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.

SF reading wish-list

You know the story. No matter how many books you devour in a year, it seems like you wind up with a to-read list that's twice as long. For every book you read, two or three more rise up to take its place. This literary Lernaean Hydra has been plaguing me lately. I don't know what's going on. Maybe it's because I've gotten back into reading for pleasure now that I'm in Korea and working the afternoon shift.  Or it could be that I've decided to take a more proactive approach to my craft. Perhaps I just spend too much time on TV Tropes.

Whatever the reason, I'm going to share with you some of the titles on my reading list. Some of 'em are classics, as usual; and some of them are little-known series which deserve more love. If you're interested in seeing what's out there in the world of SF, both old and new, give the following litany your perusal.

Foundation by Isaac Asimov

Once again demonstrating his genius for creating credible and deeply speculative SF (with historical context), Asimov created the Foundation series, which went on to critical acclaim. The main character, Hari Seldon, is the creator of an esoteric school of mathematics called psychohistory, which draws upon the law of mass action to effectively predict the future on a large scale. Using his research, Seldon foresees the imminent collapse of the Galactic Empire, Seldon creates the "Foundation"—a hidden enclave at the end of the galaxy where all humanity's accumulated knowledge is stored. The series documents Seldon's struggle to establish the Foundation and the attempts by the remnants of humanity to reestablish the Empire according to "the Seldon Plan."

I picked up a few books in the series for a few thousand won from an outgoing English teacher. I figured I'd give it a read...even though Asimov's I, Robot is still sitting unread in a box back in my closet in California!

Airborn by Kenneth Oppel

Matt Cruse is a 15-year-old cabin boy working on the airship Aurora. One day the Aurora encounters a drifting zeppelin with a mysterious old man mumbling about "beautiful creatures," who dies shortly thereafter. A year later, the Aurora is brought down on a tropical island by air pirates, where Matt and the wealthy Kate de Vries discover the truth of the old man's maundering.

This is another series I heard about by clicking around on TV Tropes. I know absolutely nothing about these books, except that Adam Young likes them. I've always been a fan of aviation in general. But something about those tales of weird aircraft and zeppelins and air pirates (particularly in the context of steam punk and alternate history) sets my imagination on fire. The Airborn series has an added twist: strange creatures and scientific discovery. What could be more awesome?

Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve


It's a grim dystopian future. The Earth's crust has been ravaged by a horrific war. Human cities are no longer sedentary, but are mounted upon gigantic treads which roll about the cracked, blasted surface of Planet Earth. More horrific yet, these "Traction Cities" devour each other with huge mechanical jaws to gain precious resources. It's a dog-eat-dog world, and the outlook is pretty bleak. Throw in Earth's ancient technology, a few long-lost superweapons and a load of characters and you have a pretty decent story, if a rather dark one.

I know next to nothing about this series, but can't wait to get into it. Cities rolling about on giant caterpillar treads is something that's fascinated me ever since I saw the film John Carter (based on Edgar Rice Burroughs's Barsoom series). The Mortal Engines series has garnered quite a lot of (positive) critical attention, so at the very least it won't be a boring read, right? 

Midnight at the Well of Souls by Jack L. Chalker

This series edges farther toward fantasy than I'm usually comfortable with. The concept is convoluted, so bear with me. In the first book, we've got your typical space freighter, the Stehekin, captained by one Nathan Brazil. There's a bunch of other people on board, too. They get a distress signal from a planet called Dalgonia, where there's an archaeological team doing some research on the long-dead Markovian race which once lived there. The Markovians were known for building planet-sized computers with which they attempted to fathom the secrets of the universe. Upon arriving, they discovered one of the archaeologists, Elkinos Skander, has murdered the others and disappeared. Tracking him to one of Dalgonia's poles, the crew of the Stehekin are sucked into the Well World, which is divided into "hexes," each hex being subject to different rules, laws, and inhabited by a different race. But here's the catch: entry into one of the hexes means that the person entering is transformed into the race native to that hex. One by one the crew members change into exotic alien forms; in these new bodies they must solve the mystery of the Well World, find out how to stop Skander and turn themselves back into humans. And Nathan Brazil discovers something extraordinary about himself, too.

