2009: Year-End Retrospective. Personal - Advent

Blind Willie Johnson - Dark Was the Night



Frankly, dear readers, this was a tough year. Hella tough. Every year, around Christmas, I've written a personal retrospective on the year, and it's traditionally been among the writing I worked on the hardest, and was most proud of each year. This year, I'm going to give you a list of the things I learned, or realized and need to apply, because it was a really full year of stuff to be learned. Before I get into that, here's the big big, tippy-top high point of the year:

On Chuseok holiday, on a pretty little bridge in the loveliest neighborhood in Kyoto, Japan, Girlfriendoseyo and I got engaged. It was pretty sweet. I gave her a nifty ring and now we're working on setting dates and stuff. Anybody out there who can recommend a wedding planner who speaks both English and Korean?

But now, in list form, are the things I learned this year, in no particular order. Some of them have stories, but some of those stories pertain to people who read this blog, so this year's retrospective is going to be a little more circumspect than previous ones. Sometime this year I became circumspect. I'm still deciding how I feel about that.

1. Two things that comfort me are the sounds of ironing, and church. Church totally stomps ironing, though.

2. If I'm not working on improving myself, I'm in decline: human beings are too malleable to stay the same. If I'm not sure how I'm changing, in the absence of actual work on self-improvement, chances are I'm regressing in some area. That's something I learned in the absolute worst way this year. Nope. You won't be hearing the gritty details here. The first place to look to suss out the shape of that regression is where I spend my time. Without a goal, a guide, or a purpose for what I want to become, the combined stimuli of the ways I spend my time will decide for me. I learned this one when, for a while in the middle of the ATEK storm, which kept me crazy busy writing, moderating, and keeping in touch with various players, I assumed an important friendship would be around for me when I got back to it, and because of that neglect, it nearly wasn't.

3. Even when I think my friend is in the wrong, stand by that friend. The middle of a messy situation is not the time to let my friend know we're not on the same page; later, when it's just the two of us debriefing about the situation, is the time to have that conversation.

4. It doesn't take that much time a week working out, to feel a lot better.

5. It doesn't take that much money spent helping people, to feel a lot better. If you don't know yet about KIVA.ORG, then you need to find out, and help out. Seriously. Twenty-five bucks is nothing to most of us, but it can change a life.

6. Be generous with acquaintances but miserly with who I call friends, and who I trust. It helps to have a network of people and connections, but I discovered I need to be really sure about a person before calling them a friend, and be cognizant that usually adding a friend to the circle means having less time for the other friends already in the circle. I started learning this lesson back in 2008, and maybe it's a necessary step in becoming an online presence, but this is especially true of people I meet on the internet, and personalities that gravitate there. That's all I'm saying here.

7. It's worth my while to maintain ties with my family. Traveling back to Canada this summer was an eye-opener for me; it was so wonderful to see my family all together, that it caught me right off guard. Especially those of us who are a long time overseas, it's easy to go "out of sight, out of mind" but it's important not to. In fact, it was kind of shocking to go back and see everybody, like pulling off a bandaid and discovering that I'd missed these people way more than I admitted.

8. Remember my audience, not just in presentations, but in social situations. I hurt some of my friends with careless comments that, though funny, were disrespectful or hurtful to them. (Notice a theme? It's been a tough year friendsip-wise for me this year. I gotta learn to read people better.) This sensitivity is especially important when hanging out with people from a different culture, who might misread the wrong intentions my delivery.

9. Read books. After spending a long time mostly reading online articles and things, I finally started reading books again this fall. Books are great: they just get in deeper than blog posts and newspaper articles, and it's vital to look a little more rigorously at stuff from time to time.

10. I can't be friends through someone. The thing about friends of friends is that they're not my own friends yet, and it takes time and effort to turn those acquaintances into actual friendships. This is especially important in Korea, where people come and go, and the connection through which I knew someone might leave Korea before I have a chance to solidify that friendship, if I'm not on top of things. Gotta take ownership of that stuff.

Dear readers, I'm tired. This year has been exhausting for me, at different times, for different reasons, but sweet mercy, I want to lie in bed for two weeks... except that I'd probably feel worse at the end of that than I did at the beginning. I had a long talk with a friend, just this week, about seeking out quiet, and the way that without some time for introspection, and meditation, things can get hollow, and even worse, important things can be lost without noticing, if one doesn't stop to take stock.

