Living in Annam, new surroundings

After living in the same neighborhood during all of my previous time in Korea, I decided to try something new and see more of this city outside of my apartment in Daebang. Last week I settled into a boarding house in Annam, a neighborhood populated mainly by students going to nearby Korea University.

Spending my weeks working at the Gwanghwamun and coming home late, I haven't had much time to explore, but I hope the picutres below give a sense of my past month.


Night time as cars flow out of town in Kangnam.



I had one eventful Saturday afternoon attending a Fourth of July picnic at the ambassador's home. The building is the original from the late 19th century, it was definitely the first time I had seen bunting in Korea.





If you look closely, you will see that this is a doghouse.

Chance of stolen bike recovery: nil

2010-2011
R.I.P.

Honolulu giveth and Honolulu taketh away

As of now, 4 out of the 6 people in my department who bought bikes this year have had them stolen. If anyone moving to Honolulu reads this, get a really really good lock.

Me vs. Google

I've often wondered about the likelihood of my job being made obsolete. Obsolescence was supposed to be unlikely for white collar jobs and academics, then I read something like this and I get worried all over again. I have often reassured myself when confronted with programs like babelfish or Google Translator that machines will never hold a candle to a living person when it comes to acting as a translator. But if voice translation is already within our grasp, how much longer until we will have usable text translation and no need for an interlocutor?

How can you stop yourself from becoming obsolete? Should you even try?

D.C. bus-under-throwing makes news in Korea

In an indication of just how far I have traveled from D.C., mentally and geographically, I first heard about the D.C. city government getting arrested in protest of the new budget from this site. While of course my first reaction is bitter laughter, I'm sure I'd be feeling nothing but outrage if I was still a resident. It seems like a ridiculously petty and specific move on the part of Republicans to single out Washington for their campaign against social programs.

On a similar note, for any of my non-Korean speaking readers, I found this site that carries translations of articles appearing in Korean newspapers that cover issues in America. While there is no shortage of English-language articles in Korean papers about American issues, these, as they were translated by an American volunteer, present a more critical (and realistic) portrayal of how Koreans see America.

Edit: While I have yet to learn a phrase in Korean that equals the passion of "throw someone under the bus" Koreans do have a surprisingly similar word for "scapegoat" (희생양-sacrificial sheep)

Grave concerns for my favorite food

Those who know me well may have learned about my deep romance with breakfast. There is no meal, be it at sunup, lunchtime, or evening, that I like more than a bowl of cereal. I don't really know why something so simple brightens my day, but on more than one occasion my last thought before sleep was "yay, breakfast comes soon!"

To anyone with a similar love of good mornings, this is a good read.

Giving it all up

Most of you probably know that I have been doing my best to be vegetarian during the past two years, a surprisingly easy effort that I fear may have to come to an end once I return to Korea. The reason is simple, while it is easy to pass on the meat and enjoy myself with options like this in my neighborhood, it becomes much more difficult in a country where vegetarianism is barely understood and certainly not widespread.

On numerous occasions, other students in my program have crowed about how much pork they'll see me eat once I get off the plane in Incheon. There is certainly no malice in what they are saying, I only assume they bring it up (often) because everyone likes to have their peers enjoy doing the same things they do. Who likes to go out for a drink after work with a teetotaler tagging along?

I won't pretend that there aren't certain foods I would enjoy eating in Korea, notably the spicy, sweet, rich



But my fundamental logic for passing on animals hasn't been shaken over the past two years. Although sometimes even I think it is an overreaction, I just can't shake the conclusion that unless I am willing to eat all animals (dogs, cats, and horses included) I have no right to limit myself to only those which we traditionally eat.

Of course there are the health benefits, but what keeps me from ordering a big mac is not the cholesterol, but the fact that it would be fundamentally similar to ordering a plate of braised dog meat. I couldn't conscience such a thing.

This gave me chills

As much as I have studied Korea, statistics like this (end of the article) still catch me by surprise, 60%?!

A change in tone

Rather than waiting until the accumulated guilt from not posting enough pictures forces me to write a new post about my life here, I am going to write about what I find interesting and what preoccupies my mind. Don't worry, this won't devolve into tweeting, but hopefully it should become more regular, varied, and entertaining.

Tonight's Seminar

As part of my program as a scholar affiliated with the East West Center, I have an obligation to attend a weekly seminar put on by the center. Each week has a different topic, loosely connected this semester around the theme of migration. The seminar consists of a professor or expert speaking to a group of about 100 master's and phd students, the vast majority of which are from other countries.

This week's seminar linked a problem that is impossible to overlook, poor health among native Hawaiians, with racism. A summary can be found here. While the thesis is interesting, essentially linking perceived racism to high levels of stress, which translate into higher levels of cortisol, a chemical in the body that has been blamed for a lot of diseases, there were gaps in the logic and the quality of the research that begged to be pointed out. A lively argument ensued.

