Top 10 Things I love About Korea Redux

It looks like Top Ten Lists are back in... so I thought I'd throw in my bit.

What A Waygook has "Ten Things I Can't Live Without in Korea"

and ESL Chronicle has "10+ Things I Love About Korea"

Back in the middle of the Jon Huer... thing..., I polled hub of sparkle readers and compiled this list of ten things we like about Korea for the Korea Herald. I think it's a pretty good list.

Well, here's the top ten list I put into What A Waygook's comments: (totally off the top of my head -- favorite thing about Korea is like favorite Beatles songs -- every time you ask me I'll rattle off a different list...but a few mainstays will keep coming back)

Things I… I won’t say CAN’T live without… but things that make me love love love living here:

1. soup dishes in the winter — seolleongtang, galbitang, samgyetang, kalguksu, sundubu jigae, kimchi jigae, dwenjang jigae, budae jigae… warm the soul.

2. covered markets – those semi-outdoor, traditional bazaar-style markets you find in the older parts of the city or town, where old folks give you great prices or freshy freshness, or just a taste of how things used to be.

3. restaurants with one thing on the menu… and old people lined up out the door to eat there. Lots of restaurants get lines out the door, but if OLD people willing to wait, you can be sure it’s not because the place is trendy, or was featured on a power-blogger’s food porn blog… but because the food is soul-food, cheap, delicious, and generously portioned. Best of all is Gwangjang Market by Jongno 5-ga station on the dark blue line.

4. the public transportation – especially in the city, but even if you’re traveling around the country, if you’re handy with a transit card, good at reading bus schedules, and not above hailing a cab from time to time, there’s no need to own a car here.

5. the tourist help lines here’s the place to find all the local numbers: http://www.visitkorea.or.kr/ena/GK/GK_EN_2_7_1.jsp – Korea’s really made an effort to become more accommodating to tourists who don’t speak the language, and this is one of the absolute best initiatives they’ve come up with so far.

6. Broadband speed.. EVERYWHERE. Every time I’m streaming Youtube videos on Subway line 5 deep under the Han River, downloading bus arrival times out in the countryside, or making a video skype call from a motel out in the boonies, I should blow a kiss at the nearest visible Korean flag.

7. Chats with taxi drivers and friendly old people – the better your Korean is, the more fun these are, and the more varied the conversation becomes.

8. The everything festival of everywhere always: there are a whole buttload of fantastic festivals celebrating everything from seasonal phenomena (flowers blossoming etc.) to traditional arts (masks and dances and foods), to the newest of the new developments in Korean culture… and if it’s not a festival yet, it’s probably a street party (world cup soccer games, flash mobs, flea markets, random live shows)

9. Jongno/Gwanghwamun/Bukcheon/Myeongdong – I’ve lived in this area for about 2/3 of my time here, and it’s absolutely inexhaustible… partly because there’s so much to see and do, and partly because it changes so quickly that even if you’ve tried everything in the area, two weeks later there’ll be something new to try again.

10. People-watching (and eye candy) everywhere – old people playing baduk in parks, little kids splashing in public water fountains, couples speaking in goopy voices in coffee shops… or breaking up loudly on the steps to a subway station…, little kids wearing hanbok on festival days… and at every crosswalk, whether you dig XX or XY chromosome sets, there’ll be at least one person coming the other way who’s an eyeful of style, beauty, handsomeness, high fashion or immaculate grooming, to give your eyes a treat as you pass.


better leave it there, not that I couldn’t go on…

So, readers: lists in the comments: what are YOUR top ten? Or put a link to your own blog.

A Limerick about Comment Moderation

Maybe this is a little blogger-referential for some of you... but at least it's short. A version of this poem is now my comment policy.

A brave keyboard warrior named Smee

emboldened by anonymity,
with misogyny bile
and a gospel quite vile
posted ravings and rantings freely.

The good blogger knew not what to do
as the racist and sexist words flew
for a while found it sport
to provoke a retort
but then quickly got tired of the spew.

Yet of late this small weblog could boast
twenty, thirty plus comments per post
all because of one dude
whose cartoonishly rude
comments seemed like a piss-take at most.

But the trashy fun starts getting tired
once the blog's entire content is mired
in a back-and-forth row with
a self-righteous blow-
hard whose kneejerk replies seem hard-wired.

So before your own blog gets derailed
see to it the trolls get curtailed
don't let jerks have their mirth:
a good chat is well worth
the due vigilance that it entailed.

If a commenter's words barely link
to the topic on which the post thinks
don't be shocked if the tangent
leads to rudeness more flagrant:
moderate it as quick as a wink.

And if courtesy seems somewhat lacking
let the trolls know they're in for a smacking:
that you keep a short leash
before hitting delete
so the chat in good faith can get cracking.

And if I'm in a generous mood,
on a whim I might answer the rude
get a couple barbs in
for a kick and a grin...
or it might be a ban for the 'tude

'Cause this here is my website, not yours
so I set all the rules and the mores
if there's stuff you don't like
you can take a quick hike
to more troll-friendly sites by the scores.

Girls Generation on Letterman (소녀시대 on 레터맨)

Updated:
Must read post by The Metropolitician, who isn't sold on Kpop making it in America.
Rebecca at A Blog Abroad points out that while people are talking about Asia-Asian acts making it in America, we're still waiting for Asian-American artists to get the recognition they deserve.
also at Nanoomi.net.


A few notes:
1. Letterman seems blown away at the end. And yeah, they did a pretty great performance.
2. They really downplayed the Aegyo (but you have to: that just won't work in America)
3. I agree with the people who say this ISN'T Girls' Generation's best song.
4. The way the English lyrics to the song fit with the music, it's pretty clear the song was written in Korean.
5. They KILLED on the dancing parts. For comparison, here's the Korean version of the video.



