Do Make Say Think is one of my favorite bands, and they played in Seoul a couple Sundays ago. They play what is often labeled "Post-rock instrumental" - longer compositions, usually without vocals (save a few la la choruses), almost like Jazz, but with more of the dynamic contrast you hear in some kinds of rock music -- lots of loud/soft, and atmospherics. It's the perfect band for me, because I'm all about the bliss-out, wherever it can be found... and dear readers, it can be found here.
So after a bit of searching to find the exact location of the venue, my buddy Evan and I headed down about twelve flights of stairs to the concert space, which was a big ol' cavernous room in the basement of a building not far from Hongik University's main gate. Evan and I grabbed seats on the risers at the back of the room, and watched On Sparrow Hills - an expat band, who reminded me of Frightened Rabbit, and did a good job of warming up the crowd, and then Vidulgi Ooyoo, a Korean bliss-out/shoegaze band with a female lead singer who didn't sing often enough, and who sounded, as Evan said, "Like the Cranberries got as high as f$*#" - especially when the singer was singing. I concur.
Here's a little of what the first two bands sounded like.
a picture of vidulgi ooyoo
Then, after very long break between sets, Do Make Say Think came on. They didn't talk to the crowd much, other than a few "I see a lot of English teachers here today" kinds of cracks. Here's a bit of their sound -- note the loud/soft shifts, and sudden changes in arrangement - from their patented everybodyplaysatonce to a soloist and back, etc..
But the problem, as always, is that live music is like nothing else. So watch this clip, but if you want to get a feel for what the show was really like, then play it as loud as possible, and project it life-size against a wall in your house, and then turn the projected life-size people into real people. That's what it was actually like to see.
I'm happy I went. I had a great time, and I'm thrilled that some of my favorite bands are finally coming to Korea: most of my favorite bands are not the arena-filling-type bands, so while Guns'n'Roses might will stop in here, Seoul is often skipped by smaller bands. It's not really my place to theorize why, but there you have it. But great show! It was also my goodbye hang-out with my man Evan, who's gone back to Canada now. More on him later.
Problem: beyond a certain point, unless it's Lady Gaga or something, concert photos look the same for pretty much every band.
They have horns.
The crowd was really into it. Most of them seemed to be very familiar with DMST, particularly the girl who was next to us on the bleachers, who nearly exploded in her seat once the headliners came on.
I've been leaving pages open on my internets for a while now, planning to write about them and not getting around to it. Sometimes cleaning my desktop takes as much time as cleaning my room.
1. Get a load of this article. It's my (Western? English? North American?) training in the five paragraph essay that makes me think this article looks like my first step of writing - the freewrite - after which I'd encourage my students to take that writing, throw away most of it, and find a main point. Brian in JND pointed this article out, and mentions that one rhetorical form in Korean writing seems to be to circle around a topic, and then deliver the main point as late in the article as possible; someone raised on thesis statements and topic sentences spends the entire time reading such an article going "give me a freaking statement of purpose already!" I'm sure it could be very effective if done well -- jokes are told that way, aren't they? -- but let's just say, either because of translation, or because of the original article, or cultural rhetorical forms, this one doesn't come of quite that well.
The blog's been ranty and gripey lately, and one of my big upcoming posts will be similar... but in order to enjoy life, I encourage anybody who asks to pay attention to the things that made them smile, and talk about them, and draw attention to them - write them down in a notebook, or take pictures of them, or whatever it takes.
So here are some of the things that have made me smile lately:
Including:
the wacky statues near deoksu palace, which, no matter how low you squat, look like you're looking down at them from above. Korean conscripts shoveling snow. Dumb people who don't know how to drive in snow. A bucket of eels. Light shows by Seoul Square, and the cool film ads that play outside the car on the subway between Gwanghwamun Station and Jongno 3-ga station, and the tea blossom that opens. Oh yeah: and tickling Chris in South Korea. Music from The Eels.
Are there rules or regulations that are gumming up your groove, in areas like "immigration, personal identification, status change, economic activities or daily lives of non-Koreans, foreign spouses of Koreans or overseas Koreans"? Can you think of regulations or systems that are discriminatory?
Drop a line to sangsan@pmo.go.kr or send a fax to (02) 2100-2323 sometime this month, and if they like your ideas, you might even win some gift certificates.
