Pro StarCraft: An Eyewitness Report
Greetings! Peanut here, coming to you from Seoul, South Korea, the epicenter of the StarCraft pro-gaming world. Today I had the great pleasure of attending two sets of exciting games for WCG Korea: Much vs. firebathero and BeSt vs. Kwanro. No spoilers here until the very end - I'll just describe the audience and fan experience.
The games were held at the e-sports stadium in the Yongsan I'Park mall at the top floor of the Digital Life electronics supercenter. The mall starts on floor three, so there are five whole floors of all the electronics and computer accessories a computer connoisseur's heart could desire. Each display case and booth is so packed with merchandise that I'm pretty sure just half a floor could fully stock your typical Best Buy. Plasma monitors, digital SLR cameras, little rubber cases for thumbdrives – you name it and it's there in all the varieties you can think of (except for Apple stuff ... I guess Korea's not big on Apple).
Take the escalator to the 9th floor and you see a small waiting area outside the doors of the e-sports stadium. I got there about an hour in advance and there was already a line of 20 or so people waiting to get in. The scene reminded me much more of a movie theater lobby than what you would think a group of kids waiting to see a computer gaming match would look like – everyone was in their teens or twenties, and the ratio was about 40% girls and 60% boys. Of course, all of them were Korean, and many of them had signs or banners prepared for their favorite players. They chatted excitedly and amiably while they waited for the doors to open, looking for all the world like a normal, wholesome, well-dressed bunch of middle-class young'uns.
The doors finally opened and I quickly snagged a plastic lawn chair in the second row in front of the stage where I had a perfect view of the two booths and the huge LCD screen in the middle. If I listened carefully I could hear background music ... was it what I thought it was? Yes, it was the Terran battle theme.
Food and drink were nominally not permitted, but many people were sipping on drinks and munching chips, and so I took out my snacks as well while we waited for things to get going. The stagehands taped up banners with sponsor logos around the edge of the stage and tested the fog machines, lights, etc. There were two stationary TV cameras on either side of the audience set up on large tripods that would afford the cameramen perfect views of the profiles of the players as they sat in the booths. There was also a camera on a moving crane arm suspended from the ceiling behind the audience and a girl with a handheld camera walking around.
People were trickling in but things were pretty dull, so I took my wallet and did a little shopping for headphone splitter cables downstairs while they were setting up. There's very little petty theft in Korea, at least in all the places I've been to, so I felt perfectly safe leaving my bag with my camera and other effects in my chair while I asked around for the cables in my broken Korean elsewhere in the mall. 1000KRW for a Y-cable (~$1) ... not bad at all.
When I got back to my seat, the lights were dimming and the excitement was starting to build. Besides the huge screen onstage, there were three smaller TVs set into the walls on each side of the stage (6 screens total) showing replays of various SC games, replays of WCIII games, and advertisements. Korean commercials are hilarious. The guys sitting next to me were talking about the SC replay they were showing on two of the screens and words like “starport” and “probes” jumped out at me as I quietly eavesdropped. There was a small commotion when the first two players – Much (Protoss) and firebathero (Terran) – unobtrusively entered their respective booths, but then the WCG logo appeared on the central screen and everyone immediately started applauding. By this time the roped-off audience area in front of the stage was full and I could see people standing or sitting on the floor near the entrance to the stadium. It was very cozy, since I think the maximum seating capacity of the place was 100 people. Girls took out folding fans, posters, and brochures to hide the lower halves of their faces while the two WCG official commentators introduced the match onscreen. People cheered as each player's face, expressionless but somehow determined, appeared on the central screen along with a few statistics. Then all was quiet as the countdown began.
The audience dynamic was very interesting and markedly different from what I expected. There was no booing and hardly any cheering or chanting aimed directly at the players at all. I guess this makes sense since the players are in soundproof booths with headphones on. There was also no pointed audience reaction to the official commentary ... and I guess this makes sense since the commentators were broadcasting from some studio somewhere and weren't actually in the room. This isn't to say that the audience was silent – far from it. There was plenty of ooh-ing and aah-ing when, say, Much somehow simultaneously cast 5 stasis fields on firebathero's tank line, and the anticipation/anxiety was palpable whenever a dark templar strayed a little too close to a buried spider mine. I found myself caught up in the eager spirit of the whole stadium, and suddenly a game that I'd only known as a cerebral exercise among friends (I don't play on battlenet much, clearly) transformed into a true spectator sport. The audience deeply appreciated every brilliant tactical move and recognized every strategical blunder, and laughed as one whenever a cute or witty sign was briefly displayed on the central screen along with the grinning, embarrassed face of the audience member supporting it (or half a face, when that audience member was a girl). The only negative vibes I felt from the crowd subtly emerged when in what turned out to be the last game of the set one of the players refused to declare gg (or 지지 in the Korean transliteration) long after he should've accepted defeat. But gg was eventually called, and the audience cheered while the winning player (again, unobtrusively) exited his booth, followed in suit by the loser after a minute or so of sullen self-reflection.
There was a bit of a break before the second set, so I followed many of the fans outside to a small outdoor balcony area where I hoped they were waiting for their heroes. My hunch was correct, and the losing player emerged with a few of his teammates from a door on the side of the building. He walked quickly, looking a little downcast, but stopped when a few fans ran up to him and respectfully offered him a small box of Dunkin' Donuts, a liter of soda, and a greeting card. No pictures or autographs – that might've rubbed it in a little too much. He quietly walked off while the small crowd of mostly girls turned and noisily cheered the winning player who had just appeared to greet his fans.
Fan behavior in Korea is very different from fan behavior in the States. The gang of 20 or so young fans – again, mostly girls – could barely contain their excitement as they gathered around the winner, leaving the poor fellow with ... actually, about a 3-foot radius of breathing room. There was no hysteria, no screaming, no pushing each other to be the first to get a body part signed. In fact, most of them were content to exchange witty banter and ask embarrassing (I presume, at least, from the reactions they elicited) questions of the player while snapping away with cell phones and digital cameras. The few that lined up for autographs were unfailingly polite, gesturing to each other to go ahead when there was confusion about who was supposed to go next. The player was surprisingly human and modest despite his chic pro-gamer jacket and special over-the-shoulder keyboard backpack. No sunglasses, no “I'm too busy for this” attitude, no bodyguards, no paparazzi, even. For a guy so obviously adored by a large group of nubile women, he seemed so normal. I didn't get his picture, but I was reassured by the low-key atmosphere and promised myself I'd bring my camera out to this special meeting point after the next set.
The BeSt (Protoss) vs. Kwanro (Zerg) match went much like the Much vs. firebathero one in terms of the audience experience. It seemed, though that this was the match many of the fans had turned out to see. One fan would yell out “[something I didn't understand] hana, dul, set!” (“one, two, three!”) and a perfectly synchronized group cheer would erupt. Then another fan would start a cheer, presumably for the other player. I think there were more BeSt fans in the audience than Kwanro fans, just from hearing the differing volumes of cheering I heard when each player's picture was thrown up on the central screen. This set was truly epic, and people went absolutely nuts time and time again. When it was all over I headed out to the fan meeting spot again and witnessed the same soda and donuts ritual with the losing player. The winner came out and we jostled politely into in a semi-circle around him with the same 3-foot radius. He excused himself at one point to go to the bathroom, bowed, and ran off while I stood amazed at this show of etiquette. After he came back, I snapped a few photos of him signing various notebooks and banners and then timidly announced myself as an American who wanted to take a picture with him. There were collective gasps and all the fans seemed really impressed as they motioned for me to stand next to him (and for him to put his arm around my shoulders) and photographed away.
Friday, August 8, 2008
The Era of Peanut
First, I was Christina. Then I was CJ. Then suddenly this summer I became Christina again. And now, I'm Peanut. Yes, my freshman-year nickname - slightly-spitefully chosen by my friends because of my mind peanut allergy - has become my internet persona, and this persona is taking off. Maybe not now, but very soon (let's say in a few months), there will be more people around the world who know me as Peanut than who know me by any other name.
