new book: portraits of half-closeted, half-korean, mexican pretenders

pardon the indulgence, but decent pix are getting harder to come by.

proving my point, this one by mike tauber is from 2006 or so. it was taken as part of a goofy picture book of people who were mixed race based on 2000 u.s. census-approved racial categories (that's right, you white half-latinos or chinee-bangladeshis don't count!). much like coffee table pictorials of albino africans or green-eyed chinee, there's something pretty 1990 about it... or maybe i've just got an especially acute case of hybrid malaise. who buys this book, anyway?

the book (available for preorder on amazon.com), came to my attention while on the impromptu jesusland tour last week. pops' wife's daughter, who is also featured, came on by and gave me the head's up.

sure they didn't get my permission to publish the pic, but i don't care. besides being reacquainted with my old boobs and a time and place when i could wear holed jeans in public (aka not seoul), it's funny to see how quickly i've become a super flamer. clearly, this photo was in the waning days of my mexican identity dynasty.

where am i?

where am i?

i love this photo and caption on today's nytimes homepage.

impromptu jesusland!

is impromptu jesusland better than no jesusland at all?

apparently i'm at that age when one's parents have catastrophic illness since i'm flying out in a few hours to help pops convalesce after an aneurysm/stroke. i don't know the difference yet. early signs suggest he had the good kind of good kind of stroke, which is... good. regardless of our ability/willingness to deal, perhaps nothing else ushers in middle age more than beginning the parent care biznass. that's why we're here, right? those of you in the priors, celebrate! those of you in the know (ms. californication), well... i dunno what to say.

jumpin rope wit jesus

no rope talent

just back from another of my occidental jesusland tours. the ill-timed trip was made possible by a speaking invite, which was rescinded last minute in very poor form. anyhow, popular hops were made in chicago, seattle and tokyo with a special stop in los angeles to see mr. brian, half-chinee and jericho (the latter pleased jesus very much). actually, the lovely company during the california stop salvaged an otherwise ill-fated trip. oh well, not all homecomings are sweet.

she spots

well, now i know where i want to park.

as reported on today's edition of "seoul calling" on kbs with abby and matt, seoul city is creating 7,500 parking spots just fer tha girls. sure, they'll be close to elevators and be lit 24-hours for security's sake, but my favorite explanation is this quote from the korea times:

the spaces will be painted pink with emblems of women [arguable] in the center. the special parking lots will be longer and wider than normal parking spaces. [emphasis and commentary mine]

i assume they mean "slots" or "spots" not "lots." anyway, ummm... why? cause women can't drive? i haven't noticed any significant difference in driving talent by sex in korea. i have, however, realized that asians drive so much better in asia than they do in the usa. it must be the racism. 

in other transportation segregation by sex news, previous plans to introduce she-only subway cars came and went without me seeing any carriages sans men grinding against hapless females during rush hour. qu'est qui s'est passé? (sorry for the gratuitous french. in apology, please accept this tagalog, courtesy of google translate: ano ang nangyari?) given the grope stories i've heard about (mostly not in tagalog), i wonder where that idea went. maybe to the korea sparkling global hub where every other defunct idea goes.

anyhow, most korean drivers have a oneness with their always spotless vehicles (that are invariably either black, white or silver) than any generalized people matt's met to date. their maneuverability is awesome. sorry for the lack of coherence. xo

unsolicited emails, part 1

of course i am.

just received this email. in case you're wondering, i have no idea what she's talking about. tho i'm quite tempted to do a crash course in texan butterflies and try my luck. i wonder if they'd pay for roundtrip airfare from korea for "the butterfly man"?

