A Yank Abroad

An alcoholic lives across the corridor. I rarely see him, but I hear him stagger up the stairs every night, his unsure footsteps ringing steady off the concrete walls. He often leaves a trail of half-drunken soju bottles in his wake, which I find the next morning on the way to work.

When he reaches his destination, apartment 401 that is, he leans heavy on the doorbell. "Ding dong, ding dong, ding dong; dingdong, dingdong, dingdong." He doesn't wait for an answer, but suddenly launches into another series of aggravating rings. I can not only hear the doorbell ringing unanswered, but I can hear him banging on the door, or pulling on the handle with typical Korean impatience. He usually stands out there for a good couple of minutes before the door opens and he is whisked inside.

Once, I peaked through the "keyhole" and saw him slumped against the door, waiting for his wife to open up.

His wife is a lovely woman, and his kids are bright with clear eyes and a cheery demeanor. Sometimes I hear her singing fervently in one of her religious revivals, and I wonder if she's praying for her husband, who certainly needs a lot of help. One time there were balloons taped to their door, and a message in Korean that read "아버지. 힘내세요." Father. Don't Give Up.

I can't imagine it's pleasant to live with a man like that.

And my New Year's Resolutions are.....................

1) Stifle the urge to insult everyone all the time
2) Love my girlfriend more
3) Love my enemies more (I'm not sure I can love Dick Cheney, however)
4) Drink less
5) Keep on exercising
6) Be more patient
7) Don't take life so seriously, after all, it will be over before I know it
8) Stop spending so much time arguing with people I don't know over the internet
9) Stop staring at the Page 3 Girls all the bleedin' time
10) Read more

Sunrise, day after the Winter Solstice, or 동치 in Korean, a day when you are supposed to eat 밧쭉 or red bean porridge.

I took this picture on the second shortest day of the Northern hemishere--December 23rd--from Longtitude 130 East, 37 degrees 30 minutes North Latitude, at approximately 7:54am Korean time.

That's Donghae, Kangwon Province, Republic of Korea for you geographically challenged folks out there.

"You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good."

These are the words of Harold Pinter, British playwright recently awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

I'd never heard of him until I stumbled across an AFP wire story in the Korea Times today. There are lots of good British playwrights, but I dare say there are few who speak the truth as he does.

Pinter called for President Bush and Prime Minister Blair to be "arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice".

"But Bush has been clever," Pinter said. "He has not ratified the International Criminal Court of Justice."

Nevertheless he added that "thousands, if not millions" of people in the US were "sickened, shamed and angered" by their government's actions.

You can count me one of them.

You can read the NYT article here, or the BBC article here.

I went up The Mountain today. I stopped at the spring to fill up my water bottles along the way. There were 7 bottles each capable of holding 2-liters of liquid . At the spring I did some sit ups, some hula hoops, some twists, some shoulder exercises and some bench presses.

At the top, it was blowing up a storm. I was sitting on this rock staring at the sun with my windbreaker hood pulled up over my face when this woman comes up and sticks her head in my face.
"나를 기역나요?" She asks in Korean.
"Of course I remember you," I tell her, instantly recalling the night she chatted me up as I stared disconsolately at the bottles of beer, rice wine, soju and makkoli, not sure particularly what poison to pick.

She instantly pulls out a plastic bottle and a cup, and starts feeding me some strawberry liquor. I get drunk immediately. It must have triggered all the rice wine still lingering in my system from the night before. "Come down with us, " she says, and I stagger down the ridge after four blurry figures in full anoraks. The wind catches us from the side, and threatens to blow us off the mountain at several points along the way.

We come to gap in the ridge, and everyone ducks into a trail falling down into thick forest. My friend pulls out an extra pair of gloves from someone else's pack. "You'll need these," she says, shoving them in my direction. In a moment I can see, make that feel, why. The trail starts a descent directly downward, and we all grip a thick, nylon rope with knots tied every several meters. Without the gloves, my hands would be hamburger meat.

Soon, we come to little glen, with a creek falling among tall sycamores, maples, oaks and other hardwoods. "Ramyeon," someone says, and we sit down to feast. The stove is fired up, and packages of dried noodles are added to water and mixed. Someone grabs the semi-stiff wrapping from a bag of instant noodles and bends it so that it forms a small basin, then gives it to me. Another person snaps two small pieces off the dry branches of a nearby shrub. I use these to scoop noodles into my little pouch of tinfoil. Someone offers me real chopsticks, but I prefer to eat with these small sticks whittled from nature.

