how a Californian (like me) sees the world

WARNING: What follows is exceedingly general and perhaps a bit non-PC. I don't care, and neither should you. Au contraire, you should laud me for admitting my ignorance rather than disguising it. Consider this a list of what I don't know about the world (and hope to learn someday).

DISCLAIMER: You'll notice that I said a Californian like me. You can no more judge all Californians to be the same than you can judge all Dubliners or all Tokyoites to be the same. We're a mixed lot. But even among them, I am an outlier. I was born in Northern California, for one thing. I've lived in the capital, the Midwest, the American South, and the Great Plains, so I know a bit more about the rest of America than the average Californian does. My political views don't exactly match up with a lot of other Californians', either. I'm a white middle-class twenty-something, and proud of it.

Ready? Then let's begin:

THE REST OF AMERICA:

• OREGON: Best known for portraying that forested planet in The Return of the Jedi. And being mispronounced by Midwesterners and foreigners alike.
• WASHINGTON STATE: Coffee. Rain. Pine trees. Killer whales. Reggie Watts. Legal marijuana. Sententious living.
• IDAHO: Potatoes.
• MONTANA: Looks really good on a postcard.
• NEVADA: Vegas, baby. And machine guns. The rest of it's desert. And Reno.
• UTAH: Mormons! Who doesn't like Mormons? And saltwater?
• ARIZONA: Simply marvelous gun laws. Cacti which are the envy of the civilized world. Gila monsters. Fatuous Nicolas Cage movies. Mountains that look like Indians.
• NEW MEXICO: Are the rocks supposed to be red like that?
• COLORADO: Best place to raise abducted children.
• WYOMING: Fewer people than a single suburb of Los Angeles. Seriously, the antelopes outnumber the humans. Scary thought.
• NORTH DAKOTA: I felt like a celebrity there.
• SOUTH DAKOTA: Big stone heads. The Black Hills (yeah, baby). Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane.
• NEBRASKA: What the guy who thought of the phrase "middle of nowhere" was thinking of.
• KANSAS: You're not there anymore, Toto.
• OKLAHOMA: Bombs. Musicals. The Dust Bowl. Tornadoes.
• TEXAS: If it weren't for them, Mexico would have invaded long ago.
• MINNESOTA: So, like, let's go to the lake, eh?
• IOWA: The Minnesotans are right. The best thing coming out of Iowa is I-29.
• MISSOURI: My dad went to college there. Considers himself more Missourian than Ohioan. They've got an arch. That's the limit of my knowledge.
• ARKANSAS: Most direct route between Tennessee and Oklahoma.
• LOUISIANA: Bayous, swamps, Cajun food, levies, Mardi Gras, and hurricanes. Especially hurricanes.
• WISCONSIN: Cheese.
• ILLINOIS: Abraham Lincoln.
• INDIANA: No friggin' idea. Maybe basketball?
• KENTUCKY: Is the grass really blue, or is that just a figure of speech?
• TENNESSEE: Too many mullets for my taste.
• MISSISSIPPI: Hard to spell.
• ALABAMA: Probably has the most likeable/least unpleasant Southern accent, depending on where you stand on Southern accents.
• GEORGIA: Good peaches.
• FLORIDA: Can't think of it without thinking of the auto-tuning rapper. Thanks a bunch. Before Flo Rida was a thing, I associated Florida with Scarface, my grandmother's house with the orange trees in the backyard, the one billion percent humidity, and the white-sand beaches.
• MICHIGAN: They make cars there, don't they? And awesome music?
• OHIO: Hot in summer, rainy in spring, miserable in winter, the most beautiful place on the planet in autumn.
• WEST VIRGINIA: Coal. The Civil War. Trout fishing. Caves. Chuck Yeager.
• VIRGINIA: This may sound weird, but I can't help but think of Virginia in terms of the famous people who were born there: Ella Fitzgerald, George C. Scott, Sam Houston, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark (yes, that Lewis & Clark), Patrick Henry, Robert E. Lee, Tom Wolfe, Booker T. Washington, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, and, like, twenty U.S. presidents. 
• NORTH/SOUTH CAROLINA: What's the difference? 
• WASHINGTON, D.C.: Crazy homeless people in the streets, crazy people in the government.
• MARYLAND: You need to put on some weight, you're too skinny.
• DELAWARE: Sounds like a seldom-used word you'd find in a dictionary.
• NEW JERSEY: Just as all myths have some basis in fact, the moniker "Armpit of America" must on some level be well-deserved. 
• CONNECTICUT: Pretty. And filthy rich.
• PENNSYLVANIA: The birthplace of liberty and independence. Looks nice in autumn, too.
• NEW YORK: California's biggest competitor in terms of culture and coolness. They've got some pretty country, too; and heck, they even have their own version of the San Andreas Fault. We'll get you yet, you buggers.
• RHODE ISLAND: Too small for my Californian mind to encapsulate.
• MASSACHUSETTS: Baseball. Football. Clam chowder. Cod. Moby-Dick. Cheers (the TV show).
• NEW HAMPSHIRE: The last stop before Maine.
• VERMONT: The second-to-last stop before Maine.
• MAINE: The last stop before New Brunswick. Also, Stephen King is from there; I do know that much. A lot of his books are set around those parts.
• ALASKA: I know as much as everyone else does. Grizzly bears, gold, the Inuit, glaciers, the tallest mountain in North America, savage cold, bush pilots, hunting, cruises, trains, oil, fishing, formerly Russian, real men and real women. Oh, and I'd give my right arm and two or three toes to live there.
• HAWAII: Palm trees. White-sand beaches. Turquoise water. Tropical fish. Sunshine. Ukeleles, luaus and leis. Volcanoes. Surfing. Pearl Harbor. The U.S.S. Arizona. Paradise on Earth. California's biggest competitor in terms of fun in the sun and water sports. Not bad if we can take on New York and Hawaii and still compete, eh?

