23 posts tagged “musings”

I’ve had an idea before that Bangkok is not as big as most people claim – or at least, the downtown part isn’t.  One of my first clues was when Ben said that the CentralWorld near my hotel looked exactly like the one at Siam Square.  I got even more suspicious the couple of times I rode a motor taxi to school, and it didn’t seem as far as I thought it should be.  Tonight, however, was the clincher.  I took the skytrain with Czar to Chit Lom, where his tailor was, and realized I could see Central World from where we were.  I wandered for a bit trying to find Central Chidlom Department store, cause I’ve heard they have yarn there, but to no avail.  And then, as I was turning into CentralWorld to go get something to eat, I saw it – the sign for Siam Paragon.  I know if you haven’t been to Bangkok none of this makes sense to you, but as I sit here in the food court drinking my iced lychee tea after having ordered myself 2 pairs of tailored jeans (and discovered I’ve lost 3 inches off my waist!), I’m pretty damn pleased with myself. 

Bangkok 09 - Paragon food court

Lychee tea, yummy as it is, is no dinner, so I have some noodles with duck in them too.  I’d never really tried duck till recently – my birthday to be exact – but I have been eating it pretty often here in Thailand and I really like it.  It’s quite yummy.  It’s very exciting when you’re an expat to be able to find things you didn’t expect from home, and I’m fairly lazy in my eating habits anyway – rice or noodles with some sort of brothy thing is always a sure bet with me, when I remember to eat at all.  But I’ve been thinking to myself that I should try more stuff.  (But I will still order the three-sauce fajita burrito at On the Border.  If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.)  In the interest of that tonight, I tried some of the konyaku-mitai stuff floating in my soup.  It looked interesting, sort of a dark purple brown as opposed to the usual oh-so-appetizing clearish-gray, and I nibbled it a few times before deciding it wasn’t yummy enough to warrant further attention.  Instead I went back to eating sprouts and drinking spicy, greasy broth.  Odd how when I was in Korea, I dreaded seeing sprouts at lunch, but when left to my own devices, I quite like them.

Bangkok 09 - Duck noodles

It occurs to me as I type this, wondering where it’s going that maybe, sometimes, I should write with an actual point in mind.  Just, you know, occasionally. Don’t wanna cause too much of a stir or anything.  Though I rarely really consider my audience (someone call me on that, please), I generally ramble on and on in a way that is probably rather boring to people who aren’t as … invested in my observations as I am.  Which I think includes just about everyone except myself, and even then it’s debatable if I reread the stuff I write.  I certainly don’t bother to go back and edit it for conciseness.

Enough babbling for the time being. I’m going to go find the yarn shop here again, perhaps nip into a store and do some souvenir shopping, and then head home and do my last paper for my course.

Oh my god the airport is so huge.  Or not huge, really, but long.  I had to walk at least 8 moving sidewalks to get out of the place. It’s concrete and what looks like thai silk and glass – not as pretty as the Kuala Lumpur airport, but all lit up from the outside.  The taxis here, lined up outside the airport, are all different colors, fuchsia and green and yellow and blue, and when one of the drivers takes my bag to put it in the trunk I notice the tank in the back that I’m pretty sure is NO2.  

Seeing so many hijabis in Malaysia was surprising, but then it occurred to me that it is a Muslim country.  What was more surprising to me was that, in order to go thru immigration at BKK, you have to pass a thermo-scan camera; the sign requests that glasses, hats, and hijabs be removed, and I wonder how that works exactly.   I guess they don’t have the same religious freedom rules here as in the states.

I went out exploring near my hotel – I’m really not that far away from the busy Pratunam market area, and farther from the skytrain than I would like, but it’s not bad.  It’s so very different from Korea – no ubiquitous apartments, coffee shops, bakeries, pharmacies.  It’s hot and there are so many cars and it’s smoky and there are no mountains and so many overpasses and broken, dirty sidewalks.  I’m reminded of Marie’s comment about China – that she couldn’t wait to get back to the quiet and cleanliness of Seoul.  I feel the same way about Bangkok.   And I miss cool weather, even after a couple days – I was so looking forward to fall. 

