the old new year

I return to this space for the first update in over five months, and probably the final of my remaining stay in Korea if we're being realistic.  We sit at just around eight weeks left - eight weeks to decide if essentials are truly such, eight weeks to finally follow through on something I've been putting off for the past 22 months should I even recall such a thing, eight weeks to prepare for a return to life as a repatriate.  It oscillates between ecstatic anticipation, calm confidence, and looming dread.  Eagerness, acceptance, caution, excitement, antipathy, preparing for the best and the worst and very little in between, and an attempt to recall the past two years and what has led me to this moment.  

And, in list form.  

The "Best" of Two Years Spent Living and Un-living in Korea

* A first successful venture to a grocery store, navigation of a metro and bus route, and basic communication with a Korean service worker

* Warranted/unwarranted self-sadness, torturous reflection, lack of self-care, absence of perspective

* Warranted/unwarranted joy, liberated reflection, abundance of self-care, construction of perspective

* The happiness of a body in motion

* Mountains, climbed/gazed upon

* Wonder at the multitude of ways to arrange concrete, metal, water, wood, and flesh

* Very, very loud guitars

* Notions of The Beautiful Body, the importance of contrasting values, the social contract

* Drums

* Community: those with whom you share life, those with whom you have nothing in common and want to avoid, those with whom you share so much but where mutuality is never acknowledged

* Rainy birthdays

* Trains

* Making plans and sticking to them; making plans and breaking them

* Individual organisms breathing and bleeding as a single entity, pushing and pulling and pulsing, conquering and ceding and caring for

* Expressing love through food and history

* Knowing one or two things and mastering them

* Learning a little bit about many different things and mastering nothing

* Shirts and shoes, belts and socks

* The value and benefits of the right kind of smoke

* Sports

* The ability to be outside in the nighttime and how essential it seems

* Walks, long and sometimes very long

* The importance of a good pillow

* Knowing, being acquainted with, bonding with, hurting, and being hurt by every person you meet

* Smells

* Waiting until the groove is just right before dancing

* Resisting/giving in to pressure

* Warmth and frigidity

* Faces

Eight weeks before leaving this place.  Fifteen before returning to where my heart feels Home.  As of this writing, five hours and forty-five minutes before 2014.  

See you all soon.

pretty great, you guys

Man.  It really has not helped that in recent weeks, while researching Taiwan, I was forced to wade through an endless bog of excruciatingly bad "Westerners in Asia LOL" blogs that nearly forced me to reexamine this whole bit altogether.  Why does every white person think their opinions are worth hearing?  Spare your comments, I obv. get the irony.

If you read this, we are probably F-book friends or Twitterers (don't follow me on Twitter) or whatever and you are feeling exhausted by my endless stream of meth-head pseudo-drama and unfunny rantings on complete wastes of time.  Thus, you are intimately aware of my life's hems and haws, and you can tell when I am sitting alone on a curb somewhere inhaling a bowl of udon and ranting about the grooming habits of young Korean women.  Has this blog become irrelevant?

Maybe.  My day-to-day experience is different in the subtle ways that a change of zip code anywhere would make one's business different.  It is possible that this has led to an opening of my perspective, in that I feel less encumbered by commutes and geography and thus liberated to explore a little more.  But hasn't there always been stuff to explore, even way out in the suburbs?

I'm certainly not sitting around as much after work, sitting down with a bowl of ramen to binge-watch 'Justified' or something of less-than-incremental value for my brain.  I suppose the biggest problem about last year was my own attitude, OK GUYS I GET IT.  But I also think it is easy to maintain a shitty attitude when you harbor a legitimate disdain for overlong subway/bus rides and you live in an area where said attitude leads you to prefer binge-watching mediocre TV over going outside and walking around a little.  So that's changed too, my attitude.

I've also managed to fit travel-size amounts of pain and guilt and regret and loathing into my new digs, but those are pretty normal to a man I suppose.  Even new stuff is built on old rocks.

And anyway,

* I'm going to Taiwan in 2 days;
* I'm going back to Japan in September;
* I'm going to Thailand in December;
* I'm going to ??? in March before
* Returning home in Spring 2014.  You already knew that.

Tangible accomplishments?  Forever working on those.

   

the low ten

So anyway, what don't you already know?

