Tokyo Travels (part one)

Going to Japan has always been a dream of mine. As a kid, I watched Cartoon Network’s Toonami, a television programming block that focused on Japanese anime shows like Dragon Ball Z, Rurouni Kenshin, and One Piece. I think I speak for a lot of kids of my generation when I say these shows embodied something more than their bland American kid contemporaries that ran on T.V. at the time. They had serious stories, violent fight sequences, unique characters, and pushed the boundaries of what a “kids” show could be. They didn’t talk down to their audience. They were cool.

Japanese culture seeped through my screen every weeknight from 5:00 to 7:00 as Toonami brought the “East” to my television in good ol’ Cedar Park, Texas. Like any eleven-year-old boy in 2006, I would have given an arm and a leg to try the Ramen in Naruto or wear a Kimono from Bleach. And that was just the beginning. For me, that first peak behind the window alerted me to the existence of other cultures, media, and art. I was introduced to the magic of Japanese cinema through films like Ghost in the Shell and Princess Mononoke. I fell in love with Japanese video games because of Zelda and Soulcalibur. I learned about Japanese history through James Clavell novels and samurai movies. I developed a passion for Japanese food thanks to episodes of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations. It’s seems like half of everything I’ve ever liked has come from Japan.

Now, I don’t watch as much anime or play as many JRPGs¹ as I used to, but I still keep a certain reverence for all things Japanese. I was nervous, therefore, that the Land of the Rising Sun would disappoint, that the arcades wouldn’t be mind-numbingly bonkers or that the ramen wouldn’t transcend the idea of gastronomy or that the trains wouldn’t run with the punctuality of a watch-makers wedding. It was too good to be true; there’s no way Tokyo could deliver upon Anthony Bourdain’s hyperbolic praises. Boy, oh boy, was I ever wrong to worry.

My trip to Tokyo started with… difficulty. I stepped out of the Ueno subway station to a gorgeous scene of Hanami, the Japanese tradition and cultural experience of enjoying the cherry blossom season. On that beautiful Sunday, thousands of families and friends sat underneath the Sakura² taking pictures, eating lunch, and enjoying each other’s company. It was a truly fantastic welcome to the country. It was also the moment my phone stopped working.

It’s hard to imagine how anyone traveled internationally before cell phones. I guess, based on first-hand experience, that it probably involved a lot of wandering. But, at that exact moment, sitting under the blossoms and eating an onigiri³ from the local konbini⁴, I wasn’t all too concerned about the logistics of “disconnected” travel. It wasn’t until I decided to find my hostel that I hit a few snags. The first and most pressing issue was that I had no idea how to find my hostel. I remembered it was north of the Ueno station… and that’s about it. The second, and complimentary, issue was that I wasn’t sure how to find out how to find my hostel.

A quick side note on why the place was so difficult to locate. The hostel, a place called Toco, serves less than 30 guests and is situated in the most unassuming alley in Tokyo. I’d call it a speakeasy if it weren’t for the tiny sign out front. Thankfully, what it lacks in findability, it more than makes up in quaintness. More on that later, though.

After walking around the neighborhood for an hour or two, I thought it might be a good idea to try my phone again. I sat criss-cross in the shade of a nearby house – which would prove an awkward decision when the owner arrived home to find me and my stuff sprawled out on their drive-way – and somehow finagled my phone into temporary operation. Google maps worked long enough for me to do two things: learn how lost I had become and provide the opportunity to draw a map a toddler would be embarrassed of on pen and paper.

An hour and two stops to ask for directions later, I arrived at Toco. The place was something out of an Asian fable. The lobby, decked out with wooden floors and a rainbow staircase, also served as small bar in the evenings. Past the lobby was the traditional style garden, complete with Buddha statues and a holy mound of stones. From there, after swapping my shoes for slippers, was the hostel proper, consisting of only 3 dormitory and 3 private rooms. I’ll tell ya’, I experienced something close to nirvana as I slid open the wooden door, slipper-clad and most likely with a stupid grin, to step out of that idyllic garden and into my 1920’s era accommodation. Some boyish fantasy was fulfilled in that moment.

To be honest, I wasn’t all that upset about the loss of my phone. I was in Japan, during the most beautiful week of the year, sitting in a garden straight out of The Last Samurai, and preparing to soak up the sights and sounds of the city. I also knew that getting to my accommodation would be the most trying task without directions, and I’d already done that. Sure, replacing my phone once back in Korea would be a pain, but for the time being, Tokyo was no less accessible to me. And anyways, I had taken too many orientation classes in Boy Scouts to get too lost. No, I was determined to make it the old-fashioned way.

