Category: Personal

Posted on

[lunch]

Topic: The Mission

Last night I told Jenny that I would be taken out for lunch today.

“Again?” she asked.

It’s true that we get fed just ridiculously often at this job. In fact, just last night there was a reception in honor of something to do with the proposed Convention on the Rights of the Disabled, a project on which our Minister Kang has taken a leadership role. According to a Bosnian woman I met there, Korea has a reputation for having good spreads at our functions, and last night the buffet was in high form: sushi, fried and steamed dumplings, beef cubes, smoked salmon croquettes, lavish desserts, songpyeon (pounded rice cakes, pictured above). In fact, much of the fun last night was watching the many non-Korean guests try to figure out the tteok:

“What is that?”

“Is it sweet?”

“No, it’s … it’s kind of salty.”

“Is it good?”

“I’m not sure.”

Today a large group of us were taken to Woo Chon, a fine Korean restaurant on 36th Street. This is the same place where we went way back in December for barbecue, but today’s lunch was more subdued, if only slightly. There was still soju (rice wine), this time with cucumber steeping in it, which gave it a surprising delicacy and lightness. Then there were numerous shared dishes, including some Korean-Chinese sweet and sour chicken, as well as the dreaded nakji (octopus). And then came the dishes we’d ordered for ourselves. I’d asked for samgyetang (a mild soup consisting of ginseng, jujubes and a whole spring chicken stuffed with rice, pictured right), which elicited a round of knowing o-o-oh’s from everyone. At first I thought this was because I’d ordered in Korean, which consisted of using the word “chuseyo,” which means “please bring me.” But later Yoo Dae-jung explained to me that samgyetang is “good for health — especially men.” It’s normally a summer dish, but I was craving it, and Woo Chon served the best I’ve ever had, in a bowl that could easily serve two. Woo Chon serves by far the best Korean food I’ve had in Manhattan, and in New York its only rival is Kum Gang San in Flushing. Of course, this is based on my fairly limited sampling. Still, if you’re looking for quality, authentic Korean cuisine, you could do worse than Woo Chon — which, of course, gets the seal of approval from a passel of Korean diplomats.

Posted on

[six months]

Topic: The Mission

Today marks my six-month anniversary at the Korean Mission. This is primarily relevant because it means I’m now eligible for vacation days, but it’s also an exciting milestone in itself. I’ve been here for half a year, and all is well. It’s still the best job I’ve ever had.

I don’t think I’ve ever had a job before where I wasn’t basically hating it by the six-month mark. Even at DoubleClick, which I came to enjoy considerably by the end of my three years there, the six-month mark was not auspicious. I was dreadfully arrogant about my own brilliance, while at the same time hopelessly undercommitted to performing any actual work, and this had understandably irked my boss, who probably would have fired me had she not been busy doubling the size of the department every six months, and had my attitude not been relatively common among the rapidly expanding staff of stock-optioned twentysomethings (it was a dot-com). So at six months, I was already fuming and plotting my escape, at least from the department.

And as for STV, my only other corporate job to last that long, let’s just say that I’ll probably never be truly happy at a company whose name is an acronym that doesn’t stand for anything.

The one other job at which I lasted more than six months was teaching English in Korea, and here’s what I had to say as the six-month anniversary approached:

It’s a poetic accident that the midpoint of our stay in Korea falls pretty much on April Fool’s Day. We have been here six months now, and we will be here for another six months, and so we have reached what people call “the Hump.”

It’s a curious metaphor when you stop to think about it. Is it supposed to imply that it’s all downhill from here? And if so, does that mean it gets easier or that it gets worse? I do feel sort of like those climbers who summit Everest — not triumphant, just dazed, oxygen-starved and worried that the descent is the most difficult part of the journey. Jenny’s been sick for the last week with what was finally diagnosed as severe bronchitis, and I’ve been working too many hours while trying to take care of everything around the house. So when I walked into my classroom at the kindergarten on Friday to discover that all my students’ artwork had been removed, the side table had been moved across the room, a long coat rack had been placed in the only free space in the room, the toys were spread all over the place, and there were someone else’s students sitting around the table, I just lost it.

So I suppose this really is the first time I’ve hit six months and felt, if anything, more positive about the job than I did at the beginning. I think I may stick with this for a while.

Bonus: While I was digging through old emails to see how I felt about Korea at the six-month mark, I ran across this video of Jenny and me at our professional best.

Posted on

[what was that you said?]

Topic: Around Town

While surfing the nominees for the 2005 Bloggies, I stumbled across a fabulous collective blog that gets at one of the rich pleasures of New York life: Overheard in New York. New York throws together an incredibly diverse mix of people, and we spend a tremendous time within earshot of each other, absorbing fragments of passing conversation and culture — a chador walking past a bikini top, a blast of salsa giving way to the thud of Punjabi-influenced hip-hop, the scent of honey-roasted peanuts mingling with clouds of kebab smoke. And, of course, little snippets of conversation that you just can’t ignore. It can get overwhelming at times, but it’s also why I live here.

