say what you want about the song from... the boat movie... Celine Dion got her christmas music right.
Christmas is the time when homesickness cuts deepest, not just for me, but for a lot of expats -- the only way to get across how big a deal Christmas is to North Americans (can't speak for the rest) is to ask your Korean friends to imagine Seollal, Chuseok, and Childrens' Day, all on one day.
Christmas in Korea is different - way different - than back home. I talk about that here (from last year, responding to Brian in JND's response to Korea's "Christmas of Dumb Hats")
Most of my opinions haven't changed much since last year...
[Some say] we have to respect the ways other cultures observe holidays, and if Korea wants to create a commercial monstrosity with stupid hats, that's their prerogative, and the other side [says], "it's all well and good to be a cultural relativist, but it's still jarring and maybe sad to see Christmas observed in a way that is so distant from the warm family holiday we remember from our childhood" (or even from the Christmas we see in movies like A Christmas Story, It's A Wonderful Life, and Love Actually... which is huge in Korea, maybe partly because it reinforces that Christmas is a couple holiday to Koreans.
What I'll say is this: I was never a big fan of commercial Christmas anywhere...but the fact that Christmas is not only mostly divorced from the old religious roots (didn't see a single nativity scene in two nights of walking around, haven't heard more than a few sacred carols on the Christmas music playlists in Korean shops), but ALSO divorced from the Christmas we remember from back home -- as far and away the number one family holiday of the year -- is jarring, and it sharpens the twinge of homesickness, or the sting of culture shock, for most of the month of December, for many of us. I always miss my family more at Christmas, and my students and Korean friends don't get that unless I ask how they'd feel spending Chuseok away from home, in a place where nobody knows what shikke or songpyun is..."
Now, given that the entire Christmas symbology is here, but it's used differently, maybe it's not accurate to ask my Korean friends to imagine Chuseok alone in a place where nobody knows what shikke or songpyun are... maybe a more accurage analogy is to imaging having Chuseok alone in a place where shikke is used exclusively as a mixer for rum drinks, and songpyeon is made of popcorn balls, which people throw at the boy or girl they like, in a holiday courtship ritual.
In previous Christmases, I've come across really cynical or dismissive of Christmas in Korea... but the fact is, every year I try hard to have some kind of Christmassy experience. I seek out friends, and festivals, and do sappy things, and hunt after the foods I eat for Christmas in Canada. This year, it's been particularly poignant, because 1. Wifeoseyo only gets the weekend off - nothing extra - and 2. it's my first Christmas with wifeoseyo, so I DO have family in Korea... (but Christmas will still always be an afterthought to most of them).
but on Saturday we went down to Goseok Terminal (subway lines 3, 6 and 9, if I remember correctly), where there are scads of Christmas decoration shops, and bought some candles, and shiny things, and hanging things, and a cute little tree. So the house looks like Christmas now. At least a little.
And we also got some ingredients, and I made my first Gluhwein today, as I experiment with it this week, to try and offer up something good for some friends this weekend.
Initial result: I'm gonna score it a 5/10. Hopefully I can get this going before friends come over.
I'll post more of the results from my gluhwein experiments over the course of the week.
So I just read about the Band Aid recording of "Do They Know it's Christmas" and watched the video..
it was all recorded in one night, and you're free to your opinion on the song (I'm not wild about it) but...
1. so much feathered hair
2. so many famous singers without stage makeup, in a badly lit studio
3. a fun game of spot the '80s star (looking awful)
4. a fun game of "do you remember who that is?" - exacerbated by the fact many of these singers aren't there intheir usual band costumes, or with their bandmates.
so...
Do They Know it's Christmas?
more of my rantings on Christmas music, with links to the rest of my christmas rantings, here.
and if there were a new "Band Aid" recording, organized by Oprah Winfrey (who else would have the pull to get ANY band involved), who would be in YOUR starting lineup?
Or in the words of the young lady I stood next to at the bus stop, "It's cold. It's cold. It's cold. Oh! It's cold. It's cold. It's cold. It's cold. It's cold."
Cold is funny in Roboseyoland, though, for a few reasons. First of all, communication with Wifeoseyo about cold is very entertaining.
