Vietnam, HCMC: Ben Thanh Market, Jade Emperor Pagoda, History Museum

I am a fortuitous traveler, or have been so far; I happened to sit next to a young couple on the plane who shared some tips with me on traveling in Vietnam to make up for my having got the Rough Guide rather than the superior Lonely Planet Guide--tip #1, use Vinasun taxis, as they are government-affiliated and less likely to take you on a meter-spinning joyride.

I don't know if they are government run or not, but I found that to be generally true in my handful of taxi rides each day in Ho Chi Minh City. The flag-fall is 11,000 VND during normal hours, or about 60 cents, so how bad can it be? This was a loosely-planned trip, i.e., almost not at all planned; on being disgorged from the airport a little after midnight, I asked the taxi dispatcher for a Vinasun taxi to take me to a reasonably nice, reasonably-priced hotel not too far from the train station. Where I ended up was the Song Ahn Hotel, about 10 minutes from the train station--as was explained later, that's because the ones nearer are not so nice. The meter was 160,000 VND (USD 8).

I was quite happy with the way that worked out, as the Song Ahn was safe, clean, reasonably priced (at USD 30 per night--tip #2, bring plenty of USD, because many businesses prefer it), and immediately adjacent to the Ben Thanh market. Fortuitous being the day's word, it was, because I had planned to go there to buy some sandals and sun block anyway (as well as breakfast), all of which I found at a price well below what I would have paid in Korea. Be warned, though, it is very touristy. A few pictures of the market:


Jade Emperor Temple
One thing a visitor to any Asian city should do is visit a temple or two--Vietnam is largely Buddhist, and the Rough Guide, whatever its virtues, pointed to the Jade Emperor Temple as the must-see for my extremely limited time.


The vendors outside sell birds and turtles to supplicants ...


... and the ones inside sell a mountain of joss sticks.


Someone is also selling a liquid or oil to be poured out of recycled soda bottles as a sacrifice as well (a new one on me):


And what's all the fuss about? This guy here, as well as numerous other icons, as seen below:


City History Museum
As interesting for the building which houses it as for the collection itself, the City Museum is for those who enjoy prehistoric pottery shards, 30 year old glass-cased dioramas, and phallus carvings. Like me.

The first few pics will focus on the interior of the building, which was built for the French Colonial governor, and was the last residence of President Ngo Dinh Diem prior to his assassination in 1963, though there is little to no mention of the building's past in its collection.

Most exhibits in the museum are notated in Vietnamese, French and English, though aside from the large section introductions are often in the back of display cabinets and too small for ease of reading.

The interpretation begins with prehistory...


... and covers Vietnamese history through the nineteenth century or so, organizing the collection by dynasties and their interruption by Chinese, Mongol and Japanese "aggression"--or, conquest. Here for example, is a diorama showing the Vietnamese repelling a Chinese invasion of 948:


... and another display of a later Song (Chinese) rebuff, and a detail from the painting:


Celadon pottery glazes are a hallmark of Chinese culture (though the name comes from French or maybe sanskrit), and the Koreans are perhaps the most accomplished celadon makers. Here are some Vietnamese pieces in the museum, along with other, clearly Chinese-influenced, pottery:


There is a small room, humidity- and light-controlled (unlike the balance of the place), housing the rare Asian mummy, said to be a royal woman in her sixties, uncovered in 1994:


And finally, a few shots of the dozens and dozens of statuary pieces in the museum from the "Champa" period onward, including a shot of, well, you know:


The HCMC City Museum is located together with the Saigon Zoo and Botanical Garden, which I will cover in another post. I actually visited them on my last day (Saturday). On Friday, I went to the Cu-Chi Tunnels and then the War Remnants Museum (formerly the War Atrocities Museum). After my Monday night/Tuesday early morning arrival, I departed via train for the stellar beach at MuiNe, having got my sandals and sun block. Expect a post on each of those, culminating in a final post on food!

Book Report: Escape from Camp 14

Blaine Harden, an American journalist with an impeccable pedigree from the Washington Post, New York Times and Time magazine, has written a powerful book about the amazing journey of Shin Dong-hyuk.  Shin was born and raised in a North Korean labor camp for political prisoners. As a child of the camp, he was malnourished, inadequately clothed, uneducated, always hungry, and taught from birth to ‘inform” on all others in the camp. As a teenager, he informed camp guards of a plan by his mother and older brother to escape, and was later forced to watch as they were executed, wondering if he was next. 

