Love at First Bite
I am a foodie. My love handles are a testament to that. So, when I came here (South Korea), I was excited to finally try Korean dishes I saw only in K-Dramas.
The first food I ate here in South Korea was… biscuits from the Philippines. Yes, that’s true. I wasn’t able to eat anything Korean immediately when I and sir Kenn (a fellow professor from the Philippines) arrived at the Busan International Airport. I was not thinking of food at that time. I was looking for at least a cup of coffee then, not because of hunger nor my usual craving for caffeine. I just wanted to feel something warm in my hands which started to go numb. It was freezing cold that morning and hunger was the least of my worries. The only thing I wanted was to reach our destination at Gyeoungju-si and wrapped myself up with the thickest blanket I could find there.
My jacket wasn’t thick enough for my body to enjoy the early spring weather trying to give me an icy cold welcome. I didn’t have time to open my traveling bags because we had a bus to catch. It was my fault to believe what some friends back home told me that it’s not that cold here during spring. For a body used to either a hot or a VERY HOT weather, experiencing a negative two for the first time was literally a chilling experience.
As soon as I reached the apartment reserved for me by 경주 대학교 (Gyeoungju University), the first school where I worked here, I immediately unpacked and got myself another jacket. It was only when I was warm enough that I started to feel hungry and realized that I was actually a time zone away from my family. Back home, my wife would make sure that whenever hunger strikes there’s food I could grab from either the fridge or the table.
I waited for another day to officially get introduced to Korean dishes that I had the chance to see only on TV through the Korean dramas that Filipinos like me are so fond of watching. I found it amusing that aside from wishing me well for the Korean adventure I was about to embark on, my family and friends kept telling me that finally I would have a chance to try the legendary 김치 (kimchi).
Then finally the day came that something Korean would travel my digestive tract. I got that chance during the orientation for the university students held at the Concorde Hotel (Bomun Lake Resort, Bodeok-dong, Gyeongju-si, Gyeongsangbukdo). Of course, I was excited to meet my fellow professors from other countries and have my first encounter with Korean university students. But I was, I think, more excited to have my first dining experience in South Korea. What made it more exciting was the fact that after that night, the taste of kimchi would no longer be a mystery to me.
Right after the orientation, I joined the foreign professors and university officials and we all headed to the restaurant of the hotel. As we approached the dining hall, the ambrosial smell characteristic of hotel lobbies was replaced by a savory waft that was unlike any combination of aroma my sense of smell was used to. It made me hungrier and more excited.
There were four of us who shared one of the tables reserved. Already there (on the table) before we sat down were lots of 반찬 (banchan), or side dishes, mostly vegetables, including Korea’s “most-talked-about” kimchi.
I dived in. The first Korean food I tried was kimchi.
Despite my struggles with the chopsticks, I managed to pick a small chunk of this famous fermented cabbage. The smell, as I expected, was biting and pungent. Its tanginess was nothing new to me because in the Philippines there are items in our cuisine that I could say are perhaps more biting and more pungent than kimchi. What about the taste? It’s garlicky, salty and of course spicy. The first one I tried then had a combination of sweetness and spiciness. I was told that there are more than 100 known varieties of kimchi.
After my first bite, I immediately wanted more of it. Yes, I came to like kimchi. I don’t know why, let me just say that it was “love at first bite.” It is so hard to explain as to why I would consider meals incomplete without a serving of this side dish.
The main meal served was a kimchi-based dish called 김치 찌개 (kimchi-jjigae). Kimchi-jjigae is kind of stew where kimchi (preferably older or more fermented) is mixed with pork, seafood and diced tofu. I could handle spicy foods like this one. There are two problems though when I eat them. First, I sweat too much. Second and last, I probably would have up to two orders of extra rice. I was a little overweight when I came to South Korea. One of the things I set as goal when I came here was to get rid of the “belt bag.” With foods like kimchi-jjigae, I realized that night that losing weight is an impossible dream.
I think I completely abandoned those “weighty” concerns when sir Randy, also a fellow professor from the Philippines, told me that the following day he would make me try 삼겹살 (samgyeobsal).
If love… then what? (3)
(A Movie Review – last of 3 parts)
The primary conflict – Will Ben and Phillip succeed in diminishing the role of James in the creation of the OED and in striking out William as a contributor? – is categorized as “man against man.” Conversely, what I consider as the secondary conflict – Will Eliza forgive William? – is classified as “man against himself.” This conflict gives the movie a semblance of drama and romance.
While the challenges James and William had to overcome emanate from the selfish motives of two of the members of the OED project’s oversight committee, Eliza’s struggle comes from within her. She had to choose to forgive the man who killed her husband or not.
Anyone seeking forgiveness needs to show repentance and the willingness to recompense even when not asked to do so. William did both.
