[holiday greetings]

Silent Night | The Baby Jesus | Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer | Noël | Little Drummer Boy | Jingle Bells | White Christmas | Santa Claus Is Coming to Town | Love Is | The Three Wise Men by 슬기둥 (Sulgidoong) (캐롤집 [Carol House]) (Via Music from Korea)

Happy Yule! The actual solstice will take place at 7:22 pm this evening.

Happy Chanukah! Tonight we will light seven candles, and tomorrow night will be the full eight (in both cases not counting the shamash, which is used to light and stand guard over the other candles).

And a few days early, a Merry Christmas! We’ll be spending ours with Jenny’s niece Emily, some aunts we don’t know, and a pot roast. We do not expect the pot roast to survive.

Today’s musical selection is an unusual twist on the old (and not-so-old) Christmas carols. Seulgidoong is, according to the only information I could find, “a leading modern chamber ensemble devoted to popularization of traditional music by modernizing it. Its 9 members have given distinguished performances of their unique music. They combine traditional music and new world of music in a unique way to create an original repertoire.” Sure. I’m not convinced it’s genius or anything, but hey, how many times have you heard “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” played on gayageum and geomungo?

[when do we plan?]

A curious difference between English and Korean is the way we refer to future intentions.

In English, we say the phrase “I plan to” in present tense to indicate something we intend to do in the future: I plan to go home.

Like English, Korean has several different structures to indicate different levels of intentionality. In English, we construct these forms out of various words that color the meaning: I’m thinking of going; I mean to go; I plan to go. In Korean, it’s done with verb endings that don’t have independent meaning.

For the strongest level of intentionality short of I will — translated by my textbook as plan to — Korean uses the form ~기로 하다 (~giro hada). And what strikes me as interesting is that the past tense — ~기로 했어요 (~giro haesseoyo) — is used where we use the present.

Here’s an example:

Korean: 오늘 저는 집에 가기로 했어요. (Oneul jeoneun jip-e gagiro haesseoyo.)

Translation: I plan to go home today.

Literal translation: I planned to go home today.

I think the Korean formulation is more accurate in a certain sense. By the time something is set as your intention, you’re done with the planning. Of course, the Korean grammar form doesn’t quite literally mean to plan, so it’s hard to say. Still, the idea is that you set your intention in the past, and now that intention carries on separate from your ongoing creation of it. In English, by contrast, if you say I planned to go home today, the implication is that you now have a different intent; only by maintaining the plan in the present tense — by continuing to plan — do you demonstrate that your will remains firm.

[the handshake]

Ban Ki-moon is between jobs. He gave up his post as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of the Republic of Korea some weeks ago, and though he took the oath of office yesterday, Kofi Annan gets to keep his job until the end of the year.

But this is not the sort of hiatus during which one gets to relax, sleep in and maybe hit a few museums. In celebration of the swearing-in, the South Korean Mission to the UN threw a party for Ban, and his job was to stand in one place, next to his wife in her fancy hanbok and to Ambassador Choi, shaking hands and smiling pleasantly while the rest of us gorged ourselves on hors d’oeuvres.

There had been fears prior to the event that it would turn into a mad crush, but the crowd was smaller than predicted 7mdash; maybe five or six hundred over the course of the evening — and by relegating the snacks to corner tables rather than center buffets and opening up the second floor, the Mission staff managed to keep things circulating fairly well.

Early on, in fact, we had the second floor pretty much to ourselves, completed with our own bar, so we wolfed down sushi and cheese puffs and chicken on skewers and sipped our Stolis and Johnny Walker Blacks while we had the chance. Young and I hung out by the balcony that overlooked the receiving line, trying and mostly failing to spot celebrities. (Guests included numerous UN and diplomatic bigwigs, but do you know what Jean-Marie Guéhenno looks like? Me neither.)

I made a few forays down onto the crowded first floor, weaving through the dense crowd to see what I could see. The average age was older than at most of our receptions, which I took to mean that this was a higher-level group than usual. I fell into a couple of odd conversations, including one with a woman in a shiny sweater and a big fat diamond ring who went on about how influential her husband the plastics magnate was, how many important people he’d met, how many universities he funds, and how fine a school their daughter was attending to earn her Ph.D.

