The day of Daeseo, what is traditionally the hottest day of summer — literally the “Big Heat of Summer” (대서, 大暑) — falls on Tuesday, July 23, this year. It marks the beginning of the 12th of 24 solar terms throughout… Read More ›
Uncategorized
Eat Your Way Across Korea: Ginseng Chicken Soup
The delicious world of Korean cuisine is broad and deep. From the vast vegetable varieties of kimchi, through to the three pillars of Korean cuisine — red pepper paste, soy sauce and soybean paste — Korean cooking encompasses the expansive… Read More ›
World War II in East Asia
In East Asia, the thing we call “World War II” began three times with three surprise Japanese attacks, in three broad and bloody phases, each nastier and more intense — and shorter — than the prior one, all of them… Read More ›
Understanding the U.S.
Beginner America: To understand the U.S. at the beginner’s level, read David Halberstam, William Manchester and Stephen E. Ambrose for your histories, and then James A. Michener and James Fenimore Cooper for your novels. That’s a good place for beginners;… Read More ›
When I say “Seoul”
Seoul. Seoul is one side of a line of infinitesimal dots. Seoul is always having another human within 5 meters of you 24-hours-per-day: above you, in front of you, behind you, below you, to your sides, all in 3D. Seoul… Read More ›
Fix Beijing… and You Fix the World
China has had a tough past few centuries, especially compared to the easy, pleasant flow of modern North American history. There have been roughly 250 years since the British in North America broke off from the British back in Britain…. Read More ›
Korean Rock
Korean Rock by Gregory C. Eaves March 2014 … … 1974: two bright lights of culture in the darkness Look out over Seoul today. The metropolis is vast. The neon is bright. Glass and steel abound. The urban sprawl stretches… Read More ›
