Some things I did in August

Wow, it is October already! I hope I can remember my August highlights.

In August I finished all but one test to get a Korean driver's license. The only thing I still need to do is do a public road driving test. All that is keeping me from doing that is that I don't have a car to practise driving on the right side of the road on. I only to do so for maybe two hours, just to get a feeling for it, since I'm already quite comfortable driving--it is just that I'm comfortable driving on the left side of the road. Sadly I do not have access to a car and since I don't have a license I cannot even rent a car.

A very fun outing in August was when I impulsively decided to go for a hike along the North Han River. I took the train not to far from my house to Daeseong-ri (about an hour away) and then walked along the river to Cheongpyeong. It was very scenic and beautiful. When I get a car I hope to take frequent trips to more rural, natural parts of Korea like this area, which are a little more difficult to get to via public transportation.

On my little excursion I also climbed up the underside of an express way bridge. It is something I've always wanted to do -- go explore the understand of an express way.

That evening I staid over in Chuncheon. The evening started out quite stressful as I accidentally left my mobile phone in a taxi. Luckily I was able to track the phone with Samsung's Find My Phone service by going to an Internet cafe and phoning the phone and connecting with the taxi driver. That evening I slept in a jjimjilbang (Korean sauna) which was not that nice as it is a bit noisy and the floor is rather uncomfortable to sleep on, especially after many hours of hiking. The hot tubs were quite relaxing though.

The following day, before returning back home I went to a restaurant called Peace of Mind Bakery & Book Cafe. What an interesting place. It is basically a museum of sorts, with some exquisite calligraphy, and other oddities.

For me the pair calligraphy inscribed on bamboo was the most unique of the vast collection.

Another trip I did in August was to Taean. Honestly, I don't like Korea's west coast. The beaches are usually muddy and the ocean is grey and ugly. However, I've been eyeing Taean on the map of Korea that I have on my wall for some time now. It is a large national part known for its pine forests. On a whim a friend and I decided to go and we ended up going to Manglipo Beach 만리포 해변. It was great. It is a beautiful beach -- not muddy, but sandy, with a great vacation atmosphere, but without being overly crowded as is the case for the many of the east coast beaches. Also, it is a mere three hours by bus from Seoul. I did some zip lining and just enjoyed the fun atmosphere.

By accident I discovered a sculpture park in Seoul. I went to a driving school to find out if I can rent a car there just for some driving practise, but they only have package deals requiring you to a thirteen hour course, including the written tests, etc. through them. So while I didn't make use of their service, I did enjoy the beautiful sculptures populating the premises. Apparently the property owner is a sculpture collector and just places them all around the property. I plan to go back there soon, once the fall foliage start to change colours. I'm sure it must be gorgeous then.

One evening I decided that I'm going to make a custard. I made it from scratch, without a recipe using coconut milk, and delicately scented with cinnamon, cardamom, and jasmine flowers.It was quite tasty but not as thick as I had hoped for.

Speaking of desserts, a nice place selling mango bingsu opened up close to my Taekwon-Do gym. It is probably the best mango dessert I've had in Korea so far. Sadly, since Korea is not a tropical country, it doesn't really have a tradition of mango desserts as one would find in for instance Hong Kong or Thailand. Nevertheless, the mango bingsu at Roys is very good.

And, here is a picture of me from the Taekwon-Do gym...

Oh, and I went to the Han River one Sabbath afternoon with some friends for a picknick, which was nice.

Well, sadly that's about all of the highlights I can remember.Hopefully I'll get to writing about the things I did in September before October has passed as well.

Mmm...

"We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand. The artist must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of his lies." -- Pablo Picasso

A New Way to Tell Direction

Have you ever seen how dogs spin around before they poop? Well it turns out that part of this ritual is to orient themselves North-South. Keep that in mind when you and your dog get lost in the wilderness and you need to figure out which direction to go. Now what I didn't get from this video clip is whether the dogs specifically orient themselves so that their heads point north and their tails point south, or do they sometimes squat in an inverted direction looking south and pointing their tails north? Maybe its better to just keep a compass with you when you go for hikes in the wilderness.

Mmm...

"Pornography tells lies about women. But pornography tells the truth about men." -- John Stoltenberg

Some things I did in July

July has been a strange month. Although I have been on holiday, I haven't done half as much interesting things as I usually do during my working-months. I guess part of the reason is that I'm burning the candle at both ends so often, that when vacation time comes I just want to stay at home and relax.

I've done many of the normal things, such as regular martial arts training and teaching though. Some international visitors came to our martial arts gym (Russia, Netherlands, and America), so I tailored my teaching a bit to their needs. I also taught a private class on Taekwon-Do philosophy, which was quite interesting. Apart from my own normal training, I also attended two Tai Chi Chuan lessons--one Chen Style Tai Chi Chuan session, and one workshop on Sun Style Tai Chi Chuan.

My second cousin from Australia visited Japan and Korea. We had the opportunity to meet one afternoon, had Thai food and went to the National Museum of Korea. It was nice meeting a relative for the first time, and in Korea of all places. 

