Adding a layer of snow to the world makes me smile. That’s good.
Here’s a view down the Juyeop Esplanade at lunchtime, today, looking southwest. There’s a giant ROK flag on a flagpole, at the subway station in the distance. Kids were driving sleds down the ramps of the pedestrian overpasses.
RE xmas, I’ll reiterate an old standard: “bah humbug.”
Apparently my uncle really achieved a new level of xmas-avoidance this year – he booked a flight from the US to Australia that departs on the 24th and arrives on the 26th (because of the international date line). Now that takes xmas-avoidance to a completely new level. I’m impressed!
What I’m listening to right now.
Kray Van Kirk, “A Medicine for Melancholy.” I went to grade school with Kray. And middle school. And high school. He lived three blocks from the house I grew up in. Really.
I live about 10 miles from the North Korean border. Mostly, I can totally ignore this fact. Today, while I was walking to work, I was reminded, as I saw not one but two Korean military helicopters passing overhead, in the cold blue sky. Understandably, the Korean military is probably doing things.
The Onion conveyed the hereditary Stalinist, Kim Jeong-eun’s insecurities.
Meanwhile, yesterday I had fun with first-graders. Three of my phonics kids drew self-portraits on the blackboard, during the break. I thought it was cute. They also drew Christmas trees for me, later.
What I’m listening to right now.
The Youngsters, “Smile (Sasha Remix from Involver).” Euroelectronica, I guess.
Walking home in the dark, it was snowing. First real snow, I would say – the other was a false alarm. This is the real stuff.
Side observation (or trivial pondering of the day): why do Koreans with foreign cars (like BMW’s and Chevys) drive worse than Koreans with local marques?
I have decided to coin a new word, “atheisticist,” for use to describe atheists who are offensive, in the same way that sullyblog uses the term Christianist (apparently he coined it) to describe Christians who are annoying because of their shallow hypocrisies, militancy and/or dogmatic ideological rigidities and intolerant attitudes. The term Christianist is meant to parallel Islamist. Similarly, I would conceive Atheisticist as the same sort of parallel.
Having thus coined a new word, I shall apply it posthaste to the recently deceased philosopher/gadfly/atheisticist, Christopher Hitchens. There’s some irony (or poetic justice?) in my imitating the sullyblog in this, since apparently sullyblog and the hitch were pals.
As is often the case in his bloggings on various current events, the blogger IOZ provides the sort of biting, dark and yet shiny, brilliant prose that best captures my own sentiments (almost exactly) RE the recently deceased man. He writes about his own perspective vis-a-vis Hitchens, “As an atheist, I found him as embarrassing as my loudest aunt’s impenetrable Pittsburghese, mortifying in polite company. If the universe were just, he would wake from his passage on Kolob, basking in the angelic light of billions of perfect, white, immortal Mormon smiles.”
This connects back to something I observed about a concept from Bertolt Brecht in this blog entry from a few weeks ago – one man’s heaven can be another’s hell. And nothing would be more hellish for an atheisticist of Hitchens’ ilk than a Mormon Kolob.
Perhaps releated, perhaps not (you decide): what I’m listening to right now.
This is from the DPRK. Don’t suffer under the illusion that only North Korea produces music like this. You can find very similar things on South Korean television, with merely different themes – it’s thought of as old-people’s music, rather like Sinatra, maybe, in the U.S.
I have a new theory about how to know when what you've cooked is healthy. When the clean up from something you've made is so easy you can almost get away with not using soap, it means what you made is probably pretty healthy. There aren't any fats or sugars or burnt carbs to make it unhealthy, maybe.
I made a kind of mushroom, pepper, onion and tomato sauce and added rice – I guess it's vaguely what some Americans call Spanish Rice. It was delicious.
I talked to my mom, my uncle, my sister, my nephews on skype this morning. I don't like using skype… I'm not sure why. The call got dropped 3 times in less than an hour. Not reliable.
I've been feeling guilty about how little and how ineffectively I communicate with my family, which of course leads me to put off communicating with them. Vicious circle. I've retreated into a rather hermetic existence, lately. I'm not even unhappy with it. But I'm carrying an awareness that I'm sort of leaving people behind, not staying in touch with them… dropping long-maintained threads of communication and community.
I'm not content, I guess. A bit cut loose, existentially, by my terminal frustration with what had been the two chiefest, most important goals of my current life – learning Korean and becoming a better teacher. Neither are moving forward. They are simply … there. Static, unhappening projects.
What I'm listening to right now.
William Shatner (with Lemon Jelly), "Together." Really.
No kidding? Who'd have thought that William Shatner, even collaboration, could do something so… earwormy?
Yesterday I went to the foreign grocery store across the street, mostly to resupply myself with the Brazilian brand of instant coffee that I like (“Iguaçu”), and I saw a giant bottle of dill spice. It seemed too big, but it was the only size they had, and I’ve never seen dill spice before in Korea. I decided to buy it – it was only 8 bucks.
So I got home thinking, gee, I have a lifetime’s supply of dill spice, what should I make? The main thing I have used dill spice for, in the past, is borsht – but I still haven’t found any beets (admittedly I haven’t looked that hard).
I had some nice tomatoes, and I had my pea soup. What could I make? I made fried tomatoes, with a breading that included corn flour, dill spice, nutmeg, black pepper. I literally invented the recipe from my crazy imagination – I had no plan or idea beforehand. Then I ate them with my pea soup and some toast. They were delicious.
