Believe it or not, I miss Burger King

In my old life, as a frequent fast food patron, Burger King was pretty far down on my list of places to get my greasy fix. But here in the Korea my options are pretty much limited to McDonald's, McDonald's, or McDonald's, which can really get old pretty quickly, and so the following video not only made me laugh but made me start craving a Whopper...


Human Head Found In Hamburger

Starship Kimchi

I wish I could claim credit for that wonderful headline, but the author of this article has to be given his due.

The article is basically about S Korea's first astronaut, and all of the trouble Korean food-scientists have gone to in order to ensure that he has his kimchi whilst in orbit.

It's worth a read for its lighthearted look at something Koreans take very seriously, and for nuggets of insight like this:

"It is hard to overstate kimchi’s importance to South Koreans, not just as a mainstay of their diet, but as a cultural touchstone. As with other peoples attached to their own national foods — Italians with their pasta, for example — South Koreans define themselves somewhat by the dish, which is most commonly made with cabbage and other vegetables and a variety of seasonings, including red chili peppers.

Many South Koreans say their fast-paced lives, which helped build their country’s economy into one of the biggest in the world in a matter of decades, owe much to the invigorating qualities of kimchi. Some take a kind of macho pleasure watching novices’ eyes water when the red chili makes contact with their throats the first time. And when Korean photographers try to organize the people they wish to take pictures of, they yell, “Kimchiiii.”

Good Lord

I liked this, two of my favorite people...Patrick Stewart and Ricky Gervais.

Another crazy dog story from "the Korea"...

No, not one of my own making. A 52 year old man in Jongno, Seoul (that's one of the good parts of town, btw) stole his landlady's dog, killed it, and was trying to eat it when the fire department showed up (because he'd created a small fire in preparing to roast the chihuahua).

And to clarify, whenever I write "the Korea" it's not because having repeatedly dumbed down my vocabulary and also having succumbed to the persistent grammatical errors Korean English speakers make that I have lapsed into some sort of strange anti-grammar dialect, rather it's because "the Korea" is one of the repeated mistakes I hear Koreans make that seems funny/charming to me.

Another would be adding pronunciation to the final letter in words like orange/strange/change, so that it's pronounced "orang-ee/strang-ee/chang-ee." I also enjoy how easily Koreans confuse "fun" and "funny," so that often they'll say something like "I went on the roller-coaster, it was very funny."

Anyway, digression ended.

One more picture...

This one just got uploaded to facebook...me chomping on a chicken's foot in our hostel on New Year's Eve...

Pictures of You

Actually, pictures of me, but I just really like that Cure song. And besides I'm you to you, it's only for me that I'm me, not you.

Anyway, from the last few months, including my recent China & Thailand trips:

My Christmas pileup (half of it, anyway)-

My classroom, the "English Only Zone"-


The front of my school, on a typically frosty day-

A giant golden bell that some sky god dropped to the earth, that's my guess anyway-

Buddhist younglings-


Can you imagine having to stand like that for eternity? Ouch-


Some palace in Bangkok-


My own private beach (mas o menos) in Koh Samet-


Looking the other way-


My bungalow was the blue-roofed structure obscured by the coconut trees, the hammock, and the other elements of paradise in the foreground-


The Beijing gang, from left to right- Joey, Julie, Dave, our hero, Feizal-


Me and Joey in Tiannamen Square-

Also in Tiannamen-


In front of the entrance to the Forbidden City-

Our biggest feast of the trip, Peking duck was a part of it but in the foreground you can see a dark brown hunk of meat on the plate there. That was donkey. And it was good-

Korean/Dogs News

Koreans are making international news lately because of something they want to do to dogs, and not, it's not eating them. It's cloning them. For about $125,000 you can bring long-dead Fluffy back to life and right the wrong done by the slow braking bus driver.

I don't have any moral issues with cloning but like every other Matrix-reared child of the late 90s I've been conditioned to be wary of technological progress and can't help but wonder if this is the first step down a road that leads to something like the zombie dogs from Resident Evil.

If these Cerebus wannabes do show up I guess the Koreans can eat them. Problem solved.

Counting Cash

Did you know that people around the world count their money in different ways? Well, I did, because I'm a seasoned world traveler and all [/dubious self-promotion], but I didn't know about all of the varied ways, especially in Asia. And I can confirm that the Japan/Korea portion of this video is 100% accurate, except they do it much, much faster than he does. Watch:


How People Count Cash? - Watch the top videos of the week here

Another School Shooting

Well, it's happened again. Some lunatic with access to firearms killed 5 innocent people and himself in Illinois recently. Here's part of the reason why:



Vote Democrat

Today in Konglish

These are the climes that try men's souls

It's cold. Really really cold. Mind-numbingly nuclear-winterish perfect-for-dog-sledding cold. The kind of cold that makes you want to wrap up in a dozen or so blankets and, bear-like, not reappear until sometime mid-May. I am just not used to this.

So these drastic climes in which I live have forced me to take drastic measures. Having gone in search of long johns, I found only the black tight-like undergarments you see pictured to the right.

The "long johns" in question could be best described as form-fitting, and as such are pictured without the wearer. Since my own form, when witnessed in its natural state, looks something like an oversized pear that's been left out in the sun, I decided to spare the author that particular ignominy and the viewer the loss of his or her most recent meal.

But dammit, they keep me warm.

So I Just Made My First Political Contribution

And it was to the campaign of this man.

Please, if you're an American and you're politically aligned at all with the left, then please contribute to his campaign. He has a real chance of beating the dark lady and winning the general election. And that would mean a lot for the country of my birth.

