The Finer Things

I came to a startling realization about a week ago. This year long adventure has reached its last two months, and I am going to fly home and leave Korea, leave this culture, its people, its beauty. Thus, I have recently endeavored to enjoy the finer things that Korea has to offer, and I thought I would tell you about a few of my favorites.

1) Really good tea. This picture was taken in my favorite tea house in Insadong, Seoul. The tea house overlooks Insadong market, one of the coolest and culturally protected places in Seoul. Tree branches hang overhead and grass grows around small fountains on the floor of the house, all creating an incredible vibe, calming even the most frantic minds and giving one the chance to get in touch with his inner-self.

2)Spring. It's an incredibly beautiful time to be in Korea. Now that Spring has arrived the flowers are out in full bloom, the temperature is just right, the clouds seem a long way off and only stop by for occasional afternoon showers.

3)Culture. I have made it a point to enjoy Korean culture, I am trying to make it to culturally significant spots around town and around the Country before I leave. It's so easy to get locked into a routine that doesn't allow for much diversity, and it's even easier to choose the western fast-food restaurants over traditional Korean ones. But there really isn't anything like eating in the middle of a packed traditional Korean market, filled with all the smells, sights and sounds of such a unique place. This picture was taken at one such market in Seoul, it's name escapes me but it is one of my favorites.

4)"Konglish," or Korean English. There are some remarkable examples of Konglish all over Korea, but some of the best are in my school. One would think that, if a native speaker was on-hand (as I am,) it would be smart to have him look over things written in English before they were printed and posted on the walls of your school. This sentiment is apparently not shared by my principle, as we have some stunning examples of Konglish exhibited in our newly constructed English zone.


5)Clam-hunting. This is an exciting event that, until last weekend, I had not known existed in Korea. My friend Billy's homestay dad (Mr. Jo) is apparently an avid hunter of clams, and I received an invitation to go last weekend with Billy and Mr. Jo, so of course, I went. We drove two hours to the Western Coast of Korea, a place called Daecheon Beach. The weather was cold and rainy, and the wind had picked up near the beach to create a difficult set of circumstances for our clam hunt. We struggled against the wind and down to the beach and Mr. Jo proceeded to show us the art of catching clams. It went like this:


Step One, dig the top layer of sand away.


Step Two, look for small holes used by the cylindrically shaped clams and pour a generous helping of salt over the hole.


Step Three, wait for the foolish clam to take the bait and when he surfaces, grab him and utter a cry of victory.

This operation worked well and was surprisingly rewarding. There were other clam hunters on the beach with whom we engaged in a kind of silent competition, each of us trying to gain the upper hand and find an area with an abundance of clams. When they noticed us most of them would stare open mouthed for a few minutes, thinking how incredibly odd it was to see two tall, blond haired Americans digging for clams on the beach in the cold. Before we knew it we had spent three hours digging and grabbing clams on the rainy, windy, cold beach. We left with just over 40 of the strange looking creatures in our bucket, and that night we feasted on them at the Jo's apartment. Mission accomplished.


Mr. Jo and I: Clam Hunters.

So these are a few of the ways that I have been trying to enjoy Korea, to soak it up for the last two months. It is my goal to capture as much of what makes Korea unique in the next few weeks as possible, so be expecting more to come in a similar vein.

Of Expression, or, the Dynamo of Volition

I’m not sure how life is supposed to be lived, how the veil of familiarity is to be lifted day after day to provide the kind of soul gripping experience that I so desire. And I wonder if we aren’t cheating ourselves, living only in one realm of life, only one corner of the vineyard, when the grapes taste far sweeter on the other side.

Here’s what I mean.

I was thinking the other day about limitations, and how I feel as though I am limited to experiencing only part of the vast goodness that I am capable of experiencing; like how we only use a small percentage of our brains, only instead of the cerebrum I am talking about the soul. I find myself caught in a certain form of expression, recently its been academic, as I was busy applying to 12 law schools and have since been writing supplementary material for them. But that form of expression, perhaps every form of expression, is by its very nature limiting. Without another way in which to express myself I grow dull and weary and tired. Hardly the romantic conception of life I had when I was young.

