scraps

Collecting Bones, Korea and Korean Literature. Being Part One.

2008-05-14T03:40:00.000-07:00

First, I have to admit that this computer teases me. Old number 10 at the PC Bang always starts up trying to load its "Hamachi adapter."

But it always fails and the sushi is never mine!

O cruel fate...

Anyway.. here's the beginning of a 1 to 5 part thing on borders, korea and its literature. 1 is if I get bored. or distracted..

Hey, is that Rain?

OH...
-----------------------------------

Dokdo
(From Korea.net)

Somewhere in “Snow Crash” Neal Stephenson notes that, “interesting things happen along borders – transitions – not in the middle where everything is the same.”

Which is, of course, why I am in Korea.

Many years ago I collected skulls.

This began when my mother and sister moved far up into some ridiculous mountains for which they should have been issued lisps, stalks to chew on and banjos to play whilst contemplating the sodomization of lost flatlanders. I would visit, and on one visit – lo and behold – I found the skull of something.

As a suburban lad I was shocked and secretly pleased. I grabbed a stick and used it to carry the skull, which was not entirely cleaned by nature, back to my mother’s house.

People shrugged.

Sheep skull.

Sheep were herded in the meadow I had travelled. At the spot where, beginning to walk up the surrounding slopes, I had found the skull, ecologies collided. Wolves skulked in the trees and any sheep unlucky enough to wander out of the meadow risked a brief and lethal interaction.

Food chain.

Still, I was obscurely proud of having found the skull and began collecting animal bones.

I have also always been a fan of trains. I’ve ridden them, legally and illegally, for years and as an inveterate walker have worked out that they work as something like trails. In even the most rural or urban environments you might expect to find some train tracks to walk on. And so I do. I would find the most interesting things there. The tracks in Soda Springs often contained, between them, the creosote-covered bodies of dead frogs. I never quite figured this one out. I guessed the frogs got between the tracks (there were safe watery havens on each side of the raised tracks) and then, in the mid-day heat, could not quite navigate their ways back out. How they got creosoted is still a mystery to me. It had to have something to do with the trains that passed above their corpses, but I could never tease out the exact thing. Possibly, they were quite aware of the tracks they had to hop and were optimistic about how the whole thing would turn out. Right up til that unfortunate moment the… (“whatever”)…. creosoted them.

I wish I could get some kind of grant to explore this phenomenon.

It occurred to me that the railroad tracks were a condensed microcosm of the meadow and the hills and that what I was seeing was the interactions of the borderlands. On the train-tracks, ecosystems collided on a razor-thin border. Train tracks being one ecology, the three yards on either side of them being the next ecology, and then the “normal” world beyond.
In the big city, where I primarily lived, dogs and cats would die, or be disposed of, on the tracks. Occasionally a school child or drunk would be harvested by trains, but I was never allowed to get close enough to this event to win a skull.

Still, I thought “border” and, less charitably, “food chain.”

When I lived in Newark California I frequently found dead chickens on the tracks. This was a different kind of border. These chickens were losers (Other than the “SuperChicken” animated comic of my youth, I am at a loss to point to many times chickens have been winners). Hispanics in the neighborhood had cock-fights and knew they couldn’t toss chickens out in their garbage or they’d be turned in. So they looked for the next ecosystem and tossed their loser chickens there. Once I found some fish that had been tossed out and had resolved to nothing but their cartilagineous and bony cores. I still have on of those fish on a kind of art-thing that I put on the mantle of any home I inhabit. I think everyone should have a little “Yorick” thing in their homes. Just a reminder.

Then I moved to Korea and found the mother of all borders. A land that had no land – it was all borders.
(continued Monday)

Homesick Day - I Yileded to it..

2008-05-11T23:22:00.000-07:00

Today I felt the twinges..

not for the US per se. As a country Korea is fine and as a town Daejeon is also fine. But all the ethereal voices I now deal with on email and blogger seem.. insubstantial.

Eating shrimp on the beach, coffee (ok, booze) in a boite, bookstores that have books in English, real mountains and red wine, basketball (as it should be played) games, quesadillas.

Today all of that appeared at my table like Banquo's ghost.

I should have had more chairs. ;-)

I should also note that each of those things I miss seems to be about places and things, each one is tightly associated with a couple of you.

So there you materialists!

Instead, I shall adopt that strategy that Montgomery's have succesfully adopted across generation, centuries, and epochs.

I'm gonna get drunk.

That pic at the start was my initial answer to the fact that my stove won't allow the heat to be turned down below a certain point. Instead, I raised the pan.

First I tried to get a wok (pace MAF), but I'd need to walk downtown to get that. So I temporized. I finally realized that, if I'm cooking only one thing, that gas cut-off valve will allow me any level of gas I want ("I'll have the Treblinka, sir").

Finally. One good thing about living in Korea is that choices are reduced. I don't have to decide between delicious, delicious chocolate and the lure of booze and weed....

I can get all Crunky!

Man.. I love this place..

Homesickness is officially over...

Teaching English in Japan: "Spare Me My Life!"

2008-05-11T18:24:00.000-07:00

This is.. uh.... odd?

Creepin...

2008-05-11T02:49:00.000-07:00

Adam, who is a relentless photographer (he had already gone out into the hills behind BPU in the morning) gave me a call and politely bullied me into going out to the haunted city I had discovered. Here we crawled in and among the wreckage and took a bunch of photos.

I’m glad Adam called, or I would have sat at home drinking beer, which would have been a waste of a perfectly good Saturday afternoon. Well, except for the part about sitting at home and drinking beer. So we walked over by the river to the fenced off bits. We clambered over this and that, occasionally becoming the object of interest of wandering Koreans who couldn’t figure out what the silly Waeguk were doing, and the one who wanted to invite us to church.

