When people from different walks of life are put together in a cell, they are apt to make all kinds of different assertions based on their respective experiences. They are like prep-school children when they ardently argue over the existence of ghosts or whether fire engine drivers are exempt from accident responsibilities. On one occasion there was a heated debate over the relief on the ceiling of the Seoul Railroad Station. Soneone was sure that it was hibiscus(mugunghwa) while another was no less confident that it was sakura.
I usually welcome such confrontations because I find in the diversity of topics and the ardour of contestants some relief from the gloomy depression of the prisonhouse. Moreover, I can at times find fragments of something like the 'creed' or the 'independence' in their tenacious belief in their experienced facts as the universal truth.