A surprise: the Thais seem to be obsessed with Japan.  Or there’s a large Japanese population and influence here.  I saw Japanese manga in the 7-11 here, and there are so many signs written in Japanese, and Japanese restaurants.  Of course, many of them seem to be as much ‘Japanese’ as Chinese restaurants in America, but it still says something.  I’m eating at a ramen shop now, in a mall with at least 4 Japanese restaurants, not counting the Mister Donut.  They sell sushi at the street food stalls here, 1 piece of tamago or crab for 10 baht or so.  I look at them and cringe a bit, because  I certainly wouldn’t want to eat sushi that’s been sitting out in the heat of the day…  I certainly didn’t expect to be hearing Dong Bang Shin Ki in this ramen restaurant.  I started laughing uncontrollably when I realized that they were, in fact, playing ‘Gee.’

There seem to be many bookstores.  They serve bottled water at restaurants.  I’m not sure I believe the tourist line that Thais smile more than other people, but they seem nice enough.  Mostly what I have noticed is that they all look different.   I mean, compared to Koreans, at least.  Not that all Koreans look the same, but Thais seems to be a bit more heterogeneous.  Perhaps this is because of all the inter-marriage here, between Thais and Chinese and other foreigners.  More people seem to speak English, maybe this is because there are so many tourists.  I haven’t been on the Metro here yet, but the Skytrain is nothing compared to Seoul.  The skytrain map makes the city looks so small – there’s maybe 20 stations, max, on 2 lines.

I haven’t seen as many homeless people on the streets, but some of the homes here are pretty far from the American idea of ‘house.’  Perhaps it’s just because I seem to be in a poorer area, but there are so many houses that are just two rooms, which were obviously intended to be stores or garages, with the large roll-up gates in front, or tarps to block the rain.  I was tempted to take pictures but I thought that would be rude.  It reminds me of some of the poorer, older areas of north or central or Florida – a bit sleazy and rundown and sad.  There are dogs everywhere here.  Most of them have collars or seem to belong to someone, but they wander the streets looking at you hopefully for food.

well, here we are again.  i'm fairly certain 2 months is not the longest time i've gone without posting a blog entry, but it sure feels like it.  then again, i dont suppose that much has really happened, in the grand scheme of things.  my life still goes on, chill as ever.  the only really big deal that's going on is me getting ready for thailand, and leaving korea, and even that just requires a bunch of sorting and packing and other planning. 

the year has really gone quickly though, as all years seem to do, i've recently noticed.  you go to a place and say you're going to be there for a year, and a year feels like a long time, but it goes so quickly, too fast for you to be ready to leave and to have all your photos edited - though that last bit might just because i'm a horrible procrastinator. i'm not really sure that i'm ready to leave korea, as in leave and not come back - i feel like there are still things for me to do here, and the city hasn't become so full of memories that i feel the need to run away yet.  still, i'm looking forward to going home, to spending time with my family and the people who aren't quite family but may as well be.  of course, going home means that i will be leaving again, which brings up other thoughts on how quickly time passes and how much of it i spend away from people i love... but i've been through those enough times in my head, and the answer is always the same. 

i'm on a bit of a melodramatic streak tonight, aren't i? more later, when im not eating.

Rain, rain, go away
come again another day
I want to go out and play,
and have a yarn crawl tomorrow.

to be perfectly honest, I'm surprised that I'm not napping right now.  I felt tired enough for it - today was a long day.  Today was field trip day. 

It almost wasn't - the idea was that if it was raining when we came to school, we would cancel the field trip to the camp and just have classes.  Well, the morning was gray and hazy (and so was the afternoon...) but it didn't start until we were on our way.  It drizzled on and off the whole day, and wasn't really pouring until we got back.  Now it's very loud, occasionally thundering and flashing outside my window, so I have both my glass doors closed.

