Story and Survey

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.

Go to the survey on the side, and vote!

Congratulations all around...

To Gord Sellar, for his nomination for the John W. Campbell "Best New Writer" award...



yeh. Let's just let that sink in.





and also to Joe Zen, whose facebook relationship status changed, and whose Seoulpodcast is having its one year birthday soon. Plus, they're having a one year retrospective, so you can vote on stuff.

Oh, by the way...

I've been downloading and watching a lot of old Hong Kong action movies, and I've gotta say...

Bruce Lee, in vengance mode,




ROCKS.

Roboseyo's Bliss-Out Of The Week: Modest Mouse

'seyo likes fire.
and cozy pubs in Daehangno.

OK, so I've been listening to a lot of really cool music lately:

One friend put me onto Spiritualized, another recommended Space Hog's Chinese Album, and yet another got me onto a group called Nouvelle Vague, which will probably be the subject of a post of its own.

Anyway, your bliss-out of the day is from Modest Mouse's first album: before they started broadening their appeal (though I personally still think they sound great, even as the snobs declare them sell-outs -- indie music has been so completely co-opted by now, and the internet spreads word so quickly, that the idea of selling out doesn't mean much anymore anyway, and if you've even heard of a band at all, chances are you'll hear them on an i-pod ad next week, because (damn them) the guys who choose music for commercials have pretty bloody great taste in music...so much so that I used to laugh at the way the commercials' music upstaged the quality of the music in the videos on MTV.

Back on target: I used to be fond of saying that if you took an ordinary rock band, and stuck them in a pencil sharpener, the result would be Modest Mouse. Their first few albums and LPs especially, and even now, a few tracks per album, have a ragged intensity that will drag you along. The style isn't for everyone: the vocals can be rough-hewn, and the lead singer manages to wail and bark through some of the songs, though the lyrics are durn worthwhile if you listen to some of them. Their debut, "This is a Long Drive for Someone With Nothing To Think About" is loaded and laced with clever and inventive musical moments and turns of phrase. Listen to the first forty seconds of this track for just one example of how they build momentum. Well, the entire last third of the album, also builds momentum, along a thirty-minute arc, of fast-song/slow-song alternations, increasing in intensity, to this, the final bliss-out on the album there's one more track: a kind of coda, but this song is the climax to which the whole things builds, this is what all the other wail-outs, bliss-downs and stomp-drives have led up to, and dear readers, it is worthy. This is one of the best songs I know to listen loud: in fact, this whole album is probably best listened to in the car, out on the open road.

The way it builds in the first half, starting very slow, and then gaining speed before the screeching bliss-out at the end, flipping between sounding like a siren or a kid squeaking two balloons together, to the mechanical birds of the track title soaring in wild patterns, the song only makes sense really loud, and played loud, it never fails.

(the video is from the fireworks festival in Andong)


The song is also a textbook example of the way a bliss-out needs, NEEDS a build-up. Not always a long one: U2's Beautiful Day only spends about a minute leading up to the bliss-out chorus, but a dynamic shift really helps startle the listener into that other place the band is reaching for. Now really, this bliss-out starts six songs earlier, as the album gains momentum during the last half, with most of the best songs coming during the lead up. Then, on this track, too, the band builds for about half the song, before it finally leaps into bliss-out territory, and then in the last thirty seconds or so, it even has the courtesy to slow down a bit and ease us out of the bliss zone. If you don't enjoy the sounds, that's OK, but you can at least appreciate the mechanics of the song dynamics, can't you? I love Modest Mouse, partly for that. I'm a sucker for dynamics. I'm not that sophisticated a music listener, but a good shift in tone or tempo keeps me listening.

Don't like it? That's OK. I know Modest Mouse ain't for everybody. But don't write it off until you've listened to it as loud as you can, and preferably in a situation where you can experience some kind of motion (walking on a sidewalk, doing yoga, driving) -- that might help.

Meanwhile, I took these fun pictures at ATEK's book release party for their extremely useful English Teacher's Guide to Korea, and while there, we noticed that Tony's jacket coincidentally matched the bench on which he sat.

We almost lost him a few times. Fortunately, his voice carries.

Good Weekend, plus, Remember This Video?

Well, I'm getting grief for being unable to top my "Come on Toshi" video from back in the day, so here's another just brilliant one. Yeah, it's been around before, but it's just so awesome, I thought I'd re-post it:

How's that, Jason?


Meanwhile, I had a good weekend.

Saw Bobby Kim on White Day/St. Patrick's day, and had the third-worst sangria so far on my mission to find the best sangria in Seoul, and bummed around a bunch with Girlfriendoseyo. Then on Sunday, I took her to Wolfhound for the first time, and got to enjoy watching her experience her first taste of the fantastic Wolfhound burger.

