recording mp3s

skype mp3 recorder audacity - runs heavy

Memo to Kumho Rent-a-Car: Get Your Act Together

This is unacceptable.  Kumhorent.com/en is useless.  Even stranger: the Korean page will open in multiple browsers, even though over 90% of Koreans DO use internet explorer, but the English page won't open in Chrome or Safari or Firefox, though more than 50% of internet users outside Korea use browsers other than Internet Explorer.

In google chrome:

in firefox (aka the world's most popular browser)

frozen like this for five minutes now, in Safari:

Totally unacceptable.

Took a few pictures

Took this picture out a building window on the day I ate pork poop-chute with Zenkimchi Joe.  (I was on TV, too... one of my students spotted me.)



Took this picture in a gardenny place near Ilsan, when I was out with the In-laws-to-be.


Also, took this picture at HUFS one night: they were setting up for a big festival.  The hanging umbrellas are a neat effect.



They also strung a walkway up with colored yarn.  This was a little inconvenient (especially for tall people), but it looked cool.


Took this picture at Tapgol Park during the Buddha's Birthday Lantern Festival: bumped into Chris in South Korea, and was wildly entertained by The Lady in Red (who's my second favorite K-blogger's Other Half right now, topped only by Girlfriendoseyo, of course).  Buddha's Birthday remains my favorite Korean Holiday, and the best party in downtown Seoul.  I've written blissfully about it before.


and I took this picture at the Chunggyecheon with my friend Kelly NameChangedForPrivacy, on Erection Day (haw haw haw)

Pride Parade in Seoul

There's a Pride Parade in Seoul this weekend.

From 11am-6pm, around the Cheonggyecheon area, you can check it out.

Here's the Korea Queer Culture Festival website.

Here's the facebook page for the event.

Here's the facebook page for the group.

Here's a brief look at acceptance of Queer culture in Korea (diagnosis: still pretty weak), from Popular Gusts.

And an article from 2008's Pride Parade, on OhMyNews (English).

and Kiss My Kimchi's write-up of the 2008 Parade

Concert Fundraiser... Mark your Calendar: June 26

Got a letter from a buddy of mine, who planted trees with me on Arbor Day (April 1) - a great experience I was too busy/lazy to post, but which was sweet: we went to Kookmin University, and planted trees on a path they'd closed, in order to reclaim it as forest.

Well, he's now planning a fundraiser concert for an orphanage in Suwon, and a North Korean refugee center in Ansan.  Worthy, worthy, worthy causes, both.

The event, called "ROK Concert-Fundraiser: Bands Battle with Molotov Vibrations" is a battle of the bands at Club FF in Hongdae, on June 26 - mark it in your calendars!  The Facebook page is here, and I really think you should go.

My buddy Abhi told me about it, and he's a seriously stand-up guy.  If you live in, or near Suwon, you want to be on his mailing or phone list, because he cares about helping people, and he knows places and ways that YOU can help people, too.

Rain's Bum Joke Bombs... but Congrats Anyway

Former Kpop/current Hollywood star Rain, owner of the most preposterously self-congratulating album cover I've ever seen:

Was voted "biggest badass" for "Ninja Assassin" at the MTV movie awards... and his acceptance joke TOTALLY bombs.

"They told me I was nominated for the bad ass award, so I've been working out.... (crickets chirp, two fangirls scream) why so serious?"


But we shouldn't be too hard on the man.

It was a noble effort, but his delivery was off: he would have gotten a better laugh if he'd turned around and lifted up his jacket tails or something.  This IS an MTV crowd, after all.  Frankly, I sympathize: delivering a joke in one's second language, especially a verbal joke (bad ass award - our man is PUNNING on national television!) is hella hard.  Good attempt at a recovery, too, with the 'why so serious'?

Anyway, congratulations, Rain.  Sorry about that flubbed punchline, but I hope you have lots of success, and more opportunities to show off your sixpack in Hollywood movies.

And in case you think Rain don't do funny, I refer you to the Stephen Colbert/Rain dance-off, in my opinion, one of the high points of the show, and of Kpop relevance in America.

Caption Contest: weirdest burger poster I've seen.

This poster is so many kinds of surreal I don't even know what to say about it... so I'll leave it to you, my readers.

CAPTION CONTEST!

The Wedding Hall Wedding...Why?

