Nanoomi Party... Rocked!

So on Saturday night, I got in trouble with my wife.

I stayed out way late, and didn't have the consideration to call her and let her know where I'd be, or what I was doing.

Poor form, Roboseyo.  I cooked her pancakes the next day, and we biked around Samchungdong on our new bikes (more about that later) and things are all cool now...



But the party I was at...

oooh boy.

So Nanoomi.net is a website called a "bridge blog" - a blog attempting to bridge the cultural gap between the English language and Korean language bloggers in Korea.  They're affiliated with Tatter & Media, a group that syndicates a lot of power bloggers in Korea, and helps them connect with the kinds of promotional materials companies like to offer to bloggers, now that they've figured out that blogs have influence.  So if Samsung is looking for a super sexy, curly-haired blogger who likes dumb youtube clips, in order to give him a really sweet digital video camera, they'd be able to say "Oh. You should call Roboseyo, and give your free stuff to him!"

I contribute to the Nanoomi.net meta-blog, which is a kind of a who's who of the K-bloggers you've been reading on my sidebar.  I think it's a great, and actually a very important project: anything that's on its way to building understanding across the expat cultural divide is worth it in my book.  Once the blog is going strong, group translation will be the next step.  Awesome.  You can read about the party here, at Lee's Korea Blog (one of the people I met for the first time: looks way different than I expected), the first blogger on my sidebar to write about it so far (though it was mentioned by one of the co-posters at The Marmot's Hole: Mr. K himself attended as well).

Check out a write-up of the event, with tons of great pictures, at "my jimin story"

Now, it's a funny thing when bloggers get together: we go around the circle:

"I'm Rob.  I'm Matt.  I'm Mike.  I'm Anna.  I'm Simon and this is my wife Martina." and so forth.  And everybody nods politely, with slightly glazed eyes.  Then we go around the circle again:

"Roboseyo.  Popular Gusts.  Metropolitician.  Indieful ROK.  Eat Your Kimchi," and everybody goes "aaaAAAAAaaaaahhh!" and the party's on.

Who was there?
ooh boy... the ones I saw were...
and those are just the ones I spoke to/recognized.  Many of them, I met for the first time.

The author of the book "secret diet"
Indieful ROK
Seoul SubUrban
Mental Poo
The Marmot (and Robert Neff, one of his co-posters)
Lee's Korea Blog
Seoul Eats
Gusts of Popular Opinion
Fatman Seoul
KT Lit (Korean Literature in Translation)
Zenkimchi
Metropolitician
Eat Your Kimchi
Paul Ajosshi (who performed magic tricks for some bloggers' kids who came)
ArtPoli

... and if I missed you, pipe up in the comments!
sorry Stafford.

I liked most of them quite a bit.

And of course, there was trouble... started by yours truly.


Did you know my first Korean nickname was "troublemaker"?

It's true.

There were a few I wish had been there, and you know, I had to put up with my nemesis, Dan Gray, from Seoul Eats.  We even traded insults for a while.  Then we settled down and chatted: had an illuminating conversation.  Did you know his nose looks that way because of an inherited family genetic defect?  It's true.  I'm not just making that up right now.  He's also the only person in his extended family who snores at a volume below 60 decibels (55 decibels) because of this time when he was 23 and a little girl beat him up by punching him in the nose.  All true facts.  Serious.

So check out Nanoomi.net.  It's got an interesting thing going, it's building momentum, and I think it's going to keep getting better.

Sorry about the light posting

I know: the first death-knell of a blog is usually posts that start with "Sorry for the light posting"

don't worry, readers, I'm still in it for the long haul... thinking about what direction the blog will take next...

and things have been hectic.  I started my first Korean language class this week...

but this was just too awesome not to post:

Cartoon about Hagwon

from @tsbray on Twitter, this is a flickr series that's an awesome portrayal of the hagwon life, as viewed by a student:

go see it on flickr: here's the first panel.



Here's the flickr page where you can see it all.

Superstar K: Korea Needs 장재인 and 김지수

So "Superstar K" is the Korean counterpart to "American Idol"

Wifeoseyo has been totally enrapt in this show: she had her favorites, and rooted for them, and the final was this weekend.

There's more on the finalists at ALLKPOP

The two finalists were John Park - known by some as the Korean-American American Idol contestant from a previous season, and Huh-Gak, a shorter, less handsome guy, but all-Korean.

Here's Huh-Gak, in one of the performances that hasn't been taken down from Youtube because of copyright violations.

Here's John Park, singing "Man in the Mirror" from a previous episode: his English is stronger than his Korean, and Wifeoseyo says this was the best song of the "Michael Jackson Tribute" episode.

As much as Wifeoseyo liked him, the last thing Korean pop needed was for John Park to win, and reinforce the feeling that, in the same way John Park lost in American Idol, but won Superstar K, that Korean music is a similar but inferior version of western music.

