SARS-Proof and SARS-Free

I'm Back, after a restful week at work, entertaining, and generally getting no sleep. I now have the ability to add photos, so we can re-live the exciting events of my trip through pictures as well. And to start off, here is yours truly in Beijing, the only person in the entire capital of China wearing a SARS mask, but ya know, its not like I didn't stand out already... 

Back to Life, Back to Normality…

OK, so I am sitting in San Francisco Airport, at Gate 77A to be precise, right across from Peet’s Coffee and Gordon Biersch Brewing Company, and I am typing the final installment for this current Asian tour. I am looking towards a return to “normal life” with both longing and trepidation. The past weeks have been a time of exploring, of freedom, of interaction and of new and remembered sights, sounds, smells and tastes. But there is a comfort in returning to the interaction and care of a family, to the certainty of a schedule and to the intellectual stimulation of the office.

My flight back was largely uneventful, although it was an adoption flight, with plenty of noisy babies. Once again, though, I must say that I am on the whole unimpressed with United’s “service.” This airline treats passengers like barely animate cargo, like animals or small children that need corralled, cajoled and contained rather than paying customers of a service. In essence, the impression comes across that the flight attendants are exasperated at having to deal with us travelers, like we are idiots or something. This is in stark contrast to the Asian airlines, and may simply reflect the “American” way of doing business. But it is a pretty poor way of doing business.

That said, at least my flight was on time, so there is something positive. But enough about the flight. There are numerous other thoughts, ideas, inspirations and memories spilling over from this trip, but for now, it is time to bring it to a close. The journal will remain online and updated, but focusing more on observing from afar, rather than interacting directly. I will add photos later, if I decide to shell out the cash for a full service plan, and with the photos will come new stories and dredged memories, ideas and comments.

For those who actually read these posts as they came online, I thank you for your indulgence and hope this has given you at least a small glimpse into life in Asia for a foreign traveler, and a bit of a better understanding not only of them, but of me as I interacted. A final note of thanks to my gracious Korean and Chinese hosts, my new friends, my temporary acquaintances and my old friends who were there and indulged a wayward Miguk in his quest for excitement and meaning.

-Yi Sun Shin 040519:1010 (California time)

From 1996 to 2004, May 18 Revisited: Part IV

May 17 was little different than May 16, except perhaps the mood was even more like a carnival – they even had a juggler at one end of the street. Few themes reflected May 18, but rather June 15 (inter-Korean summit), Nogunri (Korean War era massacre of civilians my U.S. forces), the Iraq War, the Korean ownership of TokDo and the over-riding theme of unification of the two Koreas.

The programming was haphazard, there was a part where sirens wailed, the sound of helicopters was heard, and red and white American flags rained down on the crowd. Earlier in the day, they had a guy in a George W. Bush mask in a cage taunting people, who could in turn throw beanbags at him.

But while May 17 was disappointing, May 18 made me and my traveling companion (a former student of mine) rather sad. In the morning, there was a brief ceremony over at the new cemetery, including a speech by President Roh Moo Hyun. Except the way the place is set up, Roh and the other speakers are not visible to the vast majority of the audience. Rather, there is an invitation-only section for politicians, visiting foreign guests and a few chosen families and injured from May 18.

This main stage is blocked from view by a series of white tents that house the metal detectors. The rest of the folks simply watch the speeches on a large television screen. Roh may as well have been in China or the United States as in Kwangju.

The mood around the graves, too, was muted compared to eight years ago. Most families, it seems, prefer to come at a time when the grounds won’t be crawling with national media seeking that perfect picture of a crying grandmother or a weepy politician.

But the biggest shock came this evening, when we turned onto Kumnamno around seven PM and saw… well, regular traffic. There are no events scheduled for May 18 aside from the very brief service at the cemetery. No demonstrations, no songs, no silent memorial… nothing. According to a local Uri Party official, the local businesses complained about the street being closed so often, so May 18 is a day for “reflection.” The real party will start May 19 with a series of concerts and fireworks.

My conclusion from all this, which my associate shared, is that May 18 is no longer for or about Kwangju. Even the musicians performing on May 17 were from different areas of the country. Kwangju is being forgotten amid the nationally-sponsored events. Instead, it is a time to yell about the United States, the Iraq War, genetically modified foods, handicapped rights, and, most importantly it seemed, to sell food, balloons (I saw several vendors with their Spongebob Squarepants balloons for sale), and pose for patriotic photos – students standing atop a bus waving fake rifles and real flags, a few people standing in a row holding torches, with no explanation of what they were doing, who they were, or why they were even there, children walking on the backs of their elders carrying the unification flag. These are the new May 18 memorials, with May 18 and even the city left far behind in the thoughts and memories.

I may write more on this, I have pages of notes, as well as more to write that is floating in my head, but I must sleep. Tomorrow it is onto a bus to get onto as plane to get to home. And while I say that national healing is good, the impression I get from those who lived through May 18 is that there is none. All there is is the repressing of memories once again, living with the failure of May 1980 rather than the sense of pride and the knowledge of history that dwells deep within the souls of the people, but may never be fully revealed.

So don’t let pain and the appearance of failure or defeat keep you from embracing your memories and your past – both the good and the bad – for without that past, you would not be you. It is not something to dwell on with an assumption or wondering of whether you could have or should have changed something, but an appreciation of the pain and sorrow, joy and celebration, drudgery and discovery that shaped and formed you and made you something unique.

Well, enough pop-psychology and personal affirmation, sleep beckons and a bus awaits my arrival early in the morning.

From 1996 to 2004, May 18 Revisited: Part III

Journal Entry – 040516:1208 – Near provincial Office - The atmosphere is much more festival than 8 years ago. This time the street is divided into three sections, running down [Kumnamno] from the circle fountain. The first section is primarily anti-[Iraq] war, anti-U.S. and remember Kwangju and 5/18. But the other two sections include protests against GM [genetically modified] foods, tables for disabled rights, various youth groups, cotton candy, balloon animals, etc. Half a dozen places have different music playing, not to mention the two samulnori bands dancing up and down the street. They are still setting up the main stage, there are [regular] police, only three buses of riot police, parked in front of the provincial office. This year is the 24th anniversary, and the theme is “Peace and Solidarity,” or at least that is what is on the bulk of the posters. The anti-U.S. art also has a pro-unification section, with more positive [than negative] images. No woodblock prints of slaughter like in 1996 [I have three of these, one hanging at my home, the other two being stored]. The noise ebbs and flows as the samulnori groups weave and twist their ways up and down the street, and off onto the side streets. … Taped to the ground in the middle of the street is a giant outline map of a unified Korea… there is also a paper-crane booth over in the protest section. There is no sign of stress or tension… they are testing the main stage speakers with cheesy pop music. It drowns out most of the other sounds and adds to the general atmosphere of party. A few more people are arriving, but the bulk of the young are over on the shopping streets, even with many shops closed [it is Sunday]…

Journal Entry – 040516:1247 – Sitting - There are three more buses of riot police in reserve, not just the three in front of the Provincial Office, and the backdrop of the main stage has an American flag with the [red] stripes dripping blood, Bush in a [military] helmet in the middle and pictures of the Iraqi prisoner abuse [this was later removed and replaced with a stylized picture of demonstrating youth]. Fits right in with the impression that U.S. forces are all bad all the time… In the distance, on one of the back streets, the samulnori drums sound like thunder…

Journal Entry – 040516:1930 – On Kumnamno - It is a party atmosphere, a carnival rather than a time of mourning or anger. There is little sense of the sadness, remembrance, bitterness or anger of the past. The change in government has brought about a significant change in the 5/18 memorial, and whether that is good or bad I cannot tell. There is no sense of real or [directly] passed-on history. The silence of the past 24 years seems to have buried the pain, joy, victory and defeat of 1980, and along with the sons and daughters of he “revolution” who were disinterred from Mangwoldong and moved to the new cemetery, so the deep dark history, the pain and suffering of Kwangju of 1980 seems transplanted, and where once there was anger, now there is celebration. But celebration of what? Has there been justice? Has anything really changed since 1996/1997 [when I was there and when the economic crisis hit]? Has the Kim Dae Jung victory in December 1997 really removed the stains of the past, or simply caused them to be overlooked, pushed ever further back into the darkness of memories better left behind? And is that a bad thing? Or is it part of the normal process, that history changes, becomes a tool of the present, and the present is a time of social upheaval, of political shifts, a time when the military is no longer a political player, no longer a source of influence and power? Or is it a tragedy and a betrayal of the thousands who rose up, who risked their lives to bring about a freedom that is today taken for granted? On the street are not the people in their [early and] mid-40s, the students of 1980, but instead are the high school students, not even born in 1980. And the university students too who weren’t even born then, for the most part. It is a memorial created, directed and acted by a generation with no memory of May 18, 1980. A generation that has non known dictatorship, not known a police state, and may have only the vaguest memory of the student protests in the early 1990s, when every spring teargas and rocks filled the air of a city still feeling under-represented, ignored, and even discriminated against, a city without a [true] sense of collective pride and joy, but a city wit a collective sense of victimization, which for most, after May 18, was best dealt with by pushing it far down beneath “everyday’ life. The victory was not theirs for the taking, so why risk it [again]? Even the students protested more from a sense of duty than any true ideology or real sense of positive change. Hey were protests “against,” but not “for” anything…

From 1996 to 2004, May 18 Revisited: Part II

As I return to Kwangju eight years later, just after the reinstatement of president Roh Moo Hyun (a major victory for the “progressive” forces of South Korean politics) and not long after the election of the Uri Party to a majority in the parliament and even the inclusion of some ten members of the labor party, an overtly leftist party, to the parliament – a first for South Korea – I notice a distinct change in the tone and mood of the memorial services.