I love the way that Picasso put it, “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I might learn how to do it.” What a brilliant thing. He finds himself directly limited by the breadth of his own experience so he attempts to move beyond that obstruction by simply doing that which he doesn’t know. Following this truth let me say that I have come to believe that in order for life to take hold of our spirits in abundance, in order that the closed rose of the soul might open in the sun to its fullest glory, we must find a way to express ourselves on a variety of diverse fronts. I am limited by the academy’s strict prose so I move to the flowing rhythm of poetry. I am limited by the use of an established vernacular so I move to the never fully established voice of art. I am constrained by brush and color palate so I move to the unconstrained depths of music, from whose well I often draw a voice for my soul. And shouldn’t that be our goal, the unfettered expression of nothing less than our own souls? To impede expression is to impede progress and growth and everything that you and I have it in us to become. I am beginning to wonder if the great sin that we fall into as we grow old isn’t necessarily the pursuit of money of other material things, but the unintentional limiting, confining, and constraining of the very expression of our spirits, of our very nature.

I can’t tell you how challenging that idea has been for me lately, and to tell you the truth nothing scares me more than impeding progress, be it mine, God’s, or society’s. This concept is one of the things that drove me while I was in Africa. Faced with college level classes to teach and few resources I wanted to hand off the assignment to someone more capable, but I could not rid myself of the nagging voice telling me that to drop that responsibility would be the first step toward stagnancy. It’s a slippery slope, the more the easy road is taken the more it becomes the only road. I can’t tell you how frightened I am of it. To be totally transparent, that’s one of the reasons that this time in my life is so difficult, because if I am not accepted by any of these law schools, these great judges of human potential, then I put one foot on the road toward every 50-something adult who asks himself where the time has gone and why he did not do more.

To put a capstone on this thought, I was listening to an interview with an incredibly successful businessman, a man who had made his millions and reached the top of his game. The interviewer asked a variety of questions relating to how and why he had been so successful, and towards the end of the interview asked the businessman what he wished he had learned sooner. The man’s reply was incredibly illuminating. He said that he wished that someone had told him that when you reach the top, when you summit the peak of material success, there’s nothing there. Nothing. He went on to talk about how he had been let down by this fact, and had come to terms late in his life that his priorities had been a bit out of place. How profound! How tragic. This is why I am convinced of the need to pursue a dynamic existence, one predicated on the belief that things can be better, expression can and must be realized in as many forms as possible, and the onset of a stagnant existence must be met by the uncomfortable actualization of expanded knowledge and abilities.

I readily admit to my own shortcomings, to my own lack of insight and understanding; I am a traveler on the dusty and mired road of life just as you are. My thoughts are always open to reproof and correction, and I welcome it. Thank you for reading this confused conglomeration of thoughts, and thank you Luther (my future grandfather in law) for reading this blog, lets smoke some cigars when I come home.

Everything is New

“Then came April…Nature in that month sheds rays of enchanted light which, from the sky and the clouds, from trees, meadows, and flowers, pierce to the heart of man.” – Les Miserables

It is April. I have waited a long time for April to roll around; about 11 months come to think of it. And I remember the first time that I realized I liked April; it was four years ago and I was living in Washington DC, about eight blocks behind the capitol building. It had been cold, bitterly cold, a variety of cold that I had yet to experience until that point. I vividly remember standing on the Mall, mouth agape as I watched people in business suits skiing down the mall toward the capitol. Then as suddenly as the cold had come, it was gone, and the heartless cold gave way to warmth and life. It was as if creation itself was waking from hibernation and spreading its wings, flooding my world with light. I don’t mean to be melodramatic but that’s how it seemed, my time in DC was difficult, and the weather changing was a profound event. So here we are again, April, and things in Cheongju are warming up. I walked outside the other day and found the dead trees lining the road had changed their allegiance, instead of perpetuating the icy theme of winter their dead limbs had miraculously sprouted life, green buds springing up in mutiny against their former cold master. I am convinced that simple things like that are far underrated. How can you not feel uplifted as you find yourself caught up in such a transformation, literally watching the death of one thing giving life to another? It goes beyond simple transformation, I think the proper word might be birth.

Speaking of birth, one of my best friends and his wife just had their first child. His name is Enoch, and he is as beautiful a child as I have ever seen. Let me tell you that to miss this child’s birth was difficult, I love my friend and his wife and to miss such an important occasion seemed irresponsible at best, perhaps criminal at worst. So in an attempt to rectify the situation, I was constantly skyping with my friend while he and his wife were at the hospital. I got to know the nurses as they came and went, and even serenaded Enoch with a few licks from the guitar before he was born. After 20 some hours Enoch was born, and I missed it, barely. I called my friend’s cell as I was walking out of class, and the first thing I heard was the crying of a newly born child. Enoch had been born about 30 seconds prior to me calling. I don’t know much about those things, but for some reason tears began to form in my eyes and I found myself greatly moved. Nothing was said, nothing needed to be. Something profound had happened, something that defied the narrow constrains of language and would only be cheapened by its use. For all the value we place on language, there are places that even it cannot go. There are some emotions, some chambers of the heart best left unspoken of.

