This evening a few of us went off to represent GP at the Ulsan Oceans poetry and arts symosium with our friend the mayor in attendance. You would think that a talk on whales and the threats they face would be fairly trouble-free at a poetry and literature recital night, however this experience was really one to remember. After sitting through two hours of korean poetry...we then had to endure the discussion papers. For the next hour we endured pro-whaling reminicising of the sort that you wouldn't think possible, lines such as "when I say I love whales, I really mean that I love whale meat', 'the biggest threat of extinction facing whales are the non-whalers', and my personal favourite 'I love whalemeat, i love it so much that i can't bear not to have it..in fact stright after this I am going to go and eat some'; stright after that, an awkward pause revealed myself sat in the middle of this less than hospitable crowd silently cursing myself for wearing a GP oceans t-shirt. According to Jeremy our photograher, when I held up the speech in front of the mike my hands were visibly shaking. As I waited for the chairman of the symposium to silence the obviously dissaproving whispers from the floor, I was told that I had five minutes and no longer to explain my case which, as the chairman honourably exlained to the audience, was actually a very interesting one.

After reading the first few sentences the lights in the whole room mysteriously went out, casting my speech and everyone else into pitch blackness..it was hilarious and ever so slightly disconcerting. After a while Jeremy found the schoolboy responsible, ejected him Glaswegian style from the proceedings, and the lights and talk continued unabated. Five minutes later we received a polite clap and some satisfyingly furious stares from the pro-dolphin hunt speaker who had preceeded me.

Anyway to make up for it they gave us free drinks and a whalemeat-free meal afterwards, where we were congratualted and supported by a couple of people. It was a long and expectedly surreal night; the mayor left soon after the beginning of the symposium, why we dont know, but to simply talk to these people face to face definitely raised the GP profile in some pro-whaling circles tonight.

Tomorrow we have 20 KFEM teenagers coming to camp nearby the embassy and a few expats from Seoul, so we have a busy weekend planned organising environmental workshops and guiding stray whale museum tourists into our embassy.

More soon,

Jim