Jun 25, 2005 by Naomi.

I gave up trying to put my mind to rest regardless of how well my brain allowed my body total relaxation. How long I laid on the verge of sleep I do not know but visions kept running through my mind so here I am in another day with another blog. I pursed my lips and removed a migrant hair bringing forth the vision of my mother in law in her perennial state of rinsing imaginary hairs from her mouth. I think of her often. The vision is usually dominated by her hands immersed in the boiled head of a pig extracting the gelatin and flesh with which to make head cheese, a delicacy Ron favored. And he was fond of pickled pig’s feet. Chicken feet didn’t have to be pickled, however. I would slip the scales and toenails off the cooked feet on which he preferred to feast before reaching for the roasted wings.

Thinking of skulls I must remember to contact Gary at Leo’s Taxidermy when
I get home to remind him to save skulls of animals he mounts for hunters.
I promised I would clean them myself so he agreed. Those bones are useful
tools at the Refuge Environmental Education Center in my vertebrate lessons
for students. Plastic replicas can be purchased but at a cost beyond what
I have to spend for props. A birder explained the time and effort that
went into processing the bird skulls she prepares for our display and
it appeared to be a daunting exercise. When I worried about that a fellow
teacher suggested his method which was to bury the skull and let nature’s
meticulous recyclers - millepedes, earwigs, roly polys, earthworms - do
their thing. Sounds like that would do my job, too.

Now let your thoughts send your mind racing!

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Jun 25, 2005 by Naomi.

Last minute catching up took me to the post office. I cannot leave a foreign country without some postal stamps. Since the bus didn’t stop there I had to walk through the interesting Korean tent shops where there were native fashions, message, food sampling and Herstory tours. The 9th International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women in Seoul, Korea, is winding down. Just after lunch I removed my poster from Management Hall. The student docent was curious about my presentation and we discussed it at length. She is a business student expecting to graduate next quarter. After working for several years she hopes to go to another country. I invited her to keep in touch with me.

The new Ewha museum was my last stop before the steep climb up to the
auditorium where I could catch the shuttle bus to Hanwoori Hall. Korean
pottery is on display, some of it broken pieces from antiquity. As I strolled
past the exquisite and the mundane, my fingers itched to get into the
mud and create again. Most of the descriptions explained locations and
ancient dates so the geography and history were lost on me. I made notes
about some plants. It seems four plants are considered gentlemen : plum,
orchid, chrysanthemum, and bamboo. What makes them gentlemen I will have
to search for enlightenment from the internet. There are ten longevity
symbols somewhere to look for also. The brochures had no clue. It’s a
good thing there were no albums of the work on display or I would have
bought it. Like I need more stuff to carry home.

The only photos I could take were in the lobby and there were interesting orchids in bloom. I snapped dozens of pictures of the old trees still standing outside although they were severely clipped. There are elaborate supports holding them up. No mulch or ground cover prevents erosion of the top soil and the trees probably need the extra support during the monsoons.

The students at the reception desk in the dormitory were doing a photo session and I grabbed my digital and joined the fun. They became concerned about my trip to the airport tomorrow. It seems more complicated than the taxi ride coming in on Sunday. But they will see that I get sent home properly.

I will miss the ease at which I could access this familiar Hewlett Packard
with Windows XP. Much of the directions are in Korean but the little boxes
are placed in Microsoft menus so I could guess a lot. For all the technology
at Ewha U, very few locals speak English. To do it right they should begin
to learn before they are 6 years old. Dad couldn’t remember his native
language by the time I was old enough to ask about it. Before that he
had been determined to become American and learned the language as soon
as possible. I’d better quit rambling. I need to go eat dinner. I will
leave before breakfast tomorrow so this will be my last meal.

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Jun 25, 2005 by Naomi.

A woman told me a few minutes ago she had read that Bush directed every
condom in Uganda to be destroyed - burned the article said. Too bad AIDs
was destroying Africans, according to Bush in the article, sex was for
reproduction and that means no condoms. Whether the article stated that
Bush would destroy every African if he could through the disease, that
was the message the woman got from the article. She went on to complain
about the unnecessary invasion of Iraq and the continued manufacture of
dirty bombs, lethal chemicals and biological weapons under Bush. Obviously
her sources reveal different facts than the US press and television.

