This will be a rare, ass-free blog entry. Which might make it boring, unless you like politics more than you like hearing about my bum.
I haven't said this too many times in my life, but I'm really happy to be in the United States right now. Not because I love my country, and not because I really missed good burgers or ESPN or my native language while I was overseas. I didn't really even miss the American health care system, even though I spent a minute or two thinking that the Brazilian health care system was about to kill me by accident.
Nope, I'm in the United States right now for the politics. (I'm also here because my girlfriend happens to be in North Carolina, recovering from a stubborn tropical disease... but you know that story already.) The Iowa caucuses are in five days, and seven different candidates have a reasonable chance at becoming our next president. We can even fantasize about brokered conventions. If you're a news junkie who stares at candidate interviews on YouTube instead of videos of chicks with big boobies, this is the best political porn ever.
I'm not going to lecture about who I think the best candidate is, but I'll tell you who will win. If I'm wrong, you can throw tomatoes at me in November.
The winner of the general election will be... the candidate with whom Americans would prefer to sit around and eat a bucket of fried chicken.
The (relative) King of Fried Chicken has won every single election since I've been alive. Bush beat Kerry and Gore because both Democrats seemed like really boring guys who were on low-fat diets. You know that I've never been a fan of Bush, but he has that "real guy" sort of appeal. I'm sure that George and I could have a great conversation about--I don't know, sports or women or whatever--over a pitcher of beer and a bucket of fried chicken in some shitty bar and grill in some small town in some flyover state.
And guess what? He won almost all of the "flyover" states.
You can keep going back, and the theory holds. Clinton could do some serious damage to a bucket of fried chicken, and he could talk to anybody about anything. Unsurprisingly, he beat two stiff Republicans. Michael Dukakis was a really good dude, but he was boring as hell, even compared to Bush Sr., and he looked like he ate ethnic food instead of fried chicken. Reagan was charming as all hell--who wouldn't prefer to hang with him than, say, Walter Mondale? Jimmy Carter and his little drawl did okay on the Fried Chicken O'Meter--far better than Gerald Ford--but he had no chance against Reagan. Hell, even chimps and Democrats were drawn to Reagan.
Even if you think I'm right about this, you might be wondering why the hell this matters right now. It's primary season. Too early to worry about fried chicken.
There are seven candidates who have a reasonable shot to win a major-party nomination--Clinton, Edwards, Obama, Giuliani, Romney, McCain, and Huckabee. Sorry, I think Thompson and Paul and Richardson (thankfully--I met him five times in New Mexico, and can assure you that he's a clueless asshole) have no chance.
Looking at these seven, we can put them in some sort of order on the fried chicken scale, and then use that to predict the winner of potential general election matchups. And the runaway winner is Mike Huckabee. Even if you're liberal, take some time to watch Mike Huckabee talk. Trust me--you want to hang out and eat greasy food with this guy, even if you think that his economic and foreign policy ideas are complete idiocy (and yes, they are).
After Huckabee... nobody comes close, really. You could argue for Obama (seems down-to-earth enough, but he's awfully skinny and has a funny name), Edwards (the combination of a $400 haircut and an over-the-top Southern drawl makes most of us uneasy), or maybe McCain (kind of prickly and getting a bit senile, but kind of in that likeable, "grandpa will tell you some hard facts about life while we eat fried chicken" kind of way). Let's say that Obama, Edwards, and McCain are tied for #2.
The three remaining candidates are pretty much tied for last. Romney is a slick-looking guy from Boston, and everybody hates Massholes and know that they're too full of themselves to eat fried chicken--plus he has the Mormon thing, which still creeps people out. Giuliani is even pricklier than McCain, and he's from New York, and he seems to be legitimately corrupt, and he knows that he's just too damn New York-y for fried chicken flyover country--which is why he's barely set foot in Iowa. Then there's Hillary, who might be okay over tea if she thinks she can get something from you, but it's downright impossible to imagine a warm, casual conversation with her over burgers or beer. I know quite a few people who have had conversations with Clinton, and not one has used the word "warm" to describe her.
I don't care what the polls say. Huckabee would beat any Democrat in the current field, and that scares the hell out of me. If you're a Republican, you should vote for him in the primaries.
