Thursday, December 24, 2009

Christmas in Gwanghwamun/Chunggyecheon, Missing Family, and Stupid Hats

Met my friend Cecilia yesterday, and she introduced her boyfriend to me.

You may remember her from here:


Well, her boyfriend a a seriously stellar guy. I like him a lot... and I'm fussy about who dates my surrogate sisters and brothers... but he's a class act, really supportive, and really sweet. Awesome.

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too cute.


Took pictures of the Gwanghwamun area, and also some video. I'd also taken a bus down to Kangnam to see what it had to offer, but Kangnam was pants compared to Jongno/Gwanghwamun/City Hall/Chunggyecheon. (Pants is UK slang for "garbage") - somebody told me Kangnam was way cooler these days that it had been the last time I went down there, so I've even refrained from slamming Kangnam at every chance I get, on the off chance it actually WAS cooler... no such luck. Still too crowded, still shiny but with no feeling, still a poor man's Shinjuku. Sorry, Kangnam. You're going to have to try harder, and I don't mean installing more LCD screens.

I gave Cecilia the camera and she got these candid shots of me.

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Video Turtle Boat in front of Admiral Lee in Gwanghwamun Plaza.
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Gwanghwamun Plaza
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Jongno, on the other hand, was in fine form.

Myeongdong

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Every Christmas, there's a competition between the department stores to put on the nicest Christmas light display.

Lotte Department Store and Lotte Hotel were unusually weak this year... Namdaemun's Shinsegye spanked Lotte all over the place.

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The CitiBank christmas tree in Chunggyecheon plaza was almost as big as the red-blue poo, and it changed color, so it's best seen on the video (see above). It was really nice, though.
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Lotte Young Plaza also beat out Lotte Department Store/Lotte Hotel.

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Lotte Dept store was meh.
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City Hall's Christmas tree was nowhere near this nice; the rest of City Hall Plaza was mostly weak sauce, too.

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Outside the Press Building between Gwanghwamun and City Hall

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Also along that stretch: the Haechi made his first Christmas appearance. In Seoul, the Haechi comes at night to give good children Christmas gifts like ice cream cakes and stupid hats, and he give bad children's parents municipal tax notices, and arrests them for demonstrating in public spaces.

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Chunggyecheon rocked, though.

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I also went around that area with my handsome buddy Evan, two nights earlier, so these pictures are from two separate nights. He's a great guy, and he has a message for you.





I already linked Brian's post about dumb Korean Christmas music and stupid hats... the comments to that post are a veritable bloodbath that boils down to a few people saying 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 saying, "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 (put me in the Charlie Brown camp -- ever notice how preachy "A Charlie Brown Christmas" is?), 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, where nobody knows what shikke or songpyun is. The only way I can explain the importance of Christmas to Westerners is to say "Imagine Chusok, Sollal, and Children's Day, all in one day. That's Christmas to me."

Being critical of Christmas cakes and silly hats is a legitimate response to that cognitive dissonance -- "It looks like Christmas... but it isn't Christmas like I remember/long for it..." and frankly, I sympathize. It wouldn't much surprise me if the people attacking Brian in the comments are simply exhibiting their OWN way of coping with the far-from-home culture shock, assuming they ARE far from home, by biding no negativity, or reacting to it so defensively.

And after all that preachifying, here's the best picture of the night:

Saw reflection of blue christmas lights in metal sign. favorite hidden treasure. Whoever can find where I took this, and send me a similar picture, or post it on their blog, wins a cookie.

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Now I'm off: I'll be on the road a bit, so I might not post again until next week. If you really miss me, you can read me in Korean Newsweek (assuming you read Korean) or the English original (at Roboseyo), and also at Wonju Wife, talking about why I still believe in Santa Claus.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Christmas Music: The Five Artists that Need to make a Christmas Album

Tom Jones and Cerys - hilarious "Baby it's Cold Outside" - Tom Jones was born to sing the sexual aggressor in this, the greatest date-rape-themed song ever.


OK. I've ranted numerous times about Christmas Music, and you can read what I've said before here, and especially here, for the main jist. And here's a playlist of some Christmas music that actually rocks. So here's my angle this Christmas:

The five bands that would make friggin' AWESOME Christmas Albums

-I've said before that one problem with Christmas music is that the artists who SHOULD make it, usually don't, and the artists who SHOULDN'T, usually do. I'm talking to you, Hanson.-

Of course, if an artist actually HAS made a Christmas album, he/she/they are disqualified from the list, so here's a moment to recognize that sometimes, the artists who should make Christmas music actually do: Emmylou Harris, thank you. Sufjan Stevens: THANK YOU. Diana Krall: Thank you. Frank Sinatra/Rat Pack: Thank you. Whitney Houston: Thanks.

