Warning: Do Not Start a Brawl in The Korean Baseball League

This might happen.

ht to Zenkimchi

I Like Big Bibles, and thoughts on Sir Mixalot and Lee Hyori

Just watch it. It's funny as heaven.



Next...
Lee Hyori was in a soju ad that's been playing on loop at subway stations around Seoul for a while now.


Now sure, it's Hyori bringing her special brand of hypnotic, "You. . . will. . . buy.  . . this. . . product" CF queenieness and all. . . but what the heaven is up with the song choice?

Of all the songs to choose for a Hyori ad, why choose a schlock novelty from the early nineties, from a one-hit-wonder Dr. Demento crossover poster-boy -- and then running an ad with THAT song, fifteen years after it came out???

(PS: it creeps me out that there are kids who can rap that entire "baby got back" song, who were not even BORN when it came out...though the video is wildly hilarious)

adding to the weirdness of that song showing up in an ad, sorry, but the song fits Hyori like a baggy sweater.  Ass lovely as it is, I'm still looking for the "big ol'" part.  Unless she forgot the other cheek at home on the day she went in for this photo shoot:
Sorry.  While the word shapely is certainly apt, bootylicious just isn't the one for dear Lee Hyori. She's lovely, in that "dear god what a perfect stomach" sort of way,
and a big part of her appeal is the old "of all the K-pop stars, she actually seems like she's having fun instead of just pacing through her choreographer's routines" kind of charisma. . . but she doesn't have enough junk in the trunk to sell records on her big ol'juicy buh-tawcks (thanks, Forrest Gump) alone.

allow me to illustrate:

Big ass:
(courtesy of Nike; text here)

Happy Sir Mix-a-lot (he and his othabrothas can't deny they got sprung):

(lovely nonetheless, but) NOT big ass:
UNhappy Sir Mix-A-Lot: (his othabrothas and he can't deny: they AIN'T got sprung.)

Though with a little help, she might yet hold her own against J-Lo and the bootylicious gang. . .  Sir Mix-a-Lot and his fellas might like this augmented bitty-bit:

But I shall stick with admiring the assets Hyori pops best:

fun charisma, and a really great tummy.

To the choeum chorom music choosey-people who picked THAT song for their ad:

work harder.

How is the weather? The weather is yech today.

The last three days have seen a swanky haze flop down upon the city of Seoul and not let up.

It's gross, and usually air quality this poor is reserved for the spring, with the yellow dust from China, and Autumn is my favourite season because the skies are clearer then than other times.

But not right now.

Heh heh heh. That's exactly what I thought the first time I saw it. Roboseyo's Untimely Film Reviews, part II

"My Sassy Girl," Jeon Jihyun's breakthrough film role (though really, the Samsung commercial and the Giordano commercial will be the reasons she's remembered), was a huge hit in Korea, and remade into a Hollywood film staring Elisha Cuthbert and something something something.

The Korean movie's Trailer:


The Hollywood Remake's Trailer:

(IMDB page)

The Hollywood version tested so poorly with audiences they cut their losses and sent it straight to video. Article here.

"My Sassy Girl" — a smash hit in its native South Korea in 2001 — went straight to video in the US because men rejected its premise of a male character putting up with a bossy love interest in American test screenings, Lee said Friday.

Here's my summary of the movie:

Guy meets beautiful girl.
She treats him horribly, but he dotes on her dutifully, because she's just THAT DARN BEAUTIFUL!
She treats him horribly, but he dotes on her dutifully, because she's just THAT DARN BEAUTIFUL!
She treats him horribly, but he dotes on her dutifully, because she's just THAT DARN BEAUTIFUL!
She treats him horribly, but he dotes on her dutifully, because she's just THAT DARN BEAUTIFUL!
She treats him horribly, but he dotes on her dutifully, because she's just THAT DARN BEAUTIFUL!*
She treats him horribly, but he dotes on her dutifully, because she's just THAT DARN BEAUTIFUL!
She treats him horribly, but he dotes on her dutifully, because she's just THAT DARN BEAUTIFUL!
She treats him horribly, but he dotes on her dutifully, because she's just THAT DARN BEAUTIFUL!
She treats him horribly, but he dotes on her dutifully, because she's just THAT DARN BEAUTIFUL!
She treats him horribly, but he dotes on her dutifully, because she's just THAT DARN BEAUTIFUL!**
She treats him horribly, but he dotes on her dutifully, because she's just THAT DARN BEAUTIFUL!
She treats him horribly, but he dotes on her dutifully, because she's just THAT DARN BEAUTIFUL!
She treats him horribly, but he dotes on her dutifully, because she's just THAT DARN BEAUTIFUL!***
She treats him horribly, but he dotes on her dutifully, because she's just THAT DARN BEAUTIFUL!
She treats him horribly, but he dotes on her dutifully, because she's just THAT DARN BEAUTIFUL!
She treats him horribly, but he dotes on her dutifully, because she's just THAT DARN BEAUTIFUL!
She treats him horribly, but he dotes on her dutifully, because she's just THAT DARN BEAUTIFUL!
She treats him horribly, but he dotes on her dutifully, because she's just THAT DARN BEAUTIFUL!
She treats him horribly, but he dotes on her dutifully, because she's just THAT DARN BEAUTIFUL!
She treats him horribly, but he dotes on her dutifully, because she's just THAT DARN BEAUTIFUL!
Jeon Jihyun dances. She's hawt.
She treats him horribly, but he dotes on her dutifully, because she's just THAT DARN BEAUTIFUL!
She treats him horribly, but he dotes on her dutifully, because she's just THAT DARN BEAUTIFUL!
A limp excuse for her ridiculously self-absorbed behavior is half-heartedly presented.
She treats him horribly, but he dotes on her dutifully, because she's just THAT DARN BEAUTIFUL!****
She treats him horribly, but he dotes on her dutifully, because she's just THAT DARN BEAUTIFUL!
She treats him horribly, but he dotes on her dutifully, because she's just THAT DARN BEAUTIFUL!
She treats him horribly, but he dotes on her dutifully, because she's just THAT DARN BEAUTIFUL!
Some sad stuff happens. They can't be together for some stupid reason.
Long after he's given up hope of meeting her again, they meet again, through a coincidence that strains credulity, then bursts it, stomps it, and poops on it.
She finally realizes he's the man for her.
Movie over.

* at this point, I'd stopped buying the film.
** by this point, I had not even a single shred of respect for the male lead anymore, and wanted to punch him and tell him to grow a pair.
*** beauty nothin': by this point it could have been Audrey Hepburn and I'd have kicked her to the curb for constantly treating me like a turd
**** heavens to betsy they're still stretching this garbage out?

I KNEW this movie wouldn't fly in North America. Knew it. No man would watch another man be treated like such a sap for the entire duration of a movie. Meanwhile, many Korean women I've met love this movie, and think it's touching how the guy dotes on the girl, without ever thinking about how completely emasculated he's been -- degraded to a level reserved for discarded cellphone accessories -- and wish a guy would dote on THEM like that. To them, I usually answer, "Do you want a boyfriend, or a puppy?"

And every once in a while, I meet a young lady who seems to have taken this movie as a how-to-guide on how to attract a man. And I lose interest about the way you do when you realize that the chocolate bar you saw on the table is actually cat poop.

(kinda like this)


Doesn't. Work. (unless you want a man you can't respect)

There's another movie that sets an even WORSE pattern for young women's behaviour in Korean society. . . but only one I can think of, and I'm saving my write-up on that one up for a proper, spittle-flying frothing rant-down.  

Sure, there are cultural reasons why Korean women might gain some vicarious pleasure from seeing a woman treating a man like poop for ninety minutes, in a culture that is still recovering from having sexism institutionalized pretty much at every level possible, and if a movie like this is part of the recovery process, fair enough. . . I don't have enough sociological background to explore that in depth, but I can understand the movie's existence, from that perspective.

(update: on the comment board, James Turnbull, who is eminently qualified to expand upon these points, provides some context for what I mean, but ultimately dodge, here.)

However, I still don't have to like it, and whatever the movie represents aside, as a matter of personal taste, I found the movie charmless, and the characters unlikeable (the cardinal sin for me watching movies).  I just didn't want to spend time with these people.

