Six "It's the __ of Korea" that drive me crazy.

This is the essence of a list I presented on TBS Main Street, on TBS English Radio, where I do a weekly countdown at 10:30 every Thursday morning. It's fun, and this is a topic I love to rant about.

You’ve probably heard, at some point, the phrase “Korea’s Something” or “The Something of Korea” —for example calling Apgujeong “Korea’s Beverly Hills," which basically fits. Rich people. Italian cars. Plastic surgery. OK. There are definitely some apt comparisons out there. But there are also some that don't fit, or that seem to force the puzzle piece.

Hey, did you hear Quentin Tarantino compared Bong Joon-ho to Steven Spielberg? Well now we have to call him the Korean Spielberg. And I sigh inside with a deep sad sigh. Hyorin does a cover of "Halo" so now she has to be Korea's Beyonce. You know, until Ailee throws her hat in the ring. And then you get places specifically named after more famous places in other parts of the world.

And it starts feeling like the "globally hip" version of this guy.

Trying.

Too.
Hard.

I was once told this mostly happens when Koreans are trying to describe korean stuff to foreigners who might not know about them, by someone who got defensive as I complained too much about this tendency. As I do. But for whatever it's worth, here are the "Korea's X" that have caused the biggest head-shakes, facepalms and jaw-drops for me.


1. Korea’s Madonna.

MTV Awards, Like A Virgin - 1984.


This one goes all the way back to 1987, when Kim Wan Sun pretty clearly referenced Madonna's performance for this performance, also at an awards show.


Um Jung-hwa has also been called Korea's Madonna. Her dancing and outfits raised eyebrows the way Madonna played her sex appeal in the 80s and 90s, and she also went from singing to acting, and managed her public image very skilfully.


Lee Hyori and S.E.S.'s Bada have also been called Korea's Madonna, and Ask A Korean! makes a plausible case for JYP being Korea's Madonna in terms of his impact on pop music.


But here's what you have to do to earn a comparison with Madonna:

1. Have Jo Yong-pil or Kim Geon-mo level popularity and success.
2. Be a fashion icon.
3. Be sexy as hell, and push boundaries for what a woman is allowed to do on stage, in terms of using her sex appeal, and push them again and again and again, without ever going too far.
4. Keep doing that for 15 years.
5. Have half a dozen completely unforgettable moments and/or performances, even after your relevance as a popstar is mostly faded.
6. Age into a mentor for younger performers.

Has there been a Korean artist who pushed the line on sex appeal, who was a fashion leader, who managed her image with superhuman savvy, and became a mentor for younger artists, while also being one of the most popular artists of her time for an entire generation? Lee Hyori wasn't controversial enough. Uhm Jung hwa wasn't controversial for long enough, and too much of her legacy is in her acting, which really isn't Madonna. Kim Wan sun didn't have the staying power. How much of Bada's cultural impact came from her solo career, and was she ever controversial?

Ladies and gentlemen there is no Korean Madonna, and it does the aforementioned artists a disservice to compare them to Madonna. There is also no Korean Beyonce. Just simmer down now.

Korea's Rain is Korea's Rain. He's not Korea's Michael Jackson. He can just be Korea's Rain. Hyorin is Korea's Hyorin. Lee Hyori is Korea's Lee Hyori. SuperJunior is Korea's SuperJunior, and that's enough!



2. Korea’s Opera: Pansori

Just listen to this.


Now listen to this.


Pansori was called Korean opera during a campaign to establish that Korean culture was just as refined and awesome as the best "high culture" of the west (Opera). There’s a certain type of person who believes that because Western countries were powerful at a certain time, the way to establish non-European cultures as worthwhile or world-class is by comparing them to Western culture. These people like using the word “advanced” and they don’t realise that by insisting on comparing Korean arts and sciences to western standards, they’re automatically putting the West in the superior position.

This means at a certain time in Korea’s nation building project, people were spending a lot of energy showing that before being colonized, Korea was on its way to developing a European style market economy, emphasizing that Koreans invented the movable type printing press, and so forth, and these people shoved Pansori forward as Korea’s opera. I guess because both include performances that can be long, both sometimes retell old folk tales, both require vocal training, and kids these days don't listen to much of either.

But, seriously, go listen to those clips again. The comparison makes no sense to anyone with ears. I’m in total awe of the way Pansori singers can do anything they want with their voices. But Opera it ain’t. That doesn’t diminish Korea’s cultural heritage in any way.

Korean opera exists. It does. But it's being performed by Jo Sumi, not by Ahn Suk Seon.


3. Korea’s Olivia Hussey

Olivia Hussey is an Argentenian actress who was a real beauty in the 60s and 70s. She is best known for starring as Juliet in Franco Zefirelli’s “Romeo and Juliet,” a film made in 1968.

She was 100% flawless in her day.

Here in Korea, beauty Han Ga-in, the actor/model (or model/actor), had a breakout role in the film "Once Upon A Time in High School" (말죽거리 잔혹사)-- a 2004 film set in 1978 (back when Olivia Hussey was a big deal). A character compliments Han Ga-in's character by telling her she resembles Olivia Hussey. Fair enough. It fit the time period.

Resemblance? I'll let the reader decide.

source

But it fails as a comparison. Because almost nobody knows who Olivia Hussey is anymore. (This sounds unkind... let's say instead that Olivia Hussey isn't a relevant enough celebrity anymore for that to be a useful comparison today.) The first time I'd ever heard her name was when I asked some students which Korean actors I should know about, and one identified Han Ga-in as Korea's Olivia Hussey, and I looked Olivia Hussey up. If a comparison involves looking something up, it's failed as a comparison.

