You're on summer vacation I take it, perhaps in Canada for your brother's  wedding.

I've been in India about a week now.  I don't understand the attraction. It's hot, noisy, dusty; flies are everywhere, and the people are not that cool.  Really nosey and intrusive.  And they stare much more than Koreans do.

This PC bang dude does nothing but pace and look at what people are doing.  And if there's a free computer (there are only 3) he looks at porn.  If he touches my keyboard one more time, I'm going to smack him.

That said, I can add smoking cigarettes to my list of vices that I no longer do.  I don't really miss it.  Perhaps its all the diarrhea.

50 days sober!  Where's my chip!!!

Tomorrow morning I plan to go to a place called Gangotri, which is the glacier where the Ganges river starts.
It's almost 4 thousand meters up so it'll be cool (not 40 degrees) and hopefully quieter than it's been everywhere else I've been.

I don't know when my aversion to noise (cars honking excessively, etc) began, but it's pretty intense.  My aversion that is.

 My return flight to Korea is Aug 16.   Beyond that I know not.  Seems like a long way from now, but it's really not.

They say it's 40 degrees here in Rishikesh.  I think it might be.  As for the "ashram" stay I was considering, it all seems very cult-like and creepy.  Lots of these dudes dressed all in orange walking in groups.  Orange tee shirt, orange shorts and sandals.  And with their Freddy Mercury moustaches, they look like some gay cult.

Rishikesh, like Haridwar, is a pilgrimage town where people come from all over to bathe in the Ganges.  It's much cleaner up here; that is, the river is much cleaner in Rishikesh than it is down in Varanasi where they throw dead bodies.  Also, R & H are both vegetarian communities.  You'll see pigs and cows in the street, but you won't see any on a menu or on a plate or in a market.

India's a funky place. I always hear from people how "amazing" it is. I just don't see it.  I guess a lot of people come here for some "spiritual" purpose.  I don't get that either.  Every white person I've seen in the last week (all two of them) have looked like they were on their way to a Grateful Dead show.  Stinking hippies.

God is everywhere.    All's you gotta do is believe.  God will find you.  Peace.

And why would anybody name their group after the most f'd up person in the 20th century.  Yeah, let's do like Mao.

Things move really slow  here.  And part of that is really nice.

Justin and his gf Bimala and I share an apt, here at the Benchen Vihar Monastary guesthhouse.  Sounds funny, I know.
Just about all the residents are students of Buddhim from all over the world.  Mostly Europe.  Some of them are yogis
and other such ranks in the Buddhism echelon.  Everybody here is really mellow.  Here at the monastary.
Down in the city, it can get a little sketchy.
 
We're heading for Kashmir at the end of this month.  We'll be there a while.  As for Electric Pagoda, the bar/rest? 
I got my money back, Justin's having a moral dilemna running a place where every other night there are fights,
broken bottles, broken windows, cops coming.  And his partner is quite the tool.  It's actually his partner who's the
biggest thorn in this venture.  Me, I don't really like Thamel.  Something about NOT being drunk that makes
downtown nightlife NOT as appealing

Justin was advised by this visiting Rimpoche who is just visting our center for a short time. 
He is like some real heavy weight in the Buddhist world, like the Pope or something -- I guess the Dalai Lama considers him to be #1 in the world.  All the high Buddhist people in the world, like the Dalai Lama are reincarnations of the first Buddha. 

Justin's had several private meetings with this old glass eyed holyman (the meetings aren't really private cuz there's a translator and helpers cleaning the glass eye with cotton swabs while it sits in his face as the man advises Justin.

His advice:  Just wait...don't do anything.

We're gonna wait in Kashmir.  Spend the hot summer up (it's over 40 degrees in Delhi right now) at 4000m in Ladakh and surrounding areas in Northern India like Rishikesh, where the Beatles wrote the White Album and where John Lennon wrote that famous lyric, "You made a fool of everyone.." (Sexy Sadie) about the Maharishi, cuz of his demands for money and his attitude towards the female disciples.  The Beathles had gone to visit him and stayed in his Ashram for a few months.  Ringo and his wife left after a week cuz they missed their children...and cuz of the vegetarian diet.  THAT Maharishi died earlier this year. 

The first time I ever heard the name Kashmir, I was stoned listening to Physical Graffitti.
Now I'm stoned and getting ready to go there. 

It's the circle of life.

 

Why I don’t speak Spanish

 This is a rather long piece. If you’ve read my stuff, you probably know that I tend to use my life experiences to make a point. This piece is no different.

 The title is a bit misleading because I DO speak Spanish.  Rather well, as a matter of fact. But I’m far from fluent. I SHOULD be a fluent Spanish speaker since both of my parents are Peruvian:  born there, raised there, went to college there, got married there and immigrated to America in 1959.  Still, they never taught me Spanish.   They never once spoke to me in Spanish while I was growing up, nor taught me a single word in Spanish the entire time I was growing up. I had to learn it on my own, which I did as a young adult in college and through subsequent trips to Peru in my late teens, early 20’s where/when I lived with my father’s older sister and studied vociferously 501 Spanish verbs and other texts and filled many notebooks, not to mention hours of conversation with my aunt and cousins and grandparents and every Peruvian who could put up with my gringo accent. 

 The only Spanish I ever heard my mother say to me directly while growing up was, “Carajo, mierda!” Which means, ‘You little shit!’ That’s a loose translation. In her defense, I was quite naughty.

 At the same time, I’ve lived in Korean so long that I never tell people how long I’ve actually lived here – for one reason and one reason only – even though Koreans and many other people tell me how well I speak Korean, in my mind, I feel that I should be fluent. But I’m not. I’m far from fluent. I’m ashamed to have lived here so long without mastering the Korean language.

