2012...as it relates to 2013

Here's what I did this year. I...

• returned to Korea
• grew a beard
• learned how to play pinochle
• started playing cards with the fellas on Thursday nights
• rode the mugunghwa (the Korean diesel train)
• successfully completed my first NaNoWriMo
• explored five new cities
• sent socks to the D.P.R.K. via weather balloon
• familiarized myself with the Seoul subway system
• ate Jordanian food
• smoked a real Cuban cigar
• got interviewed by Reuters
• took a night cruise on the Han River
• went to the Seoul Zoo
• survived a typhoon (or two)
• climbed a 2,426-foot mountain
• took an interest in jazz
• filled up my liquor cabinet
• spent three hours at the National Museum of Seoul (and that was just the first floor)
• went bike-riding in the snow
• (finally) located the best hamburger in Seoul

And here's what I'm hoping to accomplish next year:

• become proficient in Korean
• pay off my credit card debts
• get some fiction published, including that NaNoWriMo novel
• lose the gut; improve flexibility and core strength
• ride the saemaeul (the second-fastest class of train in K-Land)
• foment good daily habits, such as stretching, exercising, yoga, writing, reading, and intellectual improvement
• change my Facebook cover photo only once a month
• acquaint myself with basic physics
• read 30 books
• bathe in both the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan
• visit the Busan Aquarium
• go to a jimjilbang (a Korean bathhouse)
• ride every line on the Seoul Metro
• look into Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines, King Oliver, Sidney Bechet, Fats Waller, Count Basie, Miles Davis, and Thelonius Monk, and thereby augment my jazz collection
• find the best taco in Seoul

There's an item on this list that I haven't mentioned, because it seems apropos to discuss it in greater detail.

I'm going to make this blog more professional.

In 2009, when my English friend (known only as "A") told me to start a blog and use it as a repository for my travel writing endeavors, I didn't quite take his advice to heart. He intended for me to create a sort of electronic portfolio, a reference guide for prospective employers. That was and still is a sound idea. For almost four years now I've been using this blog as a creative outlet, but not as a vehicle to further my writing career.

That changes in 2013. I'm going to specialize. Instead of splattering myself all over the place and writing about booze, flying, literature, writing, and travel, I'll just do travel instead. Maybe the occasional cocktail review, we'll see. I'm mulling over the idea of starting up a secondary and perhaps even a tertiary blog to cover my aviation and literary pursuits, but those are still in the planning stages. Henceforth, however, "the Sententious Vaunter" shall cover travel, and travel only. You may want to sign off now if you ain't interested.

Also, in lieu of the new year and the overhauls intended for this blog, I've set up a new profile picture, one that's actually of me and not my favorite fictional character. So here I am, in all my glory: my favorite lumpy hat, my new and extra-fluffy scarf, my old military-style winter coat, and in my favorite chair. Blog heaven.

A very Happy New Year to you. Stay safe, enjoy your favorite tipple, and ring in 2013 with class.

ain't no shame in YA

I used to have this thing about young adult literature, or YA for short. I thought it was...well, for kids. "Young adults" means kids, right?

As I outgrew book series like Goosebumps and Animorphs and moved on to the heavy hitters like Notes from Underground and Moby-Dick (getting tired of hearing about that one yet?), I instinctively sensed that I was "too old" to venture back down the trail and revisit old classics—or discover new ones.

One of the few exceptions to this rule was the Harry Potter series. I got in on the ground floor, as it were: Sorcerer's Stone came out in the U.S.A. in 1998. It took a year for word to spread to my family that this book was the living shizz. My mother originally picked up for my brother to read, but he wasn't interested. I happened to notice it on the coffee table one day in early 1999, when I was 12 years old, just a year older than Harry. I read it and was enthralled. For about three years afterward, Harry and I were practically the same age: Chamber of Secrets came out in June of 1999 (I was still twelve); Prisoner of Azkaban in September 1999, just before my 13th birthday; and Goblet of Fire appeared in July of 2000, two months before my 14th birthday. After that the age gap began to widen, but for a few short years Harry and I shared some kind of age-related bond. And it was magical, let me tell you. I was totally unashamed to be seen reading Deathly Hallows in 2007 at the age of 20.

But even if I had been, I would have soon been cured, for everywhere I looked I saw people twice my age reading it. The big wake-up call came during a visit to the doctor's office, where a large, curly-haired, middle-aged woman in a shapeless blue dress was sitting in the waiting room, riveted by the same orange volume I myself had just finished reading. Another telegram came in when my mother bought me Stephen King's book On Writing. In its pages I discovered that even my favorite contemporary horror writer loved reading the "Potter" series, and had included some shout-outs to it in his own works.

Despite this, somewhere between my twenty-first birthday and my twenty-sixth, I became leery of young adult literature again. Kid stuff, I couldn't help thinking. Yeah, I'm sure it's got literary merit. I'll bet the plot and pacing are second to none. The writing likely kicks ass.

But something always held me back. I'd see the "YA" label on a book on Amazon or in Barnes & Noble, and I'd click away or put it back on the shelf. This prejudice even extended to fellow human beings: I'd be reading someone's blog and liking it, but then I'd check their biography and see that they were a writer of YA. I'd promptly get turned off and leave. Cripes, you'd think I was insecure about my manhood or something.

Well, I'm here to tell you today about two books that changed my outlook: Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve and Airborn by Kenneth Oppel.

You might remember 'em from my last book-related post. Mortal Engines is the first book of the Predator Cities series (known inexplicably as the Hungry City Chronicles in America). Basically, the world's become a wasteland following some kind of nuclear holocaust, and in the wake of this disaster some enterprising fellow put the city of London on gigantic tank treads and gave it humongous steel jaws and decreed that cities should roam all over the planet's surface eating and assimilating each other for spare parts and fuel. Thus the system of Municipal Darwinism was born. Every city and town and village became a mobile eating-machine and started chasing each other around like Pac-Man.

Tom Natsworthy, a 15-year-old apprentice historian and Londoner, is on punishment duty in the Gut—London's hellish underbelly where her prizes are pulled apart and fed to the boilers. Unexpectedly, though, Tom has gotten to meet his hero, Thaddeus Valentine, a renowned master historian. As the scruffy survivors of London's latest catch are processed, one of them draws a knife and makes an attempt on Valentine's life. Tom prevents the ragged captive from stabbing his hero, and in the ensuing struggle both he and the would-be assassin fall out of London's bowels and into the Out-Country, the ravaged remains of Earth's surface. Tom learns that Valentine's attacker is Hester Shaw, a teenage girl with a horribly scarred face, who blames Valentine for her disfigurement and for murdering her mother. During their ensuing adventures, Tom must adjust to a great many things: the savage lifestyle of the Out-Country, Hester's brutal and standoffish nature, the Anti-Traction League (a terrorist organization dedicated to the destruction of London and every moving city like it), and the unsettling evidence that Thaddeus Valentine may not be such a hero after all.  

