I Could Also Watch This Forever

Apparently Joe the Plumber had to make a house call or something because he was nowhere to be found at a recent McCain rally. Too bad no one told McCain that. Watch as Old Man McCheeks stretches for a recovery that’s so painful, it’s good.

Harvest Season

The rice field I walk through each day on my way to work looked a little different today. It seems that the harvest season is in full swing, so the farmers who tend to the field decided to give their land a buzz cut and turn their green crops into some greenbacks. Though I try not to get overly analytical about my time here, it’s impossible not to feel certain parallels between the growth of the rice and my own personal journey out here in Korea. When I first arrived here, the field was nothing more than dirt and seeds waiting to be sown. A few months later the first buds started to appear, then after that, green as far as the eye could see. Now it’s harvest time; a time to start collecting your thoughts and start thinking about what to do next. In a few more months the last remnants of the rice plants will be completely gone and the field will be back where it started; just row upon row of empty soil waiting to be filled. And in a few more months, I will be gone and someone new will arrive to take my place. And maybe they will feel just as I feel when they walk past the waist-high stands of rice each day: that they too are just an empty field, waiting to be filled.

Related Listening:

“Harvest” – Neil Young

“I Don’t Wanna Grow Up” – Tom Waits

Making Smashing Pumpkins

burn baby burn

Do not adjust your monitors. Your eyes are not decieving you. That right there is a downright badass pumpkin carving job whipped up by my fellow co-teacher, Howin. What started out as a single jack-o-lantern quickly turned into an all out carving bonanza. The kids couldn’t get enough of them. I have probably carved about 15 pumpkins this week. Besides the the fact that my hands have taken on a sickly orange tint and I smell like squatch all the time, it’s been a pretty rewarding way to pass the time. The kids really get a kick out of seeing the finished product flicker in the dark hallways, and I really get a kick out of making them dig out pumpkin innards against their will – so I guess it’s a win win. Now if anyone knows how to get pumpkin stains out of dress shirts, please let me know.

For My Sister

Saw this in a subway station in Seoul. Some candy vendor was selling wafer cookies that for some reason bore the name of my twin sister, Jessica. At first I thought it was an odd choice, but then I thought about it some more and realized it was perfect fit for a cookie that is slightly sweet and incredibly flakey. Haha, just kidding. My sister isn’t sweet at all. Once, when we were about 8 or so, she put cat hair in my mouth while I was sleeping. Lotta people don’t know this, but cat hair is the same consistency as cotton candy, and will stick to your tongue and block of beathing passageways if not cleared out in time. So long story short, my sister nearly killed me with a furball.

BoA

Recently got introduced to the music of BoA. Already a well-established pop sensation in Korea, BoA is now setting her sights on the States. She’s been working with some top-flight producers and her new single, “Eat You Up,” is burning up the charts of the iTunes music store, which in this sad state of music purchasing, has now become a pretty good indicator of what’s hot and what’s not.

Now, normally I’m not into Korean music because a) I can’t understand any of it b) it’s either a painfully sappy ballad or c) produced at a tempo upwards of 160 BPMs. This single, however, overcomes all those obstacles. Not only is it in English, but it also has a downright nasty beat to back it up (nasty in the “Janet Jackson” sense of the tern, not the “gross” sense). Sure her English singing abilities are a little choppy, but everyone knows that no one really listens to pop music for the lyrics anyway. That’s like buying Pringles for the nutritional value. Plus her dance moves are crazy good – although one shouldn’t put to much weight into that endorsement considering that my only dancing experience comes when I shared a slow-dance with my mother during my Bar Mitzvah party…but I digress. So here’s to the future stateside success of BoA. I just hope she makes it to the top of the charts before Bank of America sues her and forces her to change her name.

Check out her official website here [best part: her bio says her interests are "conversational Japanese and English." I wonder what hogwan she went to?]

Far From Home no. 11

The Gospel of Halloween

A few days ago my school’s director came to me with a mission that seemed straightforward enough: teach the kids about Halloween. At first I was pretty excited to take on this challenge, I mean, how hard could it be, right? After all, Halloween is every kids fantasy come to true. You get to stay up late and walk around aimlessly in the street and have adults give you candy, no questions asked. All you have to do in return is wear a silly little costume; a small price to pay considering you get to go home with a pillowcase full of sugar. I had no doubt in my mind that this lesson would be a home run with the kids. I was wrong.

