Culture Tuesday

I got some culture in this lazy holiday - went to the theater. The Shin-Yeon Arts Hall, specifically. Chose a play at random, called "The Absurd Scandal".



That's a loose translation of the Korean title "기막힌 스캔들". That, in turn is a very liberal translation of the original title of this Marc Camoletti play "Pyjamas Pour Six", or even it's English title "Don't Dress for Dinner" (see also here). Despite growing up in and around theaters and drama folks, I have never heard if this play nor this playwright before. He apparently is famous for an earlier 1962 play called "Boeing Boeing" which ran for over 20 years, and to which this 1982 play is a sequel.



This section of Seoul has a bunch of small theaters, kind of a mini-arts district near Hyehwa Station on line 4. The play was a performed with just five actors and one set, however I noticed online that they rotate four cast members through each role, making a total cast of 20. The play ran about 1-1/2 hours, and kept the audience in stitches most of the time (it's a comedy). Even with my poor Korean, I was able to get about 1/3 of the language, and actually understood almost the entire story just from context and body language.



In a departure from the plays I've seen in America, the program or flyer didn't list the actors and actresses names (though they are listed on the website, and were also posted on a wall in the entrance hallway). Also, I noticed they spelled the author's name incorrectly ("Comoletti" instead of "Camoletti"), but at least they gave him credit. There was no intermission, I guess because this theater is so small there is no lobby. I made a rough count, and I'm guessing there is seating for 150 to 200 patrons.



This was a good experience, and reminded me a lot of seeing plays as a kid that my Dad was involved in as Technical Director or otherwise. I will definitely go back to this area and catch some more plays in the future.

Oh, and lots of good restaurants nearby.

Here's one which served spicy barbeque chicken, although I ordered a beef and seafood fried rice with cheese-filled-rice-cake "extra". Wow, it was great!





EDIT: This theater's seats were exceptionally comfortable, and looked like they were Duoback (a Korean name brand of office chair supposedly designed to be an ergonomic fit to the back). However, my back was KILLING me for about three days after this play. I can only attribute it to the fact that I was hunching down to avoid blocking the view of the fellow behind me, and also leaning to one side to see around the person in front of me.

Humidity Wars

It is that season again, time to begin my battle with the dry winter air. I've never used the heating in my home; somehow it absorbs heat, too much heat, from the neighboring homes. At least this is my theory. Consider today - it minus 7 degrees Centigrade outside, yet in my home it is nearly 27 degs!




I can't complain (too much) about this, but the dryness is another matter. Here you can see the indoor humidity is 33%, where I've read 40 to 60% is ideal. On occasion I've been able to get it just above 40. Today no such luck, despite both my humidifiers running full blast:







Looks like I'll be getting a third humidifier this season, or else my nose and throat are going to become fossilized.

What's this Cup Stuff?

Coffee cups, that is. Or in my case, tea cups. I noticed my coffee pot labels indicate it holds 10 to 15 cups. I know they use a smaller than normal cup when defining the capacity, but I didn't get anywhere even close to 10 cups.



Finally I measured things, and here's the results. First of all, the pot fills up at 5-1/4 cups, or 42 fluid ounces. According to Wikipedia, the standard coffee cup unit of measure is 6 ounces. So that means only 7 "cups" in the pot. If we believe 10 to 15 cups per pot, thats only 4.2 or 2.8 oz per cup - mighty small if you ask me.

I measured the few coffee cups in my cupboard. I would say they are typical coffee cups, not huge or tiny. The measure between 8 and 10 ounces. This explains why I'm only getting FOUR cups from a 10 to 15 cup pot!



Interestingly, there isn't a universal standard for one cup. Again, according to Wiki, the cup varies all over the place. Extrapolating from common measures, it should be 236.59 grams. But US law declares a legal "cup" as 240 grams. Almost like the mythical story of Mississippi declaring pi to be 3.00. Leave the US, and definition of the "cup" is even more uncertain, if at all.

So grab a pint of beer, and let's toast the metric system. It's been around for more than one deca-score years, and can be easily mastered in one fortnight by even the slowest of students. Cheers!

Beef Butt

Made a quick Costco trip yesterday, as always ignoring my number one Costco rule: Never ever go on a weekend! Bought a pack of the cheapest beef I could find (I'll be boiling it in soups or stews).


When I got home, I tried to translate the name. My dictionary said It was stupid or foolish! I finally found an excellent description of Korean beef cuts on the Seoul Eats blog.


According to this, I have the beef butt. A rump roast or round roast. I suppose this might refer to a fool...