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[two jews, two many opinions]

Topic: Afghanistan

Today the BBC reported that Afghanistan is down to its last Jew. There used to be two, and what did the two Jews do? They squabbled over control of the synagogue, accusing each other of apostasy and of being at fault for the Taleban’s confiscation of their Torah scroll. Not that I want to go trafficking in all the worst stereotypes, but this is like learning that the two Irishmen on a desert island get drunk every night and fight, or that the Belgians in a lifeboat have established an institutional framework for dying of thirst. It’s painful, that’s what it is.

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[learning korean]

Topic: Korea

Yesterday I had my first Korean language class at The Korea Society. I’ve decided to start at the Basic level, despite my prior dabblings in Korean, because it’s always easier to go over the basics with a language than to try to catch up when you’ve missed something important. That being said, yesterday’s class was almost totally unnecessary for me, as it mostly covered hangeul, the Korean alphabet, which I already know quite well.

What was most interesting, then, was the part of the class when we all introduced ourselves and explained why we were taking Korean. Out of the twenty students, six were there because they had Korean spouses or fiances and wanted to be able to communicate with their in-laws, three were Korean-Americans (including one who’d come with her fiance) who hoped to be able to talk to their own families, and one woman had an adopted Korean daughter. Then there were those of us who were learning the language for professional reasons, like the Japanese woman who works as a news translator and sometimes has to deal with articles from Korea, or the young man who wanted to get into the military or other security work. Beyond that, there was a guy who is thinking of living in Asia, a woman who decided to take the class because her daughter is also learning Korean, and a couple of people who just love languages.

The teacher, Shin-Hark Suk (pictured above), began teaching Korean in 1984 and has been giving classes at the Korea Society for 9 years. Having tried my hand at teaching language, it was interesting to watch a veteran go at it. Considering how little there was for me to learn during this first session, it’s difficult to judge how well she taught, but I was impressed by the packet she handed out to help us learn the Korean alphabet. She’d designed it herself, creating mnemonic pictures for each Korean letter, in which the letter formed part of an image of something that begins with the same sound. She has a curious habit of punctuating her speech with the word “yes,” drawn out and extended: “This letter — ye-e-es — makes a ‘guh’ sound — ye-e-es — looks like goose — ye-e-es.” But she seems friendly enough, and I expect that she’ll be a perfectly serviceable guide to the Korean language.

I’m sure I’ll have more to say as the class progresses.

Posted on

[the new beck record]

Beck – Guero

The new Beck is coming! The new Beck is coming! The new Beck is coming!

Apparently the new Beck record, Guero, which will be released on March 29, was accidentally leaked to the Internet. Popadopalis has the title track.

I’ll admit that I was a bit nervous about Beck’s reunion with the Dust Brothers. Odelay is a fascinating record, but it’s never been my favorite, and I’ve preferred the soulful Beck of Mutations and Sea Change. I was concerned that Beck, now a married father and a Scientologist, might come out with a rehash of a record, an overproduced trifle.

Guero, at least, is nothing like that. A Spanglish funk groove, it manages to sound immediately like Beck, but with all kinds of twists and flavors that feel new. Beck grew up in a Mexican part of Los Angeles and has long played with Mexican sounds, the most obvious such experiment being Burro, a full-on mariachi version of the song Jackass that I prefer to the original. This new track calls to mind both Beck of the Odelay era and WAR without sounding like either. Check it out.

Posted on

[dance dance revolution]

Topic: Culture


DDR dance pads.
If you’re not familiar with Dance Dance Revolution, you probably will be. It’s that game you may have seen at the mall or at Coney Island in which some kid does impossibly complicated dance moves to the beat of some dreadful techno song. And it is, as advertised, revolutionary. Part hopscotch, part Tetris, it’s a video game that your girlfriend wants to play as much as you do. It’s a video game, moreover, that is actually healthy to play.

I first played DDR in arcades in Korea, where I was struck that there were video games to teach you how to dance. Along with the karaoke systems that gave you a score for accuracy (but not interpretive genius), I felt this went a long way toward explaining the quality of Korean pop videos. The way it works is that there are four arrows on the floor pad — up, down, left and right — and corresponding arrows scroll up the screen. When they cross a certain point, you have to step on the pad indicated. Sometimes they come in combos, which involves jumping on two arrows at once.

The game was fun in Korea, but we were never keen to hang out in video arcades. What has turned me into a Dance Dance Revolutionary is my friend Daniel’s purchase of the game for his girlfriend. Our entire circle of friends is now hooked. Daniel and his girlfriend got so gung-ho, in fact, that he actually bought a pair of fancy dance pads so that he and his girlfriend could play simultaneously, in battle mode. On Saturday night, as the blizzard thickened, a whole bunch of us gathered at Daniel’s, and using all three pads, we Danced Danced Revolted the night away, occasionally pausing when our feet were overheated to run barefoot through the snow in Daniel’s yard. (Those of us who were too pooped to keep playing went in the kitchen and discussed Security Council reform, leading one guest to complain of severe cognative dissonance as he walked across the apartment.)

