work

i’ve got some work out in upstreet magazine - you might be able to find a hard copy at your local independent bookseller, on the shelf where all the lonely literary journals live. for those in new york, you can definitely buy it at st. marks bookshop. and for those of you who were at the reading at the asian american writers workshop, here’s your chance to find out what happens to that guy talking all that shit. oh, and i’m so happy and honored to tell you that story, “sunshine”, was nominated to be considered for this year’s pushcart prize anthology. i also have an excerpt from the novel up as part of guernica magazine’s “new korean american fiction” edition.

okay, enough self-promotion. i feel so sheepish. but thanks for reading.

and i’m thinking of reviving this blog. we’ll see.

 

where i’ll be when

i’m feeling this compulsion to let everyone know where i’ll be and when i’ll be there: february will have me in four countries and at least eight cities. a good way to start the new year, don’t you think? so here’s my itneraire, as luna’s dad would say:

- february 6: leave gwangju, arrive seoul
- february 8: leave seoul, arrive bangkok via tokyo
- februrary 9: leave bangkok, arrive hanoi, where i’ll meet sunyoo & hyejin
- february 9-19: travel around vietnam, visiting hanoi, halong bay, hue and hoi an, and perhaps other places
- february 19: leave hanoi, arrive seoul on the 20th (via bangkok & tokyo again — i’m using mileage….)
- february 20-23: in seoul
- february 23: leave seoul/korea for good!, arrive san francisco
- february 23-28: play in california
- february 28: land in brooklyn

whew! what fun… i’m getting excited for my february adventures. and each place i go will have people i’ve missed. i’m really too, too fortunate. perhaps i should go do 108 bows somewhere at 3 in the morning. or maybe i’ll just appreciate it and try to live in the moment…

happy year of the rat, everyone! 새해 복 많이 받으세요!

 

last night

my last night in gwangju. i’m sitting on the warm floor, drinking hot water mixed with honey i received as a gift last chusok. this friend’s brother-in-law retired and began keeping bees after working many years as a salaryman. she told me it’s chestnut honey, good for health, and would i please take a teaspoon every morning to keep well? of course i said i would, and of course i didn’t. she also brought pears that day, and hard sesame squares, and homemade dduk that had hardened slightly. i finished the last of the honey tonight, scraping the crystalized, heavier stuff from the bottom with a chopstick. it was delicious.

one bag is packed, another has a thin layer of stuff at the bottom i know i won’t be needing for some time, and the third is completely empty. all my shoes are in black plastic bags. i’m trying to decide whether or not leave the towels behind. this afternoon i realized that by tomorrow night the only keys in my possession will be the ones to the closet at the manhattan mini-storage on south street. i can’t remember if i have any towels in that closet.

i said goodbye to a lot of people today, and have been saying goodbye all week. i’ve been to two wakes and one wedding this month, and a friend found out today that her father has stomach cancer. another will most likely need to have his gallbladder removed, as the cysts continue to grow. another friend got a job at a research institute in seoul. another continues to live in a tiny studio with her sister, both of them waiting to figure out what happens next. i’m not quite sure what to write here, only that it feels important to mark this date in some way. i can’t remember the last time i was so acutely aware of such a definitive end to a period of my life; a very strange feeling, this. i’m not quite sure how to say goodbye, or what that even means, exactly. but i do know this: over these turbulent eighteen months i have loved and been loved in mysterious and unexpected ways by people i would have never met if i had not exited my life when i did. i will miss this place and its people.

tonight i chose to have my final dinner in gwangju at the tiny restaurant i wrote about back in september 2006, ten days or so after first arriving here. i remember how amazed i was at the deliciousness, the quality, the quantity, the koreanness of it all. i remember where i sat, how i tried not to notice people noticing me, the only person eating alone. i remember going in another time and seeing the four ajumahs settle into a mr. dooly’s bulgogi pizza, pickles and kimchee on the side. i remember listening in on their plans for who was going to cook what for the upcoming holiday. they’ve since put up new wallpaper but haven’t changed the misspelled sign. we ordered one each of the three-item menu; i favor the kimchee chigae over the fish now, but still couldn’t finish a whole bowl of rice. i wonder, if by some chance i come back to gwangju and back to the chonnam area, if this restaurant and those ajumahs will still be here. sometimes i doubt it, other times i think they’ll be there for sure, whether two or ten years pass. i guess i’ll just have to wait and see if either or both of these ifs come to be.

goodbye, gwangju. thank you.