In the last four days I have forgone proper nutrition, a decent sleep schedule, and time with the friends I've made who are still in Korea to immerse myself in the magic of the Korean StarCraft pro gaming scene and a new community of interesting and intelligent friends across the world who share my passion for this unique aspect of Korean pop culture and industry. Also, they really like pictures like these:
These are among the best Korean professional StarCraft gamers in the scene, and definitely among the top-paid, best-known pro gamers in the world. They are all between the ages of 12 and 28 years old and I believe these guys (BeSt, Jaedong, and Bisu are their nicknames) make upwards of $100,000 a year. They compete in games played in ultra-high tech "stadiums" which are unlike pretty much any entertainment venues I've ever seen before:
These places are tiny compared to normal stadiums - about the size of a large movie theater (not the whole theater, just one screening room). They hold about 100 audience members who sit in cheap plastic lawn chairs and can come and go as they please from the event because admission is FREE. There are usually two small soundproof booths with computers in them, one on either side of the stage area, with a huge screen in the middle (projection screen or LCD screen). There are usually 4-8 TV cameras stationed at various points in the room or held by moving cameramen to get close-up shots of the players or the audience. The focus, though, is clearly on the game and the players (e-sports athletes, I mean).
There are usually one or two of these matches happening every day here, and because I usually spend less than $5 for 2+ hours of wonderment at Korean culture, technology, and gaming prowess (subway fare plus snacks), I've been going nonstop. I think I've seen five such events in the past four days, which means 20-30 individual games of professional StarCraft (each event has two sets of matches, and each match is usually best of 3 games). Given that a game on average takes, say, 12 minutes, plus brief breaks in between, that means 5-8 hours in the past four days inside the stadiums themselves. Add in an hour round trip on the subway, and that adds up to 10-13 hours all told. Oh, and add in time spent after the events being a giggly fangirl with many other giggly fangirls (the others have MUCH better cameras though ... digital SLR) and waiting for pictures and autographs, and that's more like 11-14 hours. That's pretty much a full class schedule.
And it's so worth it. Not just the experience itself, which has been hands-down the most unique and interesting part of Korea so far (out of buddhist temples and shopping and stuff), but also the incredible appreciation and adulation I receive for it online. I've gotten 2 marriage proposals already. The enthusiasm I've generated for modern Korean culture in the hearts of English-speaking people across the world is incredibly gratifying. I was right - the e-sports industry is going to be HUGE for Korean tourism in years to come.
There are, of course, other countries with something that could be called an e-sports scene. The US and Germany are the most notable, followed by places as disparate as Brazil, Singapore, New Zealand, and China (see http://www.worldcybergames.com). But no-one and nobody can top the Koreans. In this arena, Koreans are always the favorites - so much so that in the World Cyber Games certain non-Koreans only call themselves the favorites with the understanding that they are always second-place to start with. Brazil has soccer, America has baseball and basketball, India has rugby, China has table tennis, and Korea has e-sports. I think this is as good an instigator as any for national pride. I am Korean-American, and my ancestors germinated a race and a culture that is DAMN good at competitive gaming.
Best of all for me, the Western market for e-sports is only beginning to open up. There are only a few people in the world (I'd say fewer than 10) doing professionally what I'm starting to do amateurly - traverse linguistic, cultural, and national boundaries by bringing e-sports and its golden child StarCraft to the English speaking enthusiasts all around the world. Based on the responses I've been getting online at SC2GG.com, an English-language clearinghouse and content generator for fans of the Korean StarCraft scene, I think I could make a killing in this world. The industry is already at the multi-million dollar mark, and soon it will hit the billion-dollar mark and become a multi-billion dollar industry. This is no longer about a bunch of nerds playing in their mom's basements anymore - this is capitalistic entertainment at its finest.
This weekend I'm heading to Pusan to see the Proleague Grand Finals, where the who's who of competitive Korean StarCraft will be plying their trade to thousands of fans. One of Korea's most popular girl bands will be performing at the halftime show. Did I mention it's part of a huge beach festival? It's a tradition that's been happening annually for all of five years, and I can't wait to be a part of it.
Best. Summer. Ever.
In the last four days I have forgone proper nutrition, a decent sleep schedule, and time with the friends I've made who are still in Korea to immerse myself in the magic of the Korean StarCraft pro gaming scene and a new community of interesting and intelligent friends across the world who share my passion for this unique aspect of Korean pop culture and industry. Also, they really like pictures like these:
These are among the best Korean professional StarCraft gamers in the scene, and definitely among the top-paid, best-known pro gamers in the world. They are all between the ages of 12 and 28 years old and I believe these guys (BeSt, Jaedong, and Bisu are their nicknames) make upwards of $100,000 a year. They compete in games played in ultra-high tech "stadiums" which are unlike pretty much any entertainment venues I've ever seen before:
These places are tiny compared to normal stadiums - about the size of a large movie theater (not the whole theater, just one screening room). They hold about 100 audience members who sit in cheap plastic lawn chairs and can come and go as they please from the event because admission is FREE. There are usually two small soundproof booths with computers in them, one on either side of the stage area, with a huge screen in the middle (projection screen or LCD screen). There are usually 4-8 TV cameras stationed at various points in the room or held by moving cameramen to get close-up shots of the players or the audience. The focus, though, is clearly on the game and the players (e-sports athletes, I mean).
There are usually one or two of these matches happening every day here, and because I usually spend less than $5 for 2+ hours of wonderment at Korean culture, technology, and gaming prowess (subway fare plus snacks), I've been going nonstop. I think I've seen five such events in the past four days, which means 20-30 individual games of professional StarCraft (each event has two sets of matches, and each match is usually best of 3 games). Given that a game on average takes, say, 12 minutes, plus brief breaks in between, that means 5-8 hours in the past four days inside the stadiums themselves. Add in an hour round trip on the subway, and that adds up to 10-13 hours all told. Oh, and add in time spent after the events being a giggly fangirl with many other giggly fangirls (the others have MUCH better cameras though ... digital SLR) and waiting for pictures and autographs, and that's more like 11-14 hours. That's pretty much a full class schedule.And it's so worth it. Not just the experience itself, which has been hands-down the most unique and interesting part of Korea so far (out of buddhist temples and shopping and stuff), but also the incredible appreciation and adulation I receive for it online. I've gotten 2 marriage proposals already. The enthusiasm I've generated for modern Korean culture in the hearts of English-speaking people across the world is incredibly gratifying. I was right - the e-sports industry is going to be HUGE for Korean tourism in years to come.
There are, of course, other countries with something that could be called an e-sports scene. The US and Germany are the most notable, followed by places as disparate as Brazil, Singapore, New Zealand, and China (see http://www.worldcybergames.com). But no-one and nobody can top the Koreans. In this arena, Koreans are always the favorites - so much so that in the World Cyber Games certain non-Koreans only call themselves the favorites with the understanding that they are always second-place to start with. Brazil has soccer, America has baseball and basketball, India has rugby, China has table tennis, and Korea has e-sports. I think this is as good an instigator as any for national pride. I am Korean-American, and my ancestors germinated a race and a culture that is DAMN good at competitive gaming.
Best of all for me, the Western market for e-sports is only beginning to open up. There are only a few people in the world (I'd say fewer than 10) doing professionally what I'm starting to do amateurly - traverse linguistic, cultural, and national boundaries by bringing e-sports and its golden child StarCraft to the English speaking enthusiasts all around the world. Based on the responses I've been getting online at SC2GG.com, an English-language clearinghouse and content generator for fans of the Korean StarCraft scene, I think I could make a killing in this world. The industry is already at the multi-million dollar mark, and soon it will hit the billion-dollar mark and become a multi-billion dollar industry. This is no longer about a bunch of nerds playing in their mom's basements anymore - this is capitalistic entertainment at its finest.
This weekend I'm heading to Pusan to see the Proleague Grand Finals, where the who's who of competitive Korean StarCraft will be plying their trade to thousands of fans. One of Korea's most popular girl bands will be performing at the halftime show. Did I mention it's part of a huge beach festival? It's a tradition that's been happening annually for all of five years, and I can't wait to be a part of it.
Best. Summer. Ever.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Finals are DONE!
Glory Hallelujah - I finished a harrowing day of presentations and final exams. I think I did pretty well on all three: my presentation on outsiders' perceptions of Korean online gaming culture was great, the economics final was ... okay, and the Korean final was long yet satisfying (cue Zak...).
