Category: Personal

Laughing at foreigners’ fractured English may be a bit puerile, possibly even mean. But hey, the stuff is funny, and the rest of the world gets its revenge whenever we try to speak their funny languages.

In any case, I bring this up because I wish to share with you Mayor Chang-Geun OH’s charming message of welcome to his little island of “mysterious Ulleung-do,” which sits off the coast of Korea, in what the Koreans call the East Sea and the rest of the world calls the Sea of Japan (but that’s a discussion for another time). Never mind why I was looking up Ulleong-do. Just enjoy, and sic.:

Hello.

This is Chang-Geun OH, Mayor of Ulleung County.

We sincerely welcome for your visiting to our internet homepage.

Ulleungdo is the only island county in the East sea with the mystery of ancient times and the living beauty of nature.

Inhabitants of Ulleung county have played a role of guarding the East sea for a long time.

By developing blessed sightseeing resources harmoniously with Ulleunggun Inhabitants, we will make “The International ocean resort” , and open the new millenium era with it.

We hope that you will have fantastic tour to visit our county.

You can not only see the beautiful sea, evergreen forests and fantastic rocks and stones, but also enjoy special products such as cuttlefishes, pumpkin taffy, and wild greens etc.

We promise to offer you more useful and various information in this homepage.

Thank you.

No, Mayor OH, thank you.

Okay, so while my interest in Asia is not primarily romantic (although I did get to Korea by following a girlfriend), I admit that it’s something of a stereotypical pattern: cf. this post on Overheard in New York.

And while my obsession isn’t romantic, it’s definitely Romantic. In trying to trace the roots of my interest Asia, I’ve come to believe that the English Romantic poets deserve much of the credit. Poems like Shelley’s Ozymandias, Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and especially his Kubla Khan, gave me a taste for the Exotic East. So yes, I was thoroughly Orientalized. I’m not sure this is so terrible as I was led to believe in college. After all, these poets were passionately interested in the East, which is why they attempted to reckon with the aspects of the East that they found most different from their own world. This strikes me as a fundamentally sane approach — far more sane than it would have been to try to catalog what East and West had in common, although that effort became necessary as time went on.

And by the way, after you’ve reread Coleridge’s Kubla Khan, take a look at the source material, from the straightforward writings of Marco Polo:

CHAPTER LXI.

OF THE CITY OF CHANDU, AND THE KAAN’S PALACE THERE.

And when you have ridden three days from the city last mentioned, between north-east and north, you come to a city called CHANDU [Xanadu], which was built by the Kaan now reigning. There is at this place a very fine marble Palace, the rooms of which are all gilt and painted with figures of men and beasts and birds, and with a variety of trees and flowers, all executed with such exquisite art that you regard them with delight and astonishment.

Round this Palace a wall is built, inclosing a compass of 16 miles, and inside the Park there are fountains and rivers and brooks, and beautiful meadows, with all kinds of wild animals (excluding such as are of ferocious nature), which the Emperor has procured and placed there to supply food for his gerfalcons and hawks, which he keeps there in mew. Of these there are more than 200 gerfalcons alone, without reckoning the other hawks. The Kaan himself goes every week to see his birds sitting in mew, and sometimes he rides through the park with a leopard behind him on his horse’s croup; and then if he sees any animal that takes his fancy, he slips his leopard at it, and the game when taken is made over to feed the hawks in mew. This he does for diversion.

Moreover [at a spot in the Park where there is a charming wood] he has another Palace built of cane, of which I must give you a description. It is gilt all over, and most elaborately finished inside. [It is stayed on gilt and lackered columns, on each of which is a dragon all gilt, the tail of which is attached to the column whilst the head supports the architrave, and the claws likewise are stretched out right and left to support the architrave.] The roof, like the rest, is formed of canes, covered with a varnish so strong and excellent that no amount of rain will rot them. These canes are a good 3 palms in girth, and from 10 to 15 paces in length. [They are cut across at each knot, and then the pieces are split so as to form from each two hollow tiles, and with these the house is roofed; only every such tile of cane has to be nailed down to prevent the wind from lifting it.] In short, the whole Palace is built of these canes, which (I may mention) serve also for a great variety of other useful purposes. The construction of the Palace is so devised that it can be taken down and put up again with great celerity; and it can all be taken to pieces and removed whithersoever the Emperor may command. When erected, it is braced [against mishaps from the wind] by more than 200 cords of silk.

