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!

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.

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.

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:


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.

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 ...

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:

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.

Michelle	Jennifer
Mmmmm ... chicken quesadilla!	the menu, a conglomeration of Spanish, English, and Korean

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:

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!~