 So the title of this piece should actually be – Why I can’t master a foreign language –

 The “GRO La Salle ran great” heading is a reference to the classic sitcom All in the Family, which was actually an adaptation of a British sitcom called Till Death Do Us Part.  Archie Bunker’s character was based on the character Alf Garnett, a similarly bigoted working class Joe. Whereas Archie referred to his liberal son-in-law as “Meathead” or “Dumb Polack,” Alf referred to his socialist, Liverpudlian son-in-law as a "randy Scouse git." 

 In any event, AITF was the first ‘American’ TV show to tackle the issue of race relations in a humourous (sic) manner. Not that there’s anything humorous about race relations.  Or is there?

 I’m a teacher of EFL by trade, and in my life I’ve tried unsuccessfully to master two languages other than English, so I understand very well the difficulties in learning a foreign language. As a result of this understanding or lack thereof, I have a lot of patience with my students, cuz I too am ‘challenged,’ that is, I have trouble in the art of mastering a foreign language.

 Maybe I’m stupid, or maybe I have a complex about listening to other “speak,” cuz it’s really the listening part that I haven’t been able to master. That, and the retention of new vocabulary. But my problem lies mainly in the listening part. I can converse with no problem in Korean or Spanish. I would say I’m fully ‘conversational’ in Spanish and Korean, when it comes to speaking, but it’s the listening part that really gets me. I could watch a Korean sitcom or drama over and over again and I hear words that I know and phrases, and I can get the gist, sometimes, but a total cohesive understanding of what is being said is not attained. I could READ a few lines in Korean out loud 100 times and 1 hour later completely forget what I’d read. I could hear a song by the Gypsy Kings or Oscar Aviles, a famous Peruvian troubadour of the Afro-Festejo variety – my favorite music, incidentally – 1000 times or more, and still not fully understand what they are saying. Sure I hear words and phrases that I understand, I sometimes get the gist of what is being sung, but I can’t really hear it, the way I hear English. I can even READ the words, but then soon after, I’ve forgotten them. And given the fact that I know all the words to SO many songs in English makes me think – there is something wrong with the way I view foreign languages.

 ‘Active listening,’ professionals in the field of EFL and ESL call it, and that is what I ALWAYS have to do when speaking in foreign tongues. That is, I really have to tune in:  focus, concentrate, cut out all else and just listen, but still, I’m left with a partial understanding. With English I can PASSIVELY listen with zero mental effort to any English speaker or TV show or song, rap music lyrics, any accent of English, backwater hicks or Australians, and I completely understand whatever is being said. I can be in a restaurant full of Koreans and if there is an English speaking couple at the far end of the restaurant, I unconsciously hear and understand every word they say! Why can’t I do that with a foreign language? Even the language of my parents! I’m from LA, which outside Mexico City, is the city with the largest Spanish speaking population in the world.  LA has more Spanish speakers than Madrid or Barcelona or Lima, Peru or Caracas, Venezuela. My best friend in LA is Mexican. I don’t understand why I haven’t attained this level of fluency in Spanish.  At the same time, why haven’t I attained fluency in Korean when I’ve lived here for so many years and studied it so painstakingly?

 I blame myself.  But in this blog, I’m going to give an alternate answer. This is not to blame others for my shortcomings:  it’s just simply a possible reason for my learning disability.

 The answer to the question ‘why’ is my upbringing. I don’t blame my parents. Be that as it may, I was taught, from infant age, that English is good and foreign languages are bad. White is good, and color (that is, people of color), are bad.

 Allow me to elaborate.

 I was born on April 9th, 1968, 5 days after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. My parents had lived in America for 9 years and basically decided before I was born, that they were NEVER going to teach me Spanish. They had achieved near fluency in English by the time of my birth, and they decided, they were never going to talk to me in Spanish, and they were going to make sure that I spoke English only. And this, they did for my own good – to protect me.

See, they arrived in America long before I was ever born, and, I don’t know what they knew about America before they arrived, but upon arrival, they encountered racism everywhere they went. They flew to Miami for their honeymoon in 1959, and after their initial week of ‘honeymooning,’ they traveled across the country by land to California, where they settled in Los Angeles. Along the way, they traveled through many Southern states and encountered segregation everywhere they went. This was pre-civil rights, the tail end of the 50’s. Segregated schools, segregated public restrooms and drinking fountains, segregated restaurants, stores, neighborhoods – segregation was everywhere. And it wasn’t just black and white. That is, it wasn’t just blacks who were discriminated against – all minorities:  that is Asians, Indians, Latinos – all minorities, that is, all people of color faced discrimination in some way. And there they were – my parents: college graduates – my mother had a law degree before moving to America – they were thinking: we’ve arrived in the land of opportunity and here we are, ready to start a new life, start a family. My parents were professionals, that is, looking to work in professional fields, not laborers, so basically they were trying to enter the “white collar” work force. I’m sure they encountered a lot of racism in their lives – against other people of color, as well as against themselves. They encountered a lot of discrimination against themselves for their limited English ability and their brown-ness and their non-white, non-50’s-esqe demeanor which they never could have achieved because, how could they? So, like any parent who seeks to protect their children – which basically is every ‘normal’ parent – they decided early on, that they were NOT going to teach their children Spanish or educate their children in the ways of THEIR ancestors, the way so many other immigrants throughout American history had done. They were afraid I’d speak English with an accent when I grew up and face discrimination because of that.

 You look at historical footage of early Americans: Italians, Irish, Polish – they all adapted: sure, the parents were old world, but their kids were AMERICAN.   Yeah, well, that’s what my parents expected of me. There was really no difference.

 If they’d had a window to the future and could have seen that 30 years hence, multiculturalism and the ability to speak more that one language was a PLUS, perhaps they would have thought differently, but that wasn’t the case. They were limited by what they knew. That window was not available to them, no more than any window to 30 years from now is available to us.