Had a conversation with Girlfriendoseyo about bad sportsmanship on the third last day of the Olympics: she mentioned how the Russian team officials were so disappointed at their poor showing these Olympics that team officials and government members left before the games were done, and even the president is calling for heads to roll. Figure saking silver medalist Evgeni Plushenko bitched about not winning gold rather than giving credit to Evan Lysacek. I came back with my memory of the 2002 winter games, when team Russia was so dissatisfied with their bronze medal finish in hockey that they didn't even show up for the medal ceremony. No class.
Then I mentioned the death threats against Jim Hewish, the referee who disqualified the Korean skater and gave Apolo Ohno the gold in 2002, and this year called back the Korean women's team speed skating gold medal for crowding a Chinese skater. (It's interesting that the hate this time is for the referee instead of for the Chinese skaters... but something I've noticed recently is that Korea will get all noisy and outraged in hate for America or Japan, but Korea doesn't mess with China. When the 2008 Olympic Torch Relay ended with the embarrassment of Seoul being unable to control the crowd of Chinese boosters, who violently quelled any protests around city hall, and darn near mauled a fella in the Soul Plaza Hotel lobby, the Chinese students arrested weren't even deported, and the whole thing disappeared from the media in two days, unlike the trumped up story against US Beef, which was a pure fiction, but sparked street protests for months, to say nothing of all of 2002 except the World Cup.)
So Jim Hewish had to be put under police protection in Vancouver. Brian cited a comment at Marmot, that these netizen outbursts can, and WILL undermine Korean attempts to host huge events like Olympics and World Cups - is the IOC really going to hold a Winter Games in a country where they might be unable to guarantee the safety of referees or players, if a call or a close game goes against Korea? Do they want to risk 200, or 1000 of THOSE kinds of people waiting outside the venue every time the hated ref of the day comes and goes?
In Korea's defense, Girlfriendoseyo said that she read that Jim Hewish had a history of other calls against Korea, and that he'd been suspended for two years for one such call (possibly the one in favor of Ohno?)... but I, with my extensive research skills (googling "Jim Hewish Suspended") haven't been able to find any confirmation of this from news sites. And yeah, the 3000 meter thing sucked. Sure.
But one commenter I read pointed out: Korea's own bad sportsmanship may well have caused Jim Hewish to make more calls against Korea. You see, Kushibo explains:
South Korea's hardcore netizenry may be entirely to blame for this one. The call was one that, according to the link The Marmot provided, could have gone either way, but the orgy of hate unleashed by the hardcore super comment tribe and their hacker buddies in 2002 forced his hand in Vancouver: Were Mr Hewish to have sided with the ROK team this time, he would have left himself open to accusations of caving in against his judgement.
The Joongang Daily has an editorial (HT Brian's twitter) about how bad calls are poor sportsmanship... which conveniently fails to mention that planting flags on pitching mounds and death threats are poor sportsmanship, too... (source) I don't really care to get into a back and forth about who's right and who's wrong, so all I want to say to Korean sports fans is this:
Folks, here's the thing. Sports Karma exists. The sporting gods, who determine who gets good luck and who gets bad luck, watch the behavior of athletes and fans, to decide who gets the lucky bounces, and who gets the bad calls.
Here's how sports Karma works - and I've seen this best by following Canadian hockey for quite a long time:
Basically: what goes around comes around. Send out bad sports Karma and it'll haunt you later. Send out good sports karma, and you'll benefit. Seriously.
Being a sore loser = bad sports karma - if you bitch and moan when bad things happen, more bad things will happen. Seriously. Russia's sore losership in the past is, in the Sports karma way of things, the direct cause of their poor showing in these Olympics.
