In Korea, they don’t have “karaoke”. They have “noraebang”, from “norae” meaning song, and “bang” meaning room. Song-room. I’ve decided, though, for the purposes of this writing to use the term “karaoke”. Karaoke means something to people. It’s more than simply a word to describe a machine. Rather, it describes an act. You do karaoke. Foreigners over here don’t refer to “doing noraebang”. We say “going to a noraebang”. The act of singing along to ridiculous reproductions of popular songs while the words flash on a screen, either to the joy or the despair of present company will always be “karaoke”. So to any of my fellow waygooks who might be reading this, consider that an explanation for my use of Japanese nomenclature.
Conventional wisdom states that being successful at karaoke is all about confidence. Throw yourself into the performance with all the gusto you can summon and you’re sure to win the crowd. Show them your swagger and never look back. Bonus points for singing without looking at the lyrics. Pick songs that people think they’d have a hard time doing themselves, then belt them out without a trace of nerves, and that, in a nutshell, is what a great karaoke performance is all about.
For the most part, I agree with all of that. I have a couple of quibbles with it, but in general, that’s all true. Karaoke, like so many other things, is an activity which is easy to take for granted, but can speak volumes about people. You’ll get a pretty good picture of a person’s confidence level by doing karaoke with them. It doesn’t take long to spot it, either. You’ll know the karaoke pros by two things: their energy and their level of comfort. Comfort-level is the really telling sign. An unconfident person who’s seen a few good performers might be aware that he should put in as much energy as he can, and that’s good, but it’s a hundred times harder to fake being comfortable in your own skin. When you take an energetic perfomance, and add visible discomfort, you get camp. Camp can be fun, too, but whenever I see it (or catch myself indulging in it), I feel like the performer would rather be showing his or her sincere emotions—that is, to be rather than to seem confident—but just can’t quite make it happen. So the quest to deliver a great karaoke performance becomes a challenge where you must triumph in battle over yourself.
One other thing worth noting here is that you should always remember to play to your strengths. If your falsetto is your best voice, sing the Bee Gees, sing Mika, sing Queen, sing Scissor Sisters, but please please please, don’t even consider Marvin Gaye. It’s not a failing of confidence and character to steer clear of your weaknesses. In fact, a false denial of those weaknesses would be the real failing of confidence. To be a good performer, you must know just what it is that you do well. Then, learn to do it even better.
I’m not sure whether, or to what extent, all of this is applicable to other aspects of life. I have a feeling that it’s relevant, but not so much so that it’s worth thinking about all day. I do feel that having regular experiences in noraebangs throughout Seoul has served as a sort of barometer of my self-confidence over the last eight and half months. When I’m all set to belt ‘em out all night long, things must be going alright. And you know what? That seems to happen more and more lately.
Good night, world. Happy 4th.
Randy
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Resonance
I feel like one of the most important challenges in life is finding your resonance frequency. Resonance frequency is a physics term that refers to the tendency of systems to show more powerful effects at some frequencies than at others. One example of this can be found in this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9K93AUFuvk
The water in the class is being moved by nothing more than a steady tone. The frequency of the tone is the water’s resonance frequency. That means that this is the perfect sound to get that water jumping. The tone is just right, strongly amplifying the oscillations in the water. If it was a little higher or a little lower, the effects on the water would be much smaller. It’s as though the water is humming along with the tone.
A more playful explanation is offered by wikipedia:
Imagine yourself pushing the swing. You want it to go very high. What do you do? Your first instinct might be to simply push as hard and fast as you can. But this wouldn’t be the best way to make the swing go higher. If you push too fast, you’ll actually be wasting a lot energy because you’ll be opposing the swing’s natural timing. You need to get in time with the swing. Stand behind it, wait for it to come to you, then give it a little help on its way back the other direction. You’re synergizing with the swing. It’s much better and more effective than just trying to tell it what to do.
I see this as a great metaphor for life.
The greatest feeling, the most fulfilling, the most validating, the most triumphant and certain feeling is when you know you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing. You can be in a quote unquote “good situation” where everything is great—your job is good and it’s very secure, you live in a great place, you’ve got a great girlfriend—and still find yourself feeling strangely unfulfilled. On the flip side, you can be working 80 hour weeks for shit pay, wrecking your health, just getting by on the skin of your teeth—and somehow feel like you wouldn’t trade it for the world. Maybe you’re helping to raise awareness about a cause that inspires you. Maybe you’re an extremely dedicated coach at a lesser-known college athletics department. Wherever you are, what matters is that you know that’s where you’re supposed to be. You are where life is telling you to be, and that feeling is more valuable than health, more valuable than money, more valuable, even, than happiness. There’s no more feeling than knowing exactly who you are and exactly what you are doing. A person with purpose is an invincible thing.
Now, that might be easy to say, but it’s not easy to do. How do you find this purpose? Where do you begin to look for your natural resonance frequency? You certainly can’t find it by thinking about it. You’ll be distracted a thousand times before you reach your final destination by the very tricky human tendency towards wishful thinking. It’s all too easy, when you’re looking for the answers, to convince yourself that the path you’re supposed to be taking is the easiest one you see. If you’ve been offered a nice scholarship to law school, and you don’t know what else to do next, you’ll be very tempted to convince yourself that that’s what you should be doing. But just because someone hands you a pile of money to do something doesn’t mean that doing it will resonate with you. It only means that it’ll be an easier path to start down.