 You know, a person can say, “He’s 3 years old, he doesn’t know anything.” And he’d be right.  A 3 year old doesn’t know anything. But that doesn’t mean he’s dumb or brain damaged. A 3 year old is ignorant; he don’t know shit.  Yes, that is true. But a 2 year old, 3 year old, 4 year old has a working brain like a sponge and he/she is soaking up everything around him/her.  A child is more intuitive than the average adult. That’s all they have to go on.

 I grew up in a world where white was good and color was bad. On tv, all the good guys: rich people, their wives and daughters, successful people, the heroes – they were all white. All the criminals, maids, low income workers were people of color. Baretta, Starsky and Hutch – they never busted white people. Huggy Bear was the pimp/snitch/African American that S&H shook down every episode for information. All the Mexicans and Indians on the old Westerns like F Troop or Bonanza were white people in wigs and makeup, speaking broken English (dangling participle). They were always outwitted by the superior white cowboys/infantrymen.

 In real life, my parents’ bosses were white. All their American friends were white.  The woman who took care of us and cleaned our house (both my parents worked full-time) was brown. The only language spoken to me by my parents was English .  The only language on TV was English (this was long before a SAP button, long before remote controls).  The only language that seemed to be of worth was English. The only time I EVER heard Spanish was when my parents spoke to the housekeeper or when they were fighting. The only other time I ever heard Spanish being spoken from age 1-10 was when relatives from Peru would visit, and they were all crazy and different from anything I’d ever known. They’d bring these “sweets” like ‘Panetone’ and ‘King Kong,’ which were not delicious at all.

 Even in my diet, my older sister said to me one day, years ago – I was a really picky eater as a youth – she told me, “You said clearly, you would only eat white food or meat, that is, rice or potatoes or white bread. You wanted nothing color on your plate.” Vegetables are all colors. I would pitch a fit if there was anything ‘color’ on my plate. Occasionally, we’d have dinner at my Uncle Abel’s house prepared by his Peruvian wife. Today, I would dive in and love every bite – seco de cordero or lomo saltado. I’d even ask for seconds. Back then, as a child, when visiting my uncle’s house, I was forced to eat everything on my plate before I could excuse myself and I’d cry. 

 I’d cry. Like the spoiled bratty American punk that I was.

 I was a victim of society. And I think about it a lot now. 

 I think about white guilt. I’ve never experienced white guilt, cuz I’m a first generation American. I mean, my older brother is dark. Really dark, like my father, but we are Mestizo – like most of the Latin American population – which means that we are all blends of European blood and native Indian (sic) native South American ancestry. Filipinos use that word Mestizo because they are primarily a mix of Spanish and native island blood. For some reason I came out whiter than the rest of my family. My scrotum is not pink like most white people, it’s brown, like my nipples, and if I spend more than a few weeks in a hot, sunny environment I get dark and can physically blend with natives in the Southern hemisphere with little trouble, but I have a big nose and I act white.  But I know I’m not, cuz I’ve had many white friends throughout my life and I’m not one of them, culturally that is.

 I remember a rehabilitation counselor I had after getting my first DUI telling me – she was giving me a ‘scared straight’ speech. She said to me, “If you end up in jail, yer fucked. Jails are very segregated socially,” she told me, “The blacks aren’t going to accept you, the whites aren’t going to accept you, the Asians aren’t going to accept you, and the Latinos aren’t going to accept you either. You’re not gonna fit into any group.

 Kind of like life on the outside, I thought to myself.

 White guilt generally comes about from white people who feel bad about what white people have done to their brown or red or yellow brethren in years past. I look at white guilt like this — when I look at my parents, I realize that my family’s only been in America for like 50 years, so we have nothing to do with anything that went on in America before that. I have nothing to feel guilty about.

 However, if I WERE white, that is, really white, so much that my mother and father were white and my grandparents too, I WOULD feel guilty for everything my ancestors have done to other people.  It’s natural. The same way a Japanese person might feel guilt for the atrocities that their ancestors have bestowed on Korea and the Pacific Islands and parts of China and Manchuria, not to mention all the WWII POW’s they enslaved.

 If you don’t know yer past, you don’t know your future.

 Some people use history to their advantage like Hitler used the First Reich and Second Reich to unite Germans against the rest of the world, or Jews of the world creating a Zionist nation based on the premise that they’d been in the area known today as Israel for over 2000 years, even though most modern Israelis have no history on that strip of land. Racially identity is a powerful thing. It justifies murder, slavery, thievery and a whole host of evils. 

 Some people choose to ignore certain aspects of history. Ignorant does not mean stupid. The root word is “IGNORE.”  (It’s not, really, but it works.)  They ignore the apparent.  They ignore the lessons of the past. Many of the “privileged” in this world use ‘history’ to maintain their privileges. And history unfortunately seldom echoes truth.

 I’m privileged. If my parents never emigrated from Peru, I would’ve been born there. Genetically, I’d be no different than I am now, but I’d most likely be a native Spanish speaker. My English language ability wouldn’t be at the caliber it is now. I wouldn’t have this cushy job in South Korea.

 Furthermore, I wouldn’t have had many privileges I have now, like the ability to visit nations throughout the world with no visa. I acknowledge that. I don’t feel guilty for my privileges, I actually am happy for them. But I acknowledge them as a ‘gift’ from divine providence and my parents.  And for that I am thankful.  I learned a lot about myself the 3^rd time I went to Peru. By then, I could speak Spanish reasonably well, but everybody in Peru knew before I even opened my mouth, that I was not Peruvian. They could tell by the way I dressed, by the way I carried myself, by the way I walked that I was ‘un extranjero,’ a foreigner. I was not one of them. 

 And Peru, like many Southern Hemisphere countries is very class-ist and racist to the point that brown people don’t get the same respect that the lighter-skinned people get.