UPDATE 3/17: i emailed her back to say i was interested, but located in korea. she said it was too far. it's probably a good thing. i did a little research and there are a LOT of butterflies in texas.

nostalgia watch: day 1

my name may be pants, but she wears 'em.

although i recall fondly the days of whiskey and ritz, tonight is more of a wine and rice kind of affair.

and in my drank state, mattypants gets a lil nostalgic (it's my infrequent emotion of choice). glad i'm in koko but seeing this pic tonight reminded me of the domestic bliss/torture of life in suburban chitown. samchun misses genius nieces, springer spaniel calendars, not bathing for 48 hours+, and sassy sissys...

my secret slob friend

a better guest.

since i would be in occidental jesusland for 6 weeks i thought it a nice and mostly harmless gesture to offer my apartment to a fellow homo half-breed ko-am whose lease was expiring a month before his return to the usa. i did the same thing last year and my friend appreciated the respite from his parents' marriage inquiries. sure, he neglected my tree to death, but lots of people kill plants.

but on this go around, something felt amiss when i didn't receive correspondence from my temp-tenant. no "hi, i've arrived!" email, no "kaching! found your japanese porn stash while snooping on your computer, sicko!" memo. more remarkable was seeing the words "back in the usa" next to his name on msn messenger on jan. 2. nope, i never got a "thanks. i left your key (specify location)."

upon my return, what i did receive reminded me of a dirty person's home just prior to a modern pompeii. massive calamity... no time to clean... must escape! or, perhaps i should view what remained as prizes.

a top 10 list of my free goodies:

#10. a dvd player. shockingly useful!
#9. two big dirty blankets i get to dispose of!
#8. wall-to-wall tumble weed-esque dust bunnies!
#7. a box of heating pads for muscle pain!
#6. new grey bathroom tiles and pink grout. oh wait, that's just bacteria in bloom!
#5. butter!
#4. one pair of dirty superman underwear!
#3. a full load of wet laundry left marinating for 2 weeks!
#2. a piece of toilet paper stuck to toilet seat with a little brown sumthin sumthin!

and, my favorite:

#1. a loofa, because i can't wait to combine my dead skin cells with yours!

had i offered my place to a testicled dog, there may have been musty crotch spray marking strategic corners. but at least dogs don't use loofas or washing machines. furthermore, i find it hard to believe that even a golden retriever in mid-molt could have shed more pubic hair on my floor. i guess that's not fair. i don't think dogs have bonafide pubic hair.

in summary, i don't think it's right that people can be secret slobs. filth should not be a secret, cleanliness mustn't be a scam. much like my floor, his skin should be covered in snowfall-like layer of dust and he should smell like rotting laundry. if so, in this righteous world of my fantasies, i'd know better than to lend him my keys. 

mean spirited, you tsk? not so! if society's scorn made him too sad, he could then clean his home (and mine), and his body would cleanse in tandem! everybody wins in my world.

but until then, thanks for the loofa!! henceforth, i'm going to make a habit of leaving a used one every place i spend the night. thanks, kenny!

2036: not holly wong

on this morning's agenda is to quickly review a few days' worth of international herald tribunes that have been neglected. i think it bad form to simply transfer them from outside my door to the recycle pile.

although it's the "global edition of the new york times" it's hardly as satisfying. that said, each edition also includes an 8-page korean news insert from the english language paper, the joongang daily. the "best of both worlds" marketing pitch hooked me in. 

now, while i could rail about the absurdity of the joongang op-eds (and the nyt, for that matter), i'd rather bring attention to what holly wong, age 9, wrote to president obama (and reprinted among several other children's letters) in a recent edition:

dear president/mr. obama,

the best thing about living in the white house would be running around like a maniac. the thing i would like least is the work.

~holly wong, age 9, san francisco

i love holly. i love that her name is holly wong. and i love that she clearly will never be president. america needs more underperforming chinese daughters and holly will always be everyone's favorite hoot at the kegger.

exodus from oriental jesusland

good lawd, indeed!

after a 6-week exodus from oriental jesusland (koko), daddy came back to seoul last friday and promptly fell ill. traveling is hard! 

but thanks to in-home convalescence care by a much-improved intern, i'm on the mend. in fact, he's making some sort of honey pear juice concoction as i type. lucky never made me honey pear juice!

most importantly, traveling always reminds me of jesus. and to that end, i think a look back at prior jesusland tributes is apopro:

teasing jesus: the summer 2008 tour (05/08)

jesusland redux (12/07)

jesus: i'm coming home. (08/2007)

it's indulgent, but a holiday overview feels necessary. 

