Greetings all,
I am alive and well, and touched by the concern. Felix was kind enough to send me an e-mail solicitous of my good health. I'm sorry for the long absence. I am a homebody and a creature of routine, including my internet habits, and the thankfully temporary relocation has disturbed my harmony and upset my rhythms. I have ten days until I go back, and hopefully then I will settle back into my usual ways.
Korea is okay. Cheonan is something of a no-frills town, and we have lodged in an older part of the city with no attractions or parks or green spaces of any kind. It seems like most people looking for novelty go to Seoul, which is a relatively short ride on the KTX (HSR), but with the pandemic, we've only gone the once in search of objets. We may go this weekend to see the art museum, but as yet TBD.
Korea is a place of contradictions. Intense nationalism with not very latent feelings of inferiority. Great pride in the land, which is nevertheless littered and polluted. Great warmth and hospitality for those they know or are doing business with, but cold indifference bordering on hostility to people on the street (I was saved today from nearly being backed over by a truck by a young woman who very politely said, in English, "Sorry, sir, please watch out," which I took as the most extraordinary kindness, considering no one else waiting at the crosswalk said a thing). The cherry trees are bursting with blossoms, but the air quality is hazardous (AQI of nearly 600 the other day; over 1,000 in Daegu) as to keep everyone inside.
Much of my ambivalence is for the same reason I am ambivalent about America. Koreans, with their usual intensity, have adopted many of the same habits I dislike at home, and amplified them 110 percent. It's no different than a therapist who tells you what you hate in someone else is what you unconsciously hate about yourself.
And yet, for all that, it's a beautiful, sometimes beguiling country. And yet, I am happy to go home. And yet, my wife is staying on another month or more. And yet, and yet, and yet. 🙂🙂🙂 That's Korea.
I hope you are all well, too, and I look forward to reading all your posts. I took the morning to get caught up, but stifled every impulse to reply lest you wake up and find 20 replies from Ian Adkins to threads now long dead. But I have missed this, thank you.