Yes, you read that right. This guy has made a new home for hip-hop in the countryside (where “the average age is 65″), and he’s done it well, with both humor and talent. The catch: it’s completely in French. But if you don’t understand the language, the video is still really humorous for the “white folks dancing” factor. Check out his video here.

(ceci vous a été apporté grâce à Lucie - merci beaucoup, mon amie!)

Have you ever had a long line of kindergarteners fall progressively silent as they pass you? I wandered one lunchtime down to Cheonggye stream, not far from the Embassy, to see what all the hype was about. Apparently, a foreign face is a pretty unusual sight for some of these kindergarteners.

Also, in the “Things I’ve Been Meaning to Photograph Ever Since I Got Here” category, there is the bamboo dragon near the military base I live on. I didn’t find out until about two weeks ago that it’s meant to symbolize the city’s joy at the U.S. military pulling out of Yongsan Base and giving Seoul back a very large piece of land right in the middle of the city. It’s definitely striking.

Aside from the ubiquitous kimchee, Korea’s most famous dishes are undoubtedly those stars of Korean barbecue, bulgogi and kalbi (examples seen below).

Last week contained an unusually high number of visits to Korean-cuisine restaurants because of the conference, and I have come up with a question nobody has yet been able to answer for me. You see, bulgogi and kalbi are both blessed with the flavors of a yummy marinade, which masks (or at least tries to make up for) the fact that both are made from some pretty crummy cuts of meat with a whole lot of excess fat and connective tissue. The pork version of kalbi is, more often than not, literally 60 or 70 percent fat.

In speaking with some of my Korean and American colleagues, it would seem that outside of the American-style steakhouses that are becoming more and more popular, nobody has seen a truly good cut of beef in any Korean restaurant or store. So I ask: since it’s obvious to me that they must be killing the whole cow in order to get the bulgogi or kalbi meat, what in the world are they doing with all of the good cuts of meat?

I try to keep my political views to a minimum in this forum, but as someone who wrote her graduate thesis on the impending refugee issues due to climate change and rising sea levels, and as someone who grew up going with her father to the original, unassuming coffee bean store that was Starbucks, the following struck me.

Two different articles on the BBC’s website today: The first, talking about some New Yorker who was so upset about not getting a free cup of coffee from Starbucks he launched a $114 million dollar lawsuit. Seems a bit excessive to me, but then again, I’m not the litigious type. But then I noticed the second article further down the page, talking about climate change and the fact that rising sea levels are already pushing thousands of the rural poor out of their homes and into growing urban slums, making them even poorer in the process. Isn’t it possible that (a) not getting a free cup of coffee is not that big of a deal, and (b) there’s a whole world of better and more important things out there that could benefit from that $114 million? Honestly, people.

Government-speak: Talking points, n. 1: Items to be discussed. 2: Items of importance. 3: Guidance regarding what to say that has been handed down by a higher government office. 4: A speech delivered by a governent official.

I just finished a two and a half day conference for entry-level Foreign Service officers that we hosted here in Seoul. It was a great success, which is pretty amazing considering we did most of the planning and all of the arrangements in exactly one month. We had people, including three of my A-100 colleagues, visiting us from all over East Asia and the Pacific region, some from as far away as Laos and New Zealand. We shared stories, listened to a lot of wise words from various learned speakers, and enjoyed spending time in one of Seoul’s nicest hotels. Too bad those of us living in Seoul weren’t authorized to get rooms in the hotel as part of the conference…

Some of the more interesting words of wisdom from the past couple of days:

• “Trust is the coin of the realm.”
• “North Korea without nuclear weapons would be like another Burma.”
• “Sometimes getting the State Department and the Defense Department to work together is like herding cats.”
• “Our policy in Asia suffers from, more than anything, a deficit of attention due to the focus on the Middle East.”
• “You don’t want to gratuitously offend people.”

Obviously, the last of these is the best. Duly noted: I shall try not to gratuitously offend people. Though it’s possible I might offend them if I have a reason.

I mentioned the hotel was among the best we’ve got here in Seoul. I didn’t take any photos of the inside of the hotel (though now I realize it might’ve been nice to have done so), but the following proves at least that it’s got some of the best views of the city from both north and south sides of the building.

Last but not least: the obligatory group photo. This is everyone who was still around at 5:45 in the evening on the final day of the conference. Those who had already gone to catch their flights were there in spirit.

Helping to put the conference together was a lot of work, but I’m glad so many people were able to come and help to make it the great success that it was.  Now that it’s over, though, I will gladly become a hermit for the next couple of evenings.  I think we all need a little rest.

It’s official: I have finally re-joined the ranks of those who live in the 21st century. Not completely (considering I live in 1950s Mayberry), but at least in one crucial way: I have finally gotten my hands on a mobile phone. Not only that, but this mobile phone is far more advanced than my previous mobile phone that I was using in the states. For example, the screen is capable of displaying more than just one color and black. And it’s got a handy little calendar built into it. And it’s smaller than my other one, and sleeker. No matter that I’m getting it 2nd- or 3rd- or 4th-hand and it’s all scratched up, it’s still sleeker. Here’s to living a life of full communications mobility!

Occasionally, as I wander about the web in my spare time (which as I’m sure many of you have noticed, I’ve been doing quite a bit lately), I come across a blog that really has something to say. To that end, I have finally created a category for such things on this site and added a couple of links to it. So under the new category, “Outer Blogosphere” (in the column on the right), you can now find links to some of the blogs I’ve been reading and enjoying for a while but that are written by people I don’t have a personal or professional connection to. I figured it was high time I shared the wealth.