But all that said... I got engaged this year! If I don't get at least twenty comments of congratulations on this post, I'm shutting down the blog forever.

(image source)

2S2 Gains Momentum... Introducing 2S2 Wonju

My lovely friend Danielle has chosen to start up a 2S2 Pocket in Wonju, where she lives. Personally, I'm thrilled. You can read more about it at the 2S2 Community blog, or at Danielle's own blog. If you live in Wonju, or near it, or know someone who does, I strongly recommend showing up in support of strengthening community connections, and support.

Danielle, you rock!

Sweet! Fresh Snow~

You may have heard that we had a record-breaking snowfall early on Monday. It was sweet.




Modern comedy is too fast paced. Nobody appreciates a really delicious awkward pause anymore.


And because I love snow, I went out in the snow to take some pictures. Jongmyo Shrine and Changgyeonggung were my destinations, and it was great. I'm going to write this post quickly, so please pardon lack of organizational coherence, etc.. If it really bugs you, well, you got what you paid for, didn't you?

This was built in a snowpile in myeongdong.




Palace and grounds.


























Jongmyo Shrine and Grounds







liked the snow pattern on the roof here








tracking across fresh snow is such a joy. I couldn't even tell you why.


liked this wonky tree. cool-shaped branches


everybody was out there with their cameras, taking pictures of everything.






The ajosshi playground in front of jongmyo shrine.








The fresh snow was deep.

and wet, later.

barely felt like Seoul.


All around myeongdong the snow had been scraped and broom-brushed (can you believe people use brooms to clear snow in Korea? And nobody has a proper snow shovel.


Chunggyecheon at night always makes me happy.





ze han river. taken from a subway car.


more on my travels this christmas break, and a look back on 2009, coming soon on Roboseyo

So, Avatar was OK, I guess.

So now that everybody's gone primate poo over Avatar, I've gotta say a few things, too.



I've seen it three times now... so I guess you'd have to say I'm strongly in the "liked it" camp.

First: here are the plain facts, sir. If you paid money to see Transformers 2 (I did - Craptacles are one of my guilty pleasures) then you're morally obligated to go see Avatar in the cinema as well. Morally obligated, sirs and madams.

See, if those money-grubbing filmmakers are willing to insult us with their complacent storytelling, their clumsy directing, their filling the screen with crappy actors who are basically good-looking set-pieces that lead the audience from one big explosion to the next... that's one thing. And you know, I'm not going to judge you for spending money to see junk like that in the theater... you better see it there, because anywhere else, and it's horrible, but at least in the cinema, with digital sound and everything, it'll clean out your ear wax.

But here's the other thing: if we're saps enough to give money to the cynical sputum-suckers who make movies like that, apparently out of sheer contempt for their audiences, then we owe it to ourselves, and to the film industry at large, to also give our money to people who are trying to make something that will actually chock us up full with wonder. So if movie spectacle doesn't do it for you anyway, if you didn't bother seeing Transformers 2 in the Cinema, don't bother seeing Avatar either... I guess. But if you did see Transformers 2, because you DO like movies that ought to be seen on the big screen, that are impressive and awesome and make you say "wow," then go see Avatar, too. It's the movie of the decade, and indeed an incredibly powerful expression of regret for humanity, and especially America's vainglory, and specifically the Bush administration.

It's also the movie of the decade: the last decade. And what I mean by that is that there are echoes in the imagery and content of this film that sum up a big part of the major headline news of the decade...

The first way this works is looking at the reason the humans are in Pandora: the indescribably precious and rather obviously named "unobtainium" - a macguffin, perhaps, and also a pretty good stand-in for oil. The language the soldiers use to go to war with the "Navi" (which sounds like Nabi, the Korean word for butterfly) echoes the Bush White House's: pre-emptive strike, shock and awe, fight terror with terror. There's even a scene ... I don't want to give any spoilers here, but there's a certain scene where something starts falling, and one of the shots is totally evocative of the cloud of dust that billowed out when the twin towers fell, and during htat same scene, something is fluttering down in a way that totally evoked all the looseleaf paper floating around the World Trade Center when the office buildings crashed.

