Monday, January 31, 2011

it's not just Karen rebels

It seems that everyone likes that line from the most recent Rambo film, even women in Cairo:

It's actually "Live for nothin', or die for somethin'." But I'd rather see the above mis-quoted slogan than "Freedom Go to Hell" and so on. Good luck to the people of Egypt as they sort out their troubles.


Korea's USP

Mike Hurt, one of the big-name superbloggers in Korea, has written a thought-provoking post about Korea's continued failure to market itself to the world as a viable tourist destination. He talks about the navel-gazing habit that Koreans have when it comes to this problem: far from actually consulting with foreigners about Korea's appeal, the marketing gurus seem content to make up ideas on their own. Mike likens this, at one point, to a group of men trying to design brassieres without ever consulting any women. I think it's a good analogy.*

Mike offers a truly interesting insight: Korea's appeal, its Unique Selling Proposition (USP), lies not so much in all the things that Koreans themselves like to trumpet-- the standard litany of temples, technologies, tastes, and treasures-- but in something a bit more abstract: experience. What is it about Korea, what "sticky" factor, to use Mike's terminology, keeps foreigners coming back, and impels them to stay in Korea for years? Mike doesn't say exactly what that is, but his point is that that's the area Koreans need to explore if they truly want to market their country to foreigners.

I think Mike's right, but if we're to take the idea of experience seriously as a marketable commodity, we'd need to compare expat experiences in Korea to those in China, Japan and Vietnam, three of the countries mentioned in Mike's piece. How do expats view those countries? How "sticky" are their cultures? Do most US and European tourists come away from China saying (as some tourists say about New York City), "It's a great place to visit, but I wouldn't wanna live there"? Does that apply equally well to Japan and Vietnam? How big are the expat populations in those countries, in terms of raw numbers and percentages of the total populations? How long do expats stay in those countries, and what percentage of expat "veterans" return to those countries for another long-term stay after an absence?

I don't say any of this to cast doubt on Mike's insights; I truly think he's on to something. But "experience" is a word that begs to be unpacked, and from a marketing perspective, it has to be unpacked in a way that can be articulated in videos, brochures, and other media.

Because the topic was so interesting, I added a short comment to the end of Mike's fine post, and I encourage you to go visit and add thoughts of your own.

*In fact, it's more than an analogy: some years ago-- and I imagine this would be old news among medical insiders-- we learned that researchers in the male-dominated field of cardiology had spent years studying heart disease without seriously contemplating the idea that women's heart issues might differ from men's issues in important ways. Many recommendations made to women were based on trials done on men, sometimes with disastrous results for the women. The past decade or so has seen researchers scrambling to make up for lost time in this area. My point, though, is that this sort of thing actually happens all the time, and not just in Korea: people often think stuff up for a target group without consulting that group.


my joke, but one better

So I've joked about snow being cocaine, which isn't particularly original. Here's a pic that takes the joke to the next level.


hashtags and blog traffic

I'm playing around with hashtags on Twitter in an effort to determine their marketing effectiveness. This is very unscientific work. Part of the problem is that I have three ways to gauge the amount of traffic, and each way calculates traffic differently from the other two. For my blog, I have SiteMeter and Blogger's own proprietary traffic software. For eBay, I've got eBay's standard hit counter. When I use hashtags to drive traffic to my blog or my eBay items, I have no reliable, standard metric.

Still, I can share some tentative results. I've noticed that, when I use the "#eBay" hashtag on Twitter, the number of hits for a given eBay item will shoot up by 15-20 hits within the first minute after I've published the hashtag. I just now tried a similar tactic with my blog: I deliberately used a popular hashtag, "#porn," to see whether that would instantly drive up traffic. According to SiteMeter (remember: SiteMeter counts hits differently from the eBay hit counter), there's been little to no effect on my traffic. I saw a brief spike of 1-2 hits, which might not have been a spike at all, before everything returned to normal.

Hashtagging doesn't seem to be a very effective marketing strategy overall: on eBay, there's an initial spike of traffic, and then the hits revert to a trickle. The only way to drive hundreds of customers to an eBay item seems to be through repeated hashtagging, an obnoxious strategy that would only lead to wasted time and intense self-loathing.

All the same, experiments will continue throughout the day.


Romania redux: a warning to Egypt

A European commenter who runs a thoughtful, intelligent blog called The Yalta Paradox has written an excellent post that uses Romania as a cautionary tale for Egypt. Educational reading for all.

UPDATE: Egyptians fight back against the information blackout.


Sunday, January 30, 2011

everything must go

If you've been checking my Twitter feed over on the sidebar, you've seen a lot of activity in the past few hours as I've slapped up item after item on eBay.

For those wondering what the hashtags (hash tags, i.e., "#signifier") are for: the hashtag basically takes a word from your tweet and makes it "broadcast" your tweet to all people on Twitter who are searching for tweets related to that word. By writing "#eBay" instead of just "eBay," I alert a whole bunch of Twitter-folk to the fact that I've just tweeted something eBay-related. Since my tweet also contains a link to my eBay entry, people who see my hashtagged tweet will click the link and visit my eBay item, thereby driving up the number of visits and, I hope, raising the probability that someone will see fit to purchase something from me.

In the coming weeks and months, there'll even be original art on sale, as mentioned a while back. I may have finally found a decent use for Twitter.


children of the high-born

Did you ever wonder what happened to Nicolae Ceausescu's children after the dictator and his wife were caught while fleeing, put against a wall, and shot on Christmas in 1989? The question has crossed my mind as I watch, with morbid fascination, what may be a minor-- or major-- implosion in Egypt. According to some sources, President Hosni Mubarak's sons may have fled Egypt for London, along with their families. The Egyptian government is denying this, however, so the truth remains obscure for the moment.