 

lugh and sappho

i just heard about the tragic passing of a lovely pup i was lucky to meet, lugh. i was also saddened last fall to hear sappho had gone on to be reunited with the so much more sane venus. it’s terrible to lose a pet, and there’s something uniquely awful about the absence of a dog, who becomes such a central part of our daily cadence and rhythm. but i’m comforted to think of the two of them frolicking with venus and zephyr, twinkle casting a disdainful (yet slightly envious) eye on all of those silly canines. a few pictures in their honor:

my heartfelt sympathies to those who loved and cared for lugh and sappho so well . . .

 

happy new year, everyone

i have no idea where december went. oops.

but here we are in 2008…. which julie claims is going to be great! i hope so, though i can’t shake this forboding feeling about the upcoming year, which admittedly is most likely due to having no job, no apartment, no plan, and not even a plane ticket, but there’s plenty of time for all that anxiety. for now, i wanted to share some photos from a rejuvenating holiday and a wonderful new year’s eve.

i spent christmas with 4/5ths of the kim clan in lovely maui… where it wasn’t so lovely a lot of the time. lots of rain and gusting winds, though we were mostly able to escape the clouds over our heads by driving 10 or 20 minutes south. one good thing about all that rain were the four or five rainbows we saw, including this double one:

pretty amazing.

despite the weird weather, we were able to play tennis and go to the beach and get a little tan and of course eat lots of pineapple and papaya and drink too many mai tais. but then it was back to reality, and back to korea, where i went from this:

to this:

i woke up the morning after my dark and rainy arrival to a total white-out; i literally gasped when i looked out the window. and then it proceeded to snow for three days straight, which was just amazing and magical. while being in the warm and sunshine was great, i would have been sad to have missed this snowstorm — last winter saw wimpy flurries that never lasted the day, and all this snow made the holidays feel close and real.

of course, it was a little inconvenient and had me thinking that korea needs more lawsuits: no one seems to be responsible for shoveling or salting and there’s still a giant iceslick outside my building that used to be a sidewalk. i’m clomping around in hiking shoes and all the korean girls are somehow managing to live while tottering around in pumps and high-heel boots. i just don’t get it.

so then it was on to new year’s eve, which i brought in with a good friend and a bunch of other jolly fellows from around town. the city closed off the main street and got the lights going, snow falling all the while:

after some sake and beer and snacks, we came back a little before midnight to join the crowds. i guess gwangju’s version of the ball dropping is the bell tolling; unfortunately, someone (or a bunch of someones) dropped another kind of ball and the announcers on stage missed the countdown. we were wondering what was taking so long, and were looking down at someone’s cell phone when the hour turned to 00:00. man, koreans and that final 2%. as matty once so wisely observed, it’s all good except for those final, all important details. but whatever, the bell began to ring, an illuminated, sparking phoenix began to fly around, and everyone popped off their firecrackers.

it was fun being out in all the action instead of at home watching it happen on tv: the smell of sulfur, the happy kids, the fear of getting my eye poked out with a stray firecracker. everyone was having so much fun. and then some group called the “bubble sisters” came on and everyone went crazy. the group sang a remake of “it’s raining men” and one of my friends rolled his eyes and was like, man, they’re so unoriginal that they can’t even improvise and sing “it’s snowing men.”

we tore ourselves away and in the pursuit of more beer came across a samulnori group, one of those traditional korean drumming ensembles. there’s nothing like the sound of the changgu and that clanging cymbal, the bass drum keeping time. they did their thing while skipping/dancing around in a wide circle, like they always do, two of their members finally releasing the ribbons on the top of their hats and twirling them around in that magical, mysterious, neck-vertebrae defying way. one of us joined in with a perfect country ajusshi dance — hands raised and flicking, head nodding up and down. it was so hilarious we all gave in to the guy in the suit pulling us into the circle, whom we assumed was with the troupe. turns out he was just spreading the love. and love there certainly was. i don’t think i can put the moment into words, but i’ll always remember that feeling of joy and sorrow as the snow fell and i watched one of the young women smile and play her drum, knowing i’ll soon be gone from this place and that next year’s new year’s eve will certainly find me far, far away.