Fresh Air

Ran into this interesting article in today's paper. I feared things might get this bad, but it looks like it's for real:

SEOUL AIR TO BECOME EVEN CLEANER

SEOUL, Dec. 26 (Yonyap) Amid recent smoking restrictions, the Seoul City Council announced new “enhanced” measures to further protect citizens from the health effects of poor quality air - and not just from smokers! Phase one is called “Jump and Ride”. Beginning March 1st, buses will no longer be allowed to stop at center-street bus stops, thus minimizing exposure to hazardous exhaust fumes. Drivers will slow down to 10kph within 150m of the stop in both directions. A representative of the “Drivers' Union of Metropolitan Buses” says some drivers will complain about the new procedures, but most welcome the change, as it will protect the children and elderly.” The ban will expand to all bus stops from early June.

Phase two, called “No Poop, No Stink” begins on May 31, and is modeled after the successful 2007 Korean Animal Protection Act. Under this program, citizens will no longer be allowed to defecate in any public restroom, including office buildings, shopping malls, or any bathroom with more than one toilet stall. “The eradication of harmful sewerage gasses such as hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, methane, as well as dangerous bacteria, has long been the goal of the World Toilet Association”, says it's chairman Mr. Kim Seu-koop, who spearheaded these efforts from behind the scenes. “We knew we had to eliminate smoking first, but now it it time plunge ahead and attack the next biggest polluter of Korea's most beautiful toilet environments”. He also hints that flatulence, urination and expectoration will be on the blocks in future campaigns. “We considered starting with the ban on spitting this year, but frankly thought it would be too difficult for citizens to accept. So we only lobbied for a ban on defecation from this year”. Mr. Kim's dream is to see every restroom in Korea completely free from all bodily wastes, be they solid, liquid or gas. This ban will be expanded to all restrooms in Seoul of any size or location, public or private, by October. Similar legislation will be considered by the National Assembly this spring, to be implemented country-wide.

Another benefit of the legislation will be the creation of the new “Freshie Air Reinforcement Troops”. It will be manned by the thousands of retirees who were recently discharged from the Parking Lot Corps, as more and more building complexes became fully mechanized. The Chief of Staff of the Ajossi Ministry reports that all members will be transferred to the new organization with full benefits, and will retain their previous rank and pay grade. These heroic pioneers on the front lines against dangerous smells will be stationed at bus stops and toilets throughout Seoul, and are empowered to issue citations on-the-spot.

This new legislation, “Wind Like 10,000 Roses”, passed last Friday just before the Christmas Holiday. At the press conference today, Mr. Park Gung-ho, an official of the Seoul Metropolitan Government, said the new law is intended as a present to the people of Seoul. Mr. Park said the Council had considered the creation of a Yeouido Noxious Fume Offset Market, where citizens with fresh smelling bodily emissions could sell and trade. But this proposal didn't smell right to many legislatures, and was tabled until 2016.

SEOUL

Tapa De Botella, or 뚜껑

Bottle caps. When I was 12 years old, my Mother took me on a trip to San Francisco for a conference, returning via Mexico City. Her story was that this was the last year I could fly on a discount children's air fare (do they even have those anymore?) When I was 12, I also had started a bottle cap collection in the basement. I gathered bottle caps from wherever I could find them, and stored them in this big cardboard cheese "box". Actually it was a huge circular box, and really sturdy - the cheese it once contained would have fed several families for a year. Naturally, I was excited for the opportunity to collect bottle caps from Mexico (or rather, "tapa de botella", as I called them, correctly or not). I particularly remember leaving Mexico, passing through the metal detector at the airport and setting off the alarms. The guard asked me if I had any metal on me, and I sheepishly emptied my pockets, which held about 1 liter of bottle caps each (it was a large, winter coat). I think that was a first for the security guards. They got a big laugh out of it, and let me through with my stash (today, bottle caps might be considered a concealed weapon).




Fast forward to last night, when I met up with my friends Tuttle and Gargamel for dinner. We began eatcing some delicious lamb meat skewers, where we set next to the manager at the Coca Cola office, who has been working there since it's beginning in Korea. Tuttle and I couldn't pass on this opportunity to complain about the scarcity of Diet Coke here in Korea, and the nastiness of the more common Coke Zero. We'll see if our complaints amount to action, but I won't be holding my breath.



