Loosely Tied Knots

Why I Am An Atheist

2010-07-01T19:54:00.002+08:00

Subtitled: Why Ron Rosenbaum Really Gets Under My Skin

I just finished reading through this gloriously misguided article over on Slate advocating for a "New(er) Agnosticism" to supplant the rise of us "New Atheists." "Us," seems a little presumptive, doesn't it, I mean, Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris...Thompson? Er, not quite. But for whatever it's worth I throw in with those gentlemen.

This isn't really a new argument, theists have been using it for years. It goes something like this: "Well, you atheists are just the same as us. You have faith in something springing out of nothing. You just have a different kind of faith! Blah blah blah..."

Rosenbaum puts it thusly:

"Faith-based atheism? Yes, alas. Atheists display a credulous and childlike faith, worship a certainty as yet unsupported by evidence—the certainty that they can or will be able to explain how and why the universe came into existence."

I hate to be one of those guys, but I need to step in right away and criticize Mr. Rosenbaum for his word choice. "Worship?" "Worship a certainty?" You lost me right here, Ron, in paragraph three of your missive.

This alone seems to demonstrate that you misunderstand atheism. Atheists worship nothing. It may be true that atheists have the hope, or even the expectation, that eventually the greater mysteries of the universe will be solved, but it is not true to say that atheists have a "childlike faith" in its inevitability. Atheists rely on science, art, literature, philosophy...essentially all of those things which stem from education; these are relied upon in the search for truth. But they aren't "worshiped."

It is true to say that in our heart of hearts, most atheists believe their probably is no God. In fact, that's near to how Richard Dawkins phrased it in his book, as I recall. "Why there almost certainly is no God," something like that. But that isn't faith. That's a reasonable judgment based on an examination of the evidence at hand. Nevertheless, and Professor Dawkins would be the first to say this, were credible evidence presented manana that God's really up there in the clouds, we'd be happy to examine it and internalize it and then use it to reevaluate where we stand.

Atheism, the word itself, is a symbol of the depths to which religious dogma reduces us. I do not require a word to identify myself as NOT believing in fairies, or in the magic of Peter Pan, or of witches. But because of the pervasive influence of religion it is necessary to have a term describing someone who lacks faith in something s/he has never seen, heard, or experienced: God.

But just because this term exists, and even though it seems to suggest a sort of dialectic with theism, they are not opposites sharing a foundation; theism relies on faith, atheism does not. It's just common sense. It's just the natural conclusion an educated, reasonable, unrestrained person should make. In much the same way that I don't believe in Bigfoot, or the Loch Ness Monster. It just seems reasonable to me to not believe in those things.

Rosenbaum apparently sees things differently. He would counter: "Ah! But you're placing faith in your disbelief of the Sasquatch. How can you say with 100% certainty that it doesn't exist? You're just as absurd as those who believe sans evidence."

Well, Ron, no...I'm not. I'm just being reasonable.

"Well, there's a world of difference between Bigfoot and God. Atheism makes claims against knowledge of creation, of existence itself."

If you're nodding your head now, shame on you.

No, it doesn't. I don't claim to know how/why/by what means the universe was created. I have neither the intelligence nor the education to understand why, and to the best of my knowledge men and women much smarter than I who've studied this all their lives are pretty much in the same boat.

Nor have I ever seen, experienced, witnessed, caught scent of, heard legitimate rumor of...God. So I don't believe. That is why I'm an atheist.

Hitch 22

2010-06-29T15:32:00.002+08:00

There was a time, oh, say pre-9/11, pre-youtube, when being a Christopher Hitchens fan was akin to being part of a noble minority, like a member of the House of Lords or a Mensa member. No more. He's as (un-)popular and (in-)famous as ever these days, and the publication of his memoirs was met with much excitement and praise.

It's always been one of my more persistent personality flaws that I am incapable of enjoying something or, in this case, someone, as much as I normally would if he/she/it is popular in the mainstream. I'm sure stuffwhitepeoplelike.com has covered this at some point, and it's absolutely true. I want to feel hip. I want to know what's cool before others do. I want to appreciate it on a deeper level than others (see: The Onion's article on appreciating the Muppets), and I want to do so before anyone else gets wind of it, but what's most important is that I want to be appreciated for appreciating it. I want my foresight and good taste (do we have a word that combines the two? I'm sure the Germans do) to be admired/envied.

So even though it may seem I'm jumping on the bandwagon, let me assure you, dear reader, I was there from the start, perched on the back enjoying every bump and dip in the road from the get go.

Hitch 22 is a fantastic read. If you have an open mind, if you enjoy good writing, if you're interested in art, literature, politics, and culture, and let's add to that travel as well, if you enjoy a good debate and can consider arguments from both sides, and if you are at your core an optimist about this world and its civilization(s) (after reading this one cannot doubt Hitchens is an optimist) then this is the book for you. If not, well, then, fuck off.

Messages From God

2010-06-25T11:50:00.002+08:00

It's test week, which is wonderful because I basically go in for a couple of hours, help proctor once or twice, and am out the door by 11. Today was no different.

What was different about today was that god spoke to me. I know, he speaks all the time, in the whisper of the winds, the laughter of a child, blah blah blah. But this was more of a burning bush kind of experience.

Well, if by "bush" I mean "Korean lady manicurist" and if by "burning" I mean "painting someone's fingernails" then that statement holds water.

So, no, god didn't really speak to me. One imagines it would be difficult for him to speak, as things/objects/deities which speak usually also exist. That is a necessary a priori condition. Forgive me, I've been reading Will Durant's proto-"Philosophy for Dummies" which is available at every Korean bookstore with an English section up and down this entire peninsula, and to which I finally gave in not long ago and decided to pick up. Besides, I'm sure I misused my Latin there, but you get the picture.

Anyway, back to the story. First, let me just say that this sort of thing happens to me all the time, and it never ceases to freak me the fuck out. Basically what I'm talking about is when two completely unconnected events in your life suddenly match up at the same instant. If there's a word for it I don't know, but it'd lie somewhere between deja vu and kismet, I'd say.

I was in the Shinsegae Department Store downtown, post-lunch, with the aim of browsing through some ridiculously overpriced polo shirts. I was on the escalator heading up to the 6th floor. I had my iPod on, and I was listening to an Adam Corolla podcast. All was well.

I came off of one escalator and turned the corner to the next. My eyes fell on a little niche between the escalators where a Korean manicurist was chatting up her customer whilst adorning her nails with some sort of garish paste. Simultaneous to this, and I do mean simultaneous, dear reader, what does Adam say? "And another thing, howabout Asian nail ladies, and their blah blah blah..."

I can hear you now. "That's it?" But this sort of shit happens to me all the time. I'll be listening to David Bowie sing and he says "and I looked at my watch and it said 9:25 and I think oh god I'm still alive," and I look at my own, and sure enough, the man in white got it right. I'll be reading up on something one evening, and the next day at school one of my co-teachers will ask me about that exact arcane subject. These bizarre coincidences seem to happen to me all the time.

Now, yes I've read White Noise (twice actually) and I realize it's much more likely that I've been infected by some poisonous gas, that I have a brain tumor, or that I'm just plain crazy than it is that god's speaking to me, or I'm caught in some sort of bizarre Star Trek-like phenomenon. And when I say, "this happens all the time," I mean in actuality that it happens a few times a year. But to say it's memorable would be an understatement.

But it does make you wonder...

Doris Lessing - Time Thief

2010-05-29T14:04:00.002+08:00

It took what seemed like centuries, but I finally got to the final page of The Golden Notebook today. I picked it up in an ambitious mood a couple of weeks ago, read it steadily for a few days, and then was taunted by its weight in my bag daily as I struggled to push through the mire of the last couple hundred pages.

If that sentence sounds terribly forced, or if you're alarmed by my very British-like use of "terribly" there, forgive me; I've been reading a "serious" novel.

I do this to myself every now and then. I challenge myself to finish some massive tome rubber stamped by the academy as "important" because, well, I think I ought to. The Brothers Karamazov nearly killed me a few years ago, for example. And yet I'm glad I read it, and I suppose I could say the same of this novel.

It wasn't all bad. The technique was brilliant. There's a moment late in the novel when a character says to Anna, our heroine, something along the lines of "every now and then I come across a story that accomplishes something and I think, 'great, I don't have to write this, because you did.'" I suppose by that he meant it has a new idea, or a new form. The conceit of this novel is, well, novel: four notebooks in which separate facets of Anna's life are recorded (her youth in Africa, her politics/involvement with the Communist party, her creative side, and her day to day diary) which are eventually synthesized in the titular "golden" notebook. It's one of those things you come across and think, "hey, wish I'd thought of that."

The early portions of the story, especially the events in Africa and the drawing room parody of Anna and Molly, two "free" women who've given up on marriage, were interesting. Even the thousands of words devoted to Anna's daily affairs, which felt somewhat like reading the blogs of today, were at times compelling.

But why will people turn to this novel in years to come? Perhaps to educate. We read Austen and Dickens and others because they tell us about the times in which they lived. Certainly we learn something about post-war proto-feminism in this novel. I think the novel failed for me, in part, because I didn't really learn, or need to learn, anything about that period. It's not far enough removed yet. And its flaunting of conventions and frank discussion about sex, which may or may not have been scandalous when it was published, no longer seemed like that big of a deal. Historically, it's not old enough to be relevant yet, and ironically it was too forward thinking, or too modern, in its conventions to seem out of place now.

Well, anyway, it's back to pop lit for me. I've got another Le Carre lined up and I'm anxious to get to it. Le Carre and writers like him are the best of the literati, in my opinion, and they leave the navel gazing of the Doris Lessings of the world behind them trailing in the dust. But that's another day and another blog.

Our Korean Word For Today: 쓰다 (sseu-da)

2010-05-20T16:07:00.002+08:00

Yes ladies and gentlemen, I am so fucking bored I actually studied Korean for a little bit today. In so doing, I came across this verb (쓰다 / sseu-da) which has what I consider to be a hilarious series of extra meanings a talented sitcom writer could use in an episode full of comic misunderstandings.

It means, primarily, "to write," which is how I encountered it. I realized that I kinda already knew that, because I'd heard some of my co-teachers use "써세요" ("please write" - I'm sure I misspelled that, but let's persevere) before, and may have even aped them once or twice myself.

But it also can mean, in order: "to use / employ," "to be bitter," and "to put on a hat."

I wonder how this sentence would sound in Korean: "He wrote that she'd bitterly put on her hat"??

More Evidence of Acclimation

2010-04-07T19:32:00.002+08:00

So Sunday was Easter, and as I work at a Catholic school, we got Monday off (they take it kind of seriously: as one of my students said on Tuesday, after I'd asked him what he did yesterday during the holiday [anticipated response: "I went to the PC room" // "I sleep long time"] :: "I cried for our Lord" <-- major classroom buzzkillage, btw).

So anyway I had a long weekend and on Monday I spent most of the day shopping for things I needed in my apartment.

So I took a bus a coupla clicks north up to Mia Samgeori to hit up the E-Mart and Hyundai Department store and get my fill of 9,000 Won peanut butter and 15,000 Won oatmeal. Mission accomplished, btw. But on the way back, something interesting happened.

I was standing at this massive bus stop in the middle of the street (we have mid-road bus lanes with partitions and whatnot in my hood, holla!), but I'd moved down the stop a little bit away from where most people were congregated, because, well, I just felt like it, get over it.

Anyway, the buses all come in at once, and my bus, which I'd expected to be at the back of the line (ok, so that's the real reason I moved away), actually wound up first in line. So naturally people start pushing by each other and kicking and shoving to get to their bus, and I'm no exception. Whilst thus engaged, I somehow got in the way of this little old grandmother, who before I knew what was even happening had punched me right in the arm, presumably because my blunderings had impeded her progress.

Did I punch her back? Did I stop mid-step, mouth agape, eyes wide in contemplation of the horror I'd experienced? Did it even faze me for a moment?

Reader, it did not. And it hit me, later, once I'd boarded the bus ("hit me," get it? huh) that I'm more or less completely acclimated to living here. There was a time, oh, there was a time when getting punched by an old lady on the street would have been cause for alarm. But no more.

Gay Catholics

2010-03-27T09:42:00.002+08:00

Got your attention? Nice. Let me explain.

So, I've started a new job. I wrapped up things at CIS mid-January, spent a month in Thailand (yeah, it rocked), then headed back here mid-February for my friends' going away bash. After the tears were dried it was off to the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education (SMOE hereafter) orientation week for day after day of tedious explanations on how to use the subway and write hangeul and come up with classroom activites and blah blah blah. Thank the maker I had some roomies and met some cool folks who were up for sneaking off campus and whetting our whistles from time to time.

At the end of orientation, I was given my assignment. I got a Catholic (score!) high school (score!) teaching all boys (damn!) in Hyehwa (score! - trust me on this one). But what's most interesting about my school is its name.

First, some background information. The Korean language has been heavily influenced by Chinese, and indeed for most of its history Chinese characters were used for everyday correspondence. Hangeul (Korean script) wasn't commonly used in Korea until (checking wikipedia...) the late 19th century. Nowadays, it's ubiquitous and almost exclusively used, Chinese characters rarely show up and when they do it's usually on offical documents, building names, things like that.

As such, many Chinese characters are written in Hangeul in modern Korean, and this can cause confusion because the Chinese word may mean something entirely different than its Korean counterpart. In other words, there are a lot of double/triple/quadruple meanings, just as in English.

Still with me? Wow, what a trooper.

Which brings me to the name of my school. In Hangeul, it's written as such: 동성(Dong-Sung). I have no idea how to write in Chinese, so that will have to suffice. The Chinese characters mean "East Star," referring to Venus. Not a bad name, right?

But then we have the vernacular Korean. "Dong" can also mean same, and "Sung" can also mean gender, or sex. So...follow me?

Basically, the name of my school is "Catholic Gay High School," at least in everyday Korean. So, well, there you go.

