I flew home last week, or what I thought was home. As soon as I stepped out of the airport everything appeared as if through a fog, vaguely familiar but somehow different, even foreign. After having spent the past couple of years complaining about, lashing out against and ultimately adjusting to life here in Korea, [...]
Filed under: America, Asia, Daily life, Identity, Opinion | Tagged: America, Identity, immigration, Korea, travel, US | Leave a Comment »
The Korea Herald reports that fans of Kim Yu-na are in an uproar over certain political and academic institutions trying to cash in on the Kim Yu-na name, or face in this case. Here’s an image of a member of the ruling GNP, with the caption that reads something like: following Kim Yu-na’s lead to [...]
Filed under: Headlines, Korean Society, Opinion, sports | Tagged: Identity, Korea, media, olympics, sports | Leave a Comment »
Driving south down the expressway towards Busan I ponder the rows and rows of apartment blocks that litter Korea’s skyline. Many of them look like government housing projects back home, and they’re everywhere, like sentries on duty. What are they protecting? The power of South Korea’s ruling political and business elite, which have so thoroughly [...]
Filed under: Identity, Korean Society, Opinion, history | Tagged: Korea, Identity, history, travel | Leave a Comment »
Sitting in a cab the other day with my four-year-old son, the driver turned and asked, “Is he a nut-doong-yi?” It’s a word that doesn’t really translate into English, but refers to a child born of older parents, and was the fifth time in as many days that I’d been asked the question. I’m not [...]
Filed under: Daily life, Korean Society, Opinion | Tagged: family, Identity, Korea, Seoul | Leave a Comment »
The Korea Times reports on USFK personel adopting Korean kids for payment so the kids will gain access to DOD funded schools on bases here. The United States Forces Korea (USFK) has turned a blind eye to allegations that U.S. base personnel have adopted Korean children who wish to attend American schools in army bases [...]
Filed under: America, Headlines, Korean Society, education | Tagged: adoption, America, family, Identity, Korea | Leave a Comment »
An article in the IHT by Norimitsu Onishi about the buraku of Japan and their slow rise out of the traditional depths of Japan’s ancient social hierarchy, a rise — and article — that took inspiration from Obama’s election in the U.S. What caught my attention was a short graf in the middle that referred to [...]
Filed under: Asia, Identity, Korean Society, buddhism, history | Tagged: history, Identity, Japan, Korea, media, Obama, Politics, religion | Leave a Comment »
New Year’s eve. As Israeli missiles begin to fall on Gaza, my family and I are at the Outback Steakhouse in southern Seoul waiting for a table. It’s my first time here and the first steak I’ve eaten in about twenty years. Despite the recession, the place is packed and we stand alongside a number [...]
Filed under: America, Asia, Daily life, Identity, Korean Society, Seoul, immigration, religion | Tagged: Identity, immigration, Politics, religion, Seoul | 1 Comment »
There’s a communication barrier separating Koreans and Westerners that goes well beyond language. It’s a gulf that lies at the core of how we view the world, and often prevents any kind of mutual understanding. For the majority of us Westerners logic forms the basis of our understanding. If it doesn’t stand up to reason [...]
Filed under: America, Identity, Korean Society, Opinion | Tagged: Identity, protests, spirituality | Leave a Comment »
It’s a word I hear a lot more than I’d like to out here in Korea. In whispers at the playground with my son, in random sound bites on the street, in my Korean language textbook! It’s a word that labels you as different, an outsider in a country that can often be jealously protective [...]
Filed under: Identity, Korean Society, Politics | Tagged: Identity, immigration, Korea | 4 Comments »
My commute home everyday involves several transfers on the subway and a not-too brief bus ride. To kill time I bury myself in the papers, usually the Herald Tribune and it’s inset JoongAng Daily. Today I read on the back page Mining the past, identity museums forge a future, about museums in the US that commemorate the [...]
Filed under: Identity, Uncategorized | Tagged: history, Identity, Korea, myth | Leave a Comment »
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