At the same time, I think Hillary would get clobbered by almost anybody, besides maybe Giuliani or Romney--and Romney barely has a chance at getting the nomination, anyway. If you're a Democrat, you should vote for anybody but her.
Don't get me wrong--I actually think that Hillary would be a competent president. But if she gets the nomination, she'll lose if she's up against Huckabee or McCain.
And since I'm in North Carolina, I feel obligated to make one more comment about John Edwards. He supposedly has a genuine North Carolina accent. Nobody here talks like him. Not even close, really. Maybe I've just seen the wrong parts of the state, but my friend Ehren has lived in North Carolina since he was a teenager, and he says the same thing: the drawl sounds like a fake.
Okay, no more politics next time. I promise.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Sunday, December 16, 2007
dumb American, smart toilet
I'm about to get on a plane for Chicago via Shanghai (normally the layover isn't worth mention, but China hasn't figured out through-ticketing yet... I have to get off the plane, go through immigration, enter China, check in again, go back through immigration and customs and get on another plane), so this will be a quick entry.
And sorry to make butts the new theme of the blog.
East Asia is famous for its embrace of technology--you already knew that. But the toilets are really something special. Toilet paper is obsolete in the finer bathrooms of Korea and Japan, because the toilet is "smart" enough to do the work of the paper and your hands. You do your thing, then press a button. First, there is a "clean" cycle. Then, we have the "bidet" (rinse) cycle. Finally, the dryer goes on.
But that's not all--the seat has an automatic butt-warmer. As soon as you sit on the seat, it starts to warm up. Amazing.
I never got around to pressing the "nozzle" or "massage" buttons--kind of scary.
The toilet and I got to know each other rather well. No, I didn't get sick or anything, but I ate what had to be the highest-fiber meal I've ever eaten. (Besides maybe that time in Mexico, when I ate nothing but papaya and mandarins for breakfast and lunch on a 10-hour bus ride.)
Last time I checked, I was in Brazil, learning Portuguese. So I don't speak a lick of Korean--it's been a challenge just to tolerably pronounce "good morning" and "thank you." All of this makes ordering food a little bit limiting. Street food is always safe, because I can just point and smile.
For restaurants, I do my best to pick the places that have pictures with a few English words on the windows. That way, I can just point, and there is at least some chance that somebody inside will speak some English. Yesterday, I pointed at a blurry picture of a dish called "barley rice," simply because I had no idea what it was, and it didn't look like it had any scary animal/fish parts in it.
Yes, I've gotten into all sorts of trouble with this strategy over the years--I always try to order something I don't recognize. Many intestines and stomachs and other pig or cow bits have ended up in front of me as a result.
Anyhoo, this meal was amazing. Eight small bowls of different wonders--a light rice soup, a spicy tofu stew, a bowl of barley and rice mixed together, some sort of seaweed thing, some pickled radish-like things, kimchi (of course), another bowl of some sort of spicy pickled root thing, and a big bowl of mixed sprouts and cabbage and lettuce and mystery veggies and hot pepper flakes. Really tasty. And nothing but spice and fiber, aside from the bit of rice mixed with the barley.
Probably not a smart thing to eat the day before a 20-hour plane trip. I'm convinced that the toilet in my hotel room is smarter than me.
I didn't really get out much on this trip, just because of the demands of work. But Seoul seems like an incredible place, from the little bit that I saw outside of the hotel and offices.
The United States lacks "real cities" like Seoul--our list begins with New York and ends with Chicago, in my opinion. These are places where you can get coffee, beer, burgers, or shawarma any time of the day or night in any possible state of dress or partial undress, and nobody ever gives you a second look, even if you're wearing shorts at the pizza joint at 3am in the winter. And you know that you can piss off entire neighborhoods, and there will always be more neighborhoods to explore.
Seoul seems like an endless place, just like New York--it's dense and energetic, and has more coffeehouses than anywhere I've ever seen, including Seattle and Paris and Berkeley. I like.
And oddly enough, it's a comfortable place to be foreign. It's one of the world's safest large cities, most people speak a word or two of English, and nobody finds it the least bit strange that my Korean sucks. I felt more foreign in English-speaking Trinidad & Tobago than I do here.