What struck us both, and I’m not sure if you can see it in the photos, since the trashing and junk is so predominant, is that many of the houses were once quite nice. This wasn’t a slum of squatters such as might have been condemned in Seoul in the 60’s and 70’s – these houses were multistory brick ones with substantial rooms, western toilets (in most cases – there was the odd outdoor WC), and yards. This looked like a neighborhood that should have had enough political/economic power to put up a fight, but the place was trashed. I’d love to find someone from the area who could explain what had gone down here. The electricity was still hooked up, but no juice was running through the lines though we spotted evidence that a few people might still be surreptitiously living in some of the flats. Oddly, we didn’t see any rats or cats.

It felt a bit ghoulish to be walking through the tatters of someone’s busted lives. Adam found some kids collection of balls and that hutch I picture here still has its table-settings inside it. Whoever lived there got out so fast that they couldn’t or didn’t take all of their belongings.

We’ll be going back to document whatever it is that goes up here. I need to find a nice high perspective around the place to get a picture. I wonder if I could see this from the tower at BPU?

The whole shooting match is up in a webfile at www.spunangel.com/scraphix/haunted/index.htm

Alla this was so interesting to me that when a guy from the Gwangju Times solicited articles for next month I was all hepped up to go off on some kind of uniformed tangent about Korea destroying its cultural history.

Which, sadly, I know nothing about. ;-)

I was all rushing online to find something to say, to cobble together with these pics and some article I saved from the flight magazine and then realized.. hey, I'm and idiot!

I have an article..

So I am pimping my marketing piece as a 4-5 segment thing to run for the next couple of months.

This wasp picture looks computer generated to me, but it is actually one of the few living things left in the Condemned Zone...

Spooky place..

Walking by Braille?

2008-05-10T18:14:00.001-07:00

Here's my boy!

Marketing Abstract

2008-05-09T20:28:00.000-07:00

Ugh..

After leaving all my articles locked up in my inacessible office (BPU is closed due to a three-day weekend) I had to kind of fake the rest of my abstract together as today was the deadline for application. This is what I get for dicking around. It isn't what I wanted, but down below is what I sent in. As soon as I hit the "send" button I regretted including the final paragraph - it is trying to do too much and I'm not sure it is as relevant as it could be. Also, the "research" I mention is barely begun so if I'm accepted there will be a shitstorm of emailing and computering to do.....

Oh well...

----------------------------------------------------
International Tourism Opportunities in Korea: Opportunities for Autocatalytic Emergence

This paper will discuss Korea’s increasing tourism deficit in the context of international brand-creation and the particular opportunities that Korea’s current lack of brand gives the nation. The United Nations World Tourism Organization (2006) calculates that in 2003 International tourism accounted for roughly 6 per cent of exported international goods and services (as measured in U.S. Dollars). When focusing exclusively on service exports, this number jumps to an astounding 30 per cent. Korea, unfortunately, has not been able to take advantage of this market.

According to data from the Korea Tourism Organization (2008), Korea’s tourism deficit not only continued to climb as Korea entered 2008, but it topped $10 billion (on an annual basis) in 2007. Korean travelers overseas spend $15.8 billion dollars while foreign visitors to Korea spent a mere $5.7 billion dollars. This problem is not a recent one, although its scope has dramatically increased (As recently as 2004, the deficit was a ‘mere’ $3.8 billion). Worse, Korea’s market share of Asian-Pacific tourism has been dropping. From 1990 to 2005 Korea was one of only three Asian Pacific countries to lose market share (Mongolia, which is statistically nonexistent, and Indonesia were the other states), going from 7.7% of the region to 4%. (UNTWO, 2006)
This problem has not escaped the notice of Korean politicians, policy-makers, and those in the tourist-dependent industries. New Korean President Lee Myung-bak has promised, “We can no longer leave domestic tourism unattended. I will come up with measures to develop the tourism industry into a future growth engine of our economy.” These promises follow on several decades of similar promises that have been without successful issue.

This deficit is the result of a handful of historical and social realities. First, Korea has not forged an international brand. Attempts at branding have been inconsistent at best, frequently having little or no impact on potential tourists. Part of the difficulty in effective branding stems from a deficit in, or perhaps a lack of, appropriate market research. Lacking understanding of what potential tourists desire, Korea is consequently unable to develop campaigns, symbols, slogans, or even advertisements, that appeal to foreigners. The inconsistent nature of Korean branding has left Korea with no ‘image’ in the international community. In comparison to neighboring countries, Korea is an international unknown. Secondarily, Korea has not fully addressed what Gi-Wook Shin (2003) calls its “paradox of globalization.” That is to say it has not fully reconciled its desire to extend itself to the entire globe with its sometimes contending desire to remain homogenous.

Using a theoretical framework borrowed from Gunn (1988), particularly focusing on notions of ‘organic’ and ‘induced’ images of potential tourist destinations, this paper will discuss some aspects of Korea’s historical inability to achieve appropriate international tourism results as well as the startling opportunities that this now leaves for Korea. Some of this discussion will center on original research which indicates that Korea has an undefined international brand and has sometimes misjudged its market’s tastes. This research includes a survey of travel-agencies, analysis of Korea’s position in “image-making” travel publications, and surveys and interviews with Korea-bloggers (that is, people who have extant knowledge of Korea).

With no existing international image, Korea finds itself in a rare position – it is first in line at its own palimpsest. Korea has an opportunity to create the initial conditions for the autocatalytic emergence of its own international tourist brand and success. These opportunities are focused around 8 related initiatives that can be loosely grouped into three categories:

BRANDING
• Branding Korea.
• Staying on focus.
• Involving citizens of targeted countries in developing branded materials.

