Scribblings of the Metropolitician

A Sad Day Has Come

This is the last time I will post here. My time as the "Metropolitician" is up.

I've realized a lot of things over the last week or so, since falling for a certain young lady of a more conservative persuasion, who has quite literally rocked my world. I realize that a lot of the liberal ideas I had formerly and formally adhered to were largely misconstrued notions I had held, distortions of ideological ramifications that simply had no precedence in either established fact, dilapidated fiction, or even (and not either) the demonstrated dialectics of most people's dystopic desires.

In short, a new kind of love has made me into a harder, more turgid man.

No longer will I carry the torch for a a deluded liberalism, nor be the voice for lefty illiberality. What I truly hanker for is a haughty helping of a hunk of cheese that isn't defined in terms of a mere neo-Freudian kitsch, but the kind of cheese one can count on, like money in the bank; indeed, one needs sustenance so solid and reliable one can literally stick it in a pipe and smoke it.

So I can no longer continue to write here, after having fallen for someone like the one who has learned to call me "oppa." Such is an experience I never thought I could have had, either as a black man, or a Star Trek fan, and her highly-developed sense of what I have previously called here mere "fetishized femininity" has caused in me an emotional rise that is quite epic in its tense and torpedo-like tautology. Indeed, they didn't call Moby a "Dick" for nothing, as they say. Unlike the proverbial Ahab, my little lady has actually caught her whale.

When wondering why I have decided to forgo any further forays into formalism and endorse not Barack "Aladdin" Obama, but rather John McCain, the answer becomes perfectly obvious, does it not?

When you ask yourselves these questions, as you struggle for the answers, yet still can't bring yourself to face the truth, realize that Tom Cruise once said, quite poignantly, that the "truth could not be handled" and that in a similar situation, Al Pacino pointed a finger and said that the entire Supreme Court was indeed, very much "out of order."

In the same way, I was once out of love, and was so lost without her, but believe you me -- I now realize that it's hip to be square. Or did not Huey Lewis not give you that news?

So, it is with heavy hands that I make my last entry here, since the Metropolitician that was me has completely and totally ceased to be he.

For Pak Geun-hye's youngest daughter knows how to hit me where it counts, and to not just do that to me once, but likes to hit me, baby one more time, all the time, if you catch my meaning, number one Negaroni! See, I don't shrink away from saying, loudly and proudly, what needs to be said. And if you didn't get it from the passage above, you need a double dose of dis doubletalk. April mothafuckin' fool's, bitches!

Word to your mother, yo!

FeetManSeoul in January SEOUL Magazine!

FeetManSeoul has a regular column in SEOUL Magazine, the monthly published by Seoul Selection and the Seoul Metropolitan Government. The magazine is the most comprehensive source of information about Seoul and its environs published in English, and is available at any major bookstore in Korea. You can also get a PDF of the current January 2008 issue or you can pick up an issue in any major bookstore.

From Hill to Heaven

Along the way back from some good Indian eats, a friend and I decided to walk from the bottom of Hooker Hill to a place wholly holy – the mosque at the serene top of the rise, a place that really does seem to be above it all.

(Click to enlarge.)

I was a little surprised to see riot police there, but when I asked, it made sense, since one of the dudes said that they had indeed been placed there just in case some trouble starts in relation to the ongoing Afghan hostage crisis. Seemed like a thoughtful thing for the Korean government to do.

But all we found at the top was peace and absolute quiet, which was a nice contrast to and respite from the city. Since we weren't there to pray, and my female companion would have been a bit underdressed by most Muslim standards, we decided to just take in the air for a few minutes before heading back down.

It's a nice place to go, and a place I occasionally drop in on with my alternative school and other photo students. It's a good place to see something different while taking a surreal break from the hustle and bustle of the big city.

"Maiden Form"

An eerie light highlights a a shopkeeper's wares and a mannequin's womanly charms in a Namdaemun market.

Hot Fuzz Sunday, Or Why Korean Protesters Get No Sympathy From Me

I started writing this post about 3 weeks ago, when I was physically assaulted by Korean NGO motherfuckers for trying to help a lady friend return a pair of shoes she had bought just a few hours before, when we left the store as a big protest started.

I sat on the post, since I was too angry to be anything other than the "angry anti-NGO loser protester foreigner guy" in the post. And even though my assault was proof positive of just how deluded and violent most front-line protesters are – as well as how they're the ones who instigate fights with the generally restrained riot police, which is a big switch from the draconian days of the democracy movement a few decades ago – I just didn't feet like getting into it, baby.

But then I saw this:

You, dude. I generally sympathize with the fight against "The Man" wherever you are, but throwing shit at people? Man, Korean protesters suuuuure know how to make even their theoretically possibly political allies hate them – because they're hateful fucking people.

And why did Newsis blur their faces out? Christ, Korean media – get a fucking spine. I doubt a protester who was in the midst of creating a political and newsworthy act can sue a newspaper and say his reputation is harmed because of a picture that wasn't printed in the "public interest." It's not like this is paparazzi of two lovers through a love motel window – this is news, dude.

Throwing shit at people? Dag. That's almost as bad as jumping the random foreigner who made the mistake of going to the wrong department store on the wrong damn day.

