian imagery and the symbolic motifs(e.g. the gigantic shadow fish, the Tree of Life, the dove, the cathedral's stained-glass windows, the cross-shaped weapon, the warrior as Christ, the references to Noah's Ark and to the Flood, etc.) can be diversely interpreted. In particular, the egg might be interpreted as a symbol not only of rebirth and resurrection but also of cosmic creation. The destruction of the egg by the soldier also shows multidimensional religious meanings. It may constitute a denial of innocence and hope on one level, and at the same time, it could also be interpreted as a positive choice in association with the Buddhist notion of emptiness, on another level. And the fishermen's zealous pursuit of a non-existent prey could be said to symbolize the blind faith of religion(their belief that they will catch the fish, in spite of their constant and consistent failure), but religion's fatalism as well.
It should be also noted that Innocence presents the animistic and pantheistic landscape of Etorofu, designed as a new 'information center' metropolis, where headquarters of the Locus Solus Corporation is located. Everything becomes god in that landscape; whatever it may be, the gothic skyscrapers, Chinese grotesque figures, statues of gods, dragons, gigantic elephant wagons, carnival-like rituals, burning puppets, including humans and cyborgs. And there incarnated Kusanagi comes down at last.
In the same manner, Ghost in the Shell alludes to many varieties of religion, including Buddhism, Shinto, and Christianity. Typically, the lyrics for the main theme song of the film were composed in the ancient Yamato language and speak of a god descending from the heavens. Hence the song displays a strong Shinto influence and can be seen as alluding to the descent of the Japanese sun goddess Amaterasu, who is the mythological source of Japanese civilization. Another religious metaphor is the use of imagery involving Kusanagi's falling, alluding to mankind's initial fall from grace as depicted in the Bible. Susan J. Napier has detailed these falls in Ghost in the Shell; they include the fall from the skyscraper at the beginning of the film, the metaphorical fall involved in diving into the harbor, and finally Kusanagi's fall into the mind of the Puppet Master at the climax of the film.
Here, the name of Kusanagi itself has to do with some mythological sources. That is, Kusanagi is the name of a sword counted among the three imperial regalia in Japanese myth. According to a Shinto myth, Susanō, a younger brother of Amaterasu, discovered the sword from within the great serpent that he killed. And the serpent called Yamatano-orochi has been interpreted as the mythic Hii River itself or the spirit of that river. In this respect, Kusanagi can be said to be deeply related with the symbolism of water as a source of life.
Additionally, Kusanagi's birth scene at the prologue of the film reminds us of an embryo in the uterus. At this point, Kusanagi's dive into the ocean can be also interpreted as a sort of cosmogonic longing to reintegrate the primeval unity, as Mircea Eliade repeatedly suggested. Then, the fusion of Kusanagi and the Puppet Master may be regarded as a digital actualization of such fundamental religious principles as "coincidentia oppositorum"(a paradoxical unity of the opposites) or a return to the primordial androgynous totality. That fusion clearly evokes the "marriage of opposites", "marriage of heaven and hell" or "collaboration between the woman and the man in the mind".
And Kusanagi is just a cyborg(human-machine hybrid), the fusion of the body and technology in both real and conceptual ways. Beginning with Donna Haraway's seminal essay "A Cyborg Manifesto"(1985), the idea of the cyborg as a potentially liberating force has aroused much debate in some modern academic thought. Haraway's Manifesto interrogates or collapses the differences between the sentient and the non-sentient, the human and the non-human; it engages and undoes a wide range of binary oppositions from Cartesian dualism to culturally coded distinctions of gender, class, and race; and it exemplifies the breaching of boundaries and frontiers in social, ethical, legal and technological issues. Haraway argues that the cyborg can be a model for re-imagining liberation, "in the traditions of western science and politics...the relation between organism and machine has been a border war. The stakes in the border war have been the territories of production, reproduction, and imagination." It can be further explained that the borders concerned are those between animal and human, human and machine, physical and non-physical and presumably male and female. The cyborg is held to challenge these divisions.
In addition, Haraway's cyborg body alludes to an escape from the bounded individual body into a network of genetic or electronic language or information. Haraway's Manifesto figures this as the ability and opportunity to build new kinds of networks across lines of culture, language, race, and gender, rejecting the dichotomies of natural versus artificial and body versus language, i.e., to pursue the ultimate transgressed boundary, as Claudia Springer pointed out:
A human-centered universe rests on a system of dualities: real/artificial, natural/cultural, male/female, young/old, analytic/emotional, past/present. and alive/dead, as well as human/technological. When the boundary between human and artificial collapses, all of the other dualities also dissolve, and their two parts become indistinguishable, displacing humans from the unique and privileged position they maintained in Enlightenment philosophy. Transgressed boundaries, in fact, are a central feature of postmodernism, and the cyborg is the ultimate transgressed boundary.
In Haraway's view, the cyborg's transgressive combination of the organic and the mechanical will challenge the dichotomy between natural and artificial, promising to free the subject from imposed categories of biology, gender, and race.: "Cyborg imagery can suggest a way out of the maze of dualisms in which we have explained our bodies and our tools to ourselves. This is a dream not of a common language, but of a powerful infidel heteroglossia."
The concept of the cyborg like this as a radical method to find freedom from domination is one that resonates throughout Ghost in the Shell. Because Kusanagi and the Puppet Master are trying to create something akin to the "powerful infidel heteroglossia" through the diversity of life created by the merge of the two. We might call it "soteriology of cyborg", which will reach the peak of a shell's ontology: "A creature that hides and withdraws into its shell, is preparing a 'way out' by staying in the motionlessness of its shell, the creature is preparing temporal explosion, not to say whirlwinds of being." The "shell" in Ghost in the Shell stands for an isolated and autistic inanimate world, while the "ghost" reveals something animate. But both of the two will be embraced by water symbolism. When Kusanagi spends her spare time diving into the ocean(the ocean of information which Hong Kong urban space symbolizes), she tells us that "I feel fear, cold, alone, sometimes down there I even feel hope." What is indeed the hope? Maybe a hope of "whatever is falling down shall have wings some day." (Park. chat0113@paran.com)

