here today born Tomorrow.

9 Movies That I Saw in 2011

2011-12-30T13:27:00.001Z

I'm not dogging Dublin - it's just how it is. We see movies that opened in New York several months ago (in some cases, over a year) - so 2011 was the Year of the Download for me. There should be more foreign films on this list, alas, it is difficult to get working subtitles on downloads.

So instead of a proper top 10 - here are nine* films that I saw last year. The good ones. Some excellent.

DRIVE

(U.S.) It was the starkness of this film that got me. Baredialogue. The viewer knows next to nothing about the protagonist. Exceptthat he can drive. That this is hislife. That he is a good person. That he fancies his next door neighbor, thecute semi-single mother with an actual story. That when there is a threat against the good people in his life (CareyMulligan, Bryan Cranston in their usual stellar performances) horrific spikesof violence pop on the screen.

Gorilla-sized guns used expertly, fast cars on L.A.highways driven expertly, beautiful, still shots of innocent, romantic scenes. AlbertBrooks, not playing the bumbling good-guy. He uses forks andknives not to eat, but to kill. Pulsating,rhythmic music and no sound at all. You can't help but not breathe through most of it.
THE GUARD
(Ireland) Let me firstsay, that I love Brendan Gleeson. He candress up the dowdiest of films. Luckily,he only added to this already wonderful movie. Writer/director John McDonaghshares the same hilarity/tragedy bend as his brother, Martin McDonagh (In Bruges) and it shows up brilliantlyon the screen.

Aside frombeing absolutely hilarious and absolutely tragic, it’s also an interestingobservation on Irish/American relations. The exchange between Gleeson and Don Cheadle (who plays a FBI agent cometo the west of Ireland to solve a drugs case) says much of both cultures. Gleeson’s unintentional/somehow innocentracist comments suggest a culture ignorant of race relations. True enough – Ireland (especially non-Dublin)is all white people! And that’s Irish white – so…translucent. Cheadle’s incessant reminder to Gleeson thatmaybe he shouldn’t be telling him all this stuff suggests a culture ofcautiousness, of over-awareness (at least in the 'privileged' classes, such asCheadle’s character describes himself a part of).

One of the funniest moments in the film iswhen the gardai (Irish police) are doing their debrief and introducingCheadle’s character. Gleeson, in theusual Irish fashion, swears like no tomorrow and his boss screams at him: “notin front of THE AMERICAN.”

P.S. A cop inIreland is called a “garda”, not a guard.

MELANCHOLIA
(U.S.) Scary. Probably the scariest non-horror I’ve seen insome time. The realization of the end ofthe world. A meandering path throughmental illness and shots of a beautiful, giant planet, overtaking Earth. Duosunrises, duo sunsets. And a wedding.

The slow,subtle death march to the end reminds of battles with cancer in the modernage. Still horrific, except there is agenuine optimism on how technology and modern science will save the cancerpatient. Things start to look better, remission,hair grows back and then, from out of nowhere, it all returns, it’s spread, it’sgrown bigger, it’s terrifyingly unwieldy. The modern age, with all its sciencey promise, fails. And in theend (of this film), we are all desperately afraid.

ASeparation

(Iran) A story so small and specific, it is thoroughlyuniversal. The viewer feels like anintimate voyeur – able to view every single small detail, all the cracks andunspoken conversations.

There is a laid back quality to the movie – it feels as if you arewatching a real family’s life unfold (and unravel) in real time, all the whilesensing a strong undercurrent of something big about to happen. And then you realize big things are already happening:a separation, a custody battle, dealing with a parent with Alzheimers, aconviction of murder, debilitating depression and unemployment. Nothing is overdone or overstated and stillthis film manages a surprising intensity throughout it all.
Super 8

(U.S.) The mostcommercial of my picks, definitely the biggest budget. An almost all-kid cast. How is this on my list?

It wasentertaining – in an earnest, sincere way (i.e. there weren’t random cuts togyrating teenagers or efforts to establish older characters as ‘hip’. Granted,it’s set in the 70s, but still) It has one of those magical coming-of-agequalities, reminding me of watching films like Jumanji and Jurassic Parkgrowing up – where you want to watch it over and over again and aren’t severelydisappointed when re-watching as an adult.

And of course, the effects are amazing.

Take Shelter

(U.S.) Quiet,haunting. Parallels to Melancholia inits attention to the gravity of mental illness and foreshadowing of the end ofthe world. Nightmares of a super storm anda scare of schizophrenia plague the protagonist, expertly portrayed by MichaelShannon.

Even in themidst of terrifying murmurations and visions of weightless furniture and triosof tornadoes, Shannon’s character attempts to hide it all away from friends,co-workers and especially from his wife (played by the new and wonderfulJessica Chastain) and deaf daughter – all the while building a military-gradeshelter in his backyard.

The Trip

(U.K.) VeryBritish. And surprisingly funny. A buddy/road trip film starring the ever-narcissistic Steve Coogan andthe underdog Welsh comic, Rob Brydon. Think Sideways,except in documentary-style, Northern England instead of California and evenless of a plot.

Duelingimpersonations, drawn out to cringe-worthy lengths and still, somehow,surprisingly FUNNY. Their best: Michael Caine, Al Pacino, AnthonyHopkins. Their worst: Woody Allen andDustin Hoffman. They can’t get the NewYork Jew down!
The Yellow Sea

(South Korea) I’m so happyto include a Korean film in this list. Fromthe same director of The Chaser,comes this bloody, heart-wrenching story of one man’s desperate journey fromChina to South Korea to settle a gang leader’s debt and his private mission tofind his estranged (somewhat dishonored) wife.

The protagonist,unassuming and dejected though he is, fights tooth and nail (and dismemberedthumb!) to survive in this sepia-colored, jaundiced world. At one point he actually uses a large meatbone to clobber his enemies, often fighting off twenty or more men at atime. The viewer wants him to live, tosurpass all highly ridiculous odds, knowing he has less than nothing to livefor. This film boasts seeminglyimpossible chase sequences and still manages to unload an emotional heft,leaving the viewer weepy and exhilarated.
We Need To Talk About Kevin
(U.K.) Themes ofred, shame and crippling horror throughout - I know I cannot properly describethis film, so I will say little.

Exceptthat it is brilliant and terrifying and leaves the viewer desperate to watchsugary drivel immediately after leaving the theatre. Also, Tilda Swinton is excellent.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

P.S. Here are 6 documentaries that I saw in 2011, but don't want to write about because it would take too long. They are all, in their own very different ways, quite good:

Bobby Fischer Againstthe World
Conan O'Brien Can'tStop
The Interrupters
Knuckle
Project Nim
Tabloid

* I watched way more television than I did movies in 2011 and consequently, couldn't eek out a 10th film to put on the list. Seems t.v. is more and more the writer's medium - so I was very consistently entertained (read: obsessed and taken over by) the quality of tv series I watched this last year.

All I want for Christmas is my three front teeth

2011-12-22T00:43:00.000Z

They come in piecemeal. If their name isn't on the list, they're told to come back later. Mostly Irish, the occasional Brit and the odd woman. The first thing we ask is if they'd like some tea. Milk and sugar? Almost always. The blind man in the corner asks for coffee.

It was my first night at Dublin Simon's 'social club' - a night where DS 'service users' (the homeless) come and eat with the volunteers.

I don't know my way around and feel in the way of other volunteers. So I sit down and start talking. This man is from Lithuania. His English isn't good and my hearing is bad. I feel I am doing more harm, making him stammer out broken sentences. He uses his hands to speak louder. He is missing his ring finger. Someone tells him they ordered a garlic pizza just for him and he smiles wide. He's missing four front teeth, not all in a row. He excuses himself and I move on.

A famous Irish comedian makes a surprise visit. His name is David McSavage and at first, I mistake him for another service user. Half his jokes are about Americans and how superficially positive we are. I think his jokes are funny, if brash, but a service user interrupts his show to tell him there's an American in the audience. He makes me identify myself and apologizes. My cheeks redden and I tell him it's alright. I leave the room to talk to the blind man in the corner.

Let's call him John. He wears a long, black coat and wired spectacles. He seems regal, despite the stains on his jacket. He notices my accent and asks me where I'm from. Chicago. He gives me an encylopedic history of the state of Illinois. Most facts I'd forgotten, some I never knew. I ask him if he's been to the States, he says no. But it's a lifelong dream and one day he'd like to go to Alaska. He smiles big and I notice he too is missing three front teeth. All in a row, just like me. Except I have dentures, so no one knows.

I've been living with dentures now for over a year. In lieu of being able to afford dental implants, I got a nice set of fake front teeth that everyone says look very nice. The nice dentist in Ann Arbor said mine were the second brightest shade of white he'd ever fitted to match someone's teeth. It was nice of him to say.

John knows everything about everything and still has a sense of humor. We laugh about differences between the Irish and Americans and I hardly notice when my dentures start to slip a little for laughing a little bit too hard. I know John doesn't notice.

It's the end of the evening and we're made to say goodbye. I let him know I'll be back next week and that it was so very nice to meet him. He lets me know there isn't another social club til after the holidays, so be sure to mark it in my calendar.

Someone helps him up and leads him outside. I wonder how his holidays will be.

I am grateful for my dentures and for my warm apartment. And that I can come back and talk to John again. After the holidays, of course.

Merry Christmas everyone!

More American comments on living in Ireland

2011-10-23T17:18:00.002+01:00

There is always a cup of tea in the near distance. So too is a raincloud. Such is Ireland.

The rain. The tireless, mailman-like presence of THE RAIN IN IRELAND. In all weather sunny, windy, but mostly grey, the rain comes. I've seen more rainbows in the last 4 months than ever before. Is it sunny out? Better take an umbrella.

Oddly enough, the only time I've witnessed the presence of lightning in Ireland was about a month ago. My first in-Europe flight: Dublin to Manchester. On take-off, I was giddy at the thought of visiting Korea friends in England. A couple minutes later, I laughed at the realization that it would take longer to get from Chicago to Indianapolis and here I was, about to cross a sea to touch down in another country. A few minutes more, about 10 minutes into the flight, 30,000 feet up...

The engines turned off.

There's always that moment in flight when it feels as though the engines have stopped- but I remind myself that it's only because the plane has reached altitude and the engines simply aren't working as hard. But, not this time.This time, they really did turn off.

I stopped breathing. Everything was quiet. Nothing moved. I'm fairly sure my heart stopped. Then I saw a flight attendant race down the aisle toward the cockpit. The pilot came on, in a tone more suggestive of 'it's time for tea!', letting us know that the plane had been struck by lightning and that, gosh darn, we needed to make a tiny little emergency landing back at Dublin.

I'm not going to go into the few minutes after the pilot's announcement. Let's just say that I'm pretty sure I saw my life's version of 'roll credits' trickling down the window I looked out on upon descent. (the engines eventually came back on)

It was raining back in Dublin.

I remember the rain montage in Forrest Gump: Forrest's trying to explain all the different types of rain in Vietnam. Picture that and trade Vietnam for Ireland. Then turn the rain down. It never really pours here, it's a consistently mild rain. Just enough to annoy.

But it does keep the place green I suppose.

Here's a view of my backyard!

(no, this is in County Sligo somewhere)

I'm off to put the kettle on for some Barry's tea (to my knowledge, the most popular tea in Ireland)

A Good Place is Hard To Find

2011-08-15T13:58:00.010+01:00

I live in Dublin, Ireland, where in my apartment I listen to Neko Case and Madlib and scan the walls and ceilings for large, forever dangling spiders and listen to churchbells hourly, seagulls more often, sirens nightly. I walk a few blocks and buy my citrus on Moore Street with the other non-Irish. Down the street you can order from the Eurosaver menu in McDonald's where everything is priced at €2 ($3) or head across the street to Tesco's for a bounty of quality, cheap tea. We have a loft bedroom, a dirty skylight and a bathroom that reads 'Enquiries' on the door, perhaps once a part of the estate agents' office in the front of the building. There is a purple, abandoned Adult Store to our right (south) and a cream-colored Dr. Quirkey's Good Time Emporium to our left (north) that boasts "the most dynamic and exciting slot action in Dublin." If you point in a southeasterly direction, you might be referring to England.

There is also a back garden, overgrown and wild. In one corner there is a rope once meant for a clothesline and in the other, a healthy apple tree. Green apples, hundreds of them. I have not had the pleasure, but by way of Mr. F, I know that our one neighbor is a single, Middle Eastern man, by way of our shared wall, I know he likes to blare late-night Polish television and by way of our shared trash bins, I know that he is a regular investor in Jack Daniels and Four Star Pizza.

I am confused and annoyed with the public transit and so walk anywhere I can, unless there is a chance to take the DART, where I can steal Hollywood views of South Dublin from my seat on the train. The views are of untouched Irish Sea shoreline, mountaintops and sometimes an unfettered view of old Irish ladies reading new novels or old Irish men looking out windows or inspecting their shoes.

I spend most of the day alone, working out currency or temperature conversions, watching old BBC tv series, trying to remember old stories, old cities and dreaming of future visits with good friends and the soon-to-be Productive Me, the one that goes to School and works part-time and learns more and more important things about the world. I also dream of one day Doing Something.

Even so, the days pass by peacefully enough and I am the happiest I've been in some time. Even in my daily walks through grass-is-greener nostalgia, I recognize that I'm in a good place.

Here is some music. Me and the spiders have been listening to this all day:
&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;lkjlkj&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;

€

2011-08-13T16:40:00.003+01:00

I bought a heavily worn Penguin paperback the other day at Oxfam because I liked the way it felt. And that it was 50 cents. Turns out it's Jane Austen's Persuasion. Never subscribed to the whole Austen thing, but I've read a few pages and like her use of commas and run-on sentences. This could be, perhaps, the beginning of a wonderful affair and fitting, that after all those years of Austen-scoffing, I fall in love with her last-written novel in a country so close to... I will stop now.

In other news, we are moved in.

