The Korean NIS (National Intelligence Service) has published an online game to help you spot North Korean spies.
It includes things like people covering their mouths with their hands when they talk (holy crap! every Korean woman with a cellphone is a North Korean spy!)
People who bring weapons to protests, people who leave PC rooms quickly after posting "impure" articles, and people who wear "I love Kim Il-sung" pins are among suspects for North Korean Spy-iness.
What about people who raise funds to buy weapons to assault the police?
Go play!
And don't forget, if you see a person wearing a Kim Il Sung t-shirt, talking with his hand over his mouth as he grabs his stick and furtively leaves the PC Room after posting messages to corrupt Korea's youth, and heads for a protest to hand out tracts and incite violence while photographing sensitive government compounds, the number to call is 111: Korea's spy hotline.
one expat's life in Korea
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Friday, July 03, 2009
Going to Canada Tomorrow. Expect Light Posting
I still have lots to say... but I'll be saying it to my friends and family while I'm on vacation in Canada. Expect light posting on non-controversial topics, because I don't like moderating comment threads while I'm on freaking vacation. Unlike Christmas break, I've been just plain too durn busy putting out fires, slogging things out, negotiating crazy crap, and handling a few personal-life earthquakes, to set up a bunch of "future posts" that will come up in my absence. There's a restrospective on what's been a totally insane semester somewhere inside me, but right now, I'm quite nearly a wreck from weathering storms on numerous fronts... so you'll have to wait until I'm good and ready to talk about it.
Until then... an entire year of riding the subways, sitting beside weirdos or soju-and-squid-reeking drunks, and dealing with other people's bulgogi farts, is made up for by a suit like this.
ajosshi's a pimp!
Took this picture on a recent rainy day. Like.
enjoy the hot weather.
Until then... an entire year of riding the subways, sitting beside weirdos or soju-and-squid-reeking drunks, and dealing with other people's bulgogi farts, is made up for by a suit like this.
ajosshi's a pimp!Took this picture on a recent rainy day. Like.
enjoy the hot weather.
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Thunder and Lightning
When I was a little kid, I lived in Southern Ontario, where summer evening thundershowers are a common occurrence. After bedtime, which was when they happened, the thunder used to wake me up, and I'd stand on the bed headboard, poke my head under the curtains, and look out at the skyline and empty land behind our house (before it all got developed into suburbs) and watch the lightning flash on the farmland on the other side of the lake.
To this day I love thunder and lightning storms, almost as much as they frighten one clan of my cousins, who inherited a pretty sharp fear of thunder from their mom.
we been having thunder and lightning storms in the early morning around Seoul this week, and I've been tempted to get out of bed and point my camera out the window, in hopes of getting something like this. Yeh. Supercool.
To this day I love thunder and lightning storms, almost as much as they frighten one clan of my cousins, who inherited a pretty sharp fear of thunder from their mom.
we been having thunder and lightning storms in the early morning around Seoul this week, and I've been tempted to get out of bed and point my camera out the window, in hopes of getting something like this. Yeh. Supercool.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Heppy Kamaba Day my Kamabian Friends
Yep, it's july 1st, and you know what that means.
Hope you get to see this
but not this
Hope you get to see this
but not this
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
from the golden age of MJ:
billie jean, baby. 1983, Motown: the first moonwalk (by MJ)
Yep. I said the first moonwalk by MJ. hang on to the end of this video:
that's bill bailey, in 1955.
one of my biggest annoyances about proprietary rights and such is that, while a lot of other artists see how making their stuff available on Youtube is good, free publicity which could increase your exposure, Michael Jackson's videos are all embedding disabled, and Prince (maybe my favorite artist of the '80s) won't share.
Yep. I said the first moonwalk by MJ. hang on to the end of this video:
that's bill bailey, in 1955.
one of my biggest annoyances about proprietary rights and such is that, while a lot of other artists see how making their stuff available on Youtube is good, free publicity which could increase your exposure, Michael Jackson's videos are all embedding disabled, and Prince (maybe my favorite artist of the '80s) won't share.