Hello, new readers

2010-02-12T17:30:00.003+08:00

I have no idea why, but my blog has gotten an extraordinary amount of hits lately. Which is odd, since it previously got, well, none, not really, and I haven't updated it in quite a while.

I've no ambition to change that at the moment, as I'm prone towards indolence and am currently on holiday in that most indolent of countries, Thailand.

But I just thougth I'd say hi.

Yet Another Koreans/Racism Article

2009-11-19T11:57:00.003+08:00

This time it's in Foreign Policy. There's nothing new or particularly insightful here, still, it's interesting to read another "outsider's" view of Koreans and racism. Both the maligned Bucheon bus riding professor and Superbowl MVP/Korean hero Hines Ward are mentioned.

I found this part of the article to be the most noteworthy (quoting Ward's mother, who is Korean):

"Kim described in stark terms the discrimination she experienced before she immigrated to the United States. "What do you think would have become of us if I had kept living here with Hines? He would probably never have been able to be anything but a beggar. Do you think I would even have been able to get work cleaning houses?" she said while visiting the Pearl S. Buck Foundation in Seoul. "Koreans of the same skin color are even more racist among themselves. It doesn't make sense. If everybody hates our children so much because their skin is a different color, then why do Koreans run around dying their hair blond and red?""

Internal Dialogue While Riding the Subway Home From an Interview

2009-11-17T12:52:00.003+08:00

Good Angel: Well, that was ok.

Bad Angel: Fuck, you blew it.

Good Angel: No, no, it went fine. She made polite small talk with you afterward, laughed a few times, spoke as if you already had the job...it went fine.

Bad Angel: Nope, you fuckin blew it. Did you see the size of the booger in your nose in the elevator mirror post-interview?

Good Angel: First of all, that wasn't a booger, it was a piece of dry skin, and second of all, it wasn't that big.

Bad Angel: It looked like something a 49er would've used as down payment on a California mansion. And I don't even want to talk about your voice.

Good Angel: I have a cold. And it's 0 fucking degrees outside. So it croaked a little.

Bad Angel: A little? You sounded positively pubescent.

Good Angel: Well that shouldn't have any effect on how she judged me.

Bad Angel: No, but your flubbed answers about dealing with classes with varying levels will.

Good Angel: I gave an ok answer...

Bad Angel: You gave an incomplete answer. You totally forgot to mention your best idea.

Good Angel: You're paranoid. I got into this program 9 months ago...I'll get in again.

Bad Angel: Yeah, and you just had to bring up how you turned them down, didn't you? I'm sure they'll look kindly on that.

Good Angel: Yeah...maybe shouldn't've mentioned that....I'm fucked, aren't I?

Bad Angel: Yup.

Racism In Korea

2009-11-02T13:35:00.003+08:00

This is an interesting article about how "South Koreans struggle with race." It's an international story in part inspired by the incident on the bus in Bucheon from a few months back, which I linked to in a previous post. I don't have much to add other than to affirm that it is indeed true that many Koreans have despicable views concerning other races but that it's also unsurprising that they do considering their history and language.

Because You Demanded It...

2009-10-27T11:03:00.001+08:00

Salvador Dali walking his anteater:

Have You Seen This Man?

2009-10-24T09:25:00.002+08:00

Details of this fascinating internet hoax, er, phenomenon here.

Set Phasers To Stupid

2009-10-21T08:57:00.004+08:00

Please forgive me, this is a little bit of a geek rant.

So I came across this story somehow, I dunno what happened, I just woke up and it was on my computer. Honest. Anyway, fascinating article.

But something about the cover, really, really pisses me off. Well, in a pretend kind of way. Take a look.

Did you catch it? Are you as outraged as I am? Ok, here's one more look.

You saw it, right? Ok, just in case you're blind, here it is:

This is Battlestar Galactica, not Star Trek, you halfwit genre ignorant savages at Maxim magazine! Get it right.

Winter Is Coming...

2009-10-20T09:21:00.002+08:00

A coupla years ago I thought to myself, "hey, I'm a geek. How come I never read any fantasy novels?" So I started looking around to see which modern series/books were the most highly regarded, and I came across the Song of Ice and Fire series by George RR Martin. I picked up the first book, A Game of Thrones, and let's just say I was hooked.

I've actually been re-reading the series these past few weeks, and just as when I first flew through the novels, some of the characters' argot has started to creep into my internal dialogues. I jokingly "swear by the old gods and the new," from time to time, for example. As I said, I'm a geek.

I highly recommend picking up the novels for yourself, even though the fourth is a bit of a letdown in the series and the fifth, which was supposed to be released years ago, is still unfinished segun the author's website. It's quite a wild ride.

Too busy to read? Intimidated by the hundreds of character names? Illiterate? Well, then, fear not, because HBO is here to help. A new series based on the first novel is beginning production this week, and it could be the next big HBO-thing, a la Rome or the Sopranos. Images of the actors portraying the principal characters were also released, see below:

I Knew It All Along

2009-10-19T23:34:00.003+08:00

I am the worst man in the history of the planet. So says Australian anthropologist Peter McAllister in his new book, according to Reuters.

Modern men are weaker, slower, and don't even think about trying to compare our spear throwing skillz to those of our forebears. Were we magically transported back a few thousand years we'd miss out on all the best mammoth meat and would have to settle for whatever our swifter cousins deigned to share with us.

It seems reasonable, logical, even, and I'm sure this d00d has all sorts of watertight evidence to back up his claims, I mean, let's just take a look at this first one mentioned in the article:

"An analysis of the footsteps of one of the men, dubbed T8, shows he reached speeds of 37 kph on a soft, muddy lake edge. Bolt, by comparison, reached a top speed of 42 kph during his then world 100 meters record of 9.69 seconds at last year's Beijing Olympics.

In an interview in the English university town of Cambridge where he was temporarily resident, McAllister said that, with modern training, spiked shoes and rubberized tracks, aboriginal hunters might have reached speeds of 45 kph."

Oh, ok, I see, every human alive today is definitely slower than every human (or human ancestor) from the past because of some sun-baked footprints in the Australian outback and the supposition that with training and shoes and rubber tracks and whatnot Aboriginal Hunter X might be faster than Mr. Bolt, the current world record holder. Wow, what a rock solid foundation upon which to build your thesis, Dr. McAllister.

And there's something I bet those fleet footed Aboriginals didn't have: sarcasm. I don't care how fast you are you can't outrun a cutting remark.

McAllister also backs up his claims with some decades old German photography and the delightfully droll image of a stout Neanderthal woman arm-wrestling Arnold Schwarzanegger (sp) from the Conan the Barbarian days - I shit you not, read the damn article. Suffice it to say, I'm not sold.

Just because a great number of men in developed countries have loosened their belts and let their javelin tossing skillz slide does not mean we are lacking in potential when compared to our less civilized ancestors. Besides, overall this kind of development is a good thing. Am I supposed to be ashamed that I know more about trigonometry than I do about killing a tiger?

Fuck you, McAllister, on behalf of men everywhere.

Old Korean Man Acts Like An Ass; A Nation Is Stunned

2009-08-04T08:29:00.002+08:00

Well, perhaps I exaggerate a little but I found this article interesting because a)it happened in Bucheon, not 2 miles from where I now type and 2)the offended actually had the cajones to do something about it.

Among the international racist community old men probably constitute a significant majority, and in Korea things are no different. In my 2 1/2 years I haven't had anything really bad thrown my way, probably because, well, let's just say I've spent more time rambling alone than with a lissome Korean beauty dangling from my arm like a piece of inane jewelry. But on those rare occasions when the fairer sex deigned to accompany me publicly, like the Indian gentleman in the article I've been subject to the disapproving eyes and kimchi-flavored mutterings of that over-common Korean bird, the angry adjeossi.

From the story:
"As the bus traveled toward Bucheon City Hall, a neatly dressed Korean man, who was sitting behind them yelled, ``What a disgusting odor! You're dirty.''

The Korean, later identified as Park, kept shouting, ``You must be an Arab. It's dirty. F*** you!''

One marvels at the sophistication manifest in the "neatly dressed" Mr. Park's diatribe. Were I not so cynical I might wonder if reincarnation really is a fact of life, as it seems the wit of Oscar Wilde has been reborn. "You're dirty." Indeed. What heights of verbosity will Mr. Park attain next? What summits of perspicacity will he climb? Ah, yes, "Fuck you." Pronounced, no doubt, as "Puck you." Koreans have trouble with their "F"s.

These small minded trolls would be amusing if they weren't so prevalent. You try taking a taxi, riding a bus, shopping at a "syupa" or, I dunno, walking down the street without running into one of Mr. Park's esteemed contemporaries, and let me know how that works out buddy.

The story continues:
"Hussain intended to file a complaint against Park, but police officers tried to discourage him from doing so.
``They asked the two sides to apologize to each other. But I refused because I did nothing wrong,'' he said. "

Good for him. Notice the annoying Confucian practice inherent in the police officers' actions. Everyone make nice, everyone admit fault, everyone save face, preserve social unity, etc etc. As if the professor is somehow to blame for having brown skin and sitting on a bus. Apologize for your appearance, sir, after all if you looked Korean none of this would have happened - this could be the rationale behind the ameliorative suggestion. What an absurd society this can sometimes be.

Also from the story:
"
``It was not my first time to be subject to racial abuse. I have had many similar experiences. But this time was serious,'' he said. ``It wouldn't have happened to me if I were a white man.''
Hussain said he has no intention to withdraw the suit."

I'm pleased to hear he's going to continue with the suit. I hope this bastard gets what's coming to him. He's likely correct about the "white man" comment, as well. While my fair-skinned brethren and I are sometimes subject to this sort of behavior, there is no doubt that people from South-Asia (ethnically) get it a whole lot more, in this country, hell in most countries. So it goes.

Wide Open

2009-07-21T10:30:00.004+08:00

Be thankful, my North American dwelling friends, for the space you have in your countries. You may be seriously lacking in quality kimchi and rarely does a hanbok flitter through your line of sight, but at least when you go to the pool, or the beach, or the park, you can stretch your legs a little bit, unlike your Asian cousins pictured below:

The Bicycle Thief

2009-06-19T21:47:00.002+08:00

May God damn this person.

I bought a new bike a few weeks ago, for the usual reasons: it gets me around quicker, and it's a kind of exercise I actually enjoy (more or less). I used it everyday, and was really getting a kick out of it.

Two weeks in, I come home from a weekend away to find that the lock fastening my bike to the communal rail has been smashed by some sort of blunt implement, wielded no doubt by one who could be similarly described.

Well, after a few days I got myself a hacksaw and did away with that problem.

Which brings us to today. I rode my bike to work like I always do, secured it to a tree in front of the building like I always do, and left it alone for a few hours. When I came down 3-4 hours later for a smoke break, lo and behold!, the bike was gone and the (new) bike lock was open and lying in the street like a vagrant.

I know this sort of shit goes down everyday back home, but I thought here in Korea, land of smiles (well, close enough), land of the honest adjumma who'll clean your apartment and leave the stack of man-wons untouched I wouldn't have to deal with the sphincter crusts of humanity who are bicycle thieves.

Lesson learned.

Who are these fucktards who are having trouble with digital TV?

2009-06-18T08:59:00.002+08:00

Meet Dennis Cuddy. He bought his converter antenna like a dutiful little soul. He set everything up for the big day, or so he thought. But, as it turns out, he can't get ABC or PBS nowadays.

The article tries to point out that it's not his fault, the local ABC affiliate needs some kind of power booster or something. But, Mr. Cuddy, it is your fault. Get fucking cable. Catch up with the rest of the world. Stop living in the 1950s. Then you won't have to miss a minute of "Regis & Kelly."

Matthew Brady I'm Not

2009-06-17T22:46:00.003+08:00

It was at a distressingly recent moment in my past that I realized that despite being able to appreciate what makes for a good photograph, I am unable to reproduce those qualities in my own picture-taking. Nevertheless, I want to pass along some photos I recently shot in and around my neighborhood.

Not because they are any good, of course, but just because I realized the other day while formatting the memory card in my camera that during all my time in China I took only a half a dozen photos, none of them publishable. I don't mean to imply any sort of lurid goings-on. The Chinese photos in question were just of the typical insipid quality one finds in the photo albums of the perpetually bored: photos of shoe-less feet, spilled beer, roving cockroaches, etc. etc.

Anyway, without further introduction, some photos of my current neighborhood:

The view from my apartment-

My mostly obscured apartment building -

Bupyeong Gu Office -

The building with my hagwon, on the 6th floor (CIS) -

My Favorite Scenes in Film, the Top 5

2009-06-11T00:20:00.002+08:00

#5

Despite what rottentomatoes.com has to say, this is still the best Star Trek film, and this is the best moment in it:

#4

Like the Star Wars franchise, there are so many moments to pick from in the Godfather films. But this scene really is the turning point, and it was beautifully written/shot/choreographed/acted.

