Give Me Something To Read

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.

The articles I'm planning to read this week?

"What Makes a Great Teacher?"
"Can You Disappear in Surveillance Britain?" (relevant to Korea, too, where CCTVs have been put up over nearly every intersection over the last half-year)
"What Happened When I Went Undercover at a Christian Gay-to-Straight Conversion Camp"
"Secret of AA: We Don't Know How It Works"
"The Brain that Changed Everything" - how memory works

I'm Smart, Really!

Hi, Readers.

I'm submitting applications to grad schools right now: I want to get into a Korean Studies graduate program, and some of the admissions people might be visiting this blog to see if the blog really is what I say it is...

So from time to time, you'll see this very post on the front page of this blog, in order that any inquisitive readers from the schools where I'm applying can look at some of my more analytical writings.

And if you want to leave a comment under this, and tell them how smrt smart I am, that would be nice, too.

If you are an admissions official from a school where I'm applying, you may look at this "Best of Roboseyo" page to see some of my better, or more interesting posts.  There are links to some of my favorite posts on the right sidebar.

Also, here are a few of the more extended pieces I've written.  While the writing style is not academic, please consider the content.


Social Commentary
Why do Expats in Korea Complain so Much?
Why do Koreans Get so Defensive?
Links to the full Complaining Expats/Defensive Koreans Series with Ask A Korean!
On Ugly English Teachers and Racist Korean Journalists
Freedom of Speech in Korea
On the (Ridiculous) Portrayal of Foreigners in Korean media
Weddings, K-Pop, Korean Food and Purity: Who Owns a Culture?
Seoul City Should Not Be So Sensitive about Lonely Planet's Criticisms
Student Suicide and the College Entrance Exam
Netizen Bullies Intimidating Foreign Bloggers into Closing their Blogs
North Korea

More of my favorite posts:
Should I come to Korea?
Get your K-blog noticed
Discussing things on the Internet sucks sometimes
Buddha's Birthday Festival is Awesome
The Jesa (제사) for my mother
Korea Needs Kim Yuna
How to Love the Heck out of Korea 

I Loves Me Some Anti-Heroes

Saw a top ten list of "the greatest antiheroes" while rabbit-trailing on the internet today.  And I'll let you in on something:

I love anti-heroes.  Love love love'em.  As you know, an anti-hero is a person who does bad things, but for whatever reason, still has the reader/viewer's sympathy.  Think of my current TV obssession: Dexter
(url: http://www.wallpaperez.net/wallpaper/movie/Dexter-Morgan-1574.jpg)

Yeah, he kills people, but he's such an interesting guy!

Now, these days, there are almost TOO many antiheroes - has Vin Diesel ever played anything but anti-heroes?  However, I love a likeable bad guy in a film.  They're just so interesting to watch.  And way more fun than watching perfect, golden boys and girls marching through plots like little, maddening paragons.

Because they always have to make the right choice, they never make any interesting choices.

I don't know exactly where the idea of the Anti-Hero started-- was Odysseus an anti-hero?  What about Titus Andronicus?  MacBeth definitely was, and his wife even more so.  Was it the devil in Paradise Lost?  Lord Byron's Childe Harolde?  Who knows.

Anyway, this top-ten list of "greatest anti-heroes" was fun to me... it includes Tyler Durden, Cool Hand Luke, Tony Soprano, Han Solo, Malcolm Reynolds from "Firefly" and "The Dude" from The Big Lebowski, and a few from TV shows I never watched.

I'm not sure if Malcolm Reynolds is really an anti-hero, though: my favorite line from the whole Firefly series (yeah, I'm a nerd: but I only watched it once through, OK?) was when he said,
"You don't know me, son, so let me explain this to you once:  If I ever kill you, you'll be awake. You'll be facing me, and you'll be armed." I think that puts him on hero turf, not anti-hero.  But that's just me.

I was a bit surprised at a few omissions on their list as well.  Maybe comic book readers didn't catch wind of this list, because Wolverine was nowhere to be seen.

My own favorite anti-heroes?  in no particular order:

Tyler Durden (fight club)
Batman (Frank Miller/Dark Knight version, not 1960s version: re-watch that show.  He's so durn preachy!  Here's a website that's collected all the times Batman lectures Robin in the old TV series)
Alex DeLarge (clockwork orange) - at the same time, one of the most evil, but also one of the most charming and attractive villans out there.  That Kubrick makes us root for him is enough to establish him as one of the greatest film directors out there.  That when Alex delivers the final line of the movie, we go "YES!  Wait!  NO!  Wait... huh?" makes Alex a permanent top-fiver on my antihero list.  I can't believe there are anti-hero lists that don't include him: my only explanation is that the person who wrote the list hasn't seen A Clockwork Orange.
Dexter Morgan (the TV show Dexter.  Season four is my favorite so far.)
Pick a Clint Eastwood Character - other than Million Dollar Baby and Bridges of Madison County, has Clint Eastwood played anything but antiheroes?  My personal favorite Eastwood Anti-hero is Bill Munny, in Unforgiven. (his best line: see 2:00 of this clip)



Anyway, show me a great anti-hero, and I'll hear you out.  Anti-heroes are great.

