Random Weird Pictures

Been meaning to publish these for a long time... I took these pictures of a big poster in a subway station a long time ago, and still can't get over how suggestive they are. heh heh heh. problem is, with a photo like this, the jokes are way too easy, so I've got nothing to say. So... do you think APM did it on purpose? Rather... do you think they'd admit to doing it on purpose? and a couple of random "sand" konglish pictures for good measure.

"Apple Hip" - any relation to "Apple-Bottoms"?

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.

Best Mangled English of the Year So Far

Courtesy of Nick Elwood, of the blog "Bathhouse Ballads"

Electric Rice Cooker...

and cum warmer.

If you're into that kinky stuff. (as Nick says: don't forget to wash it out after)

Did this make the rounds while I was on my honeymoon, or is it as hilarious to you as it is to me?

Any other submissions for best mangled English of 2010, so far?

More K-Pop And Kiddie Songs:

from here

Lee Hyori has a song with the inexplicable title "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang"

Now, any lover of Dick...VanDyke movies (what?) knows that this is the tune that should pop into your head when you hear the words Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.


Lee Hyori's taking over the phrase, in a song and video that seem to have nothing to do with the original, except a car theme in the video.



Honestly, I like Hyori. She's cute, her music is getting noisier and more fun, and really, what's not to like? She's the apotheosis of a K-pop star, but this trend of nonsense words in English needs to stop.

Does Super Junior's "Bomanama" have any meaning in Korean?


Because to my English eye it reads like this: (though it doesn't SOUND like that in the song, fortunately... or not)


(for the record, Bibbidy Bobbidy Boo was also a mistake)

Also on the butchering things from my childhood front:

No, I am absolutely NOT watching The New Karate Kid with Hong Kong's Jackie Chan playing the Japanese Mr. Miyagi, and perpetuating the idea that "they all look the same; may as well get a Chinese to play a Japanese..." as well as the idea that "them martial arts are all the same too, aren't they?"

Konglish of the Day

This air freshener made me smile.


And I'm not putting this on its own post... but T-Ara did their pop song "Bo-Peep" with a Korean orchestra backing them up, moving awkwardly in an attempt at sexy hanbok, for their new year's day performance. I really don't know what to say.



This song is 2010's first number one song in Korea.

From the movie flyers

Picked up these movie flyers a while back.

I love that because Nicolas Cage married a Korean, his movies are three times more popular (should I say K-popular?) in Korea than in America, and even his craptasticolioso work runs for the better part of a month. (Ghost Rider, I'm talking to you.)

Even cuter: in the promotional flyer for the movie Knowing, he's introduced with the diminutive nickname "케서방" - Kae-seobang. Usually, "seobang" goes after an in-law's family name to make a cute nickname, I'm told by Girlfriendoseyo. "Kim seobang" would be the nickname if the in-law's family name were "Kim," for example. Yeah. Cute. Korea loves Nicolas Cage. Kiss. Even when his acting is about on par with this.




At the same time, I picked up this pamphlet: Jeon Ji-hyun starred in "Blood, the Last Vampire," a full-on Hollywood movie starring a Korean... and STILL disappeared from Korean cinemas with barely a whimper. It was so bad it never even got the "OMFG A Korean is in a Hollywood movie!!!!!" hype that most Korean roles in Hollywood films merit.


I watched it (download) and...yeah. It didn't warrant the hype. Or even the eighty minutes of my life. Pretty bad.

Plus, in the picture, is a new Konglish spelling mistake I've been coming across lately: the misspelling of "Heroine" (meaning female hero of a movie) as "Heroin".

Yeah.

Some pics and something seyo do not like.

Something I love love love about Korea:

the sitting outdoorsy stuff --


Especially outside the convenience stores.

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

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

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


Took these pictures. Like my camera.


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

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

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

In samchungdong:

Near Jogyesa Temple:
sigh.

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

In the Irony Section at Kyobo Bookstore

Micheal Breen Rules

His latest column at The Korea Times is a must-read.

Go read why using English well/properly/adequately for the situation is pucking dippicult for Koreans.

It begins this way:

"If you are Korean and reading this newspaper, your English must be quite good, certainly gooder than most people.

But how about your spoken English? Is it also well good? Or are you hard when you speak English?" and gets better.

Go read it.

Also: some guy digitally combined over a dozen of the handsomest Korean stars and created this composite. What say you, readers? Is this the ideal Korean man?

