the Jung-dong Market expedition

On Saturday (the 24th of March), I did something worth mentioning. After some unexpected snow flurries in the early afternoon, I put on my hat and coat and went looking for something.

According to the Bucheon teachers' group (on Facebook), there was a street market on the other side of Jungang Park, four or five blocks south of my apartment building. It was practically mythical, its exact location shrouded in mystery. With nothing more to go on than a white arrow clumsily indicating a vague tangle of side-streets two blocks south of the park, I bundled up and went looking for it. 

...and returned 40 minutes later, realizing that I had forgotten my camera. I wanted it because the light was falling beautifully across the apartment blocks and skeletal trees downtown. And I had noticed. 

I almost turned back again when I figured out that I didn't have any money. In retrospect, however, it was a good thing that I went to a street market sans cash. I didn't want to blow it all on twigim (Korean tempura) or something frivolous like that. Moreover, I wanted to be able to look the barkers in the eye as I projected the customary broke-ass aura I employ in the vicinity of pushy salesmen.

That having been said, I started my second trip to the Jung-dong Market in high spirits. The sun was a little lower than I would have liked, and a bitter wind was blowing from the northwest, but I still got some nice shots of Jungang (Central) Park:

Those innocent pictures caused quite a stir. Not long after I had snapped that picture of myself (camera propped on the public stage used for summer concerts), a gaggle of Korean children sprinted up to me and stopped me in my tracks. One of the more athletic boys caught up to me first. He screeched to a halt, gaped for a moment, and then yelled back at his companions: "Weguk imnida!" ("He's a foreigner!") Then the rest of the girls and another boy caught up. They were quite animated (and winded). After some hand signals, gestures, fumbling for cell phones (and the digital dictionaries therein), plus a lot of pidgin English, they managed to convey to me what they wanted. They had seen me darting back and forth in front of the stage (as I set the timer on my camera and then scrambled into position). They hadn't seen the camera, however. Naturally, they assumed that I was stealing their stuff. I had noticed an assortment of coats and bags strewn haphazardly about the stage and the girders on its inner walls; now I knew who they belonged to. After assuring them that I had taken nothing but photographs, even showing them the one I had taken of myself as proof, they pronounced themselves satisfied. They laughed in embarrassment, apologized profusely (one of the politer boys bowed from the waist, his head level with my knees) and returned to whatever game they'd been playing before they accosted me.

Caught somewhere between amusement and indignity, I moved on, out of the park and into the maze of high-rise apartments and low-rise shops which characterize Jung-dong's streets.

I found myself thinking, as I moved through the urban jungle (earning the stares, curious looks and bemusement of the natives), about something Miss H had recently told me. She had stated, bluntly, that she would give a considerable sum of money to move away from that godawful backwater desert hellhole and go somewhere new. She would change her name, take up a new profession, move to a city where no one knew her name or her story. She would metamorphose into someone entirely different and begin her life anew.

I found myself strangely fascinated by the idea as I wandered about Jung-dong. I was only a half-mile from my apartment block, where by now every shopkeeper and street vendor undoubtedly knew my face. But here, on this side of Central Park, I was a total stranger. I wore my Stetson and my aviator shades. My bulky coat obscured much of my body. I carried no bag, and my camera was stowed away in a big pocket somewhere. Nobody could tell who I was. I might've been a secretive tourist, a cocky expat teacher, an off-duty oil worker, a diplomat gone incognito. I theorized that I had done two-thirds of what Miss H had wished she could do. I had moved to a new city and taken up a new profession. In name only was I still the same person. The idea excited and invigorated me. At any moment I expected to be drawn into some intrigue, and impress all involved with my biting wit and knowledge of diverse subjects.

