We had a few day’s break from winter, but last night it came back. Here’s what I saw out my window when I woke up this morning.
Category: My Photos
Caveat: Taking Umbrellage
Here is a picture of some mist or rain along Gangseonno, walking to work earlier today.
My umbrella broke. How many umbrellas have I broken?
I am a child of the redwoods – of the perpetual dim winter rains of California's far northwest. It is a place where, like in the Pacific Northwest in general, it rains so much that the inhabitants take a dim view of umbrellas as being strictly for visitors and for the weak-souled. Umbrellas are an alien custom. Use an umbrella? Why bother?
I never used an umbrella until I came to Korea. But here in Korea, if you walk in the rain without an umbrella, you might as well be walking down the street naked. People will look at you in alarm, and they will express concern about your mental health. Your friends and acquaintances will insist you're taking your life into your hands by going without an umbrella in even the lightest sprinkle. People in Korea open umbrellas when the sky is gray. And that's setting aside the class of people who open umbrellas when it's sunny, too, because the sun is nearly as fearsome as the rain.
So living in Korea, I decided it's better to just use an umbrella, to avoid the solicitous and saccharine advice of friends or strangers. It wards off overreactions. Sadly, a cheap Chinese-made umbrella doesn't live very long: maybe a dozen or so deployments before a rib breaks. Further, I've found zero correlation between price and life-span: a $30 umbrella lasts the same as a $5 umbrella. So I buy $5 umbrellas at the 7-11 or other convenience store. Frequently. It feels like wasteful consumerism. If someone could tell me what sort (i.e. brand) of umbrella doesn't die after a dozen uses, I would buy it, and not be such a "throwaway" consumer – but I have no idea where or what.
Caveat: 야채죽
I tried making my own 야채죽 [ya-chae-juk = vegetable rice porridge] today, from scratch. I’ve never made it before. I’ve never watched it being made. I was put off by the various recipes I found for it – most required lots of soaking and cooking and blendering, etc. I figured it should be simpler than that.
I chopped up some veggies: mushroom, carrot, squash, onion. I added some pine-nuts. I stir fried these in some sesame oil with some seasoned laver (김 [gim = seaweed]) which provided enough saltiness, along with a dash of soy sauce and a dash of ginseng vinegar (I don’t know why I added the last – because it was there?). I took out the veggies from the fry pan, added water to the pan, making a broth, and then added some already-cooked white rice.
I stirred the rice and broth and mashed up the grains vigorously in the pan with the boiling water on a medium heat for about 5 minutes, and it got creamy, like rice porridge (juk) should. Then I added the vegetables back in, stirred, put in a bowl, topped with garnish of some additional gim, and voila. Prep time was only about 20 minutes.
I won’t say it was as good as the juk you can get at the joint downstairs. But given the fact that I made it, as an experiment, with no recipe and having never done it before, it was pretty darn good. And vegan and nutritious, too.
Speaking of vegetables…
What I’m listening to right now.
시인과 촌장 [si-in-gwa chon-jang], “가시나무 [ga-si-na-mu = thorn tree].”
가사.
내 속엔 내가 너무도 많아
당신의 쉴곳 없네
내 속엔 헛된 바램들로
당신의 편할곳 없네
내 속엔 내가 어쩔수 없는 어둠
당신의 쉴 자리를 뺏고
내 속엔 내가 이길수 없는 슬픔
무성한 가시나무 숲같네
바람만 불면 그 메마른 가지
서로 부대끼며 울어대고
쉴곳을 찾아 지쳐 날아온
어린 새들도 가시에 찔려 날아가고
바람만 불면 외롭고 또 외로워
슬픈 노래를 부르던 날이 많았는데
내 속엔 내가 너무도 많아서
당신의 쉴곳 없네
바람만 불면 그 매마른 가지
서로 부대끼며 울어대고
쉴곳을 찾아 지쳐날아온
어린 새들도 가시에 찔려 날아가고
바람만 불면 외롭고
또 괴로워
슬픈 노래를 부르던
날이 많았는데
내 속엔 내가 너무도 많아서
당신의 쉴곳 없네
Caveat: The Enraged Sea
I dreamed I was staying at my uncle's house in Alaska. He wasn't there – which is quite common when I go to visit him. I go to visit him and he says, "oh, nice to see you, I've got to go work, so, enjoy the place." So I was there alone. Except then my mother showed up (my uncle's sister). She was complaining about the cold and rain. And then there was a storm and the sea began to dig away at the "lower shed" which is right at sea level on the Port Saint Nicholas Fiord, where my uncle has built a dock. We watched the waves begin to destroy the shed, and my mother and I got into a discussion about global warming, while several panicked-looking wallabies tried to flee the rising waters. There aren't normally wallabies in Alaska, but I suspect they'd followed my mother there into my dream. My uncle showed up in a helicopter (appropriate) and said "bah humbug" to global warming, even as his shed was being destroyed. This was all very realistic to their personalities. I just felt sad, and decided I needed to go back to Minnesota, but I couldn't find my bag. Perhaps it had been in the destroyed shed?
