Korean Folk Songs

This blog has moved!

2009-04-03T16:46:00.004+09:00

Because I have grown tired of Blogger's interface, its look, and the trouble I have with posting and editing photos, I moved my blog to Word Press. Korean Folk Songs was always only loosely based around Korea, anyway, so I decided to title the new one simply Bart Schaneman. The new blog is going to be for original writing, photography and links to: journalism and stories I publish, the short stories I write on Rain Follows The Plow and news, music, literature or anything else that catches my eye.

I think it looks it better already. Visit me at http://bartschaneman.wordpress.com and have a look around. As always, comments and feedback appreciated.

Thumbing it

2009-03-25T14:20:00.007+09:00

Hitched my first ride in Korea this past weekend. Went down to Gyeongju for some fresher air and to see the city. (It's really nice. It was my second time and it's one of my favorite places to visit in Korea. The city has a lot of history and is well preserved. I've heard there is a city ordinance regulating building height in the historical areas. Almost the Korean version of Kyoto. Also where I took the photo on the right.) We got stuck at the bottom of Namsan with no taxis and were waiting for the bus when I stuck out my thumb. The second car that passed us stopped. The man spoke a little English, he had been hiking as well, and drove us back to Bomun Resort where we were staying. We paid him in five Hersey's kisses.

Jeonju: Korea in a city

2009-03-04T11:46:00.015+09:00

Jeonju is the city of "good food." Restaurants around the country brand their dishes as "Jeonju" as in "Jeonju Bibimbap." This is an acceptable distinction, but don't get stuck on it. The food is good there -- more side dishes, fresher ingredients -- but without that distinction the city would have to devise an even further manufactured selling point. It wouldn't work. No one would come to Jeonju merely for a park, or a folk village or a mountain where a few martyrs were killed. So they say come for the food.

It is the capital of Jeollabuk-do, located at 35° 53' north and 127° 14' east. 645,000 people live in Jeonju, and at 79 square miles, that gives the city a population density of 8,101 people per square mile. On average, 15 people are born and eight people die; 10 are married and 3 divorced every day in Jeonju.

The city is surrounded by seven mountain peaks. The most noticeable is Moaksan (which is adorned with the underrated Kumsan Temple) and then, traveling outward, the horse ears of Maisan, the suspension bridge of Daedunsan and then on to Deogyusan and the resort ski town of Muju. I have visited them all on multiple occasions and they are all good for hiking, photography and a home-brewed bowl of makgeolli drank as a reward for reaching the summit.

An hour in a west-bound bus will get you to the Yellow Sea. Gyeokpo and the outlying islands are indecorous and unadorned -- rough, fishermen habitats. Daechon, where once a year the foreigners of Korea do their best to imitate swine, has cheap hotels built on the beach.

But no one comes to Korea for the beaches. We are here for many reasons, some of us more aware of those reasons than others. (Bob Dylan’s line that we’re all running from something comes to mind, which has been countered most pointedly by the friend who said that perhaps we are all running TO something.) We are here for the people and the culture, hoping for a transformative experience in some small way. We’re hoping that our travels will expose us to the world and allow it to work on us, putting into motion an act of alchemy that we can emerge from bettered. If that is indeed true, then the less like our homes our new place is the more potent the alchemy.

Compared with other, bigger Korean cities there is little Western food, few Western entertainments. Although it is quite possible to have a day nearly identical to a day in an American life -- by eating at American restaurants, shopping at American stores, watching American movies and drinking American beer -- it is not possible to have that one essential American quality of consumption: choice. You are limited to a few chain Western restaurants -- Outback, T.G.I. Fridays, and worse, McDonald’s. You laugh at eating at them when you get there -- you never did when they had them in your hometown, why start now?

After a few months you give in and for a while it’s good. But it only takes two or three undercooked and overpriced hamburgers to expose the lie. Then you begin to choose Korean. You start looking for good, Korean food. Through the food you make a bond with the culture. You learn the words for the things on the table and it feels good to order them in correct Korean. It might give you motivation to learn the language, or it might not -- what matters is that you like sitting at the table with all the side dishes and trying everything. You find the dakdoritang restaurant near Jeonbuk-dae, your friends find dak galbi restaurants that are far too spicy for your stomach, the lady that runs the hole in the wall restaurant has the best doenjang and chamchi chiggae you will ever taste.

Most importantly, don’t listen to the marketers. Don’t go to Jeonju for the bibimbap. Stay away from Lotte Department Store and the turtle ship and the paper museum and all the other ways the city tries to sell itself. No, go to Jeonju because it is KOREA in a city. It is workaday and busy; it is hard-drinking and relaxed. It is modern and historical; it is ugly and beautiful. It is a city for those who have already acquired a taste for Korea.

Go to Jeonju, where I went to great dinners at the duck restaurant near the church in Kumamdong -- 5-course meals with 15 people on their knees drinking soju. Jeonju, where I ate hanwoo with farmers and blue-collar workers in Seosindong, who were there because it was the best meat in the city. Jeonju, where I got drunk with foreigners at the great expat bar Deepin -- small and smoke-filled and the bartenders know everyone. Where I walked under the bridge on the Jeonju River, where the old men play Go-Stop and drink makgeolli, and I photographed a man in a hospital gown hooked up to an IV, smoking and gambling. Go there if you want to say you saw Korea, ate real-deal Korean food, lived liked a modern, average Korean. Go to Jeonju -- it’s Korea in a city.

It takes about three hours from Seoul. Buses run every ten minutes from the Express Bus Terminal. Cost is 11,000 to 16,000 won.

Photos by me.

Irreverance

2009-02-25T11:39:00.002+09:00

Over at Fuck You, Penguin, there's a pretty funny post about South Korea and puppies. Read it (and the comments) here.

Singing highway

2009-02-12T13:52:00.004+09:00

I would love to know where this is, if anyone has that information. (The clip looks dated, but it has to be from the last two or three years. It was posted on You Tube in 2007.)

Tigers coming back, but not in South Korea

2009-02-06T14:41:00.003+09:00

Robert Neff posted this first over at the Marmot's Hole. But I'm too fond of tigers not to give them as much hype on the blogosphere as I can.

It’s been decades since anyone has seen a tiger in South Korea. The final tiger was captured either in 1922 or in 1944 on the southern tip of the peninsula, depending on whom you ask. But in some places, their ghosts still cast shadows across the landscape. Ribbons of morning mist cut into deep valleys, setting apart the dark mountain ridges one after another like black stripes across the skin of the land; bears, the tiger’s partner in Korea’s creation myth, still wander in some mountains; and autumn’s tawny, dappled hillsides make it especially easy–and slightly unsettling–to imagine the tiger’s presence.

Read the rest of the article here.

You are what you do

2009-02-01T22:39:00.010+09:00

I saw the following on Saturday at the Seoul Arts Center, when attending a traditional musical. It was written on the back of a photograph at the Charles Eames exhibit. My career has been the subject of much of my recent thinking. From #010:

"Don't take a job with whose objective you do not agree and don't take a job as a stepping-stone to something else...By following these guidelines, you have a chance of bringing your entire experience to the jobs you do and avoiding a lot of misery."
-- Eames

Snow fight!!!

2009-01-20T15:23:00.001+09:00

Members of South Korea's Special Warfare Command take part in a severe winter season drill, to improve their combat abilities in cold weather, in Pyeongchang, east of Seoul. Reuters

I can laugh at Nebraska, but you can't

2009-01-20T14:03:00.007+09:00

From the Onion:

Rural Nebraskan Not Sure He Could Handle Frantic Pace Of Omaha
NORTH PLATTE, NE–Lifelong North Platte resident Fred Linder, 46, revealed Monday that he doesn't think he could cope with the fast-paced hustle and bustle of Omaha, the Cornhusker State's largest city.

Read the rest here.

Here's what made Dylan, Warhol, et al. great

2009-01-19T17:20:00.000+09:00

Bright glaring disappointment

2009-01-13T18:33:00.005+09:00

This review is forthcoming in the Korea Herald.

Bright Shiny Morning

By James Frey

Pp. 502

HarperCollins 2008

It is one of the sadder tales in modern publishing history.

It goes like this: a man, James Frey, writes a book that is autobiographical in nature about addiction, about finding a way to make it through a dark spell. He tries to sell it as a novel, shopping it around to publishers and they all pass on it.

So he re-brands it, calls it a memoir, says the story is “true,” and naturally a major publishing house bites. He gets a contract and the book is released. It sells modestly until a media mogul, a woman who reaches people primarily through a television show, tells her audience that it is a great story of recovery. She puts her stamp of approval on it and the sales figures skyrocket.

The writer gets rich and noticed. In fact, he receives too much attention – a website that is owned by a television station picks up the book and fact checks it. They find inconsistencies in his story and expose them.

The media mogul then asks the writer to come on her show and embarrasses him before a live television audience and millions of viewers at home. He loses his publisher, readers are offered refunds, and he is asked to write an apology to be added to the beginning of every book.

Then he decides to write a “novel.” It’s his attempt at American Literature in the modern sense, in the (shudder) New York City sense. He creates characters, he plots it, he weaves story lines, he stylizes the structure – and, most pointedly, he manufactures it in a way that obscures autobiography. Make no mistake, the book is not about him.

He tries to evoke a sense of place (Los Angeles) and make that place the canvass for his contrivances. It’s nothing if not ambitious, and no one’s going to publicly embarrass him this time. But the problem is the book doesn’t work at all. When playing it this safe and kowtowing to the modern publishing industry, writing what they consider a novel takes all the truth out of the story.

It’s not a poorly written book. His style is digestible; it is easy to tolerate his lack of punctuation and run-on sentences.

For an example of his writing here is Old Man Joe, a homeless man who is 38 but looks like he is in his 70s and lives in a bathroom:

“The boardwalk is loud, crowded, dirty, parking is a nightmare, it smells like fifty types of food, almost all of them fried. It is a world unto itself, and the homeless population is a world within that world.

It’s dawn and Old Man Joe is awake on the beach he’s staring at the sky slowly turning blue, it’s slowly turning blue. He came this morning with the hope that he would learn why, why but he hasn’t learned anything it is as it is every morning he’s learned nothing. It’s already warm somewhere in the mid-70s. The sand is cold against the exposed areas of his skin, his hands, his ankles, neck, the back of his head. There is a light breeze. The air is wet and clean and it smells like salt and tastes like the ocean he takes deep, slow breaths, holds them, exhales, takes another.”

