In Korea, today is Children’s Day. In other parts of the world, it’s Cinco de Mayo. Oh, how I would love a bowl of guacamole and a margarita right now.

After my jaunt to Seoul on Saturday for pre-Buddha’s birthday celebrations, I debated going again on Sunday because the weather looked like crap. I’m a huge fan of festivals, but not when it includes being cold in the rain. As the sun started setting, the weather didn’t look any better and I opted to stay home instead.

One reason for staying home was to work on my blog. As you can see, there’s a new template. First, I upgraded to Wordpress 2.5.1, and it looks really snazzy. (Trust me, you’ll have to take my word for it.) It wasn’t as easy as people on the internet made it out to be, but I eventually got through it.

Afterwards, I started working on the blog theme. This took some time too, because all I know about CSS and PHP is what pops up when I google how to do specific tasks. As you can see, when it comes down to it, I’m a 3 column kind of girl. There’s just more real estate to play with.

On the right-hand side, you can also see my Twitter widget. I’ve been Twittering for a short time now, and you can “follow” me at http://twitter.com/laoocean. “Tweets” are basically like the “John Doe is _______” feature of Facebook, but more frequently. I can also update what I’m doing by sending a text message from my cell phone to my account. It’s up to the minute blogging! Do you want to know what I think of Iron Man before I even leave the theater?!? Well, now you will!

Through tweets, I discovered two good Flickr related sites:

• Flickr Leech - You can see my photostream (or anyone else’s) in a larger page view than on the normal flickr site. Check my stream out.
• Flickriver - Check out interesting Flickr photos, 500 at a time! There’s so much inspiration there.

Overall, I’m happy with the new look, but will be customizing different aspects of the site in the future.

Joe has compiled a list of the posted working conditions from various Korean universities.  Most of my friends also work at universities, so it’s interesting to see what other places are offering.

How to read the listing:

Chinju National University of Education

16 hrs/wk, 2.3 MA/2.0 BA, housing: provided—furnished, vacation: paid summer/winter

It means:  16 hours a week, 2.3 million won ($2425 USD) a month if you have a Masters degree, 2.0 million won ($2109 USD) if you have a Bachelor’s degree, a furnished apartment, and you get paid vacations in the summer (July/Aug) and winter (Jan/Feb).  The Korean school year starts in the beginning of March.

Remember, just because someone works at a university doesn’t mean they teach university classes.  Over the years, universities have realized there’s a lot of money to be made running “hagwon” classes on their university campus.  Since most university classes finish by the afternoon, there are a lot of classrooms vacant after that time.  Coincidentally, children get off from school by three or four o’clock.   My university started running a kids program last semester.  For the upcoming semester, I’ll be teaching mostly Freshman to Senior conversation classes, but I’m also obligated to teach 2.5 hours, two days a week in the after-school children’s program.  I don’t mind teaching kids, so it wasn’t a big problem for me.  Still, I’d rather be teaching all university classes.  There’s a lot of planning involved when teaching kids.

I’ve been reading the Metropolitician for about a month now, having been turned onto the blog through his SeoulGlow video podcasts.  The other night, I was browsing through the archives and came upon a really interesting post from January.  He thoroughly discussed the rights of photographers in Korea.  Specifically:

• Can you take a picture of anyone on the street?  Or do you need their permission first?
• If they DO catch you taking a picture of them, can they make you delete those photos?
• Can a security guard take your camera away from you?
• Can you take pictures inside a store?

These are all questions I’ve wondered about, especially since I carry a camera with me at all times.  Michael (Metropolitician) answers all of this in his blog post.  Definitely check it out.  Below is an excerpt:

“So here’s what I have known since first started taking pictures here – see, I do my homework – and what paranoid citizens, journalists, and even the cops seem to be unable to understand: taking a picture in itself, barring mitigating circumstances, is not a crime. And I’ve know the law since my ass deplaned here in late 2002.

Here’s the relevant text, taken from a book for photojournalists called ????????, or, roughly translated, “Korean Photojournalism Theory.” It deals with the tricky question of “???/choseungkweon” or “the right to one’s (facial) image,” which is a concept about which the average Korean citizen holds an inflated, paranoid, and nearly erroneous misconception. From the book, here’s the relevant section that talks about the subject as it relates to Korea:

?? ?10?: “?????? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??”

?? ?16?: ?? ??? ???? ??? ??? ???? ???.

?? ?32? ?4?:??? ?? ??? ?? ?? ??? ?? ???? ???? ???? ??? ?? ??? ?? ????? ??? ? ??(??? ?? ??? ?? ????? ?? ?750?? ?? ????? ??? ? ??.)

?? ??? ??? ???? ??? ??? ?? ??? ?????? ?? ?? ??. ?? ?? ?750?? ?? ????? ??? ? ???? ????? ?, ???? ?? ??? ??? ?? ?? ??? ??? ???? ??? ??? ??? ???? ??? ???? ?? ?? ??? ????.

So what I see here are some basic things, and you legal eagles out there, please tell me if any of this is wrong, and/or add to the conversation.

1) According to the 10th and 16th articles of the Korean Constitution, which defines a “right to happiness” and “right to privacy,” respectively, as this is expressed in concrete terms in article 32, clause 4 of criminal law, a person entrusted with a picture of someone can’t use or reproduce it without one’s wishes or according to commercial whims, but “because there are no stipulations for punishments, one can only seek compensatory damages according to clause 750 of civil law,” for which you have to show clear and concrete damages to one’s person or reputation. That means, you gotta have lost a job, gotten a divorce, or something else to which you can put a dollar (or won) sign.

2) According to the book, since there are almost no actual precedents for seeking damages to “chosangkweon” alone – most of the cases shown in the book that set significant legal precedents were all cases in which individuals’ images were used without their permission for commercial purposes – it is “little more than an academic issue.”

I’m getting around to reading some of the other articles in this month’s Time magazine. There are some short articles about how people are using the web, in conjunction with the Person of the Year article.

Ali Khurshid from Pakistan is profiled about his use of Flickr. Check out his photos - they’re really some beautiful, rich colored photos. As you can see, he has a simple camera, which captures amazing photos.

SHAKIL ADIL FOR TIME