Ain't No Party Like a Pyongyang Party' Cause a Pyongyang Party is Absolutely Mandatory!

This remix of North Korean promotional footage, set to a party track, is pure genius.

Wish I'd thought of it.

Mark Zuckerberg is My Crack Dealer

I'm tired of the bimonthly Zuckerberg Hatedown that occurs whenever anything about Facebook changes.  That's all.

It takes 48 hours for everyone to get used to the new layout, and then we all whine again when it changes again.

If my drug dealer decides to stand in front of the Baskin Robbins instead of in front of the Subway, I'M still the one addicted to the product, aren't I? Why waste time whining "Hey dude. I had to wait thirty seconds for that crosswalk. Didn't used to have to do that. So... can I have a dime?"

That is all.

OK one more: Google plus never quite made it. I don't think it will.

And here's why:
Because with google behind it, it never got a chance to make its mistakes in obscurity.

Google didn't do a huge buildup to google docs, but just made it available, and waited for people to discover it was an awesome service. By the time a lot of people were discovering it, it had already worked out many of its initial glitches. With Google's last few social forays, it created a big buzz that a not-completely-finished product simply couldn't live up to.

Plus, Google will never again have that "outsider" cool that helped it in the beginning, that helped Facebook and Twitter get going.


Not to mention:
the SNS market's saturated. Supersaturated.
I don't want to sign up to another linkedin hi5 facebook myspace twitter WHATEVER the heck, have another place to log in, have another login and password to remember, and another place that might get hacked, and wade through overlapping services anyway.

So... until somebody invents the combinator that lets me click on ONE button, and be updated on my facebook, twitter, kakao, linkedin etc. services without having to visit five different places, I'm in. Call it FacebLinKakaoWitteReddit



Until then, I'm happy with what I have.

And no, I'm not signing up for reddit.

Abortion in Korea

My mom was a hard-core anti-abortion activist: she worked, and volunteered, for my town's "Right To Life" and unplanned pregnancy organizations, and a few times, we even took a few young, pregnant ladies who needed a place to stay into our home a few times. She even brought my little brother to the picket lines a few times. I can't think of an issue where I more clearly see, and sympathise with, both sides of the issue, than this one. Frankly, writing this post, this way, might upset some people who are very dear to me, who remain strongly opposed to abortion.

James Turnbull, of The Grand Narrative has a fascinating account of a Korean university student's attempt to procure an abortion in Korea. It includes being lectured about her loose lifestyle by a doctor (I've been told women buying birth control pills at a pharmacy sometimes also get "don't be such a floozy" lectures from pharmacists). It also discusses how the price has gotten way higher in Korea, because government officials think fighting to bring down Korea's high abortion rate (by persecuting doctors who perform abortions) is a good way to bring up the birthrate.

Which is about as wrong-minded as thinking that we can solve the traffic jam problem in Kangnam every day by raising the speed limits on the main roads, instead of by widening roads, improving bus lanes, discouraging the use of cars, encouraging development of telecommuting options, introducing congestion taxes in downtown areas, and building more subway lines. -- Abortions in Korea are a symptom of a larger problem, and fighting the symptoms doesn't solve the problem.

It's a complex topic, but here, in my opinion, is the choice:

Either:
1. Make pregnancy prevention education easily available, and make it easy (and non-humiliating) to obtain pregnancy prevention devices (birth control pills, prophylactics, etc.). This training should be for young men and women. Make birth control and morning-after pills over-the-counter. And fine pharmacists who receive a complaint for lecturing a woman on her lifestyle. Make the fine double for every repeat offense. He's a pharmacist, not a priest.

OR
2. Make abortion affordable and accessible -- if you're not going to teach people how to avoid pregnancy, give them a way out of it.

OR
3. Create/improve working social programs, daycare centers, and maternity protection laws, etc, that make sure that parents, and especially single mothers, no longer feel like having a baby will be the death of all her future career/education prospects.

Or maybe all three. Or at least one and three, so that if the religious right really does insist on banning adoption abortion, fewer women end up on that road by accident, and those who do end up on that road, have options.

... or we could go back to exporting unwanted babies, like back in the '80s when Korea was one of the world's largest sources of overseas adoptees. Did you know back in 1998 Kim Dae Jung actually apologized to Korean overseas adoptees. (more about Korean overseas adoption here)

Somebody I love a lot is currently in the process of getting a masters' degree in Canada as a single mother. And I LOVE that in Canada, it's possible for a single mother to aim at a masters' degree, rather than inevitably resigning herself to a career waiting tables. Until single (and married) women in Korea feel like they will still have options even after a baby is born, the abortion rate will continue to be high, and the birth rate will continue to be low.

