Scribblings of the Metropolitician: The "Korean History Channel"

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January 17, 2008

The "Korean History Channel"

Thanks to ExpatJane for this, since I'm getting on the bandwagon late.

Pushing the edge of acceptability, two young (Korean American?) guys do their take on two Korean old guys (ajussis!) with a lot of sarcasm and obvious pent-up frustration at probably having to have listened to Korean guys (relatives at family dinners?) in their 50's and 60's going on about how evil Japan was and is when all they wanted was a Playstation for Christmas. I can see it in their minds' eye:

KID: I want a Playstation for Christmas.

DAD: Playstation?! Why Playstation?!

KID: Because it plays games. I want a Playstation.

DAD: [BEGIN JAPAN-IS-EVIL RANT AND WHY YOU SHOULD BUY SOMETHING FROM SAMSUNG.]

KID: I still want a Playstation.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard variations on that same conversation. I'm used to it by now, but I can also see how it gets old, and it's pretty easy to parody. I was showing off my iPod Nano just today to some older people, and the first note was "Samsung makes the memory chips for those, you know." Yeah, I know. And that's cool. But coming from a person who otherwise knew nothing about the actual iPod line or the product other than that singular fact, it was kinda funny.

I thought the "Japanese stegosaurus" schtick was pretty funny. They came to eat all the peace-loving Korean dinosaurs and never apologized. Hehe.

Posted by The Metropolitician on January 17, 2008 | Permalink

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Session 1: Just the Basics Dealing with the basic operations and functions of your DSLR, explaining each function, button, and doo-hickey. The bulk of the session is likely going to stick around the relationship between aperture and shutter, as well as depth-of-field. Basically everything on your camera has something to do with this relationship.
Session 2: Composition and Shooting (Shooting Session 1) We'll take those examples and look at them on the big screen, while also answering the concrete questions that will pop up about the stuff we learned before. Then we'll talk about composition and other framing issues, including lens lengths and why some lenses are worth $100 bucks and some are worth $10,000.
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Starter Posts

Here are some key posts, for those of you new to the blog, which are a sampling of some of my thoughts about race and ideology in Korea and in general, my view of what it means to be a true American, my answer to the question of "Why don't you talk about more positive things?", my thoughts on why the Korean media is so unprofessional, thoughts on the Korean education system (here and here), my post about and examples of racism in three countries' media and the difference in the way they're handled, my posts (here and here) channeling my anger about Katrina, my post about being black in Korea and the whole Hines Ward thing (here and here and here), a post directed against the fashionable racism of even so-called "progressive" Asian Americans, my first attempt at online activism – a petition against KBS, and even random posts such as why I love Apple and have used an Apple computer, why I think Korea doesn't like Star Trek but should really love Battlestar Galactica, and I am ashamed to say that I have even blogged about my cats (here and here).
As for my photo book (now in limbo due to editorial differences with the publisher), you can see the representative chapters from the "Seoul Essays" posts below. Note that Chapter 3 remains undone and in limbo on my computer:
Chapter I: On the Surface
Chapter II: Pleasures of the Everyday
Chapter IV: To Hell and Back
I have much, much more, but this is a random yet representative sampling of my work to start with.

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Scribblings of the Metropolitician

Writings, recordings, and photo reports from the streets of Seoul -- And STILL BANNED FROM KOREAN GOVERNMENT IP'S