       Later, when he decided to escape, his co-escapee was killed by the electrified fence surrounding the camp, and he crawled over his friend’s dead body to get away.  It took a month, keeping a low profile, traveling with small bands of itinerant traders, stealing when necessary, to make his way to China; he was lucky to find work on an ethnic Korean's pig farm, where the comparative easy life, and some grilled meat, allowed his tortured body to heal.  Eventually, he managed to get to the South Korean Consulate in Shanghai, which kept him for six months before transferring him to South Korea.
       After two years, unable to adjust to life in South Korea, a common problem with NK defectors, he went to the United States to become a human rights activist, a still-ongoing process.  Harden met him in Seoul, and followed up with a series of interviews in California, during the course of which Shin finally broke down and told the truth about informing on his mother.
       In the selection I have copied below, Harden tells about seeing a speech of Shin's as part of an NGO concerned with NK human rights.  I used this selection in my public speaking class because it draws attention to several elements of successful public speaking, while summarizing many of the key elements of Shin's life story.

Without notes, without a hint of nerves, he spoke for a solid hour. He began by goading his audience of Korean immigrants and their American-raised adult children, asserting that Kim Jong Il was worse than Hitler. While Hitler attacked his enemies, Shin said Kim worked his own people to death in places like Camp 14.
       Having grabbed the congregation’s attention, Shin then introduced himself as a predator who had been bred in the camp to inform on family and friends—and to feel no remorse. “The only thing I thought was that I had to prey on others for my survival,” he said
       In the camp, when his teacher beat a six-year-old classmate to death for having five grains of corn in her pocket, Shin confessed to the congregation that he “didn’t think much about it.”
       “I did not know about sympathy or sadness,” he said. “They educated us from birth so that we were not capable of normal human emotions. Now that I am out, I am learning to be emotional. I have learned to cry. I feel like I am becoming human.”
       But Shin made it clear that he still had a long way to go. “I escaped physically,” he said. “I haven’t escaped psychologically.”
      Near the end of his speech, Shin described how he crawled over Park’s [his fellow escapee] smoldering body. His motives in fleeing Camp 14, he said, were not noble. He did not thirst for freedom or political rights. He was merely hungry for meat.
       Shin’s speech astonished me. Compared to the diffident, incoherent speaker I had seen six months earlier in Southern California, he was unrecognizable. He had harnessed his self-loathing and used it to indict the state that had poisoned his heart and killed his family.
       His confessional, I later learned, was the calculated result of hard work. Shin had noticed that his meandering question-and-answer sessions were putting people to sleep. So he decided to act on advice he had been resisting for years: he outlined his speech, tailored it to his audience, and [decided exactly] what he wanted to say. In a room by himself, he polished his delivery.
       Preparation paid off. That evening, his listeners squirmed in their pews, their faces showing discomfort, disgust, anger, and shock. Some faces were stained with tears. When Shin was finished, when he told the audience that one man, if he refuses to be silenced, could help free the tens of thousands who remain in North Korea’s labor camps, the church exploded in applause.

What's a Sawbuck?

Okay, so
10 USD = 10,000 KRW, more or less.

So, who has the most shit currency in southeast Asia?

To digress a bit:
I remember as a small boy, and a philatelist to boot, living in Bangkok circa the Vietnam War, when my brother and his bully of a pal offered me 100 Baht for my stamp collection. Well, to some little kid, 100 of anything sounded like quite a lot, and I only had one book of stamps (BTW, stamp collecting was cool then, as I think it is now!) so I of course took the deal.

It was only later that day, when they were laughing at me for being a nine-year-old chump (like who isn't?) that I learned that 100 Baht was about five dollars. When my Dad found out, he made them give me back my stamp collection. He couldn't do anything to Mike, but he gave my brother Alan a whipping. To be honest, my Dad should have given me a whipping, too. For being such a chump.

OR, he should have educated me about the value of monetary units, and the idea that 100 of one thing might not be worth 100 of some other thing. As of that day, though, I got it. Thanks, Alan!

Now, 100 Baht in 1970 or so was worth 5 USD, but today it's about $3.30. That's actually very good continuance of value. Why I bring all this up is because of my impending trip to Vietnam. I don't like to wait until leaving to exchange my money, as complications can arise (and indeed have arisen in the past). So today, I went to Gimpo Airport, to my branch of Hana Bank there, to obtain some VND (Vietnam Dong).