BSM is structured with four unconnected storylines—the homeless man, an actor, a Mexican-American maid, and a young couple from Ohio—told in pieces, intermixed with historical facts, smaller stories and sociological concerns.

As Frey writes that L.A. has more artists, writers, etc. than any other city in the world it’s impossible not to think for now. Frey has said he was trying to put himself in the same fraternity as Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Kerouac, Mailer and Bret Easton Ellis. Yet he ignores that all of those writers wanted their work to have a quality of permanence.

It’s almost as if Frey was proving to us that he had done his research, or that his research could make up for his lack of real expertise on the subject. The facts and figures, those dry parcels of information, might have been put to better use as unconscious or subliminal details that shaded the narrative and the characters, rather than merely bloating the length of the book.

I should have a greater understanding of L.A. because of the characters. But because Frey does not write from the perspective of common people, it’s hard to know the city. The novel would have benefited more from it just being the characters themselves--the people--than all those breaks in the action, all those facts and dates.

There isn’t anything Frey doesn’t think he can write about. He writes about surfers:

“Many grew up in landlocked states without salt water they saw surfing on TV or in videos they read magazines filled with pictures of long-haired men in shorts dripping wet surrounded by beautiful girls. Some tried it on family vacations and found themselves others have known it throughout the entirety of their lives. All of them find peace and joy alone on the water a serenity contentment to which they devote their lives.”

“All of them find peace and joy?” To even use words like that – serenity, contentment—what was he reading for research, a screenplay for a Hollywood film about two kids who move to L.A. from the Midwest and fall in love with the ocean? It’s a myth, and for all of Frey’s attempts to avoid clichés, he falls face first into too many.

One of the points of the story of L.A. is that it is a big, impenetrable city where people don’t just show up and make it big, much less understand it. Frey moved there from Cleveland and lived there for 8 years to make it as a writer. His story, though not in the novel, is also one of ambition and hope -- that moth-eaten idea of the American Dream. His ambition to become a “great novelist” isn’t that much different than the ambition of his characters, and it’s precisely what harms the novel.

Frey has said he merely tells stories and it’s ridiculous to have to worry about the designations, whether it’s a novel or a memoir. If that is indeed his stance, then I would think he would have written something closer to truth.

I would have loved the story of “Frey’s Redemption," and I’m happy for him that he came back from all that media persecution, but I’d be happier if this was a better book. I don’t see why he didn’t just try to do what “A Million Little Pieces” did again but call it a novel. He sold out to the world of “academic literature” and we’re all worse off. There was more truth in one page of AMLP than in this entire book.

We're the places that we wanted to go

2009-01-05T08:55:00.007+09:00

I forget where I found this, or who sent it to me, but I like it very much.

I have an idea that some men are born out of their due place. Accident has cast them amid strangers in their birthplace, and the leafy lanes they have known from childhood or the populous streets in which they have played, remain but a place of passage. They may spend their whole lives aliens among their kindred and remain aloof among the only scenes they have ever known. Perhaps it is this sense of strangeness that sends men far and wide in the search for something permanent, to which they may attach themselves. Perhaps some deep-rooted atavism urges the wanderer back to lands which his ancestors left in the dim beginnings of history. Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs. Here is the home he sought, and he will settle amid scenes that he has never seen before, among men he has never known, as though they were familiar to him from his birth. Here at last he finds rest.

—from "The Moon and Sixpence" by W. Somerset Maugham, 1919

Clean-up on aisle 2008!!!

2009-01-03T22:30:00.002+09:00

Here's a year-end story Matt Lamers and I wrote for the Herald.

Few would dispute that the top story of the last year was the extent to which the foreign community pulled together. Whether it involved raising millions of won for charities, forming social clubs, joining the Taean oil-spill cleanup, feeding the homeless, or teaching English to underprivileged children, foreigners joined their Korean communities in different ways and in record numbers.
Koreans and expats rushed in unprecedented numbers to the national call for help in the worst-ever oil spill off the nation's East Coast near the end of 2007. That cleanup, which brought together U.S. military personal, English instructors and foreign professionals, lasted through much of 2008, resulting in the quick revitalization of a devastated region.

The books I read this year

2008-12-30T08:33:00.004+09:00

Here's a chronological list of what I got around to reading in 2008. As always, it wasn't enough.

1. The Razor’s Edge—W. Somerset Maugham
2. Lost Illusions (Part 1: Two Poets)—Honore de Balzac
3. Memories of My Melancholy Whores—Gabriel Garcia Marquez
4. Travels With Charley—John Steinbeck
5. A Man Without a Country—Kurt Vonnegut
6. The Rum Diary—Hunter S. Thompson
7. Winesburg, Ohio—Sherwood Anderson
8. Factotum—Charles Bukowksi
9. No Country For Old Men—Cormac McCarthy
10. The Dream of a Common Language—Adrienne Rich
11. What is the What—Dave Eggers
12. The Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor—Marquez
13. Tao Te Ching—Lao Tzu
14. Chronicles Volume #1—Bob Dylan
15. Lady With Lapdog, and Other Stories—Anton Chekhov
16. The Rum Diary—Thompson (2)
17. The Book of Tea—Kakuzo Okakura
18. Poor Folk—Fyodor Dostoevsky
19. The Maltese Falcon—Dashiell Hammet
20. Children of the Volga—George Bruntz
21. The Dangerous Summer—Ernest Hemingway
22. What Happened—Scott McClellan
23. White Noise—Don Delillo
24. Nexus—Henry Miller
25. Slouching Towards Bethlehem—Joan Didion
26. V for Vendetta—Alan Moore

There were some great books in there. "The Rum Diary" made me roll on the floor with laughter, the Dostoevsky was great, as was the Delillo and the Didion. If I had to pick a favorite, it would probably have to be Steinbeck's "Travels with Charley." It wasn't the most remarkable piece of writing, but I loved the story. I'm on the last pages of James Frey's "Bright Shiny Morning" and I'll carry "The Emotional Brain" by Joseph LeDoux over into 2009. Anybody want to share their list?

What happened to Conor Oberst?

2008-12-28T17:12:00.008+09:00

I've been reading a lot of year-end music lists this week and almost none (actually, none) of them include the Bright Eyes frontman's record. Was it really that bad? I admit, I'm biased -- Bright Eyes has too much to do with my "formative years" to be objective -- but I liked it. Especially "Lenders in the Temple." I'd put that song in a top 50 of 2008 list. Probably even toward the top.

In a year of over-production and hyper-stylized dance music, we didn't have enough well-worded songs. Maybe the darkness of Bon Iver took up too much room for other lyrically focused artists. That was a really large record. Or maybe Bright Eyes and Oberst fans wanted him to be equally as dark, which this record wasn't at all. But that's not really fair. We can't expect our artists to suffer needlessly for their art, can we? I mean, if the guy wants to be happy and healthy and that's how his music comes out, then we can't really fault him for that. I still think he's better with words than 99 percent of songwriters out there.

UPDATE: This useless magazine has "Moab" at 31, right after "Pork and Beans" by Weezer, and before "Everyone Nose" by N.E.R.D. He's in more trouble than I thought.

Out of the tunnels, back in the saddle

2008-12-26T10:39:00.002+09:00

This story of mine ran in the Korea Herald today.

When I first moved to Seoul, I rode the train. I went down into the tunnels with everyone else. We fought and pushed to get on after work -- beat and wanting to go home. Everyone slept, pretended to sleep, or watched TV on their cell phones. The men and women that sat on the benches looked defeated.

There was never a moment during the day that felt more like a struggle. The strain and fatigue seemed contagious. Even in the event that you felt good when you got on the train, you suppressed it -- vitality seemed insensitive.

For the first six months, the environmental benefits of using mass transportation outweighed my displeasure. When I wasn't flying across oceans on airplanes, I generated a minimal amount of carbon, and that felt good.

Despite my environmental ideology, after hearing a friend praise the smooth ride from Sinchon to City Hall, I went down to Toegyero to find a way to escape the subway. From Chungmuro station (Line No. 3, Exit 1), I crossed the street and walked east.

Shops lined the north side of the street. Glass windows displayed hundreds of scooters, dirt bikes, light-CC trail riders and heavy, high-dollar motorcycles. I walked down Toegyero with two criteria -- black and cheap.

A motorcycle should be black. If you have two motorcycles, then you are allowed to have a yellow or a purple one. But a motorcycle is like a leather jacket, there is one best color.

I walked the blocks of Toegyero asking prices and checking tachometers until I found a prospect: a dark, Magma 125cc in good shape and the man selling it willing to talk about the price.

A man who wants to make a deal is hard to find. We passed the calculator back and forth. After a few grimaces and grunts, he agreed on 500,000 won -- 200,000 off what he told me when I walked in. So I took it for a test drive and it ran straight. He put on new mirrors, changed the key box, and threw in a helmet as "service."

The first tank of gas I paid to fill my motorcycle felt like a compromise. There I was, with an efficient, effective subway system running clean and smooth under my feet, buying gas. I had bent my environmental ethics for freedom.

But it was worth it. A motorcycle is an icon; it symbolizes individuality. When I leave work every night, I am leaving alone, traveling alone, at my command -- I decide who I ride with and how we get there.

My commute time has been reduced by 60 percent. Although it is 2,000 times more dangerous, and I wouldn't recommend buying a bike for the Seoul streets if you haven't ridden before, I like it better.

If you do know what you're doing, and you're still riding in the tunnels, think about living above the ground.

That's where life is.

Feliz Navidad!!

2008-12-25T19:53:00.000+09:00

Kim Jong-Il Interprets Sunrise As Act Of War

2008-12-24T11:23:00.004+09:00

From the Onion:

PYONGYANG, NORTH KOREA–Increasingly defiant toward international pressure since his nation's first nuclear test in early October, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il condemned this morning's sunrise, calling it "another hostile, deliberately timed act by the world community" and "a clear and blatant declaration of war."

It's satire, but it's not that ridiculous. The Korea Herald has run stories that were "true" dealing with North Korea that were just as outrageous.