But go read the story of getting an abortion in Korea. It's a little bit heartbreaking.


Update:
In the comments, somebody asked me to link this blog, which is an account of a "foreigner" getting an abortion in Korea.

It's a single-post blog, and it includes the line "I will only list one abortion provider in the Seoul area, because I believe he is worth the travel time" ...I'm sure there are other clinics where one could find similarly compassionate, and English-capable help, to say nothing of those who do not live around Seoul. Condoms break in Busan, too.

If anyone has a link or reference for doctors in other parts of the country, or others in Seoul, or wishes to put some kind of contact information into the comments on this post, so that people can contact them for a recommendation, feel free.

Jesa Pizza

You should all go read Ms. Lee To Be's thoughtful blog post about tradition, in light of the picture of a pizza on a jesa table, that made the rounds on Korea's internet recently:

the main gist: we preserve dead things. To make preservation (rather than practice) a goal is also, in part, to surrender the belief that tradition remains relevant to our lives.

The Korean from Ask a Korean! wrote about how to do a Jesa a while ago, and has a (short) response to the pizza jesa here.

I wrote about Jesa once, a long time ago, too, upon reflecting on my mother's death of cancer.

Chuseok Weekend, Gae-eun Park, Meetups and A Scare

Music soundtrack: EMA - Anteroom. If Elliot Smith were reincarnated as an emo girl, here's what it would sound like:  Hit play, and then start reading.


Did a few things over the weekend.



Among them:

Ate at Table 34 in the Grand Intercontinental Hotel at Coex with wifeoseyo... and that food was obscenely good.

Met some lovely lovely people on Tuesday, and had a few drinks and a nice walk and talk, near my home. Included in that crew were some of my favorite former coworkers, a few bloggers who shall go unnamed, and one irascible scoundrel who shall not be named, but whose face shall be shown here for the internet to see his shame.



Now that the baby's coming soon, I have a feeling a lot of my hangout events will likely be somewhere near home, like this one was. Fortunately, I live somewhere AWESOME.

Met some OTHER lovely lovely people on Sunday night and had a picnic on an overpass. And some OTHER other lovely people on Friday night.

Ever meet a person who's just a cool-person magnet? Some people, somehow, always have lots of very smart, or interesting, or funny people around them. My best friend Matt, who left Korea, was like that, too -- you could count on people recommended by him, to be worth the time to get to know them. I'm happy to say I know another person like that.

But I won't tell you who, or you'll all want to hang out with him/her too, and then s/he won't have time to hang out with ME.

Another weekend highlight, though, was visiting 개운산공원 - Gae-eun Mountain Park - on the smallish mountain behind Korea University. It's a park that's not that easy to reach, shows evidence of being fairly recently built, or at least improved, and has a lot of open spaces where you can see some great views of the city, or let your kid run, without losing sight of them.


Spacious. Nice view. Not crowded. Noice.

Because it's not that easy to reach, it isn't crowded, either, the way Han River park, or the Cheonggyecheon always are when the weather's nice, and because there are trees on the mountainsides all around the park (as well as some trails through woods), despite being in the middle of the city, the air's fresher than you find in most places.



There's not quite enough there for an entire date, but it'd be a decent place to take the kids, or bring your camera, or just to chill with your buds. Maybe bring some bottles of wine and get talky. It's big and sprawling enough that a decent game of capture the flag could probably be played. Or, bring picnic materials, a frisbee, a soccer ball/football and badminton rackets and a very, very nice time could be had.

By foot: Go to Korea University subway station, exit 2. Go straight until you pass the GS 칼텍스 gas station, and take your first right. Head down that road until you see a a fork in the road, with one fork going up the hill. Follow road up hill around a bunch of curves until you reach a three way intersection. Go right, and you can't miss the park area. It'll about 35-30 minutes by foot, unless you're slow.

Or (if Daum Maps isn't lying), once you pass the gas station, across the street from the corner where you should turn right, take the small green bus "성북 20" and get off at "개운중학교" stop, and backtrack a little to find the three-way intersection that leads to the park.



The park has most of the trappings of other parks where seniors are fond of hanging out - and the demographic there definitely skewed older - so there are exercise machines (including some fairly new, and quite nice equipment in one corner - I tried it), but because it's up a hill, again, it's not as crowded with the seniors as Jongmyo Park is.

Instead, it looked like this: even on the Saturday of a Chuseok holiday.


There was also a health center, but I didn't really explore that.

