I just read Mark's comment about his ex-neighbor, so called crazy old Howard.  I left a scolding comment, but still can't shake the bad taste his post left me.  Same shit is happening everywhere: disrespect for elders.

Elders are no different than you and I.  They are experiencing that age for the first time just like the way I am experiencing the age of 41 for the first time.  In Korea, they used to revere the elders.  I am not talking about kow-towing and stuff.  I am talking about giving up you seat and helping them out.  They are no longer doing that in Korea.  When I go to Korea and happens to take the subway, I never get to sit for more than five minutes because there is always an elder who needs a seat.

One time I had to stand for two hours to get to Inchon.  Another time, I ran into a grandmother, must have been in her 90s, who was trying to find her way to her grandsons with 50 pounds of Kimchi and stuff.  Needless to say, I had to get off the train and carry it to her grandsons, adding an extra hour to my travel across Seoul.  What are the young Koreans doing meanwhile?  Pretending to sleep.  I never felt so violent in my life.

Now here comes Mark whose remote part of him wishes the crazy ol' Howard drowned because he dared to rain water down on his apartment in his drunken stupor.  What the fuck?

During twenty-eight years of my life in America, I have been heckled and humiliated occasionally, mostly by elderly white Americans in Archie Bunker-style.  Even one of my neighbors called me Chink to my face.  Still, I understood where they are coming from and let things be.  It's not that they are evil, they are just trying to cope with changing times.  I saw myself in them.  When you are relaxed and comfortable, you are more forgiving.  When you don't understand what is going on and terrified of the future, you start talking non-sense.  So, I just smiled and never wished a bad thing for them.

I hope Mark learns to look out from crazy ol' Howard's eyes and understand a little of what is going on there.  I wish people will understand that it is not the elders' mind that is at stake, but our own.  By losing respect for elders, we lose a large chunk of ourselves.  Giving respect is placing value where we wish value should be.

*sigh*  Maybe it is too fucking late after all.  Forget about Social Software and piss on Emergent Democracy.  What use are they against deterioration of Self?  Argh.  I am going to stop before I get asked to speak at the next Republican Convention.