a day in San Francisco

In case you didn't know, I'm back. Back in the U.S.A. Cue the music. 

I flew from Seoul (Incheon) to San Francisco on Wednesday, January 7. My flight departed at 8:15 in the morning, and arrived at 9:30 AM. Ain't that International Date Line wonderful?

My parents met me at the airport and we made a day of it in San Francisco. I didn't get too many pictures (blame the reverse culture shock), but we had lunch at the Old Clam House (est. 1861), saw the Golden Gate Bridge, rode the cable cars, checked out Chinatown and Fisherman's Wharf, and ate some lip-smackin' seafood. 

The sheaves (pronounced "shivs") upon which the cables were strung.

Alcatraz, as if you didn't know.

The view from the Chinatown Hilton at dawn. 

I spent a couple of days at my parents' place near Sacramento, and then I packed everything into my old Jeep and drove 589 miles south to Henderson, Nevada (just southeast of Las Vegas). Miss H and I were reunited after four long months, and to celebrate we went and cleaned out Wal-Mart's do-it-yourself furniture aisle. I've been job-hunting, assembling bookcases, job-hunting, making random runs to Target and Bed, Bath, & Beyond, job-hunting, eyeing all the marvelous BOOZE and BEER at Total Wine & More, job-hunting, learning how to drive again, job-hunting, going to the gym, job-hunting, writing, job-hunting, reading, and basically trying to stay productive and sane. And job-hunting. 

And mixing cocktails. Which leads me to my next post...

why I hate Singapore

Apart from the stinking heat and humidity, the enforced sterility of the streets, the craven pandering to foreign investors and tourists, the banal plague of trendy Western department stores and fast-food chains, the parsimonious pedagoguery of the government, and the ridiculous expense...

...there were three things about Singapore I truly despised. 

First, this was the name of one of the Chinese restaurants near the check-in counters at Changi Airport:

Second, Changi Airport itself. The first thing that struck me about the place (apart from the above sign) was the lack of a security checkpoint. I obtained my boarding passes, got an exit stamp in my passport, and boom: there I was in the concourse. I turned left and walked to my gate. It was about ten o'clock in the evening and there wasn't much activity in the duty-free shops or coffeehouses. Most folks were curled up in the darkened departure lounges, several of which had fully-reclining seats. Snores, grumbles, and muted conversation permeated the recirculated air, making me feel like I was creeping through a dormitory after lights-out. 

Then I noticed that there were glass walls enclosing each gate, which could only be accessed through thick double doors (also of glass), behind each of which was a miniature security checkpoint. 

Ah, I remember thinking. Now that is nifty. Instead of waiting in an endless queue with everyone else in the damn airport, you'll only be waiting in line with the people aboard your particular flight. 

Then I sat down and tried to access the Internet. 

Now, I know what you're going to say. What a spoiled, privileged little white brat, hung up on his First World problems. No Internet, boo-hoo-hoo. Man up and read a book or something, chickenshit. 

And you'd be justified in saying that. But I'll declare, here and now, that the cussed Internet provided a vital link between me and (a) my lonely fiancée and (b) my terrified parents. Okay, maybe not terrified. But definitely leery of some the places I'd be passing through. I'd agreed, like any good son, to keep in close contact with my folks during my 27-day jaunt through Southeast Asia, e-mailing them whenever I arrived at or departed a new bailiwick. Even Paul Theroux phones home on occasion. Sue me. 

I couldn't access the Internet at Changi Airport. 

Why? 

Because the password could only be found on placards hung upon the wall of the departure gate. On the other side of those locked glass doors. Which wouldn't open until 12:50 a.m., an hour before our departure time. You could have the codes texted to your phone, but I didn't have a phone. 

This was tyranny, plain and simple. In any American or Korean airport you could breeze through security two or three hours beforehand and then laze around the concourse, surfing the Web, drinking coffee, eating unhealthy snacks, and splattering your smelly body, your grubby coat, your crumpled hat, and your electronic gadgetry over an entire row of benches. 

Apparently they frown on that sort of thing in Singapore. 

My American sensibilities were offended on the deepest of levels. Up to that point I had patiently put up with the pettifogging Singaporeans and their absurd laws: the bans against spitting and chewing gum and graffiti and the ridiculous fines for littering and not flushing public toilets. But this was simply too much. The prejudice leveled against some saphead tourist who showed up to Changi Airport with an iPad and no cell phone three hours early for his flight, who just wanted to contact his loved ones and let them know that he wasn't sitting in some whorehouse in Johor Bahru, shooting heroin and contracting all sorts of blood-borne diseases, was outrageous.

When the security agents finally did open up those thick glass doors and started letting us through security, the final nail was driven into Singapore's coffin. I had a grooming kit in my backpack. It wasn't expensive or irreplaceable by any means, but it had been a treasured gift from my parents—a tacit acknowledgement that I was a man, and was capable of looking after myself on my own. In it was a pair of beard-trimming scissors. I had successfully passed through security at Gimpo Airport with those very same scissors. There was no reason whatsoever for the svelte, fruity-voiced Indian lady in the blue button-down shirt and black tie and slacks to pull me out of line. But she did. She ordered me to empty my bag. She confiscated several bottles of suntan lotion which were too large. That was fine by me; I'd plumb forgot they were in there. But then she ordered me to open the grooming kit. I unzipped the small black leather case an opened it like a book, holding it out for her to see. I was writhing with impatience. The entire contents of my pack were scattered across the cold, hard, unfeeling stainless steel of the exam table, and my fellow passengers were scooting impatiently past me to get into the lounge proper. I felt naked, like someone had pantsed me in public. I was anxious to sit down, jack in, and contact home. I was half-crazed with outrage. 