IMAGE PROPAGATION
• Working with overseas ‘destination makers’ to extend the brand.
• Promoting Cultural Exchange at all levels of culture, not just the academic.
• Focusing on two kinds of tourists – Tour based tourists and ‘seekers’.

DOMESTIC EXPERIENCE
• Creating a comfortable experience for international tourists who do visit Korea.
• Understanding that driving tourism is not just economic but also cultural.

Finally, this paper will briefly analyze other tourist destinations (e.g. Hawaii and Japan) that have been successful at creating linked organic and induced images that now function autocatalytically on the international level. By applying the lessons learned, it should be possible for Korea to reverse its unfortunate trend in balance of tourism.

Around about here is where I live..

2008-05-09T03:17:00.002-07:00

The neighborhood here isn't the greatest in the world. Bad, I suppose, but nothing like a ghetto. Korean society is still too cohesive to have ghettos (oh what brave new worlds globalization will bring!). BPU is in the old neighborhood and Korea being what it is, the newer neighborhoods are grander and more sterile. Bee's nests in the sky.

We have an old Ajumma who cruises up the street each day at about 6:30 or so and each day she's on a collection mission of some sort. I haven't quite sussed out how she decides what she is collecting, but some days she is collecting flattened cardboard and on some other days she has a box and a bag of something on her cart and she fills it with ???? something. She's either working pretty late in life, or work has prematurely pushed her to a pretty late state in life, or one-million other possible things that I couldn't possibly understand. I will say, women of her generation (whatever that might be) seem to have a rather staggering amount of widow's humpage (that sounds just terrible, but you know what I mean). It looks like a generation that didn't get enough calcium. Perfectly possible if you think that they came through WWII, the Korean war, and the rather poor patches immediately thereafter.

OTOH, while I was taking that picture of her there on the upper left, a guy came staggering down the street and reminded me a phrase that an old friend, Thea, used to use... "driving by braille." This guy was walking by ping-pong braille.. Soju, it's a hell of a drug! Anyway, I can't tell here from the PC Bang if the swf below works. I hope so, but if not it's a fix for manana (that's Korean for "when I have a hangover")

The Birds, however, are more suspicious

I'm waiting for my man

Hey, white boy, what you doin' uptown?

don't you holler, darlin' don't you bawl and shout

Im feeling good, feeling so fine

2008-05-07T04:08:00.000-07:00

I sometimes make light-hearted fun of BPU for the way it teaches things, particularly EFL. But I can proudly say that BPU's character building mission is a profoundly serious (you can turn that around and be just as vacuous - "a seriously profound" one). For evidence I can point to it's determined, steadfast, and obstacle-overcoming commitment to.. CANCELING CLASSES THAT I TEACH!

Woot!

Just like that (the little note in my box saying that a class is cancelled for some kind of 'athletic'* festival) my character is fucking built. Built my droogs, built. And out of the same rotted planks, diseased mortar, and uncertain foundations it was ever built from: Drinking, sleeping in late, and not working until mid-afternoon.

Tomorrow morning's class is cancelled and this means I don't have a class til middle afternoon. Weather permitting it will be a day for a longer walk then yesterday and a fuller exploration of empty town (BTW - for those of you who don't look at the comments, do look at the comments from my previous ghost town post. MAF has an excellent link from a few years ago about an intrepid woman on a motorcycle who photo-journalized the dead areas around Chernobyl).

On other notes, the weather has been freaking spectacular - hottish (upper 70's and lower 80's) and clear... not even any smog to mention. Also, of interest to my mottled self, I learned today that doctors here do laser mole-removals for about 13 bucks, including totally superfluous unknown injection into the buttocks.

WTF? How cheap is that?

It's like, not socialized medicine, but also completely without any threat of a lawsuit. And, it isn't corporatized.

Do we have a model here people?

And then, the OAF got all of her paperwork done and will be arriving here in about 10 days. YAY! My presumption is that the move here will be like it was for me - a lovely way to get out of a crappy job and get that palimpsest scraped clean yet again. I hear rumours she can be allowed at dinner tables with settings! I intend to try this rumour out after I re-try a couple of other things out.

You gotsta have priorities

*This is an oxymoron. As I'm sure I've covered elsewhere, BPU students are shockingly un-athletic. I set me this yearly physical goal that I should surpass in the first 4 months here. Then, then, I will buy me a basketball and unleash my ghetto skills on these foos'.

No, really. For this place I would have ghetto skills. And I'd be a decent soccer player as well. I don't get this part of things here. It probably awaits my closer analysis of BPU, college status, and students?

Ghost Town that's the Most Town

2008-05-06T01:37:00.000-07:00

Took a 1.5 hour ramble along the fetid creek and came across some Urban Redevelopment sort of near my neighborhood. Whenever you see this kind of fencing you know that something old is being torn down and something new put up. This area is gigantic, probably 6-8 of the gigantic Korean 'blocks' run through with alleyways. I have no idea if the folks who lived here were adequately repaid for their land and homes, but given recent Korean history, I kind of doubt it.

Anyway, the area is still accessible by a few roads, and I was alone inside it except for an ajeoshi who seemed to be glaring at me. Perfectly reasonable as there was no reason for a fat white guy in a purple football jersey and black nylon shorts to be wandering through.
I'd like to get back in there when the sun is coming in at angles.. probably some great shots as well as my inevitable arrest.

On the way back, I spotted this little spring-like thing in a concrete box on the culvert. An odd flash of life in a grey little area.

The other shots down there below are of various ghostscapes in the place.. it might even be cool to go there at night, with a full moon, and do some long exposures.

Might have to get me a tripod.
And a lawyer!

