Articles by mgedwards

Travel update

Dear Reader, you have probably lost track of where we are now.  I don’t blame you–I can barely keep up.  I’m so busy keeping up with myself that I can hardly remember other people’s plans.  You know, whenever you meet a good friend, they expect you to remember their own plans, and you spend a few moments trying to recall every scrap of information they told you about their intentions.  Anyway, we are now in Idaho again staying with my parents.  We stayed in Seattle for about six days.  The visit was much too short.  We wish we had been able to stay a couple more days, but then we would have had to shorten our visit with my parents.  We will stay in Idaho for the remainder of the month except for a short visit to family in Montana.  By early March, we will be back in Washington, D.C. for four months.  Korea now seems so long ago.  People said it would be like a dream–good or bad depending on your prespective.  It’s definitely starting to fade into memory, and Paraguay is starting to loom larger.

Happy Year of the Golden Fire on Water Pig

Happy Chinese New Year and Seol Nal!  (Seol Nal is the Korean name for the lunar new year.)  This is the Year of the Pig, but not just any ol’ Pig Year.  Depending on who you talk to, it’s either the Year of the Golden Pig, Year of the Fire Pig, or Year of the Fire Pig that falls on a water element.  It is such a special lunar year that no one can say for sure whether it happens every 60 years or 600 years or every 12 years.  Either way, it’s a special year, and a lot more babies will be born in Greater China, on the Korean Peninsula, and their respective diaspora.  Many Chinese and Koreans believe this will be the most special year to bear children since the Year of the Dragon seven years ago, and hospitals are expecting a spike in birthrate.  Births will undoubtedly increase as East Asian parents rush to have children who will be recipients of the good fortune lavished on them by this auspicious Zodiac sign.

Why?  According to an article published by AsianAvenue.com:

Supposedly children born in the year of the Golden Pig will make a lot of money. The Pig sign represents everything that makes us plump—health, fertility, and money. And the fact that this year’s pig is golden only adds to the material wealth. But the pig has bad traits as well—it’s also a symbol of greed, laziness, filth, and stupidity. But for many couples, this seems to be a small tradeoff for an early retirement.

However, no consensus has emerged on the special significance of this year.  After all, the Year of the Pig occurs every 12 years, but this year is being touted as a special one by many people, especially merchants hoping to generate additional sales by promoting the “Year of the Golden Pig.”  According to Korean broadcasting company, KBS:

People who believe in the year of the golden pig say the special year comes every 600 years. They came to this conclusion through calculations, using a combination of the Chinese zodiac and the yin and yang theory. However, a folklore professor, Joo Young-ha, at the Academy of Korean Studies rebuts the theory. He explained that if the year 2007 is the golden pig year which comes every 600 years, there should be records about the special year written in the ‘Taejong Sillok,’ archives of King Taejong. King Taejong ruled the Joseon Dynasty 600 years ago. But there are no such records, which makes him believe the myth was made not long ago.

This Year of the Pig may not be so special after all.  According to Asia Times Online:

This lunar year…is fraught with an especially strong dose of astrological Viagra because it is believed to be the Year of the Golden Pig, which – depending on the astrologer you consult – comes once every 60 or 600 years. Either way, it’s a rare pig.  Or is it? Serious Hong Kong practitioners of the ancient art of feng shui, or geomancy, have debunked the notion that this is a golden year, writing it off as a commercial invention fostered by shopkeepers to boost business. The next golden pig year, they say, will not come around until 2031.

This is a fire-pig year, according to feng shui masters such as Raymond Lo and Peter So. It is only golden in the fired imaginations of shopkeepers scheming for additional profit. But those merchants have succeeded in duping the general public.  Before the crass intervention of commerce, here, by most accounts, is how the Chinese astrological system was supposed to work: each year in the lunar calendar is represented by one of the 12 animals of the zodiac, which then rotates through five earthly elements – metal, wood, water, fire and earth.  This year’s pig is matched up not with gold but with fire and, significantly, the fire sits on water. The elements are therefore in conflict – a theme not particularly popular with merchants and mall decorators – and the year ahead will be full of turbulence.  It would be better if this year’s flame were a yang fire, which symbolizes the warmth of the sun, politeness and optimism. But instead, it’s yin fire, and that signifies the spark of tension, conflict and even war. 

From what I gather–and I am no scholar in Chinese astrology–this is really the Year of the Fire Pig on Water.  So what are the sociological implications of this combination?  Well, it seems to portend that children born in 2007 will be hotheaded but prone to being all wet.

 

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Days and nights all around

One of the unpleasant side effects of long-term travel to multiple destinations is the affect travel has on one’s biological clock.  While most often referred to in the context of pregnancy, the biological clock also governs one’s ability to manage sleep.  Traveling over multiple time zones in a short period of time messes this up, leaving one’s body wondering whether a given moment is morning, noon, afternoon, or night.  I am writing this at 5:40 a.m.  I should not be writing right now; I should be in bed sleeping, getting ready for another day of fun-filled vacation.  Instead, I cannot sleep, because I have so hopelessly confused my body as to what time it is at a given moment. 
 
Over two weeks ago, we left Korea and headed to Hawai’i, a difference of -19 hours.  Noon on Sunday in Korea is 7 p.m. on Saturday in Hawai’i.  A couple days ago, we arrived in Seattle, entering the Pacific Standard Time Zone.  We two hours ahead of Hawai’i and 17 hours behind Korea.  We will stay on Pacific Time until early March, when we fly to the Eastern Time Zone and move to Virginia, three hours ahead of Seattle and 14 hours behind Korea.  Someone once told me that it takes one day for each hour of time difference to fully recover from time zone changes.  That may or may not be true, but when you move from one place to -19 hours for two weeks, then -17 hours for another weeks, then finally -14 hours one month later, it can be a bit brutal convincing your body to get with the program.  I don’t think I will fully adjust to the time change in Seattle, but I’m positive that we will recover from the time change in Idaho when we arrive on Monday.  So with that, I’ll trudge off to bed again and try to get a couple hours’ sleep.  Good night!