Two Misses and a Hat Hit

As my beloved California self mutilates and summer strikes its first vicious blows naturally my thoughts turn to the world of entertainment. What better remedy for a bout of budget blues than a musical, a film, and…a musical?! Perhaps it’s mood, maybe it was bad choices, or then again it could be things used to be much, much better in the past because so far my summer has not been sizzling with hits.

Let’s start with Spamalot. I received a sudden call, “Would I like to go to opening night?” Well, ye-ess! And who else did I spy walking in to the theatre? Billy Crystal, Ed Begley Jr., the ubiquitous Joanne Worley and even Eric Idle. Unfortunately the star sightings were the highlight of my evening. Comedy, as someone once noted, is all about timing and this whole production seemed off. Or maybe it’s that jokes about body gas and poking fun at the French (who strangely had Scottish accents) no longer make my grade.


One very hot Sunday I tried to calm the aftershocks of Spamalot by seeking culture of a higher brow, the new Stephen Frears film, Cheri, based on two novels of French author, Colette. Of course Colette actually was the Jacqueline Susann of her time, churning out potboilers and what passed for soft pornography at the time. Since the sixties they have matured into literary classics. But what a dreadful film! Frears achieved the worst performances ever from Michelle Pfeiffer and Kathy Bates, the stiffest delivery and most clichéd expressions imaginable. The choppy editing and a voice over framing device ruined the occasionally intriguing beauty of the landscapes and interiors. I suppose the film was educational—how not to convert a novel.


This evening, however, I had some slight reprieve from the summer blahs, attending Regina Taylor’s Crowns at the Pasadena Playhouse. This very musical although not quite “a musical” play features African American women and their relationship with their hats, usually their church hats. Sure, it was yet another recent play in which characters tangentially interact while facing the audience and telling their histories. Still, some moments of dialogue and soliloquy were moving while a pleasing array of spirituals took me back to childhood choir practice. The play also reminded me of my own grandmother’s hats and hat boxes, costume jewelry, and her fox stole and alligator purse, both featuring mouth clamped on tail.


Three weeks back from Seoul and somewhat adjusted to the mixed plate of LA arts, I once again hit the summer trail. It’s on to Fresno and CSU Summer Arts where I’m certain to be aesthetically refreshed if bodily wilted. Will I be cool enough to dance?

I’m a Seoul Man, Shiatsu-phile, and Sauna fan

And now the wrap up of my June trip to South Korea.

After our tour at Seoul Institute for the Arts (now located in Ansa, not far from Seoul) our Fulbright group returned to Seoul on Friday, June 27. We met in the hallway at the Sangnam Institue to devise our final gift-giving protocols and then headed back to the Fulbright House for a program wrap-up, evaluation, lecture by one of the Fulbright Junior Researchers, and then a buffet! The two charming Fulbright Junior Scholars, Katherine Lee (our Samulnori music guide) and Aimee Lee (our guide to hanji paper making) accompanied us to Myeong-Dong, a lively district full of tens of thousands of young people on a Friday night. Saturday a.m. we had a final coffee and farewell; a great experience with my colleagues Kenya, Wes, Richard, and Magid!

Then my first free weekend in a month! Thanks to our Theatre alum, Jooyoung Song, I had a wonderful, relaxing time, visiting the “Happy Sale” at Korea’s version of Macy’s, Shinsegae, and eating at a wonderful Japanese/Mediterranean fusion restaurant in the Itaewon district. Ms. Song is working with our students who are completing their intensive advanced Korean program for four weeks at Korea University. On Sunday, we had one of several other Cal State LA reunions as Professors Hae-Kyung Lee and Susan Mason (the latter on a weekend visit from her Fulbright teaching fellowship in Japan) met with Jooyoung, as well as one of our current MA students and her mother. Our student’s mother had studied dance at Ewha Women’s University just ahead of Professor Lee, and several decades later we were all sitting around the same table. As Professor Mason said, “I just love being so international!”

