Idiot abroad

Why is it in a city that's 60% immigrant or the children of immigrants, the Times' standard for what's non-standard continues to be that of some stodgy white person?

As always, the Sunday Travel section provides the fodder, with the always-reliable Matt Gross reprising his role of wide-eyed whitey abroad, this week in South Korea with an article headline The Weird, Wild and, Ultimately, Sublime (note to the Times: Labeling a nation's cuisine 'ultimately sublime' doesn't balance out calling it weird and wild:

To understand where these trends were coming from — and, I hoped, to discover the next ones — I spent a week eating the weird and the wild, the tasty and the comforting, and, more than once, the sublime. Oh, I also ate lots and lots of kimchi. ...

Let’s begin with the familiar: barbecue.

Oh, thanks for letting us know right away what you consider normal.

Then, there's this:

“To be honest with you, Koreans just think that if it’s an expensive bottle, then it’s good — ’cause they take a bottle and they drink it like a shot!” said Daniel Gray, who operates the SeoulEats.com food blog and who accompanied me through many meals. “But it’s starting to get more refined. Now they’re starting to learn the difference. They’re starting to say, ‘O.K., I’m going to enjoy this bottle, I’m going to pair this with the right food.’ ”

That's another consistent Timesian, to go to a foreign country and use an American as a guide. Cause it's too hard to actually talk to the natives, and it's so much better to get information third-hand!

Imagine a French paper coming to the U.S. and seeking out a French expat to guide them through Southern BBQ--how much credibility would we give to that?

Indeed, as in a lot of other Times travel articles, Gross seems to manage to interact entirely with Americans during his visit to Seoul--not one person quoted or mentioned in the piece is Korean.

Talk about weird.