sardine can redux

A few of my more enthusiastic followers have been insisting that I put up a picture of my actual oneroomtel room, so you can get a good look at the floral print wallpaper. Well, here ya go. This is for you, Carrie and Virginia: 

my sardine can in Seoul

I've waited way too long to tell you guys about this.

Miss H and I returned from Hong Kong on August 7. On August 10, she decided to quit her job. She gave a month's notice at work, packed up all her stuff, and flew home with our black cat Charlie. She's now living in a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment in Henderson, Nevada, and working two or three jobs to be able to afford it until I get there. 

In the meantime, yours truly had to move out of that lovely three-bedroom apartment near Daecheong Station in Gangnam-gu (from which I used to take all those lovely walks by the Yangjae Stream, remember?). With the help of a website geared specifically toward foreigners, I located and moved into a tiny little oneroomtel in Gwangjin-gu, close to Sejong University, where I work.

What's a "oneroomtel"? 

This: 

www.habang.co.kr

...basically a closet with a bathroom. Oneroomtels are a nicer and slightly larger version of your basic goshiwon, which is just a room, a bed, and a desk. Mostly they're used by students who need to sequester themselves somewhere quiet and peaceful to study for exams, or by older men who've recently lost their jobs or gotten divorces. Either way, goshiwons are at best a temporary state of affairs. Technically I'm not supposed to be living in one; that's just nuts. The cabin fever will drive you insane. I'll be here four months in total, from early September to early January, at ₩400,000 (approximately $370) per month. 

It's not so bad. I jokingly call it my "sardine can," but it's actually quite livable. Having an en suite bathroom is nice. And I've made the place as cozy as possible, with soft bedding, an electric fan, a calendar on the wall, snacks and drinks in the mini-fridge, and so forth. The Internet sucks, so the room really comes in handy as a distraction-free writing zone. And I'm getting out of this monk's cell as much as possible. I take long walks by the Jungnang Stream now (which runs north of the Han River, not south like the old Yangjae did). I'm within walking distance of Itaewon now—nine kilometers—so I walk there and back sometimes. It's how I discovered a delicious burger joint in Oksu, in fact. I walk south or east across the bridges and into Gangnam-gu or Songpa-gu or Gangdong-gu, or I go west into Seongdong-gu and Dongdaemun-gu, or I go north into Jungnang-gu. 

Why so much walking, and so far? Exercise. I sold my bike. It was getting old and rattly and I figured I'd better let it go. So now my only way to exercise is to walk, and I figure the longer and farther I walk, the healthier I'll be (and the less time I'm spending in my sardine can). I've been living like this for two months, and I have two months left. This is the halfway point. I've seen more of this city in those sixty days than I did the previous three years, and uncovered many of its hidden gems. 

Postie out. 

a day in Phnom Penh

Travel Truth #4: If you skimp on research, you will pay for it later. 

My only day in Phnom Penh began with a major letdown. My first priority was to visit Kingdom Breweries, Cambodia's premier craft brewery, founded by Leopard Capital and headed up by a German brewmaster. The legend printed on every bottle will happily inform drinkers that every Kingdom brew "blends Europe's finest ingredients with purified water from Cambodia's largest lake to create a traditional yet unmatched flavor."

Yeah, whatever. I just wanted to be able to say that I'd toured the brewery, chatted with the brewmaster, and had a couple of Cambodia's premier craft beers direct from the source. 

I was foiled in that ambition. The date was Sunday, July 20. The brewery was closed on Sundays. 

Rats. 

So I went to the National Palace instead. 

The Silver Pagoda, so called because its floor is one solid sheet of the stuff. You can't see it, though. The curators covered it up with a carpet, the bastards. Apparently it's so tarnished these days that you can't tell what kind of metal it is anyway. 

And then I went to the Foreign Correspondent's Club on the banks of the Tonlé Sap River for some chicken and beef satay, prawn shooters with sweet chili aioli and salsa, and some Kingdom pilsener. Even if the brewery was closed, a lot of watering holes along the riverfront still served its products. 

Then I saw the National Museum. I had to buy postcards somewhere, you know. 

Selfies with Siddhartha is going to be the title of my autobiography. 

I rode a tuk-tuk back to Amber House, filled out said postcards, rode another tuk-tuk to the post office, mailed 'em, and then managed to scoot my butt back to FCC for some beef lok-lak and a Hemingway Special for dinner before the evening monsoons broke. 

Phnom Penh accomplished. 

the new front porch

Miss H and I have done it all. When we were in Bucheon (2012-2013) we were in an officetel, which is a building which rents out rooms for commercial and residential purposes alike. Generally there's one big living area with a kitchenette, a bathroom and a loft, and that's exactly what we had at our old building.

In Gwangnaru (2012-2013) we lived in a villa, which are usually only three or four stories tall and have about four or so rooms on every floor. They're cheaper than officetels, but you have less space. We had a studio apartment, a tiny kitchen, and a twin bed to share. It's a wonder we didn't murder each other. 

We had to keep the door to the enclosed glass veranda (which nonetheless was exposed to the open air and mighty cold) open, because Charlie's litter box was out there. So I put some nails into the door frame and clipped those blankets over the threshold to block the chill night air. 