After a few thrilling street-crossings and a bit of ducking and weaving through uneven, winding side-streets, I found the market. I felt like an explorer approaching the intimidating gate of some long-lost city in the midst of a hostile wilderness. The impression was only enhanced by the entrance to the market, with its imposing façade and alien script:

But once inside, I felt as though a gigantic weight had lifted from my shoulders. It was impossible to say what that weight was, exactly. Culture shock? No. It was more of the opposite. Two and a half years of limbo, thirty months spent grinding my teeth in the high desert of California, working minimum-wage jobs and watching my future slip further and further away, had suddenly evaporated instantaneously. At the sight of this Korean market, the old adventurous feeling awoke in me again. I realized that I was back in South Korea. I was overseas. I was an expatriate. I was roaming again, exploring, breathing, expanding, living the dream once more. And it felt righteous, my friends. It felt righteous.

The market went on for what seemed like miles. In reality it was less than one, but my feet were aching by the end of it. My head was up in the clouds, though. I saw all manner of fish and seafood, delectable meats, the freshest fruits and vegetables, and the most savory street food I had yet encountered outside central Seoul. I was again gladdened by the fact that I hadn't brought any money; it would surely have wound up in the traders' pockets. I marked all I saw with a practiced eye, memorizing the location of each noteworthy booth, stall and kiosk, resolving to make a second visit at some viable point in the future.

Then I strolled home. I arrived back at my apartment footsore and half-frozen, but nonetheless exhilarated. I'd walked for miles and was near to blistering my soles, but my soul was soaring. (There seems to be an inverse proportion in adventuring; the worse your body feels, the better condition your spirits are in, if you do it right.)

I'd achieved my goal. I'd found the market. And I'd snapped some fine pictures on the way. Mission accomplished. I collapsed into my chair and had a relaxing evening, with homemade mushroom soup and a nip of Ballantine's whisky to see me through.

And that was my weekend. How was yours (he asked smugly)?

the 8 p.m. epiphany

That I may remain innocent of plagiarism, that title is a pun on a book called The 3 A.M. Epiphany, by Brian Kiteley. Basically it's a writing book. Its pages are littered with unusual but simple exercises (in the form of prompts) designed to work your writing muscles, stretch the literary tendons, push and shove your gray matter into nooks and crannies heretofore uncharted. I rather with I'd brought it with me to Korea, in fact. I've only ever given it perfunctory glances. Bought it new off Amazon and have hardly touched it, even though it looked like a kick in the pants. I intend to rectify that on my return to the U.S.

But in the meantime, I've been having some epiphanies of my own. Namely, how to ensure that my debut novel doesn't suck.

In hindsight, I'm almost glad I've let the novel sit around so long without trying to publish it. It's let me give it a good solid think. Inexorably, I've noticed inadequacies and imperfections. I'm ever so glad I didn't rush into publication and let those strident shortcomings slip under the radar. I'd like this dang thing to be perfect.

So, in idly thinking about what would make the book better—I've gotten to the point where the book is constantly simmering away on the back burner, and I can contemplate it and critique it almost subconsciously—I came to a realization. The book is boring. Flat. Dull. Thanks to my last rewrite, completed shortly before I left for Korea (late 2011 or something), the manuscript is no longer do disgustingly puerile. But it's still missing something. Oomph, I guess you'd call it. There's nothing in it that would hold interest. It's still somewhat shallower than I'd like. I must have subconsciously grasped this, and the matter must have been turning itself over in my head subliminally for months, ethereal and intangible, like the ghost of a rotisserie chicken.

Because, at 8 p.m. yesterday evening, I figured out what was wrong, and how to fix it. Was the book dull? Okay, spice things up a bit. I didn't have to think long about how to accomplish this. I'd bring in some of the characters I was saving for the sequels.

I cracked open my laptop during one of my free periods at work, and commenced a staff meeting with myself. These are the stenographer's notes:

Okay. How to integrate [Unnamed Major Characters #1, #2 and #3] into the story I've already got?

Excellent question. Are we including their backstories as well?

Whoof, I hadn't even thought about it. Seems logical to include Number One's cover story, and of course most of Number Two's tragic history, excluding the part she doesn't know about (that she's actually from the other universe). As for Number Three's...

