Dear Kushibo: What's across the street from the Itaewon McDonald's?

Ah, what's in today's mail bag?

Dear Kushibo, 

Tom, Kushibo, and Seoul Guy what’s across the street from McDonald’s in Itaewon? of course you don’t know. None of you actually lives in Korea. 

Signed,

Dreamboat Annie

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Dear Dreamboat Annie,

It's funny you should ask that, because almost at exactly the moment you left this comment at ROK Drop, I was actually in the McDonald's in Itaewon, munching on an Egg McMuffin set (Egg McMuffins are better in Korea than Hawaii for some reason).

But off the top of my head, I couldn't recall what was across the street from Mickey D's, except for some nice eatery a little bit up the hill, so I had to go back and snap a picture. It turns out there's a beauty shop that does Brazilian waxes and "manscaping" and has a bear baring a bare bear crotch to drive that point home. Is that what you were looking for? The number's on the photo I snapped (above).   

Yours,

Kushibo

Although Dreamboat Annie's motivation for that question was probably something else and she doesn't really care what's across the street from the Itaewon McDonald's, here's the picture I took anyway:

My finger has a special message for you.

In fact, this may have been just a dig from Annie, who has joined that bandwagon of people thinking I don't have any business posting so prolifically on Korea because I don't live in Korea. And indeed, although I am now in Seoul (well, Pundang, actually) and my actual home is here and I think in some way that constitutes living here, it has been three years since I was last in Korea. (She also thinks I'm paid to blog, but that misperception may be my fault.)

This is the longest I've been away since I was a teenager. This was not by design, since I had been coming back every six months or so and spending about two months a year in the Seoul area working (even in Hawaii I work for a Korean corporation), doing doctoral research, hanging out with friends and relatives, etc., etc., but some important personal matters that have been first and foremost (since right after I got to Hawaii in 2006) simply did not allow it in 2010 and 2011.

And indeed, it has been an eye-opening experience being away for this long. I've often said that, in terms of change, five years in Korea is like twenty years in the United States, and this "decade" being away has been eye-opening. The traffic patterns have changed, already ubiquitous coffee shops have spread like cockroaches, there's an obvious effort by city governments to create green open space, things seem more orderly and sophisticated, etc., etc. Things that are the same are the constantly-under-construction nature of Seoul.

Perpetual reinvention is the thing that is the same and makes everything different at the same time.

But even while I'm away, my own academic work keeps me up-to-date on what's going on "back home." And even if it did not, I have professional, social, familial, legal, and financial ties to Korea that keep the bond strong. (Three years of being away has left me with a bunch of fires to put out — from getting my finances reordered to paying three years of property tax to getting my vehicle working again to giving face time with my employers.)

That my point-of-view in my blog is so often against the grain of other English-language blogs has more to do with my personal and experiential background than with having been abroad for three years. Back in 2005 and 2006, before I went to Hawaii, I was just as "contrarian."

When I write things in support of, say, HIV testing for all English teachers (as well as all F-series visa holders and all ROK citizens) and criminal background checks for long-term (i.e., over 90 days) residents, more than a few English teachers tend to think I'm against them (especially when they forget things like this), and some choose to make it personal. The "You don't even live here!" meme is a popular one.

Of course, I'm not the only blogger who gets flak from the English-teaching crowd. The Marmot's name is being dragged through the mud because he had the audacity to agree that some of the bad reputation of English teachers as of late (I remember when English teachers were treated as honorable professionals) has been brought on themselves, at least as a group. And that's why he's being called a moron.

Of course, Marmot has long had his detractors, especially Gerry Bevers, who seems particularly bothered by The Marmot's mockery of Gerry's relentless effort to defend Imperial Japan. From his latest blog aimed at demonstrating that the Japanese are good people because Koreans are bad:

So, is the neutrality of The Marmot's Hole really debatable, especially when the man behind the blog wanders Korea wearing the traditional Korean clothing hanbok and brags about his eating of dogmeat?