It's not really a camp - we went to a place called Kanghwado, an island out near Gimpo.  We ended up at this place called Oktokki Space Center, and it was cute.  It's a huge building with a large garden out back that had statues of dinosaurs, and inside it's an astronomy and rocketry museum.  It was really interesting, and I'd like to go back there sometime.  I had an idea - I'd like to do a bike trip that way.  You can get there via bus, but if I was on a bus, I couldn't stop to take pictures and explore like I want to... It was beautiful, in it's own way - there were muddy tidal flats like at home, next to rice fields that extended back to the mountains that were obscured by fog, and the same skyscraper apartments that define Korea stuck in the middle.  There were even the same white egrets as home, poking about in the paddies for bugs and such.  Whenever I travel, I'm always struck by how different so many places are from each other, but mostly by how much the same everything is.  The trees here look like the ones at home - we passed a field surrounded by a wall of trees covered with kudzu that almost made me laugh.  The tide was out, as were the shallow boats. 

I've been struck a lot recently with the desire to learn more Korean - to be able to communicate with the people here, moreso than the broken fragments of preschool commands, and perhaps be less alone.  That's not accurate, I suppose.   I tell myself that it was my choice to be alone, and it's true; but it's also true that I am in a place where it is very easy for me to be alone, where I am alone by default, and it's not a choice at all.  I feel like there is a difference in nuance there, but I am not sure how to describe it.

I took pictures at the space center, and I want to edit them before I put them up - I'd like to get some of that done during my break.  I think the ones that I want to edit, but don't have the skills for yet, I will put in an Endnote notebook with my thoughts for fixing them, and go back to them later. 

American Gods

Neil Gaiman

When I came home, I finished reading a book I've been working on for a while, Neil Gaiman's American Gods.  Robin gave it to me a bit ago - it's the first of Gaiman's novels that I've ever read, though I have read some of his short stories.  It was wonderful and tricky and full of the kinds of allusions to other things that I love.  When I first started it, I wasn't sure that I was going to like it, but I got sucked into it.  I definitely need to read more of his work now.  He's an author that I have always been interested in, but had only just gotten around to reading. 

An amazing book is one you know that you will *have* to reread again, before you have finished it through once.  This is an amazing book.

I learned some new words today, too, at the museum. 

taeyang = Sun.  The sun is also called hae-nim, which is interesting. I'm not sure exactly what the nuance of the first part is - I think the common word for the sun, as opposed to taeyang, the scientific word.  But the -nim ending is what you use when you are referring to a person, kind of like the japanese -san.  I guess it's kind of like saying "Mr. Sun" in English. 

eoknyeon = light year.  I learned this from reading an exhibit about how far away things were from us. 
chigu = Earth.
uju = space, as in, outer space.
sajajari = Leo, the constellation, or the zodiac sign.  there was an activity the kids did where they made necklaces with each of their signs, and I got one.  You got a little picture with a diagram of your constellation on it, and put dots of glow-in-the-dark glue on the dots marking the stars, and then put it in a little plastic case on a string.  They let us teachers do it too.

Now, to get ready for the yarn crawl tomorrow, and also do some emails and budgeting and cleaning up.  Oh, and figuring out what I am giving to my swap partner.  I have a list of ideas, and a $25 budget.

I didn't have tutoring tonight, cause Jihyun was going to be late at school, so we decided to do it some other time.  So I took a nap when I came home, though I briefly considered going out to get ice cream or going to Gangnam anyway.  I have yet to eat dinner, cause I was asleep and then have been surfing the tubes reading random things.  I found this hilarious, Jon sent it to me. 

But that's not really what this post is about.  That's just an annoying thing sidetracking me from posting before 12.  No, today's post is (hopefully) a little more meaningful than that.

My grandfather died... I don't remember the exact date.  The end of August, an early Saturday morning. Now that I look at it, I remember it was the 23rd, but at the time, I was a little busy to have time to write.  I hadn't seen him in a few days; he was in the hospital and I was working during the day, tired and too lazy to go to the hospital at night to see him.  I meant to go see him that Friday, actually, but missed the visiting hours and figured I would go sit with him the next day.  Then the hospital called at 2 am, and by the time we got there he was gone and I never got my chance to see him again. 