Fake Languages

Here's an interesting one:

This guy lays down the challenge: what does fake English sound like? You know when you used to say "Ching chang chong" in grade school, because you didn't know any better, and thought you were speaking Chinese? Well what do Chinese kids say when they think they're speaking English?

This guy speaks a bunch of gibberish that sounds surprisingly like Chinese and several European languages, and asks Youtubers to respond with the sounds of English, from people who can't speak English.


Some interesting responses:
One girl:


One Japanese Kid (my favorite)


Another one:


Another good one.

meanwhile, here is one Korean popstar's hybrid language, called "Hanglish" in the video title. Sounds to me like there's some latino L.A. style slang in there, too. (Warning: some of his non-language really sounds like some real English swears; note also that he's using one of those V-line face massagers during the video intro). Mr. Tyfoon.


Finally, this is what Korean sounds like to a couple of American kids. They're impersonating ajosshis (Korean old men), speaking English with Korean accents, but when they get excited, they swear in non-Korean gibberish. The Korean History Channel. (Language warning)

Picture of the Day, and Possibly the Week

Here's another contender: the ricetard snack was sure a good one,



but inspecting my follower's list, I discovered Korea, Books and Calories, and on her blog, Okibum had posted this outrageous, uproarious picture of a t-shirt.

My weiner has a heart on for you. Yep. That's right.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Seriously, I want to have the job of the person who comes up with wacky English T-shirt slogans. I'd even try to market them in North America. I think they'd catch on.

Bwahahaha! Korean Drug-Related Language Mishap

Had a good weekend. Did lots of fun stuff with cool people, and saw my sweet friend Danielle get married.

Then, bumming around at COEX, I saw this at the megabox:
There's apparently a movie called "Marley and Me," which is fine.

Except, in Korean, "Me" is "na" and "and" can translate into "wa". . .

and the name Marley, because of the trouble with r's and l's, sometimes gets mixed up and pronounced, "Mari" instead of having distinct sounds for the "r" and the "l"


So that this movie's name, in Korean, sounds exactly the same as the word
"Marijuana". Reading the movie listings on the chart in Korean, and coming across the word "Marijuana" in hangeul was sure startling, let me tell you.

In other news, I just saw a cute Korean comedy involving a marijuana subplot, except the "marijuana" field didn't look anything like marijuana. I don't want to name the movie, because the marijuana thing's supposed to be a hilariously surprising plot twist, but the marijuana plants looked like this:

(That's a soy crop), and . . .

well, let's just say it was pretty obvious that neither the filmmakers nor the writers knew a darn thing about marijuana, and leave it at that.

Good thing they didn't, too: wouldn't want them to be deported, you know.

Move over, PopSeoul!

So I randomly stumbled across this on Youtube (I SWEAR I was not searching for Wonder Girls)

Super-Pop-Producer JYP has been taking online auditions for his next manufactured pop band, including this 13-year old kid (meaning 11 or 12 western age), Jo Gwon, who (especially in her first dance audition in the video) shows off a pretty good voice (for a kid) a really fantastically goofy knack for rocking up a crowd with wacky dances. With a little polish (see 5:40 - 6:40), I'm sure she could be the next product off the JYP shelf.

Meanwhile, the dance lesson part of the video (starting at 3:38) is just. plain. weird. at 4:48, you get to watch JYP, a big grown-up male, teaching a bunch of eleven and twelve year-old possible future products, all girls, how to twist their torsos like sexybacks (a skill he successfully imparted to his most successful proteges)...and it's just weird, is all. (Though when Jo Gwon, who's obviously there for her pipes and not her steps, tries to do these kinds of moves. . . it's really really funny in a cute, not-yet-perverted-or-commodified-youth, i-don't-understand-the-suggestions-this-dance-move-makes-so-i'm-just-imitating-my-dance-coach sort of way.)

Youtube is loaded with JYP Audition videos, ranging from pretty impressive to kinda cringeworthy, QUITE cringeworthy, even MORE cringeworthy, to, uh, this. As always, there are a few young girls who seem to have taught themselves to sing by watching The Little Mermaid over and over.

In other I Wanna Be A Star news, there's a new star getting a pretty big buildup these days. . . with one problem.

Her name: 혜나 or "Hye-na" in Korean, is being written on the posters in a way that could cause some, uh, confusion, if she ever goes international.