I stood with my back pressed against the front door as I snapped this picture. Not even enough room to swing a cat. Believe me. I tried. 

Daecheong, in the Gaepo ("get rid of the dog") neighborhood in southern Gangnam-gu, is the first place in Korea where we've lived in an honest-to-God apartment. I won't give you any of the "before" pics (taken before we mopped after the two twenty-something male meatheads who lived here before us). I'll just show you the nice after pics so this post doesn't get too huge:

This actually has nothing to do with new apartments, cleaning, or Gangnam. Miss H and I have decided to be a bit more adventurous when it comes to using our toaster oven as...well, an oven. For baking stuff. These are the necessary supplies. The corned beef hash is my vice. 

And pay no attention to that mess of bottles on the gas range or the fermenter on the kitchen table. The boys were coming over that day to bottle our robust honey-molasses porter, and I was laying out the materials. 

  

Guest bedroom, pulling double duty.

So much storage...[drool]

I'm really glad we're not paying for this place; it cost $450,000. That's US dollars, not Korean won. We have an 18-hour security officer, free large-trash pickup, three bedrooms (I keep mentioning that, don't I?) and a splendid view off the unenclosed veranda-thingy we have out front in lieu of a hallway:

Not pictured: my trusty mountain bike. 

 

I like it. Gives me some nice fresh air to smoke my pipe in. 

Let us get the laundry racks down and the floor swept and I'll put up some images of our apartment's fetchingly-decorated office/den and master bedroom. Oh, that's right! We have to make a run to Insadong or Garden 5 for decorations...

Stay tuned. 

30 Days to a Better Man, Day 21: write your own eulogy

Read the article before you do anything else. It explains how today's challenge isn't really as morbid as it sounds. What better way to understand that your life is finite and that you need to get off your duff and live it than writing your own eulogy? Facing your mortality will give you greater cause to live each day with purpose. 

In fact, writing my own eulogy gave me almost too much perspective. Knowing that life is fleeting and temporary made me wonder about all those hours I've been spending at the gym. Surely I could be out in the fresh air or sampling the finest wines and foods instead of breathing recirculated air, grunting and sweating. One of the reasons I've never managed to stick with any exercise regimen is that I always get the creeping sense that I'm wasting my time. The two hours I spend lifting weights and jogging on a treadmill could be used in so many more constructive ways: writing short stories, planning novel plot lines, researching historical epochs, learning Korean, exploring Seoul, etc, etc. I always get the feeling that I'm using up an insane amount of my precious lifespan doing something that's of no material benefit. 

Not true, of course. Working out is healthy. And I don't mean to insinuate that I actually would use those extra two hours constructively if I stopped going to the gym. But hey, I never said my mind was logical. I just said that I found it hard to stick with exercise plans because my mind started working against me.

Anyway. Here's my eulogy: 

Andrew Post was a wanderer from the beginning. He was born in 1986 in Auburn, California, but didn't stay there very long. He called many places home during his youth: southern Ohio, rural Tennessee, urban Virginia, the California desert, the plains of Wyoming. As a small boy he kept his nose glued to the airplane windows, looking at the big world going by beneath him and vowing that he would see it all someday. 

It was this same intrepidity which drew him to North Dakota State University, far from his home in Southern California. (That, and the lack of an admission deadline.) He felt that a career in zoology was his ticket to travel and adventure. After a bad run-in with advanced chemistry, however, he switched his major to communication, graduating in 2007 with a degree in journalism and broadcasting and an English minor. If he couldn't study the big wide world of mountains, trees, animals and people, he figured he would write about it instead. 

A nationwide job market slump forced Andrew to seek his fortunes abroad. He spent four nonconsecutive years as an expatriate English teacher in South Korea, two as a professor at Sejong University in Seoul. During this time, he became an avid blogger, sold travel articles to online magazines and wrote several historical and science fiction novels. Despite his journalistic pursuits, it had always been Andrew's intention to be a writer. His debut novel Revival won him fame and fortune when it was published in 2016. He'd sent one of the first drafts to me a few months earlier. I remember critiquing it harshly and telling him flat-out that it was crap. "Thanks," he said. "Now I know I need to do better." And he did. He told me afterward that the greatest accomplishment of his life, besides finding a woman who was willing to reproduce with him, was winning the Nebula Award for Best Novel that same year. 

In August of 2013, Andrew proposed to his long-time girlfriend at Tokyo Disneyland. He would always say, "It was the smartest thing I ever did, asking that woman to marry me." The two wed upon their return from South Korea in 2015 and had three beautiful children, Zebulon, Aurora and Gilbert. Though Andrew was often far from home on one globetrotting adventure or another, he always made sure to be there for his children, for birthdays and Christmases, triumphs and tragedies. He raised his kids to be independent, forthright and principled people who pursued their dreams without fear or compunction. 

