Monday, September 28, 2009

Some pics and something seyo do not like.

Something I love love love about Korea:

the sitting outdoorsy stuff --


Especially outside the convenience stores.

This was by a lefty display near the Chunggyecheon. I believe they were spouting their ham-fisted "LMB is Worse than Chun-Doo-Hwan" junk on the very day of Roh Moo-hyun's funeral. It was really distasteful. I wish they could have put the propaganda away just for that day. Just one day, seriously!

Yeah I hate when people use Hitler's image or name in propaganda. Especially in Korea, where it has been pretty amply demonstrated that people do NOT understand the proper uses, or the sheer power of name-dropping Hitler, or what his image means.

[Update: Kushibo's comment reminded me... Koreans ain't the only ones using Hitler's image - this German charity's ad raised a stir... but at least it raised a stir in Germany, and was named inappropriate by a lot of Germans.]


Took these pictures. Like my camera.


By Konkuk university station, there's this huge new complex called Star City, which I walked around a while ago. It was actually pretty tootin' cool, as public space design goes.
Especially when it got dark, and the coloured lights came out.

It's with joy and dismay that I call firsties on spotting this new stupid Konglish trend: it's been spreading. In April 2008, I posted a picture of a "Sand & Food" -- a sandwich/coffee shop to go with "Sandpresso". Now, the word Sand has officially become a stand-in for the way-too-long-and-hard-to-pronounce-and-humorlessly-means-what-it-actually-says-thereby-not-making-Koreans-sound-stupid-when-they-try-to-use-English word "Sandwich"

examples are proliferating:
The sandcookie sucked. It was chewy in the middle like caramel, and the cookie was crumbly and way too sweet.

In samchungdong:

Near Jogyesa Temple:
sigh.

I tried to find the "I hate sand" clip from "Star Wars II, Attack of the Clones" - but George Lucas doesn't like to share, so instead you get this weird fan redub, which is kind of funny from time to time.

6 comments:

kushibo said...

It's a bit hard to read the fine print, but given that the Hitler poster is making a harsh criticism of the recent media law and, it appears, what some people consider its deliberate design to give far-reaching government control over what the media says, I'm not so sure that the comparison with Hitler's government is so inappropriate.

They are not praising him, they are using his image because of a rather similar means of control in initial stages, and above all because he is a bad person. Now, of course, no one is yet accusing the Lee government or the Hannara Party of engaging in mass killing, à la the Nazis, but they are the descendants of conservatives who may have done their own share of snuffing out dissent from the 1950s up to Kwangju.

And it's not as if the Germans don't evoke Hitler's image to drive home a point, such as death, mayhem, government control, or what-not.

Bekah said...

What kind of camera do you use? I really like the picture of the tree with the building... hehe, that sounds like a generic description, but I assume you know what I mean. :D

Jason said...

Some other possible "sand" words...

1) Sandway
2) Sandland
3) Sandshop
4) Sandmart
5) Sandsnack

It'll probably go to places we cannot imagine ...

Did you get a new camera? The pics are nice, especially the night shots with color lighting...

Matt said...

sandcookie sucks eh? Good to know...

Gomushin Girl said...

You can't blame the Koreans for SandIce ~ it's a Japanese brand, apparently. It also makes me very sad, for I thought an ice cream sandwich would be something like those delicious(ly awful) gooey ice cream sandwiches I had as a kid, or even better, the ones I used to get at Diddy Reese . . .

Anonymous said...

Hi Roboseyo,

I've noticed that a lot of people here don't even know who Adolph Hitler is... Have you, or anyone else for that matter noticed this?

Also, thanks for linking my blog. Much appreciated.