Eulogy for The Marmot's Hole: The Official End Of The K-Blogosphere

After four years or so with the same layout, I've been making small tweaks to the blog and the sidebars: the names appearing there will be changing. If you know a blog or podcast that deserves a place on my sidebar, please let me know: I'd hate to be like one of those blogs I used to snicker at, with three-years out-of-date blog links in the sidebar (says the guy who just yesterday removed the link to ROKetship, who repatriated in 2011 or so).

Last December, something important happened in the "Korea-blogosphere" or "K-blogosphere." K-blogosphere is a term first used by GI Korea in a comment at Metropolitician Michael (now Dr.) Hurt's blog (here - sez google). I used it a lot myself around 2008 and 2009, when I blogged the most. It was a word that imagined there to be a community of Korea bloggers, who were connected, and that those connections meant something. One could (or at least, I did) talk about the "K-blogosphere" as if it were an organism, the way many Korea-bloggers like to talk about "Korea" as if the country were a character in a drama.

At that time, there were a handful of blogs that one could probably refer to as the go-to Korea blogs: a group of blogs that referred to each other, and that everybody kind of assumed everybody else was reading. We even met up sometimes. We teamed up on projects like The Hub of Sparkle. You could rattle off their names. Zenkimchi. Expat Jane. Scribblings of the Metropolitician. Korea Beat. The Grand Narrative. The Marmot's Hole. Gusts of Popular Feeling. Brian in Jeollanamdo. ROK Drop. A little before my time were The Big Hominid and a couple of others.  K-pop K-blogs created their own little ecosystem, led by Dramabeans and Allkpop and Eat Your Kimchi. Outside those "big ones" there were a swack of others that were a little less famous, but part of the web of connection, linked on the sidebars and in articles.

As time went by, more blogs, both "big" and "small" fell defunct, the bloggers repatriated or started repeating themselves or moved on to other projects or had kids, changed jobs, and got busy. Or the commenters went berzerk. Or people eventually noticed they sucked, or the authors found better ways to get attention/notoriety. A few bloggers got harassed and bullied into removing their blogs.

The very idea of a K-blogosphere has always had its skeptics. A few commenters, one who is a good friend now, always argued it was a stretch to call K-bloggers a community. This became more and more true as tumblr, twitter, reddit, Facebook groups and pages, vlogging and podcasting all came into their own, and each developed its own niche, and all the "original K-blogs" that vanished were replaced by newer blogs. Finally, there wasn't really a K-blogosphere anymore, but many. The tumblr k-blogosphere. The social justice K-blogosphere. The teaching K-blogosphere, the K-pop one. The foodie one. The military/security one, and they intersected less and less. Somewhere around the time ATEK imploded, I became disillusioned of the idea expat teachers could align their scattered interests. Likewise, I stopped believing expat blogger community could be called into existence simply by using the term K-blogosphere a lot. Little knots of convergence would remain, but social media seemed to supply quicker, richer connections, and seeking "likes" "shares" and "upvotes" was more fun than taking the effort of writing out blog posts and hoping for comments. Eventually, the very idea we needed a K-blogosphere kind of dissipated. Or maybe I just got married and decided to invest my energy in a different set and type of connections. I won't rule out that I'm just out of touch now, but I'm unwilling to participate in That. Facebook. Group. just to get dialed back in. So be it.

Through all that, there was one go-to, one lodestone in the ever-changing Korea blogosphere. Or maybe it was the last tent peg stopping the entire tarp from blowing away. For everyone who'd graduated Dave's and gotten bored of those Facebook groups where the new wave of teaching first-and-second-years k-eep k-omplaining, there remained The Marmot's Hole.

One of the original K-bloggers, Robert Koehler's blog went through a number of phases, but spent a longer period with a higher level of sustained output, popularity and relevance than any other Korea blog. And really, it wasn't even close. Robert Koehler has been cited by more major western news sources than any other Korea blogger and over a longer span of time, and he has also had more foreign journalists commenting and visiting his page. I don't think there is anybody who would dispute that. In December, The Marmot announced his retirement from blogging, and the last intersection of the increasingly dispersing venn diagram of Korea blog niches vanished. With The Marmot's retirement, I don't think the idea of "the big k-blogs" exists, or is a useful term anymore, and if it hasn't been for a while (probably the case), this is the locking of the door as it shuts.

It was a great run though, so my hat is off to The Marmot, Robert Koehler (you can see what he's doing now by following his photography tumblr). Everybody blogging in Korea owes him a debt, so thanks for the links, the fun, and for being the biggest tree in the wooly ecosystem that was the K-blogosphere for so many years.

Where to now? Who's to say? Now that all the touchstones have been pulled up, I think everybody's going to crawl further into their little niches. Nobody will be filling The Marmot's shoes. Dave's, Facebook and Reddit aren't generating the combination of diversity, cumulative knowledge of commenters and liveliness found at The Marmot's Hole. I expect things to continue fragmenting, and I expect that the best thing I get out of blogging (as has been the case for a few years now) is no longer some measure of fame (snicker) but the chance to send up a flag to find some small number of interesting, like-minded people to find me.

The Marmot's Hole is gone. I am sad that the archives have been pulled offline, for the sake of history. The other legacy I hope continues is this: The Marmot never claimed to be an expert, and often said that the longer he spent in Korea, the less he knew. I hope that kind of humility and uncertainty remains an undercurrent in the attitudes of future K-bloggers.  It's sure nicer to read than the pretense of unearned authority. But I'll take curiosity over the fear of saying anything substantive, if it comes to that. As for the comment boards... they're probably gone forever, and I don't think they're coming back.

Good luck in the future, Mr. Koehler.

The Korean Blog List is Dead. Long Live All The Korea Blogs

After leaving Korea, it's no surprise the guy who ran the Korea Blog List is no longer interested in maintaining it.

It's no surprise, either, because the list has gotten so long and unwieldy, and the choice is either to let it balloon with defunct blogs, or spend ever-increasing time curating something that's no longer an legitimate part of his life.

Now, Blogger Noe has kindly saved all the links originally listed on the Korean Blog List (here) and has updates (here). (The "Foreigners living in Korea" list is here)

Korean News Feeds, which used to clearly be the best spot, also now carries a lot of links to defunct blogs, and has simply started including so many, that I'm no longer sure that they've chosen only the best ones -- its once awesome status as a great curator of blogs has been diluted by volume.

Alphabetical lists (as at Noe's blog) and time lists (in order of when their names were added to the list, which Korean Blog List used to do) are both also subject to the problem of defunct blogs (a constant problem) getting equal space with the active ones.

So I've built a very simple blogspot page, named: All The Korea Blogs, which uses the same "Most recent update goes first" system as the links on the sidebar of my blog -- which I really like, because you can tell which blogs are more active by moving to the top of the list, or spotting which ones linger up there.

If you want to account for quality, look at the sidebar on Roboseyo, where I've put my favorites, instead of "All The..." which looks to be more completist... or check the sidebars of your other favorite blogs.

So add "All The Korea Blogs" to your links, and if you have a blog, ask me to add it.

And everybody: don't forget to check the links on the side of your blog from time to time, to see if they're still updating.

On Netizens finding Blackout Korea, And Rampant Public Drunkenness

So that one-joke novelty site blackout Korea got discovered by the Korean netizens.

And while a few comments on the blog post that brought BOK to the Korean blogosphere include sentiments like "Yah, public drunkenness is kind of a cultural embarrassment," others were quick to blame the usual scapegoat: English teachers.

One blog, the subtly titled: "Englishteachersout" even compares the pictures on BlackoutKorea to the photos at Abu Gharib.

Now that's just stupid. The English teachers didn't trap these Koreans, force-feed them alcohol until they passed out, and THEN take the pictures.

