Sorry about the light posting

I know: the first death-knell of a blog is usually posts that start with "Sorry for the light posting"

don't worry, readers, I'm still in it for the long haul... thinking about what direction the blog will take next...

and things have been hectic.  I started my first Korean language class this week...

but this was just too awesome not to post:

Cartoon about Hagwon

from @tsbray on Twitter, this is a flickr series that's an awesome portrayal of the hagwon life, as viewed by a student:

go see it on flickr: here's the first panel.



Here's the flickr page where you can see it all.

Superstar K: Korea Needs 장재인 and 김지수

So "Superstar K" is the Korean counterpart to "American Idol"

Wifeoseyo has been totally enrapt in this show: she had her favorites, and rooted for them, and the final was this weekend.

There's more on the finalists at ALLKPOP

The two finalists were John Park - known by some as the Korean-American American Idol contestant from a previous season, and Huh-Gak, a shorter, less handsome guy, but all-Korean.

Here's Huh-Gak, in one of the performances that hasn't been taken down from Youtube because of copyright violations.

Here's John Park, singing "Man in the Mirror" from a previous episode: his English is stronger than his Korean, and Wifeoseyo says this was the best song of the "Michael Jackson Tribute" episode.

As much as Wifeoseyo liked him, the last thing Korean pop needed was for John Park to win, and reinforce the feeling that, in the same way John Park lost in American Idol, but won Superstar K, that Korean music is a similar but inferior version of western music.

And the two finalists were both good singers and performers.  Heo Gak, the winner, had a touching story and everything, he'll made a decent balladeer once he's plugged into the star machine... but this Korea Times article touches on the best thing about this tv show: The really exciting Superstar Contestants were two other members of the top 5.

You see, two other contestants in the top five were actual musicians, they were something different.  We've gotten used to the superstar idol factory, and the Kpop machine: kids pass an audition, train for seven years in foreign languages, sexy dances, and how to dance in unison and be charming in front of a camera - (echoes of Geisha training, if you ask me)... and a lot of unhealthy stuff seems to be just taken for granted during their training and rise to stardom - as reported by the Human Rights Commission.  And let's not forget Jang Ja-yeon - they never caught/stuck it on whomever she was, um, "servicing"...

Instead, I want to tell you about Jang Jae-in and Kim Ji-su: these two also made the top five, before they got cut.  Jang Jae-in doesn't have a great S-line.  Kim Ji-su doesn't have great abs.  But they play their own instruments.  And whatever song they had to sing, they made it their own.  They were even considerate enough to do a duo for one show, and totally reinvented the song "Cinderella" by Seo In-young (one of my least favorite Kpop stars) - I won't even put her song on my blog... but you can watch it here.

Their rendition is AMAZING.


now, my friend, who knows a lot, reminded me on Saturday that there are lots of Korean popstars that play their own instruments and write their own music: she mentioned Crying Nut, No Brain and Cherry Filter.

That's true.  On the other hand, I don't know if any of them ever hit as broad a demographic as Jang Jae-in appealed to, by getting on this show: Wifeoseyo AND her mother watched this show, and rooted for Jae-in.

So yeah, Crying Nut and Cherry Filter have had their success.  But I think Jae-in has a shot at actually becoming a significant cultural force - she might have the best shot an actual musician has had at contending with Miss-A and SNSD and SuperJunior, in a long time, and the Korean music scene needs a new model for success.  Badly.  My favorite Korean musician/songwriter is Kim Kwang Seok, and everyone of a certain age in Korea makes the same wistful, nostalgic face when you say his name.  I don't know if any singer/songwriter in Korea has had that kind of impact since, but I think Jae-in is young enough, fresh enough, and talented enough, to do that, and to introduce a different model (um, talent) to Korean popular music.

Fact: she's the first young Korean female artist in years where I'd rather buy the CD than watch the video.  Who actually listens to the music for most of these bands, anyway?  You can't see Rain's sixpack when you're listening on your Mp3 player, so what's the point?  Nine Muses isn't even pretending: they're being openly presented as model-idols.

I'm holding my breath.  I'm excited.  Jae-in has the potential to become more than just the Queen of Hongdae, and I hope to all the gods of aesthetics that she does, and that the next time I walk down Jongno street, I hear her coming out of cosmetics shops, instead of another Kpop dance band or gooey ballad.  Kim Jisu?  Same: I'd buy his CD.  I wouldn't just watch his video, and silently seethe when Wifeoseyo watches it.

That's right.  The same way Korean girls need Kim Yu-na to be successful, because she's talented and excellent and she achieved her goal, so that they can have an awesome hero other than "good mother, good wife", K-pop needs Jae-in to introduce a different model for success, so that when kids watch Korean music shows on TV, maybe they decide to pick up an instrument, instead of just practicing their aegyo, doing situps, and taking dance lessons.

That'd be nice.

Halloween Partayzzz!

I've been getting tons of invitations to Halloween parties on facebook and by e-mail...

turns out having a widely read blog means people want me to pass on word about Halloween parties.