I was thinking “much fewer than six degrees of separation” and my musings were verified just a few days later. Sitting in a coffee shop near Korea University (okay, there’s a theme here), a young woman approached me and asked if by chance I was a professor at Cal State San Marcos teaching film and women’s studies. Jeannine was a former student of mine teaching in Korea with no connection to Korea University—she just happened to be in the neighborhood (in this extended city of 20 million or so). In my official missives I’ll write more to students and faculty about all the opportunities in Korea these days, a great place to teach English or other subjects in English while having an international experience.

In the meantime, there was more shopping (another theme), this time at Insadong and a couple of other shopping, café, and gallery areas in Seoul over the next few days, where I followed my usual gift buying practice, “One for you, one for me.” I also paid a return visit to Mamma Kiki’s, the wine bar of another Theatre alum, Shin Lee.

Of course my business wasn’t quite over as I scheduled further university visits to Ewha Women’s University and I was able to talk about extending our student and faculty exchanges with our partners at Korea University.

On Wednesday, the first of July, I hosted a welcome dinner for our 11 Cal State LA students, Professor Lee, and Ms. Song. It was exciting to meet again the students we had welcomed to our intensive Korean program just one year earlier, now in Seoul to complete their program at Korea University.

On this, my final evening, I had to pay my respects once again at Mamma Kiki’s where we had a small alumni gathering. I thought we had ended at 1:30 a.m. only to learn that Karaoke must follow! Your Dancing Dean actually danced, and sang, and sang, and danced, and sang… I thought the demand for new numbers would never end, but I really need to take that healthy singing course that our Music faculty offer, as I’m still hoarse. Of course others did ballads while I had to sing “Proud Mary” and—by mistake (wrong number punched in)—“Born in the USA,” among many others.

I wish that I had more time to describe my painful but necessary shiatsu treatments and the delightful spa culture of Korea but perhaps after my next trip to Seoul I can enlighten you more about gold rooms, ice rooms, exfoliation, dining, doing e-mail in the sauna and other similar important matters. In the meantime I say Annyonghee kay-sayo (Good-bye) to my sisters and brothers in Seoul.

Photos provided courtesy of Magid Sherzadegan.

Travelogue Lite

My last blog left me on my Fulbright trip to South Korea in Gyeongju, the capital of Silla, one of the three ancient kingdoms that formed on the Korean peninsula, the Buddhist center of Korea, and once the center of fabulous wealth. We visited a serene mountain Buddha, a temple complex at Bulguksa, huge burial mounds, museums and institutes in a muggy heat. Another rain cooled our visit to two universities in Daegu, Keimyung University and Kyungpook National University, and then we were off to visit the world’s largest auto plant, the Hyundai factories at Ulsan.On to Busan and the beach (AKA 'Pusan'—there have been two major transcription methods from Korean’s Hangul alphabet to our Roman one and I understand yet another may be adopted)! Korea’s second largest city has grown from a sleepy fishing village to about 4 million people. Stretched along the beach and bays with skyscrapers poking through the mountains Busan reminds me of Hong Kong. Not that I’ve ever been to Hong Kong but after years of National Geographic and who knows how many films I seem to have a strong mental picture of it anyway. It was great to stroll along the waterfront near the APEC building, get sunset views of the magnificent bay bridge, and feel the cool sea breezes. I thought that Cal State LA students would love to visit, study, or teach in our sister city. And speaking of teaching, we met one of the Fulbright English Teaching Assistants and visited his school (Namsan High School) as well as Pukyong National University.
Busan is also famous for its fish market. While we didn’t buy anything at the market (it’s not easy to cook flounder on a field trip), we did have a great restaurant seafood lunch hosted by the kind people at Pukyong including spicy soft shell crab and varieties of fish I did not know. Keimyung University also had fed us very well the day before in their university restaurant, wonderfully fresh Korean fusion.
Last time I promised to speak of food (and shopping), so here are a few quick rules:

• 1) if it’s red sauce, it’s spicy;
• 2) don’t resist MOST unknown fish—they may look as strong as pickled herring but they might be (mostly) mild and delicious;
• 3) but Do ask if the fish has been fermented and then be prepared to inhale ammonia;
• 4) I’m used to crispy calamari; prepare for chewy squid;
• 5) if at a traditional restaurant eat slowly and judiciously—they keep bringing more dishes and then more, finally ending with rice as the last savory dish before the dessert, usually fruit, arrives. I could go on and on about food but my last advice is this—Korean food is much more than just BBQ!