Ceausescu's children survived the Romanian Revolution. Eldest son Valentin has lived a life of science, generally disdaining politics. All the same, he was arrested during the revolution, then released months later. He is currently suing the Romanian government for the improper confiscation of many of his possessions (see here). Second son (and third child) Nicu was to have assumed his father's position; this obviously fell through with the advent of the revolution. He was arrested twice and sentenced to 20 years in prison the second time around; he ended up being released early, and died of cirrhosis in 1996, at age 45. The middle child and only daughter, Zoia, was a mathematician who also ended up being arrested and released as a consequence of the revolution. An avid smoker, she died in 2006 of lung cancer.

Saddam Hussein's two sons, Uday and Qusay, died in a hail of bullets during a 3-hour gunfight in July of 2003. Saddam himself was hanged in ignominious circumstances just after Christmas in 2006.

While it's tempting to say that it never ends well for dictators and their families, we have only to look at the long life of Fidel Castro and the generations-long stranglehold that the Kim dynasty has had on North Korea to prove otherwise. What will happen to the Mubaraks? At a guess, it's not going to end well for Hosni Mubarak, whose country is no longer as stable as Cuba or North Korea; but his family, if they have indeed fled the country, might be spared his fate. As for the Kim family... well, they're preparing for another transfer of power, and if Kim Jeong-eun is as nasty as he's been made out to be, then North Koreans have a long, bitter road ahead of them. If only they could see what's been happening in Egypt, Tunisia, and Algeria, and gain some sort of inspiration, however twisted, from that.


Saturday, January 29, 2011

Ave, Elisson!

Elisson has a touching tribute to the crew of the space shuttle Challenger, who perished 25 years ago today. Wrapped up in a fog of my own concerns lately, I'd forgotten today's significance.


classic quote from "Face Off"

"Face Off" (not to be confused with the Nicholas Cage/John Travolta movie "Face/Off") is a new reality series on the SyFy Channel. Similar in format to any number of elimination contests currently on the air, the show is about a group of hopeful special effects makeup artists looking for their big break. Every week, they'll face a pair of challenges; the first challenge is an "immunity" round, i.e., the winner can't be eliminated that week. The second challenge is an elimination round that will include intensive nitpicking by the show's three judges, resulting in one person being bumped off the show.

The first episode of "Face Off" is currently available at, which is where I watched it. As usually happens during the first episode of these competitions, the contestants are all briefly introduced, each in his or her own words. Putting aside the fact that some of the artists look as freakish as their creations, I had to laugh when one contestant, Tom, confessed that he was very dyslexic and then offered up this howler: "I have a real hard time reading and writing. That's kinda why I chose the arts!" Yes, yes-- I understand what he was trying to say. He wasn't really saying that the arts are the last refuge of the illiterate and the incapable. But still, you have to admit that it came out wrong. Heh.

I'll probably keep up with "Face Off," which appeals to my inner nerd. I'm secretly hoping that Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman might appear later on in the series as guest judges, given their special effects background. It's not likely to happen, though: I'm not sure that Adam and Jamie are as heavily into makeup as they are into making things that explode, slash, punch, or puncture other things. The Mythbusters' Build Team, however, does plenty of SFX makeup work, what with all their casts and molds. I'd be delighted to see Kari, Grant, and Tory on "Face Off," too.


Friday, January 28, 2011

Haein-sa photos

A gent named Marc Mullinax, who I'm guessing is a professional photographer, took some excellent photos during his trip to Haein-sa in 2006. Some of his photos have exactly the same subjects as my own; most, however, feature images from parts of the temple I never visited. Beautiful work. Check him out.


heaven's cocaine

The snow started in earnest yesterday. I heard the maintenance guys outside last evening, chugging away with their bulky snowblowers and salt-spreaders, doing their best to keep the sidewalks and parking lots clear for the working folks. Since my job is a work-at-home one, I don't have to worry about commuting, and it's a good thing, too: a look out my window this morning showed me that, despite the maintenance guys' best efforts, the parking lot is looking fairly iced over. It's probably navigable, and the main road seems to be problem-free. I may go shopping for some necessaries later today.


Wednesday, January 26, 2011

good news

Did I mention that I finished shelving my books a few days ago? It is accomplished.


"Three Days at Haein-sa" (written in 2000)

What follows is an essay I wrote after a trip to South Korea in 2000. It chronicles my own, independently arranged "temple stay" at Haein-sa, a Korean Seon (Zen) temple. The essay contains what I now know to be some factual errors; I was in grad school at the time and was still a neophyte in religious studies, though that's not really an excuse for not being thorough. I've added asterisks to the main text and have appended notes and explanations below the horizontal divider at the end of the essay. If you scroll down past the notes, you'll see a few photos from the trip.


I fear and loathe roller coasters; it's a control thing. But there's something oddly calming about the jarring swoop and slalom of a Korean bus; it appeals to my fatalistic side. In Seoul, buses jostle for position with remarkable adroitness and maneuverability; they stop for precisely the amount of time it takes the last passenger to lift his or her foot off the ground and clear the bus' hydraulic ingress, then off they launch. Once aboard, you cannot perform hands-free "bus surfing" the way you might on a plodding DC Metro bus: letting go of your handhold is a sure way to send yourself flying either down the aisle or through a window, especially if you are, like me, 260 pounds of half-Korean jiggle beast.

Our bus driver from west Taegu to Haein-sa, though tearing across roads that offer no challenges comparable to the vehicular nightmare of Seoul, is nevertheless intent on pushing his metal destrier beyond its prescribed limits. Down valley straightaways and up great, serpentine mountain switchbacks we fly, the bus tilting dangerously as we whip around unbanked curves at blinding speed. Through it all, I am serene; my life is in the Buddha's compassionate hands. Why, then, do I hate roller coasters?

