A bit over a year ago I made this video to point out the extreme level of overpackaging many products have in Seoul: even Wifeoseyo's mom is shocked by the overpackaging when she comes in from Daegu.
The question is: has it gotten any better since then?
one expat's life in Korea
Friday, August 20, 2010
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
I'm gonna spoil Inception for you.
OK, readers, I'm about to spoil a movie for you. Not spoil like, "give away the ending" but spoil like "once you realize this, you can't look at the movie the same way again" spoil -- not in the "HE's Keyser Soze" way, but in the "How did Fezzik find out Count Rugen was the six-fingered man? He didn't talk to Wesley after Wesley was captured" way.
In the same way that the best criticism I heard of Harry Potter came out of left field and surprised me with the perceptiveness of the comment, Wifeoseyo just pulled a tiny thread and made the movie Inception unravel for me.
See, I met this lady who didn't let her kids read Harry Potter... but not because Harry Potter was the devil recruiting her kids to witchcraft, but because Harry was a bad role model: one of the overarching themes of the books (especially the early ones) was "Kids usually know better than adults, and adults are not to be trusted, and rules made by adults are to be circumvented or ignored whenever it seems best to kids to do so." Think about how often Harry doesn't tell Dumbledore about something that he should have, given that Dumbledore was above reproach and always did right by Harry, given that Harry always trusted him when he thought explicitly about him, and how Dumbledore always proved trustworthy. Yet Harry lied or concealed all kinds of stuff from Dumbledore, McGonagall, and all the other teachers. This mom didn't like the spirit of disrespect, mistrust, and disobedience for adults embedded in the books. And she was right. And that message was subtler, and therefore harder to de-program, if kids picked it up.
I was totally unprepared for her critique, but she was bang on, and as the series continued, Harry started concealing or lying to his friends as well, to the point that by the seventh book, he was one of the most unlikeable heroes I've read in a book. Say what you want, but the heroes of the Narnia books, and especially Lyra and Will in the "His Dark Materials" trilogy by Philip Pullman, are miles more likable than our man HP.
So what about Inception?
Well, yeah, the story was subtle and cool. The effects were great. The levels and the themes were nifty and I'm sure I could watch it three more times and get more from it each time. DiCaprio remains my favorite actor of his generation (that's the post-Johnny Depp generation, as Depp is in a class of his own), and I still think that in thirty years, Depp/DiCaprio will be the Pacino/DeNiro of our generation, unless Robert Downey Jr. has a run of brilliance like Tom Hanks had in the '90s. Then somebody will come along and say, "Streep" and everybody will go, "Oh yeah. She owns them all. Plus, we're sexist."
But here's the thing that undid Inception for me, and that won't get out of my head now that I realized it. And now I'm going to wreck it for you, too:
Wifeoseyo commented, offhand, that she really got annoyed by all the gunplay in the movie. This is surprisingly similar to something my mother would say: she'd tune out and usually fall asleep, at the first gunfight, no matter how good the movie was. (And then snore during the most crucial scene, to the exasperation/delight of everyone in the family.)
But then I thought more about it, and realized...
Holy crap, Inception presented one of the biggest lost opportunities in a movie, like, ever.
See, we're in a dream world. a dream world and the most imaginative protection one's subconscious can come up with is people with guns? In a freaking dream world? Come-freaking-ON!
Christopher Nolan sets his movie -- makes the whole point of his movie that it happens in the subconscious -- and then the best he can come up with is people with guns?
Where's my Matrix-anti-gravity moon-boot action? It's a dream after all, isn't it? Why would I bring a gun into someone's dream world, when instead I could turn my arms into giant steel octopus arms, or grow myself fifty feet tall and get my stomp on, or spray psychic mind-beams all over the landscape? Why wasn't a single one of the five dream layers defended by giant robot ninja hedgehogs with rocket-claws and laser eyes and invisibility power? At the very least, why weren't the dark corners of these dream cities and hotels hiding ghouls and bogeymen and spiders and kidnappers and whatever else lurked in the dreamers' nightmares?
The more I think about it, the more disappointing the gunplay becomes, and the more cheated I feel. Christopher Nolan set an entire movie in dreamland, and there wasn't a single shapeshifting bearshark with robot intelligence that spit acid saliva. He gave himself a total blank slate: a dream world with a virtually unlimited hollywood budget... and then filled it with the most conventional element in the world. That's like your friend buying a Ferrari and then only using it to drive to church, or owning the world's greatest home entertainment system, but only having "The Notebook" in your DVD collection.
In the same way that the best criticism I heard of Harry Potter came out of left field and surprised me with the perceptiveness of the comment, Wifeoseyo just pulled a tiny thread and made the movie Inception unravel for me.