Wifeoseyo was very impressed with big rocks that had beautiful Korean poetry carved into them: they're some of her favorite poems, she says.


One little corner of the park even had a little book booth.


The books are multipurpose.


Either this sign indicates there are speed bumps ahead, or there's a suntanning area nearby, too.



This was not the view from Gaeeun Park. It's the view from Bukak Skyway's little lookout point.

But I went there, too, and it was nice.

I also climbed a mountain with a group of people, and had a bit of a scare. I had a crappy breakfast, didn't do warmup stretches, and went too fast at the beginning, leading to a lightheaded spell the likes of which I haven't had before. The other hikers were kind enough to wait for me, and once I took it a little easier, I was OK for the rest of the hike... but that's never happened to me before, and it put a mini-scare into me. After all, when the zombies come, I want to be sure I have the endurance to protect my family, and keep going until they've all been beheaded, you know? A sharp machete is important, but so is a good cardio regimen.



As I pushed, and then passed 30 years old, I discovered that I can maintain the level of health/body type that I had in the 20s (which was pretty low-effort when I was in my 20s)... but it just takes me a little more work each year than it did the year before, and a hardcore dizzy spell on the entry slopes of Bukhan Mountain was a pretty clear sign it's time for me to put a little cardio into my regular routine. And that I'm not 22 anymore.

Dammit!

But other than that little scare, I had a great weekend. How about you?

Nice Galaxy Tab Ad...I Mean, Nice Patronizing Stereotype-filled "Visit Korea" ad...

Warning: there is one slightly NSFW image in this post. It's down where I'm talking about the Netherlands.

So there's this new ad that has been spotted in places like CNN.



Yeah. Soak it in.

I have a few problems with this ad:

First, it looks more like an ad for the Galaxy Tab (if that's what the guy's carrying) than an ad for Korea. Seriously. In fact, it would make more sense as a Galaxy Tab ad - "Samsung is supplying the whole world with tablet technology...um...except Germany" In that context, the ad would have made more sense.

Next, very few people wear their nation's traditional dress when traveling abroad. Even Texans usually leave their horses at home. And maybe even their Segways.

Also, who the hell asks THESE kinds of questions (in their own language) of a random stranger on the street?  "Is it true that you're the 7th largest exporter?" (I don't know how google works.)

Anyway, what would Koreans do if somebody approached them, dressed like Napoleon,


and asked them a question in French?

Here's what they'd do:


(an ad aimed at Koreans - "don't act QUITE so scared when you see a foreigner, or they'll know Korean hospitality is only for non-strangers")


The ad ends with a whole line-up of stereotypes walking towards the camera in some sort of a xenophobe's nightmare.


I've got Dutch background, so should I be upset that there isn't someone dressed like this in the ad?

Should I dress like that (or at least the boy version) when I travel abroad?

Or maybe, like the Arabian belly dancer on the far right at the end of the ad (who almost certainly doesn't even dress that way on the street in her own blessed country)...




I should dress like one of the Netherlands' other famous identifiers. (the source)

Or a Canadian mountie -- after all, one of the Queen's Guard is there.

Other screen shots from the ad, in case it gets pulled from youtube:

Key message: "Even though we think you're all cowboys, we want you to visit our country, Americans."

To their credit, at least the cowboy doesn't have a Russian accent, like those "American" teachers in some of those trashy scapegoaty TV shows.

I wonder how many cowboys know what bibimbap is.

Yes. In some middle-easternern countries, people do dress this way every day. When they travel abroad? Perhaps.

Seems a little elaborate for a travel outfit... then again, I passed a pair of harajuku girls on a street in Hongdae a few saturday nights ago.

"Excuse me. I got lost on the way to the ballroom."

"Galaxy Tab: all the information you need to help random, oddly-dressed strangers"

Here's the whole crew of them in Gwanghwamun Square.

 Including Connor MacLeod

A Hopak dancer (I think)

A flamenco dancer. (correct me if I'm wrong on any of these)

A... shaolin monk, perhaps? Because Koreans wear Taekwondo uniforms when they travel abroad.

Oh. And a tall African wearing a brightly-colored toga. He's in the back row, so I can't tell whether he's carrying a spear, or if there's a bone in his nose. (we've seen worse, but still...)

A mexican with a sombrero. (At least they couldn't find anyone who was mexican, or looked mexican, and was shameless enough to wear a sombrero for the camera)

By the way, the Cowboy's name...

is cowboy.


This brazilian lady was busy: she had to go straight from the parade float to the airport.

I can't quite tell who this guy's supposed to be.