What I’m listening to right now.
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, “Buy for me the rain.”
The video is very interesting – it’s a cheesy anti-war-themed music video from the 1960’s! I didn’t even know such a thing existed until I found it when finding a youtube of the song [UPDATE: old video link rotted, new video link is just the soundtrack – so the video is lost].
I grew up with this music – it’s very nostalgic, for me. Here are the lyrics.
Buy for me the rain, my darling, buy for me the rain; Buy for me the crystal pools that fall upon the plain. And I’ll buy for you a rainbow and a million pots of gold. Buy it for me now, babe, before I am too old.
Buy for me the sun, my darling, buy for me the sun; Buy for me the light that falls when day has just begun. And I’ll buy for you a shadow to protect you from the day. Buy it for me now, babe, before I go away.
Buy for me the robin, darling, buy for me the wing; Buy for me a sparrow, almost any flying thing. And I’ll buy for you a tree, my love, where a robin’s nest may grow. Buy it for me now, babe, the years all hurry so.
I cannot buy you happiness, I cannot buy you years; I cannot buy you happiness, in place of all the tears. But I can buy for you a gravestone, to lay behind your head. Gravestones cheer the living, dear, they’re no use to the dead.
I had homemade split pea soup (to which I added tons of carrots and some wasabi paste… very nice).
I’ve been reading Jameson on Marxism (in Valances of the Dialectic, previously mentioned). My question: so what’s with China? The implicit answer is obvious… in the 70’s, the central committee recognized that the revolution couldn’t be a truly Marxist one, because they weren’t an industrialized country. So… logically, they opted for capitalism. Not repudiating Marxism, but because they were true Marxists. Hmm. Just thinking. More on this later… maybe.
Alcoholism involves overconsuming alcohol, so workaholism obviously involves the excessive consumption of workahol, right?
Well, I'm not really working all that much – but given that we're supposedly in a test-prep period, when I should have a reduced schedule, I'm working more than expected. Curt's given me some extra jobs, and I'm sufficiently unhappy with the rest of my life, that I've taken them.
I've been working on making a "best of student work" bulletin board for our lobby. I've been doing "phone teaching" – which involves having students call me and try to have really basic conversations. The levels of success varies.
I've been working on prepping my next chapters in my self-made debate textbook. And I'm still doing the "CC" classes – basically, "noraebang 101." And because of this last…
What I'm listening to right now.
Blue, "All Rise." The kids seem to like this song, but it's hard to sing.
And also…
Bon Jovi, "It's My Life." I think mainly they like the video for this, but they do well with the chorus, too.
Tonight, leaving work, I said to my coworker Danny these exact words:
“수고하세요. Don’t work too hard.”
Then suddenly, I realized this was incredibly funny. You see, each, in their respective languages (Korean and English), is a conventionalized way of saying goodbye to coworkers who are staying – but they must reflect some deep cultural differences, because their meaning is exactly opposite, and combining them was an act of pure cognitive dissonance.
“수고하세요” [sugohaseyo] means, roughly, “take pains, put in an effort, work hard.” It’s a typical thing you tell colleagues when you’re leaving them. “Don’t work too hard” is the sort of phatic, leaving-work phrase that I’ve used with late-staying colleagues during most of my working life, in English.
It’s an interesting cultural difference on display.
What I’m listening to right now.
Basement Jaxx, “Where’s your head at.” The video is freaking awesome, too.
I started another blog today, sort of by accident. How does one start a blog by accident? … One navigates a Korean website with a poor grasp of Korean. Now, what shall I do with it? Not a clue. What I’m listening to, right now. Underworld, “Beautiful Burnout.”
To my facebook-based friends and acquaintances, sorry. I prefer the control having my own webpage and blog give me, so I will continute to post here at caveatdumptruck, daily.
I have stopped logging into facebook on a regular basis. Partly, that’s in protest of the fact that they are so aggressively tracking users’ web activities – did you know that if a page has “Like” button, facebook knows you’ve been there even if you don’t click it?
Because of that, among other reasons, I only log into facebook once every couple of days. These blog entries still sometimes cross-post, but I’m not trying extra hard to make sure that always happens.
Those of you who know me well, and read between the lines… probably realize I’ve been kind of down, lately. Above all else, I’m so utterly discouraged about my learn-Korean project that I’ve essentially stopped studying. I don’t know how to regain my motivation.
Meanwhile, I’ve been wasting a lot of time reading bad novels and surfing radical politics websites (e.g. Who Is IOZ, whose recent rant was fabulous – most hilariously: “The supercommittee, a sort of homeopathic version of a legislative body, a thing, reduced to its essence and then placed near a vial of water whose molecules were supposed to realign and magically cure what ails us, or, ahem, whatever, failed.”).
I ate very healthy today: I had rice with gim (seasoned dried seaweed) and kimchi for breakfast, and for an early weekend dinner I had tricolor rotini and penne pasta with a simple vegan homemade sauce of onion, garlic, tomatoes, thyme, oregano, rosemary, bayleaf and pepper, with a half-cup of red table wine to give it some character. It’s not really that attractive, nor even deeply delicious, but it was healthy and satisfying. And I saved the leftovers, hopefully I’ll get better at using leftovers.
I can’t quite figure out this video. But I like it. Nice music track, too.
What I’m listening to right now.
Bentley Rhythm Ace, “Bentley’s Gonna Sort You Out.” The car in the video below is very similar my dad’s (and formerly grandfather’s) old 1913 Ford Model T.
