So this hasn't got much to do with what's wrong with politics or kids these days, but It's been something I've been rolling around in my head ever since I took an eco-trek, or whatever the hell you call it, in Laos. Everytime I've tried to put it into words I get about two sentences in before someone jumps in with "you racist DOUCHE!" and reminds me that I'm white, male, and thus lacking the part of the brain that perceives racism. Writing it down seems like a much better way of getting the every facet of the idea out there before the reflexive white guilt of my listener kicks in and ends the conversation. Or I'll just dig myself in way deeper, and prove the suspicions everyone's entertained for a long time.
Here goes: I took a hike up into the hills of Laos to visit a tribe of what I believe were Hmong, but I very well could be wrong about that. It was impressive; the poverty was striking, and the hard work that went into day to day life of those people made me appreciate what I had much more. What troubled me is that these people are in effect denied what I take for granted, and that I and people like myself are the ones responsible. That is, these people, understandably, are proud of and see no need to change their culture, which makes them a curiosity in an increasingly homogenized world. In order to preserve the integrity of their culture and way of life, tourists pay companies to take them on a "footprints and photographs" tour of their village, with the price of admission subsidising the village. However, this makes them dependent on the very primitive-ness of their existence. To better their situation would actually make things significantly worse for them.
The travelers who go to these villages see children running barefoot amongst animal feces, women pounding rice manually, farmers going about their business without the help of machines and in some cases animals. Were that same farmer to haul his harvest in with a tractor, or the children to wear shoes, or the women to use more sophisticated machines or buy preprocessed rice from the more assimilated tribesmen in the lowlands, the tourists would complain that it isn't "authentic" and demand their money back.
Now, my essential view of the meaning of life, and this is obviously influenced by my talents, upbringing, culture, and career, is to make use of that which makes us unique as a species, namely our intelligence. We should be constantly thinking, inventing, creating. Getting born, eating, shitting, fucking, giving birth and then dying don't cut it. We've got one up on every other organism on this planet and we should damn well act like it. What makes the whole experience repugnant to my sensibilities is that we are refusing to allow the inhabitants of these villages to do that. They must remain as they are in a stone-age existence if any aspect of their culture is to survive.
But these aren't primitive "ooga-booga" cavemen. They're well aware of the outside world. It pays them handsomely to come and gawp at them, and they interact with the peripheries of the more westernized people to trade their agricultural products for the machetes I imagine they don't smelt themselves. Like the Amish they're acquainted with what's out there, they've just decided they don't want it.
Which is fine, but what makes the Amish Amish is their conscious rejection of modern technology. Their stasis is a defining characteristic that they've chosen for themselves. The stasis of the Hmong, and others such as our Native Americans, is imposed on them from outside. Before the modern era, if a Hmong were shown an improved technology or procedure he or she would probably adopt it without a second thought. Now any growth of Hmong culture would be seen not as an advance, but as an abandonment of that culture.
This is usually the point at which I'm denounced as ethnocentric, or whatever. How vain of me to assume everyone yearns to be just like us to suggest that these people might be happier with a more "advanced" lifestyle, a more "modern" lifestyle, more like mine of course. How dare I let my unquestioned assumptions about the life of these noble savages blind me to their wonderful communion with nature and - BULLSHIT.
I'm consistently annoyed by the liberal idea that primitive societies are somehow more enlightened, and that by advancing scientifically we of necessity lose some vital part of our spiriuality. We used to have a society just like that, where everyone lived off the land in extended families with oral traditions and blah blah blah. It was called the Middle ages, and it was probably the worst period of recorded world history. If the roles were reversed, and your options were assimilating into a Hmong version of modern society, or burning cats at the stake for hexing your fields and trying to leech the plague out of your system, I can't imagine a single one of my hippie friends who'd opt for the latter.
Cultures evolve, same as everything else, and to choose any cross-section in time as the archetype and only "authentic" version of that culture is, to me, honestly a little racist. The impression I get is that "We're the ones with the cars and internet, and you're the ones who sit in the dirt and have intestinal parasites. For you to try to be anything different would mean you're trying to be us, and by extension betraying your people." The basic tenets of Western thought are based off of the Greeks. Do we non-Greeks decry our ancestors for selling out our Roman, Pictish, Teutonic, etc. heritage, and regard our present culture as somehow bastardized?
Cross-cultural pollination is an important force and a major driver in the advancement of society. If we'd all tried to go it alone we'd still be banging rocks together and running from lions/tigers/bears/dingoes. The Greeks started scientific inquiry, which influenced the Romans, which influenced the Arabs who influenced in turn influenced Spain and Italy who gave us the Renaissance, and here we are today. And I'm fine with it. I don't shave the front of my scalp, paint my face blue or speak gaelic, but I get to live to be eighty, die with all my teeth, grow six feet tall, travel the world and work on invesitgating the fundamentals of the Universe. If I have kids they'll probably all outlive me. Pretty sweet fucking deal, one -maybe- a half billion people in human history have ever gotten.
I think the problem has become that our culture has taken such a commanding lead in these types of fields. Medieval society wasn't that far removed from the Greeks at the time. Their ideas were viewed as just that, ideas, and good ones, and so we adopted them and modified, improved and repurposed them. The Hmong and others like them would now have to pile on so many layers of technology, sociology, philosophy, etc. to catch up that they would essentially be working with a western society when they were done. A western society that they would be free to change and make their own, but their original would be obliterated.
I don't have any answers. It may be that there aren't any. That things have progressed to the point where the options for the Hmong and others are join up with "white" society and become one of us, work on your culture on your own terms until you've done in isolation what took the combined efforts of the whole world 2,000 years to do, or keep living out a fakey phoney Colonial Williamsburg existence as the only way to connect with your culture. But the only side of the issue I've seen firsthand was that last one, and it made me feel filthy.
Sunday, 15 March 2009
Tuesday, 3 March 2009
Liberals are so Mung
I've been trying to write about this for a while, with a few false starts. I generally get caught up trying to run down every tangent that comes to mind and end up with a complete mess. I figure I'll try to keep it to the facts and see if I can at least get the bare bones out there.
The thing I've noticed since grade school, back in the days of Gingrich, was the way the Republicans got away with repurposing words to their advantage. "Liberal" became a slur, "Socialism" became an argument in and of itself (last paragraph of the article), and recently "Nancy Pelosi" has become an... ideology? I'm not sure what to make of that last one and I doubt most Republicans could help me out; it's generally attached as an adjective to some piece of legislation without explication or comment. Democrats do not attempt to counter this, either by fighting fire with fire - associating Republican words with negative connotations - or just tagging Liberal words with positive ones.
In this way, the words that we use to define ourselves on the left take on meanings that were not originally contained in the words themselves, and it becomes impossible to have a balanced debate in which competing viewpoints are held up as equally worthy. It is as though the word "harass," "terrorize" or "molest" was the only word used to describe the intended effect of a Democratic ad on a Republican incumbent's poll numbers by the media. There will be no way to discuss the ad or it's effects without casting an aspersion, however slight on the Democrat. I'd draw a parallel to 1984, but I imagine we're all intelligent enough to make this leap on our own.
By claiming "our" words, and choosing a new meaning for them, they leave us effectively mute, or at least in the position of a puppet, the content of our message decided by the people most interested in blocking them. They no longer need to defeat us in the open market of ideas, because we now have nothing to offer. Instead we have Mondale riding a tank, Al Gore desperately agreeing with Bush, or John Kerry blasting away at ducks, all in an attempt to not appear, "liberal". A word that used to mean free, open, progressive now stands for decadent, effete, godless. You can kid yourself that only Republicans buy this malarkey, but when was the last time you heard the "L" word out of a politician on the left. More importantly, when s/he said it was it used casually to complete a sentence, or make a defiant "hell yes I'm a liberal, so what?" statement in and of itself? Perhaps I'm insane and seeing danger where none exists, but this frankly terrifies me.