#3

Eyes Wide Shut is one of those movies you either love or hate, and I fall in with the former, of course. I have a little bit of an obsession with secret societies, and that's partly why I enjoy this scene so much. But I also think it's exceptional because it, like the movie that envelops it, and to go a bit grandiose - like life, is imperfect, unfulfilled, and never fully understood. Kubrick's last flick was his best, enjoy:

#2
No one, and I mean no one (here's lookin' at you, Tarantino) uses music to supplement the story better than Martin Scorcese. Likewise no one gives us better biopics of American capitalist/criminals, our heroic villains, our latter day Gatsbys. The best scene in his best film:

#1
Casablanca may not always be considered a great film. Myopic movie-watchers of the future may frown on the moral certitudes it presents, its stereotypes and caricatures...they may even call it propaganda. But has the cause of the people and of liberty ever been better rendered in film? If it has, I haven't seen it. By far my all time favorite cinematic scene:

My Favorite Scenes in Film

2009-06-11T00:06:00.002+08:00

I waste a lot of time on youtube, so I took a little time nosing around to see which of my favorite film scenes I could find. I couldn't find everything, but here are some of them. #s 10-6

#10

Number 10 and I'm already cheating. Two scenes follow, actually, in part because I couldn't find the exact scene from this director I was looking for (the sisters' lunch scene from Hannah and Her Sisters). But these will certainly suffice:

The "d'jew?" scene from Annie Hall:

And the opening of Manhattan:

#9

This is from a movie called "Funny Games," which is one of those films you can't really recommend because it is so intense and so disturbing that to do so makes you seem like a weirdo in the recommendee's eyes. But I saw this flick last year and it rocked me to the core, especially this scene:

#8

It's hard to choose a scene from the Star Wars saga, because in the original trilogy there are so many classic moments. But I think Luke and Vader's final confrontation, despite the weaknesses of Return of the Jedi, is still the highlight of the entire series:

#7

I was lucky the first time I saw Rear Window, in that I genuinely didn't know what was going to happen and brought nothing with me to the viewing experience beforehand. For many first-time viewers nowadays, that may not be the case. Nonetheless, the climactic scene is still great:

#6

If you ask someone who's seen it, they'll probably tell you Heat is a great film. Then why the **** doesn't it get more credit? It seems to be the great film that everyone forgets to mention. The heist scene in it is the best of its kind, and one of the best scenes in film IMO:

1-5 to come later.

The English Empire

2009-06-10T00:13:00.002+08:00

This article explains why I will always have a job. Well, unless, non-native speakers in countries like Korea learn the language well enough that they could speak it to their students...haha, like that would ever happen.

I also dig the spelling mistake in the pic from China, there...it's supposed to say "One World One Dream." Yup, that about sums the whole thing up.

English Teachers Harming Korea, Again

2009-05-26T13:14:00.002+08:00

This time kind it's actually kind of true, and not an exaggeration in the media about drugs/sex/pederasts/etc., though it's no fault of the teachers in question.

An English teacher brought swine flu with her into the country not too long ago, hung out with a bunch of other waegukins, and they all wound up being put in quarantine. You can read their blog about their ongoing ordeal here.

And here's another one.

Roger and Me

2009-05-12T01:27:00.002+08:00

Hey! HEY! Look over here! You're not going to be distracted from my witty musings by some soft core porn, are you?

Seriously, I searched google images for "star trek" and that was one of the first images that popped up. So, I thought, why not? Besides, it's a shame Enterprise was canceled just as it was hitting its stride.

But I digress. The point of this post is thus: I have come here to bury Star Trek, not to praise it. As far as I can tell, in the near future, the Star Trek that we pasty corpulent bug-eyed geeks loved a little too much, well, that Star Trek is dead. Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek is long gone.

I saw the movie. I saw it the first day it came out, in one of the first screenings. I couldn't wait to jump into it. And for the first 30 minutes or so, I was really digging it.

But then something stupid happened. Then another fortuitous dodge, another lucky duck, another chase scene, another witty line dropped perfectly post-action scene-climax, another wink at the camera, another unBElievable coincidence, another shot of the inarticulate brooding villain in his cavernous pointy Death Star, another Ewok scene (yes, by Zeus' beard there's an actual Ewok in this movie (Scotty's sidekick)), another shot of Winona Ryder attempting to emote...and...I'd had enough.

This is an action movie. Don't get me wrong, I like action movies. I like action movies because they're an excuse to have a carefree 2 hours and down a bucket of popcorn. But Star Trek is supposed to be something more than that. It is supposed to have a message. Yeah, that means it won't always be as popular as franchises like Star Wars or Die Hard. But it will be better. And by trying to blend those two popular film series and slapping the name "Star Trek" on the regurgitated steaming pile of excrement you've produced, you're devaluing the series overall. And that pisses me off.

Yes, I'm a geek, and yes there's a great Onion story that essentially zings me (see below), but at least I'm not completely alone in this view. Roger Ebert essentially agrees with me (or less presumptively, I with him). So I guess I'll have to take solace in that.

Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As 'Fun, Watchable'

Uh, the universe is an awesome place

2009-05-06T23:15:00.003+08:00

I've always said I want to live forever, not because I think I deserve to or that my extended lifetime would contribute anything more to humanity or posterity or whatever. It's for purely selfish reasons: I hate thinking about all the cool shit I'm gonna miss out on after I'm gone.

I just know that the day after I get smacked by a bus the Vulcans are gonna drop by to say hi, or scientists will invent some sort of consciousness-saving machine, or we'll finally have a fat free yogurt that doesn't skimp on flavor.

Articles like this one only reinforce this notion. An unimaginably vast entity/mass/something that's sucking the rest of the universe towards it just beyond the cosmic horizon? This is the first I'm hearing of something so unbelievably fucking cool. It makes you wonder what else is out there. And notice how the author speculates wildly about what it could be:

"the dark flow theory hints that this mass, or super structure, could be anything from another universe to a realm of whimsical fancy whose physics, forces and warped space-time are completely beyond any of us. Unicorns, flying cars, cats and dogs living in harmony, you name it and it could be true, as we'll never, ever make it there to find out first hand."

That is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. I just know that in ten generations or so people're gonna be zipping around in their personal spaceships out to X Zone for a weekend of hedonism limited only by their imaginations while I'll be maggot meat.

But I suppose I should count my blessings. Think of all the things I have now that they lacked 10 generations ago. And most of what I take for granted today would have been inconceivable and frankly terrifying to someone from the distant past. Remember how when they showed the first movie in that Paris theater the people ran screaming for their lives out of the building because they thought the train was going to come out of the screen and crush them? Who knows what kind of hilarious freak out I'd have were I to encounter the technology of the distant future?

No one. And no one ever will. Tear.

According to "Protect a Cow"

2009-05-03T14:35:00.002+08:00

Bob Dylan is an occultist and either an ally or a pawn of the Illuminati who promotes alcoholism and "cow murder." Thank the stars for youtube, the crazies finally have their forum. Check out this video and don't miss the last 10 seconds, they're the best part.

Hello, I'm Deathnote

2009-04-29T20:52:00.003+08:00

This article about the popularity of English names among the English-speaking Chinese was interesting, I thought.

Basically English names persist because a) non-Chinese speakers find most Chinese names impossible to pronounce and b) they're viewed as "cool" for a variety of complex cultural reasons.

I've never liked the whole English name trend, and I prefer to address my students and anyone else I meet by their real name, whether I butcher its pronunciation or not. Fortunately Korean names, for me at least, are a lot easier to pronounce than their Chinese counterparts.

The author briefly touched on how so many Asians with English names make bizarre choices and stick with them even after being counseled that their appellation of choice sounds ridiculous to the native ear. That's certainly true. When I was in China, I taught a moon faced girl named "Ocean" and a shifty eyed boy named "Flea." The strangest name a student ever had, tho, was "Deathnote," pronounced "Deasuh-nosuh" by Koreans. I just can't see anyone with that sort of English name rising to be a CEO or Senator someday.

I am so totally not a racist, but...

2009-04-28T00:32:00.001+08:00

...is there anything that strikes you as funny about this video?

"Don't worry, I am rich!"

2009-04-27T22:30:00.003+08:00

My boss is a nice and decent guy, which by hagwon standards makes him a frikkin saint. I have absolutely no (serious) complaints so far which is pretty amazing. Appraising a hagwon as such is similar to saying the same about an airport - to have no complaints is about the highest praise which can be given.

His English is also pretty good, and if we were again to apply typical hagwon standards that would make him a savant amongst his peers. He has a meeting with S (the other waegukin teacher) and I every week in which he lays out the upcoming schedule and we go over any problems or issues. This meeting always happens on Monday, which was today.

Today's meeting was like a good, new song: familiar but also different. He again reiterated that we were both doing a good job and that there have been no real complaints from mothers of late (which astonishes me every time I hear it, knowing as I do how prickly Korean mothers can be and how susceptible they are to the exaggerations of their delinquent offspring). He also reemphasized that the Korean economy continues to suffer and because of that many parents are pulling their kids out of hagwons to help make ends meet. He even provided a worrisome factoid to drive home that point - our school currently has an "enrollment" of about 150 students, the lowest level since its founding 6 years ago.

This detail provided, he segued into a lengthy digression during which he tried to reassure the quiescient S, and the similarly demeanored I, that our jobs and the position of the school were secure. Naturally this automatically caused me to wonder if the school is indeed solvent or if I am soon to have something else in common with those throngs of recently-laid off Wall Street bankers other than the fact that women find us irresistible. Visions of the 100,000 word Newsweek article I read this weekend about Bernie Madoff insisting up until the very end that all was well flashed through my head. But Mr. Kim was persistent, and quite long winded, and there's something to be said for numbing the minds of your inferiors with near-endless blather, after all it worked for Hitler. And he even at one point blurted out a hearty "don't worry, I'm rich!" which was both reassuring and amusing, kinda like a holiday Far Side cartoon.

Not that I'm worried, I'd land another job easily here. But to quote Marge Simpson: "I've dug myself into a nice little rut here." And I like it.

VenomFangX and Inevitability

2009-04-26T11:38:00.005+08:00

I stumbled on this guy's videos on youtube via a long ago "debate" he had with a vlogger I've watched a few times, the subtly named "Amazing Atheist." I thought he was a smarmy idiot and I wrote him an email telling him so, but I have to admit I also clicked "subscribe" at the same time. I wanted to see what else he'd get up to.

The answer hasn't surprised me, and really, considering the fact that he's youtube's version of a televangelist, it was inevitable. Feel free to waste time watching this video in which he, shock!, talks about all the money he's making:

Notice how he cleverly defends stealing from a bunch of idiotic well-wishers to fund his bullshit ministry. "Oh, I only asked for $1, but...ok, if you WANT to give me $500, well, God bless you" etc etc. If this guy had only been born a coupla thousand years earlier he'd probably have churches built in his honor today.

A typical VenomFangX fan:

I love what she does with her arms!

Rice Tards

2009-04-17T12:23:00.000+08:00

I feel I must link to this post.

Rice Tard. Ha.

The Story of My Life

2009-04-17T04:20:00.001+08:00

Holy Shit, There's Another Dylan Album Coming Out

2009-04-17T02:44:00.003+08:00

Why didn't anyone tell me? This came as a shock to me.

Of course I'm excited to hear new Dylan stuff, but I have to admit I'm a little ambivalent about this. Modern Times, his last record, was a frikkin masterpiece, as were the two that preceded it, Love & Theft and Time Out of Mind. Eternal skeptic that I am, I'm a little worried about whether or not the master can keep this going. Will this new album be another "Slow Train Coming" or another "Under the Red Sky?" (To non Dylanologists, that means, will this be a unique but successful album or a uniquely terrible one?)

Anyway I'm looking forward to finding out for myself.

Update: well I've listened to the pre-release single, which you can hear here, and I love it. Hope springs eternal. Love the accordion.

The Force Is Strong With This One

2009-04-12T13:24:00.001+08:00

I saw this guy's videos on youtube and thought I'd share. He pretty much sums up my feelings on Star Wars better than anyone else I've ever heard. Enjoy:

Korean Students Are Some of the Best in the World at Math

2009-04-06T11:24:00.001+08:00

Here's why:

Facebook and Birthdays

2009-04-04T12:07:00.002+08:00

It was my birthday last week. Don't worry, I didn't care either.

I'm still young, but I'm getting to the point where birthdays are no longer a cause for celebration.

"Has it been ANOTHER year already?" I've asked myself on the birthday eves of recent years during which the impact of the day is considered.

And nowadays, not only do you have to deal with the real life stresses of the anniversary of your birth, but you also have to deal with all the goddamn facebook well-wishers.

I deliberately removed my birthday from my account several months ago, in the hopes that the day would pass unnoticed, and there were still a dozen of so people who were compelled to wish me a happy day. Here's a message to facebook birthday whores: fuck off.

I don't want to hear from you. I'm not going to wish you a happy birthday on your page when your day rolls around. I don't care about your birthday and I'll thank you to return the favor. If I see you in real life, and it's your birthday, I'm happy to wish you the best. But via facebook? Nope.

And now comes the worst part. I have to write insipid little thank you notes to all of these goons. Every fucking one of 'em. If I skip over ONE PERSON, then I guarandamntee you that person will be super offended.

"Why did he thank janie and not me?" judie will ask herself. And then she'll cry her fat little face to sleep.

It's times like these that make me want to abandon it all and get a shack in the woods, Kacyznski-style.

The Funniest Video on the Internet

2009-03-27T00:03:00.000+08:00

After hours and hours of research, I've finally found it. Here it is:

I am proud of my ears today

2009-03-01T21:26:00.002+08:00

Tho I'm 26, and knocking on 27's door, and 28 in Korean age, I passed the teenager annoying noise test:

Created by Train Horns

Takeshima is an Island in the Sea of Japan

2009-02-28T14:31:00.003+08:00

Waitwaitwait...god help me if any Korean should read that title. What I meant to write was "Dokdo is an island in the East Sea." A thousand mianhaeyos.

Let me take the time to get our international readers and uninformed Korean residents up to speed. You see, (some) Koreans have a tendency to go to extremes in defending against what they perceive to be slights against their national...er, what's the word?...image, I guess. And there is nothing that fires 'em up more than the Liancourt Rocks, to use the neutral appellation. You can read about their dispute with the evil Japanese here, and also look at lots of pretty pictures, which is of course much better than reading.

The article was published in the Boston Herald and what I really loved about reading it were the comments, from presumably Korea-ignorant Bostonites, about how crazy all the Korean protesters are. It comforts me to know that impartial observers can validate my own perceptions here inside the bubble. Let me quote Baffled:

"Wait. What? Some random citizens chopped off their fingers to protest an international debate over ownership of these islands? Like, how the heck is that a "protest"? I mean, I could understand donating money to the cause, or joining the military, or protesting outside the Japanese embassy, or writing letters to world leaders or newspapers or whatever.

But decapitating birds and lopping off your own body parts? That's just a major wtf. I mean...how does that convince anyone of, well, anything? "Hey, you Japanese! Yeah, you guys! You better give up those islands or else I'm going to chop my leg off next! That will teach you not to mess with us!"