 I remember one young guy I befriended in Lima, a college student, telling me, “You see those Serranos (mountain people)? Those are our niggers.” I had no reply. He was a ‘friendo.’ (Yes, I am making reference to Anton Chigurh)

 Dark, short people from the Andes, should they venture into Lima, are not given the time of day because they are not tall and light skinned, or come from ‘proper’ families. In India and Nepal, it’s all about caste. Once you are born, you are either on the top, on the bottom or somewhere in the middle. And there you stay for the duration of your life.

 Kind of gives new meaning to the phrase – ‘sucks to be you’.

 In the third world, there is more acceptance of the status quo than in America. In America, there is a lot more hatred because, in America, it’s all about money. Family and background are really secondary to financial wealth. In America, no matter what you look like, no matter where you came from, no matter what you believe – if you’ve got the money, then you’ve got the power. That’s why there’s so much more hatred and hate crimes in America than in caste/class based cultures. Every state but 4 has had a history of lynching African-Americans. During slave time, there was no lynching. It began after emancipation.

In 1898, in Lake Cormorant, Mississippi, a black man was hanged from a telephone pole. And in Weir City, Kansas. And in Brookhaven, Mississippi. And in Holdenville, Oklahoma, where the hanged man was ‘riddled with bullets.’ In Danville, Illinois, a black man was hanged from a telephone pole, cut down, burned, shot, and stoned with bricks. A black man was hung from a telephone pole in Beleville, Illinois, where a fire was set at the base of the pole and the man was cut down half alive, covered in coal oil, and burned. While his body was burning, the mob beat it with clubs and cut it to pieces.

By Eula Biss from Time and Distance Overcome

 Castration, eye gouging, horrors upon horrors. Lynchings were not simply executions, they were public torture sessions. Why?

 “In America, first you get the money, then you get the power, then you get the woman.” -Tony Montana 

 In most countries, that kind of economic mobility just doesn’t exist.

 Many Koreans despise the Japanese for atrocities committed against them. At the same time, many Koreans look down on Southeast Asians as “dirty, lesser people.” Different African peoples have nothing but contempt for other African peoples and because of this – genocide is a common phenomenon there. Everywhere in the world, people hate their neighbors for their ‘race.’ 

 The America I grew up in was very similar. I took a stand

In Berkeley, in the late 80’s, I began thinking, telling people, I’m Peruvian. Why? Cuz both my parents were. That’s when the hyphenated American phenomenon first achieved widespread usage. It gave me some solace. It freed me from White Guilt, not that I felt any, but it gave me a community to draw power from. It gave me the piece (sic) of mind that – I’m not one of them. But upon arriving in Peru, and spending time there as an adult, I realized.  I am as American as tacos or pizza or hamburgers (named after the city of Hamburg, where the Beatles first gained widespread recognition). I’m an American, and nothing I do will ever change that. Peruvians could see my American-ness a mile away. Still, it did little to bring my Spanish learning quest to fruition.

In 2005 I spent the summer in Europe, and outside of England, I basically told everybody that I was Peruvian and spoke Spanish everywhere I went. Kind of like Canadians openly displaying a Maple leaf on their person or bag to show that they are not American. I rode an overnight train through Spain and – wouldn’t you know it – I shared a car with a group of Peruvians! We had a really good time. At some point, I told them I was American. They didn’t care where I was from. 

I have a US passport.  I have an education from UC Berkeley (which I paid for entirely by myself). Still, when I see homeless people I feel privileged to have what I have. I don’t feel guilty, I don’t feel superior. I feel privileged to have had the opportunities I’ve had. I feel thankful that I’m not homeless and poor.  I’m happy to have had opportunities and I try to make good of them.

White guilt is natural, but it doesn’t have to be carried around. There is no reason to feel guilty for what one’s ancestors did.  BUT...

But acknowledgement is kind of par for the course.  Acknowledgement.   

Then the human race can move forward.

“If you don’t know your past, you will never know your future.” Well that about sums it up. Will I continue to try and master Spanish and Korean? Yes. Is it difficult? Fuck yeah. I learned a new Korean word today – 혼혈아 hone hyul ah. It is the non-offensive word to describe the child of a Korean and a Westerner.  Unlike the racial slur Twiki (don’t know the hangul spelling).  I prefer the term 50/50, but what do I know.

Will I try to learn Nepalese since I’m going to be living there starting next week? I’m sure as hell going to try. Do I laugh at racial humor? If the jokes are funny.

Why can’t black people become astronauts? Because they’re niggers.

Is that funny? Not really. Did I laugh when I first heard that joke last Saturday night at my Canadian friend’s bbq? I don’t remember. But most people on that full moon, roof top evening in downtown Cheju City did laugh. Does that make them racists? If I laughed, does that make me a racist?

In short...

I hate everybody except my friends – and they come in all shapes, sizes, colors and creeds. They live all over the world. My friends are all part of what I call the BRAVO-FOLD.  It’s not a cult, but we share a bond. We share a bond unlike the bond that ethnic groups share. The only bond we share is that they all know me.

I don’t care where you are from or what culture you hale or what you believe in. I hate you. And if I see you on the street, just keep walking, cuz I have nothing nice to say to you. I’m not a racist. I hate everybody equally on a case by case basis.

Goodbye.           Peace out!     Elvis has left the building.

This will be the final blog entry that I write here in the ROK. I’m leaving tomorrow. I worked today and EPIK wants me out of my flat tomorrow morning. Fuckers. I’ll be off the grid for a while. I want to get published in print form, so I’m going to stop blogging for a while and try some legitimate publishing.

