Gobi in the air

On my last day in Korea, I got a full dose of what has become common spring weather there. When the winds kick up from west to east, sand from the Gobi Desert in China sweeps across the Korean Penninsula. The sky turns yellow, the air feels gritty, and cars get smeared with fine swirls of dust. It was, quite honestly, gross.

This is a result of environmental degradation. China has drained so much of the water from the Gobi region that the desert sand is able to blow away in huge clouds that travel hundreds of miles. If it's bad in Korea, imagine how it is in China just east of the desert. It's one more indication that water is becoming a key resource in the 21st century.

Indian Air

I flew back on Singapore Air again, and this time I requested the Indian vegetarian "special meal." It turned out I was supposed to request it a day in advance, but luckily they came through with it for me.

Yum! It always smells good on the plane, and I'm glad I got to taste it. For dinner, there was spiced potato salad, kidney bean masala, and eggplant with coconut curry sauce. It came with tamarind dressing and the standard assortment of pickle. And it was hot! The spicy bite was blissfully calmed with the plain yogurt that came as a side dish. For dessert, there was some kind of carrot pudding made of shredded carrots and condensed milk. I washed it down with a Tiger Beer (from Singapore).

The flight had many Indians passing through Seoul on the way from Singapore, which was on the way from somewhere in India. Naturally, they looked bedraggled, but were in good spirits. Some were dressed traditionally. They had tons of luggage, and I almost couldn't find a place for my travel bag and laptop. Some toted babies-- even tiny ones just a few months old! Thankfully, the one right in front of me only cried once, during dinner. I was allowed to sleep peacefully for the rest of the flight. This baby also had a little chiming music machine, but I was able to tune it out.

Just prior to arrival, you get another meal, and here I found the drawback of ordering the Indian meal. I wasn't ready to face Indian food at what felt like the middle of the night to me. I ate the fruit and yogurt, but passed on the lentils and spiced rice.

Good deal. I want to take Singapore Air more often.

Cho-sun medicine

As noted a couple posts back, I was involved in a minor car accident in Korea. My neck was mildly sore and pretty stiff the next day-- it often seems to happen that way, with a 1- or 2-day delay. I mentioned this to my Korean colleague by email, but waved it off as something that would heal soon.

Nonetheless, he showed up at the conference I was attending the next day, and told me he had filed an insurance claim that allowed the two of us to get X-rays to verify that nothing was amiss. I wasn't so sure I wanted to run off and do this, but he convinced me it was worth it, and we headed out to a nearby hospital.

At first I felt mildly annoyed to miss the last few talks of the conference (including a panel I was supposed to sit on), and then I felt a little scared about seeing a doctor in a foreign country where I couldn't communicate with him/her. And eventually that gave way to curiosity and interest. What will happen at a Korean hospital? This is certainly not a typical experience, so I set out to enjoy and learn from it.

The nearest health service place was a clinic about 2 miles from my hotel. We couldn't find it because it wasn't labeled very clearly, but eventually saw the entrance. Then there was the matter of parking-- there was none nearby, just crowded streets with catch-as-catch-can parking. We flagged down a woman in nursing garb on the sidewalk to ask where to park, and she pointed out that we couldn't see anyone at that time anyway, because they were closed for lunch from 12-1:30! (Emergencies would be seen).

So we headed out to a larger hospital, and ended up at Seran General Hospital. It was a bigger establishment that operated at all hours and had its own parking area. I was amused that there was a golf range above the parking lot. The lot was covered with a large green see-through tarp, and the balls were landing on it because people were hitting them off the second-floor balcony out onto the tarp! I guess that's one way to pass the time while your friend is in surgery or your wife is having a baby.

In the lobby, we took a number like at a deli counter. When it was our turn, my colleague explained that we were there on an insurance claim to have an X-ray. The nurse told us to fill out a form. So we went off to do that, and then took another number. After we were processed, we were directed to the ER. The check-in nurse took the forms, and told us to sit on a nearby gurney.

The ER had very little privacy. It resembled an army ward, with two rows of beds (really gurneys) separable only by curtains on two sides, and several of them weren't drawn. Pretty much everyone could see and hear what was going on with all the other patients. There were perhaps 4 patients there, ranging from an old man hooked up to an IV dripping yellow liquid into his wrist, to a young man who had perhaps been in a car accident (worse than ours). The old man was alone, and some other people had as many as 4 companions clustered around the gurney.