there are so many things that are difficult for me here, but it will be hard to say goodbye. it’s already hard. and lately i’ve been feeling, as i have at other points over my months here, that i’m just beginning to understand some things. i’ve at times been frustrated with what’s felt like a resistance to expressing an honest opinion; no one wants to say a bad thing about another person or anything that might set that person apart, which i can certainly see the merits of but which i’ve experienced as a kind of falseness, one that compels me to censor myself and therefore feel less honest with, and less close to, those around me. but as the evening wore on with this group of people who don’t know me that well and have no obligation to or responsibility for me, i started to feel that this reluctance might not be about suppressing a negative but more about simply accepting and embracing for the sake of everyone’s feelings and the spirit of the group. i began to see how what at times has felt like impersonal distance may be a manifestation of knowing one’s first responsibility is to other people’s feelings of inclusion and belonging. that is, it’s not about knowing someone or seeing or evaluating or sizing up, but rather about taking care, being polite, treating others well. if this is what counts, in some ways it doesn’t matter who a person is, or how well you know or understand them, much less what your actual opinion may be. hell, you don’t even need an opinion. what you do need is to be aware of other people’s moods and spirits, and then do what you can to ensure those feelings are positive. and it’s not just about being “nice”; no, it’s so much more. i don’t know if any of this is making sense, but i was struck by how i had been pulled into this strange fold so easily, so naturally, so genuinely. whatever anyone may have thought or felt (or not) about me, the most important thing that night was that we were all enjoying each other’s company, having a good time, coming as close as we could in that moment to happiness. i guess you could call it 정/jung.

so here’s to the new year: i hope it brings insight, joy, and yes, jung.

 

my friend the metropolitician

i’m like a proud mama — my mega-multitasking, picture-taking, bad-movie-peddling, all-around-evil-influence mad genius friend mike, aka the metropolitician, is featured in a video piece by the associated press. mike’s got a lot to say about korea, race, what it’s like to live as a “foreigner” here, along with other random stuff including the ideal camera bag, the high point of korean pop and where to find the best ddukbokgi in seoul. and i’m telling you, he is the hardest working man i know: i watched him go at full speed for about half an hour the other day and my eyes were ready to roll back into my head. i still have no idea what he was doing, but it involved chatting, blogging, photoshopping, emailing, surfing and final cut pro. all at once. anyhow, check out what my former MPC/RC/TA, my brown/eta/fulbright 선배, the man at least partly responsible for my first extended stay in korea, had to metropolick about to the AP.

 

smart & sharp vs stupid & sloppy

every fall i rediscover my love of oatmeal. i swear it makes me smarter. sharper, for sure. i’ve been enjoying mine with bits of apple, asian pear and raisins. this morning, persimmon (the crispy kind), raisins, brown sugar and honey. yum.

food that makes me stupid and sloppy: pizza. i love it, but damn, i’m like a slug afterwards.

another stupid and sloppy food item has to be 홍시, or ripe persimmon. literally sloppy — it was all over my face and hands last night — and stupid in the way that i’m rendered speechless and kind of want to cry. i like crisp persimmons as well — they’re juicy and sweet, with a very subtle flavor, not at all tannic like the ones i’ve had in the states — but hongshi has my heart.

persimmons are everywhere these days — in the trees:

at the market:

at my house:

and finally, on my plate:

i’ll miss this fruit, a lot. yummmm . . .

