Notebook On Cities And Culture

In Seoul's Sinchon district, Colin talks with Matt VanVolkenburg, author of Gusts of Popular Feeling, a blog on "Korean society, history, urban space, cyberspace, film, and current events, among other things." They discuss what it feels like to live in Seoul, of all places, without a smartphone; why navigating the city poses so much of a challenge to the newcomer; how he sees the relationship of the Korean media to foreign English teachers, "the new incarnation of the GIs"; what made it possible for the Korean media to talk freely about the acts of foreigners; the history of "Korea as a victim"; why non-English-teaching foreigners surprise Koreans; what makes some Koreans and foreigners alike see entry-level foreign English teachers as third-class citizens; the country's distinctive combination of overregulation and under-enforcement, and what it says about the difference between the legal cultures of Korea and North America; what he does on trips instead of hitting the beach; Isabella Bird Bishop, the 19th-c