Haein-sa, a Zen Buddhist temple located on verdant Kaya Mountain, is a refuge of calm completely unlike the tourist-trodden and chaotic Pulguk-sa, the popular temple to the southeast of us in Kyungju. All Buddhist temples, however, share a certain unobtrusive quality; unlike Christian churches and cathedrals, which so often seek to impose a preconceived sacred geometry upon the landscape, Korean Buddhist temples tuck themselves into the environs like an octopus settling among coral outcroppings. They have no prescribed form; each temple is unique in its configuration. Call it feng shui (or poong soo, as it's pronounced in Korean); an effort has been made to harmonize with, and not dominate, nature.*

My companion, Park jeondosa-nim, is a fellow Presbyterian, though the fervid style of his religion is more reminiscent of an American charismatic Christian's. A jeondo-sa is a preacher or evangelist; a kind of missionary. Park is my guide for this trip. I arrive at Haein-sa with no warning to the monastic community, and promptly ask if I may stay on the temple grounds a few days to learn a little about temple life and Korean Zen. Park interprets for me; my Korean, while functional, isn't refined enough for pious cajolery. The grey-robed workers at Haein-sa's administrative office are happy to oblige; we are provided with simple monk's quarters, and I am to receive free meals from the temple's refectory. I pay a small price for this remarkable gift: the proofreading of a barely salvageable English language document about Haein-sa's current abbot. The textual surgery takes me three hours; not a bad trade-off for three days' exploration.

Park is uncomfortable from the beginning. Our first night at Haein-sa, he stays up and prays. Sitting cross-legged in a corner, his hands raised in warding or supplication, he performs what some Christians call "spiritual warfare," perhaps in an attempt to keep our little monk's cell free of evil spirits. The word "Yae-su," Jesus, appears repeatedly in his speech. I sense no spirits; our first night at Haein-sa is cool, rainy, serene, and beautiful. I shower and sit outside on the front stoop of our chambers while Park, inside, prays and prays.

Eighteen years ago, Park jeondosa-nim was a Buddhist himself. Now he is, from my perspective, a Christian zealot. Though he's a nice enough person and a hard worker, he has all the traits of what Eric Hoffer ominously termed a "true believer." But I'm here in the name of interreligious dialogue; in a sense, Park's presence, and his chary attitude toward other religions, is a blessing in disguise. Conflict will ensue; I will watch and assiduously take notes.

I make the acquaintance of three monks (seu-nim**) during my stay at Haein-sa: Gahk Ahn seu-nim, Dae Oh seu-nim, and Man Gahk seu-nim. Of these three, only Man Gahk seu-nim consents to have his picture taken. The other two don't see the use; I suspect they feel a student of interreligious dialogue shouldn't act like an undignified foreign tourist. Perhaps they're right.

Gahk Ahn seu-nim meets with me the first night-- the night I'm proofing the butchered English bio of the abbot. We talk about Zen and Christianity and drink oolong tea as the monk rocks placidly back and forth. I am impressed by his calm demeanor, and come away from our talk with a pleasant feeling of gentle companionship.

The following morning, around 5am, Park leaves for Taegu and I am on my own, without an interpreter. My halting Korean will have to suffice. A few hours later, I meet Dae Oh seu-nim, who epitomizes the archetypal Zen master. Though merely a monk, Dae Oh seu-nim's eyes are bright with conviction. He doesn't appear nearly as serene as Gahk Ahn seu-nim, but his manner is more consistent with the teachers I've read about in the annals of Japanese Zen: he is quick to judge, excitable, filled with boundless intelligence. There is nothing ethereal about him; he's more like a drill instructor than a holy man. I learn that he is acknowledged as one of Haein-sa's foremost scholars.

Dae Oh seu-nim's first reaction to me is barely concealed derision: my Korean is laughable, my knowledge of Chinese is nearly nonexistent. "You have to learn all that!" he exclaims in Korean while shaking a Chinese text in my face. I quietly explain that I'm here to find out what I have to learn, that my hope is to return to Korea some years from now as part of a doctoral program, armed with more Korean, Chinese, and Sanskrit knowledge. Dae Oh seu-nim seems to understand, and he speaks with me for an hour or so. Like Gahk Ahn seu-nim, he tends to rock back and forth as he talks. Since formal Zen practice involves so much sitting, I suppose this is an almost inevitable quirk. He baits me, too: at several points, he stops his lecture and asks, "Do you understand?" This is, of course, a Zen trap. Stupidly, I fall in every time: "Yes." Dae Oh seu-nim grimaces, shakes his head violently, fans the air with his hand as if I've just passed foul wind. "No, no, no! Then you don't understand!" Of course not. Zen speaks to absolute reality, which is so completely ordinary that it lies in the realm of the nondiscursive. This is Dae Oh seu-nim's next point: "If you study Zen... all your ideas about God, Buddha-- throw them out!" We create God just as we create Buddha and the world, he says. It's all in our minds. To know truth, you have to know your true mind, which is no mind. You can go in circles if you try to approach this logically, but it's nevertheless true.*** To misquote the Tao Te Ching, the reality you can talk about isn't true reality.

My next visit is with Mahn Gahk seu-nim, an older monk, probably in his sixties. "Where are you from in America?" he asks in English. I tell him I'm from Virginia. Mahn Gahk seu-nim makes it clear that his English is out of practice and that he'd rather speak to me in Korean. He promises to speak simply, and the rest of the conversation is in Korean. I strain to listen. "Your body is like clothing," he tells me. "Eventually, it gets old and you cast it off." As I listen to Mahn Gahk seu-nim lecture, I nod and mutter, "Mmm. Hmm." At one point, the monk stops and gently corrects me: in Korea, it's highly rude to go "Mmm, hmm" to your elders. Somehow, I'd missed this piece of etiquette in all these years of dealing with Korean friends and relatives. I apologize, and Mahn Gahk seu-nim smiles tolerantly. From that point on, I respond with a full "yae," the formal way to say "yes." Like a little Yoda, Mahn Gahk tells me that all life is one-- we all share the same life. It's a simple sentiment, and I've heard variants of this before, but somehow it seems clearer to me just because I'm hearing it in this rarefied context.

