And the days keep whirling by. I’m down to 12 now. I was informed yesterday there will be no days off, which is disappointing and unexpected but I’m not really in a position to complain, with my 20 hours a week. I was supposed to have today off, but the test the students took (on music and art?) was only two periods, so I had to come for the second half of the morning. I wasn’t really happy about it—I’d far rather teach the first two periods—but again, how can I complain? I was hoping to take a hiking day trip today, but it was quite chilly anyway so perhaps it turned out for the best. I did some of the Hongsan trail instead, and by the time I returned my hands refused to function. They were so frozen it took me several minutes and some time immersed in the warmth of my garments to undo the button of my pants. I don’t know when my hands have ever been that cold before! Thankfully, today I did not get lost. With the knowledge I gleaned from last week’s fiasco, I figured out where I went wrong and finally completed the loop I intended to do last time. These trails are so hard to follow sometimes! I suppose it makes success that much more rewarding, but considering my odds of success so far, perhaps I’d better be careful until the weather is nicer.
I was thinking about power systems and hierarchies as my hands were numbing today (among other things, of course). This is prompted in part by Gandhi’s autobiography, which I have been working through the last couple weeks, and also by a conversation I had with the Korean priest on Friday, who commented on the vastly different system of respect and honor the Indians he’s worked with have. It seems to me that human society is always based on a hierarchy. There’s simply no way to equally divide power (though communism does try, I think), and so systems have developed that divide the power along different lines. In Korea’s Confucian system, it’s based on age; in America, it’s on wealth; in India, it’s on caste. (I haven’t been to India yet, but this is the impression I get.) Each system has its merits and downfalls. In Korea, reverence for elders can sometimes lead to excessive conservatism in that with older people in charge, there is not much space for and trust of young innovation. However, it also promotes societal peace—each person will get their chance to be revered. In India, the caste system allows for no movement across class lines and broadly discriminates against vast swaths of people on the basis of birth. However, here, too, people do know their place. There doesn’t seem to be the sense of entitlement that pervades America, where we’ve rid ourselves of a rigid system of reverence and allowed wealth to form the basis of our respect. Our system, I think, is the worst, if only because it encourages that which is worst in human nature in a cutthroat competition to the top. The Eastern systems may be more rigid and inefficient, but at least they don’t reward greed and corruption and exploitation. And yet it is American values that are underwriting our vision of the world as it reigns supreme in the era of globalization. This cannot be a good thing.