Just funny... Self-Evident Truths in Writing Class

In one of my Writing classes, I just gave a test, and one of the questions was "Identify the problem with this thesis statement" -- we'd spent a lot of time talking about Thesis Statements.

Some of the problems in the thesis statements were things like:
"not specific enough"
"support does not use grammatically parallel form"
"not controversial" (for example: "Exercise is good for you" is not a good thesis statement, because most people would read it and say, "DUH")
"does not take a clear position on the topic"
"uses absolute language, making the thesis difficult to prove"

The thesis statement was:

"There are three reasons all Americans love hamburgers: they are cheap, convenient, and tasty."

The correct answer was
"This thesis statement makes an absolute claim that cannot be proven" - that is, the word "all" makes the claim indefensible, and should be replaced with a word like "some" or "many" or even "most" -- leaving room for exceptions to the assertion.

About a third of my students thought the problem with the thesis statement was
"This statement is not controversial"

Turns out "All Americans love hamburgers" is a self-evident truth. They're Americans, after all.

And all you can do is smile.

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.

And... A couple of reminders:

Why not to hand in your article late after the native speaking proofreader has gone home. Flag-waving aside (see the second half), what horrible writing.

Why TO do prewriting (I'm teaching that right now) and planning before you write, and why to ALWAYS have a thesis before you start writing. Choi Yong-hearn, Korea's Dokdo poet, writing an editorial where it seems like somebody said "You have a Ph.D. Just write whatever and we'll print it." And he did.

FIle under WTF: Toys in Dongdaemun Market, Bum Jokes in Korea

Bum and poop jokes are a refined art here in Korea:

see Zenkimchi and Brian for more.  (Especially this one.)

Knowing this makes it no less surprising to come across something like this.

Found in Dongdaemun Market.

Uhh... yeah.

And that's all for today, folks.

Stay warm.

-Rob

For now...

About to head off for the weekend and Do Fun Stuff.

If you think I'm super-cool, (or just think the kind of people I hang out with are cool, which they are) and want to hang out with me in Seoul, this is just my notice for you to set aside your November 22nd evening...more details to come.

Until then, for your entertainment and edification...
some links

1. putting stuff in a microwave


2. Wanna know what it's like to surf the internet in China? See what gets through The Great Firewall Of China.

3. A little high-brow humor from a Korean skit... for those who don't think Koreans have a sense of humor. (sigh: this advanced comedy technique of running a middling gag deep, deep into the ground, reminds me of the old days, watching Saturday Night Live)

Kim Jong Il is the new Waldo

A few other bloggers have linked to this, but it makes me laugh nonetheless.

The theme of the photoshop contest was "Kim Jong-Il lives," and go see the gallery at Somethingawful.com.

Another great pair of photoshop contests: "If a major war had gone the other way" and "What Campaign Ads Would Look Like if The Voting Age Was 6."

A Few Kim Jong-Il Highlights:


I found him. Can you?

The Birds and the Bees and The Rocks and the Bee Man

Life cycle of an inflatable advertising sign:

Flaccid.

Expanding

Fully extended. (source)

Add dancing girls.  Pretty ones if possible.

Then suddenly, you have baby inflatable signs.  It's all very mysterious, little grasshopper.

In other news. . .  spotted this "Travel Korea" ad next to the CNN Election news.

A little closer up:Now sure, they could have said, "How about your vacation" which would have even MORE awkwardly told us, "This ad was conceived and written in Korean, and a native English speaker may never have been consulted during any step in the process of creating it, except as a token whose advice we don't follow" but the fact is, native English speakers pretty much never use the question, "What about your..." to introduce new conversation topics.  "What about" is used to explore a different aspect of a topic already under discussion.  On the other hand, my Korean students love to start sentences with "What about" or "How about," whether it's appropriate English usage or not.  Then again, given that the ad was up on CN-freaking-N Online, I don't think they're trying to convince Korean esl students to travel to Seoul. . . in which case. . . 

Keep working on it, guys.  Go find the music-choosey people who put "I like big butts" on the soju ad.