Don’t get me wrong here. If you don’t know what’s next in your life, then it’s very sensible to take the easier softer way. Making the most of a law school scholarship while you have the chance is a very prudent thing to do. On the other hand, if you don’t feel that resonance when thinking about law, and you do feel it when thinking about something else, then you need to reconsider. Push with the swing.
But how to make the call? How can you learn what you need to know?
I haven’t figured this part out at all, but I think all that a person can do is try as many different things as possible. Try to get as many different experiences as you can. Talk to people who seem strange. Go far and wide and look for things you’ve never seen before. Read widely. See a lot of movies. Try having different kinds of jobs. Give different kinds of creative self-expression a try. Oh, and somehow find time to process it all and figure just how you feel about all these things. It might be impossible to do all these things, but that’s not important. More important is the idea of discovery. Somewhere out there, or somewhere inside yourself, is the life that is just right for you—the purpose that will make you powerful. You’ve got to search with determination. It’s not going to find you. You’ve got to find it.
Good luck, folks. Lots of love.
Randy
The water in the class is being moved by nothing more than a steady tone. The frequency of the tone is the water’s resonance frequency. That means that this is the perfect sound to get that water jumping. The tone is just right, strongly amplifying the oscillations in the water. If it was a little higher or a little lower, the effects on the water would be much smaller. It’s as though the water is humming along with the tone.
A more playful explanation is offered by wikipedia:
One familiar example is a playground swing, which acts as a pendulum. Pushing a person in a swing in time with the natural interval of the swing (its resonance frequency) will make the swing go higher and higher (maximum amplitude), while attempts to push the swing at a faster or slower tempo will result in smaller arcs. This is because the energy the swing absorbs is maximized when the pushes are 'in phase’ with the swing's oscillations, while some of the swing's energy is actually extracted by the opposing force of the pushes when they are not.
Imagine yourself pushing the swing. You want it to go very high. What do you do? Your first instinct might be to simply push as hard and fast as you can. But this wouldn’t be the best way to make the swing go higher. If you push too fast, you’ll actually be wasting a lot energy because you’ll be opposing the swing’s natural timing. You need to get in time with the swing. Stand behind it, wait for it to come to you, then give it a little help on its way back the other direction. You’re synergizing with the swing. It’s much better and more effective than just trying to tell it what to do.
I see this as a great metaphor for life.
The greatest feeling, the most fulfilling, the most validating, the most triumphant and certain feeling is when you know you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing. You can be in a quote unquote “good situation” where everything is great—your job is good and it’s very secure, you live in a great place, you’ve got a great girlfriend—and still find yourself feeling strangely unfulfilled. On the flip side, you can be working 80 hour weeks for shit pay, wrecking your health, just getting by on the skin of your teeth—and somehow feel like you wouldn’t trade it for the world. Maybe you’re helping to raise awareness about a cause that inspires you. Maybe you’re an extremely dedicated coach at a lesser-known college athletics department. Wherever you are, what matters is that you know that’s where you’re supposed to be. You are where life is telling you to be, and that feeling is more valuable than health, more valuable than money, more valuable, even, than happiness. There’s no more feeling than knowing exactly who you are and exactly what you are doing. A person with purpose is an invincible thing.
Now, that might be easy to say, but it’s not easy to do. How do you find this purpose? Where do you begin to look for your natural resonance frequency? You certainly can’t find it by thinking about it. You’ll be distracted a thousand times before you reach your final destination by the very tricky human tendency towards wishful thinking. It’s all too easy, when you’re looking for the answers, to convince yourself that the path you’re supposed to be taking is the easiest one you see. If you’ve been offered a nice scholarship to law school, and you don’t know what else to do next, you’ll be very tempted to convince yourself that that’s what you should be doing. But just because someone hands you a pile of money to do something doesn’t mean that doing it will resonate with you. It only means that it’ll be an easier path to start down.
Don’t get me wrong here. If you don’t know what’s next in your life, then it’s very sensible to take the easier softer way. Making the most of a law school scholarship while you have the chance is a very prudent thing to do. On the other hand, if you don’t feel that resonance when thinking about law, and you do feel it when thinking about something else, then you need to reconsider. Push with the swing.
But how to make the call? How can you learn what you need to know?
I haven’t figured this part out at all, but I think all that a person can do is try as many different things as possible. Try to get as many different experiences as you can. Talk to people who seem strange. Go far and wide and look for things you’ve never seen before. Read widely. See a lot of movies. Try having different kinds of jobs. Give different kinds of creative self-expression a try. Oh, and somehow find time to process it all and figure just how you feel about all these things. It might be impossible to do all these things, but that’s not important. More important is the idea of discovery. Somewhere out there, or somewhere inside yourself, is the life that is just right for you—the purpose that will make you powerful. You’ve got to search with determination. It’s not going to find you. You’ve got to find it.
Good luck, folks. Lots of love.
Randy
Sunday, June 6, 2010
The profession
Children are complicated.
People have the perception that they are simple, but in fact, it’s much harder to understand a child than an adult. Adults are articulate. Adults have far greater insight into their character. Children are all at sea in life. They go where the tide takes them, and they have no idea where they’re going or why.