So if I had to choose a phrase to describe this time, this month, this season, it would be that everything is new. Everything is becoming new, moving toward life. Even in death something new comes. Big changes are on the horizon, big news is sure to come, life is evolving each day into something more dynamic, challenging, and profound. My most sincere hope in this season is that, as I find myself in the midst of this, that I might experience each emotion deeply. I so desire to deeply experience the pathos of this time, of this place, of these situations, and in so doing evolve into who I have it in me to be. Everything is new, and hopefully, so am I.

Of ignorance, respobsibility, and men's bathrooms

It’s the weekend and I find myself in a funny kind of limbo, awaiting with some trepidation the oncoming week, yet doing so with a book in hand and the aroma of Kenyan Coffee around me. Where would I be without coffee shops? And I will be honest with you; I have always felt guilty when I relax, when I am not performing some kind of visible labor. I think many of you can relate. So times like this when I look at my hands and wonder why they are not producing something useful I take solace in the words of one of my favorite authors, Victor Hugo, who said:

A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor. – Les Miserables

By the way, I think it is worth mentioning that I am close to 800 pages into Les Miserables and I cannot overstate the impact it has had one me. Thus far it is one of the most powerful works of fiction I have ever read, and I would implore anyone to investigate its pages. Don’t be intimidated by its size; even the largest things seem small when you are enraptured by them.

So I am teaching, and have been for the last two weeks. And it’s been good to get back to school and begin a routine that doesn’t involve packing a bag and waiting in airports. I am glad to be back, and have had a lot of time to think about what I saw and what happened over the two months I was gone, and let me tell you I think Albert Schweitzer was right when he said that “the great tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he still lives.” And I see travel as being helpful and dangerous in that respect, as one (if he is honest with himself) will necessarily struggle with hope if he travels. It is not a question of if, but rather when. On the other hand if one is doomed to a life of familiar domesticity I see this internal death as an almost unavoidable obstruction, something that must eventually be reckoned with. And the question arises, as I think it must, about what is responsible for those of us who have been blessed enough to travel and experience and by God’s grace have not lost hope.

But before I go further, let me say something outrageous. I think ignorance is great. I really like being ignorant, and my guess is that deep down, so do you. In the words of every good cinematic villain, “we aren’t so different you and I.”

I have to follow up this disgraceful statement by saying that I think that ignorance will lead directly to the death that Schweitzer was speaking of, but you will surely be comfortable on your way to that end. Anyway my problem with a lack of ignorance is this: it requires something of you. If you cannot plead ignorance you must either betray your conscience and slip into denial, or you have to bear a burden and sacrifice something. And that brings me back to my question of what is responsible. What do responsible people do who have seen a need and are no longer ignorant? I am working on an answer to that.

Ok, on to lighter fare.

I have been sitting across from two young Korean girls here at Starbucks, and they have been taking pictures of themselves incessantly with their matching Spongebob cell phones. One of them holds out the phone, snaps a photo, they look at the picture and both giggle, then the cycle repeats itself. Incredible. Is this a cultural difference or just a teenage thing?

I will be back in Korean language classes starting next week! 나이스! I was sitting in the classroom on Friday waiting for my placement test as all the old feelings from July’s language class came flooding back. “oh dear,” I thought, “here we go again, back to everyone nodding an affirmative ‘yes’ while I alone shake my head and slowly say ‘no, I don’t understand.’” In short, I forgot what it was like to be the slow kid. Back to the character building experience that is language class!

And lastly I want to issue a short plea; it’s what I view to be the #1 social problem in Korea right now. Many of you who live here can sympathize, I’m sure. The problem is this: old Korean women cleaning public bathrooms and bumping into me while I am trying to do my business. That’s right, try going to the bathroom with an old woman with a mop directly behind you, scrubbing the floor and singing something in Korean. No matter which direction you turn and no matter how close you press yourself to the wall that woman is always somehow peering at you from an exposed angle. And the crazy thing is, I seem to be the only one who cares that the men’s bathroom is constantly being raided, without warning, by female janitors. None of the other men inside seem concerned. Come on, the rights of men in the bathroom should be universal, right?

Around the World in 68 Days

Number of different countries visited: 8
Number of days it took to circle the globe: 68
Total miles flown: 23,374
Actual hours in the air: 40
Hours spent waiting in airports: 24
Number of different airlines flown: 5
Number of hours spent on buses: 10
Number of hours spent on trains: 26
Number of complimentary in-flight bottles of wine consumed: 7
Number of my bags stolen: 1
Number of bribes taken: 2
Number of times hospitalized: 1
Number of different languages I tried to communicate in: 5
Number of times I feared for my life: 2
Number of friends made: Too many to count

I'll be honest with you, after thinking long and hard I have decided that there is no way that I can sum up my trip around the world in words. I honestly wouldn't know what to write. So I think I will sum it up with something I wrote on the back page of my journal as I sat on a boat taking me across the crystal waters of the Gulf of Thailand.