Not the Marmot.
Some other guy
in apŭrikabok.

I don't know why people bag on The Marmot for wearing a hanbok. Back in Africa he also wore apŭrikabok (or whatever Africans wear) and, as Zen Kimchi noted, he looks damn sexy in a hanbok. It doesn't make him a sellout.

So I guess the point of this rambling post is that people go after me, people go after other bloggers with whom they disagree, and they justify it by making ad hominem attacks. Gerry has done it with me as well, back in my pre-Hawaii days when I was a way-too-frequent-commenter at The Assa Hole.

On the plus side, it can be fun and occasionally memorable. After a heated exchange (when is an exchange involving Gerry over Japan with anyone not heated?), Gerry asked if was going to respond to him or "have you already posted your one-comment limit for the day?"

To which I replied:

Sorry, Bevers, unlike you, I receive neither masturbatory joy nor subsidies from right-wing sources for flooding the Internet with a one-sided, historically skewed, Imperial-apologist view every time someone utters the word "Tokto," so I will try to limit my writing to just this one comment.

I soon thought better of what I'd written and issued a unilateral apology:

The last paragraph of my post up there was over-the-top. I apologize to Gerry and anyone else who may have been offended by that.

With a glimmer of humor (and no small amount of admission), Gerry replied:

No problem, Kushibo. Like Japan, I was taunting you.

But I had the last laugh:

Good, then. Like Japan, my apology may be meaningless. ;)

Ah, good times.

A less pleasant exchange was when Gerry, as he is wont to do, accused me of taking the Korean side on the Tokto issue (and Comfort Women issue, etc.) because of fear of my "Korean handlers." To which I replied:

[Gerry] Open your eyes, Kushibo, and stop kissing up to your Korean handlers. You have been in Korea long enough to know what is going on. You do have to be afraid. It is possible to live among Koreans without having to kiss their butt.

Fu¢k off, Gerry. Just because I don't believe that "Korea was Japan's greatest ally" and that it's all a big Korea-generalted lie that Korea was butt-fucked by imperial Japan doesn't mean I'm ass-kissing anyone.

I have been critical of Roh for his diplomatic war almost since I started my blog. i have written things that are harshly critical of some of the nationalist sentiments that bubble up in Korea. You, on the other hand, are unable to see anything that would suggest even the slightest bit of culpability on the part of Japan, either past or present.

The Black Dragon Society is sure as hell getting their money's worth from you.

I concur with all who think Gerry is an asshat (and possibly a paid shill like Christine Ahn seems to be for Pyongyang). Even though I actually called his school to defend him and protest his firing when he supposedly got kicked out over his Tokto views (which turns out not to have been true, according to them: they canned a whole bunch of people from that school because of restructuring, including his fellow English teacher, and Gerry was allowed to re-apply).

Anyway, I'm really in Korea, Dreamboat Annie. Send me an email through my Blogger profile page and we'll meet up and have a beer. If your userid is gender-appropriate and accurately descriptive, a few more beers.

...

Pixelated fire in the sky

The Marmot's "fire in the sky" post at his way cool travelog has inspired me to dig up an old video clip I took in 2007 of the most amazing technicolor sky I'd ever seen and see if I can make a pleasant (though a tad pixelated) post out of it. Go here, please.

This was taken from my 24th floor office at the time in Samgakchi with Namsan and the Hyatt Hotel in the background. That's right, I was facing east because this was sunrise.

...

The Marmot's Pinhole: a view of Inchon Bridge

If you haven't checked out The Marmot's other blog, the one with pictures of all the buildings, both old and new, go do so.

In addition to a new take on old structures, the Marmot likes snapping pictures of Korea's more modern constructions, like Songdo New City in or the freshly iconic Inch'ŏn Bridge that cuts across the bay connecting the northern port city with its highly acclaimed air terminal.