Back upstairs, I found myself telling my Korea story — how we ended up there, what we did, where we lived — to a Korean gentleman who informed me that he worked for the Foreign Ministry in Seoul. When I got the chance to ask him what exactly he did there, he said that he had just finished a term as vice minister. “Vice minister of what?” I asked, confusing the title with deputy minister, which usually comes with a specific purview.

“Of the Ministry!” he said. He went on to explain that there were two vice ministers and that they took on Minister Ban’s official responsibilities when he was traveling. So here I was, talking to the ex-number-three man in the Foreign Ministry about my little language institute in Anyang. I quickly replayed our conversation in my head and was relieved to note that I hadn’t said anything embarrassing or controversial.

At another point, I found myself cornered by a reporter for Boomberg News who began pressing me for information on who really writes the speeches, and I was careful to say that the role of the speechwriters is to polish and render into better English the content provided by the diplomats, whom I described as knowledgeable and highly educated.

As the party began to wind down and the receiving line dwindled, Mr. Ahn, Chief of Operations for the Mission and the man who wields the fancy digital camera at these sorts of events, waved at me to go shake hands with Mr. Ban. “Are you sure it’s okay?” I asked, and Mr. Ahn made one of his inimitable faces, this one seeming to say, Yes, it’s okay, why not, and you shouldn’t miss this chance, and don’t be a wuss. And so I went and shook hands, feeling awkward and grinning stupidly. “축하합니다 (Congratulations),” I told him. Ambassador Choi told him in Korean that I was part of the mission staff, and Ban turned his grandfatherly smile on me, with those friendly eyes behind the ever-present glasses. Ban may not be the most telegenic man in the world, but in person he gives off considerable personal warmth. (Click here, here and here for the full-sized pictures.)

And then it was over. I moved quickly out of the way, ignoring Mrs. Ban completely, which may or may not have been a faux pas. In a little while Mr. Ban and his retinue left, and there was a giddiness among the Mission staff still standing around. After weeks of increasingly panicked preparation, they had survived. The night had gone off without a hitch, and this was the last big event they had to plan for Ban, who will soon be off our hands.

As the secretaries who had been working the door descended on plates of leftover hors d’oeuvres, someone produced a birthday cake for Mr. Lee, a long-serving staffer whose combover is a deep black that cannot possibly still be natural. We all stood there watching the candles burn down as we waited for Mr. Lee to appear from wherever he was, and he made it just in time to blow out the stumpy remainders. Then we were handed bottles of white wine that had been opened but not used, and we made our way out into the night.

[immaculate reception?]

Secretary-General-Designate Ban Ki-moon had his swearing-in ceremony (RealMedia) today before the United Nations General Assembly — on my way to lunch, I passed the president of the General Assembly, Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa, still in her frilly swearing-in blouse — and tonight, the South Korean Mission is throwing a bit of a party.

We initially invited a mere 1200 people to attend, and only 800 RSVPed right away. This may not sound like that many people, but keep in mind that we don’t have anything like a ballroom. Most of our receptions that draw more than a hundred people feel crowded. To cope with the throngs expected tonight, they’ll open up the second floor, which has some elegant conference rooms but a smaller total footprint than the first floor because of the soaring spaces below. There is also a party tent out in front, which unfortunately has the effect of blocking off a good chunk of the frontage space where people might otherwise have stood around.

Security is another concern. I have no idea what the plan is, or whether there’s even a plan. There were some NYPD barriers stacked up out front, so it looks like local taxpayers will be helping to keep the evening orderly.

I will definitely be attending tonight — I wouldn’t miss it — so watch this space for news on whether a grotesque fiasco is averted, who shows up for the crush, and whether the crowd is so dense that I can’t get to the hors d’oeuvre table.

[hermit kingdoms]

In a New Yorker article on Burma, John Lanchester notes that “Burma … has long been preoccupied with isolation, and the desire to be cut off from the world recurs in its history.”

But Burma is not alone in one sense: it is hardly the only nation in the world that has sought to isolate itself from all outside intrusion. Korea was long known as the Hermit Kingdom, and North Korea maintains that tradition to this day. Bhutan is less militantly cloistered, but it strictly limits its contacts with the rest of the world. For many centuries, Tibet and Nepal held themselves aloof, as did a number of the kingdoms of Central Asia, and not only from Europeans, though from Europeans more intently than with close neighbors.

