I watched a lot of Kung Fu films when I was a kid that I struggle to remember now; I think I had the time back then to devote hours after hours to watching film without the desire to do something else. Fist of Fury, Iron Monkey, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, and maybe my all time best Shogun Assassin (“meet the greatest team in the history of mass slaughter”) become some of my most watched DVD’s at a time when melting into the couch was more than an adequate way of living. Fuck responsibilities, they came along far too early.
Whatever happened back then, I got a desire to go and visit the “Asia’s” at some point, ideally before I died. Luckily in 2012 that desire popped off and I went to Shanghai, followed by the next year to Hong Kong, then after to Japan and then next to Ningbo, China. This year I landed in Korea with the Éclat boys and it was so not what I accepted. I anticipate there to be a struggle in any Asian country, even Japan with its western embraced culture was difficult to navigate, communicate and at times fathom. China is just a crazy old melting pot of bizarreness and the deeper you go the weirder it gets. Seoul, South Korea was not what I expected. They love cold brew, the chicken in a KFC is cooked right through, they love a good burger, Wi-Fi is everywhere, you can get every kind of food, they dig ice cream, the roads are (hmm) okay, and even though they have a poor selection of beers at least they keep their fridges on. South Korea is an amazing place. Don’t dodge it for the obvious Asian neighbors’ next time you want to head east.