I loved that car and I hated when my dad sold it. But I love the ’28 Ford Model A more – and he still hasn’t sold that (below left, from circa 1970 – with me, my sister, and mom).
Since last week, we're back in the 시험대비 (test-prep special schedule for middle-schoolers). So I have taken a bunch of "CC" (I have no idea what CC is supposed to stand for) classes for the elementary kids, since I have more free time in my schedule and the other teachers have less.
This gives me a weird, unexpected exposure to American pop music – the kids demanding things like Justin Bieber or Kelly Clarkson. Yesterday we did Clarkson's "My Life Would Suck Without You." And now it's stuck in my head.
Because of that, I applied an antidote – despite the fact that I sort of like the Clarkson song, to be honest. So…
“Buddha. I bow and pray that Buddha comes into the world.” This is #107 out of a series of 108 daily Buddhist affirmations that I am attempting to translate with my hands tied behind my back (well not really that, but I’m deliberately not seeking out translations on the internet, using only dictionary and grammar).
I would read this one hundred seventh affirmation as: “Buddha. I bow and pray that Buddha comes into the world.” What I’m listening to right now. [UPDATE 2024-04-19: The link to the music video rotted. Because yay internet.] 정재은, “당신과 둘이라면.” This is a genre of music called 트로트 [teuroteu “trot”] and it is the Korean cultural equivalent of country-western music in the US, or maybe norteño music in Mexico. Basically, the genre consists of Korean folk-songs and love ballads, with cheesy 70’s-style backing music. Also please pardon the cheesy Korean historical-drama screenshot on the youtube I found with the song.
“Buddha. I bow and pray not to withdraw from a functioning mind.” This is #105 out of a series of 108 daily Buddhist affirmations that I am attempting to translate with my hands tied behind my back (well not really that, but I’m deliberately not seeking out translations on the internet, using only dictionary and grammar).
I would read this one hundred fifth affirmation as: “Buddha. I bow and pray not to withdraw from a functioning mind.”
Or… functioning heart. Or heart that functions. Mind and heart: 마음. It’s not so much linked to a specific organ in the body, as the western terms are, as to the function of feeling, I think. I like this affirmation. It seems to be saying: trust your feelings. Follow them. Maybe I’m wrong. I don’t know.
I’m running out of affirmations. I can’t decide what I’m going to replace this amazingly regular blog-feature with, when I run out. Any suggestions, O universe? I guess I’ll just follow my heart. Not at all related, and maybe even somewhat inappropriate… what I’m listening to right now.
Eisbrecher (a German goth/industrial rock group), “Schwarze witwe” (black widow). The song seems to be about vampiric sex, or something like that. I’m not so good at understanding German – but I never let a failure to understand a language interfere with my ability to enjoy it. So I have a lot of music in various languages that I barely understand in rotation among my mp3 files – German, Japanese, Portuguese, Korean, etc.
Depth of fall. But the weather was hot today. “Indian summer,” that used to be called, in USland. Still called that? I don’t know… I’m feeling out of touch with my own culture.
Easy day of teaching: two classes with the TP2 kids – easy group to get along with. Smart. Interested. Sometimes tired.
I’m just sleeping a lot. Sick. Fever.
What I’m listening to right now.
New track from Jane’s Addiction (recently re-formed), “Irresistible Force.”
“Buddha. I bow and pray not to suffer sickness in the world.” This is #102 out of a series of 108 daily Buddhist affirmations that I am attempting to translate with my hands tied behind my back (well not really that, but I’m deliberately not seeking out translations on the internet, using only dictionary and grammar).
I would read this one hundred second affirmation as: “Buddha. I bow and pray not to suffer sickness in the world.” I say that, currently suffering sickness. Well. Such is life. It’s not a severe sickness, setting aside certain subtle inclincations toward hypochondria that I sometimes experience. What I’m listening to right now.
[UPDATE 2024-04-19: The link to the music video has rotted. Yay internet! Sorry…] Sarah Jarosz, “Left Home.”
I was so tired last night when I got home from work around 1045, but I went to bed at my more or less normal time, 1 am, and then woke up at 630, wide awake. I thought maybe I wouldn’t get back to sleep, so I got up and had a cup of coffee and checked my email. I wanted to listen to the news on internet streaming radio, but Minnesota Public Radio is having one of its member drives, which is appropriately named because it drives me crazy, and being a member, I don’t even get the frisson of feeling guilty about it.
I started KCRW (Santa Monica), which is another radio station I listen to, but then suddenly, finishing my coffee, I was sleepy. I thought I should take advantage of that, and so I went back to bed, to try to add up to a more normal amount of sleep for the night. I’m not interested in replicating the Korean universality of sleep deprivation experiences.
It was only a one hour supplemental nap, but very strange-feeling, the way insomnia-induced “catch up” naps can be. All these disconnected, intense-seeming dreams. I sleep on the floor, Korean-style, with my head close to the windows in my little apartment, so I could feel the chill dawn air outside – maybe all the way down to freezing last night. I haven’t bothered to try to figure out how to turn on the heat in my apartment, yet. Sleeping when the air is cold is always a little bit like camping. Camping makes me think of northern Minnesota, which makes me think of Dylan. Or vice versa.
What I’m listening to right now.
