A lady in Apgujeong has been selling apples as a promotion for a line of products called "apple hip"
Korea Times Reports
Now, Apple hip sounds like a uniquely Korean creation to me: you see, here in Korea, the word for "bum" or "ass" is often confused with the word for "hip" - as far as I can tell, they're one and the same word to Koreans, in the same way that there's pretty much just the word "neck" in Korean, rather than having separate words for your neck (usually meaning the back) and your throat (the soft front part). See also: jaw/chin. Those up on their North American slang know that apple bottom, over there, has a different meaning.
So, let's add "Apple Hip" to the list of english phrases that are weird Korean/Konglish renderings of North-American slang phrases.
Does anybody know more about Apple Hip products than what's in the article? James in The Grand Narrative writes about "apple hips" in Korea - including these ass-tastic TV ads. Looks like having "Apple Hips" in Korea (see below:)
Has a very different, um, connotation, than it does in North America:
oh gee. sorry folks. I can't bring myself to post what I got from searching youtube for "Apple bottom" on my blog -- for a PG-13 comparison of an American apple bottom, click here. To sum up: small waist + big round booty = apple bottom.
I've been told that having an apple face in Korea means being beautiful, but I haven't heard more detail than that: anybody well-versed in Korean beauty talk care to explain why having an apple face is good to Koreans? My high-beginner students tried to explain it to me a few nights ago (which is why this Apple hip article caught my eye), but didn't quite get it across.
one expat's life in Korea
Showing posts with label beauty culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beauty culture. Show all posts
Thursday, October 07, 2010
Monday, March 31, 2008
Why isn't THIS guy a star?
Just watch the drummer go. Just watch him.
(hat tip to the Marmot for telling me about this one.)
That's all.
Aw heck. With me, that's NEVER all.
More about what I discussed in the last post:
A little performance art from the metropolitician.
"Only in a society where plastic surgery, high heels, and makeup are OPTIONS, can they NOT be symbols of women's subjugation. Designer noses, stiletto heels, and prada bags can only be beautiful and fun when they are a choice, not a requirement for life." (this protest took place in Myongdong, the high fashion district in North-central Seoul).
(retired from the quotes of the day sidebar:)
Write a wise saying and your name will live forever.
- Anonymous
(hat tip to the Marmot for telling me about this one.)
That's all.
Aw heck. With me, that's NEVER all.
More about what I discussed in the last post:
A little performance art from the metropolitician.
"Only in a society where plastic surgery, high heels, and makeup are OPTIONS, can they NOT be symbols of women's subjugation. Designer noses, stiletto heels, and prada bags can only be beautiful and fun when they are a choice, not a requirement for life." (this protest took place in Myongdong, the high fashion district in North-central Seoul).
(retired from the quotes of the day sidebar:)
Write a wise saying and your name will live forever.
- Anonymous
Friday, March 28, 2008
English is hard, soju, and ranting about objectification of women, yet again.
Soundtrack time: hit play and start reading.
nina simone - sinnerman. Boy, this song is great. Let it build. Listen to the whole darn thing.
--
Here's an ad for soju, Korea's national cheap alcohol (think Russians and vodka). Originally, soju was brewed from rice, but during food shortages in the 1910s and 1960s, laws were passed that required rice to be used for eating instead of brewing. The soju recipe changed: instead of brewing something using a process even vaguely traditional, they just took pure alcohol and diluted it with water and chemical sweeteners. The result is something I avoid drinking at nearly all costs, whose taste I liken to a cross between Japanese sake, cheap vodka, cheap tequila, and ass. It's cheap as spit and tastes like butt: it's the very definition of an alcoholic's drink. In fact, in the '90s, some companies tried to bring back traditional soju, prepared according to the pre-Japanese colonization methods, but because it was nine dollars a bottle instead of a buck fifty (and because they were released on the market just before the Asian Economic Crisis, when nobody had any money to spend on pricey alcohols, but had lots of sorrows to drown, as cheaply as possible), Koreans spurned the traditional drink in favour of the cheap-ass alkie sauce.
My nickname for it is "tequila light" because it's a little weaker than tequila, but it acts the same way: a tendency towards an angry drunk, and when you get drunk on it, it kind of ambushes you: you're fine, you're fine, you're fine, then suddenly you're really trashed. Anyway, here's a poster for soju I saw recently.
In an attempt to turn a negative to a positive, chamiseul is actually trading on the face you make when you ingest something disgusting, telling buyers that if your drink forces you to make this face (see below), ladies will reward you with coy smiles (bottom right, above) and showing you their bare shoulders while making wanton come-hither looks (top left, above: you just know she's giving him the guns with her hands just outside the frame).
Usually soju is advertised with pictures of really really hot girls (see below, and here), but if they decide to switch to pictures of men crying. . . well, I won't stare at the posters as much, but I'll giggle more.
It's actually kind of funny that in the west, a female star knows she's "made it" when she gets a contract with Chanel No. 5 or Elizabeth Arden, while in Korea, a female star knows she's arrived if she's asked to pitch for cheap alcohol.
Strolling about the downtown:
There are a bunch of nightclubs in Jongno which hire people called bikkis to try and recruit cute girls (and guys who look like they have cash) to go to their club (as a draw for males). The cuter a girl is, the more insistent the bikkis will be, trying to get her into their club. I've heard the bikki's behaviour defended as being "flattering" to their targets, but to me it looks like bald-faced sexual harassment.
Yes. He's grabbed her hand, and is trying to physically pull her into the club. This is a common occurrence. I can't believe they haven't had their asses sued to high heaven for this kind of behaviour, and I'm trying to imagine how many kneed groins and pepper-sprayed eyes those obnoxious bikkis would suffer if they tried to pull this kind of garbage in a city like New York. As you notice above, passersby don't even give this kind stuff a second glance, and sometimes I can take it in stride, but other times, it really rankles.
A minute later two of his friends were helping, and the guy in the white jacket didn't want me to take any more pictures.
And you know, that "many girls just feel flattered" thing is garbage. I don't buy it anymore. "I'm flattered when they slaver over me for my looks" basically means "I've internalized the male gaze and sexist lookism so deeply that it validates me as a human to be fawned over and even harassed for my looks" -- the same way a rich person can go ahead and feel good about himself because he's surrounded by sycophants and yes-men/women, but in reality the respect he receives is a sham, completely contingent on his deep pockets, and has no reflection on his integral quality as a human being whatsoever. "She should be flattered when they try to physically pull her into the club" follows the same logic as "Well if she didn't want to be raped, she shouldn't have dressed that way," but to a lesser degree, and applied in a slightly different direction.