William could have just disregarded the crime he committed and hidden his guilt under the rug of his condition, declared by the judicial and health authorities as insanity. But he did not. Guilt pricked his conscience to no end, knowing fully well the severity of his crime – killing the husband to a wife and the father to 6 children. Already tormented by flashbacks to the American Civil War (where he served as a surgeon of the Union Army), William also had to bear that guilt.
Thus, he asked that his army pension be given to Eliza. Deep inside, William is a good man with a brilliant mind (when lucid). Such goodness and brilliance were ruined by a mental disorder.
Mr. Muncie, a guard at the psychiatric hospital, recognizes that goodness in William. Eventually, a friendship developed between them. Same with William and James, they became very good friends too.
The story exemplifies what people are willing to do for their friends. Mr. Muncie tried to defend William against the abuses of Dr. Brayne, and James did everything he could to secure his release from the psychiatric hospital. James had a very good friend in Freddie too. How remarkable are Freddie’s attempts to save James from getting booted out of the OED project by lying to the oversight committee that he was responsible for the missing words that were supposedly included in volume 1 of the dictionary? Freddie went as far as using his connections to secure the royal seal of patronage for James, acknowledging him as the primary mover of the OED, rendering moot and academic all of the efforts of Ben and Phillip “to ease the gentle Scotsman off his little perch.” And that is the resolution of the main conflict.
What about the secondary conflict – Will Eliza forgive William?
Mr. Muncie, upon William’s bidding, visits Eliza to discuss the financial assistance William proposes to give. Eliza, at first, refuses. After a while, seeing how difficult life has been for her and her children, Eliza tells Muncie, who visited them again one Christmas Eve, that she will accept William’s offer, but that is only after seeing the killer of her husband in person to find out if she could stomach accepting the money.
The meeting between Eliza and William happened. Eliza finally agrees to accept the money, but at the end of that encounter with her husband’s murderer, she says that her accepting William’s offer doesn’t make things right. William may not have received the forgiveness that perhaps he was hoping he would get. Still, somehow, a certain portion of his guilt went away when Eliza accepted the financial assistance he offered.
Eliza visited William for a second time, brought a book for him, and thanked him for the money. He informed William as well that things were better for her and her children. In that conversation, Eliza said that it wasn’t right for her to continue receiving William’s money, to which the latter replied that his life belongs to Eliza and what is his is hers too… and all that started the night he killed her husband.
Those words perhaps melted Eliza’s heart and vaporized whatever hatred she had for William.
That visit led to some more, and when William discovered that Eliza could not read, he begged her to allow him to teach her how to… if only for the reason that she should be able to teach her children to read as well.
William explained to Eliza the importance of reading this way – “ [Reading] is freedom. I can fly out of this place on the backs of books. I’ve gone to the ends of the world on the wings of words. When I read, no one is after me. When I read I’m the one chasing. Chasing after God.”
Eliza accepted William’s offer. Each time she visited, William would teach her how to read. The way she looks at Eliza betrayed how he feels towards the widow of the man he murdered.
Eventually, Eliza learned to read the words written in the pages of books. There’s something else she learned to read – the innate goodness of William. Eliza came to know who and what William really was.
On the day Eliza brought her children to the psychiatric hospital for them to meet William for the first time, Claire, Eliza’s firstborn, couldn’t refrain from expressing her anger towards her father’s killer. Eliza apologized to William for her daughter’s outburst, and after kissing him, she told him that she had already forgiven him.
Eliza’s forgiveness paved the way for William’s redemption. At that point, the question – Will Eliza forgive William? – was answered. But instead of the “falling action” (at least for that subplot) following that, there was a heightening (rising) of the action instead. Eliza, aside from forgiveness, gave William something else… love.
On one of James’ visits, he saw the portrait of a woman that William had painted. When asked who that woman is, William replied, “The impossible.”
Indeed, it is seemingly impossible for Eliza to forgive William, her husband’s killer. And what is more impossible is for Eliza to end up loving William.
But as James said when William referred to her as “the impossible” – “the more impossible, the greater the love.”
And what happened to the note Eliza gave William – “If love, then what?”
William, with that unstable mind that he had, responded to it unexpectedly. It brought back the guilt that he felt after killing Eliza’s husband. Eliza falling in love with him is like killing her husband for the second time. To Eliza’s question, “If love, then what?” William responded, “There’s no chance of redemption.” That guilt worsened William’s paranoid delusions, prompting him to “punish” himself.
That day Eliza gave William that note and asked him to open it when she was gone. William said, “I’m sorry, Eliza.” Eliza responded, “But what if I’m not?” Then they kissed.
That, for me, is the most beautiful part of the movie. What followed thereafter are the darkest parts of the story – particularly William “punishing” himself and the monsters – Ben, Phillip and Dr. Bryne – rearing their ugly heads.
