The Exotic Effect

It was the first snowfall this season in Seoul. It started in the afternoon just before lunch - very light to start with. As time went by, the intensity increased. Before long it was snowing heavily, covering everything in a blanket of white. I enjoyed it from the comfort and warmth of my lab. It was a delightful scene for me. Interestingly the snowfall caused many status messages to change on Facebook. For some, it was the first snowfall and the feeling reflected in their words. For some it brought back memories of horrible winters and the sufferings associated with it. Its strange to observe how the same thing elicits such diverse response in different groups of people. I call this the Exotic Effect.
My first brush with this occurred almost 12 years back - when I was still in primary school and we had a week-long camp on Environmental Awareness. It was organised by an Indian lady working for some environmental agency in Florida. That was for the first time I came to know the reason behind the craze for sunbathing. She didn't use the word 'tan' - just saying that the 'foreigners' wanted to have skin color like ours. She also said that they were vulnerable to UV rays which might cause skin cancer - if the earth's atmosphere failed to absorb a major portion of the UV rays.
It has been a long time since the environmental camp. I had almost forgotten about it, till I say the status messages. People staying in big cities yearn to spend some time in the countryside, far away from the crowd and the sounds of the city. For people staying in rural areas, a trip to the city is a special day. I was surprised by westerners interest in places like Varanasi, which apart from the religious values, is despised by many Indians of my generation due to the narrow and dirty streets and ghats, the crowd and the confusion and the pollution of the river. Interestingly, it is these very qualities that make Varanasi interesting to outsiders. Traditional market place is one such interesting observation - which incidentally happens to be hunting grounds for portrait photographers. People going about their daily business are often surprised by the fact that someone is actually taking interest and photographing something that is so commonplace for them. The very person would probably do the same thing, if he saw a skyscraper or an aeroplane.
Sometime back I was having a conversation with a person, on our way to a lake-side barbecue. It was summer in southern Germany and on the weekend some of us planned to spend the afternoon by the lake. He was from London and had been working in the same small university town where I lived. When I recall, that was the first time I actually used the word Exotic Effect. He was saying how it was difficult to plan an open air bbq in London - since the weather was so fickle and most of the time it was cloudy and gloomy. He also said that many of his friends, who were born and brought up in London and continued to live and work there, go out to the countryside of the weekends and how he, was rather bored by the small town and wanted to go to a nightclub in Stuttgart (the nearest big city). As a matter of fact - one of his friends was getting married in a small village in Spain. I was rather surprised - "Isn't that rather troublesome to get married in a different country and that too in a small village?". He said that his friend had a fascination for the exotic. I said that it was not just his friend but all of us are fascinated by the exotic.
He then recalled how he was surprised in Malaysia, where he went for a voluntary teaching program - to see women in the fish market applying some kind of ointment on their skin, early in the morning. Out of curiosity he asked them about it and found out that it was "Fairness cream" - whose end result is to reduce the melanin content of the skin. He also said that he know many people staying in London who wanted to retire in the Mediterranean region, where there was plenty of sun. On the other hand, some of his friends in Spain, wanted to settle in London - they were tired of the sun and wanted to go someplace cooler.
I don't know why I wrote this article. May be it has something to do with the fact I have immersed myself into the psychology of human learning for the past few days (as part of an assignment in Cognitive Machine learning) and it seems to have made me look into human behavior in a more analytical way.

A clean sheet ...

Last week started on a high note after the wonderful weekend. I worked really hard on Monday and Tuesday, getting myself deeper and deeper into the labyrinth of the Kalman Filter. Its the central topic of a subject called Estimation Theory. The classes of the subject are as interesting as the filter itself (apart from the math, matters discussed in that particular class includes Globalization, the Battle of Britain, development of radar technology and the political intrigues in the world of Science!). But somehow from Tuesday night onwards, I lost myself into the labyrinth of Prison Break. One episode lead to another and it took me the whole week to complete the first season. Apart from the series, I had my weekly dose of single malt, eating out, cooking at home (this was Chicken weekend :)), cocktail and also the Quantum of Solace - which, to be honest, left me disappointed. On the other hand, I saw "Iti Srikanta", on Sunday afternoon, which was a nice film. I was impressed by its simplicity and honest portrayal of the characters. The village scenes brought back certain memories associated with "childhood" and the transit of Venus on a summer evening!
Sunday night is the time to contemplate on how I wasted the previous week and making promises for the week to come. The coming week is going to be difficult - something that I had almost forgotten after the past 2 weeks, that almost felt like a vacation after the ones prior to it. There is a lot to be done - term projects, take home exams, assignments. When I write a report by hand, I want it to be scratch free. It appeals to my aesthetic sense and makes me happy. I hope, I'll be able to keep the coming week like a clean sheet - and its important that I keep it that way for the coming weekend is likely to be the first weekend we venture out of Seoul for the first time on our own.