Heading back towards Seoul we crossed the persimmon capital of Korea (dried persimmon duly bought and consumed) and stayed two nights in Daejeon, visiting Daejeon University (in a spectacular wooded setting) and its downtown College of Oriental Medicine. Then very near Seoul, in Ansan, we visited the specialized Seoul Institute of the Arts, which is quickly becoming the Cal Arts of Korea collaborating in multimedia projects throughout the world and turning out many of Korea’s finest actors.
You’ll have to watch for the next iteration of “The Dancing Dean” to hear more about shopping, saunas, Cal State LA students’ arrival in Seoul, and Korean karaoke, including my own hit song and dance numbers. It will be worth the wait!

From Commencement to Korea

The last weeks of the spring quarter, always a whirl of events and emotions, became more hectic and unsettling as I readied myself to leave for South Korea on the US-Korea International Education Administrators Program. That I had to bring my luggage to Commencement and leave directly from the ceremony only heightened the inevitable tension of leaving work at a time of great budget upheaval, this year a good 7.0 on the Richter scale of California's frequent economic earthquakes. We had excellent Commencement speakers, and a deeply settled June gloom was a welcome change from the last two years' sun burnt ceremonies. All else went smoothly and before 2 pm I was in the air on my 12 hour flight from LAX to Incheon.
After a couple of rough days of jetlag I adjusted nicely to our taxing schedule of visits to universities, cultural institutions and performances, industry, and historical monuments. This Fulbright program's purpose is to advance our understanding of South Korean higher education and culture, so we have a number of visits to universities inside and outside Seoul. We first stayed at the Sangnam Institute on the campus of Yonsei University, part of a nexus of higher education institutions. I saw tens of thousands of young people roaming the streets on the last pleasant days before the monsoonal summer sets in and wondered once again how we can get more of our students to study abroad so they can experience the exhilaration of global exchange. The California State University International Programs Office has a system-wide agreement with Yonsei so I could see our campus name on their board of partnerships in the Yonsei international programs office.
On Wednesday we had a fascinating briefing at the US Consulate which, added to our Monday a.m. lectures gave many insights into how South Korea may have achieved its economic miracle and what North Koreans and their neighbors may be thinking about the latest missile launching crisis. Thursday's visit to the DMZ frankly gave me the creeps. There's an elaborate ritual to visits, showing passports through two checkpoints, filling out forms absolving the UN if you just happen to be shot dead or kidnapped (one is given the release form as a souvenir), issuing of UN visitor badges, and the eerie sight of facing a large capped North Korean soldier from about 50 yards away. I'll soon be posting my photo standing in North Korea, in front of the South Korean guard who prevents defections or anyone opening the door for North Koreans to snatch one into oblivion.

But don't get the wrong impression. Visiting South Korea is not so different than visiting West Germany in the 60's through the 80's. It's a very safe country and much more beautiful and forested than I had imagined. And even the DMZ, which has become a de facto nature preserve, provides pleasant surprises. We saw one tree weighed down with about 50 nesting cranes!

After an interesting visit to the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies featuring their translation and interpretation program and our very warm visit (literally and figuratively) with our hosts at Konkuk University on Friday we ended our sojourn in Seoul with an array of Korean folk songs, opera, drumming, and dance. We hit the road on Saturday morning visiting a firm where traditional handmade Korean paper (hanji) is fabricated. Then, just as the monsoon rains began to fall we visited Hahoe Village with both tiled roof (nobles) and thatched roof houses some original to the late 15th century, most built later in the same style.
On my next blog I'll discuss equally significant matters like food and shopping. In the meantime your dean is dancing to the beat of salmunori and the kitschy pop American hits sung nightly in the lobby of my hotel in Kyeongju.