I'm thinking we'd best leave his (and Number One's) for later. Drama bombs, good sir, drama bombs. Like Dresden in '44. Or was it '45?

No matter. Just enough to set up character. Now, are we confident that we've included enough? Are [the three aforementioned characters] going to be enough to sustain this story properly? Or are they too much? Character overload, so to speak?

Well, as Spartan as this story is right now (a protagonist, a deuteragonist, two antagonists, a few slavering beasts and and a boatload of war-crazed tribesmen), a few vivid characters couldn't hurt. They'd really help flesh it out.

We can at least give it a shot. If it doesn't work, we'll know it.

Glad we got that cleared up. Now the question is...how now, brown cow?

Now let's see...I'm thinking of pulling in some of the story elements from what I had planned for later books. Enrichening the story.

Is "enrichening" actually a word?

It is now. So. The story. We were originally planning the setting (after the cataclysm) in a fairly pastoral setting, with a few Babylonian and Akkadian cities scattered around, right? And the Babylonians and Akkadians running amok?

That sounds about right, yes. And our heroes caught up in the middle of it.

I should have listened to my gut from the beginning. That setting always struck me as somewhat...pedestrian. Bland. Unexciting. Static.

No need for reproaches, friend. What's happened has happened. Just be glad you're fixing it before you publish it. So, we need to spice up the setting a bit?

Right. Instead of leaving the place a wilderness, I think I'm going to make the landscape more recognizable. Really pull the audience into the story. Make them realize just what this story's about, and what actually happened during the apocalypse.

That sounds sound.

So...let's see here. What were the milestone civilizations after Mesopotamia? The Egyptians, right?

Yeah, them. And the Greeks, and the Romans, and the Arabs, the Carthaginians, and all the barbarian tribes up in Europe and whatnot.

Are the Etruscans in there somewhere?

Who the hell were the Etruscans?

No idea. Anyway, I think that's enough to go on. The chronological order of things isn't going to matter much, given the context of the story. Nor, really, will historical accuracy. We can play with this timeline as much as we like.

It's nice when you leave yourself an out like that, isn't it? Perhaps you were cut out to be a sci-fi writer after all. If you can learn to ignore the thunderous sound of Isaac Asimov spinning in his grave, that is.

It's getting easier by the day. All right, so we've got historical context taken care of. But I want to be sure of something. Whenever people write alternate histories, or even history-based science fiction (A.E. van Vogt was a whiz at it) there's a certain risk involved. I'm talking about clichés.

What, you mean like, whenever people write about savage backward Bronze Age cultures, or the Roman Empire, or some fictitious blend of the two, there's always some big fight scene in the grand arena? Against wild beasts and monstrous sword-wielding gladiators?

Yeah, that. Happens all the time. Star Wars (like, two or three times); John Carter; Riverworld; Gladiator (I suppose that was a given, though); and a whole bunch of other historical and sci-fi stuff. It's a lead-pipe cinch. Whenever you talk about ancient cultures, real or imagined, some mention of The Games always pops up.

Sure does. You want to avoid that?

Yes. I want to avoid it. And somehow, avoid it WITHOUT avoiding it.

Come again?

I would like to work a nice big gladiatorial fight scene in there. Preferably with the hand of the love interest at stake.

Okay. We can do it. We just have to make it new and fresh. Or make it SEEM new and fresh.

At that moment, unfortunately, I noticed that I had three minutes to get ready for my next lesson. I hastily shut down the computer, snatched my textbooks and lesson plan, and hoofed it to class.

I think I got enough done. I was starting to digress, anyway. I didn't make any concrete steps toward figuring out where I was going to spread my hands and divide the plot—like Moses parting the Red Sea—and stick all this extra stuff in, but I've got all night to think about that. And tomorrow night. And possibly the three free periods I've got on Wednesday, too.

I'm tremendously excited. My manuscript, as it stands now, is a mere 58,000 words or so. That makes it pretty short for a novel. I'm not one to subscribe to the whole "longer is better" school of authorship which Douglas Adams poked fun at in So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, but I am rather pleased that this new material will double (perhaps triple) the overall length of this work. Makes it seem a little more legit, you know?