So here are the top five artists I'd love to hear make a Christmas album, and a track of theirs that makes me think they'd make a good one...

but first, to have some fun, and take some cheap shots, the three groups that would make the world's three worst Christmas Albums. Each name includes a link to a song that makes my case:

In third place: Billy Corgan - the guy from Smashing Pumpkins. This Christmas album would make me want to kill myself. I can't imagine him writing a single song happier than something titled "It's Christmas and I'm Alone"

In second place: They do what they do, and they do it well, but Guns'n'Roses just wouldn't be able to sell me a Christmas album. The band responsible for Paradise City might make songs that help me get out of bed, might write songs that help me get in the mood to slaughter the turkey, but won't get me in the mood to drink egg nog with my family.

Before first place: imagine the acid-trip of a Christmas album Jimi Hendrix would have made. How about a Silent Night improv.

In first place: Nickelback. I don't even feel like I need to explain this. At least Guns'n'Roses was a good band in their heyday, and had enough integrity to never make a Christmas album... Nickelback might even actually try one. Imagine an album of Christmas songs that all sound the same, and all sound like this.



OK then. Yikes.

And now: the five bands that really need to make a Christmas album: last time I talked about this, Brian in JND suggested Richard Hawley. That's a good choice, but here are my top five (plus a bonus artist)

Fifth: tie between Regina Spektor and Neko Case. Regina Spektor first: I often compare Regina with Feist, and Feist would make a good Christmas album, too, one that's fun and listenable, but Regina Spektor would bring a little more sincere emotion, as well as a bit more wit and humor, and a comparable pop sensibility. She could break your heart with longing in the Advent songs... and then charm you with some original tunes that were catchy but warm.

And she'd write a few songs that were genuinely funny, not in that "Walking Round in Women's Underwear" way -- novelty Christmas songs are like The Onion: read the title or headline, and that's pretty much all the humor in the whole thing.


Also fifth: Neko Case - I want to hear her miraculous voice singing the most beautiful Christmas songs ever. She'd break your heart, twice, she'd lift you up, she'd reassure you, she'd make you feel like the only person in the world, she'd blow your Christmas wide open, however she wanted.

She's already made one Christmas song: see later in the post for her cover of Tom Waits' "Christmas Card from A Hooker in Minneapolis"


Fourth: Jack White should produce a Christmas album. What the hell? Jack White, from The White Stripes? Yeah. The White Stripes shouldn't make a Christmas album, but Jack White should. Outside the noisy, jubilant stuff from The White Stripes, Jack White's actually done some interesting stuff rooted in folk and rootsy blues in his solo career, including interesting productions of some traditional tunes. But I want Jack White to make a Christmas album as a producer/collaborator, not as the sole voice of the project. He's a really good collaborator, so he'd call in some cool musicians, get right down to the roots of some classic Christmas songs, dig up some obscure old ones, and write some tunes that fit in, tone-wise, with the traditional ones. Then he'd find just the right vocalist or musician to bring the song over the top, with a production that was fresh and vital - full of life - and never ever ever cheesy.

There'd be a few funny moments, and no cringe-inducing sanctimonious ones. As a producer, he knows when to thunder, and when to grumble, and when to mourn, and he never overdoes things , which is the bane of most Christmas albums (get your hands on Van Lear Rose, like, now, if you don't believe in Jack White's chops as a producer). That's why he'd produce an amazing Christmas album, probably for charity, with some of his musician friends. Somebody please suggest this to him. (He's already done one Christmas song)

Portland Oregon - Loretta Lynn, produced by Jack White


Third: Alicia Keys. She could bring it slow for O Come Emmanuel, and then she could bring it high and give us all chills for Joy to the World. She'd hit a Christmas album out of the park. She also rates as, other than Nickelback, the artist mentioned in this post most likely to actually make a Christmas album.



Second Place: The Flaming Lips. An odd seeming choice at first, but here's the thing about The Flaming Lips: they are odd and interesting, and they'd make a Christmas album that sounds like nothing you've ever heard. The sweet parts would be an entire wall of sweet... yet somehow they pull that off... the fun parts would be giddy and goofy and noisy as a drunken Christmas Party... the serene moments would be otherworldly - they have a full, complex sound that creates a whole landscape, and for a holiday as loaded and cluttered with traditions, foods, symbols, clothes, slogans, ads, and frantic people, The Flaming Lips "Christmas On Another Planet" would be the perfect balm. Their latest album demonstrates a sound that is fully realized -- they're creating soundspaces more complete than ever, and balancing spare with complex beautifully - and isn't that exactly what Christmas does? Even more than that: they're fun! Flaming lips are always so loaded with good energy, you KNOW they'd make an awesome Christmas album.

They already made one Christmas song: come on. You want to hear more, don't you?


Finally, the number one artist who would make an awesome Christmas Album is Tom Waits. In my opinion, Tom is the best songwriter working today, and the strength of his songwriting comes from the way he can tell a story (the singer in this link's not Tom, but the song is), and make a character breathe. His Christmas album would be sad, yeah, but it would stay in your head, and it would make you want to phone your mother. It'd make you want to volunteer at the soup kitchen, and hug your kid. There's be funny moments, tender ones, ones that see Christmas perfectly through a kid's eyes, weird ones, stories and songs and some ballad that would turn into a modern classic, and one really, really great spoken-word track.