Being an ungracious winner = bad sports karma - if players gloat when good things happen, bad things happen in the future. (cf: Flag planting, Korean audiences getting up and leaving after Kim Yuna skates instead of watching the whole show, gold medalists talking shit about runners-up)
And here's the big thing about sports Karma: if you remain competitive, keep trying, and respect the game and the other players, what goes around comes around. Seriously. In Canadian Hockey, a few bad referee calls have robbed Canada when they should have done better... but for every disallowed goal or bogus call that went against Canada, there's one that went our way, that benefited us, at some other time. If Canada lost this gold medal game because of a bad bounce, or an unlucky play, or a bit of bad refereeing at the wrong time, or if they just ran into a hot goalie, like they did in 2006, I'd be a bit upset, sure, but I'd also know that buddy, that doesn't change too much: Canada played hard, and next Olympics, they'd be in the mix again. Dear South Korean sports fans: it's the same for you! If you try your best, and lose with grace, that's good sports Karma, which improves your chances next time around. Losing a heartbreaker? That's good sports Karma, too, and it just makes it more satisfying when things finally DO go right (cf: 2004 Red Sox World Series). Getting the women's 3000 relay gold next Olympics will be way more satisfying if you win it back after being robbed this year, than it would have been if you'd just kept winning.
Korea's last two Olympics were, as far as I can tell, its best showings ever... so enjoy that, and be happy about it, support your athletes, learn to enjoy the awesomeness that is sporting excellence, no matter who's playing and winning, and seriously, back off with the victim thing - two Korea stories were in the nominations for the most controversial moments of the Olympics, and that's bad Karma - and go enjoy another Kim Yuna replay. The bad sports fan thing is tired, and it's building up bad sports karma which will hurt your teams and players in the future.
The Olympics are finished, and even though I couldn't see any of them in person, living in Korea and all, it's been a pretty satisfying run.
Here are the three things I was rooting for during these olympics:
1. Canadian Men's Hockey gold. 2. Kim Yuna gold 3. (I'm a petty old codger, but...) Canada finishes ahead of Korea in the medal standings.
And squee with glee, dear readers: I got all three!
So Canada won 14 Gold medals (an Olympic record), including the one we would have traded the other 13 for: Men's Hockey Gold. Way to go, Canada. I watched the game on tape delay (it aired live here at 5am), and got to enjoy it. And holy crap, what a great game that was.
Sidney Crosby is officially Canada's new national hero, and Joannie Rochette is not far behind. Plus, he was assisted by Jerome Iginla, one of those prototypical Canadian hockey players who can throw his weight around, or dupe you with a swift move. Now if only Sidney were playing for a Canadian team, too, and Toronto didn't suck, everything would be right in the hockey world.
Kim Yuna has achieved goddess status in Korea -- seriously, she could run for president right now and win, she could read the phone book and people would watch the telecast, she could become a pitch lady for Toyota and they'd hit #1 here. You could make money selling empty jars of air labled "Yuna Farts" (I stole that joke... but girlfriendoseyo's friend's mother said almost the same thing - "I bet even her poo is pretty", which is about the equivalent of "she pisses perfume" I suppose.)
Sit back, dear readers, and enjoy what you are seeing: Kim Yuna, right now, is Tiger Woods in 2001, Michael Jordan in 1991, Wayne Gretzky in 1985, Babe Ruth in 1927. She's good. She's real good. She just treated her competition about the way a zamboni treats an ice rink: she steamed it, soaked it, flattened it, and moved on without taking names, and we get to watch~!
First of all, as a sportwriter once wrote about Tiger Woods: "You will never be as good at anything, as Tiger Woods is at golfing" - you will never be as good at anything you do, as Kim Yuna is at figure skating right now.
I did, however, get to watch it on TV, live. It'll be replayed a lot, but seeing fresh, that first time, with everything still up in the air, was a thrill. And dear readers, Kim Yuna NAILED THE HELL out of that program. I watched a few other skaters before her, and it was like watching a different sport entirely-- except Asada, who is also amazing. Her movements were so clean, her jumps were technically perfect. So Yuna rocks.
(I missed the performance of Joannie Rochette, the bronze medalist, and a Canadian. Good for her, especially after losing her mother this week. Sorry Canada, but this time I'm rooting for Yuna... and here's why)
Dear readers, Korea needs Kim Yuna. Actually... Korea doesn't need Kim Yuna. Korea has other heroes and such. But young Korean women need Kim Yuna. In particular, young Korean girls need Kim Yuna, because here is a woman who is famous for being really excellent at something, for working hard at something spectacular and beautiful, and achieving it. The heroes Korean girls have to work with are pretty slim pickings. There's the girl who was tortured to death for protesting Japanese colonialism. (with the hate Japan subtext) there's the woman who was an amazing accomplished poet, painter, and thinker... whose image has been manipulated into that of a good mother and dutiful wife (with the mother/wife/get in the kitchen subtext). There are a few more modern female heroes who are getting in the mix - I'm fond of Yi Soyeon, the first Korean in space, and a female, but she's been mostly out of the public eye since then.