Here is a picture I took from the door of the "lower shed" at my uncle's in Alaska, taken in October of 2009.
Caveat: 돌다리도 두들겨 보고 건너라
돌다리도 두들겨 보고 건너라
stone-bridge-TOO knock try-AND cross-IMP
Try knocking on a stone bridge, too, [before you] cross.
The googletranslate has this as “Look before you leap.” But my list-o-proverbs has this as “Being a scaredy-cat.” I’m not sure these are the same at all, but I incline to the latter.
This was hard to figure out, I had to cheat and look stuff up. There’s an old tradition that you knock (or kick, or stamp on) a wooden bridge before walking across it – presumably, to make sure it’s sturdy. So some people, to be extra careful, might knock on even a stone bridge before crossing, even though it’s probably more sturdy. So that’s either “looking before leaping” or being overly cautious, i.e. a scaredy-cat.
Who’s leaping? Here’s a picture of a stone bridge at 금산사 [geumsansa = geumsan temple] that I took in 2010. I didn’t knock on it.
Caveat: Merry Tuesday
The morning dawned icy, sunny and cold, with a fresh sprinkling of snow on the roof-ledge garden of the building across the alley. I leaned out my window and snapped this picture.
To all my family, friends and strangers who read This Here Blog Thingy™, Merry Tuesday! Smiles and best wishes to all, and I hope we all can give and receive all our gifts with sincerity and grace.
Caveat: Empire With A Smile
I got up early and went to the US embassy this morning. I have to renew my passport – which means it’s been almost 10 years since that panicked moment right before my departure for my 2003 trip to Australia when my passport wasn’t showing up and I had to change my schedule at the last minute, which is why I came to Korea as a tourist as part of a layover on that trip to Australia which is why I considered coming to Korea to teach in 2007 which is why I’m still here 5 years later. And my passport is full of stamps.
I went to the embassy once before, here – it was in 2008, when there was some quirk of my visa situation at that time that required a visit. The embassy is in an oldish (1970’s? – that’s old in Korea) building a block south of the restored Gyeongbokgung (Joseon Dynasty Palace), but until the 1990’s it was the location of the Western-looking, German-designed, Japanese-built capitol. I actually rather liked that old building, but amid much controversy it was torn down as a lingering symbol of the Japanese colonial period, the palace that had formerly been on the same location was restored. I remember the capitol vividly from when I was in Korea in 1991.
I had a pleasant experience at the embassy, but it’s always such a strange experience visiting a US embassy. The US is the closest thing, in today’s world, to a world-spanning empire. But the imperialists treated me much better at this outpost than they do when I’m actually at home in the country itself. Very friendly, organized and courteous, despite the massive amount of security involved – entering the embassy is a bit like getting on an airplane in this TSA era.
Here’s the embassy.
Turning the other way (about 90 degrees counterclockwise), you can see the statue of Sejong the Great, who reigned in the 15th century, the pinacle of Joseon civilization. Behind him, the palace gate and behind that in the distance, Bukhansan.
Caveat: Crunch Crunch
It’s pretty rare for the weather to get colder after snow, in Korea. Normally, in Korea, after a snow, it warms up – because moisture (and thus snow) always comes from the south. So snow-followed-by-bitter-cold is more Minnesota-style. After a lot of snow today, however, things have gotten quite cold. I love how that makes the snow go crunch crunch as you walk, and the way that cars make a muffled skwunka-sound as they drive past.
Caveat: Epistemic Closure
I don’t remember the dream very clearly. It was one of my “university” dreams, with the added twist of my father showing up in the Model A – that is happening a lot in my dreams, because of my worry and preoccupation with my dad, lately. In my “university” dreams, I’m at the University (…of Minnesota, …of Pennsylvania, …of Mexico, …of Southern Chile – one of the various universities where I have spent far too much time in my life), and I’m trying to register for a class that either doesn’t exist or is for some bureaucratic reason is inaccessible – pretty common vaguely Kafkaian themes.
My dad showed up, and was giving me unsolicited (and frankly not very useful) advice. Then Michelle showed up, and she was telling me not to study so much. Then I was standing in line for some class registration, except all the other people standing in line were Korean farmers. So, I was beginning to suspect I was in the wrong line, when my father drove by in the Model A – with my aunt Freda and the Korean dictator Park Chung-Hee (assassinated 1979) riding with him – and that somehow confirmed I was in the wrong line.
So I walked off, looking for the right line. And suddenly I was in a lecture hall of the class I had so desperately been wanting to register for. I felt a warm, happy glow of bureaucratic conquest. Professor Lopez (University of Pennsylvania) was lecturing, but he was speaking English, not Spanish, and the topic was philosophy, not 19th century Spanish Literature (although you could see the connection, probably). And he looked around the lecture hall, and looked at me very directly and pointedly.