 I still think Gee was SNSD's greatest song, their best video, and probably the encapsulation of... not just everything Girls Generation is, and the best they can be, but everything the current K-pop model brings to the table, and everything that makes boy band/girl band Kpop. If an human from 8000 years in the future asked me to explain Kpop in one video, Gee would be it.

 Like it or hate it, this IS Kpop:

 

 Put your own reactions to the Letterman performance in the comments.

While I'm impressed that they scored a Letterman gig, and they did a pretty good job, I'm still sticking with my old view that, given what it takes to make it in the US market, 2NE1 and IU are the two groups that have the best shot at making it in the USA... but for more reading, here's my piece on why NO Korean group can conquer america anymore.

And some other Korean music that I think deserves a look.

Kids React to Kpop Hatefest!

Update: Babyseyo came home from the hospital on Tuesday...
and is in fine form again.


But Kpop hate?

I first spotted this at Foreign/er Joy... since January 8, this video's grabbed around 800 000 Youtube hits, spawned a huge number of angry, defensive, or simply butthurt responses from Kpop fans, and given us a little more grist for the discussion of whether Kpop would ever make it, "big time" (whatever that means) in America.

As I've spent a lot of time talking about Kpop lately, I feel duty-bound to post this, and host a discussion about it.


My own thoughts:
1. the kid in the striped shirt has clearly had somebody (maybe his dad, maybe an older cousin) training him to have contempt for modern pop in general - not just K-pop. And likes attention and drama.
2. The girl who says, if the group is all arranged and planned by a manager... "if I even liked one of them, I would pretty much be liking the person that trained them" is bang on, as is the kid who says, "So they basically make them to be their puppets...I hope they get paid well."

So... watch the video. It's an interesting view of the differences in the way American kids that age are trained to appreciate art and creativity, and what young Koreans are trained to appreciate and admire... sprinkled with a little hate here and there.

In response to that hate, the K-pop shock troops have responded with hate of their own. Responses have been bitter and defensive in large part....
Check here and here and here and here (for a longer response)... and over 3000(!) comments on AllKpop.

Best post I've seen on it so far (linked in the comments) is this thoughtful talk about orientalism, exoticism, and who is asking these kids questions/editing the video, at "Adventures in the 4077th"  It also uses the word "Koreaboos" which is a word I would love to see, read and hear more often.

One thing I'll say for sure about these fine brothers (makers of the video): my hat's off to them. Kpop fans were certainly ripe to be trolled, and they're clearly reaping the benefits in hits and notoriety, in the proud tradition of Stephen Colbert.

What say you, readers?

Greetings from... BE?

I got a message on Twitter saying "Greetings from BE" but I'm not entirely sure what BE stands for...

The Acronym finder is helping me, but I'm still not sure:

My top prospects are...
British Empire
Belgium
Battlefield Earth
Barium Enema
Bern
Bachelor of Engineering
Blizzard Entertainment (makers of Warcraft and Starcraft... why not name your next game "Awesomecraft" or get meta, and make a videogame design simulator called "Craftcraft")
Breast Expansion
Bachelor of Education
British English
or
Back End

any other suggestions?

funniest one wins.

Reader Query: Bike Shop Street in Seoul?

OK, readers, you know how there's some neighborhood or another, somewhere in Seoul, with a street full, almost exclusively, of shops selling one particular thing?  Near jongno 3-ga there's medallion and trophy alley, along the cheonggyecheon by Jongno 5 there's mechanical implement block, and then there's office furniture lane, right next to printing press street.  The bottom of Dobong Mountain, as well as near the fountain in Namdaemun, are hiking goods *mecca*s.  A former coworker swears up and down that she once stumbled across prosthetic limb street, but couldn't remember how to find it back.

Well, readers, I know where scooter and motorbike street is: it's near Chungmuro, mixed in with pet shop street; however, I don't know, and I really want to know, where bicycle lane is.  See, I'm looking into buying a  (non-motorized) bicycle, and I'd like to buy a folding one that fits in the trunk (boot) of the car; however, I don't think I could buy a bike sight unseen, over the internet: like pants, and sofas, they need to pass the bum test, where I try before I buy.

So, if anybody knows where "bike street" is, please let me know in the comments.  A google map would be nice, but not mandatory.

Must be Chuseok! Order your Spam Set.

this is from a twitter post posted by a facebook friend...

One of the charms of Korean holiday culture is the gift giving culture: for a while I thought it was dumb, or lame, or stupid, that Koreans give each other toothpaste, spam, and olive oil sets for chusok, but now I just think it's goofy and funny.

Now, the spam might well hearken back to Korea's post-war poverty, a time when the US Military saw to it there was lots of military issue spam in the country, but it was mostly a luxury item for impoverished Koreans.  Some foods, for example budaejigae, came out of that period, and are frankly, some of Korea's best down home lunches, regardless of whether Korean food promotion is proud or ashamed of that period of post-war poverty.  I'll take a good old homey budaejigae over a pretentious boutique cafe lunch any day.

One year, my boss gave every foreign staff member (and every foreign Korean staff member) huge boxes of spam.  None of us knew what to do with it: none of us used spam in our cooking, none of us particularly liked spam.  We had to sign our spam sets out with the front desk; some of us never claimed one, and a few of us left them in the staff room for months before getting rid of them.  We mostly re-gifted them, and we kept one around, to set it up beside our computer monitor, so that it blocked the glare on the computer monitor between 10 and 11 am, when the sun shone in the window.   Were we being passive-aggressive?  Perhaps... but for seollal, our bosses gave us bottles of wine instead, which we actually used.  Another boss gave cash.  That was the best, and if any of my readers are Koreans, thinking of gifts for your foreign friends, cash or gift certificates are probably the perfunctory gifts we'll appreciate most.

