Filed under: Korea
I wasn’t going to write about this for privacy reasons, but in light of the insanity and completely unfounded, fabricated gossip, rumors, and bullshit going around on various Korean blogs and places like Dave’s ESL, I feel that I have to make a statement of some sort.
The person being accused of rape and held in Busan is someone that I’ve been good friends with for four years. We knew each other back home from musical ventures and attending Buddhist meditation retreats together. People seem to think they have clear image of who or what this person is, and from the brief, nauseating time I spent reading some of the posts, I can tell you: you don’t.
First of all, he’s not a typical American in any way shape or form. He is someone who spent most of his life being shuffled to different countries under refugee status, and just recently became an American citizen. He’s a little over five feet tall, ninety pounds, and makes a point of finding something genuine to compliment about every new person he meets. The week before he headed to Busan, he spent at my house, and although he was an annoying houseguest at times, I by no means ever felt threatened by him.
He may be guilty, he may deserve to spend time in jail. I don’t know, I wasn’t there, and neither were any of you. That is for an investigation to figure out. I’m not going to recount what he told me on the phone, but I was the one he called when he was arrested, just because I’m the only person he knows in Korea who might have had a lead to a lawyer. I have no idea how accurate his version is, although from a personal character standpoint, I don’t find this person to be even remotely violent, but to me it sounded like a severe breakdown in communication between two people who were really drunk resulting in a “he said/she said” scenario that is every coed’s worst nightmare.
Regardless of whether he is guilty or not, I do believe he deserves to have fair representation and trial, which as a foreigner, it doesn’t look like he is going to get. They scheduled a court date within hours of arresting him for the next morning, with no intention of providing representation or a translator. Luckily, one of the people I contacted had the foresight to contact the embassy who sent a translator to the courthouse. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have had anything. As far as I’ve heard from him and another close mutual friend, for the initial court hearing, he didn’t have any professional representation, and wasn’t given time to find any. Since then, I think he’s found someone, at a cost of several thousand dollars. I haven’t been in contact with him for the last week, and don’t know what his status is.
I’m not opening my blog up for public debate. I’m not going to visit, read, or comment on any of the sites discussing this. I will disable comments to my blog if I have to. I wanted to make a statement on behalf of my friend, but I am not interested in having a firestorm on here. I will delete posts that I don’t care for.
Seoul has some great mountains in the distance, and some you can even find to climb. But it doesn’t seem most of my current companions are of the nature adventuring sort.
There is a subway stop that has been curious to me lately. It is in on a peninsula on the edge of a mountain, then the subway goes through the mountain and drops you off on the other side. Because of my crazy work schedule, I didn’t get going early enough to really climb a mountain, but I did wander around what was labeled as an “eco-city.” I’m guessing in the summertime it is a busy, green, place for gardening demonstrations.
I didn’t spend that much time exploring this little village as the sun was going down, but the subway ride to this area was an interesting look at how the edges of Seoul just keep expanding. At the edge of the city there are all these major apartment complexes being built that aren’t quite finished. Entire neighborhoods being built with nothing in them yet. There essentially is no break heading west to Incheon, and I wonder how far East all this development will get. It was nice to be out in an area that was largely agricultural. I had a refreshing, if brief walk around.
On my way back to Seoul I needed to find some food, which is not something I’m particularly good at. I decided to forgo the trusty foreign foods in Itaewon (even though I was craving empanadas), and went to Myeong-dong instead. I wasn’t very successful, but there is a nice ice sculpture outside of Shinsege. On a whim, I texted my one and only true Korean friend regarding a suggestion for where to eat. Joey, who gave himself his English name because he loves the show Friends, and his girlfriend picked me up and treated me for sushi at a new place they like. It was the perfect ending to a rambling day.
Oh yea, and over dinner, I learned that the expression “I can cook a man” means you know how to handle your men. Which came about when they asked me if I cooked any Korean food at home, to which I replied, “I can’t cook.” They thought that was pretty hilarious.
December was a highly discontent month. Holidays celebrated in drunken Korean fashion, and a stunted, disappointing selection of reading.
Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex
Interview with Mary Roach on Fora TV.