In other Korean ad news: spotted on the wall of a restaurant in Damyang: (warning: adult content)  turns out Michaelangelo's David was a playa!

Also from the Damyang bus terminal: "Hey Minji!  Do you mind if I set up my prune operation in this corner of your shop?"

"Well, Mom, I WAS going to put up a shelf of munchies and other kinds of snacks to SELL there."

"But my house is too small, and these plums smell really strongly when they start fermenting.  Please?"

"Uhh... OK whatever, Mom."

And finally, the payoff you've been waiting for...

When you want to say "I'd DIE for this cause!" (and there are people who probably would here in Korea) there's a new way to express yourself:

Un-subtle (warning: gross)

(HT Japan Probe)

More subtle:
Ladies and Gentlemen, Dokdo Cigarettes!

(this last one courtesy of Joe)

Reason Number 1 that Korean Highway Rest Stops ROCK!

First Thing:

Korean highway rest stops are THE GREATEST PLACE to buy Trot, 트로트 music, in the world. There was a song I heard in a taxi and found catchy enough to sing, and get it stuck in my friend Amy's head. . . I went down to the Trot Music Stand which EVERY Korean rest stop has, and sang a bit of the song, and the lady pulled out just the CD. Cheap, too -- a double-CD - two full hours of cheesy musical goodness -- for only ten thousand won (and the way the won's going, may as well spend it these days).

This is the song: a goofy, great, silly, catchy as hell song to accompany your drive.

I don't know why they ONLY have Trot at the rest stops -- you'd think dropping in a few other genres would make sense . . .but I'm not gonna go looking a blessing from heaven in the mouth, now, am I?

장윤정 - 이따이따요 Chang Yoon Jung - Later,Later


You know you wanna dance.

The other great thing about trot music is this: it is absolutely the best noraebang (karaoke) music in the world. It's simple, not hard to sing, and instantly familiar for everyone around. I swear these songs are written to head straight for the Karaoke room, but buddy, it works.

and now you're gonna have that song in your head all day.

Teeheehee.

Epically Bad Wedding

Even worse than this:

Geek in Korea experienced the entire grab-bag of Korean traits that annoy foreigners (short of a discussion about The Islands Which Shall Not Be Named) in a single wedding. Go read about it.

P.S. Trot music (the stuff he was forced to listen to for two hours on the bus) sounds like this: (music from a CD I got at a rest stop on the way down to Damyang).

Turn your computer volume up to maximum, and then imagine being trapped on a bus with this for two hours, to drum up some sympathy for Geek In Korea, and maybe leave a kind comment on his blog.



Here's the video Geek In Korea himself uploaded. Pretty awful. It's like the worst elements of disco, the worst elements of polka, and the worst elements of Indian pop music, all rolled into one.


And..two pictures from Damyang, to tide you over until I can write it up properly.

New Phone, Correction Plus Jo Gwon; also, Expats and the DEAR LEADER HIMSELF!

First: Dear Readers in Korea: I've heard that there are phone services which will allow me to get a phone account in my own name. Which ones (as in, which service providers? What do I have to do/bring, and where can I go?) More importantly: my current phone is in the name of a friend, and I want to get a new phone that has the same number as my current phone. . . does she have to be there for me to do that, or what are the necessary details for making that switch-over? Anyone who's done the switch, or could point me to some helpful information, would get a gold star of appreciation from Roboseyo.)


Second: this is beyond belief.

Spotted in an Athens, Georgia record store

He looks healthy to me.
(HT to these guys, via these guys. Why don't MY readers send me awesome links like that?)

OK, I have an announcement, but it's just going to have to become a post of its own, because Jo Kwon will make you laugh.


So third, as an update on the old JYP Post from Sunday...

I'm an idiot.

I looked at the post date, not the original air date of the Jo Kwon Youtube video on my PopSeoul post, and blundered badly enough to prove PopSeoul clearly does it better than ol' Roboseyo, chasing me back into my corner. I'll just have to keep giving you this goofiness (which I do well), because obviously fact-checking (an important part of celebrity gossip writing, and life in general, too) ain't my strong point.