In part I was expecting this. First, I had already known that, at least from my experience in Kwangju in 1996, the students protested AGAINST things, not FOR things. There is a big difference in the motivation and aim, and with the election of Kim Dae Jung, suddenly there was little to demonstrate AGAINST. This in itself had mollified not only the level of violent protests and demonstrations across Korea (a marked drop in Molotov cocktails, for example) but also started a process whereby the central government began to take ownership of the Kwangju memorial.

Steps were put into motion to move the bodies of victims from the Mangwoldong Cemetery to a new May 18 Cemetery, and the Kwangju Massacre took on the name the Kwangju Uprising, then the Kwangju Incident and finally the Kwangju Democracy Movement, each successive renaming taking away from the sense of anger and pain of the initial, local memorials. It soon became popular for central government officials and parliamentarians to make appearances in Kwangju during the memorial – a sort of necessary atonement for the past and a demonstration of moving forward.

I also expected the changes after reading Linda S. Lewis’s book Laying Claim to the Memory of May: A Look Back at the 1980 Kwangju Uprising, which traced some of the history of these changes in memorials. But nothing could prepare me for what I saw. Balloon arches separating different sections of the memorial stands, many of which had little of anything to do with May 1980, and instead sold cotton candy and balloon animals, face painting or protested against genetically modified food or for handicap rights.

What few pieces of displays there were referring to May 1980 did get a place nearer the central fountain, the rallying point of 1980, but even these were few and sparse compared to 1996. There were paintings with anti-American themes, but also noticeable were paintings with pro-unification themes. In fact the Unification flag was seen much more than the South Korean flag. The ubiquitous signs calling on America to apologize for the Kwangju Massacre were no where to be seen, replaced by posters calling for peace and solidarity.

The party-like atmosphere was reinforced by the samulnori bands, which can either act as a catalyst (sort of like war drums) or as a festival-starter, the latter being the case this year. There was a march of students, flying their university and high school banners, up Kumnamno, there was a ceremonial tug-of-war, in which the first winning side was asked to let the other side win the second round. And there was a poorly choreographed audience-reenactment of the events of May 1980, complete with tinfoil-wrapped paper wads to represent stones, baskets of rice balls to mark the distribution of food to the students by the citizens, and numerous fake M-16s, something that would have brought in the riot police eight years ago.

During he reenactment, most of the students watching/participating didn’t know the words to the protest songs, few pumped their fists in the air – again in marked contrast to 1996. Even more stunning was that, looking back from the stage, the participants didn’t even fill the street back to the YMCA building. There may have been only a few hundred folks gathered for the first night’s memorial. Now this may be because the main events really start tomorrow (May 17), but I’m not so sure. The party-atmosphere lends itself to leaving to go shopping in the busy streets off of Kumnamno, rather than sit and be bored with some choreographed and rigged tug-of-war.

Now, lest you get the impression that I am pining for the old days of violence and teargas, you are wrong. That Korea has moved beyond this is wonderful for the Koreans. But there are questions I have as I look over the memorial that really only the citizens of Kwangju can answer, if they are even wiling to talk.

As this post is drawing on (and on and on…), I will wait till the next post to give you a piece of my journal with my notes directly from Kumnamno. But for those who care, I was already interviewed by a lady from KBC (Kwangju Broadcasting Corporation), and shared some of my impressions on camera with her – in my private capacity, of course. Oh, and one other note, it seems that one of the main organizers of the May 16 and May 17 daytime festivities is one of my previous acquaintances from Kwangju, so I am sure to talk to her again tomorrow.

From 1996 to 2004, May 18 Revisited: Part I

May 18 is the memorial day of the “Kwangju Massacre,” an event in 1980 triggered by the 1979 assassination of South Korean President Park Chung Hee and the imposition of martial law and a follow-on military coup by President Chun Do Hwan. The citizens of Kwangju, in a push for national democracy and against further dictatorship, rallied as part of nation-wide demonstrations. When the government called for an end to all such demonstrations by May 17, the students in Kwangju defied these orders.

Special airborne forces were deployed into the city on May 18, leaving perhaps hundreds or even thousands of students and citizens dead. In response, students and irate citizens broke into police and military armories and drove the central military forces out of the city. Kwangju then existed for a few days as a semi-independent democratic entity, before additional troops re-entered the city and took control, bringing to an end a nine-day period of unrest and civil self-rule.

The actual death toll remains unknown; some number it in the low hundreds, others into the thousands. Every year thereafter, there has been a May 18 rally in Kwangju, illegal for the first several years, semi-legal thereafter, and fully legal and state sanctioned after the election of perennial opposition candidate Kim Dae Jung. The citizens of Kwangju have long harbored bitter feelings toward the United States for either condoning the military crackdown in the city or at minimum of failing to intervene to protect the civilians in the city from the military regime.

For those of Kwangju, it seemed unthinkable that the United States, which laid claim to being the torchbearer of democracy and freedom, could support a military dictatorship that used violence to quell what had begun as peaceful student rallies against martial law and the coup and for the establishment of true democracy in South Korea. Those bitter feelings, the feelings of betrayal and disillusionment, still linger today, not only in Kwangju but in the new Korean nationalism movement and the cyclical waves of anti-American sentiments.

In 1996, when I lived in Kwangju, there were still regular spring demonstrations and clashes between students and riot police. While somewhat choreographed, with seemingly set roles and timings for each participant, these often ended in injuries, and some demonstrations even ended in death, usually from asphyxiation from excessive teargas inhalation. The joke about demonstrations at the time was to note that, while Cheju Island is famous for its "Wind, Rocks and Water," Kwangju, too had those three elements, only the Wind was teargas, the Rocks were thrown by students and the Water came from the police water cannons. The May 18 memorial was a time of bitterness and anger, of students remembering the sacrifices of their parents and elders and taking to the streets in defiance of the corrupt system of politics in South Korea and in opposition to the United States, calling on Washington to fess up to its responsibilities for 1980.

At the time (1996 was the last year of major high-profile North Korean incursions into South Korean land territory), such actions by students and citizens of Kwangju were still considered leftist and suspicious. Riot police were deployed throughout the memorial period, though there was little direct interference by security forces. But at the time, on the evening of May 17, I sat in a crowd of some ten or 15 thousand students and citizens, all chanting for the Americans to apologize for Kwangju and leave Korea.

Yet despite my conspicuous blond head in the sea of black hair, I was never threatened or treated with anything but friendship or pleasure at taking the time to attend the memorial. It was “America” the concept, the military and government that they hated, not Americans themselves.

Farewell Seoul, Back to the “City of Light”

So at the unearthly hour of 4:15AM on a Sunday morning, I hailed a cab, leaded my (ever-growing and increasingly heavy) bags and headed off to Yongsan Station to catch the first KTX out of the city for the Honam region. After sitting around somewhat impatiently for a while waiting for the train (I was a little tired, you know) it was finally time to board, and I headed down to the platform to see the long, slender lines of the 300km/h train sitting before me.

On board and poised at the window, it was off to Kwangju (after like five other stops). The most noticeable difference, once you start moving, is the smoothness and quietness of the ride compared to the other trains. This is not a maglev, just a fast train for the regular rail tracks, but the sound and motion dampening systems work well (some may argue too well, as there is a bit of that floating feeling when you finally do get up to speed).

Slicing diagonally across the flooded rice paddies, the train is here and gone, as much an apparition as the mist-shrouded fields and farmhouses. A few farmers walk the dikes between their fields, getting an early start on the day. Wild waterfowl wade and fly in and around the fields. Tractors plow through the mud, as houses and storage buildings sit as virtual islands surrounded by wet fields. On the hillsides, waving rows of green pattern the fields. There is no chance for a second glance as we nearly fly by the fields and forests on raised tracks, cutting through the cloud-like fog. The Land of the Morning Calm is indeed still and peaceful at this hour as we head southward, leaving behind the big-city atmosphere of Seoul and speeding through the rural heartland of Korea.

And now, I sit at my computer in Kwangju, the City of Light, with just two full days to go before returning home and somehow readjusting to “normal” life. But for these last few days, it will be a chance to hop the new Kwangju subway, and to witness and take part in the May 18 memorials, to see the differences in perception and memory these last eight years of reform governments have brought.

A Barbecue to Make a Texan Proud … At a Korean B&B

So last evening I hooked up with the brother of someone I know over in the states, and was entertained to the fullest in Korean style. Now, let me make it clear that when a Korean decides to entertain someone, there are few things they won’t do or offer – they are very big on making a good impression and demonstrating their hospitality.

So I was picked up at a subway station at like nine thirty at night and driven an hour out of Seoul to Yangpyong to their Bed and Breakfast, where the man of the house had a wood fire burning in the barbecue pit and a grill full of various meats, vegetables, corn and potatoes. And so, in the cool and fresh mountain air, we sat around outside at the picnic table and ate and talked until after midnight (anytime my dish came anywhere near empty it was refilled with twice as much as before), and as the last embers died down in the barbecue pit, I was escorted to my own suite for sleep.

Now this place is made up like a mountain lodge, the entire interior is in bright pine paneling, there is a freestanding fireplace in the main room, and each of the guest rooms has its own bathroom and kitchenette. Oh, and the bathroom has a real, modern, western-style shower, even with the massaging jets. And so rather full, refreshed, and lying in bed I drifted off to sleep to the “gaegul” sound of Korean frogs calling out into the night.