See, I met this lady who didn't let her kids read Harry Potter... but not because Harry Potter was the devil recruiting her kids to witchcraft, but because Harry was a bad role model: one of the overarching themes of the books (especially the early ones) was "Kids usually know better than adults, and adults are not to be trusted, and rules made by adults are to be circumvented or ignored whenever it seems best to kids to do so." Think about how often Harry doesn't tell Dumbledore about something that he should have, given that Dumbledore was above reproach and always did right by Harry, given that Harry always trusted him when he thought explicitly about him, and how Dumbledore always proved trustworthy. Yet Harry lied or concealed all kinds of stuff from Dumbledore, McGonagall, and all the other teachers. This mom didn't like the spirit of disrespect, mistrust, and disobedience for adults embedded in the books. And she was right. And that message was subtler, and therefore harder to de-program, if kids picked it up.
I was totally unprepared for her critique, but she was bang on, and as the series continued, Harry started concealing or lying to his friends as well, to the point that by the seventh book, he was one of the most unlikeable heroes I've read in a book. Say what you want, but the heroes of the Narnia books, and especially Lyra and Will in the "His Dark Materials" trilogy by Philip Pullman, are miles more likable than our man HP.
So what about Inception?
Well, yeah, the story was subtle and cool. The effects were great. The levels and the themes were nifty and I'm sure I could watch it three more times and get more from it each time. DiCaprio remains my favorite actor of his generation (that's the post-Johnny Depp generation, as Depp is in a class of his own), and I still think that in thirty years, Depp/DiCaprio will be the Pacino/DeNiro of our generation, unless Robert Downey Jr. has a run of brilliance like Tom Hanks had in the '90s. Then somebody will come along and say, "Streep" and everybody will go, "Oh yeah. She owns them all. Plus, we're sexist."
But here's the thing that undid Inception for me, and that won't get out of my head now that I realized it. And now I'm going to wreck it for you, too:
Wifeoseyo commented, offhand, that she really got annoyed by all the gunplay in the movie. This is surprisingly similar to something my mother would say: she'd tune out and usually fall asleep, at the first gunfight, no matter how good the movie was. (And then snore during the most crucial scene, to the exasperation/delight of everyone in the family.)
But then I thought more about it, and realized...
Holy crap, Inception presented one of the biggest lost opportunities in a movie, like, ever.
See, we're in a dream world. a dream world and the most imaginative protection one's subconscious can come up with is people with guns? In a freaking dream world? Come-freaking-ON!
Christopher Nolan sets his movie -- makes the whole point of his movie that it happens in the subconscious -- and then the best he can come up with is people with guns?
Where's my Matrix-anti-gravity moon-boot action? It's a dream after all, isn't it? Why would I bring a gun into someone's dream world, when instead I could turn my arms into giant steel octopus arms, or grow myself fifty feet tall and get my stomp on, or spray psychic mind-beams all over the landscape? Why wasn't a single one of the five dream layers defended by giant robot ninja hedgehogs with rocket-claws and laser eyes and invisibility power? At the very least, why weren't the dark corners of these dream cities and hotels hiding ghouls and bogeymen and spiders and kidnappers and whatever else lurked in the dreamers' nightmares?
The more I think about it, the more disappointing the gunplay becomes, and the more cheated I feel. Christopher Nolan set an entire movie in dreamland, and there wasn't a single shapeshifting bearshark with robot intelligence that spit acid saliva. He gave himself a total blank slate: a dream world with a virtually unlimited hollywood budget... and then filled it with the most conventional element in the world. That's like your friend buying a Ferrari and then only using it to drive to church, or owning the world's greatest home entertainment system, but only having "The Notebook" in your DVD collection.
For the record, Inception is not the only movie I believe was made into a huge letdown by an over-reliance on gunplay: Mr. and Mrs. Smith, with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, was another movie where the gunplay copout left me cold. The whole point of the movie was two super-smart, super-spies who are married... and instead of extricating themselves from their spy agencies through some super-smart, stealthy piece of intrigue that gives them a watertight out... they shoot a bunch of people in a warehouse? I was totally disappointed.
That's all for now. Leave requests for other movies I can spoil in the comments.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Wanna be a KPop Star?
Now that I'm officially out of the KPop closet, I was looking up articles to put together a topic for my discussion class, and came across this:
what it takes to become a KPop star.
Interesting. Extra Korea regularly comments on the conditions KPop stars work under (hint: pretty outrageous).
And in other news, I've got to report on KPop songs I like quick, for one of two reasons: either the song doesn't hit, and it vanishes from the public consciousness so quickly that my video clip seems irrelevant, or it DOES hit, and it becomes so ubiquitous that I get sick of it.
So here's the latest song that's been buzzing through my head.
And maybe if it gets stuck in your head, dear reader, it won't be stuck in mine for another week.
ever notice how so many of JYP's bands have English words at the most catchy points of the melody? Exactly those points that are supposed to catch in your head?
It makes me particularly susceptible to infection.
what it takes to become a KPop star.
Interesting. Extra Korea regularly comments on the conditions KPop stars work under (hint: pretty outrageous).
And in other news, I've got to report on KPop songs I like quick, for one of two reasons: either the song doesn't hit, and it vanishes from the public consciousness so quickly that my video clip seems irrelevant, or it DOES hit, and it becomes so ubiquitous that I get sick of it.