Is it just me or did Samsung, which built the bridge, deliberately set things up so that pictures from this vantage point would inevitably have a giant 'S' in them?

...

Kushibo the Link Whore Pimp's Best of 2010

You'll forgive me if I'm about three weeks behind on my end-of-year/new-year stuff, but one thing I wanted to do is make a few "Best of 2010" lists.

And I thought I'd start with a list of favorites from my favorite blogs, which (in no particular order and not an exhaustive list) include One Free Korea, Brian (formerly) in Chŏllanamdo, The Marmot's Hole, and ROK Drop.

But this is a list not of my favorite posts from my favorite blogs, but a list of favorites from those bloggers themselves. In December I wrote to those bloggers and several others and asked them for just such a list. It's just my way of giving back.

Brian (formerly) in Chŏllanam-do:

• Investigated by Immigration over newspaper contributions, with possible Kang Shin-who involvement

• Haeundae motels

• "Korea, Be Inspired," the new Korea Tourism Organization slogan

• No room for older, experienced teachers at Korea's public schools

• Holy f*****g s**t, look at that shirt

Wangkon of The Marmot's Hole:

• "It's like cabbage crack!"

Joshua Stanton of One Free Korea:

• Capitalist Manifesto (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4)

Some of my favorites from Monster Island:

• In the Year Two Thousand (Twenty), English robots run amok

• Some Americans angry about Muslims who died at Ground Zero

• The Lisa Ling/Kushibo conversation (here, here, and here)

• The Kim Who Wasn't There (and Barbara Demick admits we don't know what's going on)

• A little AES satire from the Winter Olymipcs (and a little Ohno satire)

• Happy birthday, Mr Secretary-General

• Big changes on Monster Island

• 金 = gold (the article is so-so, but I really liked the headline)

• why does korea

• Kushibo's late-night thoughts on working for Census Bureau

• The one where Kushibo sees Avatar: The Last Airbender

• KAL 858 and the smell test

• Selig Harrison stars in "Lie Another Day"

• Marcus Noland has been visiting Monster Island

• Ban Kimoon doesn't care if you get AIDS

• Kaesŏng: The political experiment that won't die

• Waterworld

• Hyundai settles with family of Ryan Dallas Cook (this is important to me in part because it was a years-long story where I may have played a role)

• And speaking of Kim Jong-un... (a silly post, but the pictures make me laugh)

I realize that's a long list, but I did produce 1145 posts last year.

Anyway, I did ask a few other bloggers for contributions, but I got no response (in all fairness, end of year is a bad time to ask anyone anything). I am happy to entertain additions to this list. 

Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!

The Metropolitician has lashed out at The Marmot for calling him a "crazy Nigga."

The Marmot (Robert/Bob) wrote:

I just hope Mike took his pills before reading that. I would hate for this blog to give a fellow blogger an aneurysm. Or a severe case of carpal tunnel, knowing Mike.

To which Metropolitician (Mike) responded:

Sooooo -- over at The Marmot, it's now not just belligerent commenters, but the founder himself, who suggests that I must be crazy (hence, the pill-taking, I assume) because 1) I report that I am regularly harrassed in places such as the subway in Korea, along with dozens of other instances I can cite, as well as countless other people whom I know and 2) he implies that I either bring it upon myself or, alternatively, must be crazy to report it back to others as a pattern. ...

Remember, Robert, YOU brought this shit up, brought my name into this, and implied in front of thousands of readers that I would have an extremely violent reaction and a specific opinion to this topic (which I don't) -- all completely UNSOLICITED by me, out-of-the-blue. Just like your commenters, I'm not only not even talking about any of this within earshot of you people, I'm not even THERE for the conversation -- YET YA'LL KEEP BRINGING ME UP.

