thoughts on Korea itself

After living in a place for 18 months (soon to be three nonconsecutive years), you get to know it pretty well.

I'm not an authority, but I like to think I've observed the idiosyncrasies of Korean culture with a journalist's eye, and gleaned some insight therefrom.

Sometimes I feel like I'm not properly documenting those insights, though. I mean, I've posted plenty about the quirks of living in Korea. I've never actually stepped back and written a comprehensive treatise on the fundamental differences between Korea and the western world, however. After all, it's not easy to describe a country where vegetable gardens are squeezed into the meager margins between buildings and roads; where the two most beloved national heroes are remembered for inventing the Korean alphabet and whooping hell out of the Japanese Navy, respectively; where howling ambulances stop for red lights and city buses blow them; where pop songs are written and performed for the launch of new mobile phones (and frequently top the charts); where hordes of tiny schoolchildren in matching uniforms are herded about on field trips, attached at the waist by a running line; where trash bags are piled under trees on the sidewalk rather than in dumpsters or trash cans; where a tiny reading lamp costs fifty dollars; where a shop can increase its curb appeal by painting a pidgin English phrase on its front window; where the people sprinkle sugar on ham sandwiches and corn dogs; where neon swastikas are hung everywhere (being, as they originally were, Buddhist good-luck symbols); where the most popular pizza toppings are sweet potatoes and corn; where soccer and baseball are religions, not mere sports; where cans of Spam are given as luxury gift items, like flowers or wine bottles or fine chocolates; where things like limes and turkey are unheard-of exotics; and where one may find bread-flavored soda pop, aloe vera juice, canned guava, squid jerky, and red ginseng candies on any supermarket shelf.

Korea can be a weird place.

And yet it's not so different from back home. The skyscrapers look the same. The apartment buildings are a bit different than what we're used to, but they all conform to the same cookie-cutter design. People drive on the right side of the road. The stoplights and roadsigns are recognizable. One may easily find a McDonald's, Costco, Burger King, Chevrolet, Dunkin' Donuts, 7-11, Hyatt, Starbucks, Hilton, or Pizza Hut on any street corner. (There's even Taco Bell, Subway and Quizno's in places.) English is written everywhere, and spoken almost as much, particularly in the urban areas. There are toilets, running water, electricity, and so much free Wi-Fi that it makes one's head spin. Everybody, down to the last twelve-year-old child, knows who Maroon 5 is, and David Beckham, and Tom Cruise.

There are times when I can readily believe I'm living in a foreign country. Other days, it hardly seems apparent at all. Those are the days when that phrase I learned in college ("global village") hit me hard. The world truly is becoming one. That may be a good thing for international relations and cross-cultural understanding, but we may learn (too late) that it also erodes cultural boundaries. I'm sure no Korean from the 15th century would even recognize his home country these days. And for me, your humble correspondent, it hardly seems worthwhile to write florid travel articles and in-depth treatises about a place that's so highly Westernized.

I need to get out of here. Like Paul Gauguin, I feel the need to escape from "everything that is artificial and conventional." After I finish up my two years here, I'm going off the grid. I'm going someplace that's so drastically different from the U.S.A. that I won't know which way is up. The toilets will flush in the opposite direction—if indeed there are any flush toilets. I won't be able to read the alphabet; almost no part of the native tongue will owe its roots to English. The buildings and shopfronts will be strange, eldritch, alien, of unrecognizable architectural roots and filled with unknown purpose. People's clothes will be radically different, the local customs' functions almost unguessable. The food will be delicious but totally foreign. Western fast food chains and designer stores will not exist. Cars will be few and far between, and those dented and dusty. The roads will be narrow and hardly paved. Civilization will be younger, narrower, more old-fashioned, less quick, less harried, less pretentious.

I've survived life in urbanized East Asia. Now it's time for a breath of fresh air.  

escape from Bukhan

Bukhan is the way you say "North Korea" in the native language. Buk is north and han is Korea. (South Korea is Namhan.)

Even if the average American is aware of the deplorable situation in NoKo, not many realize just the enormity of the North Koreans' plight, even those who have escaped the Kim regime and sought their fortunes elsewhere.

Those North Koreans who get up the courage to make a break customarily go through China. They are aided in this by Korean and Chinese "brokers," who perform a similar function to the coyotes in Mexico, forging false documents for the refugees and providing maps and routes. Once into China, however, the refugees' plight is far from over. The People's Republic, in complete defiance of international law and common decency, routinely and rigorously captures North Koreans and repatriates them.

I probably don't have to tell you that attempting to defect is a capital offense for a North Korean. Those refugees caught by the Chinese and shipped back to North Korea face execution, imprisonment in gulag-style concentration camps, torture, and untold suffering. Pregnant refugees are subjected to brutal abortions. Dissidents are thrown into work camps where they perform hard labor for 12 hours and attend reeducation classes for four more, only getting four hours' rest. The slightest complaint is answered with a public execution. There's a reason North Korea has been branded the world's largest prison camp.

In case you think I'm bloviating, I have a source for this information. His name is Mr. Lee.

Lee is one of the lucky ones. Not only did he pull off a successful escape, he saved up enough money to get his mother, his wife and his children out as well. He moved through China to Thailand, emigrated legally to South Korea, and worked any odd job he could find to pay the way for his family. He bussed tables and swept streets because he couldn't find anything better.