First off, the branch at the International terminal didn't have any Dong at all. This is an example of the complications of which I speak. Instead, I was directed to the Domestic terminal. Can you explain why they might have a foreign currency in the domestic terminal that the international branch doesn't? No, neither can I. Fine. It's about a fifteen minute walk to the domestic terminal where everything was well sorted by very helpful Hana Bank staff. I'm not just saying that, either--I always get an extra smile and a small discount rate because I'm a Hana Bank customer.

Anyway, of all the SE Asian monies I've used (i.e., countries I've visited), I think the VND has the highest number of zeroes of them all! How much of a currency equals about 10 bucks? I'll exempt New Zealand from my travels, as it isn't really in Asia, and round the local value (most of whom don't need much rounding). Let's make a list; one sawbuck (10 US dollars) equals:

60 RMB (Chinese RenMinBi)
300 NT (New Taiwan Dollars)
300 Bt (Thai Baht)
400 PHP (Philippine Peso-I haven't been yet, but I have tickets for Feb.)
900 JPY (Japanese Yen)
10,000 KRW (Korean Won)
100,000 IDR (Indonesian Rupiah)
200,000 VND (Vietnam Dong)

So, 10 bucks, or about 10,000 won, is equal to 200,000 VND, aka dong. (Stop snickering. I can hear you!) The thing is, the only denomination of dong they had at the bank was 200,000 VND. Sounds like quite a lot, but it helps to think of it as a sawbuck, or 10 dollars. So 20,000 dong is about a chunner or a buck. I hear a beer is typically 25,000 dong, so a buck and a quarter. Whew!

Tuttle Update - Happy 2013

1) I see this is my first post of the new year, and so a warm Happy New Year to all and sundry! I hope this is a better year for you than 2012 was! I gather that for a lot of folks, 2012 wasn't the greatest, though for me it was pretty okay:

• got to visit family and friends Stateside
• challenged and stretched my teaching by moving to an elementary school, and finally began to feel competent and confident in this new situation
• met up with my bestest friend Tanner, his wife Nancy and good ol' Ginny in China for TB's wedding festivities
• sang Karaoke in Tokyo, ate Kobe beef in Kobe and survived the poisonous fugu blowfish in Japan
• read 35 pleasure-reading books in 2012, most of them good
• said sad 'Goodbyes' to seven (too many!) friends, but happily welcomed back three that had gone away
• also visited Taipei, spent time in Thailand with good pal Kevin, and went to the Yeosu World's Fair
• started back at the gym on a regular basis
• found a new hangout in my neighborhood called "Beerking"

2) Beerking is this new hof that opened across from my officetel that has good fried chicken and a friendly staff. While the fried chicken is the good kind (absent whatever flavor it is that makes Kyochon, Two-two or Youngpoong so distasteful to me), they have a varied menu. The honey garlic chicken is good, the boneless oven-baked is even better! Plus, they have a half-and-half menu where you can mix-and-match the chicken choices. Their salads are awesome (weird coming from me, I know) but I choose the smoked salmon almost every time:


3) Wed., Thur., and Fri. during the last two weeks, I have been "desk-warming", my only experience with this phenomenon in my 4+ years in Korea. At my old school (a high school), this was seen as unnecessary, since as a professional, I could manage my duties and responsibilities myself.

When I arrive and log on to 'CoolMessenger', I am one of two or at most three faculty members at the school. (I should point out that firing up the computer automatically logs you on to CoolMessenger. It is how the school takes faculty attendance, I am told.)

My 'handler', Ms Kang, pointed out that the vice-principal was kind enough to let me leave at lunchtime. Which is one way of looking at it.

4) My apartment was without hot water for two days this week, and I literally heated water on the stove in the morning to take a 'cat-bath'. So, why is cold water not a problem, but hot water is? Happily, there were minions working away in the utility alcove on my hallway to fix the problem, but the management has posted a notice in the elevator to let hot water drip to prevent pipes freezing. Really? This is a modern building, certainly 21st century, and that's the best they can do?

5) There is no #5.

6) Still, Korea is not without the comforts of home, and I would like to introduce those who are not aware of it to a little kiosk called "Ben's Cookies". It's located in the Food Court sub-basement of D-Cube City, near Burt's Bees. Apparently a British firm, Ben's sells giant, soft, chocolaty cookies that will bust any diet. But they're awesome, sold by weight, and have no equal I've seen here:


7) No decision yet on whether the funding will come through for another year of my Public Speaking and Debate class, but the current incarnation will continue on MWF until Mon., Jan. 21, the evening I leave for my Vietnam trip. Curiously, this class had the best first set of debates ever (though I disagreed with the student vote tallies) but followed up with a really mixed grab bag of informative speeches two days later. Three awesome speeches (about the norm), but most of the rest were fairly mediocre, and one was the worst ever. Not just ever in the format of this course, but I have adjudicated speech nights, debate leagues, etc., numerously in my career, and I think it was the worst ever!