Thankfully, the American Indian (complete with feather, facepaint and buckskin pants) DID end up on the cutting room floor. Barely.

(image source)

Rest in peace, Iron Eyes Cody.

I think that if everybody else is wearing their national stereotyped clothes, they should put the Korean guy in a hanbok, or at least a taekwondo uniform, for one thing. I don't know how this ad is going to impress anyone enough to decide to come to Korea, when one of the messages it seems to communicate is "Hey. We don't know anything except the broadest stereotypes of your country. So why don't you broaden your horizons by coming to a country where our ad implies that people will expect you to wear a sombrero if you're from mexico." And if this ad were to reflect the actual flows of tourists to Korea, then the elephant in the room is, "Why so few South and Southeast Asian outfits?" Not even an Indian sari? Or one of those fantastic Thai headdresses?

There are other ways to have communicated that these people are from other countries, than dressing them like friggin' Napoleon - flags on backpacks, or you could even have a flag show up on the corner of the screen, or floating above their head like the character info on an online role play game, without diving into this "let's dress foreigners in silly costumes" mess.

I don't know if it quite heads into straight-up offensive territory, but it is definitely, definitely tone deaf. And if my sources are correct, and I'm pretty sure they are, the producers were told this ad was wrong-minded, patronizing and maybe a little racist, on no uncertain terms, and they ran it anyway. So... I guess they were keeping those westerners around to make their office feel international, and not because the people promoting Korea actually care what foreigners think about their "visit Korea" ads.

and yeah, this ad, seen by Koreans, will do a good job of making Koreans feel good about Korea.

But that's not the point of international Korean tourism promotions, is it? And it hardly requires buying ad space on CNN, when KBS or MBC will reach more Koreans anyway. Hell, why not just have the narration in Korean?

Self-Deprecatoseyo!

Nothing like a joke at my own expense to end my week.

Mutual facebook friends will recognize the source by the photo next to it, the rest of you will just have to ask, "Who was that masked man?"

and I can only answer this:

Climbed Dobong Monain. Killed My Legs.

Turns out Dobong Mountain is a steep bastard of a mountain to climb. I was out of practice, so it took days before I could do things like stairs again.

But once you get to the top it's crunking beautiful.

Here's a panorama I took last wednesday. Click on the image for a full-size picture.

Don't be a Dick

This came to my attention earlier this week... I think somebody linked it on twitter. Anyway, Phil Plait is a skeptic, but the stuff he says about the ways people try to persuade other people on the internet, are worth a good hard look. Especially if one often finds oneself butting heads with other people.

Summary, and these are as close to the "golden rules of internet commenting" as you can find:

1. it's not what you say, it's how you say it
2. don't be a dick -- back in my "complaining expats" days, I once wrote that "when you talk so harshly, even when you're right, you're wrong, and even if you win the argument, you still lose"

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Best line: "Is your goal to score cheap points, or is your goal to win the damn game?"

Update on Babyseyo

last friday we went into the hospital for a pregnancy update, and...

that's right. We saw a gochu.

And along the way, I've figured out that, at least in my opinion, there is one situation in which it's perfectly OK and non-controversial to show people a close-up picture of your son's willie:

when it's an ultrasound. Once that baby's out of his mom, it just ain't kosher anymore. (Sorry, Borat. No, I'm not including a link to the picture.)

Random: Two Bots in Conversation

Somebody put two chatbots (computers that are programmed to chat online and attempt to simulate a human's chat responses) into a conversation with each other.

It's awesome -- it almost hangs together, but not quite. Kind of like listening to a four-year-old tell jokes.

Learning Korean in Korea

Well, when I was with ATEK, one of the things I wanted to do was create an useful guide to Korea.


But that didn't happen.


So if you go to the top of my page and click where it says "Expat Life" you can see a (still in progress) page with some of the links I think are most useful to somebody trying to get themselves sorted in Korea.


One section I like is my "places to learn Korean" link list.


Learn Korean
Hangul (writing system)
Comparative reviews of "Study Korean" books
Learn Korean Online
Korean Class 101's Youtube Channel
Sogang's online Korean Course comes highly recommended
Recommended by I'm No Picasso: Learn Korean Now
Recommended by Roboseyo: Korean Class 101
More complete list of learning Korean resources

For the rest... if you run/know about a page you think deserves a link on my page, send me an e-mail at roboseyo at gmail, or put a link in the comment.

To the guy who's been getting his comments deleted: no. Links on where people can find an Indian wife (prefaced by a paragraph of shit-talking about western and Korean women) don't qualify.

