I’ve been pretty confident for about a year now that the Republicans would ultimately nominate Mitt Romney, and if he runs away with it in South Carolina on Saturday (which it looks like he will) I’m going to be proven right, though much more swiftly than I would have expected. But that doesn’t mean the primary hasn’t had its fair share, or maybe more than its fair share, of facepalm moments. More than a few of those (to tie it in to this blog) have been on the subject of foreign policy.

There was Michele Bachmann resolutely declaring that she would close our non-existent embassies in Iran (that’ll show ‘em!)

There was Herman Cain’s now infamous nonchalance about “gotcha” questions, such as who the president of “Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan” might be.

Perhaps you, like me, enjoyed the debate where the whole slate (except Jon Huntsman) took some swings at foreign aid, with most saying they’d zero out the entire budget and start from scratch (see, I told you Jane mattered!)

Or maybe you caught Rick Santorum, in that same debate and while discussing his foreign policy credentials from his days in the Senate, referring to Africa as a country rather than a continent – admittedly a somewhat classic mistake (The New Yorker did a review of where the whole field is on Africa).

Some of these could be innocent mistakes. I’m pretty sure I vehemently disagree with absolutely everything that Rick Santorum stands for in his campaign, but I believe his country-continent mix-up was probably a slip of the tongue rather than a misunderstanding of fundamental reality (and if you know anything about Rick Santorum, you know he’s all about the fundamentals).

(I’m not counting the disgusting, reprehensible, and generally nauseating video put out by supporters of the Ron Paul campaign that took aim at Jon Huntsman for having adopted daughters from China and India – daughters who are, respectively, 12 and 6 years old. The Paul campaign did ultimately disavow the ad)

But, no, friends: the latest eye-popping moment rises above these, and that, of course, is Rick Perry’s statement on Turkey from the debate on Monday.

The quote in full (including the moderator’s somewhat leading question) was as follows:

MODERATOR: “Governor Perry, since the Islamist oriented party took over in Turkey, the murder rate of women has increased 1400% there. Press freedom has declined to the level of Russia. The Prime Minister of Turkey has embraced Hamas. And Turkey has threatened military force against both Israel and Cyprus. Given Turkey’s turn, do you believe Turkey still belongs in NATO?”

PERRY: “Obviously when you have a country that is being ruled by what many would perceive to be Islamic terrorists, when you start seeing that type of activity against their own citizens, then, yes. Not only is it time for us to have a conversation about whether or not they belong to be in NATO but it’s time for the United States, when we look at their foreign aid, to go to zero with it.” (emphasis mine)

AUDIENCE: *loudly cheers and applauds*

The Turkish response, predictably, was unimpressed.

It might have ended there, but remarkably, when asked about the remarks the next day by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer (who himself pronounced Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdoğan’s name wrong), Perry belligerently accused anybody questioning his opinion of supporting honor killings.

I guess I don’t really have any commentary to add, except to say that this kind of ill-informed, uninformed, or willfully ignorant stupidity would be breathtaking enough coming from anybody – but coming from people who want to lead the United States, it’s also legitimately dangerous.

Luckily for everybody, Rick Perry won’t be the nominee (nor, of course, the President). As if running fifth in South Carolina weren’t bad enough, he’s now down to third place in his own home state of Texas.

We’re back today in “Steve the Traveler” mode with a very belated post about a trip I took to Gyeongju. How belated? Well…it happened back in early November. Whoops.

Architecture and nature at Bulguksa Temple, Gyeongju, South Korea

One of the best parts of teaching English here in South Korea is that you get to meet all sorts of interesting fellow expats from around the (English-speaking, of course) world. I’ve made lots of new friends, and one of those friends and I decided to take a one-night weekend excursion to Gyeongju. Gyeongju is my kind of place: a small, slightly drowsy, former imperial capital – in this case, of the Silla dynasty that ruled over Korea for centuries.

South Korea, as I may have mentioned before, is a very small nation. It’s about the same size as the state of Indiana – not much bigger than Maine, in fact – which makes traveling in-country very easy. Busan is as far from Seoul as you can get without leaving the peninsula, and it’s only two and a half hours by bullet train (about 5-6 hours by bus). That said, Gyeongju is particularly close to Busan, just 45 minutes to an hour away. I’d heard a rumor that the train route was quite scenic, if slightly slower than the bus. Given that both were under an hour, we opted for the train, which does indeed carve a particularly beautiful route right along the coast out of Busan for the first 15-20 minutes.

Upon arrival in Gyeongju, one thing was immediately apparent: compared to the hustle and bustle of Busan, this place was positively serene. The roads were wider; the traffic was less insane; there were fewer scooters and motorcycles careening toward us at 100mph down pedestrian-packed sidewalks; there was less of that pervasive “city noise.” I am, I’m increasingly realizing, not entirely a fan of the urban chaos of the Asian city (Hanoi, I’m looking at you), and so Gyeongju immediately put me at ease.

We had booked our night at a somewhat traditional Korean guesthouse, called Sa Rang Chae, and, armed with their map from the website, headed off toward it. Just a few steps later, I saw this street, and swooned a little (such a peaceful, tree-lined boulevard being, as far as I can tell, non-existent in Busan):

A lovely, tree-lined street in Gyeongju

This street cut right alongside one of Gyeongju’s better-known attractions, Tumuli Park, home to a series of oddly rounded hills that seem rather incongruously plopped in an otherwise flat plain. These are burial mounds from the old dynasty, and their peculiar dotting of the landscape around Gyeongju makes it look, at times, almost otherworldly.

We walked along almost the entire perimeter of the park on our way from the train station to the guesthouse, which we finally found tucked away in a residential corner of the city. The guesthouse itself was splendid. We had a tiny room with two little beds: one mattress on the floor, one traditionally Korean sleeping arrangement of some thick padded mats on the floor (originally, this was to take advantage of Korea’s underfloor heating system, called ondol, and even today many people here prefer this to raised beds). The guesthouse complex consists of a few beautiful buildings surrounding a nice little central courtyard. The owners are gregarious and eager to give advice on Gyeongju’s sights and attractions, and the value for money here can’t be beat. I highly recommend it if you find yourself in need of a place to stay in Gyeongju.

Our room at the delightful Sa Rang Chae guesthouse

A view of the courtyard at the Sa Rang Chae guesthouse

Another view of the Sa Rang Chae courtyard

The owner pointed us out a back entrance to her guesthouse. “The Tumuli Park is right out this door!” she said. She wasn’t kidding. You walk out the door and you’re staring straight AT the wall that runs along the perimeter of the park. +1 for location, Sa Rang Chae.

Gyeongju is, I have no doubt, a pretty place no matter when you’re there – I’ve seen some pictures of it with snow, and it looked pretty beguiling – but hitting it as we did at the height of fall foliage was probably about as gorgeous a time to be there as you can imagine. The colors (though they didn’t hit manage the kaleidoscopic spectrum we’re used to back in New England) were nonetheless jaw-droppingly vivid, even given the somewhat gloomy weather. Yellow yellows and red reds punched vibrantly against a nice, uncrowded park with plenty of meandering paths to walk along.

Gorgeous fall colors in Tumuli Park

I’m not exactly what you’d call “outdoorsy,” but I got the same sense going from Busan to Gyeongju that I felt going from Hanoi to Hue: a general unwinding, a little bit of breathing space, a little bit of elbow room, a little bit calmer. Busan is a bit short on green space within the city itself (there’s Dongbaek Park, but it takes me over an hour to get there; mountains nearby are too, well, mountainous). I think one gets a bit spoiled, growing up in Maine, when it comes to having a jolt of nature in your everyday life. It’s hard to describe how intensely, pleasantly soothing a simple stroll in a park was, but Gyeongju, and Tumuli, really hit the spot. And again, oh, those colors.

Those reds and golds...

Tumuli does have one burial mound you can actually enter. They’ve set it up as a sort of archaeological museum exhibit – lots of artifacts, plexiglass barriers to see actual excavation sites, this sort of thing. It was somewhat fascinating, but to be completely honest, I was, at this point, more interested in the park itself.

After getting our fill of a nice stroll around Tumuli, we did a wide detour out to Anapji Pond, another of Gyeongju’s attractions. Not totally worth it, in my opinion. We had to dash across a pretty busy highway to reach it, and the pond itself was kind of disappointing. It was dinnertime by now, so we looped back into the city proper, had some dinner, and went back to the guesthouse for the night.

Something really special was waiting for me there: a friend of the owner was visiting, and had brought four indescribably adorable and gregarious puppies with him. It was the first time I had ever seen this breed, which I later found out was the “sapsali,” a Korea-native breed of shaggy hunting dog. Now, of course, there’s no such thing as an ugly puppy, but these four broke the mold. I sat on the steps outside of our room and all four came barreling over, flung themselves all over me, licking and pawing, before cheerfully racing off in a pack only to repeat the cuteness assault on me all over again. I think that may have been my most unreservedly happy half hour since I got to Korea.

Our second day , we were heading for what are arguably Gyeongju’s biggest attractions: the Bulguksa Temple and Seokguram Grotto. The day did not start particularly well: it was cold, it was raining, and we were directed to a public bus stop that didn’t seem to actually exist, where we sat for an hour waiting for the bus that supposedly would take us to the temples (which are some distance out of the city itself). Just as we were about to give up and take a cab, the bus rumbled into sight.

The bus drops you first at the temple: you then need to take a second bus to get up to the Grotto. We decided to do Seokguram first. The weather was getting worse; the Grotto is quite a ways up the mountain; the bus was insanely overheated to the point of making me intensely nauseous (a sense not helped by the twisting, curving road); and when we finally got up there, these are the views that greeted us:

Nothing to see here, folks.