Dork Whore: My Travels Through Asia as a Twenty-Year-Old Pseudo-Virgin
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Women Writers Explore Their Favorite Fairy Tales
Ancient Wisdom, Modern World: Ethics for the New Millennium
My year in reading:
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November
I was going back over the months because I’m trying to pick the best book I read in the past year for a game I play on bookobsessed. The year definitely started out fantastic when I was unemployed, reading constantly, and waiting to ship out to Korea, since being here my reading time has dwindled, as has my selection. But overall, not so bad.
Filed under: economics, Korea, Travel | Tags: artificial islands, Incheon, Incheon free economic zone, Korea, New Songdo City, Songdo City, urban geography
I woke up too late today to venture out on my original plan which would have included a two hour subway ride each way. By the time I had gotten to my destination to take the pictures, I’m sure the sun would be on its way out. So I decided to take my local subway line, the Incheon line to the end. I knew the area was under heavy construction, and has been for several years, but I was not aware of the fact that it literally doesn’t really exist yet.
I was the only person to get off the last stop. There wasn’t a soul in the terminal, except for a young sleeping security guard. My shoes even squeaked on the floor it was so new, shiny, and unused. When I got to the top of the stairs of the subway terminal this is what I saw.
No sidewalk. No ubiquitous Paris Baguettes. Actually not a store, or, for that matter, a fully constructed building in site. It was a wondrous construction zone that lasts for miles. The only place I’ve been in Korea where I was the only one around. A few construction trucks flew by, and although I know I shouldn’t have been there, I couldn’t help wondering around and trying to get a few good shots. The Free Economic Zone of Incheon is going to be the world’s largest constructed community. A 10 year, estimated $40 Billion dollar project, it is a completely planned, completely wired, and eventually the hopeful center of some serious international commerce. I’ve heard that starting prices for apartments, that haven’t even been built yet, is $500,000. Even if I never come back to Korea to teach, seeing what happens to this area in ten years would be worth taking a trip.
This part of Incheon, as in literally the piles of dirt under my feet, didn’t exist a few years ago. Well, actually it existed as a landfill. Korea has been undergoing massive artificial island projects to expand. It is quite plain on the subway maps which parts of the city are artificial, and where the natural coast line is. The faint dotted lines are where future development is planned. Although Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Dubai and other places have been using this as a form of land reclamation for years, it still makes me wonder at the stability of it all, if say a major earthquake or tsunami were to hit the area. I’m also curious as to why artificial islands fall under the geographic term of reclamation, how can you REclaim something that never existed?
New Songdo city is not all that large. I managed to walk from the barely existent International Business subway stop to the Incheon University subway in probably a little over a half hour, and that was with meandering around construction zones and taking pictures. I was hoping there would be a little life around the University stop, but it was literally a subway stop poking out of a field of dirt. There was a shuttle bus to take students to the school, which I couldn’t see on the horizon and a student pointed vaguely in the distance to where it must be. I’m quite confused as to why the stop is named for the University, except that from the subway line, I guess it is the closest access point to the school. A shuttle stop and subway marker jutting up out of nothing.
In between is the Central Park subway stop. A completely planned, and what is clearly going to be quite lovely park in the middle of this constructed city. Complete with public art pieces already installed. The impression I get both from some brief research reading, and from walking around the area, is that this city is meant to be an entity in and of itself. It has plans for international schools (with tuitions of upwards of $25,000/year), tax incentives for international business, a banking industry with low interest loans (presumably to very large investors), and the makings of town that plans to exclude, and possibly outright dismiss the existence of people of lower economic class. It makes me wonder what kind of actual life or vibrancy this fabricated city is going to have. Can you plunk down a city where one never existed, move in a bunch of folks, and call it home? I guess I should ask someone from a gated community in Arizona. (jab.)
Here is a photo of a poster on a construction barrier that shows what the city is supposed to look like when it is finished. Very modern, very urban, and quite nice. Of course, this doesn’t show the trash, the cars, the exhaust, or an Ajashee clearing his throat and spitting it next to someone’s shoe.
On a whim I got off a couple stops later at Campus Town. Again, I was having faint dreams of college towns, but alas, I think it meant “campus of highrise apartments.” Again, although this area is much further along in development and people clearly live here, there was nothing in the way of restaurants, shops, or stores within close walking distance of the subway stop. Even the map inside the subway was barren except to show the location of three housing developments. It makes me wonder if with the popularity of the car, there isn’t a move toward separating residential and commercial space, which, in this city, would be an incredible shame.
A brief and interesting article.
An article on the “wired” aspect of New Songdo City.