Obviously it is not just that one word, but I can't go example by example without repeating myself, since it's just the same damn thing over and over. Nancy Pelosi is vilified, giving Republicans an excuse not to explain why they oppose some popular and crucial piece of legislation. Universal health care is called socialism, and thus the argument is over. Socialism is not refuted, or even addressed, and listeners are quite pointedly expected to know why health care is socialism, and why socialism is bad, and if they don't that it's so self-evident they should not question it for fear of looking stupid.
I'm not saying that Democrats should fight fire with fire. It's not about scoring points, or picking up seats in the house. It's about shepherding our country into the future in the most intelligent way possible. The only way that can be done is to call attention to the fact that the right's message is all surface, and no substance. There's no way to argue with what's said between the lines, or refute a tone of voice. The only way to keep them from getting away with this is for Democrats, or the moderators of the talk shows where these kind of things get said, to call out exactly what's happening. Stop the debate cold and demand explanations of what is said when a Republican drops a glib, contentless retort. This changes the topic of the discussion to the discussion itself, but it needs to happen and it needs to happen every time it occurs until this stops. The right hasn't got a message, and they need to be exposed as such. Instead the Democrats spend all their time shadowboxing an empty message made up of insinuations and getting nowhere, or worse, giving in and trying to fit their message around what words are left them. Just by making anyone on the left refer to themselves as a "Moderate" or "Centrist" rather than "Liberal" to be taken seriously, Republicans reel in half the rope in the tug of war of politics.
And yes, I'm quoting South Park in my "serious, heavy handed" blog. Go eat a dick.
The thing I've noticed since grade school, back in the days of Gingrich, was the way the Republicans got away with repurposing words to their advantage. "Liberal" became a slur, "Socialism" became an argument in and of itself (last paragraph of the article), and recently "Nancy Pelosi" has become an... ideology? I'm not sure what to make of that last one and I doubt most Republicans could help me out; it's generally attached as an adjective to some piece of legislation without explication or comment. Democrats do not attempt to counter this, either by fighting fire with fire - associating Republican words with negative connotations - or just tagging Liberal words with positive ones.
In this way, the words that we use to define ourselves on the left take on meanings that were not originally contained in the words themselves, and it becomes impossible to have a balanced debate in which competing viewpoints are held up as equally worthy. It is as though the word "harass," "terrorize" or "molest" was the only word used to describe the intended effect of a Democratic ad on a Republican incumbent's poll numbers by the media. There will be no way to discuss the ad or it's effects without casting an aspersion, however slight on the Democrat. I'd draw a parallel to 1984, but I imagine we're all intelligent enough to make this leap on our own.
By claiming "our" words, and choosing a new meaning for them, they leave us effectively mute, or at least in the position of a puppet, the content of our message decided by the people most interested in blocking them. They no longer need to defeat us in the open market of ideas, because we now have nothing to offer. Instead we have Mondale riding a tank, Al Gore desperately agreeing with Bush, or John Kerry blasting away at ducks, all in an attempt to not appear, "liberal". A word that used to mean free, open, progressive now stands for decadent, effete, godless. You can kid yourself that only Republicans buy this malarkey, but when was the last time you heard the "L" word out of a politician on the left. More importantly, when s/he said it was it used casually to complete a sentence, or make a defiant "hell yes I'm a liberal, so what?" statement in and of itself? Perhaps I'm insane and seeing danger where none exists, but this frankly terrifies me.
Obviously it is not just that one word, but I can't go example by example without repeating myself, since it's just the same damn thing over and over. Nancy Pelosi is vilified, giving Republicans an excuse not to explain why they oppose some popular and crucial piece of legislation. Universal health care is called socialism, and thus the argument is over. Socialism is not refuted, or even addressed, and listeners are quite pointedly expected to know why health care is socialism, and why socialism is bad, and if they don't that it's so self-evident they should not question it for fear of looking stupid.
I'm not saying that Democrats should fight fire with fire. It's not about scoring points, or picking up seats in the house. It's about shepherding our country into the future in the most intelligent way possible. The only way that can be done is to call attention to the fact that the right's message is all surface, and no substance. There's no way to argue with what's said between the lines, or refute a tone of voice. The only way to keep them from getting away with this is for Democrats, or the moderators of the talk shows where these kind of things get said, to call out exactly what's happening. Stop the debate cold and demand explanations of what is said when a Republican drops a glib, contentless retort. This changes the topic of the discussion to the discussion itself, but it needs to happen and it needs to happen every time it occurs until this stops. The right hasn't got a message, and they need to be exposed as such. Instead the Democrats spend all their time shadowboxing an empty message made up of insinuations and getting nowhere, or worse, giving in and trying to fit their message around what words are left them. Just by making anyone on the left refer to themselves as a "Moderate" or "Centrist" rather than "Liberal" to be taken seriously, Republicans reel in half the rope in the tug of war of politics.
And yes, I'm quoting South Park in my "serious, heavy handed" blog. Go eat a dick.
Saturday, 7 February 2009
I'd lead the revolution, but I just got this hammock...
I'm going to alienate a lot of people right from the get-go with this one.
I am an intelligent person. Perhaps I have a one dimensional personality, but everyone I ever knew in school knows, or at least makes a big deal of introducing me, as a "genius." I'm good at math, science and am at least above averagely well-read. Being that being "the smart guy" has defined or at least colored me to most of the people I've ever known I've put some thought into intelligence in general over the years. Some disturbing developments I've noticed in the area are as follows.
Larry the Cable Guy.
There's nothing wrong with dumb culture. People have always made stupid lowbrow garbage. The difference was that it used to be dumb people enjoyed dumb shit because they were too dumb to discriminate. More and more recently it seems that ignorance, if not outright stupidity, has become not only acceptable, but preferable to the alternatives. People now more than ever seem to celebrate idiocy, seek it out and emulate it as often as possible.
In one sense its understandable. The people I find most enamored of this are what used to be called "lower class" before making someone sad became the worst thing you could do. Everyone's always assumed they're dumb hicks anyway, so laughing at Jeff Foxworthy may just be their reclaimed "nigger." And since the Republican party's spent the last thirty years describing them as the "Real Americans" some of the less self aware middle class self servingly identify with them as well.
The problem is that while the meaning of a word can change depending on its use, stupid is always stupid. And stupid is as stupid does. Most people aren't as stupid as Larry pretends to be, it's only done to be funny, and we're all in on the joke, but doing anything enough makes it a habit. Once stupidity becomes the default, it doesn't matter if its done ironically or not. It doesn't matter what you think, or what you'd like to be, it's what you do that determines what you are. A coward who's forced into doing something heroic is still a hero, and a genius who acts like a mouth breather is just taking up space. Larry the Cable Guy, and others like Limbaugh and Hannity, who espouse an unthinking simplistic model of life are in a very real way making people into morons. These people are the equivalent of lead poisoning.
Epic Movie
Of course, not all people want to present a front of this sort to the world, and do attempt to better themselves. The problem, as I've profanely and digressively touched on, is that one trap to fall into is to keep learning the same thing over and over.
People like to feel like smart, and nothing makes you feel more like a know it all than to listen to someone explain something you already know. Thus we get travel shows that talk only about the most stereotypical, widely known facts of the country, authors like Dan Brown who take semi-obscure bits of theology, make horrible fiction and somehow imbue them for the credulous with an air of "scholarship," or a media echo chamber that endlessly repeats the latest easily digested soundbite or scandal while tons of real, extremely unimportant but boring news goes by unnoticed and undiscussed. It's a horrible rut to get into but a very easy one, as you're never caught out in cocktail party conversation, as everyone knows the same eight facts about any concievable subject. You're always ready with a "You know I heard that, and did you also know..."