Am I safe outside of the USA? I don’t ask because I am in Korea, very close to a former military zone. Conversations with many women from other countries reveal that the USA is criticized everywhere. The women at the 9th International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women in Seoul, Korea, are demonstrators. I know they would not attack me because of my president’s policies. I do not defend my god-crazed government. Other women do not agree with every action of their governments either.

American tourists are welcomed in every country in which I’ve traveled. However, I am not pleased to have the natives hold their noses when they greet me.

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Jun 25, 2005 by Naomi.

I heard only one reference that religion was the root of all the horror that women experience in our world today. In passing some speakers mention that religion must be reformed. These facts and ideas are repeated in the venue of the 9th International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women in Seoul, Korea.

Somehow women have been led to believe that reformation of religion to reflect
women’s roles will solve the problem like some magic elixir. Reform the
same old stuff? Invent a new religion where women can have equality and
power will follow. Oh, right! Watch the new pope!

Reformation is where many religious women are focussed and results show that women can become priests. Whoop tee doo! Now they can preach the gospel of denigration of women. As if women aren’t already responsible for the strength of the churches - embroidering layments, arranging flowers, dusting the sacristy, fundraisers, teachers of children, and leaders of women’s groups. With this support they build the church power bases and tighten the restrictions around themselves.

For centuries women have been told what their places are and they meekly accept them. Somewhere a holy word says the meek shall inherit the earth. Big deal! What women have to do is take back the earth. In ancient times women were held in high regard because of childbearing. We’ll never know how many centuries it took for men to realize or visualize what role they played in creating new children all the while enjoying the sexuality of willing partners. Jealousy may have played a part in the pairing of female and male but mating for life as we call it more likely came from the protective and compassionate gene we homo sapiens developed.

Marriage was taken over from the matriarchal society when brute strength was
used in agricultural societies long after humans developed language. Look
to the research on marriage. The daughter selected a male for consideration
of the mother who accepted him on the basis of his work ethic. From my
culture I can see Mama saying : “You don’t lay around under my roof just
to produce babies, get to work!” If you don’t believe in the influence
of women in that realm, think about the church institution of matrimony.
Word sources are very revealing.

Change takes place slowly depending on the pressures exerted. Of course it took centuries to instill the insecurity through verbal abuse that women are trying to rise above. I don’t believe the caveman had to drag a women into his cave. Women come into estrus with the animal itch to copulate at least monthly. A female might have chosen an acceptable mate for more reasons than his physique. Research shows that males get more consideration when protecting and providing for females and children when females are not in estrus.

The same pressure and verbal abuse gave men the inferiority they project when they beat their spouses and their children. They were somehow given the impression that males ruled. And by English common law developed from church practice, children became property of the man of the house, the same as women. If the man couldn’t be heard, by god, he could be felt!

Blame will not erase the results. Thoughts and action on those thoughts must follow. We’ve had the brains to get us this far. Let’s have new thoughts and the courage to reject those parts of our society that are the true roots of abuse.

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Jun 25, 2005 by Naomi.

A gathering of women is joyous - meeting old acquaintances, making new
friends, and listening to the heartbeat of other women’s lives. The rejoicing
is articulate.

A gathering of women is smoldering with the injustices metered out to
sisters as if they were due. The undercurrent that boils up in the 9th
International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women, in Seoul, Korea, is
ripe with research and verbal information. The revelation is articulate.

What progress has been made in women’s lives in the decades of struggle?
In government, some countries have increased members of women in decision
making roles. And in those countries some areas of women’s lives are improving.
Those are encouraging statistics. In looking at poverty, education, prostitution,
mutilation, exploitation, abuse, pregnancy, and health of women all around
the world, not all statistics are encouraging.

There is more decriminalization of sexual exploitation of women. Definitely
a step backward. USA congressional committee placed female genital circumcision
under the sanction of religious rites to infer it an acceptable practice.
CEDAW was killed in that committee and has never been brought up again.
Women subjected to that practice by the hands of their mothers and grandmothers
spend a lifetime of pain and humiliation because the men in those cultures
are determined that “their women” will not enjoy the sexual act, unfortunately,
even with them. New age revelation encourages the clitoridectomy. Oh,
this is religion all right. Religion in all its glory!