So if you're part of the 50% of my readers in Korea, or if you're one of the 50% of my readers outside Korea, but you're planning on visiting Korea next weekend, here's what I've got:

Wolfhound Pub in Itaewon promises to give me a free beer, and maybe even a beef and mushroom pie (my favorite) if I tell you about their Halloween party.  It's a 10 000 won cover, and big prizes.

So, I'm sure it's going to the the best of all the parties.  I'm sure of it.  And you should totally go!  Here's the party facebook page.

Hi Expat has a pretty good rundown of Halloween parties here, which you should look through.  Dillinger's, Sky Bar Lounge, Stompers, and many more are featured on the list.

Freebird sent me an interesting sounding party invitation: they're going to set up a bunch of bands around the edge of the room, and then each band will take turns playing one song each, trading off songs, so that there's a constant flow of music, and the party space has no front row: you can just hang wherever you like.  15000 cover, and the facebook event (including some of the bands playing) are here.

Korea's new to the Halloween game, so it's still a little hard to find a good costume shop; however, so far I haven't been let down by Namdaemun market: go to Hoehyeon Station, and head down to the main stretch, and towards the west end of the market.  See map.


View Costume shop in Namdaemun in a larger map

Got another Halloween party or a link to a listing to tell me about? Leave it in the comments!

Prince on the Muppets and Old Spice Grover

So for one thing, I LOVE the muppets right now.

Remember "The man your man could smell like" - that old spice commercial? This one.


Well how about "The Monster your man could smell like" -- here's grover.


And, see, I don't know ANY artist that grows on you as much as Prince does -- the first time I listened to him, I didn't get it.  A while later, I tried again, and "Purple Rain," the epic song, was the '80s song that got me over my previous prejudice against '80s music (I hated '80s music until about 2002), and convinced me to give the rest of it a chance.  Still don't like the synth stuff-- sorry, Duran Duran, but the more you listen to prince, the more you love him.

Sign O'The Times is one of the most complete, impressive musical accomplishments in music: it was ALL done, from writing to mixing, to playing of every instrument, completely by Prince by himself, and it might be the best album of the '80s.  It's certainly in the top ten.  And here is the most charming song on that album (again, one that grows on you), with the muppets.


Other artists that grow on you?

Bob Dylan -- but strangely, he later grew off me.  Too many lyrics being deliberately obtuse - like his songs were a prank on the kinds of people who want to find meanings in them.
Tom Waits & Leonard Cohen - generally, the songwriters are the ones that do this best.
Sigur Ros - at first it seemed ludicrous to me that a band could find international success with whale sounds.  But then one day, I just kind of got it.

Artists I loved immediately:
TV On The Radio
Andrew Bird
White Stripes

and a bunch more.

1.5 A Month for Rural Teaching?

According to this article, a government agency signed a memorandum of understanding with a bunch of US universities to recruit students to teach in Korea.

The program will bring hundreds of students to Korea to teach in rural schools, and give foreigners a chance to learn Korean culture.

The monthly stipend is 1 500 000 won, and it's run by the National Institute for International Education.

OK.

This is a little more realistic than thinking that Korean Studies students and Kyopos would want to teach in the countryside for free, I suppose... and it'd be good for those rural schools to have native speakers in their classrooms, I suppose.

and maybe this program is trying to imitate the Fulbright placement program, which my friend, who went through it, tells me was very successful, and where the pay was similar, but which was successful because of the people it recruited, and the level of training and preparation and cultural orientation they'd received before they even entered the classroom... (more on Fulbright vs. EPIK here)

On the other hand,

well...

if the Korean government is ready to hire people who haven't even graduated, and low-ball them at freaking 1.5 million a month...

can we please, pretty pretty please, stop hearing about low quality English teachers,

when it's become obvious that the gatekeepers don't give a damn, and will lower the bar this low, to get bodies in classrooms?

Is that too much to ask?

It probably is.



One of the greatest Marmot's Hole comments I read, and I wish I could find the source, was simply this:

Lots of foreign English teachers.
Trained & qualified English teachers.
Cheap English teachers.

Korea has to choose two.

Yeah, right now it's an employers' market: the people doing the hiring have more choices now than before, as lots of educators and people with postgraduate degrees from America are looking for work, given the bad economy over there.

But 1.5 a month, for non-graduates?


If Korea really wants to attract high quality teachers in their schools?  How about this:

Designate public school teachers "teachers" instead of "assistant teachers": this way, the years an education graduate spends in Korea count as real years of teaching experience on grad school and job applications, once they go back home.  Or say that teachers who renew for a second year get "full teacher" designation if they want it, or if they meet certain criteria, to count those years on their resume as true years of teaching experience.  Then years of teaching in Korea's public schools would no longer basically appear as black holes on professional educators' resumes, and give professional, ambitious, career educators an incentive to come, or even stay a second year.

That'd raise the caliber a lot right there.

And I haven't even mentioned visa portability yet.