As a frame of reference, that fence, and that tree, are roughly 10 feet away. After that, nothing. Just a wall of cold, wet, blank, grey cloud and fog. On top (and in spite) of that, the Seokguram parking lot was crawling with tourists.

We paid our entry fee and made the walk from the drop-off area to the Grotto itself (which I’d imagine is, in better weather, a lovely little walk). I have no pictures from here, because you’re not allowed to actually take pictures within the Grotto and nothing outside was visible beyond a few feet anyway.

What I can tell you is that Seokguram is, unconditionally and without reservation, the most astonishing thing I’ve seen so far in Korea. What is it, exactly? The Seokguram Grotto houses a seated Buddha, carved of stone, set within a…well, a grotto, a chamber carved right out of and into the rock. The Buddha itself is surrounded by a rotunda decorated with stone panel relief carvings in relief. The entire rotunda is protected behind a plexiglass barrier, which is the only non-historic (or non-historical) element in the chamber. I was astonished at how effectively impactful the experience was. An admirable job has been done in isolating and insulating the Grotto and the surrounding complex from obvious and overt signs of modernity – keeping the tour buses and the parking lot at a healthy distance, allowing only a small and modest and unobtrusive gift shop within sight of the Grotto. The sense and weight of the history, and a certain amount of the…I don’t really know how to describe it…the spirituality of the setting and the care that went into the crafting of this Buddha, survives as a result.

I’m not an expert on Buddhas or Buddhist imagery, but I’ve seen a few in my day and the Seokguram is, in my opinion and of those I’ve been in the presence of, the finest.

After spending a few minutes in awe of the grotto, it was time to head back down to Bulguksa, where, it must be said, tranquility is slightly less revered. We stopped off for lunch at one of the seemingly dozens of restaurants built in the little tourist trap village at the feet of the temple entrance (where, I should mention, lunch was surprisingly cheap and even more surprisingly delicious – I had some excellent bibimbap), and then headed up to Bulguksa itself.

Gyeongju continues to seduce...

I found myself, as at Tumuli the day before, somewhat more entranced by the grounds than by the supposed star attraction. The fall colors were just staggeringly beautiful, although my pictures are slightly misleading when it comes to communicating just how crowded the place was. I go to pains, in my travel photography, to avoid showing people. I can see a horde of tourists anywhere, but what makes this place special is what exists beyond the crowds. Now, in some places, I don’t have to try (see my entry on Hue for an example of a time we really did have the place to ourselves), but in Bulguksa, it was a bit of a challenge. The place was swarming with tourists, which definitely diminished the atmosphere somewhat, and they didn’t seem to have quite the same hushed reverence that Seokguram induced.

Bulguksa Temple itself, glimpsed through the trees

Bulguksa is rather famous for these staircases

Architectural detail at Bulguksa

The temple was quite pretty, and – again, to my utterly untrained eye – seemed to feature more dragon imagery and iconography than I saw at Beomeosa, the one other major temple I’ve visited so far in Korea. I’m used to seeing dragons in Asia, so I remember being a little surprised by their absence at Beomeosa. Anybody care to enlighten me on the symbolism/significance in the comments?

Truth be told, Bulguksa looked a lot like Beomeosa, except more crowded. Those marvelously colorful eaves and architectural details notwithstanding, I found myself losing interest in the main temple building after just a few minutes. I blame this mostly on the weather (bad) and the crowds (big). The temple was beautiful, don’t get me wrong, but I’d lost my ability to appreciate it.

So with that, we headed off, but not before getting one last gorgeous parting shot on the way out:

What a view. Seriously, what a view.

And that was Gyeongju. It’s hard for me to describe how unwound, how peaceful, how content I felt there. It was just such a change from the constant freneticism of a big city like Busan. There were trees, parks, space, fewer people jostling into you at every turn. It’s nice to know that anytime I need just a quiet, slightly soothing day, Gyeongju is just around the corner.

Jane’s (or swing voters’) influence on American foreign policy may not be as direct or as concentrated as the nation’s foreign policy principals, but it is, in its own way, no less potent. In today’s toxic and acrimonious domestic political climate, where every nickel of federal spending is under pressure and under assault by politicians making budgetary and policy decisions based less on national priorities and more on satisfying the whims of a largely uninformed voter base, it would be a tragic mistake for the foreign policy establishment to either ignore or underestimate the power Jane has over them.

From the moment an individual decides to run for Congress, their life becomes merely a small element of a complex, nearly round-the-clock operation. While the vagaries of a domestic political campaign (such as a congressional seat) may – to the casual observer – appear chaotic and haphazard, these campaigns are generally quite sophisticated operations that pivot on the interpretation of a large set of variables, some more amorphous than others. First, as mentioned, is money (although money is probably slightly less important than people think it is. Consider the case of the 2010 California governor’s race, where former eBay CEO Meg Whitman spent $170m of her own money versus $38m spent by Jerry Brown: Whitman lost, 54%-40%). The more important metric than total amounts raised is this: did the candidate raise enough money to mount a worthwhile media strategy, while at the same time solidifying your campaign’s credibility? The national American political organization EMILY’s List, which assists female candidates for higher office, is not named after an individual named Emily, but for the acronym “Early Money Is Like Yeast” (“it helps raise the dough”), the point being that establishing strong fundraising numbers early in a campaign bolsters the perception that a candidate is a serious challenger.

Another variable in a campaign is time. This, of course, is constantly deteriorating. Election dates in America are fixed; the campaign knows the date of the election from day one, and that date does not change. This is why observers of American politics often talk of “October surprises,” unexpected developments that happen late in campaigns (elections in America are held on the Tuesday following the first Monday in November). If something unanticipated happens in October, campaigns have very little time left to react to or rebut the development in a sophisticated manner. Late-breaking news can derail or boost a campaign in ways that cause previously developed leads to evaporate rapidly.

A third variable is the strength of your candidate, and by proxy the campaign. An excellent candidate can lose by running a terrible campaign, and no campaign can be well run enough to overcome the deficiencies of a mediocre or awful candidate. Of course, in American politics, the factors that conspire to make a candidate unpalatable to the electorate may have less to do with policy positions than with personal issues (see: Congressman Weiner, Anthony [ret.]).

Finally, there are the variables that shift based on national whims and moods. Virtually no campaign can control or seriously impact these. If the economy is in the tank, nothing a candidate says, nothing a campaign does, can or will change that reality or seriously impact the effect that a weak economy has on the mood of the voters.  Particularly entrenched perceptions about the policy strengths and weaknesses of the two parties are another example. For instance, it is difficult, though not impossible, for Democrats to overcome the perception that they are “weak” on national security; similarly, Republicans are less likely to find automatic approval across wide cross-sections of the electorate with their default positions on so-called entitlement programs, such as Social Security.

Truth be told, very little about Congress changes from election to election. Even in significant “change” elections such as 2006 and 2010, re-election rates for congressional incumbents are stratospherically high: 94% in 2006, for instance, while a much lower 85% in 2010. In almost all individual congressional districts, the outcome is all but certain. Control of Congress, therefore, depends entirely on the outcome in some open seats (where incumbents have retired) and a few swing districts. With majorities – even significant majorities such as the Democrats enjoyed after 2006 and such as the Republicans control now – rarely outside the margin of the number of legitimate swing districts, particularly in a turbulent and dissatisfied political atmosphere such as that seen today, control of the body is on the line every election cycle.

This is where Jane matters.

From the perspective of a foreign (or for that matter, domestic) policy professional, the average American voter is stunningly, perhaps even dangerously, ill-informed. In my last post, I gave some statistics about Jane’s response on various survey questions about foreign policy, especially the amount of the federal budget spent on, for instance, foreign aid. While everything else about Jane’s biography was fabricated, those numbers were not. Here are a few dismaying results from some recent studies and opinion polls:

• In a 2008 survey of basic civic literacy, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute found that less than half of Americans can name all three branches of government, that only 55% knew that Congress shares any foreign policy responsibility with the executive, and only 27% knew that the Bill of Rights expressly prohibits the establishment of a national religion (and before anybody makes smug accusations about perceived disparities based on age or political leanings, you should know that the scores on the exam for Americans age 25-35, and those for Americans over 65, were an identical 46%; those identifying as liberal scored 49% while those identifying as conservative scored 48%);
• A January 2011 USA Today/Gallup poll on the federal budget found that 59 percent of respondents favor cuts to foreign aid – no other program received a higher percentage of “should be cut” responses, and a majority of both Republicans (63%) and Democrats (55%) favored cutting it;
• A February 2011 Program for Public Consultation survey (opens a PDF) found that the average respondent estimated 21% of the federal budget goes to foreign aid, while the average “appropriate amount” response (e.g., what percentage of the budget respondents felt should go to foreign aid) was 10% (the actual amount budgeted in FY ‘10 was 1%)

Foreign aid has always had its detractors, but what should be alarming for proponents today are two game-changing realities. First, Congress is much more beholden to their narrow ideological base voters than ever before, and with the budget and debt first and foremost on the mind of every voter, and foreign aid clearly leading the pack in terms of unpopular programs, it doesn’t take a hardened campaign pro to see where points can be scored with a cut-the-fat, jittery electorate; and second, the misinformed nature of the American voter will not necessarily allow distinctions to be made between foreign aid and the wider basket of foreign policy spending.