Indeed, dotted across Asia, from Japan and Korea to the landlocked mountain fastnesses of Afghanistan, were forbidden kingdoms. I have studied Asian history more closely than some other regions, but I wonder whether Asia is uniquely rich in hermit states. Certainly the territories of Persia and Rome, whatever the ruling state may have been at the time, have not lent themselves to such isolation. Nor has the easily traversed European peninsula, with its superabundant coastline and its many rivers flowing to every sea. About other parts of the world, I’m less certain. But I do wonder whether there is anything in common among the hermit states beyond geographical potential.

[roh on the ropes]

The New York Times has an article on the dismal approval rate of South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun, down to an appalling 11 percent.

The article makes the point that Roh’s unpopularity has little to do with the North Korean issue, which people across the political spectrum recognize as intractable for any political party. The primary issue is the economy, but the article also argues that the reason the economy has come so sharply into focus is that Roh has been largely successful at what he was elected to do: give greater independence to prosecutors in pursuing corruption, stop using tax collectors and intelligence agencies for political ends, and push democratization forward.

Now voters want to use their enhanced democracy to vote for someone else. They’re frustrated by high real estate and education costs, stagnating wages, high unemployment, and President Roh’s fixation despite all this on ideological issues such as collaboration during the Japanese occupation.

What will all this mean for my little corner of the South Korean government? Hard to say, except that I hope a focus on the economy will mean we can at last get some cost-of-living raises.

I do think the article is salutary, however, for making it clear just how little the internal politics of South Korea have to do with the issues Americans associate with the country. This should be a reminder that the politics in most countries is not primarily about us, but about them. Iraqi factions are almost certainly more interested in the politics of their country and region than in our midterm elections, and spikes in violence shouldn’t be read as secret coded messages to us. The Iranian election of Ahmadinejad and the Palestinian election of Hamas likewise were not gestures of defiance aimed at America, but political calculations based on an intimate concern with the politics of those respective countries. Sometimes, an election is just an election.

[the spirit of clumping]

Katamari Damacy is a surreal Japanese video game whose name means “the spirit of clumping,” or more simply, “clump spirit.” The goal of the game and the mode of play are fairly simple but different from anything else I’ve ever played: you roll a ball (the katamari) around various environments, picking up all kinds of objects as you go — paper clips, people, elephants, chopsticks. As you collect objects, the katamari grows, allowing you to pick up ever bigger items. (You can see what this actually looks like here.) The game is presided over by a king whose speaking voice is record scratching and who either praises your success or shoots lasers out of his eyes when you fail. (He also has great legs and a psychedelic cylindrical pillow permanently lodged behind his head.)

What makes the game so compelling is the elaborate, creative, surreal universe in which you operate — not to mention its zany, sometimes dark humor — and part of that effect is achieved by the music, which consists of thoroughly loopy J-pop and a pair pieces for full orchestra, recorded with appropriate theatrical bombast.

I wish I could tell you who the artists are, but I can’t find that information anywhere. Still, you can buy the soundtrack at YesAsia.com.

01. Introduction
02. Katamari on the Rocks
03. Overture II
04. Katamari on the Swing
05. Kurukuru Rock
06. Everlasting Love
07. Tsuyogari Katamari
08. Beautiful Star
09. Heaven’s Rain
10. Houston
11. Blue Orb
12. Katamari Holiday
13. Baby Universe
14. Disco x Prince
15. Killing Hot Savannah
16. The Royal Academy of Katamari
17. King of Kings’ Song
18. Untitled

Thanks to DKNY for the link, and for introducing me to the game.

[thanks]

I have a lot to be thankful for. I have a brilliant, beautiful, loving wife, a pleasant home with good friends living nearby, a job I love. My family is doing well. My sister is graduating from college this spring, and my brother, after a period of great personal struggle, is settling happily into college life. I’m thankful for the wealthy democracy I live in, and for the opportunities I had this year to participate in the political process, and for the end results of that process. I’m thankful for a thousand small things: brunch, autumn leaves, the left lane, thermostats, MP3s, well made shoes, wasabi peas, etc.

Life is good. Thank you to everyone who is a part of that for me.