Teenage pregnancies are old stories throughout the world. Education
on sexuality is critical for girls and boys. Even in the USA sex education,
always found in the gutter for boys, is nonexistent in the schools and
churches. Cultural expectations offer no help to parents to fill the ignorance
gap. Pregnant women of any age are seldom offered health education leaving
them vulnerable to disease, miscarriage, and death in childbirth. Surviving
mothers have few resources to help their newborns survive. Grieve for
the future.

Anger and frustration over poverty encourages parents to sell their children into prostitution. Many papers discuss trafficking for tourists and armies, street sex and “comfort” workers. Education is sorely needed. I can attest to the fact that just being poor isn’t the end of the world. Enfolded in the safety of a family can’t fill a belly but it helps to fill the spirit. My father sweated as a hired hand for a local farmer in exchange for the cattle that would bring us some independence. My mother walked behind a cultivator to keep the blades set into the soil between rows of corn in hot, insect ridden Minnesota summers while my sister sat aboard the horse to steer and insist on its continuous participation. This hardly compares with the struggle of peasants sweating in the soil of countries where land is owned by a select uncaring few, as my father did in the Austro-Hungarian empire in the 1800s.

Nevertheless there is hope that continued gatherings will encourage changes. Natural evolution demands it.

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Jun 25, 2005 by Naomi.

A Korean breakfast was a reiteration of last night’s dinner except stir
fried zucchini and mild onions replaced the seaweed, fried smelt replaced
the sweet and sour, and a dark broth with spinach replaced the tofu soup.
I speak of food in the cafeteria of Hanwoori Hall, the dormitory at Ewha
University where I am enjoying the 9th International Interdisciplinary
Congress on Women.

I can see my food wasn’t so much of last night’s dinner as I first thought when I looked at the tray. But tomorrow when I fly I shall be glad I did not take the huge western breakfast. From the Korean tray I get the impression the chefs - or powers that be - have no law restricting them from holding leftover food. However, it suited my palate. I eat leftovers at home because it is economical and neither taste nor nutrition is compromised when food is refrigerated and nuked.

In reality, women accept leftovers far too often. I am as guilty as any. Coming from a childhood of poverty I have a very good life. I did not take the first job offered me when relocating to Washington state because I had the courage to hold out for a better one. When it came I should have been incensed that I was accepted only because I could type - and I couldn’t pass high school typing 25 years earlier. The job paid $5,200 a year, more that my husband ever earned in a year in his life. In those days increases were regular in government work and advance was easy although I couldn’t compete with men and certainly not without a PhD. I accepted what I got and put aside the allowed savings for 20 years. Later circumstances changed and I was left with a small pension and social security. My home was paid for so a car and utilities were all I needed to exist comfortably. But I lived in the poverty bracket in the slum area of town.

I was not about to sit still. The first 42 years of my life were spent in
the state of my birth. My ancestors came from Europe, my father within
the 20th century. I wanted to see beyond the United States. If I did not
skimp, eat leftovers, and restrict frivolous spending I would not have
experienced the travel and adventure I have. I will not change my saving
ways. I sit in cramped economy airplane seats putting up with little.
I will continue to have experiences that I now can’t begin to contemplate.

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Jun 25, 2005 by Naomi.

The air is still and visibility reaches to the tall buildings beyond
the Ewha University campus in Seoul, Korea. Ewha claims to be the largest
women’s university in the world and I have no reason to dispute it. I’ve
walked the streets photographing the founders and other important people
in its history. The founding woman was a christian, intending to educate
Koreans. History shows that christian teachers were to teach heathens
the way of the lord. Teaching facts is a wonderful goal in anyone’s life.
Christianity is a fact in that it existed for two thousand years. Its
actual origin is disputed. The wisdom it claims as its own is traceable
to more ancient civilizations. Basing papers and ideas on past knowledge
is not a crime. But is it defendable when used to create strife and unrest
all over the world? Is it progress when cultures of indigenous human beings
are destroyed?