The Lord abides at this Park of his, dwelling sometimes in the Marble Palace and sometimes in the Cane Palace for three months of the year, to wit, June, July, and August; preferring this residence because it is by no means hot; in fact it is a very cool place. When the 28th day of [the Moon of] August arrives he takes his departure, and the Cane Palace is taken to pieces. But I must tell you what happens when he goes away from this Palace every year on the 28th of the August [Moon]….

But I must now tell you a strange thing that hitherto I have forgotten to mention. During the three months of every year that the Lord resides at that place, if it should happen to be bad weather, there are certain crafty enchanters and astrologers in his train, who are such adepts in necromancy and the diabolic arts, that they are able to prevent any cloud or storm from passing over the spot on which the Emperor’s Palace stands. The sorcerers who do this are called TEBET and KESIMUR, which are the names of two nations of Idolaters. Whatever they do in this way is by the help of the Devil, but they make those people believe that it is compassed by dint of their own sanctity and the help of God….

There is another marvel performed by those BACSI, of whom I have been speaking as knowing so many enchantments. For when the Great Kaan is at his capital and in his great Palace, seated at his table, which stands on a platform some eight cubits above the ground, his cups are set before him [on a great buffet] in the middle of the hall pavement, at a distance of some ten paces from his table, and filled with wine, or other good spiced liquor such as they use. Now when the Lord desires to drink, these enchanters by the power of their enchantments cause the cups to move from their place without being touched by anybody, and to present themselves to the Emperor! This every one present may witness, and there are ofttimes more than 10,000 persons thus present. ‘Tis a truth and no lie! and so will tell you the sages of our own country who understand necromancy, for they also can perform it.

Makgeolli seller.On Wednesday afternoon, we had a small party in the 7th-floor library to celebrate the new year, where the spread was different from the usual reception catering we get. Different and more Korean. There were oranges, an East Asian new year tradition; tteok in numerous varieties; various Korean snack foods, like spicy potato sticks and squid crunchies; and plastic milk bottles that had been filled about a third of the way with rice, then the rest of the way with sugar-water. This concoction, I was told, is the basis for a sour, milky rice wine called makgeolli, which is often home-brewed and sold in two-liter soda bottles. At this stage, it was a pleasant, sweet beverage with no alcohol.

Today for lunch we had a reception to push the South Korean candidate for the Committee on the Rights of the Child, which meant the usual array of dumplings, smoked salmon, sushi, stewed beef, fruit, pastries and tteok that I’ve come to recognize as our standard reception fare. The crowd today was heavily international, because it’s the votes of other countries that we’re trying to win. From what I understand, South Korea has a couple more such candidates — judgeships on the International Criminal Court and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea — so there will be more receptions to come. Which, for me, means free meals.

As a followup to my previous post on the situation in Nepal, I want to share with you an email that I received today from the CIWEC Clinic, which offers a bit of hope:

This is a short note to let everyone know that all communication services including telephone and internet have resumed in Nepal. Mobile phones are expected to be off for an indefinite period of time. The streets of Kathmandu are safer than ever before. There have been no bandhs or strikes and a positive mood prevails in the valley.

The Himalayan Rescue Association (HRA) aid posts in the Everest and Annapurna regions in Pheriche and in Manang will be open for the spring trekking season. They will have their own communication systems in place. Tourists planning to come to Nepal for trekking need not cancel their travel plans. The overall security situation in the country seems better and not worse. There are several mountaineering expeditions that will be here for the spring climbing season.

Political party leaders are under house arrest and are starting to be released. We are hopeful for lasting peace in the country.

With warm regards to everyone,

Prativa Pandey, M.D.
Medical Director
CIWEC Clinic Travel Medicine Center
Kathmandu, Nepal

Unfortunately, the latest BBC report is less optimistic. The problem remains that the democratically elected government has utterly failed at two of its most fundamental responsibilities — maintaining a monopoly on violence and holding elections — but the unpopular King Gyanendra is pretty clearly in violation of the law, there’s not all that much to indicate that he can handle the Maoist rebellion either, and his takeover only exacerbates the failure to hold elections. The ambiguity and intractability of the situation is reflected in the discussions on nepalbbs.com, where people are less for or against the king than somewhere in the middle, disappointed with the parliament, disheartened by the rebellion, disturbed by the king’s suspension of civil liberties, and uncertain what should be done.