The interesting thing, to me, is how in my anecdotal experience, it's so totally acceptable to give out a basically thoughtless gift here.  I asked Wifeoseyo and she said the same: It's just the giving of the gift that matters.  Everybody knows it's perfunctory gift anyway, and there seems to be an unspoken agreement to just be OK with that.  When I give a gift to Wifeoseyo, I want to think about her style, her taste, what she needs, what she expects, and what will make her feel happy: I spend a lot of time thinking about possible gifts, and even writing down in my pocketbook ideas that would make her happy, come gift-giving time.  Making scrapbooks, remembering old conversations, stuff like that.

I talked to an older lady (and yeah, this is generational), and she said, point blank, that she'd rather her husband just gave her cash for her birthday, so she could get what she wanted.  Weddings are the same: people give envelopes of cash on wedding days, and used to give cash to teachers as well - the white envelope culture works here, and again, wedding couples generally just agree to be OK with the way wedding halls sometimes even have a cash machine in the lobby, so that you don't even have to plan at all - just show up at the wedding hall with a bank card.

Do people in North America give thoughtless, perfunctory gifts?  Sure.  Ever got a box of chocolates for valentines day?  My Dad is a pastor, and pastors get a lot of perfunctory boxes of chocolate and christmas cake and pastries, come Christmas.  Back home, people give thoughtless gifts too.  Here, it seems like people don't even try.

So... do the Koreans you know feel embarrassed at all about giving cash, or olive oil, or toothpaste, to even close relatives, or is everybody still openly OK with it (even if they quietly bring it home and go "what the HELL am I going to do with twelve kilograms of spam?")

And what have you observed the younger generation do on gift-obligatory times?  Are young people also scooping up boxes of spam?  Have the types of perfunctory gift changed, though the gifting culture hasn't, or are things totally different now?  Is re-gifting OK, so long as it's done discreetly, the way we replace the cards on Christmas cake and pass it along, back home?

Talk amongst yourselves.

Caption Contest: weirdest burger poster I've seen.

This poster is so many kinds of surreal I don't even know what to say about it... so I'll leave it to you, my readers.

CAPTION CONTEST!

Large and Tall T-shirts: General Request

Hey there.  I have a few friends who are taller and/or larger than the average Korean, who need to buy a few new t-shirts for the summer.

So... especially these days, when there are more big and tall Koreans than ever before, there MUST be more big and tall shops where Korean folks can get the big and tall sizes they increasingly need...

Where are they?  Can any of my bigger-than-the-average-Korean readers - particularly the females - recommend a place where my friend could either buy, or have made, some summer wear?  She's looking either for a tailor where they actually know how to fit larger women (not just slapping an elastic waistband on a tent with feet holes), or a shop where they have sizes for her.  She's also a bit tired of digging around the big-and-large shops along "wanna buy a suit" street in Itaewon, where she's been all through the wringer with bad experiences.

So... help me out here, folks.  Directions are good, links to google maps are better, links to websites for shops and even online stores help, too.

I know someone will come through for me on this one.  My coworker is waiting on it.

Rob

Traveling Korea: Will I Get Bugged? Plus, Blatant, Crass Self-Promotion

Got this question... usually answering questions is the realm of Ask the Expat, Ask A Korean, and sometimes Chris in SK does them, too, but this one came to me. I've made some changes, for brevity, privacy, and to make myself seem more awesome:

Hi Roboseyo the awesome

My name is Kyoposeyo - I'm such a fan of yours that I legally changed it, and your blog gives meaning to my life. As a second generation Korean/Canadian, I want to thank you on behalf of my race for being so awesome. Awesome. I'll say it twice. That's how awesome you are. Having been raised by first generation Korean parents (grew up in a Canadian city), I know a thing or two about Koreans, despite not having lived there, nor being as awesome as you.

I want to throw a question your way: hopefully this complete stranger's question will pierce your near-indestructible shell of awesome. It would help me a lot if it did, and you answered.

I am planning a trip to Japan and Korea in May; I'm going with my caucasian boyfriend. He wants to see Korea's natural beauty, and bask in the awesomeness of the place that inspired your awesome blog. Awesome. There's that word again.

I have been to Korea with my family before, but NEVER with my boyfriend. I speak Korean, but am wondering how Koreans will react to us being together. I thought I'd ask you since you are a foreigner, and I am assuming your girlfriend is Korean?

Your thoughts on this would really help me in planning my trip. I haven't booked a ticket yet, as I am figuring out how many days I want to spend there with my boyfriend.

Sincerely,
Kyoposeyo

p.s.: Awesome!

Hi, Kyoposeyo.

Thanks for the sweet letter. It's actually my policy only to answer letters that use the word "awesome" the exact number of times you did (ten, or twice per paragraph for longer letters), so you lucked out, I guess.

To answer your question:

First, a qualifier: I can't speak for how your family will react. Because family's closer, things are just different; your parents will be more useful in briefing you on introducing him to the family. If he's meeting your uncles, I bet they'll try to get him drunk, as my best friend's uncles-in-law did. For family, their impression will depend a lot on how they've been prepared for meeting him, but that's all I can really say about that.

Next, for people in Korea, once it's clear that you're not Korean born-and-raised, you often get a kind of a free pass here. Therefore, one thing you could do is simply pack clothes that are clearly Canadian, and noticeably different from the fashions Korean women wear. Wear very little make-up, which will set you apart from most Korean women, even in the summer. If you're going to Japan first, pick a few distinctively Japanese accessories you can wear, that'll set you apart for passersby looking from a distance. Then people will size you up as a tourist and the "rules" won't apply to you. You could even speak in more laboured Korean, as if you don't know it well, to make your disguise complete. Of course, if it doesn't sit well with you to deny your Korean background, don't do it; I sure wouldn't hold that against you.

