It was liberation day—the defeated Japanese having begun a hasty exit from Korea 74 years ago—and President Moon Jae-in, in a pale blue hanbok, was addressing the nation from Independence Hall in Cheonan. I saw him on the TV from my seat at the...
Among the 125 or so books I shipped from Texas to Korea in June was Armadillo World Headquarters, a memoir written by Eddie Wilson with help from Jesse Sublett. Published in 2017 by University of Texas Press, it was considerably better than...
Each of the last two weekends, I have left the friendly confines of Gangnam and traveled north of the Han River to explore Gwanghwamun, and I may very well go back next weekend. There is always so much to see—maybe too much. What is this place...
Robert T. Hill Junior High School was not exactly a cornucopia of athletic talent in the 1966−67 school year, at least among the ninth graders. The Highlanders football team went 1-8, and most of its top players were eighth graders like Blake...
Shocked if not flabbergasted to realize that I had yet to visit three small towns in the northwest corner of Chungcheongbuk Province, I set out to rectify the matter with a mid-summer excursion. Although Tropical Storm Falcon coming up from the...
May 29 is a festive holiday in Turkey. That is when people—most of them, I should say—celebrate the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by the forces of Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II, also known as Fetih or “the Conqueror”; that day culminated a long...
Less than two weeks have passed since I came back to Korea. Now, nine boxes of books—all of the nonfiction genre—have been delivered to my office, carted to my apartment nearby, catalogued and stored. As a bibliophile, I find this deeply...
Almost three years had passed since I visited the city, state and country of my birth, so I had to return (temporarily, of course). I said a warm goodbye to my GF, Audrey Lim, went to Seoul−Incheon International Airport and got on a big jet...
I have already riffed on Bruce (“call me ‘Caitlyn’”) Jenner, the former Olympian who struggled with gender-identity issues for four decades before deciding that he was a she. I have compassion for Jenner. He apparently thought he had to take such...
Now that Bart Starr has entered eternal rest, I had to look into his life and career. Sixteen years as the Green Bay Packers’ quarterback and five championships (including the first two Super Bowls, in both of which he was named MVP) say...
Audrey and I were going through an outdoor market in Seoul’s Jamsil district in early May. I saw a basket of five large, bright-red tomatoes on sale for the low price of 5,000 won. I was raised in a city (Dallas, Texas) and not on a farm...
About this time a century ago, the “war to end all wars” was over. Some 17 million people died in World War I, along with 23 million wounded. Germany had been defeated along with its ally Bulgaria, and the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires...
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