It was the winter of the century in Switzerland this season, with loads and loads of great amazing snow, and of course, as Murphy's law suggests, we do not live in Switzerland any longer when it happens.
At least we got to go to beautiful Saas Fee during our annual leave this year. Two days before our arrival, it obviously snowed so much that Saas Fee was completely cut off from everything - tourists couldn't go up to the resort and those who were already up couldn't go down. When we were there, it was stunningly sunny and we had awesome snow conditions, but it was so windy the lifts were completely closed down on two full days.
On one day we had lunch in the restaurant on top (3500 meters above sea level) when suddenly the windstorm set in. It is impressive to experience the forces of nature when you are just a small human being in the eye of the storm. We decided not to take the black slope down this time as one couldn't even see half a meter ahead as the wind blew thick blasts of snow ungraciously into our faces, which turned into icicles immediately, and opted for the red slope. Even then we had a German lady who fought alongside with us against the wind and almost started crying. "I can't see anything and I'm scared, please help me", she whined. When we made it down safely and wanted to go up to the top again, it was closed. But we knew now why.
A few weeks ago, something remarkable started in my office. It’s certainly true that the motivation of financial industry employees is not at its zenith right now. But I didn’t expect anything like this. As I was sipping my morning tea a bunch of motivation trainers invaded our place and asked us to stand up. A little confused, I asked my colleague what this was about. “It’s a new program called Vitamin”, he explained, “and we will have this every morning from now on.” I curiously listened to what the trainers said in Korean. In the meantime, I do get the main points without really understanding every word. Obviously “Vitamin” was a measure to cheer up the bank employees in this grim market environment. We were assigned a neatly dressed lady with lips painted as red as cherry. First she made us sing a song with a movement combination. Then we were taught some hand-clapping combinations with a partner while speaking rhythmic verses. After that she made us close our eyes and make turns to the right, left or back when she clapped her hands. The exercises went on in a similar fashion and ended with the slogan “I feel really good” in Korean, which was shouted out loudly and combined with rhythmic hand clapping. A bit bewildered I sat down again. As an introverted Swiss, such exercises make me feel like I made a complete fool out of myself. From then on, Ms. Cherry Lips came in every morning. However, we soon went off to Switzerland for our annual home leave so I missed Ms. Cherry Lips the next two weeks.
When I came back to the office, I discovered that Ms. Cherry Lips was replaced by a television screen which played a military march and shouted names of exercises and counted from one to eight for each, and the whole department’s employees moving like clone warriors to it every morning at 8:45.
The telescreens in George Orwell's 1984 inevitably came into my mind. “Are we preparing for an invasion by North Korea?” I asked my colleague after the exercise, stunned. She laughed and said: “Do you know these exercises stem from the time of Park Chung-hee’s military dictatorship?” I said I thought that it had some “communist” flavor to it. In fact when I lived with a host family in Beijing my hostess also followed very similar exercises everyday, from a video which must have been taken during Mao’s regime, claiming it was very healthy exercise for your body. Although being far from a communist country, Korean people can sometimes give me the chills in situations like that. Their frightening obedience and conformity to any kind of common activities reminds of me of brainless mass behavior, which in the past often led to disastrous results. They seem like a crowd that can be easily influenced and moved by a strong leader. If you had a television screen screaming out exercise orders in Switzerland, I don’t think anyone would even bother to budge. Here in Korea, you’d be the outcast if you didn’t follow every move. So I follow the exercises every morning, too, due to peer pressure. It reminds me of a scene in “Life of Brian” when Brian calls out to a crowd: “You are all individuals!” and one guy shouts back: “I’m not.”
In the meantime, I found out about the name of that martial exercise: 국민체조 (Gungminchejo) which means "National Gymnastics". See video below!
It was the winter of the century in Switzerland this season, with loads and loads of great amazing snow, and of course, as Murphy's law suggests, we do not live in Switzerland any longer when it happens.
At least we got to go to beautiful Saas Fee during our annual leave this year. Two days before our arrival, it obviously snowed so much that Saas Fee was completely cut off from everything - tourists couldn't go up to the resort and those who were already up couldn't go down. When we were there, it was stunningly sunny and we had awesome snow conditions, but it was so windy the lifts were completely closed down on two full days.
On one day we had lunch in the restaurant on top (3500 meters above sea level) when suddenly the windstorm set in. It is impressive to experience the forces of nature when you are just a small human being in the eye of the storm. We decided not to take the black slope down this time as one couldn't even see half a meter ahead as the wind blew thick blasts of snow ungraciously into our faces, which turned into icicles immediately, and opted for the red slope. Even then we had a German lady who fought alongside with us against the wind and almost started crying. "I can't see anything and I'm scared, please help me", she whined. When we made it down safely and wanted to go up to the top again, it was closed. But we knew now why.