Of course, I did see him.  We went into his room at the hospital.  I didn't stay for more than a minute.  I was in shock, and then hysterical for about 15 minutes and then just ... calm.  I saw his body and he wasn't there, but he didn't feel really gone either.  How could he have been?  He'd always been there, from when I was very small - there's no way he could just suddenly disappear.  It's impossible for something like that to happen.  The funeral was open-casket, but I didn't go see the body, and I was too angry with the preacher, too glad my friends had come to be with me to really let it sink in. 

And so I'm not really sure it ever has.  I remember reading an article a while ago - a psychologist trying to figure out why people have such a hard time understanding death.  And he found that, even people who claimed that dead was dead and there was nothing after, gave answers in a manner that belied their rationale.  They answered as if a dead person could still think and feel.  The researcher concluded that this was because humans seek to understand things in terms of what they already know. But we have nothing to compare to death, because we have never experienced anything like it.  Sleep is the closest we have, but it's not the same.  This always reminds me of the story of what Abdu'l-Baha said when someone asked him about the world after we die.  He said, he couldn't tell us - we wouldn't understand it, because we have no frame of reference to comprehend it.  It would be like trying to tell a baby who is still in the womb about sunlight - something completely alien.

The only thing I can think of seems so strange - that he's gone, and depending on what philosophy I decide to go with, I may or may not see him again.  But that doesn't feel real.  When I call home I sometimes catch myself stopping right before I ask my grandmother, "So how's Pops?"  Even though we weren't as close as I grew older, (but then, that happens) we always had an understanding.  We would laugh at my grandmother being silly together, I would read papers for him, we'd bemoan the lack of good TV shows.  There were things that were understood that we didn't talk about - mostly my different views on people of other races, or his opinions on my mom.  Strangely enough, he liked Olga, when he met her. 

I find myself stopping and thinking of him at random times, the oddest things make me remember.  Milkshakes. Pillows.  Oyster stew.  Having my own apartment.  Seeing people put salt and pepper on their food.  Tomatoes.  Aftershave and toothpaste.  Steak and iced tea and restaurants.  Recliners.  Banana pudding and Nilla wafers.  Other people's Cokes.  Just being here, sometimes.  I know he didn't like me being away from home so much, but he understood.  I asked him if he wanted me to put off coming to Korea, and he looked so surprised, and asked me, "Why would you do that?"  How when I went down to Jax for the ABF interview, we all discussed me living in Jacksonville, and he actually participated in the discussion of how best to deal with my car, furniture, stuff like that. 

And on those occasions, I have two contradictory feelings, one of sadness, and one incredulity.  Even with the odd refusal to believe he's gone despite all evidence to the contrary, I still feel vaguely sad.  Not for him, but for me.  Which is horribly selfish, I imagine.  On these occasions I generally shed a tear or two, glad I'm in front of my computer and not out in public where people would wonder why the foreign girl just started crying.  But it happened tonight on the bus home, because of the song I was listening to, and so I decided to write about it.  I posted a bit about it a while ago, but not really.  I didn't want to touch it at the time, because it didn't feel real. 

It still doesn't.  But then, I've noticed that I go through quite a bit of my life wondering if what's happening should feel more real, or if everyone feels the same distance from things.  I feel it more with important events, but even sometimes on a daily basis it happens.  Lately I've been thinking of pieces of Atlanta while in class, driving down Buford with Julie and windows down and stereo up and then I remember that I'm in Korea.  Or biking down the streets of Kyoto and walking though Uji.  That's another post, I think.  I'm too tired to do that one tonight.

Anyway, enough talking.  Here's what I was listening to that made me decide to unload all this.  It's a good song, so it's worth it if you've read this far. 

All We Are

OneRepublic

that not a whole lot really happens on a day to day basis.  which seems kinda strange, oddly.  While I have lived through the last 24 hours, not much was a big enough event to feel that it needed posting here. 

There's work, of course, which was long today, but not horrible.  I drew a bunch of pictures to help me tell the stories of the plays we are doing and laminated them - hopefully the kids won't demolish them too quickly.  It seems it's impossible to ask a 6 year-old to hold a piece of paper without them doing something to it - bending it, waving it, sticking it up their nose (that happened to day).  Douglas and I had the usual discussions regarding differences between American and British English when Debbie was making materials for teaching the term 'undershirt', and while it did help me to understand some of the clothing terminology I've been reading in Whofic, it also always brings out the fundamental difference between us regarding teaching.  Douglas does this, because he gets paid to do it; he doesn't have any pretensions that he is teaching the children English, or that many of them will use it in the future.  So questions of what terms to teach them and how they are actually used in different places aren't really a focus for him.  He writes them all off as, "Oh well, we aren't really teaching them English anyway, so it doesn't matter." 

