What I Love about Korean Middle-Aged People:

They not only do stuff like this. . .
they put together a temporary stage, and do it in public!
(note especially the old lady haircuts, which are EXACTLY like old lady haircuts in Canada.)


Ajummas play a funny role in Korean society. . . they're a much maligned group known for elbowing people to get empty subway seats and bawling out vendors in harpy voices for refusing to cut another bit off the haggled-price, but then, they can be hilarious and charming sometimes, too.

(Ajumma at her worst:)


(at 2:35 in this video, Halmoni -- the older, meaner version of ajumma, shows up and basically terrorizes everybody for the rest of the song)


However, sometimes Ajumma can just be wonderfully fun. Here's another story about a delightful encounter with the Korean Ajumma.

For you Expats in Korea who like to get worked up about things. . .

Here.  Go have fun with this. The comment board is actually a howl to read (linked from The Marmot Hole's sponsors) -- especially when, uh, Gerry gets involved.

It's like putting two bees in a jar and shaking the jar.

What to do for Chusok?

As we all know, it's either impossible, or hella frustrating to travel during Chusok.

If you're stuck in Seoul, and all your Korean friends are out of town, I feel for ya.

Here is my list of things to do:

Wander around the abandoned (or nearly abandoned) downtown areas. It's absolutely eerie.

Don't go to Lotte World or Everland: families go there, in lieu of leaving town and getting stuck in traffic. You'll never see it so crowded.

photo from here. Yes, I KNOW this one's actually Tokyo, but you get the point about crowding, yah?

Go to the palaces: almost every palace has something going on at Chusok, events, demonstrations, cultural whatchamacallits.
And, Roboseyo Recommends: Namsangol Folk Village, by Chungmuro Station always puts on a show at Chusok, with tons of traditional performances to see on the main stage.
More to do here.
Or, Roboseyo REALLY recommends:
Because everybody's out of town, and it's September, Chusok is the best time to get out and hit the mountains around Seoul. Here are directions to a few (I like Inwang Mountain myself), but personally, I recommend heading to the north end of the light blue subway line, getting out at Sanggye Station, looking around, and heading for high ground. (Bukhansan is popular, too.)More on mountains in Seoul from Galbijim.

and who knows: maybe I'll see you up on the hills.

Yeh.  The mountains.

Move Over, Paul McCartney, there's a new King (Jong-Il) in Town

As you know, back in the '60s, there was a rumor that Paul McCartney had died, and been replaced by a lookalike name William Campbell, who could be distinguished from the original Paul by a scar on his upper lip. The link above catalogues the clues supposedly left in album art and lyrics on the Beatles' albums recorded after that. (The Wikipedia entry.)

Now, a Japanese Professor is claiming that Kim Jong-Il, too, died, way back in 2003, and was replaced by a lookalike. They claim voice and height discrepancies to support the theory. . . hard to confirm when the guy's the most well-protected recluse in the world. More here.

While I'm pretty sure Paul's death was a hoax, it's also pretty likely North Korea would crumble within the week if word leaked that the Dear Leader was actually the Dearly Departed Leader. . . there's also news that old Kimmy collapsed last month, though as always, this kind of stuff is impossible to confirm, when the national North Korean press agency releases announcements that their dear leader completed a round of golf at 38 under par, while wrestling off man-eating tigers, learning Arabic in a week, and impregnating North Korea's fair virgins with his sheer charisma and a special Baby Gaze he perfected during a week of meditation three feet above the peak of Geumgang Mountain.

Still. . . watch carefully, ladies and gentlemen. Things might get really interesting around here.

You don't know these guys, but you know them. R.I.P. Don Lafontaine

R.I.P. Don Lafontaine (the first one)


The man who invented the phrase "In a world. . . " for movie previews.
Don, featured in an insurance ad:

A Demonstration of the Way Navigating the K-Pop Scene Sometimes Feels Like Wading Through a Swamp Of Cute

except instead of algae floating on top of the water, it's English sentence fragments.
Lee Hyun Ji 이현지 is the perpetrator today.