In the morning, after a light breakfast of an egg-and-cheese sandwich on toast, it was a brief stint of watching Korean celebrity game shows (an experience not to be missed, especially if you have no clue what they are saying - I mean, some of these make Mexican television look downright understandable) and a live baseball game from the United States (a Korean plays for the Florida Marlins). Then it was into the cars and off to a restaurant for some Chunju Papsang. Now, the Chunju meal is one where there are many, many side dishes (28 for our brunch), and that is in addition to the rice, the two platters of spicy fish, the soup and the Nuroonji.

Now, for those of you who are not familiar with Nuroonji (and who knows what the English spelling is supposed to be), I have a theory on this particular dish, which is basically leftover burnt rice with boiled water. When Koreans cooked rice over a fire, it was in big stoneware or iron bowls. Inevitably, the rice around the edges browned, burnt, and stuck to the bowl. So the Koreans came up with a clever way of encouraging their children to do the dishes for them. The decided that, if you boil some water in the used rice bowl, it will not only un-stick the stuck-on burnt rice, but also make a “treat” for the kids.

Thus, after scooping our rice out of our hot bowls and putting it into different bowls, we poured boiling water over the stuck-on rice, covered the bowls with tight-fitting wooden lids, and let them sit while we completed our brunch, after which we uncovered the bowls and ate the mushy rice-water that is Nuroonji.

Now, lest you get some idea that I look down on this particular after-dinner treat, you are very wrong. First, any culture that can turn pre-treating the dishes into a favorite snack is pretty darn clever. Second, it isn’t too bad. And finally, there is always the Nuroonji candy you can get, which is supposed to taste like burnt rice, or more accurately rice that has in effect caramelized along the edge of an iron bowl.

After this, it was a drive along the river and through small villages, all in the process of getting me back to Seoul in time for my 2:00PM meeting. Now, aside from the excessive quantities of food, the free lodging and the offer to take me to an escort bar (I graciously turned that one down), the Korean hospitality took its usual excesses. First of all, there was the whirlwind nature of the visit, including the two hour-long drives just to pick me up and drop me off. Then, during the midnight barbecue, my host started giving me the decorations from his outside pavilion, including a set of brass bells used by a Korean shamen and a larch Ching (a sort of high-pitched Korean gong used in the samulnori).

Then, back in Seoul, but early for my meeting, he wouldn’t let me carry my own backpack, then took me for a coke (which he bodily stopped me from paying for), bought me five tickets to tonight’s lottery, and bought a gift for my son. Now THIS is the excess of Korean hospitality. And I wont even mention his arguments with his family over what to do (calling his wife on the cell phone every five minutes to have her bring something else outside to the barbecue) and his dragging them around for brunch when they only wanted to sleep in and relax…

But this is some of the excess of Korean character that has endeared them to me. This is not atypical behavior – they are constantly trying to give you their belongings, buy things for you and your family, give up their time and space for you, and, if you allow them, they will even bring themselves to the verge of alcohol poisoning just to make sure you have a good time.

But anyway, tomorrow morning is an early (5:20 AM) train ride down to Kwangju on the KTX (my first bullet train experience – 350km/h). Then it is a few days there for the May 18 memorials, then finally, after more than a month, I will hop a plane back to the States, to my waiting family.

A Korea That Can Say "Roh"

Welcome back to South Korea's reinstated President Roh Moo Hyun. I was over at the Constitutional Court today for the ruling. There were more than a dozen buses full of riot police, many with fire extinguishers (Koreans have this bad habit of immolating themselves in protest), about three or four dozen reporters and cameramen outside, and only about a dozen demonstrators on each side of the debate.

Really, given that most people expected the Court to overturn the impeachment, it is no wonder there were so few people out at the court house -- just those who really wanted to get on the news and about two or three dozen spectators (fairly evenly split between the very old, who mostly opposed Roh, and university students, who mostly supported him).

The big challenge for Roh now is to see if the Uri Party, which was initially created simply to support he then-embattled president, will now fall under his sway or will instead assert its independence of him, now that it controls more than 50 percent of the parliament (the latter case appears more likely).

A Pleasant Evening in Seoul, Final Remarks on Beijing

So I was taking a walk this evening in the area around Sinsa subway station, enjoying the cool spring air (about 3 degrees centigrade cooler than Beijing) and breathing deeply the (seemingly) pure air around me, when I was approached by a law student, who happened to be a former reporter, who is also an amateur comparative sociologist, looking for foreign views of Korea.

Well, you can guess how things went from there. We ended up sitting in front of a mini-market drinking coke and talking East Asian and American politics, security and society, for nearly three hours. How I manage to attract these folks (like the Chinese student who wanted to talk Taiwan) I’m not sure, but I do, and it is interesting. It was then a quick run by the Paris Baguette for a small snack and back to my current brief residence.

Returning to Seoul felt somewhat like having blinders removed. In Beijing, I only could read about a dozen and a half Chinese characters, and many of those with Korean pronunciation (for example, the “Bei” in Beijing, meaning North, is pronounced “Buk” in Korean, the “Jing” pronounced “Kyung” in Korean. South in Chinese is Nan, in Korean Nam. West in Korean is Zhi, in Korean Seo. East in both is Dong). But returning to Seoul, my eyes greedily drank in the Korean and English signs, reading every word and syllable like a small child first realizing that letters actually made words.

I am coughing out the remains of the Beijing dust, and hope to have relatively clear lungs in a few days.

Now, I have 10 rather tongue-in-cheek suggestions for any visitor to Beijing to follow if they want to seem more like a resident (as much as any foreigner can seem like a resident) than a short-stay tourist.

#1. NEVER WAIT IN LINE. Lines are optional. Always push and shove, squeeze in from the side, reach through, over, under or around others. If you do attempt to wait in line, you will wait forever, as the “line” will constantly reconstitute itself in front of you.

#2. SPIT. Spit often. Make really big, throaty, goobers. If you are female, this is an even more important thing to do frequently and in public. Spit while walking or riding a bike, on the street or the sidewalk. Spitting not only removes the Beijing dust from your mouth and throat, it wets the ground, keeping the rest of the dust down.

#3. IGNORE THE CROSSING GUARDS. There are so many different security officials and forces in Beijing that there must be at least one people should feel safe to rebel against. Try to sneak past them when they aren’t looking, walking right into the middle of traffic. When they catch you, pretend you don’t hear them and keep walking.

#4. GO PLAY IN TRAFFIC. Cross the road anywhere. This is fun, as the roads are all very wide, and there is plenty of traffic (including the bicycles). Try not to follow the walk or don’t walk signs, cross on the red. Go one lane at a time, getting really skinny as buses, taxis and bicycles wiz past you on both sides. It is fun. Consider it a life-size game of Frogger.

#5. RIDE YOUR BICYCLE ON THE SIDEWALK. Even when there is a bicycle lane, use the sidewalks or the middle of the street. The corollary to this is

#6. DRIVE YOUR CAR ON THE SIDEWALK. Why use the road when you can drive on the sidewalks, park on the sidewalks or even, if you want to have some fun, drive in the bicycle lanes.

#7. THROW WASTE EVERYWHERE. Garbage cans are simply suggestions, not requirements. And anyway, of you throw your trash all over the sidewalks and the street, it is easier for you and for the independent recycling folks who ride around on their three-wheeled bikes to pick through for the items (papers, plastic, wire, food scraps) that they are looking for.

#8. HAGGLE. This is more a universal Chinese necessity, but obviously you need to do it in Beijing. Anyone who pays sticker price is either a fool or a foreigner.

#9. CROWD AND PACK. Learn to fit in the smallest space possible while pressing others into even smaller spaces. This is especially useful on the subway and the buses.

#10. IGNORE ALL OTHER FOREIGNERS. This is the rule, unless they may either buys something from you or for you. Do not be rude, simply act like they don’t even exist. If you do look at them, make it a secretive glance. Do not approach foreigners unless you have something (legal or otherwise) to sell.

Well, I hope these are useful for your trip. Like I said before, if they can clean up the air, Beijing would be an even more wonderful place to visit, with broad, tree-lined streets, interesting architecture and wonderful food. And foreigners rarely have to worry about their safety – there is always a soldier, police officer, Beijing security official or some other public security personnel within a few feet of you.

Blue Skies in Seoul

Just a quick post, I am back in Seoul - never thought I'd be glad to breathe Seoul air, but it is a welcome change after Beijing. I had my temperature taken at the Beijing airport and was sniffed by a drug dog in Seoul, but otherwise it was another pleasant, uneventful Asiana flight.

The sky is blue, there are a few puffy clouds, the air smells (relatively) clean, and I'm off to take a walk.

Military Museums, Picture Food and Clandestine Taiwanese Talks

This morning I got up bright and early and hopped the subway to the Military Museum, a massive building filled with guns, tanks, armored vehicles, aircraft, missiles, ancient weapons, captured U.S. materials from Korea, the remains of the U2 spyplane and a pervasive smell of grease. In fact, looking at the weapons (many of the guns dating back to the guerilla war against the Japanese), they are ready to use anytime, the barrels simply plugged with greased rags.

It is a fun place to go, and gives a sense of the older, Cold War-era Beijing in its size, scope and displays.

Afterwards, I decided to stop for lunch at a little restaurant, where, unfortunately, there were no pictures and no one spoke English. So I communicated to the proprietor through drawings in my notebook (as I couldn't draw a cow, I went with a chicken). What I got was a large dish of Kung Pao Chicken (much better than the American version, which I am not all that fond of), a bowl of rice and a pot of tea (I pointed to one on another table) -- all for the equivalent of around a dollar and twelve cents. I also had some conversation with the owner through gestures and pictures. It seems I was the fourth foreigner to eat in his establishment, so I gave him a card to keep with the others, and he gave me one of his to add to my journal.