And the two finalists were both good singers and performers.  Heo Gak, the winner, had a touching story and everything, he'll made a decent balladeer once he's plugged into the star machine... but this Korea Times article touches on the best thing about this tv show: The really exciting Superstar Contestants were two other members of the top 5.

You see, two other contestants in the top five were actual musicians, they were something different.  We've gotten used to the superstar idol factory, and the Kpop machine: kids pass an audition, train for seven years in foreign languages, sexy dances, and how to dance in unison and be charming in front of a camera - (echoes of Geisha training, if you ask me)... and a lot of unhealthy stuff seems to be just taken for granted during their training and rise to stardom - as reported by the Human Rights Commission.  And let's not forget Jang Ja-yeon - they never caught/stuck it on whomever she was, um, "servicing"...

Instead, I want to tell you about Jang Jae-in and Kim Ji-su: these two also made the top five, before they got cut.  Jang Jae-in doesn't have a great S-line.  Kim Ji-su doesn't have great abs.  But they play their own instruments.  And whatever song they had to sing, they made it their own.  They were even considerate enough to do a duo for one show, and totally reinvented the song "Cinderella" by Seo In-young (one of my least favorite Kpop stars) - I won't even put her song on my blog... but you can watch it here.

Their rendition is AMAZING.


now, my friend, who knows a lot, reminded me on Saturday that there are lots of Korean popstars that play their own instruments and write their own music: she mentioned Crying Nut, No Brain and Cherry Filter.

That's true.  On the other hand, I don't know if any of them ever hit as broad a demographic as Jang Jae-in appealed to, by getting on this show: Wifeoseyo AND her mother watched this show, and rooted for Jae-in.

So yeah, Crying Nut and Cherry Filter have had their success.  But I think Jae-in has a shot at actually becoming a significant cultural force - she might have the best shot an actual musician has had at contending with Miss-A and SNSD and SuperJunior, in a long time, and the Korean music scene needs a new model for success.  Badly.  My favorite Korean musician/songwriter is Kim Kwang Seok, and everyone of a certain age in Korea makes the same wistful, nostalgic face when you say his name.  I don't know if any singer/songwriter in Korea has had that kind of impact since, but I think Jae-in is young enough, fresh enough, and talented enough, to do that, and to introduce a different model (um, talent) to Korean popular music.

Fact: she's the first young Korean female artist in years where I'd rather buy the CD than watch the video.  Who actually listens to the music for most of these bands, anyway?  You can't see Rain's sixpack when you're listening on your Mp3 player, so what's the point?  Nine Muses isn't even pretending: they're being openly presented as model-idols.

I'm holding my breath.  I'm excited.  Jae-in has the potential to become more than just the Queen of Hongdae, and I hope to all the gods of aesthetics that she does, and that the next time I walk down Jongno street, I hear her coming out of cosmetics shops, instead of another Kpop dance band or gooey ballad.  Kim Jisu?  Same: I'd buy his CD.  I wouldn't just watch his video, and silently seethe when Wifeoseyo watches it.

That's right.  The same way Korean girls need Kim Yu-na to be successful, because she's talented and excellent and she achieved her goal, so that they can have an awesome hero other than "good mother, good wife", K-pop needs Jae-in to introduce a different model for success, so that when kids watch Korean music shows on TV, maybe they decide to pick up an instrument, instead of just practicing their aegyo, doing situps, and taking dance lessons.

That'd be nice.

Halloween Partayzzz!

I've been getting tons of invitations to Halloween parties on facebook and by e-mail...

turns out having a widely read blog means people want me to pass on word about Halloween parties.

So if you're part of the 50% of my readers in Korea, or if you're one of the 50% of my readers outside Korea, but you're planning on visiting Korea next weekend, here's what I've got:

Wolfhound Pub in Itaewon promises to give me a free beer, and maybe even a beef and mushroom pie (my favorite) if I tell you about their Halloween party.  It's a 10 000 won cover, and big prizes.

So, I'm sure it's going to the the best of all the parties.  I'm sure of it.  And you should totally go!  Here's the party facebook page.

Hi Expat has a pretty good rundown of Halloween parties here, which you should look through.  Dillinger's, Sky Bar Lounge, Stompers, and many more are featured on the list.

Freebird sent me an interesting sounding party invitation: they're going to set up a bunch of bands around the edge of the room, and then each band will take turns playing one song each, trading off songs, so that there's a constant flow of music, and the party space has no front row: you can just hang wherever you like.  15000 cover, and the facebook event (including some of the bands playing) are here.

Korea's new to the Halloween game, so it's still a little hard to find a good costume shop; however, so far I haven't been let down by Namdaemun market: go to Hoehyeon Station, and head down to the main stretch, and towards the west end of the market.  See map.


View Costume shop in Namdaemun in a larger map

Got another Halloween party or a link to a listing to tell me about? Leave it in the comments!