"What is left to say.

The Sun rose every day despite what I had seen the day before.

I helped a lot of people, a lot of people helped me.

I saw the danger of human desire, I saw the beauty of human altruism.

I struggled with despair, I clung to hope.

What I saw made me sick, sometimes it made me cry.

I was afraid for my life, and I stared fear in the eyes.

Sometimes I ran, others I stood.

I was faced with decisions each day, decisions that built me up, and broke me down.

I was asked all the while what it was I really believed about the world.

And I was afraid that my answer would cause me to lose hope.

I haven't lost it yet."

The Honest Traveler

I am in Korea now, but to be honest I’m not sure where my heart is. I keep asking myself, did I leave it somewhere on the dirt streets of Africa? On the white sandy shores of Koh Chang Island? In the jungles in the far north of Chaing Mai, Thailand? I’m not sure.

To be honest with you I have been struggling with a lot lately. This is for another blog, no doubt, but suffice it to say I have been asking questions that are fairly fundamental to living, questions involving how to live, or rather, why to live. It’s a loss of innocence, I suppose. One cannot circle the globe without experiencing it, unless they have lost touch with themselves. The truth is there a certain darkness to the world that we live outside of for the most part, a cruel, wicked thing that preys on our weakest elements. It’s the kind of thing that we are more inclined to believe in when we are young, more perceptive and enraptured by fairy tales. Every child who has ever heard his parents arguing knows it exists. And people analyze the problems that so plague this world and blame them on things like violence on television, socio-economic status, and the like. But the truth as I see it is quite simple really, and this truth has been central to my development as I have traveled; mankind is dark, and I include myself in that statement.

There were times during my travels through Africa when I fundamentally questioned the goodness of people. In fact most of my time there I did. When you are hissed at in the streets, yelled at by the ignorant and thankless, when you see families destroyed and meet survivors of incredible travesty, when you hear of 150 innocent people burned to death in a church miles from your home at the hands of a militia fighting “for God,” it's enough to make you question everything. I think there is a point, at least one that I reached, where simple answers don’t suffice. I couldn’t blame the problems I saw on “a few bad apples,” no, the problems in Africa and in Thailand are endemic of a much greater issue: the issue of man’s selfish and violent inhumanity to man.

In Thailand I was beaten by two drunken Thai men who were out for blood, nothing else. I had done nothing to provoke them, I was guilty of nothing but defending my friend, a good man. And there is a point that I came to when I realized that there is a hatred and an anger that is so reckless and irrational there is nothing rational people can do to stop it. Reason will fail you, as it failed me. So what do you do when reason fails? When hope hangs from a string? How do you react to the unpleasant fact that wickedness and evil are far more rampant than you ever realized? These are questions I fear the answers to.

Two days ago I arrived home to Korea, a few hours later I received a phone call that my 19 year old little brother, whom I love with every facet of my being, was in a car accident and thrown from his vehicle onto the street. The car that hit him drove away and hasn’t been found. He will recover, but it will be long and difficult.

So I ask again, what do you do when reason fails?

I really don’t have time nor do I want to jump further into this issue now, I just wanted to share a bit of what I saw and came to understand. I will write more later, but I don’t want you to read this and get the wrong idea, let me tell you, humanity is worth something. I’m not sure how much, but the very fact that there is so much darkness proves that there is light. And how sweet that light is, if only I could spread it.

I have been listening to Jon Foreman’s song “Equally Skilled.” I think it is true, and it summarizes a bit of how I feel. Listen to it sometime if you can, in the meantime I will leave you with the lyrics:

How miserable I am
I feel like a fruit picker who arrives after the harvest
There's nothing here at all
Nothing at all here that could placate my hunger

The godly people are all gone
There's not one honest soul left here on the planet
We're all murderers and thieves
Setting traps here for even our brothers

And both of our hands
Are equally skilled
At doing evil
Equally skilled
At bribing the judges
Equally skilled
At perverting justice
Both of our hands
Both of our hands

The day of justice comes
And is even now swiftly arriving
Don't trust anyone at all
Not your best friend or even your wife

For the son hates the father
The daughter despises even her mother
Look! Your enemies are right
Right in the room of your very household

And both of their hands
Are equally skilled
At doing evil
Equally skilled
At bribing the judges
Equally skilled
At perverting justice
Both of our hands
Both of our hands


No, don't gloat over me
For though I fall, though I fall
I will rise again
Though I sit here in darkness
The Lord, the Lord alone
He will be my light.