And in honor of the holiday, as I tend to do every year, I will once again repost the fantastic material I gathered from my Korean students when this most American of holidays rolled around back in 2002.

Yesterday for reasons having nothing to do with Thanksgiving and everything to do with inept management, Jenny and I had middle school classes for which the lesson was not pages from a textbook, as usual, but “ACTIVITY.” When I asked our boss, Yu-jin, what the ACTIVITY was, she sort of laughed and said, “You make.” So among other things to fill the hour, Jenny and I decided to teach our kids about Thanksgiving and have them write what they are thankful for. It ain’t as good as eating turkey and stuffing, but reading the results was good fun, and here are the best of them.

In the category of family relations:

I’m thankful for mother.
I’m thankful for father.
I’m thankful for brother.
I’m thankful for sister.
I am thankful for my cousins
I’m thankful for uncle’s son here.
I’m thankful for my dog here.
I am thankful for my parents because they help me for grow up and they care of me.

In the category of the religious:

I’m thankful for GOD.
I am thankful that I can go to church
I’m thankful for God Almighty.
I am thankful for my zezus.

In the category of the undeniably useful:

I’m thankful for my pen.
I am thankful that I can buy things.
I’m thankful for oxygen.
I am thankful that I can walk
I am thankful that I can eat
I am thankful that I wear clothes.
I am thankful that I can speak Korean
I am thankful for house
I’m thanksful for my air
I am thankful that I can learn
I am thankful for weather forecast
I am thankful that I was born, I have family and I live in Korea.
I am thankful that I can take a shower.

In the category of things yummy:

I am thankful for foods.
I’m thankful for eat many food.
I’m thankful for I eat past food.
I’m thankful for chicken.
I’m thankful for pizza.
I’m thankful for ice-cream.
I’m thankful for cookies.

In the category of the (accidentally?) poetic:

I’m thankful for my favorite thing.
I’m thankful for my hate thing.
I’m thankful for moon
I thankful for my life
I thankful for earth.
I thankful for many scientist.
I’m thankful for HOT.
I’m thankful for many trees and many rivers.
I’m thankful for mountins.
I’m thankful for earth.
I’m thankful for windy.
I’m thankful for a red sky.

In the category of fun:

I’m thankful that have good time
I am thankful that I can see B.S.B.
I am thankful that I can watch TV.
I am thankful that I can play computer games
I am thankful that I can run.
I am thankful that read a books.
I am thankful that I talk with my friends
I am thankful that I can listen to music
I am thankful that I can play the piano.
I am thankful that I can go to the beach
I am thankful that I can swam in the ocean
I’m thankful for Christmas.
I’m thankful for my birthday.
I don’t thanful that I have to do my homework

In the category of things that warm a teacher’s heart:

I am thankful that I study English
I’m thankful for go to the academy.
I am thankful for that my teachers are give a knowledge
I am thankful that my English teacher are teach me.
I am thankful that I can study
I am thankful that I have to do my homework
I’m thankful for Josh teacher

And in the category of silly English, which reminds me how much work there is to do:

I am thankful that I can see anythings
I’m thankful for many money.
I’m thankful for born in 1990.
I’m thankful for my wear.
I’m thankful for car, because we ride a car, we go fast.
I’m thankful for shoes, because we don’t wear shoes, we hurt our feet
I’m thankfor for telephone, because we say hello for our freinds for telephone
I am thankful that pencil because write a English and Korean letter
Because I learned a lot with they.
Because I can see anything.
Because I learn at books.
I’m thankful for air, rice, head, eye, computer, clothe, money, my house, Korean, pencil, brother, glasses.

Happy Thanksgiving!

[why i have a job]

“Now I stand before to you deeply touched and bumbled by the honour and responsibility bestowed on me.”

You can’t make this stuff up, and I definitely don’t have to.

[it’s official]

His Excellency Mr. BAN Ki-moon, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of the Republic of Korea, is now United Nations Secretary-General-designate.

Beyond the big question of how his tenure will unfold, we now face the insidery game of figuring out precisely when Minister Ban will step down from his current post — he has until January 1, when he takes his oath of office as Secretary-General — and who will replace him.

Do I have any idea? I do not. The interior working of South Korean politics are, alas, still pretty opaque to me.