"You cannot take these aboard the plane," said the security agent, her sultry eyes sunk deeply into their sockets, caked with mascara and purple eye shadow beneath plucked eyebrows, snatching the beard-trimming scissors and waggling them under my nose. 

It was then, ladies and gentlemen, that the Vaunter did something he has never, ever done in his entire life. He questioned authority. 

"Why not?" I demanded. "They're mine. They belong to me. I brought them through other airports' security lines just fine." 

"Well, I'm sorry," she said, sounding as sincere as anyone else who has to say "sorry" eighty billion times a day in their line of work. "But I cannot allow you to bring these aboard." 

"Why?" I demanded. I again brought up the other airports which had so freely and eagerly allowed me to pass, beard-trimming scissors in hand. I battled her for five minutes over those beard-trimming scissors. She kept repeating the same dull old lines. No can do. Can't be allowed. Couldn't possibly. She at least had the decency not to claim that the tiny half-inch scissor blades could be used as weapons, perhaps in a desperate bid to take over the plane and crash it into the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. Finally, understanding that I was making no headway, and would probably have to take a different flight if I kept this malarkey up, I relented. 

"Well, all right then," I said, grudgingly, sounding exactly like my dad did when I was a kid and I did something idiotic in his presence that he was powerless to halt or avert. 

I began to give the Indian lady my address, so she could mail the scissors to me. She looked confused for a moment, and then she interrupted. 

"No, no, no," she said. "No mail. Confiscation." 

I stood there for a moment, blinking, not comprehending. From way deep down in my brain, there was the sound like a twig snapping in the woods on a dark, frozen, snowy night.

"What?" I asked. "You're confiscating them?"

"Yes," she said, moving away to deposit my things in a bin, but (wisely) not turning her back to me. 

"But they're my scissors."

"We cannot mail them to you. They are being confiscated."

"What's going to happen to them?" 

"I don't know." 

Both of us knew perfectly well. Incineration, probably. Garbage. Waste. Somehow I didn't see Singapore as being the kind of place that would have an Unclaimed Baggage Center. 

"Those are my property, miss," I huffed. I was riding high. The anger endorphins were pulsing through my brain and veins, lifting me higher than the plane I was about to board. I'd never, ever challenged a security agent at an airport, or an authority figure of any kind, really. It was intoxicating. I felt powerful. I felt manly. I felt assertive. And I felt truculent. The more adamant and insurmountable the wall of red tape and bureaucratic posturing erected before me was, the harder I wanted to push against it, headbutt it, knock it down, crumbling and tumbling. 

"Why?" I demanded, my voice calm and clear and cool like a freshwater spring, but with a welter of venomous alkali beneath it. "Why can't you mail them back to me? Why are you confiscating my property?" 

She raised her arms, spread her hands out wide in a full-body shrug. 

"It's Singapore!" she declared, with a faint smile, a pathetic attempt at mollification—or perhaps admission of guilt. It was the sheepish grin of a thief caught red-handed, a shy junior member of a gang of thugs being cross-examined in the dock. 

And in that moment, I saw the futility of my enterprise. The wall was too high and too thick. For the briefest instant I was able to step outside of myself, outside Changi Airport, outside Singapore, and see it as I had from the highest reaches of the Flyer the previous evening—the whole cockamamie place with its dumbass laws and its indentured populace. Poor buggers, I mused. I looked at the Indian woman, her arms outstretched and her shoulders hunched, looking like some stupid scarecrow inexpertly nailed up. 

I said, "Fine." I slapped my lobotomized grooming kit shut and zipped it up. I crammed the disemboweled guts of my pack back inside and lugged the thing off the heavy steel table. I didn't give the security agent another glance. In the time it had taken for us to have our little chinwag, practically every other passenger had gone through, and every seat in the lounge was now taken. I plonked myself on the floor, took out the iPad, checked in with everyone at home, and in twenty minutes it was boarding time. I sat and sulked during the entire four-hour flight to Hong Kong. 

And that, ladies and gents, is why I hate Singapore.

30 Days to a Better Man, Day 19: schedule a physical exam

I've been so wrapped up in this challenge that I've neglected to tell you about the other noteworthy happenings in my life. There've been a few. I still have to explain my Hokkaido itinerary. My beard's thickening up nicely. I may have a new line on finding the location of the army base where my grandpa was stationed during the Korean War. Most importantly, I've decided to take the bull by the horns and find a literary agent for Novel #1. I'm a third of the way into the final edit/proofread; when I finish I'll start sending query letters. "Exciting" simply does not describe it.

But I'll explain all that later. Let's get back to the subject of manliness.

I can't remember the last time I had a complete physical checkup. I think it was after I got back from Korea in 2009. That was almost five years ago, and according to The Art of Manliness, it's time for me to go back and get another one.

But there's a problem.

It's not that I don't trust Korean doctors. Far from it. They've helped me out a lot. They saved my life in September. I had tonsillitis and a 104-degree fever, and the capable folks at Asan Medical Center in Songpa-gu put me to rights.

But there are minute differences in the medical practices between East and West. Korean doctors believe some things that American practitioners don't, and vice-versa. There's also the language barrier to consider. Most Korean physicians are at least halfway fluent in English, but some of them have accents as thick as cold butter. I want to understand the diagnosis when it's given to me. Completely.

So I think, in spite of the interminable wait and the added cost (thanks, Obamacare), that I'll wait until I get home to the States to have a physical.