Also: the passed-out Koreans' faces aren't shown. I don't know if the writer of EnglishTeachersOut noticed that... so when people aren't personally being singled out (other than the dumb foreigners who DO show their faces in shaming them), what remains is the cultural shame, I guess, of one of Korea's dirty secrets (rampant, extreme public drunkenness) being posted on the internet.


I wrote about the mean-spirited battle between stupid, mean-spirited expat blogs in Korea, and knee-jerk raging K-netizens back when death threats prompted a number of K-blogs to shut down last year.

Those points still stand.  In fact, I encourage you to go read them.

(source)

A few points, then I’m out:

1. The "hate Korea bloggers" and the "why are you hate the Korea go home" netizens deserve each other.

2. Nobody deserves to have their personal details published, or their life threatened, because of their practicing of free speech.  Even if their free speech is offensive to some people.

3. The people in these pictures ought to have thought more carefully about including their faces in the photos: you own everything you put on the internet, forever. Generally, Koreans behaving badly are smart enough not to publish pictures of their hijinks on the internet. They know how the K-internet works: they all remember dog poop girl. Expats in Korea ought to take a page from their book.

4. While it would be nice to let the "Hate Korea" bloggers and the "Why are you hate the Korea?" defenders just cancel each other out, but it doesn't end there. The bad blood generated there contributes to the poisonous English Education atmosphere in Korea, because English teachers are always blamed: notice how nobody suspected any of the expats in the pictures to be investment bankers or engineers. It also raises the pitch of the mutual alienation between the archetypal "complaining expat" and the "crazy netizen defender," and worst of all, sometimes legitimately interesting K-blogs are caught in the crossfire: Korean Rum Diary started off kind of mean-spirited, but as it went on, the tone became much more thoughtful and fair, but because it started off on the wrong foot, the K-defenders kept hounding the writer, and when he left Korea, he took the entire site down. That's a loss for the English K-blogosphere. The fact that the defenders' English may not be sharp enough to catch the nuance, or that they only skim the angriest post (which got linked) and decide to hound the writer, leads to undeserving writers getting treated like trolls, from time to time.

5. Nobody knows the real motivation of Blackout Korea: we've seen before that international attention of an embarrassing kind can be the thing that prompts some self-reflection in Korean society, and maybe Blackout Korea was pitching for bringing it home to Korea that the amount and degree of public drunkenness here is a national disgrace.  Maybe the writer tried every other method he/she could imagine before resorting to a stupid blog like Blackout Korea.  And yes, I think the blog is stupid.

6. There are better ways to bring that point home.

but

7. Public drunkenness in Korea IS a national disgrace. It is.  Undeniably.  Shooting the messenger doesn't change the fact I had to dodge street pizza walking to work at 7am on Wednesday mornings, back when I worked in Jongno.

My final point:
Some people say Blackout Korea is just a funny website.

As I wrote in the Lousy Korea post: Is the laugh that South Park got for taking cracks at Mohammed worth the mutual alienation that develops between Muslim and Western society when their controversial episode airs? I don't know.

Is the laugh that BlackoutKorea got for taking cracks at drunk Koreans in public worth the mutual alienation that comes out of the K-netizen backlash? I don't know, but I'd rather not have to be asking the question.

And to the people whose faces are now on this guy's blog front page (see below): does it still seem like a good idea?

[Edit: the pictures have been blacked out on the English Teachers Out page, so I'm taking it out of this post.]


And memo to all non-ethnic Asian expats in Korea: go ahead and act however you like, but don't put pictures of that shit on the internet, and don't do it in my neighborhood, because you can do what you like (within the law) but I'd rather not be held responsible for your behavior, just because neither of us look like Koreans.

(more background links: Asian Correspondent, Chosun Ilbo (who found the site), the Korean blog of the guy who wrote the EnglishTeachersOut blog, and an interview with Blackout Korea... let's say of all the motivations to create the blog... the ones stated are somewhere at the bottom of the barrel.)

Saying it's a Cultural Difference is the Beginning of the Conversation, not the End

I was just looking over the series I wrote this spring, about how to make friends across the foreign/Korean cultural divide, in which I highlight a few of the common pitfalls in developing friendships between Koreans and non-Koreans.  The series is extensive, good reading (I think), but while editing and cleaning up hanging links, I added this paragraph:

And remember: "It's a cultural difference" is NOT the end of a conversation.  It's the BEGINNING of a conversation.  After saying "It's a cultural difference," it's important to articulate that difference, and how my expectations are different than your expectations, so that we can be understanding and flexible towards each other in the future.

Using "cultural differences" can be a cop-out to avoid responsibility for unacceptable behavior which I, or someone else, is unwilling or unable to actually justify.  Any time somebody starts saying "cultural difference," watch carefully, to see if that same person is trying to get away with something, or to figure out what topic they're avoiding.


That is, if you want to have a genuine relationship with said person.  Otherwise, "it's a cultural difference" end of conversation, can be the sound of a door closing in someone's mind.


Anyway, to revisit a series I put a lot of work into this spring, go check it out.
Table of contents for the series 
Part one of "How to make friends with a foreigner"
Part one of "How to be friends with a Korean"

Most of the advice is basic, "Don't be an inconsiderate jerk" stuff... but sometimes naming specifics is helpful.

Korean Blog List: Choosing Your New Blog's Name...

From time to time I check up on the Korean Blog List to scan the K-blogs out there and see if there are any that I'd like to check up on more regularly.  This, along with checking the sidebar links of your favorite K-blogs, is one of the two best ways to see what's new in the K-blogosphere.

Even "the big guys" like The Brian Formerly in Jeollanamdo got a lot of their most interesting stories from lesser-known blogs who were closer to the actual issue at hand, and a blogger who doesn't update their sidebars and keep up with what's new, runs the risk of stagnating.  If the newest blog you have in your sidebar links is Brian in Jeollanamdo, Metropolitician, (not to take away from those two bloggers) or me, you might want to revisit your link list, and see what's new.

I wrote at length on "How to get your K-blog Noticed" a while ago, and when people ask me for advice or help, I usually refer them back to that post.  Despite what The Stallion would have you believe, it isn't an exclusive club.

Looking through the new additions to the Korean Blog List, though, it struck me again how important it can be to have a catchy blog name - which names jumped out at me while scanning that long list?  If you want to have a blog people remember, three things to keep in mind when choosing your name are:

1. times and places can limit you.  "Joe's Year in Korea" "Anna in Daegu" - what if Joe decides to stay on for another year?  What if Anna moves to Busan?  Brian in Jeollanamdo is in Pittsburgh now... but he'll have that name, at least in K-blog circles, every time we mention him.  "Seoul2008" probably feels pretty awkward blogging about Daegu 2010, doesn't she?

2. It's hard to switch names after you've already chosen one, so choosing an interesting one from the get-go will help if you hope to become a "noted K-blogger" (whatever that's worth).

3. Sorry if you have one, but there are so many K-blogs that pun on Seoul/Soul and that use "Kimchi" in the name already, that nobody will be able to keep your blog apart from the others anymore.  K-blog readers I talk to still confuse "Eat Your Kimchi" with "Kimchi IceCream" - two very good, very different blogs both of whom have been writing for more than two years each.  There are 12 blogs on the Korean Blog List with Kimchi in the name.  There are 15 blogs that pun on soul/Seoul, including two "seoul searcher"s... I don't think any of them need to change their names, and I like some of those blogs a lot... but if you're starting a NEW blog, just recognize that the Seoul/Soul/Kimchi niche is already saturated, and let me recommend you veer in another direction that won't get confused with a dozen other similarly-named blogs.  Or offer the owner of one of those blogs a fat check to take over their name.


Best K-blog name I saw on the new additions to the Korean Blog List this time: Blog-gogi. Memorable, clearly Korea-related, clearly a blog.