Anyone who met Andrew knew that his list of hobbies and interests was a long one. He was an energetic auto-didact and read whatever he could find about history, astronomy, technology, and the natural sciences. On the fiction front, he adored adventure tales, notably science fiction but occasionally dipping into fantasy and mainstream fiction as well. He loved aviation, becoming a pilot at the age of 24 and flying throughout his life. He took a great interest in classic and vintage cocktails, mixing and sampling as many as he could and even inventing a few of his own. The cocktail bar he ran out of his first apartment in South Korea was legendary among the expatriate community. Shooting was another hobby of his, and whenever he was able he'd get a group of friends together and head to the range. He was happiest after a long day of trapshooting, off-roading, flying, or hiking, sitting in a comfortable chair within view of a good sunset, a glass of Scotch in his hand and a lit pipe between his teeth. His greatest love, however, was travel. There were very few countries that Andrew didn't want to see, and he spent a lifetime traveling all over the world and writing about it in his journals. He sent me many postcards and pictures from the road. The best of these was the one I got in the winter of 2023. It was a photo of Andy standing in front of the statue of the Virgin Mary on San Cristóbal Hill in Santiago, Chile. He'd scrawled a message to me on the back: "This town is great! I might just retire here." In his lifetime he set foot on all seven continents and explored over sixty countries. He told me once that if there was a single place on his bucket list that he missed, he'd die a regretful man. I think he managed to avoid that unpleasant scenario. He and his wife retired to Santiago in 2046, just before Andy's 60th birthday. He opened a bar and spent the last two decades of his life plying thirsty Chileans and expatriates with delicious drinks and regaling them with tales of his life.

Andrew, or Andy as his friends called him, was a rare soul: a fellow who went against the grain, but didn't hold it against you if you didn't follow. He thrived in adversity, worked hard under pressure and always put a cheerful face on things. He could lighten any awkward situation with a lame but well-timed pun. He was intensely loyal to his friends and would never speak ill about one of them behind their backs. He did his level best at work and maintained a professional and industrious demeanor while on the job. His employers and friends alike could rely on him to go the extra mile. He always had an interesting tidbit to share about any given topic, and had away of explaining things that made them interesting and worthwhile. He would never pass a bum on the street without flipping him a quarter. He often failed to live up to his own standards, but he never quit trying.

I will miss Andy's intolerable puns. I'll miss his goofy grin. I'll miss his impeccable taste in movies, whiskey, and cigars. I'll miss flying with him over the Mojave Desert and the Alaskan wilderness. I'll miss his mouth-watering vegetarian lasagna. I'll miss his kindness, his optimism and his endless cheer. I'll miss the Santa Claus beard he grew in his old age, and the free gin and pipe tobacco he'd ply me with whenever I visited him in Chile. I'll miss the roaring adventures he wrote about in his novels, and the adventures the two of us had together. I'll miss the sight of him climbing, grinning, out of his trusty Jeep after a particularly challenging hill or patch of mud. But most of all I'll miss his imagination. Nothing was impossible for Andy; he dreamed big and he never lost sight of his goals. He'd always see the funny or wacky side to any situation. With his passing, the world has become a bit darker. But I know that we've all learned a little something from his novelist's mind, his punster's mouth and his go-getter style. Wherever he wanders now, I wish him all the best. 

30 Days to a Better Man, Day 9: take a woman on a date

The title's a bit deceptive. As the rules on The Art of Manliness state, today's the day you should ask a woman out. You still have 72 hours or so to plan a kick-ass date.

As with several of these challenges, you have options depending on your situation. If you're a single guy, this is your chance to pull yourself out of the rut: you know, get out there and actually start dating (or maybe just wrench yourself free of the friend zone). If you're in a committed relationship, this is a welcome opportunity to put some spark back into it. I tell you what: living in a tiny studio apartment with your significant other is a real romance-killer. I don't care what you say. You could be living with Joan of Arc and after six months you'd start to get ticked off at the way she talks to invisible people. I, for one, relish the notion of getting out of this sardine can and into the real world with Miss H, there to rediscover why we fell in love in the first place.

Mission accomplished. I asked her out, and I now have some reservations to make. We resolved some time ago to make more frequent trips to Itaewon, Seoul's foreigner district. It's laden with loads of Western food markets and international cuisine options, from Bulgarian to Paraguayan to South African. I reckon I'll take her to Chef Meili's, an Austrian place within spitting distance of the subway station. Owned and operated by a genuine, classically-trained Austrian chef (whose surname is Meilinger), the joint is renowned for its delectable dishes, particularly its meats and desserts. Meat and dessert are two things Miss H and I scarcely eat anymore, thanks to cultural, dietary and budget constraints. It'll be nice to let our hair down a bit. I reckon we'll have ourselves a nice feed at Meili's and then slide a couple doors down to Gecko's and knock back a few frou-frou shooters. We'll talk and chat and sparkle like the old days, and then slide home for a movie and some hot cocoa. I'll report back to you after the actual date has taken place.

Does that sound like fun, ladies? 

why I quit Facebook (and should quit the Internet, period)

Civilization is what makes you sick.

— Paul Gauguin

It's been three weeks to the day since I went dark. "Dark" is something of a misnomer; I haven't quit the Internet entirely. Facebook accounted for, at best, 10-15% of my total time surfing the web. It's fair to say, however, that it was the main reason for my being on the web in the first place, if you know what I mean.