That said – I want to send a shout out to my blog community and readership: Showbiz (If I’m ever in Pusan, I wanna check out the Gargles. Gook has mad skills and you are very entertaining), Whiskey Exhaust (enjoy Korea while yer young. Before I became jaded by the ubiquitous militaristic – obey, don’t think thought process of most Koreans – I really enjoyed living here), Nightmare Believer (props for your honesty and tell-it-like-it-is approach to Korea’s female population), Bobby McGill (bastard son of Bobby McGee and Maggie McGill – your race blog last week gave me the impetus to post this – I started writing this essay 2 months ago), Anonymous (keep on hating, you slags),  Scouser (I’d planned on moving to Prague before my Nepal opportunity presented itself. If I knew yer email you would’ve been hearing from me. You still might, but I don’t know yr email. As a side note, you recently posted a pic of Yogi G – Justin Reeves. He’s one of my partners in this Kathmandu venture. www.epmandu.com Congratulations on your nuptials), Grand Narrative dude (keep doing what yer doing – I hope there’s a PhD in this for you).

 And finally – Angry Steve. Why are you so angry? Watch the movie Celtic Pride. Again. You’ve probably already seen it. “You’re in Bean town now. Bean town!”

Gotta love hometown identity!

                                 

I wrote an essay years ago about why I don't wear teeshirts with labels like Nike or Polo
cuz I don't want to be a walking billboard.  Still, I have a lot of tee shirts, some white, some
black, some colored -- all with some expressive image on them.  In a sense, I am a
walking billboard, just not for corporate America.  Each teeshirt holds some memory for me.

So here it is, my life according to the tee shirts I own.

   me in Mont Saint Michel France                                 me in Miho, Chungcheong buk do

Once upon a time, the above T was my favorite tee shirt, although I’ve since lost it. The
image is a lithograph by Picasso of Don Quixote and Sancho. I grew up looking at this
image everyday, as my parents have had a large framed DQ&S in their living room, for as
long as I can remember. I’d never seen it on a tee shirt until I went to Granada, Spain in
2005. I had to have it, so I bought it, and for two years, I wore it often.

My history teacher in 7^th grade once asked the class, “What was the single most
important event in 1492?” And the entire class started calling out answers, “Columbus,
discovery of America, etc. etc.” He said, “No. That is incorrect. The most important
historical event in 1492 was the fall of Granada and it is because of that, that Spain was
able to stop financing wars against the Moors, and be able to start launching seafaring
expeditions.” He may have had a point.

Granada was, until 1492, the Muslim Capitol of Southern Spain. There, in the city of
Granada, you will find Alhambra, which is one of the greatest feats of ancient architecture
in the world. Like most Muslim architecture, including the Petronus Towers in Kuala
Lumpur, everything is based on the octagon.

Alhambra is an amazing place to visit. I recommend it, if you like history and/or architecture.

_____________________________________________________________________

This is the oldest tee shirt that I own. I bought it in LA many years ago and for those
unaware, Aztlán is one name given to the region in Northern Mexico annexed by the US
following the Mexican war.   The Chicano movement of the 1960's embraced Aztlán as
"their true homeland."

I bought this tee shirt in East LA, where my best friend in America lives. One of them, at
least. At the same store, I also bought this second tee shirt, which is a parody of a hwy
caution sign found in many border towns between the US and Mexico, like San Diego or
Calexico. 



The sign cautions motorists against highway crossing families. In this image, the ‘family’ is a family of pilgrims. 
It’s a political statement about immigration (if you couldn't figure it out).
_____________________________________________________________________

  The Philippines

This tee shirt I bought at an SM mall in Cebu city. It was instrumental in meeting my
Japanese ex-girlfriend since it was the ice breaker. She walked up to me at Old 55 in
Pusan back in 2006 and asked me, “Do you know what that shirt means?” “I do,” I told
her.  The Japanese script translates into big root. 

I've been in Cebu a couple of times in my life, but my favorite place in the Philippines is
a place in Northern Luzon called Sagada Mountain Province. 

Located 14 hours North of Manila – 7 hours to Baguio City up the National Hwy and then
another 7 hours up the Halsema Hwy takes you to Sagada Mt. Province. 





I’ve been to Sagada 8 different times in my life, since my first visit in 1999, the last being
in February of 2009. It’s a beautiful place way up in the mountains with a culture entirely
different than anywhere else in the PI. They are Igorot people and eat with their hands and
are mountain people. I love it there. I much prefer the mountains to the sea.

One thing Sagada is famous for is the hanging coffins. People get buried in a crevice in
the mountains.  It is also famous it's massive caves and beautiful scenery.

 





It is near Banaue, known for the rice terraces. 



In February I also stayed in Subic Bay for a few nights and because I ran out of clean
clothes I bought this tee shirt. It’s a little cheesy, but I was out of clean shirts.

___

______________________________________________________________________________________

Thailand

Thailand has many cool tee shirts, many of which are corporate spoofs like the COMA
tee shirt, written in the logo script of PUMA except the puma is on its back, or this one
that I bought in 2006. 

At the same time I got this one, which I noticed is now part of the Pusan Web layout.

 Also in September 2006 when the new Bangkok international airport opened, I was one
of the first people to fly out of there. The older Don Muang airport still holds a very firm
place in my memories (I’ve been to Thailand a dozen times or more times over the last 10
years), but I bought this tee shirt to commemorate my being one of the first people to use
the new airport, Suvarnbhumi Intl Airport. It’s pronounced ‘Sue went home’.   At that time, it was still under construction.

Europe – Last year, instead of flying “home” for my 2 week home leave, I met my mother
in London and after a week, we went to Paris. There I bought 3 tee shirts. I’m a fan of
Toulous Lautrec. I think these are just cool.

Then after my mother returned to LA, I went to Amsterdam for a couple days and there I
visited the Bulldog Coffee shop



as well as many others.  But at Bulldog, I bought this tee shirt. Amsterdam is a
blast. Everybody bikes everywhere and if you bike too slow in the fast lane or don’t heed
other bikers, you will get bitched out by passing bikers.  Order.  Coffee shops sell the most
delicious coffee and ice cream and various sweets you've ever tasted.  I wonder why?

 Laos – In 2007 I spent 20 days in Laos. Laos is an awesome place to visit, but it has an
inordinate amount of unexploded ‘ordinances,’ which is a euphemism for bombs.  

