My unSecret Life

Growing up, I always rather liked my name. Justin, at that time, wasn’t as popular as nowadays, and in my entire elementary school there was only another student who beared my name, and he went by “Jud”, apparently there being only room for one Justin. I had silly fantasies sometimes about using my middle name, “Earl”, because I thought it sounded more adult, more sophisticated. I even thought for a time to spell out my initials to become “JEB”…now I can sit here and sincerely thank God that my resolve in these matters was only half-assed, and I never gave it too much effort.

What I was always proud of was my last name, Barbaree. I mean, who in the world could claim this awesome moniker? It can be sexy, rolling off the tongue like cigarette smoke. It can be the pinnacle of masculinity, when my baseball coach would say “C’mon Barbaree, bring ‘em home” or something or another. It could sound sophisticated, full of promise and potential fame, like the way the MC spoke it at my graduation invoked in many, I’m sure, the brevity of certain greatness. In some cases, teachers, peoples in doctors offices, mechanics, telemarketers, even doctors, will stumble over the mountains of syllables in my name, saying, “Bear-barry” or “Barba-ray”. They are all idiots.

Barbaree.

Yes, I grew into the name quite well, I think. It suits me.

When I came to

Korea

, I was certain my three syllable last name would strike envy into the hearts of the Koreans whose entire names only consist of three syllables: Park Ji Sung, Kim Tae Woo, Chun Ji Hyun. Ha, ha, my “pemily” name ALONE has three syllables. Only three more to go, and you’ll be finished. And of course, the pronunciation of Earl to someone who is learning English in

Asia

is a particularly cruel, unfortunate exercise that I normally spare people out of the goodness of my heart. No, me, I’m just proud of my last name, Barbaree, provoking visions of the pirates that inspired the name the

Barbary coast

. I come from French pirates dammit—cultured but wild, unkempt but fashionable, course but condescendingly polite.

Barbaree…

The Koreans pronounce it Ba- ba- Ri, the last consonant being lost in the hinterlands between an “r” and an “l” sound. Many would laugh when they said it, and I supposed it just sounded so foreign to them, so very “strangey”. Boy, was I wrong. The word Ba ba Ri has been in

Korea

for a while, ever since they opened their boarders to trade that happened in some time or another, the actual date being unimportant. What is important is that

Barbary

is the brand name of a famous coat, the Barbary Coat in fact. Its kind of like a trench coat, a long, possibly tan, leather affair of a trench coat. This name has also become synonymous with “Ba-ba-Ri man”, which means “pervert”, the reason being that just as flashers back home use trench coats to package there true selves, the chronic visitors of girls high schools over here also fashion themselves into a “BaBaRi Coat.”

Ba-Ba-Ri…

The true devastating implications of this hit me one day while I was teaching at, of all places, the Women’s University where I work. I had been a little bit worried about this for a while. I was unsure of the actual effect it had on people, and concerned over how it might effect my dating and professional life while I’m over here. I was telling my conversation students about the origin of my name, and joking about the connotations that it had in Korea, and possibly seeking from them validation– something along the lines of, “No teacher, we never make that association”, or “Teacher, that’s the first time I’ve thought about that, …hee, hee.” Or “Teacher, no one ever thinks about that.” Finally, someone spoke up– a usually quiet girl who I thought was very sweet. She looked at me gravely, and said in her thick accent: “Teacha, you name is bery, bery…unportunate.”

So, there it was. The final verdict.

Ba-ba-Ri man…

The girl in my conversation group is named Ho So Young. My wounded pride wished to lash out and inform little Miss Ho that her damn name would also be bery unportunate when she traveled to the States next semester to study English, but… I didn’t have the energy. I picked up my books, shuffled slowly back to my office, head hanging low, and I looked up at the placard on my door, my name spelled out in Korean characters as clear as day, and I realized that I am cursed forever:

Ba-ba-Ri…

Ever since I told my friend this lovely story about the dung dwedgie of jeju island, I have had the unfortunate circumstance of being called the dung dwedgie. I guess I deserve the title.

Jeju

Island

is famous for many things: bucolic scenery, coastal cliffs, and fields of flowers in the spring, stone carvings and good weather, all things that beckon Korean tourists and honeymooners from all over the country.