Very entertaining not only for me, but for the other customers as well, who took great delight in my visit and my interesting form of communication.

While heading here (Centro again) for my final emails before heading back to Seoul, I ran into another one of those students trying to sell art. I traded with him, he took my picture in Tiananmen Square, I went to see the art. During the conversation, it came out that am a business consultant, and look at politics, so he said he wanted to talk Taiwan. We went outside to a park bench, and he shared his thoughts (disdain?) for the actions (arrogance?) of the untied States regarding Taiwan, said he wanted to force Taiwan to be part of China (said several students shared his view) and expressed his dislike of the fact that the Taiwanese are called Taiwanese rather than Chinese.

All under the watchful eye of a soldier at his post nearby.

What a fun city.

So What DO I Eat In Beijing?

Many people were apparently fascinated with my eating habits in Korea, and are now wondering just what I eat here in China. Well, first off, I have eaten nothing alive, and except for the raw tuna I had yesterday while at Centro, I really haven't even had anything NEARLY alive.

But that doesn't mean I haven't been eating. I get two meals a day as part of my homestay deal, then (if I am even hungry) can eat out for lunch.

Breakfast as been different every day, ranging from leftover duck fried with garlic and pepper and served on a sort of fried garlic bun to sweetened rice and jujubes steamed in banana-leaf wrappers. Today it was stirfried fish-cakes and cabbage and a plate of apple slices, the other day it was eggdrop soup.

Dinners are a bigger variety, usually a starch and four or five sides, one of which is often a meat (usually duck at my homestay). There are stirfried garlic stems (as well as raw ones dipped in black sauce), snow peas, mixed vegetables, some strange clear noodle-like things is a spicy brown cold soup, stirfried cabbage leaves, some other types of leaves... Basically all manner of vegetables stirfried in a myriad of sauces of every imaginable shade of brown and grey, some spicy, most salty. Oh, and there are cucumbers in vinegar.

As for starches, sometimes it is rice, by my homestay family seems to prefer various breads, especially a flat steamed bread.

Well, anyway, not as interesting as live octopus, but good nonetheless.

Don't Throw Any Sundry Goods

Nothing special to write, just thought I'd let you read something that has been keeping me amused. After leaving the Great Wall, I walked past a bear zoo (Qiushi Garden), and had to take a picture of their sign. I got my pictures developed today, so here is the important information about bears. (all spellings and spacings as originally printed)

1) Do you know its habits and characteristic?
Black bear, Eating meat catalog, bear branch.
Distribute in the Northeast,Northwest,Southwest and South middle of our country.AT normal they stay at defoliate woods and shrub woods. In summer they stay at high area of sea level and in winter they stay at low level. They like to live alone,act at night and good at climb and swimming.They have very develoed sense of smell but have very poor sight so they are called "blind bear".
At North the bears have hibernation habit. They eat grass, soft leaves, wild fruit, seed,honey,none-backbone and small-backbone animal. Living at wild condition the can live for 30 years and man made condition for 60 years.
They are protected by state and belongs to critical animal by the international Trade Pact.

2) Don't throw any sundry goods.
Bear is a direct bowel animal so if eat sundry goods easy to cause bowel block,especially plastic bag and bottle of mineral water can cause death.


There, now remember, don't throw sundry goods, or you may block up the direct bowel animals.

Wireless in Beijing

OK, after a tedious journey, I have finally succeeded in becoming a netzien again, and am online and wireless in Beijing (if you are wondering, go to the Centro bar at the Kerry Center Hotel. Free wireless for patrons, and an unending pot of tea is just 40 yuan).

This morning I got up, had sweetened rice and jujubes wrapped in banana leaves and steamed, and then hopped my red-roofed yellow and green number 22 bus to Tiananmen to wait in line to see the Chairman. Now the line was not bad at all, but no bags are allowed, so first I had to figure out the wild gesturing that meant (I eventually deduced) a trip across the broad avenue to a bag-check room, where I could safely stow my stuff before my visit to Mao.

Once you get through the fence, there is a flower shop where you can buy flowers (what else) to leave in front of a statue of the Chairman (I think they keep taking the same flowers out and reselling them...). Then the group splits in two to go around the big statue and into the next hallway, where they come back together again briefly before splitting again to go around opposite sides of Mao (I was in the right-hand group).

Once inside the mausoleum, it is rather silent, relatively somber, and somewhat cold. The Chairman is draped in a red cloth with a yellow hammer and sickle on it (no Chinese stars to be seen), and lying in a glass coffin, ala Snow White. When you first encounter the slumbering helmsman, the glare of the light on his face gives it an unnatural yellow plastic appearance, a look that fades to at least a slightly more natural (if preserved) look as you traverse around for a side view.

The glass box is inside a glass room so no one can get near the sleeping Chairman. The crown s ushered silently forward, around Mao, an out into a brief hallway, where the sense of "awe" lifts briefly, just before the barrage of capitalism. Yes, even inside the doors of the Chairman's mausoleum, there are trinket shops, selling portraits and paintings, pins and other paraphernalia -- all with an image of Mao. One can even shell out fifty bucks to get a jade-like bust of Mao.

But it only gets worse after these first (relatively) tasteful shops. There is a long row of vendors one must walk down, selling more pictures and pins, watches, tie tacks, tanks and fighter jets made out of shell casings, cheap plastic motorized cars, shoes, purses and all manner of entirely unrelated stuff. It is amazing, leaving a supposedly reverential homage to the leader of the great Chinese Communist Revolution and being barraged with one of the most motley assortments of cheap plastic capitalism available.

And with that shocking image, I once again leave you. I'm gonna enjoy my five-buck pot of unending tea and my six-buck appetizer.

Tiananmen at Night - Lights, Kites and Unfortunate Sights

So after a long day of doing nearly nothing (well, not exactly - I went down to the business district to look around, and also went on a frustrating quest for wireless internet), I headed to Tiananmen for a photo shoot after dark. In the hazy shy, the entire square is lit with a diffuse glow emanating from the oversized ancient and modern structures all around, each lit brighter than the other (except the Mao-soleum, which is somberly dark).

Despite the night, people were still out flying kites, particularly those Chinese multiple kites, made up of dozens of little kites one after another on the same string. These appear to be the favorite of the Tiananmen kite flyers (they are cheap and easy to fly), though there are those who prefer the more modern larger kites, including ones shaped like hang gliders, fighter jets and sharks.

Amid the soft talk, which matched the diffuse lighting quite well, the vendors were still out circling the square, like sharks honing in on the trail of blood. Post cards, book, kites, Mao watches and other assorted paraphernalia flashed out of half-zipped jackets, as quickly for the Chinese as the foreigners. Its all about haggling, no one really expects to get their first offer, but that also means that when you say “no”, it s usually interpreted as the start of the bartering, rather than a declination of goods.

For the most part, even if there is a muttered Chinese phrase (better left un-translated, I’m sure), when it is finally clear that the sale will not take place, the vendors leave with a smile. But tonight, I had my first run-in with a downright rude vendor. He was selling Mao watches, which are pretty cute, with the Chairman’s arm as the hour hand. But he was asking some ridiculous price, like 150 yuan, when just two days before another vendor had started the bidding at just 30. Well, Not only didn’t I really want one, I was sort of offended at the price, but simply declined and tried to (lie) say I already had one.

He offered lower prices, eventually dropping to two for 100 yuan, but when I turned that down, his muttering wasn’t so quiet. And as he walked away, he called over to me, just to raise his pinky finger at me in a (apparently) rude gesture. Then, to make sure I understood fully, he called me again, flashed a thumbs-up, shook his head and said “not anymore,” and then raised his pinky at me again.

Now I know it shouldn’t bother me, but it did, as this was the first person who had been overtly rude to me in China. I am fully used to being ignored or simply not understood over here, with the other person turning away in embarrassment at not being able to communicate, but I had yet to encounter this sort of behavior. I guess I have become sensitized after weeks of overtly friendly behavior in South Korea and relatively benign or occasionally helpful and cheerful behavior in China.

And while I realize it was an isolated case, and quite frankly people are people no matter where one goes, it has left a bitter taste that I cant quite shake, like when one finds out that their best friend went behind their back to tell an unsavory story or when one’s pet, for no apparent reason, turns and bites them.

And with the unfortunate lingering aftertaste of the realization that the imagined ideals were really a self-projected desire rather than reality, I leave you to ponder human nature and the darkness under the lights at Tiananmen.

Signs, Sanitation and Historic Sensibilities

Why proofreading matters - on the ticket for the Badaling section of the Great Wall are the words “TICKET FOR THE SCENCE SPOT OF BADALING SENCYION OF THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA.”

Now one thing to note is that often confusing or humorous (or both) displays of Konglish (Korean/English) and Engrish (Japanese/English) are seen much less frequently here in China, basically because there isn’t much English out there to be humorous or incorrect. Sometimes, though, just the phrasing of the few English signs gives a fairly accurate clue that one isn’t in Kansas anymore.

Take, for example, this sign near the Forbidden Palace - “Value the Cultural Heritage of Our Ancestors, Shoulder the Historic Mission of Conserving Their Relics.” Shouldering historic missions (which translates into “don’t toss your garbage into the 700 ear old bronze vats, don’t place your kids in the same vats for family photos and please don’t carve your name into the stones and wood of the palace”) is not something we do in the United States. We are much less participatory. Our signs would simply list the Don’ts and add a brief comment on respecting the antiquities.