Read on, although it's one of my signature "long ones." Sorry, kids – although I try to sweeten it up with pictures. Actually, I do think the experience was a weird kind of hilarious. The last thing I expected to be doing that day was tussling with a bunch of clueless idiots who think that physical violence is the way to deal with the one or two people who snuck past their ill-defined "picket line."

Perhaps if they engendered any respect for their cause through proper behavior in their protesting – and were smart enough not to hit the police and not the CIVILIANS, of whom they are theoretically comprised, most average working people would have sympathy for them; as it is, the only people who give two shits about protests in Korea are actually the people protesting and being screwed over at the time.

As it is, when your politics make you prone to jump any passersby who don't happen to agree with you, you just become those annoying protest people no one cares about.

Hey, when I was protesting along with the TA's and other clerical staff back at Berkeley and the campus was effectively and administratively shut down, we didn't jump or even curse at students and staff who dared pass the picket lines; save that shit for the police, if you're gonna get violent, dudes.

------------- THE POST (started 3 weeks ago) -------------

Yesterday was one of the weirdest Sundays ever in Korea. Part of it, you can read about in the news, actually.

How did this come to pass? What the hell is going on here? Well, it all started as a lazy Sunday...

I woke up with few plans. Got up about 11, rolled out of bed; ahem, I mean rolled up my bed and put it in the closet; and had an appointment to do a little exercise and get some lunch. So me and a lady friend threw around a frisbee (her first time, but she did a great job) and went to do a little shopping. The agenda?

- a name card case (yes, I finally made some)
- a laser pointer to entertain my crazy cat
- a shower head, since mine had broken in a fall from its holder

Now, I hate department stores, since they're crowded and overpriced (at least to me). I know they hold all the nice items in society, but most of the things I buy don't have designer labels, but LED displays and other blinking lights. But my friend insisted that perhaps they would have nice name card cases and that she could get some shopping done as well.

I responded that we could get ALL of our needs satisfied at Yongsan, since they have not only electronics for the laser pointer, E-mart for the shower head, and yes; a new department store that...

A stern smile; yes, they have those; nixed my suggestion. It sounded like just another excuse to go to Yongsan, which it...ahem...was. So, even though we had gotten a late start, we were going to the department store first, then eat, then eventually go see Hot Fuzz.

So we taxi down to the New Core Outlet near the Express Bus Terminal and proceed to wander around. Our lady friend spied a laptop bag she liked and proceeded to try before deciding to look around before making the buy, and we wandered around a bit. Then she spied the shoe sale.

Nine West, Steve Madden, Calvin Klein;real brands, all for just a few man-wons apiece. Well, they're the original American prices, just without the crazy import taxes and department store markup, which makes a pair of American $79 shoes that would go for $250 in a Korean department store $79 and a great deal in a Korean outlet store. She was in shoe heaven, and I was pretty bored.

So I flitted about, looking at this and that, and then floated back to the shoe section, where she was trying on stuff, and was asked for suggestions. I scanned the entire size 245 section and confidently said, "The blue ones are nice." She thought they were quite cute, but a bit high; I thought these Steve Madden pumps to be the only thing that really stood out from the mostly trendy lot.

She decided against them (I made a note that she would probably regret it, but didn't want to push her into buying them and then blaming me for regretting that) and she got a pair of decently cute shoes I hadn't seen and we were back to buy the laptop bag. As she was buying, I noticed a much cooler laptop bag – my photo eyes are exact; and suggested she take a look at that one. She did, previous purchase was canceled, and everyone busied themselves cancelling previous purchase, getting cash from the other register, and other various things.

I decided to wait near the entrance, where the small group of riot police – a pretty familiar sight in Korea and something of which I had barely taken notice when we came in – had gathered into a small army outside of all of the entrances. And there had been protesters, but they were mostly ajumma and young women, and I guessed from the signs that they were workers who were promised some kind of job protection but hadn't gotten it and were protesting about either the store's stance on it, or their treatment by the store.

Does this protest look dangerous to you?

Whatever. There are protesters everywhere, and I stopped liking them a long time ago. I've been known to stand on a few picket lines myself, twice when the graduate TA's went on strike at Berkeley, once for a "takeover" of my undergraduate University Hall. Pretty small potatoes, all, but I also respected the picket lines of some other strikes, especially one that involved a hunger strike conducted by undergraduates that involved some pretty fucked up police action by the university cops, involving pain holds and clubs. And that was the Berkeley university police;not even the normal cops. Ouch.

So I have sympathy for people who put their asses on the line, protest non-violently, and focus their cause into reasonable action. "Civil disobedience" has two meaning for me, not just the one.

Korean protesters, on the other hand; the ones who wear the red headband with "단결투쟁" written on it and are generally mean, verbally abusive, and throw things at the riot police, who are now mostly kids doing their military duty, and not the hardcore military corps and hired thugs who gassed, beat, and even shot movement protesters back in the 80's; I can't stand.

Why? Me, a hefty lefty who is "liberal" to the core and has a Berzerkely degree in Ethnic Studies (a department founded through campus protest) to boot?

Because they're just plain rude and hold citizens hostage as their main strategy; their strategy is one of being as irritating as possible, as opposed to putting their "bodies on the gears of the machinery" or whatever 60's rhetoric you'd like to use.