But I’ve begun to suspect that the true appeal of Jeju comes from a much …, darker place, a place hidden from view, a place that not many wish to see, except for German porn connoisseurs. That’s right folks, I’m talking about the Dung Dwedgie, literally the one and only, the famous “shit pig” of

Jeju

Island

.

The dung dwedgie is a special pig with a special palate, one that has developed a taste for human excrement. Jeju’s a small island, and the people were perplexed in the olden times of how they would remove the stuff that just seemed to keep coming out of them, and they were pleased, delighted even, that they found this wonderful and tasty solution to their “mounting” problem.

The pigs of Jeju would be sent to the bottom of the outhouse to feast until their hearts were content. After they were fattened up and people were hungry, they butchered the heroic dung dwedgie, cooked it, and ate it. The most amazing fact was that the pig soon became a famous culinary delight across

Korea

, and now anyone who visits can’t rightly say they’ve been to

Jeju

Island

without feasting on the famous Dung Dwedgie.

Thanks Dung Dwedgie for your humble servitude and for your succulent ribs. Mmmm, mmmm.

when I was younger, my friends used to play this terribly nasty joke on one another, for whatever depraved reason. one would ask another quickly if they like cheese, but would mumble fuhmunda under the breath to barely be heard. If the answer was yes, and many times even if it were no, the result would be grazing the fingers across the victims mouth, fingers which had recently harvested the cheese "from under" one’s sweaty balls.

why am i recounting this? I have no idea other than its so hot and humid outside and conditions are epic, i should say rather ripe, for a mean blow of the fuhmunda…

am i still single, ladies? yes

I’ve been reading alot of books lately, more than usual, although this is in no way an indication that I’m getting any smarter. Probably the opposite, and maybe now that I’m thirty I should accept the fact that I’ve probably already peaked in my cognitive input phase, and now I’m simply here to regurgitate what I’ve learned in varying modes of creativity, even in sometimes silly and inane methods, like blogging…

What have I been reading? You ask. Let’s see… Here’s my list for the past few months in no order:

The Quiet American: A beautiful novel by Graham Greene that takes place in Vietnam during the French-Indochine War

Crime and Punishment: enough said, Doestoevsky

The Kite Runner: A novel by Khaled Hosseini about society, individualism, guilt, and redemption that takes place in modern day Afganistn amidst a back drop of the Russian occupation and the replacement by the even more insane Taliban. Awesome book.

The Sound and the Fury: Faulkner, beautiful but I’m not too into Faulkner

David Sedaris: Me Talk Pretty One Day: brilliant

The DaVinci Code: OK, OK I enjoyed it, but please do yourself a favor and read Focault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco

Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell: a great first book by a teacher in Christain spirituality, this guy rocks and his teachings are amazing.

The New Testament

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Now I’m reading The Koreans by Michael Breen who paints a critical, objective, frustrating,  and loving portrait of the modern day Korean mind from the perspective of an outsider– anyone who’s not Korean.

Also reading Rumours by Philip Yancey, one of my favorite Christian theologists, discusses existentialism, the big bang, the slipping sense of wonder in the modern world, reductionism, etc.

Lots of the world cup t-shirts this year spelled Korea with a "C" — Corea. I had seen this before in Spanish, but I was curious as to why they would spell it this way here when they are so crazy about the ingles here. I asked a friend, and the reply was, well, unexpected. I think the word "Korea" comes from the word "Coryo" which was, maybe, given by the dutch when they were trading here. The Koreans, at that time, called the country "Choseon", which means morning calm (this idea is lost on the politicians during election time, who campaign with loud music and impassioned speeches right outside my window at 7 AM). To the outside world, however, Korea would be known as Corea, that is, alledgedly, until Japanese occupation.

In 2003, a Korean politician wished to have the name officially changed to "Corea", siting that the Japanese were the ones that changed the French influenced "Corea" to "Korea". Why? Well, to the western world, Nippon is known as Japan. Japan starts with a "J". Corea starts with a "C". "C" comes before "J" in the roman alphabet, and somehow, according to some Koreans, this upset the Japanese, that this insignifigant peninsula might precede them in Anything, even the damn Roman Alphabet. So, according to some Koreans, the Japanese changed the spelling so that Japan would be first, "J" coming just before "K". The validity of this? I’m not sure. But it does lead to the question of what the Japanese might have named China had their campaign of war been successful? Maybe "Jina"? One can only wonder, and to no good end.