To everybody who already has Kimchi or Seoul in your blog name: I'm not criticizing you, your blog, or your blog name.  Don't sweat it. In fact, this post isn't directed toward you at all: it's directed at somebody who's thinking of a name for their new K-blog.

As apology, here are links to every Kimchi Blog: I like your blogs!  Keep it up!
ZenKimchi
Kimchi Mamas
Tiffany in Kimchiland
Kimchi and Cornbread
Kimchi Ice-Cream
Kiss My Kimchi
The Kimchi Chronicles
Kimchi with Eish
Kimchi Cheeseburger
Korea, Kimchi, & K-pop
Cats and Kimchi
Kimchi World

and links to every Soul/Seoul Blog:  I like some of these - in fact, some bloggers from both of these lists are among my favorite blogs, bloggers, and people...but 15 is a lot, yah?
Joe Seoul Man
Seoul Man in Tokyo
The Seoul Patch
Seoul Sucking Jerk
formerly Seoul Purpose
Seoul Searching
Seoul Food
EPs Heart in Seoul
We've Got Seoul
Seoul Sounds
JSE Seoul Searching
Deep in my Seoul
The Seoul Searcher
A Seoulful Life
A Soul-less Man

Some of the uniquer K-blog names out there...
Paul Ajosshi
ZenKimchi (nobody mixes it up with anybody else - inventing a new word helps)
The Chosun Bimbo
Gusts of Popular Feeling
Good for Man's Health
Hermit Hideaways

2S2 Saturday: Here's the Plan; Come Hungry; Here's what I Need

OK, readers...

Here's the problem.

I have a great idea for this Saturday's 2S2... except one thing.  I'm double-booked.

See, I'm getting married in July ... you might have heard about this ... and Fiancoseyo (no. That's not working) Girlfriendoseyo set the tuxedo shopping appointment for this Saturday, at 3pm.  Given that 2S2 meets at 2pm, it pretty much means that I could be there for about ten minutes before I had to split.

I love you all, my readers, and I care a lot that people get the connections they need... but I'm completely unavailable this Saturday.

So here's what I need: a friend who can fill in, and lead people around.  I'll even plan out the thing, as long as I have someone who can hold a map and keep a group together.

You can read about 2S2 Suwon here, or at the 2S2 blog, once it's posted there; I hope 2S2 Wonju will be putting something up soon, and 2S2 Yongin/Suji also has a facebook page.

Here's my idea: about a 20 minute walk from 2S2's Anguk Station meetup, there's a fantastic market called "Gwangjang Market" where you can get some of the best jeon (seafood pancake), bindaeddeok, kalguksu (Korean cut noodle soup), and a whole swack of other old-style Korean foods - the kind of stuff that reminds Koreans of their childhood, all served up in little food-stalls.  The prices are ridiculously low, the food's awesome soul-food - there's pig's feet, but there's also some awesome not-gross, cheap food like kimbap, chapchae, noodles, egg and fish-cakes -- all the best Korean cheap-foods you can think of.  And the market experience is as authentically "Korea" as you can get.  Read more here.

Here's Dan Gray, from Seoul Eats, my nemesis, describing some of the foods:


From there, right next to Kwangjang market is the Chunggyecheon stream, which is a nice stroll to work off all the food you ate, and if you're really ambitious, Kwangjang Market is not far from Jongno 3-ga station, where line 3 takes you to line 6, from which you can head down to the Seoul DJ Festival - I've gone before, and it was awesome.  (learn more here, or here, or here)

So... any takers?  Help a fella out!

Inwang Mountain and JjimDalk: Awesome Day

Given such fantastic weather, Girlfriendoseyo, Mom-in-law-oseyo, and I climbed Inwang-san, or Inwang Mountain, this Saturday.

The mountain was in fine form, with cherry blossoms and magnolias still in bloom.

The tree cover had pink peeking through.

The air was clear enough to see from Inwang Mountain, all the way to the 63 Building on Yeouido.

Girlfriendoseyo playing with her dog.  Cherry blossoms through the opening in the wood grove.

Mother-in-law-oseyo loves the mountain.

After a good climb on the mountain, we had a special treat in store: Andong JjimDalk.  Andong JjimDalk is so good, that it's just not worth eating it anywhere except in Andong... but Girlfriendoseyo heard that some of the JjimDalk restaurants in Andong will actually deliver their recipes to you in Seoul, if you order them a few days ahead of time.  Girlfriendoseyo did exactly that.  We'd been planning a jjimdalk party sometime, but before we ordered it to eat with a bunch of friends, we wanted to try it, and make sure it was the same stuff on deliveray, as it was in Andong.  After climbing the mountain, Mother-In-Law-oseyo warmed up the recipe that had been delivered, and readers... it was almost as good as making the trip to Andong.


A bit closer:

And this, readers, is a picture of a full, and happy Roboseyo.

Bravo my life!

And then, on the way home, I saw something amazing: on the subway, this old lady got on the subway, and fell into the most amazing kimchi squat I've ever seen. She curled into a tiny ball on her heels, fell just about asleep, and no matter which way the train pitched, rolled, accelerated, and decelerated, she stayed put. I've never seen a kimchi squat so stable. People were getting on and off near her, and bumping her, and she was unperturbed. Impressive.

ATEK Communications Officer, and no, ATEK will not be taking over Roboseyo

On Monday I sent out a press release, and posted on ATEK's website, that I've applied for, and been appointed, ATEK's National Communications Officer.  (link to press release).  This is an interesting opportunity for me, and I'm pretty excited about the possibilities right now.  Last time I wrote about ATEK, I wrote that

The area where Atek is failing so far is in communication, in my opinion. There isn't enough knowledge in the general population about what they're on about, about the kinds of connections that are being formed, and the reasons why things seem to be going slowly. Meeting notes ought to be published somewhere on their websites, and regular national council meetings should be announced, with their agenda and notes published, at least in some form that doesn't impinge on the privacy or trust of the people involved in certain ATEK actions.

I still think that.  From the conversations I've had (and I'm still learning the ropes right now: patience, please!) Atek has a lot of good people, and they're doing a lot of good things, and I'm looking forward to being a part of letting the world, or at least those who care, know what Atek's about, what they're doing, what they want to do, and how people can get involved.  Hopefully soon, people will no longer be able to say that ATEK's main failing is a failure to communicate... if I do my job well enough, people will know enough about ATEK that they'll be able to criticize finer points of its organization or bylaws or goals, and we'll be able to learn a lot from those public discussions, if they're productive.

So stay tuned: I'm getting my feet under me right now, but I've been sharing a lot of interesting ideas with a bunch of people (you can read some of them here, from Jason, who wrote a nice post about my appointment.)

But I'd like to be clear to my readers that I do not intend to use Roboseyo as ATEK's mouthpiece blog, nor any of the other blogs I'm involved with.  That would be unfair to my readers at Roboseyo, who come here for Roboseyo, not for ATEK, it would be unfair to other bloggers and news sources who write about ATEK, to be scooping them any time with inside information, and it would also be unfair to whoever comes after me as National Communications Officer, if I use the Roboseyo media empire (tee hee) for ATEK publicity, rather than trying to set up ATEK-specific communication mechanisms that are separate from Roboseyo, so that I can cleanly pass them on for the next person to use effectively, when my term expires (the bylaws give a maximum term).  Now, if I go to an ATEK event that rocks, I might post photos and talk about it, because that's something that happened in my life, and it rocked.  If ATEK is doing an event that I think is cool, you might hear about it at the 2S2 Blog or here, but I'll continue posting non-ATEK events that I like, and photos of non-ATEK stuff as well, so long as it's awesome (because that's the only real standard here at Roboseyo: awesomiousity).  This will be very remain my personal blog, with my personal opinions.  Because of my new official position, I'll actually be talking about ATEK less here (for example, in posts like this), because now that I'm in an official capacity, I should be writing about it along official channels.