And now we come to the third and most perplexing part of the sad tale of North Korean refugees. Should they manage to escape their homeland and traverse unfriendly China in safety, they still face hostility, prejudice and callous indifference from South Koreans. The average South Korean holds the North Korean refugee in lower regard than a Pakistani or Cambodian...and believe you me, that is saying something. Mr. Lee reckons it has something to do with money. South Koreans judge foreigners by their monetary worth and potential. That's why they bring so many American, Canadian, English and South African nationals to this country to teach. We Anglos are from affluent countries and are classed as skilled labor. People from poor countries like Vietnam, Bangladesh, and elsewhere are looked upon as wastes of time and space. The average North Korean refugee shows up in South Korea as a penniless migrant. Guess what kind of reception he gets?

Mr. Lee beat the odds. He made enough money to get his family across, at something like $3,500US a head. (Nowadays the fee is roughly $10,000.) They're living quite happily in the Itaewon area. Mr. Lee works hard to support them, and still finds time to devote to his charitable foundation, North Korea Peace. It's a divine mission, he says.

To hear a North Korean speak of God is almost laughable. Mr. Lee was brought up to believe that Kim Jong-Il was the people's one true god, and that Christianity was merely a ploy by the Western powers to weaken and oppress the Korean people. In school he was taught that the Joseon War (what North Koreans call the Korean War) was begun by Christian missionaries, with the backing of the U.S. military. He never saw any evidence to the contrary; he knew no other alternative. So he believed.

But when the Chinese police were walking toward him down the aisle of a rattling train car on a midnight run to Shanghai, Lee prayed. He prayed feverishly, passionately, determinedly. He asked God to spare him, to save him. And in His way, God answered. A knife-fight broke out in the adjacent train car. The policemen had approached to within 10 meters of Lee, checking IDs and asking tough questions. Neither Lee nor any of his party spoke a word of Chinese. They would have been caught for sure. But the fight drew the cops' attention. They rushed away to the adjacent car and Lee got his reprieve. It was a seminal moment. Lee believed that God had saved him for a purpose. God was handing him a mission, and by the time Mr. Lee had arrived in Thailand, he'd figured it out. He would help as many of his fellow North Koreans as possible, still held in bondage on the other side of the DMZ.

So he started North Korea Peace, and with the aid of a few other Koreans who were fluent in English, began recruiting foreigners to his cause. The balloon launch on February 25 was the culmination of that endeavor. Mr. Lee, his assistants, and foreigners from six different countries (from Austria to Indonesia) inflated weather balloons, suspended cardboard boxes of warm socks from them, and released them into the wispy white skies over the city of Paju, a stone's throw from the Demilitarized Zone.

Here are some pictures.

Unpacking the hoses. The boxes of socks are on the left.

Adjusting the first balloon for inflation...hah, adjusting for inflation, geddit?!

The hydrogen tanks. Apparently helium is expensive and hard to come by in Korea. These spawned a lot of Hindenburg jokes...most of which may or may not have been told by yours truly.

Inflation commences...

...and it's ready!

My turn to help out.

Whoa Nelly!

Merciful Balloon #4, ready for launch!

Hana, tul, SET!

And there she goes!

After the balloons had been launched, and had floated away out of sight into the stratosphere, we piled back on the bus, chilled to the bone, and drove to the Imjin River. There stood the Imjingak, "Freedom Park," a sort of monument/museum to the Demilitarized Zone. I wish I could properly describe the place to you, but words simply can't capture it. Shall I tell you about the thousands of paper prayers hung by North Korean refugees in tribute to their imprisoned loved ones a few kilometers to the north...?

The rusting, hole-ridden hulk of a steam locomotive on a scrap of track, which was once the proud railway link between Seoul and Pyongyang?



The miles and miles of barbed wire stretching into the distance? Dim, distant Songhaksan, my first glimpse of North Korea, nearly hidden on the horizon behind the Imjin Bridge?

Or shall I mention the observation platform with its 500-won binoculars, the incongruous kiddy fun park with its tilt-a-whirl and carousel, the souvenir shop selling North Korean fruit wines and maps of the Joint Security Area printed on red and blue handkerchiefs...?

Combine these things and you get the Imjingak.

It was while we were waiting to board the bus that I received a drop of tonic to soothe the ache in my soul. As fun as the launching of weather balloons can be (trying to hold onto a fully-inflated balloon in the brisk Korean breeze was like trying to hold a bucking bronco at bay), the joy was tempered by the ever-present knowledge of the cargo's eventual destination. One could not help but brood on the suffering of the shoeless, starving North Korean people, and the monstrous injustice which put them in such a position. My distress had been further compounded by the Imjingak. Nothing makes me sadder than seeing a railway line that ends in the middle of nowhere, and a once-functioning locomotive rusting away to nothingness on a forgotten siding. I could only ponder on the romance and adventure of taking the train from Seoul to Pyongyang, and thence to Beijing or Vladivostok, or even across Mongolia and on to Europe. But no: the locomotive forever stares across the uncrossable gulf of barbed wire, empty fields, frozen river and skeletonized bridge supports. Across the barren, lonely hills with their bare trees lies a land of death, suffering, and political oppression.

Depressing.

So that drop of tonic on my soul was greatly appreciated. I began chatting with Mr. Lee via his translator, Cecilia. He asked me if I was particularly interested in North Korea and its citizens.

"Just Korea in general," I answered. "My grandfather fought in the war."

"Wow," Cecilia, of Korean descent herself, answered. "Will you thank him for me? From the bottom of my heart?"

"Uh, sure," I said, taken aback. "Absolutely."