I'm still meeting the parameters of the challenge, never fear. Today's goal is to schedule a physical exam. That's precisely what I'm doing. I'm just scheduling it for March 2015. It's going down on my invisible calendar. [scribble] There. All done.

What I will do as soon as possible is schedule appointments with a dentist and an optometrist. I haven't had my teeth looked at or professionally cleaned in ages. And it's been a year since I got this latest pair of glasses, so I suspect it's time to get my subscription updated. I'm going to be staring at screens a lot this winter: editing manuscripts, typing up novels and short stories, reading other peoples' work (sorry, Olivia, I'm going to finish that dang story of yours if it kills me) and blogging about Japan. So I'd better make sure my spectacles are up to the challenge.

Pull up a stump for Day 20...  

30 Days to a Better Man, Day 3: find a mentor

Easy day today! I think I've already found one. This is a recent thing, so don't accuse me of dredging up some mentor from the dim and distant past. He's a fellow I work with at Sejong University. Let's call him Mr. G. 

It's convenient that I elected him my mentor, because I disapprove of the list of steps that AoM put on their website. A mentor is not something you ask for. You don't obtain a mentor via verbal contract. It just happens. You start a relationship with someone older and more experienced than you: a coworker, or a neighbor, or a grizzled veteran at the corner bar, and bam. There you go. You're being mentored. Nobody has to come out and ask "Hey, will you be my mentor?" That kind of thing only happens in martial arts movies. 

Before I go into Mr. G's qualifications, let's see if I can think of all the mentors I've had in my life (besides the obvious, of course: my parents).

I didn't really have a mentor in the Boy Scouts, I'm afraid. That was one of the reasons I quit. It was like a big frat party all the time, with just as much hazing, peer pressure and ostracism.

I can't really think of any professors or older students in high school or college who mentored me, either. Most of my teachers (even the ones I liked) were just too darn liberal for me. And most of the students were either immature or not worth listening to, or both.

I've had several shooting instructors and athletic coaches throughout my life who came close to mentoring me, but never made the cut because I didn't know them well enough or see them often enough.

Fortunately for me, the world of aviation is the perfect place to find a mentor. And that's probably where I picked up my first one: Joe, or J-1 as he's been called on this blog. If you follow the link I posted, you'll see his qualifications laid out, chapter and verse. He looked out for me when I worked as a drone-chaser. He made me a better flier. He paid for lunches, pitched for me when my job or wages were in peril, and protected me from dangers both literal and figurative.

Mr. G is a different sort of mentor. I'm still a young man, but I'm an older young man. I'll be 28 this year. I don't need the same kind of mentoring I did when I was a kid. I've been around the block a bit. I'm not the scared, shy, inexperienced saphead I once was. Confidence and skill are not what I crave as a mentee. I crave maturity. Grace. Serenity. Wisdom. The restoration of my faith in my fellow man.

That's exactly what Mr. G is good for. He and I eat lunch together every Tuesday and Thursday. He is a serene and gentle fellow, a man of peace and wisdom. Speaking with him is immensely calming. I always feel like my day is brighter after having a discussion with him. I don't share everything with him, but if there's some work- or lifestyle-related problem on my mind, I'll get his opinion. He never fails to put me at ease. Why, you ask? Because he's not negative. He's a positive influence. He doesn't apologize for people, nor justify the unjust; he merely has good reasons why I shouldn't let the hard knocks get me down. He's never insistent with his advice or belligerent with his counsel. He offers the simple truth. He puts a refreshing, upbeat perspective on things which I, in my blue funk, hadn't considered before.

It's no surprise that Mr. G is good at this sort of thing. Before he was a professor, he was a pastor. He's a very devout man, a loving father and devoted husband. He moved his family from their homeland to Korea due to rampant crime and economic hardship. That takes a fair bit of courage and determination, that. Mr. G is a hard worker, striving daily to support his family and keep them comfortable. I have had the privilege of observing Mr. G in both fair weather and foul, and at all times he has remained true to his faith, steadfast in his determination, and dedicated to the safety and happiness of his loved ones. Moreover he treats his students with respect and fatherly attention, making sure they each get a fair shake. He's willing to go to great lengths to ensure that they get the best education possible, and has done so on several occasions.

That alone would make Mr. G an admirable fellow and worthy of approbation. But it's that serenity of his, his reluctance to condemn or harangue his fellow man, his tact and his humility which really won me over. A good man makes you think, "Neat-o. He's a cool dude." A great man makes you think, "Wow, I want to be like him." That's Mr. G for you. His patience and composure are inspiring. I can be a pretty temperamental guy, and the gallantry and graciousness of my elders is something to which I aspire. So Mr. G, I believe, is the perfect mentor for me.

I had the privilege of spending part of Christmas Day at Mr. G's pad. He had graciously invited Miss H and me to Christmas dinner with his extended family, so I was able to see his bright, well-kept home and meet all his lovely relatives (including his young daughter, who just recovered from a nasty bout of appendicitis). We spent a wonderful time there, chatting and drinking wine and nibbling on his wife's delicious trifle. I was ever so glad to have had the chance to spend a little time outside the hustle and bustle of work with Mr. G and his clan and share a cup of good cheer and some friendly banter. And I'm looking forward to this next year of working (and commiserating) alongside the good fellow.

Keep an eye out for Day 4... 

30 Days to a Better Man, Day 2: shine your shoes

from Flickr

Thank goodness I have a father who has nice shoes and takes care of them, and taught me how to shine properly. This daily challenge was a breeze.