I had Bob Dylan’s “Girl from the North Country” (with Johnny Cash), but I realized I’d blogged that song before, so I replaced it with “Hazel,” by Bob Dylan (embedded from some Portuguese site). [UPDATE: Link rotted, replaced with “official audio on youtube.]
“Buddha. I bow and pray to live with a compassionate heart.”
This is #97 out of a series of 108 daily Buddhist affirmations that I am attempting to translate with my hands tied behind my back (well not really that, but I’m deliberately not seeking out translations on the internet, using only dictionary and grammar).
I would read this ninety-seventh affirmation as: “Buddha. I bow and pray to live with a compassionate heart.”
What I’m listening to right now.
[UPDATE 2024-04-20: in the fullness of time, all internet links will rot. The linked video on this page has done so. Let us show compassion toward those rotted links, and toward the incompetent internet giants that make them happen.]
Antonio Carlos Jobim’s instrumental from his album Stone Flower, “Tereza My Love.” As one critic put it: “Brazilian music made for Americans.” But that doesn’t really detract from it, that much.
“Buddha. I bow and pray to do the best in everything.”
This is #94 out of a series of 108 daily Buddhist affirmations that I am attempting to translate with my hands tied behind my back (well not really that, but I’m deliberately not seeking out translations on the internet, using only dictionary and grammar).
I would read this ninety-fourth affirmation as: “Buddha. I bow and pray to do the best in everything.”
And hence, to Nirvana. Not the end state of Buddhist practice, but the rock band.
On the radio there is a lot of retrospective about the 20th anniversary of Nirvana’s Nevermind album. Everyone is saying it’s a group and album that changed everything.
So, speaking of doing one’s best, actually, I am inclined to agree. I remember hearing the boys from Aberdeen, Washington, in 91 or 92 when I was in the Army, or shortly after getting out, and thinking, this is a band that is really representing something new, something different, something capturing the alienation of the post-disco, post-Reagan generation. And I have a very, very distinct and clear memory of when I was studying in Valdivia, Chile, in 1994, and going to some bar or nightclub with some Chilean friends I’d made, and “Smells like teen spirit” was playing, and one of them (who happened to be an activist in the post-Pinochet truth and reconciliation movement) turning to me and saying “Este grupo Nirvana es el más importante de nuestra generación – verás” [this group Nirvana is the most important of our generation – you’ll see].
I listened to the sound carefully, because of that, and felt inclined to agree in that moment, having drunk 1 or 2 Pisco Sours (Chile’s national cocktail).
What I’m listening to right now.
Nirvana, “Come as you are.” My personal favorite from that album, maybe. Perhaps one strength of Nirvana was that they managed to be huge and famous and yet in some weird way remained raw and utterly unpretentious. Not that that lack of pretention rescued Mr Cobain from his untimely suicide, right? That means something, too.
Here’s a screencap from the video – note the lyric, “no I don’t have a gun.”
I had some computer problems over the weekend. Or rather, on Friday… I experienced the notorious blue-screen-of-death on my little Asus EeePC netbook, which runs Windows 7. It’s the first time I had one on this machine – I had, in fact, come to believe that Microsoft had done away with the infamous crash-o-matic indicator with the new operating system, because I’d never seen it before. But lo, there it was.
This made me worried. I managed to recover the little netbook, but I felt a dilemma. I rely on having a computer a lot. More than just for going online – in fact, I spend a lot of time on my netbook off line, and I’m pretty OK with having to cope with lack of internet at home, as I learned the hard way during my struggles with internetlessness in Yeonggwang last year (although obviously I ranted about it quite a bit). I do writing on my computer. Not good writing. Not writing-to-be-happy about, but it’s a compulsive exercise.
Until last year, I’ve always had two computers. Well, not always, but at least in the most recent milennium. The idea being, that if I had a crash, I’d go to the backup. Well, last year, my “main” laptop, an old Sony Vaio that I bought the month before coming to Korea in 2007, suffered an ignoble retirement. It has 3 operating systems installed on it – Windows Vista, Ubuntu Linux, and Windows Server 2003. I dropped it, and I guess I scrambled the Vista boot sector somehow. I can still boot it up, even now, but using Linux is virtually useless for surfing the Korean internet (although that’s changing rapidly, with the unexpected – to me – success of the iPhone and iPad and the various Android-running clones of those products, because Android is, after all, just Linux). The linux boot has got some other minor issues, too, involving the Korean-language input thingy, which I’ve been too lazy to resolve. The Server 2003 boot still works (and I use it when I’m searching for some old file I’ve misplaced, sometimes), but it never played well with the graphics card in the laptop, with the consequence being that it is only capable of presenting a bare-bones 800×600 half-size window on the already non-huge laptop screen. The upshot of all this, I consider the old “main” laptop to be dead.
So my backup computer, since my hiatus in the US in the fall of 2009, has been this $295 Asus netbook that I bought at Best Buy with a gift certificate. It became my new main computer. It’s very low-grade, but perfectly adequate for my writing and for doing things on the internet, if rather pokey running multiple applications, etc. I had to abandon my computer games habit, but that’s hardly been detrimental, in most respects.
Anyway, getting the blue screen of death, last Friday, set me to thinking… if this netbook fails, I’ll be in a world of hurt. I’ll be able to boot up “old main” if I’m desperate to write something, but it’s hardly convenient, and I can forget comfortably surfing the internet. And besides, I’ve been missing having a computer that can have more than 2 windows open at the same time without slowing to a crawl.