A doctor appeared to talk to us within minutes. He asked my guide to ask me where my neck hurt, and whether my back also hurt. The doctor, who was about 40, looked tired and aged beyond his years. And he didn't even look at me. He spoke only to my guide, and he didn't smile or show any animation. He jotted a few notes for the X-ray, then strode off.

We had to wait a few more minutes while the nurse called the insurance company to get a fax confirming that they would pay for the X-ray. It happened in real time. She made a phone call, and the fax rolled in about 5 minutes later. I was amazed at the speed of processing in all the places we encountered the hospital bureaucracy.

We traipsed off down the hall the to radiology department and gave them our forms. There was no one there but us, so we went right in with the technician. My guide went first and emerged 3 minutes later. He said I needed to take off my shirt, and the tech showed me a small changing room that included a hospital gown and slippers. I suppose it was the same gown everyone before me had used.

I stripped down, and wondered briefly how to put the gown on. In the US, the gown goes on with the opening in the back, but this seemed more like a standard bathrobe style. I opted to put it on like a bathrobe, although it still wasn't totally clear that that was correct. I sort of held it closed since the ties were awkward. When I came out of the dressing room, the tech motioned with hand signals to remove my earrings and glasses also. Then he positioned me standing in front of the film and took a mugshot of X-rays-- one from the front, one from the left side. I thanked him (it's the only word I can say in Korean). He clearly didn't speak English, and it seemed I was just another body to him.

Back in the ER, our films arrived along with the same doctor again, about 3 minutes later. He put them up on the light board and fiddled with the contrast. As always, I found it eerie and fascinating to glimpse my own skeleton. (I'm skinny enough to see parts of it all the time from the outside, but the inside view is different and weirdly compelling). Neck bones look so delicate with their interlocking parts! Like they shouldn't be trusted to support the weightiness of the head. And yet they do a fine job.

The doctor declared us normal. And that was that.

Total elapsed time from walking in the front door: 45 minutes.

During our stay, I had noticed a few sights, really just disconnected images because I was trying to take in so much at once. A recall seeing a woman with a foot cast hopping down the hall. Not sure why she had no crutches or wheelchair. And in the front lobby, a group of people walked in off the street, with two members in hospital gowns, one in a full neck brace! It was as if they had been dressed and treated at home or at an accident scene, and then had come by their own transportation to the hospital. Or perhaps the patients were staying at the hospital, but were well enough to get up, and the people in the group had taken them out for lunch.

In foreign countries, you learn to suspend judgment about what makes sense, because much of what we think "makes sense" is really just habit or convention or the "way we do things" in the US. There are, in fact, lots of other ways to do things that work just as well.

I took the opportunity to ask my Korean guide how health care works in Korea. It seems that there is a national insurance plan that everyone buys, which allows you to go to any hospital at any time. But all the hospitals are private and for-profit; none are state-run. So it's some combination of public and private, "universal health care" and capitalist competition.

I recalled that on my first trip to Korea, I heard that many people come to Seoul from the countryside for medical treatment because it is supposed to be really good in Seoul. (And this has spawned a large industry of shadier medicine also, peddlers on street corners claiming to have vital tonics and the like). Now I have experienced the Seoul medical system, and at least in my case, I have to concur. The system worked really well bureaucratically. I can't speak to the medical care itself since there really wasn't anything wrong with us, but the machines were modern, the place was clean and organized... it all looked good.

Not the usual view of a country I get on business trips!

Kimchee, food for life

During my time in Korea, there was plenty of opportunity to eat kimchee, the national dish served at nearly every meal. In case you are not initiated, the most common form of kimchee is fermented cabbage soaked in a very spicy, red sauce. It is made by sealing the cabbage underground for about 3 months. (There are other varieties of kimchee, such as "water kimchee," which may be made of other things like daikon and may or may be quite so spicy).

Anyway, the Koreans take great pride in kimchee, and love to expound its health virtues. In this respect, it is sort of the equivalent of having a glass of orange juice in the morning for Americans. When the SARS epidemics were in full swing, Korea was fortunate enough not to be affected, and Koreans claimed it was due to their consumption of kimchee.

Along the same lines, I asked my Korean guide if it was safe to eat raw eggs in Korea. (I was reminded because I had recently had this as a special treat in Japan). He said, "Of course!" But the reason had nothing to do with strict animal health guidelines, as I had been told in Japan. It was because eating kimchee would prevent any problems with salmonella or other bacteria!

