(NUNAL) (EYEBALL)

There was a bird flu outbreak being reported on in the south for the past couple of weeks, suddenly it has leapt to the outskirts of Seoul... INSIDE JoongAng Daily : "The sudden deaths sparked an immediate disinfection operation, along with the culling of 75,000 chickens within a 500-meter radius of the Pyeongtaek farm. Authorities dispatched about 1,000 government workers to help quarantine the area, according to the Pyeongtaek officials. ¡°We are all on alert,¡± said an official who declined to be named. ¡°Most officials in the Pyeongtaek city government have gone there to kill and bury chickens.¡± If it is confirmed that the chickens on the farm died from the highly contagious H5N1 bird flu strain, officials would cull all of the 263,000 chickens within a five kilometer radius of the farm."

With good timing, the JoonAng Daily ran this fascinating story on the dog meat trade here . So much for my being riveted by the sight of a dog carcass or two in the meat case. Turns out that the nearby market does the on-site slaughtering as well. I was also surprised to read that rottweilers are used for food as well: ��Whap. Whap. Whap.�� ��That��s not it. Let��s try another,�� says the dog handler while lifting a long metal rod to hit another dog��s back. Navigating the rod expertly between the bars of a cage where a dozen dogs are herded together, it��s only the noise of the stick that breaks the rhythmic sound of the rain. ��Whap. Whap. Whap.�� ��There is a certain sound when there is the right amount of meat,�� explains the handler, a man in his 40s, his half-closed eyes searching the cage. After intensely listening to the different sounds he finally nods his head in satisfaction and points to a medium-sized dog of light brown color. ��That should do it,�� he says. A noose att...

I've been reading a book titled Korean Attitudes Toward the United States , which is a very interesting collection of essays from a bunch of specialists on U.S.-Korean relations and on Korean history. One thing I was surprised to learn is how broad and how deep anti-Americanism is in Korea. I know it exists, I have seen protests and have heard about the feelings. But I personally have never experienced anything but unbelievably friendliness and solicitness (aside from having little old ladies shove me out of the way when they want to get ahead of him on the line for the bus or at the supermarket. That is age rank, not anti-Americanism). But last night, talking my folks around on a walking tour, some guy made a point of aggressively bumping into me on the street and then trying to start a fight. All was resolved after much bowing and scraping on my part in response to his insults, but there was no real explanation for it besides some kind of anti-foreignism at least.

The South will rise again My wife went to the doctor and happened to get a doctor from Virginia. As you might expect, his ancestors fought in the Army of Northern Virginia. Which means that much of the meeting with the doctor was taken up with a detailed analysis of the Confederate missteps at Gettysburg.

After a week of mother-in-law visitation we are now experiencing a week of parental visitation, which means only one thing: non-stop sashimi

Obligatory beautiful cherry blossom photos, these from trees on the Sogang campus Obligatory beautiful piles of cabbage photos, these from a market near my house.

A few warm days of spring have made all of the difference. The cherry trees and the azaleas have all burst into bloom, which make the campuses and the hillsides around Seoul really beautiful. It should last a few to several more days and hopefully I'll get some pictures of it up here. I was surprised to see today that even with temperatures in the mid 70s people still tend to walk around wearing coats and even hats. I was struck in the fall how quickly people bundled up before it really got cold, and then was even more interested to see that people seemed to underdress for the cold in the winter. Strange to see people wear the same thing despite 50 degrees of difference in the temperature. But maybe all that heavy gear is smart. Sitting here at my desk at 2 a.m. I was amazed to see already the first mosquito of 2008 . Make no mistake--the mosquitoes here don't mess around. They can apparently get through walls and there are a lot of them (and I live in a swamp in Virgini...