Filed under: Korea, Travel | Tags: Contemporary art in Korea, Seoul Grand Park
I was supposed to go to Busan today, but the person I was going to meet said they were leaving early. So after a meal of Kimchi Jiggea with Japanese noodles, I decided to cancel my ticket, and just wonder within the subway system. I love that the light blue lines have pictures of places that might be of interest. I hopped on line 4, and went to Seoul Grand Park. Obviously somewhere that is meant to be enjoyed in the summer, as all the gardens were wrapped up, I found it hugely relaxing and calm though compared to the last couple of weeks. There were a few families milling around, and I headed up to the National Museum of Contemporary Art.
This guys jaw moves up and down and he is singing something rather somber and pleasant.
The special exhibit right now is called Peppermint Candy. Artists that grew up and were formed by the 1980s social and political change. The exhibit was taken to Chilie as part of a cross-cultural exchange, and was popular due to Chile going through similar changes at similar times. I got a lot more out of the exhibit because of the wonderful English-speaking docent who gave me a great and informative tour of the exhibit.
True to art everywhere, this exhibit featured artists that live on the fringe of Korean society. There were large collections done by two openly gay artists. One of my favorite pieces was a giant floor mat sculpted from incense with English and Korean words spelling out famous gay bars. It burns for two months, and then is created again.
Another one of the artists prominently featured is a Korean woman in her mid-thirties married to a German man. She took several photographs of Korean/foreign relationships where none of the couples looked particularly happy. Although looking at the viability of cross-national relationships, she said some of the couples argued that it wasn’t necessarily about culture, but the nature of marriage and their own inner problems that were keeping them disconnected.
This artist also had pictures of older, nude, Korean women in their houses. The docent told me that originally the director of the museum wasn’t going to let the pieces be shown, not because the women were naked, but because they weren’t showing women as classically beautiful. When the artist argued that that was preciously the point, I guess he relented. An interesting side note, is that when I said to the docent, “Oh, I see, she’s trying to show regular woman,” she got a distasteful look on her face and said, “No, not regular, old.” The difference in cultural norms about women glaring through once again.
The main, permanent exhibit of the museum is a wild, spiralling installation of thousands of tiny tiles surrounding a column of TVs. It was entertaining, and, luckily, they allowed pictures.
The best part of the day was riding the skylift back to the subway station. I’m not convinced that net below would do much if one were to fall of out the flimsy lap bar across the chair though.
The Canadian radio show The Current, hosted on CBC Radio, has posted a story on anti-foreigner sentiment in Korea that I thought some folks might find interesting. In light of the Anti-English Spectrum, a site that has spent lots of time trying to discredit foreign teachers who teach English, and a group that calls itself KEK (Kill English Teachers in Korea) sending death threats to a couple of teachers, I think it is important for international teachers who are considering moving here to weigh this kind of activity into their decision making process. Not saying they shouldn’t come here, it’s just a part of the puzzle.
The show can be streamed here, it’s the second story on the page.
There seemed to be a lot of other interesting stories on here too, I might start frequenting this site more often.
Blogs that have been reporting substantially reporting on many things in Korea, particularly the anti-foreigner sentiment: Brian in Jeollanamdo, The Marmot’s Hole, Gusts of Popular Feelings
Some of the things that bother me about some of these stories are how much they don’t go both ways. Foreign women have dealt with being groped on Asian subways for decades. I’ve had penises waved at me, my figure outlined by drunk men who then give a thumbs up sign, my cleavage (which I try to keep hidden, buy hey, sometimes the girls like to get out) stared at with no attempt to hide it. But one time a white husband absently touches his Korean wife’s ass and a full on subway riot ensues? Give me a break.
I’m also bothered by the AIDS tests since they are not administered equally, but to be honest the US does the same thing. Anyone wanting to emigrate to the country has to take an HIV test, whereas I wouldn’t have to as a teacher in a school in my home state. The thing that bothered me most was how little hygiene there was at the hospital. A nurse wiped blood off a person’s arm with her bare hand for god’s sake. (Kimchi Icecream has written a lot about hospitals in Korea.)
There’s just something that’s not quite right…..
Filed under: Uncategorized
Kathryn over at Lessons from the Monk I Married was kind enough to think of me for two blog awards she received and is passing on:
In turn I’d like to pass this one on to Susan Young Photo, a wonderful collection of photography and snipets of music, food, and culture.