I recognize that everyone must learn basic facts at least one time in their lives, and that I'm getting dangerously close to the doucheyness of declaring this or that type of entertainment "for idiots." It does however genuinely seem to me that people are made uncomfortable by venturing a sincere, original, honest opinion that has not previously been vetted by one of the only two legitimate ideologies in the country. Remember the next deep thought that comes into your head, be it about love, human relationships, art, politics, anything, and voice it to anyone you know, in any setting you deem most appropriate. How close of a friend would you have to go to to not get a tired marijuana joke as a response?
A Beautiful Mind
To be honest, the facet our culture's approach to intelligence that most disturbs me is not the chucklehead watching the Man Show and reading Maxim because that's what he thinks guys are supposed to do. Nor is it the blanding out of the middle class, which I suspect is just part of human nature. It's the way people, even - especially - other intelligent people look on IQ intellectualism, even learning, with a kind of holy terror. There's something intrinsically special about someone who is smarter than you, that neither you, nor any normal mortal, could ever hope to attain. Better then to stand reverently in awe a respectful distance away, carrying any utterances down the mountain for the edification of the masses.
It generally works like this, an intelligent, art-brain kind of person (I've always been bad at right/left, and I don't feel like googling it) reads some popscience book about quantum physics or string theory (It's almost always those) or conversely, a math-brain type person takes a philosophy or creative writing class and then goes on and on to their friends in the respective field how they'd never be able to get their head around that stuff.
Of course the only reason their friend got their head around it in the first place was tons of hard work, touched off by more tons of enthusiasm. As Americans that view is anathema of course, we prefer our heroes to be prodigies. Takes the onus off of us, if we were meant to be good at math wouldn't we have figured out calculus in our cribs, or if art, shouldn't we have scrawled the Last Supper on our nursery school walls? The most illustrative example I can think of is Good Will Hunting. Matt Damon plays a twenty something generalist autodidact who shits the answers to problems in fields from math, to biology, to colonial American history that have stumped professors who have made that field their life's work. Because that's what smart people are like right? They just know the answers? Regardless of the question?
It's not. No matter how intelligent someone is, all that means is that they are good at learning. We all start a blank slate, and some people are quicker at filling it in than others, but they still need to put in the work. Yes, Mozart wrote his first symphony at four, but does anyone listen to it? Someone who spends his life getting the shit beat out of him by foster parents or hanging out with a gang of clods from Southie isn't going to be able to argue precedent in his own trial. He'll probably come up with a really clever way to shank someone and get away with it when he's in prison, but that's it.
Besides the unrealism, the problem with this view is that it paints him, and intelligence, as a superhuman, and thus, unatainable. At twenty he knows more than it's likely possible to even learn in a lifetime. The equivalent would be Donnie Wahlberg walking onto the Link and pulling the goalposts up with his bare hands.
This is a horrible metaphor, but I can't think of any more fitting: The mind is a muscle. I will never be an Olympic marathoner, but there are studs I ran with in high school and college who burnt out, quit, and whom my mediocre ass would now run circles around. This means I am now a better runner than them. In the same way, IQ is is the potential to learn, just as talent is the potential for athletic greatness. What matters is how much of that potential is realized that depends on how often and consistently one works at realizing it.
Knowledge is not conferred innately by one's genes, but by study. I don't mean sitting with a book in the library study, although obviously that is one way. I mean keeping your eyes open and looking around you. Every day, you are presented with hundreds of opportunities to better yourself. Have one of those conversations I was talking about. Read a challenging book, or watch a difficult movie. If you have the option, try a few classes in the subject you kinda sorta wish you had a handle on. If you dislike your job or beak up with a girl/boyfriend, think about why, and what that says about you, and people in general. If you get lost, instead of turning around, point yourself in the general direction you want to go and find a new way there. Fuck sake, just watch the traffic lights and try to figure out the timing, save yourself a couple minutes on the commute every day.
The ranks of people descending into sub-mongoloid levels of outward intelligence wouldn't be so alarming to me if it seemed as though there was a sizeable population of people running in the opposite direction the way we chase after the opposite sex, or a career, or any of the more minor obsessions that fill everyone's lives. Math isn't hard, nor is philosophy, writing, art, or whatever type of intellectual endeavor that you "have tons of respect for" but "just don't get." You just haven't really tried. I know I haven't.
I am an intelligent person. Perhaps I have a one dimensional personality, but everyone I ever knew in school knows, or at least makes a big deal of introducing me, as a "genius." I'm good at math, science and am at least above averagely well-read. Being that being "the smart guy" has defined or at least colored me to most of the people I've ever known I've put some thought into intelligence in general over the years. Some disturbing developments I've noticed in the area are as follows.
Larry the Cable Guy.
There's nothing wrong with dumb culture. People have always made stupid lowbrow garbage. The difference was that it used to be dumb people enjoyed dumb shit because they were too dumb to discriminate. More and more recently it seems that ignorance, if not outright stupidity, has become not only acceptable, but preferable to the alternatives. People now more than ever seem to celebrate idiocy, seek it out and emulate it as often as possible.
In one sense its understandable. The people I find most enamored of this are what used to be called "lower class" before making someone sad became the worst thing you could do. Everyone's always assumed they're dumb hicks anyway, so laughing at Jeff Foxworthy may just be their reclaimed "nigger." And since the Republican party's spent the last thirty years describing them as the "Real Americans" some of the less self aware middle class self servingly identify with them as well.
The problem is that while the meaning of a word can change depending on its use, stupid is always stupid. And stupid is as stupid does. Most people aren't as stupid as Larry pretends to be, it's only done to be funny, and we're all in on the joke, but doing anything enough makes it a habit. Once stupidity becomes the default, it doesn't matter if its done ironically or not. It doesn't matter what you think, or what you'd like to be, it's what you do that determines what you are. A coward who's forced into doing something heroic is still a hero, and a genius who acts like a mouth breather is just taking up space. Larry the Cable Guy, and others like Limbaugh and Hannity, who espouse an unthinking simplistic model of life are in a very real way making people into morons. These people are the equivalent of lead poisoning.
Epic Movie
Of course, not all people want to present a front of this sort to the world, and do attempt to better themselves. The problem, as I've profanely and digressively touched on, is that one trap to fall into is to keep learning the same thing over and over.
People like to feel like smart, and nothing makes you feel more like a know it all than to listen to someone explain something you already know. Thus we get travel shows that talk only about the most stereotypical, widely known facts of the country, authors like Dan Brown who take semi-obscure bits of theology, make horrible fiction and somehow imbue them for the credulous with an air of "scholarship," or a media echo chamber that endlessly repeats the latest easily digested soundbite or scandal while tons of real, extremely unimportant but boring news goes by unnoticed and undiscussed. It's a horrible rut to get into but a very easy one, as you're never caught out in cocktail party conversation, as everyone knows the same eight facts about any concievable subject. You're always ready with a "You know I heard that, and did you also know..."
I recognize that everyone must learn basic facts at least one time in their lives, and that I'm getting dangerously close to the doucheyness of declaring this or that type of entertainment "for idiots." It does however genuinely seem to me that people are made uncomfortable by venturing a sincere, original, honest opinion that has not previously been vetted by one of the only two legitimate ideologies in the country. Remember the next deep thought that comes into your head, be it about love, human relationships, art, politics, anything, and voice it to anyone you know, in any setting you deem most appropriate. How close of a friend would you have to go to to not get a tired marijuana joke as a response?
A Beautiful Mind
To be honest, the facet our culture's approach to intelligence that most disturbs me is not the chucklehead watching the Man Show and reading Maxim because that's what he thinks guys are supposed to do. Nor is it the blanding out of the middle class, which I suspect is just part of human nature. It's the way people, even - especially - other intelligent people look on IQ intellectualism, even learning, with a kind of holy terror. There's something intrinsically special about someone who is smarter than you, that neither you, nor any normal mortal, could ever hope to attain. Better then to stand reverently in awe a respectful distance away, carrying any utterances down the mountain for the edification of the masses.