Here in Korea, women spend SO FRIGGIN' MUCH TIME on their looks, they wear mini-skirts in the dead of winter and cake on makeup and consider it a requirement of life. One of my (older male) students told me point blank that he thinks women who don't wear makeup are lazy. Some of them do it because they need to appear professional for their job; fair enough. Male bankers also need to be well-groomed. Some of them do it and they're honest enough to admit that it's mostly because it improves their social or business prospects. Some even get plastic surgery for that reason. (Korea has one of the highest per-capita plastic surgery rates in the world. The double-eyelid surgery is a common high-school graduation gift for girls.)
I'm still not sure what to think, though, of women who dress like a tart and then intone, "Oh, I don't even CARE if men stare at me. I just dress this way because it makes me feel sexy" (or even worse: "I dress this way because it makes me feel pretty. . . I hate that men ogle me just for expressing myself") -- is there a disconnect between self-perception and reality? Is that basically another way of saying, "I've internalized media beauty/femininity standards so deeply that I can't create an image of myself that I like without acting out the fantasy a sexist, objectifying media has foisted on me"? Or is it a little white lie because it'd sound cynical to admit "I put myself on display because I like the attention, or the benefits I receive from letting men stare at my legs"? What are the other options/rationalizations?
I mean, I'm a dude, so I don't really have the right to speak on anyone's behalf, and I ought to stick with asking questions instead of making statements about this business until I know more, but it upsets me sometimes to see women in Korea (and all around the world) tie so much of their self-image onto an impossible standard of beauty, and I don't know if saying, "I do it because I feel more confident" (that might be the number one excuse for women getting plastic surgery here) is a way of sidestepping the need to find a positive self-image based in one's character (because looks are easier, if you've got'em, and make a quicker first impression), or if it's basically an admission that they've internalized the image of beauty programmed into them by advertisers and beauty magazines. I'd prefer to listen before I speak on this topic, so to the women who read this: I'm very interested to hear what you think -- do you dress "sexy" or "pretty" according to some image or standard? Where does that standard come from, and why have you chosen to follow it? What do you think of the "It makes me feel confident/sexy" justification: does that hold water, and if not, where does it come from? Do you feel pressure to dress "prettier" or "sexier," and what do you do about that pressure? What are the other justifications people use for spending an hour in front of the mirror in the morning?
I mean heck, I get better responses from people when I dress nicely and take care of myself too, but I think of the outward appearance basically as something that can either help or hinder someone from getting to know, or wanting to get to know, the person I actually am, and I make sure that the reasons I love myself are not connected to things one would notice better when I'm wearing a bathing suit, or spot on first glance, and disappear when I get old, anyway.
speaking of sexism. . . so does that sign imply that being female is a disability, or am I just being obtuse now?
Some more Soju ads: I think they're selling sex here.
Look at the kittenish way the girl acts in this one -- the objectification of women in soju ads is really blatant, and often leans toward this type of childish persona.
This is Kim Ah-joong, one of Korea's hot young stars. Again, she really plays up the submissive role; this situation and her voice/body language makes me think of a hostess bar, where men pay women to pour drinks for them (and sometimes much, much more); the shaky camera work and the in-and-out of focus shooting makes it seem more like a first-person, slightly drunk point of view, and look at the way she makes eye contact with the camera, goes in for the "love shot" at the end, and calls the camera "oppa" which is the term for older brother common in hostess bars, because (again) it strikes a submissive and slightly childish pose.
Interestingly, that exact "love shot" was in the news recently here in Korea.
In other news. . .
Wires in the sky. Look at that tangle!
The Big Hominid (see my sidebar) "found the following at this nice blog: http://mississippitokorea.blogspot.com/"
22 Reasons Why English Is Hard
1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert..
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail
18) After a number of injections my jaw got number.
19) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
20) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
22) He decided to comb the tomb to find the bomb.
Near my house: for the (dwindling number of) people who tell you there are no gays in Korea:
There on the door is the rainbow flag, the symbol for gay pride.
When my boss first walked me to my current apartment, he warned me and my coworker to avoid a certain street near our house, because homosexuals meet there. Neither of us quite knew how to respond to such a warning, so we made it into a running joke.
There was about a kilometer's worth of buses near chunggyechun stream on Friday: there are protests going on, and LMB (Lee Myungbak), Korea's new president, has promised to be tougher on protesters than the previous, socialist president.
Working as a riot control officer must be the most boring job in the world: "Hey. We want six hundred of you to sit in a bus for eight hours today and sweat in full riot gear, just in case something happens.
That's all for today. . . but any females still reading: I really AM interested to hear what you think about the questions I asked above.
(ps: thanks to James Turnbull from The Grand Narrative for the link and the kudos. I've been very interested to read your articles on sexism in Korea, and it's informed what I wrote here.)
nina simone - sinnerman. Boy, this song is great. Let it build. Listen to the whole darn thing.
--
Here's an ad for soju, Korea's national cheap alcohol (think Russians and vodka). Originally, soju was brewed from rice, but during food shortages in the 1910s and 1960s, laws were passed that required rice to be used for eating instead of brewing. The soju recipe changed: instead of brewing something using a process even vaguely traditional, they just took pure alcohol and diluted it with water and chemical sweeteners. The result is something I avoid drinking at nearly all costs, whose taste I liken to a cross between Japanese sake, cheap vodka, cheap tequila, and ass. It's cheap as spit and tastes like butt: it's the very definition of an alcoholic's drink. In fact, in the '90s, some companies tried to bring back traditional soju, prepared according to the pre-Japanese colonization methods, but because it was nine dollars a bottle instead of a buck fifty (and because they were released on the market just before the Asian Economic Crisis, when nobody had any money to spend on pricey alcohols, but had lots of sorrows to drown, as cheaply as possible), Koreans spurned the traditional drink in favour of the cheap-ass alkie sauce.
My nickname for it is "tequila light" because it's a little weaker than tequila, but it acts the same way: a tendency towards an angry drunk, and when you get drunk on it, it kind of ambushes you: you're fine, you're fine, you're fine, then suddenly you're really trashed. Anyway, here's a poster for soju I saw recently.
In an attempt to turn a negative to a positive, chamiseul is actually trading on the face you make when you ingest something disgusting, telling buyers that if your drink forces you to make this face (see below), ladies will reward you with coy smiles (bottom right, above) and showing you their bare shoulders while making wanton come-hither looks (top left, above: you just know she's giving him the guns with her hands just outside the frame).
Usually soju is advertised with pictures of really really hot girls (see below, and here), but if they decide to switch to pictures of men crying. . . well, I won't stare at the posters as much, but I'll giggle more.