Some final words...

Fellow SeingMok Writers,

I may have gone, but I have not forgotten the original purpose of this class: to write a long piece (fiction or non-fiction) that you can look back and be proud of! Please find the time to post your long piece on this website and I promise to check it and give feedback. As with all writing, there has to be a deadline - all serious writers abide by deadlines. Your deadline is a week from today.

Don't forget to:
1. Put your name and email address to the piece.
2. Please comment on other's submissions.

Thanks for being a great class! Good luck and best wishes in the future.

Regards,

Yoav

Short blog about Seolnal

It was just tough to me because of snow and traffic.
My father's hometown is "Cheong-Ju" in Choongcheongdo(?) province.
We left our home 6:30 a.m. on last Sunday.
It took almost 6 hours to get my grandparents house.
Actually it takes only 2 hours.

There was a big snow storm, it made a terrible traffic jam more in holidays.
However, only the outsides look awesome, it made me feel like I was in Swiss.

I had a great time with my relatives except too much wash-dishes.
When we back to Seoul, it also took almost 6 hours.
I love traditional holidays but I don't want to stay in a car anymore.

by Sunyoung

Consider the weak as if they were my mother!

This time, Lunar New Year was so meaningful to me.
Frankly speaking, I don't like so-called holidays including lunar new year.
Maybe that's just because I am obliged to eat too much.
(I exceedingly hate overeating in the world.)^^
When I went to see my mother at the lunar new year,
all that I did was just to cleanse the refrigerator except surfeit.

Actually, my mother has a genius for two things.
One is to love flowering plants.
(Any plant shall become flesh and beautiful with her care like a magic.)
And the other is to spoil foods in the refrigerator.
(I wonder if she feels disgusted even at eating itself,
though she makes almost desperate efforts to have me eat.)
I cannot imagine her without flower plants.
However, it has been difficult for me to understand her genius
for spoiling refrigerator since long times ago.