So that Jo Kwon kid from the video 1. was that age back in 2001, and 2. is a boy. Not that you'd know it from that old video...

But 2. he's now grown up (a bit), looking older (though not a lot more masculine), old enough to be promoted (according to the linked article) as the male counterpart to female Korean Wave star Choi Ji Woo:

What do you think, readers?  See any resemblance?

And despite (or maybe because of) being promoted as the male doppleganger of a major female star, our buddy Jo went out and got himself....

A FLIPPIN' SIXPACK!!!

He's lucky to have that sixpack, and can also rest content in knowing that he's still at best, the third prettiest male star in K-pop (as well as at worst, third most androgynous) thanks to Lee Jun Ki:

(remember lee jun-ki from this totally commentary-free post?)

And Bae Yong Joon.



Finally on a slightly more serious note, Kesumo of K-ROK added a little something to the "Why do Expats Complain" discussion which I found worth reading, appropriately titled, "Wah wah wah."

She discusses Korea's rapid development, and the way it leaves the older Koreans, basically, living in a country they no longer recognize as theirs: here are my favourite lines:

Can you imagine coming of age eating tree bark to survive and consulting shamans, and then in the number of years M*A*S*H was on the air, people around you –including your children and grandchildren -- are talking on cell phones, drinking overpriced coffee, and worshipping Prada? You haven’t just been left behind in the dust. You’ve been left behind on another freakin’ planet.

Thanks for adding your thoughts, Kesumo.

But everybody: don't forget about that phone thing. Help me out. I'm too busy with midterms to look it all up myself.

This has NEVER happened before in Korea...

Never happened before, I say. NEVER!



Does that bubble song remind you of anything? Say, Canadian singer Feist (who was way cooler before she sold out. No lie: here's Mushaboom.)



This is the FIRST TIME I've EVER heard of something like this.



Needless to say, I'm shocked, SHOCKED, and disappointed. (HT to Brian for this one)

Pictures from Downtown Seoul Last Weekend.

Another picture of my university campus: I don't know what the green lights are for, but they sure do some nice things when you set them next to the orange lights.


My best friend is taking a Masters' in Applied Linguistics. I'm watching in slow motion as the language he speaks slowly morphs from English to. . . English-ish. Academian. Scholarish. I'm reading Korean folk tales again. I might be hooked. I may even blog some of them.


So anyway, last weekend I went to city hall to hang out. Met girlfriendoseyo and we stomped around the downtown for a while and saw some cool stuff.

I had to bear this on the way downtown. . . the things I do to entertain you with pictures, dear readers. The things I do!



People were scattered across the City Hall lawn like paper cups.



Some ladies in Hanbok. Just because.



And, of course, kids were playing in the water fountain.



More kids playing.




This little one was having an especially good time.



He was my favourite.



I like this picture, maybe third best.


As a picture, I think this is the best one.  From a photographer's point of view, that is.


Maybe the cutest picture of the lot. . . wait a minute. . . maybe not.


there it is.
gonna grow up to be a plumber.


Hope all your weekends were as happy as this little boy's. Hope you were a bit better covered up, though (unless that was the reason you had so much fun. . .)

Take care, eh?

Satire Superhero

Eddie Paradise has posted this brilliant deconstruction of an Ajeosshi-do performance, an ancient, rarely-recognized but often-practiced Korean martial art, and a candidate for Korean cultural treasure #181818.

http://www.seouleats.com/2008/07/treatise-on-korean-martial-arts-sequel.html

The scene is anywhere in Seoul at past your bedtime. Any casual person walking around may not be aware of what is about to happen. A plastic chair scrapes on pavement and a voice is raised. The antiphonal section answers back slightly louder. All heads turn and prepare to bear witness, for tonight shall bear witness to the ancient, dramatic art that is Ajoshido (the Way of the Ajoshi). What one must bear in mind in any meditation on the subject of Ajoshido is that it has no relation to Ajummahdo. Whereas Ajummahdo is a fighting style created with the intent to kill, maim or punish, much like Abir and Bokator, the Way of the Ajoshi (meaning “married man”) finds itself more firmly rooted in theater.