Bowing to elders on the new year.Today is the East Asian lunar new year — what most folks think of as the Chinese New Year, because it was the Chinese lunar calendar that was adopted in Korea and Japan (much the way that Western countries adopted the Catholic calendar). In Korea, the holiday is called Seol (pronounced Saul) and observances are centered on the family, sort of like our Thanksgiving. Koreans return to their family homes, where they traditionally feast, provide offerings to their ancestors and ritually bow to their elders. A traditional food is tteok (pronounced duck), or pounded rice cakes, similar to the mochi that is eaten in Japan on the new year (and that causes several choking deaths each year, so be careful if you partake).

The traditional new year’s greeting in Chinese is gung hay fat choy, and I feel confident that this is actually true because I heard a couple of Chinese women at my Korean class last night say it to each other, and when I asked, they told me it was correct. The Korean greeting is a bit more complicated. Are you ready?

Saehae pok mani padeuseyo.(Remember that eu is pronounced like the u in put.) The greeting means, literally, “May you have much luck in the new year.”

For a whole lot more information on Seol, including some fun stuff on the traditional game of yut, check out this page at ClickAsia.com.

As promised, here’s a review of Cyber Groove, the Windows-based knock-off of Dance Dance Revolution, the increasingly popular dance video game.

So Cyber Groove is good, although not as good as Dance Dance Revolution proper, the most important differences being that the interface is less graceful and the number of songs is far more limited. Still, you get to dance to Tub Thumpin’ and YMCA, as well as 14 other tracks, and the difficulty level can be complexly modified by fiddling around with various menus. Also, unlike the pads for DDR, which come with instructions warning against sock-wearing, Cyber Groove’s plastic pad pretty much demands socks, because otherwise your feet tend to stick.

Still, Cyber Groove offers all the challenge and fun of DDR, along with the exercise — a couple of rounds, and I can definitely feel my heart pumping, not to mention that pumped feeling in my calves.

I keep talking about these dance-based video games as if they were somehow worlds more fun than other video games, but it occurs to me that this might not be true. I love video games, which is why I don’t play them. A good game has the power to absorb me for hours on end, until I look at the clock and realize I’ve been playing for 14 hours straight. I don’t want to devote that kind of time to video games, so I avoid them. (I allow myself rounds of Minesweeper at work, but only because I can trust myself to lose interest after a short while.)

So Cyber Groove is absorbing like Tetris, but there are two factors that make it more acceptable to me: 1) it’s healthy exercise for Jenny and me, and 2) physical exhaustion limits the amount of time I can devote to the game. If I ever get to the point that I can play for four hours solid on the highest setting, I will have developed legs like these:

I find this unlikely.

From what I understand, there are other versions out there as well, including one that you can plug directly into your TV (in stocks!), but the TV-only model, I have been told, gives you 16-bit sound, which means you’re dancing to an Atari 2600 game.

The New York Times today has a front page article on the new “special economic zone” in North Korea, near Kaesong, where the first joint North-South products since the division — stainless steel cookware — have recently been manufactured and sent to market in South Korea. The article is a useful counterbalance to deeply grim reports about how the North is destitute, miserable and primed to attack the South. But it does raise an obvious question: which perspective is the right one? Is North Korea turning itself, little by little, into China — an economically vigorous and globally engaged but still repressive dictatorship — or is it a Stalinist nightmare on the verge of collapse?

The answer may be a bit of both, and the economic development may be, as critics claim, merely a ploy by the regime to bring in enough hard cash to survive. Still, I’m not sure that’s a problem. A total collapse of the regime would not be a salutary experience. At best, it would mean dealing with a vast humanitarian crisis, with South Korea’s economy straining to the limit to try to integrate the North. Foreign intervention would be an absolute necessity, and that would presumably mean American intervention, which could get very uncomfortable, because it would almost certainly take the form of ongoing division, at least at first. The brainwashed population of the North is not exactly ready for prime time, which means that a democratic Korea immediately reunified would be unacceptable: the Northerners, having been taught since birth that Americans are devils, would all vote to have us thrown out, and they might also push for war on Manchuria. There is also the dire possibility that a collapsing regime might be taken over by bellicose generals who figure it’s now or never and launch an attack on the South.