But here's where Yuna shines:
First, she's AS cute and charming as the pop starlets that everybody idolizes , and that young girls want to be like (unfortunately, this is still a requirement for Korean female role models: Ye Soyeon and gold medal powerlifter Jang Miran are cool, but not conventionally beautiful, and I doubt a lot of little girls say they want to be like them when they grow up, and I bet parents would discourage their daughters from becoming powerlifters). The Wondergirls, Girls Generation, and the like, are cute, charming, whatever, but the fact is, they're famous more for shaking their lovely asses (and singing and making asian poses at cameras) than anything else. Yuna's telegenic enough to totally run with that crowd.
But then on top of that, she set a goal, to be the best in the world at something, and NAILED it. She did what she had to do, including living in Canada and sequestering herself from her own fans, withdrawing from competitions to focus on Olympic gold... and then when the day arrived, she didn't just rise to the occasion, she vaulted 23 points ahead of her nearest competitor (who also set personal bests), and 15 points ahead of her own personal best. She looks cute making heart fingers... but she's also got the eye of the tiger, as surely as Michael Jordan did.
And she's been chasing excellence, not fame, not beauty, not a rich heir boyfriend, not praise for her domestic skills, and she did it. Really did it. And every little girl in Korea should dream of becoming excellent at something, and stopping at nothing to reach her goal, and that would be great.
So today's a happy day for Korea. And for me. Watching her long program (short one too) approached the sublime, and the mounting jubilation of the people around me as she nailed jump after jump, heightened the experience that much more. It's a great day for Korea.
The Wild Women's Performing Arts Festival is a very unique forum for women performers to join together and raise awareness about gender issues in Korea and around the world. Through aural and visual performances from female poets, musicians, storytellers and dancers, the event addresses the issue of gender equality in a way that Korean and English speakers alike can benefit from.
Ten Magazine has a survey asking people to vote for their favorite blogs. I've been nominated. I don't know if the winner wins anything except bragging rights... however, in the absence of the Golden Klogs (they might yet appear... might, if Hub of Sparkle goes back online and I can access it again with my computer), I strongly encourage all my readers to follow the link, and vote for Popular Gusts. I did.
First off: I hate NBC. Not for any other reason but this: they don't like to share. Due to the clutchy grabby way they protect their content (any clip from any NBC show gets pulled from YouTube, etc.), the NBC Olympics page will only play in the USA, so I can't even see it on their (advertising heavy, showing an extremely limited selection of their programs) durn website. What sucks the most is that two of the greatest online clip-generating bits of TV programming out there -- Olympic coverage, and Saturday Night Live, are both owned by NBC, so the only way I can see Kim Yuna's Olympic performance is on TV, and the only way I can see "the more cowbell skit" is by downloading it illegally. So here's me biting my digital thumb at NBC. (source: the DiCaprio Romeo and Juilet)
I haven't been able to watch Kim Yuna's amazing skate with Korean announcers yet... so I can't report whether they absolutely lose their shit the way they did for Park Tae-hwan.
Anybody got a link?
On the bright side, I deleted the time-waster that caused this February to be one of my lightest posting months in a long, long time.
Teaching is good these days. I'm coaching my discussion class students in ways to ask the kinds of questions that lead to more interesting conversations, and it's been quite rewarding so far.
Sometimes I ask my students to e-mail their homework to me, but today I got an e-mail from a student listing all the obligations filling up his free time... "But I'm doing my homework for you so you won't be angry, even though I'm tired." Then he included the assignment, and closed with, "I'm so tired I can't see straight. I guess life isn't always a bed of roses"
Now, because of some aspects of my upbringing, I'm very very sensitive to even a hint of a guilt-trip being lain, and frankly, the only way to demotivate me to do something faster is whining... but was this guy trying to make me feel guilty for giving him homework?