See, the red headband people who besieged the National Health Insurance Building in my area generally never even showed up for the protests. That's what irked me, back when they were "protesting" in 2002-2003, and preventing anyone in the neighborhood from getting any sleep. They blared revolutionary music and slogans from 6 in the morning; even, and especially, on Sundays; and when you'd pass by, instead of the hordes of angry protesters whom you'd thought you'd see, it was one guy in a van with a loudspeaker trained on the building.

Where were the protesters? Probably sleeping.

Same with the red headband people outside the Korea Exchange Bank in Myeongdong. Blaring slogans and music, cheering crowds, but no people. And we had to endure listening to their noise assault all day. The technique seems to be to be so annoying to everyone in the area that people get angry at the offending organization, rather than at the protesters. But I think that's bogus.

And as someone who's filmed and photographed many, many protests since 2002, I can say that, without any exception I've personally witnessed, it's the protesters who start the violence, who are generally violent. I don't know about outside of Seoul, but the major protests I've seen in Seoul generally go like:

- formal demonstration proceedings
- yelling of slogans and the protesters starting to push against the wall of cops
- the cops lining up and holding their line around the embassy, building, or store

- the protesters starting to push and shove in unison

- cops holding the line and definitely NOT hitting anyone and actually trying to calm people down

- a few, more violent protesters cursing and then taking a swipe at riot police then, leading a surge through a break in the line

- then the cops push back harder as they lose ground, all hell breaks loose at a few points in the line, a cop loses it and gets into a tussle or hits a protester

- then the entire line yells "police brutality" and somebody loses it (note the "Braveheart" expression on the man's face as he surges towards the cops trying to deal with another violent protestor

- most of the time, unless it's the US Embassy, the protesters eventually get their way, since I think the Seoul City Government doesn't want video and pictures of the police getting down and dirty on Korean citizens, who are mostly just normal, working people in their 30's and 40's (and not Molotov cocktail-throwing college students advocating the overthrow of the government, which is actually something I can respect a bit more, since they're at least honest about their means and goals)

And that's exactly how things were going down, and as a photographer with equipment at the ready, when the bottled water started flying, I was taking out my big flash and getting ready. All the major media was there, with still and video camera people, and generally, photographers are considered invisible when it comes to demonstrations, pretty much neutral parties.

During 2002-2003, I shot freely amidst even the most anti-American protests, with "Fucking USA" blaring in the background and burning American flags. SNAP SNAP. Never had a single problem. I didn't like them, nor care for their methods personally, but no one ever fucked with me, and I maintained a quiet neutrality. When I'm in the zone, I'm not American, or anti-protestor, or anything. I just take pictures. SNAP SNAP.

So, I'm standing in an evil Starbucks actually just waiting to leave, but since the heat was starting to be ON, I was snapping a few shots of the protesters outside the door, along with some KBS dudes and other professional photographers, when this one punk kid materializes out of the crowd and starts fucking with me.

Actually, I'm a little surprised, since even as a foreign photographer, no one's ever come right at me or broken the unspoken line between the media and the political act going on; they are there to make a point, the media is there to cover it. That's one part of the reason they're out there, and a reason no one fucks with the photographers.

So it was a little like watching a movie and the characters suddenly looking straight at the camera and saying, "Hey, you!" I was surprised, because here was suddenly this kid yelling at me, getting in my face about taking "his" picture. While the KBS and other dudes were snapping away with big zoom lenses and whatnot. I'm thinking, "Dude – why you fucking with me?" and "Waitaminnit – isn't this a protest?"

But my response was simply, "What?" I was still making sense of this. He said that I didn't have a right to take his picture, that his "right to his face" was being violated, to stop taking pictures. As the entire Korean news media was snapping and rolling away. So I was annoyed, mostly because I wasn't taking pictures because this idiot was talking to me, and responded in disbelief and irritation that this was a political event, it was a news event, and if he was concerned about "초상권침해" then he could sue me after the event.

And WTF? With the entire Korean press corps going SNAP SNAP SNAP around me and the building and half the protesters playing it up for them, I couldn't digest who the fuck this kid was. Was he a Starbucks worker who didn't want me photographing while in the store? Was I misunderstanding something? Was he a customer whom I was confusing with a protester? He didn't have a red headband thingie, I noticed.

Anyway, then he asked me who I was. Annoyed that I was even being made to speak with this fool and breaking the line I maintain between me and my subjects, I snarkily said, "I'm shooting for me! So what?" Then he asked me if I was a cop (yeah, the Korean police is hiring Samoan foreign photographers now), and why the fuck I was shooting; which is just about the dumbest question you could ask, as violent protest is breaking out all around the building.

He was one of the protesters, and when I had told basically told him to go fuck himself, he went outside and started having them take pictures of me. Cool – so I made exaggerated gestures of taking pictures of the people taking pictures of me. And they were taking pictures of me taking pictures of them taking pictures of me.

Ho HO! Two can play that game! So I took more pictures of them taking pictures of me taking pictures of them taking pictures of me. Then I gave them the finger – I had lost any inkling of photojournalistic objectivity here, and was, indeed, just in the building to help my friend buy shoes and a bag (they didn't have any name card cases); I'm a little sorry about that in principle, although on the personal level, the finger is the least of what I'd like to give that kid.