this time around i used frequent flier miles to fly seoul to new york with a stopover in paris. it seemed like a good time to take advantage of 10 quid ryan air flights and spend a coupla weeks in northern europe... despite it being the coldest and darkest months of the year. did you know it gets dark after lunch in stockholm these days? kinda puts a damper on sightseeing. other quick stays in paris, london, berlin and amsterdam were nice (yup, still like asia better), but the old continent's highlight was a few days in essen/cologne with judy-on-meds, jonstoph. 

since i seem to treat relationships like most people approach unpaid internships, it's always nice to see sexy, high-functioning homo couples who've made the transition to domestic stability... and who wouldn't like to see the half-filipina lady of the house's kitchen chalk board to-do list accented with flower sketches? elsewhere in europe... despite the bad rap, parisians are lovely, londoners (with the exception of my wonderful couchsurfing host) make me glad i'm american, and berlin is my new favorite white city.

onward to american jesusland (aka Jesusland) where i had 8 more chances to experience heinous u.s. airlines during the worst season to navigate the airspaces between chicago, seattle, portland and new york. my favorite 24-hour slog involved seattle's epic snow storm, which cancelled chi to sea. after spending the whole day in dallas on standby, a late final flight pulled into sea-tac at 1 am. i talked about lahore with a sikh cabbie, got stuck in the snow for an hour and missed the 2:10 am (last) ferry to mama's house. spending the next 3 hours outside the terminal was cold, but the last 30 minutes included learning the obvious: of course a late 40s, iraq vet, aspiring truck driver and full-time practical lesbian would like mesh crosstrainers!

pear juice dude, mom and momspouse got to know each other during my 24-hour seattle delay. afterwards, seattle was lovely. new york was a bit stressful, turks and caicos was thank jesus warm. then back to koko the long way. the end.

happy birthday to the united states of america!

happy birthday!

my fellow americans:

since i'm feeling lazy and have to take off in just a coupla hours for a weekend trip east to gangwon-do, here's a little montage to my fatherland on its birthday. if you do a google image search for "america", these images pop up on page 1.

i think jesus people, super heroes, mickey mouse, mexicans, soldiers and overwrought media sum the usa up pretty well. on that note, replace "america" in your google search field with "united states" and all you get on page 1 are maps and flags. i guess our name claiming the entire western hemisphere generates a more emotional response.

so maybe i've never known what it's like to live or travel abroad at a time when the majority of the world doesn't hate america... but it's ok, i'm still proud of my country and feel good about it on its birthday... but while i think american travelers who sew canadian flags on their backpacks are super lame, i'm also glad that i living in korea.

holiday recap, part 4: random pics of amurrrica cause jonith and bdkymm like them

a little bit of korea in chicago. my people are everywhere.


several hours later i was having another one of those mornings when you ask yourself, "what the hell just happened?".


a lovely reminder of some of the wonderful folks i met back in my mavin days. delicious bfast at café macrina with carol in seattle's belltown.


there's remarkable physical variation in the human family. case in point: my godson and gender bender bdkymm. ya, she short, but he's just so big.

holiday recap, part 2: no summer of love

a quintessential sf row in haight-ashbury.

for about 26 hours i felt very romantic.

at 6:36 am i was on my way to oakland international airport. 12 hours later i was deplaning at san francisco's airport. students of american geography will note that oak and sfo are an hour apart. so why the half-day commute fro and to the same place?

the night prior, my friend xtie and i drank, danced, the clubs had closed and then i had to pee. a friend's friend lived nearby. for 25 minutes, we chatted with the home owner and his friend. for 5 minutes i experienced an unusually forward (tho asian-ly untawdry) string of compliments and innuendoes by a short and cute japanese guy. i didn't remember his name, but he was fetching, unbetrothed, and he asked me to postpone my early am departure.

no doubt because of my chronic internet dating (please see: man plan), the purity and spontaneity of face-to-face happenstance flirting is exhilarating. so, in response, i called my airline but there were no seats on the next day's flights and a new ticket to seoul was running $2-5,000.