So Saturday morning, I tromped off to Costco and spent 800 bucks. I bought a desktop. Which seems ridiculous, but I’ve considered that one of the main things I do recreationally with my computer, these days, is watch movies or TV serious, and my netbooks 7 inch screen is pretty pathetic, that way. Those 24 inch flat screen monitors looked tempting. So basically I bought a fancy screen with a cheapo Jooyontech (a Korean discount brand) desktop PC attached to it.
I decided to make my life difficult for myself. Not on purpose, exactly: I somehow managed to click just the wrong set of initial choices on the “first boot up” of the Windows 7 Home Premium K (for Korea) operating system, such that the operating system knows I prefer English, but nevertheless refuses to use it with me about 80% of the time. As if that even makes sense. Haha. Let’s just say the remainder of the configuration process involved a lot of recourse to the dictionary. And I’m the proud owner of a semi-bilingual computer.
I decided that, well, wow, I had a desktop with an actual graphics chip set and a big screen, I should put a fun game on it. I have always had an inordinate and unhealthy love for the game called Civilization, in its various incarnations. I went to buy it and try to download it – only to be disallowed from buying by the download store thing (called Steam). I felt annoyed. I hate it when online vendors discriminate against me because of my IP address. They’re telling me they don’t want my money. Well, my reaction to being told by a product vendor that they don’t want my money is to not give them my money. It took me about 20 minutes to torrent and install Civilization 4 (not the latest version, but what do I care? I like the old version just fine) on the new machine. No money required. The internet’s like that, right? Probably, it’s a bit stupid of me to tell everyone this on a blog, but I feel pretty safe from the copyright police, because of the aforementioned discriminated-against IP address. Korean copyright police only care about Korean content.
Well, I played Civilization for part of Sunday, and then, in a long-unfelt rush of self-disgust at wasting such a vast amount of time on a virtual empire, I went on a walk. Such was my weekend. The picture below shows the new computer. It represents a certain degree of investment in my intention to stay in Korea, doesn’t it? I suppose if I end up leaving, I’ll sell it or give it away to a lucky friend.
What I’m listening to right now.
David Bowie, “Changes.”
The video someone made for it in the youtube, above, is clever, too. It’s an appropriate way to ring in the new computer, though Bowie always makes me think of freshman year at Macalaster College in St Paul. Life has changes.
Stephen Colbert, in an episode this past week, was referencing the recent "scandal" (not sure it really was one – there was at least some missing context) involving the Republican candidate's debate during which people seemed to be cheering when Ron Paul suggested that a sick, uninsured person just be left to die rather than be admitted to an emergency room. So, a few moments later, he was discussing poll numbers, and in place of the regular margin-of-error qualifier, he said, "plus or minus let-sick-people-die." This was extremely funny.
I'm having a lazy weekend. I guess that's usual. So… more later. I'm reading a good book.
Who could have imagined I’d spend part of my 46th birthday singing along to a Justin Bieber video with a bunch of Korean sixth-graders? And that that would be, by far, the funnest part?
Ah, but such is life. My coworkers got a cake, which was chocolate, and quite good – although they also ate most of it, too – which was actually good, too, as it would have been unhealthy for me to eat too much of it.
And then there was one of those most excellent of Korean traditions, the envelope of cash – but note that the envelope, in this case, had a hand-made label saying “Happy Birthday JW” in ransom-note style (see picture). I like that kind of attention to detail.
The Thursday “CC” classes that I have are kind of like noraebang (karaoke room) training – which makes sense: all Korean kids need karaoke training, as one’s ability to do well in noraebang are integral to success later in life.
I tried starting with a music video of a song I like, myself:
OneRepublic, “Good Life.”
It’s a pretty good song, and I like it partly because it was popular on the radio during the week I was driving around New Zealand back in February. So hearing it, and trying to sing along, reminds me of beautiful scenery and road tripping – how can that be bad, right?
But the kids said the song was difficult, and in thinking about it, I’d have to agree. The rhythms are tough, and the sentences in it are long. So then, at their request, we did:
Bruno Mars, “Just the way you are.”
This is an easy song, and I actually had the lyrics down pretty well, myself, by the time we finished practicing it. I got into it, even. It grew on me. The kids seemed to like it pretty well, too.
But in the end, I had to submit to their unceasing demands that we do Justin Bieber. “Jeo-seu-tin Bi-beo!” I can’t say I love Justin Bieber, but I’m happy to make the kids happy, and this, somehow, in some mysterious way, makes 6th graders extremely happy. Such is the impact of a Canadian teen idol and global pop sensation, even on Korean culture. We did his song:
Justin Bieber, “Love Me.”
It’s not a bad song, if not terribly original – I like the chorus’s riff on the 1996 Cardigans’ “Lovefool,” for example.
But really, it was just a regular work day, right? Although I managed to get out of there a little early – not that I did anything resembling celebrating. I came home, did a load of laundry, and read a chapter of a book about Buddhism.
I got a lot of Happy Birthdays on facebook. Thanks everyone!
This is #88 out of a series of 108 daily Buddhist affirmations that I am attempting to translate with my hands tied behind my back (well not really that, but I’m deliberately not seeking out translations on the internet, using only dictionary and grammar).
I keep returning to thinking about issues of sustainability, economics, the “stable recession” in Japan, my own interest in things like carrying capacity and density. I ran across a book review in the Guardian of a book I’d like to get ahold of eventually. The review seemed to summarize some of the ideas that have been bouncing around my own mind for a couple years now.