So... if you told me that Taylor Swift is America's Lee Nan-young, it wouldn't mean anything to me until I looked up Lee Nan-young, or you explained it to me. And any comparison that obscures rather than enlightening has missed its point, in conversations like this.

(Lee Nan-young was a big deal in her day as well)




4. Korea’s Manhattan

Now, to call something Korea’s manhattan, here’s what I want: I want it to be the beating heart of the city. I want it to be the place where most of a city’s culture, art, commerce, and tourism happen. I want it to be the place where you can find the must-see places, attend the events, and also where all the really meaningful history happened. If an island met all those conditions, I’d think about calling it Mexico’s Manhattan, or Greece’s Manhattan, or Japan’s Manhattan.

Korea’s manhattan, of course, is Yeouido. While it does hold Korea’s national assembly, one of the city’s most famous buildings (the 63 Building), and a few TV stations, I have a big problem with calling it Korea’s Manhattan. Because here is what it looked like as recently as 1952: (source -courtesy of Popular Gusts)

Here is Manhattan Island in 1952: (source)

Yeouido didn't have a bridge to it until 1970. Manhattan Island had bridges to it before the Revolutionary War. If you can't be bothered to even build a bridge to it until 1970, Yeouido is clearly not the beating heart of Seoul. In fact, according to wikipedia, the name Yeouido means “Useless” and it was used as nothing but a pasture for sheep and goats until an airport was built on it in 1924.

I like Yeouido well enough. The IFC mall is a good place to go see a movie, and the park is nice when it’s not crowded to the gills. But if there’s an area that’s the beating heart of Seoul, it’s Jongno/Myeongdong/Gwanghwamun/City Hall — THAT’s where the culture, the history, the commerce and the political power all converge, if anywhere. Yeouido is sometimes called Korea’s Wall Street, which might be closer to the mark, but Korea’s Manhattan, it just really ain’t. So stop pissing on my leg and telling me it's raining.

5. Korean Pizza

In what world is this:

source

and this:

source

in any way at all similar to this:

source

It isn't, that's what. A few shared ingredients (like flour) and a flat disc-shape is it for similarities. The recipe, the preparation method, the way of consuming it, the toppings and sides, are all utterly different. This stands beside "Korean Opera" as one of the biggest misnomers, and one of the worst bits of expectation management out there, for introducing Korean culture. If you have to compare it to a western food, my favorite description of Jeon is "a savory pancake" (with green onion and sometimes seafood in it) -- which sets a diner's expectations about where they should be. But calling it Korean pizza... it's just inaccurate and misleading. And dumb. So stop!

6. Korea’s Machu Piccu

Of all the Something’s of Korea on the list, Korea’s Machu Piccu has got to be the biggest reach of them all.

Taegukdo or Gamcheon-dong, in Busan, is a pretty hillside village of colorful houses. It was founded by a group of religious refugees during the Korean war. Since then, blank walls have been painted with murals, and empty houses have been converted to cafes and galleries. It has a nice view of Busan Harbor, according to the write-up. Here is a picture.

source'

Can you believe it's even prettier at night?

from flickr

It looks like a lovely place to wander around and get lost in winding back alleys, which is one of my favorite things to do, so I'd actually really like to go there!

But it’s been described as The Korean Machu Piccu on the official Korean tourism website. (They also describe it as Korea's Santorini, which is at least closer to the mark.) It's not just the official tourism website, either.

Now, here is Machu Piccu: (source)

The only. fucking. thing. the two have in common are walls, and slopes. That's bloody it. Whatever they were smoking when they came up with Gamcheon-dong as Korea's Machu Piccu, I would very much like to try some!

Machu Piccu is abandoned, it was built in the 1400s, and is 2400 meters above sea level (triple the height of Bukhansan's peak). Machu Piccu is a UNESCO world heritage site, a Wonder Of The World, and a relic of the very peak achievements of a lost civilization. Gamcheondong is a pretty hillside that had a good idea for how to stave off the redeveloper's bulldozer, but still probably doesn't even appear in most visitors' top five lists of "things to do while visiting Busan" (unless it was recently featured in one of those comedy shows where famous people tour local attractions.) I wish the citizens of Gamcheondong good luck, and I actually do hope to visit there some day, but I haven't come across a single "Korea's X" comparison more misleading than this one.


And that’s the problem with every one of these comparisons: by making a comparison, I immediately start thinking about ways that the Korean version isn’t as good, is smaller or less impressive, or just plain different, than the original, and that sets the Korean one up for failure. It’s the very worst kind of expectation management, because it makes me expect that the thing I’m going to see will be better than it actually is, and it’s an unfair burden to put on a charming place like Gamcheondong, a perfectly nice business district like Yeouido, or an artist like Uhm Junghwa, who’s perfectly respectable in her own right. We don't need to call Song Gang-ho Korea's Tom Hanks, or Baekdusan Korea's Everest, for them to be awesome. In fact, it makes them less awesome when we do!


For more on Korea's X, I always go back to this Dokdo Is Ours bit... and a thingy from Brian in Jeollanam-do that seems to have been removed from public access, unfortunately.

So, readers: in the comments, what are your favorite/least favorite "___ of Korea"?

Please share!

PS: from somebody's facebook comment:


Update 2: Commenters mentioned the most disappointing comparison of all: that Jeju Island is Korea's Hawaii. I like Jeju Island, don't get me wrong. And in that people go there on vacation, and it's an island, they have... two points of similarity. But... no. No no no no no. Every person who's mentioned going to Jeju Island after being told it's Korea's Hawaii has also reported it being a bitter disappointment.