An analogy: my grandmother will notice if you drop a single jalapeno into a six person meal's worth of spaghetti sauce. And imagine her eating something, and saying, "Say, this is really, really spicy! It's way too spicy for me."
Then, imagine my (imaginary) friend Vijay, who grew up in the spiciest province of India, raised on Mama "Five Days of Afterburn" Sen's five alarm curry. He takes a spoonful of something, and says, "Yeah, this is a bit hot, I guess."
Well, my grandmother going, "This is way, way, way too hot for me," is a about like Wifeoseyo saying, "Roboseyo," (she actually calls me that), "Dress up really warm! It's going to be really really cold today! You better be ready!"
And Vijay going, "It's kinda spicy," is like me going, "Yeah, it's kinda cool today," when Wifeoseyo asks about the weather.
This leads to funny miscommunications, and the development of the 140/70 rule: When she says it's cold, she describes it as being 140% as cold as it actually is. When I say it's cold, she understands that I'm understating the weather at about 70%.
The funniest thing was this weekend, when the inlaws were in town, mom-in-law-oseyo told me it would be cold... and overrated the cold at exactly the same rate Wifeoseyo does.
And despite this, Wifeoseyo underdresses for the cold. But this is an opportunity in disguise for me:
Roboseyo's Favorite Thing About Korean Winter #1:
(This message is for the guys:) You see, gentlemen, if you're dating a Korean lady, you should know there's a Korean saying that a fashionable woman is cold in the winter... and this works to your advantage, because chivalry is not dead in Korea. Just keep an extra pair of gloves in your pockets all winter. And wear a scarf you don't actually need when you meet her, so that you can pull it off and give it to her.
Wifeoseyo eats it up every time. It's one of my best tricks. That and cooking breakfast.
Chivalry. Korea. Not dead. Sir Walter Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth I, and Hamlet Cigars. The stuff you find on Youtube with the right keywords.
But yeah. Chivalry is not dead here.
Roboseyo's Favorite Thing About Winter #2:
Ondol. Heated floors are glorious.
Roboseyo's Favorite Thing About Winter #3:
Balgan Naebok
(Rabbit Trail 1)
My brother lives in a place so cold that the Wal Mart parking lot has an electric outlet at every parking space so that you can plug in your car's block heater while you're shopping, and it's so cold there, that during the dead of winter, you need to.
But Canadians aren't actually tougher than others: we don't have special cold-repellent skin like polar bears or tauntauns (see below). We just know how to dress for the cold.
Some Koreans also dress for the cold: the long underwear section in Korea is awesome, because it's so egregiously unfashionable: it's called "bbalgan naebok" (빨간내복) or "red under clothes"
But good luck finding someone under 40 wearing it.
In Edmonton, they don't say "A fashionable lady is cold," just "It's freezing out dere, eh? Bundle up, dumbass." I grew up in Southern Ontario, with weather like Michigan, or Buffalo, for you United Stonians.
(image: a tauntaun. That'll cover my nerd quota for the week.)
(Rabbit Trail 2)
Since you asked, here are my three pieces of advice for managing the cold:
1. Head Feet Hands. If your head is warm, your feet are warm and dry, and your hands are warm, you'll be OK in the end. If your head is bare, your jacket can be warm enough to collect pit-stains, and you still won't feel warm. Meanwhile, cold feet = unhappy Roboseyo.
2. Layers. If you overdress, and sweat in your winter clothes, it's going to end badly. Layer, and use zippers, so you can tie things around your waist, unzip things, zip things up, and pile on and undo layers, so that you're never over-chilled, nor over-warm. Include at least one layer that is wind resistant. Wool is warm, but porous.
Roboseyo's Favorite Thing About Winter in Korea #3:
3. These things.
Neck buffs. See, sometimes I have to give my scarf to Wifeoseyo. I'm OK with that. Because neck buffs are so fantastically multipurpose, I can keep warm whatever part has been exposed.
Plus, they pack away tiny into your pocket, which is a total boon for a dude who likes giving his wife his winter gear. They're also machine washable, unlike gloves with that thinsulate crap in them. Layers are WAY better than extra insulation. And in the summer, they breathe enough to be decent sun protection, too.