Anyways, I’m back after my short stint in–I love this word– Indochina. When I arrived the rain was pouring forth from the cloudy sky, and it didn’t stop for five days. The Han river, already a giant of a river, was swollen and rising above its self-appointed boundaries, sabotaging my beloved running path, basketball courts, skate parks, and as it receded it carried away porta-toilets and basketball goals and trash cans and food stands. I was in the shuttle coming from the airport, and it was eerie to look out on that great mass of water, knowing that underneath a portion of that were the former vestiges of riverside- as opposed to riverUNDER- life…

Now everything is back to normal and the clean-up crews are dispatched. And I can go running again. Yay me.

Coming back to Korea has been a little more difficult this time. Maybe the weather has alot to do with it. And maybe I missed my pho breakfasts and just the freeness of travel, but I just feel like I’m coming to my last phase here. Not that I like it any less, its just that- well, maybe my time is just simply gonna be up here. This is, of course, one year from now, so anything can happen between now and then, but my mind and heart are already, and involuntarily, formulating plans and etc. for my future manuevers. More grad school? A year teaching in Vietnam? A long bicycle trek through southern China, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia?

In the meantime, I’m gonna enjoy some kimchi.

Last night I arrived in Hanoi with drunken Malcolm, tired as a sunbaked rock, wistful at leaving so soon Cambodia, anxious to be here in this deep place. hanoi is surreal, motobikes almost outnumber the people and the fruitwoman with her exotic wares swung across sunburnt shoulders, wooden beams as wide as their giant white grins. This morning I woke up to steaming pho and that dark, dank coffee with condensed milk ready to infuse me with its intoxicating rush.

I actually went for a jog this morning, yes a jog on my vacation but the travelling and the American spirits is taking its heavy toll on my fitness so I get it in when i can, a great way to see any place, navigating nooks and crannies and inspiring stares and smiles, right back at ya.

I’m pho’d up. Pun indeed not intended but accepted. I’ve had three bowls and about five coffees, started reading my first Graham Greene novel today called the "The Quiet American" and one chapter down and I’m hooked. Been wanting to know more about Graham Greene since I saw, I think, some of his review or maybe a prologue of C.S. Lewis? Is that possible, or am I crazy…

Malcolm’s pretty spun on asia, trying to suck it all in, atleast when he’s not sleeping from his self-appointed role as night-life ambassador. Was surprised to see him this morning asleep in his bed, cigarettes still there on the nightstand. He had that glint in his eye, that swagger in his speech, and that slur in his step as we passed through customs last night amidst the stern official glares of the almost pastel army green and red uniforms. The lad is doing well. These missions are always, always needed.

I threw a grenade the other day. It exploded.

I am constantly reminded of Ha Na when I’m here, how she, with her beautiful tanned legs in that unbelievably short skirt showed me first how to brave the moto traffic in Saigon, and that proud grin and that beautiful accepting smile of hers that I sometimes remember in the cracks and folds of the morning.

I am in a land of smiles, where people with nothing scrape by on smiles and quick wits and warm hearts. "Sir you buy from me" and tiny children selling woven bracelets, "ten  4 a dollar OK for you twenty for one dollar" Cambodia was a dream of hopeful children and horrifying memories and incredible strikes of the divine, affirming and validating and providing meaning again…

I stumbled across a pretty circular thought today, one of those thoughts that would have hurt me real bad back in the days of ingesting psychedelics and sent me into a fetal position…

Anyways, I was feeling like shite on a stick, just bumming and feeling like I had little faith that God or any other force in the universe has even an iota of power or an ounce of concern in me being able to change for the better. I felt stuck, and that no matter what I try to do or how  I do it I’ll always be stuck in the same old place. Like, there’s no hope for tommorow, it will just be an extension of today and today was kind of shitey, so…

but then another thought struck me: Why do I feel like this? If God is powerless, and if the world is just a mere accident caused by an unwitting exploding star of moderate proportion, and we are just accidentally sort of floating here and we are here to enjoy ourselves and have fun, then why do I feel this way? Why do I feel shitty sometimes? Why do I need to feel shitty sometimes? It really makes no sense, I mean if there is no cosmic spiritual design in the universe, and if SIN is just a social construct, then what’s my flippin problem? Why can’t I just keep truckin forward without all of this hassle of pain?