Awesome, right?

Airborn follows Matt Cruse, also fifteen and a cabin boy on the grand passenger airship Aurora. During the course of the novel, the Aurora is caught in a storm, boarded by pirates, stranded on an uncharted island, and very nearly destroyed. All this is rather traumatic for poor Matt, who loves the airship more than anything in the world, for his father served (and died) aboard her. Complicating Matt's comfy existence aboard his floating home is Kate de Vries, a wealthy heiress and amateur zoologist who is out to prove that her balloonist grandfather was not crazy when he claimed to have discovered an unknown species of flying creature on his final voyage. She and a reluctant Matt have a series of whirlwind adventures on land and in the air, surviving storms, ducking pirates and meeting the ferocious cloud cats—the "beautiful creatures" that Kate's grandfather spoke of with his dying breath.

Even more awesome, right? 

I don't even care that these are both technically YA works. The writing's good. The characters are vivid. And the imaginations of these two authors are off the flippin' chain. (Reeve, in particular, makes a bunch of obscure pop culture and literary references, most of which I get. It's like I'm receiving a direct geek-to-geek call!) Labels like "young adult" don't matter to me, not now. These are the first works I've really gotten lost in since Harry Potter. It's nice to have rediscovered that feeling. Getting lost in a book is the best thing in the world. You feel like you've taken a running leap off a diving board and submerged yourself wholeheartedly into a vast unexplored ocean, a galaxy of new worlds and new horizons.

The next book in the Mortal Engines quartet is Predator's Gold.

Next up in the Airborn series is Skybreaker.

Gad, don't those titles give you the chills?

Excuse me, I have some new worlds to explore. Turn off the lights when you leave.

writing updates, 12/18/2012

Boy, have I got news for you! I finally submitted another story somewhere!
On December 11, after a long dry spell, I sent a short piece to Daily Science Fiction. They customarily take stories under 1,000 words in length. I figured there was no future for me as a writer if I couldn't write something that brief. So, in the space of roughly 30 minutes, I thought of an idea, slapped it down on paper, edited it, and submitted it.

And then, of course, I realized that I'd made a mistake. Like I always do. I hadn't properly understood DSF's submission guidelines. When they say "plain text only" they're not just talking about omitting all the fancy symbols and stuff. They mean sticking your Word document onto Notepad and thereby converting it to ASCII format. Before you submit it.

Great. Nice going, Postie. Way to break into the world of science fiction, fudging the submission guidelines and all. 

I don't know what to expect. I submitted the story (entitled "The Maze") a week ago. DSF's guidelines said to allow three weeks for a response. I'm not sure whether they'll politely ask me to redo my formatting and resubmit, or tell me to hit the bricks. Either way my heart's in my mouth until I find out. I'm filling the time by kicking myself vigorously.

The second big chunk of news is that my brother (who is a stage actor in Los Angeles) e-mailed me out of the blue to ask me to help him with something. Apparently he's writing a novel, too. I'd hardly spoken to him in two years, so I didn't know what he was up to. But yeah: he's writing. And like me, he's encountering some degree of frustration. He asked me for help in honing his work-in-progress and revising it, which I was glad to do. I was quite flattered, in fact. In return, he's taking a look at some of my stuff! He's already give me loads of assistance with several of my short stories (more about that later). He may even aid me in my larger endeavors, like my NaNoWriMo project and my magnum opus.

This is extremely encouraging, to say the least. I had not been able to find a beta reader who was suitably well versed in literature and dramatic devices to be able to critique my work properly. Most people I gave my stuff to just corrected my grammar, or line-edited, or made a few vague comments about characterization. Not my brother. He's picking me to pieces, but doing so in an encouraging, engaging and lively fashion. This is precisely what I've been needing all this time. We've only been at it a week and I feel like we've accomplished a lifetime's work. It's the best feeling in the world. Thanks, bro. I only hope I've been as much help to you.

So, while I'm excitedly waiting to see what our family think tank churns out, I haven't been idle. I've resolved to get back on track with my writing and actually publish some stuff. I'm going to start writing like I actually mean to be a writer someday, in other words.

Discipline is key. Up to now I've been juggling too much. It's been difficult to strike a balance between work, physical activity, leisure and writing. Focusing too much one one threw the others out of balance. But now I'm going to take aim at one and let the others fall into place. I'll try to submit a short story (no matter how short) at least once every two weeks. I'm going to move forward with revisions on both my NaNoWriMo project and my science fiction novel. (I should really think of codenames for both of these works so I can stop referring to them as "my science fiction novel" and "my NaNoWriMo project.")

Progress will be made. Poor writing shall be made rich. Mistakes, shortcomings and inequities shall be rectified. Flaccid prose shall be made taut and strong and hearty. And in the end...sweet victory. I'll be on my way to fortune and glory (and $32,000 bottles of Scotch) in no time.

Wish me luck...

I finished my first NaNo!

...'nuff said.

But that's not the end of the story (so to speak). My project came out of the oven looking so good that I think I'll try to get 'er published. I'm 20 pages into the first revision, and the prospects are getting rosier all the time.

I'm doing two things with this first rewrite. Well, three. First, I'm converting all of the romanized Korean words to the outdated McCune-Reischauer system. If that sentence made no sense to you, hear me out. At first I was just winging it. The M-R system didn't exist back in the 1860s, and I figured my narrator and protagonist would just make up whatever transliteration looked good. But then I thought I'd better standardize. I don't want to cause my readers undue confusion, or give the critics another reason to howl and dribble. Using this obsolete system does two things. Due to the accent marks and apostrophes and umlauts and stuff, the words look antiquated and alien, which is a rather nice effect for a book about one of the first Western expeditions to the interior of the Korean peninsula. Really heightens the mood, y'know? Moreover, the McCune-Reischauer system was originally created to help foreigners pronounce Korean words. If the book's going to have mass appeal, I can't have my readers chucking it across the room because they can't sound out all the Hangul.

Second, I'm trying to homogenize the tone of the novel. It was written in first-person perspective—the perspective of a 30-year-old Protestant missionary from the Dakota Territory. I'm trying to make sure this book sounds like it was written by a well-educated American man in the 1860s. I've always admired the erudite diction and complex sentence structure I observed in Jules Verne's stories, and I'm trying to emulate it. But I'm not accustomed to it, and regulating it is a constant battle.