It's actually kind of funny that in the west, a female star knows she's "made it" when she gets a contract with Chanel No. 5 or Elizabeth Arden, while in Korea, a female star knows she's arrived if she's asked to pitch for cheap alcohol.
Strolling about the downtown:
There are a bunch of nightclubs in Jongno which hire people called bikkis to try and recruit cute girls (and guys who look like they have cash) to go to their club (as a draw for males). The cuter a girl is, the more insistent the bikkis will be, trying to get her into their club. I've heard the bikki's behaviour defended as being "flattering" to their targets, but to me it looks like bald-faced sexual harassment.
Yes. He's grabbed her hand, and is trying to physically pull her into the club. This is a common occurrence. I can't believe they haven't had their asses sued to high heaven for this kind of behaviour, and I'm trying to imagine how many kneed groins and pepper-sprayed eyes those obnoxious bikkis would suffer if they tried to pull this kind of garbage in a city like New York. As you notice above, passersby don't even give this kind stuff a second glance, and sometimes I can take it in stride, but other times, it really rankles.
A minute later two of his friends were helping, and the guy in the white jacket didn't want me to take any more pictures.And you know, that "many girls just feel flattered" thing is garbage. I don't buy it anymore. "I'm flattered when they slaver over me for my looks" basically means "I've internalized the male gaze and sexist lookism so deeply that it validates me as a human to be fawned over and even harassed for my looks" -- the same way a rich person can go ahead and feel good about himself because he's surrounded by sycophants and yes-men/women, but in reality the respect he receives is a sham, completely contingent on his deep pockets, and has no reflection on his integral quality as a human being whatsoever. "She should be flattered when they try to physically pull her into the club" follows the same logic as "Well if she didn't want to be raped, she shouldn't have dressed that way," but to a lesser degree, and applied in a slightly different direction.
Here in Korea, women spend SO FRIGGIN' MUCH TIME on their looks, they wear mini-skirts in the dead of winter and cake on makeup and consider it a requirement of life. One of my (older male) students told me point blank that he thinks women who don't wear makeup are lazy. Some of them do it because they need to appear professional for their job; fair enough. Male bankers also need to be well-groomed. Some of them do it and they're honest enough to admit that it's mostly because it improves their social or business prospects. Some even get plastic surgery for that reason. (Korea has one of the highest per-capita plastic surgery rates in the world. The double-eyelid surgery is a common high-school graduation gift for girls.)
I'm still not sure what to think, though, of women who dress like a tart and then intone, "Oh, I don't even CARE if men stare at me. I just dress this way because it makes me feel sexy" (or even worse: "I dress this way because it makes me feel pretty. . . I hate that men ogle me just for expressing myself") -- is there a disconnect between self-perception and reality? Is that basically another way of saying, "I've internalized media beauty/femininity standards so deeply that I can't create an image of myself that I like without acting out the fantasy a sexist, objectifying media has foisted on me"? Or is it a little white lie because it'd sound cynical to admit "I put myself on display because I like the attention, or the benefits I receive from letting men stare at my legs"? What are the other options/rationalizations?
I mean, I'm a dude, so I don't really have the right to speak on anyone's behalf, and I ought to stick with asking questions instead of making statements about this business until I know more, but it upsets me sometimes to see women in Korea (and all around the world) tie so much of their self-image onto an impossible standard of beauty, and I don't know if saying, "I do it because I feel more confident" (that might be the number one excuse for women getting plastic surgery here) is a way of sidestepping the need to find a positive self-image based in one's character (because looks are easier, if you've got'em, and make a quicker first impression), or if it's basically an admission that they've internalized the image of beauty programmed into them by advertisers and beauty magazines. I'd prefer to listen before I speak on this topic, so to the women who read this: I'm very interested to hear what you think -- do you dress "sexy" or "pretty" according to some image or standard? Where does that standard come from, and why have you chosen to follow it? What do you think of the "It makes me feel confident/sexy" justification: does that hold water, and if not, where does it come from? Do you feel pressure to dress "prettier" or "sexier," and what do you do about that pressure? What are the other justifications people use for spending an hour in front of the mirror in the morning?
I mean heck, I get better responses from people when I dress nicely and take care of myself too, but I think of the outward appearance basically as something that can either help or hinder someone from getting to know, or wanting to get to know, the person I actually am, and I make sure that the reasons I love myself are not connected to things one would notice better when I'm wearing a bathing suit, or spot on first glance, and disappear when I get old, anyway.
speaking of sexism. . . so does that sign imply that being female is a disability, or am I just being obtuse now?
Some more Soju ads: I think they're selling sex here.
Look at the kittenish way the girl acts in this one -- the objectification of women in soju ads is really blatant, and often leans toward this type of childish persona.
This is Kim Ah-joong, one of Korea's hot young stars. Again, she really plays up the submissive role; this situation and her voice/body language makes me think of a hostess bar, where men pay women to pour drinks for them (and sometimes much, much more); the shaky camera work and the in-and-out of focus shooting makes it seem more like a first-person, slightly drunk point of view, and look at the way she makes eye contact with the camera, goes in for the "love shot" at the end, and calls the camera "oppa" which is the term for older brother common in hostess bars, because (again) it strikes a submissive and slightly childish pose.
Interestingly, that exact "love shot" was in the news recently here in Korea.
In other news. . .
Wires in the sky. Look at that tangle!
The Big Hominid (see my sidebar) "found the following at this nice blog: http://mississippitokorea.blogspot.com/"
22 Reasons Why English Is Hard
1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert..
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail
18) After a number of injections my jaw got number.
19) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
20) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
22) He decided to comb the tomb to find the bomb.
Near my house: for the (dwindling number of) people who tell you there are no gays in Korea:
There on the door is the rainbow flag, the symbol for gay pride.
When my boss first walked me to my current apartment, he warned me and my coworker to avoid a certain street near our house, because homosexuals meet there. Neither of us quite knew how to respond to such a warning, so we made it into a running joke.There was about a kilometer's worth of buses near chunggyechun stream on Friday: there are protests going on, and LMB (Lee Myungbak), Korea's new president, has promised to be tougher on protesters than the previous, socialist president.
Working as a riot control officer must be the most boring job in the world: "Hey. We want six hundred of you to sit in a bus for eight hours today and sweat in full riot gear, just in case something happens.That's all for today. . . but any females still reading: I really AM interested to hear what you think about the questions I asked above.
(ps: thanks to James Turnbull from The Grand Narrative for the link and the kudos. I've been very interested to read your articles on sexism in Korea, and it's informed what I wrote here.)