Been a little over a week having A Place of My Own. Closest to a Place of My Own since the Chicago days - (NYC: had 4 roommates, Suwon, SK: the studio I lived in was sponsored through my school). Been alternating between shades of giddiness and swaths of empty boredom of the staring-at-walls variety, while I summon the focus to plan out What Happens Next before school starts in a month.

But on to more pressing issues: I have become depressingly closely acquainted with my new currency: the euro.

Things I have learned about the euro:

paper money comes in different sizes and different flamboyant colors.

Things I have not yet come to accept about the euro:

the smallest paper money is a fiver (5 euro) which means that most of the money I have on me is in coins, which in turn makes me feel like a hobo, which also makes me feel like I am constantly losing money and which further makes me feel depressed knowing that the thick quarter they call a 2 euro coin could buy me an off-brand box of cereal down at Tesco's and I have for the millionth time shuffled this thick quarter to a one of a few backpacks because you have to buy a plastic bag anytime you go to a store because the Irish are into the whole 'recycling thing', which means that I am forever wearing a bulky empty backpack with only loose change and receipts in it. Which also doesn't help with the whole hobo issue.
the euro is not the dollar. Noooo, it is not. Currently, €1 = $1.42. That, combined with most things just plain being more expensive = I am bleeding money. There are ONE LITRES OF COKE SELLING FOR €2.50 ($3.50) at Superquinn (popular grocery store)- my first week here, I paid €4 ($5.70) for a bag of CELERY. Celery! But, crackers are inexpensive. I bought a sleeve of crackers for €0.26 the other day ($0.37), so there is a silver lining.

To Dublin!

2011-07-31T21:01:00.002+01:00

I had intended to write my one year anniversary since my accident post, but I've felt the need to set my sights on the future, which has resulted in finding an apartment in Dublin town this week. The anniversary post may present itself sometime in the near future, but for now, I'd like to talk about what it's like apartment shopping in Dublin.

Been staying in Shankill this last while (south suburb of Dublin) and while it's been lovely, I am looking forward to city life again. Have always preferred the north side of cities (Chicago, New York, not Seoul) and Dublin's no exception. We settled on a neighborhood called 'Phibsborough' and it's right at the northern edge of the city, just before you hit Drumcondra after the canal (the canals' perimeters are what designate Dublin proper).

Before I get all sentimental and depressing, as I do, let me do some rote listing. How about some of the differences I had to accept in shopping for an apartment in Dublin?

The good ones first.

It is not abnormal to reasonably expect ___ in a run-of-the mill low-rent apartment in Dublin:

a fireplace
a washing machine
shared or private access to a back garden
everything being furnished already, 10 times out of 10

Right, so that's all great. Until you realize what you come to no longer expect in a run-of-the-mill low-rent apartment:

a bathtub (seriously 10 times out of 10)
something larger than a twin bed, half the time
a regular-sized fridge. only mini-fridges. no freezers.
bin charges (garbage pickup charges) not exorbitant, as I understand around 10euro a month, just not something I'm used to.
generally getting used to the fact that the building you'll be living in wasn't meant for residence purposes, or at least not for multiple residents.
things I've already neatly stowed away in my denial box

Most of these buildings were either single family homes or tenements where whole families lived in no-amenity single rooms. The whole concept of apartment-living is apparently relatively new to Dublin. Some of the apartments I was looking at had whole self-contained bathrooms built in the middle of the living room to qualify as being a viable modern-day apartment.

Our apartment is in the back of a real estate agency shop. The very real estate agency that found the apartment for us. So that'll be interesting...that and that we're in between a closed-down sex shop and a fairly fancy arcade. Oh-- and down the street from three corner pubs, a McDonald's and a humongous church. Civilization! Things that make me feel instantly guilty!

First time not living in close proximity to a train in some years. Do not like that. It might force me onto a bike, which won't be the worst thing in the world. Last time I depended on a bike for transport was when I was giving Iowa a chance.

This might all make it seem like I'm less-than-thrilled about the move to Phibsborough, but in fact, the area is very cute and capable. I'll also be living a short few blocks away from where James Joyce grew up.

I have nothing to add to that. Except that I want to make public note of all the famous writers I've lived in close proximity to. Ralph Ellison in New York. Ok, so that's the end of the list and they're both long dead. Still worth bragging about.

...

We sign the lease in a couple days. And I bought a towel today, so it's real.

This is my year for hiding away, studying, hopefully writing more in this blog, making euros stretch (making euros do gymnastics), pontificating from my bed, learning the metric system - putting all that into a pot and hoping, hoping that it all magically turns into the Thing That Happens Next.

So that's Dublin apartment-shopping for you. Let me know if you have any questions!

Dead at 27

2011-07-24T12:53:00.003+01:00

Amy Winehouse died yesterday. Found in her London apartment, aged 27.

I am somehow strangely affected by this news. Perhaps it can be chalked up to the whole she was 27, I'm 27 thing, but still. I liked her music and can even remember fond evenings listening to Back to Black in my NYC room on my crummy only-plays-NPR (and thank God) boombox (the one right next to my human-sized blue stuffed bear that I won in a carnie game at Coney Island), realizing I was late to the party in discovering her, not wanting to like her as much because everybody liked her and had liked her for awhile already, but still.

I remember reading all those famous people biographies and picking up on that dead-at-27 pattern that the alcoholic/junkie ones always seemed to fall victim to. I remember thinking, aged 10 or so, that 27 sounded so old, wondering where I might be when I'm that old. Settled: certainly. Boring: probably. Blogging into nothingness and regularly murdering afternoons with directionless internet browsing somewhere in Dublin: no. Oh yeah, and engaged and missing front teeth and not knowing what happens next: certainly not.

It's probably that not knowing what happens next part that ties back into being affected by the Winehouse news. There's a possibility that if I don't start working on What Happens Next, I could end up dead in some north London apartment after having overdosed on heroin or pills or whichever substance it is that ususally claims 27-year-olds without solid direction. And oh, 92 people and counting were killed yesterday in Norway (Norway) by some aryan-looking creep who keeps popping up on Sky news in ridiculous headshot-like pictures.

It's these stories that now feel more real to me after last year's accident. Because fast-scrolling words on a news marquee about some freshly dead people somewhere in the world never elicits as much real response in me as I think it should. But after having tried to cross a street, one second perfectly happy and on my way to ending an evening, the next second on the pavement, crumpled and intensely observing the hot South Korean tar that made up the street I'd been run down on, wondering where all the blood was coming from - I now automatically wonder what last images those murdered Norwegian people were left with right before they died on that island off Oslo - the absolute shock and fast-pace horror in realizing, for some of them, that it would be the image of their arms digging through water as they tried to swim away from a lunatic in a police uniform, whose face would be broadcast around the world, using his twitter portrait, not a mug shot...I wonder how that must have been and I feel truly saddened. And I feel bad for their friends and families, who will now be plagued with truer, sadder thoughts than these for some time.

I'll be writing a 1 year anniversary of my accident post in a few days. It's occurred to me that I've not actually written about what happened that day - when I think about how easy it would have been for that drunken South Korean man to kill me on that road in Busan...it makes everything feel a little less real. A little more trivial. And strangely, a little more magical.

But back to Amy. This was my favorite song of hers.

Rest in peace Ms. Winehouse.

On a Clear Day in Bray

2011-07-15T11:46:00.003+01:00

I followed an old man down to the sea the other day. Old man, not as in some crusty oldish guy wearing cargo shorts and an ugly t-shirt, but an old man, as in he wore a cable-knit sweater, corduroy pants and loafers and looked out longingly into the water. And the sea, not as in a big lake or a large river, but the sea, the Irish Sea.

But I wasn’t in Ireland. I was somewhere where blue and yellow overwhelm, not the green and gray that I know Ireland to be.

I currently have three pairs of shoes: dress shoes, boots and gym shoes (or 'trainers', as they're called here). Walking along Shankill beach on the way to Bray can be quite the task if you're not wearing proper shoes-- it's not a sandy beach. Rocks abound, rocks of all sizes, colors, shapes. I thought I'd found emeralds at one point only to conclude, regretfully, they were wannabe agates.

Certain stretches along the way felt imaginary. I was often the only person on the shore for what felt like miles (or 'kilometers', as they're called here). It was difficult not to stop and take a picture of everything, anything and to not pick up every interesting looking stone (all of them).

It was a long walk.

Walking only on beds of rocks quickly becomes annoying, beautiful surroundings or not. Still, a couple kilometers in and Philip Glass came on and I happened upon the most beautiful mossy rocks I'd ever seen.

Electric green x 3. They hurt my eyes. It was a dazzling few moments.

And THEN. The QUEEN of all mossy rocks on Bray Beach:

...

I'd hoped to see some dolphins along the way, knowing how they're often spotted along Killiney Beach, just a couple kilometers north of Shankill. Instead, I stumbled across a swan sanctuary.

One must remember when in Bray Harbor: swans have no road sense!

Though I did learn that swans do have dog sense. Couldn't get my camera out in time, but a stray dog chased a swan that had just emerged from the water, back in. Quite the site: the swan was about 4 x larger than the dog.

All told: 5km of electric colors, massive mossy rocks, swan sanctuaries and sun on my face: so much better than the throwaway afternoon I thought it would be.

You Can't Plan for Picnics

2011-07-08T09:14:00.001+01:00

So. It rains here. A lot.

Not that I didn't know what I was getting into. At least weatherwise. While still in the midwest that last week before coming here, I'd look at the 5 day Dublin forecasts and laugh - frowny rainclouds straight through, with temperatures I'm used to only in the thick of autumn or beginnings of spring. I left 100 degree days for sweater weather - and in my book that's a win. But. It rains here. A lot. You can't plan for picnics. It's plain and simple fact that it's just going to rain at some point during the day, if not for the whole day. Not that I ever plan picnics, but knowing that I now don't have the option does take something away. The idea of planning for a picnic is one of those luxuriously lazy rights of summer -- for me, it's like thinking about buying a sundress. The idea of it can be refreshing, thinking about what summery color I would choose, what length for the hemline, the wind kicking up the bottoms of the dress as I eat watermelon or drink fresh, cold lemonade...

But then, I've never bought a sundress in my life.

Because inevitably: the summery color would fade, I'd probably regret whatever length of a hemline I chose, I'd be forever paranoid of the wind blowing my dress up just enough for people to see my underwear, and to further dash that image - that watermelon would get all over me and the fresh lemonade would leave seeds in my teeth. Also, it's just not my style.

Perhaps this is all symbolic. Surely, my first post about having relocated to an entirely different country, continent even, cannot be about the bloody weather.

But I've felt a bit detached from the world since my arrival here. Knowing what the weather's like in Ann Arbor or Chicago or New York or Seoul brings me closer to people. To myself maybe, I don't know. I can tell you that while it is 55 and rainy in Dublin and I sit here, writing, under blankets, looking out windows, my good friends in Ann Arbor are in sunny 82 degree weather, hopefully on their way to Kilwin's for an ice cream cone or later on to Grizzly Peak for a cold one, my good friends in Chicago are in sunny 86 degree weather, hopefully enjoying the lakeshore and later on, regretting the terrificly delicious and massive deep dish they had for dinner, my good friends in New York are in sunny 89 degree weather, hopefully picnicking in Central Park and later on, catching a double-header at Film Forum or the Sunshine and my friends in Seoul are in sunny 82 degree weather, hopefully walking through some thousand-year-old temple and later on, eating squid chips and drinking chilsung cider at the dvd bang down their street.

This is all horribly nostalgic.

Maybe what I'm trying to say is that I've bypassed a season of my life. Summer. It doesn't exist where I am right now. I can't be carefree anymore -- I must pack a layer for the night-time cold. It's not dark til nearly midnight here. Too much time to think and wallow.

Maybe I can live out the rest of my days under these blankets, do my best imitation of Proust, pontificate from my bed, espouse witty and seemingly wise sentiments of days past, pretending to know this new world while not really being in it.

As with the summery sundress color, this detachment too, shall fade. I hope. There's lot of guinness to go around, mountains too, pubs four times older than the country I grew up in. Mountains! Sea!

Now, to get up.

Day 8: A Song That Makes Me Fall Asleep

2011-04-27T04:40:00.001+01:00

So this is now officially the 25 MONTHS of Music List, seeing as how Day 8 is really Month 10...the whole urgency bit's obviously lost at this point, so why not the 25 Songs I Feel Different Things About List?

Doesn't sound as shiny, I suppose.

Normally I would have gone with something without words, but I've listened to this song so many times and the timbre of Hawley's voice is so enchanting that I will intentionally listen to this song in order to go to sleep with hopes of lovely dreams.

And sometimes it works.

Day 7: A Song That You Can Dance To

2011-03-25T20:28:00.001Z

Ok, so. There was a scene in Eat, Pray, Love when Julia Roberts is dancing shoeless in some awesomely lit little dive somewhere in Indonesia (the night she meets Javier Bardem) and this song came on and it was WONDROUS. ( I realize I just lost all my film cred… if I had any)

It was WONDROUS because it instantly brought me back to my early days in Seoul- when I’d dance unabashed with fellow expats (usually, the lovely Ms. A, sometimes the lovely Ms. C, Ms. M, Ms. J., another lovely Ms. A and another lovely Ms. M) and we’d be forced to stay out late because the silly subway trains would stop come midnight. Dancing unabashed is not something I do—but in those early early morning hours in places like Club FF or some similarly sketched out club- I’d see the underbelly of Seoul, see the mass of Koreans dancing- trying to dance, rather—and would realize they didn’t really know how to dance either. Which made it actually enjoyable- it wasn’t (most of the time) about looking sexy or looking coordinated even- just about enjoying the space with your friends and sometimes (sometimes) enjoying the music. I didn’t ever hear this song in Club FF, but, I suppose that’s besides the point.

But, back to Marvin Gaye: I love Marvin Gaye.

