Opinion - The Korea Times

One Love

By Hyon O'Brien On Jan. 1, during our vacation, our family visited Bob Marley's birth and resting place in Nine Mile, St. Ann's Bay, on the Caribbean island of Jamaica. Bob Marley, an inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, is known to the world as the epitome of reggae music. Before him, reggae was little known outside Jamaica. His music told stories of his home and the Rastafarian religion that he followed, and some songs dealt with politics. He died of cancer in 1981 at the age of 36 at the peak of his career, but even now, 28 years later, his songs are still extremely popular. Even I, an absolute reggae novice, know one of them, ``One Love" (BBC called it the song of the millennium and his album ``Exodus" was named the Album of the 20th Century by TIME magazine). What is the etymology of reggae? There are many theories, but Bob Marley is said to have claimed that the word reggae came from a Spanish term for ``the king's music." The liner notes of ``To the King," a compilation of Christian gospel reggae, suggest that the word derives from the Latin reg

Feb 6, 2009By Hyon O'Brien

Hyon O'Brien

Spiders, Ants and Bees

By Hyon O'Brien Francis Bacon (1561-1626), the British philosopher, statesman and author whose thoughts were influential in 17th-century Europe, proposes in his book, ``Novum Organum,'' that we must observe nature and collect experiences as data and analyze exactly what we know and don't know, and act on the most reliable facts. He uses the spider, the ant and the bee to illustrate his point: the spider does not experiment but produces webs from its own substance, symbolizing the tendency to formulate ideas and facts by thought alone. The ant experiments by collecting and using. This method was considered to symbolize the human tendency to use facts without clearly understanding them. The bee gathers pollen from the flower, transforms it with its own effort, allowing the bee to make different use of it. Bacon argues that humans should learn from the bee to understand the world around them. Interestingly, not too long ago someone used these same three creatures, the spider, the ant and the bee, to humorously assert that there are roughly three types of human beings. The

Jan 23, 2009By Hyon O'Brien

Hyon O'Brien

Hold Onto What Is Good

By Hyon O'Brien At the beginning of each year, a lot of us talk about New Year resolutions. I have a history of making one every year and failing it miserably soon after I start, or mid-way through the year at best. Only once was I able to stick to my resolution for an entire year. It was a promise I made to myself, feeling weighed down by too many things, that I would not buy myself anything during that year (except for food and other necessities of course). It was quite a liberating experience not to look in shop windows or linger to see whether I needed or (more to the point) wanted anything at duty free shops at various airports of the world where I happened to be. The other day at my weekly Bible study group, the scripture passage we were looking at spoke to me as a good candidate for a new year resolution. In his first letter to the Thessalonians, Paul the Apostle was urging those of the early church to live as Godly people. One particular verse nudged me: ``Hold onto what is good.'' Nearly 2,000 years later, this still has a strong message for all of us. ``Hold o

Jan 9, 2009By Hyon O'Brien

Hyon O'Brien

Salute to Architects

By Hyon O'Brien The very first time that I woke up to ``the idea of architecture" was in 1970 in New York upon encountering the Guggenheim Museum. I was already 23 at the time and I felt cheated, as if someone had kept these treasures from me until then. I felt as if scales had been lifted from my eyes. How was it possible that my cognitive sense about buildings and their styles had been so totally dormant up to that point? I don't recall having any conversation with anyone about architectural style of any kind, including my teachers. No doubt they had mentioned the subject from time to time but I was so out to lunch that it didn't register. Anyhow, from then on, my curiosity about architecture was fully uncorked and my amateurish journey of discovery was launched. Over the years, initially stunned by the uniqueness of Frank Lloyd Wright's (1867-1959) Guggenheim, I pursued his works through frequent visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan to gaze at the living room reconstruction of the Francis Little House of Pennsylvania, and made a pilgrimage to Oak Park

Dec 26, 2008By Hyon O'Brien

Hyon O'Brien

No Pain, No Gain

By Hyon O'Brien ``No pain, no gain" is a motto that actress Jane Fonda made famous in the series of aerobic workout videos she began producing in 1982. The point she was making to the exercising public was that without experiencing muscle ache and exhaustion, it was impossible to succeed in getting the desired muscle tone and shape that is the goal of bodybuilding. That discomfort was the necessary part in gaining a desirable physical condition. The idea is not a new one. There is an allusion to ``no pain, no gain" in Robert Herrick's poem from around 1650: ``If little labor, little are our gains, man's fortunes are according to his pains." The same point was later made by Benjamin Franklin in 1733 in his Poor Richard's Almanac: ``There are no gains without pains". Over the years, this expression has been adopted in many areas, implying that the road to achievement contains a series of unavoidable hardships and endurance tests. Let me offer some examples. Most recently, some of my friends and I were caught in the fever of watching the weekly Korean TV drama ``Beet