Man – the "Fucking USA" and burning the American flag and even racist images of "black dogs" and "Korean whores" (a picture of a black GI simply standing with a Korean woman) didn't get to me, but this one punk kid did.

The caption in Korean (taken from antimigun.org) read "Wanted - race-mixer" and most of the "commentary" on the site's bulletin boards (to which I wrote and complained about the racism, but remained up for months until I stopped checking) had something to do with her being a "slut" for having sex with a "black dog" or "black nigger dog" or some other variation. I'm sure the people who write that, or passively approved it, are the same people some of my "liberal" compariots call "friends" as they argue with me that I should have sympathy for these NGO people. It's funny that the same NGO's that liberally used "미국놈" and even racist epithets to refer to Americans (I heard them at the protests, I was there, so nobody can tell me they didn't or refer to edited transcripts) suddenly got all friendly with the international anti-war people (a lot of whom were Canadian and American, much to the professional NGO protestors' chagrin) when they started showing up in March for the anti-war stuff. Suddenly they were "our American friends" in the struggle and "compatriots;" Sheesh – at least have enough self-respect to keep track of whom you ostensibly hate. I'm sure the anti-war movement leaders were never shown pictures of the "I hate America" "education" being given Korean schoolchildren.

Anyway, I forgot about him, shot about 10 minutes of riot police going at it with the protesters, then things calmed down enough to leave the store and go to Black Angus for some steak. Yeah!

Games with signs that say "I hate America" and shooting at images of Bush is the best way to foster "globalization" in any national education system. Yay, Korean Teachers' Union! (Not my picture, by the way, but from news files I saved from 2002.)

All forgotten, just another day getting yelled at in Korea. Subway, bus, store, bar – it's not like I'm not used to getting yelled at for doing things like quietly look at my iPod, daring to take the subway, or simply walk down the street with a Korean female; I've been yelled at a million times before and I've always managed to avoid big trouble.

Also not my picture, but from files saved from 2002-2003. Note that AMERICANS are being barred entry – not American soldiers, as if that's even fair – but at least it would be somewhat...logical?

I've gotten into a yelling match before, but I've just learned to outbluster the blusterer. Still never escalated into fisticuffs, although that credit usually goes to me, not the drunk guy who'd like nothing other than to take a swing at me. So this incident rated pretty low on what Will Smith called the "Weird Shit-o-Meter." Nothing to get flustered over. See it every day.

So, during dinner, the lady friend said she needed to go back and get the blue shoes. I was fine with that, since the whole affair seemed to have died down, to the point that neither of us was even thinking about the protest anymore, which seemed to have died down as we were leaving, anyway. Heck, even the police had been going home. I vaguely remember there being some ajummas sitting in front of the doorways when I left, but that's about it. Didn't even think about it.

Well, we return to the store and we try to go in one of the open doors, past which you could see the store being very obviously open for business. There were a whole bunch of ajummas sitting in front of it, but it seemed pretty easy to walk through.

They immediately started up, saying that the building was closed.

Which was an obvious lie. I guess I wasn't even thinking that they were going to actually try and prevent entry. And it irritated me that they were lying. So we said that the store was obviously open and we were going in; so one ajumma comes up to to lady friend – as if I hadn't just had a conversation with her in Korean – and tried to tell her to explain this all to me; problem was, we both understood that she was lying through her teeth and actually insulting our intelligence. Since we were obviously intent on getting into the store, she directed us to the back door and said we "could probably get in that way." Cool, ajumma. Hooked up, right?

So we go to the back door, which was indeed, quite sparsely populated with fools in red vests and headbands. And there were a few ajumma arguing with one of them, which was effectively distracting the group; and there were just like 6-7 people around the entrance, but nothing like a clear line or anything. Just a group of protesters arguing with some flustered ajumma.

Cool – it would be easy to just walk up and not even talk to them, since they were occupied, anyway, so I lead the way with my patented slip-and-slink move and the lady friend follows. We're in! No problems, no confrontations.

Then this sanctimonious bitch – sorry, but that's all I can think to call her – comes up, all of like 21 years old or whatever, and starts yelling "You can't come in here!"

Of course, I ignore her ass and walk past her. Who's she? Da police? She's just another person, just like me. She has no right to stop me or anyone else from entering. So then, she lays hands on me.

So I'm like "Get your hands off me!" because she's all grabbing me and trying to physically push me back. Since I have what's called self-control and maturity, I didn't start no shit, especially with a girl; I just wanted her to get her hands off me.

At which point, she's yelling "He's trying to come in! Get him! Get him!" and seriously – like 5-6 dudes jump me. I'm serious – they JUMP me and try to take me to the ground.

I have $1200 in camera equipment in my hand, a laptop in my backpack, as well as about $2000 worth of accessories in flash, another lens, and other various photo stuffs in that bag. Now, they're grabbing on the bag (which held up really well, in retrospect) on both straps, the bag itself, as well as on both my arms, while one dude is wrapping his arms around my stomach, trying to lift me off my feet.