More to follow in part two

-JCP

¹ Japanese Role Playing Game

² A rice ball, usually with grilled seaweed and some sort of filling

³ Cherry blossom tree in Japanese

⁴ A convenience store, AKA the life-blood of Japanese culture

A boy's confusing journey through language

My inability to speak a second language is something I am deeply embarrassed about. For someone who prides himself on his cultural adventurousness, I am doing a remarkably poor job with the most important aspect of culture: language. I spend every day speaking with others in my own language and have made little effort to reciprocate the favor. I accredit my lack of lingual competency to four things:

1. Being American: Americans are notoriously bad at learning languages. We have a decent excuse – the whole world speaks our native tongue – but put little focus on languages in school. Just about anyone from my high school could say they took two years of Spanish and don’t remember anything. I stand on my pedestal of three years of Latin while still not remembering anything. 
2. Growing up in a monolingual family. Sorry mom and dad. I know if you had had the option, Bee and I would have been raised as polyglots. However, it wasn’t meant to be and there’s no use in crying over spilled milk.
3. I don’t know what language I should learn: It would be easier to devote my time if I knew where I might live in the future. I’ve avoided making a serious effort at Korean because I know I’ll be gone in two months. If, for instance, I was certain to end in Kathmandu, it would be easy to buy a Nepali textbook (well probably not that easy) and start from there.
4. Personal laziness: At the end of the day, my shortcomings as a linguist are entirely attributable to a lack of commitment from me. Learning a language requires consistent effort over a long period of time – something that I have yet to do. I’ve made meager attempts at Arabic, Danish, and Korean and never followed through.  My latest foray into French will certainly end up in the same garbage pile of neglected languages.

I imagine that voicing my frustrations does not make for the best reading, so rather than wallowing in my self-shame, I figured I’d share some interesting factoids about some of the languages I’ve come into contact with. These details are not remotely comprehensive and may not even be entirely accurate, so take everything with a grain of salt. I’ll go in chronological order.

English:

Obviously, you are at least familiar with English and are in no need of general information. There are, however, aspects of my own language that continue to surprise me and may prove curious to you.

§  English is a language of intonation. Like the tones of Chinese, English intonations can be grammatical. The most obvious example is the difference between open and closed questions. Think of how differently you would say, “Where are your bags?” vs. “Do you have any bags?” Notice the pitch at the end of the second question. The first question requires a falling intonation to be correct while the second requires an ascending one.   

§  There is a specific order for placing adjectives before verbs. Most of the time native speakers don’t have to think about the correct order, but it certainly stands out when adjectives are out of place. It sounds bizarre to say, “The French, tiny, goofy-looking rodeo clown,” instead of “The tiny, goofy-looking, French rodeo clown.” The official order is: Opinion, size, physical quality, shape, age, colour, origin, material, type, and purpose.

§  To finish off with English, here are a few of my favorite sayings and idioms.

o   I’ll give you the nickel tour – To show someone around

o   We’ll cross that bridge when we get there – To address an issue at another time

o   The peanut gallery – A group of idiots that make jokes off to the side

o   What’cha hunting? – A question to determine what someone is looking for

o   6 one way, half a dozen the other –To say that two options are the same

o   5-dollar word ­– A long or fancy word

Arabic:

I took one semester of Arabic in college. For a million dollars, I would be hard-pressed to come up with a full sentence in Arabic, but I still remember a thing or two that Professor Muna taught me.

• The Arabic alphabet does not contain vowels. Instead, vowel diacritics are used above or below letters. Here’s an example of three words that are separated by only vowel markings.

 The land : البر

     Wheat : البُر

     Righteousness : البِر

• Sounds simple enough, right? Well, there’s one problem. In all but the most formal literary writing, vowel markings are not used. Readers of Arabic are expected to use context to determine what word a means without the vowels.
• It is also important to know that Arabic is more a family of languages than a single language. The difference between Levantine Arabic and Tunisian Arabic could be compared to the difference between French and Italian. A lingua-franca does exist in the Arab world, Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), but is reserved mostly for writing and formal media.

Danish:

Don’t even ask me why I know anything about Danish.

It’s a language spoken by only around 6 million people, 5 and half of whom live in Denmark. It is extremely similar to the other Scandinavian languages of Norwegian and Swedish and shares an early history with other Germanic languages. English speakers will find that it is structurally and grammatically familiar.

