Hi everyone. As part of my ongoing work studying and writing about multiculturalism in Korea, I've created a pair of surveys. The data collected is anonymous, and it will be used in future work about multiculturalism in Korea.
Right now, I'm focusing on "multi-racial" or "multi-ethnic" Koreans -- people living in Korea who have one, but not two, Korean parents. I've looked before, and will be looking at other groups of various types of Korean heritage, at different times.
This is a survey for multi-ethnic people.
Do you have one parent who is Korean, but not two?
Do you live in Korea?
(Or did you live in Korea for a significant amount of time?)
Please take ten minutes to fill out this survey: it'll help me a lot. Or take 20 minutes and answer the optional questions, too.
Hi everyone. As part of my ongoing work studying and writing about multiculturalism in Korea, I've created a pair of surveys. The data collected is anonymous, and it will be used in future work about multiculturalism in Korea.
Right now, I'm focusing on "multi-racial" or "multi-ethnic" Koreans -- people living in Korea who have one Korean parent, and one non-Korean parent. I've looked before, and will be looking at other groups of various types of Korean heritage, at different times.
This is a survey for the parents of multicultural children.
Do you have a kid?
Was one parent Korean, but not both?
Do you live in Korea? (Or did you live in Korea for a significant amount of time?)
Please take ten minutes to fill out this survey: it'll help me a lot.
This step is necessary so that we know we're getting unique survey-takers, not the same ones again and again.
3. After you've entered your e-mail address, the survey website will send you an e-mail with a link, and then it will forget your e-mail address forever. Another person will get an e-mail saying "hey! another person did the survey!" and that will be it: your address will never be connected to your answers, and will not appear in any kind of database. Promise.
4. Once you get that link sent to your address, click on it, and fill out the survey.
It asks you questions about your experience teaching in Korea - answer the questions about your entire time teaching in Korea.
5. Tell your friends about the survey.
This survey is being conducted by ATEK (http://atek.or.kr/survey), but you don't have to be a member of ATEK to participate. You don't have to be a teacher right now to participate, you don't even need to be in Korea to participate: all you need is once, at some time in your life, to have been a teacher in Korea. We're hoping to get a large enough sample size that the statistics will carry some real weight as representative of the "average" teacher's experience in Korea.
If you had a bad experience, or a great experience in Korea, we'd like you to participate, so that the whole thing's balanced: so don't just do the survey if you've got a gripe; do it if you had a great time, too.
As you know, ATEK, the Association for Teachers of English in Korea, is an organization whose mission is to improve life for English teachers in Korea; ATEK is conducting this survey to better understand the situation of English teachers in Korea, so that we know what the major issues are that affect teachers, and how to better serve English teachers in Korea.
See, as I look at the sidebar here at Roboseyo, I notice that the female bloggers listed are a tiny minority. On several of the comment boards of well-known K-blogs, as well, feminine voices very rarely assert themselves, and it is with great sadness that I acknowledge that the great-idea-too-bad-this-happened Naked In The Sauna is now largely defunct.
Now, not because I write this blog to pick up girls or anything: with girlfriendoseyo I'm covered on that front...but I'm worried that I might be letting down any guys who might be reading my blog to pick up girls. (We had an interesting talk in my conversation class about What's the best way to meet your soulmate, and reading strangers' blogs was third on the list, you know.) K. In all seriousness, though, I DO feel like I'm letting down any female readers who didn't give up on me completely with that last lame joke, in providing a place where they can find out about, and hopefully connect with, other female K-bloggers, and see that side of things here.
Fill me in, readers! Who else should I be reading?
(cross-posted at The Hub of Sparkle: please leave your comments there.)
Applicable?
“We need very strong ears to hear ourselves judged frankly, and because there are few who can endure frank criticism without being stung by it, those who venture to criticize us perform a remarkable act of friendship, for to undertake to wound offend a man for his own good is to have a healthy love for him. ”
Michel de Montaigne quotes (French Philosopher and Writer. 1533-1592)
Debatable.
You may have noticed the sudden spate of apoplectic K-Bloggers hating on Jon Huer's "out-of-touch" top ten list of things Foreigners like about Korea: a list which, admittedly, seems like it should have been titled, "The Top Ten Things THIS Foreigner Likes About Korea"
I don't really care to reprint the whole train-wreck here, ere Stafford's head explodes... but how about this.