Do excuse me if it sounds like I'm a little late to the party, or as if I'm jumping on the bandwagon, but I've been an Edwards supporter from day 1 and would be still were he still running.

But that day is done. Obama is winning, and more importantly, he can win. Support him.

And is there a better line than the one he delivered in the speech below? It gave me honest to gawd chills when I first heard it. "Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or some other time. We are the ones we have been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."



Jon Stewart had a great quip after he viewed the following clip. "Jesus, did I just get inspired by Ted Kennedy?!" Well, I did too. Watch it if you'd like.

Today in Konglish

It's not just for New York anymore...

I love my hometown, and I love to see it move up in the world. All of the growth that has happened there, the endless stream of national magazines' lists putting it at or near the top of a 'Best Places to Live,' and mini-triumphs like the Hurricanes' winning the cup...they all make me feel a little warm and fuzzy inside.

So here's the latest accolade for the burgeoning metropolis I once called home. Like the mega-cities to the north and east Raleigh now too has its own paranoid terrorist scare.

Sweet.

Namdaemun Burns

There apparently was a big-azz fire at Namdaemun last night, you can read about it here.

I've been through Namdaemun many times, it was an impressive structure right in the heart of Seoul. It's a couple of blocks over from Seoul station and it bestrides a major market which bears its name (my reason for being so near, honestly big-azz gates, historical or not, don't do much for me). Nevertheless it's a shame to see it go up like this.

The Year of the Rat

I was lucky enough to spend Chinese New Year in Beijing this year and because I couldn't be bothered to take my camera out of my pack a single time I have only this google-lifted picture to share with you of the experience (that is, until my friends upload their hundreds of pictures onto facebook) so I'm left with only the imprecise descriptive tool that is the written word to try and recreate what it was like.

Imagine, if you will, a city of millions. Imagine that each one of those millions has in his or her hand a dozen or so fireworks of different color, size, volume, and explosive shape. Imagine that on midnight of the New Year those millions of people rush into the city street nearest their home and begin doing what comes natural with fireworks. Imagine they've all been drinking, and as such aren't as concerned about safety as a professional fireworks-teer would be. If you can conceive of that then you have some idea of what I experienced in the wee hours of the first day of the Year of the Rat.

Now, bear in mind, I'm not talking about sparklers or some other sort of kiddie shi'ite. This was the real deal, and although it was easier to find a needle in a haystack than it was for a pasty foreigner to purchase fireworks in advance of the festivities, somehow all the native hosts of Beijing had in their possession at the midnight hour scores of colorful explosives. It's almost as if they'd been saving them all for themselves, or storing them up all year. Hell, they probably were.

Not that once things started rolling they weren't willing to share. I saw plenty of whities set off plenty of finger-tippers. I just didn't join in.

Now if this sounds at all like a complaint, or if it sounds like I didn't enjoy it completely, I don't intend it to. It was fantastic. It was beyond words. It was one of the most incredible spectacles I have ever witnessed. I loved every second of it.

There were other good parts in my trip. Donkey meat is surprisingly tasty. The Chinese people I had the good fortune of meeting, talking with, and sharing adult beverages with were all incredibly kind, funny, and most importantly: interesting. Peking duck is just as good the second time around. But nothing can compare to that citywide fireworks show. Chinese New Year is really something someone should experience in China once in their life if they can.

Oddities

So I saw this picture online today and felt obliged to share it. The romanized Korean mean "It is a foreigner!" which is something I hear often when doing odd things like shopping for groceries, buying a pizza, or walking down the street. Or, at least, things that appear odd to Koreans. Or odd for a foreigner to do.

Actually I shouldn't be so crass, I live in a big city and more or less blend in, it's rare that I hear something like this these days, and when I do it's almost invariably from some doe eyed Korean kid. It's still annoying though.

I recently took holiday* in Thailand, a country that's crawling with waegookins of all stripes and which is at least superficially accommodating of them, and upon returning to my arctic home in the frozen north it was hard not to notice the stares and mutterings of the locals. So perhaps I'm a little oversensitive right now. But hey, it's a funny picture.

At one point during my Thailand sojourn I was playing pool with a talented bar maid (she beat me in like 5 games straight, despite obviously trying to throw the last two my way) and the song featured in the video below came on. I think it's oddly appropriate not only in matching the picture above but in encapsulating my Thailand experience, and it's also really good, and so I humbly submit that the oddly patient blog reader who has made it this far may want to listen to it.

David Bowie's Space Oddity:




*I was recently complimented (at least I think it was a compliment) by a fellow American expatriate on how well I've adjusted my word choice to accommodate the Canadians, Brits, Aussies and others formerly under the aegis of the queen. For example I no longer say "I'm going on vacation" but rather what I wrote above. I've also been known to use "football" in lieu of "soccer." The Times, They Are a'Changin.

Newsflash: People Other Than Americans Are Stupid, Too

I love stories like this one, which details how 1/4 of the British public thinks Winston Churchill never existed and 60% of Brits think Sherlock Holmes did. I get so tired of reading news reports in the foreign and domestic press and watching TV shows ridiculing Americans for their stupids responses to basic questions about history and literature and other areas of general knowledge. It seems like every week there's some story out about how "72% of Americans think Jesus rode a dinosaur to have lunch with King Arthur" or something like that.

Don't get me wrong, Americans are stupid. It's just that they're not exceptionally stupid. Everyone is stupid. Especially when you surprise them on the street, shove a microphone in their face and give them 10 seconds to answer a question like "who were Reagan's Supreme Court nominees?"

Anyway, it's nice to see that Great Britain, a country regarded by my own countrymen as a nation of intellectuals, is just as full of dummies as the rest of the world. Bravo.

Today in Konglish