Doubleplus, these buffs are the ultimate layering aid. On top of, or below the scarf, the hat, or whatever else you've got, they trap all kinds of heat, despite being small and thin. Pull them over your mouth or under your chin. I always have one or two of these things on me, and I swear by them.
You can find them at most hiking goods stores: I just got one in Namdaemun. If you look around carefully, you can find quality ones for 18000 to 25000 won, or you can get the cheapie ones for 5000 won, and the cheapos are just as good for layering. Another good place to find them is biking stores: moped and scooter bikers are exposed to the elements, and wear them. http://www.guideschoice.com/scripts/prodview.asp?idproduct=834
Roboseyo's Favorite Thing About Winter in Korea #4:
Ten Magazine is running a huge giveaway where readers can vote on who gets the prizes: 30 million won in publicity and prizes are up for grabs in the big contest, and readers can go here to vote on who they think is most worthy.
So I'm a metal-mouth for a few months. Got my implements installed last month, and will have these for three or four months, depending on how long that stubborn left incisor takes to drop, and for that cranky bottom row to line up like soldiers. I had those invisible plasticky ones for a while, and they worked for the bigger stuff, but for the final detail work, I'm going to need wire braces for the last few months to get the details worked out.
As you can see, other than the, you know, wires, things are looking a lot more even than they used to be: Right Side:
Left Side:
I've made a lot of progress already...
On the other hand... eating with braces is a pain in the butt. I'm sure lots of my readers have experienced this for themselves, but I'm going through it now.
Foods that work with braces:
jajangmyeon
seolleongtang
muffins
kalguksu
dumplings
meat... in small bites
spinach
dubu (tofu)-based foods
eggs
kimbap (eaten slowly)
noodle dishes in general
shrimp
Edible, but needs cleaning afterwards:
anything with rice.
that is, most Korean food.
Foods that don't work with braces:
any ddeok and variations thereof
fish with bones
crunchy vegetable matter (kimchi, gakdukki)
nuts
artisan breads with tough crusts
fried stuff (especially deep-friend stuff)
On the bright side, I'm losing weight, because instead of eating until I'm full, I've been eating until I'm tired of trying to eat around my braces.
So that's what's up in Roboseyo-ville.
I've got some things I need to take care of, and I got a really kind e-mail from a loyal reader who's been concerned about the drop-off in posting lately (thanks! sincerely, thanks), and I promise, this is not the end of the Roboseyo we know, and once I've taken care of things, I'll be back in full swing.
But in the meantime... got in my application to the Korean Studies program I want to go to, and did a bunch of other stuff that'll come out once I start catching up on my back-blog.
See you again soon, Readers. Thanks for your loyalty.
December 4 is World AIDS Day. Starting at 9PM, in Hongdae, at Ting Tings, Club TA, Club FF and DGBD, you can attend parties at all four spots for a 15000 won cover. All the cover fees go to Hillcrest AIDS center in South Africa.
You can learn more at the Facebook event page linked above, or at the Rubber Soul Blog, here: http://rubbersoulevents.com.
So Captain Kimchi himself, my buddy Joe, had a baby... well, his wife had a baby, not long ago.
I wanted to send out a huge congratulations to him: I'm sure he's busy as all-get-out right now, but he's been posting pictures of the new baby girl, Ji-an, on Facebook and his website.
He also has an interesting post about Korean post-partum traditions: a pair of old coworkers of mine had a baby while in Korea, and they reported that the pregnancy and childbirth advice they got from their Korean friends was almost exactly the opposite of the advice they got from their phone calls back home. Their conclusion was that you should do whatever the heck your body tells you to do, as long as you frequently check in with a doctor you trust.
I can't say TOO much about it until the show airs... but a few mondays ago I stayed up really late, to film an episode of "SBS Running Man" run by Yoo Jae-seok, Korea's top TV show host.
So at 5:20 today, if you're in Korea, turn on the TV, and watch SBS's "Running man" to see what I'm on about.
I met Nikhun... nice, very very nice, very likeable guy. Even though the gesture he's making to the camera is the british equivalent to the middle finger, I'm sure it's unintentional...
Some of the other stars...
And the man himself, Korea's top TV host, Yu Jaeseok.
And also K-blog celebrities Simon and Martina. I kept photo-bombing them when they tried to take video. Can't wait to see the results.