If you don't like Jon Huer's list, let's do him one better. What are the top ten things actual foreigners, really living in Korea, like best about Korea? Instead of hating on Jon Huer, let's talk about the good stuff about Korea-- it feels better than smearing some old guy, anyway.
Here's Jon Huer's list.
Safe streets
The sweetness and charitable disposition of Korean women over 60.
Korea's countryside people's unique attitude to foreigners.
The famous Korean fighting spirit
Spontaneity
A group of songs called ``Lyrical Songs of Korea.''
Sense of humor and gaiety.
Pansori
Koreans are extraordinarily forgiving toward those less-fortunate than themselves.
Konglish
Now, if that list deserves the deluge of disdain it's been dished so far, let's write a better one. Post it on your blog and link it in the comments, or post your list in the comments for this post. If we have a strong enough response, I might even make it into a survey or something.
There's the gauntlet, folks. Now whatcha gonna do about it?
OK, readers. First of all, a video of those odd live models I saw in Coex the other day.
Next, the most epically goofy moment of the andong trip:
that's my buddy Evan. And keep yourselves in check, ladies: he's single.
Next, a little videos of some old Korean ladies doing Korean culture.
Sometiems I like doing Korean culture, too. A few times, Girlfriendoseyo and I even did Korean culture together. But after a while my knees hurt from sitting on the floor.
Next, a story:
I was bopping around my neighbourhood, eyes agape in wonder at the Springiness of new Spring...I lost a bet with Girlfriendoseyo; I thought winter had one more snowfall in it before it got warm; looks like I owe her some cooking. But I was standing in the front lobby of my hotel building, waiting for an elevator, and obstructing the path of one of those creaky old ladies who collects trash in a cart. She didn't know how to tell me to get out of her way, so she said, in this whimsical voice, "Baang baaaang!" essentially honking the horn at me.
It was fantastic.
The next day, I was walking around a university near my neighbourhood and saw some more people doing Korean culture, this time with drums. I like Korean culture with drums, so I sat and watched them play. It was great. I love seeing people Korean cultureing. Unfortunately, crappy cameraphone the second was all I had to commemorate the mosh pit of drum-holders in plain old regular everyday cloths, bobbing and rockstepping to Korean culture. Anyway, it was great. Finally, ol' Roboseyo has been working hard at teaching, as well as studying Korean, being insanely happy with Girlfriendoseyo, maintaining Roboseyo, updating The Hub of Sparkle (and defending both from trolls and jerk-faces, while trying to figure out which wankers are trolls and which wankers are just regular wankers,) cooking up ideas for my next Korea Herald article, reading and writing for my own edification, thinking up silly stuff to say and crack up my coworkers, and trying to have more than one friend, too.
It's been a while since Roboseyo has dropped one of those really nifty Roboseyo type posts...
so I'm turning the wheel over to you, dear readers, to choose the next topic on which I hold forth at length, at my colourful Roboseyo best:
go up to the top of the page, and you can vote on which of these topics you would like to hear Roboseyo write about:
Some of these are recycled topics from previous vote-ins, and some of them are new: Great Korean Movies you should track down and see Create a country that combines the best of Canada and Korea The movie I hate the most What I REALLY think about Dokdo Why I suck up to Korea so much on your blog? Why I got involved with The Hub of Sparkle, and what I you hope to accomplish there
and if you have another really cool topic which I didn't think of, put it in the comments, and I'll put it in my (tobacco) pipe and smoke it, and see if a post comes of it, too.
Over at the Hub of Sparkle, I've started a huge survey of what you think are the best Korea blogs of 2008.
Take a look, and add your nominations on the comment board either there, or at the Hub of Sparkle Facebook page. If you're a K-blogger, tell your readers about it, so that they can get over there, stuffing the ballot box on your behalf: after all, it's the internet!
I'm closing comments on this post, so that you put all your comments at the Hub of Sparkle's site, or Facebook discussion group.