The entire video. . . if you dare. (Pay special attention to the E.T. appearance two-thirds in.)

Roboseyo's First Caption Contest

HT to Korea Beat

funniest caption wins.

The Good News and the Bad News: Seeing Cultural Events in Seoul

The good news: especially with this mayor, Oh Se Hoon, Seoul has been loaded with cultural events and festivalish thingys going on, like, all the time.

This was from Seoul Night Out, a few weekends ago, when they did cultural presentations after dark. . . which is cool to me, because I think cities are all prettier at night.


this performance was gobsmacking amazing. Really, truly fantastic.

The bad news:
As far as I know, there is no single place where one can find English information about all the happenings going on in Seoul. Maybe if you can read Korean, there's lotsa stuff, or if you check the arts page of the Korea Times on the right day (I'm pretty sure it's friday); however, as far as I know, there is no website that gives comprehensive events listings for Seoul in English, that is both navigable, and regularly updated, which means you have to check five or six different places, piecemeal, to find out about concerts, festivals, cultural events, demonstrations (as in pottery, or tea ceremonies, not as in "down with LMB").

Dear Seoul City Hall: Is it that hard to hire a bilingual person to run an up-to-date website, maybe linked to the HiSeoul tourism webpage, that includes ALL cultural events, concerts, performances, demonstrations, and festivals happening in Seoul? Wouldn't that make things easier for tourists than having each different organization's website only advertising the events they sponsor, and having lots of dead links saying things like "Please wait. English version coming soon." or blank pages, or updates from a season ago, and blocked transactions saying "Sorry, Firefox/Linux/Mac-using sucka: you need an ActiveX controller to see this page or navigate this flash-guide, even though huge swaths of the internet hate activex and refuse to use internet explorer" or "We're going to tell you about this festival, and all the films you could see, but you can't order tickets because you don't have a Korean ID number. Mwahahahahaaaa!"



It wouldn't be hard. Heck, pay for my Korean classes so that I can check the listings myself, and I'll do it for you. (If you can lure me away from my current job . . . good luck with that, though.)

My lovely readers: is there a website like this I can bookmark, that I just don't know about yet? If so, please tell me in the comments section, and I'll add it to my sidebar and send you gratuitous thanks.

If not: Hey Korea! You know how you say you want to become more attractive to tourists? Is that true, or is it just lip service? If you mean it, here's a good start! Give us some direction, so that our main "seeing cool shit" strategy isn't just "walk down toward City Hall, follow loud noises, cross your fingers praying its not a protest, and hope something cool happens."

This is what I saw tonight, but I mostly only found out about it by dumb luck.

Ah, Singin' In The Rain. My second favourite musical.

Oh, and by the way. . . Gene Kelly makes it look so effortless, if this doesn't put a smile on your face, I don't know what to say to you,


except that even when Usher, one of the very best dancers in the pop world today, decided to recreate this scene, buddy, you can see how much work he put into it. . . when Gene Kelly does it, it really seems like a fella might do exactly these steps off the top of his head, because he's so happy in love.

To compare: Usher. He does a good job, but it's a bit strained, because Gene Kelly's Just. That. Good.

How the LPGA is like my classroom: No Speaking Korean!

An ESPN columnist writes about the LPGA's recent decision to require all woman golfers to speak servicable English, after discovering that Korean women were suddenly taking over the sport.

Choice quote: "And American college graduates get huge salaries to spend a year in Seoul, teaching the language. "

Why did I spend all this money if I can't park my penis, I mean car, anywhere I want?

The Hyundai Genesis is the new most expensive domestic car/status symbol in Korea, meaning that, short of buying a Mercedes or BMW, effectually saying, "I'm so successful, I don't even CARE that I'm not supporting my country's economy anymore!", the Genesis is the biggest freudian compensation kit status symbol you can drive around Korea.

The sign says, according to Girlfriendoseyo, "Don't park here.  If you park here again, we'll let the air out of your tires." 

Not only is he parking where he shouldn't, but he's done it often enough to be threatened.

