Vertebrae Soup

Yesterday, we had vertebrae soup for lunch, with squid, tough tiny transparent fishies, and two of our least favorite kinds of kimchi. The soup featured large chunks of animal vertebrae. I think it was pig, because cow vertebrae would probably be huge. Joanne didn't appreciate my description of our entree, so she just ate rice. Squid is plentiful here, but I have not grown to like it. I have enjoyed squid in Canada, but the way they prepare it here--often raw or dried--makes it rather unpalatable and very difficult to chew.

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Can you guess what the phrase "magic time" refers to in Korea?

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When evaluating the appearance of another person, how often do you notice the size of his or her head? It may sound strange, but this is one of the first things that Koreans notice. Our co-teacher often refers to students by the size of their heads. "Oh, the boy with the small head." I guess descriptions of hair color don't really work here, as I found out when I described a teacher as someone of "medium height, short black hair and glasses." That could be almost any male teacher at our school. So I guess head size may be helpful. It's hard for me to make sense of it. But I digress.

Anyway, there is an ideal ratio of head to body. I don't know where this ratio came from. I can understand the biological source of the aesthetic appeal of a woman's waist being two thirds her hips, as this generally shows that she's fertile and in a recent study it was also linked to higher intelligence in her offspring (something to do with having enough body fat to nurture them in utero). But I digress.

The ideal ratio of head to body is one to seven, and they measure it using the miracle of perspective. Did you ever watch Kids in the Hall? I didn't, much, but I remember a character who was famous for crushing the heads of people he didn't like. He didn't literally crush them, but he put his fingers in front of his eye, such that they would match up with his view/the view of the camera angle, and squish the heads of his far away enemies. Korean students do this too, except instead of crushing our heads they measure them in proportion to the rest of our bodies, seven times or more. I think I may be the right ratio, but Joanne has had to put up with exclamations of students and comments from co-teachers about how her head is tiny. I feel for her, but I think it is all rather silly.