THE REST OF THE WORLD:

• MEXICO: Lovely beaches, great food, incredible culture, marvelous natural beauty, and good booze...but a corrupt government and a few too many all-powerful drug cartels. Oh wait, that's California.
• CANADA: A dichotomy. On the one hand: nigh-socialism, a Governor General, and a certain amount of cultural snobbery (though that might just be the folks from Toronto). On the other hand: maple syrup, the Yukon, Nova Scotia, the Northwest Territories, British Columbia, Alberta, the Canadian Rockies, ice hockey, Shania Twain, William Shatner, Dan Aykroyd, Kim Cattrall, Stana Katic, Nathan Fillion (whom I hear is from Edmonton), Rick Moranis, Leslie Nielsen, Donald Sutherland, Alexander Graham Bell, Elijah McCoy (the real McCoy), James Howlett (better known as Wolverine), Anne Shirley (a.k.a. Anne of Green Gables), Chris Hadfield (the astronaut), Rush, Barenaked Ladies, Great Big Sea, dinosaurs, Black Velvet whisky, the Devil's Brigade, lentils, Swedish Fish, and some of the friendliest, politest people on the face of the Earth.
• BRAZIL: Great barbecue, oddly-named mountains, and the best jungles and parties (and jungle parties) anywhere.
• BOLIVIA: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid got zonked down there, didn't they?
• URUGUAY: It's all about the tango.
• KENYA: I know Tanzania, Mozambique, and some of the other countries have amazing biodiversity, natural beauty and safaris, but whenever I think "East Africa," my mind just leaps to Kenya. Craters, rhinoceroses, the Serengeti, poaching problems, and now some election brouhaha. And a spectacular John Wayne movie.
• SOUTH AFRICA: Let's move past the bit with the apartheid and get into Sharlto Copley, J.R.R. Tolkien, Basil Rathbone, Manfred Mann, Candice Swanepoel, and that sweet movie Zulu with Michael Caine. Just please don't mention Dave Mathews. We don't mention Dave Mathews on this blog.  
• LESOTHO: See RHODE ISLAND above.
• EGYPT: Revolutions. Pyramids. Rivers. Desert. Camels. Political turmoil. And they have their own version of The Daily Show.
• MOROCCO: I only know where it is 'cause I watch Bogart films. 
• CROATIA: It gave the world Serious Sam, so it can't be all bad, can it?
• RUSSIA: I was born five years before the Berlin Wall fell, but I'd venture to guess that my generation's the first one that doesn't think "Commie bastards" whenever we hear the word "Russia." That doesn't mean I trust Putin or the KGB, but I sure would like to visit the country, ride their trains, drink their vodka, walk over their bridges, and so forth. Oh, and see St. Petersburg in the wintertime.
• FRANCE: The other place an aspiring artist or writer might go besides California.
• ICELAND: All of the wintry fun of Canada or Alaska with none of the urban sprawl.  
• ENGLAND: Sorry, did I say Canada was guilty of cultural snobbery?! Though that could just be Londoners. Seriously, some of my best friends are from England. I wouldn't mind retiring to Newcastle someday, having fish and chips down by the quayside, a pint in the Turk's Head, then a walk 'round the priory and a pipe-smoke on the point. Geordies rock.
• SCOTLAND: It gave us Scotch whisky, haggis, Robert Burns, Ian Anderson, and some of the world's finest and hardiest soldiers. I think a good many wars would have been lost without a few good Scotsmen.
• IRELAND: The setting of another rather good John Wayne movie. If you don't think about the Troubles, you can get lost in the whiskey, the beer, the corned beef and cabbage, the stew, the River Liffey, James Joyce and the wild Irish countryside. Gotta love Chloë Agnew and Liam Neeson, too.
• GERMANY: Efficiency. And cake. And philosophy. And awe-inspiring classical music.
• SPAIN: Sunshine. And beautiful horses. Architecture to die for. Paella. Soccer. Bulls, and a lot of sports that shouldn't be combined with bulls. And tomato-chucking. 
• SWITZERLAND: Americans voted it the best place to go if you're trying to escape from a German prison camp. I've heard they make pretty good watches and toys, too. 
• INDIA: Outsourcing. Overpopulation. Sacred cows. Fascinating religions. Fantastic architecture. Pollution. Garbage in the streets. People pooping in public. The Ganges River, which I wouldn't dunk my worst enemy in.
• VIETNAM: The site of a rather nasty and unconventional war. Now home to gorgeous waterfalls, delectable cuisine, a generation of suspiciously blond-haired Vietnamese, and tons of unexploded ordnance.
• CHINA: Big. Really big. Filled with people. Controlled by a Communist government. Mao's noggin is everywhere. Still, even though fat guys go topless in public and toddlers poop in the streets, the trains run on time and the countryside is undeniably gorgeous.
• JAPAN: My knowledge beforehand was mostly limited to World War II, anime and manga. Now I see the country through the Korean lens, and that colors my perception a bit. It's definitely one of Asia's bright stars, a broad, clean, polite and user-friendly country. But its foreign-relations record is a black mark in its ledger.
• SOUTH KOREA: Before I came to live here, I knew the name of the capital and that the country got snow in winter. That's it. Now I know that, despite the bali bali culture that grinds students and salarymen into the ground, Korea has elevated itself from a smoking crater to one of the most prosperous, bright, advanced and innovative nations on the planet. The people, though bound by millennia of tradition and rigid societal and behavioral mores, are some of the most friendly and unconditionally kind folks I've ever encountered.
• NORTH KOREA: If you're ever in need of a good laugh, just look up some of their propaganda.
• AUSTRALIA: Deserts, mountains, jungles, forests, beaches, great music, good actors, some fantastic sports (and sports players), architectural wonders, storied history, a charming accent and some of the weirdest animals to be found.
• NEW ZEALAND: Like some weird mix of England, Iceland, and Hawaii. But it did give us Peter Jackson, Lucy Lawless, Karl Urban and Bruce Spence, and some lovely glaciers.
• ANTARCTICA:  Snow. Ice. More snow. More ice. Mountains. Volcanoes. Rocks. More snow. More ice. Frigid seas. Storms. Penguins. Blubber. Jules Verne, H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, and every other adventure or horror writer who ever needed a remote, bleak, barren, ice-blasted place to set a secret base or an eldritch abomination.