Remember why we went to war?

2008-12-22T13:09:00.005+09:00

Here is a transcript of the full text of Bush's speech from March 18, 2003, that sold the war to America.

Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. This regime has already used weapons of mass destruction against Iraq's neighbors and against Iraq's people.
The regime has a history of reckless aggression in the Middle East. It has a deep hatred of America and our friends. And it has aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al Qaeda.

I agree with this

2008-12-22T10:12:00.002+09:00

Selfishness　is　not　living　as　one　wishes　to　live,　it　is　asking　others　to　live　as　one　wishes　to　live.　--　Oscar　Wilde

There's no future in it

2008-12-21T20:17:00.001+09:00

Stories don't get much more sinister than this.

Billboards showing Tijuana's most wanted kidnappers don't include Garcia's image, even though he is believed to be behind most of the gang war that has claimed more than 400 lives here since late September.

"That tells you that you don't want to be the one responsible for putting Teo's picture in public," said one U.S. law enforcement source who spoke on condition of anonymity. "There's no future in it."

One possible positive side effect of global warming

2008-12-21T20:07:00.001+09:00

The world's oceans are in serious turmoil. Fisheries have collapsed across the globe and scientists predict that rising global temperatures — particularly nearer the poles — will melt the polar ice caps and cause sea levels to rise. Waves, however, are the bringers of this bad oceanic news onto human-inhabited shores and evidence that extreme wave heights are increasing in some regions has remained relatively under the radar.

Read the rest here.

Women used to douche with Coca-Cola?

2008-12-21T20:03:00.001+09:00

I like nothing better than to see a busted myth.

Contrary to popular belief, poinsettias are not toxic to people or animals, suicides do not increase over the Christmas holidays, and sugar does not make kids hyperactive. Also, Wales winning the rugby grand slam does not influence the death of popes, and douching with Coca-Cola is not an effective contraceptive method.

Being brave lets no one off the grave

2008-12-21T15:20:00.005+09:00

Today someone asked me if I had a favorite poem. Today it is this:

Aubade, by Philip Larkin

I work all day, and get half drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.

The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
- The good not used, the love not given, time
Torn off unused - nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never:
But at the total emptiness forever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says no rational being
Can fear a thing it cannot feel, not seeing
that this is what we fear - no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no-one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can't escape
Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

Bustin' Down the Door

2008-12-20T16:19:00.002+09:00

This looks like a good story:

The setting was the 10km stretch of coast that was home to some of the best breaks in the world, which exploded every northern winter as intense storms in the north Pacific sent mountainous swells towards the island's rocky shore.
Until the year before, the Hawaiians had dominated the annual season of amateur competitions at their beaches which were, and remain, the pinnacle of the world's surf meets.

In 1975, however, haoles (white people) from Australia and South Africa had been granted precious invitations to the meets after proving their skill and courage out of competition the year before. They wound up winning each of the four events. The Hawaiians' pride was wounded but they hid it well. They had been generous hosts to the haoles and assumed that the newcomers, regardless of their success, had an understanding of the code of humility and respect central to Hawaiian culture.

Mix Tape #2 - Soft Edges

2008-12-19T09:51:00.003+09:00

Enjoy, and of course, if you recreate this list, order is important.

1. "Strange Overtones" -- David Byrne & Brian Eno
2. "Monsters" -- The Boy Least Likely To
3. "Paper Planes" -- M.I.A.
4. "Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)" -- Bob Dylan
5. "Furr" -- Blitzen Trapper
6. "Hymn #101" -- Joe Pug
7. "Star Witness" -- Neko Case
8. "Song To Bobby" -- Cat Power
9. "Sugarman" -- Rodriguez
10. "City of Electric Light" -- Chad VanGaalen
11. "No One Does It Like You" -- Department of Eagles
12. "Talking Shit About A Pretty Sunset" -- Modest Mouse
13. "Cherbourg" -- Beirut
14. "Circe" -- Harmonia Ensemble & Kocani Orkestar

Expats bridge class divide

2008-12-18T15:30:00.003+09:00

The Korea Herald ran a story of mine this week about the challenges of making English education affordable for low-income families.

As a response to this divide, as well as recognizing the financial obstacles for parents, Soo and a few other English teachers created a non-profit organization to provide free English lessons to underprivileged children.

Part of their thinking was that English education is expensive in Korea, and part of it was that they realized they were making money here and wanted to give something back.

Read the rest here.

On change, saying no, and staying too long at the fair

2008-12-09T11:19:00.003+09:00

A city this size has a million pitfalls. The clubs are always open when you need them, the bars always have a place for you to sit, and there's always a friend somewhere doing something. It's hard to say no to your friends. It's hard to slow things down.

Joan Didion, in Slouching Towards Bethlehem, was the same age as I am now when she wrote "Goodbye To All That." Her city was New York, mine is Seoul. There are a lot of other differences, but there are also a lot of similarities. A few choice passages from that essay:

That was the year, my twenty-eighth, when I was discovering that not all of the promises would be kept, that some things are in fact irrevocable and that it had counted after all, every evasion and every procrastination, every mistake, every word, all of it. (pp.233)

I remember one day when ... we both had hangovers, and I cut my finger opening him a beer and burst into tears, and we walked to a Spanish restaurant and drank Bloody Marys and gazpacho until we felt better. I was not then guilt-ridden about spending afternoons that way, because I still had all the afternoons in the world.

And even that late in the game I still liked going to parties, all parties, bad parties, Saturday-afternoon parties given by recently married couples ... parties given by unpublished or failed writers who served cheap red wine and talked about going to Guadalajara ... parties where all the guests worked for advertising agencies and voted for Reform Democrats, press parties ... the worst kinds of parties.

You will have perceived by now that I was not one to profit by the experience of others, that it was a very long time indeed before I stopped believing in new faces and began to understand the lesson in that story, which was that it is distinctly possible to stay too long at the Fair. I could not tell you when I began to understand that.

All I know is that it was very bad when I was twenty-eight. Everything that was said to me I seemed to have heard before, and I could no longer listen ... I no longer had any interest in hearing about the advances other people had received from their publishers, about plays which were having second-act trouble in Philadelphia, or about people I would like very much if only I would come out and meet them. I had already met them, always. (pp. 235-6)

I'm not as over it nor is it as bad for me as Didion puts it. I don't believe that I have already met everyone that could tell me something new. I don't believe I'll ever feel like that. But there is a lot of truth in what she is feeling, and how it resonates with what I see in my days. If anything, the essay is about growth. It takes a lot of honesty and discipline to get to that next place.

Paddle in to a 30-foot wave?

2008-11-30T18:55:00.001+09:00

This will be something to see.

The breakers can top 30 feet. If surfers in the competition miss the ideal drop-in spot and get sucked into its crashing whitewater, they can expect to languish in the deep for up to a minute. When they resurface, another mammoth wave could be towering overhead, ready to pummel them back below all over again.

The Lekman show: Happy and over too soon

2008-11-30T13:42:00.005+09:00

The Jens Lekman show at Freebird last night was fun. Some stupid, obnoxious behavior in places (really, who runs into a crowd and starts a three-way jumpfest during "Black Cab" [and who was breaking all those bottles?]) but a good time. The show was completely over sold, way past fire code, and Lekman's set was too short. But it felt good to have somebody like that playing. And the people in the crowd seemed happy to have something to be excited about. (Check Roboseyo's post here.)

On a side note: I talked to the promoter and he said that he had a lot of trouble with Lekman's Korea representation. They didn't return his emails. They didn't come to the show. They wouldn't even show up to sell his merch and maybe make them and their artist some money. "He's not popular in Korea," they said. It feels like there really is a lack of support for unproven artists here. Why is that?

Hongdae working on its indie cred

2008-11-29T12:34:00.004+09:00

Here's the link to the story I wrote about Jens Lekman. They're only selling tickets at the door now for the Freebird show tonight, and sales start at 7:30. This is going to be really fun.

A brief overview of the automotive clause in the KORUS-FTA and how it impacts both countries

2008-11-18T22:47:00.006+09:00

I wrote this for the Nov. 19, 2008 edition of the Korea Herald:

The automotive clause of the Korea-United States Free Trade Agreement is but one part of a multi-faceted agreement. However, U.S. president-elect Barack Obama, along with other key U.S. lawmakers, has focused specifically on an ailing U.S. automotive industry as a crucial economic concern. Couple that with slumping demand and weak profits worldwide causing problems for Korean carmakers, and the importance of the passenger vehicle section of the KORUS-FTA becomes more pronounced.

During the first U.S. presidential debate on Sept. 27, 2008, Obama said “We have to... invest in alternative energy, solar, wind, bio diesel, making sure that we're developing the fuel-efficient cars of the future right here in the United States, in Ohio and Michigan, instead of Japan and South Korea.”

The National Assembly trade committee met on Nov. 13 to discuss the ratification of the FTA, which was first agreed upon in April 2007 under the Roh Moo-hyun administration. The committee met with intense partisan bickering, with one side suggesting a quick ratification to fend off a renegotiation demand from the coming Obama administration.

U.S. exports to Korea

As it stands now, American automobiles have been suffering from a diminished reputation in the eyes of the international community. Claims of poor fuel efficiency, lack of durability and cumbersome size have all contributed to U.S. autos’ decreased appeal worldwide. While the quality of American cars is debatable, there are legislative and economic factors at play as well.

The rest of the story.

Bill Ayers talks about palling around with Barack Obama

2008-11-18T10:27:00.002+09:00

From the Salon interview:

One of the delicious ironies of a campaign filled with ironies was that the McCain campaign tried to use me to bring Obama down -- and every time that he mentioned my name his poll numbers dropped. Again, I think that's a big credit to the American people. But I did see a few clips. I saw the clip where she [Palin] first talked about Barack Obama palling around with terrorists and the crowd shouted, "Kill him, kill him." That was sent to me by my kids.
I don't know if you remember the Two Minutes Hate in George Orwell's "1984"? In Two Minutes Hate, the party faithful gather in front of a television screen and the image of Emmanuel Goldstein is cast up on the screen and they work themselves into a frenzy of hatred and they begin to chant, "Kill him." That's how I felt. I felt a little bit like I was this character cast on the screen. It bore no relation to me. And yet it had a serious purpose and potentially serious consequences.

