I should be watching Korean dramas and such on TV here in Seoul to improve my horrible listening skills, but tonight I ended up seeking the familiar comfort of the Japanese public television channel NHK, which for some reason I can get here in my dormitory. Tonight they were showing a documentary on Fenghuang （凤凰) [...]
I have a very disorganized collection of pictures from my travels that I have linked to in various older postings. They are floating around online but not much fun to hunt down without looking through the archives of this blog as well as over at my homepage. For convenience, I will be keeping links to [...]
The twelfth History Carnival is up at Over at Mode for Caleb. Enjoy some of the interesting postings related to history that have been collected there. Send your nominations for the next History Carnival to willisms[at]gmail[dot]com as it will be hosted at WILLisms on August 1st.
The street map searching feature works for Japan now! Here, for example is the street map of Lucky House where I lived for most of my almost two years in Japan 2002-2004 (My Waseda friend Andrew is now living there). It even shows many of the convenience stores I came to know so well… Unfortunatley [...]
So far looks like casualties are low, but who knows what the final number will be. Very tragic day for London. Here is the WikiNews page collecting information on this and links to other articles: WikiNews London BlastsWiki Article on the Blasts (Contents Changing rapidly) BBC Live News StreamGuardian News Blog on the Blasts
I’m watching a Hercule Poirot mystery (“The Incredible Theft”) and there is a great and memorable line, especially fit for historians. Poirot’s secretary explains that she wouldn’t take an anonymous caller because without a name, she wouldn’t know where to put her file. Poirot replies: Life first, Ms. Lemon, filing second.
Korea and Japan both have really led the way in the whole genre of horror which appeals to a new generation of youth, especially women. America and Hong Kong are following behind, translating and redoing some of these movies (Ring, Grudge) or making others in the same vein (White Noise, the Eye) but many of [...]
Anyone who has spent any time in Korea is familiar with the irredentist issue of the Dokto/Takeshima/Lioncourt islands. This is one of the hundreds of issues around the world where two or more countries both claim the same hunk of rock as their own. Both sides bring out cute historical maps and literary accounts to [...]
The Korea wave has hit Taiwan too. In case there was any doubt, here is an advertisement for “Korean-style” plastic surgery available in Taipei’s Ximen area. Not only is the plastic surgery Korean style, but you can even look like Bae Yong-jun, known in Japan as “Yong-sama”! Check out their “before” and “after” pictures in [...]
Interesting article here by a graduate student who, for some reason, is in the military and training to be shipped to Iraq as part of the American occupation. I think we should all read material like this (which you can find all over the place if you look for it) to be reminded that US [...]