digital supernova

Going abroad this time around is an entirely different experience than my first venture - in many many ways, but particularly because the world is so much more wired now ... or at least I am more hip to it.

In Spain, six years ago, I spent cold hours at telephone booths, fumbling through a flip book of numbers and punching in phone-card codes about as long as pi. I occasionally sent mass e-mail updates, but my regular contacts back home dwindled to the handful of folks who were willing to correspond in lengthy e-mails or phone conversations. I found my housing and language buddies off bulletin boards, and hoped to make friends off of chance and dicey Spanish skills in buses or classes or bars ... which didn't work very well. I spent many an hour and peseta - then Euro - in Internet cafes and on phone cards. And it seemed like I spent even more time in transit to get to those cafes and phone cards.

Before going to Spain, I scoured my music collection for the precious couple dozen CDs that would remind me of home, I lived in silence for the few weeks before splurging on a small boombox, and I listened to those songs - even the dubious ones - so many times that I can't hear them now without being whisked back to Madrid. Any television I watched was Spanish, and although I found some information about events and such online, I seemed to spend most of my life there tracking down details. (Though that could be more of a cultural thing ...)

In Korea, I now have an Internet connection in my bedroom AND office AND classroom ... and go a little crazy when it goes out. I have two computers and ridiculously cheap phone service right from one - though I don't tend to use it much (sorry!) because I'm generally chatting online with folks back home at both ends of the day and occasionally in between. Subsequently, I've (thusfar) kept a far wider net of regular contacts than last time around.

And let's not forget this blog, which lets me post any old thing without cluttering your mailboxes, and services like Blogarithm, which let you clutter your mailboxes all you like. Plus there are blog readers that help me keep up on the latest from my blogging friends and other news and newsy sites ... not to mention that now there's just a ridiculous amount of information out there. I'm not sure how people lived before they could look any old thing up on Google. I mean, really, how did we survive without being able to instantly figure out:

• the Billboard Top Ten,
• how long pi really is,
• how the Korean pension system works,
• the lyrics to Dar Williams' "I Won't Be Your Yoko Ono,"
• a map of the Korean rail system,
• the name of that artist who makes the hyper-real human sculptures,
• how to create a "tornado" in a bottle,
• whether there really are flesh-eating amoebas,
• the Korean word(s) for "older brother,"
• where Arkansas City is in Kansas,
• rapper Mos Def's biography,
• who's behind that silly "I've got a crush on Obama" video,
• that silly "I've got a crush on Obama" video,
• the spelling of the new French president's name

... to name a few of dozens of searches I've done in the past couple days. Such info was around six years ago, but it was nowhere near as cataloged or accessible. Plus I had to make lists of things to look up at my next Internet cafe outing, rather than just walking into the next room to check ... so I think most of my wonderings tended to go unresearched.

Forums for expats here offer a scattershot of advice (or misadvice), how-to's (or how-not-to's), insight (or lack thereof), happenings and other information for the hapless foreigner (that is, me). More and more academic studies are going up online all the time, and news sources are getting better systems to deliver targeted news to those who go searching for it, so it's now easier to back or kill some theory I've formed about the culture.

I pick up bits of Korean for free through a particularly great podcast on Apple's iTunes, and I brought over something close to my entire music collection without adding an ounce to my luggage. Not only do I have all my tunes at home, I can take them out and about for runs, long bus rides or any other time I'd rather keep the world at a distance. Occasional NPR podcasts keep me somewhat up to date on U.S. politics and culture of the day, and YouTube and other video-sharing programs keep me abreast of the latest pop culture phenomenons. Some of my TV-phile co-workers have hookups to get American television delivered to their computers (or scour the Net for illegal streams), and good old iTunes dishes up a smorgasboard of shows to buy by episode or season - I've caught an episode of one of my old standbys and one of the promising newbies. There's also the photo-sharing programs that I haven't made much use of yet, but eventually I'll get there.