Some of my friends have only just discovered that I'm gone. I've received text messages and e-mails asking me what's up and when I might be coming back. I have no definite answer to give, because honestly, I'm not sure myself.

The answer is "When I'm ready."

But why did I quit in the first place? I've been wrestling with this question for nigh on a week. As of this morning, I was still at a loss.

Then, this afternoon, I went down to the Han River to read. I took a folding chair, my new Stanwell pipe, a plentiful supply of tobacco and matches, a bottle of Jim Beam and a copy of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. The air was crisp. The sun was sinking behind feathery clouds. The trees were dripping with reds and yellows. The river was iron-grey and lay at rest like a freshly-tempered sword. I unfolded the chair, lit up my pipe, filled a glass with bourbon, opened the book, and read the final four chapters in one go.

Upon finishing, I felt that I'd reached new levels of clarity in my search for answers.

Civilization.

That's the problem.

Civilization.

I've been staring the matter in the face this whole time and never recognized it. The problem of civilization is a central theme in Brave New World, just as it is in my own novel series (the third installment of which I'm writing for NaNoWriMo).

What do I mean by "the problem of civilization"? Bread and circuses. Mustapha Mond, the Resident World Controller of Western Europe (and the closest thing to a villain that Brave New World has) explains it thus: you can't have a civilization full of intelligent, independent people, or it will dissolve into chaos. There'll be differences of opinion, boredom, ennui, insanity, or outright war. Hence the system of control which is so thoroughly explained in the beginning of the novel: the intelligence, physical beauty, and usefulness (or lack thereof) of any particular human being is determined at the embryonic stage, and a series of clinical processes are enacted to ensure that the resultant human being is molded and shaped to be a cog in the machinery of civilization. Menial tasks are performed by big, dumb, ugly people who've been chemically and genetically altered in their test tubes and then conditioned in childhood to accept their lot and perform their tasks with joy. Administrative duties are performed by handsomer, prettier, smarter, and wiser human beings, whose development and conditioning were likewise controlled from the get-go. To counter any malaise or dissatisfaction, humans are encouraged to imbibe soma, an ecstasy-inducing drug; have as many dalliances as they like, with no strings attached; watch "feelies," tactile versions of movies; and play ridiculous sports like Obstacle Golf. With their minds mired in pointless pursuits and carnal pleasures, and their days filled with the drudgery they've been preconditioned to enjoy, human beings have no need to ever worry about things like war or civil strife. Anyone who shows "subversive" or "devious" preferences for solitude, monogamy, or sobriety is sent to an island, severed from the main population to preserve the public's general state of contentment. Only in remote places such as Western America, on the so-called "Savage Reservations" (vast tracts of land surrounded by electrified fences) is humanity's inherent barbarity allowed to continue: religion, viviparous birth, marriage, love, and natural aging.

Fascinating book. You should read it. Mightily depressing, though.

Why? Because it's coming true. I look around now and I see the same thing that John the Savage sees when he leaves his Reservation and comes to London: thanks to drugs like the Internet, amusing diversions like video games and smartphones, and Facebook—that saccharine filter of friendship and raw experience—we have a civilization more blinded to the ebb and flow of reality than ever before. I see people more concerned with emoticons, abbreviations, Bubble Crush, Angry Birds, KakaoTalk, YouTube, Twitter, news feeds, discussion forums, and torrent downloads than they are with a lavender autumn sky.

That's the way I saw myself heading. And I didn't like it.

When I originally quit Facebook, I told myself I was doing it because my right hand was moving of its own accord—creeping, crawling toward that Facebook tab, clicking on the bookmark unbidden. I also felt that my brain's natural tendency towards autodidactism had been superseded by a base craving for input: information of any stamp, no matter how sordid or simplistic. I perceived that I was logging onto Facebook every morning for two vile reasons, and those reasons alone:

(1) to peer at the winnowed grains of my friends' (and coworkers', and distant acquaintances', and too-distant relatives') lives and assess them subjectively; and

(2) to make myself angry. I'd foolishly become involved with ("liked") a slew of conservative political Facebook groups, and my news feed teemed with their inflammatory rhetoric on a daily basis.

I was fed up. I felt like Facebook wasn't much good for communicating with or keeping track of loved ones anymore; now it was just a place for my friends to post insufferable political views, hackneyed jokes, fatuous memes, mushy musings on pets or spouses or babies, and pictures of cats. I felt like I wasn't really contributing anything to Facebook anymore; I realized that I was reposting quotations and news stories basically in order to annoy my liberal friends. I had degraded. I was no longer an intellectual, upstanding member of the online community. I was little more than a troll. Enough was enough. When I woke up and saw that Facebook was making me miserable, that my hand would relentlessly click on the link and prevent me from accomplishing anything worthwhile, and that I was spending nearly six hours of my day—all of my free time—just staring at screens, it became clear that I was a full-blown Facebook addict. 

I didn't feel like I was really living.