My reaction to something like that isn't unreasonable, nor unexpected. I'm not in your grill, nor on your blog, talking about race, violence, or anything else -- I've been wise enough not to even broach any serious topic on your blog, what with the puerile nature of your commenters. Even with that, I've always either linked to or written on your blog respectfully, and spoken of you in the same way. We don't see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, but I thought there was at least respect as colleagues.

So I don't see the need, or how it's at all appropriate to be talking about me going into histrionics, needing to "take my pills," or some such shit, basically making me the unsolicited whipping boy for all that is liberal, related to race, or blackness in your part of the blogosphere. Like the post about the black dude who filmed himself fucking some Korean chick on secret camera, where some commenter started talking about my MOTHER and something to do with the slime or other bodily fluids that your commenters guffawed about me being the result of. And I know you DO sometimes intervene and police your commenters -- just not for unsolicited, disgustingly racist comments. You tacitly approve them, and probably find them as funny as your peanuts gallery apparently does.

Because now, you're apparently participating in the baiting. Because that's what it is when I'm sitting over here eating my fucking oatmeal only to read about how you apparently think, like your readers, that I'm some fucking comic book character who's lost his marbles, is going to go vitriolic batshit over anything touching the subject of race, or is constantly engaging in self-serving name-dropping when YOU people are the only ones bringing either me, or that shit, UP.

I expect as much from your commenters, but not from you. I was pretty goddamn surprised, actually.

So, a very hearty "fuck you" to you, Bob.

Please bear in mind that Metropolitician guest-blogs from time to time on The Marmot's well-known site.

Mike does bring up some valid points, which I deliberately left out here so you'd have to read his words on his blog. But while I think it's valid to point out that the hanbok-wearing White dude that is The Marmot is not regarded the same or treated the same as the 'fronytail-sporting Metropolitician, I'd also like to point out that Metropolitician's experiences in Korea are full of much more drama than most other Black people I've known in Seoul (a group that includes my tenants, my students, my classmates, and a few co-workers).

CORRECTION:
The Marmot didn't actually call Metropolitician the N-word. That was Metropolitician's interpretation, apparently. Metropolitician often hears people saying "Nigger" when they've actually said something else, a point I addressed here a year ago:

There is something inherently problematic about using a simplistic one-to-one correspondence when explaining in one language what someone said in another. I covered this in my "Do you know Ch'usŏk" piece, but I think a more relevant example comes in, say, the outrage about Koreans saying "Nigger."

I have long felt, and The Marmot seems to agree with me, that 검둥이 (kŏm•dung•i) is better represented as "darkie." The word is still insensitive and inappropriate, but it by no means carries the historical baggage — and violence — of nigger. Koreans have not been lynchers of Blacks, they have not legally or physically barred Blacks from marrying Koreans (or anyone else), nor have they enslaved, segregated, red-lined, or systematically and institutionally tried to keep down Blacks. Nigger comes from that violently supremacist mentality, which is far different from the xenophobic race-infused mentality that produces words like 검둥이 (or 흰둥이 for "whiteys"), and that makes it terribly misleading to use them as equivalents when describing racism or attitudes about race.

[Of course, if you're on the receiving end of it, it may be seen as tah-MAY-toh/toh-MAH-toh, but I submit that the latter is far less damaging and much more amenable to change than the former. I also recognize that a WASP WASP-like entity German-Irish Catholic from Long Island (The Marmot) may be the last one to expound on the comparative hurtful usage of 검둥이 or Nigger being hurled at someone, but I'm straight out of Compton, so maybe I've got a little more cred. Just a little.]

And speaking of my childhood back in Compton, I don't recall anyone at our "playground where black folks go" saying, "Don't start no shit, won't be none." Not that it isn't good advice. (Seriously, I do find it amusing when Metropolitician uses TV versions of Black people in an attempt to wrap himself in street cred; I don't think Metropolitician would have lasted long in my old neighborhood.)