I followed the instructions in AoM's article to the letter, right down to the swabbing-with-rubbing-alcohol-to-rid-the-shoes-of-any-dirt-jammed-into-cracks-along-with-the-old-polish bit. I didn't do every pair I own; my black Oxfords are secure in their dust-free box, waiting for me to trot out my best (and only) three-piece suit. Not to mention that it's already 11:19 p.m. and I want to finish this challenge before midnight. I got up at nine o'clock and left the house at noon to head to Yangcheon-gu to brew beer with Brant and Joseph and we watched Hatari! and drank beer and had a great time and I only just got home —

Hold on a minute. This is sounding like an excuse. Integrity is one of the values I put down yesterday. So I went to the trouble of digging the Oxfords out of their hidey-hole and looking 'em over. They didn't need shining. Honestly. They didn't.

So, to business. I got out the bottle of rubbing alcohol that I normally use for cleaning my pipe...

 ...and my trusty old six-piece shoe polish kit from Target, given to me many moons ago by my parents as a Christmas gift (and never used)...

...and got straight to work. I've shined shoes before, so I wasn't bumbling my way along. The time flew by. I didn't have Blue Lincoln Wax that the article recommends, but I buffed and buffed until the shoes shined. See the results for yourself:

Stick around for Day 3!

the Facebook parabola

We've just reached the peak of it.

I reckon I know when I'll be coming back into the fold: December 18.

I'm sitting here, sucking on a glass of Black Velvet (which I totally forgot I had until I did that post about how I see the world). There's a super-duper thunderstorm going on outside. It's only about 44 degrees and the rain is just pounding. This stuff must have started out as snow. Either way, it's bad news for all the homeless folks in Seoul right now. I hope they got to cover, especially the legless and armless ones. 'Tain't a fit night out for man nor beast.

With the idyllic evening in full swing, I figured, hell: why not give you guys a progress report?

I picked the above date for a couple of reasons which seemed pertinent at the time. Number One, it'll be the two-month mark. Exactly. Dead-on. Sixty days (more or less) without Facebook. Seems like a sound number. More than enough to break a habit, right? I can already tell the difference. There's a big change. I feel like my Internet use is healthier, I spend less time staring at screens, and I do more cool stuff outside the apartment now. I hardly miss my little blue friend anymore. My right hand has quit moving of its own volition. The only symptom that remains is that incessant urge to put my latest pithy platitude or ribald observation up in your news feeds. I might not resist that temptation, though. Folks I know on Facebook seem to enjoy them platitudes. I've actually gone so far as to make a list of witty Facebook statuses to put up retroactively when I get back on in a month.

Hmm...maybe I'm not as cured as I thought.

The second reason is that NaNoWriMo will be well over by mid-December. I want to make sure I finish that up (and have some time to keep going afterward).

Third: the fall semester will be done with. Final exams will be completed. I'll be in the midst of grading them, sure, but the daily madness of regular class will be past.

Fourth: I kind of need to be back on Facebook before I finish grading and go off to Australia and Hokkaido. Then I can put up all my lovely photos and make you saps jealous. There are some people I'm planning to rendezvous with while out on the road, too, and Facebook would greatly facilitate that process. I hate to admit it, but my little blue friend is good for something.

So there you go. Get set for my triumphant return, Facebook. I'm comin'. I hope to see you all at the reunion party.

I'm not doing NaNoWriMo this year

...and that's that.

For the past few weeks I've thought long and hard about what to do for National Novel Writing Month. I did it last year with great success, as you know. I banged out about 1500 words a day and finished well past the 50,000-word minimum. On the heels of that success, it behooves me to follow up with another project.

But sink me if I can think of one.

And it's not just the lack of inspiration, either. I'm just busy. Honestly busy.

You know all the other times I said I was busy on this blog? Too busy to write? I was whistling Dixie. I have been hustling these past few weeks. The administration and grading of midterm exams has taken up a lot of my time. I just got the last batch put into the university computer system a few minutes ago, in fact. But there's also household chores, beer-brewing (still need to tell you about the second batch) and whatnot. Miss H and I didn't even get to ride the O-Train like we wanted to last weekend. And even though we joined a gym last Wednesday, we've only been once. For three days we were recovering from soreness, the weekend was hectic and this Monday just finished us off—swamped us. Miss H has laundry to do, groceries to buy and a ton of frozen breakfast burritos to make, while I have dishes to wash, Charlie's litter box to clean, and those aforementioned midterms to input (not in that order). Our apartment's a cluttered, dusty mess. Aside from the usual clothes, trinkets, loose change, receipts, scribbled notes and cordage, there's also three half-filled parcels waiting to be taped up and sent off home. We need to get this place whipped into shape, 'cause I still haven't baptized it with the requisite cocktail party.

Oh, and I did I mention the deluge of condensation that's collecting out on the veranda? Or that my favorite great uncle died two days ago of acute pancreatitis?

Yeah. The world's gone nuts.

My current works-in-progress are taking up my attention as well. I feel like Mugunghwa (the 52,000-word novel I wrote last November) is almost ready. I like it, finally. It looks good. Should be ready for e-publishing by the end of 2013. As for Novel #1, a few tweaks will set it to rights. Then I can start shopping it to publishers in 2014.

So no NaNo this year.

What I will do, however, just to keep pace with Miss H (who is doing it, and more power to her), is start up Novel #4.

Yeah, yeah. I know. Novel #3 is only sixty-eight percent complete. Sue me. I know exactly where it's going. I planned this shit out. I know right where Novel #3 will end, and where Novel #4 will begin. This was Miss H's suggestion, actually. And it's brilliant. Why not start my fourth novel, the third volume of my magnum opus? I might as well get the drop on it. I can easily mow down 50,000 words of it by the end of November. Something tells me it's going to be more fun to write than the previous two. Every book in the series will be more fun to write than the last. And, hopefully, more fun to read.

