"Impressive. Most Impressive."

"But you are not a girl yet."

Or something like that.

So have you heard about the new transgender sensation, Lee Chae-weon [Yahoo, in Korean]? Since my Windoze XP has been running in "coherence" mode on my Mac (meaning the Windoze windows just seamlessly appear in the Mac environment without the Windoze environment), I have been keeping up with the latest fads going around the Internet – er, rather – they have been keeping up with me, since I can now have Explorer mercilessly attack me with popups and ads for the latest, greatest "UCC."

And this one, of a guy who was the "fake" transsexual on the popular "Truth or Lie Game" three years ago turned up now as a real, post-op girl; the point of all this is DAMN – Korean plastic surgery has got skills to pay the bills. I am critical of this industry and social influence, but one has to admit these surgeons are pretty talented.

Combined with other Korean arts and technologies – namely, "selca" camera styles and wide-angle lenses – the results are astounding.

But make no mistake – gender lines aren't blurring; in fact, they are as solid as they have ever been. It's just that people are much more able, enabled by technology, to cross them convincingly.

What I'm looking for is a liberalization and shift in gender roles to really equalize things up a good deal more between men and women. Some say that such figures are signs that gender lines are shifting in Korea, or that people are becoming more open-minded; perhaps the latter is indeed true.

But in a society in which sexualized femininity is so highly commodified – to the point that one might be able to argue that even heterosexual maleness has been subject to a "commodified feminization", which explains the extremely girly turn that male stars seem to have taken, even while they swear up and down that they are not "gay," as they might be coded in the West – it's no surprise to see it being advantageous to become a beautiful woman, especially in terms of being a rising star in the entertainment business.

Hmm. So maybe gender codes are shifting, even if the lines are not? Or is that the same thing?

Discuss, but be civil. Or I delete you.