10 Magazine Reboot

10 Magazine has been providing one of the best events calendars out there, and they're trying to reinvent their website so that users can submit their own events, which is really useful. Especially if there's a curator to be sure that "Dylan's birthday party" doesn't quite make it in (that's what facebook groups are for)...

to pay for reinventing their website, and making it more useful for you, the readers, they're trying to raise $3000. I like 10 Magazine: they're good people, and between 10 and Groove Magazine, we're on our way to defying Bethell's Law, which makes me happy.

Bethell's Law:

the foreign community in Korea has always been much too fragmented, transient and diverse to broadly support any publications that fail to hew closely and safely to the proverbial lowest common denominator. That is as true today as it was a hundred years ago, if not more so.

 So... go forth. Support. They're two thirds of the way to their goal as of this writing, and you can get stuff if you help out.

Korea's Got Talent and Korea's Susan Boyle

So, Korea's Susan Boyle (I think he's Korea's Paul Potts) got second place in "Korea's got talent" (hat tip: I Am Koream)

Here's his emotionally manipulative original viral thingy:


He was beaten by this amazing popper: Ju Min Jeong.
I'm very impressed by her, frankly.


Congratulations to both.
However, Choi Sang-bong has his own English wikipedia page. Ju Min-jeong doesn't. As of this writing. So who's the real winner?

And Korea's Susan Boyle joins the list of "Korea's X" things, along with... (these are from Brian in Jeollanamdo)


* Korea's Madonna - Uhm Jung-hwa
*Korea's Madonna - Gwangyang's own Chae-yeon
* Korea's Madonna - Bada
* Korea's Usher - Rain
* Korea's Justin Timberlake - Rain
* Korea's Beyonce - Gwangyang's own Kim Ok-bin
* Korea's Michael Jackson - Seo Taiji
* Korea's Angelina Jolie - Kim Hye-soo
* Korea's Naples - Tongyeong
* Korea's Hawaii - Jeju
* Korea's Manhattan - Yeouido
* Korea's Grand Canyon - Bulyeongsa Valley (LMFAO, thanks Michael).
* Korean Alps - mountains in Gangwon-do
* Korea's 9/11 - The Namdaemun arson 
* Korea's Bangalore - Daejeon 
* Korean Harry Potter - Woochi
* Korea's Lady Gaga - CL
* Korea's Moses Red Sea Miracle - Jindo Sea-Parting Festival
* Korea's Gandhi - Cho Man-sik
* Korea's Mariah Carey - Lena Park
* Korea's Barbie Doll - Han Chae-young

And let's not forget:

Korea's Susan Boyle - Choi Sang-bong.
Korea's times square - uh... Yeongdeungpo Times Square
Korea's NYC Central Park - Ttukseom Seoul Forest
Korea's Seine/Thames River (another) (Han river)
Korean Opera - pansoori
Korean Pizza - Jeon
Korea's Manhattan - Yeouido
Korea's Hawaii - Jeju Island

Additions from readers and contacts:
Korea's Silicon Valley - Daejeon
but upon googling "Korea's silicon valley" it turns out
Korea's Silicon Valley - is ALSO Bundang
Korea's Naples - Tongyeong - confirmed by another person.
Korea's Grand Canyon - Buleyongsa


Korea's butthole - Gumi (this one might have been a joke, though ㅋㅋㅋ)

I know there are many more... please tell me who/what/where I've missed in the comments. Bonus points for links.

As you may have gathered, I'm not a huge fan of comparing everything in Korea to something more famous somewhere else. It just makes Dream Forest look like a pale imitation, to compare it to somewhere more famous, and maybe better, from somewhere else.

However, I'll also say this: I went to Toronto's Eaton Center while I was in Canada this summer, and there are at least four shopping centers in Seoul alone that smack that mall like a chubby bunny.

Star City - Keondae
Yeongdeungpo Times Square - Yeongdeungpo
Enter 6 - Wangshimni
Lotte World + Lotte Adventure - Jamsil
And the mother of them all: Coex - Samseong

and once it gets going and the areas around it fill with apartments and the mall fills with shops, Garden 5 in Songpa will beat out Eaton Center, too. Unless Eaton Center had a jimjilbang I missed.

So Eaton Center Toronto, you are henceforward to be known as Toronto's Korea's Times Square. Or Toronto's Korea's Mall of America. You choose.

Maybe Choi Sung Bong will get his own star on Korea's Hollywood's Walk of Fame.

Cicadas

This is the sound of August in Korea.



Simon and Martina sum up my feelings about the cicadas pretty well.