So – at that point, I could have done several things:

– use my very heavy camera as a single-use and very expensive bludgeon against the closest attacker's head
– used my variously free left land (I'm a righty) to uppercut the guy trying to wrestle my to the ground and get him off me
– drop the camera and put said guy in a choke hold and withstand all blows, turtle style, and promise to squeeze his larynx until either a) I lost consciousness from them hitting me (which they hadn't started to do yet, but was anticipating they might), b) or they backed off and I used him as a hostage, since there was no way I was winning against 5-6 guys, since I'm not, however much I'd like to believe I am, a ninja

Yes, these thoughts went through my mind, and I succumbed to none of them, although I kept the last as an option if they starting hitting, which, when 5 dudes gang up on 1 dude, constitutes a threat to my life, the way I see it – but I didn't have to, since I had one other option – very LOUD indignance.

See, all my years in Korea did amount to something useful.

So, I went into Indignant Anger Mode™, developed, tested, and patented by angry Korean ajussis and overbearing Korean moms since time began with bears, tigers, and garlic in caves on this peninsula.

I started yelling, "Why are you touching me? How can you touch me?" at the top of my lungs in Korean, along with, "This is illegal! You are criminals! You can't touch me! You are all criminals!"

That's the best Korean I could muster, given how angry and tense I was, and anyone who speaks a second language knows how easily one's language ability leaves you in such moments of intense emotion, fear, or anger. Given the volatility of the moment, that was fucking Nobel Prize-worthy literary prose I was coming up with.

In the midst of the tussle, a young protester girl had quietly come up and softly taken my camera from me, obviously to make sure it didn't get broken, so I could sense from the beginning that there were some people amongst this group who must have thought this whole thing was ridiculous and that I was just a dude coming into the store, not some representative of the Establishment they fancied themselves fighting against; that's one thing that kept my head calm, or was a sign that I possessed a calm head.

Somehow, the whole thing was surreal in that yes, I was angry, but also kind of was beside myself and analyzing the whole thing somewhat objectively as the situation was playing out. I was thinking they were dumb-ass, punk kids, I was thinking they were just being overzealous and taking somebody's "No one comes in under ANY circumstances!" a bit too far, and even as I had a clear shot at this skinny kid who had deluded himself into thinking he was lifting me off my feet, I didn't try and knock him out.

Yes, part of it was also fear that this would escalate the situation and result in me giving them an excuse to send me to the hospital or worse, so my logic was also somewhat based in self-preservation as much as high-minded motives to keep things chilled below any point of no return; yet, I also didn't feel these guys were bad people – just very fucking deluded, annoying, and taking this shit WAY too far.

Anyway, back to the yelling. Presently, the yelling is working, and a couple girls come over and tell their boys to chill out. One of them was the sanctimonious bitch, and I was about to give her some credit when she was like, "Why are you trying to get in here?" like she was the po-po.

I was still angry, and this was the attitude that had gotten her butt-boys on my ass in the first place, so I was responded with a very loud, "Who are you? Do you work here? (zing! - hehe, I guess not anymore, otherwise she wouldn't be in the red headband – cruel thought, I know) This is illegal! You don't have the right to touch me!"

So she gets this shocked and indignant look on her face, rolls her eyes, and rejoinders with, "Why you using panmal with me?"

Yeah. I was using the impolite, informal form of Korean. So sue me. "After you jump and manhandle and nearly knock me on my ass, that's waaaay past polite, bitch."

Or so I wish I could have said in just that kind of snarky way in Korean. As it was, I marveled for a moment at the seriously inflated sense of aggrievement that causes these people to actually believe that them taunting, spitting, and then hitting riot police isn't going to make one of them snap and hit back, at which point they'll yell "Police brutality."

And for those of you who want to go all Martin Luther the King, Jr. on me, please. That's one of the reasons the CRM succeeded – the suppression of the public use of violence in the movement, which is what garnered the sympathy of not just the rest of the nation, but the rest of the world. Had black protesters been regularly been seen assaulting police and guardsmen at the time – which, given the violent circumstances of the racist-ass Southern establishment at the time, would have been perfectly reasonable and understandable, and was a mode of protest some Black political leaders used, and somewhat effectively, e.g. the Black Panthers, who used violence more rhetorically than actually – no one would have given the movement any support.

Anyway, my point is, in the Korean context – this ain't Kwangju and it's not 1980 under a military dictatorship, although Korean protest movement styles really haven't figured that out. No one has sympathy for people who are effectively assholes.

Especially people who throw shit at other people getting paid by the hour, working up in Lotte Department Store. No one deserves to get shit thrown in their face working the meat counter – go raid the main offices and throw shit on some guy who actually makes the decisions, not the little guy.

Same principle with me. Why you jumping somebody who obviously ain't working for The Man in da sto', ain't the po-po, and ain't even Korean? Idiots.

Anyway, after everyone on the entire ground floor had gathered for the scene and dispersed back to their empty counters, I walked in, panting heavily – fighting is exhausting, and I'm out of shape, to boot – and still flowing with the first real adrenalin rush I had had since getting into a fight with Brian Wolf in 8th grade, or my girlfriend in college had an accident on the interstate highway and skidded us into a railing.

I don't get flustered like that often, and the coming down afterwards is quite nearly overwhelming. All I could do was focus on the task at hand, which was amazingly and ironically simple – we went to the counter, I got the shoes off the shelf, and asked, "These are the ones, right?"