You may think that campaigns are simply staggering from one position to another in a “throw the spaghetti at the wall” attempt to please voters whose whims they do not entirely understand. You would be gravely mistaken. Along with the other sophisticated mechanisms at work at the center of a well-run campaign is a detailed, nuanced profile of the electorate at stake in any given race. Campaigns have access to mountains of historic data on voter behavior and history, all of which is now computerized in complex national databases compiled by the two parties. Any campaign worth its salt can, with sometimes astonishing precision, target voters based on party registration, historic voting data, responses to survey and polling questions, geographic location, age, gender, household statistics culled from Census data (how many in the household, etc); if you want to know how many women between the ages of 30 and 50, who have voted in at least 2 of the past 5 presidential elections, who are registered as Democrats and who live in a household with no other registered Democrats, live in a single town in a single district, you can have that list of names in seconds. You can make surprisingly rational educated guesses about who will turn out in a given election, and who they will support. Somebody who has identified as “strong Democrat” or “strong Republican” in an election cycle or two will never be targeted by candidates from either side, because data shows that they are predictable, with a high degree of confidence – they will pretty much always stick with their party. Elections are won and lost entirely by who does the best job convincing Jane they’re the right choice, and then making sure Jane votes.

And yet, the rise of the so-called “Tea Party” in American domestic politics has brought with it a cohort of members of Congress whose rigid adherence to a narrow political ideology has imperiled even those programs traditionally somewhat insulated from the vagaries of national opinion. In February of this year, the House adopted an amendment - notably, over the objections of newly elected Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-OH – to kill funding for the somewhat controversial “second engine” program for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jet. The program has continued to yo-yo since then in defense appropriations, but it was remarkable that more than half of the incoming freshman GOP members of the House – 47 out of 87 – voted against Boehner on the bill, in the name of fiscal austerity.

The anguish in DC, and around the world, over the debt ceiling increase this summer was yet another example of how brinksmanship and a singleminded focus on the interests of narrow domestic constituencies is having colossal effects on the formation of not only domestic but even international policy. Congressional rhetoric during the debate belied a disbelief, or at least a cavalier disregard for fact, in the ramifications on the global economy of even a brief default on U.S. debt obligations. Even traditional budget and deficit hawks seemed, by the end, uncomfortable with the extent to which Congress – especially the Tea Party-identifying wing of the Republican caucus –  was willing to hold the debt ceiling hostage in favor of spending cuts. In the midst of the crisis, there was yet more evidence that Speaker Boehner’s ability to control his own caucus was shaky at best.

Even the Senate has been far from immune from this upheaval at the level of base voters. In 2010, two incumbent Republican senators (Bob Bennett of Utah and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska) were defeated in challenged primaries (though Murkowski went on to prevail as a write-in candidate in the general election); a third incumbent Republican, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania,  chose to switch his party affiliation to Democrat rather than face almost certain defeat in a primary of his own (somewhat ironically, he ended up defeated in the Democratic primary); incumbent Republican governor Charlie Crist of Florida also switched his enrollment, to independent, rather than lose to a more conservative challenger in the Republican primary for the open U.S. Senate seat in his state. The “establishment” candidates in Republican primaries also lost in Kentucky (home state of Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell) and Delaware. Despite belief among many Democrats that these candidates would ultimately prove “unelectable” in general elections, the “Tea Party” candidate won in Kentucky, Florida, Pennsylvania and Utah. The same scene played out across the country in House and Gubernatorial elections, as well, to say nothing of state legislatures.

So put it all together, and what are you left with? A rancorous, acrimonious, poisonous atmosphere in Washington is at least partially caused by an obsession with satisfying the narrow, slash-and-burn spending reduction preferences of their most engaged base voters. They have a bevy of programs available to cut, but most – social security and Medicare, for instance – register broad and significant support even amongst members of their own party. Tax and/or revenue increases are absolutely off the table for them. This leaves discretionary spending, and there, though a small amount of money overall, can be found one of the most unpopular programs in the federal government: spending on international and foreign programs, particularly foreign aid. Independent voters like Jane are up for grabs, but the prevailing wisdom seems to be that swing voters are trending toward the cut-the-budget tendencies (though they support entitlement programs even more strongly than Republican voters), since Tea Party candidates keep winning general elections, not just primaries.

Jane isn’t a terrible person. Despite her lack of information about policy and spending, she also isn’t a stupid person. She’s a typical, rational, intelligent American who is strapped for time under the best of circumstances and cannot possibly be expected to investigate and self-educate on complex issues such as foreign aid or the entirety of the federal budget, let alone vote on that knowledge. She does, however, experience the same emotional response from certain well-crafted messages as anybody else. If I were a campaign manager looking to make some waves with somebody like Jane, I might very well consider ads blasting my opponent for “sending billions of dollars to farmers in Afghanistan while farmers here face rising prices,” or for “sending billions of dollars to give job training to Iraqis, while unemployment at home continues to climb.” Talk about message amplitude.*

The single greatest imperative in American political campaigns is primum non nocere. And that leaves us with a question: who who will be brave (or, as the case may be, foolish) enough to stand for the world when it comes to setting America’s policy priorities?

*Believe it or not, this post is not intended as a screed about the Tea Party in terms of my agreement or disagreement with their general policy platform. Far from it. I do disagree with them, in the interest of full disclosure, but my goal is not to examine my opinion of their ideology, but rather to analyze how their impact on domestic politics has changed the landscape in setting spending priorities – and consequently policy priorities – in Washington. I’m not sure how many foreign policy experts fully understand the implications here.

Of course it’s an easy question. There are only two possible answers. The first, naturally, is President Barack Obama, invested with the constitutional authority (more or less) to set America’s foreign policy agenda, establish our relationships with foreign nations, and lead our military. The other possibility would be Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whose office has the mandate and the authority to maintain and strengthen those international relationships, act as America’s foreign policy point person, and report back to the President and the Congress on her work.

In fact, neither one of them fits the bill.

OK, you’re probably thinking, then he must mean a figure less in the limelight – a “power behind the throne.” Somebody who wields enormous influence within the White House or the State Department. Someone like…Vice President Joe Biden, maybe, who has been frequently deployed on high-profile trips abroad, and who was widely respected as a foreign policy expert while a senior member of the Senate, and who seems to have a seat at the table in this administration. Or what about incoming CIA head General David Petraeus, chief architect of the military endgame in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Nope! Guess again.

Perhaps a member of Congress, then. They have the power of the purse over the entire budget, including the Departments of Defense and State. Do I mean Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), majority leader, or Mitch McConnell (R-KY), minority leader? Or maybe Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH)? What about Senator John Kerry (D-MA), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations committee?

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. And before you suggest any academics, or think tank eminences, or retired presidents or secretaries or generals or secretaries-general, it isn’t any of them, either. You won’t find America’s most powerful foreign policy actor in Washington, DC. Or New York City. Or Boston, or Chicago, or Los Angeles.

Give up?

The most powerful actor in American foreign policy (and here, please note that I said “actor,” not “expert”) is a middle-aged, married mother of 2. Let’s call her Jane Smith. She and her husband, Bob, have two kids, Katie (age 8 ) and Danny (age 5. Actually 5 and a half – he’d want me to say that).

Jane works from home as a part-time medical transcriptionist. After high school, she got a two-year associates degree in small business management from her local community college, where she was a “B” student. She likes that her job gives her the flexibility to work from home and basically set her own hours, and while she would be happier if the pay were a little higher and wishes she had benefits like health insurance, she’s just so grateful to have a job (a lot of their friends have lost their jobs recently, you see). The Smiths live a quiet life in Ohio, or Florida, or Wisconsin, or Michigan, or North Carolina, or Pennsylvania, in a pleasant corner of a rural-ish large town or small city, in a modest three-bedroom house on a 30-year mortgage, which – thank goodness – is fixed rate.

Bob, her husband, is the floor manager of a distribution warehouse for a regional construction supply company. He’s been there for 16 years, but with the recent upheaval in the real estate and housing markets, not many people are building new houses anymore, and his company has been downsizing steadily over the past year. Bob has health insurance, but his employer recently decided they can only afford to pay 50% of Bob’s premium (down from 100% last year), and 25% of Jane’s and the children’s premiums (down from 75% last year). This is going to cost the Smiths an extra $2700 a year, which is a huge chunk of their annual after-tax income of $51,000, but poor little Danny has severe chronic asthma and they have to have insurance for him. Jane is trying to pick up more work from her transcription company, but with so many people losing their jobs lately, they have more employees than they do work. If something doesn’t work out, the family may have to drop Jane from the insurance plan.

Jane has voted in every Presidential election since registering in 1992, the year she turned 18. She voted for Bill Clinton that year, but his personal turmoil sent her to Bob Dole in 1996. She thought about enrolling as a Republican in 2000 to vote for John McCain in the primary, but didn’t actually re-register (or vote in the primary). She ended up voting for Al Gore in 2000 and then George W. Bush in 2004, a vote which she now regrets. She liked Barack Obama’s energy and inspiring message in 2008, and voted for him, but now she’s unsure who she will support next year because the economy just keeps getting worse. She almost never votes in non-presidential elections, unless there is a local issue on the ballot, like the one last year that would prevent registered sex offenders from living within a 2500-foot exclusion zone around her town’s schools (which of course Jane strongly supported).

In a recent telephone poll, Jane, like 60-75% of her fellow Americans, said “jobs and the economy” was her number-one issue heading into the next presidential election. She also cited “the rising cost of health care” and “concern over government spending.” In this same survey, when asked to estimate what percentage of the federal budget was spent on foreign aid, Jane guessed 20% (slightly higher than the median response of 15%) and, when asked what amount would be appropriate to spend on foreign aid, Jane (who doesn’t want people in Africa to starve, you see, but there are problems here at home too and we should take care of those first) said 10% (which was also higher than the median response of 5% for that question). Jane favors extending all of the so-called “Bush tax cuts,” but also strongly favors raising taxes on those individuals who earn more than $250,000 a year (Jane does not realize that these are contradictory positions).

