SNU

Here are some pics from yesterday's (i.e., Saturday's) walkabout at Seoul National University, which is a very nice, very large campus. We start at the front gate:



The demonic metal structure standing guard over the campus threshold looks like the Korean syllable shyah, which in turn sounds like Mike Myers's trademark exclamation in "Wayne's World" and "Wayne's World 2."

SNU is South Korea's most prestigious university. It's not enough merely to bribe the admissions office to get in; prospective students routinely promise their future firstborns to the terrible Shyah, which uproots itself at night and goes on rampages throughout the villages, searching for human flesh on which to dine. The Shyah can be appeased by promises of firstborn, or the sacrifice of a parent, or even by a piece of flesh clipped from one's own genitals. No one said getting into SNU would be easy. Every student you see there has had to make some kind of sacrifice.

The next image is what you see once you step through the Shyah into the universe of SNU.



Anyone who passes through the main gate becomes an honorary member of SNU. Luckily for us honorary members, the requirements of membership are much easier. We're allowed to sacrifice someone else's firstborn, parent, or genitals.

The next four pictures are of the language centers where I won't be teaching. Too bad; they look quite nice from the outside. I think, however, that my agency's policy is to place its teachers in the most depressing buildings possible. At the end of this little photo essay, you'll see the crumbling edifice in which I'll be spending July and August.









The next picture is Building 140, which advertises itself as some sort of international graduate school (that's what the sign says on the lower left), but I have a strong suspicion that this is the Holy Temple of the Shyah, where they teach Shyah Studies. I was too afraid to go in and ask around, for fear that someone might ask me to drop my pants and reveal whether I had "the mark of the chosen people."

Notice that 140 is a multiple of 7 and 10, as well as a multiple of 14 and 2. Coincidence? I think not.



In the picture that follows, you see that the students of SNU have built a shrine to George Bush, with the title "True Feelings We Send to Bush." They feel close enough to Bush to drop the formality of the title "President"; he's simply "Bush" to them, which I find adorable. One particularly devoted student exercises his or her English skills and claims that Bush is the same as Sauron (lower right corner). My heart was warmed by this shrine; it shows the SNU cult's willingness to bring Bush into the Shyah-cosmology, perhaps as a fellow powerful being, or at least as a kind of servant-spirit who does the bidding of the almighty Shyah.



And finally, a look at the SNU's Building Number 24, ostensibly a science building, but probably one of the oldest Shyah temples on campus. This is where I'll be teaching.




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