Third: I think the reactions your boyfriend will get, being seen with a visibly Korean woman, really depend a lot on your boyfriend's appearance. Some people have a lot of trouble with negative attention from Koreans when they're out with their Korean girlfriends, but I never have, and I think it's because I do what I can to keep a well-groomed appearance, and try to make a positive first impression on the Koreans around me, especially when I'm with Girlfriendoseyo (who is Korean: you were right about that). I might be totally wrong here, but I bet you'd get more attention in general, if he looks like a bedraggled hippie with long hair, a grizzly adams beard, and torn clothes - just because NOBODY dresses or looks that way in Korea; once he's attracted all that attention, there's a greater chance some of the attention he attracts will turn negative, and that some individual will peg him into the stereotype of the ugly English teacher stealing "our" women or whatever. But if he dresses in a way that keeps a low profile, and fits in with the locals, there's a much much lower chance that he'll elicit that reaction. When in Rome, wear a toga. Those viking furs might be the heighth of fashion in Denmark, but they won't get you far at the Coliseum.

If he's groomed, smiling and polite, if you teach him a few Korean phrases and he says them with a friendly air, all those same people who'd otherwise mutter, will smile and tell you he's a handsome guy, and maybe offer him a shot of makkeolli or some extra side dishes. If you're out climbing mountains and in nature, which it sounds like you want to do, you're very likely to encounter the nicest side of Koreans, rather than the unsavory side: many of the most positive experiences I've had with Koreans, especially older Koreans, have been on the mountain. The same old lady who, in the city, would shove you to get onto the subway car before you, will share her lunch with you on the mountain-- the climbing culture is one of the friendliest aspects of Korea I've come across, personally, so you're probably in for a treat if you're heading for the hiking trails.

Of course, you can also just tell everybody you're married, too. These days, international marriages are nothing out of the ordinary in the countryside.

see also this post: Tips to Avoid Being Assaulted in Korea

So, dear readers... agree? Disagree? Am I totally out to lunch? What other advice should I give Kyoposeyo and her Caucasian boyfriend about having the best experience possible in Korea?

Canadian Embassy Wants to hear from you, Canuckers

[Update]: The guest list is now full, but you're still welcome to contact Ms. Kim by e-mail (see below)

I got a message from Nicola Kim, a political officer working for Mr. Ted Lipman, the Canadian Ambassador to Korea himself. After a year of discussion about the English teaching experience in Korea, as well as Korean media representation of them, not only here on the blogs, but in Korean courts, and even in the international press (not to mention CBC Radio), the embassy is interested to hear feedback about life in Korea directly from Canadian English teachers.

The meeting will be at the Canadian Embassy in Seoul, from 2:30-4pm on Thursday, January 28th, and Nicola's looking for a one or two more voices to round out the discussion. They're especially looking for long-time teachers, who have been around the block a few times, and have a longer perspective, and even more, at this point, females are underrepresented on the guest list. If any of my readers, especially the female ones, are long-term English teachers in Korea, who hail from Canada, and you have a thing or two to tell, or ask the Canadian Embassy about life in Korea, here's your chance to put in your two bits.

If you aren't free at that time, but you can think of something you'd like to tell the Canadian Embassy, either a complaint or a request, or a "is there anything you can do about ___" or "you could help new incoming Canadian English teachers if you ___" kind of tidbit (or should I say timbit), you are invited to either leave your comments at the bottom of this post, at which point I'll be happy to relay them on to the Canadian Embassy when I go, or you're also invited to contact Nicola Kim directly by sending an e-mail to nicola.kim at gmail dot com

image source

I'm glad the Canadian embassy is doing this; it's a great gesture, and while it makes sense insofar as it will reduce the number of anguished calls they have to field from distraught English teachers, it is also a opportunity to open more communication between the community and the embassy.

So fire off that e-mail, if you can come to the meeting, or let Nicola know what you'd like to say, whether you can come to the meeting or not.

Periodic Table of Canada

Movie Franchise Tagline...

Just saw Terminator 4, and rewatched Terminator 1 on my computer. The first one is a really nice, taut action movie, though one of the new retro-pleasures of watching these old '80s action movies is snickering at the action effects that were so riveting/revolutionary/terrifying in the '80s.

(My favorite this month: Tarman, from the Return of the Living Dead movies. Awful movies, as zombie films go: they seem more based on Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video than anything scary, but Tarman's pretty cool...almost scary, and pretty awesome for '80s effects. The way he moves is occasionally really cool.)

Here's Tarman. Warning: tarman.



But The Terminator films have one thing going for them:

A super-de-duper great movie catchphrase.
"Come with me if you want to live"


(Yes, I know "I'll be back" is in there, too, but that's an Arnold line, not an exclusively Terminator line, so it doesn't count.)

And the question is:

Is there any better movie franchise catchphrase?

Here are the candidates I can think of:

1. "Yippiekiyay, Mother#*@&er!" (Die Hard)
2. either "Use the force" (a bit cheesy) or "I have a bad feeling about this" (Star Wars)
3. "Come with me if you want to live" (Terminator)
4. (are we including comedy here?) "Yeeah, baby!" (Austin Powers)
5. "What're you looking at, butthead?" (Back to the Future)
6. (maybe too short, but...) "Whoa" (Matrix)

Any others I'm missing? Help me out here, readers.

New Game at Roboseyo: weirdest "please hold until a customer care clerk becomes available" music

Rules are simple:

What would be the weirdest song to hear while waiting for a call-center clerk to become available?

Put your answer in the comments. You can go weird: (Bela Lugosi is Dead) or ironic (like playing "Alive" as an in-flight movie), or whatever you like.