This one I would like to give to my online turned real-life friend Susan at Naked Without Books. A witty chronicle of what she reads, and the endless pursuit for English books by an expat living in Korea.
This also made me realize that I need to branch out and start finding more well-written inspiring blogs that I can pass awards onto. I seem to have become stagnant lately.
Filed under: Books
Long plane rides, and a stunted work schedule allowed for some more good reading this month. I am back to the grind in Korea for anyone who is confused.
In reverse order:
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
I first heard about this book from an NPR story on Mysteries You Might Have Missed Along the Way. I really enjoyed reading the uppity eleven-year-old protagonist as she tries to clear her father’s name of a murder over a rare stamp.
Free Food for Millionaires
Casey Han is an first generation Korean-American. Although fully a New York City girl, her parents are Korean immigrants that eventually kick her out of the house for not following their wishes. As her parents struggle with their unfulfilled desires, Casey develops an addiction to shopping, men, and marveling at the differences between Korean and white cultures in the Big Apple. Although it took me a while to get into this book, I ended up really enjoying it. I felt like I knew Casey as a real person, she could be any of the women I see everyday here in Seoul, addicted to shopping, status, and the pursuit of a good (or at least rich) man. Although this may sound like a premise of a chi-lit book, it was far from it. More of a sweeping look at culture, relationships, and money.
The Fifth Book of Peace
I really wanted to like this book, but it really just wasn’t that good. It was divided into five different sections, some fiction, some non-fiction. The first section was fantastic. A recount of Kingston’s return from helping her dying father to find her house, and her latest manuscript, in flames. She tries to recreate the manuscript, but the story falls exceptionally flat. I agree with, and really wanted to rally for this book’s anti-war stance, but it’s not the kind of book you could pass around to friends hoping to win converts.
Skin: Talking About Sex, Class And Literature
by Dorothy Allison
I think for someone who isn’t already a Dorothy Allison convert, this might be a tough read. I’ve read both of her major works of fiction, and I thought I had read all of her non-fiction until this came up as last months pick for the Seoul Women’s Bookclub. I really enjoyed it, but I think it is meant more for a women’s studies class on sexuality than it is for light weekend reading. I read it on the plane back to the states and had to put it down when I got paranoid that the men sitting on either side of me might be looking over my shoulder at the chapter regarding the proper use of dildos.
When My Name Was Keoko
This was an amazing book recommended by my friend Susan at Naked Without Books. It outlines Japanese occupation of Korea during WWII from a young brother and sister’s perspective. The title of the book refers to the fact that all Koreans were forced to change their names to Japanese names and learn Japanese language exclusively in the schools. Part of the book talks about secretly learning to read Hangul at home after hours, and an elderly neighbor who refused to learn Japanese after the words for 1-5, so they had to rush her outside for the daily line-ups to make sure she was a low enough number that she could speak. I’d say this is my top recommendation for the month.
Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America
I’ve been a fan of a couple of Ehrenreich’s books in the past, but this one was not at all convincing. Her interview with John Stewart was way more entertaining than the book. The beginning chapters where she chronicles her battle with breast cancer and the relentless barrage of “positive thinkers” in the cancer community was relevant and interesting. After that she goes into a history of positive thinking in America and the book looses a lot of momentum when she takes it from the personal to the research angle. It was a good read overall, but not nearly as convincing as the work she’s done on poverty and job inequity in America.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Barbara Ehrenreich | ||||
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Buried Deep (Retrieval Artist Novels, No. 4)
I started the month with my occasional delve into the sci-fi realm. This was a fantastic read. Everything good sci-fi should be: lyrical, anthropological, and convincing. I didn’t even realize that it was the fourth in a series until I had finished it, but really it made no difference.
Filed under: Travel
For your listening enjoyment: a new song I recorded while I was home for Thanksgiving.
I never get tired of photographing my hometown of Portland. I go to the same spots over and over again, but the light is always different, it’s never quite the same.
Here are a few of my favorites from last week.
There are some folks back home who don’t seem to believe me that Korea is probably the most technologically advanced country I’ve ever been in. High rises, subway cards, and just about anything you could ever want is available here. Hell, they have heated toilet seats, how could you get more civilized than that?
Some cityscape shots from near the Namdeamun market in Seoul:
Zafar, a friend from Pakistan flashing a peace sign.
Seoul Tower
Yongsan Station
Home again, home again. My street.
Ruby Ramblings 