Little light penetrates this "hollow," but that which does manages to squeak in through the branches of trees that have finally lost all their leaves. It is cold, but not so cold we can't relax, especially considering we are wearing all the clothes we are carrying. We eat the steaming hot noodles, the rice, the cabbage leaves, the kimchi, the radish slices slathered in cayenne pepper, then pack up and head further down to the bottom of the hill, to civilization, parking lots, what most people call "progress." We scare up a grouse--꿩 in Korea--along the way. It explodes out of a thicket of sere colored brush, sending dead leaves flying, beating the cold, thick air with its brown wings.

Soon, we are back in the city. The woman I've just met for the second time offers to give me a ride home. I ask her about her husband, and she tells me that he doesn't like hiking. "He doesn't like the outdoors," she says. Her friend in the backseat chimes in and says the same thing regarding her husband. So, these two women seek other men--and women--to accompany them in the outdoors.

I met some other women like this hiking in the mountains about 3 weeks ago. Three, middle-aged married women, all hiking without their husbands. I asked them about it and they told me that they almost never hike with their husbands. Ours is a "bangkok" (bang means room in Korean, and kok means right there, or immediately) relationship one of them replied. "All our relating takes places right in the room."

I think about all the Korean couples who aren't really couples, at least not in the sense that they go out and do things together. I know so many men, and women, who basically run around all day and all night long without their spouses, in fact with basically anybody BUT their spouses. It's amazing, really. I'd say of all my Korean friends, about 10% actually spend time with their spouses outside the house.

What a strange country it still is.

Legendary Tahitian surfer Malik Joyuex died surfing the notorious Banzai Pipeline on the North Shore of Oahu, in Hawaii, today.

To see a picture of this insane man in action, please scroll down.

Aloha, Malik.

Those are the words of John Lennon, the genius behind the Beatles, revealing a musical world mired in sex, drugs and general debauchery, in tapes recently revealed by Rolling Stone magazine. Read the short BBC article here.

Here's an interesting article on the diaspora of Big Easy musicians displaced by Hurricane Katrina to other points, most noticably, Austin, Texas. Did you know that they now have live music twice a week at Bergstrom International Airport, of all places.

Only in ostentatious, Austin, Texas.

An Australian, of Vietnamese ancestry, will shortly hang in Singapore for "the crime" of transiting 400 grams of heroin.

What about the alcohol dealers? Are they guilty of nothing? What of the millions of people who die because of alchohol, either directly or indirectly, each year. Is not Budweiser, Seagrams, Bacardi or Smirnoff to blame?

What about the developers who plunder and pillage the forest, and pour down huge sections of concrete. Are they not guilty for the murder of countless life forms?

What a bleedin' hypocrisy, I say.

Write to the Singapore government and give them hell!!!!!

"The ties between our two countries has never been better." That's a quote I pulled off Korean TV. The barely literate, linguistically challenged president of the United States was the one responsible for this literary faux pas, made while speaking at the APEC summit in South Korea.

This picture, of course, was not taken in Korea. It was taken somewhere in the USA.

How did this imbecile EVER get elected?????

A lot of the dickheads in Washington, such as Donald "Duck" Dumsfeld, like to talk about the Iraq insurgency being dominated by "foreigners."

Those aren't Iraqis blowing up Americans and Iraqis, he claims, but terrorists from Saudi Arabia, Algeria, and other parts. He makes it sound like Iraqis want the Americans there, and it is the evil Saudis and Algerians and Pakistanis who don't.

Well here's a story about "terrorists" from Iraq, blowing up Jordanians.

So much for the "foreign led" insurgency.

And speaking about foreigners in Iraq, what exactly are the Americans? Locals?

The BBC did a poll, asking its readers "Is George Bush was the leader you expected?" Here are some of the answers. They have been edited by Yours Truly for sake of strength and clarity.

Soon I will quit posting about the USA altogether, because I am altogether too tired of hearing about a country that everyone hears about way too much. But for now, I am still vaguely interested in the failings of this declining empire. Read on! And note Josh from Adelaide's couple of lines below. Absolutely hilarious!!!!

In Bush, the US has the best president money can buy. I don't see how he could have damaged America's reputation any more than he has. It is no consolation that I didn't vote for him.