Good thing I like it here. I'll probably be back in a month or two, whether I like it or not.
And sorry to make butts the new theme of the blog.
East Asia is famous for its embrace of technology--you already knew that. But the toilets are really something special. Toilet paper is obsolete in the finer bathrooms of Korea and Japan, because the toilet is "smart" enough to do the work of the paper and your hands. You do your thing, then press a button. First, there is a "clean" cycle. Then, we have the "bidet" (rinse) cycle. Finally, the dryer goes on.
But that's not all--the seat has an automatic butt-warmer. As soon as you sit on the seat, it starts to warm up. Amazing.
I never got around to pressing the "nozzle" or "massage" buttons--kind of scary.
The toilet and I got to know each other rather well. No, I didn't get sick or anything, but I ate what had to be the highest-fiber meal I've ever eaten. (Besides maybe that time in Mexico, when I ate nothing but papaya and mandarins for breakfast and lunch on a 10-hour bus ride.)
Last time I checked, I was in Brazil, learning Portuguese. So I don't speak a lick of Korean--it's been a challenge just to tolerably pronounce "good morning" and "thank you." All of this makes ordering food a little bit limiting. Street food is always safe, because I can just point and smile.
For restaurants, I do my best to pick the places that have pictures with a few English words on the windows. That way, I can just point, and there is at least some chance that somebody inside will speak some English. Yesterday, I pointed at a blurry picture of a dish called "barley rice," simply because I had no idea what it was, and it didn't look like it had any scary animal/fish parts in it.
Yes, I've gotten into all sorts of trouble with this strategy over the years--I always try to order something I don't recognize. Many intestines and stomachs and other pig or cow bits have ended up in front of me as a result.
Anyhoo, this meal was amazing. Eight small bowls of different wonders--a light rice soup, a spicy tofu stew, a bowl of barley and rice mixed together, some sort of seaweed thing, some pickled radish-like things, kimchi (of course), another bowl of some sort of spicy pickled root thing, and a big bowl of mixed sprouts and cabbage and lettuce and mystery veggies and hot pepper flakes. Really tasty. And nothing but spice and fiber, aside from the bit of rice mixed with the barley.
Probably not a smart thing to eat the day before a 20-hour plane trip. I'm convinced that the toilet in my hotel room is smarter than me.
I didn't really get out much on this trip, just because of the demands of work. But Seoul seems like an incredible place, from the little bit that I saw outside of the hotel and offices.
The United States lacks "real cities" like Seoul--our list begins with New York and ends with Chicago, in my opinion. These are places where you can get coffee, beer, burgers, or shawarma any time of the day or night in any possible state of dress or partial undress, and nobody ever gives you a second look, even if you're wearing shorts at the pizza joint at 3am in the winter. And you know that you can piss off entire neighborhoods, and there will always be more neighborhoods to explore.
Seoul seems like an endless place, just like New York--it's dense and energetic, and has more coffeehouses than anywhere I've ever seen, including Seattle and Paris and Berkeley. I like.
And oddly enough, it's a comfortable place to be foreign. It's one of the world's safest large cities, most people speak a word or two of English, and nobody finds it the least bit strange that my Korean sucks. I felt more foreign in English-speaking Trinidad & Tobago than I do here.
Good thing I like it here. I'll probably be back in a month or two, whether I like it or not.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Korea: #1 in pig intestine flavor, #134 in TOEFL scores
If you're still bothering to check this recently-neglected blog, I owe you an explanation.
Last time you tuned in, we were in Brazil, with plans to stay until March or April. Amber had a lingering case of dengue fever, which confined her to the hotel rooms for the most part. We were both starting to get cranky about it all.
To make a long story short, Amber decided to go back to the US to recover properly. In a way, that was kind of sad--we were finally in Fortaleza, and we immediately took a shining to the city. The whole plan was to stay in an appealing city in northeastern Brazil. By the time we found one, it was too late. Mosquitoes 1, Gringos 0.