I still think this is the best group we've had--smart, good English speakers, motivated--and I think it is a shame that politics will (may) take away this opportunity for students. What's happening is that the anti-English/pro-austerity people cultivated by Kwak have taken over the budget process and it will take time for the ship to right itself, even under the new management.

The decision has not been made, and when it is, I wonder what I would do if they came back and said, "Fine, keep going, but we'll only pay you 60,000 per hour." On the one hand, that's a significant--and insulting--pay cut; on the other hand, I really like the opportunity to deal with these high-caliber students. But on the first hand, the money pays for my winter vacation (albeit with a pay cut, not so much). But on the other hand, I like teaching a class of sharp kids. etc, etc...

8) So, 2013 begins... And I hope 2013 is a better year for you, whatever your fortunes, than 2012 was!

Hwe-shik and Possible Wisdom

I attended a hwe-shik tonight. Not one held by my current elementary school, God forbid the faculty there should have any fun! No, my old high school. I go back and forth occasionally with the messaging to a couple of the folks there, and got invited to the end-of-year English department dinner. I shared the best possible table, with Mr Right, Mr Hwang, and Oh Byung-hee, the three gregarious, more or less, men of a certain age, though I am the hyeongnim (literally, and officially, even).

Mr Oh confessed to me, after noting how young I am looking, that he is starting to feel old these days. He has dyed his hair black this year. I asked why he did not want to look distinguished. Like me. I investigated a little more, and it wasn't even creaky bones, or popping knees--granted, I have ten years on him, but it should at least include that!

No, his problem was to do with his relationship to the students. Let me back up a bit: Korean high school teachers have a kind of reputation for corporal punishment; my co-teachers regularly smacked bad'uns with their "teaching stick" or made them perform stress positions in the hall, despite my concerns. It was Mr Oh who explained to me once that students enter into this relationship with teachers willingly, because they see them as friends, really caring friends, who only want the best for them.

Mr Oh told me tonight about the many years he was a great friend to his students (his new class each year), how he joshed and palled around with them, grew close. That changed this year. He just didn't care for it much--they were immature and silly and stupid, and he didn't enjoy their company. I remember when that happened to me, but that's not the point of my story.

I explained to him (and here's the possible wisdom part) that that isn't really getting old, it's becoming mature. I said that I think what happens is that when little girls grow up, they become women. When little boys grow up, they become big little boys. But hopefully at some point, never before thirty (and sometimes not even after that), those big little boys actually mature into men. And that's what was happening to him.

I didn't go quoting at him, but I've always loved a line George Bernard Shaw gave to Prof. Henry Higgins: "I've never been able to feel really grown up and tremendous, like other chaps." I love that line, because for much of my so-called adulthood, it worked for me. Even today, it sometimes does--it is useful to retain certain childish enthusiasms.

White Christmas

It did not actually snow on Christmas, but there was still snow on the ground from Friday's two inches when I made my way to school this morning to "desk warm". This is not the best phrase for the actual activity, for it was a bit chilly in my desk area; even though the heat was on, the space heater they gave me doesn't appear to work. I'll definitely want to check on that tomorrow, as I'd lost the feeling in my toes on the walk home. Despite wearing wool socks and my vaunted Hush Puppies boots.

Much as I have maligned my V-P (not without reason), she is allowing me to leave at 12:10 during the holiday break. They cut off the building's central heat about 2:00 so this is quite welcome. Since I am prepared for camp, I am using the time to prepare lessons for next semester, on the assumption that they'll keep the same textbooks--since they only adopted them this year.

Anyway, my purpose for writing was to share this photo of the soccer field, covered in snow, except for the word "Christmas" spelled out in Hangeul, if you can make that out, in the middle of it.

Christmas Cake 2012

As Christmas cake is a tradition here in Korea, it is no less so at the Seoul Patch, as you can see from last year. This is the first cake in my new digs, so I was torn between continuing to get a colorful chocolate cake or begin a new schema. Here is what I ended up with, still chocolate, but a more elegant, understated thing, with no sign of Pororo and friends:


Looks good, doesn't it? And, as the message says, to all of my friends out there in Seoul Patch land, "Merry Christmas!"