The rest of the story.

You can't surf in all 50 states

2008-11-16T20:46:00.004+09:00

I want to know what they surfed in Nebraska.

“We met a good doctor and had good surgery. We feel very lucky.”

2008-11-16T20:28:00.002+09:00

Need a new hip, Grandpa? Come to Korea.

South Korea has joined Thailand, Singapore, India and other Asian nations in the lucrative business of medical tourism. Heart bypasses, spinal surgery, hip-joint replacements, cosmetic surgery — procedures that may cost tens of thousands of dollars in the United States — can often be done for one-third or even one-tenth of the cost in Asia, with much shorter waiting times and by specialists often trained in the West.

The War Is Over

2008-11-15T16:10:00.002+09:00

And America is doing a lot of other stuff right, according to this fake edition of the New York Times.

Less meat, less junk, more plants

2008-11-14T17:16:00.003+09:00

Eat crap, become crap.

The kimchi problem

2008-11-05T10:31:00.003+09:00

This is a good blanket story for anyone trying to understand modern South Korea.

And now it seems this nation -- which worked its way from the Third World to the First World in a single generation, and whose people show the strain by working more hours, consuming more hard liquor, having more sex and committing more suicides than in any other country -- is facing another culture clash between traditional identity and a globalizing world: the kimchi deficit.

7:23:50 a.m. Nov. 4 (MST)

2008-11-04T22:57:00.005+09:00

Today I was walking out of my Korean class with Gabriel, this tall skinny hipster kid from Switzerland.

"The next time I see you either I'll be ashamed to be an American," I said. "Or I'll be feeling a lot better about America."

"Yah, I don't think I could not be ashamed to be an American," he said.

"Oh, you hate America. It's cool to hate to America."

"I don't hate the people. I hate the country."

I took the underpass and he took the subway. Then I got on my bike and rode down to the gym. I had a good run on the treadmill listening to White Blood Cells and watching Korean television pundits dissect the election. But after that I couldn't work out properly, I couldn't focus on anything. All I was thinking about was tomorrow, about Obama, about America, about how important it felt and how I couldn't prepare myself for a McCain win.

I just want to scream...HELLLOO

2008-11-04T11:34:00.007+09:00

Last weekend in Jirisan I finally found my norae bang song. Now if I can just find "Better Man."

Pearl Jam: "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town"

Black Cab! Black Cab! Black Cab!

2008-11-03T23:27:00.003+09:00

That's what I'm going to be yelling when Jens Lekman comes to Seoul. He's playing Freebird (really?) two nights, Nov. 29 and 30.

Jens and crew singing "A Sweet Summer's Night On Hammer Hill"

Are you making fun of me?

2008-11-03T14:32:00.003+09:00

Whomever it is over at Dokdo Is Ours did a nice little parody of the story I wrote about Brian Deutsch and bloggers in Korea.

"But really, what does Brian's blog mean to you?"

"It means I don't have to dig around on Dave's ESL Cafe, because he does. Brian has saved me a lot of effort, and he's funneling off a lot of the trolls and VANKers that used to load up my comment boards."

"You SUCK!" somebody shouted from a corner of the room. Nobody even paid attention.

He wasn't dead, he was working construction in Detroit

2008-10-29T09:46:00.004+09:00

This song's too good not to share. And what a great story:

After failing to make an impact in America, he gave up his career as a musician. However, although he was relatively unknown in his home country by the mid 70’s, his albums were starting to gain airplay in countries like South Africa, Rhodesia, New Zealand and Australia ... Unbeknownst to Rodriguez it went platinum in South Africa, where he achieved cult status. With a new buzz around Rodriguez, in 1979 he toured Australia with the Mark Gillespie Band as support. Two shows from the tour were later released on the Australian only album "Alive" - the title being a play on the rumors caused by his public obscurity that Rodriguez had died years ago. It wasn't until the late 1990's (which at the time he was working on a Detroit building site) when his daughter discovered his fame thanks to a South African fan website.

Rodriguez: Sugar Man

It's not a zero-sum game

2008-10-28T12:40:00.005+09:00

This, for me, was the golden age of basketball. When the best players were coming up, pushing each other to get better, to be better.

NBA Slam Dunk Contest: Michael Jordan vs. Dominique Wilkins

This is what we're looking at on Nov. 5

2008-10-27T10:33:00.003+09:00

Here's a comprehensive look at what's happening with the U.S. elections, with timetables for the results in Korea.

Happy belated birthday, Mr. Berryman

2008-10-26T23:54:00.003+09:00

October 25 was the birthday of one of my very favorite poets, John Berryman. From the Writer's Almanac:

His mother was a schoolteacher. His father, who was a banker, committed suicide when John was 12 years old. A few months later, his mother married a man whom she'd been having an affair with for the past year. They moved to New York, and Berryman went to a prestigious boarding school and then to Columbia University. He was an excellent student — a good poet and passionate about Shakespeare. He earned a grant to study Shakespeare at Cambridge in England. When he came back to the United States, he tried to get a job in advertising, but instead he went into academia. He became an "academic nomad" over the next decades, teaching at many different schools before settling at the University of Minnesota.
His personal life was tumultuous. He struggled with alcoholism and mental illness, and he was a chronic womanizer. One summer, two years into his first marriage, he fell in love with the young wife of one of his graduate students, and they began a passionate affair, which he chronicled in a cycle of 100 Petrarchan sonnets.

He made his name with Homage to Mistress Bradstreet (1956), a dialogue between Berryman and the 17th-century poet Anne Bradstreet. He worked on the project for five years, and it was so consuming that it led to the end of his second marriage. But critics thought the work was brilliant.

Berryman sought treatment for his mental illness, and part of his psychotherapy regimen was to keep a log of his dreams. Many of these dreams made their way into his poetry cycle Dream Songs. The poems were an enormous critical success.

He described his 385 Dream Songs as "essentially about an imaginary character named Henry, a white American in early middle age, sometimes in blackface, who has suffered an irreversible loss." He said, "These Songs are not meant to be understood. … They are only meant to terrify & comfort."

The first of the Dream Songs begins:
"Huffy Henry hid the day,
unappeasable Henry sulked.
I see his point, — a trying to put things over.
It was the thought that they thought
they could do it made Henry wicked & away.
But he should have come out and talked."

Berryman was also a great scholar of Shakespeare. For decades he worked on a critical work on Shakespeare. Before publishing the book, he committed suicide by jumping off a bridge on the University of Minnesota campus on a January morning as students walked to class.

He wrote: "It is reassuring to consider that Shakespeare wrote four failures, plays that few have ever cared to produce and mostly scholars read. These failures are The Two Gentlemen of Verona, King John, All's Well That Ends Well, and Timon of Athens. The reasons for his failure in each case were different, but at least he was always capable of failure, and it is pleasant to know this."

"South Koreans reliving nightmare of last financial crisis"

2008-10-24T18:15:00.003+09:00

Quite an alarming headline from the IHT. This place can feel nightmarish sometimes, but it's not because of the economy. Read the story, if you dare.

That'll teach you to make international phone calls

2008-10-24T14:57:00.002+09:00

It's easy to forget that North Korea's only 40 kilometers away from safe, benign Seoul. Then you read something like this:

North Korea is using public executions to intimidate its citizens and has imposed restrictions on long distance calls to block the spread of news about rising food shortages, the U.N. investigator on human rights in the reclusive nation said Thursday.

The rest of the story.

He's very well-read, it's quite well known

2008-10-21T13:09:00.002+09:00

Lee Siegel writes about the influence of reading classic literature in the books section of the NYT.

Somehow, we’ve been sold a bill of goods about how literature empowers us. But the idea that great literature can improve our lives in any way is a con as old as culture itself.

Take the power back

2008-10-20T23:03:00.004+09:00

I'm really late to this, but it's too awesome not to blog. Cops shut down Rage Against the Machine at the RNC, so they did an acapella set for the crowd outside.

More on the Kundera case

2008-10-19T10:26:00.002+09:00

A longer story in the IHT today provides more background -- and more speculation -- about the allegations that Milan Kundera ratted out a spy to communist Czechoslovakia.

"The reality is that the totalitarian regime was constructed in such a way that 99 percent of people cooperated in one way or another, and the Kundera case helps them to feel morally absolved, like they are the good guys and he was one of the baddies," Pehe said.

Many historians have found the evidence wanting. The policeman mentioned in the secret police report identifying Kundera is dead, while Kundera's signature is nowhere on the document.

There are trolls and then there are just plain assholes

2008-10-18T22:26:00.005+09:00

No one should have to read something like this. The Korea Times has terrible judgment about what to put into their newspaper and if I was an English teacher I would cancel my subscription chigum.

Unfortunately, most native English speakers make no attempt to learn Korean; and even if they did, they probably could not, anyway. Look around you. Does the typical English native teacher strike you as being someone who is of high sophistication? Not! The sad fact is that the typical native teacher graduated near the bottom of his/her class from a lower-tiered university, and probably could not hold down anything better than a minimum wage job in his/her home country. The creme de la creme do not come here, I am sorry to say.

"The most ferocious fighting since the Korean War"

2008-10-18T11:37:00.004+09:00

An eight part video series of the fighting in Afghanistan from embedded reporter Ben Anderson. Top tracks include "This guy lives for firing his RPG" and "Nothing like a little opium to get you ready for a firefight." Watch it here.

Where'd Russia go?

2008-10-17T00:13:00.002+09:00

What if McCain had a heart attack from caring too much about his friends? Enter the Oval Office with Palin in charge.

The Unbearable Heaviness of Lying

2008-10-16T21:32:00.002+09:00

This reads to me like Kundera's hiding something.

The allegations could diminish Mr. Kundera’s moral stature as a spokesman, however enigmatic, against totalitarianism’s corrosion of daily life.
The reclusive Mr. Kundera vehemently denied the account.
“I object in the strongest manner to these accusations, which are pure lies,” he said in a statement released by his French publisher, Gallimard.
In a rare interview on Monday with the Czech CTK news agency, Mr. Kundera also accused the news media of committing “the assassination of an author.”

That's pretty reactionary, defensive language.