Another set of signs of interest were near the Great Wall. They read “In Order to Keep Fit, No Spitting Please” and “No Throwing Waster Everywhere.” Now I didn’t realize that fitness came from avoiding expectorating in public and apparently one can throw waste in some places, just not everywhere. There were also frequent signs urging people not to carve into the Great Wall, but pretty much any stone easily accessible had some form of writing on it, be it in Chinese, Korean or English.

Another reference to waste (a frequent topic here, as they are really trying to restructure people’s thinking on garbage and litter) is the paired waste-cans around downtown. One says “recycling,” the other “unrecycling.”

And speaking of recycling, it is big business here for local entrepreneurs. There are folks with their three-wheeled bikes going around collecting recyclables, newspapers, old waste from all over the city. And the other day I watched a gleeful child racing down the street with two big bags of empty plastic bottles being chased by the angry restaurant owner whose recycling had just been ripped off.

Beggars and panhandlers are much more frequent here than in Seoul, though many do play on traditional instruments. Others wear the remnants of their old uniforms, limping along and seeking the pity of those who remember the wars. The one and only time I gave anything to a beggar here, I watched shortly thereafter as the local security officer took some of his money and apparently chastised him for begging from a foreigner.

But there is no hostility to foreigners that I have seen. And what at first appeared to be a total disinterest in foreigners (except from the more ambitious shopkeepers) now seems to be more of an attempt to be discreet. If one watches, there are frequent looks, though these are almost always surreptitious, secretive glances – none of the overt staring one encounters in Seoul or other parts of Korea. And when children here point out a foreigner to their parents, it is with a little tug and a cautious finger-pointing, rather than the a loud shout and noisy dance.

There are the occasional signs of more open recognition, and these then become all the more memorable. A friendly and open smile from a fatigue-clad old man pulling a cart of recyclables. A bemused smile and gentle laugh of a couple as a foreigner leaps off the great wall to follow them down a dirt trail to another section of the wall. The friendly greetings of workmen atop a building they are tearing down. The Ni Hao of the older residents of the building as I leave the homestay in the morning, the giggles, shocked looks and cautious “hello” of the schoolgirls in the halls as I return home in the evening.

These, more than the sense of being a non-entity, a non-person, are what will stick with me long after I leave Beijing. They will sit alongside of the irony of the massive scale of Communist architecture dwarfed by the old imperial system they hold is such disdain, yet simultaneously embrace not as an example of wise kings and predecessors to the current state but as examples of the power and ingenuity of the Chinese people, in spite of their exploitative rulers.

It is an interesting dichotomy, this embrace of history and fabricated distaste for the old rulers. On the one hand, as one Chinese student put it, while the United States is a global super-power, it only has 200 years of history, and that not very well remembered even by its own people. What China has to offer the world, and the United States, is thousands of years of history, and this is where Chinese pride stems from.

Yet for the Communist government to embrace the past systems and history would be anathema to the ideals of the people’s government, the core of Chinese Communism. So history is re-interpreted as the progress and power of the Chinese people, of the laborers and craftsmen, and the successive regimes are portrayed as exploitative – and their overthrow by popular rebellion is commented on with a sense of destined glee.

But even this must be done cautiously, for the very idea of a popular backlash to the government (ie Tiananmen Square, the Falun Gong demonstrations) raises a serious sense of fear in the central leadership, and their ability to retain power relies is some sense n their legitimacy as the people’s government, a legitimacy undermined by frequent corruption scandals, mismanagement, extortion, nepotism and all the other ills of a massive and closed bureaucracy.

And so history is treated with a cautious embrace, with one arm wrapped tightly around while the other wields and eraser and pencil in order to modify and change as the need arises. And this is the pity, for it is China’s history of war and conquest, intrigue and deceit, dynasties and upheaval, artistry and culture that set the country apart from its neighbors and really do give a sense of pride and respect needed to hold such a massive state together into at least a sense of a unified whole.

A Trip to "Such a Magnificent Great Wall"

So in the museum at the Badaling section of the Great Wall of China, they have a section of photos of famous visitors to the Wall, with some quotes. Nixon is quoted as saying “only a great nation can build such a magnificent great wall.” To paraphrase the Reagan quote, when people visit here they get tired from walking up the steps, so imagine what it must have been like when they were building it.

Well, it is a “Great” wall, even if the Badaling section is the most touristy and one of the reconstructed sections (there is even a KFC there, and the watch towers have emergency call phones). In reality, the wall itself is not much to look at (wait a minute before you yell at me for disparaging one of the seven wonders of the world). It is, well, a wall. The Badaling section is made of brick, it is several meters high and several meters wide, there are guard towers placed “two arrow flights” apart (allowing complete coverage in case of attack), and there are steps, thousands of them, and sloping parts as well where they didn’t even bother putting in steps (despite the sections being at 30 to 45 degree angles).

But while a rebuild wall of stone is in itself not much to look at (imagine any of the walls around the leftover Revolutionary War forts in the United States), the setting and scale of the wall is magnificent. Set along the ridgeline of steeply undulating mountains, the wall winds like a snake up and down the hillsides, twisting and turning, following the terrain. In the background, row after row of ever-taller mountains recede into the mist (well, “mist” sounds better than “haze,” which is more accurate – the same haze of dust and some other unidentifiable substances, even if we far from the city and high into the mountains).

The past few days of significant walking ours of Beijing preceded by long walking tours of Seoul were well worth the time and effort, as my legs did not give out on the wall. But I can certainly feel the climb still even hours later. It is not a nice leisurely afternoon walk, but a strenuous climb up and down irregular stairs built on steep inclines, intersperse with areas of near ski-able sections of smooth paving stones laid on equally steep inclines.

When I stopped to talk to someone (he was going up, I was coming down) it was a bizarre site. I was leaning forward, he was standing straight, and my eyes interpreted the lip of the Wall as horizontal, so it gave him the appearance of standing at a 35 or 40 degree angle. Of course in reality, it was the wall that was leaning, not him. The only other time I have seen a similar phenomenon is on a sailing ship, under the deck, when cutting through the water at top speed, heeled over, and someone was standing vertical next to the base of the mast, looking more like he was leaning, rather than the ship.

Now I must admit to a minor infraction of the rules. When I came to the end of the section I was walking, I would have had to backtrack quite a ways to get to the path going down off the wall and transferring to the next section of the wall. But I had observed a couple of Chinese simply leaping off the end of the wall, following an obviously well-worn path (despite its not supposed to have been there) and head down, so I followed them. So not only did I walk the Great Wall, I jumped off it as well – much to the entertainment of the Chinese who had preceded me off the wall.

Now I must make one other note about the area. Beijing in Beijing, there are no mountains. This is a big change after being in Seoul, which is ringed by them and even has a few right in downtown. So heading north up the Badaling Expressway, I finally got to see Chinese mountains, and I must say that they are almost exact replicas of the Chinese ink paintings of mountains. They really do have vertical faces, bare weathered rock thrust skyward from domed forests, steep ravines splitting the peaks, individual and groups of bare stone sticking up, looking like paired of tombstones or monuments. The peaks grew fainter and fainter as they grew taller and taller in the distance.

To get an idea of the forces that shaped these mountains, note that at places the stratigraphy was laid our in vertical slabs, rather than horizontal, and a jumble of angles were visible as huge plates of rock and earth were thrust together, bending and breaking in a cataclysmic car accident of geological proportions. So if you go, take the number 919 bus from Deshengmen Gate (it is just 12 yuan one way, 24 round trip, much cheaper than the other 50 yuan buses), and if you want, you can even hop off at the Ming Tombs on the way back (which I didn’t do this time – I want to have some reason to have to come back).

Oh, and sit on the right side of the bus when heading north – it affords a better view of the mountains. And with that, I have just one more parting thought – as Nixon is more often quoted as saying during his groundbreaking trip to China – “This really is a Great Wall.”

Random Musings on China and Korea (or rather Beijing and Seoul)

The big deal in China these days is the return of the Chinese wounded in Pakistan, plus, of course, the Iraqi prison torture photos, with talk of the impact being similar to My Lai massacre in Vietnam – devastating for the U.S. government’s reputation at home (it cant get much worse abroad, they argue). SARS raised no concerns over here this time around among the average Beijinger (only the street sweepers and the occasional foreigner wear masks), they were very clear in the media about it all being isolated and connected to that lab. The big news has been the lifting of the quarantine of folks possibly exposed to SARS, with the emphasis on containment and recovery.

Wen Jiabao’s travels have been top news as well. Among the regular college age or just graduated population, there is a general sense of apathy with politics in general – all they care about is finding a job, something rather difficult here too for college grads. On the economy, they wonder why the U.S. is concerned about the Chinese economy, because they say despite a growing amount of money in China, the vast population means there isn’t really all that much wealth to go around (not that you need much, three dollar pants and one dollar shirts seem the norm over here, unless you go down to the fashion districts, in which case it is every international brand name or knock-offs thereof).

This place makes Korea seem expensive. But they are always ready to overcharge the foreigners, who have little real understanding of the true cheapness of the items up for sale. When someone can turn a profit selling souvenir trinkets for one yuan (about 13 cents), then the materials and labor going into those trinkets must be substantially less, so a little money can go a long way.

In general, the young are concerned with fashion and dating, there hasn’t really been any sense of disillusionment with the Chinese Communist/market system (though that could just be because it isn’t really a safe topic), except that it is difficult to travel abroad, and they all want to travel abroad to see new places, meet new people and most important buy new stuff. In general there is a basic sense of apathy when it comes to politics, though economics gets some response.