Now I have about four weeks with little to do save a 2-days-a-week internship editing my uncle's English manuscripts and articles on human rights. Which means I have plenty of time to pursue my new plan for world domination. Ready for it?
I'm going to be an online StarCraft commentator. Listen to the first minute of this video:
This is Moletrap, a member of a small but growing community of English-language StarCraft commentators who takes videoclips of Korean professional StarCraft matches and dubs them with his own explanations of what's going on in the game. The girl he is giving a shoutout to at the beginning of the video is me, Peanut!
I would say more but I have to go or else I'll be late to dinner with my renowned uncle. More blogging to come!
Now I have about four weeks with little to do save a 2-days-a-week internship editing my uncle's English manuscripts and articles on human rights. Which means I have plenty of time to pursue my new plan for world domination. Ready for it?
I'm going to be an online StarCraft commentator. Listen to the first minute of this video:
This is Moletrap, a member of a small but growing community of English-language StarCraft commentators who takes videoclips of Korean professional StarCraft matches and dubs them with his own explanations of what's going on in the game. The girl he is giving a shoutout to at the beginning of the video is me, Peanut!
I would say more but I have to go or else I'll be late to dinner with my renowned uncle. More blogging to come!
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Failure, part II (of god knows how many)
I spent about 7 hours total trying to find the StarCraft Proleague playoffs today and came back completely empty-handed.
It turns out that there are TWO e-sports stadiums (stadia?) in Seoul, one at Yongsan and one at COEX. The MSL finals were at Yongsan yesterday and the Proleague playoffs were at COEX today. Guess which stadium my friend and I set out for at 11:30 this morning? After a delicious lunch (kalbi tang, which totally brought me back to my childhood) and a few hours of wandering around the I'Park mall at Yongsan (their electronics department is AMAZING and spans 4+ floors), we finally figured out that it was the wrong place and headed over to COEX, which was kind of far away. If I'Park is like Boston, COEX is like Manhattan, and it took a lot of map-scrutinizing and being overwhelmed by the density of people to even find the place we guessed was maybe probably the stadium. It was locked, so we wandered around a bit more trying to find an e-sports merch store and of course we couldn't find one. I got back to my dorm around 6. I know I'll be able to see another game sometime soon, but my poor friend is going back to the States this week and won't get another chance. I was so excited at the prospect of making signs and getting to be on TV, too! Pictures later.
It turns out that there are TWO e-sports stadiums (stadia?) in Seoul, one at Yongsan and one at COEX. The MSL finals were at Yongsan yesterday and the Proleague playoffs were at COEX today. Guess which stadium my friend and I set out for at 11:30 this morning? After a delicious lunch (kalbi tang, which totally brought me back to my childhood) and a few hours of wandering around the I'Park mall at Yongsan (their electronics department is AMAZING and spans 4+ floors), we finally figured out that it was the wrong place and headed over to COEX, which was kind of far away. If I'Park is like Boston, COEX is like Manhattan, and it took a lot of map-scrutinizing and being overwhelmed by the density of people to even find the place we guessed was maybe probably the stadium. It was locked, so we wandered around a bit more trying to find an e-sports merch store and of course we couldn't find one. I got back to my dorm around 6. I know I'll be able to see another game sometime soon, but my poor friend is going back to the States this week and won't get another chance. I was so excited at the prospect of making signs and getting to be on TV, too! Pictures later.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Livin' Large, Korean-style
So before I get into my big revelations (they just keep coming, man), I'm going to post some pictures, because everyone loves pictures.
This past Sunday I met my lovely aunt Eunyong for the first time. We had an amazing traditional Korean meal in Insadong, which is the old-timey tourist counterpart to the modern Western Itaewon:
This is Dalgi (hard "g"), Korea's kind of nationalistic answer to the Hello Kitty bunch (the grudge against Japan rears its ugly head again). I'm going to get some Dalgi gear at some point. Yes, its head is a strawberry.
My aunt insisted on buying me something from the little shops there after I gave her some presents from my family, including Grace's new CD.
Here are some pictures of the electronics I've picked up here. I don't really go for cute and cheap souvenirs (Dalgi aside, I mean) - I prefer things that run on batteries and that help make my life easier in some way.
My sweet LG cellphone. I'm only renting it and it's secondhand, so it only cost me $50, including a $20 deposit which I'll get back if I don't lose it or break it by the time I leave (this is somewhat uncertain). It has a special emoticon menu easily accessible while writing text messages that contains 92 unique ascii emoticons split up into 5 categories: Happy, Blue, Amaze, Animal, and Extra. I gave myself a break and changed the default language to English.
Here's also a couple pictures of me and some friends dancing at this bar called The Grand Ole Opry in Itaewon which only plays country music and has an honest-to-God Confederate flag on the wall. In the middle of the bar there was a grand ole raised wooden platform for dancing:
I got the blue skirt for $5 on the street. Korea is amazing!
Edit: Hey Jue, can I hit you up for a better skin for this blog? I had to take out the cool old paper background because it wasn't wide enough to accommodate my tables.
This past Sunday I met my lovely aunt Eunyong for the first time. We had an amazing traditional Korean meal in Insadong, which is the old-timey tourist counterpart to the modern Western Itaewon:
This is Dalgi (hard "g"), Korea's kind of nationalistic answer to the Hello Kitty bunch (the grudge against Japan rears its ugly head again). I'm going to get some Dalgi gear at some point. Yes, its head is a strawberry.My aunt insisted on buying me something from the little shops there after I gave her some presents from my family, including Grace's new CD.
 The tiny pretty package it came in ... |  Earrings! |
Here are some pictures of the electronics I've picked up here. I don't really go for cute and cheap souvenirs (Dalgi aside, I mean) - I prefer things that run on batteries and that help make my life easier in some way.
 My awesome electronic dictionary - Korean->English and English->Korean. All the menu options are in Korean (as well as the user manual), so there's the added benefit of forcing me to learn a few useful Korean terms if I want to navigate it. It also has games and 2mb of flash drive space, plus it came with headphones and a mini-USB cable. |  As you can see, it is very portable. It runs on AAAs and only cost $90. It's pretty much become one of my new best friends. |
My sweet LG cellphone. I'm only renting it and it's secondhand, so it only cost me $50, including a $20 deposit which I'll get back if I don't lose it or break it by the time I leave (this is somewhat uncertain). It has a special emoticon menu easily accessible while writing text messages that contains 92 unique ascii emoticons split up into 5 categories: Happy, Blue, Amaze, Animal, and Extra. I gave myself a break and changed the default language to English.Here's also a couple pictures of me and some friends dancing at this bar called The Grand Ole Opry in Itaewon which only plays country music and has an honest-to-God Confederate flag on the wall. In the middle of the bar there was a grand ole raised wooden platform for dancing:
 |  |
Edit: Hey Jue, can I hit you up for a better skin for this blog? I had to take out the cool old paper background because it wasn't wide enough to accommodate my tables.
It's 3am, I must be INSPIRED!
Big news coming. I think I gotta go to sleep now, but trust me, this is b-i-g. I think I've found my calling, and it'll be such a short step from this new project to total global domination- I mean uh, peace and prosperity. Stay tuned ...
Saturday, July 19, 2008
A Rainy Day in Seoul
This was the view from my seat in the little hole-in-the-wall bibimbap place where I just ate lunch. The seating capacity of the whole place was probably no more than 15, and it was run by two women in their 50's and a similiarly-aged man. You can't see the rain, but it's coming down pretty steadily out there. While eating the spicy melange of rice, egg, sauce, mushrooms, and vegetables was poetry in itself, especially for $4, it wasn't what I'd thought I'd be doing today.Right now, about 50 students from the summer program I'm attending are at the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) at the border between North and South Korea. I signed up for this field trip earlier this week and even woke up at 8:30 to go, but sadly a miscommunication between myself and my roommate Maria from Hong Kong resulted in me going back to sleep thinking the trip was canceled because of the rain. I woke up a couple hours later and slowly discovered that I'd been left behind. None of my friends or the trip coordinator (who had my cell phone number) had called to ask where I was, which was extremely disappointing. I bought some Skype credits and called my parents to cry and rant to them about how much I'd looked forward to going on this field trip and how angry I was at my friends, the Summer Program office, and myself for inadvertently missing it. The way I saw it, I wasn't really here to go see amusement parks and mud festivals or even to study economics and pop culture - this DMZ trip was supposed to be, in a way, the culmination of my rebirth as a self-aware Korean-American. Having studied Korean modern history this past semester, I had prided myself on feeling worthy of understanding the great cultural and historical significance of the DMZ, a foreign scar splitting a beautiful country into two maverick nations.