Kevin O'Brien, Grand Haven, Michigan USA

I'm a conservative, not a fool. I expect U.S. leadership to tell the truth, respect the rule of law, and balance the books. Bush fails these fundamental tests of good governance.

William E Mitchell, Costa Mesa, CA

Bush is all that the world expected of him. The Yanks do not care that he is a fool, they only care that he does not diddle the help. Bush is still a better leader than the US deserves.

Josh, Adelaide

Every person in the USA who voted for GW Bush should be slapped with a lifetime "idiot tax" to help this lost nation find its soul and purpose in this world.

Phil, Madison, New Jersey USA

I give up - I'm moving to Canada.

Liz, New Canaan

Yes, he is exactly the neo-fascist corporate pimp that I expected.

Earl Higgins, Victoria

I take exception with your use of the term "leader": Bush is not a leader. He is a front man for a military-industrial-financial complex that has been hijacked by neo-conservatives with an agenda for world domination.

Bush leads nobody save the blind. Let us not forget that he was not elected, but appointed by the Supreme Court.

Michael Jordan, Paris, France

I think that the American public has suddenly realized that they made the second biggest mistake of all time when they elected George Bush for a second term. The biggest being of course when they elected him for the first.

Mick, Startford, CT

Sadly, he is quite exactly the leader I expected--absolutely horrible. There is nothing good about the man, never was, never will be, and it sickens me that he was ever even nominated for President, much less elected.

Tina Hartley, Holland, PA, USA

It is not too late for Bush to live up to the humility he claims his religious faith gives him, and if he cannot, the American voters should re-instill their faith in the system of government that makes impeachment possible.

Anthony F., Seoul

Bringing
U S
Sorrow &
Hate

What more service a President can be for a Nation?

Ked Gokhale, United States

I'm a 54 year old US citizen and ex-Marine. A description of the damage Bush has caused would require far more than 700 words. To me, the worst of it is that the American people are so incredibly ignorant as to elect a monumental incompetent to the most important office in the world. I fear there are very hard times ahead.

Steve Mounts

Yes, Bush is exactly the "leader" I expected - self-serving, uncompromising, uncaring, ignorant, out-of-touch and immoral. The only thing the Bush administration remains wholly focused on is itself and its misguided agenda. I am ashamed to be an American, not because of what Bush and his NeoCons have done, but because my own fellow Americans re-elected him.

Jennifer Sheda, Brainerd MN

Bush is doing exactly as I expected, horribly. To all those posting anti Bush is anti American, obviously you don't know what it means to be an American.

Esther Anderson, Salt Lake City, United States

This needs to be said: America is the world's most powerful country and its current government operates under an explicit policy of preemption. We non-Americans may have no vote, but at least here, we do have a say and it is relevant. If you want the rest of world out of your business, stay out of theirs. I, for one, will always be grateful for intervention from the America that represents freedom and justice. Under George W. Bush, and the radical Christians who back him, that America has receded.

Eric, Manila

Bush is an unmitigated disaster. He has based policies that affect the entire world not on reality but some sort of alternate reality.

The man is an embarassment.

Dave Weingart, Long Island, NY

A great American--Rosa Parks--who helped kick-start a nascent Civil Rights movement by refusing to give up her seat for a white man in Alabama 40 years ago, recently died.

May she rest in peace.

This is my new salad spinner. Actually, it's my only salad spinner. I bought it today at some obscure underground 그릇 백화점, after striking out at E-Mart. The sales people there didn't even know what I was talking about.

Salad spinners are essential, not only for the young urban professional wishing his ginger-honey vinagraitte hand-shaked salad dressing clings to the lettuce leaf in a timely fashion, but for the Korean masses, as well.

You see, Koreans eat a shitload of lettuce. And, from what I can tell, they never bother to wipe the water with which they wash it off the leaves after they wash it. It comes out shiny and green and basically dirt free and, and, and,................dripping wet.

Enter the salad spinner, perhaps the best yuppie invention ever. Better even than cocaine or designer drugs.

This little puppy--made of simple plastic--uses centrifugal force to rid the lettuce of those evil, clinging, water droplets.

The inventor of this simple tool should be knighted by the Queen of Fucking England!

Which reminds me of a story. I bought one of these and gave it to my friend, a man building great things with his mind, hands, and some kick ass power tools and modern technology. Upon opening his Christmas present, he laughed long and hard, gave me a kind of "what is this kind of look" and shoved it under the sink, and......................3 years later he bought a salad spinner (where mine went to I have no idea). He decided, after all, that salad spinners weren't as ridiculous as they appear at first sight.