Man Gahk seu-nim takes me over to one of the meditation halls on the temple grounds. He asks me if I'd like to join in some meditation. I tell him I'm not ready, but will probably do so in the future. I wonder at my own hesitancy. It's not as though I'm being asked to go white-water rafting. Or maybe it is. Each monk has told me, in his own way, that the only way to learn about Zen is through practice and commitment. As an old teacher of mine said, "You can shop, but eventually you either buy something or leave the store." The meditation hall is filled with adepts,**** none of whom have shaved heads. Haein-sa serves as a refuge for people seeking calm from the tumult of the outside world; I conjecture that most of these folks are from Seoul, Pusan, or Taegu, the big cities. The hall is more silent than the most hermetic American library. The noise of my socks against the polished floor is disturbingly loud. The monk and I watch the people for a while. Nobody moves. Nobody speaks. Fascinating.

I spend the rest of the afternoon visiting the temple's main area, noting the repeated, fractal lotus patterns in painting, woodwork, and sculpture; the small stone pagoda, the huge swastika (turning in the opposite direction from the Nazi swastika) and the "Three Jewels"-- symbolizing the Buddha, his teaching, and the religious community-- painted on the sides of some of the larger buildings. Certain ancient trees important to Haein-sa's long history have been fenced off; I stare at them for a long time and think about impermanence. Tourists are about, and I am swamped***** by uniformed hordes of Korean middle school girls. A particular gaggle smiles and waves at me, chanting, "Hello! Hello!" in English. I turn, smile rakishly, and wink. The girls scream in unison, clap their hands over their mouths, and cluster tighter as they move off rapidly. Amused, I watch them retreat.

That evening, Park, my absent guide, returns from Taegu, and we are led to the chambers of a fourth monk. I never learn this monk's name, but our visit with him produces the most memorable incident during my stay at Haein-sa. Before we enter the monk's cell, Park tells me dryly, "I think they going to try teach me about Buddhism." True to form, the monk incenses Park, and the debate becomes heavily theological. Within a few minutes, I am completely lost; the speed and vocabulary of the conversation surpass me. Evangelist Park and the unyielding monk go back and forth; the monk, agitated, even pulls out a text that quotes Deuteronomy to make a point; Park responds with counter-quotes from the Bible. I can't make out the contents of the conversation, but I can make out the tone, which is becoming increasingly bitter. I knew this was going to happen, because Park's theological formation makes his behavior predictable. This is a holy crusade. Another man in the room with us, a certain Mr. Kim, gangs up on Park by taking the monk's side.

Then suddenly there is a loud shout from outside the monk's cell. The disputants clam up. The silence is almost a shock to me.

"Kim! Get out here!" a voice roars. It sounds familiar. Mr. Kim bolts out the door, shutting it behind him. We listen in awed silence as Mr. Kim is upbraided in extremely foul, abusive language by a monk whose voice I finally recognize: the very calm, very placid Gahk Ahn seu-nim, with whom I drank oolong tea the previous day. I was obviously mistaken when I assessed the man as serene. He, like Dae Oh seu-nim, is capable of thunder. I smile inwardly. It's always good to see holy men with character, people who don't forget their humanity.

Later that evening, I ask Park what was going on. "Mr. Kim spoke out of turn," Park says. "He not supposed to discuss religion with me and seu-nim." This sounds more like a Korean issue than an interreligious issue. In Confucian society, everyone knows his place. Mr. Kim forgot his; a corrective was applied; end of story. "Anyway," I continue, "it sounded like an interesting discussion between you and the monk." Park looks at me crossly. "Not discussion! They talked to me for thirty minutes, then cut me off when I try to speak! Not discussion! I tried to tell them Gospel, tell them Jesus died for their sins, that only Jesus can save! They cut me off! They say Buddha is a saint, and Jesus is not."

I listen to this and find it hard to sympathize with Park's position. One thing I know: you can't initiate a dialogue with finger-pointing. Dialogue isn't a zero-sum game with a definite winner and loser. Then again, Park's goal isn't dialogue; he's an evangelist out to save souls. From his perspective, his cause is just. He may have pushed the monk too far; in my talks with Dae Oh seu-nim and the others, I mentioned Jesus a few times, quoting biblical verses that share a thematic affinity to Buddhist thought, and my answer was invariably smiles. I fail to see how beating someone over the head with holy scripture is going to win converts. What's more, I fail to understand the urge to convert. But at the very least, such debates are entertaining as hell to watch. Park falls into prayer, weeping-- weeping!-- because he is unable to untwist the perverse, misguided minds of his Buddhist interlocutors.

I've been sleeping and eating like a monk for three days. The meal is the same, no matter the time of day: watery rice gruel ladled into a metal bowl, mixed with spicy marinated vegetables and kimchi. Very tasty, but guaranteed to drive an inveterate carnivore insane. On our last day at Haein-sa, Park and I pack our belongings. We meet Gahk Ahn seu-nim on our way out; I bow to him in the Buddhist manner: palms together and close to the chest, saluting the shared life within the other. This is one of the many things the monks taught me, and I'm happy to practice it. Gahk Ahn seu-nim wishes us well,****** and I ask him to please pass on our thanks to the other monks I met. We stroll out; there is only one more thing to visit.

Once again entering the main area of the temple, we climb the steps to the highest level in order to view the "pal man dae jang gyong," the over 80,000 wooden printing blocks containing the entirety of the Tripitaka Koreana, the most complete version of the Tripitaka anywhere. I am disappointed to discover the blocks are closed off from the public; they can be viewed only from behind the barred wooden doors that separate me from them. Monks still use the blocks for printing and study; I can only hope that, should I come back to Haein-sa as a bona fide researcher, I will be able to see them up close. As it is, I thrust my camera between the bars and snap two pictures. Park takes a picture of me as well.