A few links:
Concerned as he is with gender perception in Korea, and the mechanics of females in society and gender relationships, I wonder if James Turnbull would be interested in this article, service, or treatment of topic:
from the Korea Times:
Is 'Substitute Man' Modern White Knight?
it's an article about a quick service enterprise gaining momentum these days where, basically, (for example, in the case of a business called "Any Man," if a single woman has a "man" issue to deal with -- say, a bookshelf to move, a bug to kill, or, I suppose, a swoon to revive, she can thumb up the service on her speed-dial, and a "white knight" on a scooter will arrive at her house within ten minutes to put his thumb on the ribbon for the gift-wrapped present, properly operate the plumbing snake, or open that darn pickle-jar. It's written up as if it's exclusively women who use the service, and exclusively men who are employed as such.
In other news:
My friend's recent experience with a bank's slap-in-the-face credit card acquisition policy for foreigners seems to put the lie to this one, but the article says banks are looking at expat customers as their next big customer demographic: Banks See Expatriates as Gold Mine
from the Korea Times:
Is 'Substitute Man' Modern White Knight?
it's an article about a quick service enterprise gaining momentum these days where, basically, (for example, in the case of a business called "Any Man," if a single woman has a "man" issue to deal with -- say, a bookshelf to move, a bug to kill, or, I suppose, a swoon to revive, she can thumb up the service on her speed-dial, and a "white knight" on a scooter will arrive at her house within ten minutes to put his thumb on the ribbon for the gift-wrapped present, properly operate the plumbing snake, or open that darn pickle-jar. It's written up as if it's exclusively women who use the service, and exclusively men who are employed as such.
In other news:
My friend's recent experience with a bank's slap-in-the-face credit card acquisition policy for foreigners seems to put the lie to this one, but the article says banks are looking at expat customers as their next big customer demographic: Banks See Expatriates as Gold Mine
Monday, June 29, 2009
Korean Historical Films
Now, Korea's film industry has been pumping out about a film a year of important moments in Korea's history: now that the industry has the skill and money to tell stories a little better than they could in the '90s, and the freedom to do so that they didn't have during the dictatorial censorship of the '80s, it's time for some historical filmmaking! The movies made in the name of this sort of historical record keeping have been uneven, at best, and whether they are even mildly accurate to the actual events is not mine to discuss.
A quick rundown of a few:
Shilmido was quite good -- it was about a bunch of Korean men who were recruited by the South Korean military, pulled out of headed-nowhere lives to be trained into a bloodthirsty assassination squad with a mission to raid (I can't remember if it was Kim Jong-il or Kim Il-sung) the North Korean president's house and cut his throat -- in response to an attack on South Korea's president by North Korean assassins that led to a three day shootout between North Korean commandoes and the South's national guard, around the blue house.
Taegukki was the Korean equivalent of Top Gun, to me:insofar as it was the worst good movie Korea's ever made, or the best bad movie. I saw it with my dad when he came here in 2006, and it's about two brothers who end up getting ensnared in the Korean war, and the whole "brother against brother" thing gets examined, poked, exploited, and then beaten into the ground in slow-motion as machine guns fire in the background, the world grows silent, and a character shoutes, "NNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" and holds its head in his lap while it breathes its last. Frankly, I thought it was awful, manipulative and gory and about an hour too long (and that last hour took the melodrama over the top, into "so bad it's good" territory, and then BACK into "so bad it's bad again" territory.)
There was a movie about the May 18th Gwangju Massagre of 1979 (maybe 1978; too lazy to fact check) that featured a line up of more top Korean stars than you could shake a stick at, and a lot of violins and slow-motion in the preview, that got tapioca reviews (at best), and that I decided not to see until somebody I knew said something good about it, and encouraged me to see it. Let's leave it at, I still haven't seen it: the most enthusiastic review I've heard so far prompted me to teach my class the phrase "damn with faint praise".
Movies to come: it should be noted that a number of these historical figures have been given the historical drama (TV Series category) treatment, but have not yet (to my limited knowledge) been given the full historical (film category) treatment. On second thought, in some cases, it might be better that way. Who'd want to see Yu Gwan-sun get the "Pearl Harbor" treatment...but then, if she got the "The Pianist" treatment instead, it might fly.