Tie it into Korea?  How's this: One of Korea's best movies ever, Oldboy, features one of the greatest anti-heroes out there, along with a badass yogi, one of the most greek-tragedy-ish, devastating endings, and one of the most novel ideas for torture, I've ever seen.

Plus, the hallway fight scene, which regularly gets listed on "manliest fight scenes ever" and is sometimes the only non-hollywood, or non-English film on the list, because it's just so dang epic.

skip to about a minute into this clip: it's all done in one take, and in case you doubted that our man Oh Dae-su was the baddest of badasses, yes, he fights the second half of the henchmen with a knife sticking out of his back.


Other Korean movies with pretty sweet anti-heroes?  Pretty much everything else by Park Chan-wook, along with Oldboy - "Sympathy for Lady Vengance" and "Thirst" come to mind.  I'm pretty sure "The Good, The Bad and the Weird" has a good one.  No doubt the "gangster" genre is full of them, but I don't know that genre of Korean film very well.


And in case you disagree with me that anti-heroes are more fun than heroes...

Which of these two songs is more fun?

"Hero" by Enrique Tightpantsonmyass


or "Bitch" by Meredith Brooks?

My Man Ban Ki-Moon, He Got My Back.

Ban Ki-Moon has gone on record saying that Korea should scrap the mandatory HIV test for E-2 Visa English Teachers.

Yeah.

Tribute to Evan, Kelly, and Matt: People Leave

"A Case of You" by Joni Mitchell: the line "I could drink a case of you, and still be on my feet" is one of the greatest lines in a pop/rock song ever. And other lyrics get quoted in the comments.


I always encourage my students not to ask the question "What's your least favorite thing about Korea" or "What's the worst thing about Korea?" when they first meet a new foreigner:  do they really want to get the conversation off on such a negative note?  And what if the answer to that question is something honest, or savage, rather than just another sideways compliment, the way it's often expected to be answered?

My "safe" answer to that question, for a long time, has been "The language barrier" -- it prompts a "fair enough" kind of reaction, and it shifts the onus from Koreans to "fix" something (for example, if I said "corruption") to me, who should really be studying the language harder.

Not long ago, my answer to that question changed: there's a new "worst thing about Korea" in town, and this is it.

People go home.

On facebook today, I discovered that it was Evan's birthday.  Evan's one of my boys.  Honestly, he's one of my favorite human beings.  He's smart, but humble, he has a faith that is strong but realistic, that gives space for others to be who they are, without sending his own moral compass aswing.  He was a loyal friend to me for about three years in Korea, and he was one of the few of my friends who'd call me instead of waiting for me to call them.  And he always had something good to say, something on his mind, worth talking about.

Evan (on the left)

We never ran out of conversation once.

He's also handsome:


You've read about him here before, at this post (Do Make Say Think concert), this post (Christmas) and this post (his birthday party)


It's been a year of attrition in Roboseyoland: Evan the bum-chin is not the only one who left, either.

Kelly NameChangedForPrivacy, whom you first met way back in 2007, has also flown the kimchipot.

Kelly was another really nice lady: I knew her when we were both WAAAAAY younger, back when I lived in southern Ontario, and she was one of the first Canadian friends of mine whom Wifeoseyo met.  Wifeoseyo was absolutely smitten with Kelly's warmth, down-to-earthiness, and sense of fun.  Kelly's another one who never ran out of conversation: she always had a story or a joke, and while she was ready to laugh at a good one-liner, she was just as ready to shoot down a lame one.

When Kelly decided to go back to Canada to get her teaching career in Canada rolling, well, it was a sad day for me and Wifeoseyo.  We got together and went to see the Rodin exhibit at the Seoul Art Museum by Deoksu Palace, ate the best Kongguksu I've ever eaten, and sent her off to church.

And now she's far away too.

Funnily enough, she and Evan were friends, too: you can see her here at Evan's party.




And last December, my best friend during my time in Korea, Matt, left as well.