If I was a Japanese strategist I'd set up bingo games with my co-bureaucrats, timed with Japanese press releases, as to what body part we could induce people to chop off. "Left big toe? Bingo!""

Sick Again

2009-02-14T22:33:00.002+08:00

Yes! By virtue of the dubious gift of a decade old computer from my boss and the visit of, as he put it, the "Internet KT engineer," I have private internet access again. Which means I can, for the first time in 6 months or so, renew my addiction to all of the internet's glory.

First among these addictions is youtube, of course, and since I've spent the past 3 or 4 hours of this lonely Valentine's day watching old favorites and new unseen videos on the site, I thought I'd post one of my favorites.

The first part of a debate between one of my favorite modern philosophers, Christopher Hitchens, and his most capable and articulate opponent, Dinesh D'Souza, on the new and rarely talked about question of "Does God exist?":

Super Bowl Imnida

2009-02-02T12:49:00.002+08:00

I woke up bright and early this morning at 10 AM to catch the second half of the big game, and I'm glad I did. I was pulling for the Cardinals to get the upset but the Steelers deserved the win just as much as they did, and it was a great finish.

I was watching the Korean language broadcast and enjoyed both the overenthusiasm of the play by play man (every time there was a catch, even for 2 or 3 yards, he'd scream "DROP PASS") and the announcers' obsession with Heinz Ward, who's half Korean. Ever since he won the Super Bowl MVP in 05, he's become a Korean hero, even tho before this happened my guess is that nary a Korean national had ever heard of him.

What was funny is that he didn't really do anything important in the game, and yet they'd mention his name over and over again. My Korean skilz are still definitely lacking, but this is how I imagine it went:

Dude 1: Rothelsburge (sp) back for the pass.

Dude 2: Oh, Smith is open! He throws....

Dude 1: SHORT PASS!

Dude 2: 1st down!

Dude 1: That was a great play. And they couldn't have done it without Heinz Ward blocking on the other side of the field.

Dude 2: Definitely. Heinz Ward was instrumental in that play.

Dude 1: Yes, yes Heinz Ward was. Heinz Ward was important in that play. Heinz Ward.

....

Where's the Tin? Wuxi Be Damned (Part 1)

2009-01-21T09:18:00.003+08:00

Well, I've said some nice things, now's the fun part: wailing on the city that gratiously accommodated me for the past 5 months like it was a disobedient Iraqi prisoner. Problems I had during my Wuxi experience:

The co-workers - man have I been waiting to talk shit about these guys. First, I want to make it clear, that I had no problem with my Chinese co-workers. They weren't the chattiest or friendliest bunch but they were more or less sane and helpful. My problem was with the other laowais (foreigners) employed by my school...

My students were enrolled in a German sponsored program designed to eventually send capable students abroad to study business and earn a bachelor's degree in said field. As such, throughout the semester we cycled through a roster of guest lecturers, predominantly Germans, and predominantly crazy. As Matt Damon would remind us, there were some good Germans. R., who was there for the first two months or so of my contract, was a decent well-balanced normal fella with whom I shared many a beer. The Sirens, as I ironically thought of them, were three attractive and normal-acting gentle-ladies of my own demographic who were also committed to taciturnity, unlike their namesakes. And there were some older fellas who seemed perfectly fine, but with the exception of an interesting half-hour discussing the blitzkrieg with one guy who was 70 or so I didn't interact with them much.

But then we come to the crazies. M, who was a German of Korean ancestry, and whom R had talked up and later introduced me to eagerly (since we shared a Korea connection) was fucking batshit crazy. At first I thought he was just one of those insecure people who talk too much about themselves, and who're commonly encountered among expatriate circles. But I think it was when he and I were walking down the street, cross current through a river of motor-bikes, and I made some innocent comment about being annoyed by all of them, and he then jumped in the air and with a way too loud "hee-YAH!" tried to dropkick the next bike that crossed our path, I think it was then that I knew he was crazy...

Then there was T, whose passions included talking about himself, talking about history, talking about anything basically. Imagine it's a sub-zero early morning. Imagine our hero, underdressed, shivering, waiting outside at the bus stop for the university's bus to take him to work. Imagine T, an even slighter, portlier fellow than our hobbit-like central character, at his elbow. Imagine 30 minutes have passed by in this Siberian purgatory, and Anthony is trying to hail a cab because it doesn't seem the bus will ever come. Frostbitten toes and fingers. A noseless future. Cold that makes me curse myself for ever damning the sultry sufferings of summer. And T is following me around like a guardian angel, totally ignoring the crisis at hand, and together with the cold talking my fucking ear off about the 7 year's war. This guy never shut up. Never ever ever. I can see him now, a doomed 3rd class passenger in the bowels of the sinking Titanic, consoling sobbing co-passengers with his thoughts about sauerkraut.

There was also Mr. S, who I more or less grew to like but who bugged the hell out of me at first. He was the other English teacher, and was a native Mauritian with Canadian residency. He'd lived an interesting life it seemed: he had published several books about Mauritius, served in its foreign service, and traveled extensively. He was also much older than I, and tho he couldn't hold a candle to T, he too was no stranger to over-speaking and seemed to be an expert in everything. He claimed to be a trained hypnotherapist, and insinuated several times that he would be happy to put me under to cure whatever ailed me. He believed in past lives, and his wife, D (who I only met once) was a renowned psychic (supposedly). (When I asked her to read my palm, all she would commit to was that I had a hard time holding onto money - which is certainly true, but considering that I was on my 5th or 6th $7 jack and coke at that point I remain dubious.) He also claimed to be a Christian, and when he finally squeezed it out of me that I was an atheist he kept bringing up issues of faith over and over again. He wore sunglasses inside almost all of the time, and a ring with an oversized purple gem on it constantly. He had more children than a Catholic prince, and all seemed to have accomplished great things - one was a brilliant doctor, one was the former Miss Mauritius, that sort of thing. But as I said I grew to like him, well, that's going too far...let's say I grew to dread his company less and less.

There were others, but I've covered the two I loathed the most, and Mr. S who was arguably the most intersting, and in so doing have expended more words than they merit. More Wuxi negativity to come.

Who Needs Tin? In Praise of Wuxi

2009-01-20T10:10:00.005+08:00

("Wu Xi" = "No Tin")

Well, I made it out. I've left Wuxi, and I've no plans to return*. There were a lot of things that bugged me about the place, and we'll get to that, but I thought it best to focus on the positive first, and to praise the city as much as I can. Good things about Wuxi:

The People - the Chinese people that I came to know during my brief stay were, all in all, friendly, outgoing, helpful people. They may have been surprised to see a foreigner walking down the street, but they weren't leery of me, either.

The English - English was spoken more in Wuxi than in any other foreign city I've lived in. The Chinese, unlike the Koreans, seem to be much more willing to gamble "losing face" and speaking broken English to the laowai. Random everyday people: taxi drivers, McDonald's workers, strangers in bathrooms, travel agents...all were willing to try and communicate with me in my native tongue rather than bombarding me with a string of incomprehensible derka. I appreciated that.

The Food - the Wuxi style of Chinese food is a little sweet for my tastes, but there's a reason Chinese cuisine is one of the world's favorites.

The Foreign Amenities - Wuxi had more foreign bars, restaurants, and shops than any other Asian city I've lived in. There were 6 or 7 dedicated laowai bars/cafes, compared to Incheon, which has 2, and Bucheon which has 3. Again, Wuxi +1.

The Omnipresent KFCs - holy fried chicken Batman, the Chinese are crazy about KFC. It's like Starbucks in Seattle, there's one on every corner. I found the fare to be alarmingly disgusting, but the ubiquity of the chain and its popularity with the Chinese I found to be, well, cute.

The Work - all in all, I enjoyed my job. The students were fairly advanced and fairly attentive, and the hours were great. I didn't care for the hour plus commute each way, but that's a minor quibble.

The Next Door Neighbors - Wuxi's close (an hour or so via train) to a lot of attractive cities - Shanghai, Nanjing, Suzhou and Hangzhou. Incheon has Seoul, and that's it, and Seoul's got nothing on Shanghai. Well, maybe a little something, but not much.

The Prices - I wasn't making much, which was part of why I left, but day to day I lived quite comfortably on under $20/day, and this includes boozing, taxi rides, things like that. China can be quite cheap.

That's about it.

*Of course, I wrote something similar after leaving Korea the first time

Of Dinner Parties

2009-01-09T09:50:00.002+08:00

Why, oh why, did I answer the phone? When I came home Wednesday night I saw that I'd missed a call from my boss, and I knew there were only two reasons she might be calling: 1)something super important has happened and I must be informed (revolution, earthquake, etc.) or 2) she's inviting me to another staff party.

I'd deftly avoided previous engagements. I, ahem, forgot completely about my invitation to the first dinner party, and I, ahem, was sick the day of the end of term school-wide party and couldn't make it in. But when she called back a few minutes later, I, dumbass that I am, answered. Who knew? #1 could've been the reason.

It wasn't. And I couldn't say no again. So I agreed to attend the department farewell dinner the following day. Which was last night.

There's a reason I hate attending these sorts of things, because I know exactly how they'll go. And last night was exactly as I expected.

I'm seated at a table with a bunch of Chinese teachers with whom I've shared an office for four months of minimal social interaction. They're chatting away gaily in Chinese. I'm alternating between taking bites of the fatty slabs of meat circulated around the table on the lazy susan and sipping my awful Great Wall red wine. Someone from another table, half-drunk, comes to ours and toasts our health and the new year. Everyone stands up, clinks glasses together, something is said in Chinese, and we sit down. Back to the awful food and awful wine. No, wait, here comes some more awful company! Everyone stands up again, toasts the gathered company, and sits again. Repeat repeat repeat.

After two hours I excused myself. Well, I didn't make an excuse, I just got up, said happy new year, and left. I must remember not to answer the phone.

"The Wind Began To Howl"

2009-01-07T10:52:00.002+08:00

It's coming...and I can't wait. The super cool Japanese Watchmen trailer:

And the older one's still good, too:

Scrutiny

2009-01-07T10:22:00.004+08:00

Tuesday was final exam day for the 2nd years, and it was a long day.

Mr. S and I had decided to combine classes and judgment in order to give a more balanced assessment of the students. One by one the students had to come into the cavernous meeting room, sit down across from us at the oversized table in an uncomfortable chair, and try to speak for 3 minutes or so about some random topic.

I'd been uncharacteristically industrious and drafted 18 possible topics for my students to speak on, ranging from the more basic "what are your plans for the future?" to questions requiring a little more nuance, such as: "why is corruption so rampant in China and how can it be prevented?" Mr. S was less so, he prepared three topics, the first two moderately difficult and the last one more general "do you like to travel? Describe some travel experiences yadda yadda." About 70% of his students spoke on that topic. By the end I was ready to poke the next student who began speaking about travel in the eye with my pen.

Mr. S allowed his students to choose their topic, I selected the topics for my students when they sat down and only gave them one minute to prepare. Mr. S's students were better-polished because of it, but I was satisfied more or less with my students' performance. There were some delightfully schadenfreude(sp)-ian moments, tho, like when a student who'd been absent from my class since September walked in to take the final as if nothing were amiss. I told him to speak about this topic: "why branding is so important for global companies." We'd covered it in class. He looked at me doe-eyed and said "what does this mean, branding." I said "we talked about it in class, now either speak or get out."

Well, really I was a little kinder. But the douchebag still failed.

Each examination required about 5 minutes or so, the first minute for them to prepare and make notes, three for them to speak, and the last minute for follow up questions and getting the next student situated. 5 minutes each. We have about 150 students. You do the math and then ask yourself why I slept in this morning.

If your answer is because I'm lazy and I don't have to go into work today, give yourself a gold star. In fact, I don't have to go into work for quite some time. Ah, the joys of university life.

Year In Review - Audio/Visual Awards

2009-01-05T09:46:00.004+08:00

(Because you demanded it...more wikipedia links!!)

And we (that's the royal we, btw) wrap up our look at 2008 with our ridiculously out-of-touch take on the best films, TV shows, and music experienced by...guess the pronoun...us.

Best Film: (Tie) The Dark Knight and the inexplicably poorly reviewed Funny Games. Both films had me on the edge of my seat.

Best TV Series: LOST, season 4. They really got the show back on track with this season, and I can't wait for season 5 to start.

Best (newish) Album: Back to Black, Amy Winehouse. Ok ok, I know this came out in 2006, but I don't listen to that much new music and I didn't get this until 2008. But it's a great album.

Best Guilty Pleasure: American Idol, season 7. It's a good think nobody reads my blog otherwise I'd be embarrassed to admit I watched every episode of this...

Best Individual Episode: Goodbye, Toby. The last episode of The Office's season 4. The running gag about Kevin being mentally disabled had my sides splitting.

Most Listened-To Song: Pressing On, from the Bob Dylan gospel songs album. Yes, I listen to gospel music.

Most Watched TV Series: Star Trek DS9. Earlier in the year I downloaded a few seasons and watched them in Korea, a few weeks ago in China I found a 7 season DVD package and have been working my way through that. It's still probably my favorite show of all time, definitely my favorite drama.

Most Anticipated Film of 2009: Watchmen. Boy I hope they don't fuck it up. I'm also looking forward to the new Star Trek and Harry Potter films. Yes, I'm a geek.

Why I Hate The Chinese Internets

2009-01-05T09:31:00.002+08:00

1. Go to any computer in China.

2. Log onto the internets and type in "google.com."

3. Wait 15 seconds for the page to load.

4. Close the window, and open a new one.

5. Type in "google.cn."

6. Notice how the page loaded instantaneously?

The Year In Review - The Tonys

2009-01-05T08:24:00.004+08:00

(Also with Wikipedia links!!)

No, not those Tonys, these Tonys reward moments in our (not so) young (anymore) hero's life during the past year.

Best Moment of the Year: The epiphany I had sometime in September about never going home again.

