The Circus [#17]
Hello from Seoul!
Thank you for your birthday messages. For once, it was awesome being 14-hours ahead because just as my birthday was ending here in Korea, I got a whole extra day of birthday greetings from America. So much fun that I think we should do it again next year.
What I Read
The beauty and terror of human conversation. If the Republican Party were a country, it would be America. In 1960. Goodbye decency, goodbye Jeb Bush. China’s all-dimensional vision for complete media domination. Let’s teach our daughters to be gutsy. There’s a Netflix workout for when you’re binging television. Remember, don’t call a person “diverse.”
What I Wrote
South Korea shut down its last vestige of cooperation with the North, after the North launched another long-range rocket. On the grim search for survivors of the Taiwan earthquake. On the memorable guesthouse where I stayed high in the mountains of Central Japan. A nostalgic remembrance of the three-way birthday parties of my twenties. A Q&A with the blog ReportHers about work, life abroad and what it’s like not being the lead parent.
Recommendations
Showtime’s new political docuseries, The Circus. I am on the opposite side of the globe and clock from the U.S., so I miss all the nanosecond-long news cycles in American media. The Circus steps back and gives me the presidential race narrative in the only context I need, which is a once-weekly show. (Granted, the hosts are a little grating for various reasons, but if you can get past that, it’s a decent show.)
To Catch Up…
Happened to be in Taiwan for the big earthquake, but it wasn’t strong enough to wake me in Taipei. It did wake my mom and Baby Isa, as I talked about on the BBC and on CNN . Speaking of earthquakes, this week I’m off to northeast Japan to visit the worst-hit parts of the 2011 earthquake/tsunami/nuclear meltdown. Follow along on my work blog.
Until next time,
Elise