I went on a short trip to with a Korean friend to his family's hometown Daecheon, and spent one day exploring the neighboring historic city Buyeo, which is the site of the capital Sabi of the Baekje Kingdom. Of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, most people are familiar with Goguryeo, since it was the largest, and Shilla because of its rich cultural heritage. However, Baekje was culturally actual one of the most influential little kingdoms in East Asia. The palace in Buyeo is probably the biggest I have seen in all of Korea, and the on site temple pagoda is the tallest I've seen in Korea so far. I enjoyed spending some time with my friend's family -- mostly farmers. It reminded me to a bit of my own past, having grown up on a farm.

One highlight for July was visiting the Weta Workshop Fantasy Exhibition currently displaying in Seoul. Weta Workshop is known for its special effects work in such notable fantasy films such as The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. There were some truly brilliant statues, including some characters from The Hobbit, as well as other fantasy and sci-fi characters and even a collection of mythological busts. I think I want to visit it again one more time before the exhibit comes to an end in the middle of August. Below is a random selection.

Last week, on the last day of July, I went to do my driving learner's test in Korea. It was a little tricky as although I could do the test in English, the textbook was in Korean, so I couldn't properly study for it. My score was around 85%, which is well above passing, but I was still slightly disappointed. I plan to go do play in some driving simulators which they have at many of Seoul's driving test centers, just to get used to driving on the right side of the road, and then hopefully before the end of August I want to try getting my Korean driver's license.

One reason I may have been less active in July was because I came down with a really bad cold. My fan broke, it July is terribly hot, so I used my air conditioner for a few hours one evening -- I usually don't. Well, the next day I had a terribly sore throat and other cold symptoms. It took me a couple of days to recover. At least it resulted in two good things. The first was that I dismantled my air conditioner and cleaned it out properly. I'm thinking that it was not merely the cold air that made me sick, but also dust and mold in the air conditioning unit. At least it is clean now, so that if I do feel the need to use it again, it will at least not be that much of a health hazard. The other thing I did was to go and by myself a new little fan. I'm very much in love with it.

And of course I did some Seoul exploring -- one nice discovery was the gorgeous view of downtown Seoul from the observation deck at the Seoul Mayor's old office.

My personal life has been quite -- how shall I put it? -- surreal. Strange drama with an ex and family members has made the past month one of the weirdest inter-relational experiences of my life. Relationship dynamics have shifted dramatically, so much so that I think my future visits to South Africa will be most unusual. What I found quite interesting is how modern technology has brought issues from multiple thousands of kilometers right into the palm of my hand here in Korea, via my mobile phone. We live in a world where time and space are increasingly less important...a family member's actions on one part of the world can affect you almost directly continents away. Indeed, fascinating.

Also, I made some new friends, enjoyed good food, and did other fun things.

My run in with a Snotkop fangirl

Two days ago I had my first run in with a fan girl. No, not of mine. This particular fan girl really dislikes me in fact. Actually she is a fan of the Afrikaans pop singer Fracois Henning aka Snotkop. (The name “Snotkop” is his stage name and literally translates as “snot-head,” but may loosely be translated as “punk.” I actually like the name, since it is an interesting play on words on the punk-pop genre he sometimes make Afrikaans covers of.) My run in with a die-hard Snotkop fan girl went like this:

A new person suddenly followed me on Twitter. I'm not particularly active on Twitter, so I'm not really sure why people I don't know would start to follow me. The more unusual thing was that miss “CALL ME CRAZY!! @ Mignon_Devitt” sent me a message, asking that I please follow her back. I didn't recognise any Mignon Devitt, and at first though it is a spammer; nevertheless, I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt and obliged. Almost immediately after I accepted her invitation she tweeted the following on her account:

CALL ME CRAZY!! @Mignon_Devitt

@SankoL skryfblok.blogspot.com/2010/02/lack-o… how could you write this about someone you don't know shit about? @Snotkop_Henning

12:56am · 3 Jul 2014

She tagged me, then listed a link to a post I wrote on my blog in February 2010, adding “how could you write this about someone you don't know shit about?”, and finally tagged her idol @Snotkop_Henning.

So how did I upset poor miss Mignon Devitt so terribly? Well it turns out that in a post I wrote four years ago I criticised the lack of originality in the Afrikaans music industry, and I used Snotkop as an example. I pointed out that his hit song “Kry jouself by die werk” (“Get Yourself to Work”) at the time (early 2010) is a cover of The Offspring's “Why Don't You Get a Job?” and how the beginning of his song “Shut up en soen my” unabashedly borrows from Suzanne Vega's “Tom's Diner.” My point was that I was disappointed with popular Afrikaans music, because it wasn't very original. O, and I also may have mentioned that I'm not very impressed with Snotkop's voice either and think that a lot of his and similar mainstream Afrikaans music is superficial.

Now don't get me completely wrong. I'm happy that Afrikaans music is active, even in the genres that I do not really listen to. The survival of the Afrikaans language depends on it being a thriving cultural commodity, and if pop artists like Snotkop make it seem cool among young Afrikaans speakers, that is wonderful, as it would cultivate a sense of pride in the language. It is just that I'm saddened by the unoriginal, superficial quality of mainstream Afrikaans music.