* Went to Vietnam.  Radical!
* Joined a gym.  Sick guns!
* Have been increasingly involved in the local expat music scene.  Heady!
* Decided to stay another year, found new/better job, moved to Gangnam, Seoul.  Gnarly!
* .....
* TOTALLY!

I've got a better camera now and could probably do to take a few more pictures, so let me go get on that.

Also, is being a writer all about months-long stretches of time where you have nothing to say and fret you may never have anything to say ever again?

who's counting?

November is already upon us, meaning that I have recently surpassed eight whole months of Korean residency.  It has seemed in turn both an eternity and the blink of one's eye, with ample anecdotes and evidence in support.  The period has begun where I must actively consider my post-March 1, 2013 life, and if I tell you that a decision has been definitively made, please dismiss me with prejudice.  Of late my mind seems to change by the day, by the hour when I'm feeling particularly nebbish or despondent or lucid or willful.  It may not be a coincidence that one of the songs I have taught my first-graders this year has been "Should I Stay or Should I Go," and yes I am aware of how pedantic that association is.  

Maybe the decision isn't as heavy as I'm making it out to be.  Coming back to the States certainly would not be a problem in any sense - I miss my family (most especially my sister) and friends and sharing in the types of experiences that true relationships are built on, or at least being in a time zone approximate enough to make a phone call at a civilized hour for all parties involved without planning way ahead and doing lots of math (that's an oversell, sorry).  I miss being a part of my home culture and being able to find the kinds of things that I'd prefer to consume or participate in.  I miss being able to have more than a few beers without getting sick.  I miss being able to read the ingredients on groceries, and the ability to buy produce that hasn't been sprayed and treated with unholy chemicals in unholy amounts.  Probably not unrelated, the leading causes of death in Korea as briefly outlined in a Korea Herald infographic are cancer, "cerebrovascular diseases," and "heart problems" (together accounting for half of all deaths!), yet Koreans get downright prickly at the suggestion that their diets (copious amounts of booze, processed foods, and additive-riddled meat and produce) or lifestyles (midweek blackout drunkenness, heavy smoking) might be to blame.  Sounds familiar, right?  I at least miss being able to go out of my way to avoid eating bad food; here, one must go very extremely out of the way and be prepared to drop ridiculous sums of money for imported foods that may only be marginally better.  I sometimes wonder if I have messed with my life expectancy by moving here, but then, the nebbish-ness.

I miss my people and my culture, and understanding what is being said in the streets, and having the option to change the station to something I can tolerate.  But I have no illusions of a return home being the cure-all, or of returning to a society that I prefer in every measurable way.  I truly value the efficiency and affordability of transportation here, the relative inexpensiveness of most forms of entertainment, and the near-universal cheapness of large quantities of food (even if it usually is, as stated above, not the best quality).  Above all else I value Korea's proximity to the rest of Asia, and that one of the largest and nicest and easiest-to-use airports in the world - with its abundance of affordable direct flights to many of the capitals of the East - is my local airport.   It is going to take me the same amount of time to fly to Ho Chi Minh City as it would to fly directly from Austin to San Francisco.  Osaka and Tokyo are ninety short minutes across the East Sea.  Manila, Taipei, Hong Kong, and Bangkok are simple and painless as long as you can avoid a Chinese layover.  As someone who had never left North America until February, the opportunity to fill my passport with the seals of foreign customs agencies is a scintillating one.  One calendar year and what will be two trips abroad have not whet my appetite.

Is this reason enough to postpone my reunion with those I love?  I am attempting to hold myself to a personal resolution to seize all opportunities as they arise and cease making excuses for why I "shouldn't" or "can't" or "could never."  With legal Korean residency status obtained, Asia is within reach.  When will be the next time I am able to travel if I move home and am immediately trucked by "obligations" and "responsibilities?"  What does "planning for my future" really mean?  What is it to "be happy?"

I'm still figuring this out.  Stay tuned.  

once more from the top

I have undertaken a fair amount since last updating this space, the most significant part being a visit to Japan.  The photos from that trip may be seen here.

