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ilovebdt
Joined: 03 Jun 2005
Location: Nr Seoul
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 Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 7:50 pm Post subject: |
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| laogaiguk wrote: |
| kimchi_pizza wrote: |
I think it has something to do with foxes and evil spirits. Some asian countries see foxes as evil spirits. Cats are feline, but the two may be connected somehow. Some Koreans I've talked to do say there is something "evil" about them.
Thing that gets me is a great many are tailless! In Taiwan, near all streetcats didn't have a tail. I guess it was a close brush with a dog. |
Actually, tailless cats are victims of malnutrition as a kitten (atleast that is what a vet back home said) |
Apart from Manx cats which are born that way 
ilovebdt
Last edited by ilovebdt on Wed Oct 25, 2006 7:55 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Qinella
Joined: 25 Feb 2005
Location: the crib
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| Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 7:51 pm Post subject: |
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| In the US, I never saw a street cat that was friendly or approachable. Maybe Canadian cats are goofy and blithe like their human counterparts? |
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Privateer
Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Location: Easy Street.
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| Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 8:01 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah, street cats are known for being mean feisty creatures.
That and the unfriendly treatment they receive I guess makes them less approachable. Most Koreans I've talked to say they don't like cats because of their scary eyes. My theory is the fear of cats' eyes is inherited from 100 years ago when tigers would jump over the village walls of a night sometimes.
Blue eyes are also "scary" because they "look like cats' eyes". |
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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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| Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 8:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Privateer wrote: |
Yeah, street cats are known for being mean feisty creatures.
That and the unfriendly treatment they receive I guess makes them less approachable. Most Koreans I've talked to say they don't like cats because of their scary eyes. My theory is the fear of cats' eyes is inherited from 100 years ago when tigers would jump over the village walls of a night sometimes. |
http://wiki.galbijim.com/Cc:Chapter_5
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| One very strange custom in Corea is the privilege accorded to women to walk about the streets of the town at night after dark, while the men are confined to the house from about an hour after sunset and, until lately, were severely punished both with imprisonment and flogging, if found walking about the streets during "women's hours." The gentler sex was and is therefore allowed to parade the streets, and go and pay calls on their parents and lady friends, until a very late hour of the night, without fear of being disturbed by the male portion of the community. Few, however, avail themselves of the privilege, for unfortunately in Corea there are many tigers and leopards, which, disregarding the early closing of the city gates, climb with great ease over the high wall and take nightly peregrinations over the town, eating up all the dogs which they find on their way and occasionally even human beings. Tigers have actually been known to rudely run their paws through the invulnerable paper windows of a mud house, drag out a struggling body roughly awoke from slumber, and devour the same peacefully in the middle of the street. |
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brento1138
Joined: 17 Nov 2004
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| Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 9:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Privateer wrote: |
Yeah, street cats are known for being mean feisty creatures.
That and the unfriendly treatment they receive I guess makes them less approachable. Most Koreans I've talked to say they don't like cats because of their scary eyes. My theory is the fear of cats' eyes is inherited from 100 years ago when tigers would jump over the village walls of a night sometimes.
Blue eyes are also "scary" because they "look like cats' eyes". |
I was thinking of adopting one of the street cats in my area. I always see my building security guard chasing it away from the garbage. So I feed the cat once in a while... and it really scarfs down that food like nothing else. I tried to approach it, but it seemed scared as hell of me, even though I fed it. I don't think it realised I was "Feeding" it, rather, it just thought I dropped the food and it was stealing from me... so... I have no idea how I could possibly capture it and put it in my place! It's wild. Would I be stupid to try though? |
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Boodleheimer
Joined: 10 Mar 2006
Location: working undercover for the Man
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| Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 9:22 pm Post subject: |
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about two weeks ago i started having breathing problems. the korean doc i went to told me it was asthma. when it came to light that i had a cat, the doc and my co-teacher wanted me to get rid of it because they thought it caused my asthma. never mind that my classroom smells moldy or that they've recently installed chrysanthemums all over the place in the school or that there might possibly be other triggers or that i've had cats almost all my life -- it's obviously the cat's fault!!
the co-teacher told me all about a documentary he had recently seen on tv... about how cat hair gets everywhere... in your stomach... in your intestines... and it's very, very bad.
i took all this with a grain of salt. on monday i saw a new doc who told me it's actually viral bronchitis. kitty's off the hook... for now. |
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Boodleheimer
Joined: 10 Mar 2006
Location: working undercover for the Man
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| Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 9:26 pm Post subject: |
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| brento1138 wrote: |
I was thinking of adopting one of the street cats in my area. I always see my building security guard chasing it away from the garbage. So I feed the cat once in a while... and it really scarfs down that food like nothing else. I tried to approach it, but it seemed scared as hell of me, even though I fed it. I don't think it realised I was "Feeding" it, rather, it just thought I dropped the food and it was stealing from me... so... I have no idea how I could possibly capture it and put it in my place! It's wild. Would I be stupid to try though? |
be wary. if it's still a kitten, it might work out, but it sounds really feral. when i was on a farm, we'd adopt some of the barn cats from time to time, but we had to do it while they were still young. |
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RACETRAITOR
Joined: 24 Oct 2005
Location: Seoul, South Korea
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| Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 9:48 pm Post subject: |
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| Also remember all the diseases going around in the stray population. |
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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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| Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 9:50 pm Post subject: |
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| brento1138 wrote: |
| Privateer wrote: |
Yeah, street cats are known for being mean feisty creatures.