North Korea's Octopussy

2008-10-15T18:12:00.003+09:00

Like something out of a James Bond novel, the North Korean woman who seduced multiple S. Korean military officers, spread propaganda, and did other shady, spy-like things has been sentenced to prison.

Investigators have also accused her of scheming to murder intelligence agents using poison-tipped needles, though the plot did not go ahead.

Take the debate to the corner bar

2008-10-15T17:49:00.004+09:00

Columnist Jim Shea has a suggestion to liven up the next presidential debate -- have it in a bar.

The candidates want to relate to Joe Six-Pack? This is where he hangs out, along with Joe Twelve-Pack, Frankie Foreclosed, Jimmy Jobless and all the rest of the blue-collar voters the candidates want to impress with their regularness.

(If you're in Korea, the debates start at 10 a.m. on Thursday the 16th.)

A Cartoon

2008-10-13T22:03:00.001+09:00

Mr. Fish

Anarchy in the S.K.

2008-10-13T10:21:00.003+09:00

Korea Herald reporter Bae Hyun-jung put together a greatest hits of the most absurd courtroom moments in recent months. One of my favorite stories I've read since working for the paper.

We set controls for the heart of the sun, one of the ways that we show our age

2008-10-10T10:30:00.007+09:00

Did a little disco dance for the Korea Herald hyping LCD Soundsystem coming to town tonight. Read it here.

UPDATE: The event was poorly organized -- oversold, a clusterfuck at the doors, and then understaffed at the bar -- but the music was good. They played for 3 and a half hours. My legs are still sore, and even though Murphy and Mahoney didn't play any LCD, the lyric "I wouldn't trade one stupid decision for another five years of life" is running through my head.

LCD Soundsystem "All My Friends"

We're gonna need a bigger clock

2008-10-09T12:58:00.001+09:00

The digital counter that marks the U.S. debt has run out of digits.

The more I seek the more I'm sought

2008-10-09T11:39:00.006+09:00

I like the sincerity of this.

Joe Pug "Hymn #101"

Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it

2008-10-08T18:52:00.012+09:00

In the first presidential debate John McCain said:

"The next president of the United States is not going to have to address the issue as to whether we went into Iraq or not. The next president of the United States is going to have to decide how we leave, when we leave, and what we leave behind. That's the decision of the next president of the United States."

The quote makes for a good lead into a book review I never wrote about What Happened, former White House press secretary Scott McClellan's memoir about his days working for the Bush administration. Members of the administration fed him bad information and then left him to deal with the public and the media on his own when it was found out he had relayed lies. He writes about journalists, the practice of the permanent campaign, the run up to the war and how it was sold to the public, and, most interestingly, the character of the man who has done more to change the world than any single president in U.S. history.

About the war:

Today, as I look back on the campaign we waged to sell the Iraq war to the American people--a campaign I participated in--I see more clearly the downside of applying modern campaign tactics to matters of grave historical import.

They are caught up in an endless effort to manipulate public opinion to their advantage.

It is all part of the political propaganda effort to advance one's causes.

About his relationship with Bush:

I know the president pretty well. I believe that, if he had been given a crystal ball in which he could have foreseen the costs of war--more than 4,000 American troops killed, 30,000 injured, and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens dead--he would have never made the decision to invade, despite what he might say or feel he has to say publicly today.

But Bush was not one to look back once a decision was made. Rather than suffer any sense of guilt and anguish, Bush chose not to go down the road of self-doubt or take on the difficult task of honest evaluation and reassessment. Rather than look back, he would always look forward, focused on the challenges of the future rather than the regrets of the past. That was especially true when it came to a decision as irrevocable and consequential as war in Iraq.

Which is what McCain doesn't understand when he talks about not having to address the issue of how we got into Iraq. If he becomes president, under these current economic conditions, he could possibly be asked to make a decision about going to war with another country.

About the media:

The American public hungers for truth--not just as it relates to petty partisan squabbles and the controversy of the day, but larger truth, including the hard truths we too rarely hear emphasized on television or see written prominently about in our major newspapers and magazines.

We need to give a greater emphasis to who is right and who is wrong, who is telling the truth and who is not, and the larger truths about our society and our world might achieve some amazing results.

About Bush putting shit up his nose:

"The media won't let go of these ridiculous cocaine rumors," I heard Bush say. "You know, the truth is I honestly don't know whether I tried it or not. We had some pretty wild parties back in the day, and I just don't remember."

I remember thinking to myself, How can that be? How can someone simply not remember whether or not they used an illegal substance like cocaine?

Fuck the police

2008-10-08T13:57:00.003+09:00

A Slate piece on Obama and Biden's criminal justice policy worries me.

In particular, Biden and Obama have promised to beef up two federal grant programs critics say have exacerbated many of the very problems Obama expressed concern about earlier in the primaries. Obama and Biden's position shows an unwillingness to think critically about criminal justice. They are opting instead for the reflexive belief that more federal involvement is always preferable to less.

One of the least appealing aspects of American life is the police state it has become.

The New Yorker endorses Obama

2008-10-08T13:44:00.002+09:00

The mighty magazine from NYC has spoken.

The incumbent Administration has distinguished itself for the ages. The Presidency of George W. Bush is the worst since Reconstruction, so there is no mystery about why the Republican Party—which has held dominion over the executive branch of the federal government for the past eight years and the legislative branch for most of that time—has little desire to defend its record, domestic or foreign.

Read the rest here.

Can't put all the blame on Bush, at least not for this

2008-10-07T22:01:00.004+09:00

An article in the Oct. 6 edition of the Washington Post helps to make sense of the deregulation argument.

So the first cause of the crisis lies with the Fed, not with deregulation. If too much money was lent and borrowed, it was because Chinese savings made capital cheap and the Fed was not aggressive enough in hiking interest rates to counteract that. Moreover, the Fed's track record of cutting interest rates to clear up previous bubbles had created a seductive one-way bet. Financial engineers built huge mountains of debt partly because they expected to profit in good times -- and then be rescued by the Fed when they got into trouble.

Read the rest here.

Songs for musical chairs

2008-10-07T07:33:00.006+09:00

Chicago multi-instrumentalist and bad ass whistler Andrew Bird's new album Noble Beast drops on January 27, on Fat Possum Records. No Seoul tour dates yet.

Bird performing the new single "Oh No" from Noble Beast:

The pulse thing was optional: 23 dead people in Ohio were also approved

2008-10-06T09:39:00.004+09:00

If you're anything like me, it's hard to get all these economic terms to sink in. This week-old New York Times article about the media trying to make this all less nonsensical helps a little.

“We ordered three, four bottles of Cristal at $1,000 per bottle,” he said on the broadcast, recalling a night when he had a table at Marquee, a nightclub in Manhattan. “They bring it out, you know they’re walking through the crowd, they’re holding the bottles over their heads. There’re firecrackers, sparklers. You know, the little cocktail waitresses,” he said. “You know so you order three or four bottles of those and they’re walking through the crowd and everyone’s like: Whoa, who’re the cool guys? We were the cool guys.”

"This American Life" has a follow-up show here.

Don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows

2008-10-06T00:48:00.002+09:00

Palin's claim that Obama hangs out with terrorists is tenuous at best. This is a little background on that.

Irishman shares wave with a Great White

2008-10-05T19:03:00.002+09:00

"Just imagine being in the barrel and looking at a massive shark like you're at the bloody aquarium or something."

I'm going to pass, but thanks. Story here.

Seeing South Korea

2008-10-05T14:00:00.005+09:00

Home and Away Magazine ran a story on their website last month I wrote about traveling in Korea. I wrote the story last year during Chuseok, when I traveled through Gangwando, visiting Seoraksan and Sokcho. The story was written for an American audience without prior knowledge of Korea, so please forgive some of the generalities. From the story:

"If you are the type that needs your vanity affirmed, Koreans are happy to oblige. They often stare from a short distance as though you are unaware, especially children. This takes some getting used to, but once you manage it, stare back. They mean no harm. Some of them are quite interesting to look at."

To read the rest here you have to enter a zip code -- 46032 -- and then click on Web Exclusives on the left. It's probably really of the most interest to you poor suckers living outside of Korea.

Al-Jazeera People Power North Korea

2008-10-05T11:22:00.002+09:00

Sing along: The pathetic Americans kneel on the ground/they beg for mercy. A long (22 min.) news program on the North from Al-Jazeera. It looks bleak, devoid of color.

(Stolen from Korea Beat.)

Obama Kids: Sing for Change (Pyongyang Remix)

2008-10-05T11:00:00.001+09:00

(Stolen from the Marmot's Hole)

Super Kim

2008-10-05T09:57:00.003+09:00

The only game Kim Jong-il lets North Koreans play.

Palin the Post Turtle

2008-10-04T23:12:00.004+09:00

While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75-year-old rancher, whose hand was caught in the gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to Palin and her bid.

The old rancher said, "Well, ya know, Palin is a Post Turtle."

Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a "post turtle" was.

The old rancher said, "When you're driving down a country road you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a 'post turtle.'"

The old rancher saw the puzzled look on the doctor's face so he continued to explain. "You know she didn't get up there by herself, she doesn't belong up there, and she doesn't know what to do while she's up there, and you just wonder what kind of dummy put her up there to begin with."

Have you ever heard of Philip Roth?

2008-10-04T22:21:00.003+09:00

Slate's Adam Kirsch has a nice rebuttal to Horace Engdahl's claim that "the U.S. is too isolated, too insular" to have competitive authors for the Nobel Prize.

It kept on raining

2008-10-04T15:03:00.005+09:00

This is old news, but I just watched Spike Lee's "When The Levees Broke," about the causes and effects of the disaster in New Orleans due to Hurricane Katrina. It's a sad and angry documentary, and worth your time. Three years after Katrina bands of armed raiders prowl the asbestos-lined FEMA trailers.

"Use the double-wide!"

2008-10-03T12:50:00.003+09:00

Even Homer voted. Will you? (HT to Matt)

3 thoughts on the VP debate

2008-10-03T11:37:00.010+09:00

1. Sarah Palin would make an excellent talk show host, but I don't want her running the United States of America.

2. Joe Biden makes me feel like I'm listening to a wise man, but I'm skeptical of his ability to lead the country with real dynamism, and that's what is needed.