But beyond that, I'm excited to see the changes this will wreak on my manuscript. I think it'll really jazz it up. It'll transmute from bland sterility into explosive vivaciousness. It'll be punchy, hard-hitting, evocative, emotional, and just plain ol' fun. I'm looking forward to ushering it into that golden light.

I'll let you know how it all goes. And about my plans to publish it. I think I might be ready to try putting on the Kindle™...

a rocky start

That's something of an understatement. I'm sure there've been whitewater rafters who've had a less rocky than I have.

First of all, I got hit with a double-whammy when I arrived. My predecessor left her position one month before the semester ended, so I was dumped into the middle of her courses with only her notes to go on. Then, a scant month later, the new semester began: and with it, shorter (and more numerous) class periods and an entirely new set of textbooks. These materials took a while to learn (in fact, we're still receiving training on them, six weeks after my arrival). Add in two weeks' worth of jet lag, an apartment that was filthy when I moved in, a month-long wait for my first paycheck, technical difficulties with my Internet and bank account, and the absolute hell of being without my other half, and you'll begin to understand what I've been going through.

Honestly, it seems as if some new catastrophe rips across the landscape every week. First my passbook didn't work (a sort of checkbook which is inserted bodily into the ATM machine to withdraw cash; automatically balances itself!). Then my check card, when it came, was also inoperable. Both these crises necessitated trips to the bank to explain my problems in pidgin English, and fill out more forms. My Internet was installed successfully. But then I left the router unplugged overnight to prevent the other tenants from siphoning the unsecured network. The router reset itself. I had to call the service provider, KT (which fortunately has an English help line) and sort that mess out. I also got a cell phone this time around. I procured one in decent shape from a coworker, but I had to drag one of my Korean colleagues along to the shop so he could translate for me. I felt rather embarrassed, but at least there were no miscommunications or screw-ups.

Things at work have been hectic as well. I've forgotten how easy it is to accidentally breach cross-cultural etiquette in Korea. My original schedule for this new semester gave me eight classes on Thursdays. This is a full load, which management would rather avoid. So I spoke to my supervisor about it. I was informed that the class had been changed, and amended my schedule properly. However, because I failed to double-check the new master schedule I had been given, I didn't realize that another of my classes had been changed as well (from Thursday to Tuesday). As a result, I wound up missing it. The students just sat around for 45 minutes. This created quite a stir. I was ranked out publicly in the staff room. The remedial class was slated for Thursday, which meant that, for one day only, I really did have to teach eight classes in a day (exhausting). Compounding the matter, the Korean supervisor chose to call me on the carpet at the very moment when I was collecting my things for my next class, which would begin in less than 90 seconds. I could hardly give him my full attention while I was scrambling around gathering pens, markers, an eraser and textbooks. He interpreted my behavior as flippancy and disrespect, and reported me. I was not disciplined, but the incident has remained a black stain on my time here nonetheless.

Things were not this complicated the last time around.

Last time I just moved into my apartment, bought some food, went to work, learned how to teach, got a router installed, and spent one glorious year whooping it up in K-Land.

I'd like to say something inspirational and hopeful here, but I can't think of a blessed thing. It's a glorious, cool, breezy, sunny spring day (with scattered clouds), and a wonderful moist smell in the air from the day-long drizzle we had yesterday. I need to tidy up this apartment before the KT repairman arrives. He's installing a new router (one with an actual password on it). Then I think I'll take a nice stroll over to the other side of Jungang Park and try to find this street market everyone's been talking about. And flirt with Miss H online a little bit. I'll let you know how it all works out.

The Postman signs off.

the geumhaeng sardine can

                                                                                                                                                                            courtesy of Wikipedia

...being an account of the best weekend in Korea so far (this time around).

Just so you're not scratching your heads for the entire post, geumhaeng (pronounced "GOOM-hayng") is the Korean word for "express." Here it applies to the express subway train on Line 1 of the Seoul subway system.