Open Thread #1

I am not exploiting the current comment-less status of The Marmot's Hole, but if the traffic I've gotten today is any indication (people googling "Marmot comments" have finally toppled "Amanda Knox nude photos" for the #1 spot), there may be some spleens that need venting. Or at least some thoughts that need ruminating.

So here is my first and possibly last "Open Thread." The torch has been passed to a new generation of, uh, K-blog people. My experiment with open threads will probably go no longer than Marmot's own recess from reading comments, which I'm analogizing to a blackout of the Olympics during a world war.

So have at it. But please remember that I have standards (no, really), and I might not tolerate extreme behavior or Emilys. And if it is Marmot's new policy itself you'd like to discuss, might I suggest this post or this post instead.

Acceptable topics (though this is not an exhaustive list): Did you know that it's supposed to reach 77°F (25°C) in Honolulu today? My iPhone says it's 12°F (-11°C) in Seoul right now, with an expected high of 29°F (-2°C). Time to break out the Homer feet. If it's any consolation, it's terribly windy today. I think the wind chill brings it down to 65°F. Brrr...

If it ever got 12°F in Orange County, half the population would die. Literally. They’d be fooled by the clear, sunny weather that would necessarily accompany any situation where it gets below freezing in the OC, and they’d just die where they stand, wearing short sleeves and a windbreaker, shivering too much to walk in a coordinated fashion.

Even at 12° Celsius, we lose a lot of people.

[above: irony]

The end of an irking?

Wow. Just wow. The Marmot has gotten so annoyed with some of the behavior in his comments section that he has shut the whole thing down completely — at least for now. All previous comments — going back years — are now locked out. If you want to put up a comment, it has to go through him first and he might put it up. Wow.

As I’ve said before, I appreciate the overwhelming majority of the readers and commenters I have.

But frankly, people keep pissing on my rug, and I really don’t have the energy or ambition to moderate everything.

I do this blog because a) it’s fun, and b) because it seems people enjoy reading it. I certainly don’t do it to get aggravated.

I’ve had to shut down two comment threads in less than a week, however, and I see the same characters going at it again in another thread. This morning, I get a phone call — at work! — from one of the characters I banned, as well as an email to my boss that accuses me of advocated porn and encouraging hate speech.

Frankly, I don't blame him. I even put up an entire post about the deterioration recently, and after he shut down the first thread, it looked like several commenters were daring The Marmot to ban them. Who saw shutting down the whole readership side of the operation coming?

This sort of begs the question: What is the proper way to handle blog comments in a way that balances privacy, freedom of speech, and civility?

Is a real-name system the answer? Speaking as someone who has had some serious real-world threats made against him going back to the late 1990s, I can understand the desire and preference some bloggers and commenters have to be cloaked in anonymity. Others who mock such decisions not to use one's real name are often people far removed from a situation in which speaking one's mind can get them in hot water or where an online opponent can do them harm.

Should comments be pre-approved before they're posted? This "solution" requires an even greater time input on the part of the blog owner, and it inevitably creates bias when it comes to accepting or rejecting posts, though some bloggers are better at objectivity than others.

Is there a way that people can be guided toward civil behavior on a strictly voluntary basis? If intervention is hard to stomach, is there a way that the hoi polloi can be nudged toward more responsible netizenry?

And ultimately, is a tamer comments section what the people want? I know it is for me, as I prefer a forum where we discuss the issues and try to find common ground, if not solutions. But I've heard again and again (from some readers and commenters) that the outrageous comments are just as much reason to check out The Hole as the posts.

The worst of people

The brutal rape and murder of Eun Kang [left], who was four months pregnant, should be enough to anger and disgust anybody no matter what affiliation they may or may not have to Korea or the Korean-American community.

But since there is a connection to Korea and/or kyopo, it was natural for The Marmot's Hole to post on this notorious crime that has people I know in Southern California feeling incensed.