It's also a movie that encapsulates the issue that has swollen from small potatoes to big cojones during the decade: the 2000s will be remembered as the decade that the world finally really became aware of the precarious state of the environment. One of the very first images in the film is of a disgusting strip-mine -- an even bigger blight when one sees the beauty of the forest that must have been cleared to make way for that mine. The Navi live in a world of ridiculously rich foliage, of every imaginable color and shape of life-form; the forest flares up with phosphorescence at night, to create one of the loveliest imaginary worlds ever seen on film. Show me a nicer one. The "Aiua" - the life force of the planet, is a direct echo of the Gaia myth - earth's environmental life force, and the idea that all living things are connected. The contrast between the grey, ugly industrial compound the humans built, and the breathtaking foliage of Pandora is startling.

So Avatar is the movie of the naughty oughties, in its political undertones as well as its environmental ones. Another is in its technological concepts. The name Avatar, as we internet people know, is what we call the character I create in an online game, and that character acts out my actions inside the computer game. The idea of acting through a created body is straight out of computer gaming... but then, the Navi people on the alien planet have their own technological correlative: all the Navi have long braids coming out of the back of their heads, which they can use to connect to a similar organ on some of the creatures on pandora, and even to communicate with certain trees. That organ looks a eerily like a fiber-optic cable, as do the strands of the trees which communicate with the Navi. That idea of connecting with a universally compatible port is remarkably similar to those USB ports that every computer has, which you can use to plug into just about anything. Not to mention the way the cords go into the base of your skull, not unlike the Matrix, which was actually 1999, but a series which found its cultural niche (and had a few sequels) in the 2000s. Think again about the difference between those two movies - Matrix, in 1999, introducing you to a world through virtual reality, a movie of violence, of grey, drab design, lots of guns, and a really bleak, dystopian future, and then think about Avatar, where you can plug an entire world into your brain, rather than interacting with a world that has been taken over by ruthless robots. Interesting change indeed. While I'm not one to go in depth into what this might reveal about changing attitudes toward technology and connectivity, it's an interesting idea to bat around, if you happen to get a few nerds in the same room.

See, this is why I love science fiction. The way a person conceptualizes his/her futuristic world reveals so clearly what a person sees in the world around them: that's WHY we use science fiction: as a mirror that is different enough from our world that we can recognize stuff, while still agreeing silently with each other to continue pretending it's a story. It's also interesting seeing James Cameron make connectivity, using fiber optic cables, no less, an integral part of his amazing alien race, especially given the unease with technology he earlier demonstrates in his Terminator movies.

Finally, one must also note that, right down to the bow-and-arrows and long braids, the Navi most resemble some band of First Nations North Americans, crossed with a blue cat - the long ponytale and bald sides to the male warriors heads, a race of people living close to nature: say whatever else you want, but yeah, this is also the noble savage myth retold... but then again, James Cameron's films have always been that way: his Terminator films were straightforward action films - down to the formula, but excellently done. Terminator 2 was the most nuanced film he ever made, thematically, and that had a kid shouting "You can't kill people!" and a narrator saying, "if a machine, a Terminator, can learn the value of human life, maybe we can too" - way to go for subtle. Titanic was also a pretty typical love vs. money, poor kid vs. rich jerk love story - thematic nuance isn't something James Cameron does... but then, when he can create a world as beautiful as Pandora, who cares if he doesn't?

So go see it. Take off your irony glasses, take a "gee-whiz" pill, and let him blow you away with a real treat for the eyes. Plus, if you paid money for Transformers 2, you'll be thrilled by this one: the action sequences make visual sense, the story is coherent, the characters are likeable, and there actually ARE themes, rather than just running gags and racist stereotypes!

2S2 Coming up Saturday, January 9th.

This post is interspersed with pictures from November's 2S2 meeting, all stolen from Foreigner Joy's blog. You can see them in their original context here.

Seoul Eats Meetup is a foodie meetup that's been going on over at Seoul Eats for a while, and 2S2 is heading for its January session, on the Second Saturday at 2pm. Here's the breakdown:

The plan for January just got sorted: the Anguk chapter of 2S2 is getting together with Seoul Eats for a teamup:



The Seoul Eats Meetup will be at noon in Insadong. There's a dumpling restaurant there with nice ddeok soup, a traditional new year's meal. Then, at 2, we'll head to twosome place to gather anybody who's there, and depending on the group size, we'll either head for a nifty tea room somewhere nearby to have some nice Korean teas, or (if the group is smaller) boot up the road to a little place with amazing warm, spiced wine. Once there, we'll have a book exchange. Bring the books you're done with, and trade them in for ones you haven't read yet. We're not fussy about genres... but I know I plan on bringing three or four books, to give my friends a little more choice. I'm also planning on bringing my set of Gostop cards, so that we can have another session of either learning, or playing the game. Once the weather gets warmer, we'll be a little more adventurous in our activities, but just so you know, the last 2S2's have all been good times so far.