Weird, right? So weird I feel like I have to read it. I just want to see how the team gets transformed, and what they all morph into. Call it morbid fascination. Chalker himself was quite taken with bodily transformations as well; the rest of the Well World series and quite a few of his other works deal with it. 

In the Balance (Worldwar, Book One) by Harry Turtledove

In a nutshell...

Smack dab in the middle of World War II, Earth is invaded by the Race, a horde of spacefaring reptilian warriors bent on galactic domination. Both the Allies and the Axis unite in the face of mutual destruction and rise up against the invaders.

I used to hate historical fiction. Then I cautiously read the first book of the Destroyermen series (see below), and I thought, "Hey, this isn't that bad." (Heck, I might even go see Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter this weekend.) I'm something of a World War II buff, so combine that with an alien invasion (in which the human race not only holds its own, but actually fights back successfully in unexpected ways), and you've got a recipe for a fangasm.

Crusade (Destroyermen, Book Two) by Taylor Anderson

Into the Storm, the first book in the Destroyermen series, details the origin of Anderson's world and characters. The U.S.S. Walker, an aging World War I-era rustbucket of a destroyer under the command of Captain Matthew Reddy, is on the run from the Japanese battlecruiser Amagi. Pressed into service in the desperate first days of World War II, Walker and a half-dozen other worn-out vessels were tasked with defending the Navy's main base in the Philippines. Overrun by a massive assault, Walker and its sister ship Mahan are now fleeing the pursuing Japanese fleet.

That's when a mysterious storm appears out of nowhere, sucks up Mahan and Walker, and dumps them out...well, somewhere else.

The geographical features are the same. The coastlines look just as they should, and all the islands and reefs are in place. But Captain Reddy and his crew are startled to see dinosaurs roaming about on shore, and monstrous fish and other creatures swimming in the ocean. Traces of human civilization are nowhere to be found. Reddy's amazement deepens when the Walker runs straight into a battle between two completely inhuman races: the Lemurians, lemur-like humanoids who live on giant floating cities, and the Grik, savage reptiles with insatiable bloodlust. It seems humans never evolved in this world. Reddy's intervention in the otherworldly battle makes the Walker allies of the Lemurians and enemies of the Grik...and things only escalate from there.

In Crusade, the second book of the series, Reddy and his crew learn that Walker and Mahan were not the only ships to fall through the storm and into the new world: the Japanese battlecruiser Amagi made it through as well, and now it's in the clawed hands of the vengeful Grik...

Come on, do I need to explain this one? A parallel Earth? Inhuman races vying for supremacy? A savage world full of strange monsters and ancient beasts? Bamboo technology mixing it up with World War II capital ships? Freakin' humanoid dinosaurs versus freakin' humanoid lemurs? BARs and Springfield rifles? This is just too cool. Taylor Anderson is no William Faulkner, but he writes well enough to illustrate his world and populate it with vivid imagery. I got all the books in the series (so far) at What the Book? in Itaewon last month, and I'm going to start working on them as soon as I finish my Jules Verne kick (The Mysterious Island and Around the World in Eighty Days).

In addition to these sci-fi titles, I've got The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley waiting in the wings.

Oh! The joy of reading!

Listening to:

Sanba dancing

                                                                                                                                                                                    courtesy of NASA

No, that wasn't a typo in the title. Son of a gun, but there's another typhoon heading toward Korea. But Typhoon Sanba looks like it'll turn out to be another marginal Category 1, a puissant tropical storm like Bolaven.

There's nothing borderline about it right now, though. According to this news story, on Friday, when the typhoon was in the vicinity of Okinawa, it was a Category 3 "super typhoon." It had winds in excess of 125 miles per hour. Early Saturday, according to another story I found, Sanba was a Category 4 with winds peaking at 155 mph—as strong as Hurricane Maemi, which smashed into Korea in 2003 and left over a hundred dead.