3. The lack of potential for controversy is disappointing.

4. Biden won.

Chinese children

2008-10-03T09:05:00.002+09:00

Slate has an interesting story here about Asian-Americans in the political system.

"Unless I'm hit by a bus or fall off a horse, I don't see why not."

2008-10-02T20:57:00.006+09:00

Do you all remember Sufjan Stevens? C'mon, try hard. He was that indie songwriter with the ethereal textures, the one with all the instruments, that wrote all those songs you liked? Remember?

(Casmir Pulaski Day, from "Illinois")

Does that do it? No? Remember he said he was going to write an album about all 5o states? Well, it's been three years. The rumor was the next one is going to be Oregon, but it's been a long time since I've heard anything. Dude better hurry up or he's going to be double-discing the Dakotas and the Carolinas just to get it done.

Oh how I love the shirts you wear

2008-10-02T13:58:00.006+09:00

As I'm not a street photographer, I don't have pictures of these. Imagine them on women in their 30s with long t-shirts, the words written in all caps down the front.

DROP ACID NOT BOMBS

SUN YOUR BUNS

I WAS IN NAM WHEN YOU WERE IN MOM

YOU LOOKED BETTER AS A FRESHMAN

PUREFUCKINGCANADIAN (Made in Italy, born in Canada)

THE HANDSOME BOY IN BLUE OFTEN DANCES WITH A GIRL

I SUPPORT THE COSMETIC SURGERY

And my favorite, I mean I stopped on the street to laugh -- a boy wearing a bright, canary yellow t-shirt that read in big block letters, I'M WITH STUPID and the arrow was pointing up.

Where are all the protest songs?

2008-10-02T10:07:00.007+09:00

How long have we been at war in the Middle East? Where is Phil Ochs? Where is Woodie Guthrie? Where are the songwriters? We have talented lyricists, we have David Berman, John Darnielle, Conor Oberst--we have all these so-called folk singers that play acoustic guitars and sound "folky," but they forget what it is to be a folk singer. Is it going to take to a depression before our country makes the type of art that the world we live in requires? I wrote about this four years ago, and still nothing's changed.

At least Steve Earle's trying ("Come Back Woody Guthrie" at the 2008 Philadelphia Folk Festival)

Phil Ochs singing "I Ain't Marching Anymore":

Cleanse song

2008-10-02T09:02:00.004+09:00

Korean food, even if I avoid gochuchang (red pepper paste) and keep it mild, can seriously hurt. Especially if there's a lot of beer and soju involved. Saying I live in a place where it's culturally required to drink misplaces the responsibility; it's ultimately up to me what goes in and out of my body. For a long time now, though, I've pretty much taken in everything put in front of me. I am an excessive American, and at times it catches up to me. I'll have brutal nights of stomach pain that over-the-counter medicine doesn't salve, doesn't cure.

I've long talked about getting a colonic, which I've heard great things about, and would love one if I find the right clinic. In the meantime, when I was back in the States I picked up a cleanse. As much as I laugh at West Coast New Age philosophy, there are some parts of their culture people can benefit from, namely their ideas about food and health.

For the past week I've been on the First Cleanse, an herbal program intended to detox. At the health food store in my hometown, the woman clerk told me it wouldn't be overly intense, not send me running to the bathroom, and I'd be able to work on it. So far I haven't noticed any real differences in anything. I have to piss a lot, but that's about it. If anything I'm acting healthier knowing that I'm on this, so that's a start.

Joe Six-Pack my ass

2008-10-02T00:36:00.002+09:00

This is the type of Republican deceit that I find the most maddening. It's what got W. elected and what I can't understand. Why do American voters want a quality of average in their leaders? I don't know about you guys, but I want exceptional.

Cities in rivers, Oregon Trail, end of summer, and Hymn California

2008-10-02T00:02:00.007+09:00

One of my great favorite writers is also one of my great favorite friends. He wrote a book that got published this year, and it's Henry Miller and Jack Kerouac, but today. It's stories about America from a guy that's done more living in 30-some years than three people do in their lives. Raw, vivid, lyric descriptions--sung stories about fighting through hard times in hard places.

Hymn California’s characters witness a strange wide-sweeping, panoramic America unfolding before them, while its 200 pages examine death obsessions, regional history, difficult love, and having an abusive relationship with a place (California) rather than a person. It shows displaced characters scattered across the continent, burdened by fear and homesickness while fighting to have a good time, raise hell, and live unencumbered by bourgeois ideology and “bullshit consumer culture.” Death stalks at every intersection and on every riverbank. Lives sway in the delirium of wartime. Waffle Houses, UFO cults, dead friends, serial killers, yellow-lit billboards, reluctant soldiers, suicidal teenagers, drug dealers, grandparents, Mexican cops, drunken cat-killers, and the Pope collide like trains. As its road story unravels, the characters find heavy violence, superstition, hard drugs, and surreal and wonderful mornings set across the contidental US and Mexico. Says Gnade, “a friend of mine asked me if I was trying to write ‘American magic realism’ with the book and I didn’t really have an answer for him. If it is, it was an accident.”

He lives in Portland, Oregon, and if you do too you can buy the book at Powell's Bookstore. If you don't, you can order it here.

5 podcasts

2008-10-01T22:21:00.007+09:00

1. NPR: World Story of the Day Podcast

Hard news from around the world. Short, usually 3-4 minutes.

2. The FADER

Street-level music magazine set lists. If I had a house, I would have a party every month when these come out and all my friends would think I had excellent taste in music.

3. Rocketboom

Smart, breakneck 3-minute videos on internet culture. I have a huge crush on the host, Joanne Colan, who is often funny, always attractive.

4. Slate Magazine Daily Podcasts

Insightful commentary on the world. News stories everyday are relevant and sharp. My favorite part is the Gabfest, where three whip smart journalists hash out the week's news and give recommendations for party chatter.

5. This American Life

Great stories.

6. New Yorker: Comment

Analysis about America from the best writers in America.

7. APM: Weekend America Enhanced Podcast

Stories about America that remind me why I miss it. John Moe is hilarious. Last week he told the joke: "What is brown and sticky? A stick."

Find all these by searching the titles in iTunes.

Someone great in Seoul?

2008-10-01T20:14:00.004+09:00

LCD Soundsystem is playing a disco set in Seoul on Oct. 10. Maybe. I don't trust Korean promoters, especially whenever it sounds too good to be true, as this does. I'm trying to do a story on it for the Herald for next Thursday's paper. We'll see. If it does go down, I'll be there with my disco boots and gold chain, and you should too.

Mix Tape #1

2008-10-01T19:47:00.005+09:00

If I would make you a mix CD right now, I'd make you two, and this is what I'd put on them.

Disc 1
1. "People As Places As People"-- Modest Mouse
2. "Call It A Ritual"-- Wolf Parade
3. "You Belong"-- Hercules and Love Affair
4. "Let's Make Love and Listen To Death From Above"-- CSS
6. "No Substitute Love"-- Estelle
7. "First Class Riot"-- The Tough Alliance
8. "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover"-- Paul Simon
9. "Lost Coastlines"-- Okkervil River
10. "Love Dog"-- TV On the Radio
11. "Visions of Johanna"-- Bob Dylan
12. "Skinny Love"-- Bon Iver
13. "Twilight"-- Elliott Smith
14. "Waiting Around to Die"-- Townes Van Zandt

Disc 2
1. "Four Provinces"-- The Walkmen
2. "Constructive Summer"-- The Hold Steady
3. "You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do As Your Told)-- The White Stripes
4. "Gobbledigook"-- Sigur Ros
5. "Party Barge"-- The Silver Jews
6. "I Luv the Valley OH"-- Xiu Xiu
7. "Where Summer Goes"-- Peter and the Wolf
8. "Fools"-- The Dodos
9. "Rise Above"-- The Dirty Projectors
10. "Little Brother"-- Grizzly Bear
11. "Lawyers, Guns, and Money"-- Warren Zevon
12. "Sympathy For the Devil"-- The Rolling Stones
13. "If I Had a Boat"-- Lyle Lovett
14. "Green Gloves"-- The National

Ways of Seeing

2008-10-01T18:49:00.003+09:00

For the duration of this blog, nearly two years, I have been posting longish pieces written for newspapers in Nebraska and Korea. I have since decided to take a slightly different approach. It won't always be about Korea -- in fact it probably won't be that much about Korea at all, aside from the obvious fact that I live in Seoul and that will underscore my writings. I'll still post stories I write for the Herald and elsewhere, but I'll try to keep my posts brief and more frequent. As always, comments, feedback, etc. are encouraged.

--Bart

5 Pictures of Bukhansan

2008-08-28T10:14:00.005+09:00

Marilyn Manson, Death Cab For Cutie and Korea's Michael Jackson

2008-08-14T22:03:00.007+09:00

Sometimes referred to as “the president of culture,” Seo Taiji is one of Korea’s biggest cultural icons.

The first time Marilyn Manson played in Seoul his band destroyed the venue’s sound system because their music was turned up too loud.

American rock band Death Cab for Cutie weren’t used to the kind of media attention they received when they shared the press conference with Seo Taiji.

5 Pictures of Maisan

2008-08-14T09:23:00.005+09:00

You don’t understand Korean culture

2008-08-05T18:01:00.002+09:00

"I think foreigners do have a right to speak about problems in Korea and to address sensitive issues from our own perspectives. At the most basic level we are invested in this society, even if for only a short time, and we pay taxes, function as consumers, participate in local communities, and teach local children." --Brian Deutsch

In 2007 and 2008, in a span of 12 months, seven school children from Jeollanamdo died in traffic accidents. Suncheon-based teacher Brian Deutsch found it interesting how educators mobilized their students to protest American beef imports, but said little about traffic safety. So he wrote an opinion piece for The Korea Times titled “Rallies Have Little to Do with Food Safety.”

In the piece Deutsch, who is American, wrote: “Encouraging students to skip school to attend these candlelight vigils and rallies is not only inappropriate and outside the bounds of a teacher-student relationship, but it detracts attention from more pressing issues students are facing.

“Namely, they are far more likely to be killed on field trips or while walking home from school than by contracting mad cow disease, which as of yet has claimed no Korean or Korean-American lives.”

Add that to a previous piece about the use of Nazi imagery in a skin care ad, both of which were used in a modified version for the Gwangju News magazine, and Deutsch had attracted the attention of the netizens.