I went out to find some bibimbap to stop myself from stewing over all of this, and in the process had some great revelations.
- I am not entitled to anything. Visiting Korea is not my birthright, nor is it something I deserve for being a good student or for feeling disconnected from my cultural heritage. Being here is a gift - just the fact of it - and I should treasure that for its own sake.
- I am here mostly by lucky accident. Corollary to the first one. It is an amazing coincidence that I am who I am in this place at this very moment, and I am utterly grateful for that and all of the people and circumstances that have made this possible. Especially my mom and dad.
- Eating bibimbap has just as much value to me as visiting the DMZ. If not more. I know about Korea's involvement in WWII and the hows and whys (generally speaking) of its division by the US and USSR. I understand in a very fact-based way about the consequences of this fatal splice and the political, cultural, and emotional heartache Koreans have had to live with ever since (not to mention the whole Korean War thing). Would seeing a bunch of tanks and a wildlife refuge really have made it more real for me? On the other hand, realizing today that bibimbap is amazing comfort food has enriched me on so many levels: why did I refuse to eat bibimbap in Korean restaurants in the States but love it here? The answer has so much to do with personal identity and cultural context - it's incredible.
- Failures are as fruitful as successes. I have learned much today and am stronger because of it.
I finally figured out where the local e-sports stadium is. I look forward to seeing StarCraft live soon! Lastly, a funny sign:
Friday, July 18, 2008
High Times with Army Boys!
Since it seems more than one person actually enjoys reading my blog, I guess I owe it to all two or three of you (thanks, Peter!) to keep on keepin' on. Zak doesn't count because he gets daily updates on the crazy things that happen to me anyway (sorry Zak ^^). I've also been inspired out of my negligence by Jue and Dave, who both blog about fascinating/hilarious/profound things. Check them out!
Last night I walked around Itaewon, the area around the US Army base in Seoul. My friends Michelle and Jennifer had both been there before (Jennifer's a regular, since her family is military and they live pretty close to there), but it was my first time visiting this miniature oasis of Westernness. Seoul is a pretty cosmopolitan city in general, but this was the first neighborhood within the city I've been to that truly incorporates its KFCs and Coldstone Creameries into its own cultural fabric without seeming self-conscious about it. The three of us first tried to find this Austrian cafe Jennifer knew to have dinner, but after the high prices on the menu discouraged us (although the lovely Austrian maitre d' didn't) we headed over to a cheaper Mexican place nearby.
The food was relatively expensive and had much smaller portions than we were all used to given Mexican food in the States, but it was worth it. I still miss Anna's burritos, but the craving is a little bit more bearable now.
Then we headed over to this bar called Gecko's, and when I stepped inside I thought I'd gone through some kind of portal back to Boston because it was your typical East Coast classy pub. Dark wood all around, comfy high-backed chairs around round tables, darts boards, white men ... very familiar, although there was a noticeably higher percentage of Asian patrons than you'd normally see. Interestingly, I felt very foreign.
We met some nice Army guys training in Military Intelligence - two from Florida and one from Iowa, and all around 20 years old. Smart (but not bookish) guys who liked to laugh, drink beer, and who brimmed with good ol' devil-may-care American bluster. Two of them appreciated Michelle's growing homesickness for her native Seattle and American cable programming while one had ambitions to start up a social networking website and a restaurant in Thailand. They readily shared their pitchers of Cass (gross watery beer) with us and bought us a few other drinks too, since we were a rather attractive trio of expats. The American military doesn't have the best reputation in Korea, but like most of these kinds of situations it seems like a case of a few bad pieces of kimchi spoiling the jar rather than a malaise affecting the whole outfit. I had a lot of fun talking with these guys and learning about their experiences, and was pleasantly surprised when I dropped the H-bomb (revealed that I'm a Harvard student) and they weren't put off. Stop holding your breath, Dad - nothing untoward happened, and after a while the three of us were on our way back to Jennifer's house to spend the night.
Overall, I liked Itaewon's uniqueness and startling diversity of ethnic foods, as well as the perspectives of the expat population there, but it wouldn't be a place I would want to hang out in all the time. I like Korea for what it is, and being in Itaewon reminds me too much of what it isn't (namely, America). If I ever get sick of Koreans and academics, though, I know where to go to get some Taco Bell.
It's Friday morning right now and I'm getting ready to go on one of this program's most anticipated field trips: the Boryeong Mud Festival! I've never been covered in mud before (well, not for fun/therapeutic purposes), so I'm really excited about this trip. I'll bring my camera!
Finally, here's a funny sign from a clothing shop in Itaewon:
Last night I walked around Itaewon, the area around the US Army base in Seoul. My friends Michelle and Jennifer had both been there before (Jennifer's a regular, since her family is military and they live pretty close to there), but it was my first time visiting this miniature oasis of Westernness. Seoul is a pretty cosmopolitan city in general, but this was the first neighborhood within the city I've been to that truly incorporates its KFCs and Coldstone Creameries into its own cultural fabric without seeming self-conscious about it. The three of us first tried to find this Austrian cafe Jennifer knew to have dinner, but after the high prices on the menu discouraged us (although the lovely Austrian maitre d' didn't) we headed over to a cheaper Mexican place nearby.
 |  |
 |  |
The food was relatively expensive and had much smaller portions than we were all used to given Mexican food in the States, but it was worth it. I still miss Anna's burritos, but the craving is a little bit more bearable now.
Then we headed over to this bar called Gecko's, and when I stepped inside I thought I'd gone through some kind of portal back to Boston because it was your typical East Coast classy pub. Dark wood all around, comfy high-backed chairs around round tables, darts boards, white men ... very familiar, although there was a noticeably higher percentage of Asian patrons than you'd normally see. Interestingly, I felt very foreign.
We met some nice Army guys training in Military Intelligence - two from Florida and one from Iowa, and all around 20 years old. Smart (but not bookish) guys who liked to laugh, drink beer, and who brimmed with good ol' devil-may-care American bluster. Two of them appreciated Michelle's growing homesickness for her native Seattle and American cable programming while one had ambitions to start up a social networking website and a restaurant in Thailand. They readily shared their pitchers of Cass (gross watery beer) with us and bought us a few other drinks too, since we were a rather attractive trio of expats. The American military doesn't have the best reputation in Korea, but like most of these kinds of situations it seems like a case of a few bad pieces of kimchi spoiling the jar rather than a malaise affecting the whole outfit. I had a lot of fun talking with these guys and learning about their experiences, and was pleasantly surprised when I dropped the H-bomb (revealed that I'm a Harvard student) and they weren't put off. Stop holding your breath, Dad - nothing untoward happened, and after a while the three of us were on our way back to Jennifer's house to spend the night.
Overall, I liked Itaewon's uniqueness and startling diversity of ethnic foods, as well as the perspectives of the expat population there, but it wouldn't be a place I would want to hang out in all the time. I like Korea for what it is, and being in Itaewon reminds me too much of what it isn't (namely, America). If I ever get sick of Koreans and academics, though, I know where to go to get some Taco Bell.
It's Friday morning right now and I'm getting ready to go on one of this program's most anticipated field trips: the Boryeong Mud Festival! I've never been covered in mud before (well, not for fun/therapeutic purposes), so I'm really excited about this trip. I'll bring my camera!