Anyway: here's to North American girls NOT having this crap model of femininity foisted upon them.

(PS: For another rant/review I wrote back when nobody read my blog: Here's what I said about D-War back in January!)

Korean Traditional Baby Washer

This is how we do it in the R.O.K.!  (taken while wandering around my hood)

For the people back home:

If you know this girl, you know which of the "friends and family" sidebar links leads to her blog.  If, if, IF you know her, you should go click on her name, and send her a bit of emotional support today.  She's a wonderful lady, and she lost her Papa to cancer early this morning.   (if you don't know her. . . kindly ignore this post; grief is a bad time for hits and comments from curious strangers).

Get on her facebook page, or her blog, write a note, leave a comment, look up her old e-mail address in your contacts list.  Get in touch with her and send her some moral support somehow.

-Rob

Today is Blog Action Day; Topic: Poverty

Last year, I participated in "Blog Action Day," a project aimed at getting as many bloggers as possible to write about a single topic, to raise awareness. The topic then was environment, and you can see my post here.

This year, the topic is poverty, an especially pertinent one, as oil and food prices have been increasing all year, and corn-fuel experimentation basically boils down to rich countries taking food out of the mouths of the world's poorest people and putting it in their cars.

Now I'll be honest and say that I don't know a whole lot about the myriad complexities of world poverty, and I'm sure others here at the Blog Action Day site have better things to say about what we can do for world poverty, other than giving regularly and generously to aid organizations.

One thing you CAN do, that's free, and only takes five seconds, is to put The Hunger Site on your sidebar or your front page, and visit it every day, and (if you blog) tell your readers to visit it every day. It takes five seconds to upload a page with ads for Hunger Site sponsors, and just for spending half a second looking at ads, they'll feed starving person. There's no reason you shouldn't do this every darn day of your life, even if you're too cheap to give money or too lazy to volunteer.

Once you're at the Hunger Site page, you can toggle and support a few other groups with your eyeballs: Breast Cancer, Child Health, Literacy, Rainforest Preservation, and Animal Rescue. Sometimes, because I'm a horrible person, I visit all of them except animal rescue, because screw those stupid animals!

Now you can be a horrible person like me, and choose which cause NOT to support for free, as well.

(photo source)

Have fun excluding one!

from: Roboseyo the horrible
(more puppy hate)

Pictures and pictures and pictures and dumb commentary.

My friend Myungshin has magic hands: look what they can do! She can also make them pass through solid objects.

Met this guy out in Shinchon.   
Can't remember his name though. Might've been Brian.

Somebody has the job of writing those t-shirts.

And I want their job.

But bad.  REeeeeeel bad.

Met this guy out in Shinchon too. He found a hot dog stand he, uh, really liked. Street food. Aah, street food. He said it was nice: thick, juicy, and just spicy enough.  I...uh... don't eat hot dogs.

The bad economy's trickling down to the little guy now: those cheapie 3300 won samgyupsal places are now patchworking their signs to cover the budget.

Went to a bar.  It was rough.

You'd think, though, especially in a place like Hongdae, that they'd check SOMEBODY, just SOMEONE to veto signs like this one: "Club DD: We got all black music"

There's a bar called Boobi Boobi in Hongdae, too.  It has another meaning in Korea, but I don't have the background to give an exact translation.  It DOES seem like it must be a cool name for a bar, though.There's also a bar named "Ho Bar."  In fact, there are TWO of them...and more (three...maybe even four) in Hongdae, and another two, maybe three in Jongno.  These bars are a running gag to pretty much every foreigner in Korea.  'nuff said.
Hyori has another soju poster.  Those airbrushers are getting more and more involved in these soju ads. . . it's at the point now where they're not even trying to make it look like an actual person anymore.  It's like cartoon Hyori standing behind a cardboard frame.

Went to a little arboretum near my house with Girlfriendoseyo.  It was gorgeous: the sun was out shining through the leaf canopy and setting little trees aflame with sunlight.Purty.
Girlfriendoseyo made a friend.

Seen on a sign near Sinchon station:

??And English school where you learn to talk dirty??