Now, I don't know if you've ever been on a metropolitan subway train when it's packed to the gills, but it ain't a pleasant experience. I haven't any pictures to show you; even if I'd had my camera with me I couldn't have pried it out of my pocket and raised it to the proper height to capture an image. Yes, quarters were that close. My bottom half was bumping uglies with a family of three Korean women, and my top half was bent over towards a seated middle-aged Korean man (thankfully asleep). I had my hands clamped on the rail of the baggage rack, and my sweaty armpits were stuck in the faces of two other unfortunate souls. The fist of a businessman, wrapped around a hand grip, kept tapping me in the back of the skull. This was how we rode for 30 minutes, in a metal sardine can, all the way from Yongsan (in central Seoul) to my stop at Songnae, in western Bucheon.

It was my first experience on a train as crowded as that one. It was enlightening, even I did feel somewhat, ah, violated. Those Koreans can be vicious. At the second stop they all just piled on, pushing and shoving and shoulder-checking the people ahead of them until every last one of them had squeezed aboard. Like a large boulder protruding from a roiling ocean, I stood resolute, refusing to budge for these rude people. I didn't care if I was flouting the unspoken traditions of my host country. I was making a stand. But then the Korean ladies wound up practically kissing my chest, and I felt obliged to move back and shift my feet for their purity's sake. There was a silver lining to the situation, however. As we burst through the train doors like fizz from a shaken soda can, a young Korean man in glasses and a gray hoodie began to talk to me. He asked where I was from, and I said California. He said "Oh! I went to Las Vegas last year." I told him that place was very fun, thanked him sincerely for speaking with me, and then plonked my outer layers of clothing down on a bench and began to wrestle my way back into them as the chill evening breeze swept the platform.

But why am I starting with the geumhaeng? I should tell you about the whole weekend, beginning to end.

I had originally intended to go into Itaewon last weekend. Due to the mix-up with my finances (I didn't have the code number I needed to access my account), I was still penniless. So I had to wait until this weekend to foray into greater Seoul on my own.

Before that, though, there was a movie I wanted to see.



Based on a series of books by Edgar Rice Burroughs (the same guy who dreamed up a heroic musclebound jungle-dweller called Tarzan), John Carter concerns a disillusioned Civil War veteran mysteriously transported to Mars. As it turns out, Mars (known as Barsoom) is not a lifeless rock as most astronomers imagine, but a vibrant world inhabited by no less than six or seven races of sentient beings...who unfortunately are all at war with one another. Carter, being from a heavier, denser planet than Mars, gradually discovers that he has superhuman strength and the ability to jump great distances. After a series of skirmishes in which his impressive battle prowess is revealed, Carter finds himself embroiled in the war between the two powerful Martian kingdoms, one of which is backed by a group of mysterious immortal beings called the Therns, who have rather sinister plans for Mars...and Earth!

In spite of the rather scathing reviews which John Carter has received, I liked it. I thought Disney treated it right. They didn't overdo it, overplay their hand, or hype it like some big blockbuster. They just let it be what it was supposed to be, a sci-fi/sword-and-sorcery romp. And, speaking of sword-and-sorcery, I thought the tone of the movie came across really well: the epic alien setting, the warring kingdoms, the fish-out-of-water protagonist (but, instead of being at a disadvantage, Carter is actually empowered by his status as an Earth-man; quite refreshing). The film's got something for everyone. Drama, fight scenes, romance, fight scenes, mystery, fight scenes, and, oh yes...did I mention fight scenes?

One of the criticisms being bandied about by naysayers was that the film was too long. Fie on them, I say. The fact that the movie was long gave them time to put everything that was in the first book of Burroughs's Barsoom series (A Princess of Mars, written in 1917) into the film. Stuff's been cut out and added, obviously; but it doesn't detract from the overall quality of the work. Making the film longer also allowed for more fight scenes to be put in without stacking them end-to-end like cord-wood. Seriously, John Carter fights everybody in this film, be they sentient Martians or wild beasts. But it's not mindless violence. It's actually a plot point: Carter is a veteran who lost his family in the American Civil War, and has been trying to avoid fighting anyone or anything ever since. But he finds himself inexorably drawn into the Barsoomian conflict by chance, by fate, by the charms of a beautiful princess...and eventually by choice. Carter's transition from burnt-out cynic to happy-to-be-alive-again romantic is a joy to observe.