Even better, one of the great things about Tom Waits' songwriting: his songs lend themselves really well to being covered by other artists, which means that if Tom Waits made a Christmas album, we'd get a dozen or so awesome new Christmas songs for artists to cover, instead of having to sit through quite so many crap songs every December.

Tom Waits already wrote "Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis" (nope, his Christmas album wouldn't quite be for kids)... and Neko Case made it into one of the loveliest covers I've ever heard. Wouldn't you love there to be ten more Christmas songs this good?



Listen to Martha: doesn't this already sound like a Christmas song? Sure it does.

Monday, December 21, 2009

IT'S CHRISTMAS! Brilliant video: Handel's Hallelujah Chorus, and Fay McKay's 12 Days of Christmas



Christmas music... I ranted about it last year, so I don't have much more to add this year, but it's not Christmas to me until I've heard Handel's Messiah. The above is just a brilliant revisioning of the chorus.

And below: the great Christmas song I discovered this year. The Twelve Daze of Christmas, by Fay McKay: in my search for more Christmas music, this is seriously the only "novelty Christmas song" I liked. Sorry, Bob Rivers, but reading the tracklist of your songs pretty much lays out every joke you made on the album. (This is also the problem with The Onion: the articles are just excuses for their admittedly brilliant headlines)

Hypocrisy, Auschwitz and North Korea: Wake Up, World

At ROK Drop's weekly linklets, GI Korea makes a really salient point about the missing sign at the gate to Auschwitz: dear readers, it is a travesty, it is a crime against humanity in itself, that a stolen sign from a concentration camp that operated over sixty years ago, got world headlines when its sign was stolen, but it's pretty much only a few bloggers that seem to care that THERE ARE CONCENTRATION CAMPS OPERATING TODAY in North Korea.

Holy shit! Let's get upset about this!

I remember once, a Korean friend of mine told me that Koreans have "han" because Koreans "suffered more than the Jews" through history, what with Korea being invaded, and the miseries of the last century, and all that business. Now, for one thing, yeah, Korea WAS a colony of Japan, and that sucked, and Japan tried to squeeze the Korean language out of existence, by conducting all official affairs, including public education, in Japanese, and that sucked, too. So did the whole comfort women sex-slavery thing. That really, really, really sucked. But two more things about that.

1. Korea had its own land during its entire history. They never spent 2000 years as diaspora. Jews 1, Korea 0.

2.because people commented on this part of the paragraph, I won't take it out; however, I wrote it too quickly, and it's distracting people from the point of this post. Kindly ignore it. Further discussion of this paragraph in the comments will be considered beside the point that North Korea is still running concentration camps and ignored.
Every culture, or groups in every culture, suffered. Whether at the hands of another country, or at the hands of richer, more powerful men and women from their own country, for the poor in most places of the world, in most times of history, it didn't matter much whether it was a rich Chinese, Korean, Japanese, British, Danish, or Austrian taking your calf: your calf was still gone, and winter was coming. And everybody, everywhere, suffered from disease, drought, and the occasional bad luck.
Lots of other groups have been enslaved, marginalized, massacred, disenfranchised, deprived, and scapegoated, too. Every time you swing a cat you'll hit someone with a sob story somewhere in their background. Some have suffered more than others, but that doesn't mean we're allowed to ignore the suffering of others, happening right now, just because sometime in the past, we suffered, too.
But it's not a race to be the country/group that suffered the most, and wearing one's suffering as a badge of honor that way, is trite and kind of asinine (maybe it's easy for me, male WASP, the oppressor himself, to say that... but still, when has a victim complex, and its attendant feelings of helplessness, helped anyone take control of their own situation? Groups/people take control of their destiny DESPITE their victim complex, not because of it.) [edit: add] and claiming that "our suffering is worse that this other group's suffering" is petty, ugly, and treats disrespectfully the suffering of both groups. Is self-pity the best you can do with surveying your country's history? Is it really so important to keep score, that we'll dismiss somebody else's misery, to make us feel better about our own? Isn't there more to be learned from suffering than victim's pride?

But while those elements of my friend's comment don't sit well with me, here's the real kicker, and this didn't occur to me until just recently: how much MORE trite, asinine, and even insulting, is it, for a SOUTH Korean to say that Koreans have suffered more than the Jews, or, to add a layer of irony, to send that to their friend by text message, when the latest generation of North Koreans is one of the few groups I'd honestly hear out, if they decided to claim that Camp 22 is worse than Auschwitz, and that this most recent generation of North Koreans actually HAVE suffered more than the Holocaust generation did. It's even more outrageous that Camp 22 exists today, when we were supposed to have learned these lessons from the holocaust. Those who gloss over North Korea's atrocities are worse than Holocaust deniers, because we can still DO something about this holocaust... but nobody is.