Cecilia translated this for Mr. Lee, and he began speaking very quickly.

"He says he'd like to thank your grandfather personally for his service," Cecilia said. "South Korea is as great as it is today because of what the Americans did in the war. If they hadn't fought the Communist North, the entire country would have been taken over. Whenever Mr. Lee hears someone say bad things about America, he thinks they're not right in the head."

Well, folks, that bowled me over. This fellow, who hadn't even met my grandfather (and had been born on the wrong side of the fence to appreciate his sacrifices) was thanking him with every fiber of his being. It blew me away. All I could do was jerk my head, thank him profusely, and promise to relay his message at the earliest juncture. It seemed a poor thank-you for the sentiment Mr. Lee had expressed. But somehow, even though I was merely a conduit for this man's heartfelt gratitude, I was nonetheless buoyed by it, soothed by it, calmed by it. The weight on my heart seemed lessened somewhat. They call Korea "the forgotten war"...it was nice to know that there were some people, in some far-flung corner of the world, who hadn't forgotten, and still appreciated what the skinny, shivering draftees had fought and died for in the frozen mud of the Korean peninsula.

When I told Grandpa over the phone about what Mr. Lee had said, he chuckled. Then he cemented his status as a true American hero by saying that war memorials should not be built for the men who fought and came back, but the ones who made "the supreme sacrifice" and lie buried in foreign fields. He said I should relay that to Mr. Lee the next time I saw him.

I'll leave you with a video that was taken by a real journalist at the balloon launch. It conveys what I'm trying to express with more eloquence and less pomp.

Your humble correspondent, signing off.

the silver key

or, the long road to literary enlightenment

I hope you'll have the patience—or tenacity—to stick with me on this one. This is a landmark post. Seminal, you might call it. Yeah, definitely seminal. It marks a turning point in the career of that damn novel sitting under my bed, dusty and neglected.

Sometimes it pays to reread things. Be it a news feature, an essay, or a work of literature, there's usually some information to be gleaned from it the second time around...and only on the second time around. I knew this to be true with humor pieces (like Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker series) and epic novels, but just a few minutes ago, I received a surprising piece of inspiration from an unexpected piece of material. It's funny how the passage of time and the garnering of experience can alter one's perspective.

Maybe this lays a morbid cast over my efforts as a writer, but the source of this evening's epiphany was none other than the master of cosmic horror himself, H.P. Lovecraft.

I have a tradition. I instituted it this autumn. When the weather turns cold, grey, wet, and otherwise inclement, I take out my H.P. Lovecraft collection and reread it. It's a modest collection, but it includes almost all of his better-known short stories and a modest number of undiscovered gems. It consists of two books: the novel-length At the Mountains of Madness, which has a few brief stories tacked on at the end, and a compendium, The Best of H.P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre.

I didn't really believe that I'd find anything truly instructive in them. Like I've said before, I read for pleasure and education. There's always something to be learned from any book. Every author's style is either a lesson or a warning. I had been warned against Lovecraft's writing by Stephen King, who, by his own admission, adores Lovecraft's talent for horror but loathes his tin ear for dialogue and adjective-soaked prose. Both King and I are ardent fans of Lovecraft and hold the man in high esteem, but I can see King's point. So I keep the editing goggles on whenever I read Lovecraft, to protect my own writing from negative subliminal influences.

So there I was, perusing Lovecraft's best works. I was flipping through the pages, vaguely wondering what to read next. I had reviewed "The Dunwich Horror" and "The Thing on the Doorstep," had devoured the very brief "In the Vault," "Pickman's Model," and "The Rats in the Walls," and was making inroads on "The Whisperer in Darkness." It was a toss-up whether to proceed onto "The Haunter of the Dark" or "The Colour Out of Space," the latter being lengthier but of considerable quality.

Then something caught my eye: "The Silver Key." I have a photographic memory, and a title will usually remind me of the finer details of plot and character. "The Silver Key," however, evaded the grasp of my recollection. Curious, I began to read.

The following passages hit me like a thunderbolt.

     He had read much of things as they are, and talked with too many people. Well-meaning philosophers had taught him to look into the logical relations of things, and analyse the processes which shaped his thoughts and fancies. Wonder had gone away, and he had forgotten that all life is only a set of pictures in the brain among which there is no difference betwixt those born of real things and those born of inward dreamings, and no cause to value one above the other. Custom had dinned into his ears a superstitious reverence for that which tangibly and physically exists, and had made him secretly ashamed to dwell in visions. Wise men told him his simple fancies were inane and childish, and even more absurd because their actors persist in fancying them full of meaning and purpose as the blind cosmos grinds aimlessly on from nothing to something and from something back to nothing again, neither heeding nor knowing the wishes or existence of the minds that flicker for a second now and then in the darkness.
     They had chained him down to things that are, and had then explained the workings of those things till mystery had gone out of the world. When he complained, and longed to escape into twilight realms where magic moulded all the little vivid fragments and prized associations of his mind into vistas of breathless expectancy and unquenchable delight, they turned him instead toward the newfound prodigies of science, bidding him find wonder in the atom's vortex and the mystery in the sky's dimensions. And when he had failed to find these boons in things whose laws are known and measurable, they told him he lacked imagination, and was immature because he preferred dream-illusions to the illusions of our physical creations.
     ...
     With his dreams fading under the ridicule of the age he could not believe in anything, but the love of harmony kept him close to the ways of his race and station. He walked impassive through the cities of men, and sighed because no vista seemed fully real; because every flash of yellow sunlight on tall roofs and every glimpse of balustraded plazas in the first lamps of evening served only to remind him of dreams he had once known, and to make him homesick for ethereal lands he no longer knew how to find.
     ...
     Then he began once more the writing of books, which he had left off when dreams first failed him. But here, too, was there no satisfaction or fulfillment; for the touch of earth was upon his mind, and he could not think of lovely things as he had done of yore. Ironic humor dragged down all the twilight minarets he reared, and the earthy fear of improbability blasted all the delicate and amazing flowers of his faery gardens. The convention of assumed pity spilt mawkishness on his characters, while the myth of an important reality and significant human events and emotions debased all his high fantasy into thin-veiled allegory and cheap social satire. His new novels were successful as his old ones had never been; and because he knew how empty they must be to please an empty herd, he burned them and ceased his writing. They were very graceful novels, in which he urbanely laughed at the dreams he lightly sketched; but he saw that their sophistication had sapped all their life away.