…

When I was around 10 or so, I got my hands on a grimy cover-torn book someone had left in the street on Tragic Hollywood Deaths (or some similar title)—along with wanting to read every biography in my library, I also wanted to be able to list off how every famous person had died. As I remember (this is singularly from my recollection of this book, so if I am wrong, just tell me. I want to be Wikipedia-free in this entry), Marvin Gaye was shot by his father- I guess he’d come between his mom and dad in a spat and got in the way of one of his dad’s bullets. Except—when I was little, I’d always confuse his death with Sam Cooke’s, also shot dead, but not by his dad and about 20 years earlier. I remember wondering why all the pretty talented people died so tragically. When I picked up that book on the street, I thought it’d be filled with murder/suicides of old ugly producers or sound engineers. But then I read about Natalie Wood and Rudolph Valentino and didn’t know what was what.

As a bonus, I’ve just discovered Bobby Bland (how did he slip through the cracks?!) As he won’t be occupying a future day of music, he’ll serve as Marvin Gaye’s post script. Just, WONDROUS:

My Doppelganger Must Be a Bitch. Doppelganger Stories #1 and #2.

2011-03-11T18:43:00.005Z

Story #1

Some weeks ago, I passed by a lovely restaurant on my walk home from work. (I’m currently residing in Ann Arbor, MI) I like walking down Washington Street, especially around sunset as everything takes on a majestic golden hue, even, somehow, on the snowy gray days of late.

I have a habit of intensely looking into restaurant and bar windows, I like to study the décor and lighting—and sometimes I forget that there might be people inside that might look back at me mid-chew or mid-sip and I further sometimes forget that what I’m doing might be potentially rude or even creepy. That aside, this particular restaurant had gorgeous orange walls and fancy tablecloths and so I completely did away with any thought toward public decorum.

While marveling at the mix of exposed brick and earthy tones and heavy curtains and general lack-of-people, I inevitably happened upon the few people in the back who were glaring at me in the safe distance. One of them made a gesture indicating that I knew her. Maybe it was a wave, though it looked more like a lazy attempt at one, the kind really in-love-with-themselves-types make, so I didn't pay special attention. Until I noticed a second later as I was just going out of view that she flipped me off and the rest of her gang seemed to half-nod in approval. They must have thought they knew me. Surely, groups of people don't go around to restaurants half-waving and flipping off people they don't know through windows, right?

Right. So my estimation: my doppelganger must be a bitch. To know people like that and for them to respond like that, it must be so.

Story # 2

I was at Bab's on a Saturday night. Lovely little basement bar not too far from story #1.

I would not recommend going there on weekends. It transforms from its usual quiet and romantic self to a chaotic and unfortunate place, packed with UM cattle of the college girl/boy looking for a quick thrill variety.

Anyhow. Muscled my way through the UM throng up to the barman. A very artfully disheveled hipster with an ironic UM hat brought my drinks and excitedly/yet somehow lazily let me know that he thought for sure I was one of his colleagues in his architecture program and wasn’t that something.

No. It wasn’t. It only proved story # 1’s conclusion. My doppelganger must be a bitch.

Or even worse….a hipster.

Oh God.

Day 6: A Song That You Know All the Words To

2011-02-25T21:04:00.000Z

I'd originally wanted to be smarmy and put an instrumental here... but in the interest of keeping this list decent, I have put here a song I’ve known the words to for most of my life – and was only recently reminded of this through the good will of my friend (and now co-landlord!), Will.

A story about this song’s place in my history, a story close friends have heard many times:

When I was 15, I went down to Kentucky to help rebuild houses with my church’s youth group (oh to be religious and altruistic again!). We'd set there to work a week and the owner of the house I was working on, Lee, was an elderly Southern gentleman with a fondness for sweet tea and country music.

One day, he called me over to sit with him. We sat on a swinging bench. He gave me a glass of pink lemonade. He wore overalls and a t-shirt and a look of weak interest. All the other kids in the group had talked to him already. I'd look over and see them wildly gesticulating, most likely about some bible story that inspired them or something they thought'd impress Lee. He would smile, not say much and they would saunter off with confused looks. Hadn't they entertained him with their youth and declarations of devotion to God? I would see all this and pretend to look busier and busier in the hopes he wouldn't call me over. Not only did I already know I wouldn't impress Lee, at that time, I was a much shier Renee and the thought of having to talk to some strange Southern man named Lee scared me a little. Anyhow. He called me over.

We sat and looked at his yard for awhile. I'd already ran out of things to say. I thanked him for the lemonade and prayed he'd talk soon. And he did. He got to talkin' about women.

His, particularly. He pointed toward the back of the house where the weeds grew tall and told me his wife was buried there. He told me he had cancer and had dug the open grave next to his wife's some time ago. He lit a rolled cigarette from his pocket and told me about other women.

His cousin's, particularly. I don't remember his name, but Lee said he was a "wild 'un". He had a red Chevy convertible and would drive it all over town, with a pretty new girl in the passenger seat every weekend. One of those weekends, Patsy Cline was in the passenger seat. She was one of his weekend women.

My first thought: Thank Christ! Something I can finally talk about! I LOVED PATSY CLINE. Second thought: woah!!! Patsy Cline!! What a story.

We spent the better part of that afternoon, finishing a pitcher of pink lemonade and talking about country music. Old country, the only good country. He laughed at my enthusiasm for it.

Apparently, I entertained him with my youth.

So here it is: a song I know all the words to and always will. "Sweet Dreams" by Ms. Weekend Woman herself: Patsy Cline.

Day 5: A Song That Reminds You of a Certain Event

2011-02-15T18:45:00.002Z

1 year ago today.

My overnight in Hong Kong on the way to Saigon.

On the fast train. Video-recording reflection in train window. Harbors, British automated voices, overwhelming industry, polite Chinese gentlemen and this song:

Day 4: A Song That Reminds You of Somewhere

2011-02-08T16:17:00.002Z

Suwon, South Korea.

NYC, before I really forget... (2010

2010-10-03T21:44:00.000+01:00

don't know where I'll be for the next while...so this captures my last excursion to New York, post-Korea.

__________________________

Daft Punk "Da Funk"
Nouveaunoise "Japan"
Gilles Peterson "Why Can't There Be Love"
Prefuse 73 "Styles That Fade Away With a C"
Caribou "Bowls"
The Ruby Suns "Closet Astrologer"
Philip Glass "Channels and Winds"
Madvillain "Fancy Clown"
Daedelus "Succumbing To"

Day 3: A song that reminds you of someone

2010-07-09T07:15:00.000+01:00

SO. I'm going to bend the rules a little on this one and extend it to several songs that remind me of several certain someones.

**Please note I've excluded all those I'm in daily contact with: all you Korea ppl. That you are not on this list does not mean you are not worthy of being on it (quite the opposite.) Also, for those of you that are in the States and feel jipped for not being on here: we need to listen to more music together! I couldn't think of a song for you...

Also, I really could just be talking to myself at this point. Not sure of who really reads this thing. Except for you Brandon-- you comment on everything!

You know who you are.

You will forever be the closest person to me. Even when we are squabbling about knitting needles in the Old Lady's Home for Frisky Feminists we'll be living in...even then.

You know who you are.

<3

You know who you are.

Dive bar. Homo hill. The early days in Seoul. Dancing to this.

Spacious 2. Video projector on white quilt. Christmas. Sugar plums, sickly sweet wine and asian dust. Dancing to this.

Kingston, Ontario. Winter reunion in the western world. Hopefully dancing to this. ; )

You know who you are.

I'm sorry.

You know who you are.

Do you remember that Rasberry Beret album I got you? Well...just listened to that song again-- and that is a bad song. Seriously.

Can you still do the Prince falsetto? Cos I remember it being pretty spot-on. I hope you're keeping it up.

You are still the *only* person that's visited me in every locale I've lived in! If anything, I'm glad I've given you the excuse to travel-- though it will take many years before I even half-way catch up to all the places you've been. Something to aspire to...

You know who you are.

And for the final time, she was *not* flirting with you.

Still the wittiest person I know. Also, cannot wait to see the new stacks of books in your apt. and the new disparaging comments about absolutely everyone... ; )

You know who you are.

Not the exact version, but good enough.

I will forever be indebted to you and your apartment for helping me to finish my first script. And indebted for helping me through some tough times in New York.

Can't wait to go to Tom's again!

You know who you are.

I know you're a Steve Earle die-hard, but...somehow it's always Townes that reminds me of you.

I met you on my first *ever* night in NYC.

Aside from the big names that pass through, you are quite possibly my favorite comedian in New York. Seriously.

Also, you introduced me to the other Mr. J -- and even though he's a huge (huge) dork, he's one of my few film counterparts in the city. We must get g&t's in September at La Negrita-- or I guess some snobby hipster bar now that you're in fancy Brooklyn.

You know who you are.

While we haven't listened to this album together yet, you must be as in love with it as I am, considering you're the biggest Albarn fan around (aside from Ms. J, of course).

You might also have the biggest (bleeding) heart of anyone I know. ; ) I am continually inspired by your mere day-to-today and cannot *wait* to visit all those weird (but of course, enlightening and awesome) one-off events we go to.

Til then...

----

A song that makes me sad

2010-07-07T16:39:00.000+01:00

I wish I had some gutting words to prop this post up a bit...but I'm feeling rather wordless at the moment.

Suffice it to say, this song really does make me sad...

Day 1: A Song That Makes Me Happy

2010-07-01T03:29:00.000+01:00

I remember walking around Harlem late last June, aghast at the heaviness in the air-- as if it was the second coming of JFK's assassination. The news of Michael Jackson's death had spread earlier in the day and already the scaffolding around The Apollo was covered with in memoriam posters of the great, newly deceased, MJ.

A couple days later on my way home from work, I was coming up on the 125th street stop and was pretty sure I was witnessing a resurrected MJ dancing to "Bad" on the platform. Present: red leather jacket, the one silver glove, fresh white socks, shiny black shoes, aviator glasses... I figured out it wasn't really him after he tipped his glasses and winked after I dropped a dollar into the hat next to him (though, as I remember, MJ was pretty well off and more or less agoraphobic, so those were clues as well).

West Harlem that day was a glittering spectacle of all things Michael Jackson. Rollicking masses of people moving past booth after booth of MJ paraphenalia: t-shirts, jewelry, pictures, posters, dvds, cds, fake tattoos... And then there was the Wailing Wall.

Rather, shoddy white paper slapped onto the scaffolding and corkboard walls surrounding The Apollo where people could leave their last words to the late and great.

-----
Went to an MJ dance party this past weekend in Seoul. Along with the obvious choices of songs like "Thriller" , "Beat It" and "Rock With Me" -- they also played some Jackson 5, which was a particular treat, having not actively listened to them in quite some time. And it made me happy.

And so-- Day 1: A Song That Makes You Happy: The Jackson 5: "I Want You Back"

25 days o' music.

2010-07-01T03:25:00.001+01:00

So in the hopes of being a bit more regular with this blog -- I'll be doing my best to keep up with the below 30 days of music list (which I found on this awesome guy's music blog.) Except I'll be cutting out all days with 'favorite' in the title as there's no way I can choose my favorite anything. It will be 25 days in that case.

**************************************************

day 01 – your favorite song

day 02 – your least favorite song

day 03 – a song that makes you happy

day 04 – a song that makes you sad

day 05 – a song that reminds you of someone

day 06 – a song that reminds of you of somewhere

day 07 – a song that reminds you of a certain event

day 08 – a song that you know all the words to

day 09 – a song that you can dance to

day 10 – a song that makes you fall asleep

day 11 – a song from your favorite band

day 12 – a song from a band you hate

day 13 – a song that is a guilty pleasure

day 14 – a song that no one would expect you to love

day 15 – a song that describes you

day 16 – a song that you used to love but now hate

day 17 – a song that you hear often on the radio

day 18 – a song that you wish you heard on the radio

day 19 – a song from your favorite album

day 20 – a song that you listen to when you’re angry

day 21 – a song that you listen to when you’re happy

day 22 – a song that you listen to when you’re sad

day 23 – a song that you want to play at your wedding

day 24 – a song that you want to play at your funeral

day 25 – a song that makes you laugh

day 26 – a song that you can play on an instrument

day 27 – a song that you wish you could play

day 28 – a song that makes you feel guilty

day 29 – a song from your childhood

day 30 – your favorite song at this time last year

Ms. Kim

2010-06-16T04:41:00.000+01:00

Serviceman #1 (S#1), short and rotund, severe sweet tooth, had declared himself the “bossman” of serviceman #2 (S#2), tall and skeletal, who was doing all the heavy work in replacing the heating system in my apartment. S#1 then told me about his wife (all this translated through my head teacher, Ms. Kim, who was seated on my bed) and how they’re both the same age and how she was a student at the school I teach at and isn’t that great. He then took a handful of the butterscotch candies that I’d been using for decoration for the past six months (large hands). He undid the wrapping so meticulously it was as though he was giving each candy a tiny funeral before shoving them into his mouth and ultimately, to their death. S#2 was all business and thank God, otherwise I’d have been stuck chatting awkwardly on my bed with the head teacher for more than the 2 hours it ended up taking.

Ms. Kim is nice though. Her English is a bit halting, but she seems comfortable with this and isn’t as afraid to make mistakes as most of the other English teachers are. She’s a bit older, married, two teenaged children. Sometimes she will talk about her husband at lunch and will be surprisingly familiar with me. Her disclosure is heartening of course, but now I can understand what’s behind her eyes when she smiles and it doesn’t look quite right.

“Migook?” S#2 had finished and decided to take an interest in the strange foreign girl who’d been watching him swim around in the watery cesspool that was my kitchen yesterday. He was wearing my shower shoes.

Ms. Kim answered for me. “New York City!” S#2 brightened and pointed to his shirt, some (fake) faded print of that shot of John Lennon. I gave him a thumbs-up. He seemed happy with that.

On their way out S#1 pointed to the butterscotch candies and said “is ok?”. Of course it was ok, I said with my hands. For all their trouble (or rather, all of S#2’s trouble) I gave them the two ice cream cones I had in my freezer, making sure to hand them to S#2 so he’d have the choice. They said thank you in English and Korean and were gone down the stairs in two seconds flat.

There was still that watery cesspool to deal with and Ms. Kim had quickly taken it upon herself to clean up the mess for me. I felt a bit uncomfortable with this and told her so. She smiled a real smile and told me that there is a saying in Korean:

“AJUMMA IS STRONG.”