“Epistemic closure… what is this? What is epistemic closure?” he asked, rhetorically. And continued, “This dream you’re dreaming is an example of epistemic closure.“
And I woke up.
Here’s picture I took from inside the “closet” on the fourth floor at work, yesterday morning.
Is it sad that the best view at work is from inside the closet? Perhaps more importantly, what was I doing in the closet with a camera, anyway? These are deep mysteries of the human mind.
Caveat: play and eat lunch
A fouth-grade student was coloring in a picture she had drawn. She complained, “Oh, teacher. This is too hard!”
I laughed. “Coloring? Hard? How is that hard? It’s like 유치원 [yuchiwon = preschool]!”
She sighed. “Nooo. Not like 유치원. Hard.”
“You never did art or coloring in 유치원?”
“No.” She shook her head vehemently.
“What did you do in 유치원?” I asked, somewhat surprised.
Without hesitation, she answered, “Play and eat lunch.”
Who knew?
I took a picture of the fall sidewalkscape while walking to work this morning – this is looking back down Gangseon-no toward my apartment a few blocks back.
Caveat: Returning To Ulleungdo (In a Dream)
I suppose some people may find it peculiar or self-indulgent or egotistical that I journal my dreams on my blog. I suppose it can be those things. But I will continue to do it. Last night’s dream was quite odd but very vivid and memorable. You will be able to tell what issues are front-and-center in my subconscious.
I dreamed I went to visit my father, but my father lived in Ulleungdo (an island off Korea’s east coast). It was a remote house on a dirt road – more similar to my uncle’s house in Alaska than anything I saw on Ulleungdo. But when I saw my father, he said, “I have something to show you.” We drove into town. The dream was an odd mash-up of my childhood in my dad’s Model A and a Korean road-trip. None of the Koreans seemed affected by a pair of foreigners driving a 1928 Ford Model A through their towns. We arrived in the main town of Ulleungdo (called Dodong though the dream neglected to remind me of that – I only remembered as I was typing just now), and we got out near some construction.
My father and I walked over to this odd, square, un-constructed-upon lot on a steep hillside – the lot was “leveled” – it had been dug out so that it was flat at the lower street level, with an ugly, two-storey retaining wall of dark concrete block at the back of the lot, and boughs of pine overhanging that retaining wall. In the center of the lot was a strange “house” made of cloth and cardboard and sheets of metal – something a homeless man might construct – however, it was apparent my father had been spending time here. I surmised he had been “squatting” on the property during his visits to town. I went inside, and it was actually pretty comfortable inside. There was a small, old-fashioned stove you sometimes see ajeossis using in tent-like constructions in small towns in Korea in winter, and a platform made of pallets and plywood for sleeping. I came back outside.
In the dream, I was most struck by the fact there was a stunted palm tree in the lot beside the tent-thing, along with a pitiful-looking persimmon tree, shorn of leaves but with glowing golden fruit still hanging on the raggedy branches. Both trees seemed very lonely and unhappy. I laughed at the idea of a palm tree on Ulleungdo. It reminded me of the palmtrees in Yeonggwang, that I had seen covered with snow when I lived down there.
I commented on this, and smiled at dad. “I should buy this lot. I could build a nice house here.” I began to describe the kind of house I would build on this odd vacant lot on Ulleungdo. It would have two or three levels, up against the retaining wall at the back, with a front entrance at the street and lots of stairs.
My father said, “I bought it.” I was very surprised. My father owned not one, but two pieces of property on Ulleungdo!
Of course, it was all a dream.
To set the scene, here are some pictures from my 2009 visit to Ulleungdo.
This last is a picture of Dodong, seen from near the ferry terminal.
Caveat: Hugok Rainscape
I work Saturday mornings. It’s kind of hard to do, when I work afternoon/evenings the other 5 days of the week. But at least it means I get a day-and-a-half weekend. Today was a rainy day.
I left work and took a picture of the fall trees and the rain and the traffic. Hugok is the name of the neighborhood where KarmaPlus academy is located. I took the picture below standing on the corner in front of work, as I was leaving. The building in the center across the street was the first building I worked in in Hugok, in 2007 (Tomorrow School, which no longer exists).
Caveat: Walking Around Ganghwa Island
Ganghwa Island is a very historical place. It’s a large island approximately straight west from Seoul and also straight west from Ilsan, but there’s not really any direct route there from Ilsan. I took a zig-zaggy bus over there with my friend Peter, and we walked a 22 km route down the island from the bus terminal in the main town at the northern end all the way to a very historic temple complex called Jeondeungsa. It had a lot of tourists. We saw a lot of rice being harvested. We stopped at a hole-in-the-wall called “Mexican Pizza Chicken” and had some chicken (they didn’t have pizza, oddly) that didn’t seem very Mexican. But it wasn’t bad. Random strangers handed us fruit and nuts. Some of this, we ate. It was a good day, but now I’m very tired. Here are many pictures, starting with a googlemap of the route, in context west of Goyang (Ilsan – where I live) and Bucheon (where Peter lives).