BOMBING LAOS

Once the bombing began, the civilian population became the target for more than two million tons of bombs. Anthony Lewis wrote that this "was the most appalling episode of lawless cruelty in American history."

There is an international NGO that does nothing but find these unexploded ordinances and
make sure they are properly diffused. I gave them a donation and in return, got this tee
shirt.

Also, while there I stayed in a tree house, 100 feet in the air, for 3 days in the Bokeo
jungle. It is a Gibbon preserve and they’ve erected zip lines throughout the jungle, so you
hike around with a harness with pullies on it and when you get to a line, you clamp onto the cable
and ZIP across the jungle. It’s awesome. It’s called The Gibbon Experience

You can watch this guy zip around.
  
Cambodia – this shirt I bought last Summer while I was in Phnom Penh. It’s cool cuz it feels like a polo type shirt, but it’s got no collar. Also, it’s got Khmer script which is kind of cool.

 


I’ve been to Cambodia 3 times and I’ve wanted to return to Ankor Wat, but I just don’t feel like being surrounded by hordes of tourists.  Hordes!

 How many boards could the Mogols hoard if the Mongol hordes got bored – C&H

 I gave the same shirt to my friend in Seoul, Keith, who retributed (sic) by giving me a New Zealand tee shirt, since he’d just returned from there.



I’ve never been to New Zealand, but I’d like to visit there. I hear it’s “sweet as…” as Kiwi’s like to say.

 I remember the first time I started hearing that expression. It was a Kiwi who worked with
us at Konkuk University in Seoul and my American friend and I, who’d never heard that
expression before, didn’t know what to make of it. Is he saying, ‘sweet ass’ or ‘sweet
as’…as in…the phantom comparison? It was the latter.

Last time I was in LA, I was hanging out with my friend, and he suggested we go to
Walmart. I went along and man oh man – it was not only my first time in an American
Walmart, but it was just like that Southpark episode where everybody keeps shopping
there, even though it’s killing all local business. Everything there is SO cheap and they
have everything!  No wonder that guy got trampled on Black Friday.  It's a wonder people
don't get trampled weekly. So in addition to the many other things I bought, I got a Laker
tee shirt. Go Lakers!

Also, that same friend, on a different day – I was helping this same friend do yard work
and got really dirty, so he gave me this tee shirt to wear. It’s from the Renaissance Faire.

Lastly, I bought this one on Venice beach, that same trip. And since my mother works in a
law office and since she gets a lot of free shit from her legal conventions and
whathaveyou, I got this bail bond company tee shirt. Which is pretty cool.

I’ve never been to jail, nor have I ever needed to be bailed out. Although, I did spend the
night in a holding cell once when I got my DUI in 1993. I remember having the option –
have bail posted for me, or spend the night in a holding cell. I chose the later as it was 3
am and they were going to release me at 8. Also, they wanted to tow my car, but I
suggested they just park it and leave it, which they did. It saved me 75 bucks in towing
charge and possible storage fees. We were basically a 20 minute walk from the police
station. Also, this was Santa Monica, not LA county so the holding cell wasn’t full of rapists 
and crazies, just me and one other guy in a business suit, who did get bailed
out. He was yelling a lot cuz he wanted to pay his own bail, but that’s not allowed. I
remember thinking, I don’t want to call anybody cuz I didn’t want anybody to know. As it
was, coincidentally, at 2:30 am, while I was being pulled over and given a battery of
sobriety tests, my friend was in the Jack-in-the-Box drive thru across the street buying a
late night munch-out. He recognized my car -- a 1968 sky blue Ford Galaxie coupe, and
after getting his food, watched the entire episode from his car while macking out on a
Bonus Jack with fries. He told my brother and all our friends. Pricko.

 You never know who is watching you.

 I like to travel and I like to buy tee shirts everywhere I go.  Like this long sleeve tee shirt I
bought in Argentina.

  

And this tee shirt I got in Bolivia. 

 Potosi is the most altitudinous city in the world. You walk for a block or two and you are winded. That’s also where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid met their maker.

 I’ve lived in Korea for many, many years and I haven’t seen too many Korean tee shirts. None to be exact. I’d like to get one. I don’t own any, but I that's cuz never see any. Why is that?

Last year, EPIK Cheju hosted a “cultural festival.”  Basically, all of us waygook teachers got the day off and spent the day at the cultural center showing off our “cultures.”  They had a table/space for the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.  As you can probably imagine, the majority of teachers here are North American so they had to shuffle some of us NAs to the other tables.  It caused a big rift, so trying to be the peacemaker I said I’ll be in the British group.  I made this poster -- my salute to great bands out of England.

I also made another poster featuring Bowie and The Clash, but it’s in the house of my 3rd floor neighbor and she wouldn’t let me come down to take a picture of it cuz she was sleeping.

Anywho, it was a fun event.  Even if the Korean minds behind it saw us as stooges doing stupid acts for the masses.  And that they did.  We accepted that and we did our thing.  The Americans made hotdogs and served no less than 1000 that day, buns and all and all the proper condiments.  The Canucks had a field hockey rink set up complete with goals and equipment and, in addition, served pancakes with real maple syrup.

I as the token Brit, made the poster above and brought my guitar and spent the day playing songs by the Beatles, Stones, Bowie, the Clash, et al.  I was a walking jukebox, and when I ventured into the Canadian zone I did my best Neil Young and Gordon Lightfoot, and at the Aussie venue I broke out my favorite AC/DC songs.  At the American area I led everyone in a 10 minute version of Miss American Pie.  I was amazed at how many of the young Americans knew the words.  Was it Madonna?  Or is it just a great song.

Ok, so a correction is required here.  I never mind being told I am wrong, but I guess, in this case, I was wrong.

In my last blog I criticized Korea’s lack of English language magazines, but apparently this issue is larger than I thought.  You can read more about it here. 