Not wanting to take away the glory of her sentiment, I backed down and watched her dirty her extremely nice cream slacks as she scooped up the mangy water and put it down the sinkhole. This took a good twenty minutes, during which time I studied the new ondol box, exceedingly easier than the old model and pretty with its purple background light. I hope the next tenant appreciates it.

Older.

2010-06-13T15:06:00.002+01:00

I’ve now been in Korea for close to 10 months. It was only until recently that I fantasized daily about leaving early, going back to New York, back to a place I could understand and love wholly if only for the capacity to understand it. That’s not to say that I’ve really tried to understand this place, more like willingly stood on the sidelines of each day, watching in perpetual disbelief of how things continue to confound me, this Korean world and my place within it…

But now as I reach that ticking clock period—these last two months or so—the reality of the American world that awaits me looms larger and larger. As does the unexpected presence of recent factors: the fact that I’ve finally realized that I do love my students and that I will miss them after all—meeting some lovely new people (like, really lovely) and firming friendships with people that have been here with me since the beginning. Not that I’m totally unfamiliar with drastically changing my surroundings, but this whole switching continents business is some pretty new stuff.

And admittedly, I am a bit…scared. WOAH—vulnerability!! (FYI: I get a free pass since I’m writing this on my birthday.) Excited to see all my American (and Canadian!) people of course, but still scared. NYC can eat you alive if you’re not looking and I’m afraid I’ll be so distracted with learning how to live in America again, re-learning the joys of rent and all that bothersome adult crap, re-learning how to be a broke college student, re-learning me, that one day as I’m walking around Central Park oblivious to everything except the trees, that some city official will come up behind me, tap me on the shoulder and sternly tell me that I didn’t pass the test and that I need to leave. Now.

So, there’s that.

“I’m 26 and unmarried. Now you know everything.” Eva Marie Saint in Hitchcock’s brilliant North By Northwest.

Today is my birthday. Never really know what to expect aside from feeling vaguely (or full-on) disappointed, but…this weekend was nice. Some moments more nice than others (like, amazingly nice), but all in all…I feel older. And now I have joined the ranks of Ms. Saint’s ice-queen character in the above-mentioned NXNW. 26 and unmarried. (Now you don’t know everything… rarely do I include my marital status when describing myself, really just on tax forms, but I guess I just like the line.)

Older, not as in God When Are the Wrinkles Coming older, but…older as in…feeling the accumulation of experience upon me. Looking back and feeling the weight/presence of that rainbow-like catalogue of experience in these last 26 years. I still don’t really know anything, but I do know where I’ve been, for better or worse. And even though I still approach things (even those things that I feel somewhat closer to thinking I know) with some degree of hesitation and anxiety, I’m still approaching them. Still willing to get hurt or get happy by them and I think that’s important.

And I realize that last bit sounded really self-helpy, but…oh well. Judge me if you will. I’m older now and I (think) I can take it.

Creepy Children, Korea and Futureness

2010-05-06T02:25:00.002+01:00

We were in the DVD Bang, had selected Memories of Murder. In the dark, settled. The movie begins. But then-- the creepy in-room phone screeches out an electronic version of Fur Elise, scaring us a little. “No English subtitles, sorry.” The man behind the desk gives us complimentary Vitamin C drinks. Back in the room after some internet research, now prepared for The Uninvited. We were hell-bent on watching a Korean Horror. The oft-repeated scary little-dead-girl-duo at the fore, giving way to a convoluted storyline, haphazard scary moments and consistent watch-checking by me. After what seemed like 5 hours spent in a black box, we emerged back onto the Hongdae scene, Sunday late evening. But you wouldn’t know it. Hordes of people out, are you sure it’s not really Saturday night, Alex? A: I don’t know, let’s go dancing.

Then we see it. The creepiest dangling baby – it (yes, “it” – too early to distinguish between she and he) was attached to its mother’s back – one of those baby backpacks Korean women use to cart around their little ones. It looked like it was practicing for tryouts for Baby Cirque de Soleil and it looked creepy as hell. Baby spines shouldn’t bend that way. (add to this yesterday’s equally creepy child experience of little unblinking girls bleating at us in Paris Baguette—seriously, what is going on?)

Also, random moments/Korean observations (“Koreanisms”) from the last couple months/entire time I’ve been here:

 Teacher lunch. After a river of Korean wine (Makgeolli- milky and drunk out of bowls) – my former Head Teacher asks me to join his table. I must down a shot of hard liquor before entering into conversation. I thought only males were asked to do this. Maybe I’m special. They are impressed that I didn’t choke (as am I). Inebriated, Mr. Park confers with another Head Teacher and they ask me in drunken, extremely broken English if I will join their 3rd grade teacher trip (I teach 1st grade: the high school freshmen). They say they are going to Laos and would love for me to join. While I am honored and would absolutely love to go to Laos, somehow being accompanied by a dozen ajoshis (older Korean men) just…yeah, it wouldn’t work out. I wonder how I can exit the scene unnoticed and without offending anyone. Fortunately, an even more inebriated Head Teacher descends upon us, yelling, holding up an unopened Makgeolli bottle and everyone starts cheering. I slip out through the back.

 While teaching my lesson on travel, I found out that Korean students are taught that there are 6 continents, not 7. They combine North and South America into one super continent: America.

 My shoe size puts me just outside the range of availability at most Korean shoe stores. I wear a size 9 and a 1/2 in the U.S. – here that translates into size 255, a.k.a. “SORRY”, “250 ONLY” or “NO”. Size 250 is usually the largest available.

 Our cinco de Mayo is Korea’s Children’s Day. No school! Also, no Mother’s Day or Father’s Day, but = Parents Day.

 After roughly 2 years of having an insufficient portable music device, I bought a Korean mp4 player. Cowon S-9 mp4 with an AMOLED screen and it is *awesome*.

 America’s Funniest Home Videos and Steven Seagal are constant fixtures on my Korean TV. If these are the most consistent representations of America, it’s no wonder my co-teacher tried to cut my tofu for me the first week I was here.

 I asked a co-teacher why most Koreans don’t like cats (I’ve yet to actually know 1 Korean who owns a cat as a pet). She said it is because Koreans believe cats can take revenge on you while you are sleeping.
More to come.

My (more or less) established plan for my post-Korea future: Contract ends early September—I hope to travel around America and Canada from Sept-Dec, visiting friends and family, then will return to NYC come January when I (hope to) start graduate school for social work.. This could all be dashed if I decide to instead:

1. get ‘real’ teaching certification, move to Saudi Arabia or the UAE, live like a nun and save $30-50,000. AND I could legitimately buy a burkini.

2. become a Russian governess and follow my filthy rich Moscow family around the world, all the while teaching some spoiled Russian kid how to engage in proper American discussions, like talking about Gossip Girl.

3. buy tickets for the Trans-Siberian railway and just never get off the train

4. go back to Vietnam and hobo around the country, spending less than a $1 a day

5. couch surf around the world and pretend it’s for some higher purpose other than delaying real life
All these avenues would ultimately enable me to continue this abstracted, unreal reality I’ve felt alternately blessed/doomed to occupy these past 8 months. Four more to go. Less than, really. Will I make it?

Whatever happens, knowing I will be returning to a world that inhabits the people I’ve missed so dearly since being over here—that alone will make these last few months seem less interminable. That and kimchi mandu. And Pizza School.

Vietnam, finally.

2010-04-12T13:24:00.001+01:00

--

Da Lat, Vietnam.

Unidentified female, mid-20s, presumably American, was found late last night in the surrounding mountain roads just outside of Da Lat. It appears she was riding a white motorbike when she drove off the road on one of the many hairpin turns.

Local investigators report that there was no identification found on the body, but that the storage unit on the bike, most likely containing her belongings, came off during the fall. Police are scavenging the area for the unit and any possible leads as to the woman’s identity.

--

It was in those few moments before going over that she remembered the blind masseuse’s face. It was the face of a generation left to its own devices and torn apart from Agent Orange; a face she’d seen earlier that week at the War Remnants Museum and in this case, the face of a blind woman selling her wares for all she could: her hands and at 50,000d an hour, roughly $3 american.

“IT IS 2:22PM”

The young woman remembered laying down on the table hesitantly, not sure if she should disrobe. The blind masseuse clamored over, felt the young woman’s clothing and slapped her rear sharply and quickly. The young woman learned within an instant that there would be no awkward fumblings around English and Vietnamese, only fumblings through that sometimes forgotten universal language: body.

This wasn’t a planned visit- she’d gone off course in her search for a Saigon movie theatre that played English-speaking films and while flipping through her Lonely Planet realized that the closest possibility to her was the Ho Chi Minh City Blind Association. The prices seemed exploitative, but then so did everything in Saigon- even when adjusting for foreigner charges.

“IT IS 2:27PM”

They made her lock up her things in a safe and handed over the key on an elastic bracelet. The staff, all of them blind, save one woman with partial sight, noticed the pause and pointed to a pack of smaller than small Vietnamese children running down the halls. They put the bracelet on her wrist for her.

The young woman, having promised herself that she wouldn’t stare, she wouldn’t, couldn’t help but gaze into the masseuse’s eyes: a milky blue, forever staring off into unknown spaces. She then gaped at the masseuse’s real eyes: her hands. Small and strong, severely scarred.

“IT IS 2:32PM”

Small and strong, severely scarred. Just like the female vendors on Nha Trang beach, selling their necklaces and bracelets and fried Vietnamese treats to the pasty, mostly plump foreigners lining the shore, knowing not to come back to the young woman after her third and fourth refusals. Somewhat like the child vendors: small and strong, same necklaces, same bracelets, same fried treats, with the biggest, emptiest eyes the she had ever seen. Only kind of like the young Vietnamese women all over Vietnam, being escorted by old and ugly white men: small.

“IT IS 2:37PM”

She felt the masseuse tightly pinch at the bend in her arm, the place where they put needles in at the hospital and nearly fell off the table trying to swat the masseuse’s hands away. Her legs awkwardly hit the lineoleum, breaking her fall.

Not unlike how she half-fell off her seat on the bus from Nha Trang to Da Lat about every 3 minutes, at every turn thinking This would be The Last Turn. Hurtling down unfinished roads at silly speeds, the bus wheels rustling up streams of dust containing god-knows-what that would pass through the ‘closed’ windows and into her eyes, nose and mouth.

“IT IS 2:42PM”

The young woman felt as though she were stealing something, continuing to stare into the blind masseuse’s eyes like that, feeling every bit the sordid Western voyeur. Stealing the masseuse’s cataract-covered eyes, twisted (still strong) hands; her livelihood: paying her roughly 1/20th of what she would in Seoul or New York. If that.

Time to turn over. She felt relieved. No more opportunities to stare into the milky blue.

The masseuse worked on her neck, hard. Knuckles grinding. Elbows digging. Searing pain, but the young woman suffered through it, afraid that if she moved her neck would snap. And then she entered into a space so calm and fluid she wondered if her neck really had.

A flood of snapshots. Sharp and sun-drenched, unrelenting.

DEAD DOGS on Mui Ne beach. Stiff, legs in air. Flies swarming. Footprints of heavy foreigners making figure-eights around the bodies.

SILENT SALAMANDERS, not cockroaches, climbing on every hotel wall. Fast, soundless, greener than green.

FAST-FOOTED Saigon children, dark brown, white teeth, stained skin. Holding out baseball caps, following her, taunting her. Moving onto the next foreign crowd.

SILKY SHAKES, orange, red, yellow. Pure, clean, cold. Refreshing dragonfruit, passionfruit, mango, banana. Endless variety. Less than a dollar.

CRUMBLING CONCRETE sidewalks, steaming, searing. Sucking the life out of her at peak sunny hours. Chasing her into the rare air-conditioned café.

SOAKED SHIRTS of the xe om drivers. Holding onto their backs, instant familiarity of old Vietnamese men and one woman. Feeling them sweating out whole days on these bikes, foreigner fare = lucky day. They all helped her with her helmet.

“IT IS 3:21PM.”

The blind masseuse takes off her talking watch. The young woman slips her last $20 into her hands. The masseuse feels the money and yells at her. The young woman leads the partially-sighted woman over to her, says nothing, puts the bill in her hands and lurches down the ridiculous red staircase the blind people must suffer down on each exit.

--

And then…

The OVERWHELMING OVERWHELMINGNESS of the Da Lat Highlands. The lush denseness and largeness of the scenery, feeling taken over, kidnapped by the beauty, at once: wishing she was sharing this moment with someone dear and wanting it to be a virgin land and she, the first and last visitor, having no one else contaminate the spectacle of this seemingly empty magical earth. Riding alone on twisting mountain roads for miles, trying to lean into the turns like how her father once told her many years ago.

She loses control of the bike on a sharp left turn. She quickly speeds to the edge of the cliff. Time slows down. She sees her family, her friends, memorable lovers and the blind masseuse’s face. It is sunny outside.

No one sees her go over.
--

My Brain Is Dying

2010-03-24T13:57:00.000Z

Ok, I know it’s been awhile and I have some very important things to write about, namely my experience in Vietnam and that whole ‘what I’m doing after Korea’ business…but I just couldn’t stand not talking about this for one minute longer. Please don’t judge me, I actually think this is more important at the moment:

************************************

Some of you may have been wondering what Bob Ross has been up to lately. Remember him? He was the white guy with the huge afro who had that color palette surgically attached to his left hand on that old people’s channel you always skipped past on your way to Nickelodeon or ABC as a child growing up in the early 90s, wondering for a hazy half-second if people thought it was still acceptable to look like that. I mean, a white guy with an afro? A button-down shirt tucked into jeans? What??

Anyhow. He actually died back in ’95 of lymphoma (thank you, Wikipedia, for depressing me with More Things I Didn’t Need to Know But Anxiously Looked Up Anyway). But…these sneaky Koreans have somehow brought him back to life.

He’s now living inside my Korean TV, selling Qook & Show smartphones—and consequently killing my soul at every 30-second turn. Here, watch for yourself.