At one restaurant, we were served a small bowl of something doused in the usual fire-red Korean sauce. My guide said it was "special seafood," so I tried a piece. It resembled kimchee with an underlying fish-and-salt taste. He explained that it was cuttlefish that had been salted and buried for 3 months with the spices. In other words, kimchee cuttlefish.

To be honest, I get tired of kimchee pretty fast because the fermented flavor just tastes wrong to my palate. Although I do like the water kimchee, which has less of that fermented flavor, and does not rely on the hot red sauce (it is pickled daikon in a mild, clear brine). I suppose I would get used to kimchee if I had longterm exposure through living in Korea, however.

For now, I'll just be content with my Kim, and her chi.

Ka-Bam!

That's the sound of my neck whiplashing (is that a word?) when we got rear-ended on the Seoul highway today. Ouch! It was a gigantic SUV, which suffered no damage, while our bumper was seriously dented. The interesting part was that my colleague kept the other guy's driver's license (!). He will give it to the person who repairs his car, and the SUV guy will have to pay for the repairs in order to get his license back. I'm not sure what happens if there is disagreement about whose fault it was.

Singing the praises of Singapore Air

I flew to Korea yesterday, taking Singapore Air instead of my usual United. [I got on with United's frequent flyer program, and take them by habit now. But actually, Singapore is Star Alliance, so that works too! Singapore had a better return flight this time]. Even though Singapore is the cheapest airline in Korea, it is a notch better than United in every way.

First off, they do the very sensible thing of giving you the arrival card when you check in, rather than just after take-off. This means I was able to fill it out at my leisure while waiting to board the plane. Usually I have to dig out my pen, passport, and return flight number while on the plane, which means dragging out my carry-on bag. Here I just got those items out while seated comfortably in the lounge. How intelligent.

Also, the food is actually good, for an airplane. It's not business-class fare, but it's about halfway there. And enough Indians fly Singapore as part of their voyage to justify having an Indian "special meal"-- perhaps I'll try to get that on the way back.

And the movies! They were running 60 movies, many of them quite decent. You have a screen at your seat and just tune into the one you want. They run continuously, starting over as soon as they end. On United, they show everyone the same movies on common screens. I saw four excellent choices: "Ray" (biography of Ray Charles), "The Motorcycle Diaries" (Che Guevara and his friend take a voyage of self-discovery around the end of medical school), "Sideways" (a high school English teacher and his friend take a voyage of self-discovery just before the friend's wedding), and Harry Potter 3 (holy cow, those kids look older than they did in the first movie). I also saw a few bits of "Bride and Prejudice."

Other nice amenities include giving out socks to wear and a toothbrush/paste set.

See? Not all airlines have abandoned decent service (just the US carriers, apparently). It's not that I'm hung up on being treated like nobility, but a few little touches do make 12.5 hours sitting in one place seem more tolerable.

The night I arrived, and was supposed to be sleeping soundly, I was awakened by a powerful thunderstorm (quite atypical for Korea, actually). In my generally muzzy head, I wondered vaguely if North Korea was attacking. Thankfully no.

Legging it

An intersection of leg-related items:

When my grandfather moved out of his apartment recently, I received his dining room table and chairs. When the movers came, though, they didn't unload the table legs, and neither he nor I noticed. I wondered if I might be screwed because I blindly signed the form saying everything had arrived, but I was pleased that the driver brought them back to me the next day after I called looking for them. So now the table has legs to stand on, and it's a fine piece of walnut craftsmanship, if I do say so myself.

My previous table and four chairs were bought for $105 in grad school, from another grad student. They lasted me 10 years (barely-- the table was getting gimpy), and has probably sustained several grad students before me.

My next leg metaphor is that I'm hoofing it to Korea today (well, OK, air hoofing). Just a short trip, not like the Big Asia deal a month ago. Probably little time for official sight seeing, but every sight one sees can be revealing, educational, and amusing in its own way.

And finally, wouldn't you know it, my bathroom faucet has a leak. Its contribution to legginess is that it will be running the entire time I'm gone. I hate knowing that I'm wasting water each moment. This is going to wear on my psyche like Chinese water torture the whole time I'm in Asia.

Are You Andrea Dworkin?