First of all, in the past there was Seoul Classified, which was a bi-weekly publication, and exactly what I was talking about.  SC was put out by foreigners and Koreans highlighting things to do and offering sometimes interesting stuff to read.  The only problem with it was that it didn’t really extend itself beyond Itaewon and Hongdae and the foreigners in charge, namely Johnny Red, was a major A hole, so I failed to mention it.  Is it still around?  I don’t know.  I haven’t been to Seoul in a long time.  Apparantly there are others in Seoul as well.  One called simply Seoul and a DDD Life in Korea as well.  I haven't seen either of them.

Also 

It is rumoured that the Jeju Life magazine is going to be soon republished in print form, headed by a foreigner with a Korean spouse and they plan to redo the magazine properly, including the original staff of the original magazine.  This is a good thing.  I heard this story secondhand so I can’t verify it – that is, it may just be hearsay, but I hope it is true.  Cuz that would be a good thing.  In Cheju we have the yahoo user group rhymeswithjeju, which apparently began as a print media venture…my friend Greg Blue wrote a few articles for it, but apparently they were too anti-korean so they got nixed, but he told me that originally, the user group was an actually magazine.  But…you know how it goes.  Can’t finance itself – can’t exist.  rhymeswithjeju is a very useful site for selling, buying, sharing info, etc.  It's not a website, it's just a user group.

Also

I was at Gecko’s in Cheju on Friday night

and there I got a copy of 10 Magazine, which is an English magazine just like the many magazines I described in my last blog.

  10 Magazine is the joint effort of Koreans and foreigners, the head foreigner being Stephen Revere, long time resident of Seoul, who was the host of Let’s Talk Korean, one of the many tv shows featuring an English class show format.  The difference with this one from the other plethora of shows like this where there is a Foreigner who speaks in English and a Korean who explains in Korean, in LTK, Stephen speaks Korean as well as English, as did his host.  In any event, this magazine focuses on things going on, not only in Seoul, but in every province in Korea.  It’s not a bad magazine.  Good job, people.

Except…

I was given the magazine by the cashier of Gecko’s who saw me thumbing through it as I waited for my change.  She said, “It’s free!  Take one.”  So I did, as did my company, but when I got home, I noticed there was a price tag on the cover – 3,500 won.  I wondered.  Is the magazine free, or does it cost money?

Magazines of this ‘ilk’ are not the New Yorker or the Atlantic.  The few ‘articles’ in the magazine are not written by  professional writers.  They are written by expats just like you and I.  So why would they charge for it?  Kind of defeats the purpose.

Perhaps the magazine is given away for free.  I can’t imagine anyone ‘paying for it.’

Maybe they thought to charge for it initially and have since recinded that option.  I mean, 3,500 won is not a lot of money, but the point of tourism is to promote it.  The revenue should come from advertising.   I guess it's tough to keep a magzine running in Korea.   That's the point of the article I linked.  Perhaps they have no choice but to charge.

I could think about this more, but I have 4 weeks on my contract. 

So that's it for ragging on Korea.  Criticizing Korea -- it’s like shooting fish in a barrel.

 

I was at The Voodoo lounge in Fukuoka a few years ago and members from Digital Underground were playing there unannounced, just cuz they were there. No cover, just good music.

 Deep Purple has a classic song, My woman from Tokyo.  Turning Japanese was a huge hit by the Vapors back in 1980.  Alcatrazz, Yngwie Malmsteen’s band with Graham Bonnet on vocals, did Hiroshima, Mon Amour. How many popular pop or rock songs can you think of that have Korea or anything to do with Korea in the title? I can think of only one – Ice Cube’s Black Korea.

                         Everytime I wanna go       get a fuckin’ brew
                         I gotta go down to the store with the two
                         Oriental one penny count muthufuckas
                         They make a nigga mad enough to cause a little ruckus                          

                           Thinkin every nigga in the world’s on the take
                           So they watch every damn move that I make
                           They think I’m gonna pull out a gat and try to rob
                           Their funky little store    but bitch I gotta a job

                            So don’t follow me up and down your market
                           Or your little chop suey ass will be a target
                           Of a nationwide boycott
                           Juice for the people, that’s what the boy got
 
                           So pay respect to the Black fist
                           Or we’ll burn your store right down to a crisp
                           And then we’ll see ya
                           Cuz you can’t turn my hood – into Black Korea 

Not very flattering. For anybody. It doesn’t paint a pretty picture but…the Death Certificate Album was the bomb. And yes, I did transcribe the lyrics from memory. Who would’ve thunk that back in 1991 when I was first listening to that, that I would move to Korea? Surely not I.

The first concert I ever attended was Cheap Trick – They have an album, Live at Budokan.  Other artists with a Live at Budokan album include: Bob Dylan, Dream Theater, Ozzy, Asia, and Avril Avigne.  I think of the metal bands I liked in the 80’s and live albums they made – Iron Maiden had Maiden Japan. The Scorpions made Tokyo Tapes. These bands not only came to Japan, they recorded live albums there. In the movie Spinal Tap, how did they make their comeback at the end of the movie? They toured Japan.

2. English language magazines – In Cheju, an enterprising young guy named Jim Saunders put together a
crew and got the backing of City Hall to help publish a bi-monthly magazine called “Jeju Life.” 



It basically featured places in Cheju that people should see and things in Cheju people should do. There’s a lot to do here for people of all ages: singles, couples, families, etc. They did it for a little over a year; now their publication is only available on-line.   wherever you want. 

 His magazine wasn’t ‘bad’ – I would never criticize the work of someone who produced so much with such few resources, but it was a little pathetic, that is, the finished product – in comparison to ‘real magazines’. Two months of work, a ton of money provided by “the city” to produce it. The final result – each issue was like 8 pages of glossy print. Basically, because it was a  foreign venture, they could not “sell advertising,” or pay the writers or staff. It was like a full time internship, all work was done by volunteers who did it for the experience and for something to do, and the result was a magazine you could read in one visit to the toilet – taking a piss.