Korean Mothers are the Best, you Know: Facepalm

The Korea Times came out with a howler of an article recently, mistakenly using the headline "Tips for Keeping Partners from Cheating" on an article that was clearly meant to be titled "How to Suffocate Your Partner and Poison Your Relationship With Mistrust." This is a far cry from its 2009-10 nadir (setting the record straight, and alien graveyards), but still. My response on Facebook was sarcastic, but basically: 1. Don't trust your partner? Find another.  2. Partner asking for your passwords? People usually extend to others the amount of trust they deserve themselves. Memo for everyone: possessiveness and obsessiveness aren't cute and charming. They're creepy uncomfortable suffocating and insulting.


Not to be topped (bottomed?), The Korea Herald ran an article by Dr. Kim Seong-kon, a longtime contributor there, titled "Korean Mother: A Cultural Icon" - now, Dr. Kim has been writing an article a week for a very very long time, so maybe we have to forgive the occasional stinker, but this one went over the line.

Kim suggests "the Korean mother" as a cultural icon for Korea - a symbol of Korean culture, or essence, or somesuch. Nothing terribly wrong with that, though compared to the examples he gives, like Japanese samurai, which only Japan has, choosing something every living person necessarily has seems odd.

Kim describes the sacrificial and nurturing quality of Korean mothers, name-checks "Please Look after Mother" by Shin Kyung-sook, compares Korean mothers to birds that feed their babies while they starve, and even points out how Korean mothers are different from the mothers in his anecdote, AND in this one TV show he saw, which is enough to satisfy a scholar these days, I guess. (Peer review, here I come!)

[Update: Smudgem writes a thoughtful response to the article, that includes some nice words about this post: thanks!]

Asia Pundits raises a number of objections to the article - asking whence Korean teen suicide, if Korean mothers are so great (but acknowledging the issue is waaaaay more complex than that), and in what way trundling kids off to hagwon until 8 or 10pm is different from sending kids to their rooms early in the evening. Asiapundits also outlines the pressure Korean moms often put on kids to get into a good school -- even using the threat of violence to bully kids into studying harder. The article is worth reading. The top comment (as of now) below that post mentions "stage mother superficiality" - making parenting decisions based on what the other moms in the sewing circle will think, rather than what's best for the kids, which happens, I suppose (elsewhere as well of here, of course).

Newer blogger Wangjangnim weighs in a little more emotionally, with his best point being that Dr. Kim's description of Korean mothers is a not-too-subtle disguise for a series of normative statements about gender roles that are a generation or two out of date, and which also fix the acceptable standard for motherhood ridiculously high. (Meanwhile, Chosun Ilbo English headline this morning: "Actress Park Si-yeon Happy to Focus on Being a Mom" -- still waiting for a major daily in Korea featuring a headline, "Famous and Accomplished Woman Happy To Focus on Career For Now" with a positive write-up). Wangjangnim also mentions (though briefly) overseas adoption, which has created a whole bunch of Koreans who are alienated from their Korean moms.

Both AsiaPundits' mention of teen suicide, and Wangjangnim's mention of overseas adoption, as presented, are probably unfair "Yeah but what about this!" reactions. Both reduce very complex issues into pot-shots in a conversation about something else, far less than these two issues deserve. (Honestly, though, adoption sprang to my mind as well during my kneejerk-rage reaction phase.) Neither of those fraught and complex issues are fair to lay solely at the feet of Korean mothers: both require far-reaching discussions of Korean society. There are other little digs one could make -- my facebook feed featured a funny wisecrack about the prevalance of car seat use, for example. Moms in Korean dramas notwithstanding, I have several main problems with the article:

First: When I try to talk about an entire country of over 50 million as if it's a single, undifferentiated mass, my commenters give me hell. Essentializing an entire culture is always fishy territory, whether it's a foreigner or a Korean holding the broad brush. Korea is a pretty big, complex thing: big enough, and complex enough, that you can find evidence to validate any bias or agenda you bring to it, from the fuzziest of happy purrs, to the bitterest of angry yawps. This gets us no closer to the bottom of things.

Second: There are tons of moms in Korea who don't fit the rose-tinted profile Dr. Kim offers. Hell, if Doc Brown and Marty McFly skipped back in time and showed this article to a seventeen-year-old Dr. Kim, I bet he wouldn't recognize his own mother in it. Nostalgia does that.

Next: for Koreans whose moms were less than ideal, or for Korean moms who aren't living up to Dr. Kim's standard, I'd hate to compound their hurt or guilt, by making them feel like their family issues also problematize their bona fides as Koreans. In my first year here, I dealt with panic attacks from a kid whose mother would beat him for bad scores. I had another kid in my second year who had internalized her mother's verbal abuse so completely I never heard my brightest student of the whole year say a positive thing about herself; she came to class with bruises sometimes, too. I've dealt with moms whose kids' accomplishments seem more to be baubles for boasting to their friends, than for their kids' own benefit. They were all Koreans. I know someone who had a (brief, doomed) engagement with a man whose parents had dropped the guillotine on OVER THIRTY previous prospective fiancees. But those three anecdotes, as well as the mom I saw on a Korean drama that my mom-in-law likes, who is a manipulating, selfish badword, don't mean all Korean moms are like that, any more than Kim's anecdotes and TV reference mean American moms are all deficient.

Dr Kim: "But those mothers don't typify REAL Korean motherhood!"

No true Scotsman would do such a thing!

The "NO True Scotsman" fallacy: Justifying funny pictures of men in kilts since the Internet

There are also tons of moms outside of Korea who do all  the things Kim describes. Tiger parenting? Pressure to succeed? Sacrifice for kids? Emphasis on education? Those ring a bell to more than Korean kids, as does every other behavior (good or bad!) you name when you describe a stereotypical, or an idealized Korean mother. Except maybe making kimchi, which not all Korean mothers do anymore.