It generally works like this, an intelligent, art-brain kind of person (I've always been bad at right/left, and I don't feel like googling it) reads some popscience book about quantum physics or string theory (It's almost always those) or conversely, a math-brain type person takes a philosophy or creative writing class and then goes on and on to their friends in the respective field how they'd never be able to get their head around that stuff.
Of course the only reason their friend got their head around it in the first place was tons of hard work, touched off by more tons of enthusiasm. As Americans that view is anathema of course, we prefer our heroes to be prodigies. Takes the onus off of us, if we were meant to be good at math wouldn't we have figured out calculus in our cribs, or if art, shouldn't we have scrawled the Last Supper on our nursery school walls? The most illustrative example I can think of is Good Will Hunting. Matt Damon plays a twenty something generalist autodidact who shits the answers to problems in fields from math, to biology, to colonial American history that have stumped professors who have made that field their life's work. Because that's what smart people are like right? They just know the answers? Regardless of the question?
It's not. No matter how intelligent someone is, all that means is that they are good at learning. We all start a blank slate, and some people are quicker at filling it in than others, but they still need to put in the work. Yes, Mozart wrote his first symphony at four, but does anyone listen to it? Someone who spends his life getting the shit beat out of him by foster parents or hanging out with a gang of clods from Southie isn't going to be able to argue precedent in his own trial. He'll probably come up with a really clever way to shank someone and get away with it when he's in prison, but that's it.
Besides the unrealism, the problem with this view is that it paints him, and intelligence, as a superhuman, and thus, unatainable. At twenty he knows more than it's likely possible to even learn in a lifetime. The equivalent would be Donnie Wahlberg walking onto the Link and pulling the goalposts up with his bare hands.
This is a horrible metaphor, but I can't think of any more fitting: The mind is a muscle. I will never be an Olympic marathoner, but there are studs I ran with in high school and college who burnt out, quit, and whom my mediocre ass would now run circles around. This means I am now a better runner than them. In the same way, IQ is is the potential to learn, just as talent is the potential for athletic greatness. What matters is how much of that potential is realized that depends on how often and consistently one works at realizing it.
Knowledge is not conferred innately by one's genes, but by study. I don't mean sitting with a book in the library study, although obviously that is one way. I mean keeping your eyes open and looking around you. Every day, you are presented with hundreds of opportunities to better yourself. Have one of those conversations I was talking about. Read a challenging book, or watch a difficult movie. If you have the option, try a few classes in the subject you kinda sorta wish you had a handle on. If you dislike your job or beak up with a girl/boyfriend, think about why, and what that says about you, and people in general. If you get lost, instead of turning around, point yourself in the general direction you want to go and find a new way there. Fuck sake, just watch the traffic lights and try to figure out the timing, save yourself a couple minutes on the commute every day.
The ranks of people descending into sub-mongoloid levels of outward intelligence wouldn't be so alarming to me if it seemed as though there was a sizeable population of people running in the opposite direction the way we chase after the opposite sex, or a career, or any of the more minor obsessions that fill everyone's lives. Math isn't hard, nor is philosophy, writing, art, or whatever type of intellectual endeavor that you "have tons of respect for" but "just don't get." You just haven't really tried. I know I haven't.
Friday, 6 February 2009
Muttering to myself through a megaphone...
So as of Korea I've definitely become radicalized politically and sociologically, I'm just not quite sure how, as smug, faux-liberal Johnny-come-latelys like Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann make me nearly as sick and angry as hateful lying cynics like Libaugh and Hannity.
Since Forty Minutes isn't really the forum for anything sincere or thoughtful, a general problem I see with the country which I'm going to address at some point as well, I figured I'd reactivate this website. Since perhaps 10 people even know about this site, and the last time any of them checked it was maybe April, I'll get a chance to put some stuff up and make sure none of it is too embarrassingly simpleminded once I put in on paper, as it were, before anyone else sees it.
Some things I've been thinking about, and will address later:
1. The fractiousness and self importance of liberals vs. the unity and goal orientation of the Republicans.
2. The elevation of ignorance, if not outright stupidity, to a virtue amongst the lower class, and everyone else's idolization of intelligence into the realm of magic.
3. The acceptance on the left of the fact that real tangible change is an impossibility, and that reality is here for our entertainment. i.e. Kucinich jokes, Kerry v. Dean, Nader "stealing" an election.
Since Forty Minutes isn't really the forum for anything sincere or thoughtful, a general problem I see with the country which I'm going to address at some point as well, I figured I'd reactivate this website. Since perhaps 10 people even know about this site, and the last time any of them checked it was maybe April, I'll get a chance to put some stuff up and make sure none of it is too embarrassingly simpleminded once I put in on paper, as it were, before anyone else sees it.
Some things I've been thinking about, and will address later:
1. The fractiousness and self importance of liberals vs. the unity and goal orientation of the Republicans.
2. The elevation of ignorance, if not outright stupidity, to a virtue amongst the lower class, and everyone else's idolization of intelligence into the realm of magic.
3. The acceptance on the left of the fact that real tangible change is an impossibility, and that reality is here for our entertainment. i.e. Kucinich jokes, Kerry v. Dean, Nader "stealing" an election.
Thursday, 1 May 2008
Thursday, 29 November 2007
Yea, Floorbears.
So a while back I talked about how awesome it was to go to places in the off season in Korea, because everyone in the country with the means and free time packs whatever is "the" place this season, and then completely abandon it as suddenly as they arrived. Now I know how awesome it isn't to go to places during the high season.
I casually mentioned to a teacher that I ran to the top of the town's "mountain"... More of a hill, even going as far as calling it a "himllountain" is generous. Anyway, he took it as a sign that I was an avid mountaineer, and invited me out to NaeJang-san. This being the season that all the leaves were changing, it was something that was not to be missed, according to him.
Now I'm from the Pennsylvania Poconos, and have lived every fall of my life in PA one place or another. I'm intimately familiar with the lifecycle of deciduous trees, and the annoying bullshit phenomenon of "leafwatching" that people from crowded places - i.e.New Yorkers and Jersians - get up to this time of year. So I really have no excuse to complain, as a split second of thinking about what going to a national park in a country with a population which boasts a density roughly 15 times that of the U.S., and a flock-like collectivist mentality too boot would entail.
Mr. Sim met me at 5:30. In the Godfucking morning. Of a Saturday. I figured it was to get an early start on the day, so that we could both be in our respective homes, chillaxin, watching Korean's duke it out one of the two Starcraft channels on TV by 12, 1 at the latest. Turns out it was because every morning's fog is completely opaque before the sun comes up. So after driving for two and a half hours at 40km/hr we finally arrive, to a line that was literally miles long. Mr. Sim explained to me that the mountain was so beautiful this time of year that it attracted upwards of 60,000 people every day. I could have mentioned that the point of getting out in nature is not to be standing ass-high in Koreans, but I was busy dozing and drooling all over myself.
Eventually we get out of the car, and began the hike. Beautiful mountain, great views, had a blast, camera died after two pictures. Oh well. Walked all over the place, but as a reasonably in shape 20 something dragging two 40 year olds behind me, I had a lot of time to check out the mountainside. Or what I could see of it under the carpet of leafers. Problem with 60000 people hiking one trail is that 30,000 of them are coming the other way, and when you're on a mountainside with about 3 feet of walking space between the sheer rockwall and the 20 foot drop off, the Pushy Old Korean Broad barging her way past can sort of grate.
Can't complain, got a few nice pictures, my favorite of which is included. Gotta love the terror on the Alpen Bear's face, and the fact that baby bear is gonna get squooshed no matter what. Little morbid, but you damn sure look up when you're near those signs.
I casually mentioned to a teacher that I ran to the top of the town's "mountain"... More of a hill, even going as far as calling it a "himllountain" is generous. Anyway, he took it as a sign that I was an avid mountaineer, and invited me out to NaeJang-san. This being the season that all the leaves were changing, it was something that was not to be missed, according to him.