Also.

There’s this website that’s been consuuuming my life ever since I found out about it (thank you Day!) and if by some stroke of horrible luck, you don’t know about it— here you go.

Ted.org

I didn’t think I could connect post-mortem Korean-speaking Bob Ross to Barry Schwartz, but the wonders of the modern age have showed me up again.

While watching this brilliant, inspiring, enlightening talk by Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice, I could not (and still can’t) get the theme song of that one sketch on MADtv out of my head. Lowered Expectations.

And no- the connection is not that this is something else I used to watch growing up in the 90s. The connection is that I am currently living inside a Baudrillard novel (if he were to ever have written one) which caused me to watch the commercial in the first place. Before I explain that, here’s a short synopsis of that novel:

Young American woman living inside Asian technological epicenter, slowly but consistently losing her mind as she realizes with each new day that this is not real life. Not really. It is a representation of life. An awe-inspiring concoction of explosive consumption consumption consumption of all-things-tech, all-things-image and all-things-emptiness. Add a dash of Confucianism and a large helping of alcohol and you’ve got…KOREA: Shiny Simulacra and Sparkly Simulations, a novel by Jean Baudrillard.

It is because I live inside this Baudrillard novel that I choose to be mostly absent—mostly (trying to) sleep, exhausted by Nothingness…feeling compelled to let others fill up my mind, hence being consumed by TED…but it was after watching that Schwartz talk, that I became even more hyper-aware of the world around me, the illusion of happiness and choice and…etc. And so—it was in the aftermath of all this (probably fake) hyper-awareness that I felt a strange pull toward my Korean TV, only to see a post-mortem-Korean-speaking Bob Ross and…well, I just thought you all should know about it.

One more thing.. I just went to church and God (Oprah) just told me that Copenhagen is the happiest place on earth. I want to go there. Maybe then I can get that theme song out of my head.

Vietnam: Dying in the Rough...

2010-03-10T12:16:00.000Z

all the usual disclaimers of my computer's limitations and bla bla bla...

This is what I captured on my 10-day excursion in south Vietnam, late Feburary 2010 (Saigon, Nha Trang, Da Lat, Mui Ne). Though I could never hope for pure elucidation of my thoughts and experiences onto film, this video captures a few moments of my time there.
*********
CCR "Run Through the Jungle"

Harry Nilsson "Everybody's Talkin'"
Her Majesty's Sound "Odd Phantasms in Unique Moments"

Jimi Hendrix "Hey Joe"
Boards of Canada "Left Side Drive"

Up In the Air...

2010-02-11T06:47:00.003Z

In less than four days now, I will be in Hong Kong for an overnight, before I arrive in Saigon for 9 days of (hopeful) bliss, reflection and discovery. It looks like I’ll be sticking to the southern end of the country, since the northern end is a bit cold and rainy right now (as my foreigner friends indicated upon their return from Vietnam a couple weeks ago.)

A friend of mine asked me what the purpose of my trip was. Is it to experience the food? For adventure? For the history? Honestly, I hadn’t really thought about it. I’m just kind of…going. Though, I’ve been thinking about it some more and I do think that my trip there will be instrumental, after all. I realized that when I return at the end of February, I will exactly be at my 6 month mark here. Which means…I’ll be leaving in 6 months. And…contrary to what I thought were cemented plans for what I’ll be doing by then…I’m still undecided. I’ve been giving some pretty serious thought to some pretty serious alternatives and hope that Vietnam will give me the insight needed to follow through with preparing for…well, not going back to NYC right away. That’s all I can say for now.

Oh also—there was a 5 second earthquake in the Gyeonggi Province (where I live) a couple days ago. It’s pretty telling that at the time I automatically assumed it was North Korea finally calling its own bluff(s) and then two seconds later, concluded it was just another annoying vegetable truck barreling down my street—well, a barrage of them anyhow (it was pretty damn loud). Nope, it was just an earthquake. Apparently there was also an earthquake in the Chicagoland area? Strange stuff…

Anyway. Maybe I’ll come back looking like Moses when he came down from the mountain, full of knowledge and awareness and an awesome Moses tan. Or I could come back full of red blisters and malaria, having accomplished nothing more than slowly dying in my Saigon hotel room (see: Apocalypse Now)…

I’ll let you know when I get back. Wish me luck!

Isn’t that odd? Part I: Korea At School

2010-01-31T15:51:00.003Z

In lieu of doing a post called: Boredom, Part II, I figured I’d try to write about something interesting— like, say, observations of Korean weirdness. I know I have mentioned a few things in the past (students staying at school until 10pm, seas of red electric crucifixes, the ridiculous presence of phonebooths in ‘the most wired place on earth’ and how Koreans actually use them, etc.). But, I’ve come up with a few new ones, namely: those things that I’ve grown so used to seeing everyday that I don’t notice them as completely and singularly, Korean, anymore. While beginning to jot these things down, I noticed that there’s a lot of them, so they will be condensed into sections, starting with Part I: At School, since this is, technically, where I spend most of my time.

Also, writing about such things allows for a list, which really saves me time on having to connect things in an eloquent way and…well, saves time on thinking. So, here goes!

l Everyone at my school (myself included), has been wearing a winter coat all day long since the cold weather started because Korean schools don’t currently find heating hallways as cost-effective . This has allowed for two subsequent observations: 1). Korean women collect winter coats. Some of my co-workers have a different coat for every other day of the week and others have a new coat for every day. They’re usually very cute, manicured-looking coats that don’t offer a lot of warmth. And 2)., the wearing of my coat has officially upped my status of looking ‘slightly homeless’ to ‘full-on homeless’ while at school, since 1). I can’t be bothered to work on looking presentable that early in the morning and 2). the added hobo coat just pushes me over into the full-on homeless category. My students still manage to take me seriously, some of the time, so if they’re fine with it…I’m not changing it. Also—it’s really comfy and warm!

l You can’t wear real shoes inside the school. It’s been suggested (mandated) that I only wear slippers while inside. But, being the renegade that I am, I’ve continued to wear my real shoes everyday- mainly because I don’t see the point of wearing slippers if I have to walk outside, on dirty pavement to get to the side of the school where the language lab is. Truly- teachers will walk around in fluffy animal slippers that have disgusting gray munj on the soles and still find the gall to stare at my very normal-looking brown boots as if I am committing some horrible foreigner crime.

l About once a week, someone will bring in treats to share with the other teachers in the teachers lounge. Most often, it is either a huge box of clementines or an assortment of rice cakes. It is considered rude to not partake, even if one isn’t hungry or doesn’t especially like eating the provided treat (granted, most of my friends don’t seem to mind them and admittedly they do look delectable, but I find Korean rice cakes to be excessively bland in taste, --imagine what raw biscuit dough must taste like).

(my friend Alex and I sizing up the rice cake spread in Insadong)

l There is no coffee-maker in the teachers lounge, rather a multitude of Maxim packets—instant coffee that consists of about 70% sugar and 30% coffee-like substance, for which it is normal to put into 2-sip Dixie cups and shoot like tequila.

l The other week, my co-teacher hooked up her furry slippers via USB to her laptop to warm them up. Provided, she wasn’t lying on the floor, but it still looked every bit ridiculous.

l Occasionally, random (sometimes vagabond) salesmen are allowed into the school to sell their wares. The first salesmen I encountered was selling socks and stared at me for about a minute, deciding whether or not to pursue the ask. He didn’t.

l Things that I observe my Korean students doing at school:
Between classes: They will inevitably be doing one of five things: furiously jumping rope in the hall (for exercise), practicing K-pop dance moves in front of the large mirrors on the stairwells, brushing their teeth in the bathrooms, eating dok boki (out of small Styrofoam cups) or ice cream cones – either from the vendor down the street or from the school’s snack shop or screaming (and I mean *screaming*) and running down the halls in large herds.
During class: intently examining their faces in their standard-issue little (though some are large) plastic mirrors about every five minutes, using what I can only describe as ‘face rolling tweezers’ as they say to “get small face”, i.e. to reduce the size of their jaws. I tried to find an image of these things on google by typing ‘korean small face tool’, but feared failure when the first image to come up was a map detailing forest fires in North Korea and the second, a picture of what I guess to be a British band called The Small Faces. Further down the page however, appeared a quite intriguing picture of a Korean woman sitting in a plastic bowl and naturally, decided to do some investigation. It took me to a website called Digital Chosunilbo (English news about

Korea

) where they thoroughly detail the array of low-cost Korean aesthetic tools, among them what I had initially searched for, officially called a ‘face massage roller’.

“What are you doing just sitting there doing nothing? If you moved your hands even once, you could make your face look smaller. “ (Available at GSWatsons for W11,500)

By the way, what I thought to be a Korean woman sitting in a large plastic bowl is actually a Korean woman sitting on a ‘pelvic correcting basin’:

“This is not a basin that holds water. It closes the pelvis after it has expanded during pregnancy while lifting a droopy behind and straightening a crooked pelvis. The device offers much more stability than a sofa or a chair and welcomes rears of up to 100 cm in diameter. While reading or watching TV, any user can get the three daily sittings of 15 minutes out of the way. D&shop W29,800.”

That’s all I can gather up for right now, though I’m sure more Korean weirdness at school is bound to pop up in the remaining months…so be sure to stay tuned!

On Boredom

2010-01-26T07:33:00.007Z

You may recall that last week I wrote (complained) about how it’s really the lack of things in this country that’s tampering with my mental balance. I’m still appreciative of everything Korea’s given me and blablabla… -- but, as it turns out, unsurprisingly, I was mistaken. There is absolutely a presence at work here. It’s the overwhelming presence of the lack of things. Or, what you may know as… boredom.

I read a NYT book review the other day: ‘Our Boredom, Ourselves’, by Jennifer Schuessler and came away exultant. Exultant. “Boredom, like the modern novel, was born in the 18th century…” Alright, that wasn’t the line I wanted to point out, but isn’t it funny?

Ok, for real now: (Schuessler musing about Patricia Meyer Sparks’s Boredom: The Literary History of a State of Mind) : “[Spacks] describes it as a luxury — and a peril — born of the Industrial Revolution, reflecting the rise of individualism, leisure (especially female leisure) and the idea of happiness as a right and a daunting personal responsibility. “Boredom presents itself as a trivial emotion that can trivialize the world,” Spacks writes. “It implies an embracing sense of irritation and unease. It reflects a state of affairs in which the individual is assigned ever more importance and ever less power.”

(My Korean translation) Boredom: a luxury and a peril. Yes. A luxury that I have been granted this undeserved reserve of seemingly unlimited free time to muse about whatever the hell I want and still find extra time to grumble about said undeserved reserve. Still, underneath it all I do find it pretty luxurious that I can wallow around in my own cerebral muck and not have to constantly worry about making rent.

A peril. Amidst the indulgent wallowing, it will somehow seep into my consciousness that important things are happening in the world and that I am just passing my days, looking at the world through a foggy prism of watered-down interest and persistent reminders of that ‘daunting personal responsibility’: happiness. But, more on that later...

If it’s true what Schuessler suggests: “Boredom isn’t just good for your brain. It’s good for your soul”, then my cup (brain and soul) overfloweth with goodness (boredom). Along with my daily 10am yogurt delivery, my Korean life also boasts the prompt and ever-reliable on-the-hour delivery of freshly baked boredom. What will come from this bittersweet gift, I’ve yet to see. Whatever it is, I hope it’s meaningful (and not, in and of itself, boring).

As a sidenote: my work and home computers seem to have entered into a suicide pact by slow starvation (but really, they're just plain dying). And-- as a result have been messing up big-time, leaving me beyond frustrated with all of the work I’ve lost and how much time I spend watching pages load at the rate of a dying turtle. So I’ve written this (now much shorter) post about 4 times over now. So I apologize if it’s not that coherent, but I’m seriously sick of rewriting and editing—so you are warned—the next few posts might be entirely convoluted. So read at your own risk (of boredom, most likely)!

Something that I hope lasts...

2010-01-18T14:50:00.011Z

Most of you know that while

Korea

has been resplendently entertaining these last four months what with its never-ending parade of ethical and cultural surprises, I’ve been a pretty consistent naysayer, feeling every bit the sometimes lonely foreigner in a strange land. But…

Wait, before I go on. This post is not meant to catalogue Renee’s transition into Being A Happy Foreigner inKorea. Not by any means. Indeed, most mornings I still wake up looking like this:

(taken on New Years Day. I think the combination of the nauseous look on my face and the Smile Day shirt makes a pretty bold statement about how I’m starting out this new year. I think it says “I may be nauseous, but I’m still going to attempt a smile, damn it! Or at least attempt putting on a shirt that has the word ‘smile’ on it!”)

It’s come to my attention, however, that I’ve been complaining a lot. Last week I had a lovely dinner of shabu shabu with two of my closest friends here. It was a feast- I gorged myself on Korean pancakes, apple salad and fresher than fresh kimchi (yes, I honestly like the stuff.) We got to talking about the level of stress Korean life offers and how its affected us, individually. I heard myself say, “Yes—my stress level is much lower here, but the stress that is present is one made from the absence of things, not the presence.” Hazaah! The absence of things!

Could it be that the actual lack of something can wreak more psychological havoc than a real, existing presence of something? It seems it can, in Korea, for me.

That being said… whatever absences are currently wrecking my psychological wellbeing as a result of living here- its also afforded me the opportunity to have:

- Lovely, lovely friends. I will say there aren’t a lot of winners out here amongst the expat masses, but I’ve found several gems much to my overwhelming surprise

- more free time than I know what to do with

- a disposable income that allows me to take trips to places like Vietnam and Europe

- the opportunity to listen to more new music and watch even more movies than I did in the States

- to reflect in an unhurried state

I’m sure this passing ‘Korea doesn’t completely suck’ mood will soon drift into my bin of fickledom (and probably much too fast—it’s always the good moods that travel there the fastest.) – but for now I am weirdly content. For now. Certain amazing people will be leaving much too soon and will not allow me to have the ridiculously amazing weekend that I just had, but as someone wise told me once…perhaps I’d be better off actually enjoying the moment rather than dive into my all-too-frequent habit of being anticipatorily nostalgic.

