Author: Christopher-Dorset

The flight to Korea was long, but generally pleasant. That Asiana is rated one of the best airlines in the world is understandable. The service is decent (though Cathay Pacific is better, I think) and the in-flight entertainment is acceptable. (Again, Cathay Pacific’s is much, much better) The seat was comfortable and there was more space than I have sadly grown used to. The flight was not completely full and only two out of the three seats in my row were filled. The other passenger, an intelligent and pleasant man on his way to New Delhi via Seoul, a certain Mr Singh, helped to pass the time with conversation ranging from Sikh history and philosophy to discussions on the finer points of Nehru and Jinnah’s policies during the end of the Raj. The food on the flight was also quite good. It tasted much like something that could be found at a decent restaurant. Continue reading “Seoul”

Tomorrow I will run away. Well, actually, taken an aeroplane and fly away. I’m not quite energetic to sprint across the Pacific Ocean from San Francisco to Seoul. My journeys in Asia promise to be quite busy. In Korea I will be met by an old acquaintance, a Koreanwho is eager to take me around with one or two of her friends. Other than perhaps feelings bit like Gulliver it has all the makings of an ideal situation. She knows the country, language, and how to prevent me from getting into trouble. One of her friends, who might be joining us, would like to help me with my graduate programme as he has already gone through it. My proposal to write about Korean history has been accepted and the only thing left to worry about is the final details.

Dongdaemun (actually, my hotel is in this area), Namdaemun, Insa-dong, Suwon, the palaces… The food, the Han river, the bridges… The lights of the city, the smells, the sounds. The quixotic excitement, the realisation that not even 50 miles away is North Korea, one of the most insane lands that side of San Francisco or a Livingstone supporter’s house.

After Korea comes what promises to be even busier… Continue reading “I’m running, well, flying away.”

Oriental. Orientalist. Orientalism. The terms used to be simple with a meaning commonly agreed upon. From the perspective of the people who were charting new naval passages and drawing the maps, Asia was to the east. Hence, the use of the Latin term for it.
Logically a person who studied the Orient would be called an Orientalist, the study itself could be described as Orientalism. Things being as they were, it made sense. Then came that snivelling pseudo-intellectual twazek, Edward Said, and decided that he knew better and that everything would have to change because he wanted it to.

This leads me to, at long last, ask the central question — is it fair, or even relevant, to subject literature, scholarship, and art that was painted decades, if not centuries, before to a contemporary mindset?

This topic has come into my mind because I have just finished reading the Travels of Marco Polo. It was great fun. Perhaps the accuracy is dubious, but the stories are entertaining and the style quick and easy. The task for next week is to try to see if there was a vein “Orientalism”, using Said’s hijacking of the term, in it. It certainly did involve the East, the Orient. It was also told from the perspective of a Venetian from a different day and age. Was it world-class scholarship? Hardly. But does it deserve negative scrutiny, to be drug through the dirt because some prat writing in the 1970s decided that he wanted to kick up a fuss? Hardly.

It seems facile to accept Said’s perspective, to impose it on a different era. “Orientalist Painting” was simply an outgrowth of Romanticism. The fantastic, the improbable, the exaggerated in the paintings of the East were really not that much different from the depictions of the West at different times in its history — the romanticisation  of the Mediaeval Era, of the countryside. More broadly, was the use of East Asian motifs in 18th and 19th century Europe, UK, and the Americas really any different than the Ch’ing Emperors living in a summer palace that blended traditional Chinese styles with the Baroque? Cultural interchange has always gone both ways, not always evenly.

My mum and I have decided to take a flight home to Germany later on this year. In order to break the monotony of family-related visits we’ve decided to take a 5-day, 4-night holiday to England. Be warned. Be wary. In fact, be frightened.Does anyone have any ideas what we could do for that amount of time? I have lots of ideas, but only a couple are not completely impractical.

It’s official now. I’ve been accepted into a graduate programme in history.

It’s not where I’d ever thought to go, somewhere in the middle of the middle of the middle of the USA. It’s a mid-sized university in central Minnesota. The state tends to be liberal, though in the past decade it has grown somewhat more conservative. The specific part of Minnesota is quite conservative, an area populated primarily by the descendents of sensible Lutherans from Germany and the Nordic countries with relatively little diversity. The city, St Cloud, is quite safe and life is quiet. The people are welcoming but a bit staid, sobriety and orderliness are requirements in order to get on well with the population.

The university itself receives a satisfaction rate of over 90 pc, is fully accredited, and is cheaper than a comparable university in California. The cost of living is also significantly lower. I accepted the offer, naturally. Though the course selection is somewhat limited, it’s adequate.