See you (or at least you'll see me) at 5:20. Or thereabouts.
This is a little after the fact, but something had to be said.
Oh come on Hyori. I like Lee Hyori (이효리). What's not to like? She's cute, she's a super-de-duperstar in Korea, she's really fun in her TV appearances. She's great, right? Plus, my "fetish bingo" post about her is one of my most popular posts ever (and the one where I most often have to clean up trolls' comments)
She makes awesome videos and super-fun songs like U-Go-Girl, which is one of my favorite K-pop videos, mostly because Hyori actually seems like she's having fun when she dances, while a lot of the popstars out there seem like they're just playing a role, or going through the paces their trainers taught them (especially live: they're just not having fun. The farther down the alphabet scale (b-list stars, c-list stars) the worse it is).
She's great, right? Absolutely... except...
she was on CNN.go on November 11.
and here's what she says, according to the subtitles, starting at: 0.25 or so.
Seoul is a city with a long history. There are two sides. Many traces of traditional things on one hand...but it is a well-planned city where you can also see many modern designs. Koreans are racially homogeneous. It's always been about one culture and one ethnicity. So we have a strong solidarity above anything else. And there is the emotional attachment that Koreans call "jeong" which relates to the brotherhood of the race. This "jeong" is what bonds us tightly and makes us think of one another as a single family.
So... she gets a chance to introduce Korea to the world.
And she chooses to introduce the one-blood myth as the thing that will make people decide Korea's awesome? I mean, really? "The best thing about us is that YOU can NEVER be a part of our club! It's nothing you did; you were just born wrong. Isn't that great! Come visit Korea tomorrow!"
As a non-ethnic Korean who plans to live the better part of my working life in Korea, I'm really annoyed by this one-blood stuff. Really annoyed. Because while there are many ways to define what Korean society is and isn't, it's one of the few that draws a circle in which I will always be an outsider, no matter how well I speak the language, no matter how dutifully I perform the jesa and the other rites, no matter how many little Koreans (correction: half-Koreans) I bring into the world. It was a useful myth to generate identity during the Japanese occupation, as well as to help Koreans sign onto Park Chung-hee's development plans... but now that non-Koreans living in Korea have topped the one million mark, and in light of the fact there's NO WAY Korea could have been invaded two thousand times (as it's told) without a little bit of invader DNA mixing into the pure Korean gene pool (p.s.: why is it called the "mongol spot" if Korean DNA is pure? Shouldn't it be called the Korean spot?)...can we please retire the one-blood myth?
"We have a strong solidarity above anything else" -- really? Because if the one blood thing is true, then North Korea's gotta be included in that solidarity, but most accounts of North Korean refugees don't seem to support that ideal solidarity. And ask ten South Koreans if they would wish for North and South Korea to be reunified tomorrow, and watch all the backpedaling and equivocations you start to hear. "It'll be expensive. It was really hard for Germany. I don't think our cultures are the same anymore. Maybe if other countries provided a LOT of aid... Well, on second thought let's not go to Camelot: it is a silly place."
I'm sorry, but I call bullshit on any one-blood solidarity talk as long as 400 000 South Koreans will come out for a U.S. Beef protest, without seeing at least double that coming out for every protest demanding accountability for North Korea, and the fact they are still operating concentration camps to suppress their own people...(or, in Hyori's one-blood view, "our brothers and sisters"). Didn't hear a lot of "let's reach out to our brothers and sisters" rhetoric anywhere after North Korea shelled that island last week. (More of my posts about North Korea)
And then, just in case we hadn't already gotten the message that Koreans are way more specialer than others, so we should visit Korea and hope to become cooler by association (but really, that won't work, because we have the wrong blood, so we can't be part of the club... but I guess we should still visit Korea to gaze longingly at the cool insiders)... she trots out jung.
Has she updated her views on Korea since 1983? And is this really what she thinks will win the esteem of CNN.GO viewers for Korea?
Now Jung is an interesting idea - my favorite piece on Jung is from The Joshing Gnome, who wrote "What is Jung and how can we kill it" (part 1part 2part 3part 4part 5) in 2008: one of my favorite pieces of K-blogging, and so good I hope he tells me before he ever takes his website offline, so I can copy his series and host it on my page, wherever that is.
