Somehow, the almost completely nonfunctional lock on Torjan’s workchamber door was magically repaired over the weekend. It seems to work as good as new now. Er…? Torjan is somewhat perturbed at the moment, and wondering if his aetheric postings are either being examined by some High Administratae… or, more scarily, by some invisible beings that make his aetherically-posted demands come true? If so: this Hypagoran could use a couple of billion won. (It never hurts to ask.)
Category: KOREA
Do You Have the “Drunken Rice”?
I don’t tend to read food blogs, but in the past year or so, there seems to have arrived a meme spreading around Korea that Korean food must be popularized in the West, as Japanese food has been. I suspect this is not just because Japanese food being popular irks your average nationalist in Korea — Japan’s international popularity in general does, after all — but also because, if you go to some places in North America, you’ll see Koreans running many of the “Japanese” restaurants. (In such places, side dishes of kimchi are often available in far greater occurrence …
How Much Does 빨리빨리 Cost?
A metaphor, for what it would be unwise to simply relay, and now a new tag for my blog — “allegories from life”: Torjan rose from the desk and went to the door of his workchamber, about to make his way to one of the lecture halls. The room was enormous, and he had finally figured out how to open the magical windgate to bring a cooling breeze into the room that had grown steadily warmer with each passing month. But when he reached the chamber door, and stepped out, he made a strange discovery. That was: the lock refused …
A Letter to a Teacher
The other day, I wrote a letter to a long-ago teacher of mine. He was my English teacher back in high school, and he was, finally, pretty great. I don’t know why, at the beginning of things, he was convinced I needed to be booted out of class. But when things finally turned around, they went great and I learned a lot from him. The reason I wrote the letter was because, a few months ago, a complete prick retired. The complete prick was another teacher of mine, and he was unrelentingly, unabashedly, and rather straightfowardly, a complete prick, at …
In Seoul? Love Jazz?
Here are two bits of news for you: This Friday and Saturday (June 11th/12th) there’s an international jazz festival on in Seoul. There are free shows in the park. Not sure if there are pay concerts also — I wish David Sanchez would have a giant 3 hour gig but I doubt it. Maybe at some other venue, while he’s here? Seems like a shame to come just for 6 songs, no matter how extended the improvisations might be. I just found out about this on Marmot’s , need to look into it more. A jazz fan among my students …
Oriental Medicine Charlatanry
Someone in my Facebook friendslist (whatever it’s called there) posted a thing about acupuncture and how it actually works, at least as an analgesic. And, well, yeah. Done right, it can work as an analgesic. It can work as advertised. Unless of course the practitioner is a total quack asshole who advertises that acupuncture (or other oil-of-smoke medications) will cure cancer. Somewhere on the Korean internet is a web forum where doctors hang out and chat, something like Dave’s ESL Cafe, and one of the long-running topics of complaint is how often patients show up at the conventional doctor’s office, …
You Do Realize That You’re Baring Your Soul To Me, Right?
I’d heard from others that teaching Creative Writing to undergrads, one tends to see things that those students don’t or can’t express anywhere else. In Canada, I recall hearing classes tended to have to wade through story after story of students’ first sexual experiences, of their best or worst sexual experiences, of imagined sexual experiences, and of course the perennial fantasies of sexual violence (mostly by male students). Well, I am happy to report that this isn’t my experience in Korea.
GBH and Unknown Famous Koreans
Be warned: this tune is slightly addictive. Not because Kylie Minogue is prancing about in a space-kimono getup, which is amusing the first time through, but because it has one hell of a groove. Not bad for 20th century music (of a relatively obscure sort — it has a poor release history, this track does). So is Towa Tei well known in Korea? Is it widely known that he’s a Zainichi Korean, or do most Koreans who hear of him assume (as does most of the West, I guess, and understandably) that he’s Japanese? It fascinates me which Koreans outside Korea …
Shut the !&%# Up, Citizen, This Tinnitus is Democracy in Action
Today is (municipal) election day in Korea. For the last two months, the campaign law has been in effect, and this law, according to the Korea Times, forbids just about anything like politics: Prohibited activities, beginning April 3, two months prior to the June 2 election, include conducting surveys with the names of certain parties and candidates, and political activities of incumbents that would affect the outcome of the elections. Incumbents are also banned from promoting their party’s platforms, participating in events organized by their party except ceremonies for foundations, mergers and reorganization during the official campaign period. It’s baffling …
My Name in Korea[n]
A few responses have come in for my post about Names That Ain’t Workin’ so I figured I’d add something about my name, the use of “foreign” names, and more. First, the last issue. I don’t really see the point in taking on a foreign name. Sure, it would give Koreans something to call me that would be easy for them to pronounce, and avoid them mangling my real name. (Which they sometimes do.) But I like to think human beings, languages, and cultures are flexible things. I like to think I could live in another culture and keep my …