• Danish, like a few other languages, uses a base-20 system for counting. That means what we would call eighty-one (8 tens and 1 ones) translates as enogfirs (1 one and 4x20). It gets even more difficult when dealing with odd tens. Fifty is translated as halvtreds (2.5x20), seventy as halvfjerds (3.5x20), and so on. But if you think that’s complicated, wait until we get to Korean’s two different number systems…
• For lack of interesting tid-bits about the language itself, I’ll give you a tip about Danish. If a Dane ever asks you to say Rød grød med fløde (red porridge with cream), just give up. They are having a laugh. The phrase is used by Danes to demonstrate how Danish is an incomprehensible series of guttural noises that you will never be able to pronounce.

Korean:

Korean is a whole other animal. It developed largely separately from its mother Chinese and uses a unique, designed writing system. Along with Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and Cantonese, it’s listed as a class four language for English speakers, meaning it’s among the most difficult to learn. Although I know a few phrases and questions, I have almost no understanding of Korean grammar or structure.

• Korean’s alphabet was invented in the 15^th century by a Joseon dynasty king to be a simple, understandable, and all-encompassing representation of spoken Korean. It is comprised of 40 “letters”, 19 consonants and 21 vowels, that are combined into blocks that serve as syllables.

o   Ex. The letters: ㅂ ㅜ ㄹ (b, u, l/r) combine to make 불 (bul) or

ㄷ ㅏ ㄹ ㄱ (t, a, l/r, k) combine to make 닭 (talk)

• Syllables are then combined to create words.

o   불  bul (fire)      +     고기   go-gi (meat)     =       불고기   bulgogi (roasted meat)

o   컴  keom   +   퓨  pyu   +   터  teo   =    keompyuteo   (computer)

• Korean also incorporates honorifics like no other language. Practially any verb or noun can be changed in a sentence to reflect a different social situation. Whether it’s child to adult, teacher to student, employee to boss, or friend to friend, Koreans are constantly adding and omitting honorifics to fit the situation. That’s why a very common first question in Korea is “how old are you?” I wish I could elaborate on the topic more, but frankly, I understand very little of how the elaborate system works. Here is the common example:

o   안녕하세요 annyeonghaseyo (hello, used in most situations where you don’t know the person or they are a superior/elder)

o   안녕 annyeong (hello, used when meeting or saying goodbye to friends or close acquaintances)

• I teased the Korean number systems earlier, but I’m afraid that I, again, have very little understanding of how or why Korean continue to count the way they do. Here’s the bottom line, Korean uses the traditional “Korean” system for age, people and things, and general counting and a “Chinese” system for phone numbers, measurement, money, and anything above 100 – the “Korean” system only goes to 99. While that already sounds like a nightmare, here’s the kicker: if you want to tell someone the time, you need to use the Chinese numbers for the hour and the Korean numbers for the minutes. I told you Korea is wild…

French:

Finally, the home stretch. French. It may come as a surprise to many of you to see French as the last language on this chronological list. Fortune, or terrible misfortune for that matter, has resulted in me living with 5* French girls during my time in Korea. I could, and certainly will, write a whole post about the subtleties of French reality shows (les marseillais is easily the worst), but that’s for another time. Being constantly surrounded by French at all hours of the day has necessitated that I learn a thing or two about the language.

*Only 3 of them are actually French. 2 are from Morocco but study in France. I’m going to count it as an even 5 though, based on what language dominates our kitchen. Sorry Neama and Ibti!

• Verlan is a feature of French where words are inverted to create slang, a sort of French pig-latin. Typically, the end of the word is shifted to the front, with corrections being made for pronounceability. It is primarily used by kids and young-adults, but words occasionally seep into the greater French vocabulary. I’ve been unable to deduce any greater significance than “it’s cool” from my roommates, so I think each verlan is different in how it’s formed and what it means. Here are a few examples of original words and their verlan:

o   Femme (woman)  à  Meuf

o   C’est parti (let’s go) à  C’est tipar

o   Louche (shady)  à  Chelou

• My final observation of this post is something more akin to body-language than traditional mouth language. For whatever reason, many French speakers have adopted the habit of using the sound “pfft” (made with a quick puff of the lips) instead of the English “I don’t know”. Along with the “ooh la” and the “mhm mhm mhm,” the “pfft” has become part of my everyday vernacular experience. Someone please help me.

Well, I hope you stuck around for that exhausting linguistic voyage. Language is such an exceptional piece of being human, and, although I’ve yet to take the plunge, I am determined to become bilingual at some point in the near future. For now, au revoir, 안녕, farvel, مَع السَلامة, and goodbye!

-JCP

Minimalism: The One Backpack Lifestyle or “Why do you only wear 4 shirts?”