So why, Roboseyo, are you taking on such a big task?  (and dear readers, it IS a big task... with a sharp learning curve.  I'd never written a press release before until Monday, and I made some mistakes that will be corrected in the next one.)  Well, here's why: I'm getting married, readers.  You know that.  To a wonderful Korean lady, no less, whose job prospects are mostly limited to Korea because of the kinds of re-training she'd have to undergo to do her job in other countries (she's pretty specialized).  I'm probably going to be living in Korea for most of my adult life, if things go the way they have been.  The wind blows, and the wheel turns, but for the foreseeable future, Korea's it.  For a lot of that future, I may well be involved in education, and if that's the case, then helping out an organization whose goal is to improve the lives of English teachers seems kind of logical.  At this point, I think ATEK is the organization I can get involved with, that has the best chance of affecting tangible improvements in the quality of life of English teachers in Korea.  I have a big stake in Korea, so I'm doing a favor for my future self, folks.  Also, when I have a bad Korea day (and everybody has them), thinking that I'm doing something meaningful with my free time makes me feel better about the prospect of living in Korea for a long long time.  It won't always be easy: the time management challenge alone will be a biggie, and I have a wedding coming up, but I think I can do a good job of it, and I'm excited to be part of an organization with a lot of cool people who are passionate about making life better for English teachers.  Plus, I get business cards!

If you want to talk to me about personal or blog stuff, write me at the address on the right: roboseyo at gmail.  If you want to write me about ATEK stuff, I'm going to try to keep them separate, so please send it to media[@]atek[.]or[.]kr   If you have some advice, some suggestions, or if you want to help me out as a volunteer, because you like me so much, or just because you're awesome, some of the ideas I've been tossing around for improving communications will take some help, so drop me a line.

Have a great day, readers.

Roboseyo

Circus Acrobats...

I love Circus shows.  I love what humans have trained themselves to do.  The first live circus I saw that I can remember well (I think I went to a few when I was a kid, but didn't grasp at the time how friggin' hard it is, what they do,) was in North Korea, at the Geumgang Resort.  The stuff they could do was mind-blowing, and I felt like I was seven years old again... I'm still sad that I wasn't allowed to bring recording devices into the country, or buy a DVD.  Not that circuses EVER look good on DVD.

Saw this on Collegehumor, which usually does comedy, but every once in a wile puts some "wow" on their video feed, and it reminded my.

My favorite circus story was when I went to Beijing in December '08/ January '09 with my best friend and his wife; she speaks Chinese extremely well, so she did a lot of bargaining for us to get awesome prices and deals on a lot of stuff.  When she got on the phone with the circus people, to reserve tickets for the Beijing Circus, she tried to argue for a discount, and the phone operator just answered, "What they do is hard." and she had nothing to say.  Check it out.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

The circuses I've been to since then, starting with the most "wow":

1. Geumgang Mountain Tour, North Korea

2. Alegria, by Cirque du Soleil (wrote about it here and here - some of the video clips have been taken down; others are good)

3. Quidam, by Cirque du Soleil

4. Chinese Circus in Shanghai

5. Chinese Circus in Beijing (China takes so many Olympic medals in gymnastics, and supplies performers to every circus in the world, and it shows in their domestic circus shows.)

And being #5 on that list is no shame, buddy.  That's all for now.

Blood Connections, Group to Address Blood-Donation Issues, to Meet on Sunday

Blood Connections is a group conceived by some of the people who were working to collect blood for YooWoon, the 19-year-old boy who had a facebook page and a blood drive done in his name, but who passed away last week.

Some people, myself included, discovered that there are a number of issues making it harder for non-Korean speakers to give blood in Korea.  On Sunday, in Kangnam, a group of these people are meeting to start a group meant to address these issues, and make it easier for foreigners to give blood in Korea.  The facebook page is here, and it's a good cause that can mean life or death.

Death Threats, K-Bloggers, Lousy Korea

I wrote an article for The Korea Herald about the Lousy Korea incident, which you can also read about at I'm No Picasso here; the best commentary on the issue so far is coming from Korean Rum Diary, who's made some interesting and thoughtful posts on the topic.  His first discusses critics of negative blogs; his second is actually a long comment from the blogger Lousy Korea, and his third responds to the article I wrote today in the Korea Herald.  In the comments to the first of KRD's posts, The Korean leaves a response that's worth reading.

You can read my article in the Korea Herald here. Duplicate link here in case the first goes dead.

I'd written a big, really long post about this issue that I was going to run this week, but while writing the Herald article, I asked LK to contact me, and during that correspondence, she said that she doesn't wish this thing to be made too much more of a big deal, for the sake of some of the people whose lives have been threatened.

So I'm going to summarize my long post, instead of publishing the whole thing.  Interestingly, it referenced the same news story KRD mentioned: Muslims threatening South Park for their Muhammed portrayal.

Here's the bullet point version of the original post:

1. Yeah, Lousy Korea had a harsh tone that was quite provocative.
2. I'm No Picasso notes here that "hater K-bloggers" and "psycho nutizens" are both extreme fringes who do not represent their groups, but who sometimes makes their entire group look bad.
3. Yep, Korean Sentry can be hateful... but no worse than some of Dave's ESL's Hate Korea comment threads.
4. A lot of this stuff relates to my old "Why Do Expats Complain"/"Why Do Koreans Get So Defensive" teamup.

Longer points:

5. (똥)개 눈에는 똥만 보인다 - a Korean saying literally translated, according to Girlfriendoseyo, "The dog that eats shit, only looks for shit."  I think "The dog with shit in his eye sees only shit" is snappier, but basically, some kinds of writing reveal more about the writer than the subject.  Such extreme writing speaks for itself, and undermines itself with its vitriol; if somebody's having SUCH a bad time in Korea, they ought to be pitied, and then ignored.

6. Most of the "Hate Korea" blogs out there have fewer than 50 followers: they're not reaching a large audience, nor are they really trying to.  It's mostly a few buddies passing notes to each other in class.

(with apologies to Jason Ryan)
Q: If a tree shouts, "Korea sucks" in the forest, ten other trees shout, "Hear, hear!" and nobody else is there to hear it, does it make a sound?
A: Who cares?  I have more important things to worry about.

7.  "Hate Korea" blogs and the extreme reactions they engender lead to a perception that expats and Korean society are incompatible - in the same way that South Park's Mohammed jokes and militant groups' overreactions create the perception that Muslims will NEVER integrate into Western society.  Is the laugh that South Park got for taking cracks at Mohammed worth the mutual alienation that develops between Muslim and Western society?  I don't know.

8. While there are enough Koreans who can read English and access OUR complaining blogs, there are way too few expats who can read enough Korean to answer the K-defenders with "But a Korean blogger said the same thing yesterday!" and provide a link.  That's too bad.

9. Free speech doesn't mean Speech without consequences.  Free speech, even on the internet, has consequences, be that hundreds of commenters flaming me for saying "Wondergirls suck" or Birthers shrieking because I wrote in support of Obamacare, expressing yourself on the internet has consequences. The Marmot, Garry Bevers, Kushibo, and Brian in Jeollanam-do have all been personally attacked or threatened for their online actions.  You own everything you say on the internet, forever.  No, people shouldn't be allowed to publish my address and phone my employer: there are appropriate and inappropriate responses to free speech, but speech DOES have consequences.  Even anonymous speech can be traced by smart, persistent people, and a dedicated sleuth might expose even the thing you thought was completely anonymous!