I’ve been watching a lot of my kids very carefully, trying to figure out what makes them tick. I’ve always loved studying people. Whether it’s a friend, a family member, co-worker or even myself, I’m always analyzing behavior, forming hypotheses, and imagining what it’s like to be in their head. This is my most practiced pasttime.
With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that I’m finding it pretty fascinating at times to be working with young children. The kids I’m working with are young enough that it’s easy to see changes in their character. By the time we reach adulthood, change is slow in us. People continue to change throughout their lives, but it usually takes much longer the older we get. With kids, it’s totally different. Even a month can make a huge difference. A kid at four can be one way, and another way entirely at five. After all, that a period equivalent to 25% of her life that just passed! Think how quickly a month passes. Now try to remember how long a month felt when you were in kindergarten. It was like an eternity.
When I first arrived I didn’t think about how much I’d be learning about kids. I hadn’t been around children much before I got here, so I didn’t really know what they were like. I mean, I remember how I perceived childhood, but that doesn’t tell me anything about how adults perceived me. I hadn’t seen childhood with an adult’s perspective. I didn’t think much about it as a way to learn about people because I assumed none of my students would have enough English to really talk to me. That assumption had two problems. The first is that many of the kids speak very good English. The second is the idea that it would matter. I know the kids in my homeroom class very very well, even though they none of them can carry a conversation. They figure out how to get their feelings across.
The things that’s been the biggest surprise to me is just how much children are like adults. They’re dead complicated. Classroom politics change all the time. The battles may revolve around crayon use, but don’t let the subject matter fool you. These kids are actually fighting for their place in the social order. And they do it with striking ability. In one of my classes, a student brought a little notebook with nicely decorated paper to school, tearing out sheets to give to her classmates as a gift. The next day, another girl in the same class struck back. She brought a notebook of her own and did the same gift-giving, except she added a twist: first she let everyone pick a sticker from her sticker book to add to their paper. The first student knew she was one-upped. You could see it. It turns out, five year olds can go to war. Or at least the girls can.
The biggest difference between children and adults, though, is that children are very impulsive. They are pushed and pulled in a thousand directions by their emotions, which they are almost helpless to resist. Everything is a whirlwind for a child. Everything is a rollercoaster. When something is funny, they laugh hysterically. When they are upset, the world is ending. Just as their pencils are wobbly under their hands, with their motor control still loose, their emotions are the same. All the tools are there, they just haven’t figured out control yet. They have a thousand complicated tasks to master before they are ready to be on their own. This is why I don’t see myself as just an English teacher. They also need to learn how to get along with others, how to express their creativity, how to stay focused on the task at hand, and dozens more essential skills. If all they learn is English, then we are failing them. They’ve got about 10 or 12 years to learn how life works, and after that, good luck to them.
In any case, I just got the book “Teach Like a Champion” by Doug Lemov. I talked about this book before. Lemov compiled a slew of teaching techniques commonly found in the most successful classrooms, named them, and explained them in a very detailed and clear book. I’m about a fifth of the way through it and it is just rocking my socks. But one thing I notice is that Lemov and I seem to agree that there’s a lot more to a teacher’s job than teaching kids the answers. Over and over again, the book explains how certain teaching techniques will encourage kids to become more intellectually curious, or to push themselves harder, or to be more self-disciplined. It seems the best teachers don’t just teach facts and figures. The best teachers teach life.
I must push myself harder as a person to be worthy of teaching of the subject.
Goodnight folks. Lots of love.
Randy
People have the perception that they are simple, but in fact, it’s much harder to understand a child than an adult. Adults are articulate. Adults have far greater insight into their character. Children are all at sea in life. They go where the tide takes them, and they have no idea where they’re going or why.
I’ve been watching a lot of my kids very carefully, trying to figure out what makes them tick. I’ve always loved studying people. Whether it’s a friend, a family member, co-worker or even myself, I’m always analyzing behavior, forming hypotheses, and imagining what it’s like to be in their head. This is my most practiced pasttime.
With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that I’m finding it pretty fascinating at times to be working with young children. The kids I’m working with are young enough that it’s easy to see changes in their character. By the time we reach adulthood, change is slow in us. People continue to change throughout their lives, but it usually takes much longer the older we get. With kids, it’s totally different. Even a month can make a huge difference. A kid at four can be one way, and another way entirely at five. After all, that a period equivalent to 25% of her life that just passed! Think how quickly a month passes. Now try to remember how long a month felt when you were in kindergarten. It was like an eternity.
When I first arrived I didn’t think about how much I’d be learning about kids. I hadn’t been around children much before I got here, so I didn’t really know what they were like. I mean, I remember how I perceived childhood, but that doesn’t tell me anything about how adults perceived me. I hadn’t seen childhood with an adult’s perspective. I didn’t think much about it as a way to learn about people because I assumed none of my students would have enough English to really talk to me. That assumption had two problems. The first is that many of the kids speak very good English. The second is the idea that it would matter. I know the kids in my homeroom class very very well, even though they none of them can carry a conversation. They figure out how to get their feelings across.