Now I realize that to understand someone is one thing
and to love someone is another.
I really love my mother despite her incomprehensible habit.
The point might be such a learning that
"Consider the weak as if they were my mother!"
I believe this is the most precious present
last Lunar New Year gave to me...
Of course, I am willing to cleanse the refrigerator,
probably on the next Korean Thanksgiving Day.ㅋㅋ

Sehebok Mani Paduseyo!

Hello fellow SeingMok Writer's Club members,

Well done on the successful completion of your first blogging challenge! For those of you haven't done so yet, here is your second chance. The second of your blogging challenges has two parts:

1. Read through the other members blogs and comment on at least three of them.

2. Write a quick blog about Seollal (Lunar New Year).

Also, a quick reminder, next week is our last lesson together but that doesn't mean that I won't be passing on instructions to your next teacher about your long writing assignment for the end of this course, so by next week I'd like to see a first draft.

Anyway, have a great new New Year!

Regards,

Yoav

Two campuses of Hanyang University

Can you guess what the below picture is? This is an Ansan campus of Hanyang University.
If you visit there, you may be surprised with a quite diffrent view with a Seoul campus of Hanyang Univ. There are only few students and not too many buildings and cars.
It is not a busy campus like a Seoul campus.

An Ansan campus has a natural and cosy lake. It is not ruined yet, luckily. Therefore a various of insects and plants can live there. When I visited there, I felt a kind of nostalgia from this lake.
I think this is one of the precious souvenir goods of our school.


Most of students, faculties and visitors can have difficulties and inconveniences on the Seoul campus of our school. So I did. Sometimes, a road between a main bilding and a library reminded me a ski slope. That is why this campus is located on the hill.
Some of buildings have weird structures ; a lobby floor is 3rd floor usally and bridges between buildings.
It makes freshmen and visitors lost in a building or on the road with missing their directions.
It is too bad. I hope they find how beautiful a campus of our school. In a day, we can miss it because of so many students and buildings. If they stay until sunset even, they could find a
glittering campus in a darkness like below two pictures.

by Eunjung Kim

It's raining men ...by Young-shim

I graduated Women’s University. I couldn’t imagine about school life except women. I always met girls for 4 years at universtiy so seeing a man in school was awkward to me. However, now I’m in a completely different world. When I first visited Hanyang University, I saw a lot of men in front of Hanyang Plaza. Compared with my college experience, it was very contrasting picture so I was shocked. Another day, I was shocked again because so many students were coming out of the building including library, and it was literally raining men. Hallelujah! A student said “80% of students in our school is men, It’s disaster.” I totally agree these days but that fact would be bless to me if I was a student at Hanyang University.

Thank you.

Cafeteria in Hanyang University - Dong Yeop

Where do you usually eat lunch or dinner in Hanyang University?
Today I want to give you information about cafeteria in HY and recommend one.



Above map indicates the location of cafeterias. There are 8 cafeterias in the map, but I am not sure. There may be more cafeterias which are not posted in the picture.

All cafeterias are opened to anyone. From now, let's see the merits and demerits of each cafeteria. Of course, these comments truly came from my opinion.

For students:
1. Student's Cafeteria - Student Welfare Building, 3rd floor
This is the most common and cheap cafeteria. It serves many menus and wide lounge. You can eat your meal easily. However, some meals are not delicious. You should choose a meal deliberately.
Best choice: Cheese Donkas

2. Sarangbang - Student Union Building, 3rd floor
This is another common cafeteria for students. Like student's Cafeteria, Sarangbang gives reasonable price and normal favored meal. But, not delicious, either.
Best choice: Bibimbab, Ddeokkuk

3. Chinese Cafeteria – Student Union Building, 6th floor
Chinese style meals are served. You can take lunch and dinner for reasonable price. The Chinese Cafeteria gives the most delicious meals with low price, I think.
Best choice: Sundubuchigae, Bbokumbab

4. New Student’s Cafeteria
Low price regular meals served for students. It is the worst cafeteria in HY Univ. I think. The meals are not delicious and the number of side dishes is lower than other cafeterias which serve for students.