The book thing: Kim points to "Please Look After Mother" as an example of Korean motherhood... now Gord Sellar has problems with that book; I myself found it touching at first, but trying too hard, and finally reaching maudlin territory. I have doubts that the author set out to write a book about Korean motherhood; I find it more likely she was trying to write about her mother. The conversation about whether or why any piece of Korean culture that finds success outside Korea's borders is quickly labeled "representative" of Korea is a long one, and off point here, except that I find it frequently spurious, especially because the designation is usually post-hoc. Except for D-War.

(Source) Common sight at night in drinking districts.

For that matter, how can Kim claim Korean motherhood is unique if the book became a New York Times best seller? If a book becomes a best seller, it's fair to say that means it's struck some kind of a chord with readers. If a book resonates, that means an audience can relate to it... which means all those Americans buying the book must have connected to the portrayal of motherhood in it at least a little, since the book is about nothing else... the success of that book SHOWS that Korean motherhood isn't as unique as Dr. Kim claims it is, doesn't it? If Korean motherhood were totally singular among world cultures, it stands to reason that the book would only have been successful in Korea, and not found a mass audience outside of it.

Finally, I just find it tiresome that Kim gives into that all-too-common impulse, where one seems unable to talk about a great Korean thing, without comparing it to a foreign thing that isn't as good.

Nobody has to tell me that Gyeongbokgung is in more harmony with nature than Beijing's Forbidden City, for me to be impressed by it. In fact, bringing up the Forbidden City mostly reminds me how much smaller and less fancy Gyeongbokgung is, how much more famous the Forbidden city is. Telling me hamburgers are shit does nothing to impress the health benefits of Korean food, except show me that someone has an inferiority complex, and is a bit petty, and doesn't understand American food: the Korean correlative to hamburgers is something closer to ddeokbokki than bibimbap. And it isn't necessary for American mothers to be told they suck, before we can properly celebrate Korean mothers. If it is necessary, that's a shitty kind of patriotism.

This type of argumentation is tone deaf if the author is appealing to anybody except Koreans themselves (of course he's writing this to Koreans... why in English? is the real question) Picking USA (and Japan, the other standby), again and again, as the points of comparison to show Korean superiority, also betrays a type of colonized thinking, because why USA and Japan? They're the two countries who have most recently dominated Korea politically and/or economically, so they're the two burrs in South Korea's saddle, when it comes to national pride and perception of national sovereignty, that's why. Showing that Korea is culturally superior, even with less economic or military clout than USA or Japan, is simply a tacky ploy at restoring a Korean pride somebody imagined has been damaged.

But the fact that pride is always measured against these countries over others, reveals that the Koreans who write articles like Dr. Kim's (which, to be clear, is a subset of Koreans - not the whole lot) still haven't gotten over the period when Korea was colonized: they can't leave that scab alone, and simply celebrate what Koreans are: these ones have to get a dig in. Using those specific measuring sticks to show Korea's better, unintentionally underscores that Korea was well bested by them in the past.

Korea has enough kit now that it would be utterly possible to celebrate its culture on its own terms -- between the Korean Wave, the achievements of Korean businesses on the world stage, OECD membership, Ban Ki-moon, Psy, and Storm Shadow, the growing popularity of Korean food and the medal standings of the last few Olympics, there's enough there to stand without comparisons. But compare they do (some of them), and it comes across badly every time. (Example: Why Korea Sucks at Marketing Itself. Discuss.)

Lee Byung-hun as Storm Shadow. Making Korea's national status look goooood.

Given his output, we have to expect Dr. Kim will write a clunker from time to time. But this one was over the line.

I'm glad you had a good Chuseok weekend with your mother, Dr. Kim, it shows. But please try to express your love for your country and your mother without shitting on other countries and their mothers, and next time ideas are thin, maybe take a week or two off from your column over pinching out a turd like this one.

Funny footnote: I have some history with Kim Seong-kon - a letter to the editor in response to his article was the first time I ever sent writing of mine to a publication other than my university's poetry journal. You can read it here.


Special note for commenting: let's try to keep this comment discussion more nuanced than just telling everybody how horrible Korean moms are, OK? There are horrible moms and great moms in every country.

Are Koreans Afraid of Foreigners? Videoclip plus Facepalm

CJ Entertainment put this video out, to show how scared Koreans are of foreigners.



The only problem is, I don't think it shows Koreans are scared of foreigners.

I'm not surprised at all, given the fact so many Koreans' main experience with English is connected with Very Important Tests, or Evaluations That Could Bugger Your Upward Mobility Forever (even if you never need English in your work), that many are nervous about speaking English. If you could measure English Speaking Anxiety, I don't doubt Koreans would be near the top of the international rankings. But I'd say this video proves Koreans are afraid of speaking English, not of foreigners. Most Koreans I've met are pretty curious about foreigners, if they're brave enough to start talking.

I took issue with EBS's racism video earlier, basically for editing video to tell the narrative they wanted it to (that time, that Koreans like whitey more than South Asians)... and it's interesting to contrast these two videos, to demonstrate that yeah, the white guy also has trouble finding useful help, and some people walk by the white guy, too.

Another angle: if a Korean were walking around on the streets of Toronto or Baltimore, they'd probably have just as much trouble finding help, or being passed by. Because they're not speaking the language of the land. Not even trying.

As a traveller like this guy is dressed up to be, and especially as someone living here, not knowing the basics of the local language kind of inexcusable. It's not THAT hard to learn a couple of phrases, to learn to count, to learn left, right, straight, and "over there," and it'll help you find what you're looking for, and get along with the natives. If you can't be arsed to learn that, while staying here longer than a month, you should only travel to countries that speak your language, or stay well on the beaten track for tourists, where odds are higher you'll eventually bump into someone who can speak with you.