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Merry Christmas, all! A little more about Christmas in Korea
A few more thoughts on Christmas in Korea, interspersed with pictures I took downtown on Sunday afternoon and night. Plus a mini-story or two at the end.
A few basic rules of forfeiture, AKA the Having vs. Eating Cake corollaries:
1. If you don't vote, you forfeit your right to complain about the government in power. If you won't even participate in the system, where do you get off complaining about it? I'm not listening. (Hee hee. I'm such a cranky old codger.)
(what's wrong with this picture? absolutely nothing, in Korea. You get used to old ladies mopping around you as you do your business in men's rooms all around South Korea. Took a while, though.)
2. If you wear a low-cut v-neck blouse with a push-up bra, or a short skirt with mid-thigh-high stockings and high heels, you forfeit your right to complain about men staring at you. You know what men are like, and while I'm not excusing our male piggishness, it's a little naive to expect more from us.
3. If you're a country with the 13th largest economy in the world, a world leader in broadband penetration and telecommunication connectivity, and the world's largest microchip exporter, you forfeit the right to say, "don't critique our social issues: we're still a developing country."
Christmas in downtown seoul is shiny. There's an ice rink behind the castle wall.
4. If you don't dress properly for the cold, if you don't zip up your jacket and keep your ears warm and wear some gloves, you forfeit your right to complain that it's cold. You may say "I should have dressed more appropriately for the cold, that was bad planning on my part" and that's all. Or I will take it as tacit permission for me to mock your illogical position.
Yet everywhere I go in Korea, I see girls dressed in spring jackets with short skirts and thick stockings, no hats or gloves, and jackets that aren't even zipped up, stamping their feet and making pitiful puppy-dog faces and complaining "I'm so cold" in Korean: "Chu-aa~".
According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, one must take care of basic needs (food, sleep) before one can worry about higher level needs (acceptance by the community, belonging, love, meaning) -- nobody ponders "what ARE my life goals?" when they're hungry; they mostly only ponder, "where can I scratch up some grub?" AFTER you've eaten, you might have time to wonder about the Grand Scheme.
According to Roboseyo's hierarchy of fashion, you only really ought to worry about style once your clothing has adequately protected you from the elements. If you put fashion above function, you won't get ANY sympathy from me when you complain about being cold or wet. Yet there's this disconnect between two, two, and four, here in Korea: as the winter's gotten colder, I'm told that short-shorts and miniskirt sales have actually gone UP! Some of the results are shocking.
I'd say we're looking at somewhere between 35-45% of the fashion-conscious-aged women at the mall on Sunday wearing springwear (at best) in the winter.
I mean, come on! How could that POSSIBLY keep her warm unless she has an emergency thermal blanket tucked into that bag? And it wasn't THAT warm on Sunday -- five celsius in the afternoon, tops.
The receptionists at my school got a kick out of my imitation of Korean girls who leave their jackets unzipped and then complain about being cold. One said, "Robert. Fashion is important." I answered, "Spring, summer, fall, fashion is important. Winter: WARM is important. Fashion is second." They got a good laugh out of it, but I doubt they're convinced.
(Cheonggye stream in downtown seoul puts up christmas lights every year. The poor-quality camera almost makes the light fixtures MORE impressive, because it looks like one big roman candle, instead of structures strung with lights.)
I'm developing a theory that the fashionistas and style-makers are using ridiculous styles like miniskirts in winter basically as a way of flaunting their power over the poor fashion slaves who feel compelled to follow trends. In 2001, every time Avril Lavigne saw some poor teeny-bop fashion victim wearing a tie over a tank-top, she probably secretly high-fived herself and thought, "YEAH! I'm awesome! She's wearing that awful getup because of ME! Poor chump!"
I imagine those contrarian stylemakers like the Wicked Witch of the West, staring at Dorothy's image in the crystal ball, laughing maniacally and cackling, "Shiver, my pretty! Shiver! Mwahahahahahaaaa!" We'll know for sure it's nothing but a power trip of theirs if they make heavy wool sweaters or scarves the stylish thing to wear next July, just as a final "Eff You" to their poor fashion slaves, rubbing in the skirts in winter trend by refusing those poor ladies a single season of clothing comfort. That's my prediction. Put it on the books. See if I'm wrong. I probably will be, but windbags like myself like to speculate. Fills up the hours.
What the heck? I don't know. This inflatable whatonearth was in the window of an art gallery in Insa-dong, the culture/tourist heritage area. Lots of galleries, and this one ALWAYS has something weird in the window.
On the Christmas Music front:
Dire news: it happened. It ACTUALLY happened. I was sitting in an ice cream shop eating a sorbet, and after a shabby Korean cover of Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You" (why why why do they love Mariah so much here?), that asinine song you've heard me complain about here before, came on:
"Last Christmas, I gave you my heart. . . "
FOUR TIMES IN A ROW! The George Michael version, then the Bi version (Korean star) then a techno/discopop + children's choir mix, and finally it was the first song (and its chord progression was the foundation) in a medley of, seriously, FOUR of the ten tackiest Christmas songs in existence. I actually stayed in the ice cream shop after I finished my ice cream, in utter disbelief, as one slowing his car down to gawk at the car wreck and see if that's blood or oil, just daring that damn medley to top itself and actually get worse, and each new song in the medley WAS! From "Last Christmas," it went to "Happy Christmas, War Is Over" to "Do They Know It's Christmas" to "Feliz Nevidad" and then I really did have to go, before I felt the urge to injure myself with a plastic ice cream spoon. I'm disappointed to tell you that I was wrong: every Starbucks in Korea DIDN'T spontaneously implode in response to that awful lineup. Good thing, too. The Peppermint Mochas this December are quite nice.
I like blue lights best.
This is cute: the Korean language doesn't have a character for the "V" sound, so the "V" sound is usually substituted with the Korean character bieup, which sounds about halfway between a "B" and a "P". This leads to the cute pun on this brand: Viewty, when pronounced by most Koreans, sounds exactly like the word "Beauty".
As always, the station was attended by some Viewtiful girls in short skirts, but I've ranted enough about the latent (and totally accepted) sexism in Korea for one post (it seems protesting would be immodest I guess -- I asked Girlfriendoseyo about the state of feminism in Korea and she described what English speakers call lip-service).
(But did you know the OECD released statistics stating that Korean women work more hours for less pay than any other country in the OECD, and unlike in the Netherlands, where college educated women have a 20% higher employment rate than women without, Korean college educated women's employment rate is actually 2% LOWER than women without! I'll leave the comment board open for theories as to why that might be.)
Back to light stuff:
Santa and Rudolph's freaky love-child.