The things that’s been the biggest surprise to me is just how much children are like adults. They’re dead complicated. Classroom politics change all the time. The battles may revolve around crayon use, but don’t let the subject matter fool you. These kids are actually fighting for their place in the social order. And they do it with striking ability. In one of my classes, a student brought a little notebook with nicely decorated paper to school, tearing out sheets to give to her classmates as a gift. The next day, another girl in the same class struck back. She brought a notebook of her own and did the same gift-giving, except she added a twist: first she let everyone pick a sticker from her sticker book to add to their paper. The first student knew she was one-upped. You could see it. It turns out, five year olds can go to war. Or at least the girls can.
The biggest difference between children and adults, though, is that children are very impulsive. They are pushed and pulled in a thousand directions by their emotions, which they are almost helpless to resist. Everything is a whirlwind for a child. Everything is a rollercoaster. When something is funny, they laugh hysterically. When they are upset, the world is ending. Just as their pencils are wobbly under their hands, with their motor control still loose, their emotions are the same. All the tools are there, they just haven’t figured out control yet. They have a thousand complicated tasks to master before they are ready to be on their own. This is why I don’t see myself as just an English teacher. They also need to learn how to get along with others, how to express their creativity, how to stay focused on the task at hand, and dozens more essential skills. If all they learn is English, then we are failing them. They’ve got about 10 or 12 years to learn how life works, and after that, good luck to them.
In any case, I just got the book “Teach Like a Champion” by Doug Lemov. I talked about this book before. Lemov compiled a slew of teaching techniques commonly found in the most successful classrooms, named them, and explained them in a very detailed and clear book. I’m about a fifth of the way through it and it is just rocking my socks. But one thing I notice is that Lemov and I seem to agree that there’s a lot more to a teacher’s job than teaching kids the answers. Over and over again, the book explains how certain teaching techniques will encourage kids to become more intellectually curious, or to push themselves harder, or to be more self-disciplined. It seems the best teachers don’t just teach facts and figures. The best teachers teach life.
I must push myself harder as a person to be worthy of teaching of the subject.
Goodnight folks. Lots of love.
Randy
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Someday they'll say they learned all they know from me!
Hello. Today I thought I’d share with you some essays that were written by 5 year old Koreans. Enjoy!
“Name: Beth
Once opon a time
miss duckling and Mr. snake
Went to The shop
to Buy lemons to eat
and they get home.
So they get scissors
and they eat the lemon.”
Good story.
“Name: a mom man Stephanie
Bunny is very cute.
The bunny swam.
The bunny read.
The bunny”
Not sure what went wrong on the way to writing her name here, but my theory is she was testing how to spell words that she didn’t end up using. That wonderfully unresolved ending makes me think the bunny was supposed to have adventures with a man and a mom but, sadly, never got around to it.
Also, the alphabet is written in capitals down the right side of the paper.
“Name: (no name at the top)
Jan has new friend
Jan walk by the street
but there is another
boy friend. It was ugly
Jan hit the boy
but Yap Yap Yap oo oo oo YaYaYa
The boy became bird.
and Jan became bird to
and they married.
Minnie”
Everything about this is amazing. I have no idea who wrote it. There is no one named “Minnie” in the class.
“Name: Henny
When There is Kimchi and
There is only man and man very
love very much and man eat
the kimchi and man eat
and eat eat eat and eat
eat eate aand eat eat
and eat and tow much eat and
then that man is very fat
then finish and this store is kimchi and man store”
Can’t argue with that.
Another nameless one.
“Once upon a time
in house and a ugly
shoes. But ugly shoes
love the pretty shoes
But pretty shoes Dont’
like agly shoes
But agly shoes goes pretty
shoes house But pretty
Shoes shout and agly
Shoes go out agly
Shoes goes agly shoes house
and eat bread
and juice and sleep
But pretty shoes like agly
Shoes and pretty
Shoes goes agly shoes
house and agly shoes
is love the pretty shoes!”
An epic worthy of Homer.
Have a good one folks. Remember to love your neighbor.
Randy
“Name: Beth
Once opon a time
miss duckling and Mr. snake
Went to The shop
to Buy lemons to eat
and they get home.
So they get scissors
and they eat the lemon.”
Good story.
“Name: a mom man Stephanie
Bunny is very cute.
The bunny swam.
The bunny read.
The bunny”
Not sure what went wrong on the way to writing her name here, but my theory is she was testing how to spell words that she didn’t end up using. That wonderfully unresolved ending makes me think the bunny was supposed to have adventures with a man and a mom but, sadly, never got around to it.
Also, the alphabet is written in capitals down the right side of the paper.
“Name: (no name at the top)
Jan has new friend
Jan walk by the street
but there is another
boy friend. It was ugly
Jan hit the boy
but Yap Yap Yap oo oo oo YaYaYa
The boy became bird.
and Jan became bird to
and they married.
Minnie”
Everything about this is amazing. I have no idea who wrote it. There is no one named “Minnie” in the class.
“Name: Henny
When There is Kimchi and
There is only man and man very
love very much and man eat
the kimchi and man eat
and eat eat eat and eat
eat eate aand eat eat
and eat and tow much eat and
then that man is very fat
then finish and this store is kimchi and man store”
Can’t argue with that.
Another nameless one.