The Hobbit

There is no greater fan of the Tolkien oeuvre than Tuttle. Well, at least among those of us who haven't become fluent in Elvish, or tattooed Dwarfish moon runes on our foreheads, or turned the backyard into a scale model of Helm's Deep.

A key reason I convinced my pal Andy to visit New Zealand with me a-way back in 2009 was to visit sites of filming for Peter Jackson's grand and amazing filmic treatment of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. While we were there, at Bag End, so to speak, they were actually prepping for The Hobbit, which was originally proposed as a two-parter. Please visit my blog post about our time in Hobbiton, aka Matamata, NZ, and then return back here.


Above is an ad in the subway for the first of the three "Hobbit' movies, An Unexpected Journey which I saw last night, along with The Stumbler. I couldn't help but lean over to my friend and whisper during the initial Hobbiton moments, "I've been there."

But all that doesn't ultimately matter. Is the film any good? is the question. Emphatically, YES, is my answer. Three hours (well, two hours and 45 minutes) sounded like an eternity, but both of us were surprised when the end came! Events on the screen were fast-paced, interesting and unveiled with clarity. There are some heavy-handed moments and cliche images (like our first view of Galadriel, for example), but you've got to expect some of that in a Peter Jackson epic, I think. Still, the story was engrossing.

I tried to stay away from too much of the movie's publicity, but I think some of the poor reviews I read were written by people who saw a different movie than I did: the dozen dwarves were poorly-differentiated? The relentless action was boring? The plot was muddled and confusing? It strained believability a couple of times? (Okay, that's true.)

Jackson and his crew managed admirably to compress the LOTR story in three movies, but I think the shoe's on the other foot here: how can they stretch the smaller,less grandiose tale of dragon-hunting dwarves into three? The answer is that there's a lot of stuff here that isn't in the book. Part of this involves contextualizing the actions of the dragon Smaug as part of the awaking dark forces that will overrun Middle Earth by the time of Frodo. Another part is simply Jackson's fondness of Tolkien's great invention, the characters, creatures and stories, and his desire to get them all down in film, so to speak.

The next part comes out for Christmas 2013, and the final part the year after that. I don't know if I will be in Korea for part three, but wherever I am, I'll definitely plan to be there.

Oh, the Weather Outside

Seoul has had its second snow storm of the season and it's not even Christmas yet. Oh, dear! We may be in for a long, slippery, crunchy winter. After all, it's not the snow itself that people find problematic, not when it's falling, but the fact that it remains on the sidewalks--occasionally swept/scraped off by citizens--until two days at least of above-freezing temperatures have melted it all away.

Coarse salt is a rarity; usually sand is used to improve walking or driving conditions. Doesn't matter, you must wear your snow boots from the first snowfall until sometime in March. I have a pair of stylish half-boots by Hush Puppies that I swear by.

Anyway, my point is that this winter will be a bad'un, so be prepared. As for me, I have two weeks of camp (as well as my Public Speaking course), then the plan is a toasty beach in Vietnam for a week.


Never been to Vietnam, even in the old days, so drop me a line if you have any tips.

Nosmo King, Inaction Man

December 8th, 2012, was a red-letter day in Korea. Korea welcomed itself into the list of countries that qualify as "nanny-states", those states that deign to tell people what they can and cannot do for their own good. A smoking ban was enacted in bars and restaurants.

(Full disclosure: Tuttle smokes. Not during the ordinary course of a day, really. But certainly two with my Diet Coke, er Coke Light, first thing in the morning, maybe three. And if I'm drinking of an evening, all bets are off. If I'm not having alcohol, however, I'm unlikely to light up.) (Oh, except if I'm having a Caramel Frappucino at Caffe Bene: I smoke then, too.) (Or if I'm driving a car. Which isn't an issue in Seoul, but it was when I was visiting the States in August, and had a rental with a circle-and-a-slash symbol on the ashtray.) (Fine. I hung one out the window a few times. I was careful though. Whatever.)

When I say a smoking ban was enacted on December 8th, I really mean: not so much. For example, the recently-opened Beerking hof across the street from my officetel still had ashtrays on the tables when I dropped in two days later. On the other hand, that place has eleven tables, and may fit one of the exceptions to the new law, of being under 100 sq. m. of serving area.