So foreigners can’t start a magazine and sell advertising, even if the advertising was entirely for Korean businesses or if the magazine showed off Cheju places of worth to foreign visitors. I actually visited a few places that I read about in their magazine. A magazine like that would do so much to promote interesting places to go in Cheju like

약천사 Yakcheon Temple in Seogwipo.


Or the Maze Park 미로공원



It’s like the maze in The Shining, and actually it’s the product of Fred Ditto, a long time foreign resident of Cheju who started planting the hedges 20 years ago.  

Korea has a Ministry of Tourism trying to expand tourism in Korea. What do they do? They come up with slogans like “Hi Seoul!”  And spend billions of won making posters and buying TV air time. The idea that “Foreign tourists probably don’t speak Korean,” and that media in English, or Japanese, or Chinese, or any other language would be an asset never factors into the equation. In Korea, other than the Korean Herald or Korean Times, which are the thinnest newspapers in the world; both of which carry day old news, if you spend any time on the internet, what do you have to read, published by Koreans, if you are an English speaker? The answer is – you have nothing. But then again, at every major subway station in Seoul or Pusan, and just about every place with a seat, including subway trains, long distance busses, hospital waiting rooms, train stations or bus stations, or airports, or even some elevators in high rise buildings – there is always a TV playing. Why would you want something to read? 

 Tourism? In Korea? A few English language magazines that have stuff to read in addition to write-ups of things going on / things to do that week or month would surely boost tourism / business. There’s so much to do here. Why can’t Koreans utilize the media of ‘something to read’ as a way to market what they have. It’s not brain surgery.

 In Japan, you have SO many English language magazines. In addition to Tokyo Journal, Tokyo has

                  
Tokyo Families (free),                         Metropolis (free), and several others. 

Fukuoka has Fukuoka Now,

Osaka has Kansai Time Out, in publication for over 30 years. If you go to these cities for vacation, these are indispensable sources of information. They tell you what is happening that week – brewery tour times, movies, plays, museum exhibits, sporting events, restaurant reviews, cultural happenings, as well as stuff for sale, jobs available and people who possibly want to meet you (that’s where the money comes from).

 Every big city in the world has similar free weekly publications. New York has The Village Voice. LA has LA WEEKLY. San Francisco has Bay Area Guardian. I can list more, but you get the point. These American weekly papers are over 100 pages, they come out free and fresh each week, and tell you EVERYTHING that is going on that week – and there’s a lot to do in a metropolis.  Even Angeles City/Subic Bay in the Philippines has one -- City of Angels, which is published monthly and is free.

Seoul? Pusan? I guess there’s always soju bang, norebang, Dongha bars, etc. Unless you live there, or know people, there’s very little information in print form.

3. In Japan, if you have a working visa, you can teach privates legally. In Korea, you can’t. Nuff said. In Korea, if you are here on a work visa, you can only work at the place (or places) designated on your visa.  In Japan you are free to 'work,'

The last problem with Korea (that I will mention in this blog).

4. No motorcycles on Highways – Imagine being in America and wanting to ride your Kawasaki Ninja up the California coast from LA to SF. Yer on the 101 or the 5 and you get pulled over by the CHP – “Sorry sir, no motorcycles allowed on the highway.” What a joke! Many Koreans and foreigners drive Harley’s or large Hondas, Kawasakis, et al. Their engines are a lot larger than that of a Tico. Why can’t they drive on the highway?

 In Japan, and in America, motorcycles can drive on highways, and god as my witness, every driver knows – slower traffic keep right, or left in Japan. Here, nobody seems to heed that INTERNATIONALLY KNOWN COURTESY. Drive slow in the fast lane in Germany and you’ll get a ticket, or yelled at by passing German drivers, “Schizen, dumkopf!” Drive slow in the left lane in LA and you may get shot. And for the love of God, why don’t Korean drivers ever let ambulances pass. 

 Again, it’s not a selfish thing. It’s a universal consciousness saying, I don’t want to let him pass, because, no one else is letting him pass. Koreans are not necessarily rude. It’s just, they act like everybody else acts without giving it a second thought. Or even a first thought.

The first time I came to Korea, I lived in Taegu and my co-worker was an American guy who’d lived here for a year and a half. I remember thinking, “Wow, you’ve been here a long time!” Anywho, we were in downtown Taegu waiting to cross the street. I’d been in Korea a matter of days. It was a busy intersection. It was my first Saturday in Korea and there were maybe 20 Koreans standing on either side of us, also waiting to cross the street. The light was red and traffic was heavy. My friend said to me, “Watch this.” He feigned taking a step forward like he was going to start walking.  He lurched his leg forward like he was going to keep walking, and as he quickly drew back, everybody just started to cross. It was mayhem. Tires shrieked, people screamed, then jumped back onto the sidewalk. My friend snickered and said, “In Korea, people don’t wait for the light to change. They just wait for the first person to start walking and then everybody follows.” That will always stick in my mind. It’s been my metaphor for how Koreans think.

In conclusion – I’m reminded of a slogan contest given back in 2002 when the Ministry of Tourism was trying to come up with a slogan for Korea. “Come Back to Jamaica”, “Amazing Thailand” – something of that ilk. I actually had the 2^nd runner up – “Taste Korea.” Mine was picked 3^rd out of the lot and I never picked up my prize. In any event, the winner was “Dynamic Korea – The hub of Asia.” The hub of Asia? Gimme a break. Tokyo is the hub of Asia, just like Bangkok is the hub of SE Asia. That’s why Narita airport is the most common connecting point for most North American or European flights going to Korea, China, or Taiwan. And why the Nikko Hotel is always full, but no one ever pays to stay there – it’s filled with tourists flying out the next morning on connecting flights.