The Rat-Snake Scholar (구 롱이)

Nowadays anything that has an animal in the title seems to get more attention, like the Netflix TV show "Tiger King," or the late Kobe Bryant's nickname "Black Mamba," so why not have 2 animals in the same title? The Rat-Snake scholar is part of a series of traditional Korean folktales that I'm reading, full of parables and stories with strong morals. Rat-Snake Scholar is like a cross beauty Beauty and the Beast, about a scholar who isn't aesthetically pleasing to look at but marries a girl who shows kindness to him, and they are separated by magic, having to live separately for weeks, months, even years. The Rat-Snake Scholar misses his wife so much that he sings a song at night looking up at the moon, wondering if his wife is looking at the same moon, and then suddenly the wife who had been on her own adventure looking for him sings that she IS looking at the same moon, and then they reunite. Kind of a cross between Beauty and the Beast and the story of Orihime and Hikoboshi of Japanese lore, who can only meet on July 7 of each year. Reminds me of MJ and I! Right now we are separated by the coronavirus which seems like evil magic, and we've gone several weeks without reuniting, making us wonder if we will ever see each other again. Sometimes when I watch the sun setting in California, I ruminate about MJ seeing that same sun 3 hours ago in a different time zone.

There's a lot of coronavirus coverage now, and one can be drowned in news 24/7, and most of the news is bad (but some of it is good, like the fact staying in our homes seems to have actually decreased the average temperature of fevers in coronavirus patients, Abbot has created a 5-minute coronavirus test, and a bunch of companies like JNJ and Regeneron are testing coronavirus vaccines). My friend's father had a friend who battled alcoholism for many years, finally became sober recently but died of the coronavirus, leaving behind a wife and family. Really tragic, and I'm sure there are more stories out there. What's really terrifying is hearing the more intense cases of patients not being able to breathe for up to 25 minutes, requiring a ventilator to help them breath. Not being able to breathe sounds a lot like the feeling of drowning, which I hear is one of the worst sensations one can experience, which is why it's used in waterboarding as a torture technique.

And then there is the racism against Asian people due to the "Chinese" coronavirus perpetuated by President Trump calling it so, but it's a developing story and so far I haven't been discriminated against (doesn't mean it's not happening to other Asians) so I will keep a close eye on that, and hope I don't get stabbed, although I think the few instances of that were somewhat isolated cases.

So yes, to pass the time not digesting too much of the depressing coronavirus news, I read folk tales which seem a little childish but teach some good lessons! I actually re-read a lot of things, a.) language learning requires a lot of re-reading to let the brain digest, b.) some movies/books are just good and I want to replay it in my mind again, and c.) there are no sports going on, but plenty of games and matches that have been played in the history of mankind that I can watch again. Currently watching replay of World Cup matches from 2014 and S. Korea's 2002 World Cup run.

Fantasize on,

Robert Yan