Finally, here's a funny sign from a clothing shop in Itaewon:
Monday, July 7, 2008
Eyes to the Future
So I've decided I want to live and work here for at least part of my life after graduation, i.e. when I become something resembling a real person. Seoul is what I think a city should be - tons of people, colorful shops crammed in together, cheap food, karaoke bars on every corner, excellent public transportation, and beautiful scenery a glance away. Downsides include extremely high humidity in the summer (it's like breathing soup), random gross smells when you're walking down the street, and some of the world's most expensive housing. Still, if I can get my language skills up to par, I think this would be a great place to find whatever it is I want to do with my life. Okay, I do actually have an idea of what that might be - I think I want to be part of the Korean cultural content export industry and spread Hallyu all over the world! It's really less jingoistic than it sounds; America will always be my home, but Western cultural hegemony is fading fast. I really think/hope Korea will soon be the Emerald City/Hollywood/Las Vegas of the East. And cultural meccas always need people to jet all over the place and spread the good word in as many languages as possible.
Brief review of what's been going on: a bunch of us made traditional rice cakes (ddeuk) last Friday, and then on Saturday I took some friends to see the amazing breakdance comedy "Break Out" courtesy of my mom's cousin, who happens to be married to the production company CEO. Saturday night I also had my first Korean movie theater experience seeing the new Angelina Jolie action movie "Wanted." It's like "The Matrix" and "Fight Club" combined, and so it was awesome. The seats were extremely comfortable, too - plush, red, and set in front of a gorgeous LCD screen (Samsung, I assume).
This was my group's ddeuk. It was delicious!
Today I had my Intro to Economics midterm and it wasn't all that bad. At first I thought the class would be terrible, but actually even though the professor's sort of dry, I'm finding the subject really interesting. Also I feel a little jolt of Harvard pride whenever I look at my textbook and see Mankiw's name on it. Hey Alex, I can draw supply and demand graphs too!
More thoughts on my life here, new friends, and Korean views of sex and violence to come!~
Brief review of what's been going on: a bunch of us made traditional rice cakes (ddeuk) last Friday, and then on Saturday I took some friends to see the amazing breakdance comedy "Break Out" courtesy of my mom's cousin, who happens to be married to the production company CEO. Saturday night I also had my first Korean movie theater experience seeing the new Angelina Jolie action movie "Wanted." It's like "The Matrix" and "Fight Club" combined, and so it was awesome. The seats were extremely comfortable, too - plush, red, and set in front of a gorgeous LCD screen (Samsung, I assume).
This was my group's ddeuk. It was delicious!Today I had my Intro to Economics midterm and it wasn't all that bad. At first I thought the class would be terrible, but actually even though the professor's sort of dry, I'm finding the subject really interesting. Also I feel a little jolt of Harvard pride whenever I look at my textbook and see Mankiw's name on it. Hey Alex, I can draw supply and demand graphs too!
More thoughts on my life here, new friends, and Korean views of sex and violence to come!~
Friday, June 27, 2008
B-Boy, Korean Prosody, and Nationalism
Last Friday's field trip, brought to you by the Ewha International C0-Ed Summer School, was a trip to a trendy part of town to see a show called "Ballerina Loves a B-Boy," a romantic comedy largely presented through dance and starring some truly excellent B-Boys and B-Girls (B-boying = breakdancing) (the ballerinas weren't bad either). The dancing was incredible. I don't have any videos, but I did take a picture with one of them after the show.
The guy in the middle is the B-boy. He was sort of the comic relief/MC for the show - he wore a bunch of funny hats and was the token "fat guy" who turns out to bust some awesome moves. On the right is my friend Klaus, a student from Germany who's fluent in Korean (he's half) and has already been to Seoul like five times. I am jealous. Breakdancing is so hot in Korea and it's amazing how these dancers have appropriated and hybridized mostly-American styles of clothing and movement to create a very entertaining, skillful, and actually pretty masculine art form. It's creative, it requires only your own body and a stereo, and it's becoming a totally new and very Asian subculture. Also, this guy in the show put on a special helmet and spun on his head for like 3 minutes.
In other news, I recently rediscovered this incredibly hilarious YouTube video called "Korean History Channel" starring a couple of Asian guys who don't seem to know much Korean but can imitate and exaggerate the Korean accent perfectly.
Their vocal caricatures specifically illustrate a feature of Korean prosody which for the sake of being pretentious I will call the "Korean Prosodic Mordent." A mordent (link goes to Wikipedia entry) is a musical term for a kind of trill where only three notes are played - the original note, the note above/below, and then the original note again. Korean people tend to extend the final syllables of their sentences or single utterances by inflecting the pitch of the vowel so that it sounds like they're singing a mordent, especially when they're annoyed or want to get a particular point across. This strategy is a great way to add emotional content to spoken language, although it often makes non-Korean speakers remark that Koreans sound "whiny." It's much easier to do this in Korean than in English because Korean words end with vowels a lot more than English words do, and it's much harder to change the pitch of a consonant than a vowel, generally speaking. I think it's comparable to the way some English speakers - especially melodramatic teenage girls - extend and inflect the final "o" vowel in "oh my god" if they're saying it in response to something particularly exasperating ("my parents grounded me again ohmygawwwwwwwd"). The difference is that Korean people do this constantly, and not only when they're exasperated. My Korean language teacher does it a lot, especially when she's trying to emphasize something we said wrong or a particular sentence pattern we should pay attention to.
If you're interested in this kind of thing (Andrew Nevins, if you're reading this, I'm referring to you), check out Mike's post over at the Impatient Pudding on word-final character repetition in English and other languages that use the Roman alphabet. He did some ingenious original research on a fairly recent text-based phenomenon (especially prominent in internet messaging and other fairly informal internet-based text media) where people repeat the last letter of a word in order to add emphasis to its meaning. Example: if I say a guy's "hot," it's pretty standard, but if I say he's "hott" or especially "hottt," then whoever I'm talking to will demand pictures. The irony in this case is that although Korean people do this all the time in spoken language, the structure of the written language makes it very difficult to duplicate final letters and get the meaning across. Instead, you'll often see several "~" signs after sentence-final syllables, even on handwritten posters, which I think amounts to something similar. In all, I think the trend towards finding creative ways to inscribe prosody and emotional content (i.e. pitch inflection) into written language is really interesting and deserves more academic attention. This would have been unthinkable even a century or two ago when literacy, especially in Asian countries, was still fairly limited to the elite. The rise of mass literacy as well as the internet have produced an explosion of of non-formal written material which people require to carry the same emotional flavor and immediacy of spoken language (witness also the rise of emoticons :-P).
Another more sensitive issue that this video raises is the topic of Korean nationalism, even jingoism, and the subtle ways it's realized in Korean culture and language. Korea prides itself on being a "peaceful" nation, as the YouTube video guys emphasize - Korea does lie right in between China and Japan, two powerful countries who both have histories of invading and colonizing other peoples during the past thousand years or so. I think this fact - as well as Korea's long and venerable history of being invaded and colonized itself - lends the country as a whole a kind of martyred political high ground. I'm not saying that people in Seoul constantly comment about the history of imperialism in the world and how their slates are relatively clean in that regard, but I do think it's still an issue that factors into modern Korean culture and its export into other countries via television soap operas, pop music, etc (check out the Hallyu phenomenon I talked about last time for more information).
Holding this kind of moral high ground is extremely valuable in this day and age when many people (especially in Asia) continue to question and challenge Western cultural hegemony and military go-it-alone attitude (George W. Bush, that's aimed at you). However, it can also impede the development of international cooperation between Korea and other countries, especially Japan. The YouTube video specifically lampoons the Korean resentment of Japanese colonization from 1910-1945 and especially the World War II "comfort women" issue (many Korean women were forced into being sex slaves for the Japanese military during the war) when the two "historians" describe the (made-up) injustice of belligerent Japanese dinosaurs killing peaceful Korean dinosaurs. "They never say sorry!!" the two men cry, which is very similar to the outrage Koreans periodically express towards the Japanese government's inability to acknowledge the comfort women issue (see also this link) as well as the whitewashing of Japanese colonial atrocities in Korea in Japanese history textbooks. These are genuine problems from Korea and many other nations' points of view, but when is enough enough?
I will leave that question to my faithful readers and the world. In the meantime, I'm exhausted - I have class from 9:30am-5:50pm Mon-Thurs (with a few breaks) and then two hours of English tutoring in the evenings.