EVERYONE on the floor was looking at me with a seeming mix of, "What the Sam Hell?" or "That's one crazy motherfucking foreigner" or "Now, that's the kind of man I need – fighting through crowds to take me shopping!"

In general, the crowd of workers seemed quite impressed even while they were as surrealed out as I was. "All that over some shoes?!" is what everybody involved seemed to be asking. That had to be the question people were asking. What other question could possibly be crossing anyone's mind, who had just seen that scene? Wow.

The lady ringing us up seemed to be holding back a smirk as she quickly wrapped up the sale after I ker-chunked the shoes on the counter and asked, "얼마예요?" We took our ridiculous little plastic bag of shoes and walked out the door with the ajummas, who looked genuinely shocked yet amused that we had gotten in.

The whole walking out part made it worth it, in a silly way – it was very end-of-Pulp-Fiction anti-climactic, and although I hadn't just cooly disarmed two amateur stickup fools, held on to my mob boss's valuable stash, and retrieved my wallet from the stickup man's trash bag that said "Big Bad Motherfucker" on it, well, it felt pretty close, given the fact that this was still a pretty wild run-in to have in a department store.

So, I felt one part stupid, one part silly, and one part "Big Bad Motherfucker." 'Cause we got what we came for:

We ended that surreal evening by seeing two more real bad motherfuckers on the big screen, in the movie Hot Fuzz, which absolutely was both the funniest and most fun action flick I'd seen in years.

That night, I was happy to find that the incident hadn't actually bothered me much; I wondered if it was just me getting older, or me getting used to the surreality that defines life in Korea, but you seem to stop noticing the longer you're here.

In the end, I was happy to realize that I wasn't really angry or begrudging at all; I hadn't tipped over to clichéd point of becoming the "anti-Korea expat", which seems to be something some people fall into and that you see sometimes after bad things happen to good people you know here – "Fucking Korea," or some such.

Naw, I was just happy nothing happened, I had used my brain to defuse the situation, and that I had had the wherewithal to do that in the first place. We both watched Hot Fuzz and left feeling like the "bad motherfuckers" we had just seen in the movie.

'Cause we came, we exchanged, and we conquered.

'Cause we left with the shoes.

"Mall Rat"

A young girl seems to hunt for fireflies in a place she won't catch any – in the Yongsan shopping mall.

The Metropolitician in Variety

As an eternal grad student following a pipe dream or two in Korea, it's not too often I get something to write home to Mom about. But when you get a chance to publish in Variety, you gotta kind of do a funny touchdown dance and wanna high-five people over beers.

Oh, yeah, baby! Here it is!

Thanks for indulging that, as well as reading the story. It was a great opportunity that Darcy passed my way, and I was happy to say that I worked the the photography of the facility into the story myself when I returned the editor pictures along with my draft. They were unsolicited, but the editor decided to buy two of them, one of which was used in the online version story linked above there. I think it was a good one, but here's a little photo essay I put together from the unused shots:

Akom Productions did the original Transformers movie.

Less than 10 seconds of notes and frames from a Simpsons episode!

Hard at work.



Archives room.

Editing away.

Scritch, scritch, scritch on Homer.

They did that first Spiderman cartoon, too.

My Sundae Afternoon

I got Coldstone Creamed on a "sundae." When you break a low-sugar diet, you might as smash it into bits and stomp on them, grinding them bits into fine, chalky dust. That's about what my Apple Pie sunday did to my efforts to keep my blood sugar down, along with my risk of type-II diabetes. Oh, well – I'm pretty good most of the week. But I slapped myself silly with sugar, cinnamon, and sweet, evil syrups.

And I don't even have a sweet tooth. It was my friend's fault. Not mine. Hehe.

Coldstone Creamery's been in Korea for a bit, but I thought I'd spread the love with pictures, anyway. The one I hit was right outside the Ehwa Women's University front gate.

Happy Monday morning, everyone.

On Respect for Photographic Subjects

This comes from a real question posed by David, related to photos and recordings' relation to laws and ethics. I'm glad to see a real conversation come from my indulgence of the urge to get in the mud. The original comment:

Hi...

Question: In which of these cases is it ok to record another's voice, without them knowing?
-in a conversation with them?
-when they're conversing with someone else?
-when they're giving a lecture in a school?
-when they're giving a public performance?

I ask because I think this has some relevance to this debate on street photography/personal rights.

--------------

Again, keeping it real...

It depends on the content and the purpose for recording it. As with anything, there are no absolutes. Even in the law, such things are often tricky, and the judgements and rationales difficult to navigate. That's why the law requires people to interpret it according to circumstances.

But for the creator of such content, the guidelines of content and purpose, whether it be photography or my podcasting.

So, if an undergraduate recorded their biochemistry lecture, who cares? It's not sensitive material. If they recorded it on a site that resold the content and charged for access, then suddenly, it becomes sensitive, because the professor's purpose for giving the lecture was not to have it sold, without their permission, for commercial purposes.

Same with photography – you can't take a picture of someone eating ice cream and sell it to Baskin-Robbins; if the people in the picture sue, unless they have signed contracts and model releases, BR's goose is cooked.

Taking a recording without someone's permission is technically illegal (I believe), but who cares if I record the people at the next table's conversation and keep it in my personal archives? If I use it on a radio show and somehow the people in the recording find out, I can get in real trouble.