I'm actually torn here, because what I really want to do in response to Jason's post about wedding hall weddings is to sit somewhere with a beer in my hand, nod knowingly (and a bit defeatedly) and say "Yeah, man.  I hear ya."  On the emotional level, I'm sitting right there with Kimchi Icecream, feeling that weird taste in my mouth.  On another level, given that I'm about to marry a Korean, I've thought a lot about Korean weddings, and I do want to look a little at this wedding culture stuff.

So before I intellectualize the whole thing and give reasons and justifications, I just want to take a moment to recognize.  Yeah.  It's way different, and jarring, and often quite off-putting.  A spade's a spade, and a Korean wedding hall wedding looks weird to Western eyes.

Soundtrack: Marry Me, John, by St. Vincent


(Photos of one Korean wedding) (Another) (Another, from Busan Mike)
(let's not forget that other countries can go a bit overboard with weddings, too.)

Photo by these guys... who seem to do a good job, if you look at their samples.  Hope you don't mind my borrowing!

Ask The Expat also has something about weddings.

But in Korea's defense, here are some of the points that have come up in talking, a lot, about weddings.  Fact is, most Koreans I've spoken with agree with many of Jason's complaints about wedding halls, and I've spoken with quite a few, because I have an article about wedding culture I like bringing into class.
more

Catching Up: Cheonan Memorial

A few weeks ago, on the weekend of the Cheonan boat tragedy funeral, I wandered around City Hall.  I took a nice picture of this couple:


and then I came across the Cheonan memorial by City Hall.

I haven't commented much on the Cheonan sinking here: I usually don't get THAT political at Roboseyo, but here are my basic thoughts:

1. I'm glad the South was so rigorous in investigating and proving it was a North Korean torpedo: without that rigor, we're in "emotional retaliation" territory instead of "strategic response" territory.

2. I wish China would just get on board... but given that half the North Korean refugees will be heading for the Chinese border if North Korea ever collapses, I can see why they're trying to maintain stasis.  China benefits from the existence of North Korea because it's a buffer between them and the US "proxy state" South Korea, and also because if international attention is on North Korea, it's less on China, and whatever they've got going on in the East-Asian theater.  As long as North Korean concentration camps are running, there's less outrage to go around for China organ harvesting political prisoners and stuff.

3. The best response South Korea can do is... explained better by blogs like One Free Korea or ROK Drop than me... but if South Korea gets back into the information war - dropping satellite cellphones, air-ballooning pamphlets and broadcasting radio signals, cellphone signals, and anything else they can into North Korea, to break the citizens' isolation from the truth, that'll hurt the North more than any military strike could; after the failed currency reform mess, the people are close to the limit, as far as I can tell from here, with the blogs and newspapers I read.  A military retaliation would galvanize the public against an outside enemy, and increase the military's influence, both bad things.  Leaving North Korea to fester, and leaving that bloody revolution to brew, looks weak, but it's the most strategic move if we ACTUALLY want change in the North.

4. Yeah.  Jon Stewart was out of line.

Anyway, I took some pictures of the Cheonan memorial by City Hall.  It was really sad: most of the soldiers who lost their lives were younger than 24



I can't remember what Canadian/Western public memorials are like (this memory of Princess Diana's memorial came to mind), but I think it's sweet and interesting that Korean memorials are covered in post-it notes that people write to the dead.




Photos of the excavation, the soldiers, and the President attending the memorial, as well as photos of US Military personnel helping Korean military folks with the excavation and investigation, were also on display.

Quick, quick, what's that song?

I'm exactly in the middle ground with K-pop, where I like it enough that there'll be about five songs a year I really, REALLY like, but not enough to read every K-pop blog, watch ALL the videos (still too much chaff, sorry), learn the names of ALL the Wonder Girls (one or two is plenty), and know all the latest hit songs.

But then something like this comes along, which I like, and I NEED to know who sings it.


So, the first reader to tell me the name of the singer, and the song, wins a toaster.

My favorite Korean music remains the '80s folk song stuff, and this: 그대 그리고 나 is my latest Noraebang show-stopper.  Lovely lovely song.



Matt Strum is the winner of the "name that song" contest, identifying the catchy song as "Lupin" by Kara.  Here's a picture of Lupin:

And here's the video.  The song's durn catchy, isn't it?

(shekshi denseu [섹시 댄스] warning)