Author: Mark (Page 9 of 90)

Cool autumn day

November 14, 2014 / Mark / 0 Comments

We had our first snow of the season last night — just a dusting that is pretty much all melted now, but it was still nice. In fact, I think this has been one of the most pleasant Korean autumns I can remember. Clear skies, and a much more gradual cooling than some years (when it seems to plummet from hot to freezing in about 10 days).

So I decided to take a walk down the Cheonggyecheon at lunchtime. As you can see, it was quiet and quite charming.

I also passed the Dongdaemun Design Plaza.

This really amused me. On the back side of the DDP, there is an ugly little room with a couple of rows of desks and chairs. It is close to nothing and resembles nothing as much as a cage in a terrible zoo. The sign on the window: Press Room.

Icky Diseases, Then and Now

November 14, 2014 / Mark / 0 Comments

It looks like we somehow survived the great ebola plague of 2014. Korea was, of course, devastated with, uh, zero cases. The United States somehow turned back the zombie-like scourge that infected, what, four people? Most of whom had been to Africa.

By coincidence, I have started reading an excellent history of the 1854 cholera outbreak in London: The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic–and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World. Just an excellent book so far.

It is especially fascinating to compare how fear and superstition back then got in the way of understanding and treating the disease properly — much as happened in the United States with ebola (fortunately, medicine and science was able to mostly out-muscle the politicians). I particularly liked the saying: “Whilst pestilence slays its thousands, fear slays its tens of thousands.”

Korea, like most of the world, has had to deal with periodic cholera outbreaks over the years, going back to at least 1821 when it came via China (that date would be before the disease made it to Europe). Cholera would continue to flare up over the years, well into the 1980s. This is an interesting paper on cholera and Korea in the colonial era. The cholera outbreak of 1919-20 appears to have been the most deadly in Korea, when 25,000 people died.

How things change. Today, the International Vaccine Institute, which is based in Korea, is working on an oral cholera vaccine specially designed for developing nations (being cheaper and easier to administer).

But I still got my flu shot.

Seoul sights

November 2, 2014 / Mark / 0 Comments

So, I went to a 1-year-old’s birthday party today (it’s a big deal in Korea) that was held on the 33rd floor restaurant of Jongno Tower in the heart of Seoul. Needless to say, the birthday girl didn’t seem to care, but us adults were impressed.

I think it has been more than a decade since I spent any time at the top of Jongno Tower, and I was really amazed to see how little of the old city remains in the area. Even in the direction of Insa-dong, there really are just a few alleys left.

Anyhow, the Tower has some of my favorite views of Seoul. Here’s one looking east along Jongno.

A little while later, I was up another high-rise over by Hapjeong, and happened to catch this view of the sunset.

Have street vents always had these signs? Or did they just start going up after that accident a couple of weeks ago?

Here’s the site of a fire that was in the news a couple of weeks ago. I eat lunch in the alley behind this building fairly often — fortunately, none of the restaurants were damaged (and no one was hurt). But it is a bit disturbing how many fires strike this part of town. Walking along the Cheonggyecheon, you can see a lot of fire damage in the buildings in the area.

Book party pics

October 26, 2014 / Mark / 0 Comments

My publisher was nice enough to send me a few photos from the book launch party on Tuesday — not a lot, but hopefully it gives you a taste of the evening.

Here I am talking to Eric Oey, the publisher of Tuttle:

(Honestly, it was fairly crowded at the event. More than it looks in these photos).

You can’t have a book event without signing some copies:

Here I am with Brad Moore of Busker Busker, apparently having a smirking contest:

Both Daniel Tudor and I have new books on the way from Tuttle, coming in January:

Book launch party

October 23, 2014 / Mark / 0 Comments

Tuesday night was the official launch party for K-POP NOW! and for Daniel Tudor’s new book A GEEK IN KOREA. And I think it was fairly successfully — we had a good turnout of book store reps, journalists and friends, and people seemed to have a good time.

Unfortunately, things were busy enough that I did not get a chance to take many photos. Hopefully some of the other people who took pictures will send me some to share soon. So for now, all I have is this one picture from before the event started.

Honestly, this photo is from before the event. We really did have a good turnout. I swear.

Thanks to all who came. I really appreciated it and had a great time.

Pupils dilated, non-responsive…

October 23, 2014 / Mark / 2 Comments

Okay, so I decided to get with the time and finally try out a responsive design for this blog. I’m not entirely sure how this tech works, so please let me know if it does not show up properly on your browser.

It’s still a bit ugly. I guess I’ll have to refine things over the next few weeks. But I do like having my books up there in the header. Or perhaps I’ll rotate images or something like that…

A Late Book Launch

October 20, 2014 / Mark / 0 Comments

Tomorrow evening there’s going to be a book launch party for K-POP NOW, together with Daniel Tudor’s new book, A GEEK IN KOREA. It’s my first time having an event like this, so I hope it goes well. I’m sure it will be fine — especially with such a strong partner as Tudor and his new book — but one still gets a bit nervous about these things.

Still, it will be interesting who turns up. Hopefully I’ll have some fun photos to post.

Sundown (You Better Take Care)

October 5, 2014 / Mark / 0 Comments

Okay, no Gordon Lightfoot here, but I still quite liked the sundown this evening.

The end of K-pop?

