A friend in London asked me to tell him about the men in Seoul. So being the diligent researcher that I am, I spent a week making observations. This is my report.

Posted on October 14th, 2007 by jl
Filed under: Fieldwork, Life's gay! | 1 Comment »

It’s been 15 days since I left Australia and 11 days since I first arrived in Seoul and as I said to a friend over MSN a few days ago, I am done with fieldwork already, or rather I would be if only the “powers that be” would only let me…

At the moment, I am a little over so many things.

Posted on October 12th, 2007 by jl
Filed under: Fieldwork | 2 Comments »

I thought it’d be fun to list down the things I do like (so far) about Seoul. This is my version of a grateful post and the anti-thesis of Matt’s 2-minute hate-fest.

I’m grateful that Seoul, like most Asian cities, is such a globalised place that Starbucks, the Coffee Bean, Dunkin Donuts, McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Burger King, Pizza Hut and countless other such international franchises are not only operating in Seoul but they are also widely located. It means that I will always find food and there is always somewhere to go to when I need to sit down and/or have a cup of coffee.

Posted on October 11th, 2007 by jl
Filed under: Fieldwork | 2 Comments »

It’s been ages since I’ve had to trail someone who smokes in the streets.

It’s been ages since I’ve walked into a space and involuntarily turned up my nose at the smell of smoking.

It’s been ages since my clothes ranked of cigarette fumes.

And it’s been ages since I’ve actually had to pinch my nose and stop breathing for all the discomfort that cigarette smoke was causing me in an enclosed space.

Here in Seoul, it all happens far too often.

Posted on October 9th, 2007 by jl
Filed under: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

When I nearly walked into McDonald’s for the fourth time in the six days since I arrived in Seoul, I knew I was in trouble.

After walking about 4 kms this evening looking for something for dinner, I was about to give up and revisit McDonald’s when I was persuaded to step into a local restaurant for a meal of battered fish served with a variant of tartare sauce. Now you might object and ask what’s so Korean about that. My answer would be that I really wouldn’t know except that the dish was served with two very small mounts of rice (sculpted with a scoop), a clear miso-like soup, and some pickles. Two nights prior to that I had a very similar dish in a different restaurant but instead of battered fish, it was battered meat (I suspect pork although it could also have been chicken) and instead of a miso-like soup, it was a cream soup (Campbell’s?!??). This is clearly a common if not popular dish in Seoul, if not Korea, but more importantly, I didn’t turn my nose and feel like regurgitating as I normally would when confronted with kimchi.

Posted on October 7th, 2007 by jl
Filed under: Fieldwork | 3 Comments »