So, without a detailed travelogue – perhaps just a random comment here or there – here are some pictures, in chronological order.
A farm house with a mushroom-shaped roof.
A cute dog in front of a very western style house.
A rice-harvesting machine, cutting rice.
A country lane.
Fall colors.
A sign to a tomb of Leegyubo.
A farm house with a strange but interesting design.
Exploring Lee Gyu-bo’s tomb site.
Caveat: I find dumptrucks exciting. Because… of the blog name, y’know? [UPDATE: I liked this orange dumptruck so much that it later became the “brand” image for this blog.]
Mexican Chicken!
Caveat: A luminous fall day on a pedestrian bridge looking north at Munhwa Park in Ilsan
Yesterday, walking to work, a few blocks south of work.
Caveat: Life in the Kburbs
Kburbs are Korean suburbs.
I walked along a charming Ilsan side-street on an early fall day.
The trees are starting to change color. The Seven-11 is always open. The streets are neat and orderly.
Caveat: Camp Edwards and 법륜사
I went on a really long, multi-modal journey today. I walked to Daehwa station and met my friend Peter who works in Bucheon. We walked (yes, walked) together to Geumchon (about 15 km), to make a visit with the old demons at Camp Edwards – the US Army base in Paju where I was stationed in 1990-1991. Camp Edwards no longer exists, having been abandoned by the US Army in the late 1990s, I think. In the last year or so, the old, decrepit buildings have been torn down – the place is now just a vacant lot and in a few more years it will likely be a housing development.
After that, we caught a number 92 bus to a town called Jeokseong (적성면), which is near the northern tip of Paju (Paju being the northwesternmost city/county in South Korea, up against the DMZ at Panmunjeom. From Jeokseong we walked up a winding mountain highway to a monument to British soldiers fallen in the Korean war, where we had a picnic lunch, and then we walked a few kilometers more to 법륜사 (Beopryun temple), on the flank of Gamak mountain. We had been intending to hike up the mountain, but my legs were feeling sore already from the walk to Geumchon, and so I wimped out. We hung out at the temple for a while and then walked back down to the highway and caught a number 25 bus to Yangju, where we got on the number 1 subway line.
We went south into Seoul and in the Russian neighborhood near Dongdaemun we went to a Russian restaurant for dinner – I had borsht (which was good) and a chicken thing called “a la Moscow” that was not-so-good. But it was interesting, anyway. Then parted ways with my friend Peter, and I took the subway home. I was tired.
Here are some pictures.
Peter saw a cloud, near the Unjeong Sindosi (New City), on the way to Geumchon. He said, uncharacteristically, “That looks like an American cloud.” I laughed, as I wasn’t sure what a specifically American cloud might look like.
A few kilometers farther on, beyond the Sindosi, we found a very run-down, rural looking area, and this very un-Korean-looking truck on a junky-looking farm. It had a rather Appalachian feel.
A mere hundred yards from the Camp Edwards front gate, I saw this contrast of an old-style Korean house with a modern school building behind it.
At the front gate for Camp Edwards (now unlabeled and unguarded – the military-related nature of the location has been erased by history, which keeps on happening), I mimed standing at the non-existent guard shack showing my ID to exit the base. I lived here for a year in 1991, and I have many vivid memories. But the barracks buildings and shops are torn down now.
At the north end of Camp Edwards, I took this picture of the pastoral scene.
After a 45 minute bus ride, this is the quaint town of Jeokseong.
And the town has one of those unfulfilling Korean rivers in it.
A few kilometers south of town, there is the “Gloster [Gloucester] Valley Battle Monument.” The battle was in 1951, during the Korean war. Many British soldiers died against the Chinese. There were many Koreans here having a Chuseok Sunday picnic. I don’t know why – it was a pretty good location for a picnic, I guess.
After our own picnic lunch, we continued walking down the highway (well, up the highway, climbing higher into the mountains but southward. We saw chicken and some geese at a vacant lot. I don’t know what they were doing there – no one was around, there was no house or farm. Peter commented that it was the world’s worst petting zoo.
We finally arrived at the temple, after a hard slog up a very steep road.
One of my favorite aspects of the typical Korean temple is the panel paintings on the outside walls of the buildings. I took some pictures of these.
I looked in the temple door. No one was there. The place was mostly deserted, except for a few hikers passing through. The monks had better things to be off doing on a Chuseok Sunday – Chuseok is not, per se, a Buddhist-related holiday – it’s connected, rather, with Confucian ancestor-rites and what you might call Korean native religion. I suspect Chuseok weekend is a slow one for the monks, and many of them go visit relatives or suchlike.