This is very different from the youth of South Korea, who are apathetic AND disillusioned with their government, and basically consider any and every government corrupt and therefore untrustworthy. That is a repeated sentiment over there.

While the South Koreans talk about their brethren in North Korea (basically they are all Korean, and the North regime isn’t so bad, just a little misguided), in China it is all about pity for the hardships in North Korea. Interesting difference in mindset.

Both capitals are busy tearing down all the buildings to build new buildings, little “new cities” of apartment complexes, shopping and restaurants. On CCTV they make sure to show relocated folks from reconstruction projects (Three Gorges, Beijing hutongs) being grateful for their new digs in the high-rises. The Beijing government is desperate to get people to stop littering (folks toss garbage into the street to see passing busses run it over) and to stop spitting (“In Order to Keep Fit, No Spitting Please”) as part of the buildup to the Olympics.

Their biggest challenge, however, will be to find some way to clean up the air. The sun never seems to really shine, it just sort of mushes its way through the haze – a mix of yellow dust and some sort of oily acrid particulate that pervades every pore and orifice, eating away at the nasal linings and esophagus (which, of course, explains the frequent expectorating).

But in general this is just another busy metropolis, a city of Audis and Volkswagens, with the Chinese cars primarily being the ubiquitous red taxis. If it weren’t for the width of the spacious boulevards around Tiananmen an the frequent red flags (much more frequent back in among the hutongs – and, interestingly, extremely frequent around the back alley “barber shops” (ask Bill) – one would think they were in any other major city around the world. Everyone has cell-phones (there are more cell-phones in China than anywhere else in the world), they drive, take the bus (well, there ARE a lot more bikes still), go to work, go to school, go shopping. Heck, they have to close Mao’s mausoleum for like 21 hours a day so the great helmsman can roll over in his crystal coffin as, just through Tiananmen Gate, row after row of red stands sell cheap Mao trinkets along side bottles of coke and Kodak film.

Outside the city, it is a little more laidback, but that is the case in any country. Of course being limited top Beijing on this trip will certainly limit my exposure and observation of the “national mood,” if there is such a thing in a country as large and diverse as China. But I have talked to students in Beijing from eastern provinces as well as such outlying places as Inner Mongolia, and it all seems about the same – how to get a job, politics is for others, money matters.

From the Temple of Heaven to the Depths of Humanity

Hey, I finally got my rental cell-phone today! Anyway, I also experienced a Beijing bus. Let me try to give you a visual picture of the sounds and feel of the ride. I caught the yellow and blue bus (number 22) not far from my homestay and climbed aboard, well, barely, as it was so jam-packed that I was standing on the top step, just far enough inside to allow the door to shut.

Off to the side of the bus was the ticket lady, whining out the stops in a steady nasal drone and collecting the one-yuan fee from each rider (except those with the special pass cards – government workers?). At each stop, a few more got in, and fewer got off, so we were sort of naturally packed in there, like when you take a bunch of stuff and keep gently shaking it in a bucket, until it all settles down into the most compact form possible.

Now all this was going on with Beijing traffic, which picked up again today, being the final day of the holiday and everyone getting back home. Luckily, at one particularly busy shopping district, most passengers got off, and only a few of us were left standing, with seats for several others. I highly recommend a ride on a Beijing bus if you are here, simply for the experience, even if you only choose to ride a couple of stops.

From Qianmen, I walked the length of Tiananmen Square again (Mao’s mausoleum was closed again today, and will be closed tomorrow as well… spring cleaning?). Then walked to the Beijing Grand Hotel to pick up my excessively large cell phone (one of those old Ericsson models). Then I walked to the Temple of Heaven Park, paid my 35 yuan, and took a self-guided tour.

The grounds of the temple are even bigger than the Forbidden City, a large artificial forest of Cyprus trees cut with broad walkways and the a series of temple buildings. This was not a Buddhist temple, but one for animal sacrifices, to ensure a good harvest. There were green and blue roof tiles, and the circular Hall of Prayer for a Good Harvest (in fact circles seem to be the thing in this particular temple). It was cool and shaded, a welcome break from Beijing. Of course the sky was a non-descript gray haze all day, no definition between cloud and sky.

In fact, to shift gears a bit, there seems to be a bit of acrid oiliness to the air in Beijing, mixed with the dust, leaving my glasses eternally dirty and my eyes occasionally watering. And while we are off the subject anyway, lets go way off topic for a second. I have not seen very many infants in Beijing, though there are plenty of children. But two of the few I saw were being fed. One lady was just sitting outside a shop on the sidewalk with the kid stuck on, another was actually walking down one of the busy streets with the kid breast feeding. No judgment intended, just one of those images of Beijing that keeps the city seeming slightly different than the average big U.S. city.

Back to my daily travels, though. I walked north along Qianmen Dajie to Qianmen again. There are several army-surplus stores here, with several people wearing parts of U.S. military uniforms. There are also plenty of KFC restaurants (one of the most successful foreign companies in China), as well as McDonalds and even a Dairy Queen. There are also Chinese places using images similar to the Colonel of KFC for their dumpling and duck advertisements.

I then decided to take a cut through the Hutongs, pickling a westward-leading street parallel to a main road, and started walking. Soon the small stands and street-vendors gave way to small shops and restaurants, then even these became sparse. Then there were barbershops. A couple dozen of them. And the “hairstylists” were sitting in their doorways in short skirts looking for customers. Apparently the service in barbershops here is a little … extra, if you know what I mean, wink wink, nudge nudge. They all know at least one word of English, too – “massage.”

Eventually even the barbershops receded into the distance, and the street just wound through houses and the occasional business, run out of a room in a house. Old men played games on the corners, children ran around and laundry waved in the breeze. Very noticeable was the significant increase in Chinese flags hanging outside the doors. Those and the pro-hygiene, anti-littering, anti-SARS cartoons painted on the walls of the Hutongs by the government.

The rest of my afternoon walk was relatively uneventful, unless you count the bag of Lays brand Peking duck-flavored potato chips I ate. Some flavors you just cant get in the States, you know. And so we come to the end of my second full day in Beijing (well, maybe not the end, I may go out again tonight), one Imperial Palace, one Heavenly Temple and one Communist Culture attraction down, one more palace, one great wall and one stuffed leader of the Communist revolution to go.

Forbidden City, Fortuitous Friends, Fabulous Hotpot

While I spent yesterday morning struggling to get a rental phone and then wandering Tiananmen (see yesterday’s post from near there), my afternoon was quite different. As Mao’s Mausoleum didn’t open in the afternoon (despite the signs), I went to the Forbidden City, or the Palace Museum, as the ticket refers to it. Now first I walked though Tiananmen Gate, which leads to Zongshen Park and the Park of the People’s Culture.

Upon passing through Tiananmen Gate (by the way, that is somewhat redundant, as the “men” part means gate), I beheld a site that must keep Mao rolling in his glass coffin (at least during the times he is not being gawked at by tourists). There was a long row of venders selling a vast array of cheap Mao trinkets, anything with the picture of the Great Helmsman on it was up for sale, and if you didn’t buy from a shop, there were dozens of clandestine sellers walking around with books, postcards and other trinkets under their jackets, waiting to pull them out for each and every tourist, Chinese and foreign alike.

Now remember, Tiananmen Gate is the one with the massive picture of Mao hanging on it, and after passing under his benign visage, one walks into a capitalist paradise rivaling Disney World, with its very own Mickey Mao.

Continuing through the vendors and through the Duanmen Gate, with the parks on each side of the vase boulevard, one finally comes to a moat, a wall, and the Wumen Gate, where you can buy your 60 Yuan ticket into the Forbidden City (Palace Museum). Now, remember, I had been fairly impressed with the size of Tiananmen Square, a fabrication of the Chinese Communists who converted the old boulevard into a massive public square. But the Forbidden City dwarfs Tiananmen, with the entire square fitting into the inner section of the Palace, and overall probably six Tiananmen’s can fit inside the walls of the Palace.

There is little than can prepare a person for the sheer size and scope of the Palace. It seems to just keep going on forever. Every time you pass through a gate, there are another two on the other side, beckoning you forward. A cursory tour of the Palace may take only two hours, but any attempt to see most of the structures (they say there are some 800 buildings inside the main walls) is certainly a full day affair.

Around the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the Hall of Middle Harmony and the Hall of Preserving Harmony there are several tiers of stone railings, each section with cloud carvings. The stairs themselves are carved with dragons, mountains and seas (the ones you walk on are covered over with wood steps to preserve the carvings). The metalwork on the massive doors is covered with intricate cast dragons. There are hundreds of large cauldrons (well, at one time there were hundreds, now less than a hundred probably) that in the past held water in case of fire.

The roof tiles of the buildings are all of glazed yellow, very different than the simple black of Korea’s roof tiles. The peaks of the roofs are straight, without the gentle curve of Korean architecture. But the similarities and influences of Chinese architecture and design on Korea are clear to be seen.

One observation is that, while perhaps intended to send a sign of wealth and power, the yellow rood tiles now appear more like rust than anything else, an apt match for the fading paintings on the woodwork beams, the thick dust and the crumbling corners. How one maintains something of this immense scale is a mystery, particularly given the tourist penchant for touching everything, but everywhere parts were under construction, recently renovated or slated for renovation (apparently American Express helped pay for some of it, because many of the explanatory signs around the complex have the AmEx logo at the bottom).