Third (and this one's the kicker): I'm revising it for historical accuracy.

Since Miss H was home for two weeks back there in mid-November, she graciously agreed to pick up a book for me. It's called Intrepid Americans, Bold Koreans: Early Korean Trade, Concessions, and Entrepreneurship by Donald Southerton. This slim volume contains a detailed account of the 1866 General Sherman incident (detailed in my previous NaNoWriMo posts), upon which this novel was based. My work is historical fiction, of course, but I'd like for my account to be as realistic as possible, particularly since this is my first stab at mainstream commercial fiction. A fine kettle of fish it'd be if my debut novel got skewered for glaring historical inaccuracies. Even though this is supposedly the crappy novel I promised I'd write, it came out far better than I expected, and have high hopes for it.

Anyway, I've only just begun Chapter 3 of Intrepid Americans, Bold Koreans—the one detailing the General Sherman incident—and already I've made several important corrections to my manuscript as a result. There's been numerous small things, like romanization errors or geographical tweaks. But it looks like there are some big revelations in store, which may lead me to make some major insertions (no dirty jokes, please).

Props to Miss H for picking this up for me. Quite empowering, that woman is. I should tell her that more often.

Anyway, wish me luck in my revision. I aim to get this thing on the fast track to publication the moment I'm satisfied that it's as historically accurate. And once the tone's as homogeneous as it's going to get. When those two conditions are met, it's on its way to the publishers. That's a promise.

Stay tuned...

Yeouido Island in winter

I went for a walk today. Not my usual stroll around Jungang Park, oh no. This time I felt so swept up in the winter chill and the muted sunshine and the wiles of my current conquest (the first book of the Airborn series by Kenneth Oppel) that I just had to go all-out. I rode three subway trains and seventeen stops to Yeouido Island and the Han River Park.

This was swiped from The Trail of the Lion King, another Korean blog. I hope they don't mind.

Beautiful, ain't it? It's spectacular in summer, with its gurgling watercourses, green grass, and hordes of colorfully dressed and attractive citizens strolling up and down the sinuous paths.

But somehow it's most beautiful in winter. The grass is brown and the trees are leafless, but the Han River is its same trusty shade of blue-green, the orange sun hangs low in the southern sky, and the icy pink haze in the air makes everything look softer and more mellow.

It couldn't have been a nicer evening. The sun took ages to set. I sat on a bench, the bitter wind penetrating my hood, collar and scarf. I read until it was too cold to sit still, and then I got up and headed west down the southern bank. Even despite the weather, a plethora of people were still out and about. Tiny children swathed in puffy parkas, shepherded by indulgent mothers; teenage girls and their younger siblings on tandem bicycles; grinning, laughing young men on mountain bikes; and scores of young couples walking arm-in-arm. The watercourses were cold and dry in deference to the weather, but the coffeehouses were in full operation. Dozens of young Koreans sipped mochas and cappuccinos and watched the world go by outside the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Most astounding, however, were the kites. As I passed under the Mapo Bridge and emerged into the fading sunshine on the other side, I spotted several kites in the distance, on a flat grassy area about the size of a junior-league soccer pitch. There were four kites, each of them sickle-shaped like a B-2 Spirit. They moved with such precise coordination that at first I thought they must all be connected by a running line, and controlled by a single person. I was quite wrong. As I approached nearer, the formation of kites abruptly broke up. They wheeled and dove and mingled and looped like courting birds of prey. I was utterly mesmerized. I could not tear my eyes away from the spectacle, which was as riveting as the most thrilling airshow. I stumbled over uneven paving-stones, unmindful of where I placed my feet. As I finally drew within visual range, I discerned four middle-aged Korean men standing on the grassy sward, each of them with a sophisticated set of rings and control lines in their hands. These they were twisting and hurling about as though they were playing a game of Wii tennis. I wondered how many hours of practice it had taken this four-man team to achieve such a degree of surgical preciseness in their maneuvers. They were so skillful that they could manipulate their foils into perfect nose-up landings.

For some minutes I remained rooted to the spot, watching the aerial display. This area, between the Mapo and Seogang Bridges, must have been popular with kite-flyers, for the turf was cheekily populated with bona fide airport signage, delineating runways and taxiways and turn-outs. Grinning within and without, and thinking that the Owl City tunes playing on my iPod were a perfect complement to this idyllic scene, I strode back to Mapo Bridge and walked out upon it. My purpose in visiting Yeouido Island was twofold. I intended to read a book on a bench overlooking the river, and to locate Bamseom Island. This island, or rather the pair of them, were uninhabited piles of tree-lined sand in the middle of the Han River between Mapo and Yeouido. They played an integral part in my NaNoWriMo project. They were plainly visible from shore, but I got a much better view from the top of the bridge. Not only that, but there was quite clearly a sizable sandbar in the lee of the easternmost island: the very spot where, in my book, the steamship strands herself during the climax of the action. I rejoiced at the natural counterpart to my literary imagining. Grinning like a maniac, making the young Korean couples give me a second nervous glance, I strode back across the bridge and back down to the waiting subway, having accomplished both my objectives.

But there was more. Inadvertently I had accomplished a third objective. Lately I've been feeling dissatisfied with my lot. Even though I'm living in a foreign country, I've been feeling bored and left behind. It seems my friends are all off gallivanting around the world or completing their secondary education and acquiring titles and careers. As usual, I can't help comparing myself to my peers, and inevitably viewing myself in a negative light. This little trip to Han River Park changed all that. As I stood at the rail, hearing the water slop over the jagged rocks below, watching the buses chug back and forth across Mapo Bridge and feeling the icy wind brush my unprotected ears, I realized that I have a lot to be grateful for. I have a good apartment, a steady girl, a couple of completed manuscripts on my hard drive, a stable career, a decent paycheck, a half-full bottle of Cutty Sark...and most importantly, an endlessly intriguing and entertaining bailiwick. I found myself giving thanks that I was an expatriate, and that my country of residence was South Korea. However much I badmouth this place in public and private, I am truly glad to be here in East Asia, and especially the Korean peninsula. The food's great, the people are curious and open, and the scenery might seem bland but hides a million surprises.

Thanksgiving may be over, but hey...it's never too late to be grateful.

'Cause what I've got is just enough.

                                                                                                        courtesy of Wikipedia Commons

the home stretch

Well, I have good news and bad news. With one night and one day to go, I have finished my NaNoWriMo story. The bad news is that, due to my complete lack of planning (I always was a pantser), I've come up 2,500 words short.

Shazbot.

The Taedong River, which runs through Pyongyang, in the 19th century. This is where the real story, the one involving the General Sherman, went down in 1866.

