Caveat: On Marxism

Just a brief thought.  I often describe myself as a marxist.  I'm careful to use a small "m".  The way I see it, it's a philosophical stance more than a political program – a way of analyzing the world with a focus on economic forms and causes, and with an interest in how ideologies interact with class (and social) consciousness.  It is not – and for me, at least, never has been – a set of prescriptions about politics.

In fact, politically, I have tended to lean somewhat libertarian, although as that ideological current gets more and more hijacked by the "tea-party" right in the U.S., I grow less comfortable with the term.  Lately, I've been thinking of myself as an anarcho-syndicalist, which is really just code for the libertarian left.

For those who confuse philosophical marxism with, for example, Soviet history, Terry Eagleton makes an important point when he says, "What perished in the Soviet Union was Marxist only in the sense that the Inquisition was Christian."

[This is a "back-post" added 2010-05-23, from handwritten materials]

Caveat: The Latest Drama

Many people know that I have developed a bit of a habit for watching cheesy Korean dramas – specifically the semi-comedic, semi-romantic contemporary genre.  My excuse is that they help me learning Korean, and I think that's true.  But I find them just plain entertaining, as well.

[broken link! FIXME] Oh97993 I finished watching "별을 따다 줘" a few weeks back (I think when I was tromping around Fukuoka), and have begun watching one called "오 마이 레이디" (Oh My Lady).  I don't like the Konglish title – I think it's dumb – but the show itself is pretty good.   I watched 2 episodes last night.

And then I watched an episode of a sciencefictiony US TV show called "River World" that I'd never heard of before.  I found it hard to understand – despite the fact that it was in English.  But it nevertheless managed to keep my attention.  I'm still getting used to the idea that I have 50 channels of TV to watch.  I only got about 5 broadcast channels on my TV in my apartment in Ilsan – and that was only up until my TV died sometime in 2008.   I didn't really miss having a TV – I'm too easily drawn in to watching absolute nothingness.

[This is a "back-post" added 2010-05-09]

Caveat: Children’s Day

Today is the Korean national holiday called "어린이날" (eorininal = Children's Day).  It sort of functions like a combined nationwide birthday party for all kids.  This makes all the public parks, malls, etc. pretty hectic, but it's fun to see.

I spent part of the morning scrubbing more floors in my apartment.  Then I took a bus into Gwangju – I had the epiphany that the bus trip into Gwangju takes less time than the subway ride I used to do every weekend into Gangnam from Ilsan – so I might as well get some occasional urbanistic stimulus. 

I still don't have internet in my apartment, but I got my "alien card" yesterday, so now I can use the free wi-fi in Starbucks here in Gwangju by typing in my magic secret ID number.  Unfortunately, at the moment, the connection speed I'm getting makes my 1994 AOL dial-up look downright speedy.  Nevertheless, I've managed to check my email, and hopefully I can submit a few "back-posts" to my blog, along with this one.

Caveat: 20 years ago

Twenty years ago, today, I signed the dotted line that enlisted me in the US Army.  It's a weird anniversary – a combination of nostalgia, accomplishment, and relief that I survived it.  I've sometimes described that decision as the "worst decision I ever HAD to take."  It was worst, because there were a lot of things that didn't go well for me, in the Army.  But I HAD to take it, because in retrospect, it was a crucial "growing up" for me – something I'd avoided up to that point.  That doesn't mean I came out well-adjusted – far from it.  My military service made things a lot worse for me, in the short run.

But over the long run, and looking back, I developed a lot of psychological "survival" tools that I've called upon many times since.  And it gave me the seeds of a certain confident self-sufficiency that I've always attempted to nurture and value.

Caveat: Actual Work

Today was my first "real" day of in-classroom teaching, in my new job.  I think it went really well.  The kids, as always, are fun and provide me with a lot of positive energy, and I think I managed not to do too badly with the co-teaching arrangement (with a Korean teacher either leading – in regular classes – or assisting/observing – in afternoon classes) that I've never had to work with before.  It makes one feel a little bit self-conscious about one's teaching ability.

