The Brown Knowser

So, it's the last day of November. The final month of 2020 starts tomorrow. And for a year that seems to have taken forever to get through, I'm sure December will go quickly. Except during the last week or so, when so many people celebrate the holidays with family and friends, only that this year, it won't be that way. Or shouldn't. The greatest gift for this Christmas would be that everybody stays home and makes a solid effort to beat back the pandemic. Many of us have been saying, aloud and to ourselves, that we can't wait for 2020 to be over, as if, by magic, January 1, 2021 will usher in a change, that things will suddenly get better. It won't. So, as we move into what is arguably the biggest holiday season of the year, we should pause and take a mental check on ourselves, to see how we're doing, emotionally. A week or so ago, I saw a chart that was shared on social media. The person who posted it asked how we were feeling. The chart has four columns, ea...

Earlier this week , I wrote about a chapter in my novel, Songsaengnim: A Korea Diary , and how I had devoted this chapter to the day that Diana, Princess of Wales, died. In today's post, I'll share this chapter with you. Be warned that if you haven't read my book, there are spoilers in this chapter. With the holidays approaching, my novel might be a nice gift for the book lover in your life. Just sayin'... August 31, 1997 “Oh Roland, why did I come to Seoul?” asked Naomi. “To be closer to me?” For that, Tanya elbowed me in the ribs. Naomi’s eyes grew large, seemingly ready to jump from their sockets; first in shock at my answer, then at Tanya’s reaction. Naomi smiled, then laughed, and her cheeks coloured. “I have to admit, coming to a country where I knew someone was one of my deciding factors, but no, you’re not the only reason I’m here.” She looked at Tanya, seemingly seeking approval for providing the correct answer. The two had warmed to each other over the course...

I realized, this weekend, that there's a royal element to the Netflix programs that DW and I have been watching, recently. And one of these shows, in particular, got me thinking of a royal connection that I wrote about in my novel, Songsaengnim: A Korea Diary . This weekend, DW and I started watching The Queen's Gambit , the story of a young woman chess prodigy, brilliantly played by Anya Taylor-Joy. Whether you love chess or not, the story is quite riveting. We're only four episodes into the series, but we're hooked. We'll likely be finished it by mid-week. Image: Netflix, via Wikipedia Another series we just wrapped up watching is The Crown . Season 4 falls during a time in which both DW and I have lived, starting in 1979, when Margaret Thatcher became Britain's first woman prime minister. It was wonderful to see Gillian Anderson, an actress I love, portray a woman so loathed. Anderson is brilliant. I remembered that as a young teen, I had heard news about the...

The following is a draft excerpt from my novel, Gyeosunim . If you haven't read my previous novel, Songsaengnim: A Korea Diary , be warned that while there are no spoilers, you may be missing some context. Sunday, May 12, 2019 I had dozed off on the express bus, shortly after leaving the outer limits of Seoul, and was waking up as I felt the bus slow. I was sitting toward the back, on the driver’s side, and could see a vast apartment complex to the east. We must be passing Taejŏn, about an hour north of Chŏnju. But when the bus turned off the highway and passed through a familiar toll booth, I realized that this was, indeed, my old city. Where I had once been able to see my original apartment in Dongsan-Dong was now its own city of tall, thin apartment buildings. Somewhere, buried in the towering growth, was the old neighbourhood. We turned at an intersection that I thought I recognized but it appeared as though I was dreaming and hadn’t remembered it correctly. An LG gas station t...

My wife and daughter are the ones who really made a big deal about it. For years, I've considered getting a device that would crush the aluminum cans that we accumulate, be it the small cans of soda water, tonic, and the occasional pop cans, or the tall boys, the pint cans of beer that I go through on a regular basis. The reason for getting the can crusher was two-fold: it would limit the amount of space these cans take as they fill up our blue recycle bin and it would save my hands, which sometimes fall at risk of being sliced open as the can tears and exposes jagged edges as I crush the cans by hand. I wasn't desperate for the can crusher; rather, it was one of hundreds of nice-to-have items that I've stored in my head, planning to buy when the time was right, when my want for the item fell in a time when I was thinking about it and had the time and budget to get it. The time became right as I was reading my Twitter feed and saw that a friend had picked one up, and was ta...