Never had that before. At least not from my adult students.
been feeling pissy and sick and blue lately, readers. new semester got me down, I guess. wedding planning's happening, that's good; students are good; been gathering materials for my discussion classes into something coherent and valuable for myself, and for my whole department. All these things are satisfying.
but I'm feeling pissy and blue. I've tried to write posts for Roboseyo, but every time they turn into gripe-fests, and I hate them.
So here's a happy song. I hope it makes you happy.
Bliss-out soundtrack: Cymbals Eat Guitars (pretty solid CD: Why There are Mountains - best played loud) - the song is Share. Let it build, play it loud.
A commentator in The Korea Times contributes an excellent, level-headed piece in response to a Japanese journalist talking smack about Bibimbap, and the huge, snitty reaction it drew. It reiterates some of the points I made in my post "In Which Roboseyo Advises Seoul City Not to Get in a Snit About Lonely Planet", and it discusses nationalism, patriotism, and the way that to many Koreans, those two words are one and the same. He zeroes in on one comment made by the Japanese journalist, even as he backed off, that Koreans "lacked the spirit of tolerating criticism" - now I talked about this before on my old "Why Are Koreans Hyper-sensitive to Criticsms from Non-Koreans? superpost (The Korean's take on it's worth a read, too). However, that's all retreads, and I don't like going there too often anymore, lest I become the "complaining expat guy"
However, he then looks at Korea's branding through the lens of Korean hyper-sensitivity, and that's interesting to me.
You see, something's been bugging me about all this branding talk, and it's been bubbling up for a while.
It is obvious to any observer that over the last few years, Korea has become increasingly concerned about the way the world views them. This is not limited to the country nationally, but also in other areas:
When the world university rankings come out, there's a great deal of celebration or hair-pulling on where Korea's top university lands -- now that Seoul National's cracked the top fifty, some people in important places are really, really happy, and it was commemorated by news articles and stuff. (Congrats, by the way, I guess)...
But it's starting to bug me, this focus on what other people say... there are these gaps, see, and they're starting to niggle. There are gaps between what is true about Korea, what the Kimcheerleaders say about Korea, what foreigners say about Korea, and, most distressingly to Korea, what Korea would have foreigners say about Korea.
Now, for the rest of this post, I'm going to use "Korea" as a noun meaning "Korean tourism and branding decision-makers, and those who wish Korea to be well thought-of worldwide" - here I would include the people I call Kimcheerleaders, VANK and the like-minded, and Korean tourism. I certainly don't mean all Koreans, or you, specifically, my dear Korean reader. Bear with me. So... back to these gaps.
Asadal Thought wrote something about improving Korea as a tourist destination that touches on this, and basically points out that any time people are told what to think, human nature being the contrary thing it is, we resist. Being told kimchi is good and healthy predisposes me to look for faults, like being told before a blind date, "You're gonna love this girl: she's PERFECT for you!" by someone who doesn't really know me. There are about three people on the planet I'd trust to make that judgement. The point Lee makes is this: the way that Koreans don't notice they come across as hyper-nationalists, is very off-putting to outsiders, and it undermines whatever good they're trying to do for Korea's image.
I got a link to a blog from an e-mail from VANK - they send me e-mails ever since I won that nifty MP3 player. Now I don't want to pick on VANK too much (one reason why I'm not linking the blog where I got this screenshot)... but the way they use the word "correctly" is a perfect example of the way Koreans don't realize their approach to national promotion (clumsy, heavy-handed, and worst of all: humorless) undermines what they're trying to accomplish.
Humorless. I said it. Would a Korean tourism ad ever make fun of its own image? (warning: this video has bad language and bikinis)
So that's the first thing about this whole branding mess. We don't like to be told. We just don't. If Korea wants to be known as a hub of something, the way to do it is to quietly go about becoming a hub of it, until people start noticing, and telling others about it. If Seoul proclaims itself the fashion hub of Asia, I immediately object: "What about Tokyo and Hong Kong?" in the same way I look for the bulges when somebody asks "does this skirt make my butt look fat?"
Instead, to be a world fashion hub, if Korea quietly goes about cultivating a more interesting fashion scene than Tokyo or Hong Kong, they won't NEED to tell people: other people will be saying it for them.