While we're in Korea, and while it's sweet that CJ cares so much about how anglo tourists fare in Korea (did they make similar videos for tourists speaking Vietnamese, Cantonese, Thai, Mandarin, Mongolian and Tagalog?), let's remember that Koreans in Korea are under no obligation to learn the languages of the people who visit Korea, and if they do learn, and if they speak it with you, they've doing you a favor, to which you are not entitled. Let's be clear about that.

And this doesn't prove Koreans are afraid of foreigners. That is all.

Nice Galaxy Tab Ad...I Mean, Nice Patronizing Stereotype-filled "Visit Korea" ad...

Warning: there is one slightly NSFW image in this post. It's down where I'm talking about the Netherlands.

So there's this new ad that has been spotted in places like CNN.



Yeah. Soak it in.

I have a few problems with this ad:

First, it looks more like an ad for the Galaxy Tab (if that's what the guy's carrying) than an ad for Korea. Seriously. In fact, it would make more sense as a Galaxy Tab ad - "Samsung is supplying the whole world with tablet technology...um...except Germany" In that context, the ad would have made more sense.

Next, very few people wear their nation's traditional dress when traveling abroad. Even Texans usually leave their horses at home. And maybe even their Segways.

Also, who the hell asks THESE kinds of questions (in their own language) of a random stranger on the street?  "Is it true that you're the 7th largest exporter?" (I don't know how google works.)

Anyway, what would Koreans do if somebody approached them, dressed like Napoleon,


and asked them a question in French?

Here's what they'd do:


(an ad aimed at Koreans - "don't act QUITE so scared when you see a foreigner, or they'll know Korean hospitality is only for non-strangers")


The ad ends with a whole line-up of stereotypes walking towards the camera in some sort of a xenophobe's nightmare.


I've got Dutch background, so should I be upset that there isn't someone dressed like this in the ad?

Should I dress like that (or at least the boy version) when I travel abroad?

Or maybe, like the Arabian belly dancer on the far right at the end of the ad (who almost certainly doesn't even dress that way on the street in her own blessed country)...




I should dress like one of the Netherlands' other famous identifiers. (the source)

Or a Canadian mountie -- after all, one of the Queen's Guard is there.

Other screen shots from the ad, in case it gets pulled from youtube:

Key message: "Even though we think you're all cowboys, we want you to visit our country, Americans."

To their credit, at least the cowboy doesn't have a Russian accent, like those "American" teachers in some of those trashy scapegoaty TV shows.

I wonder how many cowboys know what bibimbap is.

Yes. In some middle-easternern countries, people do dress this way every day. When they travel abroad? Perhaps.

Seems a little elaborate for a travel outfit... then again, I passed a pair of harajuku girls on a street in Hongdae a few saturday nights ago.

"Excuse me. I got lost on the way to the ballroom."

"Galaxy Tab: all the information you need to help random, oddly-dressed strangers"

Here's the whole crew of them in Gwanghwamun Square.

 Including Connor MacLeod

A Hopak dancer (I think)

A flamenco dancer. (correct me if I'm wrong on any of these)

A... shaolin monk, perhaps? Because Koreans wear Taekwondo uniforms when they travel abroad.

Oh. And a tall African wearing a brightly-colored toga. He's in the back row, so I can't tell whether he's carrying a spear, or if there's a bone in his nose. (we've seen worse, but still...)

A mexican with a sombrero. (At least they couldn't find anyone who was mexican, or looked mexican, and was shameless enough to wear a sombrero for the camera)

By the way, the Cowboy's name...

is cowboy.


This brazilian lady was busy: she had to go straight from the parade float to the airport.

I can't quite tell who this guy's supposed to be.

Thankfully, the American Indian (complete with feather, facepaint and buckskin pants) DID end up on the cutting room floor. Barely.

(image source)

Rest in peace, Iron Eyes Cody.

I think that if everybody else is wearing their national stereotyped clothes, they should put the Korean guy in a hanbok, or at least a taekwondo uniform, for one thing. I don't know how this ad is going to impress anyone enough to decide to come to Korea, when one of the messages it seems to communicate is "Hey. We don't know anything except the broadest stereotypes of your country. So why don't you broaden your horizons by coming to a country where our ad implies that people will expect you to wear a sombrero if you're from mexico." And if this ad were to reflect the actual flows of tourists to Korea, then the elephant in the room is, "Why so few South and Southeast Asian outfits?" Not even an Indian sari? Or one of those fantastic Thai headdresses?

There are other ways to have communicated that these people are from other countries, than dressing them like friggin' Napoleon - flags on backpacks, or you could even have a flag show up on the corner of the screen, or floating above their head like the character info on an online role play game, without diving into this "let's dress foreigners in silly costumes" mess.

I don't know if it quite heads into straight-up offensive territory, but it is definitely, definitely tone deaf. And if my sources are correct, and I'm pretty sure they are, the producers were told this ad was wrong-minded, patronizing and maybe a little racist, on no uncertain terms, and they ran it anyway. So... I guess they were keeping those westerners around to make their office feel international, and not because the people promoting Korea actually care what foreigners think about their "visit Korea" ads.

and yeah, this ad, seen by Koreans, will do a good job of making Koreans feel good about Korea.

But that's not the point of international Korean tourism promotions, is it? And it hardly requires buying ad space on CNN, when KBS or MBC will reach more Koreans anyway. Hell, why not just have the narration in Korean?

Memo to The Korea Times

I'm willing to let the alien graveyards slide for a little while...

Just make these maddening little text-obscuring popup ads go away...

and once you've done that, we'll talk about putting ads on the side of your paper that include spankable anime ass, or gross dental clinic ads featuring pictures of the insides of mouths, as well as what it says about your newspaper site, that the hotlinks for the "First in the Nation" English newspaper are in Korean.

first things first, though.