However, most sources believe that Sanba's back will be broken by the Japanese islands, and by the time it reaches the Korean peninsula, it'll be a Category 1, or even less—a tropical storm.

It was still severe enough that the U.S. consulate sent out a warning to all expatriates living in the R.O.K., though. I guess it's time to batten down the hatches. Miss H and I have no preparations to make: our emergency supplies are laid in and everything is set. I just need to peel the tape off the cupboard doors, reach in, and close up the air conditioning vents. Then we can sit back and watch the cows fly by.

Zowie! Wish us luck.

the Big Snooze

It was down to ripping off a Bogart flick or a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Speaking for myself, I know which one of the two I'd like coming after me with a lawsuit. Or a sledgehammer.

Since the pseudo-typhoon blew over, the weather in Bucheon—and greater Korea—has been nothing short of delightful. The days have been down in the seventies; no more of this nineties crap. To say that I've been enjoying the change would be an understatement. For starters, I've commenced my workout program (150 minutes of physical activity every week, plus pull-ups and push-ups). My stamina has already improved, and I'm looking forward to the day when I can do more than one stinking pull-up. Sleeping has been easier, too. Last week I actually spent a night without my industrial-sized fan blowing on my torso from three inches away.

A new semester has begun at my school, and my class schedule is exactly the same as before. I have five classes on Monday, seven on Tuesday, six on Wednesday, eight on Thursday and four on Friday, though in different distributions. My Friday classes are in one long block instead of being broken up throughout the day; but my Wednesday classes, instead of being one miserable slog, are now punctuated by 45-minute breaks. All in all, I'd say the new schedule is an improvement.

The weekend before last (the first weekend of September), Miss H and I took a trip down to Busan to see my buddies Adam and Jeff, whom I'd worked with on Geoje Island. It'd been a few months since we'd seen each other. Moreover a weekend spent lying on Haeundae Beach, sipping beer and dunking our toes, was just what the doctor ordered. Frustratingly, we couldn't leave Bucheon until after 3:30 p.m. We had missed classes on Tuesday (the 28th of August) due to Typhoon Bolaven, and had to make the classes up on Saturday the 1st. So we did that. The students hated it and so did we. But our precious freedom was gained at half past three, and I hurried home, packed, grabbed Miss H's hand, and rushed off to the bus terminal.

...only to learn that we had missed the outbound bus to the Haeundae neighborhood of Busan by ten lousy minutes.

So we sat around for two hours, reading books in a coffeehouse in the upscale NewCore shopping center. Miss H perused The Help while I delved into Around the World in Eighty Days. At the appointed time (5:50 p.m.) we packed up our books and went through the glass doors to the bus platform.

There we waited a further 15 minutes until the bus and its frazzled driver screeched to a halt in front of us, bid us board, and then hauled ass away from the terminal.

The ride was miserable. Both of us were bone-tired. The lurching and jarring of the vehicle, driven by a dilatory madman and jouncing through lanes of traffic and across uneven ground, precluded any effort to sleep or read. The best we could manage was a sort of tenuous doze, aided by soothing music from our iPods and each other's presence. The ride was a beastly five and a half hours. Cramped, sweaty, bleary-eyed and annoyed, Miss H and I stumbled off the bus at Haeundae Beach and set out to find a hotel. After an abortive attempt at a 40,000-won love motel, whose rooms included a mini-bar, a microwave, and a cockroach on the ceiling, we were finally installed in a much cleaner and nicer joint for ₩70,000. Miss H collapsed into unconsciousness while I hunted up Adam, Jeff, Jeff's girlfriend Jenn and their friends. We partied first at a noisy club on the 14th floor of a beach-side skyscraper, watching the waves wash ashore far below us; then we adjourned to a convenience store for beer and Roman candles. We walked down to the sand and planted our tushes on the beach itself, drinking until the wee hours of the morning, launching fireworks over the surf, watching them fizzle into nothingness as they struck the water. It was just like old times; Adam, Jeff and I had practiced this very ritual many a night in Busan in 2008 and 2009.