“Once upon a time
in house and a ugly
shoes. But ugly shoes
love the pretty shoes
But pretty shoes Dont’
like agly shoes
But agly shoes goes pretty
shoes house But pretty
Shoes shout and agly
Shoes go out agly
Shoes goes agly shoes house
and eat bread
and juice and sleep
But pretty shoes like agly
Shoes and pretty
Shoes goes agly shoes
house and agly shoes
is love the pretty shoes!”
An epic worthy of Homer.
Have a good one folks. Remember to love your neighbor.
Randy
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Saunain'
Another weekend, another first, this time as authentically Korean as it gets. Jjimjilbang.
A jjimjilbang is a public spa/sauna. You pay a pretty reasonable price to get in the door and then all the sauna rooms and hot tubs are free. You get a little scanable bracelet that charges you for any additional services, which you use in lieu of carrying your wallet around, what with being semi-naked and enjoying some hot, steamy, bath related action. What kind of "additional services" you ask? How about massage chairs, holmes! You feeling that? Get yourself all loosened up by a steaming hot sauna, then when you go back out to the main room, have a chair run it's wubbly knobs all over you back. MMmm-hmmm. Oh yeah. The chair loves you. You love the chair. You're just a couple of cool cats finding love in the unlikeliest of places. In a chair.
Jjimjilbangs have been around forever in Korea. There are references to them in court documents from King Sejong, this king from 500 years ago who was basically the dopest pimp in the history of Korea. If he was doing it, it must have been the thing to do. And that remains true to this day. Jjimjilbangs are among the most popular form of recreation in Korea, especially for families. There are typically arcade rooms and other kid-friendly stuff, so mom and dad can drop off the little ones and then go relax on their own. Even in the middle of the afternoon on a weekend, the main hall area will be surprisingly crowded, and at night, the place is packed. People often stay overnight, sleeping on the heated floors, and the main area will be simply crowded with bodies. Careful not to step on anyone on your way to the toilet! I could never sleep at one of these places though. Too noisy, and the floor is too hard to sleep. I opted for the sunrise subway myself.
Oh! One more thing. The jjimjilbang we went to had a restaurant on the top floor called “Indian Barbecue Café” or something like that. I was imagining, based on the name that it was Indian food, like curry and whatnot, except with barbecued meat. Nope. The “Indian” in that title refers to American Indians—Native Americans. O…K. Not sure if I can name a lot of cuisine in that category. Corn? I guess?
In any case, the restaurant featured a few statues in full on Indian caricature mode. Like straight up, “Holy mother of Choctaw, that is some racist shit” type statues. You see this stuff now and again around here. Racial stereotypes are no big deal, it seems. I would have been a lot more surprised if the décor wasn’t off the wall offensive. Here’s a story for you: I asked kids in an elementary school class if they knew anything about Africa. The response? “Oh, Africa… OOGA BOOGA OOGA BOOGA!” Yikes.
Till next time,
Randy
A jjimjilbang is a public spa/sauna. You pay a pretty reasonable price to get in the door and then all the sauna rooms and hot tubs are free. You get a little scanable bracelet that charges you for any additional services, which you use in lieu of carrying your wallet around, what with being semi-naked and enjoying some hot, steamy, bath related action. What kind of "additional services" you ask? How about massage chairs, holmes! You feeling that? Get yourself all loosened up by a steaming hot sauna, then when you go back out to the main room, have a chair run it's wubbly knobs all over you back. MMmm-hmmm. Oh yeah. The chair loves you. You love the chair. You're just a couple of cool cats finding love in the unlikeliest of places. In a chair.
Jjimjilbangs have been around forever in Korea. There are references to them in court documents from King Sejong, this king from 500 years ago who was basically the dopest pimp in the history of Korea. If he was doing it, it must have been the thing to do. And that remains true to this day. Jjimjilbangs are among the most popular form of recreation in Korea, especially for families. There are typically arcade rooms and other kid-friendly stuff, so mom and dad can drop off the little ones and then go relax on their own. Even in the middle of the afternoon on a weekend, the main hall area will be surprisingly crowded, and at night, the place is packed. People often stay overnight, sleeping on the heated floors, and the main area will be simply crowded with bodies. Careful not to step on anyone on your way to the toilet! I could never sleep at one of these places though. Too noisy, and the floor is too hard to sleep. I opted for the sunrise subway myself.
Oh! One more thing. The jjimjilbang we went to had a restaurant on the top floor called “Indian Barbecue Café” or something like that. I was imagining, based on the name that it was Indian food, like curry and whatnot, except with barbecued meat. Nope. The “Indian” in that title refers to American Indians—Native Americans. O…K. Not sure if I can name a lot of cuisine in that category. Corn? I guess?
In any case, the restaurant featured a few statues in full on Indian caricature mode. Like straight up, “Holy mother of Choctaw, that is some racist shit” type statues. You see this stuff now and again around here. Racial stereotypes are no big deal, it seems. I would have been a lot more surprised if the décor wasn’t off the wall offensive. Here’s a story for you: I asked kids in an elementary school class if they knew anything about Africa. The response? “Oh, Africa… OOGA BOOGA OOGA BOOGA!” Yikes.
Till next time,
Randy
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Whether the weather be cold, or whether the weather be hot, we'll be together whatever the weather, whether we like it or not
Spring is here! Sound a cheer! Raise your hands! You can feel it in your glands!
