Scribblings of the Metropolitician

Oh, I Miss This

Yeah, yeah. The hair. The bad lines. The interminable gall. Loved it.

If you've got all that, who needs CG in fight scenes? In his 1980's and 1990's prime, it didn't get any better than this. Yeah, it all went downhill later, but scenes like this are still pretty frickin' awesome.

Awesome!

Where Did THIS site come from?

And have I been missing the boat?

Korea Beat is, according to its byline, "the web's only spot dedicated to Korean news articles translated into English." From the horse's mouth:

Korea Beat, a part of the Galbijim family, was created to bring you a fun way to read Korean news as it’s actually written instead of as filtered into the pool of mediocrity that is the English-language press in South Korea today. We’ll scour the Korean papers, media and blogs for the best stories and put them here, in English. What we promise to give you is the stuff Arirang Broadcasting and its partners in suck won’t — if you want real movie reviews, interviews, and opinion pieces, this is the place to be. On the other hand if you want late-night excursions to the nightclub district where CEO Kim Seung-yeon tortured the guys who beat down his son, private racing girl auditions, or Hyundai Co. proving that there most certainly IS crying in baseball, this is also the place to be. ESL industry news from Galbijim rounds out the experience.

In short, what you’ll read here is Korean blogs and news articles translated into English for your edification and enjoyment, straight, no chaser, with a lime twist of industry news and other goodness.

This rocks. Let's hope the Beat goes on.

Ba-dum-bump.

Oh, They Had to Go There...

Harold and Kumar. Again. Can't wait. (HT to Myong.)

"North Korean and Al Queda working together."

Hehe.

"Nam san?!"

Hahahaha. I just spit up on myself.

I don't even know what this shit is. "Nam-san?" Someone just sent it to me over NateOn. But it's funny as all get-out.

I'm sure some knowledgeable folks will sort out the who's and what's the heck this is in the comments.

I have to go clean off my shirt.

"Nam-saaaaan?"

That's pretty good.

Jurassic Park 4?

Oh, this is just sad. Sad, sad, sad.

But you have to read the punchline:

We're told that the film is about the government which has trained dinosaurs to carry weapons and use them for battle purposes.

Okay, not that the original Jurassic Park was Citizen Kane or anything, but we remember the thrill of seeing the first movie in the theater, and even though we long ago wrote off further installments in the series as deeply unnecessary, we're really struggling with the notion that anyone on the entire planet would think this storyline is a good idea. It really sounds like the kind of thing that might have been dreamed up by a precocious seven-year-old after a few too many bowls of Fruity Pebbles. Which puts it half a leg up on some of the other stuff we've seen in development, but still -- they have to be kidding, right?

Right?

I sure hope so. And I thought D-War was bad. Hehe.

Why the Korean Wave Will Ebb - Hallyru Part I

Why the Korean Wave Will Crash

by Michael Hurt

[Originally written December 9, 2005, but never completed, partially because I'm lazy – and have dozens of half-baked posts – and partially 'cause I was a bit chicken. Now, I wish I had just gone with my gut. But cut me some slack – that was a lot earlier in this blog's career...

I have to say thanks for Darcy Paquet for writing up something I read recently of his that reminded me of this stub of a post. I'm sure others saw the "wave" as potentially ebbing, but it's still interesting to look back through old posts and see exactly why, nearly two years after originally writing this, when it seems as though this is coming to pass.

There was also some interesting writing in an issue of the Korea Journal about the limits of the "wave," which talked about some specific aspects of things that also affected my thinking about the subject. To me, though, I started with the "wave" metaphor itself, and why the concept itself is unexpectedly appropriate.

For those who don't appreciate the "DVD commentary" version of my unfinished thoughts on this blog, I do apologize, but since I don't think it makes sense (or is fair) to try and finish this after-the-fact, I'm just putting it up as is, since this is old news now, and the only interesting aspect of this little essay is the fact that I wrote it in 2005. And wow – I was in an even more wordy mood back then!]

- the appropriateness of the wave metaphor...

In the end, all waves come to an end, as they crash hard against the breakers before the shore, wash up softly on the beach, or simply just losing their unique shape and distinctiveness as they lose energy and either merge into or are overcome by the myriad other waves all around. By definition, no wave goes on forever.

What would make for a more accurate metaphor would be a process, one in which the "Korean waves" are shown as temporary and transient aftereffects of some transmission of energy from a central point of origin. Perhaps this could be the "Korean earthquake" followed by the "Korean tsunami" or something equally awkward and unwieldy as a shorthand for talking about Korea's recent success in marketing the products of its newfangled "culture industry." Perhaps the term "Korean aftershocks" might work as well, since the reverberations that occur after an initial seismic event propagate in outwardly radiating waves that point at a distinct, central point of origin.