And still, the Auschwitz sign makes world headlines, when there should be protests every weekend, in every public space, in every South Korean city, and Korean diaspora in the rest of the world's major cities should be doing the same in public spaces abroad, demanding that world governments, and especially the South be more active and aggressive in trying to get food to their North Korean so-called bretheren.

Sorry, South Korea. Brothers don't let brothers starve to death, don't let brothers languish in concentration camps. Don't waffle and deflect about the topic of reunification, because it would be expensive for the south, while their brothers are dying. I wrote earlier that the South's ambivalence toward the North was the best sign I can think of that Koreans are aren't the specialists in "jung" people they claim to be (in a post subtitled, "The Desperation of the North, the Hypocrisy of the South), and now I'll hold up North Korea to repudiate South Korean Han, too.

Go ahead and say North and South Korea aren't the same country anymore, aren't the same culture anymore; heck, I agree. I think South Korea should change its name to... something else... to acknowledge the fact North and South Korea aren't one country anymore. But don't give me one-blood Minjok brotherhood, jung and han out of one side of the mouth, and disown the North, refusing to take responsibility for Camp 22, out of the other, that's all. I'm not saying all Koreans do that, certainly not, but the ones that do are hypocrites of the highest order, and I won't abide that kind of doublethink.

Friday, December 18, 2009

Thus Endeth An Era

First Tiger Woods, now this: my whole world is shaken.

The Marmot's Hole has closed its comment forums.
(interestingly, the URL is "on full moderation" though the title says "closed" -- looks like he just decided to stop dealing with it.

I knew it was coming when Dongchim once called Marmot's Hole "Dave's for Ajosshis" and I know that I, for one, first alerted Kblogland of my presence via comments at the marmot's hole, back in early 2008; I owe The Marmot's comment boards that, to be sure. I had a feeling this might happen way back in spring '08, when King Baeksu stopped commenting there because he got tired of comment wars with the same old people, baiting him the same old ways. Hell, I even got into it myself once or twice with the legendary Pawikirogi. His/Her retirement was the next sign, in my mind, that Marmot's comments were headed for a place from which it might not come back.

It'll be interesting to see what happens next: frankly, whether the commenters end up reconvening elsewhere... maybe at Brian's, or at Dave's, or elsewhere. My site ain't newsworthy enough to attract them... unless it turns out a handful of them are serious banana recipe/zombie movie fanatics...

anyway, it'll be interesting to see what happens next, and where the discourse begins to take place, if anywhere. Though I didn't comment there very often anymore, I guess I'll miss it... but then again, if I'm missing it the way a dude misses living in the apartment near an intersection, for the sake of seeing car wrecks out the window, what does that say about me?

Anyway, i couldn't let it pass without comment. (haw haw)

Keep on plugging, Robert K. As a namesake, I wish you all the best, and I hope your blog remains as successful as ever... though it might take a hit in traffic, now that all those folks aren't hitting "refresh...refresh...refresh" to see if anyone's responded to his/her (usually his) comment, the way I used to do.

In Korean Newsweek: Don't Lose the Spirit Of Adventure

I'm in Korean Newsweek. Here's the link to the Korean article.

Here's the English article I sent in, which they translated.


Don’t Lose the Spirit of Adventure
by Robert Ouwehand

Every semester, I meet a new set of adult students, and during the first class, I answer some questions about myself, so my students know me better. Somebody almost always asks, “How long have you been in Korea?” When I answer, something mystifying sometimes happens: for example, this semester, a pretty young female student seemed surprised I’ve been here for six years, and asked, “Really?” with an incredulous voice.

When I explain that I really love living here, some students seem surprised, and their attitude: “What’s there to love about Korea?” dismays me. When I spend time around expats living in Korea, the conversation is sometimes similar: “Six years? How’d you last so long? It’s my second year, and I’m already cynical!” This echoes Koreans I have spoken with, who dream of moving to another country: “You want to stay in Korea? I can’t wait to leave!” they say. Of course, Korea is not the only country with dissatisfied people, but it is still a little sad to have this conversation too often.

This conversation reminds me of another conversation I often have with friends and students: on Mondays, a common small talk topic is “What did you do this weekend?” Some people almost always tell the same story: “I stayed home and watched TV, and on Saturday night I met a friend and we drank together (at the same bar as always).” Other times, this conversation leads to stories and sometimes even to suggestions of areas to visit, sites to tour, restaurants to find, and foods to sample. When I share my weekend experiences, ever since my second year living in Seoul, I have regularly had Korean friends -- even friends who lived their whole lives in Seoul -- exclaim, “You probably know more about Seoul than I do!”

I suspect there is a connection between these conversations. I suspect that the people who don’t enjoy living in Seoul, who can’t imagine why I enjoy it, are the same ones who say they stayed home on the weekend. I suspect that they are also the same ones who seem amazed at the variety of fun places and activities I enjoy in and around Seoul. Sure, it might just be lip service when my friends tell me I know more about Seoul after six years, than they learned in their whole lives. However, it might be something else.