You'll notice that "living" is one of the tags I use for posts. You'll find it in the tag cloud over on the right side of this blog's webpage. (Even using the term "tag cloud" makes me want to puke.) I did that intentionally. I want to highlight the posts that are actually about Life, life with a capital L, not life through a fiber-optic cable. I want to keep track of how much living I'm doing. I want to feel like the two hundred hours Steam so thoughtfully tells me I've spent playing RAGE have been counterbalanced by at least a thousand hours of pure-D experience. 

Facebook wasn't letting me do that, and I knew it. I've known it from the beginning. I mentioned something in my original post about wanting to accomplish more during the hiatus, such as touring Gyeonggi-do, riding trains, visiting Hwaseong Fortress, exploring Ganghwa Island and so forth.

I don't know why I got so wrapped up in Facebook and the Internet at large. I can't explain why it's so easy for the human brain to fall prey to instant communication, electronic entertainment, and easy access to moving and static images. But that's what happened to me. Maybe it's a byproduct of civilization. We're social animals, and we've been conditioned to be even more social by our millennia-long habit of living in cities. We want to feel connected. Perhaps it also has something to do with the way our brains our wired. After an eternity of playing with things like marbles and Jacob's ladders, video games and streaming video are a quantum leap forward. (Whatever the reason, the effects are insidious.)

I just want to feel alive. I believe that civilization, and with it technology and all its insidious tendrils, is sapping the genuineness and joie de vivre from the existential equation. I was on Facebook for the sake of keeping my brain entertained during its downtime, like a kid with a Game Boy in a waiting room. And I wasn't even using my time on Facebook in a constructive way (as far as it's possible to use one's time on Facebook in a constructive way, anyway): I was just trolling. If it wasn't Facebook, it was something else: editing pages on TV Tropes, looking up trivia on the Internet Movie Database, watching Grand Theft Auto V videos on YouTube, researching firearms on Wikipedia, even browsing news sites with the same ulcerating anger with which I once patrolled my Facebook feed. Technology, man. The Internet. It's eating my life. I'm 13,000 words into my NaNoWriMo project, and I can ill afford to be wasting time wholesale—now or ever. 

So I quit Facebook. And I might just quit the Internet, too, at least until November's over. We'll have to see. Something's gotta give. Civilization's making me sick, especially now that I've finished Brave New World. I read about soma, and feelies, and sex-hormone chewing gum, and Obstacle Golf and Centrifugal Bumble-puppy and Assistant Predestinators and bottles and television and I thought, Man.

No way. Not for me.

As the Savage defiantly tells Mustapha Mond, "I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want goodness. I want sin."

Living, in other words. Not virtual reality.

If you agree with me, then get off my blog and go eat an apple in the autumn air. You'll thank me later.

making a bug-out bag in Korea

Do you know what a bug-out bag is?

If you don't, follow that link and read the article. You'll need some context. I'll wait.

In case you're too lazy to do that, though, let me just give you the skinny: the term "bugging out" means evacuating your home due to fire, earthquake, poison gas leak, alien invasion...or war. A bug-out bag is an emergency kit, personally assembled by you, a forward-thinking human being, in case you have to be away from your home for 72 hours.

The only natural disasters that face Seoul on a regular basis are monsoons, fires, and maybe the occasional tsunami. (Japan does a pretty good job of soaking up all the typhoons and earthquakes that come this way, though.)

You have to remember, though, what's sitting just 60 kilometers (37 miles) north of this city.

That's right. North Korea.

On Wednesdays I have no class, which means I get to putter around doing whatever I want. Today even more so: I had no choice but to moon around the apartment all day waiting for the deliveryman to arrive with the Coleman waterproof matches I ordered from Gmarket. I bought myself a Stanwell beechwood pipe and some tobacco a month ago, but I've been dogged by the lack of proper lighting materials. You can't use a Zippo to light a pipe, 'cause the butane makes the tobacco taste funny. Moreover, you have to hold the lighter upside-down, and that singes your fingers. Wooden matches, however, neither taint the flavor of your smoke nor char the rim of your pipe. So I had my heart set on matches. After a fruitless search through every grocery mart, convenience store and bar in my area, I found them on Gmarket and ordered them. They were due to arrive today, and the deliveryman wouldn't just leave them at the door; I had to receive them personally. So I couldn't leave.

To pass the time, I watched the 2012 movie Red Dawn.

And suddenly I thought of a much better use for those Coleman waterproof matches.

The movie made me realize just how unprepared Miss H and I were for a disaster—of any kind. She and I have talked about preparing bug-out bags for months now, ever since we moved into our new place in East Seoul. We did all the usual stay-at-home preparations, like compiling our important documents, files, IDs, bankbooks and passports into one convenient and safe location, buying eight liters of emergency water, acquiring flashlights and lanterns and candles and a fire extinguisher, et cetera. But somehow we never got around to putting together a bug-out bag. Senseless, I know. A 72-hour emergency kit would be invaluable in case we had to leave the apartment (and, say, assemble at Jamsil Stadium for evacuation by the U.S. Army as North Korean troops overrun the DMZ).