Korea Herald... and Roboseyo... on Dog Meat

Korea Herald ran an article about eating Dog Meat in Korea -- a topic that received a lot of world attention in 1988 around the Olympics, at which time Seoul carefully squirreled away dog restaurants, in 2002 around the World Cup, at which time the response was more along the lines of "Respect our culture." It will happen again in 2018, when the Winter Games comes to Pyeongchang, and what the response is, is anybody's guess.

The Korean, of Ask A Korean! wrote in support of dog meat, and has brought the ire of every PETA person who finds his blog down upon his head. 197 comments in response, as of this writing.

I read up a little on dog meat while preparing for my essays about the Olympics, because the issue came up as one of the arenas where Korea wanted to put a positive image of itself onto the world stage. Not exhaustively, but a little.

"Animal Rights vs. Cultural Rights: Exploring the Dog Meat Debate in South Korea from a World Polity Perspective" (Minjoo Oh & Jeffrey Jackson, Journal of Intercultural Studies Vol. 32.1 Feb. 2011) gave an interesting history of dog meat controversies in Korea, and explores the tensions that occur when groups proclaiming universal values (and possibly wearing their colonial arrogance on their chests) come across local groups with other ideas. If you'd like to read it, contact me, and I'll get your hands on a copy.

Some of the things it's got me thinking about:
1. Rhetoric from leaders has little meaning when it is not internalized by the locals. (See also: multiculturalism, globalization).

2. Rhetoric from international bodies and discussion of global norms has little effect if it does not resonate with something in the locals.

3. Formally adopting a policy is not the same as actually having it done in practice. (See also: maternity leave in Korea)

4. Don't underestimate nationalism and cultural exceptionalism.

5. Trying to take something away sometimes makes people hold onto it tighter.

6. As nations enter global community, there needs to remain space for local particularities, and dialogues about where those lines are drawn never end.

7. Sometimes, the way to clear space for local particularities is to announce global norms as window dressing... and then not enforce/implement it.

8. Shame tactics can provoke a backlash. Especially in the context of discussions about modernism, and in discussions between more and less developed countries, or more and less recently developed countries.

According to some of my reading, interestingly, partly because it's faced international opposition, eating dog has become seen (by some Koreans) as one way to celebrate their Koreanness -- because some furriners want to take it away, it suddenly gets chunked into the same category as pansoori, Arirang, and Other Heritages In Danger Of Vanishing. The article I mentioned above states that after the '88 Olympics, more Koreans had neutral or positive feelings toward eating dog, and more ate dog, than they did before some furriners tried to make them stop doing it.

Once again:
Eating dog is more popular now than it was before facing opposition from NGOs and such in 1988.

The Korea Herald piece presents two sides: pro and con. Stephen "Why Aren't You Respect The Korea Culture?" Bant argues against eating dogs, and Ann "I Used The Family Photographer Who Hasnt Bought New Equipment Or Backgrounds Since 1978" Yong-geun argues for it.

On the "Dogs are friends, not food" side, Bant comes across, frankly, as a little high-handed: a selection of words from his piece that demonstrate his attitude: "evolved" "uncivilized" "ignorant peasants." His posture comes across, in spots, as being one of the enlightened, bringing truth to the savages. Where his tone comes across that way, it rubs me the wrong way.

Then, in his last few paragraphs, he goes so far as to question the manhood of those who eat dogs. Directly after suggesting that those who don't eat dog meat don't need stamina supplements, he says,

"But dog eaters suffer other inadequacies. They say that in summer they cannot do without dog meat for energy. Well, perhaps if they exercised a litle, it would boost that flaccid physical condition of theirs." [emphasis added]

And that, sirs and madams, is called a cheap shot.

Bant also mentions that dogs are companions. And implies that using dogs as companions is a sign that a society is developed. I didn't realize that was the measure. I thought there was something about industrialization and access to education and medical technology and growth of civil society in there, too, but I've been wrong before. Using dogs as pets strikes me as a very culturally specific measure to choose as the barometer of a developed society -- I might as soon (and as arbitrarily) choose really good maple syrup as the measure of an advanced society... but I'd be showing my bias-cards then, wouldn't I? Do Indians look at Americans with envy, because Americans have pet dogs, and all they ever managed was big, unwieldy cows? Or do they see Westerners as savages, for coddling dogs, when they've discovered a far more bovine animal to revere?

In the bio, it explains that the writer is a vegan. And that matters.