The view down the valley from the temple was pretty spectacular.
We walked down to the main road, partly along a little stream.
After the bus ride to Yangju, the train ride into Seoul at sunset induced me to take a few blurry pictures from the train.
Borsht!
Caveat: 서울에 갔다
I went into the city today to buy books and hang out with my friend Peter who lives in Bucheon.
We went to the war memorial museum at Yongsan, and walked over the far west end of Itaewon and went to a middle eastern restaurant there. I ate falafel. The impeding-typhoon sky was very spectacular, so I took some pictures.
Caveat: free / from man’s ghost
Looking Across the Fields and Watching the Birds Fly
Among the more irritating minor ideas
Of Mr. Homburg during his visits home
To Concord, at the edge of things, was this:
To think away the grass, the trees, the clouds,
Not to transform them into other things,
Is only what the sun does every day,
Until we say to ourselves that there may be
A pensive nature, a mechanical
And slightly detestable operandum, free
From man’s ghost, larger and yet a little like,
Without his literature and without his gods . . .
No doubt we live beyond ourselves in air,
In an element that does not do for us,
so well, that which we do for ourselves, too big,
A thing not planned for imagery or belief,
Not one of the masculine myths we used to make,
A transparency through which the swallow weaves,
Without any form or any sense of form,
What we know in what we see, what we feel in what
We hear, what we are, beyond mystic disputation,
In the tumult of integrations out of the sky,
And what we think, a breathing like the wind,
A moving part of a motion, a discovery
Part of a discovery, a change part of a change,
A sharing of color and being part of it.
The afternoon is visibly a source,
Too wide, too irised, to be more than calm,
Too much like thinking to be less than thought,
Obscurest parent, obscurest patriarch,
A daily majesty of meditation,
That comes and goes in silences of its own.
We think, then as the sun shines or does not.
We think as wind skitters on a pond in a field
Or we put mantles on our words because
The same wind, rising and rising, makes a sound
Like the last muting of winter as it ends.
A new scholar replacing an older one reflects
A moment on this fantasia. He seeks
For a human that can be accounted for.
The spirit comes from the body of the world,
Or so Mr. Homburg thought: the body of a world
Whose blunt laws make an affectation of mind,
The mannerism of nature caught in a glass
And there become a spirit’s mannerism,
A glass as warm with things going as far as they can.
– Wallace Stevens
The picture above is photograph I took at Mad River Beach, Arcata, California, in 1984. I know that it’s appeared on this blog before – sorry for the repetitiveness.
There are no fields, the birds are not flying. But seems to fit anyway.
Caveat: So hi
Dateline: Incheon
I’m safely landed and immigrationated at Seoul Incheon. Now I want to go home and sleep. But it’s 4:15 am, and the first bus to Ilsan leaves from the airport at 5:45. So I’m going to have to kill some time at the airport. Die time, die! Well, not really.
So to pass the time, here’s a picture of Gus-the-Cat catching some rays LA-style; Gus lives at my dad’s house.
Caveat: Entre Salvadoreños en Los Angeles
My father, brother and I went to a get-together at the home of my dad’s friend, Fidel. I enjoyed attempting to resurrect my Spanish and have conversations about politics, life in Korea, etc. with various of Fidel’s Salvadorean friends.
Toward the end, a young man named Marlon brought his hand-refurbished electric guitar, and my dad was checking it out. Now, my father is an excellent guitarist and musician, but his genres include folk and bluegrass – in all the time I’ve known my father (which obviously is from my own childhood) I’ve never seen him holding an electric guitar. It seemed momentous, portentious, and strange. So I tried to snap a picture.
My dad is at left. To the right are Marlon, owner of the guitar, and Hollye, my brother’s girlfriend. Note that the timestamp from my camera is Seoul time – so it’s in the future.
[Update 2013-07-02: My father’s friend Fidel finally sent me a picture we had had taken earlier this same day while at Macarthur Park in L.A., showing Fidel, my dad, some guy, and me. I think it’s a good group portrait so I’ll add it to this post.]
Caveat: Blythely Driving
Dateline: Blythe, California
…
I said goodbye to my sister, her husband and my two nephews this morning. Here’s a really bad picture we decided to try to take with me and the boys on the couch.
I look rather shocked, but I guess that’s just how it came out. The boys are photogenic enough – Dylan is screaming for the camera, and Jameson looks happy.
Then I set out to drive back across the desert. Here’s the desert, at a rest area.
And here is a rather poor effort at a self-portrait with the same desert backdrop. It was about 115 F.
I stopped in Blythe, at the Arizona-California border, for lunch.