Bonus points if you include a link to a youtube clip of the song.

My first submission: not too out there or anything, but a great video: "Pick Up The Phone" by Notwist.

Requestoseyo: Female K-Bloggers

See, as I look at the sidebar here at Roboseyo, I notice that the female bloggers listed are a tiny minority. On several of the comment boards of well-known K-blogs, as well, feminine voices very rarely assert themselves, and it is with great sadness that I acknowledge that the great-idea-too-bad-this-happened Naked In The Sauna is now largely defunct.

With Amanda Takes Off, Lao Ocean Girl, and Expat Jane repatriating...

who ARE the female K-bloggers you like to read, my dear readers?

I'm already a regular reader of Foreign/er Joy, Expatriate Games, Annalog, both the male and female halves of Eat Your Kimchi, Chubbo Chubbington, A Long Time Ago When The Tiger Smoked a Cigarette..., and the also largely defunct Gomushin Girl, but that's only seven out of the fifty on my RSS feed, so it stands to reason (given the approximate 50/50 percentage of males to females in the world) that I must be missing some.

Now, not because I write this blog to pick up girls or anything: with girlfriendoseyo I'm covered on that front...but I'm worried that I might be letting down any guys who might be reading my blog to pick up girls. (We had an interesting talk in my conversation class about What's the best way to meet your soulmate, and reading strangers' blogs was third on the list, you know.) K. In all seriousness, though, I DO feel like I'm letting down any female readers who didn't give up on me completely with that last lame joke, in providing a place where they can find out about, and hopefully connect with, other female K-bloggers, and see that side of things here.

Fill me in, readers! Who else should I be reading?

Some interesting Korean commercials . . . and a naughty Dutch one.

[poll update: see sidebar to vote]


I got nothing to say about this one.


Below is top star Kim Tae Hee, for an ice cream phone, gives an interesting look at cute culture here in Korea -- I brushed on this in my post about soju ads. In Japan it's called "Kawaii" culture -- the obssession with cuteness. To Canuck Schmoe, the average Canadian, it looks babyish, but believe me, to many of my Korean friends and students, this is considered cool and even sexy! It's a clever move, because women can connect to the cuteness and say "she's like my little sister," and not complain about the ad for being sexist, while men can have their sexist, dominant fantasy of the submissive girl who baby-talks and makes puppy-dog eyes. (note especially the cutesified sexual position at 1:20: you can't wiggle your bum cutely when your feet are that far apart!)


"Melong" is what Korean kids say instead of "na na na na na" when they tease each other.



when does this one (Kim Tae Hee again) stop being cute and start being suggestive?

don't know.


This one got banned for being too suggestive. Wait for the punch line.


And two funny Dutch ads:
the difficult decisions we must make in life. . .


and this one is right off the hook. (Warning: this one has a very very bad word in it. It's funny, but rude. . . and it makes a very good case for what it's selling.)


I have some special family news to share. . . but that might have to wait until after the weekend, when the weather is this beautiful.

Until then, I posted these possible future post topics before, and wrote about the most-voted-for topics. I'm putting them up again so you can tell me, what do you want me to write about next? There's also a poll in the sidebar. Cast your vote on the sidebar. I took down the topics I've already covered, and one that I no longer feel motivated to discuss.

1. the goofiest urban legend ever (formerly titled: the silliest thing I've encountered so far in Korea)

2. the most entertaining internet phenomenon I've encountered in recent times

3. why reading Lord of the Rings comforts me

4. the top five list of "Things I'd Change About Korean Culture If I Had A Magic Wand (that worked)"

5. Great Korean movies you should track down and see. . .

suggest your own topic and I'll think about it.

(Links to the previously suggested topics I already wrote about:)

Why the Internet, as it is now, will never reach its full potential as an agent for social change.
and
Why Modern Religion Deserves Richard Dawkins.

Posts might come a bit slowly. . .

I'm cleaning up the prose in the sections (the favourite posts) that I've linked on the side, to make them a little more fit for strangers to read. I've been handing out my URL more often lately, so I may as well tidy my room before inviting more guests to come over.

If you're new to the site, welcome! The four or five posts after this one give a better sample of what to expect from this blog.

Amuse yourselves with this Korean baby singing "Hey Jude"


In the meantime. . . by reader vote (vote on the comment board):

do you want my next post to be about. . .

1. why the internet as it is now will not reach its full potential as an agent for social change

2. the silliest thing about Korean culture I've encountered so far

3. the most entertaining internet phenomenon I've encountered in recent times

4. why reading Lord of the Rings comforts me

5. the top five list of "Things I'd Change About Korean Culture If I Had A Magic Wand (that worked)"

6. how the internet is changing the music industry for the better, and the limitations of that change

7. why modern religion deserves Richard Dawkins

8. Korean movies you should track down and see. . .


aren't I just FULL of opinions!


it is one of the mysteries of Korean culture that these things from the west are inordinately popular here:
Hey Jude (hit play)

Cinema Paradiso
Mariah Carey
My Way (Frank Sinatra)
Anne of Green Gables
The Little Prince
That damn Titanic song.

Roboseyo saves the world. . .

I offered a solution for how to save the world earlier on this blog. Here's another. It was tagged on at the end of the previous post. . . but I don't think anybody read it, because I added it a day later.

In the new, global world, here's another thing I would do if I were king of the world:

I'd make an irrevokable law that, for the countries with the 30 largest populations, economies, and militaries in the world, the rest of the world gets to participate in their leaders' elections, with the Restoftheworld vote having a 10% say in the final election results -- 90% nationals, so that the home country gets most of the vote, but in a world where a world leader's decisions touch so many other countries, isn't it fair for the rest of the world to have a say in their leadership, too?