Below is top star Kim Tae Hee, for an ice cream phone, gives an interesting look at cute culture here in Korea -- I brushed on this in my post about soju ads. In Japan it's called "Kawaii" culture -- the obssession with cuteness. To Canuck Schmoe, the average Canadian, it looks babyish, but believe me, to many of my Korean friends and students, this is considered cool and even sexy! It's a clever move, because women can connect to the cuteness and say "she's like my little sister," and not complain about the ad for being sexist, while men can have their sexist, dominant fantasy of the submissive girl who baby-talks and makes puppy-dog eyes. (note especially the cutesified sexual position at 1:20: you can't wiggle your bum cutely when your feet are that far apart!)
"Melong" is what Korean kids say instead of "na na na na na" when they tease each other.
when does this one (Kim Tae Hee again) stop being cute and start being suggestive?
don't know.
This one got banned for being too suggestive. Wait for the punch line.
And two funny Dutch ads: the difficult decisions we must make in life. . .
and this one is right off the hook. (Warning: this one has a very very bad word in it. It's funny, but rude. . . and it makes a very good case for what it's selling.)
I have some special family news to share. . . but that might have to wait until after the weekend, when the weather is this beautiful.
Until then, I posted these possible future post topics before, and wrote about the most-voted-for topics. I'm putting them up again so you can tell me, what do you want me to write about next? There's also a poll in the sidebar. Cast your vote on the sidebar. I took down the topics I've already covered, and one that I no longer feel motivated to discuss.
1. the goofiest urban legend ever (formerly titled: the silliest thing I've encountered so far in Korea)
2. the most entertaining internet phenomenon I've encountered in recent times
3. why reading Lord of the Rings comforts me
4. the top five list of "Things I'd Change About Korean Culture If I Had A Magic Wand (that worked)"
5. Great Korean movies you should track down and see. . .
suggest your own topic and I'll think about it.
(Links to the previously suggested topics I already wrote about:)
Soundtrack: hit play and start scrolling and reading.
Harry Connick Jr.: It Had To Be You
So a few months ago, I started seeing this poster, advertising a concert for "Harry Connick Jr." -- now, while I DO enjoy it, and even prefer it for swing dancing, jazz/pop/big band isn't usually my very, tippy-top FIRST choice of musical styles (that honour would have to go to singer/songwriter; thanks, Nick Drake, Tom Waits and Micah P. Hinson); however, from what I know of Girlfriendoseyo, and from what I know of Harry Connick Jr., I had a feeling they might like each other, and considering he built his reputation in New Orleans, the birthplace of Jazz and all, and held his own opposite Sandra Bullock in the movie Hope Floats, I also had a feeling he'd have the charisma to put on a tootin' good show.
So the next time I was with Girlfriendoseyo, and we saw a sign for old Harry's show, I pointed it out to her. "Hey. This is an artist I like; I bet we'd really enjoy seeing his show together." (Sure, I should have tried harder to get tickets to see Bjork, too, but I just dropped the ball on that one. Still waiting for Radiohead to show up here; I'd skip a day of work to see THEM play.)
One of the first dates I went on with girlfriendoseyo was to see one of her favourite Korean pop singers, Kim Geon Mo, a beloved singalong popstar with a goofy grin and a really charming way of working a crowd -- between songs he had the whole Sejong Art Centre in stitches. The joy of live music is such a wonderful thing -- being part of a crowd, enjoying the same performance somehow connects people, and I feel like masks drop.
The band Wolf Parade Even when I went to see Arcade Fire and Wolf Parade, two indie-ish bands whose fans pride themselves on "Knowing more about music than YOU do," in Vancouver, a city with underground hipster-pride to rival Portland, Seattle, or Greenwich Village, where people say stuff like "I liked The Saber-Toothed Misanthrope BEFORE she sold out and made a CD," and where I saw a girl walking around in a tizzy of self-consciousness, trying to justify her presence at an INDIE ROCK SHOW by pointing at her shirt and saying, "I've got cred! I'm wearing an ironic T-Shirt!"
Yes, even at THAT show, once the bands started flying, there were a few moments where all (well, most) of those music snobs dropped their cooler-than-thou guards and actually shared something. Eight months later, they might see each other in a record shop (vinyl, of course, NEVER *gasp* CD's), and realize, "Hey. I was at Arcade Fire and Wolf Parade, too." And instead of saying something viciously critical of the show, they might just let their guard drop, meet eyes, and say, "cool. Me too."