We step onto the express bus for west Taegu. Park and I argue about whether Jesus said he was God. I claim he never said any such thing, that others said it about him. Nowhere in the Bible does Jesus say, "Hey! I'm God!"******* Park tells me I'd better learn more about my own faith before I try to dialogue with other religions. Our bus leaps out of Haein-sa's terminal, and I think over the enormous gift I've received: this rare opportunity to live and speak for a few days with the monks of a Korean Zen Buddhist community, finding out how much I don't know. I ask myself: will I ever understand?

Heh. Be careful how you answer that.


*Taken literally, this paragraph contains at least one factual error. The idea that Buddhist temples have "no prescribed form" isn't entirely correct. Almost all Korean temples, no matter what strain of Buddhism they represent, have certain parts in common. For more on that, click on this link to learn about the major parts of a typical Buddhist temple. At the same time, however, it's true that each temple is unique and is constructed with great sensitivity to the energy flow of the natural surroundings. The nature of that flow is determined through geomancy (feng shui, or poong-su in Korean pronunciation). Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Buddhist temples still retain strong echoes of the original Indian sacred geometry that governed the construction of Hindu and Buddhist temples on the subcontinent, a fact that invalidates my rather rash claim that Korean Buddhist temples have no preconceived sacred geometry. In truth, temples and churches have more in common than I gave either credit for.

**As much as this romanization appeals to me, most people prefer to romanize the word as "sunim." It's pronounced, approximately, "sneem." That's how I used to address blogger Andi when she began her life as a haengja, or Buddhist postulant on her way to nunhood.

***This final phrase makes me cringe now. I sound like a heedless convert to a cult, someone who's uncritically swallowed the party line.

****"Adept" is probably the wrong word. These were probably just good old citizens on retreat, not people preparing to shave their heads in preparation for monastic life, and certainly not lay folk training to become Zen teachers.

*****It really wasn't crowded, though: this trip took place during high tourist season, and Haein-sa, despite its fame, just didn't have that many visitors while I was there. So much marketing energy gets devoted to Bulguk-sa-- which, by the way, isn't a Zen temple.

******Gahk Ahn sunim also noted, with wry humor and perhaps a hint of satisfaction, that I looked as if I had lost weight after six meals at the temple.

*******If you're thinking of gospel verses like "I and the Father are one" in John, well... first, there's the question of whether Jesus ever said this, or whether the evangelist (writing sometime between roughly 80 and 120 CE, depending on the experts-- at least 50 years after Jesus' death) was putting words in Jesus' mouth as part of a larger polemic against hoi ioudaioi, the Jewish element aligned against the values and convictions of the Johannine circle. Second, there are other biblical passages that clearly indicate that Jesus saw a distinct separation between himself and God. One result of the attempt to reconcile these contradictions was trinitarian doctrine, which holds that God is unitary, yet is also a hypostatic union of three Persons in perichoretic relationship. I don't think the mystery of the Trinity makes any logical or discursive sense, but it's a marvelous kong-an.



Tuesday, January 25, 2011

to distract you from the lack of a Haein-sa article

What I had for dinner Monday night:

Call it joonghan-shik: the joong from joong-dong (Middle East), the han from hanguk (Korea), and the shik that means food.

What you're looking at is my Middle Eastern-style chicken on a bed of couscous with homemade oi-kimchi (cucumber kimchi) and store-bought mak-kimchi, along with more than a drizzle of sriracha.

This was my second night of playing with chicken breasts and spice/seasoning combinations; it turned out great. The spices and seasonings in question: salt, pepper, cumin, onion powder, Korean chili pepper flakes, paprika, and powdered garlic. The breasts got rubbed in that combination, then were placed in the skillet on medium-high heat with some olive oil and butter. Once the bird was mostly cooked, I scissored the meat into large chunks and cooked the exposed sides in the very fragrant liquid that was forming in the skillet. The result was perfectly tender chicken that smelled and tasted awesome. In fact, I'm thinking of using that spice combo to make chicken shawarmas next.

Oh, yeah: the couscous was made with a stock of boiling water and Korean beef-flavored dashida, along with some olive oil, butter, and a very tiny sprinkling of dried basil mixed in.


coming soon

In 2000, I visited Korea for a few weeks to see my relatives and tool around the country. At one point, I visited Haein-sa, a famous Korean Seon (Zen) temple on Mount Gaya, about 90 minutes from Daegu by bus. I spent three days and two nights there, took some photos, talked with three monks, and came away thinking I'd like to try this wacky thing called seated meditation. Once I got back to the States, I found a Korean temple in Germantown, Maryland and tried some ch'am-seon. I also wrote an article about the Haein-sa experience that was picked up (and, unfortunately, mangled) by the then-budding Mok Tak Magazine. I have no idea whether the mag still exists; while I was miffed at how my article was butchered (seriously butchered, as in chunks of text cut off in mid-sentence), I appreciate the magazine's having published my thoughts.

Later this evening, I'll slap up the original article, along with some shame-faced notes about things I got wrong. While you wait, please be sure to read Charles's latest piece at Liminality, which deals with Amy Chua and spends a lot of time on how journalists get things wrong-- deliberately.


Monday, January 24, 2011


In Seoul, a typical drying rack that can hold a full load of laundry would set me back about $10-$12. Here in the States, almost exactly the same drying rack costs $50. What gives? I feel like Robert De Niro's Al Capone in "The Untouchables," when he's shouting at the judge at the end of the movie:

Is this justice?


the secret to writing badly... well

Thanks to Lee Farrand's excellent blog, I've happened upon a hilarious blog by Joel Stickley called How to Write Badly Well. The blog purports to teach the aspiring creative writer how to revel in his or her own mediocrity by embracing all the literary tropes and techniques that add up to poor creative writing.

