Remember The Asia Pages, that blog that Jodi used to run down in wherever-it-was near Busan? Now that was a blog. A good Korea-blog. I miss that blog. Jodi, I hope you’re doing well out there, wherever you are!
Tag: expats
Pearls Before Swine, Or, The Time Has Come to Saw off the Brakes
You know. You know better. You know most people would rather eat what they always eat, think what they’ve always thought, drink what they’ve always drunk, read what they’ve always read. You know that so many people have no idea how interesting a world of diversity and difference is. They say “Everyone does it this way,” whether explicitly or implicitly, because they wish everyone was just as boring as they are. So many people — is it wrong to say most? I’m not sure it is — couldn’t be bothered. They’d rather just stay in their rut. It’s comfortable, it’s …
Didn’t Do Hallowe’en This Year
Free Hallowe’en PDF at GUD — stories from the first four issues. (Available for now.) Plus some other stuff too… Didn’t do Hallowe’en this year, beyond watching Inglourious Basterds. Stuff to say about it, which meshes pretty well with what I have to say about another SF film, District 9. SF? Why yes, Inglourious Basterds is an alternate history, after all. Need one make a spoiler alert at this point? Well, wait, I’ll save it for when I actually post about that. Today, however, I must send in my paper, plus it’s beer-makin’ day. So… more on both those films …
It is to Flunk
I was grading a stack of student assignments — specifically, feedback on readings, which I make them do on the theory that it helps them prepare for discussions of the texts — when I ran across a particularly saddening passage in response to “The Multiculture,” an essay about Torontonian multiculturalism, which I’ll only paraphrase here: If I were a Torontonian, I would look at foreigners in two ways. In one way, I’d see them as invaders, because they would be speaking foreign languages and bringing foreign customs to my land. But I would also see them as bringing new life …
I Even Remember My Teacher’s Name…
To those of you who are teaching here, and given to shooting your mouth off, let this be a lesson… Something funny happened this semester in one of my classes. A student was complaining about one of her first foreign teachers, who taught her English while she was in middle or high school. (I can’t remember which.) This foreign teacher said some things that, at least as the student recounted them, were pretty ignorant and obviously not wise things for a Western adult to say to a Korean kid. The funny thing that that the student ended her rant with, …