Ironic t-shirts. For the emo in all of us.
At the Kim Geon Mo show, I saw something similar, some kind of communal joy, in Girlfriendoseyo's face as she sang along, off-key to the greatest hits and swayed her arms over her head, side to side for slow songs and forward and backward for fast songs (like everyone else in the crowd waving their goofy glow-sticks). It was charming, joyful, and sweet, even though I understand about 5% of the words being sung or spoken.
Kim Geon Mo's goofy smile. So hell, yeah. I wanted to see a live show with Girlfriendoseyo! After a hiccup during planning: I had a brainfart, and rescheduled my last class for the Thursday BEFORE the actual show, and then had to make up classes THAT day AND the actual day of the concert, we went to see Harry Connick Jr. at the Seoul Art Center.
The man did not disappoint. He showed up with a full big band, and family in tow; the drummer was cooking, in all the right ways, and gave even a slow marching piece a kind of rhythmic drive. The band was tight as a pop-star tank top, and old Harry varied the pace, switched from big to small arrangements, and alternated between voice and piano as he ran the show.
He brought his daughters on stage and they talked about how much they enjoyed wandering around the Namdaemun market, and he made a funny face and groaned, "I wish somebody'd told me it's BAD to eat TOO much Kimchi." (Next time, if he and his family needs a guide around downtown Seoul, I'm in. Just get in touch with me on the comment board, Mr. C!) He said Korean women are beautiful, thanked the crowd for its warm welcome, riffed on how much he enjoys the Korean phrase for "thank you" (Kamsa'amnida), and by the time he sang a few lines from the Korean folk-song Arirang (which I've talked about here before), he had everyone in the palm of his hand.
His song selection was a tribute to his hometown, songs about New Orleans, written by New Orleaners, or (in one case) played in the New Orleans Jazz style. The sweetness and warmth of the man singing about his beleaguered hometown (sorry 'bout Katrina, eh?) was touching, and that emotion (in Korean it's called Han -- the melancholy wishing for a home to which we can never truly return) is one that's deeply embedded in Korean traditional art, so it's no surprise he connected with the crowd.
Between his daughters sailing across the stage on wheelies (shoes with wheels in the bottom) and cheering, "Go Korea!", and one of Harry's old buddies, who came out and wowed everyone with a trombone solo, and joked around with him on-stage for the rest of the show, even when he wasn't playing, the whole show had a feeling of a happy dude hanging out with his good friends, and when he danced as the big band carried the groove, he kept the crowd either swaying or laughing (the butt-shaking dance was goofy, but totally hilarious). By the climax of the show, and the encores, people were spontaneously standing up and dancing or swaying to the music, which is pretty surprising in Korea, where crowds are generally quite shy, even for local acts, and his ovation was wild. Harry himself was overwhelmed by the size of the crowd (he packed the place out, which he hadn't done at other venues on the Asian leg of his tour), and he was overwhelmed again when, by show of hands, the crowd revealed itself to be predominantly Korean (unlike in China, where most of the audience were North American expats, revealing that his local fan-base in China was still small).
(his daughters wore shoes like this)
Yes We Can Can - he sang this one at the show.
Girlfriendoseyo was beaming all through the last third of the show, and she was definitely charmed by Connick's fine, funny showmanship. It was great for me, too -- some musical styles are better on CD than live (things like mellow house, DIY indie rock (do it yourself can sometimes be pretty rough live), math rock or certain kinds of electronica where the layers and textures are the main point of the music, arguably classical) most musical styles are better live than in recording (rock, pop, songwriter stuff, arguably classical) by a reasonable margin, but big band and jazz in general is certainly right up there with the blues as musical styles where the live experience FAR FAR outstrips the recording -- enough so that I might even be inclined to argue you're wasting your time buying the CD. Girlfriendoseyo's been having a hella tough month with a handful of different kinds of stress flying at her all at once, but the show really got her mind off all the yucky stuff for an evening, and she told me she was so excited about Connick's performance that back at home, she put on one of the jazz CDs I gave her and danced around her apartment to it, imitating Junior's stylings.