The guy in the middle is the B-boy. He was sort of the comic relief/MC for the show - he wore a bunch of funny hats and was the token "fat guy" who turns out to bust some awesome moves. On the right is my friend Klaus, a student from Germany who's fluent in Korean (he's half) and has already been to Seoul like five times. I am jealous. Breakdancing is so hot in Korea and it's amazing how these dancers have appropriated and hybridized mostly-American styles of clothing and movement to create a very entertaining, skillful, and actually pretty masculine art form. It's creative, it requires only your own body and a stereo, and it's becoming a totally new and very Asian subculture. Also, this guy in the show put on a special helmet and spun on his head for like 3 minutes.In other news, I recently rediscovered this incredibly hilarious YouTube video called "Korean History Channel" starring a couple of Asian guys who don't seem to know much Korean but can imitate and exaggerate the Korean accent perfectly.
Their vocal caricatures specifically illustrate a feature of Korean prosody which for the sake of being pretentious I will call the "Korean Prosodic Mordent." A mordent (link goes to Wikipedia entry) is a musical term for a kind of trill where only three notes are played - the original note, the note above/below, and then the original note again. Korean people tend to extend the final syllables of their sentences or single utterances by inflecting the pitch of the vowel so that it sounds like they're singing a mordent, especially when they're annoyed or want to get a particular point across. This strategy is a great way to add emotional content to spoken language, although it often makes non-Korean speakers remark that Koreans sound "whiny." It's much easier to do this in Korean than in English because Korean words end with vowels a lot more than English words do, and it's much harder to change the pitch of a consonant than a vowel, generally speaking. I think it's comparable to the way some English speakers - especially melodramatic teenage girls - extend and inflect the final "o" vowel in "oh my god" if they're saying it in response to something particularly exasperating ("my parents grounded me again ohmygawwwwwwwd"). The difference is that Korean people do this constantly, and not only when they're exasperated. My Korean language teacher does it a lot, especially when she's trying to emphasize something we said wrong or a particular sentence pattern we should pay attention to.
If you're interested in this kind of thing (Andrew Nevins, if you're reading this, I'm referring to you), check out Mike's post over at the Impatient Pudding on word-final character repetition in English and other languages that use the Roman alphabet. He did some ingenious original research on a fairly recent text-based phenomenon (especially prominent in internet messaging and other fairly informal internet-based text media) where people repeat the last letter of a word in order to add emphasis to its meaning. Example: if I say a guy's "hot," it's pretty standard, but if I say he's "hott" or especially "hottt," then whoever I'm talking to will demand pictures. The irony in this case is that although Korean people do this all the time in spoken language, the structure of the written language makes it very difficult to duplicate final letters and get the meaning across. Instead, you'll often see several "~" signs after sentence-final syllables, even on handwritten posters, which I think amounts to something similar. In all, I think the trend towards finding creative ways to inscribe prosody and emotional content (i.e. pitch inflection) into written language is really interesting and deserves more academic attention. This would have been unthinkable even a century or two ago when literacy, especially in Asian countries, was still fairly limited to the elite. The rise of mass literacy as well as the internet have produced an explosion of of non-formal written material which people require to carry the same emotional flavor and immediacy of spoken language (witness also the rise of emoticons :-P).
Another more sensitive issue that this video raises is the topic of Korean nationalism, even jingoism, and the subtle ways it's realized in Korean culture and language. Korea prides itself on being a "peaceful" nation, as the YouTube video guys emphasize - Korea does lie right in between China and Japan, two powerful countries who both have histories of invading and colonizing other peoples during the past thousand years or so. I think this fact - as well as Korea's long and venerable history of being invaded and colonized itself - lends the country as a whole a kind of martyred political high ground. I'm not saying that people in Seoul constantly comment about the history of imperialism in the world and how their slates are relatively clean in that regard, but I do think it's still an issue that factors into modern Korean culture and its export into other countries via television soap operas, pop music, etc (check out the Hallyu phenomenon I talked about last time for more information).
Holding this kind of moral high ground is extremely valuable in this day and age when many people (especially in Asia) continue to question and challenge Western cultural hegemony and military go-it-alone attitude (George W. Bush, that's aimed at you). However, it can also impede the development of international cooperation between Korea and other countries, especially Japan. The YouTube video specifically lampoons the Korean resentment of Japanese colonization from 1910-1945 and especially the World War II "comfort women" issue (many Korean women were forced into being sex slaves for the Japanese military during the war) when the two "historians" describe the (made-up) injustice of belligerent Japanese dinosaurs killing peaceful Korean dinosaurs. "They never say sorry!!" the two men cry, which is very similar to the outrage Koreans periodically express towards the Japanese government's inability to acknowledge the comfort women issue (see also this link) as well as the whitewashing of Japanese colonial atrocities in Korea in Japanese history textbooks. These are genuine problems from Korea and many other nations' points of view, but when is enough enough?
I will leave that question to my faithful readers and the world. In the meantime, I'm exhausted - I have class from 9:30am-5:50pm Mon-Thurs (with a few breaks) and then two hours of English tutoring in the evenings.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Funny Signs
English is everywhere in South Korea, especially in the cities. T-shirts, store signs, soda bottles, you name it. Most of the time the English text makes sense, but sometimes something gets, shall we say, "lost in translation." Check out the pictures here. I'll be taking more photos as time goes on. Maybe this will evoke happy memories in those of you who have visited Korea recently.
I do feel kind of hypocritical criticizing Korean English when I had my first 3-hour Basic Korean language class today and found out I didn't know the basics of even really simple greetings. Basic level is a step above Beginner, which is where I would be if I didn't know how to read and write hangul, the indigenous Korean alphabet which Jared Diamond described as "elegant." I agree with him - it's pretty intuitive once you get the hang of it, and there are far fewer weird spelling conventions than English. Of course, the simplicity of the writing system is offset by the complexity of the language itself, which has several different registers of formality, lots of case endings that follow their own phonological (i.e. sound) rules, and a subject-object-verb sentence structure. I can barely make sentences that have an object in them - sentences with embedded phrases are way beyond me right now (i.e. "I wish ..." or "I think ..." or "It's true that ..." as opposed to "I like kimchi" or "It's raining"). The professor for the Basic class is great and clearly has had a lot of experience teaching beginners. There are only 17 people in my class, which is also helpful, although it's by far the largest of the classes I'm taking.
The other two classes I've picked are "Understanding Hallyu: Globalization and Nationalism" and Intro to Economics. Hallyu is the Korean name for the so-called Korean Wave, the catch-all term for the explosive recent spread of Korean popular culture to all of East Asia and beyond. My interest in this topic was ignited in particular by Professor Eckert's excellent history class "The Two Koreas" as well as Steven Colbert's televised "feud" with Korean pop singer Rain. Colbert, who is currently my favorite television personality, actually created his own K-pop music video to compete with Rain where he tries to dance b-boy (aka breakdance) style and actually sings in Korean (the video has subtitles). The video itself starts around 3:55.
 |
| Funny Signs |
I do feel kind of hypocritical criticizing Korean English when I had my first 3-hour Basic Korean language class today and found out I didn't know the basics of even really simple greetings. Basic level is a step above Beginner, which is where I would be if I didn't know how to read and write hangul, the indigenous Korean alphabet which Jared Diamond described as "elegant." I agree with him - it's pretty intuitive once you get the hang of it, and there are far fewer weird spelling conventions than English. Of course, the simplicity of the writing system is offset by the complexity of the language itself, which has several different registers of formality, lots of case endings that follow their own phonological (i.e. sound) rules, and a subject-object-verb sentence structure. I can barely make sentences that have an object in them - sentences with embedded phrases are way beyond me right now (i.e. "I wish ..." or "I think ..." or "It's true that ..." as opposed to "I like kimchi" or "It's raining"). The professor for the Basic class is great and clearly has had a lot of experience teaching beginners. There are only 17 people in my class, which is also helpful, although it's by far the largest of the classes I'm taking.