2008-05-05T01:55:00.000-07:00

Got up and luck was with me. Even though Changdeokgung Palace is supposed to be closed on Mondays the fact that it is Children's Day means that it will be open. I noticed folks queuing up as turned the corner towards the subway station and quickly altered my quick escape from Seoul plan. Grabbed a cup of coffee from the cafeteria (which mysteriously serves no food - just a small selection of appalling looking candies). I have toured this before, but it was on a Korean tour and in the middle of a freezing winter. In addition, many buildings were closed and I'm hoping that is not the case today. The only bummer so far is that they are out of brochures in English, but my scheme is to get enough pictures to create my own brochure and so this should not be a problem. There are several specific pictures I want (based on memories of the last trip) so I should keep the tour nice and slow ;-)

Today is glorious - dead blue skies and a slight wind cutting the heat. The tour is a half-an-hour away and so far I don't see many waeguk, though I suppose it is foolish to assume that they all plan as incompetently as I do. They might even have known the place was open, and the time the tour begins.

The dinner with Ms. Shin was excellent, in a grill in the Marriot and we chatted for about three and a half hours, even though I never was served my wine. Turns out she feels responsible in some way for the collapse of the "Yi-Saeng" translation and no amount of explanation seemed to convince her that I had fun through the entire process and that just having done it gave me cred at the conferences I was going to. Shin is nicely honest (at least with foreigners) and we talked about the "status" of BPU (which is more or less negative) and she said, "well, you know, I’ve never even heard of that school." I laughed and did my best to explain what BPU was up to (as far as I can tell). Her thought is that after this first year, with the kind of other things I am involved in, that I should try to work as a "visiting lecturer" which is in some way better than the position I have now. I'm not sure how, but Ms. Shin was certainly convinced.

We parted about 9:30 with the promise that when the OAF lands we will come back up to Seoul and eat dinner at Mrs. S's house. She asked me, "do you like Korean food?" and I answered in the strong affirmative (while snickering inside about the OAF's stance on that cuisine – it could be a long night for the OAF!)

Perhaps it's time to totter down to the sidewalk and see if anyone is serving any ick-on-a-stick, since I am pretty hungry. Then try to get that rare shot of the place with no one in front of it.

That latter never happened although I did procure a lovely breakfast of whole-fried potatoes (boiled first for extra-delicious softnosity!), but the tour was outstanding. The guide-woman checked to make sure that no one was Japanese in our tour and then talked trash about them for 80 solid minutes. Highly entertaining.

Got out of the Palace and took a hard right to go to the Buddhist Art Museum. This was rather sparse, maybe 40 items in all. They kind of made up for this by comping me three postcards, but that only kind of made up for the lameness. I suppose I should be happy there was anything in a Buddhist museum – it could have been eternal nothingness and I wouldn’t have had grounds to complain. Then there was the fact that I was the only person in the whole place and so until I noticed, when almost done, that there were no-camera signs in the place, I did take pictures. The most interesting of which were the Golden Buddha and the rowboat mysteriously constructed out of pencils. What in the world this has to do with Buddhism was entirely opaque to me, but then I am far too much of this world.

Then it was into the subway, off to Seoul Station, and onto the train, which according to my computer should have departed a minute ago, but according to my rough physics, is not moving (relative to the earth). I didn't realize that seats were assigned - duh!- but thankfully the confused person whose seat I had taken spoke excellent English and it all got sorted before I had to come to blows with all of Seoul. I'd have taken them. No doubt!

And then home with no incident, and to IMs that I had tragically missed

Reppin' the Warriors!

2008-05-04T17:21:00.000-07:00

Did not expect to see this - Checked into the Beewon Guest House in Seoul, snapped on the TV and the "teach English" channel was using Rick Barry (with an amusingly non-Rick Barry graphic) to teach language having to do with arcs and angles..

Laughed,

Then drank more!

Off To Seoul

2008-05-03T20:12:00.001-07:00

Some Pics from yestiddy and then off to Seoul, Buddharama, and dinner with Ms. Shin.

Bang a Gong

Little Ninja

Bigger Ninjas

Books for the OAF to drool over

Then, of course, that Korean Tradition:

The Hula-Hoop Contest

Sparklers

Opening Salvo

kapow!

Broken Rock in the Hot Sun ( I Fought....)

2008-05-03T06:13:00.001-07:00

After an exhausting 5-day work week it was the start of what may be three consecutive three day weekends.

Dinner with TSR last night - a curry of brilliant provenance and, happily, three bottles of wine between the two of us. Or sadly, when I remember how I felt when I woke up this morning. ;-)

But the trip to the festival was delayed until 1:30 (and then another hour because Adam's kid was cranky) and that helped. The festival lasted until just after 8 and it was hot.. probably near 90 and, as usual, the "field" was sand and dried spit. Still, some very nice cultural acts, an Indian lunch that wasn't within miles of what TSR had prepared the night before, and some very nice chat with Adam, who I rarely see except in passing. His wife drove us and she has perfect English, although she rarely spoke.

The festival ended with an awesome fireworks display. It was set off not 100 metres from us and it blew the sky open. The bonus thing? As I'm goggling like the idiot that you all know I am at the magnesium-based, steel backboned sparklers of my youth (you know, the ones that give third-degree burns on contact?) Adam says, "oh yeah, you can buy fireworks in any major store. Year round."

Now, Koreans may pile up in the thousands to hold candle-light vigils against US beef (Hey, genius, just don't eat it if you don't like it) at the same time that fans and taxi drivers freely take lives all across the country. And that would be a point against..

But, dude... fireworks.. all year. And, really, no crime worth mentioning (which comes up as a draw when measured against the fact that drugs aren't available). And the price of the food...

Korea.. not "sparkling" - and, that evil looking Ralph-Steadmanesque thing on the left is the new fucking OFFICIAL "mascot" (if by mascot you mean that thing that, after getting up from its position as recently sodomized beast is probably going to kill you) of Seoul - but pretty darned cool..

