Head on over to The Hub

There's a new meta-blog on the radar, and if you come here for news about Korea, you should make it your next stop. As you know, Korean promoters aim for Korea to become the hub of everything; well, thanks to the "Korea, Sparkling" advertising campaign, The Hub of Sparkle (cheers, old party pooper) wants to get in on that Korean wave. It's a meta-blog, that is, a handful of established Korea bloggers have put their heads together and decided to create a space where they can collect their individual input and offer a diverse, interesting look at Korea and its wonderfulness, goofiness, and quirkiness, and occasional backwardness or suckiness or still-working-on-it-give-us-a-bit-more-time-iness. There are a whole buttload of foreigners living in Korea now, and it's time to get working on forming a positive, open community where we can look at Korea's ins and outs, for better and for worse.

You can reach it by typing in www.koreasparkle.com or www.hubofsparkle.com

There'll be some WTF stuff, some culture and events news, stuff to laugh about, helpful info for life in Korea, some social criticism (hell, I don't know what the other posters will put up there), and, we're hoping, a lively, friendly discussion board where people feel free to weigh in and hash things out without worrying about trolls or snipes.

There are some pretty awesome K-bloggers involved, and the material on the site so far is really interesting, and we've only just started: I hope as it gets established, it can become a helpful resource for people who need to get their bearings over here. Anyway, I think it'll be worth your while to add it to your blogroll, favorite it, and make it one of your regular visits.

Here's the "Welcome to The Hub of Sparkle" introduction, from the site itself.

Now: here's a cross-post of something of mine (yup, I'm in there, too) that's been up over there for a little while now. (here)

One Gripe about that Andong Festival

Yeah, I had a great, wonderful time last week, and the fireworks were one of the most unique aesthetic experiences I’ve ever had…

But then, between rounds of sheer wonder, they did this:



Now, Girlfriendoseyo defended it, saying that maybe they chose those songs for the sake of the foreigners in the crowd. . . except that as far as I’ve seen, both Sinatra’s “My Way” and Josh Groban/Westlife’s “You Raise Me Up” seem to be more popular with Koreans than with the foreigners living here.

Am I asking too much, and/or being some kind of Eastern culture-fetishizing orientalist by expecting to hear Korean music — or at least mostly Korean music, like the jazz adaptations of traditional arirang music that were playing before the fireworks show (similar to this) — when I go to a festival celebrating Korea’s traditional culture?

Anyway, just to remind you: other than that hiccup, the other 98% of the fireworks show was unbelievably cool, and the music was a bit jarring, but not enough to be a turd in the punchbowl, and ruin the whole experience.

New Phone, Correction Plus Jo Gwon; also, Expats and the DEAR LEADER HIMSELF!

First: Dear Readers in Korea: I've heard that there are phone services which will allow me to get a phone account in my own name. Which ones (as in, which service providers? What do I have to do/bring, and where can I go?) More importantly: my current phone is in the name of a friend, and I want to get a new phone that has the same number as my current phone. . . does she have to be there for me to do that, or what are the necessary details for making that switch-over? Anyone who's done the switch, or could point me to some helpful information, would get a gold star of appreciation from Roboseyo.)


Second: this is beyond belief.

Spotted in an Athens, Georgia record store

He looks healthy to me.
(HT to these guys, via these guys. Why don't MY readers send me awesome links like that?)

OK, I have an announcement, but it's just going to have to become a post of its own, because Jo Kwon will make you laugh.


So third, as an update on the old JYP Post from Sunday...

I'm an idiot.

I looked at the post date, not the original air date of the Jo Kwon Youtube video on my PopSeoul post, and blundered badly enough to prove PopSeoul clearly does it better than ol' Roboseyo, chasing me back into my corner. I'll just have to keep giving you this goofiness (which I do well), because obviously fact-checking (an important part of celebrity gossip writing, and life in general, too) ain't my strong point.

So that Jo Kwon kid from the video 1. was that age back in 2001, and 2. is a boy. Not that you'd know it from that old video...

But 2. he's now grown up (a bit), looking older (though not a lot more masculine), old enough to be promoted (according to the linked article) as the male counterpart to female Korean Wave star Choi Ji Woo:

What do you think, readers?  See any resemblance?

And despite (or maybe because of) being promoted as the male doppleganger of a major female star, our buddy Jo went out and got himself....

A FLIPPIN' SIXPACK!!!

He's lucky to have that sixpack, and can also rest content in knowing that he's still at best, the third prettiest male star in K-pop (as well as at worst, third most androgynous) thanks to Lee Jun Ki:

(remember lee jun-ki from this totally commentary-free post?)