There was a sign posted exhorting visitors to “Value the Cultural Heritage of Our ancestors, Shoulder the Historic Mission of Conserving Their Relics.” Even in signs basically saying don’t touch or litter, there is the essence of the old Communist slogans – rather quaint for the American tourist looking nostalgically for the old days of Mao in a (relatively) modern metropolis.

Now, if you recall from the previous post, there were art students galore wandering Tiananmen Square looking for tourists to show (and sell) their works to. I was already approached by several more after my first trip to the exhibit. So when I left the Palace grounds around closing time and was approached by two more students, I walked along and talked, prepared to tell them, too, that I had already been to the art show. But instead, there was no invitation to see the art, just an offer to show me around “old Beijing,” a busy street-shopping district across from Tiananmen.

After wandering the crowded streets, we went to a teahouse for a tea sampling in the traditional way (something that took like two hours and during which I imbibed an unknown quantity of tea, as the tiny cup is constantly being refilled and it is impossible to keep count). After this it was off to a hotpot restaurant for an evening of lamb and vegetables boiled on a spicy broth at the table. Then, with the time creeping past 10, I caught a cab back home.

Now it is worth walking around, taking the pedicab or just taking a regular cab (though the latter is much too quick) around the Square at night, as everything is lit up with strings of lights, and even some of the trees along the boulevard are filled with multi-colored Christmas lights. The lit streets of the center of Beijing at night really give that grandiose feeling of Communist architecture, the impression of being both in another place and another time, with an expectation to turn and find folks in their green jumpsuits and red-star adorned green hats or at least folks in gray “Mao” suits with their Mao badges gleaming in the artificial light.

And with that, I leave you with one more passing thought – how long until the preserved bodies of Mao, Lenin, Ho Chi Minh and Kim Il Sung are lined up together at some tourist-trap pop-culture museum somewhere in West Virginia?

Greetings From Tiananmen Square

Well, not exactly, I am diagonally across the street right now. I visited the square today on the holiday to see all the people flying their kites in the breeze. The air is dusty and hazy, the weather rather warm (perhaps even hot?), but the breeze is nice as is the occasional bit of shade.

It will be rather impossible to describe the size of the place, really one must see it to understand it. I haven't gone into the forbidden city yet -- tomorrow morning. And Mao's mausoleum isn't open right now, but at least I know it will be free to go in. They have rather limited hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays (it is Thursday, isn't it?).

Being largely without web access is a bit disturbing for someone like me, who really has spent most of the last seven years on a computer, always in touch with everything. But then again, there is something to be said for being out and about, getting a sunburn and walking miles and miles each day.

I will say that every time I stop or pause to write something in my journal, I get secretive glances from security forces, of which there appear to be several different types (or so It seems, based on the variety of uniform styles and types).

A final note. If you arrive at Tiananmen Square and a college student offers to show you an art exhibit and practice their English while you learn about art and culture -- yes, those tingling feelings in the back of your neck are right, they were placed on the square to lure you in. That said, the student exhibits are nice, the guides very informative about all aspects of Chinese painting and calligraphy and it is really a rather soft sell at the end. And the prices range from around twenty to forty dollars U.S. if you do get schnookered into buying a painting, but 10 percent will go to the tuition of the student who roped you into the exhibit. And they'll even do a personalized calligraphy for you for free, as a gift. So while the alarm bells were right on, the cause isn't all that bad.

Anyway, until my next run-in with a computer, have a wonderful day, and if you need a kite, there are plenty of people really insistent you buy theirs on the Square.

Greetings From Beijing

Not sure when I will get this one to post, but I am here, in Beijing, the beating heart of China. My trip was largely uneventful, though I must again say how great the service on Asiana Airlines is. Wonderful, really. Even metal utensils in economy class. Prompt, cheerful, anticipatory… just all around great service.

Now, I will give some largely un-annotated (but perhaps paraphrased) notes from my journal from the time we neared the Chinese coast to now. Understand that the raw journal is very stream of consciousness, and often ideas will slip in in between observations, or old observations will emerge, but I will try to pull most of that out. Also note that the only concept of time is the chronological order, and that isn’t even always very accurate.

11:15 Beijing time, 20 minutes ‘till landing, should be nearing land soon. I am excited like a kid about this [trip to China]… silly. … There is land! China! Looks like the same flat coastal rice fields of Korea and Japan. Reclaimed land. More orderly and evenly spaced than Korea or Japan, though. Very brown, not much green. The red and blue roofed buildings of East Asia. Rows and rows of tightly packed apartment complexes like little labyrinths or intricate Chinese brickwork patterns.

Some green fields in the middle of the brown and tan. Scarring of new construction, new (or are they just dirt?) roads. Rows of what appear to be the plastic-skinned greenhouses. Now bigger fields are divided up into smaller patchworks of plots and greenhouses. Oases of residential areas packed in between the vast flat fields. There are no hills yet. Housing is tightly clustered, squeezed into the fewest plots of arable land. The fields are striped now, with alternating rows of green and tan.

Pockets or blocks of housing connected by reaching fingers of roads slicing between the fields. It is as if the housing is here simply to serve agriculture, not the other was around, as it appears in Korea. Here, rather than the houses farming every conceivable scrap of land, it is as if the houses themselves were afterthoughts, placed uncomfortably together to service the fields.

Blocks of houses spreading and coming closer together as we near Beijing. Rows of multicolored apartment complexes rising out of the other housing. Areas of housing with just a few standing, the rest laid in rubble – making way for new apartments? The city emerges from the haze in the distance, white buildings rising up, steel and glass reflecting shards of light. Back streets littered with garbage and rubble, main streets clean and bright with flowers and landscaping.

And we land. Impatiently, seatbelts click open, people rise to find their luggage, even while we are still on the runway. [The stewards and stewardesses urge patience and seating] Waving rows of small trees beside the runway greet us. 11:44 AM 5 May, 2004 – welcome to Beijing.

There is just a chain fence and a thin coil of barbed wire between the taxiway and the city street. People are lined up along the fence watching the planes taxiing in. Security? Maybe the concept of overall security makes special airport security seem unnecessary? Or so they think?

The airport looks ancient. Step trucks rather than gates. Stark white. Boxy concrete. … On the other side of the taxiway is the more modern terminal, with gates. I can see its aluminum arched roof, like a giant Quonset hut. I see no guards around the periphery like one sees at Seoul and Incheon. Maybe they are just well hidden, maybe there isn’t a sense of imminent threat?

Definitely not the futuristic Jetson’s look of Incheon or the Asian stylings of Kimpo, but a flattened aluminum tube, a long oval, sitting atop a base. The smell of stale rubber air fills the plane as they turn off the re-circulation and filter system.

Through customs and immigration without a pause. Met my hosts and am heading into Beijing. Most of the cars at the airport were Volkswagens and Audis, with some Toyotas, Nissans and Hondas. Almost no Chinese cars. A tree-lined boulevard leading out of the airport with yellow roses growing along the fence line. The tollgate done up in Chinese style designs and colors. …

The air is hot, dry and dusty. … More bicycles than Seoul, fewer motorbikes so far. Taxis are red. Little Chinese TJ7100U. Traffic is about as random as Seoul, with folks much quicker to lay on the horns and no one really respecting the spirit much less the letter of the law. Overhead electricity in the right lane for [the double-length hinged] busses.

After being in Korea, the Chinese traditional roofs look somehow incomplete, without the ornate end caps or the sweeping curves of the peak. Definitely more bicycles than Seoul but nothing like the older pictures of bike-filled streets. I haven’t really seen any Korean cars on the streets [plenty of German and Japanese, even some American and French and of course now the Chinese cars as well.]

Well, that’s enough for now. I’ll give more information on my arrival at my new home and my afternoon outing at a later time (though like I said, not sure when I will be able to post this, so they may all come around the same time). Until next time, greetings from the Middle Kingdom.

Surreal in Seoul and Another Good-Bye

So today I had one of those surreal experiences. I was sitting on a bench in Duksu Palace (also spelled DeokSu, or DeokSuGung or DeokSuKung, the Gong/Kong being “palace,” but basically it is pronounced like Duck Soup, without the final “p”), admiring the pines, the calm breeze, and doing another interview for students from Ewha University. In the background the faint but rhythmic sounds of traditional Korean instruments wafted in the breeze (playing from a loudspeaker near the restrooms, it turned out, but from where I was the mood was nice).

Suddenly (though not unexpectedly because I knew it would happen), the palace grounds were filled with South Korea amateur heavy metal riffs, screaming throaty vocals, buzz saw grinding guitars, pounding drums, complete with the staccato of excessive rim-shots. Now here I was in an ancient palace, once lived in by Korea’s kings, with its gardens and classic buildings and the soundtrack was raucous metal.

And that was my surreal experience, sitting in the past and listening to the future. It was a great example of the dichotomy of the city, something seen across the street on the lawn in front of the Seoul City Hall, the heart of the Hi Seoul Festival (see, this is why I new the music was coming), where rock bands played a side stage and a samulnori procession too place on the lawn, where yoot boards were set up for players on the lawn, and people snapped pictures with their cell-phones (or “hand phones” as they are known here).

And this was a great way to say good-bye to Seoul (for now). A beautiful sunny day, clear but for the ubiquitous dust of the springtime, warm but touched with a gentle breeze, the streets crowded with Seoulites and Japanese tourists. This is Japan’s Golden Week, China’s May Day (week-long) celebrations and one day before South Korea’s Children’s Day (which falls on May 5, though if you ask most parents, they say EVERY day is children’s day). Seoul’s Hi Seoul festival is an attempt to capitalize on the tourism of the other neighbor’s holidays, and it appears to be working, at least somewhat.