Saying it's a Cultural Difference is the Beginning of the Conversation, not the End

I was just looking over the series I wrote this spring, about how to make friends across the foreign/Korean cultural divide, in which I highlight a few of the common pitfalls in developing friendships between Koreans and non-Koreans.  The series is extensive, good reading (I think), but while editing and cleaning up hanging links, I added this paragraph:

And remember: "It's a cultural difference" is NOT the end of a conversation.  It's the BEGINNING of a conversation.  After saying "It's a cultural difference," it's important to articulate that difference, and how my expectations are different than your expectations, so that we can be understanding and flexible towards each other in the future.

Using "cultural differences" can be a cop-out to avoid responsibility for unacceptable behavior which I, or someone else, is unwilling or unable to actually justify.  Any time somebody starts saying "cultural difference," watch carefully, to see if that same person is trying to get away with something, or to figure out what topic they're avoiding.


That is, if you want to have a genuine relationship with said person.  Otherwise, "it's a cultural difference" end of conversation, can be the sound of a door closing in someone's mind.


Anyway, to revisit a series I put a lot of work into this spring, go check it out.
Table of contents for the series 
Part one of "How to make friends with a foreigner"
Part one of "How to be friends with a Korean"

Most of the advice is basic, "Don't be an inconsiderate jerk" stuff... but sometimes naming specifics is helpful.

Deep Thoughts: Vlog Idea?

I've been batting around the idea of starting a vlog, or video blog, here at Roboseyo.

What say you, readers?

Here is a little teaser of some of the insightful, thoughtful commentary you might come to expect, should roboseyo start a regular video-blog.

Deep thoughts with Roboseyo:

Feedback?

Public School Teachers, Drop a Line, and Female Bloggers, Unite!

Two quick notes:

1. In a follow-up to the piece about articles giving wildly inconsistent statistics about native English teachers breaking their public school contracts, I have two friends who are looking to connect with Public school teachers, either past, or present.  In particular, they're interested in talking to teachers who broke contract, in the way some news sources reported as many as 66(!)% did.  So if you are/were a public school teacher, and especially if you didn't finish a contract, please contact me (roboseyo at gmail dot com), and I'll put you in touch with people who want to talk with you.  If you're worried about your name being out there, I'm sure they'll let you do it anonymously.

(original article from Popular Gusts, ATEK's statement, Brian in JND's post)
More follow-up: after ATEK's statement, and further investigation, Hankyoreh wrote about ATEK's announcement, and then posted a correction of their original article.  This was also reported at Extra Korea, Brian in JND, and Popular Gusts.




2. One of my favorite new blogs is I'm No Picasso, because she provides a smart, engaging, and thoughtful female perspective on life in Korea.  She has a recent post titled "I'm No Picasso.  I'm also No Dating Blogger" where she calls the Korea blogosphere, and particularly the Dave's comment boards, to task for being overwhelmingly male... it kind of reminded me of this video: "X-Box Girls Get Revenge" where at least one of those sexist asses populating the internet gets his comeuppance.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

The other thing I loved was this paragraph plus change:

Ladies, my question is, what are you doing? I know you're out there. I know you are insightful and intelligent and well-spoken. I know you have valid things to say about your experiences here in the ROK. Which is not to say that the dating bloggers aren't doing that -- they absolutely are. But that's only one aspect of our experience here. Don't tell me that it's the only way we're capable of expressing ourselves, or that it's the only source of interest we have in paying any attention to each other. Community is what you make of it, and so far, ours hasn't been very strong.

Not that it's easy. You'll all (the women, I mean) know exactly what I mean when I reference the boys' club aspect of life here as a female expat.

Chris in South Korea has a list of female K-bloggers, which he keeps updated, as far as I know, and I once made a call out for female K-bloggers before, but I'd love to hear if there are other awesome ones I should add to my reader, and all y'all female bloggers: heed INP's words, and get y'all connected!

The "It Gets Better Project"

Too many kids in the USA have been committing suicide because they were overwhelmed, or bullied, about their sexual orientation.  That sucks.

But this is really cool: there's this amazing Youtube movement called "It Gets Better" - a fella named Dan Savage started this Youtube account, and opened it up, that people could post messages on there, expressing support for young homosexuals.  The main message is just that: "It gets better" - high school sucks, but somewhere beyond high school, there are people who care, who understand, who don't judge.

I've been watching these videos, and they're touching, and beautiful, and it's heartbreaking hearing story after story of humiliation and ostracization, but it's also amazing watching the whole internet come out in support.  It's lovely.




The ones that got me the most were these ones: the christians.  I grew up in a Christian home and went to a christian school, and a chrisitian university where any gays were deeply closeted, and where you had to sign a contract that, at the time, stipulated that you were not supposed to partake in homosexual practices, like the girl in the video below.  Since then, I've decided, like my friend Melissa, who was one of the first people to nudge me in this direction, that Christians are really on the wrong side in this issue.



It seems like, when you look down the line of history, at other great human rights victories, Christians have been on the ragged forefront, fighting for the disenfranchised - slavery, civil rights, women's rights -- yet this time, the religious right is the antagonist, and that grieves me.

So anyway, spread word about the "It Gets Better Project" because stuff like this reminds me of how much good the internet can accomplish, and it restores my hope in humanity just a little again.