Who told you to talk, foreigner?

The internet campaign was led by a Gwangju man Kim Hong-su. He started two blogs to counter Deutsch’s stories and posted Deutsch’s name, blog url, and Facebook profile on Daum cafes along with an accompanying letter. He also posted the names of Deutsch’s schools and advised people to direct their complaints there. Deutsch went to the police but was told they were too busy.

Kim wrote: “What galls me the most is that these foreigners are growing fat and rich in Korea teaching their native tongue while making fun of the same people who are paying their wages. I need your (other Koreans') help in correcting this kind of behaviors from foreigners. I would like you to e-mail the editor and those of you who are local to Suncheon should track down this Brian Deutsche (sic) and find out which school or hagwon he teaches in. You can assist me when you find that information. I seek full and unfettered cooperation in my campaign to correct this foreigner's behavior. If we cannot do that to a foreigner on our own soil, how can we hope to correct the behavior of U.S. President Bush?”

I emailed questions to Kim concerning Deutsch. He responded with, “Before you try to learn about Korea via a Korean, you should learn Korean and ask the questions in Korean first.”

The Gwangju News is operated by the Gwangju International Center. When Deutsch consulted with the staff at the GIC, they told him they didn’t like his articles, either. They didn’t like the Nazi story or the traffic safety story, and they also didn’t like the story he wrote about the drowning death of a 14-year-old American boy, Michael White.

The staffers told him the magazine was publishing stories that were too foreigner-intensive. On top of that, the publisher of the magazine told Deutsch that they might as well close down the magazine if it wasn’t going to be appreciated by foreigners.

Deutsch quit the magazine. But his troubles weren’t over.

'Generalizations are kind of fun'

Anyone can be a blogger. It takes minutes to sign-on to Blogger or Wordpress. Throw up a few pictures, spew some vitriol and start checking the site meter for hits. Living overseas it’s a good way to stay in touch with friends and family. The days of the mass email are over—check the blog for life-updates.

It’s common for teachers and other non-Koreans to start up a blog. But most of them die a slow death. It’s difficult to update often enough to keep readers; what seemed like a good idea at the time can easily turn into a bore.

Still, there a few prominent expatriate blogs in Korea that receive a lot of hits. The six we are interested in here are: The Marmot’s Hole, Scribblings of the Metropolitician, The Grand Narrative, Ask a Korean! Roboseyo and Deutsch’s – Brian in Jeollanam-do.

The Marmot’s Hole is run by Robert Koehler. It is the most heavily trafficked blog of the foreigner-in-Korea set. Koehler, with the help of a handful of guest bloggers, posts news items, analysis, entertainment and pictures of old buildings. Koehler is American, the editor-in-chief of SEOUL magazine, and has been operating the blog for five years.

“Our role is to offer commentary and criticism from a fresh, outside perspective,” Koehler said. “That being said, it’s easy to overthink these things – personally, I don’t think the ‘foreign observer’ has any special role beyond that of any observer, which is to say, relaying observations he or she has made.”

“All countries are open for criticism. The question that really needs to be asked is whether anyone should take what we write seriously. For the most part, the answer to that would be no.

“Most of us are guys with too much time on our hands who like to bitch about things we don’t really understand. Which, granted, would make our uneducated rants little different from much of what passes for commentary on Korea, Western or Korean.

“I have a warning on my blog asking readers not to generalize from anything they read on my site, but still, many seem to do it anyway. Besides, generalizations are kind of fun -- nationalistically hysterical Koreans, pot-smoking over-sexed English teachers, condescending expats … who doesn’t love ‘em? It’s all a question of how seriously you take what you read.”

Do you see what I see?

Scribblings of the Metropolitician comes from Michael Hurt. The blog is a mishmash of social criticism, international politics, pop culture and comments on Korean media. Hurt first came to Korea from America as a Fulbright English teaching assistant in 1994. After earning his master’s in ethnic studies from the University of California-Berkeley, he came back in 2002 to finish his dissertation research on Korean nationalism. Now in his eighth year in Korea, he edits the Korea Journal and teaches social issues in Korea at Honguk University.

Both Koehler and Hurt brought up Alexis de Tocqueville. De Tocqueville was a 19th century Frenchman who wrote “Democracy in America,” considered by both men to be a great book about America.

“The fact that we’re foreigners shouldn’t disqualify us. I look at American social commentary and social criticism and some of our sharpest and best social critics have been foreigners, people coming from a foreign perspective,” Hurt said.

“We have eyes, we have ears. We can read your newspapers. We read what you read. We have access to your information.

“I pay taxes, I buy (things) I live here, so why do I have any less say than you do?

“Why would I put all this effort, why would I even care, or put myself out there, why would I do this if I didn’t actually give a shit?”

We’re not that different

New Zealander James Turnbull runs The Grand Narrative. He calls it “An irreverent look at social issues.” Much of his work deals with Korean advertising and media as well as social commentary. In his eighth year in Korea, Turnbull teaches English in Busan.

“I find the notion that only Koreans are ‘permitted’ to speak about Korean problems simply absurd. That isn’t to say that all foreigners’ opinions on them are equally valid, but if the roles were reversed then I’d be quite happy to hear the opinions of, say, a Korean person who had spent some time in New Zealand and who made an active effort to study and know New Zealand society and learn the language. In fact, probably more so than someone who was merely born there.

“The majority of netizens aside, I’ve actually found a significant number of Koreans to feel much the same way about the opinions of non-Koreans.

“Koreans are not unique in readily dismissing the opinions of foreigners, but they do seem more defensive about foreign criticism than most. For that reason, it is very important to use Korean sources as much as possible.

“Another advantage to using and considering Korean-language sources as much as possible is that it makes you realize how much you may stereotype and generalize Koreans yourself without being aware of it.

“Without any Korean ability, foreigners are usually forced to rely on either the limited English language media or books for the bulk of their information, and both have problems: the former for often presenting a rose-tinted version of Korea to the world, and the latter for being quickly out of date in a country as rapidly changing as Korea.”

Koehler also emphasized using the native tongue.

"Do it in Korean, and in a major Korean newspaper," Koehler said.

Writing complaints in English may be "cathartic," he said, but it does no good.

Why do foreigners complain so much?

Another pair of bloggers, a Korean man living in America (Ask a Korean!) and a Canadian teacher in Seoul (Roboseyo) put together a two-part series dealing with foreigner criticism and social commentary.

Ask a Korean! wrote, “many complaints from expats that the Korean has seen show a certain level of ignorance. This is not to say that complaining expats are dumb. It is only to say that were they more aware of certain things about themselves and about Korea, they would not be complaining as much, and the pitch of their complaints would not be as strident.

“Expats rarely venture out of large cities in Korea, and they only really interact with Koreans who are fluent in English. Do you know what makes a Korean fluent in English? Money, tons and tons of it. So not only are expats insulated from older Koreans, they are also insulated from younger Koreans who are poorer. What kind of understanding about Korea could an expat possibly have with this kind of limited exposure?”

About social critics, Roboseyo wrote, “Naming a problem is the first step to solving it, and maybe some of these critics are attempting to be a legitimate part of that process -- that is, they're writing because they want to see Korea become a better place . . . in which case, Koreans who are upset about non-Koreans criticizing Korea need to stop and take a careful look at why that upsets them, because the problem does not lie in the complainers or their intentions.

“To be fair, sometimes the social critics' intentions are good, but their methods are poor: the sometimes bitter and mean tone of certain critics can be hurtful, and as I've said to some of my friends who complain about Korea with a rude or condescending tone: "when you talk so harshly, even when you're right, you're wrong, and even if you win the argument, you still lose."

You don’t understand Korean culture

Deutsch plans to continue writing for the Korea Times and updating his blog.

“I like doing it and I like staying on top of current events and discussions. On the one hand I totally recognize that I’m being paid to teach, not to think, and I say that without being cynical at all. Most people couldn’t care less about the particular issues foreigners face, whether in the classroom or in society at large, and hearing a foreigner talk about them probably isn’t very interesting.

“I’ve also had to question how welcome those opinions are. My colleagues themselves told me that it was not my place to opine on what are called ‘sensitive issues,’ and a recent letter to the editor in the Gwangju News suggested that I, and foreigners, mind their own business and not worry about Korean internal affairs.

“But I think foreigners do have a right to speak about problems in Korea and to address sensitive issues from our own perspectives. At the most basic level we are invested in this society, even if for only a short time, and we pay taxes, function as consumers, participate in local communities, and teach local children.

“Moreover these issues are so prickly because they’re not black and white. While it might be unpleasant for some Koreans to hear the other side of the story, I don’t think it’s inappropriate for it to be raised.

“Our opinions are often dismissed with a line about ‘you don’t understand Korean culture.’ Often this comes when something unpleasant happens to a foreigner, or when a foreigner expresses an opinion disagreeable to the Korean listener. It’s well beyond my abilities to explain why this happens, but it’s patronizing and inappropriate. I do believe that although foreigners can sometimes dwell on the negative when writing or talking about Korea, I think taking a critical look shows an interest in the host culture that can be healthy if applied properly.

“I realize that a greater measure of tact is necessary when addressing sensitive issues and when trying to foster conversations across cultural boundaries, but even with a lot of coddling I remain cynical that people are ready to hear what we have to say just yet.

“I would love to have Koreans who disagree with me take the time to point out their objections, rather than simply railing against a foreigner who dares to publish something against the grain. And I would love to have Koreans spend more time trying to educate us about their culture and their views, then, since so much energy is spent telling us how wrong and misinformed our opinions are.”

Deutsch was asked by his school to drop the case against Kim. His job was also placed in jeopardy because of what he has written.

Stomp your glasses, get eye surgery

2008-07-30T15:04:00.008+09:00

My eyes went bad early. For most people, it’s the changing shape of our eyes that makes our vision worsen as we age, and mine started changing in elementary school. The correction was slight enough that I could do most things without wearing my glasses. But the older I got the more I had to wear them.

When the doctor prescribed contacts at age 14 I thought I was saved. Glasses at night only. No more straps around my neck on the basketball court. No more four-eyes comments on the playground.

