...

Iris Chang, 1968-2004

A simple request

Dear North Korea:

Please don't test out your Ro-Dong missiles on Japan any time soon. I'd rather worry about earthquakes and shit like that.

Thanks,

fukei jones

안녕히게세요

Well, this is probably going to be my last entry while in Korea. My flight from Incheon leaves at 6:30pm tonight - I have to be out of the dorm by noon. This is going to be a loooong day.

Last night I decided to take one last stroll to get a good sentimental look of the area that I've been fortunate enough to be living in these past few weeks. When you walk away from Ewha, heading west on Seodemun-gu's main street, you'll hit "wedding street". Both sides of the street are packed with wedding gown stores, and places offering custom-made hanbok. Most of the professors at Ewha have told me that women's opportunities are still expanding after they've received their college degrees. I'm not so sure, though. The irony of strolling past dozens of wedding boutiques after walking through the world's largest women's university is enough to instill doubt into just about anyone about typical Korean expectations for young women.

I spent the rest of the night talking to the girlfriend, who is now in Hong Kong, via instant message, and lounging in the 쉼터, in front of the crappy communal LG television, watching something on NHK about war criminals. With a can of Hite, of course.

I have all of my things packed, and I've had my last container of yogurt drink with microwavable 낙지볶음밥 (octopus fried rice). I'm feeling a little sad about leaving, but at the same time I'm a little anxious to get back home. On the other hand, still, I'm a little apprehensive about going back to the states. There are plenty of things that I hate about the states that simply aren't issues here - for example, I have to drive in order to get to the grocery store at home in California, whereas here, I can walk for five minutes to get food. I have not had any trouble from Koreans, not even from the two homeless people (total) that I've seen here. Well, those of you in the states will know what I mean.

Have I mentioned that I miss Mexican food? I really, really do. I think that is probably one of the more decisive factors for me to go back home, if only for a little while.

I'm not sure how often I'll be updating this thing (i.e. with meaningful content) while I'm busy doing nothing in the states. I have a lot of work to do for the next two months - I have to relearn Japanese, but now I think, with learning a minimal amount of Korean, it's helped me out quite a bit. Who knows, maybe I'll continue with Korean one of these days. It definitely couldn't hurt, although I wish I had had enough time to perfect it while being here.

Until next time, Seoul.

Recap

Hello.

It's been a while since I've updated, which is kind of a same, considering how much I've been able to do for the past, oh, two or three weeks. Listing details don't really seem to suffice...at least here, I think. Usually when I've done a lot, I normally "forget" until the moment strikes me to remember, which is a pain in the ass for someone like me, whose selective memory doesn't really help in giving descriptions of fantastic trips. Well, here's a shot.

I'm down to my final days here in Korea. As I've mentioned to many a postcard recipient, I may be pretty ready to go back to the States, if only for Mexican food. Seriously folks, if the North had burritos, I'd be flying over those land mines and barbed wire in a heartbeat to get to a single burrito. I wish I was kidding about this. Therefore, it's safe to assume that being in Korea is really not a good place to have food cravings, as foreign food is pretty hard to find and a little expensive to boot. Don't get me wrong, I love Korean food - even Koreanized Japanese food has made its spicy little way into my digestive system. I've developed a strange inclination to 퇴지갈비 (pork rib meat). I say strange only because I normally consider myself a "flexible" (i.e. seafood-eating) vegetarian. Whatever. This is definitely the wrong place to be a militant vegan, and besides, you only live once, right? Right.

Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to visit the Demilitarized Zone. Not as spooky as I thought it would be, but it was still strange having to drive along dirt roads with "CAUTION: LAND MINES" signs and barbed wire lining them. Unfortunately, there was only one spot where we were allowed to take pictures, and that happened to be at an observatory facing one of the closest points to the Military Demarcation Line. We had to stand behind a yellow line, about twenty feet away from the edge of the observatory (with "sight-seeing" scopes marked "For military use only", although you could buy five minutes of time for 500won). At the edge, they have a five foot wall built, so it's extraordinarily difficult to get a picture of anything...which is the point. The girlfriend was able to take a clandestine "close-up" photo on the edge of the barrier, though. Needless to say, after seeing the world's tallest flagpole at Panmunjom, and not to mention a brief glimpse of my favorite Stalinist state, I at least fell asleep on our stinky hot tour bus with a good deal of satisfaction.