However, when I met up with my weeknight dinner regulars at a well-known izakaya in Gang-seo-gu-cheong earlier this week, I was disappointed to see a photocopied circle-and-a-slash cellotaped to the front door. I complained to the sajangnim that this new law is kind of silly and they should at least have a smoking section--it is after all, an extensive establishment well-over the 150-m2 mandated for pulmonary protection of the pissants. When she brought me my beer, she slid an ashtray across to me as well. In fact, we soon noticed that almost every table in the place had at least one smoker lighting up with impunity, and, may I say, relish.

As we left Warawara the izakaya, my friends noted they were living up to the law, in some interpretation, at least: there was a small glass-enclosed booth labeled "Non-smoking Area" with two tables in it. (Alas, I wonder if in 2015, when they start actually handing out fines, smokers won't be on the inside looking out.)

Our dinner round that night was at a similarly-sized place where we enjoyed gabeurisal cooked on a grill at our table, with carcinogen-laden charcoal smoke leaching into the atmosphere despite the fume hoods that are so ubiquitous in Korean barbeque. That being so, they didn't have the gumption to tell anyone smoking is not allowed. Even though it isn't.

What I'm Reading

• The Dig by Michael Siemsen - A happy participant in the willing suspension of disbelief, this one was a bit too far for me. A mysterious artifact is found in an African dinosaur dig, and clairvoyant Matthew Turner is brought in to lay his hands on it, and thus "read" the thoughts and emotions of all who had touched it before. If this was the only unbelievable element of the story, I could have really liked it; (SPOILER ALERT:) alas, the object itself points to a pre-Mesozoic human culture so advanced that a few bits of woven metal armour are the least we should have found. He should have stuck with the human elements of love and greed in the Kenyan dig's encampment, and told a more gripping tale.
• Please Look After Mom by Kyung-sook Shin - In case you've not heard of it, this is Korea's runaway best-seller from 2011, and deservedly so. The elderly mother of three grown children disappears from a Seoul subway platform during a family visit. The book is narrated in four sections by different family members, painting "Mom's" adult life as a mother and caregiver. In their search to find her, the children find out about her--a more complex person than they imagined, yet touchingly devoted to her family, especially the eldest son, as is expected in a Confucian society. Well-written, thought-provoking, also interesting for the light it sheds on Korean culture for the outsider. Recommended.
• Cell by Stephen King - King's 2006 novel of the zombie apocalypse begins when incipient graphic novelist Clay Riddell has just gotten his first break. Suddenly, everyone talking on a cell phone begins acting oddly. Well, not just oddly, they're jumping out of windows, biting each other's necks, and generally rampaging. What follows is a gruesome but good read, populated by believable characters but a few unbelievable coincidences, in which those few untouched by the cellphone madness form small groups, while the zombies come together in a Borg-like collective consciousness, as if reprogrammed by the cellphone message. Upcoming movie to star John Cusack.
• Hot Type by Joseph Flynn - Chicago crime reporter and aspiring novelist Dan Cameron gets a typewriter for his birthday, supposedly the one used by Ben Hecht (Chicago reporter and novelist). After writing his first novel on it--a big success--he is nearly finished with his second when it is stolen during a burglary. The burglar is a recently escaped convict and bank robber who slowly realizes what he's got--and starts to use the novel's plot as the basis for his series of crimes. Meanwhile Dan and his wife team up with a retired FBI agent who had chased down the bank robber and ... Anyway, this book is full of great plot twists, double-crosses, and funky characters. A great read!
• Ape House by Sara Gruen - The jacket blurb points out that this is an "incisive piece of social commentary" but read it anyway. Isabel Duncan is a scientist at a primate research facility who gets along much better with apes than with her own species. An explosion at the center, blamed on animal rights activists who protest outside daily, nearly kills her, but the Bonobos escape. They are rounded up, sold off, and somehow become the stars of America's latest reality TV show, created by a well-known porn producer (Bonobos are highly sexed). She tries to get them back, by whatever means necessary. Thoroughly researched, well-written, an interesting and entertaining book!
• Shem Creek by Dorothea Benton Frank - Chick-lit about a divorced mother of two teenage girls, leaving behind life in New Jersey to return to her childhood home of the South Carolina Low Country. She wants a simpler, slower life, especially for younger daughter Gracie, who has been rather in the fast lane lately. Linda takes a job as manager of Jackson Hole, an upscale seafood restaurant with a downscale ambience, and slowly falls in love with Brad Jackson, the owner. I read it mainly for the atmosphere, and it did not disappoint.
• Nailed by Joseph Flynn - This is the fifth Joe Flynn book I've read, and they have all been distinctly different--locale, characters, themes, plots. They have in common that they are very good, and that they are crime stories; and in this one, the crime is that a well respected black preacher has been nailed to a burnt tree in the Sierra Nevada town of Goldstrike. Police Chief and "recovering bigot" Ron Ketchum finds that his investigation, instead of focusing the suspect list, tends to widen it. Meanwhile, a desperate mountain lion has begun trying to pick off lone joggers and small children, making many in the community of Goldstrike wonder if the curse on the town from the dead pastor's bereaved grandmother wasn't being fulfilled in some way. As usual with Flynn's books I've read so far, the climax and denouement are both unexpected and satisfying. Good stuff!