Korea could afford to import a lot of salad spinners. They would do great things for this country.
Much better than those horrible Hollywood movies I see on TV.

Here's Mangsang Beach, October 24th 2005. A high-pressure low-pressure differential created huge swell in the East Sea (Sea of Japan in most atlases) that sent these 2-story high monsters crashing into the Korean peninsula. A tanker was grounded, 4 people were swept to their deaths while fishing, and waves came across the coastal highway in several places, smashing shop windows and flooding stores. The cost of the damage from the high waves was 700 billion won, according to KBS News. To get a U.S dollar figure, divide by 1,000.

That woman to the right is a moodang (무당) or Korean "witch doctor." She was rattling all sorts of talismans in the air, and shaking bells and what not and pounding on drums and cymbals and what have you, as if she were telling the big waves to go away. I asked her later if she liked the waves and she said "yes," but she got really upset when Scott went swimming. When we answered her question on why would anyone do such a fool thing, I said: "Scott feels very alive right now because of the big waves, and he merely wants to live some more." She shot us a contemptuous look, and walked away. Later, Scott and I discussed who is closer to the spirit world, a woman who sits on the sand and rattles copper trinkets in the air, or a man (I didn't go into the surf this day) who actually goes into the Devil's mix, and feels the power of Nature.

Notice those tsunami-like monsters rolling in below. Those babies are close to a mile out to sea, breaking in 20' of water. Also, notice the water in the foreground. That is due to the swell surge, which came right up to the edge of the business directly behind where I was standing. Be sure to click on the picture below to see the full-size effect. These waves are simply HUGE!!!

The last thing I want to write about is the coastal erosion. It is happening rapidly and threatening to really take Mangsang Beach away. That bungee jumping tower, which some asshole built and never bothered to take down, used to be well above the low-tide line. Now, it is always in the water. Mangsang beach has become a cesspool for mankind.

You can see more pictures of Korean surf at my World is Round homepage.

By the way, what is the plural of talisman? Talismen? Please let me know if you know.

Why do Koreans spend all their time whining about a name (East Sea! Not Sea of Japan!)? Why don' t they give a rat's ass about the pollution?

I wrote an article on the pollution in the East Sea, published here in the Korea Times, and I got this email from one Todd Vercoe, who wrote a similar article which you can read below.

It's a great read. Check it out!

13 September 2002 23:57
A sea by any other name

Shakespeare once addressed the unimportance of the names of things in his famous line "a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet." Sadly, once again the international community is wasting time on the disputed name of the Sea of Japan. It is hard to imagine the wasted time, energy and money that Korea has put into this fruitless exercise. The proposed re-naming of the Sea of Japan begs several questions. The first such question is: Why bother? An internationally accepted name is adopted for convenience of correspondence and to aid in geographical, historical, diplomatic and scientific discussions. A name in no way implies ownership of the waterway. The Korean desire to adopt the name "East Sea" coming from the Korean word "Tong-Hae" is both absurd and preposterous in the modern global age in which we live. Naming the body of water that lies east of the Korean Peninsula, south of the Far East of Russia and west of the Japanese archipelago the "East Sea" would lead to great confusion and be farcical in the extreme. The "East Sea" is not east of anything, except Korea. If the Japanese archipelago did not exist there would be no need for a name at all for this body of water, for it would be the beginning of the Pacific Ocean. Suggestions that the sea lies east of Asia are absurd, unless one considers Japan not to be a part of Asia. Also, either the Sea of Okhotsk (north of Japan and east of Russia) or the Bering Sea lay to the east of Asia, depending on one's perspective. Though, apparently, Korea would like the rest of the world to adopt the peninsula as the center of the universe, it just simply is not the case. If one examines any atlas, one can find many examples of bodies of water named for a single nation or province that in no way indicate ownership of the water: The Indian Ocean, the Mozambique Channel, the Tasman Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, the Norwegian Sea, the English Channel, the Irish Sea, the Gulf of Gascongne, the Korea Straight, the East China Sea, the South China Sea, the Timor Sea, the Florida Straight, Lake Ontario and others all share boundaries with more than one nation and no one seems to object. The Sea of Japan has boundaries on four nations (three if one considers the Koreas together) yet only the Koreans complain. It is curious to note that Russia seems particularly unconcerned even though they have a far larger coastline bordering the Sea of Japan than the Koreas can claim. That the Korean government must spend time and money in attempts at a name change is almost laughable if there was not a more serious question of the garbage and pollution that is dumped into this sea on a daily basis. The industrial cities of Ulsan and Pohang as well as the port city of Busan would be South Korea's main offenders in this ecological crime. Certainly Vladivostok and the industrial cities of Japan would also share blame for the pollution, depleted fish stocks and general poor health of this body of water. Korea should assert such international pressure on bettering the ecology of the water rather than on unimportant nomenclature so that the people from all four nations would benefit in longer lives, better heath and a more vibrant marine industry. Todd Vercoe Inje University
[AIW [Asia Africa Intelligence Wire]]