While riding the Shinkansen from Osaka to Tokyo I wrote an epic longhand rant on transportation issues vis-a-vis the way rail is treated in the US versus other parts of the world.  I'd like to post it before long but should maybe do a bit of actual research beforehand.  This is because I'd like to start taking something seriously besides the trifles of my visa obligations, a.k.a. teaching English to Korean six-year-olds, "like to" being the key component of that all-too-familiar pining.  I need to dedicate myself to something that I actually want and that will benefit my spirit.

In any case, Japan felt like home and coming back to Korea was brutal.  Since late June I've also celebrated a birthday, taken a train to an extremely rained-upon music and art festival in the Korean countryside, contemplated my next move, and listened to a lot of music.  

To be perfectly honest there isn't much more of note to report unless you'd prefer I give you a day-by-day accounting of every won that escapes my grasp (in brief: food, clothing, taxis).  I've got a few ideas for later posts so CHECK BACK IN TWO MORE MONTHS LOLOLOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL.

the usual

It's probably always best to keep expectations tamped down in just about every situation.  This is the sage advice some wizened grayhair is usually imparting to a young squire in some scene where the tutee is at a crossroads, feeling dejected or otherwise having embarked upon a string of bad decisions (or at least suffering from bad luck).  We should all by now know better than to entertain expectations about much of anything, right?  Preparation is important, but ultimately we kid ourselves by thinking we have any clue about whether or not our best laid plans will matter at all.  I like to tell myself that I knew this, know this, and will forever know it.  Who wants to look like an idiot and set themselves up for the kind of bleakness that usually accompanies wildly unmet expectations?  Yet it has been hard to put this into practice.  Whatever my delusions or misgivings, I'm always a few knots behind my White Whale.

A personal goal upon moving to Asia has been to reexamine every priority and value I've carried around and mine them for clues about who I really am and want to be:  my attitudes toward work and what I am willing to endure; my outlook on my future and whether or not the disjointed notions in my head are true-blue goals and aspirations that I am willing and able to realize; my approach toward love and relationships and why I've thought about them in the ways I have; on and on, and on.

Basically, the usual - the same crap most people go through but don't bother writing about unless they are Lena Dunham and can get paid by HBO to turn it into a hot new television series.  Anyway, this was mostly a convoluted attempt to get to my main point: despite saying that I would be more committed to keeping Those Who Care within the loop and using this blog as an avatar for same, it has devolved into the standard Andrew blogging format of "infrequent posts peppered with overwrought apologies and lazy record keeping."  Laziness - it is why I will never be anything cooler than jeans and a t-shirt.

I threw out some random morsels in the last post, so why don't I just expand upon them now?  Whoops, now this is going to be an overlong post.  Go pee.

_________________

Suddenly, a stomach that is sensitive to alcohol.  I could have put a little more thought into this line, as it makes me sound like a robotic drunk who wouldn't dare entertain the notion of slowing down, being responsible, doing what's best for me, taking the temperature of a room, et cetera.  So let's back it up: obviously, my stomach is a human stomach that can only handle so much, and this has been the case since I imbibed my first social booze all those years ago.  The recent trend, however, has been that four beers is "likely plenty," five starts getting into "are you sure you want breakfast tomorrow?" and six is "just go to bed now because you're likely going to get up in a few hours and hurl."  It has been hard to nail down just what, exactly, lies behind this newfound physical aversion to cheap beer consumed in not dissimilar quantities to those back home.  A pattern has not exposed itself.  It does not seem to be related to food intake, mixing other liquors (a "soju at dinner" theory was eventually discarded), or any other physiological phenomena that I am able to discern.  The best answer I have been able to land on, while highly unsatisfying, is that cheap Korean beer is somehow so chemically different from Pabst and Lone Star that my body rejects it.  But only sometimes!  I spent three days on the beach in Busan downing cans of Hite with nary a side effect more forceful than "moderate cottonmouth."  Still, it seems beer-exclusive evenings cause more problems than liquor nights -  especially if that liquor is good ol' red-blooded Jim Beam Bourbon - though at 5000 won per drink I'd certainly prefer to hang onto pints of Cass for as long as possible.  Maybe it's simply that, as a clever older friend exclaimed, I'm "just not a young man anymore."  Who can tell!  In any case, I've been forced to drink with caution now, for better and worse.