The person I have just described, of course, is both real and unreal. She doesn’t really exist, except that in a sense she does. This particular Jane Smith is a fictional character, and yet there are tens of thousands of similar Janes (and Bobs for that matter) across the country whose vote in the next election cycle will be of critical importance in determining who controls the White House and Congress, and what their budgetary priorities will be. I have just sketched a profile of the kind of perfect swing voter who will be heavily targeted by both parties in 2012.

So there you have it. Foreign policy experts, meet Jane Smith, the woman who next year will very likely decide the shape and substance of American foreign policy for the foreseeable future.

Next post: how does Congress determine priorities when it comes to homeland security, defense, and foreign operations?

The money for the YTYA grant came from the U.S. State Department, and as amazing as my colleagues in that program were, none of us were under the illusion that we were the most “typical” representatives of our homelands. We came in with the best educations, solid careers either already begun or just over the horizon, loads of travel and international programming already under our belts. I like to think we started to build something important. We are all still in touch with each other and still collaborate on various projects, so I hope I’m right.

In terms of encouraging this kind of “track two” or “cultural diplomacy” though – international exchanges that take place not at the level of foreign ministries and departments of state, but amongst artists and academics and NGOs – my YTYA friends and I were easy targets. We were ready to learn and to engage, and in many cases already had similar experiences.

I bring this up today because something of a scandal has been brewing throughout Korea for the past few days, with ripples felt particularly amongst those of us on the English teaching circuit. Long story short, an American man on a bus in a city called Bundang went ballistic a week or two ago during an argument with some elderly Korean passengers and screamed in their faces, grabbed at them, and at one point appeared to yank a woman bodily out of her seat. How do I know this is what happened? Because the bus was crowded, this is tech-crazed Korea, and naturally about a dozen passengers captured the whole thing on video with their phones. These videos have gone viral here.

I’m not going to link to the video, because that’s not the point. The story has been developing in bits and pieces since this all happened. The man thought the Koreans were making racially derogatory remarks toward him (he is black); a fair number of Koreans I’ve spoken with seem to be less shocked about his actions than about the fact that the video clearly shows not a single other passenger on the bus making even the slightest attempt to intervene. A lot of English teachers here have been pointing to the video and saying “see? We told you Korea has a problem with foreigners, especially minorities.” There’s a kernel of truth to that, maybe. A lot of Koreans, of course, have been using the video as “yet more evidence” that English teachers in Korea are a bunch of slackers just this side of criminals.

This American was wrong. Brutally, stupidly, indefensibly wrong. He lost his temper – it’s happened to all of us. He felt provoked and instigated, and whether those feelings were justified or not (the Korean word for “you” sounds very similar to a common racial slur in English, which some commentators have pointed out may have contributed to the alleged “misunderstanding” in this case), his reaction was abhorrent. He is currently being indicted without detention. I hope he is, at the very least, deported.

The elderly Korean couple are fine, physically, but the damage this man has done to the image of foreigners – particularly Americans – here in Korea will be felt for years. There have been several highly publicized (sensationalized, more often than not) cases of Westerners in Korea doing idiotic things, almost all of which turn out to be either apocryphal or overblown in the press. I don’t think committing a crime in one place versus another makes the criminal act itself any more or less objectionable, but when you’re overseas – whether you like it or not, whether you want it or not – you are representing your country. You are, in many ways, acting as an agent of public diplomacy. And that is where this man has crossed more lines than he may realize.

There is an uncomfortable undercurrent of “white man’s burden” (for lack of a better term) that pervades the attitudes of many foreigners here in Korea. They mock or dismiss this element or that of Korean life, culture, popular belief. They openly ridicule quite a bit of what they come across here. I’m not talking about a small thing like being put off by the food – I happen to enjoy the food here, but I understand if people don’t. That’s fair. No, what I’m talking about is the broader insistence that somehow Korea (and by extension of course the Korean people) is an inferior place to other nations. It is this arrogant assumption that one can “help” Korea “be better” by pointing out these supposed inadequacies that leads me to invoke Kipling above.

I have my own personal opinions about some aspects of living here. I don’t cherish everything here simply because it is Korean, any more than I cherish everything about America simply because I’m American. What I do not do, however, is run around bleating on about it while I live here. I have had conversations about the things that bother me in private discussions with friends from back home, to try and sort out exactly what I think about them, but I don’t make it my mission to ridicule what I don’t like here and set out to try and change it. It is not my place to do so.

This isn’t my country. It will never be my country. I’m fine with that. I’m living here for now, and while I’m here in a capacity that obviously goes much farther than “just visiting,” I also largely knew what I was getting into before I came here. I was smart enough, before I came, to read everything I could find about living and working in Korea – the good, the bad, and the ugly. Blogs, message boards, articles; personal experience and anecdote; recap and rant and praise together. I feel like I had a pretty good snapshot of what I could expect, and so far that has been the case.

I think a lot of westerners who come here to teach would be far better off if they simply stopped and thought for a few minutes before signing on the dotted line, and considered what, exactly, they were going to have to adjust to in order to make this gig work. Did you really not expect what you find here? How is it possible that you would willingly fly in so blindly? There are mountains of information available about this job and this country and the expat experience. To get here and be caught totally unawares by any of it is as unbelievable as it is inexcusable.

I understand their frustration with certain elements of living and working here. Reading about something can soften the blow, but it cannot fully inoculate you against a certain amount of distress. As a “for instance,” Korea has a pretty rigid immigration policy. I had to submit an FBI background check and a copy of my college degree as part of my application process; upon arrival, I had to be tested for HIV, tuberculosis, and drugs; my residency permit and work visa are the same document and that visa is “sponsored” by my school, meaning that if my school for any reason terminates my contract, I have to leave the country immediately (unlike, say, Japan, where residency and work visas are separate, allowing you to change jobs as you like without having to leave the country). These are pretty strict requirements, and I understand peoples’ frustration at dealing with them. I also would guess that few of the people complaining about these rules have ever tried to immigrate to America, or anywhere else for that matter, and have no basis for comparison on how these policies compare to others around the world.

Here’s another one. Quite a few teachers at my school have been surprised to see that I am reasonably adept with chopsticks, and even more surprised to see that I actually, honestly, “no really!” enjoy kimchi (which many foreigners do not like). I take their surprise not as a snarky insinuation that all Americans eat is cheeseburgers (though some here do hold that opinion, and it is snarky), but as a sign of their surprise and pleasure that I’m willing to test out some things about their culture that many visitors either avoid or reject outright. Many westerners, though, just find these attitudes insulting. The appropriate response in such situations, in my opinion, is not to sarcastically feign astonishment when a Korean can use a spoon, or imply that all they eat is kimchi.

The simple fact is that Korea is free to determine, all on its own, how it wants things to be in its own country. That means everything from immigration policy to what you have to do for your school when you work here. I have only had one dispute with my school so far, over a piece of my compensation package, and I worked it out with them and now it’s fine. I did not take to the blogosphere and accuse them of trying to cheat me out of what I was owed and rant that Korea is a terrible place that hates foreigners and is out to screw everybody. Does that sort of thing happen to some foreigners working here? Yes. Unquestionably. It’s terrible, and there are few legal remedies and fewer advocates available for foreigners here who experience such systemic abuse. But trying to impose the kind of attitude you maybe could get away with back home on a situation here is going to end in frustration and disappointment for everybody.

If you know even a bit of Korean history, you know that this is a nation that has suffered enormously at the hands of foreign occupiers. That cultural memory is fresh and alive and painful still. Think of it from that perspective, and some of the Korean wariness regarding foreigners makes a certain kind of sense. Is it justified? Maybe, maybe not. But the sorts of deeply ingrained societal beliefs and values that Westerners here love to grumble about are not developed in a vacuum; there is usually some reasoning behind it (here’s an excellent article about these issues). And again, my job here is to teach English to middle school students, not to preach a sanctimonious and patronizing diatribe about how I think a nation should best conduct itself. The reality is this: it is not your God-given right as an American to insist to everybody else that they’re doing it wrong.

Now, back to the point at hand. Korea is one of the most ethnically homogenous nations in the world (if not THE most ethnically homogenous). Foreign tourism is pretty low, and tourism by non-Asians is really uncommon (I bet you know at least a couple people who have “backpacked Asia.” Have any of them been to Korea?) Even today, even in a big city like Busan, contact with westerners is limited. My students are 13 to 15 year old boys, and before me, the only westerner most of them had met was my predecessor, an Australian man. For many of them, I’m the first American they’ve ever known. Their impression of not only me, but of America and Americans in general, will be hugely influenced by how I conduct myself with them.

This is why I think it is so, so essential for foreigners here to be scrupulously aware of how they conduct themselves. You are, as I said – whether you want this to be the case or not – representing your country as well as yourselves. You are going to be instrumental in shaping the formative opinions of most Korean students about America, or Canada, or South Africa, or wherever you are from. Show some appreciation for and curiosity about Korean culture while offering lessons about your own. Conduct yourself in a manner befitting Korean social and professional mores and attitudes. I’m not saying “make yourself as Korean as possible,” but show that you respect where you are enough to try and not cause problems unnecessarily.

You see, Korea is a democracy, and democratic societies have a funny tendency to reflect the will and nature of their people. America only embarked on its own immigration overhaul when the screaming from its citizens got loud enough that our leaders decided to say what they thought we wanted to hear. Turkey is taking a much stronger and more aggressive stance in the Middle East recently; it wouldn’t be doing so if the citizens were actively opposed. Many will frown and say I’m wrong, but I think if you look objectively, you’ll see that governments and people diverge on very little in democratic societies (otherwise Congress wouldn’t have an 82-89% re-election rate). So what, exactly, are the bilateral ramifications – on trade, foreign policy, security policy – for the U.S. and South Korea if the popular opinion of America and Americans in Korea is being poisoned by people like this one teacher doing something stupid?

