april 14, 2008 12:55am – in Korea
This is the updated youdontsmellbad.com site. I will now begin using this for all-purpose blog and video posting. please check back often.
To get things moving, here is a relevant excerpt from a private correspondence:
When I question my motives, I become aware that I'm congratulating myself for every experience I learn to share with the locals, like I'm some kind of cultural pioneer.
But at its best time in another country is a method for learning all the ways a nation pleases its senses differently than Americans do. So I get a chance, every once in a while, to look at some new thing without any built-in gauge for its quality.
So for instance, on Saturday night I went to a Korean punk rock show, and watched it unfold with bemused detachment. And that has the ironic bloggability I usually gravitate towards when I'm in the states.
On the other hand, the following day I went to a Buddhist temple in the mountains and I saw a new thing I liked, and didn't have the intellectual tools to criticize. And that's better. I think.