눈...雪...Snow

Monkey King...and his Posse!

Lately I have become obsessed with 西遊記 / 서유기 (better known in the west as Journey to the West. I have a television channel, 무협TV (Valorous TV), which shows all manner of kung fu, and samurai series (from China, Hong Kong, Japan, and in the case of Shogun the U.S.) Recently they have begun broadcasting TVB's (a Hong Kong television station) version of this outstanding program.
Now, I really enjoy this program for a few reasons. First the story is actually really entertaining (I'd read an English language version of this tale when I was living in America). Secondly, the production values are so low, the show is fun to watch...the same way b-movies, Telemundo soap operas, and pro-wrestling are all fun to watch. They are all cheesey, campy fun.
My one complaint is that I don't know Chinese...and the subtitles move incredibly rapidly...so hot on the heels of my reading of 三國志 / 삼국지 (Romance of the Three Kingdoms) in Korean, I figured I'd go pick up some comic book version of 서유기. So I set out to the bookstore in an effort to find myself a Korean language comic book based on a Chinese novel from the 16th century.
Leaving my apartment I saw that it was snowing. As I walked to the bookstore, I started thinking about snow, and came to the conclusion that the amusement associated with snow has an inverse relationship with age (in laymen's terms, snow is less fun the older you are). Let's exam shall we? Wow, that intro was extremely Simpsons-esque.



Age 6 - This is my default little kid age...six years old, your responsibilities are pretty limited. Some snow storm rolls into your hometown and school is cancel. Awesome! You are too young to have to shovel, so pretty much your responsibilities are limited to sledding, drinking hot chocolate, and building snow men.

Age 10 - By age 10 some asshole in your neighborhood is going to be a prick when it snows and throw ice balls at you. This aside, you still have limited responsibility, so the pros of snow out weigh the cons.

Age 14 - By this point you are in middle school...or high school, I can't remember. Sledding and snowmen are no longer fun, if you are a dude you are going to have to shovel some driveways. Still no school, and possibility that the old lady across the street will give you $20 to shovel her driveway still make snow awesome.

Age 17 - Still in high school, snow days still rock. Shoveling still sucks, and now you have to worry about driving in the snow, which is just a pain in the taint.

Age 20 - Now in college, the concept of a "snow day" pretty much ceases to exist, though on the rare occassion (ie. snow a mile deep is dumped on the campus). If you live off campus chances are you have some driveway to shovel and windows to scrape so you can trudge off a 9:00am class, only to find the teacher didn't make it in. Chances are by the time you are finished for the day, your car has been plowed in, making it a further pain in the ass. For the time you live on campus, refer to Age 6...

Age 36 - Out of college, you are in the real world. The real world doesn't stop because of snow. So you work your ass off and then go home and shovel, because your kids aren't old enough to do it yet.

Age 45 - The real world doesn't stop because of snow. So you work your ass off and then go home and shovel, because your kids didn't do it (since the old hag across the street pays more than you do).

Age 76 - Now that you are retired, snow means shitty driving conditions, stiff joints, a lose of $20 to the dirt bag middle school kid across the street, and the fact that a poor salted front step, could break every bone in corpse like body.

So that being said, I'm glad I live in a country where snow beyond a dusting is a rare thing, and the fact that I don't own a car...so my snow related inconviences are kept to a minimum...oh and for those of you keeping score, the bookstore didn't have what I was looking for. Stupid bastards!