Other notables, which will be outlined when I'm not so wiped out by 한국어 숙제:

1.) Visited Korea's oldest lesbian bar (didn't I mention how everything in Korea is the first, biggest, or oldest?) last week and gave lemon soju a try

2.) Watched a buttload of Korean movies, both for classes and at DVD방s, only to realize that some of them will be screening at the 4 Star's Asian Film Festival on the week that I get back to the States.

Well...지금 차요.

엽기

Most blogging-related web sites - particularly entire domains - are still being blocked by the South Korean government, including blogspot.com.

As evidenced by my being able to post on this site, blogger.com is still largely unaffected. But since this site is hosted on Mills College's server, this content can still be viewed without any hassles.

The dillema is, the month-long ban doesn't seem to have accomplished anything other than proving that South Korea's Ministry of Culture and Information is operating under a dangerous pretext for censorship. You can still access rotten.com from here, much to my own chagrin, yet I can't even read my younger sister's Livejournal. There is something very, very wrong here.

Red tourism

China apparently is launching a campaign to promote "red tourism" and possibly even a tour to "re-experience the Long March".

Oh, THAT would be fun.

"Mom, are we in Yenan yet?"
"Be quiet or the I'm turning this car around back to Shanghai!"

I guess this is funnier in my head. Damn.

DVD방

Yesterday I went out and experienced the expensive joy of one of Seoul's DVD방s - DVD/video "rooms".

For the uninitiated, they are exactly what they sound like. You rent a video or DVD (usually for around 5,000 up to 25,000 (!) won), buy some buttered "squid" or Pocari Sweat for refreshments, and then relax in your own, semi-private little room to enjoy your film. They even come with a couch and an ashtray. And air-conditioning. Simply amazing, if you ask me.

Today, however, began a strike of subway employees in Seoul, and possibly other cities here in Korea. Although reading this article from, hmm, 10pm, after having to wait a whopping 25 minutes for both the westbound green line, as well as the northbound orange line to get back home, I would have to disagree that things are running just as smoothly as was predicted.

Well, at least I got to watch part of the Japan-Korea soccer match on the orange line's onboard TVs (ironically, a few hours before that, they aired the news conference between Junichiro Koizumi and Roh Moo-hyun from Jeju-do).

노레방

Last night, I finally got a taste of the inevitable 'first-timer to Asia' experience. And that, my friends, consists of blatant disregard to dormitory curfew times, pork pulgogi, lots of Hite and Cass beer, and, of course...노레방.
Also known as karaoke to some - humiliating social proving ground to others.

While I can't really go into great depth as to a play-by-play account of last night's events (does the above indication of beer provide an ample excuse?), I can at least provide sordid, unclear details.

Before hitting the bar (called 도시 I think, in Sinchon, closer to Yonsei University), our newly-made drinking buddies dragged us into the closest LG 25 to buy ADH "protection" stuff. In spite of some slight fuzziness from last night, I think it worked rather well. Although I think a lot of people might have raised their eyebrows at a group of fifteen kids, all chugging this stuff at the same time.

Ten pitchers of beer and 115,000 won later, we stumbled, along with the entire neighborhood, it seems, to 영가리 노레방 (possibly the least comforting place to be in after so much inebriation). When I say "along with the entire neighborhood", I mean precisely that. By 1:30am almost everyone on the streets in Sinchon are either falling down or trying to hold someone up (thankfully I was doing more of the latter).

And here I am, at 3pm, doing all that I can to not do the rest of my Korean homework. Sigh.