When I was fourteen, my family moved from central Canada to Western Canada: a completely new, totally unfamiliar region. During our first two years there, especially, my father made a point of regularly taking short trips to explore the province. In those days, my father would report visiting a place, and some locals would also exclaim, “I’ve never been there,” or maybe, “I think I went there when I was seven.”

We could call this newcomer’s phenomenon: when people are new to an area, many want to explore it, like my father did. This can help people feel more at home in their new place. On the other hand, people who grew up in an area often take their home for granted, so they don’t bother exploring outside their neighborhoods. During one summer job, I worked in a historical museum outside Vancouver, and met tourists from all over. One memorable visitor was a retired man who had always lived in New York City, but had never even toured the Statue of Liberty. “That’s something tourists do, not locals,” he explained. By thinking of some activities as “only for tourists,” he limited his own experience of his hometown, and probably enjoyed living in New York a lot less than he could have. When he visited Vancouver, he explored, but in his hometown, he never did.

The same thing happens here in Korea. One of the reasons a lot of foreigners in Korea become unhappy is because we stop exploring the way we did when we first came; we say “I went there in my first year” and stay home and watch TV. However Koreans are just as guilty of being unadventurous: because they take their hometown and home country for granted, they say “That’s for tourists” or “I went there when I was a kid,” and also stay home watching TV. The end result is the same: we wonder why our lives are dull. One of my most satisfying experiences is when a student or friend tells me about visiting a place, or trying a restaurant I recommended. They usually report having a great time. This reminds me that we don’t need to lose our adventurous spirit, and if we’ve stopped, it’s not hard to start exploring again. We are all capable of making our lives more enjoyable, if we just choose to try something new.

you can read more of Robert Ouwehand's writing in the Korea Herald, and at http://roboseyo.blogspot.com

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Laser Show in Chunggyecheon

before it was cold, there was a cool laser art show up and down the Chunggyecheon with different laser demonstrations at different parts of the stream, several times an hours, most evenings. I uploaded it to Youtube, but never posted it at Roboseyo. Here's some video I took.

2 Weekends ago: Food at Sandang

I get behind on all the cool stuff I do from time to time, because my life is seriously like, just so awesome.

But especially when I have pictures, or if it makes my friends jealous of my, I like to post it on my blog, to rub it in, just how awesome I am.

OK enough of that... but seriously, I've had a few really enjoyable days that I haven't written about because I was busy either working, hanging out with Girlfriendoseyo the Awesome, or doing even more awesome stuff.

So here's an update on what I've been up to.

Sandang is a restaurant I heard about from the Seoul Eats guy, Dan. He's written numerous posts about Sandang: here's one.

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It's a lovely restaurant, with a happy ball outside the restaurant: it's out in Yangpyeong, where restaurants are actually on grounds, rather then just being "second and third floor, XX building" the way they are downtown.
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Nice place: I want to walk around there in the spring.

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Nifty furniture: after the meal, they sent you to the second floor with a pot of coffee, and the second floor had all kinds of different spots to sit, lounge, and sip tea, depending on whether you wanted to sit on tables or cushions, in soft pillows or on arty chairs.
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Girlfriendoseyo liked these chairs. I did too: the rounded back meant you could play the lean-back/balance relex game, and see how far you'd lean back before your inner ear told you to flinch.
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And the food, dear readers: the food!

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shrimp and shredded potato

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the first time I ever ate grasshopper.

The crabs were one of the most beautifully presented dishes.

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A small scallopy thing.
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sushi
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oysters
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bit of beef: every major meat group was represented, and the flavors were unique: every one of them were simply prepared, with good ingredients, but instead of lots of spicing, they were then set next to some other flavor that drew out all the nuances of the tastes through contrast.
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these little savory ball-thingys were made with potato, sweet potato, and other stuff, then covered with sauces that offset their tastes perfectly. They were crisp on the outside, and soft on the inside, and they stretched my vocabulary looking for other ways to say 'good'.
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By the end of meal, after the Hanjungshik came out, with every last side dish a small miracle of its own, I was stuffed silly.
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Here's a video of the visual highlight: the roasted acorn [update: my bad. roasted chestnuts], which they set on fire right at the table, and also a look at the full spread of side dishes that came out, and filled us to the gills, after we'd tried all the different specialty dishes: they filled us right to the top, with amazing food top to bottom, for our money.


Sandang is in Yangpyeong, about an hour by car outside of Seoul. It's a pretty little area near a river. You can learn more about it, and see more pictures, at Seoul Eats. It's pricier than Outback Steakhouse, but dear readers, even with a 90 minute drive before and after, the place, and the setting, and the food, and the food, and the food, was so good, it was amply, unhesitatingly, indubitably worth it.

So get out there and try some.

Friday, December 11, 2009

In the Herald Twice this Week, and Hats off to Ben, Andrea, and Dann

I'm in the Korea Herald twice this week: on Wednesday, talking about 2S2, the expat get-together. You can come, too - at 2pm in the Twosome Place coffee shop next to exit 1 of Anguk subway station, near Insadong.