At some point, it was just becoming plain stupid for us to be in Brazil. As you know, Amber was getting better only in fits and starts, and I was pretty damned sure that she'd be happier and healthier back home. Eventually, she agreed, and she's now resting in North Carolina with her best friend, Sprocket. (See picture.) Along with his humans, Heather and Ehren, Sprocket owns a lovely home in Wilmington, NC.
Once Amber decided that she wanted to go back, I started trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do if I left Brazil. One hour on Google chat with the owner of DemiDec, and I suddenly had an offer for a full-time editing/coordinating job. With a salary and stuff.
And the job offer had a big question attached: how quickly could I get to Korea? Would Saturday be okay?
Yikes. Turns out there's no direct flights from Fortaleza to Seoul. Actually, there's no direct flights from Fortaleza to anywhere useful, besides the Cabo Verde Islands. But I'll get to that part of the story.
Within 24 hours, Amber and I had agreed to the plan: we'd fly to the US and Korea, respectively, as soon as possible.
Then I got sick. Not foot worms, thankfully, but a fairly high fever. That would never really bother me in the US, but with dengue and malaria around, we were pretty spooked when the fever didn't go away for a few days. I suspected strep throat, but we wanted to be sure. Off to the hospital.
If you're keeping score, that would be hospital visit #8 of our Brazilian trip.
I could launch into another long description of Brazilian public hospitals (blood on the concrete floors...then there was the time I literally stepped over a body), but I won't. It started off as a pretty uneventful visit. A disinterested doctor diagnosed me with a bacterial thing--probably strep--within two minutes. In the usual style of these hospitals, he prescribed antibiotic and fever-reducing pills, but then also sent me to the medicine room for some fat shots of both. This much was no surprise--Amber had also gotten a few shots for her fevers during the past few months.
The surprise was, they were butt shots--my first since I was a kid. In my feverish haze, I didn't notice that the first needle was huge and filled with a whole lot of some creamy-looking fluid. It hurt, which was fine. The second needle wasn't so bad. I entertained the nurses by making a show of being shocked by the butt thing, and gave a theatrically feminine scream when they injected. Then I left for the waiting room.
In all seriousness, the next 90 seconds might have been the scariest of my life in some ways. Even scarier than when I was chased around by some white supremacists in Canada who decided that I was a Pakistani. I don't really understand what happened, but I had a bad reaction to the shots. Maybe it was just the sheer quantity of medication, I don't know. But as soon as I stepped out of the injection room, everything went gray and I crumpled. A male nurse happened to be right next to me--not that I remember this part--and carried me back into the injection room. They hooked me up to oxygen. I couldn't see anything, I lost feeling in my arms and legs, and I don't think I could speak--I'll have to ask Amber about that part. I remember having thoughts, but I don't think I got them out.
On one hand, this wasn't too big of a deal. A fainting spell, maybe? Just a little bit too much medicine injected too quickly? That's not so bad. Within a couple of minutes, my vision came back, and after 20 minutes, I felt fairly normal. The nurses seemed to think it was a mild allergic reaction to something--in any case, nothing too serious.
Here's what made it so damned terrifying: when Amber and I were planning this trip last summer, my mother, sister, and I all had nightmares on the same night about bad things happening in my travels. My sister's nightmare was the scary one--she dreamed that I died from getting a tainted injection in a hospital. So there I was in a third-world hospital (some Brazilian hospitals are great; this one was definitely rough), on the verge of passing out, thinking about Sonya's dream, with poor Portuguese-less Amber standing there, feeling helpless. She was probably more frightened than I was.
By the way, that series of dreams last summer played some role in our decision to go to Brazil instead of Mozambique. But that's another story.
So that was a humbling experience. Not a genuine near-death experience, but it was enough to mess with my head for a bit--especially against the backdrop of all of the health problems Amber has had on this trip.
After we returned to our hostel, Amber went to buy some groceries, and I rested for a bit. (Laying on my stomach--my ass was sore as hell from the shots for a few days.) A few minutes after she left, I heard some growly-dog noises, and two women screaming for the dogs to let go. I went outside, just in time to watch two dogs tearing a cat in half right in front of me. The cat was still protesting, barely. Really disturbing.
But hey, at least I didn't get any worms in my feet on this trip.