I’m certainly going to work on it.

My Top 10 Films of 2009

2010-01-05T03:54:00.021Z

Ok, so I was going to do this extravagant 2009 wrap-up, detailing highlights of the last four seasons of my life in blogalicious chunks of sentimentality and whimsy. BUT. Having read over it, it barely skims the surface of what I feel I’ve really experienced this year and so—suffice it to say,I lived in New York City up until late August at which point I moved to South Korea. There you are. Or…there I am.

What I really found myself wanting to wrap-up was this year’s best films. So, I have included my top 10 for 2009. Keep in mind, these are all movies I saw in 2009, though some are listed as having been released in 2008. Also keep in mind that I’ve been away from my beloved indie movie theaters (yeah, they don’t really exist here—and if they did, they obviously wouldn’t have English subtitles). I am aware that there might be a few, perhaps even several, movies missing from this list. I’ve been away from (quality film) civilization for four months- so give me a break!

But first, here are some films that really disappointed me (as in I thought they would be good, but ended up being really painful to watch):

The Disappointments

Watchmen, Nine, 9, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, New York I Love You, Funny People, Away We Go, JCVD, The Limits of Control, Whatever Works, The Taking of Pelham 1,2,3, The Invention of Lying (to be fair, the 2^nd half of this film really messed things up- the first half was quite good- the first 15 minutes were utterly hilarious), Visioneers, Broken Embraces

Guilty Pleasures, or really good movies that I’m too embarrassed (or snobby) to put in my top 10:

The Guilty Pleasures

Duplicity, Inglorious Basterds, Adventureland, Avatar (solely for the special effects), The Hangover (mostly because of Zach Galifianakis), Julie & Julia, Orphan, Taking Woodstock, Fighting

And now, for the good stuff. These are not ranked, btw. It’d be like some parent ranking which child they like the best. You can’t do that! So, in completely random order, here are my:

Top 10 Films of 2009

As cute and colorful as it was, the inclusion of the wife’s death sequence was still both haunting and deeply moving. The movie as a whole was heartwarming and genuinely unique. Pixar surprised me with this one.

Saw this at the cute little Davis Theatre in Chicago with my Mom. : )

Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire

Precious tells a story that not many of us rush to the theaters to see. Gabourey Sidibe’s portrayal of a 16-year-old, pregnant, obese African American girl living in Harlem with her monster of a mother, however, brings the viewer to his knees—desperately trying to understand why this is not typed as a horror, but rather a more than realistic display of what some American girls actually live through day to day. And by the end, the writer, director and cast manage to convince the audience that Precious will somehow find her way in the world- despite the onslaught of horribleness she has been dealt since birth. An amazing achievement.

Two Lovers

Heartwrenching. And easily Joaquin Phoenix’s best career performance. Easily.

Warning: do not watch this film if you’ve been recently heartbroken. Just…don’t.

It’s rare that I see a film where the main characters’ display of vulnerability leaves no more depth to plumb. At times, it is like witnessing a car wreck—but over and over again and with sympathy for the intoxicated driver- knowing the heaviness in his heart is what makes him wreckless and hungry for validation, even though he knows there is a high likelihood for a fiery wreck. And what flames!

Saw this at the Landmark Sunshine with my good friend, Daniel.

Treeless Mountain

It’s funny (not the movie)—how living abroad can really open your eyes, if only to see yourself more clearly. If this had come out one year earlier, I would have watched this in NYC at one of the countless arthouse theaters I frequented, and would have come away thinking I knew more about this country called ‘South Korea’ and would have been hopped up on how cultured and knowledgeable I was for seeing a movie like this. And I wouldn’t have known that the SK shown in this film is but a small slice of what it really is. To be more clear: South Korea is a country FULL of contradiction.

::A new cellphone comes out every 3^rd day, but there is a mass of payphones everywhere—and people actually use them! South Koreans clock the highest number of hours worked in the world and yet are statistically, the least productive. Can’t talk about mental health—no way, that’s crazy! Yet it ranks 1^st among OECD countries for suicide and last year’s president killed himself by jumping off a cliff—but it was justified because he was trying to ‘cleanse’ his tarnished career.

But before I write a 20-page mini-thesis on what further South Korean contradictions there are, let me get back to the film…

The cinematography and acting were so realistic that I often had to remind myself this was a drama, not a documentary. The two little girls in this were stellar, especially the older sister. It’s a sleeper, no doubt, but it weaves a touching tale of loss, with frequent close-ups of the fragile hopes of childhood, specific to South Korea.

The Hurt Locker

The grocery store scene embodies what scares me to my core about the new, emerging America.

The writer and director do a flawless job of masquerading the war in Iraq and the soldiers fighting in it as what this movie is truly about. …What I saw was this: America in all its shining glory and patriotic glitteriness…and what people do to get away from it under the radar, but in full view. I should be more specific—it’s only those people that are aware, that have woken up from the hazy dream (or nightmare) that is American life. I realize these statements require more throroughness, but I’m afraid it would come off preachy (if it hasn’t already.)

It’s a great movie though.

Saw this at the Lincoln Center AMC (NYC) with Daniel.

Food, Inc.

I had bought a diet coke and my friend had bought some kind of sugary confection at the concession stand. Halfway through, our sipping and munching had come to a halt (and not only because the very things we were consuming were specifically mentioned and deconstructed on the screen).

Elegantly edited, funny, charming and thoroughly frightening in its unapologetic telling of what’s really going on behind the scenes of American dinner tables.

I saw this at the quaint little State Theatre in Ann Arbor with my good friend, Jeremy (as I remember, it was right across the street from the lovely Michigan Theatre.)

In Bruges

I get depressed when I think about all the great movies in the world that I’ve passed up because of how horrid their trailers were. I got lucky with this one. I remember seeing the trailer for it in the theatre and actually said to myself, out-loud, “GOD does that look bad.” But Netflix kept yelling at me to see it with its 4 star rating suggestion and one, cold lonely evening, I decided to give in.

Beautiful. Hilarious. Yes, it’s another tale of compassionate hit-men, but then…it’s not. It’s different.

Brendan Gleeson charmed the socks off me as did Colin Farrell….in his Colin Farrell way. Go see it.

Tokyo Sonata

Not the most together movie, but stirring nonetheless. The Claire de Lune performance at the end makes the film. You’ll have to see it to understand what I mean.

Saw this at the IFC Center (NYC) with Daniel and Laura.

District 9

I am *not* a sci-fi fan. Like, at all.

I’m sure it didn’t hurt that director Neill Blomkamp thematically fused this film with allegory of South Africa’s history of apartheid. Or that the lead actor, Sharlto Copley displayed acting talent I hadn’t seen in awhile. Or that it was produced by Peter Jackson. Yeah—none of these things hurt…like, at all.

Saw this at the CGV at Suwon Station with my co-teacher, Ji-Eun.

Big Fan

Alright, alright. I will admit right off the bat that the appearance of this film on this list was influenced by Patton Oswalt being in it. …and rightly so!

Oswalt (one of my favorite, if not my favorite, comedians), portrays Paul Aufiero, a 30s-ish, portly parking garage attendant, still living with his mother in Staten Island, whose only joy in life revolves around anything and everything New York Giants.

The friendship with fellow Giants fan, Sal (brilliantly played by Kevin Corrigan) put the icing on the cake for me—at times, I wanted to cry witnessing their pathetic lives, but only because they weren’t aware of their patheticness. Having the world meant sitting in the Giants Stadium parking lot, listening in to the game as thousands of fans who actually got to see the game cheered, just several feet away.

There were a couple turns in this movie that I really didn’t expect, especially toward the end. But it all turned out for the best. Great little movie.

Saw this on my last day in New York at the Angelika with Daniel. Got to talk to writer/director Robert Siegel (writer for The Wrestler) after the screening. Honestly, he was kind of an ass, but he’s talented, so what can you do.

Honorable Mentions

An Education, Up In the Air, Adam, The Messenger

Ghost Stories and Random Things of Note

2009-12-24T05:48:00.006Z

I was a venerable American ghost for one full evening. My bank called me to let me know that I needed to physically go back to the bank and pay my transmittance fee for my recent transfer of funds to the States. They couldn’t just take it out of my account? Anyway. I get to the bank and try to the use the ATM. 1st machine didn’t work. Move on to the next. Same thing. Move on to the next. Same thing. A Korean teller comes out and tries her hand….voila—Korean magic strikes again! Confused, she takes my hand and physically puts it on the touchscreen. Nothing. She uses her Korean fingers again. It works. She feels my fingertips and loudly stammers, “You have no fingerprints.”
Coming home from Christmas gimbap night in Seoul, I take the bus from Sadang that drops me off right in front of my school (which is great, since my apartment is only a 5 min. walk from there) – I try to be polite and let an old man walk in front of me to exit the bus first. He stops to press the red button again, realizing the next stop is his. I move past him toward the exit when the bus driver, looking right at me, closes the door. I yell “Yogi! Yogi!” – (here, here), not knowing what else to say, but he continues on in his Korean-bus-driver-robotic way until the next stop where I make sure to be first in line. It sucks being an American ghost.
To all my Jewish friends: get ready to laugh. At my last English teacher class, we got on the subject of relationships (this comes up a lot). When I told them that I used to date a Jewish guy and that I have a special Yiddish name: shikse (non-Jewish woman), they looked at me and laughed saying, “You were his meal?” Shikse (shik-suh) is the exact same word for ‘meal’ in Korean. How bout that.
Christmas Eve. I generally greet the students with the usual “good morning/afternoon, how are you?” and scold them if they say “fine and YOU?” or “so-so”, telling them they sound like textbook robots or applauding their use of correct normal, everyday English responses. But today, several students have responded saying “sad, teacher.” Why sad? It’s Christmas Eve! “Stay til 10pm, teacher.” Oh. So I’ve been hauling out even more candy than usual, hoping to lift their spirits with momentary distractions of sweetness.
It’s still sad though.
I’ve officially booked my tickets for Vietnam! Stopover in Hong Kong there and back, 10 days alone in this beautiful country. Much research and visa-getting to do, but for the moment, I’m dreaming of Saigon and Halong Bay.

It’s perhaps unnecessary to write here, but despite my Saigon dreams and lost in translation distractions, I’d still give anything to be in Chicago, Ann Arbor and NYC for the holidays. Alas.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Machines With Secrets

2009-12-21T04:47:00.000Z

Every week I hold a conversation class with any English teacher at my school who dares to come talk to me about such things as Love in America vs. Love in Korea, The Importance of Appearance in America vs. The Importance of Appearance in Korea and so on. All told, I have a pretty steady group of about 6 female teachers that manage to make it every week, with the new addition of Mr. Lee (pronounced Mr. E) as he fills in for Ms. Yoo as she attends her month-long training for learning how to say ‘personaliTy’ rather than ‘personalARy’. This isn’t meant as a slight—her English is rather good, she just has this weird tendency to horribly mispronounce random words.

A few weeks ago, I conducted a lesson on ‘Social Problems in Korea’. I didn’t expect the teachers to be thrilled about the lesson considering their strong dislike of talking about anything negative in regards to Korea, but I had gotten to a point where I felt I needed to address this topic. “Korea has social problems? What are you talking about??!” -- is how I imagined them responding. They were, however, surprisingly eager to discuss the topic, a couple of them, shockingly so.

When I brought up how Korea is #11 in the world in suicide, a hush fell over the group… Until the candid Ms. Kim spoke up and informed us all that two girls had slit their wrists in the bathroom a few weeks back. I was flabbergasted. She was talking about it in such a rote manner I had to remind myself what it was we were talking about. Two girls, no doubt, bombarded by the pressures of school and parents, crying for help. Ms. Kim also indicated that this is a recurring ‘problem’. I asked them all why they think this ‘problem’ exists in Korea. The first answer given (similar to the answer my fellow wannamin friend received) was “it’s because of the economy, I think.”

But it’s not. I can tell you right now that those girls didn’t find themselves bleeding in the bathroom because of how distraught they were about the couple percentage point increase on the unemployment rate. Most likely, they were beyond exhausted from attending school 75+ hours a week and had no idea how to deal with it or who to talk to. The mental healthcare system here is nonexistent—and to someone who deeply cares about mental health and its availability to those who need it, it is *scary* to me how pervasive its nonexistence affects the people here. I should not be having casual conversations about girls in bathrooms or the inconspicuous netting in between shopping mall floors or the new glass barriers put up all the time in Seoul subways. This should not be happening.

And yet—I look around and everyone seems contentedly distracted or at the very least, busy enough to not seem as affected as one might think, given the circumstances. That one Korea Herald guy was right: Korea and its citizens are the middle children of the world. Forever fighting for attention, forever resentful- but still, somehow, rather good at hiding their flaws and usually, successful.

Korea video #2

2009-12-13T07:32:00.003Z

As I indicated on FB-- please forgive the music transitions. My computer isn't allowing me to change them. In any case, I hope you enjoy it anyhow.

Music:
Shankar Jakishan "Bombay Talkie"

Neon Indian "Deadbeat Summer"

Of Montreal "Sink the Seine"

Amon Tobin "Nova"

Disclaimer: I Am Not an Alcoholic. Alcohol’s Just Been a Catalyst Lately…

2009-12-07T15:51:00.013Z

I’m thinking of more serious things at the moment, but these thoughts have not yet been articulated to the new-blog-post-worthy-stage, so for now, I’d like to expound on a sweet debauchery:

One of the best feelings in the world is coming home after a long night of self-indulgence (read: some serious drinking) -- you know- those last few moments before reaching your door- intensely dreaming about the comfort and warmth of your bed and refrigerator (tho hopefully your fridge isn’t warm). Putting on your favorite raggedy, yet oh-so-comfy jammies that make you feel like you never ever want to go outside again- especially not tonight. As with everything, this feeling eventually fades away and you eventually get out of bed and eventually put that box of cookies back in the cupboard and eventually makeyour way to the outside world again. But sometimes, sometimes… I wonder if the reason why I go out some nights (esp those nights when I’m going out just so that I don’t fulfill my flake-like tendencies) is purely just to come home to this feeling.