Sometimes, the lack of a "V" is a little funnier: one day, my best friend Matt was walking through a riverside park and came upon an outdoor concert of five hundred middle-aged women. When the performer finished a song, they chanted, "ANCHOR!" (which is how Koreans call for an encore) and the singer shouted, "PAPSONG!" (popsong). The singer started singing, and the old ladies sang along. Problem was, because of the V-B/P substitution, as they sang along to the old '80s song, the end result was 500 middle-aged women jumping up and down with their hands in the air, not able to pronounce "I'm your Venus," and hollering "I'm Your Penis" instead.
Lee Hyori is one of the hottest Korean stars these days (has been for a while.) For all the fanboys, here's a new way to get close to her (if you don't mind endorsing soju at the same time).
More lip/smile/teeth related stuff:
Hyori again (from above) -- showing surprisingly few teeth for a photo spread.
Ad for lip gloss.
There are creepy santa statues everywhere. Some are lifesize enough that they startle me as I walk around, making me go, "Bwah! Somebody's standing there! Oh wait. Nevermind."
On Friday, my face froze this way. I guess that'll be it for the rest of my life. Better hold on to the friends I already have.
This is my favourite picture from the city hall pictures. You're not supposed to climb up inside the rainbow seashell monument, but the security personnel were too busy, I guess, stopping people from leaning on bridge railings (see story below). I'm really proud of the composition and the light/dark contrast of this picture: this is about as good a picture as you can get on the cruddy cameraphone I have. This, or the layered coloured leaves picture from my Kyunghee university post.
EVERYBODY had a camera -- it was like nametags at a convention. I was afraid that if I put my cameraphone in my pocket, somebody'd ask me to show it to them or they'd have to escort me off the premises.
Every direction you moved, you were walking through somebody's picture.
At COEX mall, there are 3-D movie posters where you can interact with the movie ad, and take pictures in it, or sit in the chair, or stand behind Hannibal Lecter's mask so that it looks like YOU're the one in restraints. Cool, especially for a shutterbug-mad population like downtown Korea's.
I was gonna play a game of count the cameras, walking around on Sunday night, but I ran out of fingers and toes in five seconds.
My second favourite picture from right at the head of Cheonggye stream.
Mini-story 1: my girlfriend is funny.
We were walking across one of the bridges over Cheonggye stream (pictured above) and we leaned against the bridge. Some dude came up to tell us we couldn't lean on the bridge for safety, but he told us in Korean. Girlfriendoseyo (normally a very sweet not-making-waves type of person) decided she wanted to lean, dammit! So she turned to the Korean safety guy and said to him, "Whaaaat?" EXACTLY the way some Californian tourist might say it. He repeated himself in Korean and (emboldened by being with me, clearly an outsider, and thus able to get away with pretending to be a tourist,) she kept going, "I'm sorry. What's wrong? What is it? Why?" she asked as he stammered, "No lean. Umm. . . sorry. . . no. . . lean. . . safe. . . lean no!" she said, with a perfect, vacant intonation, "Why noOOoooot?" and, completely out of English words, the poor guy made a funny half-smile and said, "Secret".
We howled. . . as soon as we were out of earshot from the guy.
Christmas is more fun if you're with kids. . . or at least in a public place where you get to watch them.
Mini-story 2: my most unexpected smile this Christmas day (I had all the expected ones from spending it with Girlfriendoseyo [we cooked spaghetti together], but this one was the bonus.)
I was walking around with Girlfriendoseyo outside Sookmyung Women's University, and she asked me to carry the bag of stuff she bought from the stationery store. I pretended it was so heavy I couldn't walk in a straight line (it was a very light bag), and got some grins from a group of people walking by. True to Roboseyo form, I hammed it up a bit more once I had a reaction, and so I curled around and started hobbling in a circle, as if I couldn't walk in a straight line at all. The people who'd smiled at me before were gone, walking away with their backs to me, so I thought I was doing it solely for Girlfriendoseyo's benefit, but suddenly I heard this rattle-rasp and wheezy laugh of this wonderful old woman with a raisin-wrinked twenty-five-years-in-the-rice-paddy face, just hooting with laughter at my silliness, swinging her hand to slap the table where she sat, and rollicking side to side with her eyes grinned right shut.
I'm still smiling about that old lady: I love old people. They don't give a flying rat's ass who sees them laugh at the things they like anymore: they're old, they've paid their dues. They don't bother doing a "modest" twitter behind a shielding hand, either. If they think something's funny, they let it rip, and I love that. Old people who don't care anymore, and little kids, who don't care yet are far and away the most fun for people-watching.
Merry Christmas, everyone. I love you all a lot, and I hope your holidays are full of revelations and observations and crammed with tiny details of joy.
A few basic rules of forfeiture, AKA the Having vs. Eating Cake corollaries:
1. If you don't vote, you forfeit your right to complain about the government in power. If you won't even participate in the system, where do you get off complaining about it? I'm not listening. (Hee hee. I'm such a cranky old codger.)
(what's wrong with this picture? absolutely nothing, in Korea. You get used to old ladies mopping around you as you do your business in men's rooms all around South Korea. Took a while, though.)
2. If you wear a low-cut v-neck blouse with a push-up bra, or a short skirt with mid-thigh-high stockings and high heels, you forfeit your right to complain about men staring at you. You know what men are like, and while I'm not excusing our male piggishness, it's a little naive to expect more from us.
3. If you're a country with the 13th largest economy in the world, a world leader in broadband penetration and telecommunication connectivity, and the world's largest microchip exporter, you forfeit the right to say, "don't critique our social issues: we're still a developing country."
Christmas in downtown seoul is shiny. There's an ice rink behind the castle wall.
4. If you don't dress properly for the cold, if you don't zip up your jacket and keep your ears warm and wear some gloves, you forfeit your right to complain that it's cold. You may say "I should have dressed more appropriately for the cold, that was bad planning on my part" and that's all. Or I will take it as tacit permission for me to mock your illogical position.
Yet everywhere I go in Korea, I see girls dressed in spring jackets with short skirts and thick stockings, no hats or gloves, and jackets that aren't even zipped up, stamping their feet and making pitiful puppy-dog faces and complaining "I'm so cold" in Korean: "Chu-aa~".
According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, one must take care of basic needs (food, sleep) before one can worry about higher level needs (acceptance by the community, belonging, love, meaning) -- nobody ponders "what ARE my life goals?" when they're hungry; they mostly only ponder, "where can I scratch up some grub?" AFTER you've eaten, you might have time to wonder about the Grand Scheme.
