305. Could a fledgling dove fly over a hill?
햇비둘기 재 넘을까?

The master bedroom on the second floor of our North Carolina home had a small three-sided balcony, about two by five feet. The three-foot vertical rails surrounded it every five inches or so. The bottom was made the same way. They were all made of cast iron with curved support and painted black. If I may say so, it looked very nice and elegant against the beige stucco surface of the house.

Every spring, we would place two baskets of Boston fern on the floor of the balcony. We bought them in a green plastic pot from Home Depot and just put them out there. Late in the fall I simply threw them away. Along the top of the rail, we used to place two identical three-foot-long rectangular pots end to end. These were once again from Home Depot, reasonably priced green plastic affairs, made in China. Here, we planted various annuals like petunia or vinca. They were held with bottom supports that hooked on the vertical rails.

On one early spring day, a mourning dove laid four eggs right on the rectangular pot. A finch did the same but on the floor of the balcony, just beside the pot holding Boston fern. In both cases, their nests were not what I would expect for raising chicks: just piles of sprigs and pine needles were thrown in haphazardly. There was no engineering to speak of or aesthetics to praise about. Every Saturday morning when I had to water the plants, I would open the door to the balcony very slowly lest they startle. The dove, ever nervous, would cry out a short burst of noise and take off to a nearby tree leaving the eggs behind. It always made me feel sorry and guilty.

The following year, no finch showed up. Instead, a dove built a nest beside the fern on the floor and laid two eggs. Since the bottom was just an extension of the side rail, there was no way for a pile of pine needles to stop the cold air underneath. It was too late to place cardboard below the nest with two eggs already inside. The only thing I could do to keep the eggs continuously warm was watering the plants without having the dove leave the nest. I would open the balcony door as slowly as I could and start to water the annuals first, furthest away from the dove family. In a few weeks, the dove did not fly away even when I watered the fern, right beside her. She kept on resting over the eggs. My own Pavlov experiment of conditioning was successful and we were all happy.

As the weather warmed up nicely with the month of May coming along, I noticed the mother dove taking a break more often. She just sat on a tree less than 10 feet away, watching closely what I was up to. In due time, the eggs hatched and the two babies were growing very fast. On one particular Saturday morning, the mother was away leaving her two babies in the nest when I watered the plants. They did not seem to mind my watering activity.

The following Saturday morning, when I opened the door, the mother wasn’t there, but one baby dove jumped, flipping vigorously its wing. Thanks to this effort, she or he landed on the soft grass instead of on the brick pathway in the front of the house. I saw the mother immediately landing on the ground within a foot of her baby. I did not know where she had been but I was more concerned about the fledgling baby, who was now moving about a bit, more importantly, all in one piece.

I hurriedly came downstairs and went out to the lawn. I caught the baby dove using a baseball hat. The baby was surprisingly docile and calm. The darkness inside the hat did the trick. I ran upstairs and gently placed the bird back on the nest beside its sibling. This baby appeared to be in shock with both legs all spread out outwardly. Later on that evening, however, the dove family all got together in an easy grace and appealing peace.

The next morning, on May 12th of 2013, Sunday, I found only one baby dozing off in the nest. A quick glance to the outside failed to locate either the sibling or mother dove. I assumed that the baby took the first flight with the mother’s approval and encouragement. When I came home from the church, I found a dead baby dove right in the front yard, several feet from where one would expect from the virgin flight out of the balcony. The first thing I discovered was scattered feathers, then a bloody body with exposed internal organs. I buried him in a shallow grave just under the bluebird house. On the balcony upstairs, I found an empty nest. Everyone had left.

The above proverb asks if a fledgling pigeon could fly over the small hill yonder. If they do, however, they may encounter a red fox or a hawk. This is the same as asking young people if can handle their first assignment in their first job. They should be able, so long as they can identify and avoid adversary. (12/02/20)
--- pp. 28~29

375. The dragon is easier to draw than the snake.
안 본 용은 그려도 본 뱀은 못 그리겠다.

The dragon exists only in our imagination and thus anybody’s drawing of a dragon is as real as others’. No one can argue about which is a better presentation. Snake is a different story: everyone has seen a few snakes in their lifetime and thus has a definite idea as to which drawing looks real and best. One can write a scholarly tome on contemporary abstract paintings, say, by Mark Rothko or Jackson Pollock, but they depend mainly on our imagination. To untrained eyes like mine, they are like reviewing drawings of a dragon.

More realistic paintings, such as those by Norman Rockwell or Andrew Wyeth, are easier to appreciate because we are familiar with the subjects of their paints. A Thanksgiving dinner of a big family, the famous scene of Rockwell’s painting, is something we all experience and easy to identify ourselves with. Wyeth’s Christina’s World or Winter 1946 provokes some darker stories that would require some imagination. Some of M.C. Escher’s artworks call for a somewhat different type of imagination, close to fantasy. Then, of course, there are renaissance paintings and those by impressionists we all love.