(I'd also cancel all veto powers in the UN: I'd change it so that unanimous minus one were enough to mobilize on security council decisions, so that rather than China vetoing UN action in Burma, unanimous minus one would have been enough to get peace-keepers in there. Same for the US vetoes on oil and Israel/Palestine related-type things.)

Any reactions?

and if you don't care for my world-saving solutions, how about this one:

Turns out, peeing on tourists is a BAD thing. Who knew?

It's been a while since we've had a survey on here. . .

So I drank the Heroes kool-aid after all.

I don't have a TV at my house, and don't really miss it, but after seeing a few episodes of the TV series Heroes (which EVERYONE is talking about here in Korea these days) at my friend's house, I bought season one on DVD for cheap.

And, like the X-Men movies, The Bourne Identity, and Jim Carrey's The Mask, the best part of watching a show where people suddenly discover they have superpowers is entertaining the wish-fulfillment fantasy of what would happen if you discovered YOU had superpowers --

A good third of the fun of watching The Bourne Identity series is the daydream that, one day, when somebody threatens YOU, YOU'LL suddenly bust out deadly martial arts and super-spy skills, too; in the movie "The Mask", where the green mask brings out the side of your character that you hide in public, and gives it cartoonish super-powers, and it gives me a ninety-minute-long daydream about what side of ME would come out if I put on that silly mask. Ditto for x-men -- you can fantasize all day about which x-men power would be most fun, most useful, most frightening, and so on.

So in tribute to the TV series Heroes, the survey question is: which superhero power do YOU wish you had?

(and don't say x-ray vision, because then everybody will know you're a perv)

Two rules/qualifiers (just because everybody always says these ones -- like in Korea, you have to say "AFTER your parents, who is your hero?", because otherwise that's all you'll hear):

Don't say Superman's powers, because that's like going to a restaurant and ordering one of everything on the menu. Ditto for saying "Peter Petrelli's [from Heroes] power: the ability to absorb other people's superpowers": that's like saying "If I found a magic lamp I'd wish for a hundred more wishes." -- and kind of defeats the purpose of choosing. EVERYBODY would prefer to have ALL the superpowers, but if you had to pick one, which would it be?

Enough uplifting stuff. . . time for a rant! (or Seasonal Music in December) with a Survey at the End!

First thing:

I like Christmas. I really do. Somehow Christmas makes me think of home, of where I'm from, of who I'm from, more than any other time of year. It's a beautifully spiritual time, if you can hit the right notes, and keep your mind in the right place.

(insert obligatory paragraph about over-commercialized Christmas here -- even the complaining about Christmas has been overdone and is now clicheed.)

I can avert my eyes from the "shop shop shop" ads, or at least simply enjoy the christmassy feeling that the combination of the colours red, white, and green bring to my emotional memory, and not read the words.

But what I can't do, guy-sensitive-to-music that I am, is shut my ears from hearing Christmas music every flippin' place I go.

And dear readers, some of that Christmas music has got to go.

Now, you will notice this post has many embedded videos. The one introduced as a Tom Waits video, and the very last one are the two best, so if you're impatient, watch them and skip the rest. Be warned, many of the others are there to serve as examples of terrible Christmas music. I put them up for the same reason people look at boogers after they pick them, and slow down for car crashes: some people just want to know, even (or especially) when somebody says, "You don't want to know. Really." And some of the music (I chose the videos for their music -- ignore the images if you can) is a musical car crash. I'll even put a car crash warning on them, just so you can skip them if you don't like the smell of putrescence. And if you DO like putrescence. . . this post should be a proper hall of masochistic wonders for you!

For the music overkill. . . as when I posted a bunch of poetry in a previous blog, if you don't like it, skip it!


(car wreck warning: worst. Christmas. song. ever. Wham!)


See, most mediocre, half-hearted pop-songs clutter up the airwaves for a little while, and then have the consideration to vanish, as their limited shelf/radio-life expires. Even if you REALLY hate the latest steaming pile of Black-Eyed-Peas, it'll go away in about three months. That's not to say it hasn't already overstayed its welcome, but at least it's gone now.

Not so Christmas music. EVERY DECEMBER, radio programmers dig up, and warm over all the crappy songs from Christmas past, trotting dead horses back out and into radio rotation, so that we're STILL listening to George Michael whine about "Last Christmas" when by now, it's been twenty-four Christmases since he gave you his heart, and you're still glad you gave it away, and it's been twenty-three Christmases since his mopey, sloppily written, limpidly sung song should have ceased forever to grate on shop customers' ears. Instead, here in Korea, modern pop bands are COVERING it, just so I hear it even MORE often!

Rain: the biggest male popstar in Korea. Put me out of my misery now! (SUPER MEGA TRAIN-WRECK WARNING)

whew! at least it was short.


Now to be fair, I recognize that it's hard to make a good Christmas song --

Your choices are these:

Option 1. write your own song.

(car wreck warning: bryan adams, riffing on the tired old "Christmas makes us better people" theme)


In which case, your own songwriting skills are on a playlist right before, or after, some Christmas classic, and bud, I don't care how underrated a songwriter Bryan Adams might be. . . his junky Christmas anthem pales next to the majesty of "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing."

From Paul McCartney, this is my submission for the worst track any Beatle ever recorded, and that INCLUDES the plastic ono band. . . but every Christmas, it comes back again.

(car wreck warning: wonderful christmas time)

The images in the video make me smile--"Hey everybody! Even though the Beatles broke up, I'm still using drugs. . . see?"


Making a Christmas song, option 2:

Do a version of a Christmas classic.

You have a better chance of success here, except that with all the good ones, somebody's already done it better.

