| 14 October 2006 Classmates Thank God we got through the 13th without significant damage. Now that I have to keep track of all the Muslim holidays and mark the lunar cycle of the Month of Ramadan, there is a lot to juggle in terms of portents and mysteries. They say at the end of the Empire of Rome there were more Days of Significance than workdays, and that is what did them in. I don't imagine anyone gets up in the morning with the foreknowledge that their lives are going to change, though of course life is about choice and change each day. It is easier to assign days to look out for. The superstition about the 13th is sort of quaint and Anglo-Saxon. There is a sort of innocence to it, conceptually. It seems a lifetime ago when “bad luck” meant something like bumping your head or wrecking the car, rather than losing a city. Superstition or not, it was a superior day, cold for the first time. The trees are shedding, and when I arrived at my first appointment I noticed the pedestrians were attired in their winter jackets. Exposed Midriff Season is officially over in Washington, though I guess it really went with Chusok, the Korean harvest festival. That passed largely unnoticed here with the eighth moon of the season. Here, it marks the time when the sandals go back in the closet and the women bring out their high leather boots. When I lived in Korea, I loved this season. The sweltering heat of summer was broken, but the savage cold of the winter had not yet arrived. Chusok is celebrated with traditional dress and family feasts. Women wear the elegant and colorful high-bodiced dresses, which are common to both the North and the South. Some traditions transcend even the harshest ideology. The celebration of Chusok is good luck, and means that everyone has enough to eat. You can see the problems the North has with it. I have been in a Korean state of mind all week, what with the bombs and the passing of the Chusok full-moon. I was only mildly surprised to discover that the new Secretary General of the United Nations is a classmate, or more properly speaking, a member of the same Alumni Association. We are an influential lot, and some describe attending the school as a life-changing event. Ban Ki-moon will take over leadership of the U.N. in January. He is a 1984 graduate of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he got his masters degree in public administration. He has done well back home since leaving Harvard Yard, and has risen through several high-level positions in the government of the Republic of Korea. He was National Security Advisor to two presidents, and thus should have known better about the intentions of his countrymen to the North. As Foreign Minister for the past few years, he has followed the conciliatory line of his President, Roh Moo-hyun. He even publicly said he believed in the Sunshine Policy, which is appeasement by a more pleasant name. Goodness knows that is a challenge, trying to wait out the coming regime change, hoping for a whimper rather than a bang. Chinese President Hu Jintao says he agrees with Roh, desiring a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, and he wants to settle things through peaceful hypnotic dialogue. Dealing with the Northerners is like walking on eggshells, but upon arriving in New York he will have to deal not only with his crazy relatives, but an irascible landlord. Any of the recent Secretary General's will attest to that. US Ambassador John Bolton was notably cool to Ban's election, but I hope you will join me in wishing him well. If I get in trouble in New York, or encounter a life-changing event in the city, it could be useful to know the secret Harvard handshake. There was a meeting of the professional organization I belong to in the middle of the day, with a morning seminar conducted by my Cold War classmates in the government. It was a good program, and a gem of a gathering. It might have had the best speech I have ever seen in Washington. A former senior official made some off-the-record remarks that made my eyes bulge, and may have changed my life. The remarks were so electrifying that I put the top down on the car and drove home, rather than to the office, though there were still hours left in the afternoon. I assuaged my conscience by simulating work by checking the company e-mail on the Virtual Private Network. I did the laundry, too. Naturally, I watched The Game as the clothing spun and the electrons danced. I was gratified with the performance of Kenny Rodgers, the latest Mr. October is banishing the Oakland A's. I have come late to worship in the hall of admiration for Tiger Skipper Leyland, but I marvel at the way he is striding across this month toward the World Series like a gray-mustachioed Colossus. While I watched and cleaned, the words of the lunchtime speech kept returning to my mind. The official had described a life-changing opportunity that he did not take, and the reasons behind his decision. It was explosive enough a revelation that I convinced me to do one thing, rather than another. It may have changed the course of my life, though the chaos theory holds that an event as soft as the beating of a butterfly wing can start a cascade of events that create a storm a world away. The words certainly galvanized me, and the effect could be profound. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, said the poet Frost. He said taking one of them made all the difference. It is too soon to tell on that score, as former PRC Foreign Minister Cho En-Lai observed about the consequences of the French Revolution. Or perhaps it is better characterized in the old Down East exchange from the coast of Maine: Outsider: “Have you lived here all your life?” Copyright 2006 Vic Socotra |