Now I gotta comb back through the book and find places where I can pad it out. That's no problem. I was a bit scanty in my description of Ganghwa Island and Chongjijin Fortress (my story takes place on the Han River, which runs through Seoul). So I'll lengthen the story about the crew's expedition on the island. Maybe I'll introduce a new character...some British or American castaway who washed up on Korea's beaches in the early 1860s but can't leave because of the Joseon Kingdom's strict isolationist policies. Yeah, perfect drama bomb.

Wish me luck...

cocktail review no. 66 - Caipirinha

I never thought I'd get the chance to try this one! The ingredients are kinda out there, so this one requires a didactic preamble. Bear with me.

The caipirinha comes to us from Brazil. It was virtually unknown outside that country a few years ago, but it's gaining popularity around the globe. The word caipirinha is a derivative of the word caipira, which is roughly analogous to the English word "hillbilly."

The primary component of the cocktail is cachaça, which is a type of Brazilian rum. The main difference between cachaça and traditional rums is that it's distilled from sugar cane juice (as opposed to molasses) and then aged in oak barrels. The reason the caipirinha cocktail has been gaining ground outside Brazil lately is the increased availability of quality cachaça.

Case in point, Gecko's Restaurant & Bar in Itaewon, in the Yongsan borough of Seoul, South Korea. I was sitting at the bar last night for a coworker's birthday party and I happened to notice a poster on a nearby pillar, advertising the caipirinha. Remembering the odd name and the eldritch ingredients from The Bartender's Bible, and realizing that this was a golden opportunity (the ₩8,000 price tag notwithstanding), I ordered one.

Enough background for ya? Okay, here's the recipe:

• 1 lime, quartered
• 2 teaspoons fine sugar
• 2 ounces cachaça

Place the lime wedges and sugar into an old-fashioned glass. Muddle well. Fill the glass with ice cubes. Pour in the cachaça and stir well.

This is exactly how I observed the bartender doing it last night at Gecko's. Lime wedges and chunky sugar, muddled well, and then the cachaça poured in over the top. It was delicious, sweeter than I'd expected. I didn't realize sugar was such a large or vital component to the drink, and I didn't recall the ingredient list before I got home and checked online. Nevertheless, the taste was as limey as I had anticipated, and that was a welcome complement to the sugar. The cachaça was milder and more mellow than a lot of light rums I've tasted, and was only just discernible underneath the sugar and lime; whether this was the fault of the bartender's light hand or the cachaça's inherent properties was a mystery to me. Nevertheless I heartily enjoyed the drink and found it soothing, pleasant, summery and delicious.

Yes, it's a drink for a hot day and not a winter's night, but in that warm, smoky gallery at Gecko's in Itaewon, it was just what the doctor ordered. Try it and see for yourself.

my NaNoWriMo project, revealed

I know I've been cagey about the title and premise of my big sci-fi magnum opus, and for good reason. I'm very protective of it, because, well, it's my magnum opus. It's my baby, and I'm its protective father. I'll die of grief if it gets born prematurely or perishes in childbirth, or it comes out incurably deformed and mangled, or (worst of all) someone kidnaps it. I'm keeping the whole bloody thing under wraps until the proper time.

Concerning this novel, though—the one I'm doing for NaNoWriMo—I'm not guarded at all. It's not nearly as close to my heart as my magnum opus is. In fact, it's that crappy novel that I said I'd write. So here it is—you can have it. It's high time I told you what I was doing anyway:

The title is Mugunghwa: the Wreck of the Rose of Sharon. The Rose of Sharon, obviously, is the name of a ship. Mugunghwa is the title and "the Wreck of the Rose of Sharon" is the subtitle. (Subtitles aren't supposed to be capitalized, right? Or are they? Do I need quotation marks around the ship's name?)

Anyway, Mugunghwa is a historical fiction piece set in Korea (or "Corea" as it used to be known) in 1864. It's based on a true story. In 1866, the General Sherman, a well-armed trading vessel owned by a British company, attempted to open the isolationist Joseon Dynasty to trade relations with the Western powers. Things didn't go so well. The ship sailed up to the Keupsa Gate on the Taedong River (near present-day Pyongyang). The crew made contact with the Koreans and told 'em they wanted to trade. All offers of commerce were refused, but the crew was told that the Joseon Dynasty would provision them for their return voyage. The Sherman was ordered to wait at the Keupsa Gate until higher-level officials in Pyongyang could be consulted, and...

Wait, I already told you about this.

Anyway, you know the story. The ship was burned and the crew killed. Nobody really knows why the Sherman sailed on past its agreed anchorage. Whether the crew was motivated by greed, or bravado, or impatience...we may never know. But it makes a smashing good story, so I've adapted it for my own novel. I've changed the names of the sailors and some of the particulars, and I've moved the action to the Han River and Seoul instead of the Taedong River and Pyongyang. But the story's the same. A merchant vessel with an American, Chinese and Malay crew sails to Korea looking to trade. On board is Jabez Fuller, a Lutheran priest and the expedition's interpreter. He's a calm, cautious man, something of a worrywart, unlike any other protagonist I've written. Most of my M.C.s are snarkers, malcontents, cynics or loonies. Fuller is my first man of the cloth, and my first temperate and nigh-timid man. I say "night-timid" because in the end of the book, he...well, you'll find out when it's finished.

Other characters include O'Reilly and Fields, the salty boatswain and boatswain's mate, who have befriended Reverend Fuller; the iron-jawed and icy-calm Captain Richard Henry Pierce; the perpetually grinning chief mate and helmsman Lester Dawkins; the reclusive and neurotic engineer, Isaac Randall; his Chinese assistants Bohai and Chonglin; the fat and friendly Malay cook, Samad; the brave and noble deckhand Tong Lai; and the corrupt, self-centered, and unstable company man H.B. Morton, Pierce's employer and the steamer's owner. There's also the ship herself: the Rose of Sharon, a half-ironclad with wooden uppers—weathered and creaky but armed to the teeth.

The title, Mugunghwa, is a Korean word which means "rose of Sharon." The rose of Sharon is the official flower of Korea and has been precious to the nation's people since time began. In relation the novel, the word mugunghwa encapsulates the Korean's insular nature and their strong sense of nationalism, and the Westerners' misguided attempts at bridging the gap between the two worlds. It symbolizes how even the most genuine and heartfelt gestures can be badly misinterpreted by a radically different culture.