The first on the list is Love & Haterade, which is written by the very talented “Barmaid,” a young single woman in DC who talks about the realities of relationships, being politically liberal, dealing with family drama, current events, and all sorts of other topics. It’s witty, well-written, and remarkably incisive.

The other addition is Pinch My Salt, a blog dedicated to eating well and cooking from scratch - and really, anyone who goes out of their way to put in that special effort to create a good, extra-sour loaf of sourdough bread is good in my book. I have a feeling I’ll be cooking up a storm as soon as I receive the rest of my household goods and kitchen stuff.

When I was a teenager learning to drive, everyone in my family drove a stick-shift car. I took the required Driver’s Education classes using cars with automatic transmissions, but apart from that I only had manual transmissions available to me. So you would think I’d be a natural at driving a stick, right? Not so much.

My father’s car was friendly to me, at least until I had to come to a complete stop on the way up a steep hill with traffic behind me. The biggest problem with his car, though, was that he lived just far enough away to be impractical as a real driving/practicing option. My mom’s car never liked me. And my mom decided one Sunday that she was going to teach me a lesson by staying silent and letting me sit through gobs of traffic lights, getting honked at and sworn at, freaking out about what I was doing wrong, before she corrected me. That was the end of that - I got out, shaking and in tears by that time, and made her drive. The bottom line: I didn’t end up getting my driver’s license until I was 18 and had my own (automatic transmission) car, for the simple reason that my mom would no longer allow me to drive her car, my brother had never allowed anyone to drive his pride and joy, and my father’s car was not an option because it was (a) too far away and (b) still a stick shift and I was generally scared of them because of the experience in my mom’s car.

I’ve only tried to drive a stick once since that fatal Sunday in my mom’s car, and the results were pretty embarrassing. I got us where we needed to go, but it was by no means a smooth ride. I’m sure I speak for not only myself but also the other Peace Corps volunteers in the car when I say it was a relief when that journey was over.

So I find myself several years in the future, needing a car to run a few errands on this military base I’m living on. So today, when one of my friends very generously offered to lend me her car so I could get some errands done, I was extremely grateful. When I remembered it was a manual transmission, I was a little less excited, but I figured since she was aware of my history with such cars and had decided to trust me with it anyway, the least I could do was try it. I’m happy to say that I did pretty well. Still not absolutely perfectly smooth, but a whole lot better than I’ve done since driving my father’s car back when I was 15 years old. Maybe it’s the car itself, maybe it’s the fact that I didn’t have anyone in the car with me to stress me out, maybe it’s the fact that most of the roads on base lack any steep hills, I don’t know. But I’m hopeful that maybe, just maybe, my manual-transmission curse is beginning to fade.

Today is the day after Labor Day. I wore white shoes today. So there.

My Labor Day weekend was a full one. On Saturday, I went along with more than half of the embassy community to the American Chamber of Commerce’s annual Labor Day picnic. On Sunday, I spent some time tackling the large insects living in my shed and inside my lawn mower and then mowed the lawn (no small thanks to my neighbor who was kind enough to lend me some gasoline). On Monday, I participated for the first time in one of the Korean national pastimes, going on a hike up a mountain on the outskirts of Seoul. Today, my muscles are sore and my sunburn is peeling, but I think it may all have been worth it.

The picnic was more than an hour’s drive southeast of the city, so it qualifies as the first time I’ve made it out of Seoul since the night I got off a plane. It was amazing, in an insane sort of way, and it was unlike any picnic I had ever been to or heard of before. The food was from a variety of restaurant and catering sponsors who all had booths set up and there were cafe-style tables with umbrellas so people didn’t have to sit on the ground, a stage with a giant television and speakers, a swimming pool, tennis courts, and a blow-up slide for the kids. And a lion dance performance. Oh, and there were several thousand people there, all brought in by a couple hundred buses from various meeting points in Seoul. Most notable: there were so many people hoarding things - some literally had giant boxes full of steak and pizza and yogurt and donuts and lasagna and whatever else they could find. I wonder who eventually ate it all. Some photos:

Monday’s hike was full of beautiful scenery. I was with a bunch of embassy people, along with a man who is a former Korean ambassador to the U.S. and a couple of reporters for some of the larger Korean newspapers. We also had a guide who told us all about the history of the park we were in. The area we hiked is called Bukhansan, and it was used in the Chosun dynasty as a place that the kings and (some of) the people of Seoul could retreat to in times of unrest or attack. There was once a palace and a monastery and a variety of other buildings, but these have all been destroyed either by the Japanese or by flash floods in the early 20th century. Many are slated for reconstruction sometime in the next 20 years or so. Even without these sights, it was a very pretty (and often steep) journey up the mountain. Some more photos:

I finally got my “Unaccompanied Air Baggage” shipment today. I am now happy to say that I have a few things to hang on my bare walls (though I’ve got nothing to hang them with), a couple of sweaters, my fluffy towels, some more work clothes, my nice warm robe and slippers, more shoes, a few books, office supplies, nice sheets, and a few other things that I’ve really been missing since I’ve been here in Seoul. Aaahh, it’s so nice to have stuff!

Two big boxes - it’s like Christmas or something!

The bear got a little squished, but ended up okay.

Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for this picture. Here it is: the first material casualty of my nomadic Foreign Service lifestyle.