Now I'm from the Pennsylvania Poconos, and have lived every fall of my life in PA one place or another. I'm intimately familiar with the lifecycle of deciduous trees, and the annoying bullshit phenomenon of "leafwatching" that people from crowded places - i.e.New Yorkers and Jersians - get up to this time of year. So I really have no excuse to complain, as a split second of thinking about what going to a national park in a country with a population which boasts a density roughly 15 times that of the U.S., and a flock-like collectivist mentality too boot would entail.
Mr. Sim met me at 5:30. In the Godfucking morning. Of a Saturday. I figured it was to get an early start on the day, so that we could both be in our respective homes, chillaxin, watching Korean's duke it out one of the two Starcraft channels on TV by 12, 1 at the latest. Turns out it was because every morning's fog is completely opaque before the sun comes up. So after driving for two and a half hours at 40km/hr we finally arrive, to a line that was literally miles long. Mr. Sim explained to me that the mountain was so beautiful this time of year that it attracted upwards of 60,000 people every day. I could have mentioned that the point of getting out in nature is not to be standing ass-high in Koreans, but I was busy dozing and drooling all over myself.
Eventually we get out of the car, and began the hike. Beautiful mountain, great views, had a blast, camera died after two pictures. Oh well. Walked all over the place, but as a reasonably in shape 20 something dragging two 40 year olds behind me, I had a lot of time to check out the mountainside. Or what I could see of it under the carpet of leafers. Problem with 60000 people hiking one trail is that 30,000 of them are coming the other way, and when you're on a mountainside with about 3 feet of walking space between the sheer rockwall and the 20 foot drop off, the Pushy Old Korean Broad barging her way past can sort of grate.
Can't complain, got a few nice pictures, my favorite of which is included. Gotta love the terror on the Alpen Bear's face, and the fact that baby bear is gonna get squooshed no matter what. Little morbid, but you damn sure look up when you're near those signs.
Friday, 23 November 2007
Goddamn Blog Fuck!
This blog thing is hard... reciting the alphabet backwards while being whipped in the eye with a nickel in a nylon stocking hard. If it weren't for you people whining all the time, I'd have probably taken this whole thing down. Here's why no stories. The school put blogger on their net nanny so I can only access the PG-13 parts of the web at an internet cafe after work - too busy doing anyhting else, on Friday night - never again, or on Saturday or Sunday - too hungover. Eventually But here it is. Another post. That is all
P.S. Eventually I'll get around to posting more regularly, and here's what you're in for:
Angry, dishonest men selling fruit
Justifiably pushy old broads
Unjustifiably opulent apartments for Army guys
Mountainous clusterfucks
Korean Hallmark Holidays
Prepubescent Boy Drag Show School Festival Time!
By the way, I'm unwilling to look, but I bet there's at least one porno website out there that's all about backwards singing while being beat about the face with spare change in a sock. Probably has some pretentious name too, like Sock Play or something.
P.S. Eventually I'll get around to posting more regularly, and here's what you're in for:
Angry, dishonest men selling fruit
Justifiably pushy old broads
Unjustifiably opulent apartments for Army guys
Mountainous clusterfucks
Korean Hallmark Holidays
Prepubescent Boy Drag Show School Festival Time!
By the way, I'm unwilling to look, but I bet there's at least one porno website out there that's all about backwards singing while being beat about the face with spare change in a sock. Probably has some pretentious name too, like Sock Play or something.
Sunday, 28 October 2007
A Mix Supreme
I spent a lot of time making that Halloween mix, and a lot of time grousing about it, so I figured I'd post it so everyone can gaze admiringly upon it. Without Further ado, what could have been (single tear):
1 Red Right Hand - Nick Cave
2 Awoo - Hidden Cameras
3 Satan Is My Motor - Cake
4 Sex and Candy - Marcy Playground
5 Pretend We're Dead - L7
6 November Has Come - Gorillaz/MF Doom
7 Candy For Everyone - The Late BP Helium
8 The Killing Moon - Echo and the Bunnymen
9 Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) - David Bowie
10 Dead Man's Party - Oingo Boingo
11 Lollipop (Candyman) - Aqua
12 The Horror - RJD2
13 Electric Demons In Love - Electric 6
14 Abra Cadaver - The Hives
15 Date With the Night - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
16 Boogie Monster - Gnarls Barkley
17 Voodoo Lady - Ween
18 I Want Candy - MC Chris
19 Dracula's Wedding - Outkast
20 Halloween - Aqua
21 Satan Said Dance - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
22 Thiller - Michael Jackson
23 Ghostbuster's Theme - Ray Parker Jr.
24 Devil's Pie - Rhymefest
25 Rhino Stomp - Starlight Mints
Got through three of those before the night got douched up.
1 Red Right Hand - Nick Cave
2 Awoo - Hidden Cameras
3 Satan Is My Motor - Cake
4 Sex and Candy - Marcy Playground
5 Pretend We're Dead - L7
6 November Has Come - Gorillaz/MF Doom
7 Candy For Everyone - The Late BP Helium
8 The Killing Moon - Echo and the Bunnymen
9 Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) - David Bowie
10 Dead Man's Party - Oingo Boingo
11 Lollipop (Candyman) - Aqua
12 The Horror - RJD2
13 Electric Demons In Love - Electric 6
14 Abra Cadaver - The Hives
15 Date With the Night - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
16 Boogie Monster - Gnarls Barkley
17 Voodoo Lady - Ween
18 I Want Candy - MC Chris
19 Dracula's Wedding - Outkast
20 Halloween - Aqua
21 Satan Said Dance - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
22 Thiller - Michael Jackson
23 Ghostbuster's Theme - Ray Parker Jr.
24 Devil's Pie - Rhymefest
25 Rhino Stomp - Starlight Mints
Got through three of those before the night got douched up.
Everyone likes Rap!
Ok, squid is getting a little old. It's all fun and games until a beak gets stuck on your tongue, or they forget to remove the stomach. Seriously, the beak is like a bird's foot - it naturally snaps shut, and muscles have to be flexed to open it. Getting it off a taste bud is equivalent to digging a popcorn kernel out of your gums, and about as appealing to watch. And if you think eating squid is gross, imagine eating what squid's already eaten. Yuck about covers it.
Been here about two months, and I've eaten pretty much every food this country has to offer. Scale of 1-10, nothing really gets above a 7. Somewhat disappointing, but we've finally figured out how to get hold of most of the things we need to cook what I no longer feel chauvinistic calling "real food". If that sounds bad to you, consider the fact that these guys go nuts for "Italian" food that would send Chef Boyardee into an apoplectic Gordon Ramseyesque fit. I've made it my life's goal before I leave to teach one Korean how to make a half decent tomato sauce. I'm just payin' it forward, it's what HaJO* would have wanted.
Learing about the ups and downs of living in Korean Mayberry. Plus side, there are so few foreigners that everyone knows everyone and you need to be open and friendly if you ever want to speak your own language. Went to Seoul two weekends ago, and when I warned a lady that her beer, which she had placed on the felt of a pool table, was about to be smashed by a smashed Korean girl trying desperately to count to fifteen so she could finish racking the balls, she replied with "Why are you talking to me?" followed by a brief tirade in an ugly accent that, since we were watching the rugby world cup, I pegged as South African. Might have been British, but my mental meanness Venn diagram has a lot of overlap between "asshole" and "White South African".
Downside to a small community: You're stuck with what you get. White Seoulites might be 90% pricks, but that still leaves more cool people than the entire foreign population of Iksan combined. And with a small group, the one or two turds will float right to the top of the bowl. For our Halloween Party, I spent about three days working on a Halloween Mixlist for the Saturday night party at the bar.