Wow.

This is heavy stuff.

And with it came a revelation, a breakthrough, a foe-tossing flood of self-discovery.

I was stricken on two fundamental levels: first, I recognized that I had been laboring to construct my own science fiction novel as...well, fluff. Under the noble guise of science fiction, a revered medium which the savants of yesteryear employed to paint pictures of the Universe both unsuspected and overawing, I had constructed something intolerably artificial, mere varnish laid over a poisonous message of social criticism and allegory. Second, it reaffirmed my confidence in my chosen genre. The more I tried to summarize to myself (and explain to others) the premise of my novel, the more I found myself overcome with shame and doubt, a creeping disbelief in the credibility of science fiction as a vehicle for one's literary goals. Sci-fi, I increasingly allowed myself to believe, was kid stuff: childish and immature, not as worthwhile or credible as "realistic" novels.

Lovecraft saved me from that self-destructive train of thought. In one stroke, he made me realize the needlessness and puerility of embedding a sociopolitical message in the flesh of my fiction (indeed, why should it not stand on its own?) and simultaneously assured me of its worth. He reminded me of the marvels of science fiction and fantasy, the wonders which the mind can create, the boundless adventure that the wizard author may manifest on the printed page for all the world's dreamers, poets, thinkers and star-gazers to enjoy.

So here's where the seminal part of this blog post comes in. I'm instituting a major (and I mean major) overhaul of my novel manuscript, effective immediately. I haven't touched the thing in months, years. Perhaps I've been overcome with reality. Logic and realism have—how does it go?—"dinned into my ears a superstitious reverence for that which tangibly and physically exists." I've been unsure of myself as a writer, but more than that, unsure of myself as a writer of science fiction. Thanks to Lovecraft, I'm no longer afraid to delve into fantasy. Why the heck not? It's fun, dang it. You're supposed to do what you want with your life, aren't you? Hang the critics!

But most important of all, I'm ridding my novel (and all subsequent novels in the series) of all traces of ulterior message. The political significance, the social commentary, the biting satire—out with it. I don't need it. It was becoming too much to handle anyway: constantly scrutinizing my plot devices and characters to ensure they encapsulated the proper symbolism. Fundamentally, the novel is about doing what you want with your life, and having the guts to actually carry it through to the finish. So that's what I'll focus on. To the blazes with all the rest. If my fiction isn't good enough to stand by itself without political messages, social mores, commentary or satire, then it shouldn't be written in the first place. I've been ignoring the advice of Stephen King all along: I should write first, and worry about the thematic elements later. I should be teasing them out during the editing process instead of hammering them in too early. I'll write first, and if a message develops out of the subsequent product, then I'll refine it. But it won't be anvilicious and it sure as hell won't be political. If I was meant to be a political writer, then you'd be reading about Obama and Romney and Palin and Pelosi on the Sententious Vaunter, and not Lovecraft and Heinlein and Asimov. Same thing applies to my novels, starting this minute.

So, now that you've borne witness to the Great Revelation, I'll go one step farther and include you in the Great Work. I am GOING to start rewriting my novel soon. I'll keep you up-to-date on the process. In my long hiatus from novel-writing, and my long steep in the cleansing waters of inspirational science fiction and related literature, I've had a few other minor epiphanies which I feel will thoroughly improve the plot, pacing, and characterization of my novel. I'll take this opportunity to implement those changes. And when I get done...I'll have a real, honest-to-God manuscript, not just a bunch of loose pages bundled together and stuck under the bed with the dust bunnies.

And now, you'll have to excuse me. I'm going to take Lovecraft's silver key and use it to open the gate of dreams. It's been shut far too long, and for too trivial a reason. Stay tuned.

May your epiphany come to you likewise, and bear equally righteous fruit.

dancing with the Australians

[pant, wheeze]

Welcome to the sixth consecutive day of posts regarding my recent trip to the U.K. and Ireland. For those of you who are just joining the party, here's a recap:

My Canadian friend Jeff and I, who were visiting some English friends in Newcastle, England, slid west into Dublin for a day or three. We'd survived the first night, and were now onto the second: a pub crawl chaperoned by the city tour guides. It was due to start at 7:00 at the Purty Kitchen, in Temple Bar (the touristy-party district of southern Dublin).

Jeff and I washed, waxed and dried (figuratively speaking) at the hostel, then sauntered out into the slowly darkening day. I say "slowly darkening" because, as has been mentioned previously, night comes extremely slowly to the northern regions in summer. It takes the sun about three hours to set, and even then it doesn't get completely dark. Evening goes on forever. (You can get a good idea of what I mean by watching the movie Gregory's Girl, which takes place in Scotland.) It's probably the most charming temporal thing I've ever experienced.