I'm told by students who work in the service industry that the most obnoxious customers aren't the really rich, but the upper-middle class people -- the ones who go into debt to buy the mercedes, because their neighbours have one.  The ones knocking on the door, but not quite in the club yet.  There's an old Korean saying that translates, "An empty can makes the most noise," which might apply.

Meh.

Preach it, Kyung-Hee!

HT to Gord Sellar.

in case you haven't already had the conversation about the bad effects cram schools and private institutions have on Korean kids a hundred times, or want to hear about it, or just like reading a succinct summary of a conversation many English teachers in Korea have stretched out over hours on end. . . here.

I talked about this in my "Five Things I'd Change About Korea" post, but Kyung-Hee used fewer words.

P.S.: Camper Van Beethoven is making me very happy these days.

By the Way: A Poem in need of Parsing.

If you're a lover of literature, you might want to check out an accidental poem that blogger Schwim, of Sink of Schwim received from a student. I took a crack at unpacking its vivid imagery and fascinating progression of symbols, and some of you might want to take a shot at it, too. If not, just read that thing: it truly is a work of art.

Science is cool again. Nerds are, too.

In case you were wondering about what Dark Matter is, and what the Large Hadron Collider built under France and Switzerland actually does, but can't read the science-ese in science quarterlies. . .



It's cool to be nerdy again.

Improve Your Life With Roboseyo

Roboseyo's Three Principles For Having A  Disciplined Mind:

1.  Remember that which is important.  Study it if you must.

2.  Forget that which is unimportant.  Take steps to avoid exposure to it if you must.

3.  I forget the third one.  

(p.s.: Bjork)

Pictures from Downtown Seoul Last Weekend.

Another picture of my university campus: I don't know what the green lights are for, but they sure do some nice things when you set them next to the orange lights.


My best friend is taking a Masters' in Applied Linguistics. I'm watching in slow motion as the language he speaks slowly morphs from English to. . . English-ish. Academian. Scholarish. I'm reading Korean folk tales again. I might be hooked. I may even blog some of them.


So anyway, last weekend I went to city hall to hang out. Met girlfriendoseyo and we stomped around the downtown for a while and saw some cool stuff.

I had to bear this on the way downtown. . . the things I do to entertain you with pictures, dear readers. The things I do!



People were scattered across the City Hall lawn like paper cups.



Some ladies in Hanbok. Just because.



And, of course, kids were playing in the water fountain.



More kids playing.




This little one was having an especially good time.



He was my favourite.



I like this picture, maybe third best.


As a picture, I think this is the best one.  From a photographer's point of view, that is.


Maybe the cutest picture of the lot. . . wait a minute. . . maybe not.


there it is.
gonna grow up to be a plumber.


Hope all your weekends were as happy as this little boy's. Hope you were a bit better covered up, though (unless that was the reason you had so much fun. . .)

Take care, eh?

Why I bought a Mac.

(Girlfriendoseyo hates her computer.)

I don't want to become one of those Mac Missionaries, but suffice it to say, I like things so far. I'm even trying my hand at video editing, ya know?

(by the way. . . chusok is coming!)

Seen in Costco:

From the Hire a Proofreader, Nimrod! Files.

Brian had a doozy on his site, so here's one I spotted just last night.

In Konglish, Y-shirt means a button-down, collared shirt.

Gotta quote sometimes.

Korea's political scene just keeps tearing the country apart -- if not on partisan lines, how about religious lines!

The left keeps tossing rhetorical firebombs into the dialogue, rather than trying to be a responsible press, and in response, the right is arresting people for having ideas they don't like.

So, I'm not thinking about Korea.

What IS on my mind. . .

I'm reading one of the greatest graphic novels ever written, the watershed "Watchmen" right now, for the second time, in anticipation of the Watchmen Movie coming soon. This is a ridiculously layered, complex and intriguing story, developing characters in ways that stretched the comic medium (back in the '80s when it was written) into unrecognizable dimensions. It's awesome. . . a bit wooly, and it takes a while to get going, but awesome.

and I have quotes from Conor Oberst, also known as Bright Eyes. You're entitled to your opinion on him, and I'm not going to get an emo haircut or start wearing ironic t-shirts or anything,




but here are some great lines from a few of the songs on "Lifted"


Waste Of Paint (Sorry. Can't embed two Bright Eyes songs in one blog. The whole thing'd implode.)

