It will soon be the tenth anniversary of the first paramilitary ceasefires in Northern Ireland (NI). A whole decade of (relative) peace in our wee Ulster - who would have thought it, eh? Of course, many things have changed in the past ten years. Back in 1994, I had a pseudo-Afro, now I'm receding. Recently I got to thinking about the music of the last ten years, the songs which for me encapsulate this period of history. So here it is, my soundtrack to the peace process: Days Like This...

A few weeks ago I was ambling towards the bus stop when the number 2002 came roaring down the road. Breaking into a sprint I made it on just in time. As the bus pulled away I took a note from my pocket and put it in the box. And then I groaned. I had accidentally paid 10 000 won (about five pounds) for a bus journey which costs just 1 000 won (about 50 pence). As I watched the note disappear there was little I could do. Most bus passengers put in the correct change. The machine does give ...

There must be a limit to how much concrete one country can take before it starts to sink. The Korean peninsula isn't much of a size and the South makes up less than half of it. Yet fifty million people are crammed into this little country. Understandably, the density of population means that spacious villas are a little on the expensive side. The landscape of Korea is therefore dominated by blocks of flats (apartment blocks, if you must) stretching as far as the eye can see, each as ugly as t...

It's nice to know that Robert de Niro and I have at least one thing in common - when we walk down the street, we both get stared at. In this way, though unfortunately in no other, being a white person in Korea is like being a celebrity. Very quickly, you get used to the idea that every time you go outside, you will be stared at. Children will come up to you and say "hello", old people will peer at you, people will point and whisper. To be a white person in Korea is to be some exotic b...

I recently spent a week in Tokyo. Of all the countries I've visited, Japan is the one of which I've had the worst impression before arriving. I've spent the last few years living in two of Japan's former colonies, Taiwan and South Korea, where praise for the Japanese is not exactly abundant. To some extent I understand why Japan's former imperial subjects are not well disposed to the country. The Japanese have not exactly gone out of their way to atone for past wrongs. Japanese school tex...

The skillful but egotistical footbaler, David Ginola was once asked if he minded that being the target of so much ire from opposing fans. "Not at all", the Frenchman replied, "it's better to be booed than ignored". By the standards of footballing answers, Ginola's remark was positively Chomsky-esque in its profundity. Fair play to him, he had a good point. Ginola was jeered not just because opposition fans hated him but also because they feared him. In a way, the boos were a sign of respect. ...

A few years ago I made the acquaintance of a man who seemed to be insufferably arrogant. On the first few occasions that we met, I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, hoping that his haughtiness was just a front which would dissolve once we got to know each other a little better. I can remember the exact moment when I realised that my first, negative impression had unfortunately been spot-on. A few of us had met up for dinner one night. When it came time for the person in question...

At Easter I was drinking in the famous Crown Bar, a popular tourist spot in Belfast city centre. Waiting for my drinks, I got chatting to the guy next to me, who like most of the people in the bar, was not a local. He was from Tralee, in the south-west of Ireland. Despite being the wrong side of forty, it was his first visit to our country's second city. He commented, as most first-timers do, on the freindliness of the people and on how much he was enjoying his visit. I've always been su...

Last weekend I was, as ever, sitting in a bar with Soupy, my erstwhile friend in both the online and offline worlds. At one stage, as we sat there putting the world to rights, an English woman came up to us and started chatting. The woman in question was determined to tell us, over and over and over, just how sexy she found our Ulster brogues to be. Well, who am I to argue with such an assessment? It seeems that for the English these days, the Ulster accent is in. Large English companies ...

I haven't been looking forward to writing this blog. I've known for some time that my best friend Soupy, known to Joeusers as johnsoup, will be leaving Korea. Knowing his dislike of presents, I promised to write a blog about him in lieu of a going away gift. There is the possibility, as I'm sure John will welcome, that this will lead me to write about my emotions; a very un-Barry thing to do. We first met in September 2000 in my native Belfast. We were in the same Masters class, two of t...

Last year a family friend spent a week here in Seoul on business. The second time we met, just before he was due to leave, he looked at me in a pleasantly bewildered manner and sighed: " This city has beaten me. It's a beast ." For those unaccustomed to epically large Asian cities, this is a common sentiment. The traffic, the noise, the over-crowding, the energy, the sheer size of a city which has twice the population of Ireland, can be a bit much for a newcomer from the west. I live on...

I've been lucky enough to travel and to live in different countries. Along the way, I've met people from various nations and cultures. But regardless of background, I find there are three characteristics which I look for in a new acquaintance: self-deprecation, intellectual curiosity and joie de vivre . I'm not a fundamentalist about this, it's great if you have all three (the grand slam), but I won't write you off if you only possess one or two. I myself lack joie de vivre , which...

"Mi guk in" The child's index finger points toward the pointy-nosed, pale-skinned oddity strolling past. "Mi guk in" ("American"), he exclaims excitedly to his parents as if he's just seen some exotic beast, like a rhino or a unicorn. The "American" stops in his tracks, bends down and smiles at the little one "a ni yo, a il lean deu in" ("no, I'm Irish.") I've lost count of the number of times I've been mistaken for a US citizen. Sometimes the person making the assumption is old e...

I've read a few of Michael Moore's books and have managed to take a position on the Rotund Ranter which few other Joeusers seem to share - that of ambivalence. I don't detest the man but neither do I love him. Sometimes, I find his ideas thought-provoking. I remember once reading his anecdotal observation that it seems that there are more girls than boys being born these days. Perhaps, he speculates, Mother Nature is trying to protect her creation by reducing the proportion of the population ...

One of the great things about Asia, as opposed to Europe, is the different attitude toward food here in the Orient. Back home on the western side of our immense landmass, eating out is a very occasional pleasure for all but the wealthy. To go to a restaurant one must have a reason: a date, a birthday, a celebration of some kind. Eating out is expensive, so it's expected that you dress up for the occasion (which, for some of us means putting on clothes which do not have holes). Each d...