After work, I walked over to the 농협 (nonghyeop) supermarket and bought some more extensive food items, including a 10 liter bag of rice and a liter of red-pepper powder.  These are basics.  Nonghyeop is a sort of company that seems to resemble a weird hybrid between an agricultural conglomerate, a rural credit union, and an American-style co-op grocery store.   I believe (but I'm not certain) that it is either wholly government owned or at least regulated/controlled by the government to some degree – it's there to provide higher quality shopping and agricultural supply and services than could otherwise be found in backwater Korean towns.

Anyway, I took my purchases home and made a real dinner of kimchibokkeumbap (my current craving) for myself, with a stir fry of rice, kimchi, onions and garlic, red pepper, and some left over tofu that I had.  It was delicious – although I'm not difficult to please in that department.

Caveat: 투르드코리아

I was riding the bus back from Suwon to Gwangju this morning, and I just happened to be watching the TV on the bus (yes, buses have TVs on them, here) as I saw the winner cross the finish line, live, for the “Tour de Korea” (hangeulized as 투르드코리아) bicycle race, at about 11 AM.  I had just crossed the Jeollanam-do provincial border line.
Now that my stuff has been collected, I feel like my own “tour de Korea” has entered a new phase.
Yeonggwang (my new home) is an ugly little town, I have to confess.  I like Hongnong (where I’m working) better – it’s cleaner, and there seems to be more civic pride in evidence.   But I’m going to work at letting Yeonggwang grow on me.  I have learned that Yeonggwang means “glory” – so, glory be to Yeonggwang.

Caveat: Tacos al pastor

[broken link! FIXME] P1040476 Al fin de cuentas, ayer en la tarde no pude resister un viajecito rapidito hacía Seul para visitar mi librería favorito, el muy bueno 교보문고 (Kyobo Mungo), donde me compré un nuevo atlas coreano y el número más reciente de mi revista preferida, The Economist.   Todavía no sé exactamente como voy a aguantar el hecho de que no voy a poder comprar aquella revista cada semana en mi nuevo pueblo en Yeonggwang… tal vez tendré que inscribirme para recibirla por correos.

Pero lo más importante fue una visita al restaurante Dos Tacos (que se escribe en hangeul 도스타코스 = doseutakoseu), que tienen los mejores tacos al pastor en Corea (izquierda).  También comimos unos taquitos de pollo (que suelen llamarse flautas) muy bien hechos.

Fuimos yo y mi amigo Peter, quien recién se ha acabado con su contrato en hagwon en Ilsan y se ha dedicado a pasar un rato de modo de turista antes de volver a los EEUU.

Después, anoche, Peter vino a Suwon y salimos con mis amigos Mr Choi y Seungbae, y acompañados por un señor alemán bastante divertido que se está hospedando en la casa de huéspedes acá.  Resulta que Peter habla alemán excelentemente.  Tomamos makkoli y comimos un kimchijeon muy sabroso.

Ahora son las seis y media de la mañana de domingo, y estoy arreglando mis libros y otras posesiones los cuales vine a recoger, para poder llevarlos todo a Yeonggwang.  Me alegraré ya no tener mis cosas tan distruibidas por todo el país.

Caveat: 미국, 고무로 닭인형 달리기 대회

I saw the above headline on the television news last night.   It’s pretty hilarious, but it was meaningful to me because it was one of those exciting, rather rare moments when I saw Korean text and immediately parsed and understood what it was about – it was a moment of “native” understanding, which makes it sound like I’m really good at Korean, and I’m not.  But it was nice to have just an instant when I wasn’t puzzling out vocabulary items with a dictionary or trying to sort out weird grammatical constructs in my brain.  I suppose the visual cues on the screen might have helped a little – I’ll leave it as an exercise for the readers to determine what those visual cues might have been.
So… what does it mean?  미국, 고무로 닭인형 달리기 대회 = miguk, gomu-ro dalkinhyeong dalligi daehoe = USA: rubber chicken throwing contest.
Now that’s news worth knowing!

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