But perhaps the biggest benefit to this digital age: making connections in the real world. The majority of my non-work friends here are from that whole social networking phenomenon - MySpace and Facebook and others - or connections of people I met that way. I know this idea probably freaks some of you out a little, but the Net can be a fabulous tool for someone as persnickety about friends as I am because it gives you a chance to survey all sorts of folks at a deeper level than seeing someone sitting across the way and guessing (1) that they speak English, (2) are even remotely compatible with me and (3) are open to making a new friend. I've definitely been off the mark a time or two, but mostly it's worked out really well.
(And don't worry, I have no intentions of ending up in someone's freezer, so I take all the usual precautions of limiting personal info, meeting in public places with friends, etc.)

Each generation has its defining things: wars, protests, big hair ... I'd say my generation's defining characteristic is that we were those who grew up with the Internet. We're old enough to remember a time without it (foggily) and are now its main consumers - young enough to have adapted fairly wholesale, old enough to have freedom and buying power to use it relatively unhampered. (These are of course generalizations.) Tomorrow my little cousins will be calling us old fogies as they pass us up on those virtual highways, but we will have been the forefront, and it's an interesting position, no doubt. I wonder what it says about us.

interesting link: right brain or left brain?

I don't know how valid this is, but it's kinda fun ...

Which way is the dancer spinning?

status update

So, as expected in any new program and definitely when being abroad just about anywhere, we've had nothing but changes since our arrival, and the latest is that our moving and teaching dates have rolled back another week - to November. This is definitely a good set of changes, though - things were getting pretty harried just trying to adjust plans to all the recent curveballs, so it's a welcome few more days to organize logistics.

Meanwhile, personally, it's another week to enjoy the conveniences and easy social outlets of being in the city.

It's one of the strangest things I've ever done ... moving to an architectural marvel of an isolated mountain campus with 20 other Americans (19 teachers, 1 administrator), 39 Filipino aides, 8 Romanian aides, a handful of Korean staff and a rotation of hundreds of Korean students coming through every week. It'll be a happening spot, no doubt, and should be an awesome place to teach ... but it's also an utterly bizarre social experiment, being as it will be tough (though not impossible) to get down to the city more than one day a week. No trips to the store, no street food, no errands at the bank, no outside expat culture, no chance to meet new (non-student) people, no post office runs and - the biggie - no face time with non-work friends. It will just be part of the adventure and something I've been braced for since the beginning, but suffice to say I'm trying to savor my more traditional urban lifestyle, especially after having three months to settle into city life.

Meanwhile I'm trying to wait a couple more months to really think about out what I'm doing next year (let alone with the rest of my life), but being the obsessive planner I am, it's hard. The good news is that there are a ton of options. The bad news is that there are a ton of options. And all I can say is that I'll keep ya posted.

breaking it down

There's something bewitching about street performances, and this weekend I saw one of the coolest yet on my recordbooks. This is going to be a long rambling blogpost recounting it - the type of tourist rehash I normally try to spare y'all - but it was just so awesome and educational I can't help myself. There's always the browser "close" button, and you can wait for a more entertaining post next time. :)

So Daegu throws itself a festival every October (the idyllic window between harsh seasons, apparently), and it's quite the affair. Music galore, whimsical public art, an awesome craft zone for kids (a theme in this country, I think), puppets and costumes, fireworks and light displays along the river ... and of course every kind of street food you'll find in town (dried octopus, anyone?). But the most fascinating part of it happened on some vinyl spread out right in front of the KFC downtown, where a handful of dance troupes, a drummer, a traditional singer, a DJ and a couple emcees combined for a street performance - tightly ringed with Koreans, cameras and me ... I don't know where all the Westerners were, but I didn't see another white face all evening, so it wasn't a dog-and-pony show for the tourists.

The performance combined a variety of styles, but it was anchored in breakdancing - a combination of stylized dance and power gymnastics (to see an example of Korean breakdancing, click here).