An epic about Yi Sunshin's naval battles with the Japanese.
A biopic of Yu Gwan-sun (a student, and independence martyr tortured to death for protesting Japan's colonization of Korea)
Something about the 1987 Democratization movement
Was the assassination of Park Chung-hee covered in that barber movie? I haven't seen it.
A biopic of Kim Gu
Possibly an epic about Goguryeo's King Gwang-Gye-to, Korea's greatest expansionist king, who conquered Manchuria and large portions of China's eastern coast, and who, like T.S. Eliot, who appears in both English AND American poetry anthologies, is claimed by both Korea and China as one of their own, but he's had a TV series made about him already.
Hopefully, a story about King Sejong, the greatest Korean, and one of the greatest leaders in history . . . though his life doesn't make as good copy as the others, because he was a scholar and a scientist, rather than an asskicker. The story of how he came to the throne is pretty cool, though.
A quick rundown of a few:
Shilmido was quite good -- it was about a bunch of Korean men who were recruited by the South Korean military, pulled out of headed-nowhere lives to be trained into a bloodthirsty assassination squad with a mission to raid (I can't remember if it was Kim Jong-il or Kim Il-sung) the North Korean president's house and cut his throat -- in response to an attack on South Korea's president by North Korean assassins that led to a three day shootout between North Korean commandoes and the South's national guard, around the blue house.
Taegukki was the Korean equivalent of Top Gun, to me:insofar as it was the worst good movie Korea's ever made, or the best bad movie. I saw it with my dad when he came here in 2006, and it's about two brothers who end up getting ensnared in the Korean war, and the whole "brother against brother" thing gets examined, poked, exploited, and then beaten into the ground in slow-motion as machine guns fire in the background, the world grows silent, and a character shoutes, "NNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" and holds its head in his lap while it breathes its last. Frankly, I thought it was awful, manipulative and gory and about an hour too long (and that last hour took the melodrama over the top, into "so bad it's good" territory, and then BACK into "so bad it's bad again" territory.)
There was a movie about the May 18th Gwangju Massagre of 1979 (maybe 1978; too lazy to fact check) that featured a line up of more top Korean stars than you could shake a stick at, and a lot of violins and slow-motion in the preview, that got tapioca reviews (at best), and that I decided not to see until somebody I knew said something good about it, and encouraged me to see it. Let's leave it at, I still haven't seen it: the most enthusiastic review I've heard so far prompted me to teach my class the phrase "damn with faint praise".
Movies to come: it should be noted that a number of these historical figures have been given the historical drama (TV Series category) treatment, but have not yet (to my limited knowledge) been given the full historical (film category) treatment. On second thought, in some cases, it might be better that way. Who'd want to see Yu Gwan-sun get the "Pearl Harbor" treatment...but then, if she got the "The Pianist" treatment instead, it might fly.
An epic about Yi Sunshin's naval battles with the Japanese.
A biopic of Yu Gwan-sun (a student, and independence martyr tortured to death for protesting Japan's colonization of Korea)
Something about the 1987 Democratization movement
Was the assassination of Park Chung-hee covered in that barber movie? I haven't seen it.
A biopic of Kim Gu
Possibly an epic about Goguryeo's King Gwang-Gye-to, Korea's greatest expansionist king, who conquered Manchuria and large portions of China's eastern coast, and who, like T.S. Eliot, who appears in both English AND American poetry anthologies, is claimed by both Korea and China as one of their own, but he's had a TV series made about him already.
Hopefully, a story about King Sejong, the greatest Korean, and one of the greatest leaders in history . . . though his life doesn't make as good copy as the others, because he was a scholar and a scientist, rather than an asskicker. The story of how he came to the throne is pretty cool, though.
Friday, June 26, 2009
R.I.P. Michael.
yeah, that's two posts in a row not about Korea. deal with it. The song's "Fan Letter to Michael Jackson" by the Rheostatics - sorry about the quality. It's the only version on Youtube, and it's a cool song I remember from the '90s, and have always wanted to hear again.
I like the "It feels good to be alive" refrain near the end.
I like the "It feels good to be alive" refrain near the end.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
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