The next problem:
This is the thing that gets me. See, the inherent problem with the idea of branding is that it's superficial. It's a surface thing -- it's even more superficial than that, in fact -- it's not just the surface, it's what people say about the surface. If Korea really wants to be a world class country, I wish they'd STOP worrying about branding, and work on the systematic flaws that branding is attempting to cover up. Yah seriously. Branding is a short cut - a flashy substitute for real progress, like painting over cracks in a foundation.
Dear my family: bad language ahead. Skip this paragraph if it offends your sensibilities. I'm feeling crappy today.
Does Korea really want to be a world class country? Who gives a good goddamn if it's "Korea Sparkling" "Korea, Be Inspired" or "Korea Plese Coming Here Spend Tourist Dolla Buddy OK?" or "Korea... Aww just fuck it." If Korea really wants to be a world class country, work on the people and the institutions that form the foundation of the society; the rest will follow, naturally enough. Take that branding money and give it to a taskforce dedicated to getting Korea out of the world's bottom twenty-five in the Gender Gap Index... I bet some of the women being held down in secretarial positions, or forced to quit their jobs after having a baby, have some great ideas about promoting Korea! Build a social safety net that takes care of seniors, rather than just shuffling around garbage collectors and street food vendors from place to place, so that they're out of tourists' way. Korea focusing on branding and foreigners' image of it is EXACTLY the same as the student who can't hold a conversation, but regularly tops 900 on his TOEIC test. EXACTLY the same problem. Brand Korea is the kid whose SAT got him a spot at Harvard University, but who dropped out because his education never prepared him to do anything EXCEPT nail the shit out of that SAT test. And it doesn't matter if Korea hosts the next three world cups, the next six olympics, the next twelve years of OECD, G-7, G-20 and whatever else summits, and relocates the UN Headquarters to Sejong City, if the people of Korea still work like ants through joyless workdays, and say nothing while foreigners and women and countryfolk and the poor and seniors and single mothers are systematically shat on, and big businesses go hand in pocket with the government to keep everyone feeling dehumanized, so that we think a new cellphone will fix that dull ache in our stomachs that we hate living as ants.
Build lifelong learners, not test aces! Build conversant English speakers, not TOEIC champions! Develop a great university with an awesome educational atmosphere, don't just pour money into the areas that are measured for the annual university rankings, Seoul National University! Take care of corruption, racism, gender discrimination, injustice, foster civic mindedness, and human dignity and respect, and enjoyment of life for KOREA's OWN PEOPLE, and the rest of that stuff will follow. THAT'S what this country needs.
Stupid.
I wrote more about the idea of metrics and measures as validation, to the expense of intrinsic qualities, in the "Five things I'd change" piece I wrote back when I was in a kinder mood, and nobody read my blog.
Don't like what I said? That's fine. I don't even agree with everything I said. Disagree with my points, but don't tell me I'm not allowed to have an opinion. Or go read this article, if you'd rather have your Roboseyo topped with sugar. Today, I can't be bothered. I'm tired and cranky and hungry. And think about this, the conclusion of Lee's original article:
Here, avoiding criticism is not an option. Joining globalization means Koreans now live in a goldfish bowl. People who live in a goldfish bowl cannot escape publicity, both good and bad. Bibimbap was on the spot because it gained publicity as well.
After all, Koreans don't have to view the ability of foreigners to criticize some aspects of Korea itself as inherently antithetical to the national interest.
Hey readers. I want to write about something on my blog, but in order to be fair, I need to get a point of view from a few readers. Specifically, to balance out the point of view of an ethnic non-Korean living in Korea, I need to talk with some ethnic Koreans who have grown up in Korea, and who hang out with foreigners from time to time. If that's you, please write me an e-mail at roboseyo at gmail dot com. Please don't be shy... especially, don't be shy if you worry about your English ability when you talk with foreigners... if that's you, you're exactly the person I want to talk to.
If you're really close friends, or maybe married to a born-and-raised, Korea Korean (as much as I love my Kyopo readers, I'm looking for a different perspective this time), and you'd like to help me out with accessing a wider variety of views from that group, please send me a note as well.
I usually don't like linking The Korea Times, for reasons I've delved into before... but Jongno district is giving a group of Filipinos the bum rush, and it sucks.