10. The cycle of Misunderstanding: I really think there's a big misunderstanding leading to the negative cycle of Haters and K-defenders.  Here's how it works:

1. Expats vent online, kind of like a group therapy session (the internet's good for getting together group therapy and support communities)
2. K-defenders read the venting and miss the group-therapy context, and react.  Maybe they start out rationally (which would be fine if the point of the forum really were intellectual exchange, but it isn't: it's catharsis), maybe they don't start out rationally.  But they react.
3. Expats mistake the K-defender's defensiveness for either an invalidation of their right to free speech, or a denial of the realities they face every day.  Instead of explaining, "Kindly leave us to our group therapy," they double-down, and re-assert their right to free speech, usually by saying even nastier things about Korea.
4. Repeat steps 2-4 until everyone hates everyone.

11. You're not the first one to notice this blog is one-sided.  K-defenders forget that the other people who read the "Hate Korea" blogs have brains, probably don't believe everything they read on the internet, and most likely suspect any blog that is one-sided, either positive (suspected to be propaganda) or negative (suspected to be vendetta).  Readers will seek out other sources, if they care enough to get the full story. If readers are so disengaged and incurious they don't check their facts and read other sources, who cares what they think?

12. When people are putting stuff on the internet, I don't know if "You're not my intended audience" can/should be a "get out of jail free" card; regardless, if it's something easily misunderstood, it's the barest of prudence to put a disclaimer on the front page: something like "This blog is a satire;" or "this blog is just my own opinion;" or "I usually write when I'm feeling a lot of feelings, so the things you read here might not reflect how I feel 80-95% of the time;" or "These are jokes. Lighten up or move on."

13. In my own experience of K-defensiveness, I don't think it's as bad as it used to be, but I don't know if that's because there are more Koreans able to talk openly to foreigners about negative topics, because I'm getting better at presenting my thoughts tactfully, or because I'm getting better at spotting who is and who isn't up to those kinds of discussions, and I naturally avoid those who can't.

who knows.

Wanna Chat with Foreign Beauties? How to Make Friends with a Foreigner Part 6

This post is part of a series providing tips for expats in Korea who are interested in becoming friends with Koreans, and tips for Koreans who are interested in becoming friends with Westerners. Read. Yes, I know these are sweeping generalizations. Deal with it.

The table of contents for the entire series is here.

Tip 15 Be calm: if you find yourself wanting to "correct" my opinion, or if you find yourself wanting to say something like "You should learn more about Korea before you criticize," it's time to do one of two things: 1. do a quick emotion-check - breathe deeply, count to ten, and continue as coolly and rationally as possible, with delicate, tactful language, in a calm voice, or 2. if you don't feel like doing that, or if you're afraid your emotions will make it hard to do that, just change the subject.

Honestly, this is a bad habit many foreigners have: it's natural to have complaints about life -- nobody's ever 100% happy -- but sometimes we choose the wrong time or place to say them, or we take our normal, natural complaints about life, and make them sound like we're complaining generally about Korea, not specifically about a situation. If it seems like the conversation is about to turn into a bunch of complaining, it might be time to change the subject.

If you don't want to have conversations like this, see also tip 11: don't ask questions that could be taken as an invitation to complain.

Tip 15.1 Please allow me to have bad days. Some days, my boss was a jerk, or the crowded subway was annoying, or some of my students' mothers complained about my teaching. If I complain about those things, please listen to me, and don't think that my complaining is a final judgement on your country, or your culture. I need friends to help me deal with my bad days, not Korea defenders to tell me I shouldn't feel that way!

Complaints are emotional, especially if I just had a bad day, and when I'm emotional, I don't always choose my words carefully. That's normal human behavior; please remember that before getting defensive.

Tip 16 Be ready for a different kind of friendship than you have with your Korean friends. I don't feel comfortable explaining in detail exactly how, because "foreigners" is a pretty diverse group, as are Koreans, and the specifics vary for every two different people... but the ways and reasons Koreans form and maintain friendships are sometimes different than the ways and reasons foreigners form and maintain friendships, so there will be times when things are different, strange, maybe even uncomfortable for both of us. In those cases, if you really want to have a good foreign friend, it'll be important for you to talk with me about what's happening, and how or why things are different than you'd each expect from your friends of the same culture. If you can both keep open minds and negotiate those challenges, then you'll be on the way to having a truly rewarding friendship. But especially if you haven't lived outside of Korea, and your friend hasn't spent time in other cultures growing up, both sides will need to work on being flexible. If we can both be flexible, it's totally worth it.

And remember: "It's a cultural difference" is NOT the end of a conversation.  It's the BEGINNING of a conversation.  After saying "It's a cultural difference," it's important to articulate that difference, and how my expectations are different than your expectations, so that we can be understanding and flexible towards each other in the future.

Now, following these tips won’t automatically guarantee that you’ll become great friends with every foreigner you meet: friendship depends on more than avoiding faux-pas - but by avoiding these turn-off behaviors, you’ll hopefully have the tools to make the kind of good impression that leads to good friendships. Have fun!

Back to the Table of Contents for the series.

I'm in the Canadian Embassy's April Newsletter!

The Canadian Embassy wrote a feature about me in their monthly newsletter.  :)

You can read it here.

You can go to this page, and in the top right corner there's a spot where you can subscribe to the newsletter.

Also, on the right side of this blog, under the "helpful sites worth checking out" category, you can find a link to the Embassy's page of information about coming to Korea to teach English.  It's a pretty good primer that touches on the most important points without getting over-long.

Wanna Chat with Korean Buddies? How not to make an Ass of Yourself: Part 4

This post is part of a series providing tips for expats in Korea who are interested in becoming friends with Koreans, and tips for Koreans who are interested in becoming friends with Westerners. Read. Yes, I know these are sweeping generalizations. Deal with it.

Here's the table of contents to the series.

On to the tips:

Learn as much as you can about Korean manners. Gord Sellar just wrote a great piece about what is called "Gaijin Smash" in Japan - where foreigners get away with stuff, or dodge the usual expectations or obligations by feigning ignorance of Japanese norms, or demanding special treatment. Don't over-play the foreigner card, and learn how we Koreans deal with conflict resoluation. Open confrontation often isn't the way it's done here; if you have an awkward situation, ask a Korean friend for advice rather than starting off with your battering ram impersonation. As a general rule, Koreans usually prefer back-channels and indirect methods of conflict resolution, rather than direct confrontation; we even have a word for it: 눈치, or nunchi, which might be defined as a cross between social awareness and tact on steroids. Learning a bit of how to comport yourself with nunchi will go a long way. Give a person a small gift and invite them to go drinking to work things out privately, instead of hauling off with a confrontation in front of colleagues, where I lose face, and you lose even MORE face, for making me lose face.

Don't ask how to get a Korean girl. What would you say if a Korean exchange student in your home country asked you the same question? Probably, "Every girl is different; I don't know what to tell you," right? Why would you think it's different here?

So here's Roboseyo's authoritative guide to meeting Korean girls: step one: Come to Korea. Step two: Approach a girl. Step three: Put your best foot forward, and hope she likes you. The Korean from Ask A Korean! wisely notes that "If there is only one thing to remember about Korean men, it’s this: they are men before they are Korean." Ditto for women: it's pretty universal that women want to be treated with respect and kindness. It's universal that there are some awesome women and some crazy psychos in every country. While variations in culture might lead to differences in how people express certain things, or how an an individual's awesomeness/psychoness manifents, those differences won't be that much more confusing than the usual variations between individuals, if you keep an open mind. One friend advises watching a few Korean dramas and romantic comedies to see what women expect from a suitor. From there, figure it out.

Earn your right to be opinionated. When giving opinions on Korea, acknowledge what you don't know. Even Roboseyo remembers having conversations with Koreans in his first year, telling them everything that was wrong with Korea, and exactly how it could be fixed. Coincidentally, the best way to fix things, most of the time, was to do them more the way they were done in Canada. Old Roboseyo was operating under the false assumption that Koreans don't already know what's broke in their system, and got caught up in the heady notion that he would be the visionary - that vaunted outside voice - who could break people's thinking out of the box of Neo-Confucianism (whatever that means) or hyper-competition, or whatever.