Alright, I’m cheating a little bit with the title. I do, in fact, have a second, small bag for my winter coat. Give me a break, I wasn’t about to move to South Korea without a shield to defend against Seoul’s soulless winter. But other than that, I was able to fit the entirety of my life into a 70-liter backpack.

My possessions include:

       Clothing:                                            Not Clothing:                 

-        4 pairs of pants      -        3 pairs of shorts      -        1 pair of sweat pants (it was cold, ok)      -        3 flannel shirts      -        2 nice shirts      -        1 sweater      -        2 pull over fleeces (identical)      -        2 short sleeve button downs      -        10 t-shirts      -        12 pairs of underwear      -        12 pairs of socks      -        1 pair of boots      -        1 pair of sneakers      -        2 hats      -        1 light jacket      -        1 medium jacket      -        1 aforementioned heavy jacket      -        1 scarf      -        2 ties

-        1 backpack -        1 travel duffle bag -        1 laptop computer and charger -        1 mouse -        2 decks of cards -        1 camera -        5 books -        1 USB drive with the all 3 of the Lord of the Rings extended editions -        1 flashlight -        1 folder -        1 legal pad -        1 towel (about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have) -        1 set of chopsticks -        1 phone and charger -        2 pairs of headphones -        1 Gamecube controller and adapter -        1 wallet -        2 chap-sticks -        1 unusable pair of hair clippers -        1 toiletry bag (toothbrush, razor, nail clippers…. You get the idea) -        1 pair of glasses -        A few other smaller things like pens, rolls of film, and pictures that I’m not going to count out

Now, when all added up, that would appear to be a lot of things. “That’s over 90 things!” you might say, and I’d be inclined to agree with you. I’m not even sure whether I qualify as a true minimalist at this point or not. However, I would urge you to do a similar exercise and tally-up everything you own. Unless your name is Terence or Aaron, I’d be willing to bet you’ve got a thing or two more. You would be surprised how quickly it all adds up. Even if you have no intention of shedding all your earthly possessions, knowing what you’ve got can go a long way to knowing what you don’t need.

I won’t go too far into the rationale behind my minimalist mentality – you probably understand the concept – but here’s the general idea in two parts.

First, things are unnecessary.

Second, traveling light means to travel well. In the past year, I’ve lived in 4 different apartments on 3 continents. Moving from place to place is simply easier with fewer things to bring with you. And I’ll let everyone onto a little secret: taking 3 suitcases on the Boston subway is less than fun. Right now, I’m able to move, with everything I need, wherever I need to go, at the drop of a hat. My life is made markedly simpler by each item I do not own.

Third, I was joking about the first point. And, yes, I know I said this reasoning would only be in two parts, but this is my blog and I make up the rules. Minimalism, for me, doesn’t mean that all possessions are inherently evil. Buying a collectible Ninja Turtles pizza van or an extra cereal bowl certainly doesn’t mean you are inviting the devil into your home. Instead, minimalism is a tool for evaluating priorities, an economic model for maximizing utility. I can ask myself, “Would I rather have a Magic Bullet to make delicious fruit smoothies for the next 3 months or an extra 30 bucks to blow on a scooter in Thailand. While that is a trite example, I think you get the point. At this stage in my life, I’d rather buy an experience than a thing to lug around. But who knows, maybe in 5 or 10 years that Magic Bullet will start sounding pretty nice…

That’s not to say that life is made wholly easier without stuff. I can’t collect books. I don’t have any cooking or eating supplies to call my own (besides my chopsticks!). I still am wearing T-Shirts I got in middle-school. I have to buy or rent new bedding every 6 months. There are no posters on my walls or brick-a-brac on my dresser. Ultimately, wherever I choose to set up shop likely lacks the hominess of a true base camp. And that’s just something to which you have to become accustomed. It’s easy to be a minimalist while you’re backpacking across Europe, but it’s a whole other matter to be a minimalist on a random Thursday night when you wish you had an oven to bake a frozen pizza or a toolbox to fix the broken toilet seat.

That's enough life philosophy for one blog. I figured I would have had more to say about minimalism, but it turns out that the topic is easily exhaustible. Anyways, I'll be heading to Japan for a week, so next week will be light in terms of blog posts. I'll be sure to have a lot of pictures and updates soon after that!

-JCP 

Adventures in Seoul

Probably to the delight of most y'all reading, I'm going to spend this post highlighting some great things about life in Seoul. The past few weeks have taken me on a few adventures, so I thought I might just share them and save y’all from my personal musings for a week. Although Seoul doesn’t have as many tourist attractions as other major cities, there are still a number of places to visit and things to try that cannot be found anywhere else. Here goes.

