The Awakening

4-day weekend spent on bullet trains, buses, and ships traveling all the way to a small island off the south coast of Korea with a co-worker and her family. Also went to two temples and a green tea farm. Off the clock, it reminds me of how life once was, how it will be again, but upleveled a thousandfold once I'm done here. I'm gonna move back to Livejournal when I finish in Korea to hermetically seal it. It's good to travel and get out of routine.

Stuff

I set up an Amazon Associates account because I realized the only lure to keep me blogging is the vague possibility of money. I don't expect anyone will actually buy anything through the links, but it gives me an excuse to keep better track of what I like. So here's a few more things I've liked lately. I encourage you all to buy crap through the links. I think I get a miniscule percentage even if you buy other crap through the links. Go!

First, I've been getting into John Huston's films. I'd never seen The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and loved it. Humphrey Bogart is dark and kind of dumb, brilliant, the best I've seen with him.



And that made me watch The Maltese Falcon again for the first time this decade. I don't think I ever appreciated it when I was younger. The dialogue was too fast and I couldn't see what the big deal was over some dumb bird. Now I see so much more. Amazing film, the godfather of all noir. Anyone seen the 1931 or 1936 versions?



The One Two Three of God

Pretty good audio from Ken Wilber, one of my favorite thinkers... not for beginners to his ideas though. A Theory of Everything remains the easiest place to start.

Tropic of Cancer

I finally read some Henry Miller. I didn't expect anything so non-traditional. Miller really is the proto-Beat.

The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World

Sort of a travel book as a guy goes around the world looking for happiness.

Planet China

I've been recovering from a nasty cold. I took it easy this weekend and listened deep into J. Maarten Troost's Lost on Planet China. I like it because the author doesn't pretend to deal even-handedly with China. He is disgusted by a lot of things there and lets you know. It has a similar effect to Into Africa: I'm now both repulsed and fascinated by China. I'd be up for a trip there - but only a short trip to get the catburger flavor on my tongue. Then I'd get out as fast as I could.

I Presume

I was trying to hold off reviewing Martin Dugard's Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingston until I finished it, but I can't wait. It's so good. It makes me want to read biographies of all the main characters, and then read all the books those guys wrote themselves about their travel.



It goes twenty levels beyond "Livingstone was missing in Africa and Stanley found him... 'Dr. Livingstone, I presume?' "

It's also got subject matter that makes me wonder: is Dugard a really good writer or are the characters so off-the-map that it's guaranteed to be a good narrative? Okay, a bad writer could ruin it - I'm saying that Dugard didn't. This book sucked me in.

It also works as a travel book. I'm now both curious and repulsed by "darkest Africa", thanks no doubt to the lurid imagery and detail of the book. I wish I could write this well. I listened to it as read by John Lee, and it's one of the rare times I'm like, "Damn, I want to read this again with my eyes." I also want some more true adventure books like these.

Speaking of true adventure, I'm traveling across Korea tomorrow for an 11-hour hike at Seoraksan. I'm taking a vehicle, so it's not exactly Livingstone walking from one side of Africa to the other. But if I don't blog for a while, assume that I'm lost like Livingstone and come get me (après Stanley). But you can't say, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" You need to come up with your own catchy line.

So Hot

It's been humid and hot. I can barely lift my fingers to press the keys.
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I haven't been homesick at all in Korea. I don't think I will be. The time has flown and I'm always doing something social and meeting new people. I don't have a chance to care about the past.
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By my calculations I'll make a fat payment on my student loan in a few weeks and have it paid off even earlier than I'd planned. Not paying rent is awesome.
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I don't like the phrase "around the world" because it implies a starting point, an inside and an outside, as though you're outside of the womb when you're away from your "home" and things will not be as comfortable until you're back in that womb.
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Today in the hall after lunch I saw eight boys with their hands and feet on the ground, each hunched over in the shape of an arch. The P.E. teacher was yelling at them, and as he walked along he punched each one in the back and the boys grunted. Not a light smack, mind you, but a distinct CHUD that I could easily hear 50 feet away. Day in the life of Korean corporal punishment.

Reverend Moon

When I went to South Korea in December I mainly stayed with friends. But one night due to a snowboarding trip I didn't take part in I needed to find someplace to stay. Through the internet I found a family that was willing to host me.

I met the "dad" of the family with his car at a subway stop in Seoul. He was a friendly geeky kind of guy who also worked at a school so we had something in common. We talked as he drove and we stopped at a grocery store to get food. It was my first time in a big Korean grocery and I was transfixed by all the minor differences (when I later went into a massive department store I was even more blown away - there were women by the entrance who did nothing but bow to everyone as they came in - all day). The "dad" shopped and at some point his wife met us at the store.

Her English was better than his. She was from Japan. "Hmm," I thought. "That's strange. I thought Koreans generally hate the Japanese."

We got to their apartment and they had two kids, a boy and a girl. The boy sat at the dinner table with us. The girl remained in her room for most of the time, too shy to meet me.

The family and I talked for a while, watched TV - mainly just talked.

At one point as everyone got ready for bed, the "mom" said to me, privately, "Have you heard of Reverend Moon?"

I had.

"No," I said. "Who's that?"

"It's our religion," she said. "It's how we met."

"What do you mean?"

"Reverend Moon is the leader of our church. I'm not trying to make you join us. I just thought you might wonder how a Japanese woman and Korean man met. Reverend Moon arranged our marriage."

"Arranged your..."

"We didn't meet until our wedding day," she said.

The "dad" returned at this point and she went away to do dishes or something.

I prepared a bed to sleep in their living room. "Good night," I said.

"Good night," said the "dad".

They were up a while taking care of things. At some point the lights went out. Finally I could sleep.

In the darkness, I saw a form move through the living room. It was the "dad".

He lay down on the couch near my bed in the living room and seemed to go to sleep.

Umm, well, I thought, it's his house, he can sleep wherever he wants. And apparently he did.

I woke up in the middle of the night and he was no longer on the couch. I saw him walking around the house, then go into his daughter's room. The door to her room was open the whole time so I'm not suggesting anything illicit, just that he slept in there.

When I woke up in the morning I saw him come out of the master bedroom he shared with his wife. Apparently he had migrated to that room later in the night.

I didn't ask any questions. I ate breakfast with them and then he dropped me at a subway station and I went to meet my friends. That was the last I saw of them.

Here's an informative video about Reverend Moon if I've sparked your interest and you want to join this great religion.