One thing I didn’t really see addressed in the review, however, is the idea that there is a class of goods that don’t rely, quite as directly, on consumption of finite resources: I’m thinking of art and intellectual production. To the extent that we transition to a “knowledge-based economy” (though I hate using such a buzzword), we can continue economic “growth” (in the abstract sense of increasing the amount of money sloshing around, i guess) without necessarily using up “stuff.” Call it an immaterial economics.
What I’m listening to right now.
Joan Baez, “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.”
Originally this song was by Bob Dylan, and I love Bob Dylan, but it’s Baez’s version that is embedded in my memory from my childhood. Yeah, growing up hippy, and all that. The lyrics.
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall Lyrics
Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son ? And where have you been my darling young one ? I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on six crooked highways I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.
Oh, what did you see, my blue eyed son ? And what did you see, my darling young one ? I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin’ I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin’ I saw a white ladder all covered with water I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.
And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son ? And what did you hear, my darling young one ? I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin’ I heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world I heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin’ I heard ten thousand whisperin’ and nobody listenin’ I heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin’ Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.
Oh, who did you meet my blue-eyed son ? Who did you meet, my darling young one ? I met a young child beside a dead pony I met a white man who walked a black dog I met a young woman whose body was burning I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow I met one man who was wounded in love I met another man who was wounded in hatred And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.
And what’ll you do now, my blue-eyed son ? And what’ll you do now my darling young one ? I’m a-goin’ back out ‘fore the rain starts a-fallin’ I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest Where the people are a many and their hands are all empty Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison Where the executioner’s face is always well hidden Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten Where black is the color, where none is the number And I’ll tell and think it and speak it and breathe it And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’ But I’ll know my songs well before I start singin’ And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.
“I bow and pray to live always in the heart of Buddha’s dharma.”
This is #82 out of a series of 108 daily Buddhist affirmations that I am attempting to translate with my hands tied behind my back (well not really that, but I’m deliberately not seeking out translations on the internet, using only dictionary and grammar).
I would read this eighty-second affirmation as: “I bow and pray to live always in the heart of Buddha’s dharma.”
Unrelatedly…
What I’m listening to right now.
Röyksopp – “What Else Is There?”
[Update: apparently this video is disabled in some parts of the world, due to copyright enforcement. Youtube’s copyright enforcement is incomprehensible to me, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ve had so many vidoes that I tried to view that were disabled in Korea, but that had been linked by people I know in the US, where there was apparently no enforcement. This is not the first time I heard of it going other way around. It probably boils down to who’s suing who in what country’s courts. Sorry. There are other versions online that might work. More update (2013-05-29): In doing some blog-maintenance work I found that the video posted here did not exist anymore. I’ve replaced it with a new version that seems roughly the same.]
The lyrics:
It was me on that road But you couldn’t see me Too many lights out, but nowhere near here It was me on that road Still you couldn’t see me And then flashlights and explosions Roads end getting nearer We cover distance but not together I am the storm I am the wonder And the flashlights nightmares And sudden explosions I don’t know what more to ask for I was given just one wish It’s about you and the sun A morning run The story of my maker What I have and what I ache for I’ve got a golden ear I cut and I spear And what else is there Roads and getting nearer We cover distance still not together If I am the storm if I am the wonder Will I have a flashlights nightmares And sudden explosions There’s no room where I can go and You’ve got secrets too I don’t know what more to ask for I was given just one wish
I survived Grace’s vacation. My coworker came back from vacation this week, after having been gone for a little over a month. So my 35+ classes per week will end. I put in a few long days this week getting caught up on getting my grades and student performance comments posted to the computer, and as of 9pm this evening, a new tentative schedule is published where I return to a more normal class load.
I feel like I survived the past month with very little stress, comparatively. I kind of approached it “heads-down” and just plowed through, but it helped that there were no major crises, and no serious issues. Things went more or less smoothly.
It’s worth observing that I’ve reached the conclusion that hagwon work, in crisis mode, is equivalent to Hongnong Elementary in normal mode. And Hongnong Elementary in crisis mode, is like… well, it’s like being on the losing side of a major combat simulation. I’m not talking about workload – obviously, there’s no comparison: hagwon work is WORK, Hongnong elementary wasn’t really work. But I’m talking about atmospherics, stressors, incomprehensible dictates from on high, etc.
I felt like I really accomplished something, this week, having completed the increased class load, and getting my July grades posted, and writing out comments on all my students. And then I came home, went on a little jog in the park at 11 pm, and came home and made some tomato and pesto pasta for a late dinner. Yay.
What I’m listening to, right now.
손담비, “미쳤어” [Son Dam Bi – Michyeosseo “crazy”].
The verb michida (conjugated into an informal past tense michyeosseo in this song) is generally translated as “crazy” but I don’t think that’s accurate at all. It means “crazy” so that captures the semantics, but the pragmatics are quite different. “Crazy” in English is quite mild, and can be used positively quite casually: e.g. “Oh, man, that was a crazy fun time.” Etc. But in Korean, you really can’t use the word that way – not in polite company, anyway. It’s not as strong as “fuck,” but I’ve had Koreans react to my use of the word as an American might to an unexpected use of that word. So I almost want to come up with some different kind of translation for the song title. Not sure what to use, though, that would capture the lower social register of the Korean. Maybe something as simple as “Fucked up.”