The ending may be formulaic – the good triumphs over evil – but what I would like to remember the movie by is Eliza’s answer to her own question.
“If love, then what?” L O V E.
If you are in love, just love… no ifs… no buts.
If love… then what? (2)
(A Movie Review – 2nd of 3 parts)
It might be surprising to some that a review of a movie about how a dictionary was created would be subtitled, “If love… then what?”
No… It’s not an attempt to romanticize the love for words of the lexicographers who dedicated their lives to creating a comprehensive compilation of all known English words. I chose that title because of the biopic’s interesting twist involving Eliza and William.
The Professor and the Madman is based on a book with the same title featuring the true story of Sir James Murray, a Scottish lexicographer and first editor of what is now known as The Oxford English Dictionary (OED), and Dr. William Chester Minor, an American surgeon and lexicographer researcher who contributed significantly to the creation of the said dictionary. The latter suffered from paranoid delusions and he killed a man (Eliza’s husband in the story) whom he accused of breaking into his room. He was committed to a psychiatric hospital, and while undergoing treatment, he (reportedly) made contributions to the OED.
Given all the aforementioned, you wouldn’t think this would be an interesting movie. How in the world would a movie about creating a dictionary generate excitement?
Well… I trust in the imagination and creativity of the scriptwriters.
While obviously, the main plot revolves around the events that led to the creation of the OED, as I expected, the creative minds behind the movie injected subplots to make the flick more literary and cinematic.
Those subplots were stitched together using the literary themes of friendship, redemption, forgiveness, and love as threads.
The main plot is centered upon diligence as the source of its theme. Ada, James’ wife, defined diligence to the members of the Oxford University Press. She said the following to the gentlemen deliberating her husband’s ouster from the OED project – “Diligence. I looked it up in your dictionary. A constant and earnest effort to accomplish what is undertaken. Persistence. Application. But also, toil… and pain.”
Those words encapsulate James and William’s efforts to create the OED. The persistence they have shown in the pursuit of such a daunting endeavor is worthy of emulation, and it is perhaps the most important value viewers could learn from the movie.
But as expected, James and Williams should meet an opposition to satisfy one very important requirement in story writing – conflict. Without it, the movie would turn into just a plain documentary. That opposition came from Ben and Phillip, the one whom Ada addressed as Mr. Gell when she gatecrashed into that meeting of the OED project’s oversight committee to speak on behalf (and in defense) of William and her husband.
Ben and Phillip, along with Dr. Richard Brayne (supervisor of the psychiatric hospital where William was undergoing treatment… or is it where he was incarcerated), are the story’s villains.
The maneuverings Ben and Phillip do to make things hard for James and William represent what I think is the story’s main conflict – Will Ben and Phillip succeed in diminishing the role of James in the creation of the OED and in striking out William as a contributor?
The main plot revolves around the aforementioned conflict. But the story has another conflict that, in my opinion, overshadows the main conflict. It is the one that involves William and Eliza.
As previously mentioned, Eliza is the wife of the man whom William killed while having a fit of delusion. This represents the other conflict in the story – Will Eliza forgive William?
If love… then what? (1)
(A Movie Review – 1st of 3 parts)
I recently watched the movie “The Professor and the Madman.” The said biographical drama drew my interest because of this line in an advertisement – “It’s [produced] to teach you an important lesson in the history of the English language.” That tickler ignited the student (and the teacher) of history and language in me.
What made me more interested to watch the movie is that Mel Gibson and Sean Penn lead the cast. I have watched many of the actors’ movies and was curious how the two would fare in this one.
Before watching the movie, I tried to read more information about it on the Internet. I chanced upon an article summarizing what the critics said about the biopic. I don’t usually read reviews before watching a particular movie. Still, because this is not new, it was released in 2019. I decided to read the article and two more after it. The majority of the reviews thumbed down the movie. The comments I read were bad. Of those comments, none could be worse than this – “It is the latest fiasco in bad movie history.” The critics were also not so kind with what they said about the lead actors’ performance.
Other people might not bother to watch the movie at all anymore after reading such negative reviews… but not me.
As far as I am concerned, there is more to a story (or a movie) than what critics say about it. I consider reviews as opinions that could possibly be subjective. If the negative reviews would discourage me from watching it, I would never know what I might be missing.
The subjects I taught in the Philippines before I came here to South Korea include Literary Criticism and Stylistics. I could wear the hat of a movie critic if I choose to. But whenever I watch movies, I put my feet in the shoes of an ordinary movie fan. I put aside all those literary and linguistic devices I was trained to use when dealing with stories. When the movie started, I would always switch off all those literary theories and schools of criticism. All I want to do is enjoy what I am about to see.
Admittedly though, there’s one “ism” that’s not completely switched off while I watch the movie – Appreciative Inquiry. And if you’re familiar with this philosophical model, you know it would not prevent me from enjoying the movie.
