I believe I’m experiencing incontinence of joy. I’ve got this thing going on where I stand in my bedroom, flapping my hands like a developmentally disabled but very happy chicken. No, I have not taken up hard drugs! No, I have not lost 18 consecutive rounds of beer pong! I am frightening anyone who […]
Korea is obsessed with development. It attaches the term “development” to almost all of its official endeavors. Corrupt political systems are not unfair, they are undeveloped. Gender equality is desirable mostly in the context that it represents the development of Korean society. Social equality is not so wonderful on its own, but as a sign […]
This is the script for my third Toastmasters’ speech. In Korea, there is no equivalent to Western idioms about flavor. If, for example, you call a Korean person “very sweet” in Korean, they will either think you misspoke or conclude you have some unresolved issues with cannibalism. I thought it would be interesting to use […]
3번째 토스트마스터스 연설 각본입니다. 제생각에는 음식과 인생은 비슷합니다. 둘다 행복의 원천입니다. 음식의 종류는 많고 인생종류도 많습니다. 음식처럼, 인생에도 유효기간 이있습니다. 미국 사람들은 성공을 세이버리 맛이라고 말합니다. 우리 속담에서는 패배는 쓴 맛이고 실망은 신 맛이라고합니다. 튼튼한 사람들은 짜고 착한 사람들은 달콤합니다. 하지만 모든 사람은 인상이라는 맛을 맛볼 수 없습니다. (멈춤) 테디 루세벨트는 저의 […]
The bright young man trusts and admires the older man, calls him sir, says it’s an honor to contribute to the older man’s essays. The kid means it, too – he visibly freaked out that one time the older man mentioned a dislike for ass kissers, worried the older man was referring to him. This […]
This is an article I wrote for A Holistic Journey. South Korea was, and still is, a means of escape for me. On a practical level, it offered me a ticket out of my depressing neighborhood in Nevada (U.S.) with the meth lab across the street. On a slightly higher level, it released the […]
There are a few spots on earth that seem to suck, all the time, every year. Places known primarily for depressing, vaguely anonymous news stories about so an so rebel group blowing up buses, such and such government dropping cluster bombs on schools, everyone throwing rocks at each other and frothing at the mouth. I […]
I’m now well into year ten of my writing career. That’s almost exactly one third of my life, almost exactly as long as I’ve lived independently, almost exactly as long as I’ve had that one stupid whisker that grows into the corner of my mouth and cannot be shaved without razor burn. It has taken […]
I really recommend you watch this video, but if you don’t want to, I’ll summarize for your convenience. The location is France, the protagonist is a house husband who, in the course of his day, gets crudely hit upon by a hobo chick, sorta-raped by a gang of feral women and diminished by his sexist […]
It struck me recently that I’ve got a pretty big backlog of cool pictures from my travels in both the US and South Korea. This, then, is where I disgorge the partially digested fish of my photography habit into your screaming, baby bird mouths. Yum.
Ben Garrido's Author Page 