Okay, the review's gone on long enough. Now for the rest of the weekend. Simply put, I caught the subway to Itaewon, went to that English-language bookstore I keep talking about (What the Book?), picked up some new reading material, and returned to Bucheon on the geumhaeng.

I spent Saturday evening in a quiet pub a couple of blocks from my apartment, shooting pool and drinking green beer with Jon and Andy (from work). We won a game of cutthroat apiece, and talked of life, the universe and everything. And execrated Justin Bieber. I think. 

On Sunday the expatriate boys and I went to the park to play basketball. We'd been there an hour or two when we noticed, on the other side of the court, a group of Korean middle schoolers, some of whom we recognized as our own students at Avalon.  

So of course, we just had to challenge them to a game.

Five-on-five. Play to 15 points. Full-court. Substitutions allowed. Those were the terms of the duel. There was much more at stake than mere manly pride. If we lost, we would lose face. We could not rightfully expect our students to respect us in the classroom if they beat us hollow on the court. We had to make a good show of this. Win, or at least go down swinging.

We lost track of the score after five minutes.

It was intense. Some of those Korean kids were fast. Jon and I, center and guard respectively, huffed and puffed as we tried to keep up. Dan, a whiz at basketball, and Andy, light on his feet and modest about his mad skillz, kept us afloat. Jon was a rock on defense and showed us some moves as he moved the ball up the court, scoring plenty of points of his own. Martin and Peter were light on their feet and wizards (so to speak) at penetrating the enemy defense. Woe betide us if our foe caught the rebound and passed to the point guard, however. He'd move that ball up the side of the court, charge into the goal and make a jump shot worth writing home about.

By the end, we were sweaty, tired, and winded, but our bodies were singing with endorphins and camaraderie. We all parted on good terms and went our separate ways.

I had the feeling, the whole while, that this would become one of those golden memories I would derive many hours of pleasure from reflecting upon in my declining years.

And that was my weekend. Back to the grind...

Korean grub

Apologies, apologies. It's been a while since I posted. Some unexpected calamities arose with my Korean bank account and my wireless Internet, but they've been soundly resolved. I went for a weekend without cash or wi-fi (which put a damper on my plans for Itaewon and What the Book?). But as of this morning, my router is fully operational, there's funny-lookin' Korean bills in my wallet, and my cabinets are full of groceries.

Oh, and speaking of food...

My stomach is sure glad I'm back in K-Land.

I'm going to tell you a little bit about some of my favorite Korean dishes, and the general culinary landscape of the R.O.K. Some of them you've probably heard of before; others, not so much. Let's start with the biggie.

Bibimbap.

It's exactly what it looks like: rice, vegetables, and a fried egg, mixed with a little gochujang (red pepper paste). The ingredients are presented to the diner quite fetchingly, as seen above. The diner will then proceed to mash up, swirl around, and devour the dish, preferably out of a heated stone bowl. (The rice is layered on the bottom of the bowl, which is why you can't see it.) Great pains are taken to arrange the vegetables around the egg in near-perfect radial symmetry. With a slap of gochujang (the red stuff at twelve o'clock), it's ready to eat. Just mix it all up with a spoon and get stuck in.

Now, if you're thinking what I think you're thinking—and I think you're thinking that I'm nuts if I enjoy eating rice, vegetables, eggs, and pepper paste all ground up into a chunky red stew and devoured by the spoonful—punch yourself in the face. Right now.