But I'll let you be the judge of that.

preconceptions about China

No word yet on that nightly journal I'm supposed to be keeping. Be that as it may, I have some thoughts to share with you.

I'm researching China, particularly the eats, and I'm getting really jazzed about this little four-day jaunt. But some unsettling questions remain in my mind.

I have mixed feelings about China.

The government, not its citizens, mind you. So far I've found that people are people, no matter where you go. But China, and her communist leaders, have done some things that I find difficult to swallow. The country's history is more checkered than the flag at the NASCAR finish line. I'm trying real hard to be objective here, but I am and always was a subjective bugger, and that usually filters through to my perceptions about other places. Some of these issues that I have with China and its history are seeping in around the loose edges of my consciousness, and I have to get them off my chest before they're diluted by experience.

The first thing that comes to mind when I think of China, of course, is the color red. Communism. Mao Zedong. The Great Leap Forward. Josef Stalin, Kim Il-sung, Pol Pot, and other prominent communist dictators who've influenced or been influenced by China and its politics.

I have a problem with communism. What's good for the goose isn't always good for the gander. I get that. China has a different moral code, a different work ethic, a different societal paradigm and a much different history than America or any other Western state. But still: the idea of communism itself seems, to me, fundamentally flawed and diseased. In my mind, human beings were not meant to exist in classless, moneyless, stateless societies. I'm no social Darwinist; there's times when I've despaired of the ossification of class in Western society and its total dependence on currency. But there's no denying that capitalism and competition encourage hard work and innovation. That, to me, seems preferable to the alternative: a society focused on production (at the expense of intellectualism)—a breeding ground for conformity, mediocrity, and stagnation, in which the group is superior to the individual.

Whether or not that's what's happened in China is debatable, because of the second problem I have with the place:

They're not even doing communism right.

I remember penning a passionate article about this in my high school's literary magazine back in 2002 or thereabouts. One of the basic tenets of communist theory is that the people have control, and that's that. Society is stateless: there is little to no concentration of power, no overarching authority. This is what makes North Korea's proper name so laughable: the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" is four lies in one. It's anything but democratic, inasmuch as the power is held by one family and one family only, with the mere pretense of choice on the part of the people. The citizens do not own the means of production, nor do they have any say in the government—the Great/Dear/Outstanding Leader does. The definition of the word "republic" is a state in which political affairs are public matters and not the private concern of the rulers; as I pointed out before, the people have about as much say in (or knowledge of) political affairs in North Korea as do chipmunks or cucumbers. And finally, "of Korea" implies that the DPRK considers itself the rightful government of the entire peninsula, which is about as horrifying as it is hilarious.

Not my photo. This is China, not North Korea.

Though China's human rights record is far from spotless (I'll get to that in a minute), they at least seem to have empowered their citizens to a greater degree than the Hermit Kingdom. Even so, power is centralized and concentrated in Beijing, which means that the "stateless" part of communism is being openly flouted. Moreover, even a superficial glance at China's economy and society reveals that it is neither moneyless nor classless. At best this makes the Chinese government hypocritical; at worst, it makes them dishonest. I have no use for dishonest people—let alone a dishonest political system.

Setting that aside, let's talk about the biggest bee in my bonnet about China: human rights.

Here's a little preamble from Amnesty International's website:

Amnesty International has documented widespread human rights violations in China. An estimated 500,000 people are currently enduring punitive detention without charge or trial, and millions are unable to access the legal system to seek redress for their grievances. Harassment, surveillance, house arrest, and imprisonment of human rights defenders are on the rise, and censorship of the Internet and other media has grown. Repression of minority groups, including Tibetans, Uighurs and Mongolians, and of Falun Gong practitioners and Christians who practice their religion outside state-sanctioned churches continues. While the recent reinstatement of Supreme People's Court review of death penalty cases may result in lower numbers of executions, China remains the leading executioner in the world.

Possibly I was biased by being born in a country where freedom of speech and freedom of the press actually mean something, are protected by a constitution (the supreme and inviolable law of the land), and are sacrosanct in the hearts and minds of the people. Thus it shocks me when I hear that the Internet is heavily censored in China, with social media sites like Facebook being routinely shut down or blocked. The Propaganda Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) is indefatigable at censoring news reports and filtering what information the people receive. The Chinese government is enormous, inefficient, bureaucratic, and callous. Petitioners cannot easily seek redress of grievances, and are often lost in the shuffle or crushed by the big wheels. The class system is not only extant but downright marginalizing, equal to anything seen in South Africa. In 2005, Jiang Wenran, acting director of the China Institute at the University of Alberta, stated that an apartheid-like segregation system was in effect in China. City-dwellers, he said, enjoy a wealth of social and economic perks while peasants, or "rural workers," are treated like second-class citizens. They require a portfolio of hard-to-obtain passes to work in provinces other than the ones in which they reside. Movement is restricted. Freedom of association is nonexistent, freedom of religion is a joke, and people are regularly stripped of their rights if they do something, anything, that causes the CPC to label them "subversive." And then of course there's the one-child policy. To me, a government that fines its citizens for having more than one kid is just plain tyrannical.

In addition to these documented transgressions, dark rumors abound of torture, brutality and degradation in China's arbitrary detention centers. Evidence has surfaced that Mao and his followers abused the science of psychiatry to their own political ends, declaring thousands of people mentally ill, thereby discrediting them. (Statistics hint that this practice continues to this day, especially in the persecution of practitioners of Falun Gong, which the CPC has branded undesirable.)