The other two classes I've picked are "Understanding Hallyu: Globalization and Nationalism" and Intro to Economics. Hallyu is the Korean name for the so-called Korean Wave, the catch-all term for the explosive recent spread of Korean popular culture to all of East Asia and beyond. My interest in this topic was ignited in particular by Professor Eckert's excellent history class "The Two Koreas" as well as Steven Colbert's televised "feud" with Korean pop singer Rain. Colbert, who is currently my favorite television personality, actually created his own K-pop music video to compete with Rain where he tries to dance b-boy (aka breakdance) style and actually sings in Korean (the video has subtitles). The video itself starts around 3:55.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Lessons in Humility, or C. Kelly presents "Trapped in the Phone Booth"
Korean phone booths are very well made.
This was one of the major trains of thought running through my tired mind as I sat on the floor of a phone booth just outside my dorm at Ewha University, wondering how I'd found myself in such a cliched situation. There was no handle on the inside of the door and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to escape, since the door was one of those folding/sliding ones that opened inward into the booth. I went into the phone booth intending to call some of my relatives in Seoul and tell them I'm here and only discovered I couldn't leave after I discovered that the pay phone didn't take coins. Asian pay phones tend to take special cards that you load money onto, and of course I don't have one of those yet. I don't have a cell phone yet, either, and as my Korean vocabulary is very limited, I couldn't figure out how to call collect or what the emergency number was. Also my dorm is at the edge of campus and it was 9pm, so cars and passerby were few and far between. Thank god I had a lighter and some tissues. I ended up lighting a tissue on fire as a car approached and they stopped and let me out after I almost burned myself, dropped the flaming tissue, and stomped on it a few times. I hadn't been panicking, but after half an hour I was starting to resign myself to spending part or all of the night in a mint-green 4'x4' cubicle with a stupid useless pay phone for company.
It was definitely a "... And you go to Harvard?!" moment, but in my defense, I've only been in this country for 4 days and I can barely communicate in the language. It's been about half an hour since I was freed from my little cage, and I am definitely not attempting pay phone calling again. It's been at least a year since I've used a pay phone, and probably at least 5 years since I've used one in the States (last summer I went to Australia with my choir).
Moral of the story: always carry a lighter, or a cell phone, or both. Actually, just steer clear of phone booths, period.
No more philosophical thoughts tonight.
This was one of the major trains of thought running through my tired mind as I sat on the floor of a phone booth just outside my dorm at Ewha University, wondering how I'd found myself in such a cliched situation. There was no handle on the inside of the door and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to escape, since the door was one of those folding/sliding ones that opened inward into the booth. I went into the phone booth intending to call some of my relatives in Seoul and tell them I'm here and only discovered I couldn't leave after I discovered that the pay phone didn't take coins. Asian pay phones tend to take special cards that you load money onto, and of course I don't have one of those yet. I don't have a cell phone yet, either, and as my Korean vocabulary is very limited, I couldn't figure out how to call collect or what the emergency number was. Also my dorm is at the edge of campus and it was 9pm, so cars and passerby were few and far between. Thank god I had a lighter and some tissues. I ended up lighting a tissue on fire as a car approached and they stopped and let me out after I almost burned myself, dropped the flaming tissue, and stomped on it a few times. I hadn't been panicking, but after half an hour I was starting to resign myself to spending part or all of the night in a mint-green 4'x4' cubicle with a stupid useless pay phone for company.
It was definitely a "... And you go to Harvard?!" moment, but in my defense, I've only been in this country for 4 days and I can barely communicate in the language. It's been about half an hour since I was freed from my little cage, and I am definitely not attempting pay phone calling again. It's been at least a year since I've used a pay phone, and probably at least 5 years since I've used one in the States (last summer I went to Australia with my choir).
Moral of the story: always carry a lighter, or a cell phone, or both. Actually, just steer clear of phone booths, period.
No more philosophical thoughts tonight.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Golden Crowns and Shining Clay
First off, check out the new "Blogs I Read" box on the left, which currently contains Zak's blog Impatient Pudding and Jue's blog Orange Orange. Disregard the fact that I wrote the latest entry on IP - it was a guest blog, I swear. Anyway, give them a read, especially if you like science, web 2.0 culture, or any song with the word "remix" in the title.
The highlight of today was meeting a Korean master potter who makes replicas of pottery produced during the Shilla dynasty, which was around for a thousand years somewhere around 0 B.C. Ancient Koreans were apparently prolific potters in the Chinese tradition, and delicate green Korean celadon vases are still prized today. This guy insists on making pottery the Shilla way without fancy firing techniques or clay additives - it's all just mud, a wheel, and a wood-fired kiln dug into the side of a hill. The mud in this area (Gyeongju city, south of Seoul somewhere) apparently has a high silica content, which when exposed to temperatures above 1000 degrees Celsius naturally melts or activates somehow and gives the finished piece a glossy sheen. This means Shilla-type pottery needs no glaze or varnish, and so the potter was keen on telling us that what he makes is not pottery but actually "clay figurines." I guess the strict definition of "pottery" involves glazes or something. Anyway, we got to watch him work, check out the inside of the kiln he uses, and even make our own pots on little wheels! It's been at least 10 years since I tried to make anything resembling pottery, especially on a wheel, and it was a marvelous experience. Good art (as well as good science, math, etc.) requires singlemindedness, and although what I produced didn't really resemble good art (as much as the potter guy helped me out), the intense clarity with which I saw myself manipulating my hands, the clay, and the tools as well as the speed with which the time flew made me feel like a real artist. A dazed but happy artist, anyway. We left all of our creations there to be fired by Mr. Potter Dude, who will ship them to Ewha after they're done so we can bring them home. With any luck, mine will be sitting on my desk or a shelf next year, hopefully all in one piece.
We also walked around a museum of artifacts from the Shilla dynasty, including beautiful golden crowns worn by some of the 50-odd kings and queens before the unification. Korea, like China, was a bunch of warring kingdoms sometime around 500 A.D. and then became unified under one dynasty, never to be split up again until 1945. The "headband crowns," as they are called, are masterpieces of metalwork and symbolic design. The crowns have vertical "branches" that are supposed to mimic tree branches or antlers, both of which symbolized the king's position as intermediary between heaven and earth. Some of the "branches" have a particular shape that is actually a Chinese character repeatedly stacked on top of itself; this character is "chu," which means "to exit" or "to go out," pointing to the king's widespread influence throughout the kingdom. The goldwork of these crowns is very delicate and precise, with little golden "spangles" attached to the branches and cashew-shaped pieces of jade hanging off of it (pictures to come). Although the material is the same, the style is extremely different from stereotypical Western crowns, which are traditionally heavy, inlaid with large gleaming stones, and don't have anything hanging off of them. Western crowns are meant to be purely visual status symbols, while Shilla crowns engage hearing as well because they jingled. This difference intrigues me. I wonder what Jared Diamond would have to say about it (proximal explanations include: the availability of facetable gemstones and the intimidation factor of jingling).
We also saw an ancient bell that supposedly was only successfully cast once a baby got mixed in with the molten metal and also found out that we have karaoke on our bus. Of course - Korea is nuts about karaoke. It was funny singing Bohemian Rhapsody while watching background montages of forest critters on our bus's plasma TV.
WTF moment of today: our tour guide was telling us about what we were going to have for dinner and described it as "Korean burritos." Then she jumped into an explanation of the history of this food that went something like this: "The story of this food is that sometimes if pretty Korean women are out alone at night, ugly old men might want to take them and so they would rape them with a plastic bag." No preparation for this pronouncement whatsoever. I was traumatized. I think the actual explanation is a little more nuanced, but I'm pretty mystified at this point.
The highlight of today was meeting a Korean master potter who makes replicas of pottery produced during the Shilla dynasty, which was around for a thousand years somewhere around 0 B.C. Ancient Koreans were apparently prolific potters in the Chinese tradition, and delicate green Korean celadon vases are still prized today. This guy insists on making pottery the Shilla way without fancy firing techniques or clay additives - it's all just mud, a wheel, and a wood-fired kiln dug into the side of a hill. The mud in this area (Gyeongju city, south of Seoul somewhere) apparently has a high silica content, which when exposed to temperatures above 1000 degrees Celsius naturally melts or activates somehow and gives the finished piece a glossy sheen. This means Shilla-type pottery needs no glaze or varnish, and so the potter was keen on telling us that what he makes is not pottery but actually "clay figurines." I guess the strict definition of "pottery" involves glazes or something. Anyway, we got to watch him work, check out the inside of the kiln he uses, and even make our own pots on little wheels! It's been at least 10 years since I tried to make anything resembling pottery, especially on a wheel, and it was a marvelous experience. Good art (as well as good science, math, etc.) requires singlemindedness, and although what I produced didn't really resemble good art (as much as the potter guy helped me out), the intense clarity with which I saw myself manipulating my hands, the clay, and the tools as well as the speed with which the time flew made me feel like a real artist. A dazed but happy artist, anyway. We left all of our creations there to be fired by Mr. Potter Dude, who will ship them to Ewha after they're done so we can bring them home. With any luck, mine will be sitting on my desk or a shelf next year, hopefully all in one piece.