Problem is, the more Roboseyo learned about Korea, the more complex all those problems seemed. It's no surprise that a lot of us Koreans rankle when somebody acts as if they have it all figured out, three months into their Korea experience. During all those conversations on his high horse, Roboseyo didn't actually say anything his Korean friends hadn't heard before, and been said better, by a social critic, a commentator, or a thinker in Korea. Don't fall into the trap of thinking we will never have heard your "western perspective" before. Approach discussions of Korean issues with a level of humility appropriate to your level of knowledge about the country.  

Pick Your Spots, Too. Make sure our friendship can bear the frequency and type of complaints, criticisms, and commentaries you make on Korea. It IS my country, after all, so I probably won't want to talk about social issues all the time, nor will I want to hear complaints and criticisms every time we talk.   Spend some time talking about travel, or food, or video games, so that it doesn't seem like the only thing we ever talk about is all the ways you'd change Korea, if you could.

Meanwhile, if you don't know me well enough to read when I'm starting to feel uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation, you shouldn't be getting overly critical to begin with, and if you do know me well enough to read my comfort level, be sure to do so during the discussion.  It's generally a good idea to save the "Korea bashing" theme for other expats, who understand the difference between the "group therapy" context and the "representations of Korean culture" context.

Finally: Don't talk about sex all the time.  Some of us don't mind that - some of us even hang out with non-Koreans so that we can speak a little more freely about topics that are taboo to most Koreans, but not all of us.  It's quite unusual, and often embarrassing to have a lot of really open conversations about sex, even if it's in English, because these days, a lot of people can understand English, and can follow every word you're saying if you talk about it in public.  Even if the other people in the coffee shop don't understand every English word, they'll still recognize words like "sex" and "fuck" - we all watch Hollywood movies.  Once again, pick your spots, and don't go into it unless you already have a pretty good read on a person's sensibilities and comfort zones.

Well, that's what I've got for now. If you can think of other things I've missed, let me know. I hope this series turns out useful for both sides.

And even though I've just spent a few thousand words dredging up stereotypes and awkward aspects of either side of the expat/Korean friendship, here's my bit:

Basically, if you boil down both lists, they sum up the same way: be considerate and respectful, and consider the person you're meeting as a complete human, and not just an example of their group. Really, that's all anyone wants, because, to modify The Korean's quote: "We're humans before we're Koreans, or Westerners."

I've grown uncomfortable with the casual tendency to say "I talked to a Korean nurse at the clinic" instead of saying "I talked to a nurse..." because often adding the "Korean" (or "foreign") label means lumping a whole bunch of baggage over top of the initial situation. "A Korean lady pushed me on the subway." No. "A rude lady pushed me on the subway." Using the word "Korean" there instead of the word "rude" seems to saddle the category of "Korean" with rudeness, and fails to acknowledge the diversity of Koreans, and that's unfair. On both sides, we need to be more careful about avoiding such casual categorizations.

One of my correspondents concurs:

Even though I said these things, this is the small part of my friends/foreigners aspects. Mostly, the foreigners I know are really nice but I sent this list because I had to think about what could be annoying for me.

and I'd say the same thing about the Koreans I know.

Hope you've enjoyed the read.

Back to the table of contents.

Don't Trust Your Boss? How's Peace of Mind for 20 a Month?

I got an e-mail from ATEK's President, Greg Dolezal. I'm a member of ATEK now, and am planning on becoming more involved. I'd rather not let that take over this blog entirely, but I would like to put some of my energy in that direction, and you'll hear about it here from time to time.

Meanwhile, there's an exciting program that I'd like to mention here: Kangnam Labor Law Firm, which has handled a large volume of labor cases by reference from ATEK, is testing a new program called "Legal Assurance" You can read about it, including the text of the ATEK member e-mail, at Chris in SK's blog, it's mentioned at Expacked, and explained further at Kangnam Labor Law Firm's own site.  After reading up, here's the breakdown, as I understand it.

Basically, it works like health insurance: instead of paying tens of thousands for a surgery when you get sick, you pay a little each month, which adds to the pool of insurance payees, and when something big comes along, they draw from that pool to help you out with your surgery.  In this case, 20 000 won a month pays into the monthly plan, which amounts to a retainer, and give you access to the law firm's services.

So why is this a good idea?  Dollars and cents, readers.

See, the standard labor lawyer's retainer fee at Kangnam Labor Law Firm -- the fee you pay them before they start looking into your case -- is 600 000 won, to recruit their services.  Then, if you win a settlement, the firm is also entitled to 30% of the entire settlement, on top of the retainer.

Doing the math on that, if your boss is trying to rip you off for 1 000 000 won, the retainer is 600 000, and then the firm gets 30% of the settlement on top of that.  This means out of your million, 600 000 goes into the retainer, and another 300 000 goes to the firm as a percentage of your settlement, leaving you with 100 000 won - not even worth the effort.  Basically, this means that for cases in which your boss is trying to stiff you for a smaller amount, it's just not worth going to a labor lawyer; your only choice is to cut your losses and look for a better job.

The next problem with doing things this way, is that lawyers don't get called into the case until the dispute has already "gone nuclear" as the law firm calls it -- not until things have gotten so bad between the teacher and the boss, that the teacher is actually willing to cough up 600 000 won - no small amount - to get it sorted.

The last problem with doing things this way is that a lot of English teachers in bad spots need a lawyer for the same reasons they can't afford a retainer: because they're not getting paid.  How is one expected to pony up 600 000 won, when the REASON one needs a lawyer is because one hasn't been paid in two months?

So how does 20 000 a month help?

First, it means that you can access a labor lawyer without dropping 600 000; this means that you can have Kangnam Labor Law Firm backing you up in issues over smaller amounts - that big retainer means  that until the amount in dispute is larger than 2 500 000 won, it's not really worth your while to call in a lawyer, but for 20 000 a month, you can have access to a law firm ready to mediate, negotiate, and support you in smaller matters as well.

Second, it means that rather than waiting until things have gotten really bad between an employer and an employee, you can bring a lawyer in sooner in the process, or get better advice sooner, and hopefully settle the matter before it has to go to court, which is better for everyone.  Mediation is way better than lawsuits, it's faster, and less antagonistic, and there's less chance of totally fire-bombing your working relationship forever (if that's important to you).  If there IS a problem that requires going to court, no further retainer is required, but the firm is there to advise you long before things get bad enough to consider going to court, and there to mediate issues rather than having to bring the hammer.

Third, it means that you can access the expert legal advice of a labor law firm whenever you need it, which could be worth a lot, not just in terms of a stronger negotiating position, but also in terms of peace of mind.

I'd say 20 000 a month is a small price for peace of mind.  So who should sign up for this?

Well, at this point, the Legal Assurance Program is a trial balloon: they're doing a small-scale release, a "soft opening" to see how it works out, and to see if the model is viable.  They might tinker with the model a bit before rolling it out on a larger scale. If it does work out well, I'd say anybody who doesn't trust their boss, anybody who's observed sketchy behavior from their employer, whose employer seems to be hiding something, who's had to fight for things they're entitled to, like health insurance, or who's been burned in the past, and doesn't want it to happen again, would be stupid not to sign up.  Like health insurance or life insurance, anybody who's not sure about the security of their position would have much less to worry about if they signed up, and 20 000 a month is nothing: that's six bowls of jajangmyeon in Seoul, or a meal and a pint at Wolfhound, or three Long Island Ice Teas.  I'm not sure exactly how limited this limited release is, or how many monthly retainers they're putting on the table at this point, but I hope they go to people that need them.

I predict that in the first group of people signing up, Kangnam Labor Law Firm will end up dealing with a lot of grievances, so that it won't pay for itself immediately; however, I think that once that initial burst settles down, it'll be well worth it for them, in revenues and in reputation among English teachers, and it'll be a huge boon for English teachers who aren't sure about the situation they're heading into.