the seven-month itch

I have a tendency to seed my writings—and my blog titles—with references to classic novels, well-known poems and pop culture arcana. You know, just to see if you guys are on your mental toes. And to give you food for thought, of course. And to show the world what a well-read and culturally aware fellow I am. The title of this blog post was based on a noteworthy 1955 film...do I really have to say it?

The new semester has begun at work, and I'm adjusting to new faces, new classes and a new course load. I have a fuller schedule this time around. We've lost a few teachers. So many people have departed that the very character of the academy is changing. First it was Chris, the fellow I used to watch movies with on Wednesday nights. We'd barely gotten the tradition started when he up and left for mainland Asia. His replacement is a lovely woman from Connecticut whom Miss H and I have been glad to hang around with.

A couple of our teaching assistants (young Korean adults who do odd jobs like copying, filing, and errands) have left too. One of them went off to Turkey for a few months, and the other's going back to university while he waits for his girlfriend to get done backpacking through Europe. Terrible shame—they were wonderful souls.

And now it's M&E, the head native teachers ("native" meaning "native English speaker"—they're from England). Their last day was Friday. They've been working at Avalon for the better part of five years. Their retirement was an emotional affair—they've watched many of these students grow up. They started teaching them in elementary school and ushered them up all the way to high school. Wow. I mean, I forge bonds with some of my students, but one year isn't enough to make those bonds more than transient. I've dropped out of contact with all but one of my old Geoje pupils (tell ya sorry). But M&E are leaving five years of pure history behind. I wish them luck.

All this talk of departures and new horizons has got me wondering. I used to think it was the bee's knees, living here in Korea. I felt like a seasoned world traveler. Things felt so different here—the language, the culture, the food, the whole nine yards. That was just my inexperience talking. I see that now. Any country, from Canada to Mozambique, would have qualified as an exciting travel destination as long as it wasn't U.S. soil. I just needed to be away from my homeland and discover new things. Korea was a good place to start.