After dinner, we visited a new HOF called "The Beer Bottle Cap". This place is really unusual for Korea, and was great. The decor is simple, wooden tables and benches. One wall is lined with coolers of beer, sorted by price, and from every country in the world. A few simple snacks are available (we had a bowl of Cheese Balls), but most guests order food from outside restaurants by delivery! As Gargamel pointed out, it's a much different business model than the typical places, and it seems to be working very well, judging by the crowd.

I've since lost the bottle cap collection passion that I had as a young boy. And The Stumbling Brother disposed of my cheese box of bottle caps many years ago when cleaning up the basement. But after last night, I may need to return to my old hobby. But first, I need to buy and eat 100 pounds of cheese...

Measuring with Anchor

One of my recent projects involves an electronic weight scale, and I've been using various items for rough calibration. I thought I was onto a "Great Milk Conspiracy" when I discovered that my 1 liter bottles of milk only contained 950 cc. But upon further investigation, it turns out that my trusty Anchor Hocking Company measuring cup (bought from a Walmart, in Hawaii I think) is not accurate! After lots of head scratching, I finally weighed various levels of water on a commercial, precision scale. You can see the data here:



Bottom line, there seems to be an offset to the printed scale - for kitchen purposes let's call it 10 cc. For scientific purposes, I would say don't use this - get an accurate graduated cylinder or beaker instead. Well, at least I have solved the milk mystery. Next, I'm going to solve the rice conspiracy (5 out of 5 bags of 1Kg bags weigh EXACTLY 990 grams)...

We'll Always Have Paris...

...NOT. Since I've lost some weight over the past couple of years, my pants have been getting looser and looser. Especially my nice wool pants, which I got from my tailor in Itaewon - Paris Tailors. Since I remember he told me alterations would be free, I've been threatening to take them in for some time now. But during the summer it was too hot to worry about wool pants. I finally got up to Itaewon last night.

But I arrived in front of the tailor shop, only to be totally confused. Instead of a tailor shop, there were two men grilling meat out in front of a Turkish restaurant. This was not a good sign. I tried to ask the men what happened to the tailor, and they couldn't speak English. One guy was about to run get the owner, but I told him never mind - I thought that three Turkish men who didn't speak English wouldn't be any better.

So I tried to find the phone number by calling my colleage CH, and also searching on my smartphone. After about 15 minutes of research, I found the number. Called it, but it was not a tailor at the number. I was about to give up hope, and decided on a whim to just pick a nearby tailor at random and ask him what happened. The Paris Tailor had been around for almost 20 years, it seemed unlikely they would close. I was guessing instead they had moved. If not, at least the random tailor I chose could alter my pants.

I must note something about this short section of street. In just this one front, there used to be 4 tailors, let's call them A, B, C, D, and E (Paris Tailor was A). I was about to walk into tailor E, but he looked busy. Instead I went into tailor E and asked him for help. He immediately realized the problem, and informed me that Paris Tailor had really closed. However, they had sold they customer list to another shop across the street, the "London Tailor". He sent me there to have my pants altered.

I arrived at the London Tailor, and the fellow was very confused. He basically told me I was crazy, that they had no relationship to the old Paris Tailor. Furthermore, he told me that there was no way he would alter clothing made anywhere else but his shop - even if I paid an alteration fee! So even more confused, I headed back to tailor D one more time, if only to tell him he was quite mistaken about the Paris Tailor customer list.

When I confronted tailor D with this information, he immediately apologized and explained his confusion. Apparently, TWO tailor shops had recently closed on that street front, shops A and B. B's customers were transferred to London Tailor, but Paris' customers it turns out were transferred to tailor C. Unbelievable. At least it was close, literally two doors down. The fellow personally escorted me to the tailor shop to explain things.

Now here's where the story get really strange - as we're walking on the street, who do we see in front of us but the former owner of Paris Tailor - WHO IS NOW THE OWNER OF THE TURKISH RESTAURANT! I never could get a straight answer as to why he closed the tailor shop and opened a restaurant, but at least he went along with us to tailor C and took care of everything for me. So, tailor C now has my pants to be altered, and I should get them back Monday or Tuesday.

Does anyone recommend a new tailor? I'm not sure I'll continue using this tailor C or not, but frankly it doesn't really matter for now. I very rarely use a tailor, and I've never even had a suit made. At most, I expect I might have get some shirts in the next 12 months, although even those I might mail order from the USA. It's kind of sad to see a 20-year old business close. But in the scheme of things, there are just too many tailors there in Itaewon.