While racism in Hawaii and Hawaiian health problems are something I could not have cared less about before coming here, living in Honolulu and gradually becoming more exposed to different layers of Hawaiian life has forced me to realize that there are significant and intriguing issues. The speaker tonight, who identified himself as native Hawaiian, despite his mixed ancestry, (another issue), stated the problem thusly, (heavily paraphrased): "look at the schools, or the hotels. Who's the janitor? Filipino. Who's the security guard? Hawaiian or Samoan. Who's the teacher? Japanese. Who's working the hotel desk? Japanese. Who's the principal and the manager? whites."

At the same time, Hawaii as a state takes pride in portraying itself as a successful multicultural entity. Owing to the countless waves of colonization and immigration that make up its history, it is the most ethnically diverse state in the nation. (source) There are phenomena here that I have never encountered before in America. For example, in the elementary school where I volunteer, the kindergarten class spent one afternoon celebrating Chinese New Year. Not just with a quick mention of the holiday as it was celebrated by other people, but by having each child whose family celebrated the holiday bring in food associated with it. Thus there were Vietnamese candies, Korean rice cake, and Chinese sweets for everyone to try. The children even lined up and received a penny in a lucky red envelope from the teacher, (또 중국 식으로 절했어요).

The fact remains though, that Hawaii is really really racist. For all of the apparent inclusion, the problems remain and people are viewed through a race-based state of mind. The sister of a friend of mine who works here shared a story of what she had seen on her Facebook feed recently. Someone had written a post complaining, to the effect, about why all the damn haoles are so racist. (haole being a mildly derogatory term for white people in Hawaii). The irony of criticizing a particular race for its racism evidently did not occur to the poster. Of course, my impressions are all anecdotal, and I don't claim that Hawaii is more racist than any other state in nation. However, I do take issue with the public relations line that Hawaii is a place of many different peoples living together harmoniously.

Shanghai: Hangzhou and Suzhou

End of the week, I just finished a presentation on the 2008 Anti-American beef protests in Korea. I have seen just about every combination of evil cow, sad looking Koreans, American flags, and skull and crossbones that Korean political cartoonists could dream up.

My report on my trip to Shanghai this past summer is long overdue, but consider this post the world premiere, it should be more exciting that way.

I traveled to Shanghai and some nearby cities during my last week before coming to Hawaii this past August. I'd been invited by a friend of mine who was working at the American pavilion at the Expo being held in the city, I figured it was a great opportunity to see this China place everyone has been talking about lately.

In a way, I'm glad I had six months before I uploaded this, the interval has given me time to parse what I saw and gather some conclusions. Obviously, my time in the country was limited to eight days and I did not stray far from Shanghai, but I did try to walk a bit off the beaten path.

To be honest, as my plane took off from Pudong International Airport to return me from whence I came, my impression of Shanghai was this:



I, like thousands of other tourists on the river that night, saw the bright lights and the glitz. On one side I had the Pearl Tower



and on the other, the magnificently restored line of art deco buildings that survive from the era of foreign domination of Shanghai



Suffice it to say, China does a very good job of cleaning itself up for visitors. I got a real kick out of this familiar piece of sculpture, covered with tourists posing for photos.



I had to travel out to one of the satellite cities to see any shred of the China I heard more about as a kid, social realist and authoritarian.



This was part of a little park in Hangzhou, a mere satellite city to Shanghai at 4 million residents. I had a fun day riding around the city and the surrounding tea plantations on these great little rental bikes that you could have for the whole day for a nominal fee, (you can see it below).







For all of my preconceptions of brusque locals and a difficult time traveling alone, I have to say that I had a pretty warm reception wherever I went. I'm sure one reason for the friendliness was the intense push to welcome international tourists during the Expo, but the help I received figuring out the bike rental, getting a room for the night, and figuring out internet cafes seemed genuine and spontaneous.

Hangzhou is also famous for the lake which lies in the center of the city, rightfully so.



From Hangzhou's cavernous train station I took what was supposed to be a two hour trip to another nearby city, Suzhou. With images of Suzhou's famous emerald gardens in mind, I took my seat and got a lot more than I bargained. An hour in, my train came to a slow stop and then stood still for two hours, for what reason I still do not know. As people stood jammed shoulder to shoulder in the aisles and the car gradually grew hotter, I began to feel the strain of my travel schedule. The exit into the darkened Suzhou station convinced me to take the high speed train back to Shanghai twenty-four hours later.

My complaints were forgotten the next morning as I enjoyed the gardens though, one of the few sights I have ever seen where the original beauty has survived decades of tourist overexposure. I regret not taking better photos, but it was hard to capture the attraction of these gardens. Rather than stunning with bright colors or impressive symmetry, their charm lay in their ability to present well-composed views with each new vantage point.









I sincerely enjoyed Hangzhou and Suzhou and appreciated the differences between their relatively raw environments in comparison with Shanghai proper. I'll give a full treatment to my time at the Expo and in the city in the next update.