So here's the latest song that's been buzzing through my head.
And maybe if it gets stuck in your head, dear reader, it won't be stuck in mine for another week.
ever notice how so many of JYP's bands have English words at the most catchy points of the melody? Exactly those points that are supposed to catch in your head?
It makes me particularly susceptible to infection.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
North Korea on Youtube
The Korea Herald had a blurb on its front page that North Korea had opened a Youtube channel. Now, this is very, very interesting news to me, because a North Korean propaganda channel on Youtube is/could be...
1. unintentionally hilarious
2. unintentionally frightening
3. a fascinating convergence of backward-looking thought with new media
4. in danger of being blocked by the Korean government
5. loaded with hilariously bad English
-here we expat bloggers have been moaning that South Korean promotions people have been failing to reach their audience because they've been publishing/producing stuff THEY like instead of stuff that'll actually reach their audience... how much do you want to bet a North Korean Youtube channel will raise that hilari-out-of-touchness to a degree we may never have seen before.
If the intended audience of the Youtube channel is the international world, and not just South Korean sympathizers/potential sympathizers, that is.
Here's North Korea's Youtube Channel: take it with a grain of salt, and keep an eye on it: who knows when the hilarity will begin. I'm praying for subtitles and English language narrators to keep me joy-ing.
Also interesting are the comment threads on most Youtube channels related to North Korea: even my own video about North Korea gets a random "Hail the great North Korea" comment posted on it about every third month or so.
For more North Korea on Youtube:
JucheKorea
rodrigorojo1 (Hat-tip to Reasonable Man)
the famous north/south b-boy showdown video that went around Youtube.
The video you SHOULD watch is this one, by LINK (Liberty In North Korea) - this was a video sponsored by Google to spread word about the situation in North Korea. This video features a talk by a North Korean defector who grew up in a North Korean concentration camp. Did you know there are still concentration camps operating in the world? Why isn't every person in the world outraged about this?
public executions, mass starvation, concentration camps; the list goes on.
The tragedy: this video only has 100 000 or so views as of today.
story on google news
I'd link the Korea Herald article, but I've been getting "this site will harm your computer warnings" lately.
Vice Guide to North Korea: a tour of North Korea from the view of a western TV Crew who pretended to be tourists, and took hidden camera footage.
1. unintentionally hilarious
2. unintentionally frightening
3. a fascinating convergence of backward-looking thought with new media
4. in danger of being blocked by the Korean government
5. loaded with hilariously bad English
-here we expat bloggers have been moaning that South Korean promotions people have been failing to reach their audience because they've been publishing/producing stuff THEY like instead of stuff that'll actually reach their audience... how much do you want to bet a North Korean Youtube channel will raise that hilari-out-of-touchness to a degree we may never have seen before.
If the intended audience of the Youtube channel is the international world, and not just South Korean sympathizers/potential sympathizers, that is.
Here's North Korea's Youtube Channel: take it with a grain of salt, and keep an eye on it: who knows when the hilarity will begin. I'm praying for subtitles and English language narrators to keep me joy-ing.
Also interesting are the comment threads on most Youtube channels related to North Korea: even my own video about North Korea gets a random "Hail the great North Korea" comment posted on it about every third month or so.
For more North Korea on Youtube:
JucheKorea
rodrigorojo1 (Hat-tip to Reasonable Man)
the famous north/south b-boy showdown video that went around Youtube.
The video you SHOULD watch is this one, by LINK (Liberty In North Korea) - this was a video sponsored by Google to spread word about the situation in North Korea. This video features a talk by a North Korean defector who grew up in a North Korean concentration camp. Did you know there are still concentration camps operating in the world? Why isn't every person in the world outraged about this?
public executions, mass starvation, concentration camps; the list goes on.
The tragedy: this video only has 100 000 or so views as of today.
story on google news
I'd link the Korea Herald article, but I've been getting "this site will harm your computer warnings" lately.
Vice Guide to North Korea: a tour of North Korea from the view of a western TV Crew who pretended to be tourists, and took hidden camera footage.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Language Changes How We Think: Article from "givemesomethingtoread.com"
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703467304575383131592767868.html?mod=WSJEUROPE_hpp_MIDDLETopNews#printMode
Quote:
What does that mean for what you know of the Korean language? Dump your theories here.
Quote:
All this new research shows us that the languages we speak not only reflect or express our thoughts, but also shape the very thoughts we wish to express. The structures that exist in our languages profoundly shape how we construct reality, and help make us as smart and sophisticated as we are.
Language is a uniquely human gift. When we study language, we are uncovering in part what makes us human, getting a peek at the very nature of human nature. As we uncover how languages and their speakers differ from one another, we discover that human natures too can differ dramatically, depending on the languages we speak. The next steps are to understand the mechanisms through which languages help us construct the incredibly complex knowledge systems we have.
What does that mean for what you know of the Korean language? Dump your theories here.
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