That and the unfriendly treatment they receive I guess makes them less approachable. Most Koreans I've talked to say they don't like cats because of their scary eyes. My theory is the fear of cats' eyes is inherited from 100 years ago when tigers would jump over the village walls of a night sometimes.
Blue eyes are also "scary" because they "look like cats' eyes". |
I was thinking of adopting one of the street cats in my area. I always see my building security guard chasing it away from the garbage. So I feed the cat once in a while... and it really scarfs down that food like nothing else. I tried to approach it, but it seemed scared as hell of me, even though I fed it. I don't think it realised I was "Feeding" it, rather, it just thought I dropped the food and it was stealing from me... so... I have no idea how I could possibly capture it and put it in my place! It's wild. Would I be stupid to try though? |
I say go for it. |
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jajdude
Joined: 18 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 3:42 am Post subject: |
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| Qinella wrote: |
| In the US, I never saw a street cat that was friendly or approachable. Maybe Canadian cats are goofy and blithe like their human counterparts? |
Goofy and blithe? Excellent description! That pretty much sums it up.
=============================================
Now some poetry by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Ode to a Skylark
Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert -
That from Heaven or near it
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest,
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
In the golden lightning
Of the sunken sun,
O'er which clouds are bright'ning,
Thou dost float and run,
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.
The pale purple even
Melts around thy flight;
Like a star of Heaven,
In the broad daylight
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight -
Keen as are the arrows
Of that silver sphere
Whose intense lamp narrows
In the white dawn clear,
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.
All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud,
As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is overflowed.
What thou art we know not;
What is most like thee?
From rainbow clouds there flow not
Drops so bright to see,
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody: -
Like a Poet hidden
In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:
Like a high-born maiden
In a palace-tower,
Soothing her love-laden
Soul in secret hour
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:
Like a glow-worm golden
In a dell of dew,
Scattering unbeholden
Its a�rial hue
Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view:
Like a rose embowered
In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflowered,
Till the scent it gives
Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-wing�d thieves:
Sound of vernal showers
On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awakened flowers -
All that ever was
Joyous and clear and fresh - thy music doth surpass.
Teach us, Sprite or Bird,
What sweet thoughts are thine:
I have never heard
Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.
Chorus hymeneal,
Or triumphal chant,
Matched with thine would be all
but an empty vaunt -
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.
What objects are the fountains
Of thy happy strain?
What fields, or waves, or mountains?
What shapes of sky or plain?
What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?
With thy clear keen joyance
Languor cannot be:
Shadow of annoyance
Never came near thee:
Thou lovest, but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.
Waking or asleep,
Thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep
Than we mortals dream,
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?
We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
Yet, if we could scorn
Hate and pride and fear,
If we were things born
Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.
Better than all measures
Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures
That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!
Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know;
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow,
The world should listen then, as I am listening now. |
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Gamecock
Joined: 26 Nov 2003
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| Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 6:28 am Post subject: |
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| I'd rather have a hug from my Korean cat than a stranger on the street! |
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captain kirk
Joined: 29 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 7:43 am Post subject: |
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Lately I saw this cool 'bullcat', a macho ruler male strutting down the street like a gunslinger. It kept a parked car between itself and me as casually as survival rule for a streetcat #26.
I go hiking alot and think about what it was like having to be ready for possible contact with a Siberian Tiger. Maybe, I think, Koreans might associate cats with the loss incurred by their larger relatives, the tigers. So hate the 'little tigers' as scapegoats. Like little zombie dolls to abuse as if that'll have an effect on the big tigers in the woods. |
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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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| Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 9:00 am Post subject: |
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| Qinella wrote: |
| In the US, I never saw a street cat that was friendly or approachable. Maybe Canadian cats are goofy and blithe like their human counterparts? |
Very much so. I would see those kinds of cats in Vancouver and Calgary all the time. The cutest one I saw was in Vancouver, a grey chubby thing. It saw me walking along the path and ran out to say hi. I stretched my hand out to it and instead of rubbing its face along my hand like others do it just kind of hit its head into my hand and let it stop there, then looked up at me like it wasn't sure what to do. Then after a bit more petting it it decided to go over to the tree and climb up, except that it was too fat and I knew that but he didn't so he just went into the jumping pose, widened his eyes and stayed there for a bit until it clued in that he wasn't going to be able to jump.
By coincidence I saw a cat running after a middle-aged guy near Hakdong Station today. I walked over to see if it was friendly and it stopped because there was a bike crossing the small path in front of it and it didn't want to get hit. The man had entered the building and was behind me now. Then the cat started coming over at a good pace and I stretched out my hand to say hi but he ignored me and ran past to chase after the guy. I asked him and he said it's his pet. I think he runs a restaurant in that building. So some middle-aged Korean men like cats. |
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jajdude
Joined: 18 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 11:40 am Post subject: |
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We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
=============================================
Not many words have been written to compare with these. |
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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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| Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 12:05 pm Post subject: |
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| jajdude wrote: |
We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
=============================================
Not many words have been written to compare with these. |
If a Korean cat wrote that, I'm impressed.
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