According to Roboseyo's hierarchy of fashion, you only really ought to worry about style once your clothing has adequately protected you from the elements. If you put fashion above function, you won't get ANY sympathy from me when you complain about being cold or wet. Yet there's this disconnect between two, two, and four, here in Korea: as the winter's gotten colder, I'm told that short-shorts and miniskirt sales have actually gone UP! Some of the results are shocking.
I'd say we're looking at somewhere between 35-45% of the fashion-conscious-aged women at the mall on Sunday wearing springwear (at best) in the winter.
I mean, come on! How could that POSSIBLY keep her warm unless she has an emergency thermal blanket tucked into that bag? And it wasn't THAT warm on Sunday -- five celsius in the afternoon, tops.
The receptionists at my school got a kick out of my imitation of Korean girls who leave their jackets unzipped and then complain about being cold. One said, "Robert. Fashion is important." I answered, "Spring, summer, fall, fashion is important. Winter: WARM is important. Fashion is second." They got a good laugh out of it, but I doubt they're convinced.
(Cheonggye stream in downtown seoul puts up christmas lights every year. The poor-quality camera almost makes the light fixtures MORE impressive, because it looks like one big roman candle, instead of structures strung with lights.)
I'm developing a theory that the fashionistas and style-makers are using ridiculous styles like miniskirts in winter basically as a way of flaunting their power over the poor fashion slaves who feel compelled to follow trends. In 2001, every time Avril Lavigne saw some poor teeny-bop fashion victim wearing a tie over a tank-top, she probably secretly high-fived herself and thought, "YEAH! I'm awesome! She's wearing that awful getup because of ME! Poor chump!"
I imagine those contrarian stylemakers like the Wicked Witch of the West, staring at Dorothy's image in the crystal ball, laughing maniacally and cackling, "Shiver, my pretty! Shiver! Mwahahahahahaaaa!" We'll know for sure it's nothing but a power trip of theirs if they make heavy wool sweaters or scarves the stylish thing to wear next July, just as a final "Eff You" to their poor fashion slaves, rubbing in the skirts in winter trend by refusing those poor ladies a single season of clothing comfort. That's my prediction. Put it on the books. See if I'm wrong. I probably will be, but windbags like myself like to speculate. Fills up the hours.
What the heck? I don't know. This inflatable whatonearth was in the window of an art gallery in Insa-dong, the culture/tourist heritage area. Lots of galleries, and this one ALWAYS has something weird in the window.
On the Christmas Music front:
Dire news: it happened. It ACTUALLY happened. I was sitting in an ice cream shop eating a sorbet, and after a shabby Korean cover of Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You" (why why why do they love Mariah so much here?), that asinine song you've heard me complain about here before, came on:
"Last Christmas, I gave you my heart. . . "
FOUR TIMES IN A ROW! The George Michael version, then the Bi version (Korean star) then a techno/discopop + children's choir mix, and finally it was the first song (and its chord progression was the foundation) in a medley of, seriously, FOUR of the ten tackiest Christmas songs in existence. I actually stayed in the ice cream shop after I finished my ice cream, in utter disbelief, as one slowing his car down to gawk at the car wreck and see if that's blood or oil, just daring that damn medley to top itself and actually get worse, and each new song in the medley WAS! From "Last Christmas," it went to "Happy Christmas, War Is Over" to "Do They Know It's Christmas" to "Feliz Nevidad" and then I really did have to go, before I felt the urge to injure myself with a plastic ice cream spoon. I'm disappointed to tell you that I was wrong: every Starbucks in Korea DIDN'T spontaneously implode in response to that awful lineup. Good thing, too. The Peppermint Mochas this December are quite nice.
I like blue lights best.
This is cute: the Korean language doesn't have a character for the "V" sound, so the "V" sound is usually substituted with the Korean character bieup, which sounds about halfway between a "B" and a "P". This leads to the cute pun on this brand: Viewty, when pronounced by most Koreans, sounds exactly like the word "Beauty".
As always, the station was attended by some Viewtiful girls in short skirts, but I've ranted enough about the latent (and totally accepted) sexism in Korea for one post (it seems protesting would be immodest I guess -- I asked Girlfriendoseyo about the state of feminism in Korea and she described what English speakers call lip-service).
(But did you know the OECD released statistics stating that Korean women work more hours for less pay than any other country in the OECD, and unlike in the Netherlands, where college educated women have a 20% higher employment rate than women without, Korean college educated women's employment rate is actually 2% LOWER than women without! I'll leave the comment board open for theories as to why that might be.)
Back to light stuff:
Santa and Rudolph's freaky love-child.
Sometimes, the lack of a "V" is a little funnier: one day, my best friend Matt was walking through a riverside park and came upon an outdoor concert of five hundred middle-aged women. When the performer finished a song, they chanted, "ANCHOR!" (which is how Koreans call for an encore) and the singer shouted, "PAPSONG!" (popsong). The singer started singing, and the old ladies sang along. Problem was, because of the V-B/P substitution, as they sang along to the old '80s song, the end result was 500 middle-aged women jumping up and down with their hands in the air, not able to pronounce "I'm your Venus," and hollering "I'm Your Penis" instead.
Lee Hyori is one of the hottest Korean stars these days (has been for a while.) For all the fanboys, here's a new way to get close to her (if you don't mind endorsing soju at the same time).
More lip/smile/teeth related stuff:
Hyori again (from above) -- showing surprisingly few teeth for a photo spread.
Ad for lip gloss.
There are creepy santa statues everywhere. Some are lifesize enough that they startle me as I walk around, making me go, "Bwah! Somebody's standing there! Oh wait. Nevermind."
On Friday, my face froze this way. I guess that'll be it for the rest of my life. Better hold on to the friends I already have.
This is my favourite picture from the city hall pictures. You're not supposed to climb up inside the rainbow seashell monument, but the security personnel were too busy, I guess, stopping people from leaning on bridge railings (see story below). I'm really proud of the composition and the light/dark contrast of this picture: this is about as good a picture as you can get on the cruddy cameraphone I have. This, or the layered coloured leaves picture from my Kyunghee university post.
EVERYBODY had a camera -- it was like nametags at a convention. I was afraid that if I put my cameraphone in my pocket, somebody'd ask me to show it to them or they'd have to escort me off the premises.
Every direction you moved, you were walking through somebody's picture.
At COEX mall, there are 3-D movie posters where you can interact with the movie ad, and take pictures in it, or sit in the chair, or stand behind Hannibal Lecter's mask so that it looks like YOU're the one in restraints. Cool, especially for a shutterbug-mad population like downtown Korea's.
I was gonna play a game of count the cameras, walking around on Sunday night, but I ran out of fingers and toes in five seconds.