Dec 12, 2008By Hyon O'Brien

Hyon O'Brien

All Creatures Great and Small

By Hyon O'Brien The other Sunday, one of the hymns we sang during church worship was ``All Things Bright and Beautiful," written in 1848 by Cecil Alexander. The second line of the refrain, ``All creatures great and small'' caught my eye and lingered because of my nostalgic remembrance of the book with the same title, by English author James Herriot (1916-1995). This Yorkshire veterinarian's amusing account of his practice of animal doctoring resulted in using all the lines in the hymn's refrain: `` All things bright and beautiful, All creatures great and small, All things wise and wonderful, The Lord God made them all.'' Thirty years ago when we lived in London, one of the regular BBC programs we watched was ``All Creatures Great and Small," a television series based on Herriot's books, with wonderful British actors who unforgettably brought the characters to life. As an animal lover and bookworm rolled into one, it was natural for me to seek out all his books and read them, chuckling over the many funny, ironic and poignant stories he related. When his travel book ``Jam

Nov 28, 2008By Hyon O'Brien

Hyon O'Brien

Happy Birthday to You

By Hyon O'Brien Not many people know the origins of the ``Happy Birthday to You" song. I had to look it up in the Internet to get it right. According to my beloved Wikipedia, it dates back to the mid-19th century, when two sisters, Patty and Mildred J. Hill, began singing the song ``Good Morning To All" to their kindergarten class in Kentucky. In 1893, they published the tune in their songbook ``Song Stories for the Kindergarten." However, many believe that the Hill sisters most likely copied the tune and lyrical idea from other songs from that same period. The Hill Sisters' students enjoyed their teachers' version of ``Good Morning To All" so much that they began spontaneously singing it at birthday parties, changing the lyrics to ``Happy Birthday". In 1924, Robert Coleman included ``Good Morning to All" in a songbook with the birthday lyrics as a second verse. Coleman also published ``Happy Birthday in The American Hymnal in 1933. In 1935, ``Happy Birthday to You" was copyrighted as a work for hire by Preston Ware Orem for the Summy Company, the publisher of ``Good Morning

Nov 14, 2008By Hyon O'Brien

Hyon O'Brien

Age of Multitasking

By Hyon O'Brien One of our weekly rituals is watching KBS-TV's Monday night program Urimal Gyeorugi (Korean Language Competition). We try not to make any plans with friends so that we can enjoy this linguistic quiz show in which the contestants compete to become a ``Korean Language Master'' with their knowledge of Korean vocabulary, phrases and proverbs. It is a wonderful show in which we are challenged at times with words we never heard of. However, each time we watch, my husband rebukes me: ``Can't you possibly just watch the show?'' This scolding comes because I always do something else other than watching TV. This multitasking is one of my weaknesses. Somehow I have this Puritanical notion that I cannot sit idly watching TV and not be productive. So I darn socks, pay bills, crochet dishwashing rags or write a letter or whatever needs attention. My web search showed Small Business Encyclopedia's definition of multitasking as follows: ``It refers to the ability of an individual or machine to perform more than one task, or multiple tasks, at the same time.'' In the fie

Oct 31, 2008By Hyon O'Brien

Hyon O'Brien

Been There, Done That

By Hyon O'Brien ``Been there, done that." We have heard this expression a lot since the early 1980s, when people talk about experiences or activities that no longer draw much excitement or interest. It excludes by implication any sense of wonder remaining for a particular place or activity. It has a tone of dismissal ― ``Even talking about this bores me.'' I just got back to Seoul after nearly two weeks traveling in Spain with a high-school friend and travel buddy, Soonja, who flew in from New York to meet me in Madrid (this was our 11th annual trip). She had visited Spain with another group last year, so many of the places we were visiting, were being seen by her for the second time within a short interval. But what amazed me about Soonja was that she never lost her infectious delight even in small things, such as a crooked back alley with a patch of walled-in gardens overflowing with fresh flowers, or intricate ceramic tile signs on the walls, a sweet pastry we picked up in Sarria, an old village surviving in Barcelona, and the windows and gates of the Alhambra Palace nea

Oct 17, 2008By Hyon O'Brien

Hyon O'Brien

Good Evening, Ladies!

By Hyon O'Brien ``Good evening, ladies.'' This is what the silver-haired gentleman said to us with a smile when Jane, my younger daughter, and I stepped out of the elevator in an apartment building on Fifth Ave in Manhattan about eight years ago. We were just leaving her friend's place after dinner. I didn't recognize him right off but Jane knew him. Her friend had told her that some movie stars lived in her apartment building. Jane elbowed me as I was saying to him, ``Same to you also'' walking away from the elevator. ``Did you know who that was?'' ``No.'' ``Paul Newman!'' ``Wow, he is such a gentleman to greet us like that.'' ``Oh that polite man!'' was the first thought that came to my mind when I read the sad news that Paul Newman died on the 26th of September, at the age of 83, after a battle with lung cancer. I don't know why, but I was never much of a fan of his films. However, if hard pressed, I may confess to enjoying ``The Sting,'' the 1973 movie, in which he starred with Robert Redford. Even then, I may have liked it mainly because of Scott Joplin's ragtime music

Oct 3, 2008By Hyon O'Brien

Hyon O'Brien

Read more

One Love

Spiders, Ants and Bees

Hold Onto What Is Good

Salute to Architects

No Pain, No Gain

All Creatures Great and Small

Happy Birthday to You

Age of Multitasking

Been There, Done That

Good Evening, Ladies!

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