After the walk down Memory Lane had concluded, it was time to stagger home. Arriving, as I had, at eleven o'clock, I hadn't even managed to catch up to everybody. The most I'd achieved was a sort of pleasant buzz. I wasn't even weaving. I made a short stop at a seafood restaurant to inquire about the price of king crab stew; upon being informed that it was fifty grand (for four people), I politely took my leave. I woke up Miss H to let me in, as this motel did not give out more than one key card, and went to sleep.

I awoke the next morning with an attenuated hangover. Miss H and I leisurely arranged our things and checked out precisely at noon. Then we went to meet Adam, Jeff, and Jenn and have some breakfast. We dined in style at the Wolfhound, an Irish pub just off Gunam Street. I had shepherd's pie for breakfast (don't judge), and Adam helped himself to a tremendous king-size breakfast of eggs, sausage, bacon and beans. Then it was down to the beach have a splodge. We waded and swam in the chilly water (September is quite advanced in Haeundae's beach season); sufficiently awake, we pulled up a chair and an umbrella at a bar called Gecko's and ordered calamari and daiquiris. Here we sat for some time, whiling away the golden afternoon, chatting and laughing. It was absolute magic. I felt the stress of seven months melting away in the sunshine. Seven months I had been penned up in the Seoul metropolitan area, getting honked at by cars, standing in stuffy subway trains, holding on for dear life in careening buses. Now I was free. I was gazing over the bluish-grey waters of the East China Sea, listening to the seagulls cry, watching cargo ships scudding over the waves as they departed the ports. A sweating lime daiquiri was in my hand, greasy calamari in my teeth, and dear friends smiling at me from across the table. Things couldn't have been much better.

Adam, Miss H, and me...geombae!

All too soon, it was time to part. Miss H and I, shepherded by Adam, got on the subway and headed for Busan Station. We had had enough of buses; expense or no expense, we were taking the KTX home. The Korean bullet train, of which I've written before, would whisk us back to Seoul in only two hours, at the blinding speed of 300 kilometers. Adam bid us farewell on the subway car: he was continuing on for a few stops. I was feeling more sozzled than I had the night before. I had drunk the leftover beer in the fridge that morning; at breakfast I had downed several bottles of Strongbow cider with Adam; and after two daiquiris at Gecko's, I was feeling mighty fine. I weaved my way off the subway train and up to the ticket counter with Miss H. Our luck did not hold; the special weekend rates and the foreigner's discount were not in effect. We paid ₩90,000 apiece for our tickets. Incensed, but glad we would be getting home in short order (for it was already past four o'clock), we adjourned to the station platform and seated ourselves inside Car No. 6, painted a sleek grey-and-blue. The KTX pulled away from the platform and soon we were zooming north and homeward. The ride was divine. I had my darling by my side, a good book in my lap, a bottle of water to help me sober up (for I was still rather tipsy) and a gorgeous pink-and-blue sunset outside the windows. The green hills of Korea flashed by, slow enough to take in but fast enough not to bore the eye. After two quick halts at Daegu and Daejeon, we were pulling into Seoul Station, barely two hours after departing Busan. Two hundred miles down, just like that.

And now, just to leave you with some cheerful news (for I'm now back at work and into the grind, and can't wait to get back to Busan again), I HAVE FINISHED MY NOVEL. The tremendous rewrite which I embarked upon all those long months ago has concluded. The second draft has been completed. The manuscript stands at 118,838 words and 598 double-spaced pages. I'm feeling confident enough about this second version to actually want other people to read it. First, however, I'm doing the Stephen King thing and letting the monster sit inert for a few weeks. This'll give me time to pull away from it, mentally and physically, recharge the creative batteries, and be able to approach the thing in a new light when rewriting time comes. For the nonce, however, I am on-track for publication by the end of 2012.

Wish me luck, and stay tuned.