I mean really.. a fucking horned lion... drawn in random circles and inkblots.

Is there anything Korean Marketing can't fail?

When it Rains... unimportant people drown..

2008-05-01T04:17:00.000-07:00

and now.. another possible job.. editing subtitles for translated DVDs and Movies...

Can I retire yet?

;-)

2008-05-01T03:18:00.001-07:00

I have no idea why a coffee-machine in Korea would have football on it at all, much less Pac-10 football. My guess is that is one of the only leagues in the country in which you could snap a picture of a college football game and actually get three white faces in the thing.

On the other hand, the complete lack of fans that you see in the background suggest that this is an actual picture of that actual league. Stanford versus Oregon, unless I've lost my memory of the gang colors of the rich white colleges.

I saw this out of the corner of my eye and it drew me across the street so quickly I didn't even look for rogue taxicabs.

I was lucky.

Then there is the "Bucky Katt" wallpaper which features a vine growing completely through Bucky's skull. It gives me something to wake up to every morning, I'm telling you. I can't tell if the top bit of the bottom half is the part of Bucky's skull that was buried in the dirt, or if the evil (Korean no doubt!) vine has destroyed half of his noble orb.

Which is, if you think about it, far too much thinking about my wallpaper.

The editing thing for the pro-nuke folks went splendidly, now we'll see if they pay me (Ewha has still not paid me for work I did some months ago). It sounds like they will used me again, and I certainly hope so.

Since the plan here is to make money and then come buy all of America on the cheap (When Bush's ruinations have come to complete fruit, some couple of years from now), it seems as though all is going well.

So tell me about yourselves?

Lucky 13..

2008-04-29T02:02:00.000-07:00

Got to the PC Bang and got #13 for the second consecutive time..

Thought I'd get luckY and see OAF online, but we missed...

so I checked email and some Korean Nuclear thingie has three letters they want me to work on...

Which surely is lucky news. ..

BUT DID NOT ATTACH THE FILES AND THEY ARE DUE AT NOON TOMORROW!

So here's some pics and I'm out.. They are all clickable (if Blogger works right) for slightly better versions..

COMING IN TO LAND

HOUSTON, WE HAVE LANDED

WALKING TO THE BUDDHA

HIM, UNIMPRESSED

THE CLASSIC TALE OF THE ANGRY FRIEND LEAVING ON A CLOUD

KEEPING THEIR COUNSEL

KIMCHI, KIMCHI, IT IS GOOD FOR YOU AND ME!

LEAVING

I HAVE CREATED NEW EVIL!!!!

2008-04-28T07:23:00.000-07:00

And, man.. it feels goooooood.....

In the course of writing an abstract I came up with the idea (and word) of "exterrogated." This is based on the idiotic idea that there should be "interrogated theory." And yet no malign, evil, betrayer of language has come up with my word (says Google). Until just now in a Soju-frenzy.

I rule evil!

I should get some kind of award. Like and axe through the middle of my head. Or 72 virgins.

Or, get my goddamed paper accepted. There should be some credit given to someone who can come up with a fresh assault on the English language.

Really. I'm begging here.

I've sent the abstract (due on the 30th, but I just heard of it) to BKF for his sage council.

til then I can only appall you all with the first paragraph...

Kim Yong‐Ik, a Korean by birth, English writer by trade, and Korean by death,
attempted to exterrogate questions of empire, orientalization, and theory by
declaring autonomy from any definition. Kim was avowedly anti‐political,
extra‐theoretical, and purposefully resistant to placement. His writings
however, antithetically to his confessed approach, obsessively concerned
themselves with issues attendant to empire: oppression, the state of the
outsider to the state, disconnection, diaspora, and the dream of coming to a
“home” that was not contested; a home of ancestors and not imperials.

Man..I am evil...

The haters spoke on Husker Du... Johhny Marr rewlzz! Rekanize!

Report to the Empire: Part II

2008-04-28T04:22:00.000-07:00

BICYCLE (disg)RACES!

2008-04-27T02:55:00.000-07:00

Fire it Up and Enjoy the Garrulosity!

Today was the day I went with Bike‐on John (Who looks like HYS in a spooky way - he's from Brownsville as well!) to the reservoir. He had a spare bicycle and I had a delusion that I was still 40 (which might be the most depressing thing I have ever typed!). So where would the reservoir be? Up above town, and for two good reasons.

First, if it wasn’t no one would be worried about what would happen if the dam breaks.

Second, this makes it much harder to get to.

So it was “up the road.” But Korea, so proud of its “Four Distinct Seasons” is much more shut‐mouthed about its “Four Distinct Ups.” It is unlike Koreans to be shy about the wonders of Korea and so I wonder if this is their secret shame? In any case, for anyone contemplating coming to Korea to get ‘up’ to something, I have included this convenient directional graphic indicating the four kinds of Korea up.

Then, of course, there was the distance. It was about three miles straight up, and then another three miles straight up. This was only interrupted by short stretches that were decidedly more up. It is kind of hard to explain in language that the kind of people who read this blog (and I love all three of you!) would understand, so once again I have provided a nifty visual aid.

The trip was complicated, for me, by the fact that my rear tire was rubbing against the frame. I would have preferred to have figured this out earlier than halfway back to downtown, but still, it did come as something like a gift to figure out, and John and I flipped the bike and fixed it, which made the last few miles much easier. I also (I think) got some cool pics, the reservoir was absolutely gorgeous and it was bizarre to go not so very far and be in a completely rural setting. We also walked up a very steep road and saw the famous (by which I mean no one besides us was in sight) “Standing Buddha” of whereverthehell.

Bike‐on John was also garrulous. This seems to be a rule. Waeguks can’t get together and just shut the hell up, they need to unload every damn thing they can think of. It is also fair to say that John had a rather remarkable story to share.