It also meant that Jeff and I had plenty of time (and light) to get to the Purty Kitchen. We almost ran out of the former, if not the latter. We couldn't quite remember where the danged place was. Cillian (our tour guide) had only shown it to us once, and Temple Bar, though composed of only two or three streets running east-west (south of the River Liffey), was a nightmare of byways, alleys, and cobblestone cross-streets. We didn't remember whether the Kitchen was over to the west, closer to the cathedral; or east, towards Westmoreland Street.

After a few disagreements about cardinal directions and a lot of guessing, Jeff and I managed to muster up a whole brain between us. We located the rendezvous point with minutes to spare. It was blatantly obvious. The Purty Kitchen was just on the other side of the New Theater (where U2 was first discovered, remember?). Plus there was a whole line of people outside, waiting for happy hour to hit. Most of them had been on the tour with us, including a couple of the Americans (Oklahomans, fresh out of college and having a fling before settling down).

So we queued up. When seven o'clock struck an erratic sort of relay race began. We'd snatch a ticket for a free beer (eight-ounce cups of Foster's, a severe gyp to the palate, but better than nothing). We'd dash inside, get served up, chug the brew as soon as possible, dash back outside and repeat the process. The beers were only free until eight. The chaperones doled out the beer stubs like they were candy, and the rest of us nabbed what bits of conversation we could between slugs of beer and increasingly haphazard runs for the door. Jeff surrounded himself with several Canucks of various sexes; a boy and girl from Montreal, another man from Toronto. I stood at a high table with a couple of Australians: a man from Queensland and a girl from New South Wales. (To make things even more ironic, she was from Newcastle, New South Wales.) Her name was Angela. She had been around with us on the tour. She was, if I may say (platonically), rather cute. About 5'5", petite figure, short dirty-blond hair, fair skin. Positively charming eyes, and her accent wasn't bad either. She was a student at the University of Newcastle and was taking a summer break abroad.

I was rather enthused. This was precisely what I'd been hoping for all along: to meet some young, good-looking, free-spirited foreign girl while overseas. Just to talk with her, honest. If anything else happened...well, that would be an added bonus.

Don't bother tuning up. Nothing happened. Neither of us went to each other's hostel room and engaged in a wild romantic encounter. (Good thing, too...she was staying at a rather shifty hostel. Wouldn't have wanted to leave my pants lying around there.) I'm simply mentioning Angela here, now, because she will be an important player later in the drama—when we all began to dance.

In the meantime, I was in a rather special place, chugging beer with an attractive Australian. I must admit, her male companion was rather good company as well, funny as hell and just as opinionated as me. The World Cup, my constant companion wherever I went, was on the TV. South Africa was losing tragically to Uruguay. Jeff was scintillating and chafing beautifully with his companions over at the bar. I was working up a good buzz and feeling fine.

Eight o'clock struck. Duly fraternized (and moistened), we moved en masse from the Purty Kitchen to the next venue, Peadar Kearney's. The place was claustrophobic up top and spacious down below, the bar barely having room to swing a cat in, but the downstairs (with plentiful pool tables) darkly lit and cavernous.

Angela, Jeff and I ordered up some drinks. How we managed to push and shove our way through the wall-to-wall crowd remains a mystery. Word of a beer pong tournament swept the room shortly thereafter, and Jeff and I dove down the narrow staircase and into the basement to take on the Oklahomans. We lost, miserably. Those Okies know their business. It was my first time ever playing, but still, I would have though a Canuck and a Californian would have been able to hold up their end better.

I was just about lit by this time. I wandered back upstairs to refill my glass and join the Australians in a rousing chorus of "Waltzing Matilda." The Irish guitarist on the tiny stage crammed in the corner strummed and hummed, and the rest of us filled in the words. At the bar was a blond, bearded fellow from Manchester, England. What his name was I've long since forgotten. Solid bloke, though. The two of us sat and discussed the broader issues of life and world travel until it was time to switch pubs. Like a horde of thirsty locusts, we tourists swarmed the door and hung a left up Dame Street to Sweeney's.

This last was just a long, low room with several levels, each decked out with tables and chairs. Tequila shots were one euro apiece. The Montrealese and the Torontan had joined us, as had Angela. We'd lost Angela at Kearney's, but I (despite weaving a good deal) ran back down the sidewalk, rounded up all the stragglers, and herded them back to Sweeney's. Thought it was a gallant sort of thing to do, go back for the damsel left behind. Jeff and I sipped beer, shot tequila and talked with the other three until...well, until none of us were in any shape to talk anymore. I remember the Montreal-man just sort of keeling over slowly, like a ship foundering, until he was prostrate on the bench. I don't remember where the Toronto fellow disappeared to. I wasn't sure what kind of shape Jeff was in. Angela was taking things quite easy; she was still in good shape. I was feeling no pain. I was about to go ask the owner if he could stop the bar and let me get off.

But we weren't quite finished yet. There was one thing we had to do before calling it a night: clubbing. As it happened, our starting point, the Purty Kitchen, was in possession of an upstairs club. So back (and up) we went.

The remainder of the night passed in a blaze of strobes, pop music, and gut-shaking rhythms. The Canadians, the Mancunian, Angela and I all formed a sort of hectic six-square on one side of the dance floor and cut loose. I haven't gone that crazy in a while. All of us were soaked through in a matter of minutes. We kept imbibing, too: Smirnoff Ices were going like hotcakes at the downstairs bar. Jeff wound up jaw-to-jaw with a pretty girl from Wisconsin as the Mancunian and I hosted a dance-off in the corner.