But that doesn't make for good copy, especially in overly optimistic news reports, the incessant and uncritical self-laudatory tone of all the pundits who talk about Korea's newfound "power," and the underlying-yet-obvious nationalism that underlies it all. "Korean wave" sounds good, works well on paper, and has a nice ring of cultural power. I must admit that this "ring" doesn't sit well with me, because I am, as a scholar of a frank and honest look at Korean history, quite distrustful of "nationalism," used as it has been by the state to put down political opposition and gloss over structural inequalities and injustices in Korean society. Now, I'm not saying that nationalism is always a bad thing – although in the final analysis and in most cases, it usually is – but I am saying that its primary purpose is to blind. But more than some academic critique of the theory, application, and excesses of nationalism, I am simply pointing here to the fact that it's not good to get caught up too much in one's own vanity. There's an old saying in public relations and Hollywood – "don't believe your own press" – that would behoove Korean journalists, pundits, and the general public to know.

It goes like this. When you're a star – an undeniably desirable, deliciously XXXable star – you bask in a extension past the "fifteen minutes of fame" that even the everyday person is entitled to enjoy once in their lives. No one denies that you stand out from the crowd, above the fray, are king or queen of the world. Your public relations team says glowing things about you in press releases, the press corps uncritically and gleefully recycles your public-relations-produced pap, and the star hopes that this lovefest continues as long as possible. But the star is warned against one thing – believing in the veracity of one's own press releases and in the new, artificially-produced self-image – and forgets the reality of the self that originally went into making the "you" in the first place. In many ways, Korea is the hometown boy from Iowa who, against all odds and expectations, move out and made it big in the "big city." Its "fifteen minutes of fame" has moved past being one of the "tiger economies" of Asia and transformed itself into a new kind of pride and identity, that of being a kind of pop culture producer, the Hollywood of Asia, ground-zero for a new "wave" of Korea's claim to cultural viability and even superiority.

But the Korean consciousness, as shot through as it was during the 1980's and 1990's with the hubris of real newfound wealth and the cultural sensibilities of the nouveau riche, and even after said hubris was humbled by the Nemesis of economic crash and national humiliation – that same old feeling is back, but in slightly altered form.

How much of a stroke must it be to the Korean ego for its cultural products to be consumed by two cultures that have, at different times and in relation to different historical circumstances, once asserted their superiority over Korea? Looking at how much China is looked down upon by many Koreans, and how much Japan has become a one-dimensional, nearly phantasmagorical object of hatred for many folks on the peninsula, the feeling of watching Chinese and Japanese tourist – mostly women...

I'd Really Like to See THIS Movie

Just heard about this. OK – So I'm late on the bandwagon.

I think my tastes are getting more sophomoric as I get older. (Or the marketers are successfully targeting people in my 30-something age group and I'm taking the bait hook, line, and sinker.)

"Break yo'self, fool!" Love it.

One More Chance to See Death Proof!

Death Proof press screening! For those who missed our event last week, you've got another chance to see this movie, and for free!

Time: Monday, August 20th at 2:00 p.m.

Place: Theaters 5 and 6 of the Daehan Theater, which is just out of Gate #1 of Chungmuro Station, which is on the number 3 and 4 lines.

When you get there, ask for "Hana" from Sponge.

Oh, and leave a comment to this post to just give her an idea of the number of tickets needed. Otherwise, just go – you're on your own! And have fun!

Baby Got Book!

This is pretty funny, and more the kind of evangelicism I prefer. After all this talk about styles of spreading the word in Korea and in general, I end this line of thinking with something more up my alley. The way I see it, there are lots of ways to get some God, and not just through the words of the most extreme and narrow-minded.

And, there it is. If someone's gonna get me to think about religion or faith or taking a step towards learning more about actually getting into the Bible's actual teachings, old ladies yelling at people in the middle of Myeongdong (or anywhere else) ain't gonna cut it.

I wish the most evangelical Christians in Korea – the ones who are the most visible and tend to "represent" the religion here – were more creative and cool in the way they try to proselytize their belief. Because foaming at the mouth about fire and brimstone, grilling people about "why you don't go to church," or just plain telling total strangers to believe what you do or "go to Hell" – that tends to push people away more than open their hearts.

That's why street preaching seem more an activity about "me" – doing a good thing so I feel good about myself – rather than something in which the righteous come down off their pedestals to meet people where they are actually at.

And personal taste aside, "Baby Got Book" is an attempt to do just that.

Anyone got a lead on Korean examples of this kind of cool proselytizing, rather than the arrogant, self-centered kind? Post 'em up in the comments.

"Spot the Terrorist"

Wow - someone's finally doing good work on this, while I was too lazy. An undergraduate had once taken the bait of my suggestion for someone to do a final seminar paper on Stephens (whose name had slipped my mind in my slew of recent posting), since the "terrorist" acts of Korean nationalists during more radical times seem to have received real little treatment. But, alas, he chose to go for an easier topic; so I still think it worthy of a good seminar paper.

I'm glad Gusts of Popular Feeling has picked up the ball and done some thorough Internet sleuthing, as well as connecting of some cool historical dots.

Still, I think the visual connection implied by the picture of Cho-you-know at the end of their post is akin to lobbing a Molotov cocktail with a nitro twist into the dragon's lair of extreme Korean netizenry.

So, as they said on that old In Living Color skit, "I ain't goin' touch it."

But I'll link to it.

Hehe.