Basically, Jung is a feeling of warmth, affection and intimacy between two people. It can come out of a lot of things -- it's been used as the reason split-up couples get back together (they're just used to being around each other), it can be used to describe the feeling of kinship that rivals eventually develop, and it can also be used to describe that feeling when you feel like you've been old friends with someone, even though you've only just met them, or the affection by which two old friends can pick up exactly where they left off, even though they haven't seen each other in twelve years. It's the applicable word for the way you can take one group of five people, put them in a room together for an hour, and they're still strangers, and you can take another group of five people, put them in the same room, under the same conditions, and they'll come out friends for life (cf: The Breakfast Club). Group B has jung. The Breakfast Club had jung (and not a Korean in the lot of them, was there?) Group A doesn't.
Now, because there isn't a word that carries exactly all those nuances in English (or in most languages,) I've been told by Koreans that jung is a uniquely Korean feeling.
I disagree: Jung is simply a uniquely Korean word... but here's another word that doesn't exist in English: "schadenfreude" (feeling happy when something bad happens to someone you hate - for example, the way I felt when I saw this video of Brett Favre)
Now, the fact schadenfreude is a German word doesn't mean that only Germans can feel schadenfreude. Germans aren't the only ones to go "Yeah! Brett Favre is really annoying! That clip was awesome! Maybe this time he'll stay retired!" In fact, when I first learned the word schadenfreude, the feeling I had wasn't one of confusion and lack of understanding; the feeling I had was recognition: "So there IS a word for that!"
And it was the same with "jeong" - I was glad to learn the word, because it's a great, useful word that describes an aspect of human interactions in a clean, simple way. It hits the nail on the head better than any English word I know.
I'm sorry, Hyori, but jeong doesn't relate to the brotherhood of the race, or you have to explain why most of my South Korean friends, as well as South Korean media, are trying to distance themselves from North Korea. It isn't race-based at all, and making it sound like it's tied to Korean blood is ignorant, and wrong. I KNOW jeong isn't race-based, because I've had classes of Korean students who just didn't get along, who filled hours of my life with awkward pauses and silences (and it wasn't because of their English ability: they were all intermediate) they just didn't have jeong. They didn't talk together in Korean either, the night we went out for some beers, in a desperate hope that maybe that would get them talking to each other. If jeong came from being Korean, they should have had it... but they didn't.
(And if Jeong comes from korean blood, will my kids have half-jeong? Does the country we live in while they grow up influence that? What about full-blood Korean international adoptees who can't speak Korean? What about ethnic Koreans in China? Do they have jeong? what about kyopos who can or can't speak the language? What about a missionary kid who grew up in a Korean school and speaks fluently, but has blue eyes? And when does jeong get passed from the (Korean) parents to the (Korean) kids, and can that only happen while physically in Korea, or while using the Korean language? Could a non-Korean kid raised in Korea in a Korean family have jeong?)
And this kind of a description of Korean culture -- laced with undertones of racism and exceptionalism -- is badly miscalculated, if this is how you think viewers of CNN.GO will be convinced to like and admire Korean culture.
I like you a lot, Hyori, but you stepped wrong this time. And I'm calling you out (fourteen days late). And maybe the Hyori fan club is going to fill my comment board up with hate... but I'll just have to deal with that, because Hyori's view of Korean culture is outdated, and just ignorant, and as one of the people who is marginalized by the myths promoted in it, I WILL stand up and object to it.
I like you a lot, Hyori, and any time you want a private English tutor, just call me: we're the same age, you know. But I hate what you said, and the way you think about Korean culture (if this is actually how YOU feel about Korean culture) because you're making me an outsider.
givemesomethingtoread.com (easy to remember), is a great little website: the text version of "TED Talks" - another website everyone who wants the Internet to actually make them smarter, should have on their feed, or as their default page. The topics are varied, chosen from reader submissions, some of the articles are longer - more than a blog post - remember back when we read magazines, and had attention spans? And it's always worth reading - either thought provoking, or compelling, or sometimes even just charming.
Anyway, they have a "Best of 2010" special up, and if you're looking for some great articles, give it a try.