I can see how this attitude works.  It lets you feel not so emotionally invested in your job that you don't despair when you realize, as I did on Wednesday, that several of the children you teach can't actually read, despite being in a second-year class and being most of the way through a phonics textbook.  But at the same time, it feels weird to me.  I made a comment today about Tim's remark last night regarding my drawings - "How do all these women who are teachers know how to draw?"  To which Douglas responded, "You aren't a teacher. You're just a foreigner."  Which in some respects is true - I haven't had any training, and most of what we do is essentially daycare, but it bothers me to think that I don't matter.  And obviously, Douglas and I are in Korea for different reasons.  Or rather, here for the same ones, but that we look at them differently.  For me, being a teacher and making an impact (as corny as that sounds) is just as important of an aspect as being in a new place and having fun.  I feel like I am contributing something to these children that they will need in the future.

No photo today, unfortunately. I haven't been feeling well lately, so my productivity has been pretty much nil.  I think it's allergies or a slight cold, not sure which.  I just woke up from a nap, and I need to eat dinner.  And I want to knit some, despite the emails that are screaming at me to be written. Should probably also write in my journal, since i have been meaning to do that for a few days, and haven't.  I kinda just want to go back to sleep though.

Watching Torchwood has put me in a slightly existentialist mood.  Being alone so much lately probably helped too, but it has occurred to me since I’ve been here that I will probably be alone quite often.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Alone is one of those strange double-edged words, like it should be in some magical runic codeword list or something, right up there with darkness and love and death.  I tried defining it, to clarify the two aspects of it, but I run up against the classic Deconstructionist problem – I can’t separate them in words.  The definition of one kind of ‘alone’ uses the same words as the other, if only with different emphasis.

“They keep killing Suzie” made me think – Suzie says there’s nothing but darkness after you die but that there are things out there - you aren’t alone, which is why she wanted to come back.  Sometimes being alone is safe.  In fact, I would say that’s the case most of the time – it’s only when you are supposed to be alone, and aren’t, that it becomes a problem. 

I’m getting off the subject.  Anyway, Suzie’s general conclusion to Gwen’s question, “What’s the point?” is that life itself is the point, the things you take for granted or don’t even think about.  If the world after this one is only darkness, then what is the most important thing?  For me, being with the people I care about has always been that thing, and even though I don’t subscribe to the view that darkness is penultimate, it still occurs to me that I should spend as much time with the people I love as possible. 

Which begs the question, why am I here in Seoul, when none of the people I love are? There must be a reason (besides me being ‘daft’ as Lloyd put it).  It’s amazing how distance gives you perspective.  At the same time, I know that I can’t be with them all the time, even if I were to try.  And I get lazy, bored, and forget about all of this.  Despite Savannah being full of people I love, I’m not really happy there.  I get bored doing the same thing, driving the same streets all the time.  So I need this distance, as much as some part of me feels like I should be spending this time, or any time I can, with them.

But then again – if I don’t leave them sometime, that small place is all I ever know.  I would never have met all of the friends I made at Emory, had the experiences I did there, or gone to Japan.  It’s a tradeoff, I guess.  Give up something you have for something you might get.  I thought I’d made a similar bargain once upon a time, but it didn’t turn out like I thought.  Does it ever?

So I get back to the question, why am I here?  There’s got to be a reason somewhere.  I’ll probably only see it in hindsight, but it’s a good idea to keep an eye out anyway.

How does triskaidekaphobia manifest itself, I wonder?  A number, an essentially unreal concept, seems to me to be a strange thing to have a fear of.  What if such a person’s family or partner happened to be born on that day or something? Would they refuse to associate with them?