Autumn Colors

I took some photos last week of the changing trees I see on my way to work every morning. I used the "Autumn Color" setting on the Nikon D5100, and was quite pleased with the results. Remember you can see larger versions by clicking. Enjoy.

Here's the view just before I turn the corner onto the street on which my school is situated:


Now, some shots as I approach the school campus:


You can see the back windows of my classroom on the third floor to the left in the further building in the shot at top. Below is an arch under which one passes before entering the school, and below that is an arbor trellis next to the playground:


One interesting feature of the campus is this collection of large samples of rocks and minerals:


Finally, here is a picture looking out my office window:

Seoul Lantern Festival 2012

Last Thursday, I ventured forth through the cold to Cheonggyecheon to pay a visit to the Seoul Lantern Festival, and get some photos for my faithful readers. I started off quite hopeful, for the first lantern you see, at the top of the stream, was this one:


The Korean at the top means basically, Seoul Sentry Gate, guarding over the festival, I guess. The first several lanterns seemed to celebrate the career of King Sejong the Great, who oversaw the invention of hangeul, the Korean alphabet, a water clock, rain gauge, sundial, and an astrolabe, seen here:


Here are some bell-ringers and a drum-banger, both significant in palace rituals:


After that, the theme basically became images from the lives of ordinary Koreans long ago. And it got kind of samey. Two representative lanterns, a classic teacher-and-students-scene, and some construction laborers:


Large sections of one side of the stream's bank was brush-strewn, which made for interesting photography:


These flying fish lanterns provided a popular backdrop for selfpix and young couples:


And, speaking of flying, these cranes with flapping wings were nice as well:


Though the thematic element was interesting, it limited the style and grandness of the entries, so it was 80% just lanterns shaped like people. I liked it better in 2009. Anyway, tonight's the last night, so you better hurry if you want to see it!

Politics is Inevitable VII

These are the facts, and they are not in dispute. The US Presidential election of 2012 was won by Barack Obama over Willard Romney. Obama won the Electoral College by 332 to 206, and the popular vote by 3,193,263, which is a margin greater than GW Bush won re-election over John Kerry in 2004.

Elections, as so many Republicans were pleased to point out then, have consequences.

I am not about schadenfreude--well, maybe I am, but i'm going to act like I'm not for the purposes of this post. I want to investigate this: Why did Romney lose? And why was the entire American conservative movement so surprised by the outcome?

Here's what the conservative pundits have put forward:

1) Romney was never a true conservative to begin with; he held his nose as he courted the Tea Party types. True, in his heart, he may be a moderate, but the fact is we never really understood where he stands on a lot of issues, the "Etch-A-Sketch" model identified by one of his own advisers!

2) Romney was never explicit enough about his vision for the next four years. This is true, too--but mainly that's because he didn't really have one, especially after they emasculated the Ryan economic philosophy.

3) Hurricane Sandy: Romney was absent from the front pages, while Obama got to act bipartisan and appear presidential. In truth, Obama actually was bipartisan and he really was presidential.

4) Obama ran a nasty, deceitful campaign, while Romney was just too nice. Puh-leeze. It was a Romney pollster who said, "We're not going to let fact-checkers run our campaign."

5) Obama suppressed voter turnout. This was actually put forward by Karl Rove, the man who has done more than anyone since Lee Atwater to poison American political life. He had no facts, no examples, just the idea that Obama had presented such a terrible picture of Romney that people wouldn't bother to go vote for him. Actually, Republican-led drives to make voting more difficult for the poor, elderly and two-income blue-collar workers, so-called Voter ID laws, have done as much to suppress voters as anything since Jim Crow laws.