I'm sorry to my local retail businesses, but unless you're online with free delivery, I'm going to be giving you a miss this year. Photo credit: Huffington Post I won't be going to any shopping malls or small gift shops this Christmas season. I'm staying home, doing all my holiday shopping online. And I have to admit, I've been using Amazon like a drunken sailor on shore leave. No muss, no fuss: look for what I need, see the various selections, read the reviews, compare prices, swipe with my phone app, and it's on my doorstep in a day or two. This is the way I shop these days. And the longer this pandemic goes on, the more I get used to shopping this way, the more chances that this will remain my norm. I hate shopping as it is. I hated malls and crowded stores. If I can support local, I will, but it has to be in my mind. I have to think, yes, this is where I used to go to get those kinds of things. Don't blame me for not going out to my local stores this...

Last Friday, November 13, marked the eighth month since the COVID-19 lockdown in Ottawa. Two Friday the Thirteenths, one global pandemic. Remember when we were young and naive, when we thought we'd lock ourselves away for three or four weeks—six at the most—and then life would go back to normal? We'd keep our distance from one another, wash our hands, and use hand sanitizer? As more evidence of the situation came to light, we learned that we should wear masks when indoors or when a two-metre distance from strangers was hard to maintain? Good times. The federal government told us that it had our backs, that they would help us through the rough patch were we couldn't go to work, and billions were spent in relief initiatives. Whew. But the provincial government grew wary of the lockdown, was eager to help struggling businesses get back on their feet, and so restaurants, pubs, gyms, and other social gathering spots opened up. And the summer was nice, so people went out and...

The following is a draft excerpt from my novel, Gyeosunim . If you haven't read my previous novel, Songsaengnim: A Korea Diary , be warned that while there are no spoilers, you may be missing some context. Sunday, May 12, 2019 It was exactly where I expected it to be. Standing on Gyeonggijeon-gil, on the side of the road where the high school looked just as it had, more than twenty years earlier, I looked to the opposite side of the road, to where a dilapidated, traditional house once stood, to see a box-like building with modern signage. It was the old kalguk-su restaurant where I had my first meal in Korea, in March, 1997. Walking through the sliding glass doors, I saw an open kitchen immediately to my right. To my left, four small tables lined the exterior wall. Two more tables were on the opposite wall, and an open doorway led to what looked like additional tables and possibly a washroom. Two young Korean women were standing by the kitchen, removing stainless steel bowls f...

I don't typically have the patience to sit in the woods or along a body of water to photograph wildlife. When I go outdoors to capture images, I prefer to keep moving, keep my eyes open, and stop only if something catches my eye. As soon as I've taken a few pictures, I like to keep moving, looking for more subjects to photograph. This summer, DW and I set up a bird feeder under our choke-cherry tree, and have taken pleasure as we've viewed myriad finches, cardinals, woodpeckers, and more feathered friends. DW, having renewed her interest in photography with her mirrorless Canon, likes to sit in our backyard and digitally capture these birds. I would often join her, with one of my Nikon D-SLRs and my 70-300mm lens, and do the same, though after a time I lose patience and set my camera down. Other times, I've attached one of my 360-degree video cameras to the same branch and record the birds as they've come and gone, but lately I've lost interest in setting up the...

 

Cranes are magical. One day they're up: another day, gone. In all of my 55 years, I have seen neither the assembly nor the dismantling of these huge towers. They just suddenly, mysteriously, appear or disappear. I've never seen an operator ascend or descend from one. I've only seen these machines in motion or as still as a grave. I could never climb one for my fear of heights. Instead, I just stand far below and marvel them from a distance. Cranes, indeed, are magical.

The following is a draft excerpt from my novel, Gyeosunim . If you haven't read my previous novel, Songsaengnim: A Korea Diary , be warned that there are spoilers in this post. Note: in some of the dialog between the main character, Roland Axam, and his sister, Siobhan, I've begun introducing some Scots Gaelic. It's not complete. If you think it's too much, or if the language has been used incorrectly, I'd appreciate some feedback, which you can leave in today's Comment section. Tuesday, February 3, 1998 No one was happier this week than my mum. She was back in Scotland with her two kids. She didn’t expect for me to be here—I even told her, after the crisis with Kwon but before Tanya left, that I wouldn’t be returning to either Canada or to Scotland for the holidays. I was expecting to surprise her in Ottawa, where I had gone directly from Seoul. Because I knew she had already spent the Christmas holidays with Siobhan and Brian, in Edinburgh, I expected he...