But somehow, it always goes away. You can’t fight it. Eventually this cozy, comfy feeling turns into you staring either at your TV or computer screen in a half-crazed stupor wondering where the hell your day went and questioning why it’s already dark outside. Then you go through the five stages of I Couldn’t Have Drank That Much Last Night Syndrome (which weirdly resembles the famous Kubler-Ross model on grief):

Denial. This isn’t happening to me. Why, when I look outside, is there no more sunlight? Must be North Korea testing out its new block-out-the-sun missile. Yeah, that’s definitely it.
Anger. What have I done to deserve this? I remembered the whole drink 1 glass of water with every drink rule and I ate. If anything, I ate way too much! This really doesn’t make any sense! Why is my day gone?? Why do I have to suffer this feeling of Saturday night disillusionment? Also, I don’t feel that good!
Bargaining. Ok, just make it 2:00pm again and I swear, this will never happen again. I will stop buying those ridiculously warm Korean towel pants that make it difficult forme to stop wallowing around in bed - and I will stop cursing at the emptiness in my cupboards… if you’ll just give me a little more time.
Depression. What’s the point? It’s already past the point of no return. I should just finish this box of Mother’s Fingers cookies and call it a night.
Acceptance. But you know what? I guess there’s no point in fighting it. Yes, the day is gone, but the night remains. And…if I go out tonight…maybe no one will notice that I’m wearing jammy pants.

And so it goes.

I’d like to add a quick Korean layer to all this. Upon coming home, I suffer the strange Korean reality of walking home toward red electric crucifixes. (and btw, I know what you’re thinking. Shouldn’t it be crucifi? Just say it out loud.) On those particularly brutal nights, I wonder what I could have done to be walking toward a sea of these things.

But then I see a swarm of Rain posters plastered on the side of a building and the endless upon endless cell phone shops and realize where I am…and that this is just how Korea is.

America: gin and Deliverance, ROK: soju and NxNW

2009-11-18T01:52:00.003Z

There exists an actual full-blown study on the nature of jealousy and Facebook. You can read the short version here or the full version here.

And, in case you don’t already know this, the NY Times reference tool is amazing! Any word you don’t quite know the meaning of or any famous person/politician/whomever—just double-click on the word in the article and a reference window will pop up and tell you all about it (it doesn’t work on the blogs.) Also: my nerding-out filter has been temporarily shut off due to Dayquil ingestion and lack of quality sleep! I can't stop using exclamation points!!!

My eyes have taken on that half-shut whimsical look that can only be the result of either really good (recreational) drugs or some white-blood cell attacking illness. Unfortunately for me, it's the latter. And no, I don't have AIDS-- probably just some stupid cold. But unlike how I fight it in the States-- with a good bottle of gin and a screening of Deliverance, I will have to settle for a good bottle of soju and a screening of North By Northwest. No gin because the ROK hasn't discovered its wonderfulness and thus, is ridiculously hard to find -- and no Deliverance due to recent unsatisfactory conversations about it. (It's never the case that watching North By Northwest is settling-- never.) I've found that a good bottle of alcohol and a movie in which the main character is trying his best to escape some tragic or unfathomable situation really speeds up the recovery process for me. So here's hoping!

GOD what I wouldn't do for a bottle of Bombay gin...not only can you not find gin here-- but in the rare instance that you do-- the brand is some limping/crippled/diluted version of Bombay and most of the time tastes like antifreeze. I think I saw Beefeater once in a bar-- but you had to buy the bottle and it was around 350,000 won (roughly $250). Come on!

Note to self: I live in Korea, not in outer space

2009-11-16T05:06:00.004Z

So…FACEBOOK. For awhile now, I’ve been thinking of writing about the many ways in which FB ruins people’s lives—or will, eventually. If it were an actual dissertation, I think I’d call it something like: The Aesthetics and Social Deconstruction of the New Technological Dystopian Order, Otherwise Known as Facebook – but, dear readers, I have not fully finished my thoughts on the subject (mainly by being distracted from FB itself—what irony!) – so, in the meantime, I will share with you some recent foreigner-living-in-Korea observations.

It’s getting cold here. I now feel justified in having paid that extra $250 to push my suitcase through United’s luggage carousel of death to be able to have my inflatable garbage bag of a winter coat with me now. Halfway justified anyway. Actually—I’m still pretty mad about it.

But with the cold has come yet another reminder of how I am not in outer space-- that I am in fact, just on the other side of the world. Sometimes when I see Korean kids with their unlaced hip-hop sneakers or young Korean men with faux-hawks and gold chains, I get images of those scenes in movies or cartoons where the main character visits some alien world where everything looks the same, except the people are actually aliens. I can understand if this comes off a bit…racist, though that sounds too strong- maybe ethnocentric? (as in, since America is the center of the universe, everyone else is just imitating American culture and look like aliens while doing so) What? You guys go to the mall too?? And you also eat in fast-food restaurants and go mad over local sports teams? (well, not that *I* do, but you know, the average American.) Strange stuff.

No matter, Korea has, so far, thoroughly exemplified its highly-praised four seasons. I have a feeling that as much as I like fashion and am willing to sometimes feel uncomfortable to look fashionable, these Koreans – I can tell already—are going to out-fashion me this winter. I will unabashedly admit that I look semi-homeless in my winter coat. But hey—at least I’ll be a warm hobo!

Which brings me to…homeless people in Korea. When I moved from Chicago to NYC, I was shocked upon finding about a quarter of the homeless population I was used to seeing. I learned later that the main reasoning for this was because of Giuliani’s (or as my brilliant friend, Laura, calls him: Crueliani) ‘broken windows’ scheme—where he cracked down on ‘crime in the city’ by arresting homeless people for doing things like jumping turnstiles. I did see a lot more homeless people on the trains in New York, but they usually danced for their dinner- literally. Or sang. Actually—the origin of my blog’s name came from this one homeless man I saw on the subway at least once a week. He’d go from car to car and would get money by threatening to sing. When no one gave him anything, he’d screech some 50s du-op song at the top of his lungs until someone threw him a buck. After gathering up all he could, he’d start his journey to the next car and this is when he’d take the opportunity to let loose all his spiritual and political beliefs, always starting off by saying “here today, born tomorrow folks!”. So, there you are.

In Korea, the only time I am sure that someone is genuinely homeless is if they are blind and travel from car to car, blaring old Korean music on their mini-boomboxes. Other than that, it’s pretty hard to tell if someone has a home or not. This is because Koreans are not afraid to sleep on the street. Namely, older Korean men. During my first couple weeks I stood aghast whenever I’d see groups of Korean men scattered along subway floors or even just lying in the gutter (I’m not kidding.) I later realized that these men were just drunk and had passed out on the street. Here’s a blog that gives a much clearer picture of this weird Korean tradition: http://blackoutkorea.blogspot.com/

It doesn’t matter that the homeless population is smaller here—I still feel horrible whenever they pass by me- they get no acknowledgment by their fellow Koreans. This isn’t to say that Americans’ treatment of homeless people is praise-worthy—not by a longshot. But at the very least, it seems Americans acknowledge the person—even if it’s a negative acknowledgment—they still see the person. Here, it’s as if a ghost with a boombox is passing through the car. Most often, people don’t even move out of the way. I don’t know, maybe it’s different for other people here, but this is what I’ve noticed.

Speaking of my brilliant friend, Laura (who lives in NYC)—here is a wonderful organization she’s created to do her part in the battle against homelessness. http://www.wheninneed.org/ Fed up with not being able to give money to every passing homeless person, she created these really helpful info sheets that list places where people can go when they need food/shelter/legal representation, etc. She calls them ‘Street Sheets’. Ingenious idea. In any case, she needs help with the website, so if you have a moment out of your day to spare, it would be *lovely* to give her any advice you can—point out anything you think could be better or – if you’re one of those people with ‘connections’ or ‘resources’ – you could even pass along your info if you think you can help in the effort. I don’t know how many people read this thing—but I hardly feel this is a shameless plug after plugging something like blackoutkorea! And anyway—it truly is a worthy cause.

I will be having my first American visitor this week!! My friend Brandon will be visiting for 5 days and in that time, it is my goal to show him how strange, lovely, depressing, magnificent this country really is. Wish me luck!

Memory: "(all alone in the moonlight) I can smile at the old days..."

2009-10-23T03:13:00.004+01:00

So yeah, sorry about the recent non-posting. My brain’s decided to do a prolonged portrayal of a brain belonging to an 80 year old man with Alzheimer’s and has decided to go the method-acting route and *actually* embody the role. Aside from extreme writer’s block, I’ll have moments of extreme clarity (fleeting, at best), hidden within an expanse of fogginess. I think the 60s girl group, The Shirelles, can best explain the last few weeks:

The Shirelles’ ode to Renee’s brain :

Tonight you're mine completely
You give your love so sweetly
Tonight the light of love is in your eyes
But will you love me tomorrow?

Is this a lasting treasure
Or just a moment's pleasure?
Can I believe the magic of your sighs?
Will you still love me tomorrow?

Tonight with words unspoken
You say that I'm the only one
But will my heart be broken
When the night meets the morning sun?

I'd like to know that your love
Is love I can be sure of
So tell me now, and I won't ask again
Will you still love me tomorrow?

…

It’s when I watch movies that are set in NYC or Chicago (so...nearly every movie ever made) – that I think about all these watery images of my past, beautiful or not, they’re all lovely to me, now that I’m a world away. Or more specifically, in a place that has made nostalgia an everyday activity, a ‘checking-in’ with myself to remind me where I came from and where ultimately I will end up again. I agree that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but I think it also makes memories more vivid and dream-like.

Heraclitus: “You can’t step into the same river twice.” Boy was he right. And it goes both ways. Every memory shapes you and you shape every memory so that nothing is ever cemented, is always fluid and ephemeral. This strikes me as both disconcerting and comforting, if something can be both those things at once. Disconcerting in that each memory is only as tangible as water in your hands and comforting, in the way that memories are living travel partners – because of the very fact that they are ever-evolving, their pulse is real and however you see them is a true representation of where you are in your life—they are not some brittle, wilted flowers stuck between the pages of old books. Their scent is strong and sometimes can hit you hard, good or bad.

I suppose all this talk of memory illustrates my consuming interest in the brain and what it tells us about the illusive/magical potential of human life. I think I mentioned in an earlier post that taking a walk down the street and thinking about taking a walk are one in the same in how your brain interprets these actions – which is why reading a book can be so engaging. You’re painting a picture of whatever you’re reading about and it pulls you in because your brain is taking the same steps to create these pictures as it would to actually live them out. Which is why -- when I'm walking down some street in Seoul and pass block after block of monotonous architecture, do I bask in the memories of walking down Michigan Ave. in Chicago or walking down 100 blocks on Broadway and watching the city morph into 20 different cities, every 5 blocks or so. This isn't to say that I don't appreciate Seoul (or ROK in general) -- there are absolutely some beautiful things to see...but. I can't help but feel there's something missing... I can't articulate it fully and won't bore you trying to figure out on here (unless you're already bored, then I'm sorry)... perhaps it'll come to me later.

Some recent things of note:

- Last week I attended a classical guitar concert with some of my co-teachers. My first real live music experience in Korea…in order to get into the concert hall, we had to stand in a line and wait to have our temperature taken. I’d heard many stories from fellow foreign teachers about how they’ve had to have their temps taken everyday before teaching, so I wasn’t too freaked out about it. UNTIL I realized *how* they were administering it. A nice lady all in white stood right in front of me and pointed a laser beam straight into my eye! Then she smiled a nice Korean smile, bowed and gestured toward the entrance.
While the guitarists were technically spot-on and showed great discipline, there was something missing. And it was only until I found myself nodding off did I realize what it was. Soul. Feeling. Things You Can’t Discipline Yourself Into Having. It was a little disappointing…
- Before I forget—some people have been asking about how Busan went. Well, it didn’t. After a calamitous chase to Seoul station, my friend and I ended up missing the train by TWO minutes. : (
- I went to a robot bar last weekend in Seoul. MOST AWESOMEST BAR EVER. The awning is this huge silver robot head with glowing red eyes and you order your drinks through the front window. They serve your drinks in I.V. bags (which sort of just look like clear Capri Sun drinks, but still, it’s pretty amazing). Quaint/60s-ish décor inside and just altogether fabulous. I want to go back there.
- I’m getting my first haircut in Korea this evening. I’m a bit anxious about it for obvious reasons, but especially since every Korean I’ve talked to about it has said that I need a perm with the cut. Why is that an automatic?? And also, I don’t want one! Are they going to force me to get a perm?? We’ll see how it turns out. Wish me lots of luck.

P.S. I’ve embedded a youtube clip at the bottom here that entirely encapsulates what I see and experience in this country almost everyday. It’s strange how quickly you get used to new things— for instance, I don’t even bat an eyelash when I realize that I’ve eaten copious amounts of kimchi and bibimbap 5 out of the last 7 days. Completely normal now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDN7Nx5J6No&feature=player_embedded

Chuseok and other stories

2009-10-04T16:39:00.002+01:00

So…quick update. It’s Chuseok (chew-sock)! Korean Thanksgiving. Was at a teacher’s ‘orientation’ Tues-Thur—and have off Thurs-Monday for Chuseok. Pretty nice.

I don’t even want to elaborate on the ‘orientation’ – and if you’re one of those types that can read between the lines, you know that my putting ‘’ around the word orientation would indicate it wasn’t that great. I will say this though. Some of the native teachers here are pretty weird and a couple of them are downright questionable. I understand that the bare minimum for becoming a native teacher here is having a bachelors and being a native speaker. But I would imagine when they came up with these requirements, they probably figured that along with these 2 qualifications, one should also know how to spell, not use words that don’t exist, maybe even have a genuine interest in the English language and what the hell, a dash of interest in reading a book. Again, this wasn’t everybody, but the fact that this describes more than one person is a little scary to me.

Actually, kind of a lot scary.