A Day well spent :)

For the past few weeks I have developed a certain habit - every Monday I promise myself not to work the next weekend and do something for fun but some work invariably turn up and I end up working more on the weekends than the weekdays! When I was told that there will be a workshop this Saturday, it really pissed me off. The Human Interface Lab at SNU was going to have a tie up with Inha University and as a member of HIL, I was supposed to attend it. So instead of sleeping till noon, I woke up early on Saturday morning and went to INMC building at SNU where June Sig picked up Ki Ho and me for the workshop.Bu the colors of fall provided good distraction and I promptly took out my cam and started clicking.SNU Main gate ... always wanted to take a pic of it but never had a proper chance. A pic from a moving car is not what I wanted but something is better than nothing.

We reached Inha University at around 10:30am and the workshop began with introduction of the lab and its members. Everything was in Korean and I hardly understood anything of it - when my name was called, I just stood up and gave an expressionless bow!
But the presentations that followed, were very interesting indeed and the demonstrations were even better. Wireless transfer of embedded encrypted data through a communication channel - like sending a hidden message in an image file, mobile phone based orientation sensor and emotionally accurate speech synthesis. The demos were great fun and cheered me up!
Participants of the workshop: Members from Inha on the left and SNU on the right.


Human Interface Lab, SNU - Prof Kim Nam Soo in the center.

After the presentations, it was time for lunch and we headed for the Incheon fish market for some fresh crab. The crab is bought from the fresh catch and taken to any of the small eateries, where they are prepared and served according to your preference. Once in the restaurant (or whatever it is called) Prof Kim started asking me his favorite question - "Are you really Indian?". I sat next to the Professor and he bombarded me with questions doubting my "Indianess". You eat anything and everything (I can eat anything on the plate or hovering/flying/slithering in and around the plate!), you can drink a lot (man, what a complement :) ... makes me proud!) and your habits are not like the other Indians I have seen before - one question followed another. I made a sincere attempt to explain how I acquired my food habits, my drinking capacity and the reasons behind my outlandish hobbies!

In the meantime, food arrived - steamed crabs, followed by a spicy crab stew and I eat with great relish. Throughout the lunch, Prof Kim, lectured me on Korean food and customs - and the people around took their turn to tell me something about Korean culture.The unfortunate crabs the went into my stomach.

Gae-Meun-Tang .... spicy crab stew - Prof Kim took great effort to see to it that I pronounced the name correctly ... though I'm not sure if I have spelled it correctly!

Lunch ended close to 4pm but the day was not over. I decided to visit the Kyobo book store - which supposedly has a large collection of English books. To reach it I took the longest subway ride - lasting for about 1hr and 20mins. But I was not disappointed - Kyobo is massive ... almost a permanent book fair with a large section for books in English to satisfy even the most demanding customer. I happily browsed through the huge collection and spent almost an hour and a half there. In the end I got myself a membership of Kyobo bookclub and bought 3 books - one on the Angkor (still not sure if the trip to Cambodia will materialise or not), Aztec and Mayan history, and a French cookbook!

It was a wonderful day and greatly refreshed me but the good times were not over yet. And the reason can be seen in the picture below :)A wonderful and sweet Riesling from Rhinehessen. It had a nice aroma of cherries and a refreshing taste. I have always been a fan of Riesling and my palate is more oriented to sweet wines. So much so that the only wine that I brought back from Europe this time was a Riesling Icewine (beerenaulese).
I continue to sip the wine as I write this blog and as time progresses I feel even better :)