I loved my contacts. I loved them too much. By the time I came to Korea the contacts had sucked out all the moisture in my eyes. Add that to the air quality, particularly during Yellow Dust season, and I abandoned them completely.

So I was back to full-time spectacles. My optometrist brother hooked me up with good, fashionable frames for cheap. They looked good enough, fit right, and I hated them. Wearing glasses distanced me from my environment. They made me feel less engaged somehow, less part of my surroundings -- more of an observer than a participant.

Eye surgery is not a revolutionary idea, I realize. But, for me, a person who has always had a strong aversion to doctors and operations, it meant something that I would willingly pay to have a doctor slice my eyes with lasers.

I have a great Korean friend who is also a doctor. For the initial tests, he took me to a clinic recommended by mutual friends. During the evaluation, the technician put in anesthetic eye drops and pressed against my cornea with a handheld tool. I asked him if he was touching my eye. Then the room got hot. The problem came from what I couldn’t feel; I knew he was touching the surface of my eye but I registered no sensation. My blood pressure dropped. I went pale. Droplets of sweat formed on my brow. I put my head in my hands, focused on my breathing, and fought off a feint.

Glasses, I told myself. It’s either this or endless glasses.

I took a few more breaths, sat up, and told him to finish.

After the tests the doctor told me I had thin corneas and would need Lasek, not the more common Lasik, surgery. Clinics here offer Lasik, but Lasek is also used. Lasek is a variation of Lasik. In Lasek the outer layer of the cornea is cut with a finer blade. Then the surgeon covers the eye with an alcohol solution for around 30 seconds. The solution loosens the edges of the epithelium. After sponging the alcohol solution from the eye, the surgeon uses a tiny hoe to lift the edge of the epithelial flap and gently fold it back out of the way. Then out comes the laser to sculpt the corneal tissue underneath. Afterward, the epithelial flap is placed back on the eye with a kind of spatula.

I made an appointment for a month later. Then I went home and thought it over. I loathe going to doctors, but if I could see without any aid! It would cost 2 million won ($1,900), which was a good amount of money. But considering that I spent hundreds of dollars each year on eye care -- glasses, contacts and contact solution -- the surgery would pay for itself in less than 10 years.

The morning of the surgery I asked myself if I couldn’t handle the simple preliminary tests, how could I make it through the procedure?

Glasses, I told myself. And Xanax. I made sure my friend brought plenty of Xanax.

I went into the clinic and they had me go upstairs. Most of this was in Korean, which I don’t speak, and only the essential parts were translated to me. There was a lot of sitting around confused. Then somehow I found myself staring down a phlebotomist. I do worse with blood than technicians prodding my eyes (feinted at the blood bank in 7^th grade, went pale multiple times in high school biology.) After the translation the Vampire said he needed my blood to make serum for eye drops. It would help my eyes heal faster, he said.

He took out a strap, wrapped it around my arm, and drew out seven vials of blood. At about the sixth vial my blood pressure dropped again.

Glasses. Do you want to wear glasses? Do you?

Now the only thing left was the lasers. Before the surgery my brother had told me Lasek was a good option for my prescription. But he also said it wasn’t a common procedure in America. Patients find it too painful.

I was trying not to think about that when I lay down on the operating table. They kept the room cold. The doctor had a good, calm manner about him. He and his nurses administered anesthetic eye drops, a device to keep my eyes from blinking, and began the procedure. I looked up, down, and at the green light as per the doctor’s orders. In 20 minutes it was over.

I stood up and walked out of the room, smiling with relief, my eyes barely open but I could still see.

We stopped at the pharmacy and then my friend drove me to his house. The protective contacts made my eyes uncomfortable but I had eye drops for that. In fact, I had five bottles of drops, one made from my own blood. They gave me no additional pain medicine.

When I got to my friend’s home I took a pill and fell asleep. I incorrectly thought I’d wake up healing; hours later I sat up moaning, in severe pain. Nothing I had ever put in my eyes, not soap, not sand, not the wrong contact solution -- nothing had ever caused me more optic pain. I sat up and took two Tylenol ERs and put in the anesthetic eye drops. That didn’t dent it. I woke up my friend and like a good doctor he snapped into action, shooting me with a syringe full of painkillers. That did it.

That moment was the worst of it. I was back at work in five days and in a week I had nearly perfect vision. Two weeks later friends tell me my eyes look brighter. They do. And I already forgot where I banished my glasses.

Five pictures of Udo

2008-07-26T11:08:00.006+09:00

Wolmido and Night Shots from Namsan Tower

2008-07-22T14:55:00.007+09:00

Gates and Alleys (Jeonju)

2008-07-19T08:53:00.007+09:00

Beat the Heat with Dog Meat, or Dogs are Not Delicious

2008-07-18T20:55:00.018+09:00

When it’s hot outside nothing cools you down like a bowl of dog stew. On one of the hottest days of the year I checked my phone. I had a text message:

HAVING DOG SOUP IN HONGDAE IF U KEEN

ARE YOU KIDDING?

NOPE…YOU KNOW…WHEN IN KOREA…

For years locals have enjoyed summertime Bosintang. Bosintang literally translates to “invigorating soup” -- one of many foods known as Good For Man. According to Koreans, what’s good for man is dog meat boiled with soy paste, green onion, leek, stalk of taro and red pepper.

The soup is traditionally eaten on the hottest days of the year. As with the chicken soup samgyetang, Koreans believe eating the hot food when the outside temperature rises makes the heat less noticeable.

With the heat index over 40, I met eight friends -- two Korean, six from places where people eat questionable meat but not dog -- at exit #2 of Hongdae Station. Our group was quiet as we walked up the street. We walked slow, barely talking, looking at our feet. A few people made bad dog puns. We were travelers, adventurers -- of those who often said “I’ll try anything once.” Now we were forced to prove it and it felt grim, like being caged.

On the sign out front a smiling woman held a large, white cartoon bone. Typically you would see a cartoon drawing of the animal you’re about to eat. I half expected to see a fattened Goofy. But since the negative international attention Korea got for dog cuisine during the 1988 Seoul Olympics they have hidden their love of dog. Korea banned dog meat during the Games by invoking a law prohibiting the sale of "foods deemed unsightly." After the Olympics, the ban was not strictly enforced.

As we came to the doors of the restaurant somebody said, “Looks a bit dodgy.”

We walked in. The restaurant was empty with the faint smell of wet pooch. We took a table in the back and sat cross-legged on mats. The Korean man with us ordered dog for eight. (One of the group chickened-out, literally, and ordered samgyetang.)

We waited for the food by sharing stories of the strangest food we had eaten. It was like we were at the zoo -- people talking about kangaroos, crocodiles, testicles, buffalos, cats, etc.

“We’re going to get some soju before this, right?” I asked.

Despite the palpable dread, it was late in the evening and I was hungry. The first batch of meat came on plates in chunks wrapped loosely in steamed kale and seasoned with red pepper. We ordered beer and soju and I made sure I had a shot before we started.

I used my chopsticks to pick up a piece of meat. It was dark, thick and about three inches long.

“My mom used to run a dog restaurant,” the Korean man said. “I eat this many times.”

Nutritionally, 100 grams of dog meat has 20 grams of fat and 19 grams of protein. The meat is high in iron, phosphorous, niacin and riboflavin.

I put the piece in my mouth and chewed. It was tough and tasted slightly of lamb. I thought about spitting it out, but like a good traveler I swallowed it. Then I understood how a Third World country would find eating dogs economical -- after I ate a single piece I was no longer hungry.

For the second course, the woman brought out bowls of red, steaming Bosintang. The broth of the soup tasted like other Korean meat stews. But I stayed away from the meat. I ate my rice and that was enough.

The meal cost 14,000 won ($13) and I walked out feeling little cooler than when I walked in. Now, when I see dogs on the street I don’t think “you’re cute” or “you look ferocious” -- instead, I think “you’re not delicious.”

Shine Your Candles on North Korea

2008-07-06T18:21:00.006+09:00

Anti-demonstration protesters. The woman's sign reads "Shine
Your Candles on North Korea", the man's says "No no demo."

South Koreans continue to turn out in the thousands to protest imports of American beef while 40 kilometers to the north, North Koreans struggle to eat.

On Saturday, about 300 protesters opposed to the on-going anti-Lee Myung Bak candlelight demonstrations rallied at the headwaters of the Cheonggye Stream. At City Hall, about 50,000 people protested U.S. beef imports, in the second-largest demonstration over the past two months.

Eun Joo-Kim, a North Korean who defected to Seoul in 2002, was visibly upset when she spoke about the groups protesting American beef.

“North Koreans don’t have food, and here in South Korea they’re saying ‘which beef is better,’” Kim said.

Riot police divided the counter-protest group from the anti-President Lee Myung Bak protesters. At one point the two groups faced each other, both sides holding up signs. The anti-Lee protesters’ signs read “Lee Myung Back Out” while the counter-protesters’ read “Shine Your Candles On North Korea.” They yelled back and forth but no physical conflict arose.

A week ago, 37,000 tons of wheat arrived in North Korea, the first of 500,000 tons of food aid promised by the United States, according to the World Food Program.

At a stage set up the Cheonggye Stream, a North Korean defector spoke to the crowd about a man he met in prison who cannibalized a woman for lack of food. Next to the stage a big-screen television showed videos of recent protest violence.

The anti-Lee protests have grown increasingly more violent. Videos and photographs of assaults on protesters and police have circulated on the internet.

John Yim, a Korean who recently returned from living in California for six years, said he ate a lot of “galbi,” or barbecued ribs, in America and he misses American beef. He spoke against the economic effect of the protests and violence against the police.

Nick Chiassoa, an American English teacher in Gangwan Province, expressed sympathy for the riot police and disdain for the economic ramifications of the protests.

“(The anti-Lee groups) have a right to protest, but they don’t have a right to cripple the city’s infrastructure,” he said.

Separately, an international non-profit organization operating out of Washington, D.C. marched for human rights in North Korea. The group of about 30 South Koreans, North Koreans, Korean Americans and expatriates, all clad in black, held a mock funeral to “ask the South Korean people to help raise awareness for the sufferings of the North Korean people.”

Adrian Hong, director of the organization, said South Korea’s concerns about beef are valid but that he would rather see them putting their energy into the human rights situation in North Korea.