Dance Dance Revolution may be the perfect game for my generation, arriving at the perfect point in our lives. We are now hitting that age where nature, left to its own devices, will make us progressively uglier over time. But if you’re not involved in some kind of challenging organized sport, exercise can be excruciatingly dull. StairMasters and exercise videos are less intellectually challenging than flossing. DDR, on the other hand, is compelling in a soothingly familiar way. The challenges are familiar from other video games, which also require that you coordinate actions according to rhythmic indicators. The main difference is that you operate the controller with your feet, which means you can get a cardiovascular workout while you play. This is more or less perfect. It’s also appealing to both men and women — a rarity in video games, but incredibly helpful for the increasing percentage of folks my age who are in long-term relationships. And unlike Tetris, that other gender-neutral video game hit, DDR encourages multiple players. Even if you only have one dance pad, you’ll want to switch off, just to give yourself a physical break.

Having joined the Revolution at Daniel’s, Jenny was agitating for a Revolution in our own home. Unfortunately, this would have meant buying a whole gaming system, which is more of an investment than we were willing to make. Lucky for us, there is Cyber Groove, a blatant rip-off for the PC. Ours has shipped; I’ll keep you posted on whether it actually works, and how well.

Posted on

[the lying problem]

Topic: Politics

On my way to lunch at the UN cafeteria, I happened to catch Senator Barbara Boxer, live on CNN, letting Condoleeza Rice have it during her confirmation hearing. Senator Boxer repeated Condie quotes from various times that contradicted each other, suggesting that Rice’s loyalty to the president and to her duty to sell the war “overwhelmed [her] respect for the truth.”

Rice responded by saying that she never lost her respect for the truth. Then she declared that “I really hope that you will refrain from impugning my integrity.”

Now, this has been a recurring problem with criticism of the Bush administration: they lie openly, but it’s considered impolitic to say so. So the exchange looks like one in which Senator Boxer makes the relatively weak charge that Rice’s “respect for the truth” was “overwhelmed,” while Rice makes the more pointed charge that Boxer is “impugning my integrity.” It makes Boxer look less straightforward than Rice, which is exactly wrong.

At this point, we should take off the kid gloves and just say people are lying when we catch them at it. Enough.

Posted on

[greatest deity name ever]

Topic: Japan

Are you ready?

“His Augustness Truly-Conqueror-I-Conquer-Conquering-Swift-Heavenly-Great-Great-Ears.”

That’s from the Kojiki, an eighth-century Japanese compilation of origin myths. If it helps, HATCICCSHGGE was born in the following manner:

The august name of the Deity that was born from the mist [of his breath] when, having begged the Heaven-Shining-Deity to hand him the augustly complete [string] of curved jewels eight feet [long] of five hundred jewels that was twisted in the left august bunch [of her hair], and with the jewels making a jingling sound having brandished and washed them in the True-Pool-Well of Heaven, and having crunchingly crunched them, Susa-no-o blew them away, was HATCICCSHGGE.

There, didn’t that help? I thought so.

Posted on

[the late great duke]

Topic: Culture
In Slate today, jazz critic Stanley Crouch explores the wonders of late-period Duke Ellington, which, he argues, are still underappreciated.

Late Ellington is some of my favorite music ever made. There’s a depth, sophistication, complexity and richness that it’s hard to find anywhere else, coupled with a narrative quality that I find incredibly beguiling. Crouch mentions a few of my favorite Duke records from the late period, including …And His Mother Called Him Bill, a wrenching recording of songs by Billy Strayhorn, Duke’s longtime collaborator, recorded just after Strayhorn’s death; New Orleans Suite, featuring the blistering “Blues for New Orleans,” one of the last recordings made by saxophonist Johnny Hodges (the audio sample gives you a tiny taste of Hodges’s luscious sound); and my personal favorite, The Far East Suite, which manages to capture the musical and cultural feel of the East (actually the Near and Middle East primarily) without falling into cliches or parroting of Eastern sounds.

Here are two of my favorite pieces from that suite. Tourist Point of View is, to me, an incredibly vivid and accurate depiction of what it’s like to arrive in an exotic city like Kathmandu or Delhi, full of jangling sounds, startlement and incomprehensible conversation, but seductively hinting at a sinuous beauty just below the surface. Mount Harissa, a tour-de-force for tenor saxophonist Paul Gonsalves, is named after a mountain in Lebanon, a country once renowned for its beauty and lush greenery, and it captures the stately beauty of a cedar-clad mountain above an ancient city.