In American culture, breakdancing has historically been all about rebellion. It originated in minority districts of New York in the 60s or 70s (reputedly as a way for gangs to nonviolently settle turf wars, a la "West Side Story," but don't believe everything you read), and later spread through the black hip-hop and funk movements. Of course today there are plenty of white fans, but it's still largely set to street-slang-laden tracks about carnal desires and defying The Man. Until recently, outside of specific competitions, it was generally found only in select big-city clubs with a population between 18 and 35. And it's still largely a scene of young, urban minorities.

In Korea, where breakdancing recently spread through general Westernization, the sport seems to be just a new take on an old tradition. A passion of the young (let's face it, their bodies are the only ones who can handle it), but nurtured by the Old Guard and seen as a family affair. The country is largely homogeneous, so Korean "B-boys" (from "break boys" or "Bronx boys," depending on your source) don't have a separate culture from the masses. And breakdancing is the territory of YMCAs and other culture centers, and frequently done in partnership with traditional Korean instruments and dancers. Kinda like if square dancing met rap ... at the suburban Y.

The show this weekend was attended by all ages and started with a pangut troupe - traditional Korean dancers/instrumentalists. This particular group were boys and men probably 16 to 50, dressed in white robes, brightly colored sashes and tall hats. Now these hats look rather ridiculous to Western sensibilities - they appear to have mammoth white carnations stapled to them and ribbons or feather puffs on swinging sticks protruding from the top. In my jaunts through the neighborhood or along the riverside track by our dorms, I regularly see groups of high school students trussed up as such awaiting performances - and pity them immensely. But I've never seen them in action, and you stop wondering why any self-respecting man (much less awkward teenage boy) would wear such a thing once they go into motion. The performers play a variety of handheld percussion instruments WHILE dancing and leaping in formation AND flipping the ribbons/feather puffs about - it's quite the show. Anyone who can pull all that off at one time can wear any crazy thing he pleases. To see an example of pangut from a different festival, click here. (The costumes vary slightly from group to group.)

After the pangut guys had marched in grandly and done their thing for awhile, the young, punk B-boys stepped up and joined in, in their style. There were several dance-off moments, various solos, call-and-response action and finally one grand flash of ancient and modern all swirling about to the elemental beat. Then the pangut crew bowed out and the B-boys and other dancers took over the circle for a modern dance/sketch comedy routine about riding on a bus, set to funk and pop, and featuring some great 1980s Michael Jackson gloves and moves. It was hilarious and inventive and awesome - a textbook example of good showmanship.

Next up was a bigtime DJ from Seoul - and it was really cool to see him do his thing ... I don't think I've ever just sat and watched a DJ at work before. Turns out there's more to it than the sampling and mixing and timing and looping and scratching - it's also a very physical skill at times, requiring a controlled wrist spasm something like how a good tapdancer trills his foot. I wonder whether those guys get carpal tunnel. Eventually the all-out breakdancing started again and the DJ became a soundtrack.

What's really interesting is that in Korea, the callout seems to be a really important feature of solo breakdancing. You know that these guys - and occasionally gals - have to practice their routines for hours to prepare for their time in the limelight. Yet when the moment comes, it's not like other Western performances - instrumental or dance - where performers simply take turns stepping out. Here, where modesty is a highly prized virtue, performers must be virtually begged by their cohorts to take the floor alone. You can tell that many of them build stylized callouts into their routines to give the next dancer the time he needs to protest.

Yet on the other hand, audiences tend to be much more stoic, so performers often have to go looking for applause, which they do quite frequently. It's a puzzling scene for a foreigner.

The other interesting thing here is to watch women dancers, because they are quite scarce - almost nonexistant in straight-up breakdancing because of the physical demands (immense upper-body strength) and disadvantage a low center of gravity. But even when they are simply professional dancers of other styles, as in this performance, they tend to be markedly reserved - it's almost as if they dance in the way American performers sometimes rehearse a routine, focusing on remembering the steps but only using half-motions. I'm nowhere close to understanding gender roles in this country, so I'll refrain from making any social commentary on the observation, but it's interesting, at any rate.