That made me grin: she's almost ready for me to take her swing dancing!
So anyway, thanks a lot, Harry Connick Jr., for putting on a fantastic show, for giving your best and making my and my girlfriend's week; you made a new fan, and secured another one for life.
Here's Kim Geon Mo, the singer girlfriendoseyo really likes. . . the English version, no less!
Plus, lots of examples of his cute, goofy smile. He puts on a really good show, live.
From the website Japan Probe: There's a Ninja Festival in Mie Japan; your approaching death has never looked so cute.
And finally: survey of the day! which bands would YOU skip a day of work to see live, and screw the consequences?
I'm gonna go with. . . Radiohead Modest Mouse White Stripes and Tom Waits. . . and that's about it. And for Tom Waits, I'd probably even fly to Shanghai, if I had to.
I'd skip half a day to see U2, or reschedule all my classes, 'cos I've heard they put on a great live show, but I don't think I could bring myself to skip a full day for them, with all due respect. Ditto for Micah P. Hinson, Elvis, and Jimi Hendrix.
Do you chew the chocolate, because chocolate has such a nice feeling when you chew it between your teeth. . .
or
Do you suck on it, to draw out the yumtastic experience of eating chocolate a bit longer, but miss the fun texture of biting into the chocolatey goodness?
Really, for now (though a year down the road, it's debatable), this affects my life more than clinton/obama. . . and everybody can vote on this one, not just Americans.
I don't have a TV at my house, and don't really miss it, but after seeing a few episodes of the TV series Heroes (which EVERYONE is talking about here in Korea these days) at my friend's house, I bought season one on DVD for cheap.
And, like the X-Men movies, The Bourne Identity, and Jim Carrey's The Mask, the best part of watching a show where people suddenly discover they have superpowers is entertaining the wish-fulfillment fantasy of what would happen if you discovered YOU had superpowers --
A good third of the fun of watching The Bourne Identity series is the daydream that, one day, when somebody threatens YOU, YOU'LL suddenly bust out deadly martial arts and super-spy skills, too; in the movie "The Mask", where the green mask brings out the side of your character that you hide in public, and gives it cartoonish super-powers, and it gives me a ninety-minute-long daydream about what side of ME would come out if I put on that silly mask. Ditto for x-men -- you can fantasize all day about which x-men power would be most fun, most useful, most frightening, and so on.
So in tribute to the TV series Heroes, the survey question is: which superhero power do YOU wish you had?
(and don't say x-ray vision, because then everybody will know you're a perv)
Two rules/qualifiers (just because everybody always says these ones -- like in Korea, you have to say "AFTER your parents, who is your hero?", because otherwise that's all you'll hear):
Don't say Superman's powers, because that's like going to a restaurant and ordering one of everything on the menu. Ditto for saying "Peter Petrelli's [from Heroes] power: the ability to absorb other people's superpowers": that's like saying "If I found a magic lamp I'd wish for a hundred more wishes." -- and kind of defeats the purpose of choosing. EVERYBODY would prefer to have ALL the superpowers, but if you had to pick one, which would it be?
what would be the most disgusting toothpaste flavour?
(let's narrow this down to items that people would at least conceivably allow in their mouth: that's right. Poo tooth paste is out. All the dung beetles reading my blog sigh and go back to their halitosis-cursed lives of dirty mandibles.)
Put your answer in the comments. They'll show up soon.
Question:
To you, what would be the coolest "first thing people say when your name is mentioned" possible?
For example, when somebody says "Hey, do you know Rob?" I wish people answered "Rob? That guy enjoys his life so much, it makes me enjoy my life more, too."
I don't know if that's ACTUALLY what people say, but I sure wish it were.
What about you? What do you wish people said at the mention of your name?
I discovered the ultimate answer to the question: "what law would you make if you were king of the world for a day?"
If I could make one law, this is it: Every high school student is required to spend one year in a different country, on a different continent (in a homestay).
Think about what kind of a young population we'd have if every young person in the country had a year's experience on a different continent, imagine how diverse the viewpoints and thinking styles would be! Imagine how impossible tribalism and bigotry would be to maintain! And I'm not just talking about first world countries -- every country. Wouldn't that be interesting? I like it.