I'd love to be able to show you pictures of some of this, but I left my camera in my room at the hostel. I knew I'd be getting soused, and didn't trust myself to hang onto valuables. I'd like to give you a more coherent rundown of the night's events, but as has previously been mentioned, I was soused. You should see the notes I took while out on this pub crawl. My writing, as it moves down the page, gets progressively more illegible until it fades finally to gibberish. Much the same is true of my memory. Angela disappeared sometime shortly after my memory fades away. I believe she, the Mancunian and I exchanged Facebook info, but I was never able to locate them. Such is life. Ships that pass in the night. Freak-dances in Dublin. Se la vi.
I vaguely recall stumbling away from the Kitchen with Jeff in the black of night, which had finally arrived; stopping off in some convenience store for a (large) bottle of water; traipsing back into the hostel, doffing my shoes and collapsing onto the upper bunk. It was as well that our flight out of Dublin back to Newcastle left in the early afternoon; we were going to need a serious lie-in.

But that's a story for next time. Next up on the Sententious Vaunter, bog bodies: the final day in Dublin.

the straight dope

I'll give it to you straight. For me, getting awards from fellow bloggers brings with it a certain amount of self-loathing. First, I don't think I really deserve 'em. I'm not saying that out of modesty, or fake-modesty-that-makes-you-love-me-all-the-more-because-you-think-I'm-all-humble-and-self-deprecating-but-I'm-really-just-saying-it-because-it-makes-you-think-I'm-humble-and-self-deprecating-and-you-love-me-all-the-more. I don't deserve these honors—yet. Wait until I've won a few Pulitzers, gotten onto a few bestseller lists, done a few book signings. Then hit me up. Then I'll feel like I've earned it.

There's also that subversive, cynical, nonconformist corner of my brain. The bit that hates blogging awards and everything they signify about the blogsphere, the Internet, and e-community at large. The conservative portion, which can't stand the idea of everybody getting an award, and those awards being dispensed by the proletariat instead of a qualified panel, and these awards being dispensed at random, at the award-giver's discretion. It's the part of me that says Oh, golly-gosh. An award? Really? A blogging award? From the blogsphere? Whoopity-f@#$ing-do. That sure means a lot. I'm sure that got passed on to a lot of deserving people. Yeah, right. It's just a small, grainy image with a crude icon and a cutesy title. Doesn't mean diddly-squat. Everybody on Blogger's going to have one before the month's out. Especially if they have to pass it on to twenty other trite, bilious, self-important hacks, as if it was some goddamn chain letter.

So, in order to actually accept one of these awards, I have to simultaneously overcome (a) the specious cranial inflation that stems from "winning" a blogging award, and (b) beat down the vitriolic commentary from behind. Fortunately, the humanist part of my brain—he doesn't show his face too often, but he's there when I need him—kicks into high gear. He invariably says Oh, Andrew, how can you not accept this award? No matter what that hectoring conservative may say, this award is a gift. It was given to you in good faith by a kindred spirit, a fellow blogger, one of your comrades-in-arms. They want to show their appreciation for what you do, for what you write, for what you have to say. You have thoroughly impressed them with your work, and they are honoring you for it. How can you in good conscience refuse it? Are you so callous? Are you so heartless and cold-blooded that you would refuse someone's well-meaning sentimentality? Would you spit on their accolade, no matter how insubstantial or intangible? Have you no empathy? Have you no gratitude? Have you no soul? You must write an acceptance speech this minute, young man. Accept this award, show your appreciation, and pass it on to other worthy recipients. This is not a chain letter you are passing on; it's unadulterated love and encouragement.

How can I say no to that?

So let's get on with the awards ceremony, then. Donna Hole, author of a marvelous and insightful self-titled blog, has presented me with the Soul Mates Award. And Claire Dawn, from the effusive, exotic and ever-informative Points of Claire-ification, has granted me the "Creative Writer" Blogger Award. It's ironic that I should get both these awards at the same time, because they both come with a set of unorthodox rules.

Let's begin with the Soul Mates Award.


I don't feel bad about accepting this one, because my personal friend distant acquaintance Christi, from A Torch in the Tempest, started it off as a kind of social experiment; and in general, social experiments are rather fun. The rules are:

• Pass it on to five recipients.
• Make up something (preferably inoffensive) about the people you sent it to. Assuming they are people, that is. I don't know if the milk cows have managed to penetrate the blogsphere or not. If they did, ignore 'em.
• Link to the people you gave it to (obviously; this is basic blogging etiquette).
• Link back to the original award post, which is right about here.

Alright then! Here are the recipients...and their retinue of falsehoods.