Yes, you are, in a very fundamental sense.

The feminist activist Andrea Dworkin is dead. The Guardian had a good article about her. None of the articles said much that was coherent about the cause of death (osteoarthritis? That's not fatal!), but it seems that she had a number of chronic diseases. Probably her body just couldn't go on.

There is a tendency to praise people once they are dead. Or at least, to speak neutrally, as happened a lot with Dworkin. She was heavily criticized in life, and couldn't quite move into the positive after death. Those who start in a positive light tend to become saints after death.

Why is this? I mean, when people leave a company, it's usually only a short time before all the criticisms come out. People were polite about Bob's nasal voice and Joan's sloppy editing jobs while they worked there, but once they're gone-- no holds barred! People who are dead have effectively left the company forever, so why the strong need to praise, to find some positive remembrance?

Simple. People who die remind us that we will die. Every single one of us will fall ill and eventually succumb to something as Dworkin did (unless we just get hit by a bus or shot or something). It will probably be painful, and it will possibly be humiliating. Certainly it involves a loss of our present prowess, both physical and mental. The vast majority of us fear this immensely.

"Respect for the dead" means respect for our fear of death. Dworkin was a little farther ahead of the rest of us in line. But the line inches forward inevitably, and we'll fall off the cliff soon enough. We can honor the event when we see it occur in others as a way of honoring our own flickering flame, one day closer to the cliff every day.

Oh, don't worry, it won't last. Dworkin will be lampooned again in a matter of months. After a suitable period, during which we once again establish the pretense that we won't die, all the old invectives will be reinvoked. Like the way we are a bit more casual about 9/11 now than we were in the weeks immediately afterward.

Some decry our relaxation after 9/11, as if we've forgotten something horrible that we should instead be reliving, in all its horror, every day. Others call it a healing, a natural return to homeostasis. In the case of Dworkin, some will want to maintain the respect forever, now that she's dead, while others will be happy to respect the dead briefly, then return to the homeostasis of lampooning her.

A couple things come out of this for me:

First, why do we wait until someone dies to speak kindly and/or respectfully toward them? If Andrea Dworkin really possessed the good qualities outlined in the Guardian article, why were they never spoken about openly until she was cooling in the casket? Sure, there's negative stuff too-- name a person who doesn't have many faces. I just think it's an amazing waste of good will to only offer it after the subject of it is dead. That indicates that the praise is perhaps more for the giver than the receiver.

And second, the means for allowing the expression of good will while people are still alive is obvious, if unpleasant: We would all do well to reflect on our own mortality more often. Like, every day. Remind yourself that you will die, and that everyone around you will die (those you like and those you don't). It's not morbid, it's reality. And practiced carefully, mindfully, and with full respect for life, this reflection leads to greater good will. We are all in this together, and only for a short time.

You, yes you, are Andrea Dworkin.

Tree and Vine, Part 2

I posted recently about a redwood tree and a climbing vine near my house, and how a passerby had attempted to help the tree by pulling off the vine that had opportunistically started to climb up it.

I smiled today because I walked by the same tree and saw that it had been trimmed by the city physical plant crew. In particular, the lower branches had been cut away so that there was now about 3 feet separating the tree from the top of the fence where the vine was growing. Probably if the vine had been there, its long tendrils would have been hacked away. Instead, they had been carefully entwined back down on the fence by the woman "saving" the tree.

I guess she was really saving the vine.

Funny how intentions don't always align with consequences-- at least as we perceive them to be.

Quality and quantity

Worth pondering:

A pottery teacher divided a class of new students into Group A and Group B. Group A was graded only on quantity-- if you make 10 pounds of pottery, you get an A, 9 pounds is a B, etc. Group B was graded only on quality-- make the single finest piece you can, and you have all semester to do it.

Group A set about cranking out pieces. Group B set about learning the fine points of pottery aesthetics.

At the end of the semester, the quality of Group A's pottery was higher, even though they were graded only on quantity. Why? Because they actually made pottery without thinking about it. Unconsciously, they learned to make the pieces more shapely, more delicate, just through muscle learning. Group B wasted time with in-the-head learning and didn't get enough practical experience.

Quantity and quality are not necessary opposed.

Modern dentistry

Dentistry, and the associated fields of orthodontics and periodontics, are subjects about which I am a rightful authority. My mouth is like a different planet, or some alien creature embedded within my body. It takes a village to care for it.