Here are the lyrics.
yes yes, no no, which way to go,
2008 e to the r i c , let’s go
내가 미쳤어 정말 미쳤어
너무 미워서 떠나버렸어
너무 쉽게 끝난 사랑
다시 돌아오지 않는단걸 알면서도
미쳤어 내가 미쳤어
그땐 미쳐 널 잡지 못했어
나를 떠떠떠떠떠 떠나 버버버버버 버려
그 짧은 추억만을 남겨둔채로 날
후회했어 니가 가버린뒤
난 더 불행해져 네게 버려진뒤
너를 잃고 싶지않아 줄것이 더 많아 나를 떠나지마라
죽도록 사랑했어 너 하나만을
다시는 볼수없단 미친생각에
눈물만 흐르네 술에 취한밤에 오늘은 잠을 이룰수없어
내가 미쳤어 정말 미쳤어
너무 미워서 떠나버렸어
너무 쉽게 끝난 사랑
다시 돌아오지 않는단걸 알면서도
미쳤어 내가 미쳤어
그땐 미쳐 널 잡지 못했어
나를 떠떠떠떠떠 떠나 버버버버버 버려
그 짧은 추억만을 남겨둔채로 날
사랑이 벌써 식어버린건지
이제와 왜 난 후회하는건지
떠나간자리 혼자남은 난 이렇게 내 가슴은 무너지고
죽도록 사랑했어 너 하나만을
다시는 볼수없단 미친생각에
눈물만 흐르네 술에 취한밤에 오늘은 잠을 이룰수없어
내가 미쳤어 정말 미쳤어
너무 미워서 떠나버렸어
너무 쉽게 끝난 사랑 다시 돌아오지 않는단걸 알면서도
미쳤어 내가 미쳤어
그땐 미쳐 널 잡지 못했어
나를 떠떠떠떠떠 떠나 버버버버버 버려
그 짧은 추억만을 남겨둔채로 날
Rap by Eric:
너 의 memories 이런 delete it 매일밤 부르는건 your name 들리니? 몹시 아팠나봐 이젠 시작이란 말조차 난겁나 open up a chapter man i’m afaid of that 전화기를들어 확인해 니 messages, 떠나줬으면 좋겠어, catch me if you can but i’m out of here
내가 미쳤어 정말 미쳤어
너무 미워서 떠나버렸어
너무 쉽게 끝난 사랑 다시 돌아오지 않는단걸 알면서도
미쳤어 내가 미쳤어
그땐 미쳐 널 잡지 못했어
나를 떠떠떠떠떠 떠나 버버버버버 버려
그 짧은 추억만을 남겨둔채로 날
Today is Liberation Day in South Korea. It’s the day that Japan surrendered to the Allies, and 35 years of subjugation to Japanese colonialism were brought to a close. What followed was the division of the peninsula by the victorious powers, and a bifurcated, two-sided neocolonial regime (Soviet and American) that, arguably, persists even today, 20 years after the end of the Cold War.
The North is the world’s only surviving even vaguely Stalinist regime, and the South, despite having shifted to a sort of neolibral democracy (such as it is, and, erm, perhaps not coincidental to the moment in history when the Soviet Union fell), remains the largest “peacetime” host of American troops on foreign soil (i.e. discounting the active war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq).
Despite my cynicism, I continue to believe that South Korea may be the sole genuine success story in America’s highly questionable exercises in “nation building.” I think that this is true, in part, because of the unique geopolitical moment that followed World War II and that the Korean War consolidated – a moment when “democracy” was happily represented around the world by repressive neo-fascist regimes (such as Syngman Rhee and subsequently Park Chung-Hee) – true – but where the lip-service concepts such as freedom were paid would eventually result in an evolution toward more inclusive (if never perfect) political systems.
I think that one reason why the current neoconservative efforts at nation-building (in e.g. Iraq) have been such utter failures is because of the historical myopia that is unable to recognize that “nation building” is, in fact, almost never a democratic enterprise. Democracy can take root in nations, undeniably, but nations are rarely constructed as a result of truly democratic impulses – because true democracies are full of people who are not, in fact, interested in being part of this or that nation.
And don’t try to sell me on some kind of American exceptionalism in this matter – the “American” nation was built by a very narrow demographic of middle-aged and elderly white, male landowners, over and against the objections of all kinds of embedded subjugated peoples (Native Americans, women, Catholic immigrant-laborers, Jewish small-scale merchants, etc.), who were only subsequently, through several centuries of struggle and brutal war (e.g. the Civil War), ideologically homogenized into some degree of inclusion. Never forget: even now, Obama talks white – and that’s how he got elected.
Nationalism is – as movements such as Nazism (not to mention Teapartism) should make obvious – all about the imposition of some totalizing ideological regime across an inevitably heterogeneous population. It’s only as a retroactive construct that such homogeneous nation-peoples (such as Koreans or Mexicans or even Americans) choose to perceive themselves as such.
All of which is my way of saying that I have, in fact, come to believe in a certain strain of South Korean exceptionalism, if only in that its relationship to the United States is utterly unique in the history of neocolonialism. There are lots of caveats attached to that, too.
There’s a perhaps-relevant quote, frequently misattributed to Sinclair Lewis (similar to something said by Halford E. Luccock, but probably invented in its misattributed form by journalist Harrison Salisbury). The recent proto-primarial antics of Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry set me to thinking about it: “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”
To which I will add: Yay, nationalism! Oh, and maybe, as a dash of seasoning, the old Samuel Johnson line: “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”
Speaking of freedom… What I’m listening to right now.