Stickley has apparently only been blogging for a short while (since the latter half of 2009), but he's amassed a huge following (if his blog's Followers count is any indication), and has even taken his show on the road, as demonstrated by a series of YouTube videos of one of his stage performances. I envy what he did, because I've occasionally mulled over putting together a one-man show that takes the audience on an epic journey through time and space, language, hard science, psychology, and religion, highbrow and lowbrow humor. If you have an hour, check out Stickley's series of videos, starting with Part 1 here.


Sunday, January 23, 2011

hard work today

I can't go into any details, but today was a rather sweaty day of moving boxes from one place to another. Were I in better shape, I'm sure it would have been easier. But however weak I was, the job got done, and that's the important thing. Couldn't have done it without the help of my stalwart buddy Mike, who offered his truck to shuttle the boxes, and who went out of his way to treat me to both lunch and dinner, even though I should have been the one treating him.

In other news: book organization is almost finished. Woo-hoo!


Saturday, January 22, 2011


In which I go for the "Captain Picard Gone to Seed" look:

Every time I see myself bald, I think, "Christ-- I have no brain! There's no room for a brain up there!" It's almost as if my hair contained my brains, distributed in thousands of protein strands. Now, with the hair gone, all that's left is a double chin, big jaw, big nose, large ears, large eyes, and large eyebrows. The top of the skull is about one inch above the brows!

Commenter Roy was wondering whether/when I was planning to slap up this photo. Hope you're happy, dude. Roy has an interesting blog, which at first glance appears to be dedicated to Buddhism and music; one post mentions an insight about teachers that's very close to an insight of my own. Roy quotes a dharma talk by Edward Espe Brown on "two basic theories about teaching":

There's two basic theories, you know, about teaching.

One is: “The teachers who are masterful and if you do what I tell you, then you too can be masterful. And don't I look great? And you too could be great. And just do what I tell you and you can be masterful too.”

And the other kind of teacher is: “Oh! You're scared? Me too! I'm scared too! And – you know – I'm not minding. Maybe you wouldn't have to mind either. And we could both be human beings. You know, and we could kind of hang out with each other. And wouldn't that be fun?”

My own theory is similar but different: there are two kinds of teachers. One kind sits on the mountaintop and says to the students in the valley, "It's up to you to climb up here." The other kind of teacher starts in the valley with the students and says, "See that peak? I've been there. That's where we're headed."

ADDENDUM: Something like this dichotomy often finds itself expressed in religion in relation to soteriology. In Hinduism, for example, there's the "cat school versus monkey school" opposition: the cat picks her kittens up (analogous to the divine saving us), whereas the mother monkey waits for her offspring to climb onto her back (human action required for salvation). In Christianity, we often hear of "faith versus works" disputes. In Buddhism, there's what some term "self-power versus other-power," as in the contrast between most Theravada strains (one works diligently toward one's salvation) and, say, Pure Land Buddhism, in which saying the name of the Amitabha Buddha is enough for that Buddha to scoop one up and place him or her in Sukhavati, the Western Paradise.

NB: Obviously, the term "self-power" needs to be used with caution in relation to Buddhism, but the term definitely appears in Buddhist circles, where the self is understood to have only a conventional reality, not a fundamental one.


Friday, January 21, 2011

memory lane

I was recently reminded of a cartoon I drew while on my 600-mile walk in 2008. The question comes from the famous "Mu" kong-an:


Happy Hemorrhoid

I'm currently attempting a new cake recipe. If it works out right, it'll be the chocolate cake's answer to vanilla rum cake. While I'm tempted to call it The Happy Hemorrhoid given the cake's Bundt shape, I'm sure I'll have to pick another name if I plan to sell the thing on eBay. Any name suggestions for a chocolate Bundt cake infused with a lovely berry sauce? Nothing naughty, alas, even though a faux-Scandinavian name like Waidønču Fockæhöl is tempting.


my scalp sees the light of day

Finally! I shaved off all my hair today, after almost two months of not visiting a barber. The shagginess had finally gotten to me, so I had to do it.

And I'm glad I did.

The only unfortunate part of the process was the need to drag the razor over a few scalp zits, which of course meant they got ripped open and began to bleed. But the bleeding wasn't profuse; in time, even the scabs will fall away... though perhaps not before substantial regrowth has occurred. One thing I learned about shaving my head in 2009 was that it takes a good bit of work if you're trying to stay truly bald every day. In fact, you have to shave at least every two days to maintain that level of baldness. Me, all I wanted was a free haircut. So I gave myself one. I'm not planning on staying perpetually bald.

Watch this space for a possible photo later. I'll have to take that photo pretty quickly: as I said-- rapid regrowth.


Thursday, January 20, 2011

"True Grit": the review

Most reviewers of the Coen Brothers' 2010 Western, "True Grit," have tended to make one or both of the following moves: they've contrasted the new film with the 1969 John Wayne version, and/or they've contrasted the film with the Coen Brothers' other movies. They've noted that the new version is, if you'll pardon the pun, grittier than the John Wayne version, and that the new movie isn't the usual Coen Brothers exercise in self-conscious style and darkly humorous irony. I generally agree with these observations, so instead of delving into those same contrasts, I'd prefer to begin this review by noting some of the similarities I saw between the 2010 "True Grit" and Clint Eastwood's 1992 masterpiece, "Unforgiven."

Both movies proceed slowly and deliberately. Neither film begins as most modern action films would-- that is, with some sort of fight or chase scene to hook the audience. Instead, both movies are content to plod along, their plots unfolding at a leisurely pace, unpretentious camera work allowing the actors to act. At the same time, both movies offer us stories that build to crescendos pivoting on the meanness of the mean drunks inhabiting their centers.

Granted, Eastwood's mean drunk, William Munny, is orders of magnitude darker and nastier than Jeff Bridges's cheerfully murderous Rooster Cogburn ("Unforgiven" was rated R; "True Grit" was PG-13). Once Munny crawls into his bottle at the end of "Unforgiven," you know a lot of people are going to die. With Cogburn, you're never quite sure whether he can shoot straight. Despite these differences, however, both films thrive on a slow buildup of intensity, with their (anti)heroes coming through in the end.