Korean baseball is awesome.  It's true that I was sick during and after the baseball game, and that I initially blamed the previous night's Cass for my station.  In retrospect it appears more like food poisoning of some sort, with all of the classic symptoms.  Still a mystery as to how I came down with it on that particular day as I had eaten breakfast and coffee at my apartment, but I suppose your theories are as good as mine and I won't get into particulars.  The thrust of this graf is the quality of Korean baseball.  It is quite a different experience than that of an American game - each team has its own dancing pep girls, an A&M-style yell leader who leads chants and songs for every player as they step into the batter's box, rowdy and raucous fans who hug after home runs, and a culinary experience that refrains detracting from one's enjoyment of being at the game.  Whereas American parks in their wisdom forbid one from bringing in anything resembling a consumable, the Korean league allows fans to pack whole picnics for themselves so long as glass containers aren't used.  This includes booze, with cases of beer tucked under every other arm and plastic bottles of soju pouring up everywhere.  My friend Claire spent days preparing kimbap, hummus, vegetables, and homemade ginger beer that I enjoyed as much as I could.  

Vendors outside of the stadium sold Korean snacking staples: dried sea creatures, dried seafood disks, hard-boiled eggs, fried chicken, and other assorted items that a typical American fan might find "backwards."  Inside, American chains KFC, Burger King, Dunkin' Donuts, and Smoothie King had outlets all over the concourse, with lines of fans queued at each one.  A great time that I hope to do again soon.

If you think American popular music is bad, you would be correct and you would also be unable to escape the worst of it in Korea.  Every coffee shop, club, bar, "lounge" (virtually nonexistant), cell phone store, shoe store, clothing store, drug store, bakery, park bench, bus radio, dog, cash register, and salad fork in Korea plays the following songs on an infinite loop:

* "Moves Like Jagger"

* anything LMFAO has ever touched

* one or two Rihanna songs

* the same five or so K-pop ballads that are straight out of the American Idol-meets-Abercrombie & Fitch-but-even-dumber playbook.

There is apparently a decently lively music scene in and around the Hongdae section of Seoul, and if I liked commuting more I'd probably be there every weekend.  Alas, I'm left wishing I could jam a musical salad fork in my ear every time I leave my apartment.  "Why get so upset over music?" you're asking.  Maybe because music here is less a cultural experience than a marketing ploy.  It's everything the RIAA always wanted for America: total saturation and uniformity across the board.  I can't wait to go to Japan.  That reminds me,

I'm going to Japan for summer break.  It will be for less than a week and getting around is likely to be expensive, but I'm going to frickin' Japan, y'all!

I quit smoking.  For real.  Smokes average about $2.50 per pack here, and for the first couple of months I took it as a sign that smoking isn't such a big deal and I'm gonna die at some point anyway so live in the moment, alright!  As of this writing it has been seven weeks since my last cigarette.  I can't tell if I feel better.

Neighborhood pickup basketball in Korea.  We play on an extremely slippery court with the now-outdated trapezoid keys located behind the Aram Nuri Opera House here in Ilsan.  The ample lights come on automatically far before sundown (attracting the bugs), everyone seems to enjoy themselves, and I'm finally putting these to use: 

Hopefully it doesn't rain much this summer.

Busan.  An incredible town full of beautiful, happy, nice people with sea-scented air and mountain views and a far more peaceful vibe than Seoul.  It isn't nearly the size of Seoul and thus not the same sort of activity hub, but if I'm going to be considering more time on this peninsula I'd be doing myself a disservice by disregarding a potential move there.  You'd all love visiting, I know it.

I hope this has been sufficient.

sorry

You were warned - this blog has become infrequent.  I'm not going to kill it though, and I fully intend on putting forth the effort to post in the very near future as there is much to report, including but not limited to:

• suddenly, a stomach that is sensitive to alcohol;
• attending a baseball game and vom-ing afterward in a squat toilet in Haebangcheon, due to above ailment;
• drowning in K-pop and the three most irritating U.S. pop songs and the only thing these people want to do in the evening is listen/dance to club music and who do i have to murder to get a decent cocktail lounge around here;
• quitting smoking in the land of cheap cigarettes;
• finding a neighborhood pickup basketball game;
• food, food, food, food, foooooooooooood;
• flying to Busan to celebrate Buddha's Birthday, a national holiday, and
• racist cabbies.

Stay tuned, if you're still there.