1. The vampire queen known only as propinquity survived the Great Romanian Purge of 1887 by hiding herself inside a crate of Czechoslovakian absinthe. During the two-month voyage to the United States, the absinthe absorbed some of her bewitching raspberry pheromones. A penniless confectioner later bought a bottle, took a taste, stole a taffy-puller, and invented Red Vines.
2. Jon Paul, similarly immortal, has participated in every major air conflict in the history of the United States. He dueled the Red Baron; bombed the Bismarck; splashed MiGs on the 38th Parallel; patrolled the Ho Chi Minh Trail; and I bet he will get a piece of the Martians whenever they beam down. During peacetime he wrote the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina under the pseudonym "Leo Tolstoy."
3. Better known as 006, Smithy infiltrated a premier Venezuelan terrorist cell in 1974 to pass information to British intelligence about the movements of Carlos the Jackal. Having successfully completed his mission objectives (rearranging Carlos's sock drawer, swiping his collection of Dire Straits records, and sleeping with his mistress), Smithy was cooperating with French agents when Carlos apparently "murdered" him. Smithy was forced to go into hiding, and is now working incognito on a guava farm in west-central Brazil, keeping MI6 abreast of international bacon prices.
4. Mary Witzl was President Richard M. Nixon's proofreader until fits of uncontrollable laughter barred her from working. Following this, she established a wind farm in Indio, California, promptly suffocating everybody in Palm Springs. Farther west, in Los Angeles County, a public holiday has been established in her honor. People celebrate it by removing their oxygen tanks for a split-second and inhaling a lungful of real air.
5. Entrepreneur Chick's five businesses are really a front for a top-secret clandestine worldwide organization known as the Cold Ducks, who are responsible for the ridges in Ruffles® potato chips, the discovery of Ludacris, and that weird eyeball hovering over the pyramid on the dollar bill.

And now for the "Creative Writer" Award.


This one's fun, too. Pass it on to five bloggers first. I'll wait. Okay, done? Go on, do it already. Do you want that little humanist angel in your head to get after you? No, you don't. When you've finished, the jollity begins. Divulge seven things about yourself: six lies and one truth. The rest of us will try to guess the truth, while you sit back and laugh your head off. Let your readers stew for a couple of days, and then clue everybody in. (Ironic that this post is entitled the straight dope when it contains almost nothing but lies, isn't it?)

And so, the nominees!

• Jade hears voices
• Except for Antigone
• Life at Willow Manor
• I'll Think of a Title Later
• Points of Claire-ification (I'm sorry, I'm gonna have to bequeath this one right back to her; she's earned it. And she said I was awesome.)

And here are the lies:

1. I once read the entire Harry Potter series cover-to-cover without stopping. It took me just over 27 hours. I started at seven in the evening and finished up a little after 10 the following night. I had to take some breaks to eat pizza, go to the restroom, and run around my dorm a few times to stay awake, but I stuck to it and finished it.
2. I saw Dick Cheney speak live at my college. He came in early 2007 to help President Bush promote his Social Security makeover. I was impressed by how much more natural he was in person. He made an impromptu speech, cracked jokes, and took questions from the crowd. I actually passed within 100 yards of him on my way out the door.
3. When I was little, my mother, brother and I accompanied my dad on a business trip to Montgomery, Alabama. I don't remember much; basically, all I can recall is looking out of our high-rise hotel window and seeing all the other skyscrapers. There were lots of green trees and blue sky, too. I haven't been back since.
4. I'm good at riddles. When I was younger I had this big book of them that Ma had bought for me at some bookstore in Tennessee. I read and reread it until the pages were dogeared and the leaves were yellowed. When I got older and read The Hobbit, I pretty much knew every riddle that Gollum and Bilbo told each other. It might take me a minute or two, but I can almost always reason out the answer.
5. I've been in only one real car accident in my life. It happened my senior year in high school. I was driving on the wrong side of the road, and without a seat belt. Coming around a blind corner, I hit another car head-on. (The driver and passenger were okay, fortunately.) My head hit the windshield and put an enormous spiderweb crack in it. The highway patrolman said that if I'd been going any faster, I'd have smashed my chest against the steering column and killed myself. In the end, I got away with just a few scratches.
6. I can play five musical instruments: the piano, accordion, violin, harmonica and Jew's harp. I took piano lessons for about eight years, and still suck. I took a couple of violin lessons and then elected to fiddle. The accordion was something I got into after hearing a few good folk bands from Ireland and Newfoundland. I've always liked the harmonica, especially after my English friend Elaine gave me one that she'd bought in a toy shop in Prague. The Jew's harp was just something I picked up on the side, being an admirer of Snoopy.
7. I got to sample some absinthe at my last cocktail party. My buddy John and I split an $85 bottle of Mata Hari, brought it to my place, and got it all ready: glasses, absinthe spoon, sugar cubes, blue flames, the works. I was disappointed, overall. I abhorred the licorice flavor and didn't even see any green fairies as compensation. But at least I can say I've tried it now.

Figure that out if you can.

There, done. Man, that was hard. It was more difficult than I imagined to beat back the subconscious vitriol and accept these awards. And that's not even mentioning how tough it was to choose the proper recipients to pass 'em onto, make up some stuff about them, and invent some flagrant untruths about myself. Jeez... At some point (I don't know when) I'll get around to notifying everybody. If you're one of the nominees and you stopped in before I could get to you, I apologize.

And also...congratulations.

micro-level prerequisites for world peace

The question is often asked: "Why can't we all just get along?"

I've bloviated elsewhere about the answer to this trite-yet-apt query. I believe the problem to be due, simply, to a lack of perspective. Unable to sympathize with others or step into their shoes, some folk are thereby unable to compromise or maintain a peaceful demeanor, resulting in disagreements and even wars. (Not that I don't believe there's such a thing as righteous war; ho yes, it exists.)

Beyond perspective (or lack thereof) there might also be some more minor, superficial problems which form the roots of this planet's deplorable lack of peacefulness. Hot-headedness and over-aggressiveness might be one such problem. Some folks are just wound up tight. And what are people when they aren't relaxed? That's right, tense. Disagreeable. Surly. Sullen. Perhaps even bellicose and belligerent.