Bright Eyes

two verses of this song are just so lovely. . . but then there are. . . a lot . . . of words. . . between the lovely parts.

everybody: YyyyaaaaaaAAAAYYYY EXCESS!

. . . lots of words. . .

The last few months I have been living with this couple.
Yeah, you know, the kind who buy everything in doubles.
They fit together, like a puzzle.
And I love their love and I am thankful
that someone actually receives the prize that was promised
by all those fairy tales that drugged us.

. . . too many words. . .


. . . but these lines are lovely . . .

So now I park my car down by the cathedral,
where the floodlights point up at the steeples.
Choir practice was filling up with people.
I hear the sound escaping as an echo.
Sloping off the ceiling at an angle.
When the voices blend they sound like angels.
I hope there’s some room still in the middle.
But when I lift my voice up now to reach them.
The range is too high,

. . . more words. . .


Finally, the best line on the whole album:

-from "Laura Laurent"
But you should never be embarrassed
by your trouble with living
because it's the ones with the sorest throats, Laura,
who have done the most singing.

If you're in Korea. . . (Updated)

watch Arirang TV at 8pm today. If you can, you know.

More later.

-roboseyo

So now that they've edited the whole thing. . . I'm in there all right!

http://www.arirang.co.kr/Tv2/Tv_Video_On.asp?PROG_CODE=TVCR0290&code=Po5

You can click on this link, and watch the first segment -- it's more about two other Korea bloggers. . . but they show my face! And my voice is in there at one point. I show up about seven minutes in, and you can distinctly hear me say, "a lot of hits on my blog are. . . "

Too bad they edited out just about everything I said, you know, because now that it's on the cutting room floor, I'll swear to high heaven I have NEVER, repeat, NEVER been more clever, insightful, and entertaining than in all that stuff they edited out. Just boil down all the not-sucky parts of my blog into nine minutes of talking, and that's what it was like, I SWEAR.


snicker.


If you follow the link, you either have to sign up for the site, to get a login name and see the video on demand stuff, or if I know you personally, you can e-mail me at the address on the sidebar, and ask really nicely, and I'll e-mail you the username password I used to see it.


Zenkimchi kindly put the pertinent segment on Youtube. (Thanks, Joe.) So now you can see it here.

If you ONLY care about old Roboseyo, skip to the eight minute mark. . . but if you want to get a look at bloggers in Korea in GENERAL, watch the whole thing. Mike and Joe are worth knowing about, too.

Random Glee. . .

every once in a while, walking around Seoul, I spot the Korean twin of somebody I know back home.

My friend Anna pops up from time to time. Sarah W. does fairly often, actually, as well as a few of my friends' parents (the moms more than the dads).

Most recently, I had two doozies, though.





Yes, dear readers. I spotted Christopher Walken's Korean clone jogging the track at my new school, and Doogie Howser's Korean doppleganger (Doogie Howjoh?) was walking between two buildings when I spotted him. It's moments like these I wish I could just tug my ear and have whatever's hitting my eyes save as a JPG file on a USB card tucked snugly in my . . . (heh heh heh) . . . but because taking pictures require me to pull my camera case out of my shoulder-bag, pull my camera out of the case, turn it on, wait for the flash to charge, THEN point and click. . . I don't get to have pictures like that. ('cos how are you going to explain that, anyway? Can anybody translate "Hi. You look like a white person I know. Can you stay here and wait for me to get out a camera so I can put a picture of you on the internet? I SWEAR I'm a perfectly normal person and you have nothing to worry about!" into Korean for me?)

Korean clones are even more fun than Konglish restaurant menus, because they are much less common, so spotting one is proportionally more entertaining and rewarding.