Kris Kristofferson, “Me and Bobby McGee.”
Kris Kristofferson wrote the song, and this is an early demo version that is currently one of my favorite renditions. There’s a Willie Nelson cover I like, too. I never actually cared for the famous Janis Joplin version that topped the charts in the early 70’s, for example, and I suspect the version that I grew up on was probably one of the Greatful Dead’s covers of it – I couldn’t find anything that sounded exactly right in surfing around youtube, though.
Here is a view of Ilsan’s Jungang-no [Central Avenue], a block from my apartment at the Juyeop subway entrance. I took the photo earlier, shrouded in drizzle – there are a few limp South Korean flags hanging from light poles. I took a long walk today, but didn’t really do a lot. Trying to find inner peace.
Maybe a week or two ago, I was surfing the internet looking at news or commentary on the Norwegian disaster. I don’t really have any profundity to contribute, but I ran across this video at some point, and the musical accompaniment has become a new favorite on my mp3 rotation. I’ve always had a thing for songs in languages I don’t understand, I suppose – so the fact that it’s in Norwegian doesn’t bother me at all – Norwegian is one of those languages that’s in the category of “gee I’d really like to study that language someday” – along with about 50 other languages, right?
It’s a haunting tune, and since the bombing in Oslo / massacre at Utoya, has become a sort of informal anthem that Norwegians apparently associate with commemorating the events. The original song is by Ole Paus, and I like his version too – almost better. But here’s Maria Mena’s version, set to video footage from the aftermath of the attacks.
Ole Paus’ version follows below – it’s set to a video made of photo stills from some who-knows-who’s Norwegian vacation – which feels oddly intimate and intrusive to look at, to me – but unfortunately it’s the only full version of the original that I could find. I like its almost vaguely Appalachian sound.
Here are the lyrics. Norwegian is possibly my favorite of the Germanic languages (well, I like Dutch, too, and English has a certain amibivalent popularity in my heart, I must confess – but that may simply be excessive familiarity).
Mitt lille land Et lite sted, en håndfull fred slengt ut blant vidder og fjord
Mitt lille land Der høye fjell står plantet mellom hus og mennesker og ord Og der stillhet og drømmer gror Som et ekko i karrig jord
Mitt lille land Der havet stryker mildt og mykt som kjærtegn fra kyst til kyst
Mitt lille land Der stjerner glir forbi og blir et landskap når det blir lyst mens natten står blek og tyst
Depeche Mode – Waiting for the Night. You know how a particular piece of music gets associated with a place? This track is forever linked in my mind with the Golden State Freeway (I-5) between Burbank and Glendale – the start of my commute home from work for several years.
I’m struggling with the fact that I’m actually enjoying work more, now that I’m teaching 35 class-hours a week. It’s because I derive positive energy out of being in the classroom with the kids, whereas I generally find sitting in the staff room dinking around with prep work (or trying to write textbooks) depressing and dull. But there’s a burnout aspect out of pushing this hard, too – it’s fulfilling but not sustainable, maybe. I don’t know.
I’m doing OK – I’m doing almost nothing aside from working, lately. I’ve set aside my two main hobbies: fiction and/or poetry writing, and trying to study Korean. I haven’t been jogging every evening like I was before this hard push at work, too. Good habits die so easily, don’t they? I had barely got the thing off the ground, and all it took was a few nights of “oh-I’m-too-tired.” Well.
What I’m listening to right now.
The Fray – Cover of Kanye West’s “Heartless.” I like the video a lot too – talk about awesome animation capturing teen nerd-angst.
I’m working hard, nowadays. I’m working one-and-a-half jobs – mine and half of Grace’s while she’s on vacation in Canada. I have 7 classes almost every day, so out of the 8 period day, I have one prep period. So. I’m staying very busy. I started coming to work one hour earlier, since I need more prep time.
And it stopped raining on Sunday. That’s the first time it stopped raining since sometime in June, maybe. So it got hot. Ah, the busy times of hagwon during school vacations.
What I’m listening to right now.
화요비, “반쪽” [Hwayobi – ban-jjok = “Half”].
Korean R&B, I somehow ended up with this song on my frequent play list. I like it.
I was listening to my mp3s on shuffle, and this song came around. I genuinely like it a lot. It’s 떠나는 님아 by 오승근 [Oh Seung Geun]. “떠나는 님아” [tteonaneun nima] means “O departing beloved…” – my intuition is that this is rather archaic Korean, which is of course quite appropriate for an old folksong. It took me a while to work out what seemed like an appropriate translation for the title. I won’t even attempt the lyrics, below.
This song wasn’t easy to find a video for – the only material available on youtube consists of noraebang (karaoke room) voice-overs. I was about to give up in despair (and/or make my own) when I found the above video on youku.com (a Chinese youtube-type site). [UPDATE: I found a Korean version, which is now what’s embedded.]
One shouldn’t be surprised to find Korean language material on Chinese websites – there are millions (maybe 5 million, conservatively) of Koreans living in China, including an autonomous region in the far Northeast, bordering North Korea and Russia’s Primorskiye, where Korean is the official language. I suspect the reason I had to go to China to find a video is due to copyright issues – the Koreans are pretty lax enforcing the copyrights of other countries, but work at it assiduously when it comes to their own cultural content.
The video animation is awesome. It’s a French group, also known by the English version of their name, The Bewitched Hands. I was unable to find the lyrics to this.