Worst Moment of the Year: (Tie) Borrowing money from my parents, again. And waking up in a sleazy hotel room in Rome with about 100 bug bites all over my body.

Most Embarrassing Moment: hob-nobbing with the Wuxi-German glitterati at a local night club, drinking too much, and let's just say attracting too much negative attention to myself.

Best Places I Visited: Koh Samet, Thailand and Barcelona.

Worst Place I Visited: Naples. Maybe it was the garbage in the streets, the slack jawed scoundrels on ever corner, or the fact that I spent most of my time there scratching said bug bites, but I didn't like it. The pizza was good, tho.

The Hey We Should've Planned This Award: Missing out on the running of the bulls in Pamplona.
Strangest Culinary Experience: Eating fish heads for dinner in Wuxi. Runner up: eating homemade kimchi jigae with some Koreans Joey and I met in Paris (thanks to his "waegukin" shirt) - it was delicious, btw.

The Aren't We Friends Award: Throwing beer on Dave and then fighting in the streets of Florence. Good times.

Worst Airline Experience: 7 hours from Dublin to New York next to a chatty well-fed Irish lass.

It Could've Been Worse Airline Experience: 14 hours New York to Beijing with an aisle seat and an empty seat to t'other side.

The Bad Blokes Award: Me, Dave, Bryce, and Stephen, for getting too drunk and almost starting a fight with a bunch of Irishmen. Details here.

Favorite Engrish Encounter: "Sun your buns in hell" on a T-shirt.

Best Asia-Themed Youtube Video: Kickin' It In Geumchon.

Year In Review: Book Awards

2009-01-02T09:07:00.002+08:00

(Now with Wikipedia links!)

My 2008 book awards, drafted by the committee of me, approved by me, ratified by me.

Best New Book I Read: The Yiddish Policemen's Union. Who knew Alaskan Jews could be so treacherous and so much fun?

Best Book I Didn't Finish: A Perfect Spy. Not because I won't, it's just that I started this in the last week of the year and haven't gotten through it yet. If it finishes as well as it's begun it might be the best spy novel I've ever read.

Best Book I Re-Read: (Tie) Lolita, Foucault's Pendulum, Victory, Harry Potter 6. I re-read a lot of books this year, and these remain among my favorite books of all time. Christopher Hitchens re-reads Lolita every year, and I have to say that he's on to something. I was languishing with an insipid turd of a novel (see next entry) when I came across a copy of Lolita in a Barcelona book store. I picked it up (my 3rd copy of it, actually), dropped what I was reading and didn't regret it. Foucault's Pendulum is another of my favorites, those masters of the world are just always interesting to me. Victory is one of my favorite Conrad novels in part because its hero reminds me so much of myself. And for pop-lit giddiness there's nothing more fun than the tail end of the Harry Potter series.

Most Disappointing: The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana. Eco is the author of some of my favorite books (the aforementioned Foucault's Pendulum and The Name of the Rose) but this one was a self-centered dud.

Maybe The Nazis Were Right Award: Gravity's Rainbow. Let me quote from the wikipedia page:

"Frequently digressive, the novel subverts many of the traditional elements of plot and character development, traverses detailed, specialist knowledge drawn from a wide range of disciplines, and has earned a reputation as a "difficult" book."

Ha! Difficult doesn't begin to describe the pointless meandering and constant confusing shifts in perspective and setting. Trying to read this novel is essentially signing one's self up for a headache. Burn it!

The What Did I Get Myself Into?!, But...It's Still Interesting Award: Guns, Germs, and Steel. This book is bigger and drier than the Sahara, but, some of its ideas are very important.

Don't Skimp On The Editor Award: I Am Charlotte Simmons.

Best Fantasy Novel Called "The Hobbit": The Hobbit.

Most Read Author Of The Year: John le Carre. This year I read Call For the Dead, The Honourable Schoolboy, Smiley's People, The Night Manager, Single & Single and The Mission Song (and I'm almost through A Perfect Spy). This man can write.

Book That Inspired Me To Write Something Myself: Travels With My Aunt. I think I wrote almost two full pages of fiction before I went back to watching TV.

Started It But Saved It For Later Award: Cryptonomicon.

Hat's Off To My Hero Award: Nostromo, by my personal hero (one of them anyway) - Joseph Conrad. When I came to China I brought this and the two other Conrad novels that have inspired me - Victory and Lord Jim. I fully expected to read Lord Jim first, I was after all a stranger in a strange land and somewhat on the run like Jim, but for whatever reason I didn't get around to it. I was in no hurry to get back to the sprawling Nostromo, I'd only read it once and quite liked it but it wasn't as impactful for me as the other two. I picked it up on a lark one lazy Starbucks afternoon and didn't put it down for quite a while. I had remembered the portrait of Sulaco, the political intrigue, the dire appraisals of men with ambition that is so typical of Conrad, but I also remembered after reading it the first time thinking the novel had been wrongly named. Nostromo, the character, though a large part of the story, doesn't figure prominently until the last acts of the drama. The novel could have just as easily been named "Gould" or "DeCoud," two other characters in the story. Well, I was wrong. I appreciated it much more during this second reading, and I think the novel is aptly named because of Nostromo's fate - his death (all great Conrad characters die at the end of their stories, except Marlow) is our lesson.

Well, that's enough navel-gazing for now. More to come.

The Year in Review

2009-01-02T08:52:00.003+08:00

I'm a world away, at least culturally, but I try to keep up to date on what's hip. You have no idea how embarrassed I was when I returned home last time and had no idea who Miley Cyrus was (still don't).

One way I often use to get a read on what I've missed is the ever popular year's best lists that show up this time of year. Amazon.com, metacritic, the New York Times...everyone's got one. I take a gander at them and then I know what I should've picked up last year and what I should look into during the next.

With the end of the semester and dawning interregnum boredom seems statistically very probable for your's truly. So the other day (actually, last night, I couldn't sleep - you try sleeping on a mattress that's as soft as a moon rock) I said to myself "Hey, Anthony, why don't you make your own? Sure, you're ridiculously out of touch and no one gives a damn what you think, but heck, it'll pass the time."

So I think I will.

Bloggers' Best 2008

2009-01-01T09:25:00.002+08:00

I thought this story was interesting, and I wanted to pass along the link.

Also: Happy New Year! So long 2008...it was an up and down year for the world, and the same was true for me. I had some really good times, and some really bad ones. Here's hopin' 2009'll be more stable.

The Secret Blunderer

2008-12-30T15:52:00.003+08:00

I recently read about some disturbing news in Kunming, a city in southern China. It reminded me of Conrad's novel The Secret Agent, in which an idiotic young man accidentally blows himself to bits while carrying a bomb around town.

The news is this: some Chinese d00d with a grudge in Kunming walked into the local expat hangout a few days ago apparently with the plan to blow a good chunk of it and its patrons away. Luckily, he messed up, and you can read about his death here.

Thank gawd for the internets or I would've never heard about this, the English language media here never reports about anything negative or anything that might put China or its citizens in something other than the best possible light. I never understood how boring propaganda can be until I started watching CCTV9 - the english language Chinese news network. But I'll save my rant about them for another day.

All in all, I'm glad the only one hurt was the bomber himself.

Shanghai Scammers

2008-12-27T15:34:00.003+08:00

The end of the term is fast approaching, thank gawd, and I have a nice little break coming up. I've been planning to go to Shanghai for at least a few days, maybe a week, just to stretch my legs a little bit.

Unfortunately I'm dreading some very likely encounters with scammers and/or touts. I visited Shanghai for an afternoon a few weeks ago and mistakenly decided to stroll down Nanjing Lu, the most famous shopping street in town. I was probably approached 20 times in a few hours by the "tea girls" and dozens of times by touts selling their crap wares. You can read details about Shanghai scams on this thread; also, I quite like the picture halfway down the page.

I have some experience with these people. This summer I was pickpocketed three times while in Barcelona (though thankfully I noticed what was happening each time before they got away). And during my first visit to China, the first place I went was Tianamen(sp) Square, and the first thing I encountered were a couple of "students" who wanted to take me to their "art gallery." I didn't fall for it, thankfully. There was also the street urchin I literally had to kick in the face to leave me alone, but the records on that incident are sealed and I will say no more - unless you get me drunk.

I've yet to encounter the "bag swipers on mopeds" yet, and hope I never will. Those guys sound good.

Although everyone with experience with these people counsels "ignore them, smile and try to walk away, be polite," and though I've followed that advice before, I think I'm going to go about it differently next time it happens. The first person who comes up to me and says "excuse me, do you speak English," I'm going to answer "yes, fuck you."

It should make for an interesting visit. I'll keep you posted.

My China Moto

2008-12-24T09:20:00.002+08:00

I like to indulge the occasional explorer fantasy with random internet searches, and today I came across mychinamoto.com, a website for dirt bike riders in China, especially those who like to ride their bikes West out of the sprawling cities and into the underpopulated countryside.

I found this post, and I can't wait to do something similar, once I get myself a dirt bike, 30,000 RMB or so, and balls the size of watermelons like the author has. But anyway it's an interesting read.

PC Room Stories

2008-12-20T14:05:00.002+08:00

Since I've been in China, for that matter since I left Korea in July, I have been operating sans computer. This has not been easy, in part because I can't search for porn, waste time with video games, or illegally download music and tv shows like I used to. But I've also been forced to rely on my local PC room, which is something less than perfect.

First let me just get away with praising Korea once more. Korean PC bangs, despite being dark smelly generally unhappy places, represent the difference between flying first class and hanging on for dear life as a stow-away amidst the cargo whence compared to their Chinese counterparts.

My biggest complaint is how much the internet sucks here. It's slower than the short bus in reverse. Time wasters like youtube, facebook, and the washington post are all more or less inaccessible because of The Great Firewall that protects the people's republic here.

Then there's the filth. Public PC rooms are typically not the cleanest of places, whether you're in sunny Barcelona or chilly Seoul. But the ones in China have managed to distinguish themselves. Roaches are abundant, well-organized, and bold; I can't count how many times I've had one crawl across my keyboard and caress my typing hands before I recoiled in horror, shrieking like a banshee. And one time I avoided my local PC room for an entire week, a lifetime in Internet hours, because a rat jumped from the ceiling and landed a few feet away from me before scurrying away into the impenetrable darkness.

Also, the computers are all locked away, protected in a plastic cage, meaning you can't open the CD drive to play Age of Empires or even plug in your iPod to try and charge it.

The quality of people you meet at these places is also something less than spectacular. I remember the first time I walked into one, I encountered a stream of giggly derka before I finally realized they wanted to see my passport, and when I logged onto the computer and couldn't spot the ubiquitous Internet Explorer icon, I asked the helper dude a single word I thought he might understand: "Internet?" It's a cognate in Korean and anyway I thought surely someone who spends so much time around computers must know that word, whether he's Chinese or not. Instead he looked dumbfounded, pointed at me, and then made some joke to his buddy.

This last one's the kicker, tho, the gawkers. I come into my local PC room now 5 or 6 times a week, so I'm more or less a fixture and no one pays me any mind. But every now and then there'll be some newbie who's never seen me before and who just has to check up on what the laowai's doing with a computer. Just the other day I had some guy walk over to my chair and stand behind me, alternatively watching me and my monitor, for something like 30 minutes. At one point I turned around and stared at him for a good 15 seconds, but it did no good. For him, watching me read wikipedia and check email was a fulfilling and rewarding way to pass the time.

I will not miss these places.

Misfits

2008-12-12T15:30:00.002+08:00

The three categories of ESL-abroad teachers, based on my experience and ratified by conversation and, by extension, the experience of others, in decreasing levels of representation, are:

1) the short-timers, in it for the money and a little excitement
2) the wanderers
3) the crazies on the run from something

Those in category 3 are, by far, the least common, but one of the persistent joys of being a category 1 or 2-er is encountering the rarer birds amidst our flock.

I've known a few, and though I can't really say I've known any codeine-addicted leprechaun kathoey-lovers, or anyone who walked off alone into the Saudi desert, or a mentally unstable ex-fencing instructor, well, they're out there. And as the man says: here's hopin', one day.

To borrow from Mr. Dylan, someday when I paint my masterpiece I'll have to include them in it. I just need to meet a few more, first.

Crackle! Pop! SNAP!

2008-12-07T11:46:00.003+08:00

It's a good thing I'm such a mellow, stable person. A lesser soul would've snapped by now.

No, this is not about the shit in the streets, or mind-boggingly stupid taxi drivers, or eery nationalistic college students. This post is about fireworks.

Every fucking Sunday morning, like clockwork, they go off. Seemingly right outside my window. And EARLY. I'm talking, like, 9 AM. Gawd knows what's being celebrated every week at this time. The Chinese set them off on birthdays, when businesses open, when they find 10 RMB in the street...any miniscule cause for celebration at all results in the ceremonial lighting of the wick followed by the ritualistic "oohs" at the sight/sound of exploding gunpowder. I had one student tell me they even set off fireworks at funerals, which seems bizarre to me.

And it's not just the noise waking me up. I've just never understood what the big fuss was all about, here or back home. You light someting on fire and it blows up. Big frikkin deal. Once you've seen it once...apparently you need to see it ten thousand more times, according to the rest of the fireworks-craving world. But for me once or twice is enough. Maybe if the firework was actually destroying something, like a window or a small car, then it might be interesting. But otherwise I'm tuned out.

And remember in "Land of the Dead," the zombie movie, how the zombies were so easily distracted by fireworks? Call me a fireworks-elitist, but that's how I feel about fireworks-lovers. You're all mindless zombies waiting to be hacked to bits by machete-wielding survivalists. And you deserve it. So keep your head in the clouds if you like, but when John Leguizamo comes looking for me I'll be ready.

Bong Hits for Mao

2008-12-03T10:51:00.002+08:00

Taken from Newsweek magazine:

"Starting Point When the Olympic torch passed through Juneau, Alaska, in 2002, 18-year-old Joseph Frederick saw a chance at TV airtime. His tactic: a banner reading BONG HITS 4 JESUS. Not amused, Frederick's principal confiscated the banner and suspended him for five days. He shot back something about Thomas Jefferson. She tacked on another five.