This is the guy who not only pulled my fat out of the fire, but taught me how to recognize when my fat was in the fire, and how to avoid getting my fat in the fire for future reference.  He backed me up across South China, in some skeezy streets of Yokohoma, and in a few shady situations here in Seoul, too.  He and I shared some experiences that make great stories - stories of the type where people almost die - and also some stories that aren't dramatic at all, but involve things like grief, and heartbreak, and loyalty, and betrayal, and restoration.  The kinds of stories that bond a friendship for life.

And that's Matt.  He's my brother until I die.

Oh yeah... things got silly too.


And he left Korea, too.

Now I'm glad he's moving on to something bigger and better.  I'm glad he's living out the life plan he'd formulated in his head.  I'm glad he's busy loving the heck out of his fantastic wife (who happens to be another of my favorite people)... but that little, selfish, self-pitying part of me wishes he was still doing those things in Korea, you know?

So you know, life in Korea is good: it's a beautiful country with a bottomless well of things to enjoy, there's so much to learn about this place I barely know where to begin, and wifeoseyo is a stalwart, a wonderful support whom I love more and more...

people go home, though, and it's OK to stop for a bit, and remember them, and say "yeah.  Those were good times."

Maybe some long-term expats start to hunker down, and only hang out with other long-termers, because we get tired of the comers-and-goers.  Maybe that's what it boils down to... I hope that I never completely detach from the newcomers, I hope that I never become one of those smirking snarkburgers who makes fun of Johnny two-month and his "You know, I've noticed that Koreans are very competitive!  Especially in school!"... but then, every time another friend goes home, it gets a little harder to invest in then next Johnny two-month that comes along, lest he also leave after twelve.

Is this the sound of an expat turning into a lifer?  Maybe.  Maybe this is why many of the lifers I know mostly roll with Koreans, and the occasional other lifer.

I'm trying not to let that happen: one of my favorite poems in the world is Rainer Maria Rilke's "Be ahead of all parting, as if it were already behind you" -- and I think it's fine, well and good, to have some friends who come and go, as long as you can spot and lock onto the ones who are friends for life...

but it's still sad when someone goes.

Evan: happy birthday.
Kelly: we miss you.
Matt: brother, you'll always have a home wherever I am.

Hope you're all well.

G20 In Gwanghwamun

F  rom the Nanoomi Party: I liked the bathroom.

There's a lot happening because of the G20.  I haven't been down to COEX, but my favorite iteration of the G20 so far is this one:

The cute older folks holding up signs are cute...

 but I LOVED the stuffed creatures:

Finally, I don't know what this guy's deal was, but I'm sure glad he drove by while I had my camera out.

In other news: ATEK sent out an e-mail recently:

Recently, some of you have received messages from your countries’ embassies regarding the approaching G20 Seoul Summit (November 11-12). These bulletins have cautioned that often, G20 meetings are accompanied by demonstrations, and extra police security, in different parts of the city. Previous G20 Summits have been met with demonstrations in their host cities, including outbreaks of violence.

To begin with, in Seoul, please be prepared for restrictions on pedestrian and driving traffic around the COEX complex around the time of the summit, from November 11-12, and before and after. Also, prepare for transportation delays if you live or work in that area.

Also, at the last major demonstrations in Seoul, the 2008 U.S. Beef/FTA protests, an English teacher was injured during a demonstration, not for provoking the police, but for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, during an outbreak of violence. ATEK would like to alert English teachers in Seoul to use common sense in the COEX area, where the conference will be held, as well as around City Hall and downtown Seoul. Please exercise caution and around large gatherings, or areas of increased police presence.

ATEK has sent communications to the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency expressing our confidence that police officers will do their utmost to ensure the safety of English teachers caught up in protest sites, whether out of curiosity or intent to demonstrate.

However, we would also like to inform ATEK’s non-Korean members of parts 2 and 3 of Article 17 in The Immigration Control Act (see source here) which states,

(2) No foreigner sojourning in the Republic of Korea shall engage in any political activity with the exception of cases as provided by this Act or other statutes[1]

(3) If a foreigner sojourning in the Republic of Korea is engaged in any political activity, the Minister of Justice may order him in writing to suspend such activity or may take other necessary measures.

Please exercise prudence in the type and level of involvement you choose, if you attend demonstrations. Do this for your own physical safety, and also because the Immigration Control Act indicates the possibility of consequences for political action: this could put your working visa in jeopardy. Please make informed decisions about participating in demonstrations, and be aware of the situation at demonstrations, even if you are only there out of curiosity, to observe or take pictures.

For more information about your rights, and how to act during an assembly or demonstration, the NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) MINBYUN, or “Lawyers for a Democratic Society,” has published two document, titled the “G20 Summit Manuals for Foreign Activists,” and "Demonstrating the G20 in Seoul this November?" which provides information about Korean laws and codes regarding assemblies and demonstrations. If you plan on attending demonstrations, either for observation or participation, we recommend looking through these two documents. First point: do not participate in violence.