Jurple Daze

Last Wednesday evening the light was transcendent, finely filtered through a lifting mist, a Millet or Monet brushed to life. A surprising thunderstorm had passed lending a new quality to the atmosphere, charged yet caressing. The storm wind had shaken the fully blooming jacaranda leaving a dazzling blue purple carpet on my front lawn. Jurple, the name I’ve given to jacaranda’s brilliant, messy shedding, covered whole streets as if a royal tropical wedding had just passed.

For those who have never seen a jacaranda in its glory, the sight can be oddly jarring, great swaths of light bright purple amazingly consistent in color, at rooftop level, welcome but unexpected. Now that they’ve been blooming for two to three weeks I’ve grown re-accustomed to the shock of pastel, but that first week rounding a corner I’d still flinch from their sudden beauty.



In academia spring is also the time of year for re-acquaintance with joys almost forgotten in the press of work, a time to revel in student accomplishment. The year can grind down one’s bones and molars, sweet optimism and gentlest trust. In other words, three quarters of preface, start up, midterms and finals punctuated by outbursts of ego, drama, caviling and sniping is thrust to the background to focus on what matters most, the education we’re trying to provide to largely worthy, talented, and sympathetic individuals, our students.

A week ago Saturday I attended one of two Master’s recitals of one of our Arts and Letters students, the multi-talented Madelyn Washington. Ms. Washington lectured on Afro-Latin music and sang several works to illustrate her points. I enjoyed speaking with her mother, whom I’ve met at several of Madelyn’s performances including our French “Bonnet Day” concert in the Luckman where she sang a world premiere (November 2007), the Larry Harlow concert (November 2008, Professor Paul De Castro conducting) and performances of the Women’s Trio coached by Professor David Connors.

That particular Saturday I attended four events including the launch of Statement magazine. This past two weeks has been packed with many happy celebrations of student work, the Cinematic Visions student film festival, “Short Order,” the Cindy Bernard collaboration with Art students at the Luckman Gallery, student Weslie Brown’s composition recital, the Jazz Ensemble concert, the first world dance concert (and the first dance recital for many participants), and the Munitz lectures in English.

But in this whirl of events my thoughts return to Madelyn, and all the students who have completed their degrees and will be moving on. That’s the bittersweet note in this late spring jurple daze; our students always leave.

Living with a Skunk

If a recent well-known author learned a lot from his kindergarten experience I suppose that I’m learning equally from watching quietly my own backyard. Now that the light stays later I’ve been trying to rush home to find some contemplative moments (oxymoronic irony noted).

At dusk I’m often sitting or standing at the edge of my garden in a semi-meditative state reviewing the day’s events when a neighborhood skunk waddles by. Skunks, when non-rabid, seem largely oblivious, going about some unknown evening task, sometimes ambling under my outstretched legs unheeding of the much larger mammal that could pounce in an instant and wreck its twilight idyll. When finally the skunk sees me, she? he? (I couldn’t say) hides cautiously under the deck stairs, finally pokes its nose out, and then on unnaturally short legs scurries away. Even more curious, I’ve several times seen Ms. or Mr. Skunk slinking under the hedges towards my neighbor’s two black cats who don’t arch or hiss or growl but stroll idly by as the intruder shuffles into their territory. Three species watching, learning in mutual co-existence with no struggle, no threats, and no stinking mess at the end. There’s got to be a university metaphor here but I refuse to search for it.

Instead, I’ll turn to the last ten days of exciting events. The wrap-up of Reel Rasquache was a sensation. If only there had been an East LA Society Page present…Edward James Olmos, Esai Morales, Lupe Ontiveros, Jesus Treviño y otros were present to pay tribute to Zoot Suit legend Luis Valdez. Earlier that day graduating vocal senior Josh Diener had given a rousing recital and in between I almost finished this year’s faculty reviews so my mood was grand. And luncheons, we had luncheons! Monday, the university scholarship donors and recipients, Tuesday high school and community college counselors. I say at Honor’s Convocation that “It takes a village to make the Dean’s List.” It also takes a village to get our students to the university and I’m very thankful that individual donors and hard-working staff support students at every step. This next week…on to the Scholar-Athletes’ banquet!