So I resolved to fix this inadequacy this very afternoon. After taking delivery of the matches, I stuck six boxes into my Timberland® 20-liter backpack. (The other six boxes will go into my drawer with my pipe.)

And that was the start of it all. I hunted high and low through the apartment and located some other items to stick in:

• 2 cans of tuna
• Nature Valley® granola bars
• 2 flashlights
• a deck of cards
• plastic sporknife (yes, they exist)
• diarrhea medication
• multitool
• first-aid kit
• sunblock
• lens wipes
• 2 liters of water
• complete change of clothes
• Colgate® WISP™ toothbrushes
• lensatic compass
• Ziploc® bags
• vitamin tablets
• cash and coins

Noticing that there were several items on my list that just weren't in the apartment, I hopped the subway across the river to Cheonho and went to E-Mart. There, I acquired the following:

• Ottogi tuna (2 bundles of 3 cans, ₩3960 apiece)
• bowls of prepared rice (pack of 3, ₩3450)
• Diget chocolate biscuits (₩1580)
• Dr. You granola bars (2 boxes of 4, ₩3980 apiece)
• kitchen knife (₩2000)
• small paring knife (₩1000)
• folding knife (₩5100)
• hand saw (₩7900)
• folding trowel (₩7500)
• packet of quick-start charcoal (₩1360)
• camping rope (6mm x 10m, ₩2,900)
• duct tape (10 meters, ₩1350)

The items remaining on my list are:

• glow sticks (for when flashlights fail)
• hand-cranked radio
• ponchos
• tarp
• space blankets
• signal mirror (though I think I'll just use the small shaving mirror in my grooming kit)
• safety whistle
• camp axe

I'll have to get these either at Homeplus (which is a subsidiary of Tesco, and generally better stocked than E-Mart) or a camping supply store.

Some of you might scoff at the completeness of this list. "What do you need a hand axe for?" you'll ask. Good question. Hopefully, we'll never need it. But just in case the North Koreans come storming across that border faster than expected (or they bring some Chinese or Russian friends with them), I want to be ready. The worst-case scenario here is Miss H and I hiking through the wild hills of K-Land trying to get back behind friendly lines, or make our way down to Busan to catch a boat for Japan. If we have to rough it for a few days, at least I'll have the tools, ropes, tarps, and matches I need to make our campsites comfortable. Even if the North Koreans never invade (or the zombies never attack, it don't matter to me) we'll at least have a well-stocked supply kit for untoward exigencies.

One more thing.

You'll notice that I entitled this post "making a bug-out bag in Korea."

The emphasis was intentional. There are some items which I would normally include in my bug-out bag, but can't, because I live in Korea. The first one, obviously, is this:

A gun, stupid.

When disaster strikes, people go crazy. Ain't no denying that. I think K (Tommy Lee Jones's character from the Men in Black franchise) said it best:  "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it." So when the crap hits the fan and looters take to the streets, I want to be prepared to defend what's mine: my life, my property and my loved ones. I have to be honest: as an American, I'm a bit uncomfortable living in a country that doesn't allow private gun ownership, especially when there's a militaristic regime lurking on the horizon.

The second item is this:

It's a survival knife, in case you didn't know. An Aitor Jungle King II, to be exact. I haven't really shopped around and chosen the survival knife that best suits me, but this is pretty much what I'm looking for: a straight blade with a saw-edge and a good long grip with a lanyard ring. A splendid knife for cutting branches, skinning game, or personal defense.

Korea has this thing about knives, though. Turns out that any pocketknife with a blade longer than six centimeters (a paltry 2.36 inches) is classified as a "sword" under Korean law, and requires a "sword permit." This means that the 10-inch Bowie knife I have in my footlocker back in California would get me chucked in jail over here. Bollocks. I'm not sure what the laws concerning non-folding or straight-bladed knives are like, but I have a feeling they're similarly restrictive. The three knives I bought today at E-Mart were an attempt to ameliorate this deficiency.

And there you have it! My Korean bug-out bag. Once I acquire those last few vital items (particularly the tarp and ponchos), Miss H and I will be well ahead of any disaster which fickle chance decides to throw at us. With any luck, we'll never need this stuff, but it sure will be nice to have on hand.

And if we want to go camping, we're already packed...

an escalating situation

I've never written much about the Democratic People's Republic of Korea on this blog. This is the first time I've ever tagged a post with "North Korea," in fact. I'm reading Barbara Demick's book Nothing to Envy, which follows the lives of six North Korean citizens through the famine of the 1990s; I was probably going to scribble a bit about that at some point. But now that the rhetoric and posturing and threats are escalating, I feel like I should tell you what's on my mind. Just in case I get blown away in the next 48 hours.

As you may have heard, things are getting out of hand over here. The situation here is tenser than I've ever seen in my 26 months of living in South Korea. Kim Jong-un has torn up the armistice, effectively putting the Koreas back into a state of open warfare; disconnected the hotlines between the two nations; mobilized his military and beefed up artillery and infantry forces along the border; refused entry to South Korean workers at the jointly-run industrial complex inside the DMZ; and leveled a constant stream of invectives and hostilities against South Korea, the U.S.A. and their allies.