If you are not a Korean, please also consider registering with your embassy, to be updated on important news or alerts concerning citizens of your country.

Following are some embassy websites (if your embassy is not listed below, you will likely find it here:

Australia: http://www.southkorea.embassy.gov.au/seol/home.html

Canada: http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/korea-coree/index.aspx

Ireland: http://www.dfa.ie/home/index.aspx?id=44447

India: http://www.indembassy.or.kr/

Indonesia: http://www.indonesiaseoul.org/indexs.php

Nepal: http://www.nepembseoul.gov.np/en/

New Zealand: http://www.nzembassy.com/korea

Philippines: http://www.philembassy-seoul.com/

South Africa: http://www.southafrica-embassy.or.kr/eng/index_eng.php

United Kingdom: http://ukinrok.fco.gov.uk/en/

USA: http://seoul.usembassy.gov/

Other embassy websites: http://korea4expats.com/Embassies-service.html

Finally, just in case you were wondering:

Wifeoseyo's dogs like me.  And I like them.

Nanoomi Party... Rocked!

So on Saturday night, I got in trouble with my wife.

I stayed out way late, and didn't have the consideration to call her and let her know where I'd be, or what I was doing.

Poor form, Roboseyo.  I cooked her pancakes the next day, and we biked around Samchungdong on our new bikes (more about that later) and things are all cool now...



But the party I was at...

oooh boy.

So Nanoomi.net is a website called a "bridge blog" - a blog attempting to bridge the cultural gap between the English language and Korean language bloggers in Korea.  They're affiliated with Tatter & Media, a group that syndicates a lot of power bloggers in Korea, and helps them connect with the kinds of promotional materials companies like to offer to bloggers, now that they've figured out that blogs have influence.  So if Samsung is looking for a super sexy, curly-haired blogger who likes dumb youtube clips, in order to give him a really sweet digital video camera, they'd be able to say "Oh. You should call Roboseyo, and give your free stuff to him!"

I contribute to the Nanoomi.net meta-blog, which is a kind of a who's who of the K-bloggers you've been reading on my sidebar.  I think it's a great, and actually a very important project: anything that's on its way to building understanding across the expat cultural divide is worth it in my book.  Once the blog is going strong, group translation will be the next step.  Awesome.  You can read about the party here, at Lee's Korea Blog (one of the people I met for the first time: looks way different than I expected), the first blogger on my sidebar to write about it so far (though it was mentioned by one of the co-posters at The Marmot's Hole: Mr. K himself attended as well).

Check out a write-up of the event, with tons of great pictures, at "my jimin story"

Now, it's a funny thing when bloggers get together: we go around the circle:

"I'm Rob.  I'm Matt.  I'm Mike.  I'm Anna.  I'm Simon and this is my wife Martina." and so forth.  And everybody nods politely, with slightly glazed eyes.  Then we go around the circle again:

"Roboseyo.  Popular Gusts.  Metropolitician.  Indieful ROK.  Eat Your Kimchi," and everybody goes "aaaAAAAAaaaaahhh!" and the party's on.

Who was there?
ooh boy... the ones I saw were...
and those are just the ones I spoke to/recognized.  Many of them, I met for the first time.

The author of the book "secret diet"
Indieful ROK
Seoul SubUrban
Mental Poo
The Marmot (and Robert Neff, one of his co-posters)
Lee's Korea Blog
Seoul Eats
Gusts of Popular Opinion
Fatman Seoul
KT Lit (Korean Literature in Translation)
Zenkimchi
Metropolitician
Eat Your Kimchi
Paul Ajosshi (who performed magic tricks for some bloggers' kids who came)
ArtPoli

... and if I missed you, pipe up in the comments!
sorry Stafford.

I liked most of them quite a bit.

And of course, there was trouble... started by yours truly.


Did you know my first Korean nickname was "troublemaker"?

It's true.

There were a few I wish had been there, and you know, I had to put up with my nemesis, Dan Gray, from Seoul Eats.  We even traded insults for a while.  Then we settled down and chatted: had an illuminating conversation.  Did you know his nose looks that way because of an inherited family genetic defect?  It's true.  I'm not just making that up right now.  He's also the only person in his extended family who snores at a volume below 60 decibels (55 decibels) because of this time when he was 23 and a little girl beat him up by punching him in the nose.  All true facts.  Serious.

So check out Nanoomi.net.  It's got an interesting thing going, it's building momentum, and I think it's going to keep getting better.

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.