Saw these in City Hall Subway Station.  A Korean artist had a really interesting take on the interactions between old Korean culture and modern pop culture.

Finally: a soju ad advertising that Soju is "Non-GMO".

Nope.  No genetically modified chemists were involved in mixing cooking alcohol with MSG and water to make this soju.
Advertising soju as non GMO is just weird to me -- isn't that kind of like selling "New Marlborough. . . 100% organic!" -- I mean, so what?  It's still soju.  That's like selling me a rottweiler and saying, "Don't worry.  This one only attacks adults without provocation, so your kids'll be safe."  Big deal.  

TrashCat is not amused.

(picture source)

Korean stereotypes of English teachers spreads all the way to ABC News.  

Completely not surprised to find a Korean name on the byline.

Here's the article. http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/story?id=5838267&page=1

Here's supersleuth Matt from PopularGusts, chronicling the Korean media's history of scapegoating English teachers.

See the resemblance?

Frankly, it's embarrassing for ABC to fall for this kind of junk, and allow it up on their page, without sending a fact-checker in.

You can read the comments I left on the article's comment board (or read the copy of one of them here:)

As an English teacher in Korea who works hard, obeys the law, and nevertheless is often judged according to the crass stereotypes presented in the article above, I resent being characterized this way. Using interviews with only two English teachers, and providing no comparative context for the statistics used (comparing drug arrests to the total population of expats, the Korean population, the Korean rate, or the rapid increase in foreigners living in Korea) is lazy and irresponsible, and far below the standards of an international outlet. 

Frankly, this article sounds like one of the intellectually lazy scapegoating smear-jobs frequently printed by domestic Korean media, which have been frequently and roundly criticized for bias, yellow journalism, distortion, and manufacturing news.

for example: http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2008/07/05/jieae.sk.whats.the.beef.cnn?iref=videosearch

As Mike Hurt says over on Hub of Sparkle:

This journalism is not even as bad as the stuff the Korean media usually trots out — it’s worse. The claims being made are even broader, made to an audience that can’t really know otherwise than to think our citizens really are coming over and influencing all of Korea to smoke out, and the actual focus of the article isn’t really even ABOUT what the title suggests.

For more of my thoughts on the Korean media shitting on English teachers' reputation, see here.

Roboseyo's K-Blog Of The Month: Kimchi IceCream

(crossposted at Hub Of Sparkle)

Yeah, I know you were all expecting me to tap The Hub of Sparkle for this month's blog of the month. . . and I probably would have, 'cept for this.

Kimchi Icecream just popped onto my radar with a drop-dead hilarious account of everything that could possibly go wrong at a Korean hospital's allegedly International Clinic. The post title gives a hint at what happens in the story: The Nurse Who Could Speak English (emphasis mine), but oh, dear readers, the dearth of English speaking nurses at the International clinic is just the beginning of the story, and his account of the "Oh shit! A foreigner! I'm terrified of using English!" face (a face I have seen all too many times myself), among other things, is hilarious, too.

It's a blog by a cat named "Jason," who according to the bio, has lived in Korea since 2005. His writing shows that he HAS paid his dues, but he doesn't get into the kinds of prescriptive or sweepingly generalized bullwinkle certain other K-bloggers do (cough cough). He peppers his posts with photos of characters from The Muppets, the Simpsons, and such, as a funnier way of adding emphasis than exclamation points and smileys. :)

(source)

He also uses humor to approach certain topics that other expats would use as an excuse to gripe (see his post on "the foreigner/chopsticks conversation" here).

He also likes putting up a. lot. of. pictures., of various places around Korea, which is fun, and from time to time (for example, check out the Jogye Temple series on this post) he reels off a little stretch of really lovely photography. And let's be honest: a blogger who throws a whole ton of photos at y'all is a lot more fun than a blogger who throws reams and reams of uninterrupted text out there.

Good job, Jason. Hope so see more of you around the K-blogs.

--Roboseyo

(hold everything!  

Update: Brian just reminded me that this was the same Jason who left a very kind and encouraging comment on Otto (of I, Foreigner)'s discouraged English teacher post.  

OK.  Let the inaguration continue.)