Now, I love Wolfhound, but I do have one gripe:

Dear Wolfhound Pub:

I like your place. I like your food. I like your beer. Your breakfast ain't too bad, either. However, I'm asking you to do one of three things:

Either
1. serve your coffee in a smaller mug, so that I don't feel ripped off by getting a coffee mug that's 40% full
2. fill your flurbing coffee mugs to the top, or at least near the top
3. charge less than three thousand won for four mouthfuls of coffee, when down the street, Rocky Mountain Tavern gives free coffee refills with all their breakfasts, and Starbucks gives nearly a PINT of coffee for a tiny bit more than the price of your tiny coffee puddle.

I like your food a lot, Wolfhound, but the paltry amount of coffee you serve to your poor, hung over customers on Sunday mornings, for THREE FREAKING THOUSAND WON, is, frankly, insulting, and every time I order a coffee from Wolfhound, I hate the place for a while, until my hamburger comes out. And it wouldn't take much to fix this problem. Just do it, and I'll love you forever.

Some pictures from a while back that I wanted to share:

Hey? Wanna get paid to be really good looking? VIOP has hired live people to model their little thingys instead of having them holler into microphones and do sexy dances... it was a bit surprising, but it sure gathered a crowd.

Mustve been boring as heck.

So the Seoul City Tour Bus got some sponsors... it's kind of bad planning, though, to have a poster on the side of the bus which obscures the view.
Yeah, you can see through it, but, uh, still...isn't this getting the priorities wrong for a tour bus trying to put Seoul on display as well as possible?

Other than that...

It's official. Girlfriendoseyo was asking me about the Canadian health-care system, and I couldn't answer her questions. I have been in Korea too long to be up on stuff back in Canada. Which is awkward when I'm regularly asked to speak for Canadian culture, as well as Western culture at large (jeez. What do I know about Denmark? How can I answer for all of "THE WEST"?)

also...
Get your hands on the old Hong Kong Movie "Master of the Flying Guillotine". Just do it.

The UCC Music Video Thing

I'd be interested to know which song started this whole fan music video imitating choreography thing... but it's sure fun.

You might know the Beyonce song "Single Ladies" which is everywhere right now, and the video's getting about a bajillion hits. Well the song, and the dance, is so catchy, that a bajillion MORE people are making their own versions of the song.

Here's the original.


Here's the fan version I like the best so far.


And let's not forget Justin Timberlake going wild on SNL.



This is not the first fan ucc video craze: just here in Korea, there was the "tell me" dance -- one of the genius moves of the WonderGirls' producer, the spectacularly not-handsome JYP (seen here with his face in a backup dancer's crotch) is coming up with dances that are cool and distinctive, but also easy enough for people to try to learn.

Here's the Wondergirls' Tell Me, for any of you who have forgotten.


And there were a zillion imitations of this one, too, among them...this one.


Which leads to horrific train wrecks like these.


Girls' Generation had to get in on the action, and I like the self-awareness of this video's intro, where they start out as indistinguishable mannequins before they come to life as indistinguishable mannequins that can dance. The song's catchy, with a driving beat, and another cute but not-too-hard dance that people can learn in their jazz-dance class at the health club -- kind of the choreographer's equivalent of the way many modern church praise songs are written to be played with simple chords, so that near-novice guitarists can still play them competently (see also: the vocal difficulty of every Korean Trot song ever written).


And then there were UCC versions like this: not that skilled, but must have taken those boys a lot of work and time.


or the rock version, the (actually pretty good) traditional instruments arrangement or the most common: the either inept, or mechanical living room webcam.

I wonder about the origins of this fancam music video thing, and where it all started...

I've been wrong before, but I think it might have started (or at least become cool outside Korea) with Michael Jackson's Thriller dance, which still pops up from time to time, in increasingly clever/random ways.

There was the just plain weird Bollywood thriller.


Prison Thriller


A couple of wedding thrillers.

And my personal favorite: the Tube Thriller.

Imagine being on this car.


And wait for it... how about this one. So nerdy it flips back and becomes epically cool. Imagine having the story of winning a Star Wars Dance-off by doing The Thriller as Darth Vader in your pocket: nobody'd know whether to give you a wedgie or buy you a beer.


Anyway, post your favorite Girls Generation, Wondergirls, or Thriller fan version in the comments. See if you can top Darth Vader.

Have a good day, my lovely readers.

WTF? A Korea Times Cartoonist Capable of Irony? Oh. Unintentional.

source
Am I the only one who finds it ironic that the comic portraying Obama supposedly casting ideology out of the realm of science, chooses to portray the archaic and anti-scientific ideologues as a dinosaur...


when one of their biggest ideological flash-points was the teaching of creation and evolution in school, along with the denial of dinosaurs' existence by some?

Portraying anti-scientific ideologues as dinosaurs would be kind of like portraying Salem's Puritans as warlocks, wouldn't it?

Korean fusion food. A-MAyonnaiZ-ING!