On the pro-dog meat side, Ann Yong-geun plays the cultural relativity card, suggests that not all dogs are friends, and asks that people not force their opinions on others. Some of his points - like the one that Koreans only eat dogs that are specially bred for eating, are patently wrong or contradicted in his article -- almost every student over 40 with whom I've had this conversation, had a pet dog, or knows of a family who had a pet dog, that was stolen and eaten by a neighbor. This was also answered by Stephen in his article. Ann also points out that animal shelters in the West euthanize dogs regularly, and points out that if animal shelters destroy dogs anyway, why not make some use of the carcass, and eat a dog that's already dead, maybe even turn a profit from cooking it after it's been destroyed, rather than having to also pay for disposing of it the body. A fair point... but didn't he just say only specially raised breeds of dogs were supposed to be eaten?

Most interesting, he suggests that housing a dog in a human's home is an unnatural state for a dog, and they should be left to live wild; that keeping dogs as pets is just as unnatural and cruel as confining it to eat it.

Then he veers of into fishy territory, suggesting that Westerners don't eat dogs because it's in the bible. I got nothing to say about that, except that I suppose it's fair that both articles unravel toward the end, one with cheap shots, and the other with tangential borderline-nonsense.

Anyway, interesting pair of articles.


My own thoughts:

1. Korea is trapped in a bind. The dog meat industry here is terribly unregulated [update: it's fairer to say underregulated], which means that there's little to no control over the conditions in which dogs are raised and slaughtered, which in turn means that for all we know, many dogs continue to be raised and slaughtered in really viciously disgusting conditions (according to legend, slaughtering a dog by beating it to death produces the most delicious meat). The problem is, when the government tries to regulate dog meat, which would put them in a position to remove cruelty from the farming and serving of dog, animal rights people and humane society people, start raising a stink about banning it entirely. This meets resistance from people who believe them furriners (or them arrogant youngsters who need to get off my lawn, or just some ignorant people who have never tried it and should keep their nose out of it,) are trying to take away an important Korean traditional thing. That debate attracts negative international attention (which Korean leaders and image-sculptors hate). Better not to talk about it than to risk having all that dirty laundry run up a flagpole for everyone to see.  (see also: prostitution, suicide, abortion)

2. Stephen Bant is a vegan, so he's allowed to tell us that we shouldn't eat dog. He would probably argue just as passionately why we shouldn't eat chicken, pork, beef, ostrich, giraffe, or gorilla. His position is consistent.

But if you eat pig, you can't say it's wrong to eat dog. Pigs are remarkably smart: the intelligence argument doesn't fly. Some keep pigs as pets, too. If you eat any living thing (with the possible exception of wild game), you don't have a leg to stand on, saying that it's wrong to eat dog, but OK to eat chicken, ostrich, pig, cow, kangaroo, alligator, shrimp, oysters, turducken, or any other critter. Choosing which animals are wrong to kill and/or eat on the basis of cuteness is inconsistent and hypocritical: don't tell me it's wrong to cull cute baby seals because it's cruel, but it's OK to exterminate scabby rats on Manhattan Island.

I'm sympathetic to vegetarians for two moral reasons - I used to do summer work on farms, and it's really hard to raise meat in a way that's cost-effective and affordable, without being a little horrible. There's a reason many livestock farmers' kids grow up to be vegetarians. Particularly industrial chicken farming is so horrific, nobody should eat that shit. I'm sparing you links to photos and videos... but just google it. If the comment discussion gets interesting, I'm sure somebody will be considerate enough to include links in the comments to pages where you can see pictures and video from industrial farms. It's awful, and will make you sad for days.

I'm also sympathetic because in terms of efficiently using the world's resources to feed the world's humans, livestock a terrible choice. Growing beans and nuts to provide humans with protein, and making it into tofu and stuff, uses so much less of the world's resources, it's ridiculous. You know how many humans could be fed, on the grain it takes to raise a beef cow to slaughtering size? You know how much corn could be grown with the water it takes to raise a cow to adulthood?

3. Until it became a "thing NGO's and other furriners who don't understand our culture want to take away from us" because of these big public mega-events, eating dog meat was probably on its way to being a generational thing, like bbundaegi, which is slowly fading out of favor with the younguns - mostly old people, in mostly old neighborhoods, eat dog meat, particularly since it was pushed to the margins in '88 and (especially these days) young people mostly think of dogs only as pets. My wife is one of that generation: she, and people younger than her, are generally more interested to be seen in the newest belgian waffle, hand-drip coffee, gourmet hamburger, snazzy tapas place, than sitting on the floor in a dirty old neighborhood, in a shop in a back alley with fake wood floors and teal tables, surrounded by old men eating dog.

