The Pen Monster Blog

Moonflowers on CoHost asked;

fav city in asia? and why?

This actually took me a long time to think about. I’ve always had an attitude of a new place being an amazing new opportunity to find interesting vistas and people. My favorite thing to do upon finding myself in a new place is to spend a Saturday stepping out the front door, picking a direction, and start walking to see what’s there. Because I always find something interesting, every city I’ve been in has been memorable.

Side note: In anywhere but East Asia that habit would get my ass beaten by people who don’t like strangers ‘round these parts. The relative safety compared to back home is probably the main selling point of living in East Asia. Not that assaults, rapes, and other badness don’t happen, they do, but “I did violence because I had a chance to do violence” rarely seems to be a motivator here like it is back home.

It’s also why I never try to do street photography or carry cash on me back home.

Sorry my people. Y’all gotta get on some Lexapro or something.

But getting back to the question… I’m going to have to be basic and say Seoul. Lots of convenience. Lots of stuff to do and see. Lots of strange and interesting vistas. Lots of strange and interesting people. Lots of mysterious streets and alleys. The relative safety for a megacity. The astounding level of public transportation available. And that nearly every neighborhood is walkable with all your needs easily accessed? It has a lot going for it.

For being a tourist I’d say it’s Nagasaki. The temples on the sides of the valley are gorgeous and the city being the center of global history is fascinating if you happen to be a history nerd like I am. It’s a bit of a pain to get to if you don’t take the train from Fukuoka but worth a visit for a few days.

If anyone has more questions, please drop them below.

Photo: Seoul on a bad air day... but aren't they all? Samsung NX500. 2015.

I decided to crop some photos as close as possible last night instead of finishing up some paperwork that's due on Tuesday because that's how dedicated an employee I am. This was probably the best result as barrel distortion mutated a lot of faces.

I always got better results doing street portraits than I ever did trying to follow the street photography ethos of "decisive moment". I think it was everyone aping the success of Humans of New York that kept me from pursuing the idea further.

Busan, 2015. Samsung NX500.

Yeah, I don't know why the chair was there. It was there for a few weeks. I should have grabbed it. It looked like a nice chair.

I don't like smartphones. Aside from the fact that they're literally tracking devices, which is a concept that people used to get upset over, they're more and more required to operate in our society. From government services to healthcare to being able to buy food, people are preferring to do it via phone app and all other ways of doing these things are becoming more scarce.

We're already badly controlled by giant corporations. You know, the people currently gouging us because they felt they didn't get enough profits during the pandemic. And here we are increasingly trusting them with all aspects of our lives because we all want quick and easy access to porn in our pockets.

And before you bring up organizing or recording crooked cops... Those were only able to happen because the people controlling the phones didn't think about them until it was too late. Now they know to shut down services and to simply spy on organizers. They're a tool of the enemy. Trans people especially should be very wary of their smartphones and the connected social media right now.

Hopefully I'll be dead before the full threat is utilized. I don't want to be around to hear the rationalizations just so people can keep their pocket porn.

Bah!