Human brains and thought processes must ask “Is it true?” and make their own conclusions.

The earth outside my dormitory window is part of the earth where christ supposedly
walked. It is a benign earth moving as we finally learned from scientific
understanding by the mathematics, chemistry and physics that are natural
laws beyond human control. The earth encompasses habitats populated with
plants and animals beyond imagination, at least beyond my comprehension.
But they are facts and I can find information on those that are known.
Unfortunately not all species are known. Some were extinct before we discovered
they had been on earth before us.

The excitement of science will not be stomped out as the attempt to destroy knowledge in the library of Alexandria hoped to achieve thousands of years past. Discoveries we can make with our own human curiosity are forthcoming. Look how far we came since the flat world became round. Imagine how far we can go when we study and search for our real place in the world in which we are privileged to live.

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Jun 25, 2005 by Naomi.

Food in a Korean dormitory is an adventure - not that most cafeterias
are that much different - but when it’s catered for college kids, Korean
college kids, it’s a world away from the food served in the basement cafeteria
of the Supreme Court building in Washington D.C. It was served in plastic
compartmentalized trays like my picnic plates at home. Seaweed with raw
onions and razor thin slices of lemon looked inky black, celery ends were
suspiciously hot red, meat had more bread than protein but delicious sweet
and sour sauce, watery soup boasted chunky tofu and thin strips of fish
and green onions, and the rice was sticky with lumps like I cook at home.
I put rice in the soup with a grand spoon and stirred the black, red,
and sweet stuff into lumps of rice with a crooked fork and I enjoyed every
bite.

I had just settled into a chair at an empty table when I was greeted
by two bubbly Korean students. Everyone was always friendly so I smiled
and nodded yes around a mouthful of seaweed when they asked if I was alone.
I always travel alone, I said. They exchanged knowing smiles. Then they
saw my name - Naomi. Ah a bible name they exclaimed. Oops, now I understood
why they were happy to have me alone - the better to proselytize It works
better with two on one. The name Naomi, I explained, appears in the bible
but I was named after my aunt, my mother’s sister. They were puzzled.
The name is in the bible, they reiterated. I knew that. It’s there in
my sister Ruth’s book but there I am her mother in law and follow her
around for Christ’s sake.

It was very difficult to make them understand that I had no use for the bible and wouldn’t accept Christ either. One woman was studying psychology and the other was studying chemistry. The chemist had a little better command of English and reverted to Korean to explain my words to the psychologist. It was a fun interlude as dinner conversations go but I would have been happier if they could have grasped my meaning. I tapped my forefinger to my skull when I told them to think for themselves. I left my card with them. I expect some women will think for themselves.

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Jun 25, 2005 by Naomi.

Returning from the 9th International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women in Seoul, Korea, requires another look at time - the human devised method of keeping time. I left Hanwoori Hall, the dormitory at Ewha University, before seven on Friday, June 24, 2005. I arrived at the Portland, Oregon, airport at seven thirty on Friday, June 24, 2005. Nearly ten thousand miles. Magic?

Is that time travel or what? Those hours were very real so it wasn’t
an instant ‘beam me up, Scotty’ experience. I rode the airport shuttle
through the streets of Seoul and along the fabulous “new” Airport highway,
walked through the delightfully designed Incheon Airport in Seoul, slept
cramped in an Airbus seat, walked through the somber gray Narita Airport
in Tokyo, dropped crumbs from many snacks and meals, slept in a cramped
Airbus seat, spilled juice in the seat pocket, woke with a dry mouth to
a hot towel before breakfast cramped in an Airbus seat, and finally walked
through Homeland security in the colorfully carpeted Portland Airport.
All that in at space of twenty minutes? Not exactly. Did I live a day
longer? Can I hide the day I aged? Or did I lose the day altogether?

There was still an hour’s flight to the Pasco Airport but I was in my house at noon. What a trip! I think I had enough sleep so I won’t lose a day but I must make up for the exercise lost. The way we accommodate the change in days is clever, I suppose. It has to be done somehow but on the face it seems pretty weird, don’t you think?

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