Weekend report

Happy 4th of July! Here, as you might expect, there was absolutely nothing to indicate that it was anything else but a normal day. Albeit a very rainy day. Fortunately, Typhoon Mindulle (Dandelion) was downgraded to a tropical storm today.

I think I need to downgrade as well. Or at least start shifting. About six weeks from now, I'll be leaving Korea and ending a two-year stretch of my life that's been like no other two years in my life. Before I start the frenzied must-check-things-off-the-list period that characterized the month before I left DC in 2002 -- which, incidentally, blocked out all emotions except anxiety, which itself only exhibited as odd pains in my head unascribable to anything else -- I think it might be wise to ma-um jongni. Ma-um is "mind; spirit; heart; soul; idea; thought; mentality" while jongni means "regulate; arrange; put in order; adjust; readjust; straighten out; dispose of." You get the gist.

I stopped writing about the weird and wacky world of Korea some time ago, because things don't seem so w-and-w after a year and a half. And so this blog has become just a regular ole journal. I feel like I could be hk in anytown. Which is not necessarily bad. But life is just life, you know? How many times can I write about going out to eat spicy chicken barbecue and then going to a karaoke bar with friends before it gets old hat? I'm not a newbie anymore. I just live here.

Hm. Why am I writing this? I suppose it's part of jongni-ing too -- the recognition of what and who I've become. Huh. I think you'd better be on the lookout for some serious navel-gazing in the next few weeks.

In the meanwhile... so this weekend, I went to a tiny jazz club in Daehangno with my Korean-Danish kung-fu master friend. I haven't been to Basic Jazz Club since the last time I went with my Korean-Danish kung-fu master friend; also, I haven't seen my Korean-Danish kung-fu master friend since the last time we went to Basic Jazz Club. Which was in fall of last year.

(Oh c'mon. As if you wouldn't repeat that phrase three times if you had a Korean-Danish kung-fu master friend.)

He's still around and planning to live in Korea for the foreseeable future. Not making too many efforts to find his birth parents, though he's considering going on a TV program that does that kind of thing. The drawback is that the program demands the taping rights for any reunion that might occur between adoptee and parent, and Korean media is comparatively invasive. I'm not sure if Koreans are just less shy about screaming, crying, throwing things, fighting, collapsing dramatically, etc. on camera, or if the media is less shy about capturing it all on film for the 9 o'clock news.

On Saturday I went to the office and did some work, then met Yuri to see a movie in a DVD bang (room). These are places where you can rent a video (now mostly DVDs) to watch with your friends in the privacy of your own blacked out little room, complete with couch, ashtray, and um, tissues. Because doesn't everyone need tissues when they see a movie? Hm.

See, the rooms in the DVD bangs have doors with windows, but you can't see the people watching the movie. In fact, there are some places where there aren't even any windows in the doors, but I believe they are illegal now, because if you live in a society where most young people live at home until they get married, privacy is a premium, ya know what I'm sayin'?

DVD bangs are not necessarily de facto sex rooms (there are love hotels for that, my dear, and many equipped with aftershave, lotion, and Eros shampoo and conditioner -- no joke, it was the actual name of the shampoo Maiko and I found in a hotel we stayed at somewhere), but they're certainly conducive to certain activities.

Which is why I am glad to report that in the last year or so, convenience stores have started selling condoms. (I know what you're thinking, but I didn't find out about it that way. I just noticed them lying on a shelf one day and asked a friend.) Before, you had to go to a pharmacy to get them. I wonder what the actual usage rate is, though. A bartender friend of a friend told me that of the female friends he has, almost all of them have had abortions.

And I'll just leave you with that.