This stuff is delicious. Seriously, delicious. Not Rachael-Ray-dips-her-finger-into-the-pot-and-licks-it-and-says-"Mmm-delicious!" delicious. More like Mom's-apple-pie sort of delicious. It's the living shizz. You'll find yourself craving it, sweating and shivering for it, as if they'd lined the rice cooker with cocaine or something. I'm not a food critic, and I don't possess the vocabulary to properly describe the synergistic aggregate of flavors melding together in the bottom of that stone bowl, but I don't need to: I'll let you imagine how sticky rice, spicy pepper, marinated veggies and a well-fried egg taste when lovingly combined.

Korean barbecue is another thing I'm glad to have access to again. The Koreans are adept at taking pieces of meat from all over the cow and pig, slicing it into thin strips, putting it on a grill over an open flame (resembling a Japanese teppan) and searing it to juicy perfection. The lucky diner then slaps the resultant meat onto a piece of lettuce with marinated spring onions, fried garlic and ssamjang (red meat sauce) and devours it in two or three bites.

'Scuse me, I have to wipe the drool off my keyboard.

The most enticing and decadent of the meat cuts available is probably samgyeopsal, or pork belly. (Pronounced sahm-gyuhp-SAHL.) Resembling large rashers of streaky bacon, samgyeopsal is a fatty, tasty treat for which even the Koreans are willing to suspend their obsession with healthy food. It's best to put some bits of kimchi on the grill with your samgyeopsal, and other vegetables too (such as bean sprouts), so they can soak up the juice which the uncured bacon exudes as it cooks.

I could really use a spittoon about now.

And lastly, let's talk about Korean street food. One of the things I like about the Asian nations is that they make it so dang simple for a guy to fill his stomach anytime, anywhere, and on the cheap. Anywhere you look—on street corners, or shopping districts, or the bustling night markets, there's food stalls and vendors set up and going like gangbusters. There are some foreign imports; Mr. Wow (in Seoul and Busan) sells spicy bratwurst, and there's a takoyaki booth right outside my apartment building. But I want to talk about Korean street food, and my particular favorite, ddeokbokki.

This stuff has had a complicated history, which I won't go into here. There are a million different varieties, which I likewise don't have time to divulge. I'll just focus on your run-of-the-mill, salt-of-the-earth, garden variety ddeokbokki: rice cakes (those cylindrical things), fish cakes (the flat ones) and gochujang (the ubiquitous red pepper paste), all mixed up together and served hot.

(I could give you a long, wordy, convoluted explanation on how to pronounce ddeokbokki, but it would be long, wordy, and convoluted. So, for our purposes, let's just say that it sounds something like "duck-POKE-ee" and leave it at that.)

Ah, ddeokbokki. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. How spicy you are, and how you make my mouth burn and singe and pine for a bucket of ice water...how your fish cakes are moist, tender, and vaguely fishy-tasting, lending a much-needed gustatory counterpoint to your overwhelming heat...how your rice cakes are simple and unadorned, mere filler some would say, but provide a much-needed respite from the diumvirate of spiciness and fishiness. How inexpensive you are on the street, and how masochistically satisfying you are, and how disgusted you make my friends back home when I tell them about you. I love you, ddeokbokki. You're a filling snack and a potent cultural weapon all in one.

I could mention a few other dishes...mandu (Korean pot stickers), donkkaseu (breaded pork cutlet, a Japanese import), twigim (fried street food)...but that would make this post unnecessarily lengthy. Let's leave it for another day.

Bon appetit, mon ami.

(Hey, if I knew how to say "Stay hungry, my friends" in Korean I'd say it, okay?! Jeez...)

keeping it tight

Maybe I'm not cut out to be a travel writer. A 21st-century travel writer, anyway.

I've been doing some thinking, and I believe I've figured out why I don't have a career yet.

It's not that I can't write. I'm a first-rate wordsmith.

It's not that I can't find anything to write about. There's boatloads of material out there. I'm sitting right in the middle of some of the best travel material (especially budget travel material) an aspiring travel writer could ask for.

It's not that I can't get published. I've done that three or four times already. My work's graced the pages of Real Travel Adventures, In the Know Traveler, and The Expeditioner. I've even been featured in one of the latter's printed compilations.