Starting with the crash that nearly killed him and did kill his wife and his realization that life is pretty finite and you might as well do something you enjoy while you can. So, he left a job at CBS and came to Korea to teach. So far he’s been hit by one car and had a appendectomy without anesthetic. John waited too long, his appendix burst, and then just as they were strapping him down for surgery, he got asthmatic and pulled out his inhaler and took some hits – the doctors were worried about interactions between that and the ether and, since John was dying in front of them, just whacked the blade in and tried to make the operation as quick as possible. John says it was the worst pain he’d ever felt in his life, but then he went into shock and says that it was great.

So.. that’s uh.. a hell of a year in town. But it gets better..

Some of us remember a story about a Hagwon tragedy in which a van driver ran over and killed a young girl. A tragedy. So of course John works at that Hagwon. And, unreported in the English press here, this has turned into a brawl between the family of the deceased girl and the Hagwon. The family wanders in and threatens students, throws shit around, and hits (Korean) employees. This has gone on since the event. The family also started sabotaging various things and stalking employees. John stopped his stalking by filming it. The police seem unconcerned and it is pretty funny that the family did get a stern talking to, and one that had effect, from the Electricity Company! The family pulled some fuses in John’s building and the manager was around to see it. He called the local PG&E and they stepped in and stopped that.

No wonder the cops here are rather looked down on.

Anyway, John’s garrulosity was, I believe, merely cover for his plan to kill me. A plot that now seems to be taking slow motion effect. My legs are certainly dead, my butt hurts in a way that defies metaphor and suggests a recent prison stay, I managed to get a sunburn, and my head is fogged (though that may be the result of the bottle of medicinal Soju that I have since applied).

It may be another night spent stretched out defenselessly on the Ondol floor.

God help me if the ravenous Kimchi‐Weasels come out!

Friday Follies

2008-04-25T17:22:00.000-07:00

Friday’s class is the lovely Japanese Studies kids who are always a hoot as well as the most academically serious of my classes. That’s always a good way to end the week. TSR and I kicked it in the office for a couple of hours and traded stories. He showed me a variety of pictures of his house and apartment buildings in the Philippines and also told me the story of how he met his wife. He was in Israel(!) and planning to go to Thailand. He thought she was Thai and stopped her on the street to see if she would give him lessons. She wasn’t, she was a Philippina nurse in Israel and so not much came of it. Til fate, FATE I tell you(!) caused them to bump into one another again and it eventually led to marriage.

His pictures also included the volcano behind their house and a boatload of relatives. These relatives includes Violetta, his 33 year old sister in law(?) who is looking for a husband. The upside is she is quite attractive and will make a good wife in the traditional Philippina way. The downside is she has three kids. The middle-side is that her kids are all old enough to stay in the Philippines. And, she’s willing to marry someone of up to 55 years of age. This sounds horrible (I can hear the “Pucaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiie!” from here), but it is also pretty much traditional – TSR showed me a cam-site for Philippine women and if they think you are an even moderately wealthy (and their standard is quite low) American you will be swarmed like a bee-hive.

Anyway, if any of you know a single man in the US who wants a pretty, quite, and dependable wife, boy TSR would like him to start an e-conversation. Considering all the ~~losers~~ independent thinkers I used to hang out with, I was boggled no names came to my mind. Surely there is some gnarled mountain-man up there in the high-hills?

Got home and the accumulated exercise of the week started to gang up on my old self. Turned on the ondol floor (damn the bills!) and just laid on my back, with the headphones on, for an hour. It’s the world’s best heating-pad. Got up and headed to the PC Bang, but no one was around online. Did a bit of research for the book review, then came home and read and wrote steadily for about 2 hours. It’s now up to about 1800 words and I can see I will have to hack great chunks away, since there are still 4 stories to discuss. Still, it is at a point that I can start on the little project that BKF and I will hammer out in the next couple of weeks, using “sayings” in language and cultural education.

Something based on similarities (What do the following proverbs say about risk?):

“A turtle travels only when it sticks its neck out”
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

And differences (which culture valorized farming and which valorized hunting?):

“Beating around the bush”
“Licking the outside of a watermelon

It should be a lark – and only over 750 words, so easy to bang out. Blah on about how it can be used as a writing prompt, how it can be used to make foreign cultures seem less intimidating and more familiar, and how it can be used to teach conversational FL.

Tomorrow I bicycle up to the reservoir to go fishing (tremendously shitty weather permitting).

That should be fun.

It's Factual and Abstractual!

2008-04-25T03:22:00.001-07:00

First draft of the abstract for Fukuoka... feel free to savage it...

International Tourism Opportunities in Korea:
Opportunities for Autocatalytic Emergence

The United Nations World Tourism Organization calculates that in 2003 International tourism accounted for roughly 6 per cent of exported international goods and services (as measured in U.S. Dollars). When focusing exclusively on service exports, this number jumps to an astounding 30 per cent.

The picture in Korea is not so rosy.

According to data from the Korea Tourism Organization, Korea’s tourism deficit not only continued to climb as Korea entered 2008, but it topped $10 billion (on an annual basis) in 2007. Korean travelers overseas spend $15.8 billion dollars while foreign visitors to Korea spent a mere $5.7 billion dollars. This problem is not a recent one, although its scope has dramatically increased (As recently as 2004, the deficit was a ‘mere’ $3.8 billion). Worse, Korea’s market share of Asian-Pacific tourism has been dropping. From 1990 to 2005 Korea was one of only three Asian Pacific countries to lose market share (Mongolia, which is statistically nonexistent, and Indonesia were the other states), going from 7.7% of the region to 4%.

