market madness

buying, selling, shouting vendors, crying kids, calling livestock, eating, bleeding, living, and dying. welcome to the market--what will you have?

technology!

i am in a magical place. today was kind of a crappy day. we got booted out of our apartment for the last week here--our replacement arrived today, so we got the bum's rush. i was a little bitter for a while. i spent all day yesterday cleaning our place, which just made me sad cause it was kind of like my little cave. then i was so nervous last night about moving i almost didn't sleep at all. we got out of there this morning at about 8:30, and having nowhere to go, moved all our stuff into the school where we work. we spent the morning there, and i taught my classes today wearing the exact same thing i wore yesterday and no socks. yeah, i was a little frustrated.

but our boss came through, and now i am sitting in our new hotel room, and it is like a hotel room from the future. it's just a little "love hotel", which is basically where koreans go to do it (in korea it is socially acceptable to live at home until you get married, but then young couples need a place to get busy, thus the love hotel). but it isn't seedy as it sounds. it has fancy lights and a huge bathroom, and there is cactus juice in the fridge. also lots of free hair products (yes i am CERTAIN that's what they are...:))

anyways, the tv turns on when you touch it and now im going to take a shower. that is where i am at!

anna discovers rudimentary paint

i have been sick for the past three days, and this is what i have been doing. the good news is that, as you can see, i am going places in my life

solitary travel

so dear justin is so gifted in traveling, so directionally privileged, that when we go out i almost always let him do the leading. he knows what trains, buses, times, and places to go--the man can get you anywhere. it's wonderful. however this talent of his has led my own far less considerable talent for self-direction to atrophy. what bus? i 'unno. where'm i goin? ask that guy.

however, i have a lot more time on my hands than he does lately, so i've had to venture out on my own a little bit. so here are some photos of two of my solitary korea adventures.


this little dude lives outside the gate to Hwaseong Fortress, a neato old-timey medieval Korean style castle and gate in my town (my town? is it?). i THINK it's a guard dog (they used dogs for two things: guarding, and eating...more on this in the next photo blog), but it may also be a lion. hard to tell he's so weatherblown. a lot of the fortress has been rebuilt since the japanese trashed it early last century, but this little fella is original.


big looming gate to get in. a little intimidating, right?


these guys live on roofs of special buildings. i think they're also guardian figures, but i can't make out what they are. to quote my favorite clueless king, "i know not what that meaneth."


god bless korea. just look at these guys.


here's more old folks, playing some chinese checkers (or somethin') outside the fortress wall. that is a big ol' wall.


this is the front end of a little train that passed me by chock full of little kiddies, probably there on some history field trip or something. they all waved and shouted "hello!" a lot of kids here do that with foreigners. i personally love it. i wonder if the russians resent that everyone assumes they speak english? its hilarious the things kids shout. in mexico a little neighbor boy would always shout "one two three four five!" at us from inside his house when we would walk by.


this photo is from another trip i took by bus down to a little city called bundang, to meet my NBF, kate (that's 'new best friend' if anyone was wondering.) and this, my friends, was a beautiful little bakery.


traveling is confusing and tired-making.

gobbledigook palace

this palace is actually called changdeokgung, but man i can't remember that! i had to go get the pamphlet so i could write it down just now.

nature vs. chaos

thinky time again. dont worry, fun photo blog coming soon.

there is a debate in ecology, and im sure other disciplines as well, over whether the universe is governed by harmony or chaos. we have this old idea that if nature is just left alone, it will fall into a sort of balanced state, where creatures eat each other and reproduce in harmony (thanks rousseau). humans are sort of a wild card in this--perspectives differ on whether humans ONCE belonged in nature and lived in harmony, but have since lost that ability for one reason or another. or humans are simply regarded as a sort of fly in the ointment altogether, screwing up whatever we touch.

the other perspective is the idea of chaos. that nature and the universe have always been ruled by cataclysm and unpredictability--huge disasters have happened to the earth (and the rest of the universe) time and time again, and there is no reason to expect that they would stop.

the first perspective is nice because hey, it gives us hope. if only we could a) return to our lost eden (eden itself, the medieval period, the americas before white folks arrived, whatever) or b) establish the perfect society finally (via science, philosophy, religion, pish posh). whatever it is, perfection and harmony can exist and we can reach it, if we can only find the path! something to strive for.

the downsides of this of course are that every disaster engenders what, guilt and existential crisis? old timers thought every earthquake or famine was a punishment from god. new timers find pollution and massive extinction to be a moral issue as well (i tend to agree most of the time). however both believed that if ONLY humans could be better somehow, achieve that harmony/righteousness that is just floating out of reach, things would improve. but we haven't, we are rotten and awful and now we are suffering. why god, why? bring on the despair.

chaos theory (using that term VERY loosely) on the other hand absolves you of responsibility, which can be kind of nice. so what, people are causing the 6th great extinction? well, there were five others and guess what, nobody blames the ASTEROID. geez. and life went on. there is a kind of arrogance in trying to control everything, in assuming we can make life what we want it to be if only we try. of course the downsides to this are obvious, they're the same as the upsides. lack of responsibility? well, this burrito is delicious but it is filling. chuck.

i dont know of course. i am wondering if maybe the universe is chaotic but balanced within a much larger sense, eg yeah an asteroid can kill 4/5 of all the life on earth, but can't we accept destruction and death into our concept of balance? and can't we accept our individual responsibility to fix things without being overwhelmed by the possibility that it might not work? generally i think no, not us westerners. but it would probably be a good idea.

and done.

my true calling

i finally found it!