That's why Linda Tripp's recordings were so morally screwed up and legally problematic – it's sensitive material (i.e. "I blew the President") and how the material was gathered (being recorded without permission) is at issue.

If you are a photojournalist (or anyone else, but most everyday people don't walk around taking pictures of sensitive things), if you take pictures, you have to know that you might be subpoenaed for the materials, even if you don't want to hand them over. Or if you're working in a poor country run by a repressive regime, it doesn't matter what your intent is if you can't secure your own person; that's something to think about.

And people complain about street photography here (apparently), but I think the issues aren't much different from audio (or video) recordings: it's about the content and the intended use. And I think that my podcast #16 ("December in Myeongdong") is actually quite similar to my street photography in that it's random snippets of real Seoul (one in pictures, one in snippets of conversation and sound as I walk down the street), with no coherent theme or story.

And I think the liklihood of someone getting hurt from the pictures about the same as the audio – sure, I might be recording the passersby saying ("...and yeah, when Mary Ann Kim slept with John Doe Lee after the Samsung office party in Dogok-dong..."), but it's probably not going to happen.

Same with the pictures – yes, a person might be momemtarily surprised to find that – out of 10 million people living in Seoul, their picture of them carrying flowers was in a photo book or some photographer's site, but in the end, it's not content that's going to affect them materially in any way.

I think a lot of this paranoia comes from an overreaction to the early days of the Korean internet, mostly. Yeah, we needed a few horrible examples from which to learn, but in the age of "UCC" and people literally taking off their clothes and dancing in pink pajamas for a shot at the big time, while the nation "ho-hums" and moves on to the next distraction of the week, there's not going to be much that will gather the interest of the nation. Even the couple near-naked dancing on the car in the 2006 World Cup (a Korean girl with a white guy – oh, the horror!) was kind of like, "Well, umm...they're kinda lame. She's stupid, but oh, well...") She wasn't leaving school and changing her home address because of it.

Anyway, it's about the content and the purpose of it being recorded. I've gotten email asking "What if I recorded you in a compromising position and put it on the Internet?! Huh, huh?!" Well, you'd be a) recording me in a compromising position on PURPOSE, so the content itself is questionable, and b) you'd be doing it to hurt me. Pretty much the opposite of what I do.

If I were to publish a picture of say, a drunk salaryman vomiting, my goal wouldn't be to destroy his life to prove a point, nor does his individual identity matter to me. In fact, I'd probably choose a shot in which he was blurry, to protect his anonymity, but the fact that it was a salaryman in a suit vomiting would be clear.

A good and similar example is above, where I chose one of the artistically worst out of several shots, since the faces were clearly visible in others, but I chose to publish the one in which the least faces were shown (a friend is shown there, but it's small, blurry, and you're likely not going to lose your job or wife over having been there to help an unidentified drunk friend), especially the one of the person in question. And I lucked out because you got some depth to the picture with the alley, which also helped contextualize it. But there were other shots that showed more – I still erred on the side of politeness and caution, since I think about the possible harm that might come to subjects, although I think that highly unlikely.

So I conveyed the point – such scenes are as much a part of night life in Korea as any kids playing in the park wearing hanboks on Chusok, stuff that I am completely unconcerned with – without compromising a subject. And frankly, such scenes are so common, and/or something that is such a part of anyone's individual experience, that having been drunk like this is still not going to get anyone fired. Frankly, such an eventuality ("public drunkenness", which is an actual crime in the US, but not in Korea) would likely be much more problematic in America than in Korea.

And what anyone thinks about what this says about "Korea" – I don't work for the Korean National Tourism Organization, nor some imagined Society to Give Korea a Bad Name in the International Community (SGKBNIC); I'm just a street photographer and I shoot what I see, the rhythms of everyday life. And if you actually walk around any Korean city on any given night of the week, you will see drunk men in suits staggering about, women consoling their suddenly sad (and very drunk) friend, and vomit on the sidewalk in the morning anywhere in Chongno is probably about as common as doggy doo on the sidewalk back in the US.

Is it "good?" Is it "bad?" Well, if you're the kind of person who thinks that shooting a man carrying flowers is "anti-Korean" – well, you're already pretty paranoid, and a lost cause for me, anyway.

It's like my favorite prostitution picture, in which it having been shot on 1600-speed, extremely grainy color film prevents any real detail from being shown, combined with the fact that the subject's face is too small to make out any distinct features, what with the obvious wig/hair salon special she's wearing, or the standard outfitting of false eyelashes and a pancake of makeup. I dare even her best friend to try and recognize her in person, let alone through the wide-angle lens of a photographer driving his car with one hand, nervously pointing his camera through a tinted-glass window.

You can make out enough detail to see her expression, but not actively identify her; she could be anyone. Even if the woman in question recognized herself, she'd have a tough time even proving it was here, beyond a shadow of a doubt, in a court of law to even sue me in the first place. That's why this is the perfect picture.

For all those who disagree, and think my intentions somehow evil, let me just say that if I could show you the one picture I can never show in my defense, this particular argument would be over. Done. It's a high-resolution digital shot of a woman in a similar position, but it's razor-clear, and chock full of detail and character.