My second favourite picture from right at the head of Cheonggye stream.
Mini-story 1: my girlfriend is funny.
We were walking across one of the bridges over Cheonggye stream (pictured above) and we leaned against the bridge. Some dude came up to tell us we couldn't lean on the bridge for safety, but he told us in Korean. Girlfriendoseyo (normally a very sweet not-making-waves type of person) decided she wanted to lean, dammit! So she turned to the Korean safety guy and said to him, "Whaaaat?" EXACTLY the way some Californian tourist might say it. He repeated himself in Korean and (emboldened by being with me, clearly an outsider, and thus able to get away with pretending to be a tourist,) she kept going, "I'm sorry. What's wrong? What is it? Why?" she asked as he stammered, "No lean. Umm. . . sorry. . . no. . . lean. . . safe. . . lean no!" she said, with a perfect, vacant intonation, "Why noOOoooot?" and, completely out of English words, the poor guy made a funny half-smile and said, "Secret".
We howled. . . as soon as we were out of earshot from the guy.
Christmas is more fun if you're with kids. . . or at least in a public place where you get to watch them.
Mini-story 2: my most unexpected smile this Christmas day (I had all the expected ones from spending it with Girlfriendoseyo [we cooked spaghetti together], but this one was the bonus.)I was walking around with Girlfriendoseyo outside Sookmyung Women's University, and she asked me to carry the bag of stuff she bought from the stationery store. I pretended it was so heavy I couldn't walk in a straight line (it was a very light bag), and got some grins from a group of people walking by. True to Roboseyo form, I hammed it up a bit more once I had a reaction, and so I curled around and started hobbling in a circle, as if I couldn't walk in a straight line at all. The people who'd smiled at me before were gone, walking away with their backs to me, so I thought I was doing it solely for Girlfriendoseyo's benefit, but suddenly I heard this rattle-rasp and wheezy laugh of this wonderful old woman with a raisin-wrinked twenty-five-years-in-the-rice-paddy face, just hooting with laughter at my silliness, swinging her hand to slap the table where she sat, and rollicking side to side with her eyes grinned right shut.
I'm still smiling about that old lady: I love old people. They don't give a flying rat's ass who sees them laugh at the things they like anymore: they're old, they've paid their dues. They don't bother doing a "modest" twitter behind a shielding hand, either. If they think something's funny, they let it rip, and I love that. Old people who don't care anymore, and little kids, who don't care yet are far and away the most fun for people-watching.
Merry Christmas, everyone. I love you all a lot, and I hope your holidays are full of revelations and observations and crammed with tiny details of joy.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
I see a dance craze coming on!
This song is called Twiggy Twiggy by the Pizzicato Five (think I spelled that right).
I think bossa nova (that's what this is, right?) is my favourite rhythm for a song -- a fast bossa nova is the one that makes me want to dance EVERY time.
Other songs that make me want to dance every time I hear them:
Hey Ya
Home For A Rest
Soul Bossa Nova (surprise!)
anyway, Mel won the game of "Spot the Intentional Error" on my last post, so she got to choose the topic of my next post. She wants me to write about "why you love to write/why you write, and what you like about literature? Your own philosophy of your art."
that'll take a little time to stew before I'm ready to post it, so until then. . .
pictures!
It's a bit hard to spot, but this, about an hour climb up the mountainside, was a little stand where somebody was selling instrumental cassette tapes. HALFWAY UP THE MOUNTAIN!
Blew my mind, made me laugh. A lot of older gentlemen like to hike with a tape player around their necks, so maybe this is where you can recharge, in case youve already been through your first tape once or twice, and need new accompaniment on your way down the mountain.
This is on Surak Mountain, a mountain near my old home in Nowon (second year in Korea).
It's a pretty impressive mountain, but Matt and I slammed it on Saturday morning, going all the way up and down in just under three hours. Two years ago, this mountain would have taken me four hours, maybe four and a half. Improving one's time by a third doesn't sound that impressive, until you consider that the bulk of that's steep up and downhill, and that causes heartrates to climb and out-of-breathness to occur. Fact is, it was a flippin cold day; we HAD to move fast or we'd freeze in the rock-face winds.
We climbed this. It IS as steep as it looks.
And this was the payoff.
Leaves are changing; that's why EVERYONE's heading for the mountains these days.
As I said before, persimmons are ripe. Girlfriendoseyo and I wandered into the tea garden, and saw trees just sagging with ripe persimmons. It was a beautiful contrast of colour, dark sky against vivid orange fruit. The pictures are small. . . I think the cameraphone automatically decreased the photo size to compensate for the low light. . . if that makes any sense.
It's finally gone over the edge: this picture is a bit blurry, but it's an ad for soju. The soju girls are probably the most photoshopped models in Korea (other than the LaNeige models). . .
this one looks so touched up, I wonder if they even had to pay the original model anymore? Looking at this one, I thought they might have just generated her digitally, rather than even bothering with a model.
Did I post these pictures already?
Anyway . . .
This is all that remains of the old bubble street shop, which gave me so much joy. . . before it got demolished.
I also saw a little prince cafe once.
Sigh.
She looks lonely. This is in the high fashion district.
next: the aesthetic of Roboseyo
I think bossa nova (that's what this is, right?) is my favourite rhythm for a song -- a fast bossa nova is the one that makes me want to dance EVERY time.
Other songs that make me want to dance every time I hear them:
Hey Ya
Home For A Rest
Soul Bossa Nova (surprise!)
anyway, Mel won the game of "Spot the Intentional Error" on my last post, so she got to choose the topic of my next post. She wants me to write about "why you love to write/why you write, and what you like about literature? Your own philosophy of your art."
that'll take a little time to stew before I'm ready to post it, so until then. . .
pictures!
It's a bit hard to spot, but this, about an hour climb up the mountainside, was a little stand where somebody was selling instrumental cassette tapes. HALFWAY UP THE MOUNTAIN!
Blew my mind, made me laugh. A lot of older gentlemen like to hike with a tape player around their necks, so maybe this is where you can recharge, in case youve already been through your first tape once or twice, and need new accompaniment on your way down the mountain.
This is on Surak Mountain, a mountain near my old home in Nowon (second year in Korea).It's a pretty impressive mountain, but Matt and I slammed it on Saturday morning, going all the way up and down in just under three hours. Two years ago, this mountain would have taken me four hours, maybe four and a half. Improving one's time by a third doesn't sound that impressive, until you consider that the bulk of that's steep up and downhill, and that causes heartrates to climb and out-of-breathness to occur. Fact is, it was a flippin cold day; we HAD to move fast or we'd freeze in the rock-face winds.