So I went back to Myongdong today, and saw Shalom Coffee House (though when I tried to find it a second time to actually get a drink, I got caught in the maze of streets and never did re-find it). For clarification, the Jackie Chan restaurant I was talking about yesterday IS a real Jackie’s Kitchen, but not open yet. Also the building I thought was the Taiwanese interest section IS the Taiwanese interest section. Oh, and not far from the Chinese embassy was a pro-Falun Gong display, showing the abuses of the Chinese security forces on captured Falun Gong practitioners.

I got good, cheap Mul NaengMyun for lunch (just 3500 won) and later got ripped off at a coffee shop (after giving up my hours-long search for Shalom) and spent 5000 won on a cup of iced green tea. ACK. But the coffee shops are places where you pay for the PLACE, not the drink. They still serve as meeting places, hangouts, conversation locations or simply places to kick back and relax, people watch and write in journals.

Now, for some quick updates of previous posts. If you want to see the trailer for Arahan, you can go to the Chosun Ilbo’s movie page and click on the little trailer link (the movie was number one at the box office for the weekend – thanks to me, no doubt). Also, going way back in the posts, my son, after a few years, wont be able to ask questions about the “fancy girls” anymore, as the government is phasing out red light districts beginning in 2007. More information is available in this Korea Herald column.

Now, on to the future. Tomorrow it’s off to Beijing. I leave Incheon International Airport at 11:00 AM, take an hour and 45 minute flight to Beijing and arrive at 11:45 AM at Beijing Capital International Airport. My host is supposed to meet me their, holding a sign with my name on it. You can see the Beijing Subway HERE or HERE, my stop should be the Xidan stop. For some stuff in Beijing, see Beijing Window.

It is with mixed emotions that I leave my homestay family in Seoul and head to Beijing. Without a doubt I recommend the homestay option to people heading to a new country and interested not only in less expensive accommodations but also a more realistic taste of life in that country or culture as well as a ready source of information and conversation (not to mention the meals). If I had my way, every student at every university in the world would have at least one semester-long study abroad, living with a host family and experiencing life from a different perspective.

Retired Generals, Rain and Public Displays of Affection

OK, the title sounds MUCH more interesting than what I will write, probably. I had breakfast with a retired ROK general (he now teaches defense and foreign affairs at a Korean university). It was an interesting meeting, particularly as he was originally on the forefront of reconciliation but is now very concerned by the pace and lack of strategic planning in overtures to the North. He is particularly concerned about the rise of the labor party in South Korea, a concern only heightened by a Chosun Ilbo survey released today claiming something like 30 percent of South Korean want reunification with the North no matter what political system emerges.

Now, in reality, most such surveys are bunk, and given the emotional state of the people in South Korea and the near gut rejection of all things conservative these days, the real number in support of such an extreme position is most definitely much smaller. That said, there is a prevailing sentiment that reunification is good, that North Korea is not the enemy but the wayward brother who needs redeemed. This was also what I was hearing about the ROK soldiers over on Yongsan, who were saying they liked the North Koreans, something shocking to many of the U.S. soldiers.

As for the rain, all day again it fell from the sky (where else?). So its a very wet Hi Seoul Festival thus far. If its ok tomorrow, I'll go in the evening. I did wander around Myongdong and Namdaemun Market today after breakfast, braving the rain to work off the three cups of coffee I had with breakfast, something my body is no longer capable of handling (see earlier posts for the whole coffee background thing).

Myongdong, despite being famous as the fashion capital of South Korea, looked little different than the area behind the post office in Kwangju, except the streets were a little wider, less crowded and there was quieter music.

Now, as for the public displays of affection, which has nothing to do with generals or rain (even if you got some weird ideas from the conglomerate of a title for this post). Over the past eight years, one of the most noticeable social changes is the frequent PDAs amongst younger folks (college age and even earlier). In 1996 (OK, so I am old...), even holding hands was pretty much out in public, at least down in the southern part of the peninsula. Now guys and girls are holding hands, massaging each other on the metro, even playfully slapping one another's behinds... all in public. Still no kissing that I have seen, but other affections are certainly out there.

Now, this type of activity would be nothing interesting in America, but it does represent a new freedom and break from the highly conservative mores of the past. No judgment from me whether that is a good or bad thing. I don't want to turn into one of those anthropologist who refuses to let tribal people use toothbrushes because it brings them further along the evolutionary ladder, and I don't want to try to teach Koreans (or anyone else, for that matter except maybe my son) how to live. These are just observations.

Well, in two days I head to Beijing. Hopefully it will be as eventful and exciting as Seoul. Oh, and in a few days or weeks, a Jackie Chan's Favorite Noodle House (a real licensed operation or a rip-off of Jackie's Kitchen?) will open in Myongdong, so hurry on down for some Hong Kong noodles, Korean style.

Roaming and an Evening of Arahan, Chamwae and Conversation

This was another day when it sometimes rained, sometimes didn't but pretty much did every time I thought about going to check out the Hi Seoul festivities so I stuck around the Songjeong and Kimpo neighborhoods instead. Mostly a day for aimlessly wandering, knowing I couldn't get too lost as long as I could find the airport. I stumbled on the open-air market and wandered through the twisting maze of stalls just hours after being in the hi-tech plaza of the shopping center that was once the international terminal at Kimpo. A true taste of the differences in pace and technology of life here in Korea.

I decided, as it was a drizzly day, to take myself to the movies, and saw Arahan. It is Korea's answer to Bulletproof Monk, complete with moving tattoos, but with the main new guy being a cop rather than a pickpocket. It is one of those movies that, with the exception for a brief flashback to sometime in the 33rd century BC or something, really doesn't need any translation, the body language and facial expressions, coupled with an understanding of a smattering of Korean words, was really sufficient.

One thing to note is that Korean movie theaters give assigned seats, and this one I even had to take a number before going up to get my ticket. Oh, and the ubiquitous "no dried squid" signs were ever present - part of the new movie-going culture being formed in Korea.

On the way home I stopped to get a few chamwae, sweet little yellow Korean melons, to share with my host family, and the melons initiated an evening of talking with the husband, who has had but the barest minimal interaction with me thus far. We talked politics, religion, health, education (Korean businessmen, it seems, are big on discussing the problems of Korean education system and the difficulties of English), family travel... pretty much anything. All in all an enjoyable evening.

No real insights into anything today to share except that people around the world have the same basic concerns, questions, wonderings and needs as everyone else, when it comes right down to it. Proving, I guess, that, really, its a small small world.

Foreign Correspondents, French Restaurants and “Juicy Bars”

OK, so tonight was an experience in the life of a foreign correspondent. I was going to meet one American reporter I had met earlier in the week and we were going to do dinner, but as I was delayed (wait till a little later for the Insadong story), he had fortunately run into an Australian correspondent with a bigger budget who treated us both to dinner.

So basically it was me, another American and an Australian eating fish at a French restaurant in Itaewon (food you would not have subbed your nose at anywhere, quite good) and chatting over issues ranging from the ability of the media to hear from and understand its readership to Korean politics to international adoption to the Kwangju uprising (speaking of which I will be going down to Kwangju for the memorial ceremonies, and so, now, will the Australian correspondent, and he will be doing a major article on it, and I am both invited along and responsible for scaring up some students and folks who participated in the uprising…).

After a very nice meal topped with a creme brulee, we walked two doors down to a local “juicy bar” to shoot pool. Now to be quite honest and open, the reason for choosing this particular spot was because, on a Saturday night in Itaewon, it was really about the only place one could find a pool table without a wait. The main attraction was left for the other clientele.

Now to jump backwards in time, before heading over to Itaewon, I was wandering around Insadong, Seoul’s “art street,” for a few hours, in search of a mother-of-pearl inlaid business card holder with a likeness of a tiger or haitai on it, only I found neither (and in fact learned that haitai are NOT fashioned out of mother-of-pearl, but seemingly only out of stone or in paintings – the shopkeeper was aghast at me even asking). But I did get a nice one with cranes on a plum or cherry tree in bloom. Very simple and only 20000 won (less than $20), and since it was my birthday present, I was happy.

Anyway, one thing about Insadong (aside from the fact that in the past eight years it has changed quite a bit, with a lot of new bigger buildings replacing the old arty shops of the past) is that this is where Korean English majors hang out to pounce on unsuspecting tourists to interview them for projects. I was interviewed twice and did a brief photo spread for a student from Yonsei University who needed pictures of foreigners in their 30s (or at least that is the best I could get from his really broken English, which was worse than my minimal Korean).

As I was finishing the afternoon stroll, and resting my feet and admitting some banners calling on folks to “remember Koguryo” (an ancestral nation of Korea that Chinese scholars recently claimed as a former Chinese state, raising the ire of both North and South Korean scholars, politicians and citizens), another student came up just to chat. Now this takes some guts, and most Korean English students are afraid to just go up to a foreigner and engage in conversation, so for this reason and because its always interesting to discuss politics and society with a variety of folks, I stayed and talked to him for a while, and thus was late to my meeting in Itaewon, which turned out to be beneficial not only for the free food but also the new contact and the chance to entertain an Australian in Kwangju.

Well, there are other stories to tell, and other observations to record, but perhaps they will wait for another time, as it is past midnight already and my eyes are tired and need some sleep. Oh, and on a final note, one more bit of oddity for the evening was the French wine guy at the French restaurant in Itaewon recommending the Chilean wine over the French wine. What kind of world do we live in anyway?