Caveat: $77.77
Dateline: Upland, California & I-10 to Phoenix
…
I took off to drive to Phoenix, today. I stopped for gas as the tank was nearing empty. It’s a big truck. It cost me $77.77 to fill it. That seems like a lot – compared to $30 tanks in Minnesota with the rental car. But then I reflected that the same tank would cost, hmm, maybe ₩170,000 to fill in Korea, which is about $150, or a bit less.
Still, it’s a lot. But I’m going to visit my sister.
Here’s a view of San Jacinto Mountain (I think that’s it) near Palm Springs at a rest area off the 10.
Lastly, not in chronological order, a view from my dad’s front porch, last night, at twilight.
Caveat: A Churchy Library
Dateline: Whitewater, Wisconsin.
After building the lego tower, we went to a state park archeological site called Aztalan, near here. I might try to write something more extensive about that, later – it was pretty interesting.
Then we drove to a town called Lake Mills for dinner. It’s a cute town. We went to a kind of hippyish place where I had a humus wrap that wasn’t bad – it was a bit like something you’d find in Arcata. We went walking in a cute town square park area, and I saw an attractive older public library. Five year-old Henry was at my side, and as I went to take a picture of it, he said that he thought it was a nice-looking church.
“It’s not a church,” I explained. “It’s a library.”
Henry doesn’t like being wrong. But he was very good-natured. “Oh my gosh!” he exclaimed. “That sure is a churchy library!”
Caveat: Our goal is to reach the ceiling
Dateline: Whitewater, Wisconsin
We built a tower with legos in the living room, with my bestfriend Bob’s family: Sarah and his two sons Henry and Theo. Here’s a picture, at right, of the tower, with Theo, age 2, standing dangerously close: his nickname is currently Shiva the Destroyer, as is often the case with 2-year-olds.
Henry, currently 5, explained as we built it: “Our goal is to reach the ceiling.” And we did.
Caveat: Cowbeetle
Dateline: Tomah, Wisconsin.
While driving down interstate 94 in Wisconsin, today, I saw a fiberglass cow attached to a Volkswagen. There was a state patrol car passing by, too.
I thought about what it means to be an American.
Caveat: Nietzsche and the obligatory driveway photo
Dateline: Eagan, Minnesota (about 9 am, Sunday, July 29)
I was reading Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals before I left Ilsan yesterday: killing some time with one of the great time-killers of all time. In the Third Essay, Section 6, I found the following quote, which I felt compelled to write down immediately in my notebook.
Kant, like all philosophers, instead of envisaging the aesthetic problem from the point of view of the artist (the creator), considered art and the beautiful purely from that of the “spectator,” and unconsciously introduced the “spectator” into the concept “beautiful.” It would not have been so bad if this “spectator” had at least been sufficiently familiar to the philosophers of beauty – namely, as a great personal fact and experience, as an abundance of vivid authentic experiences, desires, surprises, and delights in the realm of the beautiful! But I fear that the reverse has always been the case; and so they have offered us, from the beginning, definitions in which, as in Kant’s famous definition of the beautiful, a lack of any refined first-hand experience reposes in the shape of a fat worm of error. “That is beautiful,” said Kant, “which gives us pleasure without interest.” Without interest! Compare with this definition one framed by a genuine “spectator” and artist – Stendhal, who once called the beautiful une promesse de bonheur. At any rate he rejected and repudiated the one point about the aesthetic condition which Kant had stressed: le désintéressement. Who is right, Kant or Stendhal?
I’ve never been much of a fan of Stendhal – I never have successfully read one of his novels. But I found the above insight very interesting. I have always felt that aesthetics is central to my understanding of the world, and Neitzsche’s point about seeing art and beauty from the point of view of a creator and not just a consumer seems very important. I’ll think about it some more and report back later, maybe.
Meanwhile, it was a drizzly rain at dawn in Dakota County, here.
I took a rather unaesthetic picture of my rental car, a Ford with Missouri plates, in my friend’s driveway, and I thought, why am I always taking pictures of cars in my friend’s driveway? I think it has to do with this view from my friend’s front porch as being a sort of “first real confirmation that, OMG, I’m in suburban North America again” – a snapshot of the culture-shock moment.
Caveat: Countdown
Dateline: Ilsan
In about 30 hours I’m leaving Korea to return to the US for the first time since 2009 (although I took a trip to Japan in 2010 and to Australia and New Zealand in 2011).I’m looking forward to seeing friends and family, but overall I’m still feeling much less interested in “travel,” conceptually, than I used to feel – I seem to have become a bit of a stick-in-the-mud.
I’m also feeling really stressed right now with the remaining work items – grades to be determined and posted in an as yet incomprehensible computer system, and some kind of outline of the classes that my substitute teachers will have to teach. Etcetera.
I woke up scrunched into the corner – a sign of restless sleep with preoccupations.
A random picture – because otherwise when my blog cross-posts to facebook some default picture shows up the selection of which I have no control over.
Mad River Beach, Arcata, 2007. Caveat: this is not to imply that my upcoming travel will include Humboldt.