But therein lies the problem. I've been calling myself a travel writer for a few years now, and I've only been published a couple of times. That means one thing, and one thing only: I'm lazy. Apparently, writing is a full-time job. You must constantly send out proposals and pitches. Keep lines in the water and irons in the fire. (Actually writing every day is another plus.) Try as I might, I just can't seem to keep those kind of habits up for very long.

Here, check out this questionnaire I found on the Travel Writer's Exchange. This says it all, really. I'm not so bad off...I did answer mostly C's. Long story short, though there's only a few things I'm lacking, they're enough to impede my nascent career something righteous.

Being a lazy bastard isn't even my main problem, though. There's something else. It only recently made itself apparent, and it took me a while to understand it.

I'm long-winded.

Yep, since the future of travel writing lies online, the new line of thinking is that travel writing must be short, sweet and to-the-point. Actually, that's the way it's always been. You shouldn't go off on digressions, or give in to the temptation to fill your writing with florid prose. You should stick to the task at hand, which is to tell your reader about your subject and back it up with a few lurid details. But lately, it seems, there's been added emphasis on the whole brevity thing.

Brevity is, and shall remain, a difficult challenge for me. I'm a wordy bugger. Maybe that's the reason I started this blog in the first place. And why the posts are so freaking long, when all the best blogging advice says you should keep 'em tight. This is the only place I can get my meandering, garrulous, poetical, literary jollies out. And you know what's even funnier than that? Somehow I've gotten away with being long-winded even in my published works—you'll notice that all those articles I've linked to are rather lengthy.

But no more, I'm sensing: I'm going to have to toe the line from here on out. Write well, write briefly, and start shotgunning those proposals and pitches all over the place.

Well, no time like the present. I've been in Korea for almost a month now and I'm settled into my apartment, even if I don't have my green card or my first paycheck in hand yet. Time to start my career. First thing to do, I reckon, is survey the list of newspapers that the TWE recommends and send out some pitches. I bet they'd be interested in the balloon launch I participated in last weekend. Or the kind of fun you can have in Hongdae on a Saturday night. I just have to remember to keep it tight, short, sweet and simple. I shall adjust to this new future the way I've adjusted to everything else: maybe a tad reluctantly, but with aplomb, dignity and competence.

Wish me luck.

my new digs

The new semester begins tomorrow. I was wrong about having a four-day weekend, as it turns out. Before things get really crazy, I think it's high time I showed you some pictures of my apartment:

The entry foyer with its vestibule for shoes. (There's also a storage cabinet to the right.) Koreans, like other Asian cultures, have this thing about wearing shoes indoors...

The stunningly large and spacious bathroom. Most Korean bathrooms have the whole room as the shower, with the sink and toilet getting soaked every time you clean yourself. It's rare to find a Western-style bathroom like this. I ain't complainin'.

Immediately as you enter, the bathroom is on the right, and this kitchenette is on the left. The range is composed of two electric burners. Apparently the toaster oven is something of a rarity in Korean apartments as well. That's the (clothes) washing machine open in the center of the photo there. No dryer.

Most of what you see here already came with the apartment. Except for the desk, that is. I pilfered it from the hallway.

Entering the living room and turning around gives you this view.

Remember how I said that there's no clothes dryer? That's where this handy rack comes in.

The staircase to the loft.

My nightstand.

Management gave me a rather nice sheet set...or rather, not. Koreans don't believe in sheets. There's a fitted sheet, a comforter and a duvet or whatever. No actual sheet sheets. Weird.

The view of my living room from the loft...neato-keen!

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the view from my ninth-floor window. The long, low building behind the soccer field is a school. The brown brick building on the right is a church. And behind...row upon serried row of apartment buildings. Koreans live vertically.

So, one small day of madness separates me from the weekend. I've got plans for that weekend, too, which I shall tell you about after they materialize. Until then...wish me luck tomorrow folks.

Your favorite expatriate English teacher, signing off.