WANTED

There's a suspicious intensity to this lost cat's eyes that makes it look like a mugshot you'd see in the post office. I like to imagine that all the writing is a long list of crimes this cat has committed against humanity like wailing at ungodly hours, grand theft seafood, attempting to suffocate an infant by sleeping on its face, clawing expensive upholstery, etc.

I had students debate in English over which was the superior animal, Cats or Dogs, to get a sense of what the general consensus was in their culture. The team supporting cats was hard pressed to come up with positive qualities. I was surprised to learn that cats are considered thieves in Korea. I see a lot of cats lurking under parked cars and in alleys behind restaurants. They always seem uptight as they scan the urban landscape for fish scraps. In the end the team debating that Dogs were superior won with a final point that crushed all of the opposition's logic: Dogs are more delicious than cats. Haha.

Yet for some reason I've come to think of Koreans as cat people. There's a certain feline grace to them. Maybe it's wrong to zoopomorphize a culture but whatever. Koreans are shy and watch you from afar until their comfortable enough to brush up against you. They lounge around on heated floors when its cold out. They hiss and purr in speech and make sure to bury their feces...maybe I'm stretching this too far.