Flash forward to today. My materials were prepared and my energy level was high. I launched into a storybook filled with pictures of jack-o-lanterns and ghosts and candy and everything else Halloween-related. I really poured myself into the telling of the story, hoping to transmit some of the excitement I felt about one of my favorite holidays. But when I put down the book I was met with quizzical looks and empty stares. I was certain that it was only a matter of time before cricket noises would start going off in the background.

And so it was. It seemed that despite my best efforts, Halloween was just too bizarre an event to accurately convey through words alone. I can only imagine what the kids were thinking as I told my silly little story. “So let me get this straight. One night a year, for no apparent reason, everyone dresses up like ghosts and zombies and makes their homes look as scary as possible, and then they go out and cut faces into pumpkins and give each other candy?” To which my response would be: Yes, that is exactly right. Now that I think about it, Halloween is basically Thanksgiving on acid.

Down but not out, I still held out hope that my kids would one day get to experience the wonder of Halloween. To that end I prepared one more activity, a mask making lesson, in the hopes that a little hands-on work could get them a little more into the into the holiday spirit. One by one I laid the stencils out for the children to choose.  “I want the cat,” said one little girl. “I want the monster mask,” said another. Within no time the masks were down to the point where only one remained. “Ok, I’ll take the Michael Jackson,” said a little girl named Betty. She looked so sad and dejected that she didn’t get to pick her first choice. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that it wasn’t Michael Jackson she was after, it was Dracula. Close enough I guess.

So lesson learned. Teaching Korean kids about Halloween is harder than it looks. Let’s just hope I don’t I have to teach them anything about Groundhog Day.

Related Listening: “Thriller” – Michael Jackson

I Could Watch This Forever.

Oh how I love a good bit of schanedfreude in the morning. Here’s video of John McCain talking himself into a pretty little pickle at recent rally in western Pennsylvania. Will someone on that campaign staff please give him his meds so he can read the teleprompter correctly!?

Evolution in Action

For all the Evolution haters out there, chew on this little vid from some Japanese television show (by the way, Japan has the coolest shows ever!). As if there wasn’t enough irrefutable evidence of Darwin’s theory out there already, this video should pretty much seal the deal. Check out how this chimp effortlessly manages to mount and navigate one of those Segway contraptions, you know, the ones that were supposed to revolutionize transportation until everyone realized that it’s impossible to ride a Segway without looking like an idiot. The monkey doesn’t look like he’s enjoying the ride so much as he appears to embracing his chance to finally escape his human handlers. In the monkey’s defense, if someone tried to make you wear overalls, you’d probably try to escape too. Survival of the fittest I guess. Darwin would be proud.

Related Listening: “Monkey Gone To Heaven” – The Pixies

Powell Endorses Obama

Former Secretary of State with the Bush Administration, Gen. Colin Powell spoke with Tom Brokaw on Meet the Press recently to announce his full support for the Democratic nominee, Barack Obama. In addition to citing Obama’s many strengths as a leader, orator, and politician, Powell also denounces, amongst other things, the disturbing trend of polarization that has been creeping up within the McCain campaign. The Republican leader has grown increasingly disturbed with his party’s narrow-minded rhetoric, and their even narrower definition of what it means to be “American.”

I’m also troubled by, not what Sen. McCain says, but what members of the party say, and is permitted to be said. Such things as, “Well you know that Mr. Obama is Muslim.” Well the correct answer is he is “No.” He is not a Muslim, he is Christian. He has always been a Christian. But the really right question is, “What if he is?” Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is no. That’s not America. Is there something wrong with some 7 year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be President?

Pretty powerful stuff if you ask me, and clearly a sentiment that has been pushed out to the peripheries in this campaign. The great thing about America is that there really is no one singular definition of who or what an American should be. 60 years ago people might have never dreamed they’d see an African American leading in the polls in the waning days of a Presidential election, but you know what? Times change. Who knows where we will be in the next 60. Maybe a gay Muslim woman will one day be taking the oath of office? What ever does happen, I can only hope we choose to take a step forward, not back.

Also, here’s a related article via Altmuslim.com