So if you're up for some good food, you're welcome to join the Seoul Eats Meetup, like I will, and if a bit of social time, a card game and a book exchange sounds fun, join in for 2S2, too. The Seoul Eats folks are invited to bring a book they're finished with, and meet the rest of the 2S2 people at 2pm. I was thinking of climbing a mountain... but it's still hella cold. I'll bring my pack of gostop cards for anyone who wants... to either play, or learn how, as well.

Please note: I'm hoping not to stay too long at Twosome place this time, and to fairly quickly
move on to the next place, so please try to be there promptly at 2. See you there!

Here's the link to the google map.

Here's the google map to find it all.

View Kung Mandu and Twosome Place: Seoul Eats and 2S2 in a larger map

Read more about 2S2 here. Or here. Or in The Korea Herald.

also: I am very, very interested in getting 2S2 pockets set up in other locations, rather than just in Seoul. If you're living outside of Seoul, or even in a suburb that's pretty far from Insadong, don't complain that 2S2 is a good idea, but too far away: start your own pocket! Get in touch with me at roboseyo at gmail dot com, or send me a message on facebook, and I'll be thrilled to promote your meetup on the 2S2 community blog as well.

Goodbye Busan Montage

It's dismaying how often I come across a really cool blog...just as they publish their "I'm beginning my countdown to going home" post. Here's a great "goodbye busan" video from the apparently defunct K-blog "Annyeong"

BUSAN BLITZ from Quelly Kanwai on Vimeo.

Konglish of the Day

This air freshener made me smile.


And I'm not putting this on its own post... but T-Ara did their pop song "Bo-Peep" with a Korean orchestra backing them up, moving awkwardly in an attempt at sexy hanbok, for their new year's day performance. I really don't know what to say.



This song is 2010's first number one song in Korea.

Happy New Year! Retrospective on the Way

This video: On the Water, by the Walkmen, is seriously awesome. Great song, stunning video.

Found it on Pitchforkmedia's top 50 music videos of 2009. Go look around there... some amazing stuff to see. Pitchfokmedia's year end lists are always worth looking for.

I'm working on a few looks back at 2009: hang on, and I'll soon come up with
1. Top ten K-blog moments of 2009
2. (in the Korea Herald) Top ten expat stories of 2009
3. Top ten blogoseyo posts of the year
4. Ten things I learned this year. I didn't do an advent post this year... frankly, it's been a tough year for me personally in a lot of ways. There was one super-duper high point, and then a whole bunch of rough stuff. So that's all coming up. Now go back up and watch that video.

Rob

The Commercials That Make Me Glad I Don't Have A TV

Even though I don't have a TV, and I only ever see TV peripherally or incidentally, passing a screen in a shop, sitting under one in a restaurant, or having it on in the background at girlfriendoseyo's house, I'm still sick of these commercials.

Catchy as hell, though.






Korea has a knack for odd commercials: not as that Japanese ads are plain and dull (check out this one), but TV ads are a serious theater of the absurd out here.

One Christmas Party Pic

Correction: Two Christmas party pics.

My monthly flickr allowance just topped out, so I can't put up too many pictures, but here's one I like:



It's been a pretty good Christmas, all told: I'll describe some of it in more detail later, but for now, suffice it to say Christmas dinner rocked, and the trip to Jeollanamdo was an adventure punctuated with moments of fantasticousity in the middle of mud, and a lunch encounter with Jeollanamdo's most famous K-blogger was one of the nicest couple hours of my winter so far.

Plus, Joy got this sweet hat! And it came with a free ice cream cake!


But, uh, more later. When it's not 4AM.

-seyo

Will this Happen? Of Course Not...but Japan Really Needs to Do Something About Its Past

The Korean has written a very interesting article about Japan's historical disputes with Korea, prompted by the Japanese government's decision to pay a slap-in-the-face insult of a 99yen payoff to Korea's comfort woman. Interesting reading: go read it!

Christmas in Gwanghwamun/Chunggyecheon, Missing Family, and Stupid Hats

Met my friend Cecilia yesterday, and she introduced her boyfriend to me.

You may remember her from here:


Well, her boyfriend a a seriously stellar guy. I like him a lot... and I'm fussy about who dates my surrogate sisters and brothers... but he's a class act, really supportive, and really sweet. Awesome.




too cute.