So the next day, I accepted the job offer and bought a crapload of plane tickets. Fortaleza to Seoul via Belem, Manaus, Miami, Chicago, and Shanghai. Six flights in all, for a total of about 12,000 air miles with four different airlines. The Chicago stopover was long enough to catch my breath--36 hours with Amber's wonderful family. Then off again.
I've been in Seoul for about five days now, in the middle of a crash-course in TOEFL, DemiDec, and Korean publishing. I have tons of stories. You don't get to read them right now.
All I'll say is that Korea is obsessed with TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language)--check out this article if you want details: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/17/world/asia/17korea.html?emc=eta1. But in spite of the obsession, Korea ranks #134 out of #147 countries in terms of their scores on the speaking section of the test. And you would be amazed by how much money goes into the test in Korea--the largest section of most bookstores is probably the TOEFL study guides.
But although Koreans don't do so well with TOEFL, they are great at cooking pig intestines. Innards are one of the great inevitabilities of international travel. Some local friend gets that slightly-evil glint in their eye at the dinner table, and decides that you need to try this really great local specialty. I've seen that look in at least five or six countries. It's the "hey gringo, have some tripe" look.
So we were at a street stall, eating some really tasty rice dumplings in spicy red sauce, when one of our Korean companions got that look. Next thing I knew, there was a piece of noodle-stuffed pig intestine in front of me. In a black sauce. And there was an audience. The owner of the stall had generously given it to me as a gift. He had the "tripe for foreigners" glint in his eye, too. I was stuck.
But it was actually good. I announced that Korea is #1 in pig intestines. I think the Koreans were proud.
I'll be back in the US on Monday, where I'll enjoy some relatively boring food. One more night in Chicago, then off to North Carolina--Wilmington for a few days, then probably Charlotte for a week or two. If any of you have any idea of how to write a TOEFL guide, send me an email.
Last time you tuned in, we were in Brazil, with plans to stay until March or April. Amber had a lingering case of dengue fever, which confined her to the hotel rooms for the most part. We were both starting to get cranky about it all.
To make a long story short, Amber decided to go back to the US to recover properly. In a way, that was kind of sad--we were finally in Fortaleza, and we immediately took a shining to the city. The whole plan was to stay in an appealing city in northeastern Brazil. By the time we found one, it was too late. Mosquitoes 1, Gringos 0.
At some point, it was just becoming plain stupid for us to be in Brazil. As you know, Amber was getting better only in fits and starts, and I was pretty damned sure that she'd be happier and healthier back home. Eventually, she agreed, and she's now resting in North Carolina with her best friend, Sprocket. (See picture.) Along with his humans, Heather and Ehren, Sprocket owns a lovely home in Wilmington, NC.
Once Amber decided that she wanted to go back, I started trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do if I left Brazil. One hour on Google chat with the owner of DemiDec, and I suddenly had an offer for a full-time editing/coordinating job. With a salary and stuff.
And the job offer had a big question attached: how quickly could I get to Korea? Would Saturday be okay?
Yikes. Turns out there's no direct flights from Fortaleza to Seoul. Actually, there's no direct flights from Fortaleza to anywhere useful, besides the Cabo Verde Islands. But I'll get to that part of the story.
Within 24 hours, Amber and I had agreed to the plan: we'd fly to the US and Korea, respectively, as soon as possible.
Then I got sick. Not foot worms, thankfully, but a fairly high fever. That would never really bother me in the US, but with dengue and malaria around, we were pretty spooked when the fever didn't go away for a few days. I suspected strep throat, but we wanted to be sure. Off to the hospital.
If you're keeping score, that would be hospital visit #8 of our Brazilian trip.
I could launch into another long description of Brazilian public hospitals (blood on the concrete floors...then there was the time I literally stepped over a body), but I won't. It started off as a pretty uneventful visit. A disinterested doctor diagnosed me with a bacterial thing--probably strep--within two minutes. In the usual style of these hospitals, he prescribed antibiotic and fever-reducing pills, but then also sent me to the medicine room for some fat shots of both. This much was no surprise--Amber had also gotten a few shots for her fevers during the past few months.