For faculties:
5. Cafeteria for Faculty – College of Human Ecology, 7th floor
It is the highest cafeteria in HY Univ. Enjoy your meal with skyline view. The price is higher than the price of cafeteria for students, but you will satisfy your meal with the view and the quality of meal. A demerit is that it is so crowded. Menu is changed everyday, but periodically.

6. New Cafeteria for Faculty – Advanced Materials & Chemical Engineering Building, 7th floor
Many engineering club members use this cafeteria because they can get there easily. There are two menus every lunch time. You have to check the menus because some meals are so poor despite high price. Menu is changed everyday, but periodically.

Special:
7. Cafeteria in Hanyang Women’s College – Hangwon Square, Base floor
It is the most new cafeteria in HY univ. Most people say that those meals are delious. However, it is located behind, it takes time a lot to go there.

8. Dormitory Dining Room –Student Resident Hall II, 1st floor
It is the best cafeteria where I’ve gone in HY Univ. The price is very low, but the meal is very delicious. You will be surprised about the meal with low price. But, be careful. The meal is changed everyday, so it is needed to check!

For convenice to check the today’s menu of all cafeterias, use below link. :)
From 1 to 6:
http://student.hanyang.ac.kr/homenews/H5EI/1_viewRest.html
For 8:
http://www.dormitory.hanyang.ac.kr/indexD2.html

Hanyang Univ. has a ghost!

Do you think there exists a ghost?

I read a story on a web site , where many people write about their own wierd experiences.

The story said that a ghost appeared somewhere in Hanyang University!

Have you ever been to Materials Engineering building?

In Materials Engineering building, there's a MINI STOP!

A student worked for the convenience store during summer break several years ago- He wrote about his own experience.

It was summer break , so not many students were in HYU and there were no customers in MINI STOP. In addtion, It was rainny.

Suddenly He felt cold and then saw something near large fridges.

It was a girl with a pale face. He thought it was not a living human because it disappeared so quickly.

Can you believe this?

Believe it or not! --;;

Believe it or not..^^

I would like to tell you guys some rumors around our school.

1.

This is 88 stairs next to a student union building.
I heard that if we go up or down the right side of stairs we will get "F" score.

So don't go the right side!!

Can you see? There is nobady on the right side of stairs in this picture. haha

2.

This is a Baiknam library photo.
You can feel their look is unique so there is a fun rumor about this.

There is a Robot inside our library.
So if our country get a war or some troubles, the cylinder cover will open and a Robot will jump out to save us.

3.

This is 138 stairs (now 158 stairs) to get the Humanities building.

Every morning, near to the first class beginning,
You can see, many students are having a hard time to go up this stairs. They are getting out of breath. But it might be make them be healthy.

So sometime we call this stairs "Stamina stairs" instead of 138 stairs.

From Sun young

Don`t be scared... - from OH RYONG

I`ve just read TJ`s comment, and it was quite interesting~haha!!As I`ve studied in this university for 6 years, so I believed that I knew where everything is within the territory... but I was wrong. I don`t even know the half of them. Maybe I should take a tour again.

Anyway, my story is about 'Wonder Girls' who visited Hanyang University 2 years ago to celebrate the annual festival. Unfortunately, I wasn`t there at that time, so I missed their performance. On the other hand, if I had been there, I would have ended up with being squeezed by other crazy male fans. The video clip below was recorded about the event. When I first saw this, I was totally overwhelmed by such a powerful and ear-cracking shouting(of course by the crazy male fans)... I heard someone said about it, 'Ten thousand of savages roared last night and cracked every building around the theater...'

Somebody might have already seen this video, I believe they felt the same thing that I had.

Well, I could be one of the savages only if I had been there...

Welcome to the SeingMok Writers Club!

Your first challenge is to write your very first blog in English. You can write on any topic you wish but let's keep it:
1. related in someway to Hanyang
2. related to something you know about and/or are interested in, &
3. interesting!

Good Luck!

Yoav