Dress warmly because we're going to be outdoors, watching the Snowboarding competition/festival in Gwanghwamun Plaza. You can also check out the 2S2 blog, or see what else I've written about it at Roboseyo. I've had interest from a few people about starting new 2S2 pockets in other areas, so if you're thinking about it, too, please drop me a line.

Next: also in the Herald, I put in a plug for the Korean International Salsa Social - KISS in today's Herald. You can read about it here. It's a good time to get involved in the community: they're having a party tomorrow in Itaewon!

Finally, and here's the biggie:

Hats off to Dann Gaymer, Ben Wagner, Andrea Vandom, et al, for appearing on CBC Radio, probably Canada's most respectable news organization - "BBC of Canada" if you will -- sometimes called the Canadian news mecca. They're on there talking about Anti-English Spectrum's targeting of English teachers, and the visa requirements, and all that jazz. I just listened to the feature, and it's quite well done, and each of them explain themselves well.

You can check it out here.
This is great, and a big step up from the somewhat sloppy report that was in the Canadian National Post earlier this week.

Good work, all... and a special nod must also go to Matt from Popular Gusts, who wasn't interviewed, but whose work publishing and spreading news about Anti-English Spectrum has been, in my opinion, pivotal in building the momentum that is now leading to this kind of coverage in the international media. The next question is how much international embarrassment is required before decision-makers start getting stuff done -- the tree isn't just falling in the forest anymore, thanks. But for now: Cheers all around! I owe each of you a beer or a latte, next time we meet.

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Three Cheers For Ajumma!

Ajumma, the most irrepressible sector of Korean society, is finally, finally refusing to be repressed in North Korea.

Ajummas, the ones who were at the vanguard of forming the black market of goods for sale which saved the lives of many North Koreans when the state, and Kim Jong-Il's porky evilness failed to provide food for most people, are now leading the defiant movement against Kim Jong-il's vicious plan to deprive as many of his people as possible of the money they'd earned on that black market, just as winter approached.

It seems that Kim Jong-il would rather rule a country of 3 million docile people willing to accept being hand-fed, than a country of 15 million people who can fend for themselves. The difference between those numbers? Let'em starve this winter.

Read more about the ajummovement here.

Kim Jong-il man is the most evil thing I can imagine. Anybody who doesn't recognize that just doesn't get it.

Frankly, Afghanistan nothing: Kim Jong-il's actions in North Korea are, in my opinion, the greatest repudiation of Ban Ki-moon and the UN's effectiveness is how complacent they have been about the systematic starvation of North Korea's people, and the egregious ways he's been slowly robbing his people of any dignity they might have had.

I hope they rise, and I hope they get him. East-Asia'll be a mess for a while in the aftermath, but I can't believe how Kim Jong-il keep manages to top himself, evil-wise.

2S2 on Saturday December 12: Dress Warmly

Dress warmly on Saturday, dear readers. 2S2 is meeting, as usual, at 2pm, on the Second Saturday of the month, in the usual place: at the Twosome Place to the right of exit 1, Anguk Station.

From there, we're going to head down to Gwanghwamun Plaza, where there's this wild, crazy, awesome Snowboarding competition and festival all weekend, and we'll take part in the festivities. Come join us! But dress warmly. It's December, and the festival's outdoors.

So what is 2S2? Well, now it has a blog and a facebook group... nothing exists anymore unless it has a blog and a facebook group, does it?

You can read more about what it is, and what we're trying to accomplish, here, or here.

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

Wolfhound-inspired: more on Wolves

Dear readers:

Now that Wolfhound Pub has redeemed itself, now that I'm as full as a coffee mug with Wolf-love, it seems a good time to share a little more about wolves... and then tell you about the new occupant of my dog-house.

First: on the wolf-love side: gotta tell you, now that I've seen pretty much every great, good, and even OK Zombie movie, the pool-ball scene in "Zombie Strippers" made it pretty clear to me that I'd hit the bottom of the barrel, as Zombie films go. (Don't worry. I didn't watch the whole thing. The whole "Give-you-a-lap-dance-then-eat-you" thing was just too many levels of exploitation at once, and it was witless and charmless and really twelve kinds of not fun and not cool -- couldn't even enjoy it in the "so bad it's good" way: it was just "so bad it's, um, really bad") So I thought I'd try out another monster movie genre: Vampires were too obvious, what with the film industry's Robert Pattinson-based Twigasm, so I checked out a few wolfmannish movies.



Basically: 1. wolfman is the red-headed stepchild of iconic movie monsters: surprisingly few really good movies, and even the "good" ones were surprisingly weak
2. this is partially explained by the nature of lycanfolk: only turning into a wolf for three nights a month makes it hard to build dramatic tension into a powerful climax -- either the beginning of the movie's all long and slow, just for a single riveting (hopefully) scene once the moon finally rolls around (cf: An American Werewolf in London), or the whole story happens in a very short timeframe, which can make for great action, but not much character development.
3. The tawdriness of the "man in a wolf suit" effects and costuming of most of these werewolf movies. Especially after the gleeful gore of even 1980s zombie movies, the wolfman effects left me in the cold, for the most part. Wolf costumes, people in wolf suits, just aren't graceful or impressive-looking enough to catch my attention. So here's the rundown of my brief flirtation with werewolf movies, before I decided "Hey. It's December. Let's get christmassy and watch feel-good movies instead."