Now, anybody who spends long enough here knows about Korean restaurants' tendency to put (sometimes a lot of) mayonnaise or sweet mustard sauce on just about any food that is not considered "Korean". It's one of those funny quirks that keeps you on your toes anytime you're in a fusion or foreign restaurant here.

Well, if you read Zenkimchi's Andong post, you'll know that my new favorite thing is complaining to restauranteurs in pidgin Korean.

You'll be happy to know that while there is tons of good food to be eaten in Seoul, there are also ample opportunities to practice my new hobby.

Today I went to a restaurant and ordered a seafood salad. Wanted something fresh, you know?

Dear readers, the thing came swimming in so much sweet mustard/mayonnaise sauce that I couldn't even taste the shredded cabbage. (And you know, you could read that sentence and probably guess that I was in Korea, even if you knew nothing about this blog whatsoever). I actually got out the tissues and dabbed away the excess sauce, because it was so egregiously over-sauced, and built up no small mountain of sopping, saccharine napkins in doing so. (Photos when I get home and download them off my crappy cameraphone). Even so, there was still a puddle of sauce in the bottom of the bowl. It made me feel a bit nauseous looking at how much mayonnaise I could have consumed.

Thanks to crappy cameraphone the second, it's hard to see the veritable pool of sauce still in the bottom of the bowl.

And that was after removing this many napkins' worth of sauce, already.




This was a restaurant I used to like, too, until a few bad choices in background music (speed techno doesn't help me relax and enjoy my food, as awesome as Lee Jung Hyun is in other contexts), and this mayonnaise debacle left, um, a sour taste in my mouth.

Lee Jung Hyun: Wah. Try tucking in to a nice california roll with this on in the background.


However, not to be deterred, I got out my cellphone dictionary (after taking some gross-out pictures of the mayonnaise soup in the bottom of my bowl), and finally looked up the word "taste" and the structure "could/couldn't taste". When I went to pay, I was very proud of myself for saying, in broken Korean, "Too much sauce. I couldn't taste the vegetables."

Yep. After all that talk about complaining expats, I'm learning to complain in Korean.

Look out, world!

The Andong Trip at Zenkimchi

For those of you who can't wait for me to finish writing it up, Joe at Zenkimchi has written a nice account of the Andong Trip that's loaded with details about Joe's bowels pictures. Go check it out if you like.

Random photos...

Myeongdong Department Store is not a nice place to be on a Saturday afternoon.

It wasn't so much the crowding, as constantly getting jostled.


And not to go for the cheap shot or anything, but... yeah. As it pertains to being jostled when a split second's worth of patience and a hair's breadth of personal consideration could have prevented it... I will go for the cheap shot. See, stereotypes having been taken into account, last time I was in Beijing, the "have manners in public" campaign was still working, and every time we took public transportation, even though the Olympics were half a year past, people STILL waited outside the subway car for those inside to get out, before trying to pile in. Will Seoul need to have ANOTHER freaking Olympics for people to decide to start respecting the personal space of those around them? I was bumped, unnecessarily, a little less than once a minute, the whole time I was in the Lotte underground shopping center, and brothers and sisters, I'm never going back there again, like, ever.

meh. I'm not always this irritable. Maybe it's the yellow dust, or the fact Lotte Department store's food section is underground, and the added claustrophobia of no sunlight + low ceiling PLUS crowding is what set me off, but...
Lotte Department Store Myeongdong is an unpleasant place. Don't go there on the weekend.

Next: Brian discussed the way white males were absent in many ads for English classes, so I wanted to add this photo (for Pagoda) to the collection. (Taken in Myeongdong).

The female could be Korean... but she also could be non-Korean, between her coloration and the ambiguity of eye-shape a profile shot affords. Anyway, in conclusion, Korea is a land of contrasts. Thank you for reading my paper.

Something I saw in China: apparently Korea's not the only country stealing movie poster ideas.

Does this poster for a Chinese movie look familiar to you?
It should.

In other wackiness: in case you really needed a teddybear phone ornament that expressed your love for brand names, the day is yours: not only can you have a teddy dressed up in Louis Vuitton...
You can even choose your colour!

I saw "Old Partner" today with Girlfriendoseyo. It was great. I also saw this movie poster:

I hate when people use that face.
And it's usually only used when somebody wants something. Especially in tv dramas.

Speaking of TV dramas where people make mopey faces, in case you felt like you didn't have enough "Flowers Before Boys" memorabilia yet, you can get these socks.

I was flabbergasted a little while ago, not only to see the "Our boys are prettier than flowers" poster selling Bean Pole clothes in Coex subway station, but to see four Japanese tourists huddling together and ogling it reverentially. I guess they'd reached the goal of their pilgrimage: the land where flower boys sell overpriced clothing!

Went to a really nice spanish restaurant in Hongdae, and the caption selling Sangria to us sounded like it might have been written by the guy who usually works for Tourism Korea.

These cute shoes were at the flea market. They say "Left food" and "right food" - correction: that should be "left foot" and "right foot" -- the dangers of writing in a rush.