I will be patient as the Lord
Punishes me for the wrongs I've done against Him
After that He'll take my case
Bringing me to light and to justice
For all I have suffered

And both of His hands
Are equally skilled
At ruining evil
Equally skilled
At judging the judges
Equally skilled
At administering justice

Both of His hands
Both of His hands

Are equally skilled
At showing mercy
Equally skilled
At loving the loveless
Equally skilled
At administering justice
Both of His hands
Both of His hands

Sanyu and Leaving Africa

It seems that a bit of time has gone by since I last posted here; its only been about two weeks, but I have found that when you are traveling a lifetime of experience can pack its way into such a small space of time. Em and I spent all of our last week in Africa at Sanyu Babies Orphanage in the middle of Kampala, the capital of Uganda. Our time there was really amazing, and I found that I derived much more joy from hanging out with infants than I thought I would. Each kid had a unique personality that never ceased to amaze me. Some were quiet, most were loud. Some liked to play with their friends, most liked to hit their friends. Emily and I ran the morning preschool class with about 20 toddlers, and it didn’t take long for a few of them to establish a sort of “fight club” that involved them taking any toy they could and hitting their friends in the head. Keep in mind that these kids couldn’t walk. As hilarious as it was to watch these kids turn lettered blocks into weapons, inevitably I had a responsibility to keep the peace, and that is what I tried to do. Feeding time was the second craziest time of the day, we had all 40 kids lined up in small wooden chairs and had the enormous responsibility of hand feeding most of them some kind of mashed sweet potato. What little they didn’t either throw at me or drop down their shirts they seemed to enjoy immensely. The most difficult event of the day was bath time. Oh my goodness it was insanity. The kids all stripped down and one by one, stood in a line and were each taken by a large, serious looking African nurse and scrubbed mercilessly in a small tub of water. After this scrubbing they would emerge smiling and usually laughing and run towards me as I waited with a towel in hand. Drying a wriggling African child was such a task that before I could finish one, two more would come and tackle me from either side, drying themselves on my shirt. Before I knew it there were dozens of naked children running wildly around and screaming. I would chase them around the concrete floored room trying to grab them, and would eventually give up. Of course after this insanity we would have to change diapers (yes, I changed my first diaper there, and many more after it,) dress them and put them in their cribs. Wow. The whole process took about an hour and a half and by the time we were done we were exhausted and full of stories about the rambunctious children. It was really an amazing time, and saying goodbye to those kids was far more difficult than I had anticipated.

On the way out of the airport in Uganda I experienced one last touch of African “realities,” if you want to call it that. I had a 7-hour wait at Entebbe airport in Uganda before my flight on Ethiopian Airlines left. When I finally was able to check my bags the airport employee informed me that my bags were about 10kg over the allowed weight. He shook his head and said that it was “a large fee” to send my bags, but then said, in almost a whisper “I want to help you.” “Ok” I thought, but how could he do that when my bags were clearly over weight? There was an awkward silence for a few seconds while we each stared blankly at each other, until he said again, this time slower and even quieter, “I want to help you.” Aaaaaah. I began to think African and understood what he was implying. “So” I said, unsure as to how to proceed, “you want….money?” He nodded. “Like, this much money?” I said cautiously pulling a 5,000 shilling note out of my pocket. Without saying a word he quickly swiped it from my hand and shoved it into his pocket. So, to make a long story short he demanded 5,000 more but said that his manager was watching so he would find me later and collect it from me then. I still had three hours to wait at the time so I proceeded to hide myself from him as best as I could. Finally it was time to board and I thought I had successfully thwarted the money making plans of this corrupt airport employee. As I was about to step onto the plane to my dismay I saw the man emerge from inside the plane and walk straight towards me. I was surrounded by people at the time and curious as to what he was going to do. He waked up to me and asked me for my ticket, shooting me a demanding glance. Slowly I pulled the ticket from my pocket along with a 1,000 shilling note and handed them to him. He took the money quickly and said in a whisper “This is all?” I knew I had the upper hand because there was no way he could ask for more money in the position he was in so I didn’t say a word, I just shrugged.

So that is how I left Africa, with a parting reminder that there is a lot that needs to change. Any kind of sustainable change will have to take place first in the minds and hearts of people who are willing to change the culture of corruption and dare to believe in honesty and truth. It’s really a bold thing, if you think about it.