Anyway, that's the story. As of today I'm 14,919 words into it. Our ship and its little crew have penetrated the first line of Korean bureaucracy, thanks to Fuller's negotiation skills. Morton's instability continues to threaten the integrity of the mission and the safety of the steamer's crew. The Rose of Sharon is now steaming toward Seoul, and is close enough to hear the great bronze bells tolling every morning and evening. What will happen when these intrepid men come under the eyes of the suspicious and potentially hostile city, the capital of a hermit kingdom which has spurned all foreigners before? Will Morton's dangerous behavior and bigoted greed bring the expedition to disaster? Or will defeat come from the most innocuous and unexpected source?

I'll have to discover that as I scribble on. This has been my first experience writing fiction under a deadline, and the process has been eye-opening. But there's more to it than that. I started the novel with a clear idea of how it would begin and end, but only the vaguest notion of what would occur in the meantime. In the course of writing, so many unexpected things have danced from my cortex onto the laptop screen, things I didn't see coming until they were literally at my fingertips. The story has changed and twisted and turned in so many unexpected directions, with myriad plot twists and dramatic events coalescing at random. I never expected to have so many characters, for one thing. I started out with only Fuller, Morton, Pierce, O'Reilly and Fields, basically. I knew I'd introduce some other named crew members at some point, but not this many. It's awesome. They're all full-fledged and three-dimensional, too, not flat or generic or stereotypical (I hope). All in all, this novel is fulfilling my dream of writing a book similar in voice to The Mysterious Island (Jules Verne) and similar in theme to The Sand Pebbles (Richard McKenna).

And so, to sum up, here I am. Happy, inspired, energetic, curious, and only four thousand words behind schedule. (Tee hee.)

Further bulletins as events warrant...

the Seoul Lantern Festival

There are a lot of things I could say about the Lantern Festival—about how it takes place every November, and enormous lanterns of every shape and description are erected in the suburb of Jonggak, in the center of the Cheonggyecheon, the gorgeous stream which runs through downtown Seoul. But why bother saying these things when I can just show you the pictures?

(I apologize for the low-quality, less-than-vivid and somewhat blurry images. Either I know nothing about photography or my Canon PowerShot A480 doesn't do low light. Next year I'll have a badass camera and THEN we'll get the stew sorted from the dumplings. I'll photograph the hell outta this thing.)

well, rats

I can't say much right now because it's 1:26 p.m. KST and I have work in thirty minutes. But I've been having a hard time lately. Somebody's karma ran over my dogma or something.

Long story short (pun intended), I'm five thousand words behind on my NaNoWriMo project. I have three tests left to grade and input. Miss H has gone home for two weeks to get some stuff done. The cat's acting crazy and I'm getting over a head cold. But hey, at least the weather's nice. It's cool and moist. There was a luscious thick fog at 5:00 this morning and it was so dense I couldn't even see the neon sign on the church a hundred yards away. (Yes, the churches here light up their crosses with red or blue neon lights, and usually have illuminated names, too.)

Excuse me, I'm going to go grade the hell out of those tests and then eat me some stir-fried squid over rice (ojingeo deopbap, for your edification). TGIF, people. TGIF.

From the correct side of the International Dateline, this is Postie. Over and out.

NaNoWriMo, go!

Let me tell you everything about myself. I'm an intensely private person.

And that's it, really.

Haha, I'm just kidding. Long story short, I got bored waiting for the requisite six weeks to go by before I could start editing my new-and-improved novel manuscript (118,500 words). Stephen King says you should stick a newly-finished manuscript in a drawer and let it stew for a few weeks before you revise it. This gives you some time to draw back from the work and approach it with fresh eyes. So that's what I'm doing. Miss H is reading it in the meantime, and I'm on tenterhooks until I hear her review.

Anyway, I was bored. So I started looking into publishing options just to kill time. First, I thought I'd check out self-publishing. I contacted a free third-party service which connects you with the nearest self-publisher. I was contacted by someone anonymous who worked for a multinational firm which shall remain nameless. They gave me the details. Basically, even though this company was renowned and reputable, I was looking at an investment which was way out of my league; anywhere between $600 and $14,000. I just can't do that right now. Therefore self-publishing has been shelved until I can check into the more traditional methods. Like Baen Books.

Now that we're past that little update, it's time for the big news...

NaNoWriMo!

National Novel Writing Month, obviously. I'm doing it for the first time in 2012. I have my idea all worked out (historical fiction), I've done some pre-planning, the idea is fresh and fun and new, and I'm anxious to test myself against it. (Don't worry, I'll give you a full synopsis in a few days.)

Who knows...this could be that crappy novel that teaches me a lot about writing, or my first success. Who can tell?

The possibilities are endless.

sunken ships and captured forts

A Korean junk, circa 1871. (Photo taken by U.S. military personnel; courtesy of Wikipedia.)

Did you think the Korean War of 1950-1953 was the first U.S. military action on the Korean peninsula?

Have you ever wondered who the first American soldiers to receive Medals of Honor in a foreign conflict were? And which conflict it was? 

You're about to discover the truth.

The year was 1866. The American Civil War had recently come to an end. The heart-rending, gut-wrenching conflict was finally behind us, and the process of reconstruction was underway. America now gazed across the oceans, seeking new horizons, searching for trade partners, hoping enterprise would soothe its bruised soul. Commodore Matthew Perry had pried Japan open with a crowbar in 1854, and U.S. interests had been entrenched in China for decades. Korea had been on the table since 1844, neglected due to lack of interest. American eyes now turned to the isolationist empire on its small peninsula. It offered a tempting and pristine target for merchants and traders.

On August 16, 1866, a merchant marine side-wheel steamer named the General Sherman puffed into Korean waters. Belonging to the British trading firm Meadows & Co., the 187-ton Sherman carried a cargo of cotton, tin and glass, hoping to entice the Koreans into a trade partnership. The Sherman was also heavily armed, just in case the Koreans weren't in a listening mood. She was crewed by a Captain Page, Chief Mate Wilson, and almost twenty Chinese and Malay sailors. Also aboard were the ship's owner, W.B. Preston (American) and Robert Jermain Thomas, a Protestant missionary and the excursion's official interpreter. Assisted by Chinese junks, the General Sherman steamed up the Taedong River and anchored just outside the Geupsa gate, at the border of the Pyongan and Hwanghae Provinces.

The traders established contact with the Koreans and told them they wanted to dicker. The Koreans refused, but agreed to supply the foreigners with provisions. The Sherman was told to wait at the Geupsa gate until the Korean regent could be consulted. He would then either send the envoy home or invite them into Pyongyang. For unclear reasons, however, the Sherman weighed its anchor and steamed further upriver, eventually running aground on an island in the midst of Pyongyang. A Korean ambassador was sent to the ship with an offering of food, and a stern warning: the ship must return to the Geupsa gate, or all aboard would be killed.