Another difficulty is ignorance. Humanity has always feared and mistrusted what it doesn't know and understand. Increased global knowledge and "worldliness" might indeed be the key to creating more international and interpersonal harmony and minimizing discord. The phrase "know your enemy" takes on a whole new meaning here; it might herald a peaceful end to conflict.

So, to that end, I have conceived a plan for instigating world peace on a micro-level...that is, on an individual basis. If everybody on the planet (or a vast majority) would just shut up and DO these three things, then we might all soon be leaving in a happier, quieter, more sane world.

Number 1 : Take some time every day to kick back, relax, and listen to some beautiful music. This is the simplest one of the bunch. It can be any kind of music, so long as it's laid-back, slow, and most importantly, melodic. It doesn't even have to be John Lennon (although that does help; that man made some of the most lovely music in the history of the world, not even including lyrics). It can be classical (Strauss or Mozart or even some Beethoven works well, but the real masters here are Tchaikovsky and Rossini, I think), contemporary (take your pick, there's plenty of artists out there who make some of the most awe-inspiring, mellifluous rhythms and harmonies you could wish for), or whatever. Heck, listen to the sound of rainfall or beaches if that's what cools you down. Everybody just needs some time to stretch out prone, immerse themselves in the divine art of sound, and introspect for a spell. If nothing else, it's marvelous stress relief. It can be used as a preventative measure (say, before going to work) or in a remedial capacity (say, AFTER work). Any way you like, you can listen, that's the best thing.

Number 2 : Go up in the SR-71 Blackbird or the space shuttle and experience the Overview Effect. "The Overview Effect" is the term (coined by Frank White in his book The Overview Effect) for the feeling of anthropic admiration, love, peacefulness and unity that almost never fails to impinge itself upon the consciousness of human beings who have ascended far enough above the Earth's surface to see it in all its glory...and smallness in comparison with the rest of the Universe. As far as I know, it's never failed: once astronauts go up in space, or some TV documentary host hitches a ride on a high-flying airplane, and these tiny, fragile human beings catch a glimpse of our planet stretched out in all its majesty and uniqueness and beauty, an ineffable sense of awe comes over them. Things given such importance and precedence on the ground (political standpoint, nationality, religious differences, what have you) drop away with the atmosphere and leave the viewer humbled, wiser, perhaps slightly ashamed of his or her own prejudices. Perhaps most tellingly, however, all of these people who have gone up and experienced the Overview Effect come back with a more profound concern for human cooperation ("world peace," if you want to call it that). Now, it seems, in full knowledge of the scope of human existence and achievement after their heavens-scraping ride, these fortunate humans have realized how insignificant most people's disputes, problems and disagreements are. It's impossible to do this in front of your TV set, however. You have to physically be up there and experience it. If everybody in the world had the chance to do this—to go upstairs and get a look at Starship Earth—maybe we'd all bit a little more eager to quit squabbling, get along, and accomplish something great.

Number 3 : Hit the books. I'm no political scientist, historian, anthropologist, or economist, but I would venture to suggest that half this world's problems are caused by ignorance. Ignorance of a thing is bad enough; ignorance of each other is unforgivable. If people would stop focusing on themselves, their culture, or their own traditions so much and took the time to learn about others', I don't think I'm far off the mark by saying (as so many others before me have said) that the world would be a better place. If those damn Muslim extremists weren't so brainwashed from birth with the Koran and Mohammed and Allah, and they took a time-out to actually get to know a few Jews in the corner bar over a few drinks, I highly doubt that even a spirited religious debate could get in the way of friendships being made. There's a reason they call it a "heart-to-heart." You open up to people on a deeply fundamental level that transcends beliefs and perceptions, and truly communicate. When that happens, people connect. And those connections can't be forgotten or severed or withered. And those connections are worth more to this world than all the gold that's buried in it, or all the kingdoms and empires that have passed upon it. Even if you just open up a book about the other side and read about what they do, it can only help you to learn more and understand (and perhaps stop disliking). Going over there and visiting is even better.

I knew nothing about Korea before I went there, except the name of the capital and the fact that the U.S. had had a war there. I actually kind of disliked Korea; I wasn't sure if the name sounded right rolling off the tongue. Boy, was I mistaken about it. I loved the place and still do. Its government is democratic, its outlook is conservative but fun-loving, the food is healthy AND delicious, and the people...well, most of the people there are worth their weight in gold. I met many dear friends, and I'll never forget the friendships and camaraderie I forged with the children (some of whom learned a thing or two about Westerners while I was around, too!). When I got there I was awkward, nervous, suspicious, scared; so were the children. But we opened up to each other. Classes went from silent to boisterous. I went from having kids veer out of my way to having them clamber all over me when I walked in the door. Even now I'm misting up thinking about it.

I'm not sure why I wrote this. Maybe it's because I'm listening to Coldplay right now (speaking of beautiful music). Maybe it's because I'm reading all this stuff on FoxNews.com about women having their babies cut out of them, and suicide bombings in the Middle East, and harsh words being exchanged between North Korea and the U.S.A., and I'm sick to death of it all (it doesn't have to be like this, folks; it might've been different). Maybe it's because I love flying and I've experienced a tiny bit of that Overview Effect myself, and firmly believe in its sociopolitical healing powers. Maybe I'm just a sentimental fool who's preaching too loudly to no one. All I ask, as always, is that you consider it. I wouldn't mind if the world considered it, either.