A Pair of Orsons

Somehow this obscure thought came to light during dinner with friends this week - I used to get these guys confused:

Orson Welles:


Orson Bean:


One was morbidly obese, one was morbidly thin. To be fair, looking at some photos from their younger days, the contrast isn't so striking:





And if we can believe Wikipedia, Mr Bean is still alive. All this thinking about Orsons reminds me that I've never seen Citizen Kane...

Tiger Farts

I got a fresh supply of Tiger Balm last week (more on that later). Although you can smell me coming from 4 blocks away, this stuff is great for my back aches. I happened to unfold the impossibly thin piece of paper that comes in the box, and among the 2 dozen languages I found some English instructions:





FLATULENCE???? I can't begin to imagine. Well, actually, I did have one vague idea: if you apply enough of this cream to your body, you will smell like a menthol/camphor factory. Perhaps that would mask even the worst possible gaseous emissions? I'm still puzzled about the dizziness, any ideas?

Those who like these unusual claims, I've written about two similar ones before:

Sansachun wine bottles

sliced bread at a local bakery chain

Democraziness - TNSTAAFL

Now I don't follow politics very closely, not in the USA, and even less here in Korea. However, there was an election held this week in Seoul over a controversial law to require free lunches for all school children, poor or not. But that isn't the reason for this post.

This law was opposed by many, including the Seoul city mayor. Presumably he was so opposed to it, he spearheaded a referendum, giving the citizens an opportunity to overturn the law. Not content with that, he then announced that if the referendum fails to repeal the law, he would resign his post as mayor. But even that isn't the reason for this post.


The election was held on Wednesday, and indeed it failed to repeal the law. In fact, it failed to even attain the necessary 33% of voter turnout necessary to make the results valid. But I believe THE REAL STORY was buried in was the following tidbits from the news coverage of the election.

1. The folks opposing the referendum to repeal the law (folks who support the law) were ACTIVELY CAMPAIGNING FOR CITIZENS TO NOT VOTE !!!!!!! This is absolutely unbelievable. Don't these parties have an obligation, implied or explicit, to support the very basic form of their government? Or at least, not to subvert it? It seems astounding that any citizen of a democracy would encourage citizens NOT to vote. It's one thing to promote your cause, but it's another to encourage citizens to abandon their most fundamental civic responsibility. If that's not illegal, well maybe it ought to be.

2. It gets better. Apparently, the rules of the election are such that if the threshold of 33% isn't met, THE VOTES AREN'T EVEN COUNTED! That, too, seems crazy. Maybe it's the engineer in me, but who wouldn't want to know data like this? It might or might not be helpful. But you won't know unless you count them. Say for example the results showed that 99% of the voters were on one side or the other. Isn't this something that the officials would want to be aware of? You can never have too much data.


I don't really have a strong opinion about the whole free school lunch program. It seems entirely reasonable to provide lunches to students from poor families, indeed it seems this has been the case, even before this new law. I'm not really opposed to the concept of free lunches for everyone, but with limited government funds (which I hear is the case), I'm not sure it would be extremely high on my priority list. Furthermore, I've learned to be suspicious of things which are supposedly "free". TNSTAAFL, as Robert Heinlein wrote years ago ("There's No Such Thing As A Free Lunch").

I will say that throughout this whole school lunch controversy, it is painfully obvious to me that the fight HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FREE SCHOOL LUNCHES. The whole reason for this supposed crisis was that the current system provides free lunches to children from poor families, but it makes them ashamed to be seen by their friends getting lunches for free. If that's the only problem at hand, then the solution is obvious - issue prepaid lunchroom cards to everyone. Parents who could pay would, the government would pay the others. Any Korean could immediately come to this conclusion after one minute's thought. Koreans use electronic cards like this for nearly everything in their daily lives - subway and bus cards, parking lot cards, there are even cards like this built into many cell phones, not to mention the ubiquitous credit cards. No, the fact that such a program was not quietly implemented in the first place tells me that this whole circus was for some other reason. And since I don't follow politics, I couldn't even begin to speculate what that reason might be.

I've had my say. I know a lot of crazy things go on in politics all around the world, sometimes behind the scenes, sometimes out in the open. But this really pegged my absurd meter.

Read My Lips

An interesting buzz in the news this week was the proposal by lawmakers to make it illegal for performers to lip-sync, although apparently there is an exception when the performer informs the audience in advance. This of course got lots of people talking. I think I heard at least three different discussions of this topic on the radio, and that's just on the English station.

I tend to agree with the majority of the people I've heard, that is, the this is NOT an area where legislation is needed. However, if the government must legislate this for some reason, I think the law should be reversed. That is, it would be assumed that everyone IS lip-syncing, and require artists to announce when they are singing live.