Saw: Dog Soldiers - excellent British take on Wolfman. Man in suit monsters were the weak point - lame silhouettes - but whenever the wolves WEREN'T onscreen, great action sequences, good setup (British special forces vs. werewolves), etc..
Ginger Snaps - top 3, more psychological than action-based, especially with the subtext of the sisterhood theme, along with the coming of age confusion. Werewolfism becomes an interesting stand-in for teen anxieties about menstruation.
Blood & Chocolate - possibly the best one of the lot, the two leads were strong, and the movie's best strength was actually using wolves for the transformations. Had a tone and mysical feeling the others lacked, and created a real feeling of a wolf pack that was intriguing.
An American Werewolf in London: weak sauce. Especially the early '80s effects, which were not sophisticated enough for my CG-spoiled eye, but not primitive enough (see '60s movies) to be fun in a campy way. A lot of lists had this as one of the top werewolf films, which is a big part of why I didn't get deeper into the genre.

Still need to see: Heard good things about The Howling, and Wolf, starring Jack Nicholson. Jack could read the phonebook and still be compelling and watchable, so I'll at least give it a try. That may be it for my foray into werewolf films, unless somebody tells me about another I really need to see. Warning: any mention of Underworld or Van Helsing will lead to a complete loss of credibility. And if I need to mention ditto for Twilight, why am I even talking to you?



For the record: the best movies I saw during the zombie kick:

Transcends the Genre: Army of Darkness

1. Lucio Fulci's Zombie (1979) (Straight up zombie terror)
2. Zombieland (witty, genre-savvy and self-referential - the best postmodern zombie film)
3. Night of the Living Dead (the original)
4. Dawn of the Dead (original)
5. Cemetery Man (a zombie art film starring Rupert Everett. I kid you not)
6. 28 Days Later (if it qualifies as a Zombie film; purists say it doesn't)
7. Dead Snow (best climactic zombie-slaying action sequence outside of Zombieland. Plus: Nazi Zombies!)
8. Shawn of the Dead (Zombieland's pacing was better; less action than Shawn)
9. Dawn of the Dead (the remake: running zombies don't do it for me as much as for others)
10. Day of the Dead (go Bub!)

hurt to leave out: "Evil" - a fun Greek zombie film, and "Dead Alive" - the Transformers 2 of Zombie films - so over-the-top goes it over, folds back on itself, and goes back over again, as if Zombie films were a splatter contest. Plus: the lawnmower scene, and the most unkillable zombies in the whole genre) The other top contender in the splatter contest: Planet Terror

And: Campy good: Flight of the Living Dead
Campy bad: all the Return of the Living Dead movies.

Monday, December 07, 2009

I Love the Wolfhound Forever

A while ago I had a gripe about the Wolfhound Pub in Itaewon - I even wrote a letter to them on my blog (see here) -- here was my gripe, to sum up:

Dear Wolfhound: Please either...
1. serve your coffee in a smaller mug, so that I don't feel ripped off by getting a coffee mug that's 40% full
2. fill your flurbing coffee mugs to the top, or at least near the top
3. charge less than three thousand won for four mouthfuls of coffee, when down the street, Rocky Mountain Tavern gives free coffee refills with all their breakfasts, and Starbucks gives nearly a PINT of coffee for a tiny bit more than the price of your tiny coffee puddle.
I ended off the letter with this:
it wouldn't take much to fix this problem. Just do it, and I'll love you forever.
Well, dear readers, I just got an e-mail from Wolfhound, and I hope they don't mind if I share it with you:

So, in response, I shall keep my promise to love them forever.

Dear readers, let me tell you about The Wolfhound Pub: (btw: this is a completely unpaid, message; I have not, and do not plan to benefit from writing this financially or in any other way; I'm writing this of my own volition and everything)

When I hanker for Fish'n'Chips, there's really only one place to go in Seoul:

Wolfhound Pub, which not only serves what are the best fish'n'chips I've had in Seoul, but which serves them up two for one on Tuesdays. In case you're a shark.

Seoul Eats just published their menu: go look.

Zenkimchi and Seoul Eats have gushed on about their burgers already, so I'm going to tell you about my own favorites:

1. the Irish Stew, which is nice
2. even more so: the beef and mushroom pie, which I like so much that I want to write it in all caps. Or at least italics.

It's a beef and mushroom stew with a flaky pastry over the top, which almost bursts with hot air when you poke it with a fork, and then deflates slowly into the stew.

Here's how it looks from the outside
DSCN1197


and here's how it looks once you poke through that lovely pastry:
DSCN1200
and ooh, dear readers, it is so good.