Does anybody else here spot the problem?


Anyway, here's one of her videos from youtube...this one gets kinda crazy in the middle.


And here's another. This one's pretty hot.


So, uh, good luck, Hyena.

"Thanks, Rob."

(A Very Special Update: Otto, of "I, Foreigner", in linking to this page, said some of the nicest things I've had said about my blog so far: (and he hasn't even read the stuff I deleted, thinking "too bizarre")  From the write-up:

If you are looking for a blog ... that will make you say “WTF!” before you burst out laughing, a blog that will make you wonder if this man even has a job to have time to find stuff like this, then look no further.

Thanks Otto. You just made my day, and possibly my week.

From the Hire a Proofreader, Nimrod! Files.

Brian had a doozy on his site, so here's one I spotted just last night.

In Konglish, Y-shirt means a button-down, collared shirt.

One More for the "Hire a Proofreader, Nimrod!" files:

From a really, really great dumpling restaurant in Insa-dong:




Delicious food. . . too bad they spent ALL their energy making the best dumpling soup I've tasted so far. Not that I begrudge them.

I'll be honest and say that running into a bit of Konglish is a tiny bit of extra joy in my day-to-day life -- you never know when it'll happen, you never know how bad or mild it'll be, but it's always good for a giggle, and sometimes a photo, if possible. I'd liken it to finding a fiver on the sidewalk -- uncommon, unpredictable, but always nice.

the joys of kopseulmori (curly hair)

Happy Canada Day, all.

Before the rest: a lovely Konglish T-shirt.

I had a little fun with my naturally curly hair (YES, IT'S NATURAL, DAMMIT!) [sorry: twice a week an old lady asks me where I got my perm] today at work, stuffing pens in there.
The receptionists thought this was high comedy.
I had about ten stuffed up there, stuck between locks.  I'd almost forgotten my hair could do that.
Ten, however, was nowhere near my record: back in high school, when I let my hair grow out for about ten months (twelfth grade yearbook photo, minus personal info):

I once went into a Chemistry 11 final with an entire pencil case stuffed with pens and pencils.  All through the final, I surreptitiously slid pens and pencils into my natty mass of hair: it was long enough then, that they were completely hidden inside my mop.  Then, when I finished my final, I stood to hand in my exam, and when I handed it in, I held my head back, and then threw it forward in a (fake) sneeze.

About fifty pens and pencils flew all across the floor at the front of the classroom.  Got a decent laugh. . . though it isn't my ONLY final exam hijinx story by a longshot.  (If by a longshot you mean two.)

If you want to know the other two, you'll have to ask in the comments.

Until then:

a couple more pictures:

Didn't know pets were recyclable.

(eating dog joke goes here)

More from Jongho(from the previous post)'s ad agency:

From the "Hire a Proofreader, you Dumb-nut!" files. . .

Also: found an ice cream shop advertising not 31 flavours, like some dumb chains we know about. . . But in the textbook definition of one-upmanship, these folks boasted thirty-two flavours!

Take that, you dirty Buskin Rubbers!

I'm trying to imagine the scene where they brainstormed this idea.
"What are the two things you love the most?"
"Beer and anything."
"Try again."
"Uhh, sausage and bacon."
"Hmm. I think we're onto something. . . "


In case you thought sausage, or bacon, couldn't get any LESS healthy, here comes street food to prove you wrong!

Working on my next substantive post. Until then, I'll be posting pictures from my amazing last weekend and randomness from the weeks before, to tide you over.

PS: Thanks, Brian in Jeollanamdo for the blog props. Right back at ya!

Does this make me simpleminded?

Soundtrack: hit play and start reading.
Ambulance, by TV on the Radio, live.

Great song, fantastic arrangement, cool video, really interesting band. They sing with imperative and authority that makes me really enjoy them. Also totally unique: I haven't heard anything like them elsewhere.

As always, the littlest things make me the happiest. It's spring now, and spring is nice (though fall is still my favourite). I'm reading the third draft of my best friend's novel, and it's friggin' good, and I'm doing the third draft revisions on my own novella, as well as the two plays I wrote last year; soon they'll be ready to put into circulation.

Meanwhile, I've said it before, but I love this about Seoul: behind the main street of Jongno, there's a little back-alley network full of little mom and pop restaurants and winding "head-in-there-drunk-and-you'll-never-find-your-way-out" pathways and things.