"Little Manila Faces Closure" describes a Sunday marketplace set up by Filipinos in Hyehwa, near the Filipino Catholic Church - it's a tradition in Filipino culture to go to church on Sunday, and then head out to the markets to hang out, buy provisions for the week, and meet their friends. I haven't been lucky enough to see it happen in Hyehwa on some sunday, but when I was traveling in Hong Kong, I saw exactly that with the Filipino migrant workers there, and the filipino market was awesome - it had this awesome, joyful, busy-but-never-frantic energy.
Well, Seoul City wants to boot the market, because it has been the subject of a few complaints about noise or disorder, and relocate it to the Nakwon-dong neighborhood (near insadong), where Seoul plans to build a "Multicultural Street" (whatever that means - can I open a hot dog/hamburger/steak stand?) in March. The complaints the district office cited were all of the type that, a representative of the market says, "The problems that they raised can be resolved by talking to the vendors. They are willing to cooperate." Meanwhile, it's illogical and frankly insulting to ask people to walk forty minutes to their own market (which is a once-a week thing, not a daily thing that would be given a place at a multicultural market anyway). Even more so, given that one of the complaints was that pedestrians were blocking traffic... so we ought make them block traffic along a five kilometer walk, rather than just from the church to the nearby market? And this makes sense how?
Now, before we even get into the whole "relocation = giving them the shaft in slow motion" thing (cf: the vendors who used to work in the area that had to be cleared for the Chunggyecheon, who were relocated to Dongdaemun Stadium, wrecking the flea market that used to be there, and then turned out again when Dongdaemun Stadium got redeveloped into the new design plaza... were they even provided with another alternate location this time? Or were they just told to piss off?), why on earth is Seoul trying to gut one of the few really multicultural events that has already, spontaneously developed in one of its downtown areas? Why not promote it and support it? Oh - because it wasn't City Hall's idea, that's why. And they want to build a waterfall. It better be a f***ing great waterfall.
On the other hand, when Seoul seems to be in open war with its own, Korean heritage - razing old buildings, gutting the lovely City Hall building, and the like, maybe it's comforting to know they don't discriminate - they shit on everybody's heritage, not just their own, in the name of development.
And why should my English readers care about a bunch of Filipinos? Well, first, we have more in common with them than you think, and second, who's to say how long it'll be before some ambitious politician/developer team sends a very profitable proposal across the desk of the municipal government, to redevelop that other dirty old neighborhood full of red-brick buildings from Korea's embarrassing poor past (those red brick buildings are '80s and early '90s artifacts), full of noisy and unsafe apartments, to raze it and replace it with luxury condos that will be seven to twenty times more expensive, and way out of the range of the people living there now, and somebody stamps approval on the Haebangchon redevelopment plan?
The thing about Korea's diversifying population, that Seoul City has missed, is that people are going to form their own communities, and do the things they always did, and they're going to do it where they live, where they go to church, where they shop... and you can't tell a whole population where they have to live, or shop. You can't sequester or ghettoize them. It's good to build Seoul Global Centers in the areas where foreigners live - Ichondong, Banpodong, and the like, to make help available... but trying to require foreigners to stay in the places prescribed for them is the opposite of becoming a really cosmopolitan city. The way to become a city truly acclimatized to the new global environment is to let them furraners do what they do, where they do it, so that everybody else gets used to Seoul no longer being only for Koreans.
Chris in South Korea has taken on the job of planning the next 2S2 Event, on Saturday, February 13th. It's going to involve a swing dancing lesson in Sinsa (near Apkujeong), a meetup in the afternoon (usual place), and then still more swing dancing in the evening.
Swing Dancing is one of the greatest ways I've found to hang out and have a good time... go as a couple, or go as a single... and guys, every single time I've ever gone swing dancing, the male/female ratio has been, uh, favorable. Hope to see y'all there!
Soundtrack for the post: Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd
Brian Deutsch is on his way out of Korea. I've known this for a while; Brian and I have met a few times, and even worked together on some stuff. Brian even contributed one of the most useful posts ever on Roboseyo: what to do with a three day weekend in Jeollanamdo - a post which I promised to answer in kind, with advice on a three day weekend in Seoul... but then forgot to do. (Actually, I haven't forgotten: it's almost finished!)
