My latest novel, Angry Young Spaceman, is about a guy who goes to another planet to teach English. It's a pretty obvious to anyone who knows I taught overseas that the dreamy underwater planet Octavia is a duckblind for Korea. I set it on another planet for two reasons -- one, it was more fun that way; two, depicting Korea, when I had been there a scant seven months, was not something I felt comfortable doing. I wanted to concentrate on the protagonist's struggle and fascination with immersion in an alien environment.

Despite this, I did expect someone to catch me out on the fact that a lot of the appeal of the book is derived from a (albeit once removed) characterization of Asia that is pretty problematic: mysterious, headed heedlessly towards westernization, and filled with amusing broken English. And while writing a scathing critique entitled "Suburban Houses With Radical Paintjobs: The Works of Jim Munroe" has a kind of Eggersian appeal, I think I'll just look around my room and analyze the...

Objects of My Asian Affectation

Notes: These are the Asian objects that I can see from my desk, and are no way an inventory of all of such items I own. I am careful to avoid having (what I consider) an embarrassing excess of them -- small are the steps between valid appreciation, geeky fannishness, and creepy fetishization. (Although -- and this doesn't make sense, but I feel entitled to have more Asiana since I've lived there.) Also, I'm aware that limiting it to objects is in itself revealing of a kind of consumer mentality, but it helped to having parameters of this analysis so as to avoid having to list everything beginning at my crush on a Filipino girl in grade six. (Whoops.) I stopped this list at eight (for luck) although the following objects are also within sight:
-a tiny catalogue of Japanese dolls and toys
-coffee gum
-Morning Glory hardcover writing book
-H.O.T. (Highfive Of Teenager) bootleg cassette

Omar Sharif Lights cigarette package (empty): The Korean government, having nationalized cigarette production, has a few brands with English names. My co-teacher started smoking them in his army days, and had no idea who Omar Sharif was -- I suppose they started making them when he was hot, and saw no reason to update it with the new western star. The licensing must have cost something, because the side of the package has Sharif's name along with the quote "The taste of my cigarettes is smooth, soft & sensual, just like my romantic life." Analysis: While a lot of the appeal of this comes from how cheesy the quote is (and by extension, how cheesy the French are), I also like how a governmental initiative to -- what? Make their citizens more cosmopolitan? -- has only succeeded at turning a moviestar into a meaningless glyph.

Coconut Jelly jar (8 single servings remaining): Each tiny rounded cup has a tasty coconut jelly serving with a piece of lychee suspended inside. What I most enjoy is offering them to guests who have never had them. They pull back the little cover and spill some of the juice on their hands, and then try to slurp it out. Then, they say "It's good!" in a kind of surprised voice, as if they expected something not-so-good. Analysis: I like that the whole process -- confusion, discovery, delight -- is a kind of mini-version of engaging other cultures. But I also like watching people slurp jelly.

Tiny Photobooth Stickers: They're like photobooths, except you get a whole sheet of stickers, and you can choose from a bunch of computer graphic frames. I have six of them, four from Korea, one from Japan and one from Seattle -- this last one taken in a Korean grocery store while shopping with a fellow ex-teacher. My favourite frame is the one saying "It's Bathtime!" (in Korean) with a soap bubble obscuring my friend Kevin's eye. Analysis: For Asian schoolgirls who cover their agenda books and diaries with them, photobooths are about fun and friends, and we're trying to get in on that.

Korean Phrasebook (published by Lonely Planet): I was building my Korean vocabulary from it. I would tape my girlfriend pronouncing the words and play it back. (I taped over it recently, but I liked to listen to it because she giggled a lot between telling me to pay attention.) Two years later, I would be hard pressed to say five words in Korean despite having learned a few hundred. Analysis: I keep it around as a kind of symbol of having, in good faith, attempted to learn the language. Better a failure than a indifferent westerner.

Korean painting: When I left, my co-teacher gave me a long scroll painting with a very traditional painting of a persimmon tree and Chinese characters on it, with a sincere and heartfelt inscription on the back. Analysis: It's big and says Exotic, so under normal circumstances it would be too corny for my taste. But fuck it, Mr. Ahn was one of the sweetest guys I've ever known.

Vegemil bottle (empty): The convenience stores would sell these glass bottles of hot vegetable milk during the winter. Analysis: As beautiful as the glass milk bottles were -- and with their 70s computer font lettering, they were lovely -- more beautiful was the fact that the culture produced something, completely unintentionally, that a vegan like me could enjoy.

Various books by Haruki Murakami: I've heard that he's Japan's highest selling author, which amazed me because his stuff is haunting and subtle. It might have something to do with the fact that comics are so popular and acceptable that maybe the person who would pick up Danielle Steele here would read a comic in Japan, leaving the book world for talents like Murakami. Analysis: His interest in Western culture makes him the perfect crossover writer -- westerners with a taste for eastern culture love him, and vice versa.

Pink Ape Head: This keychain fob, a fist-sized stuffed toy, was given to me by one of my ten-year-old students. I attached it to my backpack and wore it around Toronto for a while, but it was drawing so much attention that (self-conscious of being perceived as intentionally eccentric) I took it off. Analysis: Toys, with their Peter Pan-esque refutation of adulthood and simplicity, are fun. Toys from Asia have that except you don't have to relive a Canadian childhood filled with Disney and Time-Warner brands -- it's nostalgia once removed.