For some reason, this silliness brings to mind these phrases from an old Tom Lehrer song,

Yes, now that he’s a senator,
he’s really got the chance
To give the public
A song and dance!

Speed Racer

"The difference between men and boys is the size (and expense) of their toys".

I wandered across the street on Sunday, and noticed a large crowd out in front of the Technomart. On closer inspection, it was racecars! Not real racecars, but radio controlled cars.





The first race was pretty tame. But a later race was really cut-throat. Cars were crashing into each other, rolling over, and there were several complete wipe-outs. Unlike real car racing, apparently doing a couple of barrel rolls doesn't faze these cars. I remember one mini-cooper (car #7) rolled two or three times in the air, landed "feet down" like cat, and just kept on racing. This happened several times in just a few minutes.

Not Simian

I decided to take a walk yesterday. I was tempted to go up around Yeouido and see the cherry blossoms, but I heard on the radio that they are running busses from out of town to bring people to that park. I decided to stay away. But instead, I took a walk along Do-Rim-(trickle of a)-Stream running by my neighborhood. This is a minor stream which runs into the larger trickle called Anyang Stream, which itself empties into the Han River near that strange tiny island near the Niagara Hotel.



Despite some bridge building construction which I couldn't quite figure out (was it for pedstrians, trains, or cars) the stream-side walk was really pleasant. The walking "park" was almost the same calibre as those along the Han River, complete with the same heavy, fear-inspiring bicycle traffic. I took to the stream walk a few weeks ago, when we had another false-start of Spring, going the opposite direction to the south. That walk was really interesting, because it was almost underground. Most of the walkways were recessed and gave an almost cave-like experience. This walk to the north was much more open. And, I still got to see the cherry blossoms. Just like the Anyang Stream walkway when I lived in Mokdong, they have an elevated, tree-lined walkway parallel to the stream walkway below. Very relaxing.







Many of the parks and walkways here in Korea have these public exercise stations. I stopped at one yesterday, spent a few minutes on each of the various machines, some of which really scare me. Not because of my poor fitness level, but rather because of my poor coordination. Some of these machines are quite easy to operate, but I can so easily see myself slipping and flying off into the concrete. One which simulates huge walking strides which standing still comes to mind. I did find one I really liked, kind of an eccentric (off-center, not strange) body twisting apparatus.

What nearly DID kill me was not the exercise area, but instead an innocent set of monkey bars along the tree-lined walkway. "Oh, monkey bars!" I thought to myself, "These bring back such happy memories from elementary school". That should have been a warning, not being simian nor an elementary school student. Rather, I'm an overweight man with back problems. Cautiously, I approached the bars, grabbed the first one, and started a gentle swing. Not gentle enough, it seems. I was not prepared for what happened next. I felt an incredible stretch somewhere along the sides of my back, almost like something snapped! I immediately ceased all monkey activity. Actually, I think the stretching would have been great, had it been administered slowly (like from midieval rack torture). But coming in one sudden jerk as it were, I'm still feeling it this morning, almost 24 hours later.



Dog owners here tend to pamper their dogs. And small dogs seem to be most popular (I guess small dogs go better in small homes with no yards). I've seen well-groomed dogs, dogs with hair-dyed ears and/or tails, and even dogs wearing clothes. I have even heard stories about The Stumbing Aunt's dog wearing a backpack. But for the first time, I saw a dog wearing walking shoes!

Less is More

Well, I finally got out to the Museum that I almost visited back on New Year's Day. (I wrote about back in February). I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but I really enjoyed it. The exhibit featured the design work of Dieter Rams, a German industrial designer. He worked for many years for the Braun company, and it is said that his followers used his design techniques and philosophies in the design of the Apple iPhone.

It should be clear from the title of the exhibit, "Less is More", that he espouses a simplistic, minimalist design. As an engineer, I've always wanted more and more functions on a product. The more buttons, dials, meters, displays, the better. But the elegance of his designs, convinces me otherwise. That, and years of operating OTHER people's products which were too complicated to understand. I definitely plan to read more about him and his design style.

Let start with the most astounding design, in my opinion. I have not been able to find any details about it, and unfortunately my cell phone camera didn't catch enough detail to read the label. I call it the "one button TV set"



Here are some other photos from the exhibit:

















Let me also say it is a bit unsettling to be in a mueseum exhibit, and see products that you remember seeing on the store shelves as a child. Make of that what you will.