I started at around one of the busiest times of the year for companies here, the dreaded fiscal year-end. This essentially means that my company and probably a vast majority of publicly traded companies here must close out their budgets and start making the new budget for the following fiscal year. This also means that there is almost nothing for the new guy(me) to do. So I really didn't get to do much work this past week but I think I have an idea of what is waiting for me around the bend. I've spent some time talking with Glyn, the only other foreign worker here from England, and he has given me some of his projects to look over. I can tell you now that I will eventually be in for some LONG evenings here. Whatever, better than sitting at my desk with my thumbs competing for ass-time.
The people here are pretty cool. I'm already a member of the company basketball team (we don't play competitively, just for fun) and I had my first outing with them this past Tuesday. We will be meeting twice a month for a few hours of good ol' ball-playing. Some of them are pretty good and Tuesday helped show me how out of shape I have become (not that I didn't dominate the boards as always). Oh well, add another thing to the list of shit to do while here (Note to self: self, stop being so damn lazy and get active again). After the games, we went out and drank some soju and I bullshitted with some of my co-workers. Good times.
In other news, my apartment is still pretty much the same as I left it this past weekend. I will, however, be out shopping for stuff this weekend. I have included some pictures of how it looks now but don't get accustomed to them, it will be changing soon (and i'll be posting more pictures).
Finally, I would like to wish a happy turkey day to everyone reading this. Since I was broke my turkey day dinner consisted of ramen noodles and rice. Yummy. I miss all of the food at home and getting to see all of my family around one dinner table. I don't, however, miss all of the bullshit images perpetuated around Thanksgiving. You know, all of the posters of happy turkeys seemingly blissful of the gruesome death that awaits them and cutesy images of pilgrims and indians gathering around the table like the Brady family. I'm all for family gatherings and good food, but let's at least get the facts about the holiday correct. Speaking of which:
(You can skip the italicized parts if you want, it's just a history lesson.)
When the Pilgrims came to New England they were coming not to vacant land but to territory inhabited by tribes of Indians. The story goes that the Pilgrims, who were Christians of the Puritan sect, were fleeing religious persecution in Europe. They had fled England and went to Holland, and from there sailed aboard the Mayflower, where they landed at Plymouth Rock in what is now Massachusetts.
Religious persecution or not, they immediately turned to their religion to rationalize their persecution of others. They appealed to the Bible, Psalms 2:8: "Ask of me, and I shall give thee, the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession." To justify their use of force to take the land, they cited Romans 13:2: "Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation."
The Puritans lived in uneasy truce with the Pequot Indians, who occupied what is now southern Connecticut and Rhode Island. But they wanted them out of the way; they wanted their land. And they seemed to want to establish their rule firmly over Connecticut settlers in that area.
In 1636 an armed expedition left Boston to attack the Narragansett Indians on Block Island. The English landed and killed some Indians, but the rest hid in the thick forests of the island and the English went from one deserted village to the next, destroying crops. Then they sailed back to the mainland and raided Pequot villages along the coast, destroying crops again.
The English went on setting fire to wigwams of the village. They burned village after village to the ground. As one of the leading theologians of his day, Dr. Cotton Mather put it: "It was supposed that no less than 600 Pequot souls were brought down to hell that day." And Cotton Mather, clutching his bible, spurred the English to slaughter more Indians in the name of Christianity.
Three hundred thousand Indians were murdered in New England over the next few years. It is important to note: The ordinary Englishmen did not want this war and often, very often, refused to fight. Some European intellectuals like Roger Williams spoke out against it. And some erstwhile colonists joined the Indians and even took up arms against the invaders from England. It was the Puritan elite who wanted the war, a war for land, for gold, for power. And, in the end, the Indian population of 10 million that was in North America when Columbus came was reduced to less than one million.
The way the different Indian peoples lived -- communally, consensually, making decisions through tribal councils, each tribe having different sexual/marriage relationships, where many different sexualities were practiced as the norm -- contrasted dramatically with the Puritan's Christian fundamentalist values. For the Puritans, men decided everything, whereas in the Iroquois federation of what is now New York state women chose the men who represented the clans at village and tribal councils; it was the women who were responsible for deciding on whether or not to go to war. The Christian idea of male dominance and female subordination was conspicuously absent in Iroquois society.
There were many other cultural differences: The Iroquois did not use harsh punishment on children. They did not insist on early weaning or early toilet training, but gradually allowed the child to learn to care for themselves. And, they did not believe in ownership of land; they utilized the land, lived on it. The idea of ownership was ridiculous, absurd. The European Christians, on the other hand, in the spirit of the emerging capitalism, wanted to own and control everything -- even children and other human beings. The pastor of the Pilgrim colony, John Robinson, thus advised his parishioners: "And surely there is in all children a stubbornness, and stoutness of mind arising from natural pride, which must, in the first place, be broken and beaten down; that so the foundation of their education being laid in humility and tractableness, other virtues may, in their time, be built thereon." That idea sunk in.
One colonist said that the plague that had destroyed the Patuxet people -- a combination of slavery, murder by the colonists and disease -- was "the Wonderful Preparation of the Lord Jesus Christ by His Providence for His People's Abode in the Western World." The Pilgrims robbed Wampanoag graves for the food that had been buried with the dead for religious reasons. Whenever the Pilgrims realized they were being watched, they shot at the Wampanoags, and scalped them. Scalping had been unknown among Native Americans in New England prior to its introduction by the English, who began the practice by offering the heads of their enemies and later accepted scalps.
"What do you think of Western Civilization?" Mahatma Gandhi was asked in the 1940s. To which Gandhi replied: "Western Civilization? I think it would be a good idea." And so enters "Civilization," the civilization of Christian Europe, a "civilizing force" that couldn't have been more threatened by the beautiful anarchy of the Indians they encountered, and so slaughtered them.
These are the Puritans that the Indians "saved", and whom we celebrate in the holiday, Thanksgiving. Tisquantum, also known as Squanto, a member of the Patuxet Indian nation. Samoset, of the Wabonake Indian nation, which lived in Maine. They went to Puritan villages and, having learned to speak English, brought deer meat and beaver skins for the hungry, cold Pilgrims. Tisquantum stayed with them and helped them survive their first years in their New World. He taught them how to navigate the waters, fish and cultivate corn and other vegetables. He pointed out poisonous plants and showed how other plants could be used as medicines. He also negotiated a peace treaty between the Pilgrims and Massasoit, head chief of the Wampanoags, a treaty that gave the Pilgrims everything and the Indians nothing. And even that treaty was soon broken. All this is celebrated as the First Thanksgiving.
If you bothered reading this, good for you. If you are skipping to the pictures, good for you too cause here they are:
(Remember that my apartment is shaped like a giant L-block from Tetris)
The long view of my apartment from where will be my bed.
Kitchen action. Yes, the fridge is the size of my thumb. It shall be replaced.
Side view of the "closet" space. I will be getting sliding doors to cover those.
My office building at night, from across the street. I work on the 9th floor.
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