This problem has not escaped the notice of Korean politicians, policy-makers, and those in the tourist-dependent industries. New Korean President Lee Myung-bak has promised, “We can no longer leave domestic tourism unattended. I will come up with measures to develop the tourism industry into a future growth engine of our economy.” These promises follow on several decades of similar promises that have been without successful issue.

This deficit is the result of a handful of historical and social realities. First and foremost, Korea has not forged an international brand. Attempts at branding have been inconsistent and ineffective, frequently having little or no impact on potential tourists. Part of the difficulty in effective branding stems from a deficit in, or perhaps a lack of, appropriate market research. Lacking understanding of what potential tourists desire, Koreans are consequently unable to develop campaigns, or even advertisements, that appeal to foreigners. The inconsistent nature of Korean branding has left Korea with no ‘image’ in the international community. In comparison to neighboring countries, Korea is an international unknown. Secondarily, Korea has not fully addressed its “paradox of globalization.” That is to say it has not fully reconciled its desire to extend itself to the entire globe with its sometimes contending desire to remain homogenous.
This paper will discuss some aspects of Korea’s historical inability to achieve appropriate international tourism results as well as the startling opportunities that this now leaves for Korea. With no existing international image, Korea finds itself in a rare position – it is first in line at its own palimpsest. Korea has an opportunity to create the initial conditions for the autocatalytic emergence of its own international tourist brand and success. Unusually, Korea has this opportunity at both the level of Gunn’s “organic” and “induced” images.

These opportunities are focused around 10 related initiatives that can be loosely grouped into three categories:

Branding

• Branding Korea.
• Defining Korea as a “new” or “trendy” destination.• Defining Korea as “different” but imaginable.
• Staying on single focus over time.
• Involving citizens of targeted countries in creating marketing materials.

Image Propagation

• Working with travel agents, travel magazines to take this message ‘home’ to overseas markets.
• Promoting Cultural Exchange at all levels of culture, not just the academic.
• Focusing on two kinds of tourists – Tour based tourists and ‘seekers’.

In-Country

• Creating a comfortable experience for international tourists who do visit Korea.
• Understanding that driving tourism is not just advertising hotels or destinations but is making a culture attractive.

By analyzing other tourist destinations (e.g. Hawaii and Japan) that have been successful at creating linked organic and induced images internationally, and applying the lessons learned, it should be possible for Korea to reverse the unfortunate trend in it’s balance of tourism.

The Evil Plot - Revealed!

2008-04-24T17:46:00.000-07:00

Today the whys and wherefore’s of the current classes’ plot to keep my Academic Writing Class small bubbled up. My two favorite students are attempting the near impossible.

They want to become elementary school teachers (maybe primary, I got the names confused all night). Sounds quite achievable, but that’s to Western ears. Tonight, with all the papers done, we had nothing to do so we sat and talked for the class. I told them I still didn’t have a complete idea what they wanted out of the next class and, slowly, they told me.

It started by telling me they want to be elementary teachers (maybe primary, I got the names confused all night). To be an elementary teacher you need to have a college degree (from any college) and pass the TEST. The TEST is a bear. It is a three level test and when you apply at the first level you have to tell the government what city you want to teach in. That test is a multiple choice one, and in one fell swoop it winnows thousands of applicants down to …… ……….30!

The top thirty scores advance, the rest are not thanked for playing but are sent home. After that it gets easy. The next test is an essay test – about 5 essays of 300-500 words each – and this cuts the field to 15. The final test is a teaching test and (for Daejeon) of the 15, 10 are chosen.

These tests are taken after you attain your BA or BS.

I asked why only 10 teachers were chosen as that seemed a ludicrous annual figure for a city as big as Daejon. The ringleader (who had diagrammed all this on the board) explained that the remaining positions are filled by “contract” teachers who have contracts of one-year maximum. Like being adjunct at the college level, but worse. They have to resign a contract each year and apparently don’t get benefits or regular raises.

The ringleader stepped back from drawing all this on the board and pointed to the circle on the board that said ‘first test.’ She said, “that is our job.” She jabbed the marker into the middle of the circle that said ‘second test’ and said, “and that is your job!” Her attitude was somewhere between passing along information and a threat. The ajumma is strong in this one!

After this was clear we talked about ways this could work in the class if there were “strangers” with competing agendas. That seemed an issue of scheduling properly, so we worked on that for a bit.

Then I asked, rather rudely I suppose, if either student had a fallback plan and they basically said they can’t have one.

They are still living with their parents two years out of college and the ringleader has already failed the test twice, her partner in crime once. I delicately (for me) asked how the families were taking this (knowing a little bit about the ‘schedule’ for college, career, marriage, and babies that they ‘should’ be on) and they both said the families were taking it pretty terribly.

This makes sense, at 24-6 your Korean daughter isn’t supposed to be hanging around at a shabby Uni explaining to the Waeguk what she needs to learn to pass the nearly impassable test. This also brought clarity to some things these two had resisted. I talked again and again about how small EFL mistakes (articles, prepositions, single/plural) weren’t important because they can always be caught in second-party editing, or at leisure when the writing is done. I also talked about global restructuring and all the good shite I do when I’m sitting at home writing.

They were hearing “blah, blah, blah.” Because at the test, they will have to write their grammar correctly as they go and they will not be globally restructuring anything, because they will be writing mini-essays.

So we have a scheme for next session, which is good. I’ll actually write a syllabus for this one and away we go. Also, this helped me understand that the sense I had that they wanted something (undefined) more was real, and know I knew what it was.

I told them that if I were to be replaced, they needed to tell this to the new teacher on the very first day so he wouldn’t have to poke around to find it out.

At this point Ms. Ringleader, just seated from her lecture to me on the structure of Korean education, hiring, and my role in helping her get a job, giggled and claimed, “I’m shy!”

Man, you gotta love Korean women.