Fever Pitch Frederick took his free-speech argument to court, with backing from the ACLU. Five years later it was before the U.S. Supreme Court, with Kenneth Starr representing the school. The court ruled that since Frederick was holding the banner at a "school-supervised" (though not on school grounds) event, the principal had a right to restrict what he said about illegal drugs—even if his message was rather nonsensical.

Present Day Now 25, Frederick is learning Mandarin and teaching English in China. Although he is proud that he stood up for his rights, he regrets "the bad precedent set by the ruling." His case was finally settled at the state level in November, winning him $45,000 and forcing the school to hold a forum on free speech."

No, I don't know him.

The American Breakfast

2008-11-27T15:06:00.003+08:00

I was reading an article with my freshman class the other day about a Tokyo business hotel. The hotel offered a free "American breakfast" to its residents, and just for kicks I decided to ask my students what they thought that was.

First, I asked what was in a typical Chinese breakfast. "Rice," was the predominant answer, no surprise. In Korea it would have been "kimchi and rice."

Then I asked what they thought Americans ate for breakfast. "Hamburgers!" was the loudest and most repeated answer. I also heard "bread" and "milk" which was a little closer to the truth. Pizza was also a popular answer.

After explaining that sandwiches like hamburgers are most commonly eaten for lunch, dinner, or as a late night drunk-extender, I told them that American breakfasts usually include something like cereal, toasted bread (that's toast to those of you in the red states) and eggs. They got a kick out of that last one.

Hamburgers for breakfast...hmm, not a bad idea.

Poop-idemic

2008-11-25T15:55:00.002+08:00

There is a serious problem in Wuxi, and I don't know how to combat it, so I thought I'd come to my blog and complain. The problem is public pooping. You read that right.

Maybe it was the idiotic taxi driver I had today who drove me around for the better part of an hour in a vain search for the UPS store. Maybe it's the fact that this is the 75th straight cloudy/hazy/pollutiony day here in Wuxi. Maybe it's that I almost tripped on the sidewalk last week and had I fallen I would've face planted right into a fresh steaming sidewalk-turd.

But I'm in a bad mood and I'm not going to let this one pass because of "cultural differences" or whatever other BS people use to justify the crapola (literal and otherwise) sometimes encountered in China.

I was walking down Zhong Shan Lu last night, the biggest street right through the heart of downtown on my way to a friends apartment when what do I see? A mother, crouched down on the sidewalk, pulls down her baby's pants and gently taps its behind until nature takes its course. Right there on the sidewalk. In full view of everyone. And then she walked away, leaving the poop unattended, as if God, or nature, or some mystical force were responsible for the piece of shit and not she.

I've lived here almost three months and I've witnessed this spectacle dozens of times. Dozens. And no, I am not exaggerating the number for effect. It happens everywhere: sidewalks, public parks, restaurants...everywhere but the friggin WC, it seems.

Now I've only seen babies doing it, with their matronly accomplices, if that somehow excuses it in your eyes forgiving reader. I have heard tale of, but have yet to encounter first-hand, the mythical grandmother-public-poop. Given enough time I'm sure I will. I can't wait.

Come to think of it, tho, I can't imagine a better metaphor to describe Wuxi than to say that its residents shit all over it.

Bloody Brilliant

2008-11-22T15:48:00.001+08:00

I rarely waste time on youtube anymore because the internet's so slow here in China, but this was worth the 15 minutes it took to download:

Not So Banned, and, the Future

2008-11-19T17:09:00.002+08:00

Well I guess we can tell from the comments and traffic here it turns out my blog wasn't permanently banned, and I'm not special or a security threat after all. Dang.

Onward and upward.

I had a discussion class this week with my students and I chose "the future of China" as the topic. Some of their answers/ideas were pretty interesting. Listed below.

Cutest answer to the question "what major changes do you foresee in the next 50 years?": In 50 years China will have a city on the moon.

Funniest misuse of a word to describe the future of Taiwan: Someday soon China will swallow Taiwan.

Most alarming opinion on how the mainland should deal with Taiwan: I think China should take advantage of the financial crisis in the US to attack and seize Taiwan.

Number of students (out of 75 or so) who thought Taiwan was a separate country: 0.

Most depressing opinion as to the future of Taiwan: I think it will be destroyed by a bomb.

One student's prediction of the population in the PRC in 50 years: one hundred million. They have a lot of difficulty with numbers.

Number of students who articulated reasonable and nuanced expectations of the future of their country: not a lot.

Banned!

2008-11-17T12:41:00.002+08:00

It appears that my blog may have been banned by my gracious Chinese hosts/overlords. I can still access blogger.com (obviously) but trying to get onto my blog itself and read it is impossible. I get the usual "go somewhere else" screen you sometimes get in China.

If you're in China, it's not likely you're reading this, but I'd appreciate it if someone who is in China can read this then please drop me a line. Maybe it's something else, or temporary.

I guess that post with all of the Chinese "red-flag" words finally got processed by some database in Beijing. That was over a month ago. Typical socialist inefficiency, I guess.

Oh well. I have to get going, I've got a big secret meeting with some Falun Gong members, and I have to plan for my democratic protest this evening. Oh, and tomorrow I'm going to read some passages from the Bible in the town square. And then maybe burn a picture of Mao.

I have to get out of this country.

Shamelessly Stolen From Someone Else:

2008-11-15T11:01:00.002+08:00

The Wuxi skyline:

A Percent of Perspective

2008-11-12T15:53:00.002+08:00

I recently read online at this website, a nice little community for Wuxi expats, that according to government statistics there are 3500 "laowai" or foreigners in our fair city.

I guess that sounds like a lot, until you consider that Wuxi has 5,000,000 residents in total.

So in other words we laowai, of our white, black, and brown complexions and round eyes, represent .0007 % of the population. That explains a lot.

Obama speaks Korean; a Nation Rejoices

2008-11-09T17:26:00.003+08:00

This is big, big news in Korea, and no, I'm not kidding.

President-elect Obama, when greeted and asked a question by a Korean national, greeted the student with the Korean version of "hello,": "anyeonghasaeyo."

Trust me, this one gesture will do more to endear him to a nation of validation-starved Koreans than anything George Bush did in 8 years.

I Don't Feel Sorry for John McCain

2008-11-06T17:08:00.001+08:00

Here's why:

Down To Earth

2008-11-05T18:49:00.006+08:00

Of course I'm thrilled Obama won the election. After John Edwards bowed out he was my candidate, and vs. a Republican, there could be no question. This is a transformative moment for America and its image of itself and to others around the....blah blah blah.

As many other spoilsporters have noted, now the hard part begins. That's certainly true. But I also want to try and bring us back to reality with my own dash of Asianized perspective.

I know people are dancing/crying in the streets as if Martha and the Vandellas are playing. I know this is really, really big news for people in America, and to a certain extent Europe. But let me bring you down to Earth: no one else cares.

That's a blanket statement, so let me elaborate. Sure, the leaders of countries all around the world, people who follow politics, those people care everywhere. But people like you, and if I may presume, an average person like you, pick your country, and they don't care. Believe me, I've met average people before and likely will do so again, why, today even, and I've tried to engage them about the news from America and for my troubles have received a bored shrug.

Think of it this way: did you follow the last change in government in China? The last election in Japan? Do you even know the leaders of those two countries.

My message to Americans back home is this: don't presume that the whole world is watching because CNN says so. That's just another example of the kind of American arrogance people're always pinning on us.

I'd also like to apologize for the lack of paragraph breaks. The motherfucking cocksucking goddamn pisspoor excuses for computers we have access to in this backwater piece of shit town don't fucking want to work with goddamn blogger.com sometimes. Yes it angers me.

Suicide

2008-11-05T18:06:00.002+08:00

I have a sad but unsurprising story to relay from my college. I came into the office on Monday and one of the teachers greeted me with the grim news: one of the students in our department had commited suicide.

My first thought was something like "my god, I hope it wasn't one of my students."

Fortunately (is it wrong to say that?) it wasn't. Sydney, the other English teacher, was her instructor. To the best of my knowledge I never spoke to or knew her at all, aside from passing in the hall a few times I'd guess.

Still it was a terrible way to start the week. We learned later that she had always had family problems - her parents had wanted a boy as a child, and when she was born gave her up for adoption - and also that the stress of dealing with school had recently really gotten to her.

Young suicides are a real problem in South Korea (which has the highest suicide rate of anywhere in the world) and I've recently learned from personal experience that it's a serious problem in China as well. The reason is simple: education is the only measure of success for young people in these cultures, and the prospects of potential failure can sometimes be so overwhelming that young students do something desperate. Peruse the ESL message boards for Asia and you'll be shocked at how many "My Student Killed Him/Herself" threads there are.

Sad.

What's Happening in Raleigh?

2008-10-23T10:15:00.003+08:00

I try to keep up with my local news while I'm so far away, and I do that mainly through wral.com. This was one of their top stories today:

"Pink limo causes stir in Cary

Posted: Today at 5:49 p.m. Updated: Today at 8:34 p.m.

Raleigh, N.C. — A bright pink limo parked at the Cary Towne Center has caused some complaints in the city that is known for its neutral color palette.

The limo is used by the Sweet and Sassy Spa for girls, which opened at the mall in May. Owner Brenda Sizemore said many refer to the business as “girl heaven.” The limo transports girls to and from the spa. The vehicle’s bright color was selected because “that’s what little girls are all about – pink,” Sizemore said.

While customers may like the color, a handful of people complained to town officials and asked if the limo was violating any town code. Town of Cary Senior Planner Dan Matthys said the vehicle is “in compliance” with the city’s ordinance. "

The fun never stops in the Triangle, does it? Boy those folks live a mile a minute, I tells ya.

Perverted Heaven

2008-10-23T10:08:00.002+08:00

I am of course still in Wuxi, but as you may or may not know I'm working on changing that, and returning to South Korea. I've been applying to jobs via recruiters and listings on daveseslcafe.com, which is linked to the right and which is the most popular site for teachers in Korea.

There's also a really popular message board there, and in skimming over it today I came across this, an incredibly lengthy blog post compiling the history of the Korean media's scare-mongering about foreign teachers. It's way too long for anyone without a personal interest to, well, be interested in, but about 2/3's of the way down the author quotes this:

"A source at the foreign affairs division of the Seoul Police Department said, “American and Canadian English teachers think Korea is a ‘land of opportunity.’ [...T]he majority of them find it easy to seduce Korean women and do drugs with them.” Foreign English teachers see Korea not only as a ‘land of opportunity’ but also as a ‘perverted heaven’."

I just love that last phrase there. "Perverted heaven." Yeah, that's about right.

The New South and Obama

2008-10-13T13:46:00.002+08:00

This is an interesting article about the Obama campaign in my home state of North Carolina. It focuses on the changes going on in the once reliably Republican state, whose most famous representative in Washington was (and probably still is) Senator No, or Senator Jesse Helms.

Anecdotally speaking I know this to be true, many of my friends and peers back home are much bluer than red, and even my nearly octogenarian grandfather, who no doubt voted for the late Mr. Helms more than a few times, has made it clear to the rest of the family (much to their chagrin, I must unfortunately add) that he's an Obama man. It would be quite an understatement to say this was unexpected.

If Obama can carry North Carolina, and it looks just like he might, then this will be a very big year for the Democrats. Here's hopin'.

Dear Britney Spears: We Still Hate You

2008-10-12T10:05:00.002+08:00

I was looking at the front page of yahoo today in search of some "real" news, and instead I found this article about Ms. Spears latest comeback.

I realize we're supposed to respect people with the "disease" of drug abuse/alcoholism, and that she's "been through so much" with her divorce and kids and whatever.

But Britney: I still hate you. To borrow from an indictment of another of your peers: you're a stupid spoiled whore whose presence on this Earth would no longer be required if not for the fact that your inevitable suicide will only make you more sympathetic to the teeming throngs of braces wearing pre-teens and aging overweight queens that make up your fanbase.

When it comes, I will celebrate your death, and I will not be the only one.

"Maybe Britney's smarter than we think," wonders the article. No, she isn't.

English Teachers Bring Drugs

2008-10-10T12:32:00.003+08:00

This is an interesting article about English teaching in South Korea, where I once lived/taught (and may so again?). The story is more or less comprehensive but for purposes of attention-grabbing the headline focused on one particular aspect of life there, the bad reputation foreigners have for drug-use.

Of course, during my two years there I never once was offered or indulged in anything. No way no how. Yep, there are no drugs in Korea. Nope. Not at all. No way.

The Won is Crap

2008-10-09T10:34:00.005+08:00

Looks like I got out of Korea just in time. The Korean Won, which during the 2 years I lived there fluctuated between 1100 and 900 to the dollar, has nosedived lately because of all the financial mess and as of the last time I checked xe.com (today) is worth about 1450 to $1.

That more or less means were I still working there, my salary would be worth about 50 % less than it once was, at least back home in the states. Thank you China!, for your relatively strong currency and interventionist policies that prevent free-floating disasters like what's happening in South Korea.

Somebody's Watching Me

2008-10-02T14:42:00.003+08:00

China ain't free. I don't speak the language, and I've only lived here a month so far, so I don't pretend to be an expert.

But...you don't really notice that walking down the street, going to work, interacting with the locals, or doing any other sort of mundane day-to-day thing.

The one place where you do notice that is when you want to use the internet. Use of the internet is strictly monitored, especially if, like me, you don't have a PC in your home and you're forced to go to the local PC room.

If you're a foreigner, they scan your passport and your local ID before giving you a chair. The natives just have their ID card scanned. But it doesn't stop there. According to this article, there are thousands of Chinese net police monitoring what Chinese citizens (and guests) write, look at, and read online.

That wasn't really news to me, I knew it before I came here, and hell post 9/11 the US government has been doing the same thing. But there's something about watching your passport scanned everytime you want to check your email that really drives home the point.