Behaving yourself probably won’t single-handedly change the negative perception in Korea of foreigners – but as this guy in Bundang has proven, you do have the power, all by yourself, to make it much worse.

Any transaction carried out entirely in a language you barely speak 10 words of carries with it an element of risk and trepidation, particularly when none of those 10 words is situation-appropriate (for instance, the Korean for “short” or “not that short” or “please stop what you are doing this instance”). Hand gestures, a friendly smile that perfectly communicates just how bewildered you are, and a load of patience can smooth over almost anything. But let’s face it: really, seriously screwing up at the grocery store? Your shame tends to be hidden from the world. Like when I accidentally bought a small sack of MSG instead of salt. Or when I bought a bag of what I thought would be a tasty snack only to discover that they had all the gustatory charm of small, tubular packing peanuts.

A haircut, though, is inescapably broadcast for all to see. You cannot wear a hat to work in Korea, and so it was with a deep, deep sense of dread that I paused on my way home from work today at the salon on the ground level of my apartment building; took a deep breath; steeled myself for whatever lay ahead, no matter the consequences; and took the plunge.

I should mention that all this could be avoided if the rather heavy and bulky hair clipper set I brought with me (an item that took up a not-inconsiderable amount of precious space and weight in my suitcase) worked here. For the past few years, I’ve trimmed my own hair and beard pretty successfully using this clipper set. For whatever reason, though, the damn thing was DOA here in Korea. I have a power converter, so the thing is getting the proper (regulated) amount of juice from the socket, but I think it just doesn’t like the converter. I now have a very snazzy Wahl paperweight in my bathroom. Anywho.

Inside this tiny, local little barbershop, one can find the following things: two barber chairs; a small TV; a couch along one wall; various implements and chemicals and tools of the trade; and most alarmingly, a strange backroom of questionable lighting and indeterminate utility, a faintly scary place that you can catch only the barest glimpse of past the threadbare towel pinned up in the doorway. The TV is playing some sort of concert, the audience clapping along with the nattily dressed singer, tinnily warbling through the cheap speakers. A half-broken fan noisily clik-clik-clik!s from its sagging perch overseeing the whole of the shop, swinging lazily from side to side, serving no purpose other than to turbocharge the muggy air inside, unctuous air thick with the smell of product that I will never want, or need, or use.

You see – my shameful secret out – I am among the world’s Follicly-Challenged persons. It’s true: I’m b-b-b-b…b-b-b-b….oh hell, I’m balding. No. No. Don’t try to console me. I’ve chosen to accept my fate with a measure of grace and dignity that I hope folks will look back on with fond nostalgia when I someday go the full Captain Picard. “Oh,” they’ll sigh wistfully. “He took it so well. Don’t you think so?”

Inside this shop are one middle-aged Korean lady, who is efficiently snipping away at the hair of one teenaged Korean boy who is sitting in one of the two barber chairs, the other occupied by a second Korean woman, somewhat younger than the first. My entry is far from subtle, seeing as how – once I have made my decision to go in – I grab one of the double doors and give it a yank only to discover that this particular door is locked. I’m lucky I don’t wrench the handle straight off the door; the boy getting his hair cut is lucky that the hairdresser took this commotion in stride (rather than jumping in fright and accidentally slicing his ear off). I sheepishly enter through the other door. This is going well.

I stare at the Koreans. The Koreans stare at me. The singer on the TV keeps singing. The audience keeps clapping. The fan keeps clik-clik-clik!ing. I don’t know where the guy is whose job is to roll the tumbleweed through this standoff, but he misses his cue. For a second, maybe two, not a word is spoken.

“Haircut?!” I blurt, idiotically, as if afraid they might think I was there to negotiate the transfer of a giraffe.

“Mmm,” the hairdresser murmurs, turning back to her work on the boy. “Haircut,” she adds, inscrutably. The boy resumes doing what he was doing before, which is to stare at his feet, bored and sullen and somehow awkward – a trick, it seems, that comes naturally to teenage boys the world over.

“Please have a seat!” the younger of the two ladies leaps to her feet and smiles at me. “Please wait.” I place my messenger bag and a carton of eggs (which I purchased at the store on my way home, before deciding on the haircut) on a stool next to the couch, and take a seat. The younger woman disappears out back, then returns in seconds with a little grape-flavored yogurt drink. “For you!”

I accept her gift and take a small sip of the chalky brew with a smile.

“Do you believe in Jesus Christ?” the younger woman asks me mid-sip, and this is the second time (the first being the incident with the door) that I have an urge to cut my losses and run.

“Umm…” I reply.

“You know,” she clarifies for me. “God? Christian?”

“Umm…” I reply.

“We have a church!” The Christian (who I should mention is both friendly and rather pretty) bubbles away, enthusiastic despite my inability to speak. “My husband is minister. Perhaps you can come?”

“I, uhh-” I begin to speak.

“This is my son!” she forges on, gesturing to the sullen boy. “He is middle school student. At Songdo Middle School. Do you know?”

“Oh,” I perk up. Schools are less dangerous ground to stand on than churches. “Middle school? I teach at Daesin Middle School.”

“Daesin?” She asks, repeating something that sounds, to my untrained ear, like exactly what I just said.

“Yes, Daesin!”

“Daesin?” she asks again; then a third time, dragging the word out a bit for emphasis – “Daaaeeeeesin?” She looks toward her son; in the mirror, her eyes meet those of The Hairdresser, who gives a small shrug. The fan clik-clik-clik!s. I feel a single, hideous bead of sweat rolling slowly down the side of my face.

“Umm…” I clear my throat and try again, modulating my pronunciation of the second syllable in “Daesin” in a barely perceptible way – less “i,” more “ee.” “Day-sheen?”

“OH!” She exclaims, laughing. “DAE-sin!” They all share a chuckle. The bead of sweat, as if ashamed to be associated with me, drips off my face. On the TV, the audience cheers.

“My son,” she plows ahead. “Not Daesin. Songdo. How long have you been in Korea?”

“One month,” I say. She looks confused.

“One…month?”

“Yes…?” Her confusion confuses me; my reply comes out in a tone of voice that suggests that now I’m not sure if I know how long I’ve been here. “Um…yes? Yes. One month.” I hold up one finger, as if that somehow makes things any better.

“Ah.” The Christian says, and I’m pretty sure she still has no clue what I’m saying, but she once again makes an abrupt conversational turn. “Do you have girlfriend?”

I mutely shake my head.

“Single?” I nod. She purses her lips.

“Hmm.”

“Hmm,” I agree, trying to be helpful. My hands are getting wet from clutching the cold grape yogurt drink, which is coated in condensation from the humidity. I set the drink down and place my hands on my knees. My knees now have wet handprints on them. I begin to suspect that this lady is not surprised I’m single.

“I majored in music!” she now announces, beaming. “I play the cello!”

“Oh, how beautiful!” I reply, and she looks embarrassed, and draws back a bit, and lets out a nervous little titter of laughter.

“Yes.” she says, and turns to look at her son. The conversation dies for a moment. I once again contemplate leaving the eggs and making a run for it. Why, I mentally berate myself, did you choose the salon that you have to walk past every. single. day?!

The boy has finished having his haircut, and is silently appraising The Hairdresser’s work from his new perch roughly five centimeters from the mirror running the length of the wall. His nose is practically meeting that of his reflection. A flurry of conversation happens between he, his mother, and The Hairdresser. He gets back in the chair and gets some sort of touch-up from The Hairdresser. It only takes a few seconds: then, apparently satisfied, he relinquishes his throne to me. He and his mother do not leave, but rather sit on the couch. Why are they staying? I wonder, suspicious. Is this going to be that bad for me? It’s like watching a train wreck for them! Before I take my place, the mother darts to the back and comes out with a barbershop broom and dustbin, which she uses to sweep up her son’s hair on the floor.

“Please sit!” The Friendly Christian chirps, gesturing at the now-vacant chair. I want to ask if it is always the customer’s job to sweep up after themselves, but don’t. The Hairdresser stands implacably to one side, the faintest ghost of a smile on her lips. Judge, jury, and executioner in one Korean ajumma. I take my seat.

Now, as mentioned previously, there isn’t too much that can go wrong with my hair – what little is left of it. It’s like taking your dad’s Ford Pinto out for a spin and crashing it: worst case, you no longer have a Ford Pinto, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Still, what is left of my hair is all I have left of it, and I’d rather not look like a leper for my second day of school tomorrow.

The Indefatigable Christian jumps to her feet and asks me some questions in English.

“What kind of…um…style? Yes. Style. What kind of style?”

“Style?” I’m still sweating. “Uh…short?”

“Oh, short!”

“But not TOO short!” I quickly interject. I hold up two fingers about half an inch apart. “This long? I mean, short – this short? No. Like this?” I waggle my fingers. The two ladies have a rapid-fire conversation in Korean, and then The Bubbly Christian smiles at me in the mirror.

“OK! It will be good, I think.”

“You think?!” I plead. In my head I’m thinking, You’re not making the compelling case you think you are, ma’am, but it’s too late. The Hairdresser is moving. My head is firmly tilted forward; something is sprayed onto my scalp; the comb is rifling through the hair on the back of my head; and then the unmistakeable sound and feel of scissors doing their worst. Well, I think, this is it. The last thing I see before closing my eyes is the boy, grinning wolfishly at me in the mirror.

“Here,” I hear The Christian say, and a piece of paper is pressed into my hand. “Information about our church! Maybe you can come this weekend?” I can feel clumps of hair coming off my head. I wonder if The Christian is suggesting that this may be an appropriate moment for me to start praying. More hair falls away. “On Sunday. Eleven. The time – eleven!”