Harry Potter 7: More Stupid Wizard Duels

OK.  So I saw the first part of Harry Potter 7 the other day.

Not sure what I think about the increasing trend of filming multiple film/sequels in one shoot... but I'll save that for another day.

I'm also glad this one wasn't in 3D.  I'm not impressed by 3D... but I'll save THAT for another day, too.

Actually, it was a pretty good movie, all told.  I've never believed novels translate well into movies, because there's just too much in a novel.  Short fiction? Yeah. Graphic novel? Heck yeah.  Novel?  It's hard.  And with Harry Potter, especially as the books got longer, it got harder and harder to fit all that junk into a movie, and some of the movies barely tried.  The best Harry Potter movie was the third one, before the books got bloated.  The worst one was movie 5, where they tried to fit almost 900 freaking pages into a two hour movie.  They'd have had to make a miniseries to do all the plot points justice.  Book five was a good read, in my opinion (despite it being the first step into Harry becoming a somewhat unlikeable protagonist: too sulky and Holden Caulfieldy for a fantasy book), but the movie was awful: it was like a rushed series of sketches meant to evoke the story, and had no room to fit in the little bits of color and fun that made the first three movies cool.  The minor characters are part of the charm with HP - people like Neville Longbottom - but with so much plot, him, and Moaning Myrtle, and even Hagrid got short shrift.

That is why I think it was not just a cash grab, but good for the storytelling, to split book 7 into two movies.  The story finally has time to breathe again... and while in the book, I thought it was poor storytelling the way the first two thirds of the book are a bunch of wandering in the woods and re-visiting all JK Rowlings' favorite characters and locations, the movie evokes the frustrated stagnation of that part of the book very well.

However, there's just one thing... and this is something that, the more I see it, the more I think is just a lame, lazy cliche: 

The superpower battle.  Let me explain. (with apologies to Alice and the Mental Poo blog, where I got the inspiration to use illustrations I drew myself.)

It seems that wizards like nothing more than to give their enemies magic high-fives.  Especially if their magics are different colors.  I think that if your magic is the same color as another wizard's, you have to be friends.

And if you're the opposite (fire and water, for example, or oranges and toothpaste)?  Enemies for sure!

(source)

Also, it's not only hands that can magic up a wizard fight:

It's seen most often in fantasy and science fiction.  Especially anime.  It happens so often I can't even begin to list them.  

From Harry Potter alone (screenshots: these images don't belong to me, but to their respective copyright holders - JK Rowling and Warner Brothers film studio):

Movie 4: Goblet of Fire

Movie 7, part 1: Deathly Hallows

 Movie 5: Order of the Phoenix Harry's magic is the same color (red) as Dumbledore's.  That's why they're friends.  (for the record: AFTER the dumb wizard cliche fight, Dumbly and Moldy do some cool magic-ing.)

I wonder how many superpower/magic duels there will be in movie 7-1.

This is one area where George Lucas went really, really right: his Bright Side Jedi can't shoot magic hand beams, so even though the bad ones can, most Jedi battle is done with lightsaber duels -- the other absolute coolest feature of the Star Wars universe, because sword fighting is the awesomest kind of combat (with the possible exception of really good, Tony Jaa storming the castle/Bruce Lee vs. Chuck Norris level hand combat), and there are no hand-beam battles in the Star Wars movies.

This is as close as they get: (screenshot from a youtube version of the battle between Emporor Palpatine and Mace Windu.  Property of George Lucas: Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith)

Oh yeah.  Superhero and comic book stories also like having their cliche fights.

(X-Men 3: The Last Stand screenshot: property of Stan Lee, Marvel Comics and 20th century Fox.)

These silly cliche battles are everywhere.

So, readers, what's your favorite superpower/magic power-beam duel?  Let me know in the comments.

Also: what are some magic fights/superpower battles that have COOL effects, instead of just lame power-beam showdowns?  Tell me in the comments.

What's the point of kimchi? What's the point of ignorance?

So I just caught wind, through Mike, from TBS radio's twitter account @mikeontbs, of an article in the Guardian by a lady named Rachel Cooke, titled "What's the point of Kimchi"

Go read it.

Now, I'm not a huge fan of the boosterism thing, and I don't necessarily think that kimchi should be the main focus of attempts to promote Korean food abroad, because it isn't the most accessible of Korean foods (bulgogi is, and bibimbap's up there, as is chapchae, and those awesome fish-bread things you can buy on the street in the winter).  I don't believe Kimchi cures cancer, H1N1, bird flu, prolongs erections,  makes children learn to read faster, heightens spatial reasoning, improves TOEIC scores, increases resistance to the HIV virus, or does any of the other things Tom Waits claims it does in Step Right Up.



On the other hand, I'd also prefer if people writing about Kimchi around the world at least knew a damn thing about it.  Rachel Cooke tried Korean food a few times, didn't like kimchi the first time she tried it, because it reminded her of foul sauerkraut she once had, visited the Kimchi Field Museum in COEX's website, and wrote her article.  (I've been to the museum itself: it's no great shakes, frankly, but at least I've actually been there, eaten a whack of varieties of kimchi, and know enough about Kimchi to know a good kimchi from a bad one, and I didn't just find the Kimchi Museum's website through its wikipedia page after googling "Kimchi Information" and looking all the way to the second result.)

Now, if somebody walked into a newsroom, and said "Hey!  We need an article on Italian food!" and I was a member of that newsroom, I'd say "Gee. I have allergies to cheese and cream, and the strongest memory I have of Italian food is the smell of the burnt spaghetti sauce that got left on the stove while we were calling the ambulance after my father had that heart attack.  Since then I've avoided Italian food, so I'm not the best guy to write about it.  Find someone who actually knows about Italian."