We also walked around a museum of artifacts from the Shilla dynasty, including beautiful golden crowns worn by some of the 50-odd kings and queens before the unification. Korea, like China, was a bunch of warring kingdoms sometime around 500 A.D. and then became unified under one dynasty, never to be split up again until 1945. The "headband crowns," as they are called, are masterpieces of metalwork and symbolic design. The crowns have vertical "branches" that are supposed to mimic tree branches or antlers, both of which symbolized the king's position as intermediary between heaven and earth. Some of the "branches" have a particular shape that is actually a Chinese character repeatedly stacked on top of itself; this character is "chu," which means "to exit" or "to go out," pointing to the king's widespread influence throughout the kingdom. The goldwork of these crowns is very delicate and precise, with little golden "spangles" attached to the branches and cashew-shaped pieces of jade hanging off of it (pictures to come). Although the material is the same, the style is extremely different from stereotypical Western crowns, which are traditionally heavy, inlaid with large gleaming stones, and don't have anything hanging off of them. Western crowns are meant to be purely visual status symbols, while Shilla crowns engage hearing as well because they jingled. This difference intrigues me. I wonder what Jared Diamond would have to say about it (proximal explanations include: the availability of facetable gemstones and the intimidation factor of jingling).
We also saw an ancient bell that supposedly was only successfully cast once a baby got mixed in with the molten metal and also found out that we have karaoke on our bus. Of course - Korea is nuts about karaoke. It was funny singing Bohemian Rhapsody while watching background montages of forest critters on our bus's plasma TV.
WTF moment of today: our tour guide was telling us about what we were going to have for dinner and described it as "Korean burritos." Then she jumped into an explanation of the history of this food that went something like this: "The story of this food is that sometimes if pretty Korean women are out alone at night, ugly old men might want to take them and so they would rape them with a plastic bag." No preparation for this pronouncement whatsoever. I was traumatized. I think the actual explanation is a little more nuanced, but I'm pretty mystified at this point.
Friday, June 20, 2008
I'm all over Korea like egg on bibimbap
The Korea blog has officially started operations! I'd like to say hi to my family, Harvard homies, Washington, D.C.-area peeps, Brooklinians, and anyone else I've met in my travels through life who has stumbled across this blog. I will be here until September 3rd, so hopefully there'll be interesting things to read about along the way.
I've officially been in the Motherland for over a day now - it's 9:45pm on the 20th and I got here around 5pm yesterday (after leaving Boston at 8am on the 18th). I got off the plane and collected my heavy but super stylin' luggage, then met my "PEACE buddy" Hyun-jin outside baggage claim. Hyun-jin is pretty, petite, and super fluent in English, which is awesome. We took a bus to Ewha University in Seoul and found out that I'm staying in this dorm at the other side of campus from the International Dorm (of Pancakes?), which is kind of lame. The Ewha campus is extremely hilly and all the girls wear high heels ... this must violate some law of physics. My room is small but adequate and I have a nice roommate named Michelle who goes to Smith. I went out to dinner at this small noodle place with Hyun-jin and then barely had time to take a shower and settle in before I was overcome with jetlag (or ennui from being such a world-class traveler? who knows.). Today about 35 of us in the Ewha International Summer Co-Ed Program set off in a bus and with some guides on a "pre-orientation" field trip. We walked around a Buddhist temple named Haeinsa and a museum featuring artifacts from the Daekaya dynasty/kingdom and had some delicious food: the infamous bibimbap and shabu-shabu (Korean hot pot). Then we walked around the commercial center of Daegu, the third-largest city in South Korea, and now we're at a hotel.
Seoul and Daegu are cool but kind of smelly. Seoul in particular is sort of a cross between midtown Manhattan, Boston, and Singapore. Also the ceilings everywhere are like 6.5' high, and the toilets, while Western-style, only come up to my knees. I feel so tall!
This hotel, the Daegu Grand, is freakin amazing. The breakfast buffet not only had all the traditional American breakfast delights plus kimchi and various kinds of porridge, but also smoked salmon and black caviar. The caviar in particular was delicious. I wish I had a sturgeon farm so I could have my own supply. The buffet area had ceiling-high windows that looked out onto a beautiful little waterfall that was probably 3 feet away from the side of the building. Zak, you would've liked the minibar in the room - two kinds of whiskey plus a can (yes, a can) of beef jerky.
Speaking of waterfalls, this country is gorgeous. The upstart hills and rocky streams may not be wheelchair-friendly, but they certainly make for amazing vistas. I think I'm in love. I'll post pictures once I'm back at Ewha and figure out how to get online via my laptop.
I have only seen one television in this country so far that wasn't a state-of-the-art flat panel high-def. Even the public buses have them. I am in awe.
Most of the others in the summer program are a) girls, and b) ethnically Korean but grew up in the States/Canada. Why are we all here? What are we collectively searching for? I don't think it's as simple as a place to belong or a new language to speak. I'll think about it and get back to you all.
I've officially been in the Motherland for over a day now - it's 9:45pm on the 20th and I got here around 5pm yesterday (after leaving Boston at 8am on the 18th). I got off the plane and collected my heavy but super stylin' luggage, then met my "PEACE buddy" Hyun-jin outside baggage claim. Hyun-jin is pretty, petite, and super fluent in English, which is awesome. We took a bus to Ewha University in Seoul and found out that I'm staying in this dorm at the other side of campus from the International Dorm (of Pancakes?), which is kind of lame. The Ewha campus is extremely hilly and all the girls wear high heels ... this must violate some law of physics. My room is small but adequate and I have a nice roommate named Michelle who goes to Smith. I went out to dinner at this small noodle place with Hyun-jin and then barely had time to take a shower and settle in before I was overcome with jetlag (or ennui from being such a world-class traveler? who knows.). Today about 35 of us in the Ewha International Summer Co-Ed Program set off in a bus and with some guides on a "pre-orientation" field trip. We walked around a Buddhist temple named Haeinsa and a museum featuring artifacts from the Daekaya dynasty/kingdom and had some delicious food: the infamous bibimbap and shabu-shabu (Korean hot pot). Then we walked around the commercial center of Daegu, the third-largest city in South Korea, and now we're at a hotel.
Seoul and Daegu are cool but kind of smelly. Seoul in particular is sort of a cross between midtown Manhattan, Boston, and Singapore. Also the ceilings everywhere are like 6.5' high, and the toilets, while Western-style, only come up to my knees. I feel so tall!
This hotel, the Daegu Grand, is freakin amazing. The breakfast buffet not only had all the traditional American breakfast delights plus kimchi and various kinds of porridge, but also smoked salmon and black caviar. The caviar in particular was delicious. I wish I had a sturgeon farm so I could have my own supply. The buffet area had ceiling-high windows that looked out onto a beautiful little waterfall that was probably 3 feet away from the side of the building. Zak, you would've liked the minibar in the room - two kinds of whiskey plus a can (yes, a can) of beef jerky.
Speaking of waterfalls, this country is gorgeous. The upstart hills and rocky streams may not be wheelchair-friendly, but they certainly make for amazing vistas. I think I'm in love. I'll post pictures once I'm back at Ewha and figure out how to get online via my laptop.
I have only seen one television in this country so far that wasn't a state-of-the-art flat panel high-def. Even the public buses have them. I am in awe.
Most of the others in the summer program are a) girls, and b) ethnically Korean but grew up in the States/Canada. Why are we all here? What are we collectively searching for? I don't think it's as simple as a place to belong or a new language to speak. I'll think about it and get back to you all.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