This is where accounts get muddled. The Koreans claim that the foreigners kidnapped the ambassador and held him hostage. They demanded to be allowed inside the city and even went so far as to fire the ship's cannons into the crowd which had gathered on the banks of the river. This went on for four days. More envoys were sent, words were exchanged, and the vessel kept firing its guns up and down the riverside.

Reality check, here. I'm not an apologist, but I find it difficult to believe that a trading ship would just up and start a war on an isolated nation for no reason. Doing so would hardly have been profitable. More likely there was some massive misunderstanding that took place. The Reverend Thomas was the only Westerner aboard who could speak Korean, and no one knows exactly what his level of proficiency was. After living in this country for almost 21 nonconsecutive months, I'm well aware of just how easy it is to cause massive misunderstandings. The language barrier is pretty thick here. The cultural discrepancies between Korea and the Western world don't seem great at first, but they can sneak up on you. And Koreans wear their hearts on their sleeves: they will react passionately and vehemently if something untoward happens, and they will correct forcibly if they can't make themselves understood. Perhaps Thomas, Captain Page or Mr. Preston all underestimated their hosts' magnanimity. Perhaps they just failed to keep their minds, eyes and ears open.

Whatever the cause of the misunderstanding was, it cost them their lives. The Koreans tied several boats together and filled them with wood, sulphur and saltpeter. They set them aflame and sent them drifting toward the General Sherman. The first two boats left the steamer unscathed, but the third lit her up like a Christmas tree. Unable to quench the blaze, her crew dived into the water, where the Koreans unceremoniously beat them to death.

And so ends the first part of my story. The second now begins.

Nobody knew what had become of the General Sherman, but since there had been American nationals aboard her, it was a cause of concern for the United States of America. So, in 1871, a military expedition to Korea was mounted. Its mission was to ascertain the fate of the Sherman and her crew, protect a new diplomatic legation being sent to open trade routes with the peninsula, and to establish a treaty with Koreans for the protection of shipwrecked sailors. (The Joseon Dynasty, like the Tokugawa shogunate, took a rather dim view of castaway foreigners on its shores.)

American history books (if they mention it at all) call this the 1871 Korean Expedition. The Koreans call it the Sinminyangyo, and it was centered on an island in the Han River estuary called Ganghwa-do. It already had a history of punitive incursions; the French had mounted a military expedition there in 1866, the same year the Sherman was destroyed. The Japanese would later invade there in 1875, and shanghai the Korean regent into signing a trade agreement, thereby ending the Joseon Dynasty's isolationist policies.

The American warships first attempted peaceful overtures, but the local officials dodged the subject of the Sherman incident, perhaps to avoid having to pay recompense. The Americans stated their intention to explore the region peacefully. Official Joseon policy, however, forbade foreign ships on the Han River, which led directly to Seoul. So the Korean troops fired on the American ships from their stone forts on Ganghwa's heights, without inflicting much damage. The Americans demanded an apology within 10 days. None was forthcoming, so on June 10, 650 American sailors and Marines off the Colorado, Alaska, Palos, Monocacy, and Benicia landed at Ganghwa-do. They stormed several Korean forts on the island, one after the other. Set against them were some hundreds of Korean regulars, known as the "Tiger-Hunters" and led by General Eo Jae-yeon.

Another Wikipedia image. This is a posed photo, but these are the U.S. Navy commanders. That's Admiral John Rodgers, the expedition's commander, leaning over the table on the right.

The account of the action is quite thrilling, and can be read in detail here. Suffice it to say that about 250 Koreans armed with outdated matchlock muskets were killed, for the loss of three Americans. The fort defenders were easily defeated by the better-armed Americans, who were also aided by artillery fire from the Monocacy. Five Korean forts were taken, as well as numerous prisoners. The Americans hoped to use these spoils as bargaining chips to force the Joseon rulers to the table. No dice. The Koreans refused to negotiate with the Americans and told them they were welcome to keep the "cowardly" defenders of Ganghwa-do.

So the American ships sailed away to China, and that was the end of it.

But was it? This seemingly insignificant action had far-reaching consequences. Firstly, Daewon-gun, the Joseon regent, saw fit to strengthen his isolationist policies in the wake of invasion—to no avail. The Japanese sailed up the Han River in 1875 and threatened to fire on Seoul unless the Koreans agreed to trade. (The Japanese must have taken a leaf out of Perry's book, huh?) Trade agreements with the Western nations soon followed, including one signed with America in 1882.

Perhaps more importantly, though, nine sailors and six Marines of the American expeditionary force were awarded the Medal of Honor for the actions at Ganghwa-do.

These were the first Medals of Honor ever awarded for action in a foreign conflict.

How about that, eh?

AND NOW YOU KNOW...

cocktail review no. 65 - Bullfrog

I really need to do these more often. Apparently they're my most popular posts. I pulled off that nifty trick where you make your blog more vulnerable to search engines by labeling your posts with searchable keywords. Worked like a charm. I've had thousands (literally thousands) of hits on some of my travel posts, and hundreds more on the cocktails.

But I've been going out on a limb lately with the latter. I've reviewed lots of weird drinks that ordinary people at home would never be able to make, 'cause they don't have a fully-stocked liquor cabinet like mine. No Drambuie, no Blue Curaçao, no Lillet, no Rose's lime juice, no crème de cacao, nor any of that fancy stuff.

So tonight's recipe is nice and simple.

Behold the bullfrog:

• 2 ounces vodka
• 1 teaspoon Cointreau or triple sec
• 4 ounces lemonade
• 1 lemon wedge

In a highball glass almost filled with ice cubes, combine the vodka, Cointreau and lemonade. Stir well and garnish with the lemon wedge.

Easy, right? (You don't even need a shaker!) And it's not a hideous clash of sensations like so many other drinks I've reviewed. Vodka, the "necklace of negatives," soaks up flavors rather than challenging them, and the mixture of Cointreau (orange liqueur with a hint of pear) and lemonade makes for citrus-based synergy. Thereby the libation winds up flavorful, just a tiny bit sweet, not too sour, and delicious all around. An adult's glass of lemonade, that's what this drink is. It's seen me through many a summer evening, and satisfied many a skeptical girl who thought strawberry daiquiris were the bee's knees.

Try it yourself. If you liked the Moscow Mule, you'll like this.

I hate that feeling

...but I suppose I'd better get used to it. I've had it before and I'll have it again. It stings, though. Smartly.

You know that feeling you get when people you know are doing something really cool but you can't go along with them because of your job or your family and you get to watch from afar as they have the time of their lives?

Yeah, that's the one. That's what I've got right now.

A couple of my friends from Canada and the U.S. have signed up for the Mongol Rally.