I began orthodontics at the age of 7, and ended when I was 21 (major buck teeth). I began getting fillings around the age of 7 or 8 also. And I developed raging periodontal (gum) disease in my mid-20s. It is unlikely I will keep all my chompers until my death (depending on when I go), but at least one hygienist has expressed confidence that I won't need full dentures.

I brush my teeth twice a day, floss every day, do a home fluoride treatment every other day, and sometimes rinse with an anti-plaque formula after lunch at work. I get my teeth cleaned two or three times a year, and am always complimented on my excellent cleaning habits. And yet, my gums recede continually and I even have some damage to the bone. I have already had gum replacement surgery on one side and may need it soon on the other.

What's up with all that? I just happen to be extremely prone to bacteria in my mouth. It's a genetic thing.

My grandmother lost her teeth, but with the huge advances in dental technology since her day, I might not. I see a dentist in Silicon Valley who is in love with the latest gadgets. And I am very thankful for that. He's got lasers, fiber optic cameras, the slimmest little X-ray unit you've ever seen, flat-panel monitors everywhere, and a fully integrated software-driven system of patient records.

Today, I had an "onlay." This is like the caps people got in my parents' day, but stronger. My tooth had cracked around a large filling. Instead of removing most of the broken bits and capping the whole thing off, he just drilled out the portion affected by the crack and made a model of my tooth in porcelain. This used to require sending in the impressions and waiting a week. But now -- get this -- he's got a computerized milling machine right in his office that takes the digital file of the impression and carves the porcelain in real time. It took 12 minutes to make my onlay. Then it gets fitted into the tooth sort of like a mushroom, sticking up a bit over the top.

Even the procedural stuff is totally modernized compared to my childhood. They fit my mouth with a thing called a "dental dam" (no lesbian jokes, please). It's a piece of thin rubber sheet with a tooth-sized hole cut in it (actually cut in-situ with dental floss for an exact fit). This is anchored outside the mouth on a little thing that looks like an open shark-mouth. This keeps the work area on the tooth dry, and gets the tongue out of the picture. And instead of holding my mouth open for an hour, I got to rest my jaw by relaxing it around a small bit placed on the side they weren't working on.

When he drilled out the tooth, they brought a huge vacuum tube into place so the dust would be sucked away immediately. And for the smaller drill, the drill bit was fitted with a water hose so the dust was immediately caught in the water, while the dental assistant held a tube to suck the water away.

Overall, the whole thing is very clean compared to old-time procedures. This a good thing, given that he found all kinds of decay creeping in where the crack in my tooth was. Those sneaky and prolific bacteria were travelling down the crack-- well beyond where the brush and floss can reach-- and having a good old party.

It was a fascinating procedure. He took before and after pictures with his nifty little camera, so I got to see what had happened (these are also handy for sending in to the insurance company. If there's a photo of a crack, they can't exactly claim that I didn't need the procedure!).

I continue to be amazed by modern medical and dental technology. And my impression is that dentists are more tech-savvy than doctors. I wonder why that is...

Rereading

I have, for almost the first time in my life, done a little re-reading of books on my shelf. My previous philosophy was that there are so many books in the world, I can't even read all the ones I want to, so I certainly shouldn't waste reading time on ones I've already read.

But still, I've been moved to pick up a few older ones lately. I reread Lewis Thomas' The Lives of a Cell-- a really fabulous collection of essays from about 30 years ago. Thomas was a systems thinker, and these bright little pieces glitter with both his wit and his intelligence.

I also reread Margaret Atwood's Wilderness Tips, a set of short stories about personal transformation between childhood dreams and adult reality. These reminded me of Atwood's tremendous writing skill, not to mention reviving those painful themes of maturation that we've all experienced.

Rereading these books showed me that my previous philosophy wasn't quite right. Rereading is not just repeating. It's the old saw about how a person can't step in the same river twice, because it is not the same river or the same person. I can't remember precisely what I felt about these essays/stories when I first read them years ago (high school for the Thomas book!). But I know that my recent life experiences colored how I saw them very much, and hence I must have been having a very different experience than the first time.

Maybe my mind realized that it was time for me to have another look at those ideas. It was time for my mind to be reshaped by them again.

[There are lots of "re" words in this post. And yet I'm talking about having different experiences the "second" time around. How strange that the language makes it hard to accomodate this reality].