But what follows in The Marmot's comments section is just adding stupid insult to unimaginable injury. I'm not even talking about the reference to "that low-IQ melanin-enhanced fellow" who was seen committing this atrocity, since that comment at least is aimed (perhaps misguidedly) at addressing what may have a preventable crime.

Rather, I'm talking about the deterioration, starting murkily somewhere before this point (and my apologies for singling cmm out, since he is not the primary or sole culprit) of the thread into a Korean-versus-non-Korean bitching contest, followed by Mizar5 trolling yet again.

A woman died. Brutally. And on the blog that is the face of the English-language K-blogosphere, this is what's happening in the comments section. Disgusting.

Back in the mid-1990s, it was a somewhat disturbing thing that the OJ Simpson trial had become a daily spectacle that seemed to dominate even august news networks. What was truly disgusting was the dehumanizing way in which people like Jay Leno turned the trial in a violent and bloody murder of two innocent people into an absurd circus of attempts at humor. It went beyond the jokes in the monologue, the infection spreading to daily gags that weren't even funny the first time, things like the Dancing Itos — Asian men with real or fake beards coming out in judicial robes. A mockery of a murder trial where almost everyone forgot that it was all about two people having been sliced to death.

Yeah, I'm writing this from a bit of pent-up anger. It's not toward The Marmot himself, who is a good guy and who (as best as I can tell) feels some dismay for the peanut gallery his commentary section can be at times but is too busy to police it himself (and who may feel a bit unnerved about the idea of censoring it). I'm directing this at the participants themselves, who just don't know when to realize they've done enough. Mizar5, a gallingly hypocritical race-baiter no matter what the topic, has shown himself to be nothing other than a disgustingly soulless troll, but he's no doubt having a good laugh.

Yeah, I can be a bit of an arse on my own blog and other's sometimes. I've been called out on my own bad behavior sometimes and I've apologized. I learn from it and apply that lesson in the future. And I realize the irony of writing this on a day when I poked fun at the death of a withered old nonagenarian. But I would be loath to equate the hapless Eun Kang and her unborn twins with a 91-year-old charlatan televangelist who bilked tens of millions of dollars out of gullible people living from check to check. No, I don't think it's hypocrisy.

Surely it's not a given that the K-blogs have to become like this. I have barely one-tenth the traffic of TMH, but Brian in Chŏllanam-do has pretty high numbers and his is not. Korea Beat, another of my favorite blogs, can see deterioration in the comments section. Nothing is on the order of Dave's ESL, yet.

What is the solution? The Marmot has "open threads" where people can let loose (within very broad parameters), so why isn't that enough? Or maybe I should just shut up and keep my opinions to myself. While I read all these sites regularly, I don't own any of them. If they — especially TMH — are the face of Korea's blogosphere in English, that doesn't mean they have to cater to my sense of what's okay and what's not in a blog.

But still... a woman and her unborn children died, and it's greeted with this.

UPDATE:
I see that people are seconding and thirding abcdefg's call for Mizar5 to be banned. Let me be a fourth.

The esteemed Won Joon Choe makes a valid point, however, that "if Mizar5 is worthy of a ban, then half the people on this comment forum shouldn’t last either," but the difference is that the others are not trolls; while their behavior may get out of hand sometimes, they can be brought back into line. Mizar5, by his own admission (though anyone can see it for themselves), is only there to troll.

UPDATE 2:
And ban Yokohamaet while you're at. As reprehensible as I find Mizar5 to be, this kind of "outing" thing is utterly uncalled-for.

UPDATE 3:
Wow. Just wow. Really, it's time to shut it down.

Even in a "regular" post, even in an open thread, this might have gone into "unacceptable" territory, but on this particular post, given the subject matter, just shut it down.

UPDATE 4:
It's closed. Mizar5 and Yokohamaet are banned. Now people just leave Mizar5 alone. It's over.

UPDATE 5:
The Marmot lays down the law and explains himself doing so at the same time. Kudos to a class act.