Don't know what the Mongol Rally is?

I'll tell you what the Mongol Rally is.

It's this:

                                                                                                                    from The Life of Adventure

...a 6,000 mile race across Europe and Asia, hosted by the Adventurists, a Britain-based adventure club and charitable organization.

Here's the idea: you start in London, sometime in July. You buy a piece-of-crap car with a 1000-cubic-centimeter-or-less engine. You, and as many friends as you can pack into this pathetic machine, drive said pathetic machine from London to Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia.

The team name is up to you. The car's paint scheme is up to you. The car itself is up to you. The equipment and supplies are up to you. The route and timing are up to you. All you have to do is acquire a conveyance and get it and yourselves to Mongolia before August is over.

The point, as you might have guessed, is the journey. Voyage of exploration, connecting with buddies, reaching deep inside yourself for survival (and mechanical) skills, challenging the raw forces of nature and all that hogwash.

Sounds lovely. Just the kind of quest I would like to undertake.

But I can't. June 2013 would be midway through my second year's contract. I could re-up in February for just a few more months, but then Miss H would have to find a new apartment. It's in my name. I would also have to go home and restart the whole finding-a-job-in-Korea-and-getting-the-requisite-documents nightmare that I've already delineated to you.

It's just not possible. I can't do it.

So off my friends go, doing this amazing thing without me.

It's not a fun feeling.

Ah well. I was never one for sour grapes. (I see what you did there, Aesop.)

Good luck, Mr. E and Mr. S. I wish you the best of luck. I hope you have the time of your lives and I'm behind you all the way. Send me some pictures and bring back some weird-ass souvenirs.

And I hope scraping up the requisite $8,000 for entry fees, charitable donations, vehicles, gas, food and airline tickets doesn't take too long.

Bah. Suddenly I feel like some cheese...and wine.

Seoul Grand Park

It's a bit late to be telling you about what I did for the long Chuseok weekend—you know, seeing as it was the first week of October—but I'll go ahead and tell you anyway, because it was cool.

On Saturday, September 29, we went to Itaewon to see the the musical Wicked. You might have heard of it. Big Broadway show. Miss H is a fan. I must say, I'm a convert. I was pleased by the creativity, the spin on the old Wizard of Oz mythos, and the clever storytelling. The music was pretty good, too.

On Sunday we took a scouting trip to Seoul Grand Park (also known as 서울 대공원), a zoo/art museum/theme park nestled in the mountains south of the capital. It was the zoo we were interested in. We came, we saw, but it was too late to do anything, so we went to Myeongdong for some delicious street food instead.

Then we came back on Monday, primed and ready for action.

I was led to believe, by my outdated Lonely Planet guidebook, that Seoul Zoo was nothing more than a public walking-space with a few exotic animals in small, muddy enclosures.

Either they've refurbished the place since my edition of the guidebook came out, or the writer was an extreme cynic. The place was gorgeous.

But it was, on the other hand, a zoo. If you know what I mean.

This was Chuseok, something like the American Thanksgiving. On this three-day holiday, everybody runs home to their families and spends their vacation feasting, hobnobbing, and paying tribute to their elders. Mothers and fathers pack up their kids and go see the grandparents. Deep bows are given, and the elders then bestow their offspring with gifts. This is one of my students' favorite holidays, because the traditional gift for a respectful grandchild is cold, hard cash. Grandmothers whip up some songpyeon (rice cakes or something) and everybody chillaxes for a few days.

They also take family trips to places like Seoul Grand Park.

Everybody and their mother was there. Literally.

Fortunately, SGP is rather large. So large, in fact, that you must walk a kilometer and a half from the entrance at the subway station to the actual ticket booths. Fortunately, it's a scenic walk. They even provide nourishment for you if you get fatigued. There were snack stands which sold everything from ice cream to potato chips to charcoal-grilled squid. You may be sure that I partook of the latter. And loved it.

This initial long hike is greatly facilitated by an open-air tram that runs up the mountainside, like so:

It also happens to take in the gorgeous mountains, a large lake, and the botanical gardens on its way there.

After absorbing this breathtaking spectacle, Miss H and I stood in line for 45 minutes to catch the next leg of the tramway up to the highest foothills, so we could meander our way back down the mountain and through the zoo proper.

We saw the tiger feeding, and would have seen the dolphin show if it wasn't for that aforementioned crowd. We settled for moseying among the enclosures, taking in the sights and sounds of the surprisingly numerous animal exhibits, and then having a quiet snack on the grass before we left and went home.

And that's all I'll tell you about that. Tune in for the next Chuseok-related post, in which Heather and I explore Incheon's Chinatown area.

the fastest man alive

Hats off to "Fearless" Felix!

Felix Baumgartner, the intrepid Austrian skydiver and daredevil, has departed a bare patch of weathered asphalt at an airport in Roswell, New Mexico. He is sitting in a tiny capsule attached to a gossamer balloon 700 feet high. He is clad in what resembles a full-blown spacesuit. Readouts and checklists surround him. A vast crew of people, including Baumgartner's friends and family, watch from the ground. In about an hour and forty-five minutes, he will reach an altitude of 120,000 feet. He is attempting to break the record for the fastest speed attained by a human being in free-fall: 690 miles an hour, or Mach 1. That's right...the speed of sound. In so doing, he will break three other records: the highest skydive, the longest free-fall, and the highest manned flight in a balloon.

Watch it live, here. Godspeed, Mr. Baumgartner.

I'm going to China for the trains

I'm in a crisis of conscience. China does—and is—a lot of things that an unapologetic American like me would disagree with. I have no use for communism. I don't like ravening industrialism and rampant pollution. And I despise China's treatment of North Korean refugees (whom they insist on calling "illegal migrants"). They catch 'em and ship 'em right back to Pyongyang, where all sorts of nasty things happen to them, if you believe the stories.

So, from a certain point of view, I'm bankrolling all this nonsense by being a tourist in China.

But I can't help it. I like trains.

And China, it seems, is a Mecca for train travel.

I haven't yet had the chance to peruse Riding the Iron Rooster. Its author, Paul Theroux, has scribbled many notable travel books as well as some famous novels. He is my favorite train-loving, people-hating world traveler. Riding the Iron Rooster is an account of his trip through China as part of his circumnavigation of Asia by rail (documented in The Great Railway Bazaar, which I have read).

Perhaps it's best that I haven't read it. This way, the surprises will still be there. The wonders that Theroux witnessed will seem fresh and new to my eyes. And if there's anything he saw that I won't, I shan't be disappointed by its absence.

Anyway, enough about scenery and culture. Let's talk about trains.