After an incredibly long winter that stormed in with a record snowfall and lingered weeks after it had worn out the last of its welcome, the good guys have won at last. The snow is gone, the t-shirts are out, and it feels great to have my bare arms exposed to the air. As I was walking down to the street to get some lunch, my elbow lightly scraped a tree. The feeling of the bark on my skin made me feel so alive and so happy. It’s been months since I’ve been able to wear short sleeves outside. My skin was hiding away from the cold. Now I’m free again.
The climate here is known for being highly seasonal. There can never be any doubt about which season you’re experiencing. The winter is cold and oppressive. The summer is hot and wet. Fall is cool and colorful. And spring brings life back to the earth with astonishing speed. Already, the trees outside my apartment are in full bloom, shedding white petals into the grass and drinking up the sunlight of the longer days. Flashes of pink and yellow are like electric neon shocks in the scenery. The colors of blooming bushes are more than eye-catching. They stop traffic. People stop to talk about the end of winter or the beginning of spring.
I love metaphors and symbols and I’m always searching for them. For my first winter—my first real winter, in a place where it actually gets cold and dead, it was important to draw something out of the experience. What does it mean to experience this long period of inactivity, lifelessness, and featurelessness? Why is it necessary and how does it affect how we look at the world? The expressionist artist Jean-Michel Basquiat once said “Every single line means something”. Well, every little component of our world tells us something about what kind of world we live in.
For me, the first thing I think of when I think of the differences between winter and the other seasons is the way it makes the outside world so uniform. After a snowfall, everywhere you go the ground is stark white. Trees that once bore wildly different kinds of leaves and flowers are now plain brown twins. Visibility is low. Go up to a high place and see how far you can see. The fog of winter keeps you from seeing very much. Below the horizon, all is white. Above, all is gray. Even the sun seems weak, like its powerful yellow rays just can’t shine like they used to. It’s a monochrome world.
The rest of the year, each individual plant can really show you who it is. The rest of the year, sunsets are multi-colored and vivid. There is a raw beauty to the starkness of winter, but it’s only in the other seasons that the scenery seems to be breathing with life. It’s not just the people who feel liberated by the changing of the season and the return of warm weather. Look outside and we can see our feelings mirrored by every little life-form, stretching out and moving freely, and wearing their best colors. Come spring, everything is in flux.
And I think, what this does, is it brings excitement. I mean, I’m excited just because a tree scraped my arm. What does that tell you?
Damn near everything is a feedback loop. For example: Let’s say you think you should exercise more. You never exercise, you’re completely sedentary. At first, it’s very difficult to get started. You’re not used to getting sweaty and exerting yourself for a while. Your habits are a powerful pull on you, discouraging you from changing anything. Your muscles protest. You struggle with yourself emotionally, finding it difficult to keep motivated. It seems a lot easier just to quit.
Then, after a few weeks, something strange happens. Things begin to change. The fruits of your labor become obvious. You aren’t as tired anymore. You feel better. You’re getting stronger and more fit. Your body has adjusted to your new routine.
After a few more months, you’ve completely switched feedback loops. Now, if anything, it would be hard to STOP exercising. If you skip a day, you’ll miss it. You won’t feel as good, missing that high for the day. Whereas a few months ago, everything was pulling you back, trying to keep you from getting active, now everything is pushing you to continue, or even increase your load. You’re fully in your new loop. Every bit of exercise pushes another button that increases your motivation to continue.
This basic pattern is true for a huge variety of human behavior. Something just has to provide that spark that allows change, and soon enough the change becomes self-reinforcing.
That’s where spring comes in. The winter is oppressive. It does everything it can to keep people inside. It sucks the color from the landscape and tries to make everything feel bleak. It wants to get you down, and it’s no wonder so many people suffer from seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and become depressed each winter. All it takes, in many cases, to cure people of their symptoms? A sunlamp.
The sun and the warmth are such easy and wonderful rewards. You go outside, and you feel good. It’s as simple as that. For the last four months, especially January and February, I often felt like hiding away in the apartment. I wasn’t depressed, but I just did not want to go outside, not even on the weekends. I went out anyway, knowing that if I didn’t, I WOULD probably get depressed, but it wasn’t made easy by the weather, which offered pretty stiff resistance.
Suddenly, though, things have changed. Now, going outside is its own reward. And I couldn’t be more excited about it.
See ya'll next time.
Randy
After an incredibly long winter that stormed in with a record snowfall and lingered weeks after it had worn out the last of its welcome, the good guys have won at last. The snow is gone, the t-shirts are out, and it feels great to have my bare arms exposed to the air. As I was walking down to the street to get some lunch, my elbow lightly scraped a tree. The feeling of the bark on my skin made me feel so alive and so happy. It’s been months since I’ve been able to wear short sleeves outside. My skin was hiding away from the cold. Now I’m free again.
The climate here is known for being highly seasonal. There can never be any doubt about which season you’re experiencing. The winter is cold and oppressive. The summer is hot and wet. Fall is cool and colorful. And spring brings life back to the earth with astonishing speed. Already, the trees outside my apartment are in full bloom, shedding white petals into the grass and drinking up the sunlight of the longer days. Flashes of pink and yellow are like electric neon shocks in the scenery. The colors of blooming bushes are more than eye-catching. They stop traffic. People stop to talk about the end of winter or the beginning of spring.
