“During their leisure time you will see them promenading on the streets and boulevards. One of them takes his friend, male or female, by the hand and they set out on a stroll, going back and forth with purposefulness as if they had a goal in mind, but their only intention is talk and relaxation. Sometimes one even does it by oneself. They say it is ( Read more... )

"Curiously enough, the automobile has created its own species of knights. Lulled into a false sense of security by the armor around him, flattered by the speed he controls, arrogant towards those with inferior mounts or no mounts at all, the modern motorist will display chivalry towards an attractive woman, pay grudging deference to the owner of a ( Read more... )

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My mom keeps asking me if our drinking water comes from Japan. I'm not sure she knows exactly where Korea is ( Read more... )

“Humiliation, however it was produced, was a necessary stage in exploration … out of the very bottom, when the moral and intellectual self one so carefully builds up has been pulled down, when there is nothing between one and the uncaring trampling foot of reality, then one may at last and genuinely observe and know. And the process of humiliation ( Read more... )

Over the weekend I bought a 30 dollar tea mug. Here it is alongside a slice of pumpkin rice cake:


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This comes from waygook.net, a foreigners in South Korea site I visit. It struck me as spot on ( Read more... )

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"“I was having a good sit-down myself, not the yellow squirt I get when the water’s bad, nor the dark goat-turd pebbles I get when the food’s not plentiful enough. No, this was a great, glorious golden cigar of a turd that felt fine and upstanding coming out, a British sort of turd. Major Dunn would have pinned a medal on it.”

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