Caveat: let the gray in
I love those gray, overcast, almost-gonna-rain mornings. I’m weird, I know. Perhaps it was because of those formative years in Humboldt? Certainly, those types of mornings were common enough. But here in suburban Seoul, they tend to be about 20 degrees F warmer than Humboldt mornings of similar feel. So actually they remind me more of Minneapolis summer weather than Humboldt weather.
I enjoy the weather. I fling my windows wide and let the gray in.
Meanwhile… a completely random picture from the archive: Santa Monica, 1994. Jeffrey (my stepson), Andrew (my younger brother) and I built this very immense sand castle. Here is a picture of that castle. Not-so-gray weather, but the beach wasn’t hot that day, as I recall.
What I’m listening to right now.
Olivia Newton-John with ELO, “Magic.” From the soundtrack for the movie Xanadu. Who ever actually saw that movie? I don’t think I did.
Lyrics.
Come take my hand
You should know me
I’ve always been in your mind
You know I will be kind
I’ll be guiding youBuilding your dream has to start now
There’s no other road to take
You won’t make a mistake
I’ll be guiding youYou have to believe we are magic
Nothin’ can stand in our way
You have to believe we are magic
Don’t let your aim ever stray
And if all your hopes survive, destiny will arrive
I’ll bring all your dreams alive for you
I’ll bring all your dreams alive for youFrom where I stand, you are home free
The planets align, so rare
There’s promise in the air
And I’m guiding youThrough every turn, I’ll be near you
I’ll come anytime you call
I’ll catch you when you fall
I’ll be guiding youYou have to believe we are magic
Nothin’ can stand in our way
You have to believe we are magic
Don’t let your aim ever stray
And if all your hopes survive, destiny will arrive
I’ll bring all your dreams alive for you
I’ll bring all your dreams alive for youYou have to believe we are magic
Nothin’ can stand in our way
You have to believe we are magic
Don’t let your aim ever stray
And if all your hopes survive, destiny will arrive
I’ll bring all your dreams alive for you
I’ll bring all your dreams alive for you
Caveat: yon gray blank of sky
Cheerfulness Taught By Reason
I THINK we are too ready with complaint
In this fair world of God’s. Had we no hope
Indeed beyond the zenith and the slope
Of yon gray blank of sky, we might grow faint
To muse upon eternity’s constraint
Round our aspirant souls; but since the scope
Must widen early, is it well to droop,
For a few days consumed in loss and taint?
O pusillanimous Heart, be comforted
And, like a cheerful traveller, take the road
Singing beside the hedge. What if the bread
Be bitter in thine inn, and thou unshod
To meet the flints ? At least it may be said
‘Because the way is short, I thank thee, God.’
– Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Below is a scan of a photo I took in 1985. I believe it’s from the top of Notre Dame in Paris, looking north (?) – I suppose I could figure it out using googleearth if I worked at it. Note the yon gray blank of sky. That’s how I remember my time in Paris that year.
Caveat: 이사하기
I worked today, even though it was Sunday – Karma is moving into the Woongjin (formerly LBridge’s middle-school campus in Hugok) building next door, as part of the merger.
I worked hard – moving desks, moving boxes, unpacking boxes, rearranging and cleaning desks. I feel very tired. Tomorrow, the elementary kids start the Woongjin curriculum, but I only have one elementary class on my new schedule for Monday, so it will be a fairly easy day to adjust to the new situation and surroundings. The middle-schoolers are finishing their test-prep for their first semester finals, and so they’re getting special classes, but once the middle-school schedule kicks back to normal, I’ll be pretty busy – Curt’s actually weighted me even more toward the middle-schoolers than so far. I’m not sure what that’s about – I suspect he’s hoping to continue Karma’s good reputation for middle-schoolers (i.e. the TP program is pretty “premium” in the local market) while letting the Woongjin curriculum improve the elementary side. We’ll see how it works out.
Here’s a random picture of some goofy boys in my EP4 cohort (RIP, along with all Karma elementary cohorts, as they join the Woongjin ones). We were reading something that referenced The Lion King movie and so they spontaneously decided they needed to have a lion-drawing competition on the blackboard.
[Daily log: walking, 3 km; moving desks, boxes, etc., 6 hours]
Caveat: Danny’s Daughter’s Dol
A Korean child’s first birthday is a special celebration, called 돌 [dol = anniversary]. They celebrate with a sort of public party similar in character and atmosphere to a wedding reception. My coworker Danny had such an event for his daughter’s first birthday, today. I started out intending to take some pictures but then I didn’t, really. Here’s a few.
A candid, fuzzy shot of Danny’s wife, and him holding their daughter, who’s dressed up in some traditional Korean clothes.