I wouldn't have said "Hey!  I'll use those six hundred words to shit on Italian food without really knowing anything about it, and make my ignorance and avoidance of it a point of pride!"

Which is pretty much what Ms. Cooke did here.

I don't think netizens should publish her address on the internet and encourage Korean-English citizens who live near her to leave flaming bags of poop on her doorstep, I don't think VANK should engineer a DDOS attack on The Guardian's website, and I have no idea if Ms. Cooke is normally a very fair, well-informed and even-handed writer in the rest of her articles... but she sure ain't in this one.  And if she can dismiss the entirety of kimchi because of her few experiences with it, maybe I'll turn that same ignorance on her, and dismiss her entirety upon a tiny, ill-informed slice of information, and encourage her to piss up a rope.

Ms. Cooke: if you don't know anything about something, rather than flaunting your ignorance of it, next time I recommend you pass on the opportunity to make yourself look like an ignoramus, and let somebody else do the piece on Kimchi.

If the article is a troll to prompt "outrage hits" for The Guardian's website, shame on you and your editor for being so trashy.  If it isn't, shame on you and your editor for not seeing a problem with being so willfully ignorant of a national cuisine's signature dish.

And to The Guardian: if you want an article about Kimchi, I'll write one for you, or I'll recommend some people to you who actually know about Kimchi, and have strong opinions on it that are born of knowledge and fondness for Korean cuisine, instead of ignorance.

(by the way: the Urban Dictionary page for Kimchi is pretty funny, just because it's so easy to pick out which definitions were submitted by expats, and which were submitted by Koreans.)

Rant over.

Butterfinger Pancakes and Crappy Service in Restaurants Serving Western Food

In the comments of this post:

Let's go for a little name and shame.

Which restaurants have YOU been to, that should have known better (we're not talking "Halmoni Kimbap" here: we're talking about places that look, and charge, as if they ought to know their asses from a hole in the ground, in regards to service).  Let me know who the worst offenders are in the comments.


Fact: there are a bazillion restaurants in Seoul.  This means, I operate on a "one strike and you're out" policy.  If a restaurant can't impress me the first time, I won't waste my time going back to give them a second chance: other restaurants deserve a first chance more than that place deserves a second, after underwhelming me before.  The only time I bend on this is when it is enthusiastically advocated by someone whose food taste I trust (right now, that's a list of about four people, and I'm not telling you who they are... but two of them have names that start with J.)


So then...


A few months ago, in a fit of righteous outrage, I tore a strip through the horrible, horrible, insultingly neglectful service I encountered at Passion Five, one of those so-stylish-I-want-to-punch-myself-in-the-face restaurants near Hangangjin station.

Lesson learned: beautiful design is a yellow flag in Korean restaurants.  Of the ten worst service experiences I've had in Korean restaurants, about eight of them were in really nice-looking places.  Not ALL beautifully designed places are crap, but let's just say nice looks is NOT assurance of good food, or good service.

Three seasons later, if you google "passion five Korea" look what comes up: 

Passion Five, you've been google-bombed, and deservedly so!  I've made clear what I want in return for taking down the post (see the end of the post)

Until then, you frankly deserve to be slammed by google, for the atrocious, insulting service you gave me and my group.

And today, Butterfinger Pancakes gets theirs.

I'd heard a LOT about Butterfinger: how the food was just like home... but not crappy "just like home" (a la Denny's Korea) but GOOD "just like home" with waffles and pancakes worth the trip to Kangnam.

My friend Chris, who lives in South Korea, was having a birthday party for the lovely Lady in Red (who is an awesome human being, by the way).  He invited a crew over to Kangnam, and staked a place in line for a big group: about ten.  They said "Oh.  ten?  That'll be about an hour."

No sweat: we went to a Krispy Kreme to pass the time.

An hour later, we came back to Butterfinger.  "Oh. You guys again..." (inner monologue: we were hoping you'd get discouraged by the one hour wait and piss off) "we don't have a place to seat you.  Twenty more minutes."

Twenty minutes go by: now we're standing in the cold.  "Five more minutes.  And you have to sit at different tables." (no problem, guy. Can you just friggin' seat us now?)

Buddy goes upstairs to use bathroom: sees other groups getting seated before us, and no tables cleared for a group.  After an hour and a half.  Ten more minutes, several more inquiries (each time being told, "five more/ten more minutes"), still no movement (that's for those of us waiting for tables; I can't speak for the person who went to the bathroom).

Finally, we gave up and headed for a Burger King.  Wifeoseyo and I had a long to-do list that had included eating with the fine people at The Lady In Red's birthday party, but we couldn't because Butterfinger Kangnam couldn't get their poop in a scoop.

So, dear Butterfinger Pancakes Kangnam: 

Maybe your food is good.  I don't give a damn.  I'm avoiding you, and telling all my friends and readers to avoid you as well.  Hell, I can probably make better pancakes at home, anyway, and now that Costco exists, I no longer have to grovel to the shitty service gods to get my bacon fix.  We agreed to be seated at different tables, and we agreed to wait for an hour, and then waited in the cold for twenty minutes more, and twenty more: we were obliging as hell and got nothing except a chill, frustration, and a hunger headache from you.

There are easy ways to get around pissing off a widely read blogger or five (and a number of the people in that group were bloggers, and I hope every one of them tears Butterfinger a new asshole for treating our crew customers so badly).

1. Have a maximum group size policy for weekends.  Train your staff to be clear about it.

2. Have a maximum table size policy for weekends (ie: if your group's larger than six, we reserve the right to seat you at different tables)  Train your staff to be clear about it.

