Outside Looking In

• Emojis - Here to Stay? 7 years ago It seems that anyone who uses any kind of messaging app (Kakao Talk, Facebook Messenger, SMS, etc.) these days uses emojis to some extent. Even a 46-year-old relative latecomer to chat apps like me tends to use them as a shorthand way of answering affirmatively (thumbs up), to show laughter (as...
• Tea for One 7 years ago Eating lunch alone or having a quiet beer at home on the couch doesn’t strike most Westerners as out of the ordinary; but in South Korea, a country whose culture is more oriented toward group affiliation, something as simple as having a sandwich at your desk could mark you as anti-social or an...
• Aaaaand it's off! 7 years ago Quick update for long-neglected followers of this blog: I submitted the manuscript of Culture Shock! Korea last week, a couple of weeks ahead of my deadline, so it looks like we’re on target to meet the April/May publication target date. Watch this space for details. The process was a lot of work...
• I'm Baa-aack... 8 years ago How many times has the owner of a neglected blog said that before? More importantly, how many times has the owner of a neglected blog not said that before?  At any rate, I’ve decided to fire up the old blog for a few reasons. First, a word on what I’ve been up to. Now that the ink […]
• This Week Out There - May 11th - 17th 9 years ago A selection of this week’s expat-related stories Into the Wild… of Hong Kong? A 27-year-old British expat living in Hong Kong was rescued by helicopter after somehow getting lost in the woods at Hong Kong’s Victoria Peak. The story describes him as “drunk”, which strikes me as an...

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