The conference was bizarre… lots of big names but almost no attendees. The rumor was that something went wrong at the airport, but I find I hard to believe that 1,000 souls were diverted at Incheon. The website had claimed that 1,200 people were scheduled to attned, but I would be boggled if 200 people were there, which means about 50% of the folks were presenters.

Even presenters were scarce. By the afternoon, when I presented, two rooms of threads were squashed down into one, because out of 9 or 10 presentations, only 4 presenters showed up. As the only chair (out of the 4 for the two threads) it was my job to get the schedule to work and even though we started quite late, it did work even though we had Korean marketing and Turkish tourist destinations in the same room.

I think this has partly to do with the fact that accepted papers went into a conference document with an ISBN number – so it counts as a publication on a CV. Also, I’m guessing, this conference is not known for its rigor in jurying its papers. As usual, I was the only person with an actual, footnoted, cited paper and some of the papers in the conference document were a bit skimpy on content. So, if you just want a publication credit, you send a paper in to these guys, then blow the conference off.

Everything was running spectacularly late, for some reason, and there was a classic moment when the organizers led us all to lunch – a lovely room with flowers, china settings, wine, etc…

And then told us that unless we had yellow meal tickets we had to go have lunch across the hallway. In the Cafeteria! With visions of the VIP luncheon dancing in our heads, we were treated to barley’d rice, Kimchi and, to be fair, a rather delicious beef hotpot. Still, it was like these guys had never put a conference on before - queuing us up before the promised land then herding us to the cattle call.

My presentation went well –the foreigners had lots of questions and the Koreans were largely silent because the numbers of my survey really couldn’t be argued. I was happy about this, because there was one irascible professor from Sejong University, who had given the Chinese guy who presented before me a rather large ration of shit for, apparently,not giving enough credit to Korean creativity when explaining the success of the Korean Wave in China.

Afterwards, I met some people who might be very interesting to know down the line. We hung around till they kicked us out of the college and then walked down to the Hoegi subway station. One of the guys was all about branding and supposedly has a website. He’s looking vor bloggers and I may try to jump in on this.

As usual, the English documents were rife with types. As you see, the lovely certificate I received for my presentation has an “alternative” spelling of “cultural.” Gotta love Konglish!

And So it begins...

Sure.. it doesn't look like much (and actually isn't), but it is the first scrawlings on the paper for Kuala Lumpur.

Gave the kiddies a big writing assignment and got bored.

With two pages of scribblings down, I feel well-started here.

;-)

I HAVE CREATED NEW EVIL!!!!

And, man.. it feels goooooood.....

In the course of writing an abstract I came up with the idea (and word) of "exterrogated." This is based on the idiotic idea that there should be "interrogated theory." And yet no malign, evil, betrayer of language has come up with my word (says Google). Until just now in a Soju-frenzy.

I rule evil!

I should get some kind of award. Like and axe through the middle of my head. Or 72 virgins.

Or, get my goddamed paper accepted. There should be some credit given to someone who can come up with a fresh assault on the English language.

Really. I'm begging here.

I've sent the abstract (due on the 30th, but I just heard of it) to BKF for his sage council.

til then I can only appall you all with the first paragraph...

Kim Yong‐Ik, a Korean by birth, English writer by trade, and Korean by death,
attempted to exterrogate questions of empire, orientalization, and theory by
declaring autonomy from any definition. Kim was avowedly anti‐political,
extra‐theoretical, and purposefully resistant to placement. His writings
however, antithetically to his confessed approach, obsessively concerned
themselves with issues attendant to empire: oppression, the state of the
outsider to the state, disconnection, diaspora, and the dream of coming to a
“home” that was not contested; a home of ancestors and not imperials.

Man..I am evil...



The haters spoke on Husker Du... Johhny Marr rewlzz! Rekanize!