Oh crap! I'm in trouble with blogger!

I just got a message from Blogger (which apparently EVERY OTHER BLOGGER received about six months ago) stating that my blogger account would be canceled, and my entire blog deleted, unless I reach the minimum quota of posts referencing the upcoming US election.

So anyway, I was thinking about the upcoming US election, and I saw this.

But then after thinking about that for a while, I also noticed this.

Fortunately, reading this helped me sort out my thoughts on the topic.

Is that enough, Blogger?  Pretty please?  Can I keep my blog now?

Update: Garrison Keillor, an American (there you go, Brian) has two abilities:
1. to pull a column out of his arse, say absolutely nothing, but say nothing so beautifully that you read the column twice more, just because you feel like something important happened, but you must have missed it somewhere in the link he somehow made between the sound of snow underfoot while walking to church and corruption in Zimbabwe or uncertainty about the housing market. However, when he DOES have an actual topic, his second ability is (drumroll please)
2. to hit the nail on the goldurn head with grace and wit.

Liam Lynch - United States of Whatever | Music Videos | SPIKE.com

Welcome, Korea Herald Readers

Hi there. If you're a Korea Herald reader who decided to check out my page after reading the "Expat Living" article, "Why Do Koreans Get So Defensive?", welcome!

While what I wrote there (if that link doesn't work, try this one) is a pretty good summary, it is certainly not all that has been said about the topic, either here or elsewhere, and of course, it should also be remembered that I am not the final expert about anything: I'm mostly glad that people are talking about this now, instead of feeling afraid to say anything, for fear of offending someone.

The series of essays The Korean and I wrote, with Gord Sellar's help (more later on him) about complaining expats and defensive Koreans are here, and they've started a very interesting conversation online, which I've tried to document with links and summaries.  If you haven't seen this online yet, I recommend you start with these:

First question:
Why do expats complain?
My thoughts. The Korean's thoughts.


Update 2: A couple more posts on the topic.
K-Rok
and Lost Seouls weigh in with the headline I like the most so far. Thanks!

some other responses from other pages
some e-mails I got
a wonderful, hilarious look at the history of complaining expats at the blog Popular Gusts
one more link that popped up a bit later on, that made me smile.

and another late addition which provides a COMPLETELY different view of it all.

and the Gypsy Scholar finally weighed in, too.

Second question:
Why do Koreans take Criticism about Korea so Poorly?
My thoughts. The Korean's thoughts.

some other responses from other pages

If this topic really interests you, also take some time to read the worthy Gord Sellar's views on the topic:
"Who's Complaining In Korea"
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

I also talked about this on the Seoul Podcast, here, during the first half of the podcast (before the whole thing devolved into a bunch of dirty bum jokes.)

And if you have something you want to say about it, go ahead and put it online, and send me the address where I can find it. Or e-mail your thoughts to me at roboseyo [at] gmail [dot] com or write them in the comment board to this page. If you're going to criticize me. . . go ahead, but try to have your ducks in a row, and check the rest of the conversation, to see that you aren't repeating something another person's already said.  I'm really glad if this discussion continues -- I think it's worthwhile for us to take a self-critical look in the mirror from time to time, and this is something that everyone bumps into after a fairly short time in Korea.

For posterity, then, or in case you haven't read them, or would like a fairly good summary of the discussion so far, and don't really care to do all the reading following all those links would entail: here are The Korean's Herald article (from the wonderful site, "Ask A Korean!") and my article in the Herald.  

PS: Thanks also to Matt Lammers, the editor of Korea Herald's Expat Living page, for giving us a soapbox excuse to draw attention to ourselves venue!

UPDATE: Gord Sellar's essay went up today, and it, too, is worth a read.  At the KH site, here, or here, kept on my blog, again for posterity.

Where I'm going this weekend...

The Andong Mask Festival, in Kyungsan Province, is pretty famous, and if you need to get out of Seoul, wouldn't be a bad idea.

Korea has a long tradition of Mask Dancing, and you can see some of it, and hear all the old traditional instruments.

And get out of the city, eh?




If you're not Korean, you can even set your goal to be this guy:


And possibly be featured on Arirang TV or Chosun Online (who love following white people around with cameras).

More information here.

More Roboseyo far and wide. . .

If you go to the "Special" sidebar of the Korea Herald Online, you will see the latest manifestation of the "Why Do Expats Complain?" meme The Korean and I started back in the Summer. Tomorrow, in the same place, you will find my write-up on "Why do Koreans Get so Defensive" and on Thursday, Gord Sellar will be there with "What Makes a Happy Expat?"
In other news, I was invited by Joe of Zenkimchi to a ridiculously good meal at "Star Chef," a wonderful fusion restaurant in Maebong, south of Kangnam. FatManSeoul was also there (her writeup here), and Zenkimchi Food Journal even edited together quite a nice video of the whole thing.
This is fusion food as it ought to be -- rather than the UN-creative stylings of replacing the usual shredded cabbage with a bit of spaghetti, throwing honey mustard sauce on the Korean fried rice, and putting Kimchi on a toasted ham sandwich (which is the usual dull way of Korean "fusion" restaurants), this guy is actually mixing flavours of different cultures in ways that are interesting and new and really intriguing. As well as jaw-droppingly delicious.
Yanni presided over the affair, with his video, his jazz shoulder, and his moustache setting the tone for the night, on widescreen TV.


You'll catch me a few times on this video, which presents the food well enough that it remains interesting all the way through, even though it's only about food. That's just how good the food was. Joe and Jen are much better at talking about food than I am, but you'll here a few lame roboseyo jokes here and there and some of my semi-drunken braying, if you pay attention.
This is the space where I will put the great photo Jen took of me, which she promised to send me, but hasn't yet...and I hope she will, and that she's not mad at me for teasing her a bit in my video (next).


(oh there you are, Peter!  Thanks, Jennifer!)

and here is my video (not nearly as good as Joe's, but shorter) with mostly pictures of food, and a bit of Jennifer loving on her camera (she bought a new lens that day). Watching the two food bloggers take pictures of the food ("Food Porn" -- an apt description) was fun as heck. (For the best of the food porn, check out FatManSeoul and ZenKimchi's posts on the place. But gee golly wow, it was good eatin'!)

And Yanni was pleased, and smiled down upon us all.

Amazing photos of North Korea

HT to Schwim

Big pictures, but amazing ones, compiled or taken by Eric Lafforgue, a photojournalist who attended the Pyongyang mass games this September, and seems to have done other work in North Korea during the year.

The North Korean Arirang Mass Games are amazing and terrifying at the same time: getting 60000 performers to move in unison is incredible, but if you think about the methods they probably used to train them . . . yurg.

You can see some of North Korea's natural beauty, but also note, with one glaring exception, the amount of suspicion in the eyes of North Koreans when they look at this foreign photographer. Two of my favourite from the series:




See the whole series here.

Eric Laffrogue's Flickr photostream: more here.

Video from the 2007 North Korean Mass Games: given their limited resources, this is miles more impressive than the Beijing Opening Ceremonies. Imagine what North Korea would do with an unlimited budget.
And those are people holding cards in the background.

those are all kids, by the way.

video of preparations for the games.