Besides all that, we have the official Chinese policy of refusing to acknowledge North Korean runaways as political refugees. Instead, China calls them "economic migrants," captures them and deports them back to North Korea, where, as we all know, they face separation, torture, "reeducation," forced labor and execution.

And speaking of North Korea, let's not forget that China has abetted the existence of that oppressive regime with food and electricity for nigh-on 60 years now. I have a bit of a problem with that as well. For all I know, Chinese soldiers might have killed some of my grandfather's best buddies back during the Korean War, too. So I'm a little ticked off at the country on my granddad's behalf, silly as that sounds.

And do I even need to mention Tibet?

Not my photo.

I don't like any of this. No way, no how.

What really sticks in my craw is that China does (or allegedly does) all of this stuff even after signing UN-sanctioned agreements saying that it won't do it. China signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, but never ratified it. So they just do whatever they please. Hell's donkeys.

In a nutshell, my preconceived notion of China is this: it's a country, a big country, with a huge population and a long and storied history, which in the 20th century had some tremendous political and societal upheavals, during which a rather unscrupulous man came to power, espousing communism and imposing his vision upon the country and its people with varying degrees of success. What we have now is a country used to be doing told what to do, which is really too big to regulate, whose citizens are finally starting to get fed up thanks to the unstoppable influx of Western technology (and with it, ideology), and whose ruling party has all but abandoned the proper pursuit of dogmatic communism in favor of a corrupt regime based on absolute power, suppression of dissent, a single-party state, and strict regulation of economics, society and human life, thereby blighting a nation and its sovereign dignity.

The Temple of Heaven, one of the things on my Beijing to-do list. From Wikimedia Commons.

So, yeah. I'll visit their country. I'll peruse their monuments. I'll stand in their square. I'll tour their palaces. I'll eat their nibbles. I'll breathe their air and sleep in their beds and watch them go about their lives. But that doesn't mean I have to like the way they run their business.

We'll see how much this trip changes my mind.

eating basashi (raw horse meat)

I hear you yammering out there.

"Why?"

"Why do it?"

"Why eat raw horse?"

I didn't know whether putting the phrase "raw horse meat" in the title of this post was a good idea or not. It might make you interested enough to read more, or it might turn you completely off and make you quit following this blog in disgust. Guess I'll take the chance. 

As for your question ("Why?"), all I can say is, Because it was there.

In Kumamoto, that is. Where I was  between August 6th and 8th. And you know me: if there's a weird food around, I'm going to try it. I've had pig intestines, alligator nuggets, ostrich burgers, live octopus, canned snails, squid jerky, lamb spleen, buffalo steak, beetle larvae, dried scorpion and cricket lollipops. I'm not about to quit now. When I heard that Kumamoto was famous for basashi, or horse sushi, I knew I just had to try it.

It was something of a family betrayal. My parents and (maternal) grandparents are all horse people. My grandfather, between fighting in the Korean War, raising four children and being a traveling veterinary supply salesman, had a humongous and gorgeous ranch in Grass Valley, about 30 minutes north of Sacramento in Placer County—the same county I was born in, actually. He raised Shetland ponies and later Clydesdale horses.

Please tell me you know what a Clydesdale is. You've seen them before. They're the Budweiser horses—and in fact, some of the ones Grandpa raised wound up being part of that famous Budweiser hitch in years past.

Clydesdales in New Zealand. From Wikimedia Commons.

My parents raised mustangs on their two-acre property in the Mojave Desert. Mustangs, just so you know, are feral horses descended from the Iberian breeds that escaped from the Spanish explorers hundreds of years ago. There are herds of 'em roaming around the wilds of Oklahoma, Nevada and Utah, hardy and wild. My folks would adopt them from the Bureau of Land Management's facility up in Ridgecrest and then truck them back to our spread in California: breaking them, training them and riding them around the desert.

Free-roaming mustangs in Arizona. From Wikimedia Commons.

So, naturally, when I told the folks back home that I was going to eat horse meat, their reaction was mixed. Mum has generally been quite supportive of me in my adventures (half-baked or no), but I understood why this would give her pause. I felt worse about the effect this knowledge would have on Gramp 'n' Gran, but I steeled myself. I knew I wouldn't rest until I'd sampled this stuff. I wasn't going to be disinherited, for Pete's sake. And you're only young once.

So, after getting back from Kumamoto Castle, I went to a big, well-lit shōtengai (shopping arcade) just west of the Shirakawa River, south of Ginza Street. I poked around, asking locals where the nearest basashi place was. After a few minutes, I found what seemed like a likely spot. I should have taken a picture of the façade before I went in, but I didn't. Trying to get one after I left only made the lens fog up. So you'll just have to imagine a tiny storefront with a customer service window, the plate-glass in the door, the red lanterns (the standard, well, standard for an after-work hangout that serves beer and snacks, known as an izakaya) and gaudy signs with curvy Japanese letters.

The interior was essentially the size of a walk-in closet. It might even have been smaller (I've been in some crazy walk-in closets). There was a long wooden counter where about seven or eight customers could rest comfortably, and a line of huge sake bottles arranged along the top. A tough, lean, competent-looking fellow lurked behind them, bustling about. After a brief look at the menu, during which it became apparent that I'd be forking over 1,500 yen for this, I ordered and settled in to wait. To give me something to do while he sliced up my horse meat, the owner gave me this to munch on:

I sipped beer, nibbled on bean-pods and watched TV, trying to look and feel like a competent, street-savvy world traveler. I lamented the fact that I couldn't see what the owner was doing; my view of his hands and his work was obscured by the counter and the plenitude of signage in front of me. I'd have loved to see my basashi take shape under the knife.