In the same thought that I was thinking that there is no God that can help me, I was also acknowledging that I have problems that are beyond my capacity to change. My problems got problems, and their problems go to family reunions in my head and my heart, where my problems all gather and eat problematic hambugers and hotdogs and play badminton with my problematic birdies and discuss my problems…

One reason that I can believe in God is because of my problems, because of Sin. Like a bottom up approach: well, I think, there are some crappy things going on on earth and even in my heart here, and there’s no real good explanation for it other than SIN. I might point out well sin is just poverty greed meaninglessness insanity hunger perverts power-hungry murderers, and I might objectify sin so that it doesn’t seem so cosmic, like it is all because of a lack of resources on the planet or the creation of industry which gives man too much free time and less purpose and so on and on, and then if I’m inclined and give a rat’s ass I’ll do something about it like get into activism and join groups and start making lifestyle changes and try to raise awareness to the problems. I think that this is all great, and think that God wants me to be a revolutionary against sin, and rise up and fight it. But the thing He wants most is for me to invite Him to the battle, and he wants me to battle what’s in my heart as well as what’s out there, cause that is where all these problems start, inside, right here…

I had a really, really intense and iconic dream a while back which I’m not gonna explain. I actually don’t think it was that important, but there were some death/birth elements that I might explore later… anyways, The Sound and the Fury was inmy dream. I’ve never been a Faulkner fan, had to read Sanctuary in university and just found it depressing. But because the book was in my dream, in the form of a movie, I decided it warranted checking out, being that its imbedded somewhere the dark, cobwebby depths of my skull…

I started to read it, and immediately thought, oh great, this is gonna go nowhere. I began to suspect that it was going to be a "classic" based solely on the fact of its avante garde style, kind of like Naked Lunch, which personally I’m not that into. I mean, who am I to criticize what is established as "great", but I do think part of the genius of writing is putting it all together. Even if its a fractured style, in the end I like resolution- not corny and they lived happily ever after resolution, but a resolution that happens inside of me: like the way I felt after 100 Years of Solitude, how I cried on the LAST page. That’s what I’m into.

Anyways, the Sound and the Fury starts of with this excrutiating stream of conscience through the mind of a severe mentally disabled 33 year old man, who can only "slobber and moan". The other three parts are all by different players in the story, the final being the 3rd person omniscient of Faulkner himself.

In the end, it sort of rounds itself off, but honestly I’m still trying to figure out how: the story basically weaves together the lives of the Compson family, a southern family that is disentegrated by alcoholism, hatred, retardation, lies and conceit, theft, violence, anger, incestuous thoughts, depression, madness, suicide…

I didn’t cry on the last page. I sighed…relieved to finish it. It wasn’t as bad as Pynchon, but I won’t be turning to Faulkner again any time soon. I guess I read some books out of obligation, ones that I think that I should read, partly out of curiousity and partly because I feel like I’ll sound and feel smart if I read it and can make that claim…

I’m not sure if I’m one of those people who can really appreciate true genius. I mean, I’d like to think that I have elevated tastes for cool and worthy things: good music, good literature, movies, wines, etc. but I must admit that freakin love Shakira and even some Christian rock, and I really loved the last "Mission Impossible" movie. I’m reading now "A Walk to Remember" by Nicholas Sparks because I’m making my students do summer reading and I have a hunch that I’ll like it. I have no cheese filter, and I don’t know good wine from Carlos Rossi. And… I didn’t really like the Sound and the Fury. There I said it. Sorry Mr. Faulner I know you’re a genius and you use some beautiful, beautiful words: She had been a big woman once but now her skeleton rose, draped loosely in unpadded skin that tightened again upon a paunch almost dropsical, as though muscle and tissue had been courage or fortitude which the day or the years had consumed until only the indomitable skeleton was left rising like a ruin or a landmark above the somnolent and impervious guts, and above that the collapsed face that gave the impression of the bones themselves being outside the flesh , lifted into the driving day with an expression at once fatalistic and of a child’s astonished disappointment, until she turned and entered the house again and closed the door. (266) Wow, amazing, but, I didn’t like the story. I’m dull, I know. So long, I have to read the opening chapter to "A Walk to Remember".