 

pre-thanksgiving cultural exchange

Miscelaineous: “I’m going to the army base for Thanksgiving. I hear it’s like America in the middle of Seoul.”
Lunamania: “Where they drive on the right side of the road.”
Miscelaineous: “They drive on the right side of the road in Korea. It’s not like Japan.”
Lunamania: “Really? I thought it was only the U.S. that drove on the right side of the road.”
The Chang: “No, Taiwan’s that way. Hong Kong too. Maybe it’s a colonial thing.”
Miscelaineous: “Maybe. But Japan was here when Korea was modernizing.”
The Chang: “That’s true.”
Lunamania: “What about China?”
Miscelaineous: “They don’t drive in China; they just ride bikes everywhere.”
The Chang: “Or when they do drive they don’t use any lanes.”
Lunamania: “In Japan it was about the swords.”
Miscelaineous & The Chang: “Swords?”
Lunamania: “Yeah. People walked on the left side of each other because of their swords. So they wouldn’t clank as they passed one another.”
Miscelaineous: “I could see how you wouldn’t want clanking swords. But Korea’s never been much of a sword country.”
Lunamania & The Chang: “Oh.”
Miscelaineous: “Well, anyway, have a happy Thanksgiving. Eat lots of turkey.”
Lunamania & The Chang: “You too.”

(slightly edited/fabricated due to my poor, poor memory)

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

 

a future without big heads is no future at all

this country is crazy. a friend sent me this article today (thanks, alisa!), which you might have seen as it’s on the new york times’ most-emailed list. basically, some kids are getting sent to boot camp to cure web obsession. now i’m not sure if climbing trees and doing safety falls are going to get some boy who plays sudden attack for 17 hours a day to drop the controls and walk away from the glowing screen, but i find this article interesting in a few ways. first, one of the reasons i’ve heard cited for why korea has become the most wired country in the world was the high demand for high-speed connections facilitating such games. basically, all those kids wanting to play starcraft made high-speed connections a basic necessity. is it the chicken or the egg? secondly, i’m not surprised by the 17 hour a day example cited in the article: before i came to korea i would joke about the obsessive, over-the-top tendencies of the some of the koreans i knew (and are related to) . . . now i know it’s nothing to joke about. i won’t claim to have any explanations (though i do have some working theories), but i think it’s pretty safe to say that this is a country where taking something — a hobby, a goal, an activity — to an extreme is not seen as a bad thing or unhealthy whatsoever. it’s completely normal for a senior in high school to sleep for four hours a night for a year straight in preparation for the college entrance exam; it’s not unusual for a friend to announce no one will be seeing her for the next nine months because she’ll be focusing on getting a job. we’ve all heard about those weekly company outings where workers drink themselves into a vomity mess and then call it a success the next day. if i told people i was going to hike deep into the forests of jirisan and not come out until i finished my novel, the response would be: good idea, good luck. no shock, i swear it.

okay, i’m exaggerating a bit, but my point is that i find it not a little ironic that these kids who aren’t acting all that out of line with the many adults around them, and whose consumer habits drove the internet connection market in the first place are now having to be treated in a government-sponsored program. on second thought, maybe it makes perfect sense.

but perhaps the doctor quoted in the times’ article is right about korea being on the leading edge. i saw this article the other day about how email is becoming obsolete, or at least associated with “elders” and work, and wondered if this might someday (soon?) be the case in the states. after all, korea was texting like crazy by the millenium and had cyworld up and running years before friendster or myspace were a thought in anyone’s head. this is the land of the 4G cellphone (korea’s technology was just made the standard, according to this article), and where people made famous by uploading themselves doing stupid shit have been featured on variety shows for waaaaay too long.

the REALLY, REALLY crazy thing is that when i lived here from july 1996 to july 1997, NO ONE had email or internet access. and back then i had a beeper. it was purple. no cellphones in sight, no PC bangs, nothing. that was only ten years ago! and things have changed at such a rate that now the government is expanding its web obsession boot camp and email is for old folks. i’m almost afraid to leave — next time i come aliens will be last year’s fashionable pets and everyone will be seven feet tall.

speaking of which, i’ll leave you with one last link: this article is about how the korean population has changed physiologically over the years. what i find hilarious is towards the end, when “face-body ratio” is discussed and koreans are reassured that their faces and heads are shrinking. but i love those big heads — they’re what make korean dads korean dads:

right?

 

guilt

this blog makes me feel guilty. i have no excuse for not posting, other than realizing pretty much every aspect of my personality is antithetical to blogging. but i did join facebook, which is kind of fun. if you’re not on, join, and i’ll throw a sheep at you. i’m also on goodreads, another source of guilt — i realize just how often i start and then abandon a book. maybe i should just throw the towel in on miscelaineous . . . but i do want to blog about persimmons. maybe after that.