After a few more minutes, this cornucopia of buttery goodness appeared before me:

C'est pas vrai! Succulent slices of horse meat (two different cuts, no less), plus various condiments! What a feast!

I could have ordered another beer, but I thought I'd keep my palate—and my head—clear. And so I dug in. It was just as I had read: horse meat, particularly raw horse meat, is a great deal sweeter than other meats. It was firm as well, easy to chew and swallow. I don't think even a single piece became lodged between my teeth. It was downright delectable when dipped in soy sauce. I must say, I could have munched on the stuff for hours.

I even took a video. All it shows is my frizzy hair, blurry shots of the meat, and the TV blaring in the background. And me eating. I think you can imagine that without outside assistance.

Though satisfied in the most epistemological sense, I was still a bit peckish. So after I paid the bill and left the basashi shop, I sought out this restaurant back in the main arcade, a few hundred feet away:

Curry is something I know the Japanese are obsessed with (as they are with other things Indian in origin, such as Buddhism), and I wanted to see how well they did it. This place had about a thousand different varieties, some uniquely Japanese in flavor. I sat down, ordered up a plate of thin-sliced beef curry, and dug in. In a word: satisfying.

Then I returned to the hotel and slept like the dead. I usually do when I'm stuffed to the gills.

Tomorrow: the last day in Kumamoto. There's only two things on my to-do list: MUSASHIZUKA PARK and REIGANDŌ. We'll talk about the park (and more about my hero, Miyamoto Musashi) then.

Tokyo Disneyland

Day Two of Tokyo

Contrary to my usual modus operandi, I don't need to narrate this post. We went to Disneyland. That was it. Oh, and we might have gone out on a grand hilarious search for ramen later that night, with plentiful hijinks involved. But most of August 1 was given over to Walt Disney's legacy and the Japanese take on it.

So here, feast your eyes:

 

Miss H (left) and Miss J (right). I'm so jazzed that they came out to Japan!

And then, right as we were eating lunch at the Blue Bayou, something happened (click the enlarge button):

That's right. Miss H and I are now engaged. She said yes. I'm the luckiest, happiest, most blessed man alive.

And we got engaged in Tokyo. There's one for the grandkids.

off to Japan!

You know, a measly month doesn't seem like adequate recompense for 18 long months overseas. I mean, Korea ain't the gulag. Far from it. (It's the lime, turkey, bourbon and Mexican food gulag, but that's it.) But I forgot how easy and comfortable it is to live in one's own country, and how much I missed my folks. Now I'm staring down another 18 months in the LTBMF gulag before I can get back to it all.

That being said...I accomplished a lot this month.

Reunion with my extended family at a lake resort in Iowa? Check.

Eating the hell out of my favorite foods, including fleisch salad sandwiches (my favorite food in the whole Universe)? Check.

Reminding my mum and dad what I look like? Check.

Visiting my old haunts, like Victoria Gardens and Barnes & Noble and Total Wine & More (where I picked up a nice bottle of Hendrick's gin, lovely stuff)? Check.

Driving a convertible under a gorgeous California sunset while wearing a Hawaiian shirt and listening to Led Zeppelin on the radio? Check.

Shooting every gun I own? Check. (Dad and I are going trapshooting tomorrow, so we'll get the shotgun knocked off the list. Leave no gun unfired, that's my motto.)

Flying? Well, no. I'm out of currency. But I did stop by the dinky little Apple Valley Airport and see how everybody was doing. Not much has changed. The same old planes are parked out on the flight line, the same grey heads are chatting in the flight school, and so forth. Somebody's 18-year-old son is a flight instructor now. Jeez.

The only things I haven't done, in fact, would be eating at my favorite burger joint (that's also happening tomorrow) and finding my novel notes. I located my Bowie knife, my binoculars and my violin, but I'll be danged if I can find my piles of notes. I must have hid them so well that even I can't find 'em. Oh well. The outlines and prewriting are easy to forsake—as Stephen King would say, they probably aren't worth a tin shit anyway—but there were some lyrical snippets of dialogue in there, plus a few meritorious vignettes. I guess I'll just have to wing it until I come back to the States for good and unpack all those boxes.

Well, this is it. We're down to the wire. I leave on Monday. I'll lose a day traveling west (go jump in a lake, Phileas Fogg) and arrive in Tokyo on the 30th. I'll kick around town on the 31st—the Sumida River cruise, the Imperial Gardens—until Miss H and Miss J get in from Seoul in the afternoon. Then it's DISNEYLAND on the first of August. After H & J go home on the 2nd, I'll journey down through central and southern Japan in the shinkansen (bullet train), taking in Mount Fuji and Lake Biwa. I'll tour Kyoto for two days, petting monkeys and drooling over gold-plated buildings, then hop the train again for Kumamoto on the isle of Kyushu, spending the next 48 hours meditating in Reigando Cave and finding out who's buried in Miyamoto Musashi's tomb. Then it's to Fukuoka and the high-speed ferry to Busan, South Korea.

One of the other cool things about Kumamoto is that it's where Eiichiro Oda lives. He's the guy who writes and illustrates One Piece, my favorite manga/anime. It rather heavily influenced my magnum opus...

After that? For the month of August (school doesn't start up again until September), I was planning on finishing Novel #3, e-publishing Novel #2, and polishing Novel #1. Not to mention learning functional Korean. I really ought to be able to have a decent conversation by now instead of fumbling along like some chuckle-headed tourist.