Ella Fitzgerald sang "Baby, it's Cold Outside" with Louis Jordan . . . that means Avril Lavigne, Michael Buble, Jack Johnson, Fergie, and any band assembled by a producer rather than by the musicians finding each other, should leave it alone. Really. Why bother trying.

(listen to the words: it's the only song in the world that makes date-rape sound charming and nostalgic, if you listen to it cynically enough)



Annie Lennox did Winter Wonderland really well (there's a link to her version later). . . this version makes me want to cancel Christmas altogether, hide my head under a pillow, and hibernate until February.

(Big Car Wreck warning. This clip is like using a corkscrew instead of a q-tip. Really, don't watch more than the first fifteen seconds of this one. I'm ashamed of my culture right now. No Joke. this is the worst video clip in the entire post. in case you doubt me, let me just say: Ozzy Osbourne/Jessica Simpson duet. Still doubt me? I dare you to press play!)

(Warning: every time someone plays this clip in its entirety, an angel loses its wings.)

(As my sister's friend says, "You make baby Jesus cry.")


Making a Christmas Song: Option 3 (if you can pull it off): make an amazing Christmas song that gets overplayed until people hate it anyway.

Dear Mariah Carey:
Thanks for this one! It's AWESOME

Awesome!
(the first 435 times)


Dear radio programmers who play "All I Want For Christmas Is You" practically on repeat every December: please? stop? You all agreed to take "Crazy" off the air before people got sick of it -- can we now give Mariah the Gnarls Barkley treatment, before you start losing listeners through death by immolation? Yeah, it's rare that an actually talented artist makes a Christmas album at the top of her game. . . but every five minutes I'm hearing "All I Want For Christmas. . . " either the Mariah version, or the cover from the "Love Actually" soundtrack. At some point, thanks to the "shuffle" function on CD players, I'm going to hear them back-to-back, and I heard that if that's followed by back-to-back versions of "Last Christmas" by Wham! and then by the K-Popstar Rain, every Starbucks in Korea will implode.

The great Christmas songs get played more often than the crappy ones, so we even tire of them, sadly. (Sorry, Bing Crosby. The song's great, but I've just overdosed on it. All respect to you, but I never want to hear "White Christmas" again.)


So that's the quandary of Christmas music. Either there are a zillion other versions (probably by better musicians), or your song's not gonna hold water next to the other Christmas classics, or it's gonna get so overplayed we're sick of it anyway--it just takes us three years instead of one week.


At the root of the problem, or at least a major part of it, is this:

Most Christmas albums are basically Christmas-spending-spree cash-ins from artists who are either getting old and running out of fresh ideas, or whose appeal will fade quickly (often due to lack of true talent), and need to capitalize before they become irrelevant, or who were all about the money anyway, right from the start. For proof, go to a used CD shop and see how many "where are they now" bands have numerous copies of their Christmas Album on the shelves, where nobody's buying them.

These cynical money-grubbing artists are hilariously parodied here in "Love Actually" by the fictional artist "Billy Mack" -- THIS makes me laugh, because it's so true.

(Car wreck. . . no, train wreck. . . no, mid-air-plane collision. . . this is the Titanic of bad music videos. . . but it's funny, and a parody. . . does that make it ok? I especially like the interview clips before and after the actual song, and the naughty elves with stripper poles.)

help us all! at least they're not serious, like Ozzy Osbourne and Jessica Simpson up above.

And so it is that bad artists make most of the Christmas music out there.

Conversely, it is only rarely that a really great artist does a really interesting take on Christmas. The artists who could make a really interesting Christmas album are rarely the ones who actually DO make Christmas music, because actual artists aren't usually into cash-grabs. I've been hearing an Aimee Mann Christmas song lately at Starbucks (I can't find it to post it), and that's nice. . . I think Tom Waits would make the best Christmas album ever, but he's too much of an artist to make one, the same way I think Robert Redford is the Hollywood star who'd make the best U.S. President. . . for precisely the reasons he would never run for president.

Come on, Tom, give us some more. (Tom Waits: Christmas Card From a Hooker In Minneapolis) -- Neko Case sings a gorgeous version of this song, too, but it never gets on the radio, or on YouTube.

This, THIS is good. Sad, funny, tender, Tom Waits.


So my Christmas wish is that we could retire some of that Christmas dreck that's been recycled for too many years. Please? We could also make a rule that radio stations and shops can only play a Christmas song a maximum of three times (maximum four) per twenty-four hours, so that we don't get sick of Bing's White Christmas, and Annie Lennox's "Winter Wonderland," which I still like. . . barely.

(embedding disabled by request, so you have to follow the link to hear the song)

In a world of MP3 CD's, there's just no excuse anymore for playing "Merry Christmas" by Mariah Carey on repeat for eight hours a day in your coffee shop. Really, none. Radio programmers: It's OK to play just regular, nice music in December -- mix it up a bit! Then we can enjoy the Christmas music when it DOES come on, instead of sighing and gritting our teeth until January.

(It's a pretty poor reflection on the caliber of Christmas music that I'm actually GLAD no other holidays have special pop-songs for them -- but then again, that's not a bad business idea. Do you think there'd be a market for crappy Thanksgiving albums? What about crappy Valentine's Day music? I'm SURE if you made a bad Independence Day album, Americans would buy it. This might be my million-dollar idea!)

Before I go: here are some more Christmas songs I DO like if I don't hear them too often, and the last one is my favourite Christmas recording ever -- if you only listen to one of these songs, make it that one (if two, add the Tom Waits one above).

Joni Mitchell


Jackson 5 (and most of A Motown Christmas)


(Most of Christmas With the Rat Pack is pretty good, too -- Sinatra, Dean Martin, Davis Jr. and co. know how to handle a classic Christmas tune).