I think it's awesome that Kangnam Labor Law Firm is trying out this system; I hope it works, and I hope we can see others like it.  For those who have been asking what ATEK's done for them, lately, I'd say this is a pretty strong indication that, while ATEK hasn't been loud (though some of its critics have), it has been getting stuff done.

Go to the website and read more about the plan, and you're also free to write them if you have a question at i.need.help@k-labor.com.

(by the way: I'm not a lawyer, and I'm not qualified to give legal advice.  Don't take this as such.  Instead, contact Kangnam Labor Law Firm where they actually know what they're talking about, rather than just reading stuff and putting it into pretty words.)

YooWoon Passes Away at Yonsei Severance Hospital

According to messages from Marie, founder of the "Save YooWoon" facebook event, YooWoon, the subject of 2S2's blood drive, passed away yesterday at Yonsei Severance Hospital.

At the facebook page, Marie wrote:

"On behalf of YooWoon's family and myself, thank you once again for your tremendous support during this difficult time."

If you're part of the facebook group, you've received a message about where to pay respects to YooWoon, or you can contact Marie through the facebook page; I won't be publishing that information here, so that any stranger off the street can saunter in: I think I'd recommend that if you haven't met him already, or spoken to his family, it might be best to let the family and friends grieve in privacy.

Regardless, a big thanks to everyone who helped out by donating blood or spreading the word.

Until next time, and especially if you have a rare blood type, it might be a good time to think about donating yourself, or seeing what you can do to make sure that you won't be stuck in a bad situation if something bad happens while you're here in Korea.

Weekend with Roboseyo

Post soundtrack:
Don't Stop the Music, by Jamie Cullum


cross-posted at Nanoomi.net

The weekend before last was an interesting one for me.  Great, but also full of surprises.  Giving blood, a concert, and a flower boy, coming up...


First of all, after a bit of build-up, the 2S2 Meeting I wrote about earlier, met on Saturday afternoon at 2Pm, near Anguk Station.  We were planning to go down to the blood clinic in Shinchon.

Though there are now 350 or so people on the facebook page, only two people came to the 2S2 Meetup where we planned to give blood.



Maybe that was because all the talk of who can and who can't give blood... maybe it's because a Facebook promise means less than a pinky-swear, and maybe it's because everybody'd already given blood elsewhere.  I'll assume it's the third choice.

So those of us who were eligible to give blood headed to the clinic in Shinchon.  We were told several times that it would be very difficult to take foreigners' blood, for a few different reasons.  The biggest one was the requirement that foreigners have lived in Korea for the last year (continuously, according to some interviewers); secondly, we were quite clearly told that if I didn't speak Korean well enough to answer the questions in a Korean-only interview, without an interpreter, I couldn't give blood.  Now, blood doesn't have a language, so even though it seems to me that it wouldn't be hard to find a way to work around language gaps, for people who are willing to give blood, the clinic people were fairly emphatic about the language issue.  However, when we actually went to the clinic, they allowed the lovely Ms. Hwang (see the photo above) to help me out with the interview after all.  I had a translation of the interview questions in front of me, and we could have probably done the interview on our own, with a little pointing and nodding, and my limited Korean, but it worked out well with Ms. Hwang's help as well.  Once we figured out that I COULD give blood, the process was almost too easy.


I gave blood.  The needle hurt, but I didn't cry.  Because I'm brave.

I'm AB+ - a somewhat rare type, but unfortunately not the type that YooWoon Jeon needs; however, it felt good to give blood, and I'll do it again in two months, when I'm once again eligible.

That night I saw a concert by Jamie Cullum, a British pop/jazz artist whom Girlfriendoseyo adores.  Before the show, we got some free coffee from this table:


It was free, so we got what we paid for... but it was so weak we couldn't even tell whether it was supposed to be coffee or tea, and we left it on top of the trash can, where everybody else left their sad, abandoned cups.  The bathroom sink counter was also littered with cups, where people had poured out their swamp-water.

the coffee was so bad nobody seemed to finish their cup

As for the Jamie Cullum concert, he was awesome: his singing voice is beautiful, cool and smooth but also youthful and energetic (if you played the soundtrack at the top of the post, you're listening to him now).  All through the show, it was obvious that he was having more fun than anybody else in the building, and he not only performed a fantastic live set, but he entertained the heck out of every audience member.



We weren't actually supposed to take pictures, but during the second encore ("High and Dry") everyone else had their cameras out, so I didn't see the harm in getting out mine.  Maybe later I'll put up video of the audience singing along on Youtube.  It was a sweet moment.

Jamie Cullum in Concert
[/caption]

On Sunday, I met some friends at Yeouido park to see the cherry blossoms that hadn't quite come out yet.

Yeouido Park was packed with people.[/caption]

The picnic was good, though I was a bit late; however, the highlight of my day was this guy, who was prancing around dressed in pink, plastic flowers, motioning or asking for people to take their pictures with him.  I'm not sure whether he was doing it because he lost a bet, or was being initiated into a super-cool club (and he'd better be on the fast-track for president, if that's the case) or if he's just naturally like this, but this kid, who might have been fifteen, was the unexpected highlight of the Sunday.

This funny kid was posing for pictures


Thanks, buddy.

More later, readers!

Wanna Chat with Foreign Beauties? How to Make Friends with a Foreigner Part 5

This post is part of a series providing tips for expats in Korea who are interested in becoming friends with Koreans, and tips for Koreans who are interested in becoming friends with Westerners. Read. Yes, I know these are sweeping generalizations. Deal with it.

The table of contents for the entire series is here.

Tip 13: Be realistic. I’m one person, not a representative of a whole group. Please don’t ask me questions like “what do foreigners think of Korea?” because there are more than a million foreigners in Korea, with different ages, educations, origins, and experiences of Korea. If you think foreigners are one huge group that are basically all the same, you'll miss the chance to experience the huge variety of foreigners in Korea.

Yes, I am aware of the irony of myself, speaking on behalf of all foreigners, imploring Koreans not to ask us to speak on behalf of all foreigners.

Tip 13.1 Don't expect me to know everything about my home country. Especially if I’ve been in Korea for a long time, my knowledge about my home country becomes outdated, and rusty. Canada was a different place in 2003, when I left. Seven years later, the internet is a more reliable source than I am about a lot of things.

Tip 13.2 Especially, do not ask me to defend my country's political actions, foreign policy, etc., or hold me responsible for decisions made by my home country's business or political leaders... and if you’re going to bring up social problems in my home country, make sure you have your facts straight, and it doesn’t sound like you’re just bringing them up to show that you think Korea’s better. A former student used to come into class saying "I read that Canada has a higher divorce rate than Korea. What do you have to say about that?"... I didn't have much to say, but when he invited me to hang out outside of class, I politely declined.

Tip 14 Be yourself: In the same way, don't try to represent all Koreans, or speak as if all Koreans are basically the same. Korea is a diverse, sometimes extremely divided country - North and South, Jeolla and Gyungsan, Left Wing and Right Wing, rich and poor, city and country, and so forth. When my friends start saying "Koreans are..." "Koreans think..." a lot, I begin to wonder where they got their facts.

Tip 14.1 Also, don't start talking like a promotional flyer. It makes it seem like you care about my opinion of your country more than you care about me, personally. If I want to know about something, I'll ask, and unless you know a lot more about a topic than most Koreans, I've probably already heard it (especially once a foreigner has been in Korea longer than six months).

Tip 14.2 These last two rules go double for talking about politics, hot topics and controversial issues. You don't have to defend Korea in areas where everybody knows it needs improvement, just because this time, the critic is a foreigner instead of another Korean. You're allowed to say "Yeah. We Koreans hate ___, too. It's pretty fucked up." In fact, we'd love it if you were that honest with us: it would show that you're sincere about having an honest conversation.