After “CALL ME CRAZY!! @Mignon_Devitt” made her tweet in which she tagged me, her idol, and my blog link, she started to send me a series of private messages on Twitter:

HI! I have seen one of your blog posts about afrikaans music and you using snotkop as an axample and what you wrote was just plain tasteless
01:20 AM - 03 Jul 14

yes so maybe he has directly translated some songs! so be it! he is one hell of an artist! we as afrikaans people would prefer him
01:22 AM - 03 Jul 14

over many international artist! he knows what he is doing! he has thousands of fans and I will defend him! he is a great artist!
01:23 AM - 03 Jul 14

And she finished with a Snotkop quote in which he acknowledges that:

"I take songs and translate them into Afrikaans and try and bring them closer to Afrikaans culture so people can better connect with them."
01:29 AM - 03 Jul 14

None of this, of course, takes away from my argument that mainstream Afrikaans music tends to be unoriginal and/or superficial—and my lament on my blog post that:

“The truly unfortunate thing is there are many talented artists performing in Afrikaans so that we need not be satisfied with such low quality music. As long as people are satisfied with fast food, quality cuisine will not become the standard; it is similar with music. While people are drunk on cheap pop music, there is no room for quality original music, which need not be the case in Afrikaans music, as we do not suffer from a lack of original artists.”

So Snotkop has thousands of fans? Good on him. And I really do mean that. I'm happy that an Afrikaans artist can make a success in such a small market. But having many fans does not a great artist make. Justin Bieber has legions more.

Turning my attention away from the South African music industry to the term “fan,” which is probably derived from the word “fanatic”, I must say that I'm intrigued by @Mignon_Devitt and the need she felt to defend her idol Snotkop from what she considered my terrible attack on him—in a post I wrote four years ago. She went through a lot of trouble, first by searching for a way to contact me, finding me on Twitter, following me on Twitter, asking me to follow her on Twitter, and then writing her tweet in which she linked to my—apparently—offending blog post, and tagged both myself and her idol @Snotkop_Henning, and then afterwards sending me a series of messages.


By tagging her idol @Snotkop_Henning in her tweet, I'm assuming she hopes that he will read it, that her intention is to impress him, to prove to him her devotion and loyalty, and how she's got his back—protecting his honour against this random blogger that wrote something about him in 2010.

I wonder if she did impress him. Or if he is oblivious to her. If he is such a hot shot artist with thousands of fans, he might be too busy—i.e. actually have a life—to read every little tweet about him. I'm pondering whether this is a case of a parasocial relationship, in which the fan has an imagined belief that they have a special bond with their idol, but it is actually a one-sided crush that may lead to Celebrity Worship Syndrome.

Also, I'm not sure if CALL ME CRAZY!! @Mignon_Devitt's attempt to call me out on Twitter in order to protect her idol Snotkop will have the desired effect. Her tweet just caused more people to read what I wrote, and what I wrote about was the lack of originality in Afrikaans music and I pointed out how Snotkop—in his own words—“take songs and translate them into Afrikaans.” Not only does he make Afrikaans covers of international bands such as The Offspring, but he also copies melodic parts from other songs for use in his songs, such as using parts of Suzanne Vega's “Tom's Diner” in his “Shut up en soen my.” Now more people who did not know that Snotkop “take[s] songs and translate them into Afrikaans” will read about him and my opinion on mainstream Afrikaans music's lack of originality. Because the Internet gives priority to sites that have links to it, @Mignon_Devitt has now made my blog-post more popular, which means more traffic will be directed to my page when they do an Internet search for “Snotkop”.

I have sympathy for CALL ME CRAZY!! @Mignon_Devitt—I have been quite smitten with a musician many years ago too. I “met” the Afrikaans cabaret diva Amanda Strydom on two occasions. The first time, I took a CD to be signed by her after a concert and when I got to the front of the line I was so awed to be in her presence that I couldn't even say my name. The second time I saw her after a show, I gave her some of my poetry naively thinking that she would be so impressed that she would turn them into songs, and I blurted out one of the most unoriginal things one could say as a fan: “I am your biggest fan!” To this day I am embarrassed to have acted like that. Thankfully I'm sure Amanda Strydom has forgotten about my silly behaviour—purely because so many other fans have uttered those same unoriginal words.

So CALL ME CRAZY!! @Mignon_Devitt, I empathise, and I'm sure I'd be offended too if someone said that Amanda Strydom doesn't have much of a voice. (Luckily for me and other Amanda Strydom fans such an accusation is unfounded.) I do apologise if my post caused you distress, but I also have the right to my opinion, just as you have the right to say that what I wrote is “shit.” May Snotkop realises what a wonderful, devoted, loyal fan he has in you.

By the way, I have nothing against Snotkop. He looks like a cool dude. And in all honesty, I haven't heard much (hardly any) of his music since I wrote that post in 2010. Maybe his music is more original and less superficial four years later. I don't know. I'm not a fan, so I'm not following his musical evolution.