The other tragicomic thing I learned was that the “other” level of education (primary or secondary, as I said, I still have them confused) is accessible if you take a 4-year degree from one of 12 particular colleges. Ms. Ringleader had been accepted to one of these colleges (and would be teaching today) but her high-school teacher told her that she should go the other route and that it would be “easy.” She said she hated him.

When I also learned that this path meant that both women had studied in college (the average Korean college experience is one big party and then marriage hookup) the tragedy took on Belushian (oh, wait, that might be comic) proportions. Still, they are both determined to make it work (though surely doomed?) and I’ll do as much in the classroom as I can figure out.

My prediction is that in 3 years these two are going to be in the United States (or Australia, etc.) going some version of the BKF & JAE route, because they will have slowly wandered out of their own demographic and Korea won’t know what to do with them.

They be un-homogenized.

Rocks in they Chinese Heads, Marbles in they Mouths..

2008-04-22T00:21:00.001-07:00

Play along.. you'll like it!

It is "midterm" time. Midterm time is the only chance we have to grade our students on how good their English is. We do this by sitting down, one-on-one with each student, and asking them between 4 and 8 questions.

Which I do to my class of Chinese students. This is a bit complicated in this class, as I have 36 Chinese, one Korean, and one Vietnamese student in this class. I am told that makes 38, in total. And I have 180 minutes to test them all. Which is slightly less than 5 minutes per student. So I extend my class hours (undoubtedly against the rules) and fit them all in and await the kind of communication nightmares that will ensue.

In the event, I discover that most of them speak quite decent English. They are Sophmores, so they've had a year of college-level English, and many of them also had some quite good training back in China. I had some startling conversations (and suspect the Guoanbu is now after me) and all this makes me ask myself the question, why won't the Tibet-Oppressing, girl-baby exposing, commie abortionists talk in class?

I need to ponder on this, since I'm sure this kind of issue will pop up again...

oh well.. for now it's off to find the copy boy....

Project Updates…

2008-04-21T16:49:00.000-07:00

As I noted before, the scriptwriting has gone the way of dear old biological dad – dead at the hand of its ongoing author. My new scheme is to write 10 pages a month, in whatever section of the month seems appropriate.

After an unseemly period of dithering I got back to the review of “Land of Exile” (which I have linked here despite the fact that my accretive writing frequently makes my stuff seem nonsensical until completion – oftentimes after that as well) and am now pushing 1500 words. As the goal is 2000 and it is due on the 15th of next month, I feel comfortable with this. Anyone who wants to comment on this can feel free, but it really won’t be in any readable form for a week..

The abstract for my conference proposal in Fukuoka is still in the hands of the PHUD and I’m wondering why I haven’t heard back? I suppose I’ll keep working on it myself, since it needs to be in by the 10th of next month. If I ever do go for my own Ph.D. this will be the paper, so I might as well push on with it.

The last bit of work that came shuddering down from above was from the BKF who sent me a 15 page trifle with a semi‐frantic email about how the time‐frame was NOW and that we’d need to be in constant conversation about the piece. So I slapped out an edit/annotation and whipped it back to him. That would be about 10 hours ago and I haven’t heard a peep back. I keep forgetting that as time is relative, and by virtue of my being the godfather of BKF’s son I am a relative, we are all therefore composed of nothing but time.

Relatively speaking.

Poking around the moodle I note that after this weekend I have two consecutive three‐day weekends upcoming.

Man… the tragic schedule of the allegademic!

Korea Beta Prime

2008-04-20T19:17:00.000-07:00

Cue it up. Play it. Read. Think!

My close anthropological analysis of this country and its heathen occupants begins to produce fruit.

And a warning for the whole of Earth!!

It’s like an exploding pineapple.

This afternoon I passed a Korean man in purple down-booties and a full sweatshirt. It was about 23 degrees Celsius, which is above 70 in the civilized method of measurement.

This man was briskly rubbing his hands and then wrapping his arms around himself to keep warm.

At which point it came to me.

Koreans are foreigners!

It would explain a lot.

a) What they eat (Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you…. Kimchi!)
b) The importance of the “homogenous race” concept
c) Ajummas
d) Museums dedicated to roof-tiles (some of you think I jest here. I do not)
e) Did I mention Kimchi?

But ‘foreigners’ doesn’t fully capture it. Pondering, I looked deep into the smoky air, past the piles of garbage on the sidewalk, and my eye settled on some construction across the street: Construction occurring on a “foundation” of dirt; Garbage containing contamination that would kill most human; Polluted air that not only poisons humans, but traps EVEN MORE HEAT.

Then, I knew.

Koreans are aliens. Aliens terraforming earth so that it will support their hideous Insectoid masters (by which I think I mean their spoiled children?).

Koreans make no long-term plans for human habitation. What they do build is in hideous clusters of hive-buildings. They pour pollutants into the air that they can currently barely breathe (vide their constant hacking up of it onto the street). Carbon Dioxide levels increase, the climate changes (Global Warming anyone?), and their electronics (containing only God knows what chips and programming from the Hive-world) have become (in their hideous chirped and glottalized language) “ubiquitious.”

I expect, now that I have discovered their plot, they will come for me as I sleep (In Catholic school-girl uniforms, if they really want to ‘convert’ me). By tomorrow I will be speaking Korean, running kids down in intersections, and spitting promiscuously. I will have been “joined” into the hive. I don’t have time to purchase enough tinfoil to protect myself!

Tonight I send out a call to the civilized world,

Resist NOW!

Wear shoes inside the house
Buy American
Drink your coffee black
Refrain from spitting and ignoring traffic rules....

And somehow, someway, resist these monsters from outer space!

Me?

Off to the noraebang and then, probably, some Gimbap, soju, and then bed…

;-)

Aah.. I might drop an email off to the BKF as well….