The surprise was, they were butt shots--my first since I was a kid. In my feverish haze, I didn't notice that the first needle was huge and filled with a whole lot of some creamy-looking fluid. It hurt, which was fine. The second needle wasn't so bad. I entertained the nurses by making a show of being shocked by the butt thing, and gave a theatrically feminine scream when they injected. Then I left for the waiting room.
In all seriousness, the next 90 seconds might have been the scariest of my life in some ways. Even scarier than when I was chased around by some white supremacists in Canada who decided that I was a Pakistani. I don't really understand what happened, but I had a bad reaction to the shots. Maybe it was just the sheer quantity of medication, I don't know. But as soon as I stepped out of the injection room, everything went gray and I crumpled. A male nurse happened to be right next to me--not that I remember this part--and carried me back into the injection room. They hooked me up to oxygen. I couldn't see anything, I lost feeling in my arms and legs, and I don't think I could speak--I'll have to ask Amber about that part. I remember having thoughts, but I don't think I got them out.
On one hand, this wasn't too big of a deal. A fainting spell, maybe? Just a little bit too much medicine injected too quickly? That's not so bad. Within a couple of minutes, my vision came back, and after 20 minutes, I felt fairly normal. The nurses seemed to think it was a mild allergic reaction to something--in any case, nothing too serious.
Here's what made it so damned terrifying: when Amber and I were planning this trip last summer, my mother, sister, and I all had nightmares on the same night about bad things happening in my travels. My sister's nightmare was the scary one--she dreamed that I died from getting a tainted injection in a hospital. So there I was in a third-world hospital (some Brazilian hospitals are great; this one was definitely rough), on the verge of passing out, thinking about Sonya's dream, with poor Portuguese-less Amber standing there, feeling helpless. She was probably more frightened than I was.
By the way, that series of dreams last summer played some role in our decision to go to Brazil instead of Mozambique. But that's another story.
So that was a humbling experience. Not a genuine near-death experience, but it was enough to mess with my head for a bit--especially against the backdrop of all of the health problems Amber has had on this trip.
After we returned to our hostel, Amber went to buy some groceries, and I rested for a bit. (Laying on my stomach--my ass was sore as hell from the shots for a few days.) A few minutes after she left, I heard some growly-dog noises, and two women screaming for the dogs to let go. I went outside, just in time to watch two dogs tearing a cat in half right in front of me. The cat was still protesting, barely. Really disturbing.
But hey, at least I didn't get any worms in my feet on this trip.
So the next day, I accepted the job offer and bought a crapload of plane tickets. Fortaleza to Seoul via Belem, Manaus, Miami, Chicago, and Shanghai. Six flights in all, for a total of about 12,000 air miles with four different airlines. The Chicago stopover was long enough to catch my breath--36 hours with Amber's wonderful family. Then off again.
I've been in Seoul for about five days now, in the middle of a crash-course in TOEFL, DemiDec, and Korean publishing. I have tons of stories. You don't get to read them right now.
All I'll say is that Korea is obsessed with TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language)--check out this article if you want details: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/17/world/asia/17korea.html?emc=eta1. But in spite of the obsession, Korea ranks #134 out of #147 countries in terms of their scores on the speaking section of the test. And you would be amazed by how much money goes into the test in Korea--the largest section of most bookstores is probably the TOEFL study guides.
But although Koreans don't do so well with TOEFL, they are great at cooking pig intestines. Innards are one of the great inevitabilities of international travel. Some local friend gets that slightly-evil glint in their eye at the dinner table, and decides that you need to try this really great local specialty. I've seen that look in at least five or six countries. It's the "hey gringo, have some tripe" look.
So we were at a street stall, eating some really tasty rice dumplings in spicy red sauce, when one of our Korean companions got that look. Next thing I knew, there was a piece of noodle-stuffed pig intestine in front of me. In a black sauce. And there was an audience. The owner of the stall had generously given it to me as a gift. He had the "tripe for foreigners" glint in his eye, too. I was stuck.
But it was actually good. I announced that Korea is #1 in pig intestines. I think the Koreans were proud.
I'll be back in the US on Monday, where I'll enjoy some relatively boring food. One more night in Chicago, then off to North Carolina--Wilmington for a few days, then probably Charlotte for a week or two. If any of you have any idea of how to write a TOEFL guide, send me an email.
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