Here's the toad in the hole
DSCN1198

The breakfast is good, and looking better these days, when a few of the former standout western breakfasts Really Muffed Theirs. So get on over there for your hangover brunch, or your British pub food, folks. The irish stew, the shepherd's pie, the fish'n'chips, are all among the better British Isles/UK-ish food you can find, they have Guinness and Alley Kat and Kilkenny on tap, so you can kick back with some good eats, and have a full cup of coffee while you're at it. And remember: Wolfhound cares what you think.*

:) *especially if you google bomb them, sez the cynic in me



But seriously, Wolfhound: thanks for listening. Congratulations on the new renovations, and good luck in the future. If you're asking, Girlfriendoseyo would be more easily convinced to come and have your great food if the first of your two floors were non-smoking. But still: good music, great food, thanks for being there, Wolfhound.

Another story that'll make you like Wolfhound: they had these popular wedge fries they served, but last winter, potato stocks were low quality. Rather than serve up inferior potato wedges, Wolfhound put up signs saying, "Until potato shipments improve in size and quality, we're taking potato wedges off the menu, because we'd rather not serve anything, than dish up rubbish 'taters to paying customers." Gotta respect that, yah? Yah.

-Roboseyo

Saturday, December 05, 2009

Judge Not, Lest Ye...

So today, I was on the subway, and after boarding, I waited for the doors to close. As they were closing, I glanced at the sliding doors one spot over from the ones I'd entered, just in time to see a surprisingly ajumma-ish shape take a full swan-dive onto the subway floor as the doors closed on her legs.

The first thing that went through my head, I'm not proud to say, is "How typically ajumma. She was probably running to catch the train and got caught. Or maybe she was so focused on the empty seat where she planned to throw her handbag, that she didn't notice the doors closing on her." This ungenerous thought, along with the usual "slow down for a car crash" impulse led me to crane my neck a little to see a bit more of the lady causing the commotion.

It was an older Korean lady, but as she got up, she was hunched so far down in her wine-colored coat, that I realized she was a lot older than that robo-ajumma who occupies the stereotype in my mind. Not only that, but her shamble belied a fair bit of pain in one of her legs, and the speed at which she moved toward a seat that someone courteously offered her (yay Korea!) made me realize that, even without a hurt leg, she wouldn't have been able to do that ajumma-sprint I'd imagined had led her to getting stuck in the door.

She got stuck in the door because she was old. And she moved slowly. And I realized how quickly I'd judged her.

It gets really easy to judge people on the other side of a language barrier. Really, really easy. And yeah, sometimes we foreigners catch the short end of that stick... I won't venture to say how often either side catches the long or short end, but I'll definitely say that if we want to have any foot to stand on at all, when we complain about discrimination and judgement and getting hairy eyeballs and all that stuff, let's make sure we're not alienating the Koreans around us at the same time, by treating them as less than human, simply because we can't understand them.

I still remember the growing awkward, and then hostile, feeling on a subway car, when I was riding with a girl who spent a whole 25 minute trip slagging Korea viciously in her "outdoor voice," when I looked around and realized that several people on the car understood every word she said.

Don't let's be that kind of foreigner, hey? Especially at Christmas, I guess.

Ask The Expat has a similarly-themed post in which he coins the term KDS, or Korean Derangement Syndrome. Worth the read.

Chris in SK also makes the point with a photo.

Friday, December 04, 2009

Hub of Sparkle Down: Event Listings for the Weekend

Tiny Tim wishes you a merry Christmas.

Hub of Sparkle's down, infected by a nasty virus. So I'll put up a few event postings here: I'm on a bunch of facebook Korea group mailing lists, and I'd like to share a few of them: Christmas is coming and it's time to look at some of what's going on out and about.

Tuna Attack (blog here) is a new underground 'zine. On the 5th (Saturday) there's a debut party. You can go. Entry, 13,000W 9:30 @ Bowie Club, Hongdae. More info at the blog. Map here.

Seoul Style is also having a debut partay, including a fashion gala put on by feetmanseoul.

You can win tickets to a concert, courtesy of 10 Magazine, by voting for your favorite Korean movie here. (survey here)

Next, and this is one I encourage all of you to attend: tomorrow there's a World AIDS Day fundraiser/celebration in Hongdae. The event is called Rubber Seoul, and for a 10 000 won cover, you can get into a bunch of clubs, and buy t-shirts, and do all kinds of other things that will help people living with HIV/AIDS. The whole shebang starts at 8:30 at Jane's Groove, and from there, have a blast!

If you want to receive updates on stuff like this, Uber Rad Life...Korea is a Facebook group you should join: there's tons of stuff there for anyone who's looking to bolster their fun quotient in Korea. Uber Rad Life wants you to know about Tokyo Underground, too. If you like DJs, it's for you.

More from my facebook inbox:

Animal Rescue Korea is having a food and accessory drive on December 11th: more info here.

The other, more frightening Tiny Tim ALSO wishes you a merry Christmas.
(who is the scary Tiny Tim?)