And speaking of villages…this week I also visited Urinetown. Several faculty, staff, former staff, students, and former students told me that they were THRILLED at the production, the quality of student performance, and the audience, the Audience, and the AUDIENCE. Hey kids, we put on a SHOW! After a long hiatus of musicals, Cal State LA is coming back strong. Look for next year’s schedule soon.


On Memorial Day, after thinking of all the flags I have planted as a Boy Scout at Punchbowl National Cemetery (Oahu), I met the Fulbright staff and future fellow Fulbrighters in a Koreatown restaurant before the opening of the NAFSA international Educators Association conference. That’s right, this June immediately following commencement I’m off on a plane to Seoul to participate in the US-Korea International Education Administrators Program fulfilling a lifetime dream to become a Fulbright Scholar and proudly joining Arts and Letters Professors. Mohammed Auwal (Qatar) and Susan Mason (Japan) who will be returning from their respective Fulbright experiences this summer. Over a Korean BBQ lunch at So Hyang restaurant we mapped out our upcoming visit and the all-important gift giving strategy. I have the right shoes for the trip (for rain, dancing, the DMZ) but mustn’t forget the umbrella.

This report ends with an uplifting event having nothing to do with skunks or Urinetown. Muhammad Yunus , economist, professor, businessman, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate served as NAFSA’s opening plenary speaker. Many of the Dancing Dean’s readers may not know that I was an Economics-Political Science undergrad before turning to literary studies and I idolize Dr. Yunus’s creativity in creating microlending programs that have raised millions out of poverty. Dr. Yunus was perhaps an indirect inspiration for the Quinceañera Project that I created several years ago to give scholarships to young Latinas to steer them towards university education before marriage. I was misty-eyed during Yunus’s uplifting talk, feeling that I was in the presence of a Mahatma, a great soul, one who has written that: “All human beings have the inner capacity not only to care for themselves but also to contribute to increasing the well-being of the world as a whole. Some get the chance to explore their potential to some degree, but many others never get any opportunity, during their lifetime, to unwrap the wonderful gift they were born with.” (Creating a World Without Poverty, 247).

Unless you’re a skunk, please unwrap your gift now!

A Garden Party?

The Good News:
It’s been a busy few weeks, dear readers, and I’m just catching my breath (and icing my back) to write about one of the many arts and letters events that has me dancing, if stiffly, towards the academic year end deadline.

On Saturday May 2, I hosted a book party for Josefina López. To date, Ms. López is known for her screenplay, Real Women Have Curves, which became the 2002 film that introduced many of us to America Ferrera, the star of Ugly Betty. Now, Ms. López may become equally known for her saucy novel, Hungry Woman in Paris.

When publicist Steve Rohr learned that another potential book-party house had fallen through, he and friend, Chris Freeman (Love, West Hollywood), asked if I would open my house and garden in Pasadena for the gathering of literati. It was a great chance to meet Josefina and also have her meet some of the faculty from Cal State LA and USC, where Professor Freeman teaches. Better yet, I didn’t have to cook or rearrange the furniture; Steve was going to take care of that! The only task I assigned myself was to dress up my garden a little with some spring planting… more later on the follies of gardening.

One interesting fact I had not known about Josefina López—she attended Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, right on the Cal State LA campus.

The afternoon culminated in a moving reading by Ms. López, who described herself as an actress as well as author. Her reading of the different voices—of the mother and the father of the narrator, for example—demonstrated the power of voice and ear for conversation that also made Real Women Have Curves a delight. In short, a beautiful afternoon in Pasadena.

The Bad News: Three Important Rules
1) Never garden without warming-up
2) Bags of potting soil weigh more than you think
3) Add two days of recovery for each decade when you don’t follow Rules 1-2

Into my 10th day of recovery, my friends, I remain your wincing but still dancing dean!