with same sex marriage in california starting in just 3 days, god intervened to remind the world he loves homos. thanks to Him, my flight to seattle was delayed due to a mechanical mishap. since i'd miss my connecting leg to tokyo, i spent 3 hours in seattle haggling with airline folks to get back to sf and my future husband. the upshot was a first class seat back to the bay and a re-route through hong kong the next afternoon. sure, i'd booked a hotel and meetings in tokyo, but what's a little time and money... for love?!

on a bus going to golden gate park. basically sums up my personal philosophy.

i was giddy with adrenaline and lack of sleep. but once reunited on the dance floor, he was insufficiently flattered that i'd manipulated my travel rigamarole for us. ya, there was dance floor make out, but ho-hum was an inadequate response. so, no, we aren't talking about moving in together and getting a puppy as a precursor to children (do we find a surrogate or adopt?). we won't have to navigate the tricky politics of korea v. japan. in fact, we didn't even exchange emails. he did, however, fulfill my daily quota of being asked, "are you on facebook?" nope, i'm not. i think this is our generation's way of saying, "uh... see ya around."

the summer of love is not. but while taking it easy on the internet dating front might do me some good, it felt nice to jeopardize rationality in pursuit of statistically insignificant hope.

i've regained custody of my blog

ok kids, sorry for the paltry posting of late. there are few things sillier than a neglected blog. but i'll be back home in soko in mere hours with trip reflection- and chapter 4 posts in the works.

(more on what "chapter 4" is is for-thcoming)

teasing jesus

he may try, but he can't catch me.

it's two weeks before i take a quick two-week trip outta soko: first to tokyo and then the bulk of it will be spent in the usa. what's the occasion? there's work, family and friends to see and do. per usual, let me know if our itineraries sync up.

happy birthday mavin!

10 years old.

the organization for mixed race people and families that i started in college turns 10 years old today. despite a rough transition, it's back in the black and poised for continued success. happy birthday mavin!

maroon 5

me with adam levine and jesse carmichael of maroon 5. why so glum? because i did a bad job interviewing.

despite having no previous broadcasting experience, because i can speak english i was hired as a freelancer at kbs. because i'm at kbs, when we want to interview fancy celebrities, the requests are usually granted.

earlier this evening i interviewed 2 members of the grammy-winning, rock-ish band maroon 5 prior to their one night-only concert in seoul. my preparation was inadequate. my questions were sorta lame. i was (still am) sick. i wasn't peppy. neither were they (tho kind). i blanked on one of their names... and the name of their first album... and ended the interview prematurely.

this means they probably won't let me interview céline dion in 2 weeks, huh?

a konglish primer

the joy of language.

technically, "konglish" is when (mostly) english or english-derived words are used in korean vernacular, typically with grammatical and/or usage errors. while it isn't typically as bold or wonderful as its japanese younger brother, engrish, this guy's thesis posits that a single word, "konglish," has fully permeated the korean vernacular, whereas the same can't be said of "chinglish" or "japlish" (the latter sounds awful).

snarky in any language (sorry, i can't remember where i found this image).

in my experience, there are several kinds of konglish:

1. word(s) retain their original grammar and usage.
2. grammar and/or usage has changed but connection to original loan word can be made.
3. direct connection to original word(s) cannot be made.
4. all the above but in reverse... korean words that have been integrated into english vernacular.

re: #1, for example, "ice cream," (아이스 크림) "wine" (와인) and "computer" (컴퓨터) are all standard words in korean. the pronunciation is different, but the word(s) and meaning are identical.

in the case of #2, however, some local or otherwise non-american flavor has been added. "haen-deu-pone" (핸드폰) is what most koreans call their cell phones. while foreign to american ears, the term was borrowed from english's other bastard child, singaporean english (singlish) ...in my experience all singlish is unintelligible to american ears.

additionally, in the 20th century, many konglish words came from japanese phonological derivations of english, thus "apartment" (アパート or a-pā-to in nihonese), became "a-pa-teu" (아파트) in korean. but, in korea most a-pa-teu are owner-occupied, whereas in the states, an "apartment" suggests a rent-paying tenant.