I love metaphors and symbols and I’m always searching for them. For my first winter—my first real winter, in a place where it actually gets cold and dead, it was important to draw something out of the experience. What does it mean to experience this long period of inactivity, lifelessness, and featurelessness? Why is it necessary and how does it affect how we look at the world? The expressionist artist Jean-Michel Basquiat once said “Every single line means something”. Well, every little component of our world tells us something about what kind of world we live in.
For me, the first thing I think of when I think of the differences between winter and the other seasons is the way it makes the outside world so uniform. After a snowfall, everywhere you go the ground is stark white. Trees that once bore wildly different kinds of leaves and flowers are now plain brown twins. Visibility is low. Go up to a high place and see how far you can see. The fog of winter keeps you from seeing very much. Below the horizon, all is white. Above, all is gray. Even the sun seems weak, like its powerful yellow rays just can’t shine like they used to. It’s a monochrome world.
The rest of the year, each individual plant can really show you who it is. The rest of the year, sunsets are multi-colored and vivid. There is a raw beauty to the starkness of winter, but it’s only in the other seasons that the scenery seems to be breathing with life. It’s not just the people who feel liberated by the changing of the season and the return of warm weather. Look outside and we can see our feelings mirrored by every little life-form, stretching out and moving freely, and wearing their best colors. Come spring, everything is in flux.
And I think, what this does, is it brings excitement. I mean, I’m excited just because a tree scraped my arm. What does that tell you?
Damn near everything is a feedback loop. For example: Let’s say you think you should exercise more. You never exercise, you’re completely sedentary. At first, it’s very difficult to get started. You’re not used to getting sweaty and exerting yourself for a while. Your habits are a powerful pull on you, discouraging you from changing anything. Your muscles protest. You struggle with yourself emotionally, finding it difficult to keep motivated. It seems a lot easier just to quit.
Then, after a few weeks, something strange happens. Things begin to change. The fruits of your labor become obvious. You aren’t as tired anymore. You feel better. You’re getting stronger and more fit. Your body has adjusted to your new routine.
After a few more months, you’ve completely switched feedback loops. Now, if anything, it would be hard to STOP exercising. If you skip a day, you’ll miss it. You won’t feel as good, missing that high for the day. Whereas a few months ago, everything was pulling you back, trying to keep you from getting active, now everything is pushing you to continue, or even increase your load. You’re fully in your new loop. Every bit of exercise pushes another button that increases your motivation to continue.
This basic pattern is true for a huge variety of human behavior. Something just has to provide that spark that allows change, and soon enough the change becomes self-reinforcing.
That’s where spring comes in. The winter is oppressive. It does everything it can to keep people inside. It sucks the color from the landscape and tries to make everything feel bleak. It wants to get you down, and it’s no wonder so many people suffer from seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and become depressed each winter. All it takes, in many cases, to cure people of their symptoms? A sunlamp.
The sun and the warmth are such easy and wonderful rewards. You go outside, and you feel good. It’s as simple as that. For the last four months, especially January and February, I often felt like hiding away in the apartment. I wasn’t depressed, but I just did not want to go outside, not even on the weekends. I went out anyway, knowing that if I didn’t, I WOULD probably get depressed, but it wasn’t made easy by the weather, which offered pretty stiff resistance.
Suddenly, though, things have changed. Now, going outside is its own reward. And I couldn’t be more excited about it.
See ya'll next time.
Randy
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Short takes from a busy weekend
I think I may have just had the best weekend I've had yet in Korea. Saturday in particular was such a well-rounded day full of great stuff. Normally I try to have some kind of "angle" on these posts, but there's just no way I can pull that off this time. Too. Much. Stuff.
So here goes!
The main event on Saturday was an outdoor pillow fight in downtown Seoul. We left my apartment each with a pillow in tow and boarded crowded subways full of confused looks. Foreigners carrying pillows onto the subway. Koreans wondering if their country should rethink this whole “teach our kids English” thing. Anthony trying to ignore stares as he caught some sleep standing up, pillow propped against a pole.
The pillow fight was at 6 PM at the plaza square near Seoul City Hall. The green man from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia showed up. There was a Korean dude who brought a helmet into the fracas. He faced stiff opposition from folks allied against the use of hard armor to defend against pillows. I whumped the shit out of him. Sometimes a feather pillow would break open and feathers would fly through the air like pink sparks from a roman candle.
A great outdoor pillow fight is a lot like a mosh pit. There’s a loosely defined circle on the outside, and chaos and insanity in the middle. When you’ve enjoyed your fair share, you can go for a stand along the outside and just sit back and watch. It’s almost as much fun to watch as it is to fight.
About thirty minutes into the thumping and shouting, I took another break. Pillow fighting is surprsingly tiring work. More than five minutes at a time and you start to feel like you’ve run a mile. I pull my glasses out and settle in to spectate for a while.
Suddenly, a mysterious stranger approaches.
“Hey,” he says, referring to the melee, “do you know what this is for?”
Do you know. What this is for.
DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS IS FOR??
Something stopped that man’s heart in his chest years ago. I had no idea what to say. How do you explain the purpose of a pillow fight? Where do you begin? What I should have done is, I should have said, “This!” and hit him with my pillow. Or maybe I could have said that we were all jazz musicians, and we were warming up for a show in half an hour. Or maybe I should have answered his question really seriously and said that we had all been hired to test the durability of different kinds of pillows under the most extreme conditions that pillows are likely to see. One more. I should have said “To raise money to impeach the Pope. Donate here” and then held out my hand.
