Future Shock?

If you want to experience future shock first hand go to someplace like South Korea or China. This isn't as true in the U.S. as it was in the 1960s through 1990s. But, visiting someplace like South Korea gives one the feeling of just how fast things are changing in Asia. My son was talking to me about this recently where he said older people here often are pushing little carts around the streets or riding Kubota Tractors that look like rototillers while younger people (under about 40) are often technically savvy to a scary degree.

Even with us here from the U.S. the technology in our hotel room in dowtown Seoul was so advanced we were both almost injured by it. I spoke of how there were no light switches and I couldn't figure out how to flush the toilet for example. However, over two days I found out how to turn off the lights and close the curtains without pulling my magnetic room card from it's slot near the front door of our room.

My first foray was realizing there were no light switches or buttons for the electric powered curtains and simply pulling the card which turned everything electrical off in the room and automatically closed the curtains so I could take a nap. However, after taking a nap I needed to use the toilet in the bathroom and so got up and almost injured myself in the dark because of a step down into the bathroom and almost creased my forehead on a corner wall. So then, I walked over to the magnetic port and put the card in in the dark. This opened up all the windows on the 20th floor where I was in a corner room ( the best one at this large hotel downtown with a view of the Palace.

So now, I'm naked (or close to it) walking around with all the lights on with 2 layers of curtains on two huge picture windows opening up with buildings and views all around. Then I discovered I couldn't flush the toilet because it wasn't a normal toilet but an electronic one. Later I learned there are actually 3 ways to flush the toilet.

1. you stand up and wait about a minute or so and it will flush itself
2. there are a series of buttons on the shower glass wall and one of them flushes the toilet manually
3. there is also a very strange manual way to flush that our 15 month old little friend's child discovered by being experimental like children are.

Then I found that the telephone actually closes the curtains and turns the lights on and off manually through the touch screen (like an Ipad). Also, most hotels including the rustic one on Jeju Island have a magnetic card that when you pull it it turns off everything electrical in the room (including the refrigerator)  which we weren't too happy about the first time we came back after being gone for a day.

So now, just take all these things and multiply them by 100 or 1000 for people who are refugees coming from Syria to mostly Christian Secular nations. And now think about how confusing all the technical changes(and not so technical changes) are affecting billions throughout the world who might have no education at all?

The future shock I experienced was nothing compared to what non-college educated people are experiencing every single day. For me, what I experienced in an advanced hi tech room was actually funny because I avoided getting injured by it all.

So, my wife and I made jokes about becoming "Curtain masters" and laughed our way through our adventures because in the end we found ways not to be injured in the process.

Because after all, what is an adventure?

It is an ordeal well handled in the end that you can actually survive and live to tell stories about.

So, adventures are a whole lot more fun than what uneducated people are experiencing around the world every day as their worlds "Blow up"!