파이팅! (from here.)

somewhere in-between #2 and #3 is a common exclamation that escapes precise translation. if you live here, no doubt you've already seen (or indulged in, yourself) a feel-good "hwa-ee-ting!" (화이팅) with a smile and a raised, clenched fist (another variation is "pa-ee-ting!" (파이팅!) - thanks amanda). sure, it was taken from "fighting!" someways back, but the korean meaning is more along the lines of a "if you don't give up there will be victory!" sentiment.

in my opinion, "seo-be-seu" (서비스) definitely takes us into category 3. it's supposed to sound like "service," but really means "on the house," as when a restaurant's ajumma brings your table a round of free "sa-ee-da"'s (사이다) from the fridge. that beverage, which sounds like "cider," is just korean for 7-up. ...then again, don't u.s. southerners call every carbonated beverage "a coke"?

re: #4 (the growing number of korean words that are being absorbed into the english vernacular), that's another post for another day.

let's go live at "we've"!

i admit that i am a little frustrated by the doosan company's apartment complexes around seoul that are simply named, "we've". not the slightly better, "let's," but, "we've." and, yes, there are many times that menus or instructions intended for english-speakers are horribly mangled. that aside, it's tiring to overhear another favorite past-time of english-speaking expats in korea, which is to laugh hysterically at / become hysterically mad about, the ubiquity of konglish in signage and on clothing. maybe it's because most are english teachers, but there's an obvious point they miss.

i've noticed that many koreans love wearing clothing covered in long, rambling, nonsensical konglish. these passages are brief (not much of a canvas) but capture the essence of konglish (left from here, right from here).

less than 2% of seoul's 10+ million residents are foreigners. of those, only 12% come from english-speaking nations (i'm generously including india, bangladesh and the philippines). do you really think all these konglish signs were made for you, mr. english teacher?

more than likely, they're for korean companies marketing to their overwhelmingly korean customer base. because english is the globe's vehicular language (lingua franca), it makes sense that countries would take some hip american english (global!), but change it to fit their cultural reality (local!). this does not make koreans or other english language learners stupid or in need of a better copy editor. i mean, most amurricans can't even speak 2 languages fluently (myself included).

...and before you hate on the hate-deserving "korea, sparkling!" slogan, it was a british dude who was paid six u.s. figures to come up with it.

march 1st movement

korean declaration of independence pamphlet produced by korean red cross (lots of great information and this image from here. thanks to gusts for the heads up.)

on a snowy february 8th, 1919, some 600 korean students studying in japan gathered at tokyo's kanda distrct ymca. inspired by japan's brutal colonization of korea and u.s. president woodrow wilson's "fourteen points" speech, which argued for the right of national self-determination, the students came together to read a declaration of independence written by yi kwang-su.

march 1st protest (also from here).

three weeks later, on march 1, 33 nationalists gathered in a seoul restaurant to read their own declaration of independence. in nearby tapgol park (탑골 공원), another student, chung jae-yong, read the document to a massive crowd. over the next year, the japanese military struggled to control the 1,500 protests by over two million koreans. after summoning the japanese army and navy to quell the movement, 7,509 koreans were dead, 15,849 were wounded and over 46,000 were arrested. western powers did nothing.

photo of the seodaemun prison where korean independence activists were tortured and killed by the japanese (photo by robert koehler).

on april 13, 1919, korean nationalists in shanghai founded the provisional government of the republic of korea, which served as the de jure korean government until japanese surrender in 1945. korea's march 1 movement served as inspiration for china's own may 4th uprisings against the japanese. today, march 1st or sam-il (3-1) is observed as one of korea's first widespread uprisings against japan's oppressive colonial rule. since 1949, samil undong (삼일 운동) has been a national holiday.

write about seoul on the mayor's dime

the seoul metropolitan government wants to promote seoul tourism via "western press". to this end, they'll pay for you -- if you're a professional journalist, travel columnist, freelancer or travel blooger, that is -- to come to seoul and write your favorable snapshot of city life. expenses covered include: round-trip airfare, hotel, meals, transportation and interpreter for up to 10 days. sounds like a great deal to me. the first trips will begin mid-april, so download your application here.