A somewhat out-of-focus picture of the child choosing a small toy gavel – there’s a tradition where the child is presented with some items to choose, which serve as a sort of prediction for her future. Choosing a gavel makes her a lawyer, maybe, or a judge or future president (?). Note the presence of an MC at left.
Here’s a much better picture of another coworker of mine interacting with his very cute 5 year old daughter. The kept making faces at each other and they looked the same. It was entertaining.
[Daily log: walking, 7 km; walking-with-a-really-extremely-heavy-box-because-I-went-shopping-and-bought-something-big, 1 km]
Caveat: Burbank-on-the-Han
Ilsan (the name of the new, western half of the municipality of Goyang, a Seoul suburb of about one million to the northwest of the metropolis) is not, in most people’s minds, a particularly glamorous place. Nevertheless, much the way Burbank is the “workaday world” behind the glamour of Hollywood, in L.A., with its many TV and movie studios and corporate offices, Ilsan has two major television studios, and it’s hard to watch Korean TV without recognizing neighborhoods and landmarks.
In that way, I feel as if I’ve landed in a sort of “parallel-universe” version of Burbank, sometimes (which is striking only because I lived in Burbank for several years in the early 2000’s). I was reminded of this when I was jogging and was struck by a view of the MBC studios building reflected in the lake at Hosu Gongwon. Here’s a picture.
Despite it being nighttime, pictures were easy – between the full moon behind the overcast sky and the city lights, it was plenty bright enough for pictures. Also in the park, I saw a 장승 [jangseung], a sort of traditional Korean totem.
I love jangseung. I don’t know what the hanja on this one says [Update: my friend Sanghyo provides info in his comment, below – the picture above is 지하여장군 = The Underground Female General – which frankly sounds like an awesome name for a blog or rock band]. She looks pretty scary, up against the swirling night sky.
[Daily log: walking, 4 km; running, 3 km]
Caveat: 의성어와 의태어
의성어 [ui-seong-eo] is phonomime, which is to say, an onomatopoeic word, a word that imitates a sound. 의태어 [ui-tae-eo] is phenomime, which differs in that it’s a kind of “sound symbolism” of a feeling rather than an imitative representation. I’ve written about these things before: see here. One of the most common google search terms that brings internauts to my blog randomly is “phenomimes and psychomimes.”
I’ll admit, these things fascinate me. I frequently revisit them. I found a very brief one page pdf summary of them, this morning. And there’s a chapter in Samuel E. Martin’s exhaustive and exhaustingly Yale-ified Korean grammar about them, too (p. 340~344).
I’ll reproduce some interesting vocabulary.
… some phonomimes:
추룩 추루룩 추루룩 [chu-ruk chu-ru-ruk chu-ru-ruk] = downpouringly
보글보글 [bo-geul-bo-geul] / 바글바글 [ba-geul-ba-geul] / 부글부글 [bu-geul-bu-geul] / 뽀글뽀글 [ppo-geul-ppo-geul] / 빠글빠글 [ppa-geul-ppa-geul] / 뿌글뿌글 [ppu-geul-ppu-geul] = boilingly, bubblingly
찰랑찰랑 [chal-lang-chal-lang] / 출렁출렁 [chul-leong-chul-leong] / etc. = lappingly, sloppingly
꽹구랑 꽹꽹깽 [kkwaeng-gu-rang kkwaeng-kkwaeng-kkaeng] = gongingly
… and some phenomimes:
살금살금 [sal-geum-sal-geum] = sneakily
깡충깡충 [kkang-chung-kkang-chung] = bouncily, “hoppingly” (also 깡총깡총[kkang-chong-kkang-chong])
말똥말똥 [mal-ttong-mal-ttong] / 멀뚱멀뚱 [meol-ttung-meol-ttung] = wide-eyed staringly
말랑 몰랑 물렁 [mal-lang mol-lang mul-leong] / 말캉 몰캉 물캉 [mal-kang mol-kang mul-kang] = softly / tenderly (as a texture of food)
살짝 [sal-jjak] / 설쩍 [seol-jjeok] = stealthily
싱글벙글 [sing-geul-beong-geul] = smilingly
날씬 [nal-ssin] / 늘씬[neul-ssin] = slimly, slenderly
통통 [tong-tong] / 퉁퉁 [tung-tung] = plumply
살살 [sal-sal] / 설설 [seol-seol] / 솔솔 [sol-sol] / 술술 [sul-sul] = gently, softly
싹독 [ssak-dok] / 썩둑 [seok-duk] = choppingly, snippingly
빡빡 [ppak-ppak] / 뼉뼉 [ppeok-ppeok] = crustily, tightly, narrow-mindedly
반짝 [ban-jjak] / 번쩍 [beon-jjeok] / 빤짝 [ppan-jjak] / 뻔쩍 [ppeon-jjeok] = sparklingly, twinklingly
A random picture (2010, Gwangju).
[Update (2015-10-08): I decided to create a consolidated list of examples, which I can update periodically.]