Ramen!

While the semester has gotten off to a mostly smooth start, a minor prayer of mine was answered when an honest-to-jeebus Japanese style ramen restaurant opened up near my office.  I tried it last weekend and it came pretty close -- close enough -- to the real thing.  (The place downtown is better but also more expensive.  So be it.)

Thing is, I guess I'm not the only one jonesing for ramen.  The place has been packed, with a line out the door, ever since it opened.  And believe me, this is about as sleepy of a Daegu suburb as can be.  But it's also a college neighborhood, and 4,000 won ramen (not much more than three bucks) is hard to turn down.

It's even got the Japanese-style ticket vending machine by the door, which I find cool and off-putting at the same time.  Human contact is for losers.

Opinions, On The Internet

I have very little to say about The Florida Project other than that it's an excellent film that will absolutely gut you at the end.

Food Of Love

Over the weekend I finished Ann Powers' Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black and White, Body and Soul in American Music.  It's a quick enough read and while it doesn't break entirely new ground, she does a really good job of tying together trends between modern and 19th century music.  And if you're looking for a serious (but not quite convincing) argument as to why Britney Spears is a feminist icon on the level of Madonna or Beyonce, this is the book for you.

"the missiles will just fly over us"

A great piece of food writing from from the border area between North and South Korea:

"Kim Chang-seop tells us that we can take photos on the left side of the bridge (river, forest) but not the right (military base), adding casually, 'The soldiers are probably watching us right now.' Growing up inside the sparsely-populated CCZ, there were only five children in his elementary school. He has fond memories of hanging out with the soldiers, who would share their hardtack provisions with him. They assured him that he wouldn’t have to join the military because the two countries would be unified by the time he was old enough to be conscripted. 'It’s been 15 years since I finished my service,' Kim Chang-seop laughs.

He’s since left the village and has a family of his own, but returns regularly to help his parents out. He’s also not particularly bothered by recent growing tensions between the North and South. 'We’re so close to the border, the missiles will just fly over us,' he says. It’s unclear if he’s joking or not, but he, like many Koreans I know, comfortably wears this shrug of indifference, an easy, pocket-sized nihilism.

Back at the restaurant, the dining room is now full with locals in layered work clothes, a middle-aged couple, and soldiers with the skull and crossbones stitched onto their uniforms. (A tour bus sometimes stops at Jeonseon Hyugaeso, offloading groups of security tourists, but none are visible.) Rumor has it that each side chooses the handsomest soldiers to serve on the front lines, as propaganda that places each nation’s best face(s) forward. The soldiers here are good-looking, and they are also so young. Everyone, locals and soldiers alike, is huddled over the steaming pots of maeuntang."

Read the whole thing, and don't miss the excellent pictures.

As cynical a bastard as I am, and as dangerous as times as these are, it's always worth remembering that people are trying to live their lives and will continue to do so despite the ravings of madmen with bad haircuts and nuclear arsenals.

Humble Thoughts On North Korea

Trump and Kim Jong-un are going to meet.  Some thoughts:

1)  If you are a dictator, build a nuke ASAP.  Saddam and Qaddafi didn't or couldn't, and now they are dead.  Kim Jong-un gets a face-to-face with the President.  Trump will bluster and look to "win" the meeting but in fact, Kim and North Korea have already won.  Bigly even.

2)  The U.S. currently does not even have an ambassador to South Korea.  At a time when a solid, consistent message is crucial, Trump with change his mind every damn minute and treat the meeting, as he does all things, as another episode of a reality show.

3)  South Koreans aren't dummies.  They realize Trump is a wildly inconsistent egomaniac.  Bringing KJU's sister to Pyeongchang was a bold move (despite a petulant and childish Mike Pence) that led to this thaw.

4)  Trump and Kim are both going to declare themselves victorious after the meeting.

5)  The meeting will make very little difference towards long term peace on the Korean peninsula.

6)  "Cautiously optimistic" is a cliche but hey, why not be cautiously optimistic?  Maybe, just maybe, Kim is sincere in wanting to cool things down.  And why not?  He's basically already won (cf. point one).

Important Announcement

sex is great and all but have you ever budgeted yourself 50 dollars to buy office and stationary supplies at the beginning of a new semester of teaching?

— Stormy Jamesiels (@wetcasements) March 8, 2018

Delight And Instruct

Red Velvet, "Bad Boy"

This week we did introductions with my college students for the first week of class.  In my highly unscientific study of their favorite music acts, Red Velvet are apparently the hottest group in South Korea right now.

I dunno.  This isn't actively grating on me like a lot of K-pop can or does.  It's kind of a decent for R&B inflected pop.

Just Another Day In America

Who among us hasn't been sued by a pornstar for not following through on terms of our mutual hush-money contract? #tcot #MAGA

— James. Just James. (@wetcasements) March 7, 2018

"to see the world without us"

Tim Kreider on the state of America post-Parkland:

"One of my students once asked me, when I was teaching the writing of political op-ed essays, why adults should listen to anything young people had to say about the world. My answer: because they’re afraid of you. They don’t understand you. And they know you’re going to replace them.

My message, as an aging Gen X-er to millennials and those coming after them, is: Go get us. Take us down — all those cringing provincials who still think climate change is a hoax, that being transgender is a fad or that 'socialism' means purges and re-education camps. Rid the world of all our outmoded opinions, vestigial prejudices and rotten institutions. Gender roles as disfiguring as foot-binding, the moribund and vampiric two-party system, the savage theology of capitalism — rip it all to the ground. I for one can’t wait till we’re gone. I just wish I could live to see the world without us."

A-fucking-men.

Because Korea

It's been a while since I've complained about idiot building managers in South Korea, thankfully.  But hey, it couldn't last forever.

I came home a few nights ago and discovered my electronic key wasn't working for the building entrance.  Luckily I was able to track down the manager and he let me know that he'd reset the locks.  Without telling me.  Meaning I was locked out of both the building and my apartment.

You should be proud of me though.  I didn't throw a fit, even after I asked if he had my phone number and could easily have called / texted me at any point that day to let me know about the change.

Ugh.

There really is some kind of Object Permanence issue regarding foreigners with these guys -- like, you do realize I sleep, eat, and exist within this building don't you?  No?  Why not?

Peak English?

With China's rise as a superpower and America's obvious decline under Trumpolini, is the preeminence of English as the global language of choice doomed?  Glad you asked!:

"It is hard to credit the vulnerability of a language such as English – which has spread, unbidden and unplanned, far beyond its homeland, and is even claimed to be the “language of freedom”. But this in itself is nothing new. Transnational lingua francas, once established, always give off an aura of permanence. Yet when circumstances change, they fall. And the change is clearly coming.

And so the natural expectation will be that after the new powers, such as China, India or Brazil, establish themselves economically, politically (and probably militarily), their linguistic and cultural influence too will come to be felt, among those who want to do business with them, and then with one another. But as with all newly dominant languages, there will be a lag."

All well and good, but there are some definite hurdles for Chinese to become a global language.  For starters, not having an alphabet presents real problems, even for native Chinese speakers.