Took pictures of the Gwanghwamun area, and also some video. I'd also taken a bus down to Kangnam to see what it had to offer, but Kangnam was pants compared to Jongno/Gwanghwamun/City Hall/Chunggyecheon. (Pants is UK slang for "garbage") - somebody told me Kangnam was way cooler these days that it had been the last time I went down there, so I've even refrained from slamming Kangnam at every chance I get, on the off chance it actually WAS cooler... no such luck. Still too crowded, still shiny but with no feeling, still a poor man's Shinjuku. Sorry, Kangnam. You're going to have to try harder, and I don't mean installing more LCD screens.

I gave Cecilia the camera and she got these candid shots of me.





Video Turtle Boat in front of Admiral Lee in Gwanghwamun Plaza.


Gwanghwamun Plaza








Jongno, on the other hand, was in fine form.

Myeongdong



Every Christmas, there's a competition between the department stores to put on the nicest Christmas light display.

Lotte Department Store and Lotte Hotel were unusually weak this year... Namdaemun's Shinsegye spanked Lotte all over the place.



The CitiBank christmas tree in Chunggyecheon plaza was almost as big as the red-blue poo, and it changed color, so it's best seen on the video (see above). It was really nice, though.








Lotte Young Plaza also beat out Lotte Department Store/Lotte Hotel.



Lotte Dept store was meh.



City Hall's Christmas tree was nowhere near this nice; the rest of City Hall Plaza was mostly weak sauce, too.



Outside the Press Building between Gwanghwamun and City Hall



Also along that stretch: the Haechi made his first Christmas appearance. In Seoul, the Haechi comes at night to give good children Christmas gifts like ice cream cakes and stupid hats, and he give bad children's parents municipal tax notices, and arrests them for demonstrating in public spaces.





Chunggyecheon rocked, though.

















I also went around that area with my handsome buddy Evan, two nights earlier, so these pictures are from two separate nights. He's a great guy, and he has a message for you.





I already linked Brian's post about dumb Korean Christmas music and stupid hats... the comments to that post are a veritable bloodbath that boils down to a few people saying we have to respect the ways other cultures observe holidays, and if Korea wants to create a commercial monstrosity with stupid hats, that's their prerogative, and the other side saying, "it's all well and good to be a cultural relativist, but it's still jarring and maybe sad to see Christmas observed in a way that is so distant from the warm family holiday we remember from our childhood" (or even from the Christmas we see in movies like A Christmas Story, It's A Wonderful Life, and Love Actually... which is huge in Korea, maybe partly because it reinforces that Christmas is a couple holiday to Koreans.

What I'll say is this: I was never a big fan of commercial Christmas anywhere (put me in the Charlie Brown camp -- ever notice how preachy "A Charlie Brown Christmas" is?), but the fact that Christmas is not only mostly divorced from the old religious roots (didn't see a single nativity scene in two nights of walking around, haven't heard more than a few sacred carols on the Christmas music playlists in Korean shops), but ALSO divorced from the Christmas we remember from back home -- as far and away the number one family holiday of the year -- is jarring, and it sharpens the twinge of homesickness, or the sting of culture shock, for most of the month of December, for many of us. I always miss my family more at Christmas, and my students and Korean friends don't get that unless I ask how they'd feel spending Chuseok away from home, where nobody knows what shikke or songpyun is. The only way I can explain the importance of Christmas to Westerners is to say "Imagine Chusok, Sollal, and Children's Day, all in one day. That's Christmas to me."

Being critical of Christmas cakes and silly hats is a legitimate response to that cognitive dissonance -- "It looks like Christmas... but it isn't Christmas like I remember/long for it..." and frankly, I sympathize. It wouldn't much surprise me if the people attacking Brian in the comments are simply exhibiting their OWN way of coping with the far-from-home culture shock, assuming they ARE far from home, by biding no negativity, or reacting to it so defensively.

And after all that preachifying, here's the best picture of the night:

Saw reflection of blue christmas lights in metal sign. favorite hidden treasure. Whoever can find where I took this, and send me a similar picture, or post it on their blog, wins a cookie.



Now I'm off: I'll be on the road a bit, so I might not post again until next week. If you really miss me, you can read me in Korean Newsweek (assuming you read Korean) or the English original (at Roboseyo), and also at Wonju Wife, talking about why I still believe in Santa Claus.