When a practitioner of the Way scrapes is chair against the pavement to stand (if somewhat shakily) it signals not only to his intended opponent but also to any onlookers that a performance is about to begin. It is analogous to dimming the lights in an enclosed theater, signifying a separation between our humdrum everyday reality and the greater reality of the stage. Without an audience to observe the scene swelling outside the local GS 25, the performance is for naught. Thus an exhibition of Ajoshido requires, nay, demands an audience.

Follow the link and read the rest for yourself.

Related to Ajeosshi-do is the ancient dance "Deuh-long-keun Seuh-tae-geo" the final steps in the dance here being practiced by a few young Koreans, obviously still in training: (warning: ugly -- these Seuh-tae-geo dancers are inexperienced, and unskilled)
-note especially the light footwork from 2.50 to the end

To tide over my rabid fans (snicker)

I've got something really cool coming soon, and until then. . .

one extremely, exTREMELY cool video of a floating lantern festival. . .

See more funny videos and funny pictures on CollegeHumor

and. . .

It's not my place to discuss whether Wonder Girls is a group of exploitatively sexualized underage girls or an adolescent feminine fantasy wish-fulfillment boy-free zone (or one of those. . . exploited for money). . . (these guys have done a great job of it here, here, here, here, and here.)


the basic gist of the lyrics is "I'm so hot, all the boys like me. It's so boring when all the boys like me."

but whatever they're actually selling, and despite her much lower production standards. . .

Can we agree that this lady (a "Fake Kindergarten Teacher") has the goods to sell it better?

On the other hand, they could go completely the other way. . . (skip to 1:20)


I see a team-up with this kid on the horizon -- they could rule the world by age 18.

Cutest moment at 3:30 -- they ask him how many beatles there are, and he says, "Five."
"Name them."
"Paul McCartney, George Harrison, John Lennon, Ringo Starr, and me, Hero!"

(Update: Spoke too soon.  Just kill me now.)

A telling contrast.

The main sports page from the International Herald Tribune:



The main Sports page from the Joongang Daily, a Korean local daily:

(p.s. in case you haven't heard of the two biggest stars in Major League Baseball, Baek and Park are Korean pitchers playing in the Major Leagues.)

Let's play a game of spot, and explain, the differences.

Talk amongst yourselves.

Crappy Cameraphone's last day in the sun (and a game of spot the unintentional pun I discovered on proofreading, and decided to leave in)

Heck, let's make it into a contest.

If you can spot the unintentional pun and name it first in the comments, you get to choose the topic for my next post. I reserve the right to veto topic suggestions that are beyond reasonable boundaries of privacy, length, and good taste (this is a blog, not a game of truth or dare, you know), but if there's something you'd like to know about Roboseyo, or Roboseyo's Korea. . . get out your fine-tooth.

Inwang mountain: the last mountain I climbed before buying a real digital camera.

Inwang mountain is the mountain just to the west of the blue house (where Korea's president lives).  There's a neighbourhood between them, but it's a very nice mountain.

This guy enjoyed the peak a lot.


The mountain looks down on a really charming little village that, due to lack of access, has remained a little less gentrified, commercialized, and uglified than the apartment-block mausoleums in other areas of Seoul.  Would you believe that a twenty-minute walk from this view, in the opposite direction, is Seoul's finance district, City Hall, and the epicenter of every protest?


I wound around the side of the mountain, on the north side of the six hundred year old wall that the old kings built to protect the palaces from raiders and invaders.  I'd just head uphill, and wind around to the next side street when I hit a dead end, and I stumbled into this sleepy little huttish area that could have been untouched since 1930 (judging from the people I saw living there, with no new neighbours since then, either).  How these little bastions survive without either turning into tourist-trap self-recreations or getting bought out by developers, I'll never know. . . but I'm glad they don't.