Lately, though, I've begun to think that I've discovered all that Korea has to offer. I'll grant you there's a hundred things in the guidebook that I haven't seen. And a mere two or three years isn't enough to know a place, even a country as small as K-Land. But I've begun to think that this place just isn't different enough. Except for its geographical location, its language and its history, Korea is virtually indistinguishable from a Western nation—particularly the United States. It's got Internet. It's got computers and cell phones (they call them "handphones" here, but what the hell). It's got cars galore. They drive on the left side of the road, too. There's a highway system. There's traffic lights. There's skyscrapers. There's Internet cafés. There's department stores. There's name brands like Converse and Tommy Hilfiger. There's movie theaters, complete with buttered popcorn and 3D screens. There's English-language bookstores. There's McDonald's, Burger King, Quiznos, Subway, Taco Bell. They even have MTV, for Pete's sake.

I feel like my taste in travel destinations has matured, somewhat. I don't need all the comforts of home (and a stamp in my passport) to feel like a seasoned world traveler. Increasingly, I feel the need to get away from the trappings of Western civilization: television, designer clothing, fast food, six-lane boulevards, subway trains, computers, cell phones, pop music. I want to escape. I want to fly the coop. I want to lose myself in the bush, decompress by a crystal lake somewhere with a flask of whiskey and a book (a paper book, thank you very much).

Maybe I've been in the big city too long. I've lived in Bucheon for nearly five months and I still haven't gotten the chance to get away into the countryside. I've made a few trips to the DMZ, but apart from that, I haven't budged from the Seoul metropolitan area. Then again, I don't have anywhere to go. Korea does have some nice national parks, but they take ages to get to. You can't just drive for an hour or two like you can in the States, find yourself in the deserted countryside, sit down and have a picnic.

It's more than that. I don't just want to get away from the city. I want to get away from civilization itself. I've had it up to here with processed foods and noisy copy machines and American politics. I'm done; get me out of here. I want to shop at a Vietnamese market, listen to a beat-up old radio in a ramshackle bar in East Africa, take a nap under a tree in some Patagonian village. Remove myself from technology, world events. Find someplace quiet. Get off the grid. Take a hike. Move off the beaten path. Be incognito for a while.

This is actually a fairly typical phenomenon for expatriate teachers in Korea. Roughly halfway through their year-long hitch, they get itchy feet. They get restless. They get antsy. That, or they go the opposite direction, becoming lethargic, irritable, listless. The humdrum banality of their daily routine gets into their heads, and the cramped conditions on this tiny peninsula exacerbate the situation.

I'm no exception. I find myself Googling pictures of exotic, natural locales like the Atlas Mountains, Anatolia, the Hindu Kush, or Siberia. I feel anxious to be out on the road. I resent being stuck here in the city, going to work 2-10, with hardly a vacation day in sight.

S'pose I'll have to get through it somehow. I'll let you know how it goes.

Here's a tip: reading travel books doesn't help.

random travel destinations - Bolivia

You can't go wrong with South America. Well, okay, you can. There are certain bits of Brazil you should stay away from, and I wouldn't touch Colombia or Venezuela with a ten-foot pole. Aside from that, there are few places you can go in South America that aren't insanely interesting.

Take Bolivia, for example. I don't know much about the place, except what I've read in National Geographic. I know that the women there wear funny hats. I know that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid went down there to hide when the Pinkerton Detective Agency drove them out of the States. I know it's a very high country, being stuck halfway up the Andes like that. La Paz, I've heard, is the highest capital in the world.

But that's as may be. What I'm really interested in is the place where La Paz sits—the Altiplano. Meaning "high plain" in Spanish, it's a plateau nestled among the Andes mountains. It's the remains of the bed of a gigantic lake dating from the Pleistocene, of which Lake Titicaca is a remnant. The climate is semiarid,with little rainfall, extremes of temperature, and animals with lungs the size of forge bellows. For all of Asia's forests and jungles, for all of Africa's plains and mountains, for all of Australia's deserts...South America calls to me. It's the nameless allure of the New World, the unexplored land, the unknown continent. The bleakest volcanic barrens and the lushest of tropical woodland are found there, and everything in between. The culture is rich. The languages are diverse. The flora and fauna are among the most bizarre on Earth. The place is utterly open, utterly wild, utterly fascinating to me. Bolivia sounds like a good place to start and work outward in an ever-widening spiral. Bolivia to Ecuador (got friends in Quito), to Cuzco (once the stronghold of the Inca), up to the Amazon, back down to Patagonia, to French Guiana, to Uruguay (Montevideo's the best place to learn to tango), to Tierra del Fuego (the literal ends of the earth), and finally to Valparaiso, Chile, perhaps to embark on Kon-Tiki's ancient sun-washed voyage across the South Pacific, to Easter Island and beyond, to Polynesia.

Someday, maybe.