Anyway, back to the show: I wasn't sure how it could surprise or fascinate me more, but the next act pulled it off again - a jazzy dance/comedy routine that was something about various frogs and fishes getting eaten by Barney-like swamp monsters, set to a soundtrack of disco, techno, hip-hop and jazz. Again an utterly bizarre combination of genres and concepts, and again artfully twisted into an incredibly entertaining act.

And for the final number, lo and behold a traditional Korean singer emerged from the crowd. She then proceeded to narrate a dance in a combination of spoken word and operatic style. I have no idea what half of it was about ... there was a student and a dog and some thugs and a dance school ... and somewhere in there a random ninja showed up ... but it was again various parts comedy routine, breakdance, modern dance, martial arts, hip-hop and traditional music and again utterly amazing. The pangut crew came back in at the end and there was a final dance-off backed by the DJ.

The Koreans all clapped diligently but with far less enthusiasm than I thought they should ... though I should probably give them a break since they clap palm-to-palm and that's no way to make real noise. (That show was probably the first time I actually have appreciated Americans' noisier side.) But anway, Daegu festival organizers accomplished their goal, as far as I'm concerned: After a great event lineup and particularly that show, I'm now durned proud of my "Colorful" city of residence and ready to tell the world it's a great place to be. (Side note: A friend asked me what "Colorful Daegu" translated to, by the way ... and um, that's it. But I'd say it's a better slogan than "Korea Sparkling," which is the current national pick.)

A couple follow-up notes:

I won't go into it here, largely because I can't find the articles I'm thinking of, but there's a whole nother interesting side of the breakdancing evolution in Southern California, where large black and Korean populations have historically been at odds but are now intersecting regularly through the art. If you're curious, Google it and tell me what you come up with.

And if you want to see more breakdancing by TG Breakers, one of the groups I saw this weekend, click here. The clips are all from B-boy competitions.

Happy YouTubing. :)

the sport of being a pedestrian

Korea is one of the most densely-packed nations in the world because almost 80 percent of the country's 49 million people live in a handful of cities, while the rest of the mountainous landscape lies relatively barren. Daegu, for example, has a population of about 2.5 million in a little over 550 square miles. That's a population between Chicago and Houston's crammed into a land mass the size of Topeka, Kan.

Because of this, one of my earliest cultural collisions in Korea was of the quite literal sort - learning to navigate the sidewalks. The American-style "walk on the right" thing didn't seem to be working, but there wasn't a clear "walk left" pattern either. Throw in the regular push-carts, motorcycles, bicycles and even cars that have no qualm using these veritable freeways any which way they can, and it's sort of like playing that old arcade/Nintendo game "Frogger" anytime you stroll out into the world. Attempting to run is even more intense.

Through trial and error, I've basically settled on a strategy of hugging the left shoulder but always keeping a watchful eye and being able to jump aside at a moment's notice. It works about 51 percent of the time.

Which is why it was awesome to find the following Korea Times article shedding some light on the whole ordeal. Here's an excerpt:

Korea initially had regulations placing pedestrians on the right side of roads in 1905, but the rules were revised in accordance with Japanese colonial rule in 1921. The United States Army Military Government changed vehicle traffic regulations in order to drive on the right-hand side of roads in 1946. Rules for pedestrian walkways, however, remained unchanged.

The Korean government stated in the Road Traffic Act in 1961 that pedestrians must walk on the left-hand side of roads that do not have a pedestrian path.

But right-handers' natural tendency to walk on the right and Korea's increasing globalization/Westernization has muddled things tremendously, apparently. The national government is even considering measures to standardize walking on the right. So basically history in action. (Yes, I was a copy editor - of course pun intended.)

I found the article posted in this foreigner forum, which has some quite colorful (and potentially offensive - consider yourself fairly warned if you go poking around over there) debate on the whole issue, including this YouTube video clip, which is hilarious if you've lived in a Korean city or in any metropolis with unruly motorists. The rest of you may be mildly entertained.

Sources for the stats: United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific , www.paulnoll.com, the CIA's The World Factbook , National Statistical Office of Korea, Daegu city government, U.S. Census Bureau