Brief background: I've always said the most amazing thing in the world would be a soundsystem hooked up to a computer hooked up to the internet. Bar quality sound system + stealing all the music on the internet = my own personal Shangri-La. Pick 3 songs, sit your butt down and enjoy the Everyone's Favorite Song Musical Gumbo all night. Too bad the RIAA would shut you down in a hot second right? Not in Korea, where the international copyright laws are not so much played with fast and loose as used to line the cages of a dog farm. And if I can go off on a tangent, dog farms are the most depressing things in creation. Ever see the deer hunter, or Missing in Action? Imagine the prison cells from those movies, filled with cute fluffy dogs. I've got no problem with eating the poor bastards, but dogs might be the only self-herding livestock on the planet. For crap's sake just name them and pet them once a day and they'll never run away!
Anyway, we find a bar where the jukebox is limited only by your imagination, Zombo.com style, and me and my buddy mike proceed to go so hog wild on the thing that the bartender buys us a mixing board. Fast forward about two weeks and the thing has become a microcosm of America. Democracy doesn't work people, Hamilton was right! I can handle the random Korean broad coming up and playing Toxic/Let's Get Retarded/Crazy in Love. Despite the fact that those are literally** the only western songs they know, I just accept it and move on. But when a random American jackass comes up to the DJ booth, refuses to budge the entire night, clears the entire playlist, plays 3 Outkast songs in a row, ending with Wheels of Steel(?!) has so many people screaming at him that he stops the music cold and consults with his friend about what to play next (Play some rap. Everyone likes rap.) and demands anyone with an idea about how to make things fun again write their request on a slip of paper and hand it to him. It's a very lucky thing for everyone involved I broke my homemade cricket bat popping balloons on the bar.
So anyway, things don't all suck, but I've written about the fun and cool, needed to vent a bit. All done.
*Haley Joel Osment. We're bosom buds.
**Literally literally, not literally as in "I laughed so hard I literally shit my pants." Literally as in, any time a Korean asks to hear a song, it will always be those three. No more no less.
Been here about two months, and I've eaten pretty much every food this country has to offer. Scale of 1-10, nothing really gets above a 7. Somewhat disappointing, but we've finally figured out how to get hold of most of the things we need to cook what I no longer feel chauvinistic calling "real food". If that sounds bad to you, consider the fact that these guys go nuts for "Italian" food that would send Chef Boyardee into an apoplectic Gordon Ramseyesque fit. I've made it my life's goal before I leave to teach one Korean how to make a half decent tomato sauce. I'm just payin' it forward, it's what HaJO* would have wanted.
Learing about the ups and downs of living in Korean Mayberry. Plus side, there are so few foreigners that everyone knows everyone and you need to be open and friendly if you ever want to speak your own language. Went to Seoul two weekends ago, and when I warned a lady that her beer, which she had placed on the felt of a pool table, was about to be smashed by a smashed Korean girl trying desperately to count to fifteen so she could finish racking the balls, she replied with "Why are you talking to me?" followed by a brief tirade in an ugly accent that, since we were watching the rugby world cup, I pegged as South African. Might have been British, but my mental meanness Venn diagram has a lot of overlap between "asshole" and "White South African".
Downside to a small community: You're stuck with what you get. White Seoulites might be 90% pricks, but that still leaves more cool people than the entire foreign population of Iksan combined. And with a small group, the one or two turds will float right to the top of the bowl. For our Halloween Party, I spent about three days working on a Halloween Mixlist for the Saturday night party at the bar.
Brief background: I've always said the most amazing thing in the world would be a soundsystem hooked up to a computer hooked up to the internet. Bar quality sound system + stealing all the music on the internet = my own personal Shangri-La. Pick 3 songs, sit your butt down and enjoy the Everyone's Favorite Song Musical Gumbo all night. Too bad the RIAA would shut you down in a hot second right? Not in Korea, where the international copyright laws are not so much played with fast and loose as used to line the cages of a dog farm. And if I can go off on a tangent, dog farms are the most depressing things in creation. Ever see the deer hunter, or Missing in Action? Imagine the prison cells from those movies, filled with cute fluffy dogs. I've got no problem with eating the poor bastards, but dogs might be the only self-herding livestock on the planet. For crap's sake just name them and pet them once a day and they'll never run away!
Anyway, we find a bar where the jukebox is limited only by your imagination, Zombo.com style, and me and my buddy mike proceed to go so hog wild on the thing that the bartender buys us a mixing board. Fast forward about two weeks and the thing has become a microcosm of America. Democracy doesn't work people, Hamilton was right! I can handle the random Korean broad coming up and playing Toxic/Let's Get Retarded/Crazy in Love. Despite the fact that those are literally** the only western songs they know, I just accept it and move on. But when a random American jackass comes up to the DJ booth, refuses to budge the entire night, clears the entire playlist, plays 3 Outkast songs in a row, ending with Wheels of Steel(?!) has so many people screaming at him that he stops the music cold and consults with his friend about what to play next (Play some rap. Everyone likes rap.) and demands anyone with an idea about how to make things fun again write their request on a slip of paper and hand it to him. It's a very lucky thing for everyone involved I broke my homemade cricket bat popping balloons on the bar.
So anyway, things don't all suck, but I've written about the fun and cool, needed to vent a bit. All done.
*Haley Joel Osment. We're bosom buds.
**Literally literally, not literally as in "I laughed so hard I literally shit my pants." Literally as in, any time a Korean asks to hear a song, it will always be those three. No more no less.
Tuesday, 16 October 2007
'Course Here They Just Call It Thanksgiving...
(Written 10/4)
Hey guys?
What's crackin, you crusty ol' consarnits? The Westerners, myself included, have begun speaking in ridiculous, outdated, or polysyllabic words:
1. so that we can say whatever we want around Koreans, who may or may not know English, but definitely do not know prestidigitate or defenestrate
2. so that we don't return home speaking like gibbering idiots and gesticulating like we have to over here.
"HELLO.... MOM.... IT... IS... VVVVERY... NICE... TO... SEE... YOU... AGAIN...."
Honestly I've used the word "excoriate" so many times that I've been threatened with a beating by the Crazy Scottish Guy.
I'm not sure if every group of mixed Westerners has one, or if all Scots are like that, but it seems everywhere we go, every group of westerners has a rowdy Scot, a few Frattish Canadians, a wierd, off-putting older guy from America, and one haggard Englishman who's been bobbing around the far East like so much human jetsam for the last 20 years, drinking and doing God knows what and God knows whom, respectively, and looks it. First time we met our British guy, we spent the rest of the day thinking of things that he's probably said after a night of drinking. One of the best was "I don't remember vomiting in a puddle of my own pass-out..." We thought we might have misjudged him when we didn't see him at the bars the first two weekends, but that was because he rolled into town with around 40 bucks to last him one month. He has a Thai girlfriend who he sends most of his money to. No comment. He eventually got the boss to give him an advance. The first thing he bought was a set of speakers, the same ones I got on my first day here, and the second thing was a TON of hooch for the 5 day weekend we had for Korean Thanksgiving. Needless to say, we've become fast friends, although I don't know if I can hang with his level of debauchery. I think I slept about 6 hours out of 72 at one point. You hit a wierd stride on the third day. You don't feel tired or hungover anymore, but you clearly are not banging on all 8 cylinders. Both me and my one friend started hallucinating that the all Koreans we overheard were speaking English with a British accent. Very wierd. I almost approached two random girls on the subway because it's so rare to meet a westerner, and hey, there are Asian Brits too, until I realized that everyone was speaking English, and yet somehow I couldn't understand a word. And then I freaked the eff out.