But, since I've always enjoyed lackadaisically giving the finger to authority, and since being expelled from this country honestly wouldn't upset me that much (I'm not planning on staying too much longer), I figure why not post some keywords the Chinese net-police really hate to see crop up?

Falun Gong!

Taiwan Independance!

Earthquake Mishandling!

Poor Communist Fashion Sense!

Who Drinks Milk Powder in the First Place?!

Forks Are Better!

DVD Chinglish #1

2008-09-30T09:15:00.004+08:00

So, I've already got a small library of bootleg DVDs here in China. Compared to Korea, they're both a) much cheaper and b) of a higher quality, so how could I resist?

But even the comedies tend to be amusing before I've opened them because of this persistent habit Chinese bootleggers have of putting non-sensical Chinglish on the backs of the packages.

For an example, let me quote from the recent Seinfeld seasons 1-9 package I bought (for 25 yuan/~$3.50). On the back, where there's supposed to be some sort of explanation of the show and/or praise for its success, it reads:

"Kramer's wardrobe of mostly 1960s and 1970s clothing was not intended to make him into retro fashions, so much as to suggest that he hadn't bought clothes in several years.

"The pants in particular were alway about an inch too short in order to stress this. In later seasons, appropriate clothing became increasingly difficult for producers to find, due to the combination of it getting older as well as the extreme popularity of Kramer as a character."

And on and on it goes, filling the entire page with a history of Kramer's wardrobe choices. Me gusta.

Socialism! Yikes!

2008-09-24T20:17:00.002+08:00

Socialism is a dirty word in America. I would say the general idea, the broad equation, would be something like this:

socialism = communism = Stalin raping the Statue of Liberty

The truth is, more and more, America is a socialist country, you know, just like every other developed nation. We have huge gaps, sure, especially socialized medicine, but we'll get there someday.

Which is part of why I enjoyed this article so much. You've got your typical Republican intellectual heavyweights, you know baby-faced Mitch McConnell and my own state's brilliant Senator, Liddy Dole, bitching and moaning about the government intervening to save all of these banks that're going over the cliff like a bunch of lemmings. Of course, it's our Republican president who came up with the bailout plan. There're Republicans staffing the Federal Reserve and Department of Commerce. And I dare say, those CEOs and financial wizards at AIG and whereever else, well, my guess is a lot of them are Republicans too. Bill Clinton said about 15 years ago, "the era of big government is over." Back up the turnip truck, bubba, and take another look.

The Pits

2008-09-24T19:57:00.003+08:00

So, I was doing a class the other day, and I asked a general question. Something along the lines of "raise your hand if you know such and such," that's usually how it goes. Naturally, no one raises their hands, so I dumb it down and get a few arms thrust upwards.

I take a glance around the room, and BANG it hits me like a sack of potatoes. That sweet, innocent looking petite brainiac girl with her arm raised has either been hiding a tiny ferret in her armpit or, and let's face it, this is much more likely: she's neglected to shave. For quite some time.

And then I started to notice she ain't the only one. Wrinkly bus-waiting grandmothers, shop clerks with glassy smiles, suspicious eyed passers-by, all women, and all not fully groomed, have recently made my acquaintance, or, at least, been noticed by yours truly.

I spent the better part of a week in Paris with the full expectation that I'd encounter this phenomenon, to no avail, and I come to hairless China to find out a good chunk of the women round here are sporting more turf than they should. Strange world.

Adaptation

2008-09-13T17:11:00.005+08:00

I never thought I'd say it after two years in Korea, but I'm getting sick of the stares here in China. When I walk down the street it's as if I look like the d00d to the left here.

At first I just tried to ignore it, like I would in Korea when it occasionally happened. Then, after getting a little pissy, I started staring right back until they look away. Sometimes it works, but there are some real first class gawkers in this city, let me tell you.

And of course none of them are beautiful women. They're all wrinkled up country folk or ill-behaved children or rakishly thin security guards or hirsute street people or slack jawed bus drivers or sarcastic prone schoolkids...or any other sort of demographic that holds no interest for me.

Is it wrong to be tired of a place so soon?

On Becoming Anthony

2008-09-09T09:03:00.002+08:00

So, as previously mentioned, I'm in a new country. No one knows me here. A stranger in a strange land. I'm like Marco Polo, or Columbus, or Martin Lawrence in Black Knight.

One of the resolutions I made before coming to China, and the one which has (not coincidentally) proven to be the easiest to keep up as well as the easiest to abide, was that I'd introduce myself by and use my first name here: Anthony.

I've never liked "Wayne," the name. For every accomplished, famous, or wealthy Wayne history gives us there are three or four Anthonys to match him. You say Wayne Brady, I say (An)Tony Blair, Anthony Hopkins and Anthony Soprano. You counter with Wayne LaPierre, I say Tony Shaloub, Tony Gwynn, and Tony Danza. You say John Wayne. I say John Wayne Gacy. Check-mate.

That's another of my problems with "Wayne," especially as a middle-name. How many perverts, scoundrels, and domestic terrorists do you know of associated with this appellation? None, you might answer, you don't keep track of such people in your head. Well, we Waynes do, and do you know why? It's because we hear our name on the nightly news half of the time one of these deviants is shown, shackled, being escorted out of his subterranean lair, bleary eyed in full view of the unforgiving light of the news cameras.

So, enough is enough. I'm not saying this is a permanent thing. I'm not saying I could change my name, or change what those who've known me longest call me, without the kind of unceasing and persistent corrective effort two years as a language instructor have taught me to avoid. But, here, in this outpost in the wilderness, for a while at least, I can try being someone new.

Wuxi and You Can Too

2008-09-05T15:12:00.004+08:00

Well, I'm in China. In Wuxi, to be more precise which is west of Shanghai and near the north side of the blue blob of a lake featured on the map to the left.

I'm teaching at the "Jiangsu Institute of Technology," I think (I'm honestly not sure of the name), a learning institution which, for lack of a better term, we'll call a "college." I don't mean to be oblique, it's just that apparently in China universites and colleges are tiered and I'm not yet sure where my employer lies on that totem pole.

I finished my contract in Korea mid-June, flew to London and met up with Joey and Dave, and eventually Dave's friend (and now mine as well) James, and the four of us had a merry time traveling 'round Europe for the following month. Good times were had by all mas o menos, and I returned home to Raleigh a much richer person, at least metaphorically speaking; should we descend to the level of the literal then "rich" is not a word that would have applied to yours truly upon landing at RDU Int'l.

But I found a job and here I am.

China is what it is, having lived in Korea for two years and having visited China twice before I was more or less prepared. My pidgin Korean, pathetic as it was, is sorely missed as I now realize how much easier it was for me to get around the land of the morning calm than here. Korean was also a lot easier to read, because like most civilizations they divined the practicality of a set system of symbols representing sounds which could be combined to form words, an "alphabet" to those of you in the red states, whereas scripted Chinese looks to my untrained eye like a Rorschach test drawn by an epileptic and, of course, does not have an alphabet.

But I'll adapt. I've met some interesting people already, one of my co-teachers claims to be the former Mauritian ambassador to Australia (I say "claims" simply because it's such a fantastic claim that it must either be immediately doubted or accepted as gospel, and among the Disciples Thomas was always my favorite), another is a former German paratrooper. If you'd told me a month ago I'd be sharing drinks with a Mauritian ambassador and a German paratrooper, well, I'd believe you (after all, why would you lie?) but I would also think it sounded interesting. It is. Which is why I do this sort of thing in the first place.

Bupyeong/Bucheon

2008-06-07T12:05:00.002+08:00

Basically I've called Bupyeong and Bucheon home for the past two years, and I was pleasantly surprised to find a few videos on youtube about both of them. Have a look:

Bupyeong:

Bucheon:

"Alrigh Lads, We Nee'a Talk"

2008-05-14T20:30:00.004+08:00

<--Deokjeokdo. defn. A small Korean island near Incheon. Well known for its inaccessibility, fishing industry, minbaks (small "motels" where you sleep on the floor) and attractiveness to loudmouthed drunkards.

I had all of last week off and so for the second of the bookending weekends me and some buddies decided to head over to Deokjeokdo for soju soaked good times. We got that, sorta.

Friday night was Canada Buddy's last night open for business at its old location, and all shots of liquor were discounted. I decided to celebrate by trying one of each, including the mythical Bacardi 151, and long story short I didn't last very long.

I also woke up Saturday with a hangover the size of Montana. So the ferry ride over wasn't much fun.

But by the time we got there I was more or less in the spirit of things and the day/night went according to plan. Drinks were had, games were played, people were met, bonfires on the beach were lit, etc etc. There were incidents, there always are, but nothing extraordinary.

Having lost the other two (lightweight) members of our party around 3 or 4 Dave and I staggered back to our minbak and collapsed beside them. They were awoken, still drunk, and eventually we forsook slumber in lieu of bombastic conversation.

Earlier in the day Bryce (who, let it be said, in a bombast competition would probably place well) had brought up the movie Dumb & Dumber and specifically some moment in it when someone screams "Gaaaaaaaary!!" funnily. He'd been doing it all night. I guess you had to be there. Anyway, a few hours before the cock was set to crow he'd been screaming it over and over again in our room, and we'd matched him with inadequate interpretations and general mirth and whatnot.

So when I slipped open the door to our room and stood just outside to smoke a cigarette, and when the conversation continued unmuffled, a neighboring door did the same and from it emerged a very blonde, very British, very pissed off young lady who stomped over to me, thrust her wiry finger in my face and accused me and my cohorts of keeping the whole place awake all night (justly, I might add). I countered with the ineffective "c'mon, we're just trying to have a good time," which she volleyed back to me by way of some sort of cockney defamation, which was immediately seized upon by the Mississippian Bryce as indecipherable and idiotic. The confrontation was then escalated by the insertion of curse words and of Chloe, a sizable Irish lass I'd once before pleasantly greeted and conversed with but who can apparently go from zero to cunt pretty fast. Anyway, there was shouting and whatnot but we backed down and went back inside.

But it wasn't over yet.

At this point I would hasten to remind the reader that I was drunk, and thus not fully accountable for what happened next.

We continued our conversation in our room, at first quietly discussing the problems we had with Chloe in specific, and then less quietly discussing the problems we had with her country in general. We knew she was sitting right outside, well within earshot, and it must be said provoking her wasn't far from our minds. Or should I say: mine. Anyway, some things I recall saying, a bit too loudly:

"Fuck all you potato eatin micks."
"Fuck Bono and his stupid fucking glasses."
"Fuck that snake scaring motherfucking St. Patrick."

And so on. At the time, it was hilarious. It became less funny when our door slid open.

Chloe it seemed, despite being no belle of the ball, was not traveling alone, and into our tiny room walked four or five husky Irishmen. "Alrigh Lads, We Nee'a Talk," said the ringleader. "Oh, fuck," thought I. "Let's step outsi'a," he said. And so we did.

To quote Martin Short: "here's where the story gets weak." There was no fighting. There wasn't even any pushing. Hell, we hardly argued. In fact, instead of bludgeoning each other, we sat down at the courtyard table and finished off a bottle of tequila. I daresay we even became friends, well...at least polite acquaintances.

Eventually everyone staggered off to sleep (except for me, what can I say, I have the stamina of an ox) and I took this picture. Jodie, the ringleader and first into our room can be seen slumped over in his chair, passed out on Jose Cuervo.

All in all, not a bad night.

JIFF, part the second

2008-05-14T20:02:00.003+08:00

I saw four movies while in Jeonju, three of them were good, if not great; all four were memorable, if not necessarily for the right reasons.

First up was a Romanian film called California Dreamin'. It was the story of an American Army communications unit that gets stranded in a small town whilst enroute to the conflict in Bosnia circa the late 90s. The starry eyed locals and the indifferent passers-through get up to all sorts of hijinks you can probably imagine for yourself, in the end the Americans leave the town in the throes of a civil war (metaphor, anyone?) and more or less worse off than they were before their idyllic existence was violated by the Americans. It was alright, just too erratic and poorly acted for my tastes.

The acting was definitely better in the second movie I saw, 'In the Valley of Elah,' which was also a story about American soldiers albeit with a much more somber perspective than the first film. The "Valley of Elah" was the setting for the biblical battle between David and Goliath, and our film's David is Tommy Lee Jones, the father of an Iraq War Veteran who was murdered by his colleagues shortly after returning from the war. The Goliath of the picture is the military infrastructure which attempts to thwart his investigation into the murder. It was really well acted and pretty touching, a bit slow at times maybe, and tho I'm no Iraq War fan even I at times thought it was a bit over-the-top anti-American (especially the final scene) but all in all it was the best film of the four.

Another film I'd heard good things about but hadn't been able to catch on the internet or at Yongsan was this one, 'Jessie James.' I liked it. Again, the acting was good, and again, parts of it were pretty moving, but it was a bit too in love with the idea of itself to be great. I really enjoy the whole "anti-Western" motif, tho, and what was so striking and memorable for me about this flick was how there were no heroes and no perfect characters - everyone had a dark side.

The last film I saw was the one I was most excited about, which possibly contributed to why it was such a disappointment for me. I love zombie movies. Love the hell outta them. Would marry them if I could. And George Romero is the king of zombie movies, and we're not talking about someone who's cred rides on what he did in the 70s (hello! Wes Craven), he's made good stuff lately. But this ain't good. The script is so awful, the lines are so flatly delivered, and the acting is so terrible that I just couldn't get into it. I'm willing to forgive quite a lot in a zombie movie (heck I even enjoyed one or two of the seemingly writer-less Resident Evil movies) but the problem with this movie was the writing was so upfront and so message-driven. Instead of killing fucking zombies in all sorts of gory ways the motley crew of 20 somethings and their surly whiskey swillin' philosophy professor scamper around the Pennsylvania countryside debating the nature of the media. "Is something real if it's not on TV?" "We live in an age where everything can be seen everywhere by everyone." "You have to keep filming or it doesn't exist." Blah blah blah. Shut. The. Fuck. Up. And. Kill. Some. Fucking. Zombies!