Personally, I think mine to be technically much better and more honest than the one below that was published in the SF Chronicle (with no concern being given to Korean law, in terms of the subject, whose face is clearly shown – the only reason I republish it here is because it's been linked to and passed around the 'net to no end, with even progressive American NGO's linking to it, who never don't consider this a problem because hey, it's not my society, right? – at least I can make a good point with it, since the cat's out of the bag); you'll never know, because you'll never see that picture. I'll never publish it.

Just for the record, my picture shows what is more typical in these areas after anti-prostitution law – girls sitting around between customers, typically knitting (a fad these days), chatting, or taking a smoke; my shot was of a woman singing along to a pop tune on the radio, and was full of rich details, such as a "protect youth from violence" poster from a government campaign, beauty supplies, clothes in the back, stuffed animals, etc. And that was gained by getting my ass out of the car, walking by and breathing the same air as my subjects, risking getting caught by the thugs in the area, and not pulling the sneaky move of shooting out of a car window, catching them as they noticed the camera and then driving away.

What I don't like about the picture is that the apparent look of disdain and sneer on the face of the women in the picture comes from realizing that they're being photographed more than from the apparent plight in which the Chronicle obviously has a vested interest in proving these women are in.

And before you good feminists get all up in arms because you think I am saying that these women aren't in some plight, I'll just say that no matter what I think about the institution, when I'm photographing, I take the mission of capturing what I find dead serious. When I was nervously walking through Yongsan when I got the pictures I was describing earlier, I wasn't looking for a particular booth, or a kind of girl, or look; I was just walking, snapping, walking, snapping, with my remote plunger in my pocket going off at every stall (if I actually had the camera to my eye, or even my hand on the shutter, I would have been surely stopped by the watchers in the area, who are there to protect the girls, their business, and their interests – and that doesn't include media people taking pictures); when I came back to my monitor at home is when I found gold.

And there's gold there, in the sense of a couple pictures that shed much more life, even in single shots, and give the women in the windows much more complexity than the pictures that appeared in the Chronicle. And I wonder why, if the Chronicle respected their subject enough to blur the picture and omit the face of one of their main informants, they were OK with plastering the faces of these Korean prostitutes in Korea all over the Internet?

In American terms anyway, what they did was legal. The girls were in a public place. And realistically, they're not going to be sued internationally according to Korean laws for shooting a hooker. Photographically, though, I thought the Chronicle's moves pretty disrespectful of the subjects in Korea, highlighted by how extra-sensitive they were being to the main subjects – who also had vested interests in proving they were being trafficked and getting on the fast track to a green card.

Say what you want about me poking the sacred cow of the trafficking issue in the ass, but that's something that bothered me about the whole "exposé for the sake of these poor women" that was worked by the Chronicle. Why is it that they seem to show more care to the women in the US than to the women they came to photograph in Korea? Aren't the future prospect of the passionately-described "Youmi" of the feature as important as the unnamed Korean hookers whose faces are shown without a moment's hesitation across the Internet?

That's why I get so steamed about people calling me or my photography or this site "anti-Korean" or that I disrespect my subjects; if you knew the pictures I have held back on (and continue to), even when foreign photographers are showing up to cover and shoot topical issues about which I've got better material and access on hand down – and could simply push the "publish" button on my blog to easily prove it...I don't.

And that's out of respect for my subjects, respect for Korean law, and for wanting to continue to function here as a photographer in Korea. As a no-name photographer, it was tempting to pull out all my best stuff and jump on the bandwagon – how easy would that have been? To make a mega-post about prostitution and populate it with those money pictures I'd never shown before? Let me tell you – fucking easy.

I'm not trying to make myself out to be some saint – I'm just trying to tell the haters: if only you knew the choices I make when editing, you'd know that if this photographer/blogger/podcaster actually "hated" Korea – wow.

But I make virtual promises with my subjects to basically not fuck them, nor step over ethical lines. Hence, no matter how much I rant and rage about the education system here, I keep my camera off when it comes to the kids I teach. Even when I come to hate certain of the institutions who quite literally fucked me. Because one thing (my having been screwed) has nothing to do with the other (my kids and the implied assumption that, as a teacher, my kids' privacy comes first, my being a photographer is secondary).

Anyway – what I have described above is just one example of how content and intent, as well as affective commitment to the place you're at, where you call home right now, affects the artistic and ethical choices you make.

And for those who think this results in being "anti-Korean" or "unethical" or whatnot – I just have to say that you are definitely either overly paranoid and nationalist, or you have no direct experience with having produced and published anything yourself. And if you combine the two, without asking the intelligent kind of questions that David did, which allowed me to formulate a clear answer – that you have to think about content and intent, along with a respect for the subjects while balancing the desire to express something in general, and that there are no black-and-white – then it's difficult to say anything particularly useful.

"Showers and Flowers"

Spring is really upon us, as people have been seen carrying flowers more these days, perhaps to spruce up the cubicle, freshen up the home decor, or just give to a loved one on a date.

I just loved the contrasts posed by the subject's tough guy swagger, cigarette in the teeth, and a bouquet of flowers carefully cradled in his hands. One could only wonder whether he was coming or going with them.

In the picture below, I simply like the reads and pinks against the other random colors in the background, as well as the slight motion blur I got as I tracked the woman walking across my field of view.

All of it made me feel like spring.