And the concluding installment: here's part 6!  Don't forget to check out "How Foreigners can be better friends to their Korean friends" to see the other side.


Back to the Table of Contents

Wanna Chat with Korean Buddies? How not to make an Ass of Yourself: Part 3

This post is part of a series providing tips for expats in Korea who are interested in becoming friends with Koreans, and tips for Koreans who are interested in becoming friends with Westerners. Read. Yes, I know these are sweeping generalizations. Deal with it.

The table of contents for the entire series is here.

Well whaddaya know, after all that ranting and raving about the expat's side, I'm having to take more care in presenting the Korean viewpoint. However, in all fairness, this is equally, or maybe MORE important to include on an English language blog, so here's part three: how not to make an ass of yourself around potential Korean friends.

Next guideline: don't get in such a snit if I ask your age, job, major, blood type, or marriage status. They're just questions, and when in Rome, expect the Romans to bring up topics common to Roman small talk. Durr. There are two reasons people ask these questions: 1. because I'm sizing you up, and 2. because I'm nervous about talking all in English to a foreigner, and I can't think of anything else to say.

1. If I AM sizing you up... it's Korea. It comes with the territory, and if you make this into a big deal, you're making bad choices about which walls to butt your head against, particularly because the head-butting of this wall exacts a steep social cost. If you really think you're a manners missionary sent here to teach the Mongol hordes how to hold a China teacup, well, your colonialism is showing.

(image)

If the first three minutes of the conversation is the pyre on which you choose to burn your chances to have a real Korean friend, you're dooming yourself to a seriously stunted social life, and being more than a bit of an arrogant foreigner to boot.

2. Maybe I'm asking those questions because all those clever things I was thinking of saying before I met you just vanished in a hazy cloud of "Oh crap I think I just made an English mistake." If I asked because I'm nervous, and you make a big deal out it, you'll make me MORE nervous. Realize that some Koreans may well feel like they're being tested every time they speak to a foreigner... because usually they are. Factor that nervousness into your approach to these kinds of conversations.

Next tip: don't dress like a homeless person. Even if they're off duty, here in Korea, people take care of their appearance. That's just how we roll. It's embarrasing to be seen around a foreigner who looks like he just got back from the island in Castaway.

Get a haircut.

Another helpful "when in Rome" tip: pay attention to the body language Koreans use when talking to each other, and try to use similar kinds. The size and type of hand gestures, the ways and closeness of entering another person's personal space, are different from one culture to another; trying to mirror what you see around you will help people feel more comfortable with you faster.

Next tip: If you're new here, it's OK to not know much about the country... but don't be proud of how little you know. Don't boast that "I've been here for three years and I still can't read Hayangewl!" and don't be derisive or dismissive when I do try to explain something, or immediately fire back with your country's equivalent of whatever I'm describing, as if that mere description has invalidated everything I said, and again demonstrated your culture's superiority. An inquisitive and respectful attitude is the bare minimum if you want to make friends with Koreans; without it, don't even bother trying.

Start off speaking plainly, and a little slowly when you first meet me, until you've spoken with me enough to gauge how well I can listen to Native English. Instead of starting off speaking quickly, with lots of slang and colloquial language, start simple, and raise your level of speech to match my listening ability. It isn't fun when you talk over my head.

Give a damn about your job. If you're here to teach, be a teacher, and do your best. Don't crap on the reputation of foreign English teachers while you're here. [Roboseyo here: I've written about this topic before... but I swear this one was actually in an e-mail I got from a reader.]

Next tip: Give a little back to the friend who helps you out. Back to that gratitude thing for a second: If I helped you with your banking, or some other communication issue, back it up with a little unbegrudging quid pro quo. Proofread a bit of my writing homework or help out as well as you can with a grammar question I have or something. While it doesn't feel nice to be someone's "I only call you when I need some English tips" friend, it IS nice to return favors.

(P.S. also in this vein: Korea is totally a gift giving culture. "Thank you" gifts, "I'm sorry" gifts "let's work this out" gifts and even, "Hey! It's been another month and we're still co-workers" gifts are all kosher. You don't even necessarily need to carefully think through and come up with deeply thoughtful, personalized gifts - the standbys [paris baguette cakes, boxes of chocolates, cookies or traditional snack sets, leaf teas, wine bottles, or even big boxes of spam or olive oil are acceptable for those kinds of perfunctory gifts] thoughtful's better, but not always necessary when it comes to performing the social rituals of friendship. If you hand-make something for me - knit a cap or a scarf - I'll be really touched, because hand-made, personalized is way above and beyond the normal expectation for gift giving.

Here's part four!

Back to the table of contents.

Food Bloggers Unite! We need This!

This is the continuation of the "iPod Touch" post I wrote about Hi Expat.

Maybe this is just my fantasy, but here's the thing I'd really, really love to see: these days, there's tons of useful info about good eats around Korea out there, but it's scattered into so many places one needs the skills of a librarian and the patience of a turtle-trainer to really get the most useful details... and seeing the mini-maps on Hi Expat's page, got me thinking, "Why isn't it all on one huge google map?" -given that Korea changes so quickly, books don't really cut it anyway, especially on the restaurant scene, where places open and close all the time. A a wiki is a living document that can be constantly updated: exactly what we need.

So here's the idea: I don't have the tech savvy or the time to do it myself, but I'm sure it could be done: you know how everybody just KNOWS that The Korean Blog List is the starting point for every ambitious Would-blog-Expat? Well, I'd really like to see the food writers in Korea get together for a crowd-source-ish wiki-map of all the places they've collectively scouted out, all across Korea: you'll find one of Gangnam, or Jongno, or Jeonju, but imagine if it were all gathered into one place?

Here are the things I think it would need:
1. curators - to remove restaurants flagged by users for either being inaccurate/incompletely reviewed, or having closed, and to maintain at least some standards (Do we really need that MacDonalds in Guri marked? Really?)

2. a system for flagging a restaurant review, or a restaurant, for either incomplete or inaccurate information, or a restaurant that has closed since its review. Maybe a set of guidelines for when to flag a review, and when not to, so as not to waste time on "I totally disagreed with this reviewer's rating for service"

3. a way to add feedback to existing reviews (a second opinion) - HiExpat's restaurant guide has a good system for doing this. Maybe even a button to click if a review's been up for a few years to say, "This restaurant is still in existence" because I know how much it sucks to get a jones for a food, only to show up and have the place gone.

4. a standardized rating system including scores for price, menu, quality, service, atmosphere, and English spoken. (zenkimchi dining has a pretty good system)

5. a way to ban reviewers who violate a simple set of guidelines, or post spam links
6. when you click on a pin to see a preview of the location (see below)
the window that pops up should contain this information:

-links to any reviews of that location (if users can submit these themselves, it would save the curators time)

-a box you can check to flag it (for inaccurate reviews, dead links, no-longer-existent restaurants, or links that don't lead to reviews)

-a summary of the reviews so far (average overall rating or something)

-maybe (and I'm getting greedy here) a check box like at Amazon.com that shows "23 out of 31 people found this review useful" - but that might be getting a bit crowded.

6. searchable tags for entries (Chinese/Japanese/Indian/Vegetarian/Kangnam/Itaewon/Bundang/budget/romantic/etc.)

Whoever puts this together first wins.

Readers: in the comments, which websites have are the most useful food info for you, when you're, say, looking for "a chinese restaurant in Jamsil" or "shabu shabu in Jongno" or the like?

I've made one map - here it is - about finding good food in Jongno. Feel free to enjoy all the places here.

View Where Brian Should Eat: Jongno and Insadong in a larger map

Finally, this wouldn't be complete if I didn't plug the guy who totally gave me a free iPod Touch in the last post:

Go to Hi Expat and submit a few reviews of the places on his restaurant listings!