They also see their central characters through young eyes. This is more true in "True Grit" than it is in "Unforgiven," of course: Mattie Ross narrates the story of her adventure with Rooster Cogburn, whereas the Schofield Kid joins the story after the beginning of "Unforgiven," and loses his nerve before the very end when he figures out that, unlike William Munny, he has no lust for killing. Still, the younger folks in both films view the older folks with a measure of awe, and as Jeff Hodges noted in his post on the Charles Portis novel True Grit, a great measure of love in Mattie's case.

I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. While I generally agree that this was an uncharacteristic effort by the Coen Brothers, I don't think they strayed too far from what they've done before. One signal trait of a Coen Brothers film is the verbal tic-- something you also see on "Saturday Night Live." The idea is that you give one or more characters a particular, and exaggerated, way of speaking, and then you repeat it ad nauseam. Think about the "OK, then"s of "Raising Arizona," or the "Oh, yah!" of the good citizens in "Fargo." "True Grit" accomplishes this same feat by making its characters, almost without exception, avoid the use of contractions. That, along with the subdued musical score by perennial partner-in-crime Carter Burwell, reassured me that I was watching a Coen Brothers film.

My buddy Dr. Steve gave the movie high praise, though he expressed some disappointment in Josh Brolin's decision to play Tom Chaney, the man who killed Mattie Ross's father and the object of her vengefulness, as a cartoonish oaf. I wasn't as turned off by Brolin's dramatic choice, though I'd agree that Chaney's silliness may have loosened some of the tension during the movie's climactic scenes. He could have been more sinister, especially given how large he loomed in Mattie's imagination.

Barry Pepper was hilariously filthy as Ned Pepper, the wool-chapped leader of the creatively named Ned Pepper Gang. Pepper, who famously portrayed the prayerful sniper in "Saving Private Ryan," is an extremely athletic actor; it wouldn't surprise me to learn he did his own horseriding stunts during the nighttime-ambush-at-the-cabin scene. I also have to wonder whether the actor's surname influenced the casting director's choice.

One of the more impressive cameos was by Ed Lee Corbin as The Bear Man, a dentist/trader/hunter who has manifestly spent too much time alone, and who speaks in a bizarre rhythm that defies all normal human cadence. It's The Bear Man who directs Rooster and Mattie to the cabin where we meet the ill-fated criminals Emmett Quincy and his partner, a quivering Methodist named Moon. (I had originally wondered whether the unstable Quincy had been played by Coen Brothers regular John Goodman, but the actor's face didn't fit Goodman's looks. As it turns out, Quincy was played by Paul Rae.)

Matt Damon did a fine job as LaBoeuf (pronounced "luh-BEEF" in the film, which tickled me), the Texas Ranger who loves to tell everyone he's a Texas Ranger. In the end, though, we discover that LaBoeuf, who is pursuing Tom Chaney for reasons of his own, isn't all talk: he's a crack shot at four hundred yards, which turns out to be a good thing for Rooster. If Rooster Cogburn is the movie's Han Solo, eager to charge headlong into danger, then Damon's LaBeouf, with his shaky loyalties, is its Lando Calrissian. With his tongue bitten part-way off after he's been lassoed and dragged a ways across dirt and rocks, poor LaBoeuf spends half the film sounding like an Art Buchwald wannabe. This, coupled with his multiple departures from the group ("Eighdee-os!"), adds a pitiful element to the comic relief.

Hailee Steinfeld's perky, feisty portrayal of Mattie Ross, the girl out to avenge her father's death, was about as note-perfect as it could be. In his review of the film, Roger Ebert wrote, "...few people would get a crush on Hailee Steinfeld." He wasn't calling the actress ugly-- she isn't-- but he was noting that Steinfeld's Mattie is a little pistol, intelligent and ruthlessly purpose-driven, not someone to be toyed or trifled with. The only time we see Mattie truly falter is the moment Rooster shoots her exhausted horse. Once the deed is done, words fail her, and all she can do is beat weakly against Rooster's arms as he picks her up and gasps his way across the plains, racing against time before Mattie is overcome by the snake venom in her veins.

For Steinfeld, who radiates alertness, confidence, and poise in her interviews, this couldn't have been a better breakout role. It showcased her ear for accents and her ability to rattle off lengthy lines of dialogue in a manner that somehow avoids the trap of stilted or overwrought speech. I predict she's got a great career ahead of her, as long as she can keep her head and not get sucked into the Hollywood vortex.

Finally, hats off to Jeff Bridges as ornery Marshal Reuben "Rooster" Cogburn, an ex-bank robber and downright rascal who faces death with a grim smile and more than a little liquid courage in his bloodstream. Bridges is older now, long past his Dude days, but he still had to be made up to look even crustier. In a Dude versus Duke comparison, it's hard to say whether it's Jeff Bridges or John Wayne who presents us with the more convincing or iconic or memorable Rooster Cogburn. I tend to think they're both on a par, with Bridges having the advantage of starring in a far better version of the story. I also think that, as delivered by Bridges, the 2010 Cogburn gets all the best lines in the movie.

"Shot? Or killt?"

If you haven't seen the new "True Grit" yet, git on out there and see it in theaters before it disappears entirely. All that gorgeous cinematography will be diminished on Blu-ray, no matter how huge your new flat-screen HDTV might be.


Wednesday, January 19, 2011

des liens

Some links to distract you from my own lameness:

1. With thanks to Aaron McKenzie of Idiots' Collective, a link to a popular TED lecture video about one man's desire to build a toaster from scratch. Literally from scratch-- as in, mining the necessary materials from the earth and moving on from there. While the video itself doesn't go into what the project was really about, Aaron's blog post does: he links the video to a 1958 essay titled "I, Pencil," which emphasized "how voluntary trade increases not only the material well-being of humanity, but also peaceful cooperation across borders (wood from Oregon, rubber from Malaysia, graphite from Sri Lanka, etc.)."