So for Korean Thanksgiving we went to Pusan, which is like Korean Miami. Cool thing about Korea is that Koreans are terrified of the cold. We went to Haeundae, Korea's Waikiki, which I'm aware is not in Miami, but you have to mix your metaphors sometimes to convey any information. Since it was after August, the only Koreans on the beach were gawking at the weird Westerners swimming in water that "everyone knows" will give you hypothermia this late in the year. It was about 70 degrees. I got a sunburn in late September for God's sake! And it's not just because it's usually very warm here that they're sensitive to cold, there were a bunch of drunken Southeast Asians weaving through the swimmers on Jetskis (not cool), it's just the culture. Anyway, a beach that usually looks like this
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/45/182475456_3a91c21548.jpg
was all ours (pretty cool) and there's no open container laws here. (very cool) But yea, travel is cheap if you know where and when to go, motels don't take ID, so you can steal whatever you want and ransack the minibar and there is always a Westerner bar in every town. I think I understand Gaydar, because we haven't missed yet. The places always try for a "Cowboy" feel, there's graffiti all over the walls, and LCD Soundsystem blaring from the speakers because that's the only music Americans, Canadians, and the Eurotrash can agree on. We get two weeks off in the wintertime, and we're thinking southern hemisphere... Jakarta, Hanoi, or Goa. And we're takin' votes
Speaking of booze, one alarming thing that I've learned is that apparently the Korean sake, Soju, is now catching on in trendy bars in America. This needs to stop. Immediately. This crap will rend our fair Republic unto tatters. Apparently it used to be ok, and the topshelf stuff is, but after the war, there was a rice shortage so a lot of manufacturers switched to pouring water on straight ethanol, and then adding sugar so it didn't taste like weak moonshine. It smells, and tastes, and affects you, like you poured rubbing alcohol into Zima. Each bottle is 30% alcohol, and costs you the equivalent of $1.20, and your motor skills for the next two days. Somehow or other Koreans think it tastes good, and pound the stuff all night, every night. These guys drink like they expect to wake up in a bathtub full of ice with their liver gone in the morning.
While I'm on the subject of horror stories, I thought I'd drop this knowledge on you. When we first got here, there was apparently a lot of care taken to handle us and keep us in a western bubble, but eventually we broke out, and the bathrooms, Almighty Christ on his Throne, the bathrooms! I thought I was scarred when I had to use a bidet at school a week or two ago, but one hungover morn, I found myself in an internet cafe in an older building and walked in on this:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.planetesl.com/img/toilets_1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.planetesl.com/information/toilets.html&h=244&w=200&sz=56&hl=en&start=7&um=1&tbnid=W4LNCFAPikxPyM:&tbnh=110&tbnw=90&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dkorean%2Btoilet%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den
To those of you asking what that is, and how you use it, you know damn well, so quit playing dainty. It's a freaking hole in the ground, and for the record that picture is wayyyy cleaner than you're likely to find around here. Brightside, I should have exquisitely muscled thighs by the time I leave.
Bidets are horrible though. I still have to wait for my parents to die to say for sure whether using one is the worst thing that will ever happen to me, but it's definitely in the running. Too bad hating French people is passe by now.
Also, never tell a scottish person to shut his Scot-hole. They will take umbrage. A whole heapin' helpin' of umbrage.
Annyonghi kaseyo!
Hey guys?
What's crackin, you crusty ol' consarnits? The Westerners, myself included, have begun speaking in ridiculous, outdated, or polysyllabic words:
1. so that we can say whatever we want around Koreans, who may or may not know English, but definitely do not know prestidigitate or defenestrate
2. so that we don't return home speaking like gibbering idiots and gesticulating like we have to over here.
"HELLO.... MOM.... IT... IS... VVVVERY... NICE... TO... SEE... YOU... AGAIN...."
Honestly I've used the word "excoriate" so many times that I've been threatened with a beating by the Crazy Scottish Guy.
I'm not sure if every group of mixed Westerners has one, or if all Scots are like that, but it seems everywhere we go, every group of westerners has a rowdy Scot, a few Frattish Canadians, a wierd, off-putting older guy from America, and one haggard Englishman who's been bobbing around the far East like so much human jetsam for the last 20 years, drinking and doing God knows what and God knows whom, respectively, and looks it. First time we met our British guy, we spent the rest of the day thinking of things that he's probably said after a night of drinking. One of the best was "I don't remember vomiting in a puddle of my own pass-out..." We thought we might have misjudged him when we didn't see him at the bars the first two weekends, but that was because he rolled into town with around 40 bucks to last him one month. He has a Thai girlfriend who he sends most of his money to. No comment. He eventually got the boss to give him an advance. The first thing he bought was a set of speakers, the same ones I got on my first day here, and the second thing was a TON of hooch for the 5 day weekend we had for Korean Thanksgiving. Needless to say, we've become fast friends, although I don't know if I can hang with his level of debauchery. I think I slept about 6 hours out of 72 at one point. You hit a wierd stride on the third day. You don't feel tired or hungover anymore, but you clearly are not banging on all 8 cylinders. Both me and my one friend started hallucinating that the all Koreans we overheard were speaking English with a British accent. Very wierd. I almost approached two random girls on the subway because it's so rare to meet a westerner, and hey, there are Asian Brits too, until I realized that everyone was speaking English, and yet somehow I couldn't understand a word. And then I freaked the eff out.
So for Korean Thanksgiving we went to Pusan, which is like Korean Miami. Cool thing about Korea is that Koreans are terrified of the cold. We went to Haeundae, Korea's Waikiki, which I'm aware is not in Miami, but you have to mix your metaphors sometimes to convey any information. Since it was after August, the only Koreans on the beach were gawking at the weird Westerners swimming in water that "everyone knows" will give you hypothermia this late in the year. It was about 70 degrees. I got a sunburn in late September for God's sake! And it's not just because it's usually very warm here that they're sensitive to cold, there were a bunch of drunken Southeast Asians weaving through the swimmers on Jetskis (not cool), it's just the culture. Anyway, a beach that usually looks like this
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/45/182475456_3a91c21548.jpg
was all ours (pretty cool) and there's no open container laws here. (very cool) But yea, travel is cheap if you know where and when to go, motels don't take ID, so you can steal whatever you want and ransack the minibar and there is always a Westerner bar in every town. I think I understand Gaydar, because we haven't missed yet. The places always try for a "Cowboy" feel, there's graffiti all over the walls, and LCD Soundsystem blaring from the speakers because that's the only music Americans, Canadians, and the Eurotrash can agree on. We get two weeks off in the wintertime, and we're thinking southern hemisphere... Jakarta, Hanoi, or Goa. And we're takin' votes
Speaking of booze, one alarming thing that I've learned is that apparently the Korean sake, Soju, is now catching on in trendy bars in America. This needs to stop. Immediately. This crap will rend our fair Republic unto tatters. Apparently it used to be ok, and the topshelf stuff is, but after the war, there was a rice shortage so a lot of manufacturers switched to pouring water on straight ethanol, and then adding sugar so it didn't taste like weak moonshine. It smells, and tastes, and affects you, like you poured rubbing alcohol into Zima. Each bottle is 30% alcohol, and costs you the equivalent of $1.20, and your motor skills for the next two days. Somehow or other Koreans think it tastes good, and pound the stuff all night, every night. These guys drink like they expect to wake up in a bathtub full of ice with their liver gone in the morning.
While I'm on the subject of horror stories, I thought I'd drop this knowledge on you. When we first got here, there was apparently a lot of care taken to handle us and keep us in a western bubble, but eventually we broke out, and the bathrooms, Almighty Christ on his Throne, the bathrooms! I thought I was scarred when I had to use a bidet at school a week or two ago, but one hungover morn, I found myself in an internet cafe in an older building and walked in on this:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.planetesl.com/img/toilets_1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.planetesl.com/information/toilets.html&h=244&w=200&sz=56&hl=en&start=7&um=1&tbnid=W4LNCFAPikxPyM:&tbnh=110&tbnw=90&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dkorean%2Btoilet%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den
To those of you asking what that is, and how you use it, you know damn well, so quit playing dainty. It's a freaking hole in the ground, and for the record that picture is wayyyy cleaner than you're likely to find around here. Brightside, I should have exquisitely muscled thighs by the time I leave.