Do they have quatrephobes in Asia, I wonder? (I’m not sure if that’s the right word.)  I’m thinking of the association between the number 4 and death/general unluckiness.  I saw quite a few buildings there that didn’t have fourth floors while I was in Japan, just like here you don’t see 13^th floors. 

I have forbidden myself from buying any more books before I go.  For one, I have so many that I haven’t read, and I really need to get through those before I get more.  Secondly, I spend a lot of money. Thirdly, I have to haul them all up to the attic myself, and trust me, that’s a pain in the ass.  I really don’t like storing them there, but there’s not really any other place for them, though I know that the conditions there aren’t ideal.  But I have to hope that plastic bins will hold them well enough without damaging them too much.  It is for this reason that I have decided my future house will have a dumbwaiter. 

Before I made this decision, however, I made my last purchase of the summer at Books-a-Million, and it is very gorgeous, if I do say so myself.  It’s a hardback edition of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-glass, with the original illustrations, and unabridged.  I saw it, and pounced, despite that I have a paperback signet edition of it.  But I love those books, and so I felt myself justified.  After all, it is the last thing I’m buying for now.  I’m still going to be bookmooching, but for the moment I have used up all my points, so I just have to wait for stuff to come in the mail.

I was driving home today, and there were dragons in the clouds.  They were beautiful and windblown and I could see them so clearly.  And it occurred to me, why can’t I draw those? I can see them, can trace their lines in my mind – but not onto paper.  I was musing over this, and a scene came into my head from earlier that afternoon – a guy at the body shop I had just visited struggling to pronounce the name of my claims adjuster.  Perhaps it is the same sort of thing, a discoordination between eyes and hand/mouth.  In the case of words, our minds become used to pronouncing certain combinations of letters in certain ways, and when we stumble upon something that doesn’t fit, we become confused.  Though I’ve read a lot, and always made an effort to expand this part of my mind as much as possible, I still get stumped by some things – particularly, my own name, in any of its alternate names.  (Sounds weird, I know.)

I remember my art teacher once telling me that artists weren’t special – that anyone could learn to draw.  And though at the time, I thought it was a horrible thing to say, especially to a class full of art students, I eventually understood what he meant – that art, like anything else, has to be practiced.  I always became discouraged with my drawings, and eventually I gave up.  But in the short time I practiced, I did get better. 

And because my mind runs on strange tracks, it eventually occurred to me that perhaps Derrida’s ideas on deconstructionism could be applied to all this.  Structure, sign, and play.  When we look at the world, we see things in terms of signs – letters, pictures, what have you.  These don’t usually mean anything in terms of themselves, but are placeholders for structures that we have built within our minds – the way certain lines make a picture, or letters form a sound.  Obviously, these structures and signs vary from person to person, depending on a multitude of factors.  The play is an unknown of sorts – the gaps in our understanding, when we look at a word or picture and have no earthly idea what it means.  It seems to me that the way in which to reduce this play, this uncertainty, is to practice, to stretch the structures of your mind.  At the same time however, this will give rise to a different sort of play, a creative sort, wherein your mind becomes something like Tolkien’s soup, with each new experience adding a different flavor.  The uncertainty becomes an adventure, made no less uncertain by the creativity of it.

And this is why I can’t draw dragons.

Does that make sense?

Has anyone noticed how horrible the solitaire game on the ipod is? I beat it for the first time today, and I’ve been trying for about a week.  I’m not bad at the game – not amazing, but certainly skilled enough to win fairly frequently. 

I think the program just wasn’t written very well, to be honest.  We had to design a game like this for my java class freshman year, and I remember what a pain it is to get stuff to randomize properly.  I imagine, however that making the games work well wasn’t really a priority.  Still, trying to move cards around with the clickwheel is a pain. 

As a random thought – it occasionally occurs to me how similar my handwriting is to my mother’s – though there are times she swears it’s illegible.  I mean, it could be worse (coughnickcough), but she’s the only one who usually has any trouble reading it. But my thought was – are children’s handwriting styles usually similar to their parents? I mean, there are lots of factors involved with that, but it makes me curious.  I remember very clearly that the way I write my ‘7’ (the European way, with a line through it) is something I picked up in middle school.