There's also a humor site I'm writing regularly for now: Rabble Rouse the World. Check it out if you have the time. Ribald jests and laugh-tastic memes abound upon that literary pirate ship. Come aboard, mateys. Arrrrrrr.

I also intend to spend some of August finding all those charming Korean nooks and crannies that I haven't explored yet: Gangwon-do, for example, where the mountains and lakes and rocky beaches are. I just acquired a Canon EOS Rebel T3i, and after a bit of fiddling I'm sure I'll be a master photographer with it. So there ought to be gorgeous pictures of Japan, Korea, and environs pouring into this here blog come mid-August.

Stay tuned. You're in the front-row seat. You can't leave just when it's getting good!

sweet vindication!

vindicate [vin-di-keyt]

verb (used with object), vin·di·cat·ed, vin·di·cat·ing.

1. to clear, as from an accusation, imputation, suspicion, or the like: to vindicate someone's honor.
2. to afford justification for; justify: Subsequent events vindicated his policy.
3. to uphold or justify by argument or evidence: to vindicate a claim.
4. to assert, maintain, or defend (a right, cause, etc.) against opposition.

Vindicate. I've always liked that word. The moment I first saw it (in a Calvin & Hobbes cartoon; Bill Watterson does wonders for the vocabulary), I added it to my lexicon. Over the years I've tried to use it as much as possible. Vindicate. It's got a nice ring to it. It sounds exactly like what it means. There's nothing more satisfying than shouting the two words in the title of this blog post whenever the justness of your cause and the righteousness of your position has been confirmed. Sweet vindication!

And believe me, I've been vindicated.

For years I labored in hopeless drudgery, praying that one day I'd get to where I wanted to be. Maybe I'd have to put up with some unpleasantness on the way. I'd feel like I was in limbo sometimes. But one day, I told myself, things would be different. And now they are.

Nearly eighteen months ago, in February of 2012, I left the California desert and boarded a plane for South Korea (for the second time). The circumstances of my going were dire indeed. I had lived in my parents' house for the last two-and-a-half years, and no matter the state of the economy or the kindness and warmth with which my folks took me in, I was at my wits' end. My ego was crushed. My soul was in shambles. I felt rather emasculated. I hadn't been able to find a decent job, and even though I'd gotten my private pilot's license and put myself through bartender's school, I was still without prospects. It was the same situation as mid-2008, when I'd first gone to Korea. I'd been living for six fruitless, jobless months in my parents' basement in Wyoming. It was a nightmare.

And here I am, now, in July of 2013, ready to depart once more for Korea. This is the final week. My parents have been their usual lovely selves, and have seen to my every need (material and emotional). On the 29th I shall board a jet plane at...um...either LAX or Ontario (that's Ontario, California, just so you know) and fly to Tokyo, there to spend eight days touring the central and southern regions of the country by bullet train, and then a high-speed ferry to Busan. (I'll talk more about this trip later.)

Things are different now, don't you see? I'm not leaving out of desperation. I'm not sick at heart. Hopelessness and despair and jealousy no longer hold me in thrall. I've forgotten what despair feels like, in fact. It's just as well I didn't put too many maudlin posts up on this here blog, 'cause they'd ring hollow and puerile to me (and you) now.

On the contrary, my return is triumphant. Everything seems to be looking up. I'm not going back just to work, I'm going to have fun. I have an awesome job waiting for me, plus my special girl and our troublemakin' cat. Thanks to my stateside sojourn, I have a new Lensatic compass, an attaché case, a wine-bottle opener, new clothes, and adjusted vertebrae. (I dug into my closet and found my duster coat, my binoculars, and my army-surplus goggles, too.) Plus, I have another month of vacation left. After this jaunt through Japan, I'm spending the rest of my time kicking around Seoul and the northern provinces, checking out all the stuff I haven't had time to see yet. I'm also packaging my second novel (the one about the General Sherman incident) for publication before the end of the year, and finally sitting down and learning Korean. Things are going to be great. Heck, they already are.

And in the coming 18 months, I have all sorts of trips planned. That's right: I'm finally getting to travel like I've always wanted...and like I've always promised you, dear readers. For the Chuseok holiday this year (in September, I believe), Miss H and our friend J from Bucheon will venture into China; in January 2014 there's a road-trip across Australia, plus a beach holiday with Miss H in Malaysia; in the summer of 2014 there will be some kind of jaunt along the Pan-American Highway, possibly on a motorcycle; and in the winter of 2015, for my final hurrah and last departure from South Korea, there will be a grand trip from Beijing to Moscow aboard the Trans-Mongolian/Trans-Siberian Railways.

You'll get to hear about all this on the blog. Of course.

After that will come my glorious return to the U.S. of A, wherein will resume my flying career (also blogged about) and a rewarding foray into radio journalism and punditry. And the novels (the big ones, the sci-fi series I'm always rattling about) will get published somewhere in there, too.

See the difference? I have prospects now. I'm not just going to Korea to keep my head above water and pay off my loans. (Those are almost all gone, by the way.) All my waiting and hard work, years of it, are finally paying off. I can now settle back and enjoy myself some. At last there's the promise of a wondrous future and fulfilling life ahead. It was always there—it never really went away—but it was mighty invisible for a time.

Water under the bridge. I no longer feel like I'm pedaling toward my goals on a rusty unicycle with a bent rim and a flat tire. Now I've got me one of these:

And, though the road be hard and long, Miss H and I shall persevere.

Let the games begin.