“A.M.,” her son contributes, the first words he’s spoken in English.

“Is it good – is it ok?” The Christian asks after a few seconds. Is what ok? The haircut? Is the haircut ok? Is that what she’s asking me? How am I supposed to know?! My eyes are closed! The boy says something in Korean; all three laugh. I squeeze my eyes shut a little tighter.

“OK!” The Christian says, and The Hairdresser stops, having done only the left side of my head. “You want to see?” I squint to see myself in the mirror without my glasses, and run a hand over the area that’s been attacked. It’s…fine. It’s good. It’s what I wanted. Relief washes over me in a flood. Everything will be ok.

“Yes,” I say with a contented sigh. “It’s perfect.”

“Oh!” The Christian seems pleased. The Hairdresser firmly tilts my head in the other direction and sets to work on the right side of my skull. “Now…you want, um…you want same on other side?”

“What, wait, yes of course I want the same-” but again, it is too late. Whatever is happening is already underway. I shut up.

“And on top?” The Christian asks.

“Yes,” I glumly reply. “The same – short – same – short – all over.” I wave a hand in an all-encompassing manner, gesturing hopelessly at my face. “All over.”

“Hmm,” she says, and doesn’t sound like she quite believes it.

Eventually The Hairdresser steps back. The haircut, of course, is fine. My scraggly look from five weeks here is gone, replaced by respectability. What was I so worried about? I wonder. That wasn’t bad at a-

Before I can finish the thought, The Hairdresser has squeezed a healthy dollop of something squidgy onto my head. She sets about massaging my scalp in a manner best reserved for scrubbing burnt sugar off of cast iron.

“Shampoo,” The Hairdresser explains. My hair is dry.

“Shampoo?”

“Mmm.” She replies, Zen-like.

“Will you come to the church this weekend?” The Christian asks. “It’s very close!”

“I’m worried about this shampoo,” I say. God can’t help me right now.

“It’s ok. It’s a service,” she tells me, as if that explains it.

After the shampoo has been frothed onto my skull, the barber’s cape is whipped away and I’m led by the hand into that dim backroom I saw earlier. In the center of the room, improbably, is a gleaming red seat, a hair salon command center, a modernist outpost of scalp-related technology. It looks like it came from a child’s drawing of a spaceship from the future. The Christian has followed us there.

“Please sit!” I sit. The Hairdresser does something, and the seat plunges backward. I squawk and clutch the arms of the chair.

“Hey!”

“It’s just shampoo,” the Christian mutters, and sounds disappointed in me.

The Hairdresser places a single paper towel across my face, then lays some sort of foam mask across the towel. It looks for all the world like Hannibal Lecter’s mask, except over your eyes instead of your mouth. She adds a second glop of something to my head, and digs back in. Fingernails are no problem here. It feels like my head is being worked with a Brillo pad. Every so often, one of her fingers grazes my skull and shoots a deep, spasmodic chill down my spine. She rinses everything out with water that starts ice-cold before flaring to magma, then sits me back up and towels me dry.

“Oh!” The Pretty Christian claps. “Such a handsome guy!”

One of the fun features of a WordPress blog is the “stats” page. This is where you can see some basic information about visits to your blog: how many in a day, a week, a month, forever; different graphs showing these numbers in a variety of ways; which websites are referring people to my blog (in my case, mostly Facebook, since I cross-post the links to updates on there); and what search engine terms people are looking up that lead them to click on my blog. It is these search engine terms that cause me much amusement.

A huge number of visitors get to my blog by searching for mundane things: the names of my fellow YTYA participants, for instance, steer quite a bit of traffic my way (thanks crew!) Somewhat amusingly, my name as a search term leads very few people here. But every once in a while, you get a real gem – a phrase so extraordinary that it makes you laugh. Some are just sort of bemusing, some are laugh-out-loud hilarious, and some are honestly a little scary (these ones are usually inexplicable as far as how they led anybody to this blog). I always imagine how disappointed these people must be when they’re searching for whatever it is they’re looking for, and find only my boring updates. Keep in mind, these precise phrases don’t actually appear anywhere on my blog – just the words IN the phrases all exist somewhere in my many posts. Well, now they really WILL all exist on my blog as phrases, thanks to this update…which makes 61 posts on this blog! Anyway, here are some of the highlights, and hand on heart, these are all real:

• “Covered walkways” (2 hits just in the last month)
• “Air Canada washroom”
• “Korean feet pics” (…………)
• “Appealing vacation ice breakers” (what kind of vacations are people taking that require ice breakers?!)
• “American business youngsters” (‘natch)
• “Idyllic Kurdish street”
• “downpour soaked people” (why are you looking this up?!)
• “Reset fulcrum rocker recliner” (what?!)
• “KFC Hanoi”
• “Human arm + elbow”
• “Humorous plea for people not to leave the third world” (eh?!)
• “sad love quotes that make you cry”
• “women baby carriages USA”
• “compare 5’2″ person next to 5’2″ human” (…I don’t know)
• “background on Steven furry” (Holy crap! Oh, and if you don’t understand this one, DO NOT google it)
• “hors donkey camera canded sxs” (I swear to god)
• “coca cola polar bear costume”
• “what is the modern equivalent of the dome?” (answer: I’m pretty sure it’s the dome)
• And finally, my absolute personal favorite…”koreans huddled under umbrellas at the beach.” Classic.

Anywho! Now that we have that hilarity out of the way, how about a recap of my recent visit to Beomeosa Temple here in Busan?

A simple and inescapable fact of life here in Korea the past few weeks is the ridiculous heat and humidity. I did not expect it to be so horribly muggy here. This sounds like typical Steve whining, but some locals have assured me, in pained and weary voices, that they’re surprised by the ferocity too. One of my Korean friends told me that last year she hardly ran her air conditioner at all, but this year “the thing barely stops.” The beach, as you’ve seen from my previous pictures, is no real help: even if you fight your way through the sea of umbrellas, the water at Haeundae is pretty disgusting after all those visitors drop assorted bits of trash and flotsam in there (one of my friends took a quick dip and came out with a shopping bag plastered against his leg. True story.)

And as anybody who has lived in a big, dense city during a sweltering summer can tell you, there’s nothing quite as gross during that sweltering summer as a big, dense city. The pavement radiates heat; the air gets thick and soupy, choked with the disgusting belches of automobile exhaust and subway tunnel fumes, punctuated by the occasional (and always alarming) faint eau de perfume of sewage. On a really miserable day, even the endless noise of the city seems somehow, paradoxically, both halfhearted and amplified. So what is a country boy to do when he needs a cool, calm, peaceful escape?

I decided to try Beomeosa Temple, a large Buddhist complex on the outskirts of Busan clear across town from where I live. The whole place is perched high in the still-forested hills that break up the landscape in and around Busan. Up in the hills=some moving air and maybe a dip in temperatures; temples almost always have an unhurried and hushed atmosphere; and I had heard that a nice little stream burbles alongside the temple, the perfect place to wile away an hour or two under a leafy canopy with your feet in some cold rushing water. I made my way over by subway and bus yesterday and found exactly what the doctor ordered: the most tranquil, peaceful, and consequently pleasant patch of ground I’ve discovered since coming to Korea.

This happens to be a three day weekend – Monday is a Korean national holiday – and I expected the temple to be packed. I was half-right. The temple complex itself was not too bad: the expected trickle of camera-toting tourists mixed in with some praying locals and a sprinkling of actual monks. But honestly, it was more or less empty. What was not so empty was the area along the stream…which was completely and totally packed with people. Cuddling couples, families having picnics, tweens trying to look all aloof and moody as they kicked their feet in the water, kids squealing. It was undeniably a beautiful mountain stream, and I’m sure if I’d bothered walking along the path for five minutes in either direction I could have found a little peace, but the temple itself was so beautiful and so empty, the breezes so pleasant and the population density so low, I was perfectly content to sit on some shady stone steps, listening to a monk chant, watching the breeze ripple across a sun-dappled mountaintop while dragonflies thrummed through the air around me. I don’t think I reached enlightenment, but I certainly enjoyed my afternoon.

Not much information on the temple in this post – to be honest, I really was pretty much only interested in an escape from the city heat, rather than an informative tour of an engrossing historical site. Beomeosa is super-easy to get to from where I live, and beautiful, so I know I’ll be back. But I do want to write just a few words about that last photo there. You know: the one with the swastika.

What many folks probably don’t realize is that the swastika goes back millennia (Wikipedia tells me that there’s archaeological evidence dating to 4000 BC). And for all but an obvious few years of that history, the swastika was a benign, peaceful religious symbol found widely across the world – India, China, parts of the Middle East, and even, evidently, in some Native American cultures. Even the word “swastika” is derived from Sanskrit – though all I can hear in the name anymore are those harsh, venal, Germanic-sounding hard consonants.

We all know what happened: the Nazis decided to use it as their official symbol, and that was pretty much the end of that. I don’t know about you, but I still can’t look at it without getting a sort of creepy mental chill because of what it represents as a result of that history. Which makes Asia, sometimes, a very jarring place – because here, the swastika still exists all over the place. I remember when I went to Japan in 1998, at the age of 15, and seeing it on manhole covers around a Buddhist complex. Totally freaked me out.

It obviously doesn’t exist in even the same universe as the staggering atrocities the Nazi regime committed, but it is another sad crime of theirs to have so totally corrupted something that had such a peaceful origin.

Why do I bring this up? Because, as I travel around and take pictures of temples and the like across Asia, it’s likely to come up again. And I figured I’d give a quick explanation for those watching at home who may not realize that the history goes back thousands of years. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to rehab it here or anything. I’m just saying, it may show up in some of my photos and videos, and this ancient history – NOT a Hitler fetish – is why it exists over here.