Nothing personal, but the countries that need it most are the isolationist ones: America and Canada are too rarely exposed to a REAL paradigm shift in cultures. Island nations like Japan and England could benefit. Korea would benefit (Korea is functionally an island right now because North Korea is blocking it off from the mainland, and it's been known as isolationist all through its history: hence the nickname "The Hermit Kingdom"). Even countries like Belgium or Austria, which are surrounded on each side by different cultures and countries, would benefit from a trip to a whole other continent. It would also teach hospitality, and patience in the home countries, as each country played host to students from all over the world, even while it sent its students abroad. Students who travelled to third world countries would see the need, and it would be an immediate, urgent thing, rather than just a theoretical, distant, "Think of the kids in Africa" velleity.
There we go. That's MY way to fix the world. It would take some time to bear fruit, but wouldn't it be interesting to see how it played out?
(PS: velleity is the word of the day. Its definition is "a mere wish, unaccompanied by an effort to obtain it." -- a wish to do something that is not strong enough to take action. "oh. I should work out more often." "I should clean my room." "I should really organize my desk" "It would be nice to travel some time")
This is one of Rob Ouwehand's personal silly theories: the discount/tax system. It's a fun conversation topic. People's life choices ought to have financial implications: it might lead certain people to correct their behaviour. For example:
1. The stupid tax. People who do stupid things should get a stupid tax. Speeding on the highway is a ticket. Speeding in traffic, on a crowded highway, or being rude to the officer who pulls you over should be subject to a stupid tax at the officer's discretion. The stupid tax is also what you pay for things like forgetting to pay bills on time, not returning library books, etc. -- money you're paying that you shouldn't need to. SUV owners should be paying $20000/year of stupid taxes. Brand name items should have a stupid tax. . . or maybe a sheep tax . . . on them.
2. The smart bonus -- people who do things that make common sense should get the smart bonus -- people who consistently recycle, who put aside money for retirement, who buy used cars instead of new ones, etc., or avoid credit card debt, or write shopping lists to save making extra trips, should get a smart bonus.
3. The nice guy discount -- self explanatory. Just be polite, people. It's not really hard, and it makes everybody feel better. I just got a "nice guy discount" at my dentist, and managed to save a goodly bit of money! Maybe you should even be able to get "nice guy discount" vouchers for volunteering. . . but then it wouldn't be volunteering anymore, really.
4. The rude tax -- this is a big one. Rude people, if they won't care about other people because of pure human dignity, should learn to be polite because it'll hit their pocketbook if they keep pushing to get the empty seat on the bus, arguing with cashiers about prices (they don't set the prices, dumbass!), spitting in the street, and leering at young women wearing skirts.
5. The green bonus -- people who drive hybrid or low output cars, people who use public transportation, who recycle, carpool, use trash cans, conserve water and turn off lights, absolutely deserve a green bonus. SUV owners, people who drive everywhere, who buy over-packaged goods, may even need to pay a green tax. I think fossil fuels should be taxed right through the nose. As should cigarettes.
6. The sheep tax -- see "brand names" in point one. People who pay extra for brand names, people who buy celebrity gossip magazines, people who buy new clothes with each fashion season, who go to "trendy" places just to show that they're hip. Of all the taxes, this is the one that could have the most far-reaching implications, culturally (though the green bonus might be the most important one).
The sheep tax could even extend to counterculture people -- counterculture can be just as herd-ish as pop culture. If you shop at second hand stores because your friends do, if you hate certain singers or movies on principle, rather than because they suck, or get all your music or fashion choices from the "underground/indie" website/zine du jour, if you choose to dislike the Beatles or Shakespeare, for the pure sake of argument -- you're making choices based on other people's opinions, rather than focusing on what actually makes you happy, and that's just silly.
Now that I think of it, really, cigarettes deserve a stupid tax, a green tax, and a rude tax, and maybe even a sheep tax, if you started because your friends do. Can anybody think of anything that deserves to be taxed more than cigarettes and SUVs that never go off-road?
OK, now it's your turn. Post a behaviour that deserves one of these taxes or bonuses -- sound out! When you hit "post comment", I have to check it before it goes up, so you won't see it right away, but don't worry: it's there, waiting for me! Propose another tax or bonus I ought to add.