According to the above proverbs, realistic paintings are more difficult for an artist to draw albeit easier for us to enjoy. That is probably because there can be too many critics, who would say “No, that doesn’t look like a snake at all!” What can average Joe say about Number 17A by Jackson Pollock, which was sold to a private collector at a price of $200 million? The crux of the above proverb could be that we can easily develop a certain imagination or fantasy, but difficult to reveal a truth or the fact of a matter.

The infection by delta variant of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has been a hot issue lately. Just the other day, on July 30, the headline of a CNBC article read: “CDC study shows 74% of people infected in Massachusetts Covid outbreak were fully vaccinated.” Earlier another article appeared on June 25 in the Wall Street Journal. It introduced a study from Tel Aviv indicating that there was no difference in infection rate between vaccinated and unvaccinated groups among the newly infected people in Israel.

At first glance, this is not what we, fully vaccinated people, have been expecting and sounds rather alarming. And yet, we all know for a fact that the hospitalization rate or the mortality rate of the fully vaccinated population is extremely low. These two seemingly contradicting reports are creating some confusion among the learned population. Here, I would like to submit a possible explanation. The attempt is in reflection of what is implied in the above proverb: truth is hard to come by while speculation can be a dime a dozen.
Whether a person is infected or not is usually determined by a PCR (polymerase chain reaction)-based, fully automated test that is readily accessible nowadays. It is sensitive and specific. In essence, it directly detects the presence of the genetic code of the virus. Amplification of a diagnostic signal is an integral part of the procedure. If a quantitative analysis of viral load is required, one just looks at how much amplification is involved. The routine test uses such bodily fluid as saliva. The procedure is used in most epidemiological studies. Here, a positive test result means “infection.”

The coronavirus enters our body through the lung epithelial cells on the lung surface upon binding on its target, ACE 2 (angiotensin-converting enzyme 2). The cell membrane to which the virus is attached invaginates, a process called receptor-mediated endocytosis. Ideally, to prevent infection, this is the step we must block, like sentries stopping intruders at the gate. To the best of my knowledge, vaccines currently available do not generate antibodies of IgA type that could prevent virus particles from binding their receptor ACE 2 on the cell surface. The keyword here is “cell surface.”

What we produce upon vaccination would be antibodies of IgM followed by IgG on booster injection. These antibodies bind viruses that have already infected systemically. The antibody-virus interaction is similar to the key-lock pair in that they are specific and once formed the resulting immune complex could no longer behave as the free virus would. This is the neutralization step that will stop the respiratory disease. In terms of “infection,” we are all equally hapless regardless of the status of vaccination. This hypothesis is consistent with the field reports from Tel Aviv and Provincetown, MA. One could predict that the infection rate might be even higher among the vaccinated people if they behave recklessly with a sense of assurance from vaccination. A word of precaution: this essay deals with a hypothesis, which could serve as misinformation. (08/02/2021)

Kirkus Review<br/><br/>Acollection offers an interpretation of Korean proverbs that often illustrates their meanings with references to United States culture and history.<br/><br/>In this fourth installment of a series, Moo-Jung translates 100 Korean proverbs into English and furnishes a close reading of them, disentangling their often complex, even obscure meanings. His mission is to capture the “true element of the Korean proverb” and its susceptibility to transformation over time, rendering it open to different interpretations by readers as they mature. As he explains in his own poetic terms, “They are as if the sharp edges have been worn down through continuous use over many years. They are rolling hills under the blue sky peppered with lazy white clouds, never the Alps or the Himalayas under a windy snowstorm. They are small, gentle streams and the peaceful sound of a lullaby, never the deafening thunder of Niagara Falls.” And while the proverbs, which date back 5,000 years, express the “collective consciousness of the Korean people,” the author endeavors to make them comprehensible to a Western audience. To this end, he often draws on American culture to explain them. The book is brimming with references to the likes of Malcolm X, Anna Nicole Smith, and Al Capone as well as the Super Bowl and Covid-19. But while the accounts provided by Moo-Jung are often remarkably sensitive, many readers will tire of the repeated references to the turpitude of Donald Trump and the corruption of the Republican Party. Rather than achieve a modern contextualization of the proverbs, such political partisanship makes them feel historically bound and sacrifices an element of their timelessness. In addition, the author’s prose can be clumsy and sometimes confusing, and the messiness of the manuscript, including abrupt and inexplicable changes in font type and size, doesn’t help. Moo-Jung’s command of the proverbs is inarguably impressive. Nevertheless, this collection may not be the best introduction for U.S. readers in search of a counterweight to the vagaries of politics and culture.<br/><br/>Despite its virtues, this commentary on Korean proverbs becomes too wedded to American party politics.