*Ed. Note: Aw crap. Now you can add “nazi hitler swastika” to the list of search terms that will bring you to my blog. Shit.

One of the truly surprising things about Korea is the affordability of eating out. When you travel to a country like, say, Vietnam, you expect the costs – at least from our American perspective – to be low, and you aren’t disappointed. You can have a stunningly delicious meal out in Vietnam for a few dollars, even less if you’re eating street food (which, if you’re in Vietnam, you better be).

Korea, though, is one of the world’s biggest economies (~12th-15th, depending on how you do the math), with a high standard of living and one of the highest per capita incomes in Asia – hovering roughly up there with Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong. Along with that comes a very high cost of living. You’d expect, therefore, that the food here would be quite expensive, but it generally isn’t (I say generally: more on this shortly). The high cost of living here has a lot to do with housing, which eats up an enormous amount of the average family’s budget. The provision of an apartment for teachers in Korea is part of what makes teaching here so financially attractive, but the reality is this is more a practical measure on the part of the employers: “key money” (like a security deposit) on a typical apartment here can run into the thousands of dollars. Yikes! Not likely to attract many teachers with the promise of having to spend $5k on a deposit for an apartment as soon as you arrive: so, the employers take care of it (this is also why salaries for teachers in Korea are generally a little to a lot lower than other countries, e.g. Japan).

Anyway! Food. The point is, despite the “high” cost of living here, taking the housing costs off the table makes Korea a very, very, very affordable place to live. A subway trip clear across town, for instance, costs me about $1.05 (1170 won). And eating out, depending on where you’re going, can be surprisingly cheap. Sometimes – I’m learning – even cheaper than eating at home.

One thing to keep in mind when you’re eating in Korea is this: the only land border South Korea has is with North Korea, so it is useful to think of South Korea as an island. There is no overland shipping here – rail, trucks, nothing. Everything that can’t be produced here must be imported by sea or air. Say what you will about the environmental impact of trucking, the fact remains that it is, economically speaking, a very cheap, efficient, reasonably swift method for transporting goods, particularly perishable goods. When everything you can’t grow yourself is coming in on a boat, then, it adds to base prices.

Case in point? Fruit. Fruit here is very expensive. Last week I bought three apples at the grocery store. They were terrible, and they cost me about $5.50. Citrus is incredibly rare here. Vegetables, too, can be pricey if they aren’t in season. That said, prices are higher in supermarkets than at the various small vendors you see all over the place (for instance, right downstairs at my apartment) who sell fresh produce. So you get your produce from these places, buy whatever’s fresh/in season, and save some money.

Protein is another interesting example. Korea, much like Japan, can only use a very small slice of its total landmass for agricultural production because the country is mostly mountains. Raising cattle here is, consequently, very expensive. Prices for beef at my neighborhood grocery store are shocking for somebody used to the American love affair with dead cow. Luckily, while I adore beef, I almost never buy it for myself. Pork is also common, and a little cheaper, but I was surprised on my first trip to the grocery store to see what looked like bacon everywhere in the butcher section. Turns out – yeah, it basically is. Belly is a hugely popular cut here in Korea, sliced thin like bacon but uncured. I love fatty food as much as (if not even more than) the next guy, but buying pork belly in bulk would be a recipe for very rapid cardiac disaster.

Seafood on the other hand, which we tend to think of as an expensive, somewhat “luxury” protein back home, is cheap here. In the same grocery store trip where I paid $5.50 for three apples, I also got a half-kilo (~1lb) of fresh whole shrimp for $5. And that was one of the most expensive seafood items available. My local grocery store sells a huge variety of whole fish, squid, and octopus. I mean whole octopus. They also sell frozen whole octopus, which is quite a sight. These things are all pretty cheap – but, in my tiny kitchen with limited cooking and prep areas, I don’t think I’ll be buying and breaking down any whole octopus anytime soon.

One of the best discoveries I made at the grocery store today is that they sell, in bulk, what I can only describe as “ready-to-go fresh stir fry.” I think in Korean it would be called either “galbi” or “bulgogi,” which are two different but very similar meat dishes that are popular among not only Koreans, but Westerners (because they’re simple, delicious, and pretty straightforward). Galbi is essentially just grilled, typically marinated, meat. There are galbi restaurants where you go, sit at a table with a big hot plate in the middle, order a platter of raw meat (generally pork or beef) of a cut of your choosing, and cook it yourself. It is usually served with a big, and unlimited (eat as much as you want!) assortment of what are called “banchan.” “Banchan” describes a wide range of Korean side dishes – marinated and preserved vegetables, pickles, small fish dishes (I’ve tried a few of these and they have all been delicious). To be honest, I’m not totally sure what the difference is between galbi and bulgogi. Anyway, what the grocery store sells is bulk, loose amounts of this marinated meat/veggie stuff. So you go up and somebody will scoop you as much of “x” variety as you like, weigh it, and there you go. I got some today, and since I speak virtually no Korean, accidentally ended up with about two pounds of ready-made stir fry, all for about $6. Score!

Marinated...meat...stuff

Now, you can’t bring up Korean food, or Korean side dishes, without mentioning kim chi. There is nothing like kim chi in any cuisine or food culture I’ve ever experienced. I don’t mean “there’s nothing like it” as a substance, because it can be narrowly described as “spicy garlicky sauerkraut.” It’s cabbage that has been brined and “fermented” (don’t let that scare you), just like sauerkraut. It generally includes chilis, which gives it a gorgeous streaked red color, and can include other vegetables – green onions seems to be a common addition. No, what I mean when I say “there’s nothing like it” is that I have never encountered a more universal food anywhere in my life. More or less every meal – even breakfast – in Korea includes kim chi. Sometimes it’s part of the actual dish, as in a popular stew called “kimchi jiggae,” and sometimes it’s served as a side dish/condiment. It is absolutely everywhere you go here. I really have never seen anything else, anywhere I’ve been, that was available at every single meal.

Luckily for yours truly, I like kim chi. In fact I love kim chi. It’s delicious. Spicy, briny, a little sweet from the cabbage, with a deliciously bracing umami punch. I like it so much, in fact, that I buy it to have at home. Really! Don’t believe me? Have some proof!

Yep, that's me and a one-kilo sack of kim chi

It’s worth mentioning here that when it comes to food, I am unbelievably lucky. I can and will eat anything at least once. I adore variety. A lot of homesickness is attached to food: I simply don’t have that problem. I love burgers, sure, but I love trying something new even more. And luckily for me, I have no allergies, no religious aversion to any foods, no strong dislikes. I can buy a pound or two of stir fry at the grocery store without being totally sure what kind or cut of meat is in it…and that’s fine. I do feel sincere empathy for folks who come here who can’t, for instance, eat pork; or are allergic to shellfish; or are vegetarians. I bet it can be a very confusing, somewhat alarming atmosphere when you are often ordering or shopping blind. What would you eat if you had limitations?

Well…how about ramen??

Ramen, or as it’s called here “ramyeon,” is also huge. Any convenience store or supermarket will have a massive section dedicated to instant noodles. They are a little expensive compared to what we’re used to back home – about $1.80-2.50 depending on the brand and type. They are also just as unhealthy as back home, particularly on the sodium front, where you can expect to get 90% of your day’s worth from a single packet. I found some today that are extremely low-sodium (16%). I’ll letcha know if they’re any good! Ramen have the convenience factor, obviously, just like the dumplings, and I’ve learned to do as the locals do and toss a few “extras” in to my noodles – for instance, an egg. Yummy.

My first night here in Busan, my co-teacher took me to a restaurant specializing in “naengmyeon,” or cold noodles. It’s pretty much what it sounds like: cold noodles! I had something called “mun naengmyeon,” which is cold noodles in an ethereally light (chilled) broth with some other add-ins – in this case, half an egg, a few slices of crisp Asian pear, some spring onions, a sliver or two of thin cooked beef. You add a dash of vinegar and a sprinkle of mustard to the broth, stir everything together, and slurp away. It’s outstanding. Thin, chewy noodles; refreshing, cooling broth; the barest hint of a sweet-tangy pop from the vinegar and mustard; the textural contrast of a crunchy slice of pear…just completely delicious, and unlike anything I’ve ever had before. There are a few varieties of naengmyeon: my colleague had “bibim naengmyeon,” which ditches the broth and adds some spicy red dressing.

The restaurant also served “mandu,” or dumplings. These are pretty standard: if you’ve ever had dumplings or potstickers, you’re in the right neighborhood as far as what they do here in Korea. Lots of different fillings (including several with kim chi!). Mandu are everywhere here. These are one of my mainstay foods to have at home. A bag or two of frozen dumplings is cheap, reasonably healthy-ish, and they take only a few minutes to steam up. Toss a few in the pot, dribble of soy sauce, and that’s dinner.

I already mentioned the street food I had here. What I didn’t mention was how much – or I guess I should say “how little” – it cost. My friend and I split a heap of grilled dumplings and a pretty big plate of ddeokboki (the super-spicy-sauce mix of tasty treats), and paid about $3 each. The naengmyeon and dumplings my colleague and I had? About $6 each. Earlier this week I had a chicken and rice dish for lunch: about $4.50. There’s another staple of the English teacher’s diet here in Korea, called “gimbap.” It can be roughly described as “Korea’s sushi”: rice and various fillings (though typically, it seems, NOT fish – vegetables, meat, and yes of course kim chi) rolled in seaweed. You can get gimbap hand rolls for about a buck. And all of this stuff is delicious. So yes, eating out in Korea can actually be cheaper than cooking at home.