This is a bit of luck, or at least it seems to be. The promise of a change of life, a change of settings which was desperately needed. San Francisco, a disappointing city in which to live, has grown ever less acceptable. Getting assaulted by another student in class, getting harried by an obsessed fan, getting clawed on a bus, losing thousands of dollars in fraud, having to run from hoboes begging for money, having to try to avoid the wrath of a drug-addicted drag queen whose affections I spurned have all been a bit too much to live with.

A life, a quiet life, along the shores of the great Mississippi in a region famed for its dullness, its blandness, its decency is something I very much look forward to.

On Wednesday evening I returned from holiday in Germany and Denmark. One could include Luxembourg should one find that driving halfway through the country four times and stopping once for petrol as visiting. (Though, to be honest, Luxembourg is only roughly the size of an average English county) It was only a two-week visit, far too brief, but enough to get caught up with most people and visit a few sites.

As some time had passed since my last return visit to Germany the thought of how much would remain recognisable, how much would still make sense naturally came up. The answer was short in coming — home is home and home is, in my case, Germany. I had no difficult in finding my way around, no rough go in any form by the way of communicating with people. My German, despite showing an English influence in inflection and sentence structure, is still recognisably German and the word choice is strictly German. Moreover, I fit in quite well and did not stick out in the least — always reassuring when returning home.

Denmark was wonderful, of course. I was fortunate enough to be able to stay at an old friend’s flat which saved me a few quid, Copenhagen hotel prices considered. He took a few days off work to take me around, something which was much appreciated. The city of Copenhagen is beautiful. Not overwhelming, simply pleasant — a nice change from the exaggerated sense of self importance and convoluted grandeur of the USA or China.
We also went to Helsingør, site of Hamlet’s castle (Kronborg/Elisnore) and also an excellent place to see Sweden as well as a day-trip to the southern Jutland to visit another old acquaintance.

It was hard to return to the US, a country I’ve never come to accept as my own or have more than an indifferent acceptance of. Having to go through passport control 5 times was also a bit off-putting. My next trip across the Atlantic, in no more than a few years, will probably be one-way. Home is still home, my home is still Germany. My uncle, a director at the employment office, has already directed me in how to prepare for a job back home and what academic changes I should make.

Kim Jong-il has finally died. He will truly not be mourned, at least by those who knew who he really was. What is remarkable is that he lived as long as he did, considering how sickly he had been. It’s tempting to celebrate the passing of another tyrant, though things in North Korea are as ever unpredictable and we may come to long for the predictable, though constrained bellicosity that marked his reign. It sounds strange, but there’s something to that. Kim Jong-il was much more willing to take risks, risks that threatened the very existence of North Korea — something which his father, Kim Il-sung, never would have done. His son, Jim Jong-un, promises to be even more unpredictable, insane than his father.

China, perhaps not surprisingly, is not likely to do anything other than attempt to prevent a humanitarian disaster on its border. It’s difficult enough to ascertain who is living legally near the border and who isn’t. Koreans are one of China’s 56 recognised ethnic minorities and form a notable part of the population in Manchuria, something originating in the imperfect nature of political borders.

South Korea, unsurprisingly, is also concerned about what will happen now. Unlike China, they do care about what happens — and not just because of the risk of a great humanitarian crisis when the North collapses. South Korea, though affluent, does not have the resources to build North Korea up. There is also the recognition that generations of separation, especially one as complete as that of the Koreas, creates a situation in which the two sides simply cannot just pick up and continue. They have observed Germany and have decided not to follow in Germany’s footsteps. Even after 20 years of reunification there is still an invisible border which marks two radically different societies, two radically different levels of employment, two radically different rates of economic development. If Germany couldn’t manage it properly, even with a largely functional east, then how could Korea do it with a completely dysfunctional north?

Whatever it is, things will get very interesting in the months and years to come. Watch this space in mid-March for posts from Seoul.

I’ve started packing this evening. Early Friday morning I will leave San Francisco, having sat my final two exams for the term Thursday. The journey won’t be overly long, only about 150 miles. It’s a trip I usually make twice a month. Living in the second most crowded city in the United States can become a bit overwhelming at times, especially for someone who had spent the previous 25 years of his life in either small towns or the countryside. For twelve days I will be there. “There” is Amador County, where my father largely grew up and where my mother chose to make her life. It’s one of those places that’s difficult to duly appreciate until one sees the lesser aspects of more exciting places. For that matter, the lesser aspects of excitement. That there is always something “happening” isn’t always for the best.

On the 28th I will leave again, this time to fly to Germany via Switzerland and Luxembourg. One of my friends who will join me in Amador County after he sits his last exam will see me off at the aeroport before he packs his belongings and prepares to move to Minneapolis to finish his degree in finance. It will be the last time that we see each other for a while. Continue reading “Back from North America”