In its latest move, Pyongyang has gone so far as to threaten a nuclear strike against the United States. Stating that its military has been cleared to use "smaller, lighter, and more diversified" nuclear weapons, the rogue nation declared that war could break out "today or tomorrow."

Although Al Jazeera reports that Korea has threatened the U.S. specifically, by proxy those threats refer to South Korea as well. Expert analysts believe that, despite all the bluster, the D.P.R.K. does not have the capability to deliver a missile to an American territory in the Pacific, be it Guam or Hawaii. (The U.S. recently announced its intention to place a missile defense system on Guam, which might be what's got Pyongyang's panties in a twist.)

If that's true, then the only places that North Korea can hit are South Korea or Japan. Japan would be an unwise choice, as it's a key U.S. ally and bombing it would bring on the wrath of the sleeping giant. South Korea is no less an important friend of the United States, but as we've seen with the Cheonan disaster and the Yeonpyeong Island incident, South Korea's not shy about poking its neighbor with a big stick. The attack that North Korea has threatened may come "today or tomorrow" might be leveled at Seoul or somewhere close by.

I don't know about you, but this has got me rather worried. I'm not one to panic easily, but things are different now than they were when I lived in Korea before. This time I'm in Seoul, just in case you missed my last six posts. I'm at ground zero, so to speak. The front lines. I've read that an estimated one million missiles will fall upon this city if war ever breaks out. And it's not just me anymore, either: Miss H is here, and our black cat Charlie. Whatever befalls me befalls them as well, good or ill. That would wrack anybody's nerves. Mine are fraying a smidgen.

On the ground, the situation is calm. Everyone here is going about their lives as usual. Blah, blah, blah, we've seen it all before. And I have to admit, I'm pretty blasé about North Korea now, having lived on the peninsula for almost two and a half years without incident.

So why am I so worried? Well, a couple of reasons. First of all, North Korea usually doesn't close the jointly-run Gaeseong Industrial Region. It's a source of hard currency for the regime and closing it hampers its floundering economy. Even when Seoul and Pyongyang are trading rhetorical blows, the complex stays open. The fact that it's closed to South Koreans now is...disturbing, to say the least.

Second, while I've seen heated exchanges between the two nations before, this most recent one is quite a bit more vitriolic than usual. The barrage of threats from the North has lasted longer and been more vehement than any I've previously witnessed (well, since the death of Kim Jong-il, anyway).

And that brings me to my final point: there's been a recent regime change. Kim Jong-un is running the country now, and he may feel that he's got something to prove. His grandfather and his dad kept the United Nations and the U.S. on their toes for 60 years; now it's Kim the Third's turn. He may have a chip on his shoulder. Perhaps he's looking for ways to make his mark, and has decided that a smoking crater in the center of downtown Seoul is just the way to do it. He may even be foolish or naïve enough to assume that he'll get away with it.

So here I am—with my loved ones—at the epicenter of six decades of stewing resentment and barely-controlled aggression.

What's new with you lately?

movers, tailors, professors, and dust

Well, wherever should I begin?

                                                                                from Wikipedia

Saturday was in the sixty-degree range, the warmest of the year, and our lingering winter blues were demolished in a wave of warm breezes and sunny skies.

The yellow dust from China (a cloud of sand, heavy metal particles and chemicals that blows off the Gobi Desert every spring) has blanketed Seoul. The air is a sickly yellow color, and Miss H and I have been coughing and sneezing like nobody's business.

Yesterday I went to a tailor in Itaewon to do something I've never done in my life: get measured for a suit. Not a full suit, mind you. Just a blazer. I'm a professor now, after all. I need to look the part. So I located a tailor whom all my expat friends recommended. His nickname is "the Jokeman." He always has a new zinger to tell you whenever you go see him. He has a joke for every U.S. state (and probably a few for Canada and England, too). He's a short man, but wiry, with a hard-lined face, well-defined cheekbones, and short gray hair. He looks something like Daniel Craig, if Daniel Craig had been born in Korea and was 20 years older. If photographs are to be believed, Roger Clinton once visited the Jokeman, got fitted, and bought a suit. A slew of other minor luminaries have been in and out of the shop, too, according to the gilt-framed pictures adorning the walls of the Jokeman's basement shop. Anyway, I was fitted, I heard the spiel, I paid my money ($313 U.S.) and got a California joke.

"So," the Jokeman said. "Judge Judy was speaking to a criminal. She asked, 'Why did you break into the same shop three times in a row?' The man said, 'I stole a dress for my wife.' Judge Judy asked, 'So why did you go back again?' The man answered, 'I had to get it taken in twice.'"

Those are the blurbs and tidbits from our life thus far in Gwangjang-dong, eastern Seoul. As you may have already gleaned by now, Miss H and I moved from our comfortable bailiwick in Bucheon (west of Seoul, abutting Incheon) and came here, seeking better jobs and opportunities. I have accepted a job as an assistant professor of English at Sejong University, and Heather is now a kindergarten teacher at the NOAM, just down the street from our new apartment.