Climbing Bukhansan

Gearing up for the hike

Two weekends ago I went out hiking with some roommates and friends. And boy oh boy, was it nice to get out of the city for a minute. Seoul, at times, lives under a fog of pollution and overcast weather. The winter only exacerbates this problem, killing any semblance of greenery or liveliness.  I was in desperate need of a tree or a mountain.

We decided to hike Seoul’s tallest mountain, Bukhansan, which is still easily climbable in a day. It took us about an hour and a half to get to the mountain proper by subway and bus and then another 2 and half to get to the summit. The pictures will probably serve as better descriptors of the actual hike, so I’ll leave that to them. A few notes, though.

A man we met on the mountain

First, the people. Our fellow hikers consisted of a swarm of identically dressed ajummas and ajashis, each equipped with a brightly colored windbreaker, an unnecessarily large visor, and professional-grade walking sticks. However, these older Korean folks were much more pleasant than the average subway-goer you meet in Seoul. Keeping with the time-honored traditions of hiking, they were quick to say hello or mention the the beauty of the view. There’s something about being outdoors in great weather that brings out the best in people.

Second, the cats. Feral cats can be spotted everywhere on the mountain. Here’s a picture of one of the many felines at the peak. They were clearly comfortable with human interaction, purring near hikers eating lunch in the hopes of being throwna scrap of tuna. I assume they live there, but I have no idea how they survive the winter.

Third, the view. The last stretch of the hike had us on a steep incline with metal lines as our guides upward. The peak brought with it an unparalleled view of Seoul. Korea really is quite beautiful once you get above the literal and metaphorical haze of Seoul; the juxtaposition of the mountains and the city was something to behold.

View from Bukhansan

Fourth, the way down. Our descent was a little more perilous than the way up. We had decided to go down the other side of the mountain – the side where the sun don’t shine. It was again steep, and the ice had yet to melt, so a few of us (I won’t name any names) spent a good portion on their backsides sliding down. I, for one, was having a great time!

Yeoiudo

The next weekend brought us to Yeoiudo, the financial capital of Seoul and designated day trip spot for Seoulites. The main attraction of the island – it’s technically surrounded by water – is an esplanade along the Han River. Spring has yet to come in Seoul, so the normally green esplanade was marred by the hay-colored grass that plagues the city during winter. Still, it was a great place to spend a Sunday afternoon with the locals. In Yeoiudo, you’ll find a good mix of skateboarders, musicians, and other misguided youths as well as families and couples perched up in tents for the day. 

The tall boy himself

We spent the day moseying around, taking pictures and eating ice cream. As usual, the locals were fascinated with us. Whether it's groups of high-schoolers waving emphatically or grown men asking to take pictures with Andre (he's 6ft/185cm), Koreans are always amazed by groups of Westerners. If I'm honest, it's nice to feel like a celebrity every once in a while. 

San-nakji

Finally, I wanted to share a food experience from earlier this week. I went to the Noryangjin fish market with one of my roommates and her brother and cousin. The expressed purpose of the trip was San-nakji, a seafood dish where baby octopi are cut into small pieces and eaten raw. Being raw, the tentacles still move as you eat them. Going in, I was eager but slightly nervous to try the delicacy. It’s a well-known fact in Korea that many people die every year eating San-nakji because they neglect to chew it thoroughly. I was determined to avoid death by octopus.

The fish market at night

The market is comprised of an older open market and a new indoor market. The newer side also has restaurants on the second floor, where customers can choose to bring their own fish from downstairs or have them brought up by the restaurant staff. To avoid any catastrophic mistakes, we chose the latter. 

The restaurant we selected had the typical trappings of a traditional Korean eatery: wooden tables on the floor, empty bottles of soju lying around, and passive aggressive waitresses. We ordered one plate of san-nakji and two plates of fried mystery fish. Ordering in Korea can often be tricky because most plates are meant to be shared. Our octopus arrive at the table squirming ever so slightly. I dived right in, but was disappointed by the result. It was rather tough and flavorless for a dish so famous. They did provide us with a salted oil to dip the san-nakji to give it more flavor, but the oil also had a Frankenstein effect: bringing the octopus back to life. Certainly a unique meal.   

The million plates of Korean food (san-nakji in the middle)

My scores:

8/10 for squirms

3/10 for flavor

2/10 for texture
10/10 for an experience everyone should try

So there's a quick glance at some of the more interesting things I've been up to. To quote Andre, "Korea never ceases to amaze me." 

-JCP


P.S. Sorry if the formatting is a bit funky, Blogger is stubborn when it comes to pictures