The Korean Does it Again: K-Blogger of the Month for January

Ask A Korean! a blog you might remember from my old complaining expat teamup, published this list of visual cues on "How to Tell a Korean by Looks" back in September.

And he gets to be my K-blogger of the month for January, because he deserves a look.

Since I'm on vacation, but want to keep the blog posting until I come back, I've saved this up until now to highlight. "The Ultimate Korean Looks List - How to Pick Koreans from Other Asians Just by Looking At Them" discusses. . . read that title again. It's a funny and bang-on list that made me laugh several times.

The most helpful, and also funniest part discusses how to identify a young Korean woman by her fashion.
Best line: The overall look is that of a literally overdressed woman who outgrew exactly half of her wardrobe.

I salute you, The Korean, for referring to yourself in the third person so consistently, and for producing good content non-Koreans find worth reading.

Two other Ask A Korean! gems: The handbook of How To Deal With Koreans, and how to interact with Asian cultures in general without making a fool of yourself. It's great.

Two highlights:

Do not ask "Where are you from?" to an Asian person unless you are reasonably certain that s/he is outside of his/her American hometown. If the Asian answers, say, "Los Angeles", do not follow up with "where are you originally from?" or "where are your parents from?" Our precise ethnicity is none of your fucking business. Do we ever ask you whether you are from Dominican Republic, Ireland, or Ivory Coast?

and

On the other hand, if you are at a Thai restaurant and don't have chopsticks, do not act all high and mighty and ask for chopsticks. Thai people don't use chopsticks.

And finally, after the great "Why do Expats Complain about Korea" teamup, The Korean joined forces with GI Korea from ROK Drop in late September, which also deserves a second look; I'd meant to blog it then, but got distracted by Youtube videos of cats falling off chairs and fan-made animations of Batman fighting other superheroes from the Marvel universe, so I want to bring your attention to them now. They are a lot more specific than the "Expat" series, because the Military in Korea is a much more singular and specific group, with unique needs and interactions with Korea, and who represent something much more specific to Koreans, which means they got to go into much more specific detail in discussing this (sometimes) mutually antagonistic relationship, than I could in my complaining expat broad-brush-generalization-fest.

So if you haven't already, I also highly recommend you read:

from ROK Drop, Why do GIs Complain about Korea,

and from Ask A Korean!, Why do Koreans Complain about the US Military in Korea. The list is much more specific and focused than the one I wrote about expats in general, which is a much more diverse group with many more varied interests and experiences of Korea, and so much harder to write about with any specificity.

Go forth and read!

(his latest post about Fan Death is a real winner, too)