Even though dog consumption has increased since the '88 Olympics, I'd be interested to know how many of the people under 35 who eat dog, do it only with other people under age 35 -- I'd wager that the overwhelming majority of young people eating dog are doing it because they've been brought along by someone of that older generation.

4. Me, I'm torn, really torn, about dog meat. While I was traveling in China, I saw a dog market that made me sad enough that I won't eat more dog myself, and have eaten much less of other large animals, too. My wife wouldn't let me eat dog, anyway - not while she's around - because she's an avid dog-lover.

I'm mostly frustrated by that catch-22 I mentioned in "my own thoughts, part 1" -- the industry's sketchy because it's unregulated, and it's unregulated because trying to make it legal is politically risky, and any attempt to bring the industry above board and clean it up is going to result in loud movements to ban it entirely instead, attracting negative attention.

They're different in many ways, but the prostitution industry suffers the same dilemma - in both cases, leaders don't have either the will or the resources to eliminate the industry entirely, but neither do they have the courage to own up to its existence, and try to bring it above board, so it hangs around on the margins, where people who beat dogs to death can get away with it, and where gangsters who do all kinds of horrible human trafficky things to women, can get away with that.  

For the record, I think it's a much higher priority to clean up the prostitution industry than the dog meat industry, but until Korea's leadership is willing to either snuff the dog trade out, or legislate it appropriately, it will continue to exist in this shadowy area, until the generation that consumes most dog meat dies of old age, and it becomes impossible to find, not because international groups have foisted imperial values on innocent Koreans, but because those who prepare it, and those who eat it, have died of old age, and the young ones who would take it up, are interested rather in belgian waffles, hand drip coffees, and Indonesian, Thai, Swedish, Middle-Eastern, or whatever other kind of food has become the newest way to show off one's sophistication.

Time to tell the World... Due Date: October

Time to tell the world...

Wifeoseyo and I are expecting a little one, in late October.

So... yay us. I played this really close to my chest for quite a while, but it's time to share it with the world. After all, you can't really look at my wife without noticing.

*actual babyseyo may not appear exactly as shown

That's all for now.

Love: roboseyo

I owe an Apology to Mike Yates and TJ

I've owed you two this post for a while.

In 2009, I wrote an angry blog post in which I called Mike Yates and T.J., two guys heavily involved with discussions about ATEK at the beginning, trolls. At the time, I didn't know them at all.

Since then, I have gotten to know these guys, through some email and through their commenting and other actions. First, they acquitted themselves admirably in explaining their views on ATEK.  During my time with ATEK, I saw them give that organization numerous chances, despite their initial opposition.  Secondly, I saw them put a ton of time and work into building the AFEK community, of which I am a member. AFEK is a great place, in part thanks to the combined efforts of all the members there (and anyone can now become a member and join discussions in AFEK's open forums), but in large part, due to the efforts of Mike Yates and T.J., thanks to whose efforts, those AFEK members have a place to meet. They have done these things in ways that demonstrated conviction and integrity.

I'm not for or against people, other than Kim Jong-il, perhaps, whom I'm against: I'm for community, and anyone who's working on building it. And Mike and T.J. have proven themselves, without a doubt, to be community builders. I respect that. A hell of a lot.

So I apologize for calling you guys trolls, that was a shitty thing to do, and it's patently untrue. I apologize for lumping you in with people who were there to watch the car wreck, or for other reasons, and thanks for the community building work you've done since then.

You can learn more about AFEK at the Midnight Runner podcast, at Chris in South Korea, at The Three Wise Monkeys, or at the AFEK page itself.

Clearinghouse: Links

Some very readable and worthwhile links that I want to share, but don't have time to write up at length:


Discussion of Expat misbehavior in Georgia. It touches on the way lack of accountability plays a role in people acting overseas in ways they wouldn't act in their home communities. Somebody sent me this link... I think of facebook... a long time ago.

Ants on the March - I really want to visit this neighbourhood. And ones like it. Any of my readers know more about "daldongnae"?

This article at the Diplomat, which I've added to my sidebar, suggests that while Western English teachers sure do raise a stink, the racism they face in Korea pales beside the treatment given to South Asians. I find myself agreeing. Matt from Popular Gusts discusses this article.

Matt also has a great write-up about more cartoon depictions of English teachers... plus other stuff. He's doing so much great work documenting the media campaign to scapegoat English teachers.

Nils Footman talks about one of the new web services that is part of bringing an end to Korea's internet monoculture.

Good Perspective on Blackout Korea

It's been a while since this was published or timely... but during my semester I kinda got busy.

anyway... here's an article written by Matt Lamers about the Blackout Korea kerfuffle. Go read.