The Korea Times even wrote up a piece on Brian leaving... given Brian's commentary on The Times' reporting, I read it carefully, looking for a hints of "Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead!" in the tone. Given the controversy he courted at times - particularly during the Coreana Nazi ad, the summer of 2008, when netizens went after his job, and recently, calling out the IFriendly misfire for its bad English - and the sheer relevance of his posting, to expat life in Korea, some kind of send-off was certainly deserved. Brian was my personal choice for most relevant, and most topical K-blog of 2009 - the only other contender, in my opinion, is Popular Gusts - especially since the once excellent Korea Beat turned into one part of "Asian Correspondent" - which was probably good for the makers of the site, but which dilutes the once very straightforward, Korea-focused content of the site. While Brian made some statements of regret about the time it took to maintain his blog, and what it's done for the name Brian Deutsch, at least in Korea, I think I can safely say that every blog reader and writer in Korea is very grateful for his work. I'll write him a letter of reference any time he wants. His blog has been extensive, well-written, amazingly prolific, and on the point timely. It's been an impressive run, and his absence will certainly leave a void in the K-blogosphere.
Brian and I have hung out a few times: he's a good guy, nice, kind-spirited, soft-spoken, and his manners are WAY better than mine. Just to prove we really did hang out, here's a picture from the last time we hung out together: I didn't get permission to post this picture, but I hope he doesn't mind. His fiance is also super-awesome, charming and funny, and they're really cute together. Girlfriendoseyo took to them immediately, and gets a gubby happy face every time I mention them.
There's one thing I'd like to say, for the record, about the title of the KT article: "'Angriest Blogger' Leaving Korea"
There aren't a whole lot of regrets, or things I wish I could take back, during the time I've run blogoseyo. For the most part, I'm happy to take the missteps in stride - I've fired off half-cocked a few times, I've failed to fact-check a few times, I've blundered in blogger courtesy before, and mistook a few trolls for real people, but most of it, I'll leave at "You live, you learn".
One of the things I WOULD take back, given the chance, would be the Golden Klog category "Angriest K-Blogger" - The Hub of Sparkle is still showing security warnings, so I can't link it, but I think, looking back, that it was an unfair category in the first place, and worse still, that it unfairly saddled Brian with a reductionist label. I invented the category on a whim, and didn't really think about how the nominees would like being tagged that way. Sure, maybe his critical posts were strongly written; they were also some of his most popular, and frequently referenced posts, but they were also not the bulk of his output, by any stretch. The regional information, and the festival news were other areas Brian put in more effort than the criticism, and his criticism always had a reason, an explanation, and almost always suggested a solution, which is more than I can say for many of the other contenders for "Angriest Blogger" - who are usually harsh, petty, overblown, and prone to generalize specific cases in a way that Brian didn't. He never lost perspective, even when mad netizens were trying to have his job.
A relevant article titled "Easy = True" that just showed up on "Givemesomethingtoread.com" makes the case that simple, snappy bits of information are taken to be more true than more complex explanations, expressions, or ideas. That's why a snappy neologism like "kimcheerleader" catches on: it's more fun to say than "Defensive Korean nationalist" "Korea booster" or "Korean ultra-nationalist". All advertising is built on that principle, and so is OJ's freedom (If the glove don't fit, you must acquit). I regret that "Angriest Blogger" was such an easy catchphrase, too contagious to fade into the background, and became the label by which Brian was known for the last year, even as he toned down the rage., because it mischaracterized a good guy, and a great blogger.
Good luck in the future, Brian; we'll miss you here in Kblogland; eventually someone will take over as the go-to news source, but until then, the K-blogs will be a little less fun, and a little less interesting than they were from 2007-2009.
Wonder Girls, thanks to ballot-box stuffing, won a top video award. Wonder Girls have also won top spots through write-in votes, on polls about the best NFL Player of all time, Longest River in Brazil, Top Bollywood Star, and Best Ocean Named The Pacific Ocean.
Foreign English Tutors haven't been caught, or punished for it, but we're still evil. Thanks, Kang Shin-who, for your series on illegalenglish tutors.. Stafford says you're dumb. Tell all your friends: if a guy from the Korea Times named Kang Shin-who wants to talk to you, say no. His record of misquoting, making stuff up, inflating stuff, and casting people in a false, negative light, is pretty long by now. Here's a start.
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