3. Train your door staff to seat people in the order they come in, and in how to set out tables for large groups.

4. Don't say "five minutes" when it's actually going to be twenty minutes.

There are probably other solutions, too.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time I've come across such crappy service in restaurants serving non-Korean food: the Passion Five incident has left such a bad impression that I've almost entirely avoided stylish looking places since then, as well as Fusion Food restaurants, and any place of which somebody tells me "they're famous these days".

Expat Jane's beef with slow, obnoxious service at Smokey's Saloon in Itaewon is well documented: it's surprising how many people I know have complained of the crap service there.

Personally, I had another atrocious experience at Jacoby's: 

Other bloggers have blissed fondly over the lovely burgers there, but my friend (another prominent food blogger), and I decided to finally try Jacoby's out one day.  We were told we'd have to wait an hour, so we gave them our phone number [they had our phone number] and instructions to call us when a table opened up.  We headed out and had a breadstick at a nearby bakery to tide us over.  An hour later, absent a call, we came back, expecting to be seated promptly.  People who had not been in line when we came, and people who had been behind us in line were already seated.  My friend asked where our table was, and they said, "Oh. You have to wait."  

"Why didn't you call us?  But those people got seated ahead of us; they weren't in line when we came by."

"Yes they were."

That's right.  Instead of trying to make peace with an unhappy customer who's hangry and annoyed, they lied to our faces.  We didn't drop the "You know we're famous bloggers" card, because it shouldn't have to come with that...

however, I've lost all interest in Jacoby's burgers.  If their wait staff is lying to customers' faces in order to save face, I'm not interested.  And every time a friend is looking for a burger, I qualify my mention of Jacoby's with "I got really shitty service there."

Maybe it's good I didn't go in and order at Butterfinger, and give them a chance to get my order wrong, because that would have led to a whole other outrage...

But to be fair, here's one good thing about Butterfinger Pancakes: 

It's near a building that looks cool.

But the larger question is,

why do all of these restaurants offer such horrible service to paying customers?

Zenkimchi Joe has a theory.  And a little more.

Fatman Seoul has two bits to add as well.

But what it boils down to is this:

If you're serving western food to western people or in the western style, at the usual prices for good western food here (and almost everybody in that Butterfingers' was western, or going there to fulfill their sex and the city brunchy handbag western fantasies, as were most of the Jacoby-ites). give a damn about western service, too!

If you're serving kalguksu at a hole in the wall, be as gruff as you want: I'm there to fill up, you know it, and I know it - I'm not an idiot, and I know different kinds of dining come with different kinds of service expectations... but if your place is high end, or reputed to be high-end (I'm looking at you, Outback), then I come in with some modest expectations about a modicum of decent service.  

If you're not going to train your wait staff to be attentive, put a bell on the damn table.  Maybe burger joints in Canada don't have table bells... but if it means I'll get extra ketchup without spending twenty minutes trying to ESP the waiter over to my table, I'll deal with it.

And if your place is designed real pretty, pay the wait staff an extra 500 or 1000 an hour to retain them longer, and make it worth it to train them in how to not piss off widely read bloggers, and general customers.  That shit doesn't matter to everyone, but it does matter.  Not all of us like shouting "YOGIYO" over the violin quartet playing in the corner.  You're charging 18000 won for a plate of spaghetti.  Don't tell me you can't put a little of that into competent wait staff.

If your place serves food that Westerners crave after eating jiggaes for a month out in the countryside, you know, maybe you've got all those folks over a barrel, and they'll take whatever long wait and crappy service you can pinch out, because they need their pancake-maple fix... but don't expect us to be happy about being treated like cattle, and don't expect to get through it without people who DO give a damn about service, and aren't just ravenous for "real" bacon getting pissed off to high heaven at your arrogance.

[update] I've been asked by a few people to put this list, which I posted in the comments, in the actual post, to increase the chance it'll be read: so here it is.  Here's what I expect when I'm paying more than 15000 won for an entree.  I don't think these are unreasonable, given that I probably also ordered a soup, or a salad, and some drinks.

water refills/another pitcher/whatever either without shouting at someone, or without waiting more than three minutes

knowledgeable about the menu, and/or willing to ask the chef (eg: about allergy-specific ingredients) rather than making something up (this goes back to knowledgeable about the menu)

able to relay special requests to the chef - salad dressing on the side? no problem

brings main dishes out all at the same time (if it's western food); brings out appetizers and soups in timely ways (if it's a course meal)

checks by from time to time to see if everything's ok

if refills are free, comes by to offer refills, or check for empty glasses - even once a meal will satisfy me on this count.

refills my glass with water when it's empty

gets the orders right, and writes things down if necessary

if something I ordered isn't available, they come out and tell me, instead of giving me something else and hoping I don't notice.

is nearby enough, and attentive enough, to spot, and come promptly, if they see someone trying to get their attention

and I know enough Korean that all these issues can be dealt with in Korean: I'm not even asking the wait staff to be conversant in English (that WOULD be arrogant of me) 

and, of course: my expectation of service like that depends also on the price scale of the place. 4500 for a heaping plate of bokkeumbap? I'll happily get my own water and kimchi for that.

12000 for a bibimbap? I'd like someone to come by and pour my water for me, thanks. If I wanted 3500 won bibimbap service, I'd have gone to a 3500 won bibimbap place.

Butterfinger, I offered an olive branch to Passion Five, on what they could do for me to take my rant offline.  I'm not offering that to you, because I didn't even see inside the door of your place, and I'm insulted by the lack of regard for the customers who had been waiting the longest to eat your food.

You'll never see me at your restaurant again.

Rant.

Over.

So where did YOU get crappy service at a restaurant?  Let me know in the comments.  Best story wins.