Other than that, I went to a casino for the first time in my life a couple days ago. They don’t let Koreans gamble—so it was mostly Japanese, Chinese and Westerners piddling their money away. It wasn’t what I imagined it to be…it felt like the tables were actually tiny funerals scattered along the gambling floor with drooling zombies on either side—one side drinking the other playing the slots. I was on the latter. Didn’t win anything. But I did pay $16 that night for a Bennigan’s sandwich that tasted like it’d just been taken out of a box and defrosted. So it wasn’t a total loss. :-/

Randomness:

I’ve figured out what my favorite Korean food is so far: kimchi man doo gook: kimchi dumpling soup. My god is it amazing.
There’s lots of free extras here. You’re guaranteed to get a gift set of items if you buy something at a skincare store. Even if you buy something really cheap. Most of my purchases have been around 5,000 won (~ $5) and even so, they’ll give me a heap of samples that I know cost more than 5,000 won. Pretty cool. Also, I went to a bread store the other week and bought a loaf of bread (how original!) – the nice lady gift-wrapped the loaf and stuck in 3 AMAZING pastries for free. There’s also this one grocery store where it’s impossible to buy a box of soy milk without it having a small soy milk box strapped to it.
I had my first ever taxi ride with a FEMALE taxi driver! They usually don’t even exist in movies (I can only think of one: the one in Pulp Fiction that drove Bruce Willis after his boxing scene). Anyhow, this one was very nice and was highly amused by my dazzling handle on Korean – I said “hello”, “thankyou” and “goodbye”.
Korean grapes. Beyond delicious. Also on the fruit front: citrus fruits are extremely rare here. And when you do find them, they’re very expensive (I pay around $2 for 1 orange) They also like to put fruit in gift boxes. Off topic: they’re obsessed with spam. I’ve found bonafide spam gift sets in souvenir stores. I’m not kidding.
At the movies: every theater has reserved seating. You do not pick your seat, no matter what. I went to a film with a couple of my co-teachers and aside from us, there were 2 other people in the entire theater. I figured we could bend the rules a little, but no. They were really serious about it.

In just a few days, I’ll be going to the Busan International Film Fest! Busan is where I originally wanted to live—2^nd largest city, gorgeous and it's where Korea’s burgeoning film scene is located. Taking the fast train! Also might be staying in a ‘love motel’ since they’re pretty cheap. Should make for one interesting weekend…

1.5 fortnights in SK

2009-09-23T11:51:00.005+01:00

Oh right...context

2009-09-23T11:23:00.001+01:00

Sometimes when I’m tired as a result of my complete lack of self-control (read: staying up til 2am because somehow watching America’s Next Top Model w/Korean subtitles seemed like a good idea)… I get to talking to my co-teachers and they’ll ask me how to correctly say ‘spill your beans’ or they’ll laugh at my genuine attempts to say something in Korean, because they think it’s sweet… I start to drift nd always end up thinking about everyone and everything I miss in

America

. I’ll think about the last weekend’s adventure in Seoul- and how when I saw a group of Ghanaian men walking down the street, I get to feeling nostalgic. That’s right, I feel nostalgic when I see black people. In the midst of all this precious drifting, I’ll realize that I’m quietly mumbling my thoughts. Ms. Kang, who sits to the right of me, will then ask me why I feel nostalgic about black people since I come from America, and there aren’t many black people in America, are there? I’ll enlighten her, after pinching myself (just to make sure) and tell her that yes, there are hundreds, maybe even thousands, hell- maybe even millions of black people in America! Her eyes will grow into saucers and she’ll ask me how I felt living with so many people that didn’t look like me. I’ll try to articulate the treasures of diversity and how often times, I felt like I was in a movie walking through Harlem and the Village and Brooklyn, watching some of the most beautiful people in the world look at the other most beautiful people in the world. She’ll say “Harlem? Isn’t that where the N-words live? How do you understand what they’re saying?”

Except she didn’t say ‘the N-words’ – she said the real thing. Like it was a vocabulary word she picked up in a book for advanced ESL students. Before I launch into how I can actually understand ‘those N-words’ and how the way they talk is a vernacular of the American English language, not a speech impediment, I adamantly, adamantly inform her that the word she so carelessly shot out of her mouth has more gravity than the plastic surgery problem in Korea. Because who else is going to tell her? My other co-teacher? Ms. Lee, who, as sweet as she is, tries to convince me everyday at lunch that eating red meat is good for me and once, for a welcoming dinner took me to a local restaurant known for its meat dishes and sat right next to me eating dog stew as I sat slack-jawed before my ‘special meatless dish’ that had pork piled all over it? (yeah, that really happened) No, it was my responsibility. So I pulled out my pocket American flag and waved it around as I tamed the natives around me, spouting out American triumphs, ideals, history…

Or at least that’s how I felt as I calmly let Ms. Kang know that she shouldn’t ever use that word, never ever. And why. I’d never been put in a position where I had to tell another human adult that one shouldn’t say such a horrible word. And then I remembered.

Oh right…context. I’m in Korea, remember? She could have just as easily been explaining to me that I shouldn’t ever use the word “gook”. Never ever. And she could have told me why. And I would have left school appreciative of this new and important knowledge.

And then I would be sad.

Because before coming here, I thought that if I were around people who only spoke Korean all of the time, I’d eventually pick up the language and would sufficiently understand what was going on around me. I’ve learned, that’s not how it works. Most of the time, I feel as though I’m in a giant fish tank and all I hear are other fish murmuring and burbling through the water. Communication is muted at best and any occasional eye contact is watery- our filters for vision were born worlds apart.

But then I see the underbelly. Last Friday night I was a stranger in a strange land… in a strange land. I went to a drag queen show and ordered a ‘gintonic’ from a 6’5 Korean tranny. And somehow it was the most at ease I’d felt in some time since moving here. I have to allow for the obvious differences though. Like when the two people in front of me pointed at the beautiful drag queen’s package, covered their mouths and laughed uproariously. That sort of behavior is hard to find in comparable NYC clubs—or at least the ones I’ve been to. You’ll see for yourself, I’ll be putting up a video soon—and you’ll see they put on a good show. Even though it was 2:30am and my slip was starting to show, they made feeling like a stranger in a strange land… worth it.

Some stuff about my school

2009-09-20T13:36:00.003+01:00

So people have been asking about my day-to-day at work, which I usually don’t talk or write about. But some of you are pretty nice, so I’ll give it a go.

I’m teaching at an all girls high school in Suwon. I have 17 classes throughout the week, two of which are ‘teacher classes’ where the focus is mainly on conversation. One class is for all the English teachers in the school and the other is for any non-English teacher that wants to learn more English. I’m at school from 8am – 4pm and have lunch at noon everyday. These are the healthiest lunches I’ve ever eaten. Also, now that I’m not eating meat, sometimes I can only eat the daily white rice and vegetable dish (usually some variant of kimchi.) Thankfully, a nice Korean lady comes around at 10am every morning and gives me yogurt, for which I pay a monthly fee. She saves me on days when I can only eat the rice.

Things of note about the school:

Even though it’s public, every girl wears a uniform (white top and maroon skirt, w/some variation). And since every girl has the same hair color and roughly the same haircut, I’m a big racist and can’t remember most of their names. (might also be cos I’m teaching 500+ students)
The students don’t go home after 4pm—they stay at the school and study until 10PM! I still can’t get over this fact and have not gotten used to seeing herds of schoolgirls walking the streets late at night by themselves.
At around 2pm everyday, every student takes 10 minutes to…clean the school. I’ll be in the teacher’s lounge and a nice Korean girl will be sweeping behind my desk and another, cleaning my coffee cup. Now that’s what I call service! :-/
The bathrooms: toilet paper is not a given, so you have to carry a roll around w/you at all times. Also, there’s about 1 or 2 regular (Western) toilets and the rest are squat toilets. The use of the latter has firmly cemented the reasoning for why I think Korean women have great legs.
A funny/endearing fact: several of my co-teachers are extremely fond of the movie The Dead Poets Society and aspire to be like the teacher Robin Williams portrays.

So, that’s it for now. Soon I will be writing about my life outside of school. Namely, my recent excursions into Seoul – this last weekend having seen what was promised to be a tranny burlesque show, but was really a trannies lip-syncing to music show. It was still pretty amazing.

Taking a walk...

2009-09-14T02:54:00.001+01:00

Did you know that walking down the street and imagining walking down the street utilize the exact same parts in your brain? So theoretically, if I describe how it is to walk down a street in my town, it’d be like you were right there with me.

So, let’s take a walk.

I exit my building and hang a right toward my school. Across the way is the neighborhood’s trash pile where the garbage collector gives me dirty looks since he assumes that I’m the one that messed up the garbage system, being the ignorant foreigner that I am. To explain, here in SK, they’ve taken an interest in the environment and have set up a system to combat unnecessary waste—which in theory, I love. In practice, oysh. You’re required to buy government regulated trash bags at designated stores. The yellow bags are for food waste, the white bags are for non-food/non-recyclable waste and shopping bags are for recyclables. So, now I have 3 garbage cans in my kitchen (or as I call it: a makeshift enclosure)… why can’t they just let me be the hypocritical American that I am? While I espouse all these beliefs in recycling, actually putting it into practice is a whole different ball game. Seriously though, at the end of the day, I know it’s worth it.

I walk a bit further down the street where a row of ajummas (“adult female individuals of married age”) --stop their conversation to all stare at me at once, with nasty scowls on their faces. Now, normally, I’d chalk this up to my paranoia…but, NO. This is the reality. Things I miss #1: not being scowled at on a regular basis.

I turn left onto the next road and realize that while I have my cigarettes, I don’t have my lighter and so stop into a convenience store to replenish. I haven’t learned the word for lighter, and stupidly I’ve forgotten my phrase book at home, so I hope that the cashier happens to know “lighter”. He doesn’t. I play charades, but since I’m HORRIBLE at charades, he thinks I’m throwing gang signs at him. Eventually, we come to an understanding and I walk out of the store having bought a weird Korean toy so that this cashier doesn’t hate me for the next 11 months. Things I miss #2: not having to play charades in order to communicate with other human beings.

I continue down the street and scavenge in my bag for a spare lighter, where I find 3 at the bottom of my bag. Awesome. I light up and bask in the wonderful drags of relief, only to find that an ajumma walking towards me has literally stopped in her tracks to stare at me in disbelief. Apparently, only ‘ladies of the night’ smoke in this country. Every single man here smokes likes a chimney, but it is utterly shameful for a woman to smoke in public. Things I miss #3: not being considered a prostitute for smoking on the street, but rather, a typical New Yorker. :-/

About 2 minutes later, I’ve arrived at my school where droves of precious Korean girls run up to me and say things like, “hi!!!” or “you’re beautiful!!” or “do you remember me?!”?

Things I like about Korea #1: it takes me 5 minutes to get to my job. Things I like about Korea #2: My students are adorable.

Travel and Travail

2009-09-09T03:14:00.003+01:00

Last Saturday and Sunday, I chased the sun around the world. As dramatic as that sounds, that’s sincerely how it felt. After a sleepless night of packing (or cramming stuff into things that weren’t meant to hold twice their weight), I boarded a plane from NYC to Los Angeles. I could tell that some of my fellow passengers were also making their way to Korea, evidenced by the snickering heard whenever I’d take out my bright yellow Easy As Il, Ee, Sam Korean Language book. Whatever, teenage Korean girl sitting next to me. At least I’m trying!

Transferred from United to Asiana upon arrival in LA. Walked with my bulging tumor of a carry-on to the gate and paid $20 for a veggie sandwich, fountain drink and fruit cup.

On the plane to Incheon, I was the only non-Asian within sight. The plane was decked out with individual TV screens (like Jet Blue) – and I watched a terrific Korean film, Castaway On the Moon. Highly recommended. Also, the title pretty much summed up how I felt during the entire plane ride to Seoul. Neverending blinding daylight, unable to communicate with anyone around me and half-crazy from sleep deprivation. The constant sunlight was made stranger by the attendants insisting on closing every window for the entire trip. Strange feeling: knowing that it’s blindingly white outside, but forced into a cave-like environment for an inordinate amount of time. It felt as though I was on some lost episode of The Twilight Zone, drifting in an out of consciousness, eating food I’d never seen before (some dishes packaged in toothpaste tubes), strapped into an uncomfortable chair where aliens would observe me as they trotted by. The movies were my one respite and boy, did I take advantage. I even managed to watch New In Town after exhausting every other semi-decent option. Somehow the pinched face of Renee Zelwegger provided a weird comfort for me. I remember reading an article in The New Yorker about some American’s travels in Siberia and how, after traveling the barren landscape for several days, he found comfort in the occasional presence of American-like retail strips (or as I like to call them: concrete wastelands- like the town I grew up in.) It was akin to that.

Before I knew it (or rather, a long-ass time later) – I was in Suwon, awkwardly greeting my new Korean neighbors and standing in bewilderment at the size of my new apartment. Beyond small. But I suppose I shouldn’t complain since I’m not paying rent. Yeah, I shouldn’t. I won't mention it again.

So now I’m here. It’s my 3^rd day of teaching. There is, of course, lots of other stuff to note, but I wanted to begin with my harrowing journey here so that I don’t forget how I got here and that I did in fact, come here from another country- another city. New York City. That’s correct, right? Yes, I think so.

With my poor object constancy, it’s easy to feel as though I was dropped from the sky one day a long time ago and have been living here as a foreigner for some time. Honestly, it seems my object constancy is what helps me transition from one place to another. Pairing that with my lack of ‘normal’ foundations (e.g. religion, a dominant ethnicity, an attachment to family, etc.) – moving to a foreign country isn’t as difficult as one might think. Certain negatives have become positives here. My paranoia that everyone is staring at me has been completely justified (everyone really IS staring at me ALL of the time). Also, feeling like the requisite ‘other’ now has its place here. In a way, the confirmation of my paranoia and feeling alone is helpful. Because now I can focus on other things. Like learning Korean, finishing my script, getting healthy, et al…

I hope this feeling lasts.

2009-09-03T03:22:00.001+01:00