And Bae Yong Joon.



Finally on a slightly more serious note, Kesumo of K-ROK added a little something to the "Why do Expats Complain" discussion which I found worth reading, appropriately titled, "Wah wah wah."

She discusses Korea's rapid development, and the way it leaves the older Koreans, basically, living in a country they no longer recognize as theirs: here are my favourite lines:

Can you imagine coming of age eating tree bark to survive and consulting shamans, and then in the number of years M*A*S*H was on the air, people around you –including your children and grandchildren -- are talking on cell phones, drinking overpriced coffee, and worshipping Prada? You haven’t just been left behind in the dust. You’ve been left behind on another freakin’ planet.

Thanks for adding your thoughts, Kesumo.

But everybody: don't forget about that phone thing. Help me out. I'm too busy with midterms to look it all up myself.

Katie I'd Like To Use One Of My Lifelines. BWAHAHAHAHAHA

Tina Fey returns to SNL, just to tear Sarah Palin a new one with satire

Saturday Night Live doesn't like to share, so you have to go watch it on NBC's site:
http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/couric-palin-open/704042/

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=r36Xc0GG4iQ

Holy cow, that was closer than I even realized.

Hold on... does this work?
It just gets funnier and funnier...right to the last minute, which is as funny as all but a few of Saturday Night Live's magic moments (more cowbell, anyone?) Satire, bar none, is the best way to eviscerate someone... maybe even better than one of these. (how do you like THAT, Gomushin Girl? Who's evil now?)

If Saturday Night Live did this to me, I don't know how I'd look at myself in the mirror.

Move over, PopSeoul!

So I randomly stumbled across this on Youtube (I SWEAR I was not searching for Wonder Girls)

Super-Pop-Producer JYP has been taking online auditions for his next manufactured pop band, including this 13-year old kid (meaning 11 or 12 western age), Jo Gwon, who (especially in her first dance audition in the video) shows off a pretty good voice (for a kid) a really fantastically goofy knack for rocking up a crowd with wacky dances. With a little polish (see 5:40 - 6:40), I'm sure she could be the next product off the JYP shelf.

Meanwhile, the dance lesson part of the video (starting at 3:38) is just. plain. weird. at 4:48, you get to watch JYP, a big grown-up male, teaching a bunch of eleven and twelve year-old possible future products, all girls, how to twist their torsos like sexybacks (a skill he successfully imparted to his most successful proteges)...and it's just weird, is all. (Though when Jo Gwon, who's obviously there for her pipes and not her steps, tries to do these kinds of moves. . . it's really really funny in a cute, not-yet-perverted-or-commodified-youth, i-don't-understand-the-suggestions-this-dance-move-makes-so-i'm-just-imitating-my-dance-coach sort of way.)

Youtube is loaded with JYP Audition videos, ranging from pretty impressive to kinda cringeworthy, QUITE cringeworthy, even MORE cringeworthy, to, uh, this. As always, there are a few young girls who seem to have taught themselves to sing by watching The Little Mermaid over and over.

In other I Wanna Be A Star news, there's a new star getting a pretty big buildup these days. . . with one problem.

Her name: 혜나 or "Hye-na" in Korean, is being written on the posters in a way that could cause some, uh, confusion, if she ever goes international.

Does anybody else here spot the problem?


Anyway, here's one of her videos from youtube...this one gets kinda crazy in the middle.


And here's another. This one's pretty hot.


So, uh, good luck, Hyena.

"Thanks, Rob."

(A Very Special Update: Otto, of "I, Foreigner", in linking to this page, said some of the nicest things I've had said about my blog so far: (and he hasn't even read the stuff I deleted, thinking "too bizarre")  From the write-up:

If you are looking for a blog ... that will make you say “WTF!” before you burst out laughing, a blog that will make you wonder if this man even has a job to have time to find stuff like this, then look no further.

Thanks Otto. You just made my day, and possibly my week.

Ring a bell? Good lord I hate money stress

So what happens next?


this one's hat tip to schwim,

Duck Tales explains the financial crisis:

The won is dropping like a bag of unwanted kittens in a river.  I'm not sure whether I should send everything to Canada now, before it drops now, or send the minimum possible and hold onto my won until things get better.  Yup.  Things are bad enough that I'm actually THINKING about stuff like this.  In 2004 or so, 870 won bought a Canadian dollar.  Now, it takes a bit over 1100.  If I send a thousand dollars home, I'm losing about $300. 

Yech.