Those fundamentalist Moslem fanatics struck again, this time in the Indian Ocean surfing paradise of Bali, Indonesia.

I don't much care for them.

But I cannot deny that they are an equal and perhaps much needed opposite reaction to the fundamentalist fanatics in Washington, who wield greater--if perhaps less immediately terrifying--force.

Where do you think the Bush White House would be today without the multiple headaches of Iran, North Korea, Iraq and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita?

They'd probably be be in your womb (if you are female) and in your living rooms if you are not, telling you what's best for you and how you should live.

One day in the future, George Bush has a heart attack and dies. He
immediately goes to hell, where the devil is waiting for him. "I don't know
what to do," says the devil. "You are on my list, but I have no room for
you. You definitely have to stay here, so I'll tell you what I'm going to
do. I've got some folks here who weren't quite as bad as you. I'll let one
of them go, but you have to take their place. I'll even let YOU decide who
leaves." Bush thought that sounded pretty good, so the devil opened the
first room.

In it was Ronald Reagan and a large pool of water. He kept diving in and
surfacing empty handed. Over and over and over. Such was his fate in hell.
"No, George said. "I don't think so. I'm not a good swimmer and I don't
think I could do that all day long."

The devil led him to the next room. In it was Richard Nixon with a sledge
hammer and a room full of rocks. All he did was swing that hammer, time
after time after time. "No, I've got this problem with my shoulder. I would
be in constant agony if all I could do was break rocks all day," commented
George.

The devil opened a third door. In it, Bush saw Bill Clinton, lying on the
floor with his arms staked over his head, and his legs staked in a spread
eagle pose. Bent over him was Monica Lewinsky, doing what she does best.
Bush took this in disbelief and finally said, "Yea, I can handle this." The
devil smiled and said "OK, Monica, you're free to go."

Shit For Brains finally gave a speech he should have given 5 years ago, when he first slimed his way into the White House.

If you give a shit enough to read, here it is.

Letter from Bill Maher to Bush:

"Mr. President, this job can't be fun for you any more. There's no more money to spend--you used up all of that. You can't start another war because you used up the army. And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare: helping poor people. Listen to your Mom. The cupboard's bare, the credit cards maxed out. No one's speaking to you. Mission accomplished.

Now it's time to do what you've always done best: lose interest and walk away. Like you did with your military service and the oil company and the baseball team. It's time. Time to move on and try the next fantasy job. How about cowboy or space man? Now I know what you're saying: there's so many other things that you as President could involve yourself in. Please
don't. I know, I know. There's a lot left to do. There's a war with Venezuela. Eliminating the sales tax on yachts. Turning the space program over to the church. And Social Security to Fannie Mae. Giving embryos the vote.

But, Sir, none of that is going to happen now. Why? Because you govern like Billy Joel drives. You've performed so poorly I'm surprised that you haven't given yourself a medal. You're a catastrophe that walks like a man. Herbert Hoover was a sh**ty president, but even he never conceded an entire city to rising water and snakes.

On your watch, we've lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the City of New Orleans. Maybe you're just not lucky. I'm not saying you don't love this country. I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side.

So, yes, God does speak to you. What he is saying is: Take a hint."

A huge south swell rocked the Pacific basin recently. It peaked in Tahiti on September the Eleventh (9/11), providing 30' waves at the legendary, deadly break known as Teahupo. Here's the article, as well as a pic I pirated off the Surfer Magazine site. It shows Tahitian surfer Malik Joyuex deep in the barrel of a Teahupo bomb.

Is this totally sick or what?

Photo courtesy of Tim McKenna.

# posted by Yankabroad @ 12:14 AM 0 comments