de-sacr-ation

korea korea korea.
seoul seoul seoul.

I'm back and two weeks overdue of some sort of reflection. I'm back and I'm sleepy and I feel like settling into a rhythm, an aesthetics of a lack thereof, ugly apartment buildings and garish red sidewalks, et cetera, this city breathing hey hey jumble jumble JUMBLE and a haphazard lack of attention to overall visual appeal. Instead of focusing on everything fitting together there's a micro focus on individual design, tree than the forest, and the resulting hodge-podge of neon signs jutting: horizontal flat, vertical flat, jutting out neon wires moving up, around, a hearted up and inside out and the longer distance between transfers on the subway and the more time spent standing thinking wondering, the yearly revisits and self-evaluation, all of this.

This city. I find myself criticizing things when I come back, aiming my eye with the proud-chested self-professed position of someone on the cultural fence, neither inside nor outside, identifying with or against. QUESTIONS: Korean identity: blood vs. nationality? Cultural pride: artificial self-propagandizing vs. exoticism/idealization of the foreign? I voice these thoughts in conversation with others but at the same time I know that these opinions have more to do with me versus Korea, a personal agenda rather, Hey I came back let's fight jackets on and everything I missed you and you rubbed off on me and I've got to fight you now because of this sense of identification that I have with you. This sense of agenda and opposition to be thought against, fought against, argued against is somehow my way of nestling back into this rhythm; before I realized it on one Saturday night I was attempting to mark an identification with this country/culture/rhythm/color, lifting my right leg, standing still, making it mine.