Bidets are horrible though. I still have to wait for my parents to die to say for sure whether using one is the worst thing that will ever happen to me, but it's definitely in the running. Too bad hating French people is passe by now.
Also, never tell a scottish person to shut his Scot-hole. They will take umbrage. A whole heapin' helpin' of umbrage.
Annyonghi kaseyo!
It's So HOT here!
And yet, milk is such a wonderful choice...
(Written 9/19.)
Seriously, Bobby?
December year round? It's about 99 degrees here and always around 100% humidity. On the plus side, Tom, you were COMPLETELY right. You know what I'm talking about. So I've been here for two weeks, and while I miss the kind of things you can get in a cosmopolitan, uncrowded country with land that will grow anything (Dryers, a good haircut, cheese, wine, beer, fruit, Ipod accesories) I do like being one of twenty Westerners in a "provincial" town of 300,000 people who are so unused to foreigners they have absolutely no reservations about saying and doing some of the most hilarious racist things in the world. Kids and adults have asked me why my nose is so "high", why it's so big, if my eyes are really blue, what I do to my hair to make it look like that (I wish I knew, I'd love it if a Napoleon Dynamite 'fro became the style over here) They love to yank at your arm hair, and one of the black teachers had a kid try to rub the color off his skin, and has been called "chocolate man" and complimented on his smooth chocolate skin on several occasions. I feel like having my hair straightened and dyed black, and getting a nose job, just so the kids will pay attention.
The kids are a blast. I was worried they'd be super reserved like it said in all the guides, but except for a few of the shy ones, you can't get them to shut up. And they learn the wierdest words. Think it's off putting to be called beautiful by a 13 year old boy? How a bout a cluster of giggling schoolgirls (who as it turned out, all were on the way to the doctor for pinkeye) following you for a block yelling "handsome" in your face? What in God's name do you say to that? As for the shy kids, they are REALLY shy. As in, crippled with stage fright among 20 other kids their own age who they spend all day with when called on to recite a sentence that THEY wrote. I have one kid who's M.O. is to hide his face behind a sheet of paper when he says anything. But otherwise, they're nuts. Let them pick their own English names. I've seen Big Daddy too many times to pretend I didn't know what was coming. I ended up with three Monkeys, a Hitler, a Spaghetti, a Sanchez, an Eduardo, and a Keyser Soze. In one class I talked about America and American presidents first, and one kid decided to be George Jefferson. He realized his mistake and tried to correct it, but I was having none of it. 3rd period Friday is my new favorite hour.
Foods good, if you have no compunction about what you're eating. I've had snail soup, fish heads, tentacle omelettes, (tentacle everything really, this is a bad place to be a squid), and one soup that seemed like they dredged the bottom of a pond. Really brown, silty consistency, with seaweed and whole, unshelled crayfish. All of it tasted awesome. Only problem I have is that they never really caught onto butchery out here. Seems like they just hack at the animal wildly until something falls off and throw it on the fire. Bone-in everything, from chicken, to fish, to bacon. I've been thinking of opening a restaurant that just serves chicken fingers, salmon fillets, and prime rib. It'd blow their minds.
Culture's ok. I'm picking up the language as much as someone who left his dictionary and is miles from an English bookstore can. It's wierd. The written language was specifically designed by royal-appointed linguists so that "a wise man could learn it in a morning, a fool in ten days." I had it down in about 4. So I'm an illiterate who can read. I've learned not to sound out street signs near Koreans, because they assume I'm fluent and just hit me with a torrent of words I don't know, and refuse to believe I can't speak korean, cause I just read that sign. TV's ok too. Still waiting on cable, so I can get English language stuff, but there's this Korean show we've dubbed Old Lady Showdown. Some soap where middle-aged women stoneface stare at each other for at least one minute long scene every episode. Very intense.
Got to head to class. Keep fighting the good fight you guys.
(Written 9/19.)
Seriously, Bobby?
December year round? It's about 99 degrees here and always around 100% humidity. On the plus side, Tom, you were COMPLETELY right. You know what I'm talking about. So I've been here for two weeks, and while I miss the kind of things you can get in a cosmopolitan, uncrowded country with land that will grow anything (Dryers, a good haircut, cheese, wine, beer, fruit, Ipod accesories) I do like being one of twenty Westerners in a "provincial" town of 300,000 people who are so unused to foreigners they have absolutely no reservations about saying and doing some of the most hilarious racist things in the world. Kids and adults have asked me why my nose is so "high", why it's so big, if my eyes are really blue, what I do to my hair to make it look like that (I wish I knew, I'd love it if a Napoleon Dynamite 'fro became the style over here) They love to yank at your arm hair, and one of the black teachers had a kid try to rub the color off his skin, and has been called "chocolate man" and complimented on his smooth chocolate skin on several occasions. I feel like having my hair straightened and dyed black, and getting a nose job, just so the kids will pay attention.
The kids are a blast. I was worried they'd be super reserved like it said in all the guides, but except for a few of the shy ones, you can't get them to shut up. And they learn the wierdest words. Think it's off putting to be called beautiful by a 13 year old boy? How a bout a cluster of giggling schoolgirls (who as it turned out, all were on the way to the doctor for pinkeye) following you for a block yelling "handsome" in your face? What in God's name do you say to that? As for the shy kids, they are REALLY shy. As in, crippled with stage fright among 20 other kids their own age who they spend all day with when called on to recite a sentence that THEY wrote. I have one kid who's M.O. is to hide his face behind a sheet of paper when he says anything. But otherwise, they're nuts. Let them pick their own English names. I've seen Big Daddy too many times to pretend I didn't know what was coming. I ended up with three Monkeys, a Hitler, a Spaghetti, a Sanchez, an Eduardo, and a Keyser Soze. In one class I talked about America and American presidents first, and one kid decided to be George Jefferson. He realized his mistake and tried to correct it, but I was having none of it. 3rd period Friday is my new favorite hour.
Foods good, if you have no compunction about what you're eating. I've had snail soup, fish heads, tentacle omelettes, (tentacle everything really, this is a bad place to be a squid), and one soup that seemed like they dredged the bottom of a pond. Really brown, silty consistency, with seaweed and whole, unshelled crayfish. All of it tasted awesome. Only problem I have is that they never really caught onto butchery out here. Seems like they just hack at the animal wildly until something falls off and throw it on the fire. Bone-in everything, from chicken, to fish, to bacon. I've been thinking of opening a restaurant that just serves chicken fingers, salmon fillets, and prime rib. It'd blow their minds.
Culture's ok. I'm picking up the language as much as someone who left his dictionary and is miles from an English bookstore can. It's wierd. The written language was specifically designed by royal-appointed linguists so that "a wise man could learn it in a morning, a fool in ten days." I had it down in about 4. So I'm an illiterate who can read. I've learned not to sound out street signs near Koreans, because they assume I'm fluent and just hit me with a torrent of words I don't know, and refuse to believe I can't speak korean, cause I just read that sign. TV's ok too. Still waiting on cable, so I can get English language stuff, but there's this Korean show we've dubbed Old Lady Showdown. Some soap where middle-aged women stoneface stare at each other for at least one minute long scene every episode. Very intense.
Got to head to class. Keep fighting the good fight you guys.
Chapter the First: In Which Our Intrepid Hero Ignores The Rough Equivalency Of Writing A Blog To Scrawling Homophobic Graffiti In A Toilet Stall.
At least people read the graffiti in a toilet stall, and you've got a 1 in 10 chance at a laugh, which is more than I can say about any blog I've ever read. Except for those run by certain friends of mine who shall remain nameless, so that everone I know can bask in warmth of the assumption that I mean them. (I don't). Didn't plan on becoming a weblogger on the Infoputer Superhypernet, but a friend suggested I put some emails home he missed out on up on one, and it seemed like an elegant solution to my problem of how to ignore all the friends back home I promised to write to, while still bitching about things that interest no one but myself. So stay posted.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)