This is how it came about:

I had handed in my notice at my old hagwon in Bucheon. My last day would be Thursday, February 28. Meanwhile, Miss H received some disastrous news. Her kindergarten was downsizing. Henceforth it would focus on after-school elementary-age kids. The kindergarten levels would be dissolved. This meant Miss H would lose her job on February 15. Things were looking desperate. We would both soon be out of work (and therefore out on the streets, too, since our apartment was commensurate with my job).

We considered various solutions. We even (briefly) entertained the idea of going home and trying our luck there. But the hand of fate intervened, in the form of a generous benefactor (one of my coworkers, whom I'll nickname Jules). Jules appointed himself my unofficial agent, and assiduously combed the classifieds in the Korea Herald on my behalf. Lo and behold, he found something: an assistant professorship (one-year contract, non-tenure track) at Sejong University, in the Gwangjin borough of eastern Seoul. What the heck, I thought. I'll go for it. So I applied.

I was contacted a short time later and asked to come in for an interview. Sejong University sits across the street from Children's Grand Park, an enormous amusement park-cum-zoo where urban kids frolic on the weekends. The park is on the same subway line as Bucheon (Line 7), but it's 29 stops away. This takes 60-70 minutes. To get to Gwangjin on time for my interview, I had to abandon my usual languorous paradigm and get up at 7:30 a.m. to shower and shave. I rode in and had the interview. It was disastrous, or so I thought. I had zero experience teaching at the university level. My career as an educator extended to two nonconsecutive years of elementary and middle-school students in two after-school academies, and no further. I felt I had nothing to bring to the table, and began to wonder at how stupid I'd been to apply. When the interview was over, I slunk from the room and crawled off the campus.

You may imagine my surprise when, two weeks later, I received a phone call during my lunch break. I was hired. I was to be an assistant professor (조교수) of English for the 2013 academic year, which would begin on March 4. In the meantime, there was an orientation for new teachers on Thursday, February 21, and a general staff meeting the following Monday. Both of these required hour-long rides into eastern Seoul, and a lot of scrambling to return to Bucheon in time for my first class at my soon-to-be-former hagwon. It was stressful and not a little intimidating, but it was exciting as well. I would be exchanging a thankless, drudge-filled academy job for a genuine, honest-to-God teaching position with full benefits, six weeks' summer and winter vacation, 15 hours a week (plus four mandatory office hours).

The only hard part was leaving Bucheon. I'd come to love the community: the broad avenues, the green trees, the plentiful parks, the abundant public transportation and the wealth of shopping and eating venues. Not to mention that our apartment there was spacious, bright and airy. We'd be moving to a three-story brick villa that had to be twice as old as Estima Officetel, and whose rooms were tiny and dark, if considerably more airtight.

Fortunately Miss H and I had a three-day weekend to finish packing and physically move. March 1-3 was a commemoration of the Samil Movement, or Three-Day Movement (the first organized and voluble protest against Japanese colonial rule), which took place in 1919. It was violently put down by the Japanese military, and many Korean protesters were killed or sent to the infamous Seodaemun Prison. A dozen Korean flags fluttered in the windows of the apartment complex behind Estima as Heather and I sweated to pack all our things. In all, our worldly possessions amounted to new fewer than 45 small- and medium-size cardboard boxes. Where had it all come from?

Then the mover arrived. Miss H had arranged for him. He was actually the business partner of the man who was supposed to move us, but since the man himself was tied up in prior engagements,  his partner came in his stead. He proved to be a wiry old Korean man with crooked teeth who shifted boxes like they were feather pillows. In less than 40 minutes our things had been transferred from Room 908 to the basement level, where the moving truck (a humble Kia Bongo III) awaited. Little by little our precious boxes, lamps, shelves and folding chairs were stacked aboard and secured with a cargo net. Miss H took our cat, Charlie, and a backpack full of valuables with her on the subway to endure the hour-long ride to our new apartment. Our new home was a block or two away from Gwangnaru Station on Line 5 (only three subway stops and one transfer from Children's Grand Park on Line 7). I rode in the Bongo with the old Korean man. An awkward silence persisted as we chugged along the Gangbyeonbuk Road (which straddles the northern shore of the Han River). I hunched forward in my seat, cradling my schoolbag in my lap and my backpack on my shins, watching the glowing skyscrapers of downtown Seoul on the left and the darkly glittering waters of the Han River on the right.

After half an hour, we reached the Gwangjin area. Thanks to an oversight on my part, I had written down the wrong address, and therefore our mover's dash-mounted GPS proved useless. Fortunately I had a rough idea of where the apartment was in relation to Gwangnaru Station, and I managed to direct the mover there after a delay of only 20 minutes. Our new apartment was separated from the street by a meager six-step staircase. In less than half an hour the mover and I shifted all of the boxes and bulky items to the apartment floor. I made a quick dash to a nearby ATM and paid the man 100,000 Korean won for his troubles. Then he drove off. Miss H arrived some 15 minutes later, and the three of us (Charlie, Miss H and I) bunked down as best we could amid the detritus of our material lifestyle.

And that was the move. Sometime in the next few days I'll tell you about my first week as a professor.

Stay tuned...