The end of Ming (明) (1368-1644) was about eight weeks of events that — literally — ended an empire. Note: Wu Sangui did not intend to give China to the Qing. He made a desperate tactical alliance against Li Zicheng… Read More ›
travel
Korea in English: It Ain’t All There
The Korea that exists in English is not the same as the Korea that exists in Korean. There is a gap. Below, I try to outline that gap. The two English flagships and how people see them The Korea Times… Read More ›
Eat Your Way across Korea: Army Base Stew
In the early days of the 1950s and 1960s there was a plethora of U.S. military stationed across Korea but a dearth of harvestable grain, food distribution networks, or luxury meals. The desperation and poverty, and man’s ever-blossoming inventiveness when… Read More ›
Are You a Traveler or an Immigrant?
I’ve never bought the travel-as-transformation narrative fluff that’s mongered in such tracts as Cheryl Strayed’s “Wild” or in Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Eat, Pray, Love.” Travel, at least the kind of travel so often coded as “real” or “authentic,” as opposed to,… Read More ›
Seoul: Emergent Urbanism
Do you live in Seoul? Do you think a lot about your city? The greater Seoul area has about 26 million people in it. It’s about 50% of Korean GDP and about 50% of the population. Seoul proper, just the… Read More ›
Thank you, France
This Thursday is the Fourth of July. Every Fourth of July, I say a little prayer of thanks to France. France bought from the fledgling U.S. its first-ever tranche of federal bonds, thereby giving Washington enough cash to buy guns…. Read More ›
Gregory's Writings 