Anyway, the answer I actually gave was “There was a thing on Facebook”. He seemed satisfied with that answer. Kinda scary, isn’t it? Any behavior can now be explained with a one word answer. “Facebook”. “Ah, I see”. Strange.
Also in the history books from Saturday: Arts and crafts jam session. Over the last couple of weeks I have been stocking up on art supplies. Water color paints, poster paints, colored pencils, markers, construction paper, enormous sheets of white paper, 9 paint brushes, a pencil sharpener and a glue stick. Fuck yeah.
Early afternoon Saturday, the door was open for any passersby who wanted to do some painting, drawing, or cutting and pasting of any kind. Proceeds went to the aesthetic betterment of my bedroom. The catering was handled by Domino’s. The music was Sgt. Pepper’s. A pleasant time was guaranteed for all. Fuck yeah.
I’ve noticed something about my spending habits. I try to buy experiences rather than acquire possessions. The purpose of paint is to use it. When it’s been put to good use, it is gone. It’s not like a nice jacket, or a fancy TV. I’ve also spent a lot on travel since I’ve been here. My trip to Japan cost about $1000. Hikes and ostriches are experiential purposes too.
I feel great about this. Ideally, when I leave Korea, I’ll have almost nothing to show for it except a huge list of experiences (and some decent savings besides). This is totally the best way to spend your money. I must’ve dropped $80 on art day, and I couldn’t feel any better about it. It was memorable. It was fulfilling. It was a great experience to share with the folks who showed up and took part. And there are a ton of supplies left over for future painting and playing. I can’t even think of a better bang for my buck.
The thing is, that’s not some revelation. I’m not surprised to discover this or anything. I think we all know instinctually that, looking back years down the line, spending two grand on a vacation touring southeast Asia is a much more worthwhile expense than spending the same money on a sleek new TV, or as down payment on a car, or whatever. We all know that our time on earth is short, and that we’d better do all we can to fill our lives with adventures and memories. The trouble is, sometimes money is short. And when you’re short on cash, you want all your big purchases to be tangible things. If you have to save up for a year to have the two grand to spend, it’s much easier to make the decision to buy the TV, because it’ll be around for years. The vacation will be done in a few weeks and you’ll be back to square one.
That’s why I’m so grateful for what I have here. I have a job that pays me pretty well and let’s me see the world at the same time. I have the freedom to spend whatever I think it will take to put together a solid afternoon of arts and crafts. I’ve never had this before. I’m free to do whatever sounds like a good time without having to stress about it. It doesn’t get old. In fact, as my list of lifetime “firsts” grows, it gets sweeter and sweeter. People say that money can’t buy happiness, and it’s true. But it does enable you to do things that you think will make you happy.
Now, all that said, something else “they” say is that the best things in life are free. And let me tell you what: I got to sit in VIP seats for a soccer match featuring FC Seoul and rival club Suwon for free, and it was pretty damn sweet. So
I guess “they” really know what they’re talking about.
A cold bug is making the rounds in Seoul right now (actually, I’m a little sick myself) and it has unfortunately taken my co-teacher Emma out of commission. She spent the weekend in bed, resting up. You gotta be rested come Monday. Kindergarteners can smell tiredness on an adult, and they respond like ravenous wolves presented with blood-dripping fresh steaks. They even snarl at each other as they fight for the biggest pieces of your flesh. It’s horrifying.
Anyhoo.
So, Emma’s fiance Mark called me up and asked me if I felt like taking her ticket for the match Sunday. Emma and Mark are season ticket holders, so they have good seats. And I’d never been to a soccer game before. And did I mention the price tag? (FREE!) Woo! Count me in!
The game was great, mostly because our team, FC Seoul, managed to score 3 goals in the space of about 8 minutes. Suwon had a pretty huge contingent of fans show up—about 10,000 altogether, but they were a little more subdued after the 3rd goal. They even slowed down on waving their giant Che Guevara flag around (Seriously.).
Also, soccer is better in person because it’s the sport where you need to see the largest area simultaneously in order to enjoy what’s happening. It’s routine for a player to kick a ball up field 50 yards, and on TV they have to follow it through the air where you can’t see much of what’s going on down on the field. In person, you can see everything that is relevant to see at a glance. It is not, as American football is so often labeled, a game of inches. It is a game of hundreds of feet. That, in a nutshell, is why the NFL is awesome on TV but not very good in person, and soccer is good in person but not great on TV. Educational.
Well, there ya go. That was some of what happened this weekend. I left out a story about a Korean woman who we met in a bar on Saturday night where the soccer match between Chelsea and Manchester United was being broadcast. She was about 24 years old and had been abroad for one month, where she stayed in London, and somehow picked up a cockney accent during that time. I also left out the Indian food place that was called “Durga” which somehow seemed like a racial slur of a name.
Apologies for the lack of focus/quality writing this week. But, actually, I feel pretty good about that. It’s like what happened when I went to Japan. Too much stuff happened to write something cohesive about it. Feels good!
Much love to the world, especially the human parts of it.
Randy
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