China is home to two particular locomotives that I really want to bum a ride on. The first is the CRH380A.

                                                                                                                 courtesy of Wikipedia

This is China's bullet train, and it's the fastest in the world. At 302 miles per hour, it's almost twice as fast as South Korea's KTX, which goes 187 mph. (Even the new KTX 2 only manages 219 mph.) Plus, China being so massive and all, the CRH380A really has room to belly down and run. I want to see the countryside whirl by in a blur as I head from Shanghai to Nanjing, or wherever. This train also has sound-dampening and pressurization, which suits my eardrums just fine. Even a 30-minute ride on the KTX has one's ears popping painfully whenever we whiz through a tunnel. There's no such problem on the CRH380A.

And then there's the Shibanxi Railway.

                                                                                                                  courtesy of...ditto

One of the last narrow-gauge railroads which still chiefly uses steam power, the Shibanxi (she-BANKS-she) Railway winds through the mountainous terrain 100 miles southwest of Chengdu, in the Sichuan province of western China. (Good panda country, I hear.) A lot of the photos I found could be easily confused with the coal mines of Kentucky or Tennessee (though the climate in Sichuan is technically subtropical). In fact, that's the reason the Shibanxi line exists: there's a ton of coal mines and coking plants in the area, and the miners need locomotives to transport the goods. But that's not all. This part of China is so hilly and the roads are so terrible that rails are the best way to move stuff around. Those little-engines-that-could haul everything from coal to livestock. They even act as a moving service for people coming into the neighborhood. Budget shortages are the sole reason the Shibanxi locomotives haven't been converted to diesel yet. It must be said, though, that recently the Chinese government has realized the tourist draw they've got on their hands in Sichuan. They've refurbished some of the trains to attract foreigners. That's good news for geeks like me. I just finished devouring Around the World in Eighty Days. My imagination was stoked by Verne's tales of racing across Europe, India and America in puffing steam engines. I'd leap at the chance ride on the last commercial steam line.

(All this information is secondhand; I have no clue about its verisimilitude. Until I get new information, though, I'm going with it.)

This is good in more ways than one, actually. I'm fed up with cities. Everybody who goes to China visits Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and whatnot. I'll start out in those places, sure. But I can't wait to find myself in some forgotten corner of Sichuan, knowing that I'm in the foothills of the easternmost arm of the Himalayas, my heart bubbling with excitement as the Shibanxi steam engine chugs up a steep grade.

I'll report on it when the time comes.

a talk with Mr. Song

I had completed my morning run from Songnae Station to Jungang Park. I have no idea what the distance is; it must be something like two kilometers, tops.

As I was busily engaged upon the exercise machines in the park's outdoor gym, an elderly Korean man walked up to me. With a few English words, he provided me with an excuse to cease my pathetic attempts to do more than one stinking pull-up.

"Hello, good morning. Where are you from?"

Most of my conversations with Korean people have begun like this. The first question I'm asked is not "What's your name?" or "How are you doing?" but "Where are you from?" I'll admit that there are some undercurrents of resentment, dislike and even racism in this country, but generally the Koreans are friendly, polite, and curious about new people in their neighborhood.

This particular man stood straight and proud, and was a few inches under six feet. Spikes of thin, sweaty hair stuck out from beneath his black baseball cap. He wore polyester running clothes, a nearly ubiquitous getup for Korea's oldsters—a purple short-sleeved shirt and black trousers. His skin was mottled, but barely wrinkled. His eyes were clear and bright. His teeth, though slightly yellow and riddled with gaps, were straight and intact. His accent was thick but intelligible, and his above-average grasp of grammar and vocabulary set him apart from most adult ESL speakers.

Introductions were made, and we began to find out about each other. I told him I was an English teacher working at a hagwon just a block away. Though he wasn't able to clearly articulate what his job had been, this man—Mr. Song was his name—said that he'd worked for the Korean government, and had traveled to Vietnam, Thailand and Bangladesh as part of that work.

That's probably why his English is so good, I thought.

We moved from the warm sun into the shade of a wooden portico, sitting on a bench and watching the old men on the exercise machines. We talked of this and that. I usually try to assay the main currents of the Korean mindset whenever I speak to a national. I plied Mr. Song with various topics, focusing on Japan, Korean history, and warfare. He kindly informed me that kimchi had been invented as a winter food in Korea, something for the people to eat while they huddled in their houses, blizzards raging outside. I mentioned that the Japanese have claimed that they invented kimchi (as my students have told me). He said that the Japanese do make their own kimchi, but they began long after Korea did. He told me this in an impassive, impartial tone that most Korean don't use when speaking about Japan. He possessed a striking lack of hostility toward that country. Perhaps he concealed it well, or perhaps the Korean children I've been speaking with are being their usual inflammatory selves. Either way I was impressed. 

I turned the conversation toward Korean history. He gave me a brief lesson in the progression of the kingdoms and empires of the ancient peninsula: Goryeo (from which is derived the Western name of "Korea"); the "Three Kingdoms" Period or Samguk Shidae, with Baekje (present-day Jeolla province), Silla (Gyeongsam provinces), and Goguryeo, which is now North Korea; and the following era of the Joseon Dynasty, which is generally accepted to be Korea's golden age. Hangeul was invented then, and metal-type printing, and Korea won some of its most glorious battles against Japan. I mentioned the invention of metal-type printing, but Mr. Song did not know anything about it. The talk of war, especially Korean implements of destruction (like the hwacha), seemed to make him uncomfortable. I promptly steered the conversation away from such topics. We talked of the weather. He was quite articulate. He didn't know much more than two-syllable words, but I helped him out with those. He was quite impressed with my grasp of the Korean alphabet. Upon hearing that I was from California, he mentioned that his son was a Samsung executive, living and working near Los Angeles.

The conversation ran on for 20 minutes, punctuated by short pauses, where we'd gaze over the leisurely old men on the exercise machines. The cool breeze brought our temperatures down by degrees. Then, not wanting to detain the poor man (he being too polite to end the conversation himself), I said that I must take my leave. We shook hands, whereupon I noticed that he was missing the tip of his right thumb. He said that he often exercised in Jungang Park at this time in the morning, and I mentioned that I would be in the vicinity as well, and hoped to speak with him again. We parted as friends.

This was just one encounter among many. I have often been approached by Korean strangers, usually elderly men, but occasionally youths. They all want to know more about me, where I come from, and how I like Korea. For my part, I'm always glad of the chance to speak with someone who comes from a completely different continent, background, and moral standard. It's a refreshing chance to gain insight into the human condition...as well as make a friend who lives an ocean away from the world I know.

Life in Korea ain't too bad, folks.