This, by Sarah McLachlan, is not about Christmas, but it's about Winter. I'd love to hear this at Starbucks as I sip my maquillado.


And I especially love this one. One of the most beautiful voices I know (Stevie Nicks: you've heard her before on this blog), matched with what I would argue to be the most beautiful melody ever penned. Shimmering! (As the Wizard of Oz would say, "Pay no attention to the early '80s hair! I am the great and powerful OZ!")



And now, it's survey time. . . which songs need to be retired, in your opinion? (see above: also, Boney M)

Which artists need to make a Christmas album? (I humbly submit Alicia Keys and Tom Waits)

(PS: Blood On The Tracks Era Bob Dylan would have made an absolute wonder of a Christmas album, too. Not anymore though.)

Which Christmas music needs to be played more? (did you know Sufjan Stevens has a Christmas Album or two out?)

And what are your favourite Christmas recordings (after Handel's Messiah)?

And my favourite Christmas songs:

Silent Night (the one melody I really never tire of)
Hark The Herald Angels Sing
The First Noel
O Holy Night (in moderation, and sung tastefully)
Angels We Have Heard on High
Joy To The World

Love'em.

I'm really just adding to the cycle.

When people get their news from the internet, with its 24 hour coverage, things get silly, with journalists clamouring for column inches on the relevant topics.

My favourite example of this phenomenon is the meta-column. This actually makes me think back to my University days, and the idea of primary and secondary texts.


Here's how the ladder goes:

Top:
Primary texts, like "Hamlet" by William Shakespeare.

Secondary texts, like "A Structural Analysis of the Dialogues Between Hamlet and Ophelia" by Dr. Hoight D. Toity

Tertiary texts, like "A Critique of Dr. H.D. Toity's Structural Analysis of the Dialogues Between Hamlet and Ophelia" by Dr. Ivy ReTower

and possibly, if the controversy gets heated enough:

a Quaternary text, like "The Flawed Reasoning in Drs. H.D. Toity and Ivy ReTower's Analyses of Dialogues Between Hamlet and Ophelia: A New Perspective" by Dr. P. Arasite. (aka: I couldn't think of an original article, but I need to publish to stay on the tenure track)

And so it goes. I don't know if you ever reach bottom in this kind of self-reflexive cannibalism.


The crazy thing is, these days, the same self-reflexive feeding is happening in the news. I like to call this meta-news. Meta-news is news that comments on news -- rather than discussing world events, you discuss news coverage of world events, the method, emphasis, responsibility, integrity of such.

Think about it:

Primary news: "Paris Hilton (or Michael Jackson, or Lindsey Lohan, Britney Spears, Tom Cruise, Mike Tyson, or whoever the latest pop-culture whipping person is) Does Something Disgusting but Not Altogether Surprising." by Associated Tabloid Press.

In a move that disappointed thousands of loyal fans, _______ committed a shocking act of ________ in a ___________ last night, in an incident that lasted __________ until ________ showed up and calmed everything down.

(Sometimes the real headline here is "Hey Everybody! Look Over Here And Get Distracted From The Mess We've Made In The Middle-East By Wasting Your Attention on Useless Crap!" by the G.W. Bush Administration and Fox News.

Hey Everybody! Look over here! She has blonde hair! Blonde hair! You like blonde hair! Your sons and cousins are dying in a needless war, and we're only just beginning -- the Iran scheme is already in the preparation stage -- but THIS GIRL IS FAMOUS, and she has a little dog with pink ears and Blonde Hair! She was in a sex video once and she has blonde hair! Look at her! She's rich and reckless with blonde hair! Grab your ankles while we stomp on your freedoms because she has BLONDE HAIR!!!!!)

The next wave:

Meta-news as analysis: "A Publicist Discusses the Implications of This Latest Non-Scandal" by Headlin G. Rabber.

It seems nobody is advising her on managing her image. She's obviously addicted to flashing cameras. If I were her publicist I'd say she. . . but doesn't her blonde hair look great!


Meta-news as commentary: "Why Are We Paying So Much Attention to Such A Waste of Copy?" by M. Oral Soapboxer

This isn't news! I can't BELIEVE so many people are reporting on this! What a society of clowns and hypocrites we are when we think THIS is important! Pay no attention to the irony in the fact I am adding to the coverage on her, by criticising it.

Look at this. Ahh, grandstanding. The sweet sweet smell of righteous outrage on national television!




Next: Meta-meta news: "Columnists Grabbing For Column Space by Claiming To Be Above It All are Phoneys!"

Don't even click on the link everybody. Don't even read the article. Let MY article be the last one you read on the topic. The only way we can make her go away is to ignore her. And read my article. And send it to your friends. Just click on the e-mail to your friends button, and the press agency sends me a thousandth of a penny. They add up. Really.

and finally, Meta-meta-meta news: Old Roboseyo

What a farce this is. I can't believe I clicked on the link, too. I can't believe I'm putting it on my blog.
Yes, even adbusters etc. is part of the cycle when they criticise it.

What's to be done? Our lives are filling up with useless information. How do we get back to caring about what's important, and getting others to care, too? Seriously, all it takes for us to stop thinking about Blackwater, Guantanamo, Pakistan and Myanmar, is for Paris Hilton to climb out of a car without wearing panties. . . AGAIN? THIS, and we settle back into our duoback chairs and forget about writing letters, attending protests, and storming the lawns of our leaders to get things sorted out?

I don't even know what to say, except that when I think about it too much, I think that if there's real estate for sale on Mars, I'd think about going.

the Korean saying for being too stuck in your own perspective, your own point of view, your own comfort zone, so that you can't think outside the box, and can't think accurately anymore, is "A Frog in a Well"

So how do we get out, and get angry, and actually do something?

leave a meta-meta-meta-meta comment if you like.