We climbed this. It IS as steep as it looks.
And this was the payoff.
Leaves are changing; that's why EVERYONE's heading for the mountains these days.
As I said before, persimmons are ripe. Girlfriendoseyo and I wandered into the tea garden, and saw trees just sagging with ripe persimmons. It was a beautiful contrast of colour, dark sky against vivid orange fruit. The pictures are small. . . I think the cameraphone automatically decreased the photo size to compensate for the low light. . . if that makes any sense.
It's finally gone over the edge: this picture is a bit blurry, but it's an ad for soju. The soju girls are probably the most photoshopped models in Korea (other than the LaNeige models). . .
this one looks so touched up, I wonder if they even had to pay the original model anymore? Looking at this one, I thought they might have just generated her digitally, rather than even bothering with a model.
Did I post these pictures already?
Anyway . . .
This is all that remains of the old bubble street shop, which gave me so much joy. . . before it got demolished.
I also saw a little prince cafe once.
Sigh.
She looks lonely. This is in the high fashion district.
next: the aesthetic of Roboseyo
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Konglish and wild coincidences.
so today in my business english class we started talking about brand names, and how they're such an easy yet crass way of measuring the people around us, and I suddenly had to halt the conversation and change the topic, because if we talked about brands and mob mentality and artificality and lookism and consumption for the sake of consumption or the appearance of wealth any longer, I'd have gotten upset.
it was a strange sensation. i didn't realize just how visceral my reaction really was to that topic.
This story made me happy. Korea has an embarrassingly poor track record on conservation issues -- a marsh that hosts a nearly extinct butterfly is scheduled to be bulldozed for an apartment block in a suburb of Seoul. Asking ships to reroute for the sake of a whale makes me proud to be a Canadian.
What makes me sad to be a Canadian is the fact I missed turkey dinner this year. There was gonna be a turkey dinner in Seoul for Canadian expatriates, but it was cancelled due to lack of interest, leaving me jonesing for turkey and such, but unable to get my fix.
I got some new shirts, and so had to retire my two least-frequently-worn shirts.
This one's a Konglish shirt -- the words on there aren't Korean, but they aren't English either. I don't know what to make of them, except that it must be either really easy, or really hard, to get SO close to making sense that everybody frowns and shakes their heads, yet still not making any sense at all.
I want to open a T-shirt shop in Canada where I import shirts like this
In Korean they are an earnest attempt to cash in on "english characters look cool"; in Canada, captions like this:
would be ironic and hilarious, don't you think?
Any theories as to what this means are welcome!
Short story:
1984, my family moved to Woodstock Ontario, where we became family friends of the NameChangedForPrivacy's. They moved away about in 1989 or 1990, and we saw them once or twice again after that -- not much.
Then, out of the blue, I got an e-mail from their youngest daughter, Kelly (whom I remembered as a five-year-old with way too much energy). She'd graduated university and wanted advice on getting a job in Korea. I gave her tips and we've written the odd message back and forth.
Well on Saturday, I ventured out to a drum festival in Han River Park (cool) and near the end, I stumbled into a group of Canadians (plus one brit). We chatted, and I noticed something odd about one of the girls, that I wasn't sure enough to comment upon. Something in the shape of her eyes, her body language, and especially her pronounciation and intonation of certain words and phrases seemed. . . familiar.
I heard one of her friends address her as Kelly, and I thought I'd try it out.
"You're Kelly NameChangedForPrivacy, aren't you?"
"You're Rob."
It was pretty wild. A weird mix of familiarity (her brother was my best friend for a year or two, and, after all, we'd hung out back when we were four and nine), and whatever word's the opposite of familiarity -- after all, we hadn't seen each other since probably about 1992. Maybe like your first time meeting the cousin whose picture's been on your fridge all your life. Really interesting. But totally cool. She seemed happy to meet me -- she even mentioned one of the rants on this blog, so I know she'll read this. Hi Kelly! Tell the other NameChangedForPrivacy's I send my greetings.
Cool to see her.
it was a strange sensation. i didn't realize just how visceral my reaction really was to that topic.
This story made me happy. Korea has an embarrassingly poor track record on conservation issues -- a marsh that hosts a nearly extinct butterfly is scheduled to be bulldozed for an apartment block in a suburb of Seoul. Asking ships to reroute for the sake of a whale makes me proud to be a Canadian.
What makes me sad to be a Canadian is the fact I missed turkey dinner this year. There was gonna be a turkey dinner in Seoul for Canadian expatriates, but it was cancelled due to lack of interest, leaving me jonesing for turkey and such, but unable to get my fix.
I got some new shirts, and so had to retire my two least-frequently-worn shirts.
This one's a Konglish shirt -- the words on there aren't Korean, but they aren't English either. I don't know what to make of them, except that it must be either really easy, or really hard, to get SO close to making sense that everybody frowns and shakes their heads, yet still not making any sense at all.
I want to open a T-shirt shop in Canada where I import shirts like this
In Korean they are an earnest attempt to cash in on "english characters look cool"; in Canada, captions like this:
would be ironic and hilarious, don't you think?
Any theories as to what this means are welcome!Short story:
1984, my family moved to Woodstock Ontario, where we became family friends of the NameChangedForPrivacy's. They moved away about in 1989 or 1990, and we saw them once or twice again after that -- not much.
Then, out of the blue, I got an e-mail from their youngest daughter, Kelly (whom I remembered as a five-year-old with way too much energy). She'd graduated university and wanted advice on getting a job in Korea. I gave her tips and we've written the odd message back and forth.
Well on Saturday, I ventured out to a drum festival in Han River Park (cool) and near the end, I stumbled into a group of Canadians (plus one brit). We chatted, and I noticed something odd about one of the girls, that I wasn't sure enough to comment upon. Something in the shape of her eyes, her body language, and especially her pronounciation and intonation of certain words and phrases seemed. . . familiar.
I heard one of her friends address her as Kelly, and I thought I'd try it out.
"You're Kelly NameChangedForPrivacy, aren't you?"
"You're Rob."
It was pretty wild. A weird mix of familiarity (her brother was my best friend for a year or two, and, after all, we'd hung out back when we were four and nine), and whatever word's the opposite of familiarity -- after all, we hadn't seen each other since probably about 1992. Maybe like your first time meeting the cousin whose picture's been on your fridge all your life. Really interesting. But totally cool. She seemed happy to meet me -- she even mentioned one of the rants on this blog, so I know she'll read this. Hi Kelly! Tell the other NameChangedForPrivacy's I send my greetings.
Cool to see her.
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