Pictures and pictures and pictures and dumb commentary.

My friend Myungshin has magic hands: look what they can do! She can also make them pass through solid objects.

Met this guy out in Shinchon.   
Can't remember his name though. Might've been Brian.

Somebody has the job of writing those t-shirts.

And I want their job.

But bad.  REeeeeeel bad.

Met this guy out in Shinchon too. He found a hot dog stand he, uh, really liked. Street food. Aah, street food. He said it was nice: thick, juicy, and just spicy enough.  I...uh... don't eat hot dogs.

The bad economy's trickling down to the little guy now: those cheapie 3300 won samgyupsal places are now patchworking their signs to cover the budget.

Went to a bar.  It was rough.

You'd think, though, especially in a place like Hongdae, that they'd check SOMEBODY, just SOMEONE to veto signs like this one: "Club DD: We got all black music"

There's a bar called Boobi Boobi in Hongdae, too.  It has another meaning in Korea, but I don't have the background to give an exact translation.  It DOES seem like it must be a cool name for a bar, though.There's also a bar named "Ho Bar."  In fact, there are TWO of them...and more (three...maybe even four) in Hongdae, and another two, maybe three in Jongno.  These bars are a running gag to pretty much every foreigner in Korea.  'nuff said.
Hyori has another soju poster.  Those airbrushers are getting more and more involved in these soju ads. . . it's at the point now where they're not even trying to make it look like an actual person anymore.  It's like cartoon Hyori standing behind a cardboard frame.

Went to a little arboretum near my house with Girlfriendoseyo.  It was gorgeous: the sun was out shining through the leaf canopy and setting little trees aflame with sunlight.Purty.
Girlfriendoseyo made a friend.

Seen on a sign near Sinchon station:

??And English school where you learn to talk dirty??

Saw these in City Hall Subway Station.  A Korean artist had a really interesting take on the interactions between old Korean culture and modern pop culture.

Finally: a soju ad advertising that Soju is "Non-GMO".

Nope.  No genetically modified chemists were involved in mixing cooking alcohol with MSG and water to make this soju.
Advertising soju as non GMO is just weird to me -- isn't that kind of like selling "New Marlborough. . . 100% organic!" -- I mean, so what?  It's still soju.  That's like selling me a rottweiler and saying, "Don't worry.  This one only attacks adults without provocation, so your kids'll be safe."  Big deal.  

TrashCat is not amused.

(picture source)

Korean stereotypes of English teachers spreads all the way to ABC News.  

Completely not surprised to find a Korean name on the byline.

Here's the article. http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/story?id=5838267&page=1

Here's supersleuth Matt from PopularGusts, chronicling the Korean media's history of scapegoating English teachers.

See the resemblance?

Frankly, it's embarrassing for ABC to fall for this kind of junk, and allow it up on their page, without sending a fact-checker in.

You can read the comments I left on the article's comment board (or read the copy of one of them here:)

As an English teacher in Korea who works hard, obeys the law, and nevertheless is often judged according to the crass stereotypes presented in the article above, I resent being characterized this way. Using interviews with only two English teachers, and providing no comparative context for the statistics used (comparing drug arrests to the total population of expats, the Korean population, the Korean rate, or the rapid increase in foreigners living in Korea) is lazy and irresponsible, and far below the standards of an international outlet. 

Frankly, this article sounds like one of the intellectually lazy scapegoating smear-jobs frequently printed by domestic Korean media, which have been frequently and roundly criticized for bias, yellow journalism, distortion, and manufacturing news.

for example: http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2008/07/05/jieae.sk.whats.the.beef.cnn?iref=videosearch

As Mike Hurt says over on Hub of Sparkle:

This journalism is not even as bad as the stuff the Korean media usually trots out — it’s worse. The claims being made are even broader, made to an audience that can’t really know otherwise than to think our citizens really are coming over and influencing all of Korea to smoke out, and the actual focus of the article isn’t really even ABOUT what the title suggests.

For more of my thoughts on the Korean media shitting on English teachers' reputation, see here.

Roboseyo's K-Blog Of The Month: Kimchi IceCream

(crossposted at Hub Of Sparkle)

Yeah, I know you were all expecting me to tap The Hub of Sparkle for this month's blog of the month. . . and I probably would have, 'cept for this.

Kimchi Icecream just popped onto my radar with a drop-dead hilarious account of everything that could possibly go wrong at a Korean hospital's allegedly International Clinic. The post title gives a hint at what happens in the story: The Nurse Who Could Speak English (emphasis mine), but oh, dear readers, the dearth of English speaking nurses at the International clinic is just the beginning of the story, and his account of the "Oh shit! A foreigner! I'm terrified of using English!" face (a face I have seen all too many times myself), among other things, is hilarious, too.

It's a blog by a cat named "Jason," who according to the bio, has lived in Korea since 2005. His writing shows that he HAS paid his dues, but he doesn't get into the kinds of prescriptive or sweepingly generalized bullwinkle certain other K-bloggers do (cough cough). He peppers his posts with photos of characters from The Muppets, the Simpsons, and such, as a funnier way of adding emphasis than exclamation points and smileys. :)

(source)

He also uses humor to approach certain topics that other expats would use as an excuse to gripe (see his post on "the foreigner/chopsticks conversation" here).

He also likes putting up a. lot. of. pictures., of various places around Korea, which is fun, and from time to time (for example, check out the Jogye Temple series on this post) he reels off a little stretch of really lovely photography. And let's be honest: a blogger who throws a whole ton of photos at y'all is a lot more fun than a blogger who throws reams and reams of uninterrupted text out there.

Good job, Jason. Hope so see more of you around the K-blogs.

--Roboseyo

(hold everything!  

Update: Brian just reminded me that this was the same Jason who left a very kind and encouraging comment on Otto (of I, Foreigner)'s discouraged English teacher post.  

OK.  Let the inaguration continue.)

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.