2. My friend Bill at Bill's Comments has written a cluster of short essays on a few topics near and dear to my heart: religious diversity, hermeneutics, and religious expression in America. Thought-provoking, and highly recommended.

3. An interesting poem by my friend Nathan challenges the reader to unlock the secrets of the riddle contained within. Having stared at the poem for only a short time, I find myself thinking Icarus-themed thoughts, but not getting any further than that.

4. My buddy Mike talks sports and flaunts his famous connections.


Tuesday, January 18, 2011

work day

ETS work was cancelled for Martin Luther King Day today, so I've got other work to do: the sorting of my books into major categories is finished, so I've been spending my days sorting the categories into subcategories, shelving books as I go. The religion books are all shelved now, but I was distressed to discover that a good number of religion books are missing, almost as if I had left a box of them back at the old homestead. In particular, two versions of the Tao Te Ching (one translated by Victor Mair, a giant in the field of Asian Studies) are conspicuously absent. Another possibility is that the missing books are still in Korea, but I could have sworn that I saw them in Alexandria, before I packed everything up. Unfortunately, I've been known to misremember things, so I can't trust my recollection. A third possibility is that the missing books are here, but they're hiding in boxes that contain other household items. Here's hoping that's the case.

I've also got a slew of eBay ads to slap up-- items to sell, and classes to advertise. Although I've already put up some ads, and they've already received several dozen visits, no one seems to be biting. Maybe people are afraid of taking a semester-long course. Maybe they're turned off by the lump-sum price for 48 hours of teaching, and they haven't done the math to see how godawful cheap the courses actually are. Or maybe they've done the math, but can't afford such lump-sum payments because times are tight. What I may need to do is advertise shorter courses-- say, month-long courses like they do at many hagwons. That way, I've got rolling registration and a steadier income. Right now, what I've said in my ads is "Courses are 16 weeks long; they begin in February and go into June." In other words, if no one registers for them by the time February arrives, I'm screwed, unless I choose to teach compressed/truncated/accelerated versions of those courses.

Because of the above problems, the one-month paradigm is looking better and better. I may also start to add other programs, such as a "college tour" program in the spirit of bespoke tourism. (I learned the term only last year from an English friend, who used it in an email. It refers to tailor-made, specialized tours, generally using local people as guides.) I did this once, actually, back in the 1990s: I took a well-to-do Korean mother and daughter around to see various elite private high schools in the New England area. It was a fantastic trip for me, and the ladies were both very friendly. I had one of the best hamburgers I'd ever eaten while we were in Hartford, Connecticut to visit one private academy. In that same city, I also remember my charges goggling at the enormous portions they'd received at the local Korean restaurant. We had a great time.

Bespoke tourism seems like a worthwhile thing to do for prospective Korean students, especially ones looking into college. I'm close enough to DC that parents and students could sleep over at my place while I take them to some of the major DC schools, such as American University, George Washington University, and Georgetown University. George Mason University is also possible as a day trip, and it's in Fairfax, i.e., very close to Annandale's Koreatown. Longer drives, such as to James Madison University, William and Mary, or the University of Virginia, might require hotel stays (unless the guests were comfortable with long round trips), as would sojourns out to universities in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and New England.

But as I'm thinking this through, it occurs to me that bespoke tourism and tutoring don't exactly mix: there's the potential for scheduling conflicts if, for example, an English course is set to run through all of June, while a bespoke tour is set to happen during a single week in June. Would I have to keep a month or two free in order to be able to schedule tours? Should I scatter non-tutoring weeks throughout my calendar? Koreans tend to have long winter vacations and short summer vacations; what would be the ideal month(s) in which to have such tours? At a guess, February: the Korean academic year begins in March, and February generally marks the easing-down of winter in the mid-Atlantic region. Giving tours in July, by contrast, would prove expensive for everyone, since that's the height of the tourist season for most of the northern hemisphere.

I'm obviously assuming that, even if I move to a per-month paradigm for tutoring, I'll be following a fixed schedule (certain days, certain times of day for each "section" I teach) as opposed to allowing students to sign up and begin classes willy-nilly. I'd actually rather have that rigidity; too much flexibility invites all sorts of problems-- random cancellations, random reschedulings, etc. I plan to keep a strict refund/cancellation policy, and feel that an equally strict schedule (as well as an actual curriculum for the student to follow) can nip most potential problems in the bud.

Well! At this point, I've said a lot but haven't done much. I've enjoyed a nice, heart-clogging dunch/linner of fettuccine Alfredo and oi-kimchi, and now it's time to move on with the rest of the day.


Monday, January 17, 2011

wanna blow your mind?

Read this. I'm happy the guy explains the concepts as well as he does; at one point, he writes: "A manifold that bounds cannot have a boundary. For example, the boundary of a disk is a circumference, but the circumference has no boundary (the boundary of the boundary of the disk is zero)." Without the ensuing explanation, that first sentence would have made no sense to me, and I'd have been completely lost.

(Do watch out for the typos in the blog post, though; if you're already feeling off-balance from the terminology, the typos can throw you further for a loop.)


bleg for students

If you're in Korea (or the US, or anywhere else), and you know some Korean students who'd like to learn or practice English, I've been creating a series of ads on eBay for just that purpose. So far, there are only two:

1. English Conversation through Skype (all levels; bad Korean thrown in for the low-level students, who can't be expected to understand everything in the ad; the ad also features 2008-era YouTube links to me speaking in different languages)

2. Current Events English through Skype (a more serious ad for high-intermediate to advanced learners of English; no Korean in the ad at all, nor any YouTube links)

Later today: ads for reading and for composition, along with ads for stuff I'm selling.


yesterday's lunch

Yesterday's cobbled-together bibimbap for lunch. I'm amazed at the picture quality from my phone, which may become my default camera for most of my eBay efforts.