The scenario of economic development is slower, but it’s also far easier to imagine it working out. Let’s say that the North really is only trying to raise a little cash. Even so, a taste of wealth is likely to encourage further efforts in that direction, and economic development has a way of taking on its own momentum. If nothing else, cronyist interests at the top will want a bigger economy to loot. Economic development pretty much by definition means increasing contact between North Koreans and outsiders, which will gradually erode the regime’s near-total monopoly of information. (China still maintains tight control over information, but nothing like North Korea’s news blackout.) It will also increase the general level of wealth, hopefully to the point that an average North Korean could plausibly save up enough money to spend a few days vacationing in Seoul.

Most importantly, economic cooperation encourages diplomatic cooperation, because the North and South will have shared interests. Instead of seeing war as an all-or-nothing proposition, the North, or forces in the North, would come to see war as a potential threat to thriving economic enterprises. And this, more than anything else, could eventually end the standoff between the two Koreas. It even reduces the pressure for reunification: if the citizens of the two Koreas can travel freely throughout the peninsula, work in each other’s countries, buy each other’s goods, call each other on cell phones, then why worry about fusing the two governments? That can come when the era of division has slipped from memory, such that no one in either government can quite understand why you’d have two governments instead of one. They can then move the capital to Kaesong — a compromise location, away from either present capital but with a history as the capital of the Goryeo kingdom.

That’s my fantasy, anyway. I recognize that it leaves a lot out, not least the question of what would prompt the North to give up its repression of its people. But I think that economic engagement is the safest way forward, and the way most likely to succeed without massive chaos first.

Topic: Culture

So there was some big football game yesterday, and from what I understand, we now have a dynasty toward which we’re supposed to be patriotic. Or was that the election? Anyhoo, we all know that the important part of the Superbowl is not the game (unless the 49ers are involved, which is not likely to happen again soon). Rather, what matters are the commercials. As such, I didn’t bother to watch the game, but I did watch the commercials on IFILM.

This year’s batch were, to put it mildly, dumb. About the cleverest thing going was FedEx’s deconstruction of the Superbowl ad, and it wasn’t that clever. The GoDaddy.com series, featuring a big-boobed bimbo shaking her thing at some kind of Congressional-type hearing on GoDaddy’s ad campaign, was just embarrassing — as smart and sexy as date rape at a frat party. Visa’s superhero ad was at least moderately impressive for its awesome display of licensing prowess. Mostly, though, the ads were sloppy, often incoherent, and really, really stupid. Some were entertaining, but nothing stood out as great. In fact, the real standout was the Degree ad with the Mama’s Boy doll, which went beyond stupid and trashy and into the deeply disturbing.

I’d say that this reflects something terribly important about American culture, but it doesn’t. It reflects something about the culture of the American advertising industry, which is showing deep uncertainty in an era of tight corporate budgets and shifting Middle American values, because of course the twentysomething hot-shots in Manhattan offices have no real clue about Middle American values. So we get softcore porn, jokes about softcore porn, and meta-ads.

Topic: Culture

If you’re a language geek, you can probably have hours of fun browsing AncientScripts.com, which is full of alphabets, ancient and modern, organized according to geography and language families. Personal favorites include Malayalam, which looks how it sounds, and Cherokee, a syllabary invented by Sequoia, who was illiterate but grasped the concept of an alphabet while working in a printer’s shop.

Topic: Nepal

As you may know, King Gyanendra of Nepal recently sacked the government of Sher Bahadur Deuba and put himself in charge. When I first read about the move, I had a feeling of deja vu: The king had done the same thing — to the same prime minister — in 2001, just days after we’d arrived in Kathmandu.

I don’t have all that much to add to the international coverage. But I’m subscribed to the mailing list for the CIWEC Clinic, the best source of Western medicine in Nepal, and today they sent out this email:

The king has taken over in Kathmandu. Immediately after his
announcement all phone lines and internet connections to Nepal were cut.

Many flights are now operating, but the phones and internet are still out as of 4 Feb morning and newspapers and television in Nepal is censored.

Please check http://www.nepalbbs.com for news and information about the situation in Nepal.

Phone lines were never before cut, even during the 1990 revolution or the Royal Massacre in 2001. This is an ominous sign.