Last night I fell asleep at 9:30. 9:30! I mean, really. What is happening here. I actually wanted to fall asleep a bit bit earlier than usual, cause today I have tons of stuff to do, and last night/yesterday I was too lazy to do them.

But this thing with waking up early without really being even capable of "sleeping in" is too much. I haven’t used an alarm clock for well over two years now. There will be some stretches of weeks where I wake up at exactly the same time every morning…whether it be rather auspicious- 6:11, or it might be downright foreboding, like 5:13 or something. Anyways, maybe some people can’t relate, and I say to them, be thankful. I pine for the days when I could snooze all morning, where I could rise at 11:00, 12:00. sometimes even 1:00 in the afternoon. But no more. Not even after late nights- I’m still imprisoned by 7:22 or some other unlikely number.

Today I’m working on the final exams for my students, which will start, to their immense chagrin, at the end of nxt week and go through the 22nd… They are especially displeased with their foreign professor (me) because World Cup Soccer is on, and Korea is a crazy, let me say it again, crazy, soccer country.  My students would rather drink and dance some crazy collective "summit" dance and sing the world cup "anthem" yes they have one, and have fun, rather than take an English exam.  I am baffled, just baffled.

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Do you ever feel like life just isn’t cool? Like you want things to go one way but your plans are constantly worked on by outer forces and inner forces beyond your control that eventually just eat away and corrode those dreamed of outcomes?

With me, it’s like I can envision my life with good things, positive outcomes, love, healthy living, kindness, adventure, fun, etc.; but no matter how hard I try, no matter what I do, no matter what measures I take, there seems to be some important element missing that can complete my experiences, make them whole, and make them all add up to make my life seem,… well, worth living. But still I plug away, working, scheming, planning, filling up the hours, meeting people, seeing new things, learning new things. I plug away, but then there are those times when I’m just simply tired, tired of trying to piece it all together. I just want to recede, make myself a shadow, put down my tools and take a break from the effort, the constant effort it makes to create meaning, to be fulfilled, and to take my life in a direction that I want it. It’s tiring. I sigh. I just want to fall back, you know, give up the struggle, atleast for a little bit, just let it all down. I feel weak…

It’s like I can say, well, most of the time things are great. I am busy. Life is exciting. But its those times in between "most of the time" that reveal my truest condition. It’s like that Dylan song where he says he doesn’t think of the woman most of the time, or that he’s confident, self assured, strong enough not to hate, "most of the time", but you know that it is precisely that time in between these times that reveals his true attitude– that he’s still heartbroken, that he’s bitter, that he feels vulnerable, that he still aches for his lover…

I’m gonna sit here, in that time between most of the time. I’m gonna stay here. I’m not gonna rush back to "most of the time". I’m just gonna soak this up for a while. Pain and loneliness? yeah, sure… why not? Why not just accept it, feel it for a while, and be here. I don’t wanna constantly struggle to stay in my "most of the time" any longer. It’s tiring.

Maybe God is trying to tell me something. Maybe God is fathering me in this way. There’s so many cliches, poems, proverbs, maxims, etc. that touch on the topic. They all say essentially that I can run but I can’t hide. I can’t run away from myself. No matter where I go, there I am… and the list goes on. I can understand this on an intellectual level with ease– listen to your conscience, don’t run away from your problems, be true to yourself, live in harmony with yourself. But practically I’m messing it up. I’m royally screwing it up. It’s that "most of the time" mentality, those constant plans to fill up my time, and make meaning in my life that constitues the "running away." Why is my most the time… a lie?

No, I’m just gonna sit here for a while, in that place where I fall to when I’m too exhausted to keep up the work. That low place of depression that I sink to when I’m too tired to keep scrambling up the slippery slope of my day after day. It might be a bit uncomfortable now. I might tell myself to get up and do something. I’m gonna fight that urge. I’m gonna stew in it. I’m gonna feel pain and loneliness. I’m gonna listen to it instead of resisting it. I’m gonna listen long enough for that voice to coalesce, to merge, to tell me what it’s been needing to say. I’m waiting. I’m listening.