All in all tho, no regrets, I enjoyed the heck outta Jiff.

JIFF, part the first

2008-05-04T18:31:00.005+08:00

This is a long weekend in Korea, with Monday being Children's Day or Buddha's Birthday or some other bullshit holiday which I can't specifically recall. So, too, is next weekend. This fortuitous arrangement of the stars means those of us in the public employ have the whole week off.

Friday, for me, also happened to be a half day because my students are taking exams. So when I'd finished my "work"day at 12 I scrambled over to the Incheon bus terminal and hopped on the next bus for Jeonju. Why?

JIFF - the Jeonju International Film Festival. There are quite a few film festivals here in the Korea, and my attempts to attend them previously have all met with something less than success. I spent one frantic Sunday afternoon with Dave rushing back and forth to theaters learning about all the different ways Koreans can say "sold out" during the Bucheon festival. And tho I've wanted to attend the more renowned Busan Film Festival both of my years here in the Korea, there've been calendar conflicts both times. (<--That's Jeonju, btw, and yes, it looks like everywhere else in Korea, too.) So when I read about this on-line, and saw the lineup of films being shown, I wasted no time getting my azz down there. I'll go through the films I saw in a later post, let me instead herein relay why I'm home on Sunday evening, a full day or two earlier than I'd planned on returning.

The trip down was cake. No problems. And when I walked out of the Jeonju bus terminal there was an information booth that was 1)actually manned by someone and 2)manned by someone who could speak English pretty well and helped me with maps/directions. Friday night I had no trouble getting to a theater, seeing a movie I wanted to see, getting a room for the night at one of the dozens of motels surrounding the bus terminal(s), getting dinner, etc etc.

But then came Saturday. I was planning on seeing four films Saturday, and I didn't have any real trouble getting tickets or getting around during the day. I saw a film at 2, at 8, and then at midnight. The midnight show was a triple feature, and I'd planned on staying for the first two. But the first film was so horrible and I was so exhausted by the time it was over I decided to hop in a taxi and head back to the motel district.

So, I jump in. "Odi kasayo?" he says.
W:"Bus-uh terminal ka jusayo."
TD:"Mwo bus-uh terminal?"
W:"Han-bon."
TD:"Mwo yo?"
W:"Hangul mal ul chal molayo."
TD:"(Angry sigh)"
W: "Cham ship man yo. (Desperately searching pockets for map) Igo ka yo. Igo yo."
TD: "Igo mwo ae yo?"
W: "Han bon bus-uh terminal kinchinayo. Da kinchinayo."
TD: "(mumbling curses)"

Let me translate: "Where to?" he says.
Wayne: Bus terminal go to please.
Taxi Driver: What bus terminal?
Wayne: Number 1!
Taxi Driver: Uh, what?
Wayne: Korean well I don't know.
Taxi Driver: Egads, I hate dealing with ignorant foreigners.
Wayne: Little time give me. (pointing to map) This go to. This!
Taxi Driver: What is this?
Wayne: Number 1 bus terminal it's ok. Everything's ok!
Taxi Driver: Fucking jackass.

Well anyway eventually we got there. I was so relieved when I stepped out of the taxi. I was going to get my bag which I'd stored in the terminal lockers, get a motel room, get a bottle of soju and have some fun with channel 18 on Korean cable. I was less relieved when I noticed that the bus terminal, which I was sure had to be open 24 hours, was as dark as a cloudy night and as empty as a baby's head. That meant no bag. Well, so what, I'll just get it in the morning and use the motel's toiletries. I was even less relieved, however, when I started down motel alley behind the bus terminal and noticed, oddly enough, that everything was dark. The familiar hum of the neon lights upsayo.

Now, I've been around the block. I've been to more than my fair share of Korean cities. I've arrived late, much later than the time it was then (around 2AM). And I have never known motels to shut down so early. Let alone all of them. I was surrounded by a good two dozen motels, all of them as accessible to me at the moment as the moon.

Well, ok, no problem I thought. I'll just find a sauna and spend the night there. I've done that a few times, and tho it's less comfortable than sleeping in a bed, it also happens to be much cheaper. So I started walking. And walking. And walking. No saunas. No motels. More walking. More walking. Still no saunas. No motels.

Finally, in the distance I see neon lights that read, in Korean, "Mo-something." It must be another motel district, I thought. So even tho it was a good mile away I kept walking. And once I got closer, sure enough, I could make out this "district" was comprised of two motels sitting side by side. I approached.

I got close. 200 yards away, the first one flicked its lights off. Shit. I started running. I made it to the second one before they closed for the night, dashed in, and encountered two crooked backed helmonis. "Hana olmaeyo?" (One how much?) "Derka derka upsa." (We don't have a room.) Cackling laughter. "You fucking dried up cunts." Ok, I thought that, didn't say it.

I walked back onto the street. I was in the middle of nowhere, with no prospects for finding a place to lay my weary head. Ok, I thought, I'll go back to the party district, maybe there'll be something there, if not I'll find a PC room and hunker down until morning.

To try and cut this already way too long story short, I did make it back to the party area, I did find a PC room, wherein I was able to search for saunas online and discover where one was, which I was able to reach in a taxi and where I spent a more or less restless 4 hours until morning.

The film I'd wanted to see most was showing Sunday afternoon (Francis Ford Coppolla's latest, Youth Without Youth) but I was so exhausted I headed back to the bus terminal (after some trouble, again, communicating which terminal I wanted to go to) to retrieve my bag.

I get there. It's open. I go to the locker. I type in my number. It says I owe another buck. I try to put it in. It won't take my money. I try again. Still won't take it. I try all different variations in coin, it won't work. I try my key. It won't open. My shit is stuck in there. All of my clothes, my cell phone, everything is irretrievable. I approach someone for help. She tries. It still won't work. We approach an employee of the bus terminal. She doesn't know what to do. Someone else tries. It still won't work. Finally, this helpful college student comes over and figures out we need to push one more button.

Yes! I've got my stuff. I buy coffee for everyone who's helped me with the locker and then go buy a ticket for home. "Chigum derka derka yo," says the clerk. ("The bus is leaving now.") I look at my ticket. Sure enough, it says 7:40, and so does my watch. I race downstairs to where the buses are departing just in time to see the Incheon bus, my bus, pulling away. I start chasing it, duffel bag flopping on my back ridiculously. I bang on the bus's side. It stops, praise Jeebus. I get on to the half empty bus, filled with cackling adjumas, pointing and staring at me.

You fucking dried up cunts, I think.

Crazy Cows

2008-05-04T18:13:00.004+08:00

Do you live in America? Do you eat beef a few times a week (I know you do, because Koreans have informed me that Americans eat cheeseburgers every day)? Did you know that you're taking an awful risk?

Well, you are. American beef is dangerous. So dangerous, in fact, that ever since President Lee Myung Bak lifted the S Korean ban on it the threat to the Korean people has been the number one story on the news. Not, you know, surging oil prices, or the sinking Korean economy, or the Chinese shenanigans surrounding the Olympics, but rather the dire and deadly threat posed by American beef. So dangerous that hundreds of people held a candlelight vigil in downtown Seoul the other night, not for some recently-tragically departed young person or some moral social agenda, but because Koreans now have the option of eating American beef again.

Maybe I'm in a bad mood. Maybe it's that one of my students blurted out "fucking USA" in class the other day. Maybe it's the succession of anti-American sentiment I encountered at the Jeonju Film Festival (see a later post). But it seems to me the media in this country will seize any opportunity they get to try and whip up anti-American hysteria, and I'm a little sick of it.

Some other US/Korea beef stories:
No government officials likely to eat US beef on TV
One million Korean netizens favor impeachment because of beef controversy

The World's Greatest Intellectuals

2008-04-23T21:01:00.007+08:00

Foreign Policy magazine is conducting a readers' poll which I just participated in, asking who are your 5 favorite public intellectuals (iow: smart people who go on TV and get published in something with the word "Times" in its name). I basically voted for the people I knew something about and liked, not that there's anything wrong with that - that's the basic idea, unfortunately of the 100 options listed I only knew who about 20 of them were. Well, that's the problem with democracy after all, that the ignorant get to vote alongside the educated. The five I selected all happen to be minor heroes of mine (the last being the only living man I'd call "my" hero) so I thought it was blog-worthy.

Anyway, my list, in no particular order:

Umberto Eco - author of one of my favorite novels (Foucault's Pendulum) and a linguistics/literature/history essayist
Gary Kasparov - the greatest chess player who ever lived who's currently a liberal activist/politician in Russia
Noam Chomsky - basically the one man who speaks truth to power in American politics
Richard Dawkins - author of the amazing "The God Delusion" and the best public atheist out there
Christopher Hitchens - my personal hero, atheist, ex-Trotskyist, damned neo-conservative/Iraq war supporter, scathing wit

Erection Day Kraziness

2008-04-10T17:27:00.004+08:00

One thing I will definitely miss about Korea is the random drunken (usually) craziness of the place. This is a country where piss-drunk old guy is a legitimate and substantial demographic subset.

Which brings me to a story. I had yesterday, Wednesday, off because of, as one of my co-teachers put it, "Big Assembly Erection Day." Ok so I added the "big" there, but the rest is true. Koreans and their troubles with "r," another thing I'll miss.

Anyway I went into Seoul with Joey and we wound up at Hooters in Gangnam, then eventually returned to Bucheon and shared a pint or six at the local speak easy over a chessboard. Us two and the two bar-gals were the only ones there for most of the evening, until 10ish or so when in came a solitary drunken adjoshi of about 60 or so.

I knew he was trouble as soon as I saw him because he was "walking" like one of the zombies in Night of the Living Dead. He more or less ignored us and approached Spung Jee, the owner of the bar. He started saying something weird and loud which we later figured out was meant to be "what's up?" but which sounded sort of like "wherz op?" Anyway she eventually started talking to him in Korean and asked him to leave. Of course he wouldn't.

By this point he was trying to get our attention and kept asking us over and over again "wherz op?" and "djyu speech Engarish?" We ignored him. So he started trying other languages. All he really knew how to do apparently was count in four or five languages, most of them I couldn't really figure what they were but I did catch it when he counted to five in Spanish and French. Why of course he felt compelled to do this I can't say.

Eventually the police were called and they were surprisingly punctual and effective. They confronted him, asked him to leave, and when he refused they escorted him out, but not before he surprisingly made an attempt to lunge at me for some reason. I can't say why, as I'd ignored him during his whole multilingual tirade, but maybe that's the reason why. I dunno.

Anyway, I'm gonna miss that kind of shit.

Geumchon

2008-03-24T16:34:00.002+08:00

I was directed to the following video and thought it was pretty good. It sums up the Korean-waygookin experience pretty well, I think.

Plus, I really dig the adjumma visors they're wearing. Check it out-

Kickin it in Geumchon

Free Tibet? Really?

2008-03-17T18:00:00.002+08:00

Like most people, I don't really give two shit's about Tibet. Perhaps that sounds too harsh. All I really mean to say is that it's not on my radar screen at all. I don't get up in the morning and think "I wonder what's happening in Lhasa today." But thanks to the inordinate amount of free time my current position affords me, I've been able to follow the news coming out of there lately. If you don't know, there have been all sorts of protests centering around Tibetan independence day and depending on who you trust more either a dozen or nearly 100 rebels or freedom fighters have been killed.

Again, like most people, I think if a group of people want their independence, and if they have a separate culture, language, religion, etc etc...well, then, they should have it. But I also recognize it's not always that simple. One need look no further than the history of my own country to see that.

It's a complex question, and as such I was really interested in the video below. Depending on your POV it's either Communist propaganda or an honest re-evaluation of Chinese and Tibetan history. I'm not educated on the subject so I really can't render a thoughtful opinion, but if I can borrow from Stephen Colbert and trust my gut over the facts then I'd have to say I'm inclined towards the former of those two possibilities.

Flat Stanely

2008-03-12T17:37:00.004+08:00

I recently had a visitor here in the Korea. My cousin Natalie, who's about 6 years old, was asked by her teacher to dispatch the ill fated Flat Stanley who, as his name suggests, was flattened in some sort of mishap involving a large book and then appropriately enough realized life is too short and that he wanted to see more of the world while he still can. And so he was sent to me.

The idea is that I "show" him around town, take pictures of him at a few interesting places in my community and send him back home better traveled and perhaps a little wiser. Having done that, I would now like to show you some of the fun he and I got up to during his all too short visit.

Stanley at Bupyeong station, near my apartment. I live down the street that runs between the two buildings on the left.
Stanley on a hill overlooking my school and some apartment buildings.
Stanley at the front door to my school. Don't ask me what all that says.
Stanley in Bupyeong's annoyingly crowded underground market. Whenever I walk from my apartment to the station I have to go through this miles long maze of distracted ajummas.
Stanley considering his options in front of a (surprise!) Korean restaurant.
Stanley getting ready to board the subway.
Stanley overlooking the Han river and the 63 building in the distance.
Stanley in Gwanghwamun, Seoul.
Another shot of Gwanghwamun.
Stanley in front of Duksugung Palace.
Stanely in front of the statue of King Sejong.
Drunken Stanley annoying some Koreans on the late bus ride home.

The North

2008-03-11T17:39:00.003+08:00

I want to go everywhere. You name the place on this planet, and I want to visit it. But the country I want to visit more than any other lies about 100 miles north of where I now sit. It's been my hope that during my time here in the south that I'd be able to make it there, but for westerners, and especially for Americans, that's a difficult proposition.

So second to actually visiting myself...this will have to suffice. It's called "The Vice Guide to North Korea" and it's a video account of how one guy got in and got to look around. If, like me, you share a fascination for the last isolated outpost of weirdness on this little blue orb we call home then you should check it out.

Believe it or not, I miss Burger King

2008-02-28T14:12:00.002+08:00

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

2008-02-25T14:51:00.002+08:00

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

2008-02-24T21:58:00.001+08:00

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

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

2008-02-20T14:20:00.004+08:00

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.