6) American voters are uninformed. At least, that's what GOP/TP Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson thinks. Of course, those voters are the same igmos that voted for him.

Why Tuttle thinks the Republicans lost big (and they did lose big, even though some Republicans refuse to admit it--which is part of why they lost big!) in increasing order of importance:

1) Unlike virtually every Presidential candidate of the modern era, Romney refused to release more than a token tax return or two. Hopefully, his repudiation by American voters will reaffirm that you simply must play honest with us.

2) Speaking of taxes, his and Ryan's magical tax-cuts-with-a-few-closed-but-unspecified-loopholes-equals-a-balanced-budget never made mathematical sense, and even kids that don't "get" algebra got that.

3) Anti-science positions on stuff like global warming, with hurricanes Isaac and Sandy front and center to remind us; abortion, with idiotic gray-faced old white men angling to control women's bodies, and one news-cycle's worth of pandering denials from the Romney crowd; FEMA should be dismantled, wait, FEMA is okay but it should co-ordinate with the states ... as is already the way it works!--what, you guys didn't even know that much?

4) The Tiny Tent. Condi Rice said that the GOP needs to have "an even bigger tent". What kind of tent she imagines is beyond me, since the only demographic won by Mitt Romney was WHITE MEN. Not that big of a tent, really. He lost white women, Hispanics, blacks, Asians, gays, Tralfamadoorians, under-thirties, etc. That wasn't an accident--they actually decided that if they could get all the white guys, they could win, so that's the demographic they went for. (Full disclosure: Tuttle is a white guy.)

5) Making rich people richer will eventually trickle down to you regular folks if you just suck their boots hard enough, wait outside the kitchen for scraps, or look sufficiently doe-eyed as they pass by in their limos. Milton Friedman's economic theory, which has held sway in the US since the Reagan years, has been thoroughly and utterly debunked, not least by our own collective experience. US economic growth was iffy throughout the Reagan-Bush I years, and only became robust under Clinton, who raised taxes on the wealthiest 1% and saw a budget surplus by the end of his term. Indeed, Obama caved to GOP pressure in 2010 and renewed the tax cut for the wealthy, yet the Republicans (who should be jubilant that the economy has improved as a result) still pointed to the poor economy as a reason to throw out Obama. Seems to me it's reason to throw out the idea that low taxes on the rich boost the economy.

But don't look at me--the Congressional Research Service, responding to a request from several GOP Congresscritters, spent ages researching this and found no evidence whatsoever that lower taxes on the wealthy improved the economy. You might not have heard of it since those same Congresscritters suppressed the paper that resulted.

6) Lies. Of course, politicians lie/distort the truth/cherry-pick facts. But more than any Presidential campaign in modern history, Romney's repeated frequently-debunked facts in ad after ad. They thought they were doing it with impunity, but the classic result was in Ohio, where the Jeep/China lie actually turned voters away. Good.

7) But here's the biggest reason, and it may be a melding of some of the ones above. But don't confuse it with lying, okay? The Romney team, many US conservatives, and the conservative punditry in general, was stunned, flabbergasted and shell-shocked that Romney did not SWEEP the electorate. No, not just that he didn't eke out a victory against the amazing Obama ground team, they seemed to truly expect a convincing W-I-N.

Now, except for the notoriously right-leaning Rasmussen, virtually every pollster group in the country had Obama leading, usually by two or three--or more--points going into Election Day. But the Republicans said, "No, we know better. You guys, you and your liberal mainstream media, you are all up Obama's ass, and you've got it wrong!"

Well, in so many words.

Only George Will made the correct call, but in REVERSE! So, that's not really correct in any significant way, is it? They were ALL wrong. Really, REALLY WRONG. It turns out, Republicans know practically nothing about Americans. If they know nothing about Americans, maybe they know nothing about America. It's as if they are living in some alternate universe. A world where only they can see Obama sitting in a chair being ranted at by Clint Eastwood. And, he's an Obama only they can see--a socialist, fascist, communist accomplishment-denigrater who got to be head of the Harvard Law Review because he's black.

American conservatives seem to live in another world--a world where the ice caps aren't melting, where rape victims who don't want to become pregnant can just wish it away, where the uncontested biological facts of evolution are in serious doubt, where the resources of the small globe on which we live are somehow infinite, where repeating the mantra 'low taxes on the rich make everyone richer' somehow make it come true.

Well, then, perhaps, we should stop listening to the likes of John Boehner and Mitch McConnell. They don't know what they're talking about. At least, not in this world.