October 1, 2014 / Mark / 0 Comments

So, Jessica is out of Girls’ Generation. That makes three major SM Entertainment artists to leave their groups this year, along with Kris leaving Exo and Sulli taking a “haitus” from f(x), not to mention Sunye leaving Wondergirls and other high-profile shakeups.

Now, any pop music industry is going to be inherently volatile — fans and artists are young, careers are short — but the increasing troubles that K-pop seems to be going through has me wondering if we could be seeing the beginning of the end of K-pop.

As with so many things about Korean pop music, Motown is in interesting comparison. It had a very similar business model as K-pop and it did very well for a number of years before eventually burning out in the early 1970s. What led to the end of Motown?

The biggest issue was probably control, as artists got tired of being completely controlled by management.
Money was also a big (and related) issue, as artists and songwriters felt like they were not getting their fair share.
Tastes were changing.
The creators of Motown wanted to do other things (like Berry Gordy moving to Los Angeles).

I think it is pretty clear that several of those issue apply to K-pop. Management companies that are the most controlling over their artists are also having the most problems these days, while Jay Park and Drunken Tiger and the like are enjoying their independence.

Are tastes changing? I’m not a teenager, so it is a bit hard for me to talk to that point. However, when I take a look at the Melon charts, “idol K-pop” certainly does not dominate. I see a lot of ballads, hip hop and other genres. Maybe those genres don’t sell themselves or their singers as well as K-pop does, but clearly the music people enjoy in Korea is much more diverse than most music websites would have you believe.

Of course, the end of idol K-pop would not mean the end of Korean popular music. Korea had a thriving music scene long before Seo Taiji and Boys or H.O.T came along. YG Entertainment snapping up Akdong Musicians or CJ signing Busker Busker are signs that the music industry knows tastes are going to keep changing. So I’m not worried about the long-term success of Korean music. But it is very possible that the structure of it and the types of music we hear about could be changing.

I do wonder, though, if I’m going to have to change the title of K-POP NOW to K-POP THEN.

(Btw, I quite like this Soompi article for insights about what happened to Jessica. There’s a good post in the comments translating the latest by Dispatch).

A free will review of ECHOPRAXIA

September 26, 2014 / Mark / 0 Comments

I’ve talked before about my love of Peter Watts’s writing. With the recent release of ECHOPRAXIA, I thought I would give it a little review here, along with some random thoughts about his many not-so-random thoughts.

So what’s Echopraxia about? It is the story of Dan Bruks, a “baseline” human (a mostly unmodified, “normal” person) living in a very modified, post-human world nearly a hundred years in the future. When the story begins, Dan is just conducting field research in the desert of Oregon, mostly trying to keep to himself. But soon he finds himself swept up in conflicts of various post-human forces — Bicameral hive minds, zombie military forces, and the occasional vampire — a cockroach scurrying about before much greater powers, mostly just hoping to stay alive.

It is the kind-of sequel (or “side-quel”, if you will) to the amazing science-fiction novel BLINDSIGHT. Blindsight focused on humanity’s response to a first-contact situation with a very strange alien life form about a hundred years from now, sending a crew of bizarre post-humans out to the edge of the solar system to find out more about the aliens. Echopraxia, on the other hand, is more about the humanity left behind on Earth, and how post-humans continue to transform themselves and clash with each other at home.

Being a Peter Watts novel, it is also about scheming, untrustworthy actors with conflicting and hidden agendas, and our main character trying to navigate the treacherous path between them. It is also about as hard as “hard sci-fi” can get. It’s full of dense talk about biology and physics, and wild extrapolations from that science, with a huge amount of footnotes to back it all up.

So, how good is it? And should you read it?

1) Very good, although not quiet as dizzyingly brilliant as Blindsight. But that still makes it ten times better and smarter than most other science fiction.

2) Yes! Although you really need to read Blindsight first, to keep up with a lot of the strong background stuff on vampires and the aliens.

Blindsight was largely about consciousness, with Watts offering the idea that consciousness is not such a great evolutionary adaptation after all. As a big fan of Julian Jaynes, I loved a book riffing on those sorts of themes.

Echopraxia, on the other hand, is more about free will, and touches more on religious issues — which is fine, although it is not as compelling stuff to me as consciousness is.

The biggest problem with the book is that the main character appears to have no agency for most of the story (not really a surprise in a book critiquing free will). Although as the story going on, that “problem” mostly resolves itself. But it is harder to make a story compelling when it seems like the main character is just along for the ride.

The coolest part of the book is the alien life form Watts comes up with, nicknamed “Portia” (after a fascinating species of spider). Watts really knows his biology and is great at coming up with unusual biological systems. I always enjoy reading about strange aliens that are more interesting than evil-killer-monsters or super-intelligent daddy-figures. Watts is also great at challenging a lot of common assumptions about what makes humans human, and what is special about being human — call it the “anti-Star Trek”.

So, if you are looking for a great read, something challenging and really off-the-wall, a big recommend for Echopraxia (and Blindsight).

UPDATE: I should elaborate on one point about the “free will” thing. Watts has mentioned several times that he does not think that Echopraxia is about free will — in the footnotes to the book and elsewhere. But I fear I have to take issue with him on that point. While Echopraxia leaves no question about Watts’s feeling on whether we have free will (clearly “no”), it does spend a lot of time talking about how and why we do what we do. I mean, the very title of the novel means “stereotyped imitation of the movements of others.” So it seems pretty clear to me that this is a book about motivations and lack-of-rationality … in other words, free will (or, if you prefer, totally-not-free will).