I leave the critiquing to the people paid (or whose hobby is) to find faults in movies. I watch films for entertainment and for the possibility of learning a lesson or two about life. I always bear in mind that the stories we read or watch in movies inform, instruct, and somehow prepare us for life if we choose to internalize the morals the story presents to us.
I was glad I decided to watch the movie despite the negative reviews I read because, in the end, I did not only gain more insights into the English language. The movie also broadened my perspectives on four common themes in literature – friendship, redemption, forgiveness, and love. It wasn’t just the student (and the teacher) of history and language in me that experienced satisfaction after watching the movie, the student (and teacher) of literature that I am was also delighted.
Like A Roller Coaster
Love’s indeed a roller coaster
Treacherous switchback it bestrides
It would throw you up and under
Scary! But stay… enjoy the ride
Be not afraid when love rolls down
Expect to be twisted and turned
Buckle up in delight be drowned
Before downwards the ride returns
Expect the twizzles and the twines
Hold tight… sit tight… embrace the flow
When spun and twirled never whine
Buckle up don’t ever let go
Love couldn’t be any wilder
Than a ride on a roller coaster
Buckle up if you want to try
Be ready to laugh… and to cry
Beyond Schooling
We stop schooling at a certain age but we should never stop learning. Learning is a lifelong endeavor and education is not confined to the four corners of the academe. The process of acquiring the desired knowledge, skills and values should continue even after graduation.
Schooling is not the only way to learn. There are other ways to obtain knowledge, develop skills, and cultivate the values required for us to become the best that we can be and function as productive members of society.
The foregoing assertions should not be construed as an attempt to undervalue schooling rather they should be viewed as arguments against the perception that not going to school to get a formal education is a reason for us not to be able to maximize our potentials and succeed.
Not everybody has the financial resources to afford formal education from kindergarten to at least college and not everybody who has the capability to pay would also have the interest and enthusiasm for schooling.
If parents are well-off, the higher the possibility for the children to finish at least an undergraduate degree. That is if said children believe that education is a key to securing a good future. It is rather ironic that sometimes those who have the money to spend for education are not motivated to go to school and those who have the motivation to do so don’t have the capability to pay.
For some, not having enough financial resources is not a hindrance in the pursuit of a good education. We heard a lot of narratives about people belonging to poor families who worked while studying, earned their degrees, then eventually succeeded in life.
But there are people who also attained success even if they have no university diploma. A few of them even made it to the Forbes’ list of richest persons in the world. The oft-repeated stories of the Bill Gates and the Steve Jobs of the world support the assertion that a bachelor’s degree (or higher – Master’s and PhD) is not the only key that could be used to unlock the doors to wealth, fame, and success.
It can be argued that a university degree does not always guarantee success in life in the same manner that not having it means that a person’s future would be bleak. It all depends on how those who manage to earn degrees and those who did not play the cards their circumstances dealt them and the way they maximize their opportunities and whatever potentials they have.
There are degree holders who could not find decent jobs citing the lack of job opportunities as reason. Conversely, there are college dropouts who do not relish the idea of being under someone’s employ. So, they charted their own destinies and created their own opportunities. Check the list of the Forbes’ list of billionaires and you’ll be surprised to see some how many are actually college dropouts.
There are specific professions requiring prolonged training and certain qualifications that can be acquired only through formal education. This is when schooling becomes a necessity. But there are also occupations where formal education is not required. Artists, athletes, and business men for example need not have a university diploma. The degree they need is the degree of expertise they must exhibit in their respective arts, sports, and business.
It can also be argued that the schools could not possibly teach all of the competencies and skills we need to acquire aside from those required by whatever professions or occupations we have embraced. And even the said competencies and skills we learn while schooling need to be honed and upgraded. There’s more learning that must be done beyond schooling.
And there is one thing that we ought to learn when we start practicing our chosen profession or occupation – live a balanced life.
Life is not all about work and work is supposed to be “earning a living” and not “slowly killing one’s self.” While we may work hard to achieve whatever we want in life – money, degree, fame, and what have you, we should not sacrifice our relationships and health. Don’t work unreasonably hard that you may earn your millions just so you have money to spend for your hospitalization when you get sick. Living a balanced life means taking care of your work or business without sacrificing your health and disregarding the family and friends who need your attention.
The Sounds of the Trail
As the trail steepens
the breeze whistles,
the branches creak…
then the leaves rustle.
Suddenly the birds sing
I even heard crickets chirping
I think from behind the bushes
I heard a hissing.
I could really hear
my heart pounding…
my joints cracking…
my muscles popping…
So I decided to rest
then the huffs
the puffs…
Stopped.
M.A.D. LIGAYA
M.A.D. L I G A Y A 