You get a little alley like this, (above and below) where the average age for the owner/operators of the restaurants is about 59. . .
Then take five more steps, point the camera the other way, and this is what you have across the street.
What a wonder Seoul can be! (Especially north of the river, where the history goes back longer.)

by the way: I named the the picture above "alleyotherside," which sounds like a great name for the protagonist of a children's book. I love good names. "Alley Otherside" is a winner.

Check the end of the handrail here, above Chunggye Stream in downtown Seoul -- the little stuff you notice out the corner of your eye. . .
Get in a little closer. . .
I suppose it's good they didn't flick their cigarettes onto the pedestrians walking by below. . . but it's still a little tiresome when so many people use the city as an ashtray. It's just ridiculous how many men smoke in Korea (though women are starting to catch up, as the taboo against women being caught puffing slowly fades).

Anyway, this creative disposal method make me snicker, even if the principle behind it is kind of. . . whatever you call the opposite of civic-minded.


But even when something like that chokes me up, all it takes to cheer me up again. . .

is an olive tomato ciabatta. Sweet Goliath's sandal-goo, those things are great. Wood and Brick (by Gwanghwamun station) serves up the best ciabatta breads I've found in Seoul, though I still haven't found anything to match the focaccia breads or bagels my mom's old boss, Martin served over in Agassiz.

One for the "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks.



I found these comics, uncredited, on a random website, and liked them. . . but I wish I knew who to blame for their awesomeness. If any of my readers recognizes the style, or can connect me with the source, please let me know! Meanwhile. . . topical. I like these ones. Especially after all my harping on moral authority on this blog in the last year.

from the movie Munich, re: Israel's answering violence with more violence: "We are supposed to be righteous. That's a beautiful thing. And we're losing it. If I lose that, that's everything. That's my soul."

If you don't like the "F" word, don't look at these next two pictures, but they sure made ME laugh out loud.

Actual shop sign I saw in Itaewon (and you know it's me because who else posts such bad quality pictures from his dumb cameraphone?)


His mom probably went out and said "My son's going to an English afterschool academy; maybe I should get him some English-language T-shirts so he'll fit in."

(found this in a collection of random, submitted photos from a "crazy konglish koreans" facebook group.)Look a little closer at this Starbucks "Hey! We do fair trade now, too!" poster:
Isn't that guy a dead ringer for a young George W. Bush?I wonder what the story is here:
This shop seems empty, it looks like it's been empty for a while.

The volume of ads that have been slid under the door by advertisers implies at least a month since anyone took any kind of care of the shop. . .
and there might have been somebody sleeping inside: saw a lump behind a wooden lattice, but didn't want to investigate too closely; being chased by a hobo is not my idea of a good time.

Meanwhile, I'm a happy cat, generally. Send your good wishes and prayers out to Girlfriendoseyo, as she's in a stressful time at work; a slowly souring situation just started quickly souring, and we hope we can make the best of it, but that means she'll be pretty busy for a little while, and poor old Roboseyo will have to gather scraps of time togetheroseyo where he can, until things are back stable again.

Another simple pleasure for this simple mind:


Lindt 70% dark chocolate (milk-free, and therefore non deadlyoseyo for me and my milk allergy) is available at Starbucks (which also serves soy milk, still the only coffee shop to do so in Seoul, and therefore recipient of my dogged loyalty, despite being a global conglomerate and therefore the antichrist, and despite spreading like a virus in downtown Seoul). Get the dark, bitter chocolate for 1500 won, and then a caramel maquillado (maybe with an extra espresso shot if it's too sweet on its own, and soy milk for the allergy, if you're me) for [more than I'd like to admit paying for a single drink of anything less than Guinness, or a Belgian lager], and sip the maquillado while you have a bit of chocolate in your mouth: the bitter rich chocolate gets molten by the hot sweet maquillado and makes a tasty combination. It's like a liquid tootsie roll, with caffeine! Really, how could it get better than that, short of giving you really awesome dreams the night after drinking it, where you can breathe underwater, or fly, or grow into a giant with ninja skills and get back at Jason Moesker for picking on you in grade school!

Sorry. No pictures of my lindt chockillado: tastes just don't translate into pictures. . . though you gotta see how they use image and sound to explain tastes in the pixar movie Ratatouille, my favourite, and possibly the best, movie of 2007 (in my opinion). Couldn't find a clip of that, but I recommend you go see it.

later!