But not always. It is, of course, easy to spend quite a lot on dining out. The jagalchi fish market here in town, for instance – as mentioned in a previous post – is a place where you can buy fresh (as in, still alive) seafood from vendors on the ground floor, then take it upstairs to restaurants that will prepare your “catch” for you in several different ways: stewed; raw, like sashimi – which in Korea is called “hoe” (pronounced like “hway”); grilled; etc. This comes with the assortment of side dishes, of course. It also, I am told – depending on the restaurant and what you purchase and how many people are with you – costs $20-60 a head. Yikes! There are several places in town that will do this sort of thing for you. These fresh fish dishes can include, it must be mentioned, the infamous “live” octopus dish called sannakji. Essentially, a super fresh (…) octopus has its tentacles diced up onto a plate. They’re still moving as you eat them. They’re dunked into a dish of sesame oil to help them slide down, because apparently they still “grab on.” I’m told it’s an experience, but not a terribly flavorful one – I guess it mostly tastes like the oil you dip it in. I’ll try it, of course, because I do love octopus and it’s a typical “tell your friends” experience from Korea. Still, $20-60?! Once I start getting paid, I will check something like this out.

I should mention, before anybody back home gets all squeamish and “grossed out” about this sort of thing, that sannakji is not a terribly common dish here. I doubt that many Koreans are going home tonight to a home…”cooked” (?) meal of live octopus. It’s a specialty food. And not everybody here likes it, either. Does everybody in the United States just looooooooooove Rocky Mountain Oysters for dinner? No, of course not. I asked my students this week what their favorite foods were: the answers I got were chicken, bulgogi, and ice cream. So, while sannakji is interesting, please don’t think the entire landscape of Korean food is trying to actively escape from the plate while you eat it! OK? Good. Moving on.

“Other” ethnic food is pretty widely available here in Busan, as well. Busan is the 5th-busiest cargo port in the world, and that means a robust flow of migrant workers. This also means that some of the “roughest sections of town” not just for our city, but for the whole country, are here in Busan (there’s an infamous neighborhood called “Texas Street” that has a very edgy reputation, and is nowhere I have any interest in going within a mile of while I’m here). However, there is apparently some excellent Russian food to be found around town, because there are tons of Russian workers connected to the port. I’d imagine you can find great Chinese and Japanese as well. Western teachers here speak in hushed whispers of a supposedly fantastic hole-in-the-wall taco stand that, perhaps, exists…somewhere (maybe only as legend?) Western food of pathetic quality and shocking cost is widely available: I had a terrible, TERRIBLE burger the other night for $14 (shoulda had $2 of ddeokboki instead). I’m sure there’s better stuff, but haven’t found it yet.

Generalizations about flavor? Korean food, compared to other Asian food I’m familiar with, tends to be a little heavier, a little “darker” flavors, a little saucier, a little richer, lots of garlic, and a lot (sometimes a LOT) spicier. Like I mentioned before, citrus isn’t terribly common here, and fresh food can be scarce and is really limited by season, so utility and history has given Korea a diverse experience with preserving, pickling, fermenting…contrast that with (to bring this post full circle) the herbal, citrusy, light-and-fresh flavors of a southeast Asian country like Vietnam, and it paints an interesting picture of the variety across the continent: north to south, four seasons to tropical, historical influences, what’s available locally for ingredients.

So there you have it: an overly long, overly wordy post about the landscape of Korean food. I haven’t described everything, of course, but that’s what I’ve come across so far. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go snack on some kim chi.

First impressions, then, now that some of the “OH WOW IT’S SO NEW!”-ness is wearing off? I like it here. It’s very easy to like it here. Not much is all that different from back home. The packaging on snack food is a bit different (OK, so the grocery store on the whole is a little crazy), and the language is unfamiliar, but living in Busan is not much different from living in any other big, modern city. Korea is a well-developed country, so really it’s no hassle being here – despite what some others will say if you look at other blogs. Korea’s infrastructure development has taken place fairly recently, though, so while certain aspects of daily life here are incredibly modernized (the aforementioned brilliant subway system; the fastidious and interesting trash/recycling system), others are a little different than we’re used to in the States (tap water, for instance. Can’t drink it. It’s safe at the source, but the pipes, especially in the residences, are of varying quality and cleanliness. Bottled water only for drinking and cooking, unless you fancy heavy metals shredding your kidneys). Generally speaking, however, nothing here puts you very far out of your comfort zone at all.

I promised that this blog wasn’t going to turn into a rumination on daily life in Korea, and I am trying to stick to that. So! Here’s some travel/tourist-y observations about parts of Busan I’ve visited so far.

First of all, the weather mercifully cleared up a few days ago. Clouds and rain replaced by sun…and heat. Or more specifically, humidity. The actual temps aren’t so bad, but walk outside and three or four steps puts me into a sweat-drenched torpor. Particularly in my neighborhood, which is a fair distance from the coast (as areas of Busan go, anyway), meaning no refreshing sea breezes for us up here. It’s quite swampy. I’m told that fall and spring here are brilliant though. I can believe it.

Naturally, then, with the sun out and the heat slapping you in the face, the popular area to be in Busan right now is right down by the beach. I’ve spent three days down there already, around Haeundae and Gwangalli. On Saturday, I met up with some of the other English teachers who came with the same recruiter I used. We watched the Busan Mayor’s Cup sailing race from the APEC house on Dongbaek Island. APEC, or “Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation,” is a big multinational economic cooperative whose members comprise countries that touch the Pacific – everything from Korea, China, Japan, and other Asian nations, to Australia, Canada, Chile, and many others. Busan hosted the annual APEC conference in 2005, and one of the facilities that was purpose-built for the meeting is now the APEC house museum. We didn’t really explore the museum itself, but rather went there for the brilliant location – in a beautiful nature preserve hovering right over the water facing the bay – and for the fact that it had shade, and a cafe where we could get some water.

A view of the APEC house. Not a bad location!

It was a little hard to see the race itself, because despite the sunny skies it was quite hazy (from the humidity? Smog?), the boats were quite small, and the distance between us and them was pretty big. So after a while we wandered back over toward the Haeundae area, and, wow, what a transformation from the day I was there before! Remember when I told you there were usually a lot of umbrellas?

Yup. There's a beach underneath that, theoretically.

Um. Yeah. It was utterly, utterly insane. I’ve never seen anything like it. Soooooo many people, sooooooo many umbrellas…total madness. I can’t imagine thinking of this as a nice, pleasant “beach day”! What Haeundae does offer, however, is that somewhat lazy, indulgent atmosphere you can only get on a gorgeous hot summer day near the water. Bars, restaurants, cafes – all over the place over here. We parked ourselves for a few hours of burritos (yes, you can get burritos in Korea – these were ok), drinks, and chat. It was great! Can’t think of many betters ways to spend a day.

Can you see the teeny dinghies under the bridge?

Another view of the bay, bridge, and sailboats

Gigantic development between Haeundae and Gwangalli

Purdy

More Haeundae madness

That's so meta...

Teachers on their downtime

More teachers on their downtime

Around 6pm the entire beach started packing up.

The Wolfhound Pub, which for some reason features a giant toucan painted on the side...

After a leisurely afternoon here, we split up and a few of us headed to Seomyeon, a sort of “downtown” area in Busan with tons of stores, restaurants, and other city-living amenities. Many of the teachers I know live in or near here, but it was my first time. Unlike my neighborhood (which I am discovering actually doesn’t have much going on in the way of restaurants), Seomyeon is packed with food options, include tons of tantalizing street food carts. We didn’t go for any that night (eating instead at an air-conditioned restaurant), but the sight and smell of all that deliciousness on the street made me eager to try some myself.

Seomyeon by night

The next day, I met up with some Mainahs. I know a few folks here from my old school district back in Maine – one lives here in Busan, the other happened to be down visiting for a few days of vacation. I met the first in another district sort of like Seomyeon called Nampo-dong. Nampo has the distinct advantage of being VERY close to my neighborhood, only a few subway stops away. There’s a huge Lotte department store, lots of other little stores and restaurants, and the colossal Jagalchi fish market, packed with stalls selling fresh fish (when I say fresh, I mean “usually still ALIVE”), which you can either purchase to take home or have them prepare for your lunch or dinner right there at the market. We didn’t try it, because it’s apparently a little pricey, but we did go for some street food. Grilled dumplings (“mandu” in Korean) and a fiery, scorching-spicy…melange?…called “ddeokboki,” which had soft rice cakes, fish cakes, and Korean blood sausage in an especially ferocious red chili sauce. My friend told me that he had never had one as spicy as this was. It was intense…but delicious! A few pineapple smoothies from the next stand over helped cool us down.

So, there ya go, folks. That brings you current on what’s going on with me here in Busan. Some exploring, some downtime, and a healthy dose of domesticity (who wants to hear about me doing two loads of laundry?! …..yeah, didn’t think so). There is talk of going to a baseball game this weekend. Koreans are big on baseball, and the “Lotte Giants” are based here in Busan. Bleacher seats for $7! Apparently the games are a real hoot, too.

I start teaching this week. Summer camp, but still, my first interactions with students. Should be fascinating.

On top of that, obviously there’s still tons of Korea left to explore. Near to Busan is a city called Gyeongju, which is one of Korea’s old imperial capitals. Lots of things to see and do there. Busan is also fairly close to Jeju Island. Korean tourism sources rather euphemistically refer to Jeju as “Korea’s Hawaii.” Dunno about that, but it seems to be an awesome destination all in its own right. Only about a 40-minute, $70 flight from here. Best of all, my best friend, who is here doing a Fulbright in Korea this year, is going to be living/teaching on Jeju. I suspect a visit there will be happening fairly soon.

You will, of course, be the first to hear about it.