I picked my way through their tiered gardens (another OOoooold Korea method), and came upon this trail, which led up to the defensive wall.  Again, just to re-state: this scene was a 40 minute walk from Jongno Tower.  (50 if you go slow)
More layered houses, winding up the mountainside:

a view from a lookout point on one of the side-streets a little closer to the town-ish area (where lookouts were obscured by vegetation) -- some nice, rich-looking, gated-garden type houses were there as a buffer between the city and the little grandmother villa I walked through.  The views there were nice.
Inwangsan was great.  Here's the defensive wall; on the other side of it are a bunch of military defensive structures, lookout towers and stuff, as well as signs, "don't you effing dare enter" warnings, and certain directions you ought not point your camera.  But it's also pretty darn beautiful up there.

As you can see, despite the sleepy villa on the approach, we're just THAT close to the big-ass city.  (The mountain you can see in the distance with the blurry, crappy cameraphone tower white smudge on it, is actually Namsan, with Seoul Tower.)


Went back to the same place again this weekend, and took more pictures: the 능소화 (Google Translate says they're "Neungsohwa" flowers) were out in full colour today; they're one of girlfriendoseyo's favourite flowers, so we had a real nice walkabout.

Girlfriendoseyo likes gardens.

A little too much.  (She pretended to climb the wall as a joke; that gave me a good laugh, so she posed like this. . . she's not ACTUALLY Girlfriendoseyo the B&E artist. . . as far as I know.)


The fallen petals are also fantastic.





Girlfriendoseyo says these flowers' name means, in the original Chinese, "the flower that mocks the sun" -- that is, the flower so beautiful, it even taunts the heavens.


Maybe somebody else tried to climb this wall too many times.  A lot of barking dogs on this lane, and the most unfriendly wall I've seen south of the Demilitarized Zone and outside of the military bases.

This seems like a perfectly lovely fusion restaurant. . . until you pronounce the name like a Korean would, switching the "R" out for an "L".



Finally, at the bottom of Inwang Mountain, in Puk'ak Dong, there's a heavenly coffee shop.


It actually felt like being back in the Pacific Northwest, between the look, the smell (beans roasted on site) and the atmosphere.  The specialty hand-drip coffees were obscenely tasty, for a very reasonable price.

The place had some reputation, too: we actually had to wait for a table!




Other pics: the receptionists at my workplace are hilarious and charming.  I took a picture of them together that didn't turn out well, so I said "Sorry.  Bad picture.  One more time." and they both did that, because of the "One More Time" song I wrote about before, but can't justify posting as a clip a second time.  This is called the "ET Dance."

Finally (and these, in case you haven't noticed, were taken with the new, good camera). . . a bit of goofy Korea:


>Are you sure we're in the MEN's shirts' section?  (why Korean men wear pink shirts)
(Hooray for Bean Pole)

The store and the brand's name is FUBU, standing for "For Us, By Us" (citation) -- it was a company started by African-American entrepreneurs when they noticed that most urban clothing marketed toward African-Americans was made by white-owned companies.  The company has since become very successful.  Now, I must defer to other bloggers and experts on the topic of black culture without black people (for example, Korean rappers flashing gang signs and talking in weird mixes of Konglish and Ebonics -- Kebonics? Ebonglish?), but I realized the name FUBU is a bit of a misnomer in COEX mall in Seoul, because there just aren't enough people of African descent who shop at COEX, to keep this store in the black.  I suggest a name change: FKBU -- For Koreans By Us.
Here's a video featuring a Korean hip-hop stars, Crown J, at the end.  Brian thinks he's a poser and a douche; agree or disagree?  Discuss amongst yourselves.   Decide for yourself also whether something like hip-hop culture is such a liquid concept that it can be separated completely from the culture that created it, and still keep some kind of legitimacy, or whether it's been totally co-opted and exploited. . . along the way, you can listen to an awful English rap in this one, count how many other reference to American culture are. . . um, raped, and pick out which singers use pitch-correction, before Crown J throws down his badass gang signs at the end.


You can listen to this other Crown J track, for more information, and decide what you think about him.  All I'm gonna say is, I don't watch Korean MTV.


Interesting as cultural artifacts and examples of fusion culture. . . but not quite enough to a spot next to the pink shirts on my page.