Scribblings of the Metropolitician

Me on Arirang TV!

As you may know, I was interviewed on Arirang TV for a segment on expat bloggers. We also got to see me in photographic action with this impromptu model, who was a real trooper about me stopping her for my camera, all while a big video camera from Arirang filmed the already awkward moment of posing for a complete stranger in the street.

Oh! Another thing I realized from the video -- it's time to really turn the screws on the diet and ramp up the exercise. At least I've started swimming again. Sheesh!

Take It To City Hall, Umm, Before It Disappears

Wow -- maybe I've been asleep, or it just hasn't been clear that a complete demolition of the old City Hall building was even being planned. But look at what the city started doing before they were stopped in mid-wreckby the Cultural Properties Committee.

[Source: The Hangyeoreh]

Christ in Heaven. Sorry to take the Lord's name in vain, but sweet Jesus -- how could they even THINK of demolishing this, and without the same level of public debate as the old National Museum building? Yeah, the Japanese built it, but jeez -- it's the most recognizable spatial, historical, and mental landmark of modern Seoul.

WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY THINKING?

Are you kidding me? Of ALL the things I thought they'd NEVER demolish was City Hall. And me, like many other citizens, were thinking the new monstrosity they're planning to build was going to be built AROUND and in front of it, not OVER it. Hey, although my memory may be failing me, I'm pretty sure the plans I saw made it clear that the original building wasn't going to be destroyed.

This is pretty bad. Seriously, I cannot even wrap my mind around ANY Korean person claiming to have a sense of history who could take a bulldozer to that building. Is this not the ugliest fucking design for a building ever? Well, perhaps in context, if it was a swimming center, it might be cool. But what the hay is this frozen blue wave doing in downtown Seoul? It's about as bad as the spiral snail penis sculpture at the head of the Cheonggyecheon stream, or the "Hey, we-can-make-tall-glass-and-steel-buildings-just-like-in-other-big-cities" abomination that is the Millennium Building in downtown Seoul.

[Source: Marmot]

Perhaps we'll find out more, and this is all some weird overreaction because they were just taking off the rear annex or something (looks like the back building would have to go to fit the concept as drawn in the picture), but from the sounds of it, they were only stopped when the Cultural Properties Committee just went ahead and declared it a historical relic in order to stop demolition.

Now, it's apparently in a legal/bureaucratic wrangle, but at least demolition has stopped.

This is simply ludicrous. I'm offended, and I'm not even a voting citizen. If there's anything to protest and make a fuss about, this is it. Where are the angry citizens now? I hope they're out in front of City Hall tomorrow, giving the city a piece of its mind. Shit -- I might go myself.

I just hope they're not trying to get rid of it by doing it quietly to avoid the inevitable public debate that would have to be had. If so, that concept picture was a lie, and the city was a-lying.

This is ridonkulous!

I'm sure the city is thinking what it always does: "We have to show a 'good' face to all them white foreigners who come to visit Korea, so they'll know we're modern, smart, and well, not backwards savages! Wash the kimchi and hide the garlic -- the White Man™'s coming!"

That's the basic rationale behind most of the "renovation" or new development that takes place here, anyway. Things haven't changed since the city sent thugs and gangsters to beat squatters our of their handmade structures next to the 88 highway near Sangyedong in 1988, because they were afraid Whitey™ might see and wrinkle his nose at Korea.

That Jello-esque monstrosity they're building just reeks of such lackeyish thinking.

Sorry -- I'm venting. I'm gonna end this post now.

Idiots!

(HT to the Marmot)

Get Ready for the New HNIC!

If you don't know, now you do.

Yet another Morgan Freeman and POTUS connection, and marking a long way since I first heard imaginings of a black President of the United States.

오바! Come On, Hani

(HT to the Marmot's Hole)

No matter what you think about Lee Myeong-bak, come on -- no one violated the processes of democracy, no one subverted or suspended any elections, and the Korean people elected him by a landslide, with ALL of the silly policies and idiosyncrasies on his agenda being fully known: the canal project, his political scandals, etc.

If any comparison to Hitler should be made, Pak Cheong-hui would be the obvious choice. Or Chun Doo Hwan, who's sitting pretty in his big house in central Seoul, sipping on Tanqueray and laughing his ass off at his commuted death sentence, which he received after being found guilty (meaning directly responsible) for the only Nazi-esque mass murder committed in the recent history of the Korean republic.

But 2MB gets to be Hitler? Jeezus, Hani -- we know you hate 2MB, but he won the election fair and square, and the Korean people knew full well what they were getting. Any comparison to Hitler is a little rich, isn't it? What the Korean people on the left should be mad about is why there weren't better candidates, and how their man Noh (whom I was quite excited about at the beginning) was such a colossal fucking failure that he made the "bulldozer mayor" look bright and shiny.

2Mb isn't Hitler. Actually, the people are responsible for what they get. Such are the pitfalls of true democracy, which is why I was so disappointed with the US after re-electing that criminal George W. Bush in 2004. He won fair and square, which depressed me even more than the bogus election of 2000, which was decided by the Supreme Court and not the people. A recount should have happened, and either way, would have given the final choice real legitimacy. And America is getting what it paid for, and every single person who voted for George W. Bush, especially in 2004, is responsible.

As are the people who voted for 2MB in Korea, who placed all their hopes in the promise of a magic fix by the "CEO president." What's even more funny in this situation is the fact that 2MB didn't misrepresent himself, or the issues, or even his style of governance.

The Korean people were asleep at the wheel. Nothing was stolen from them. There is no dictatorship.

This comparison is ridiculous and insulting to the very meaning of Hitler, as the historical symbol he has become in world history. Well, this is a country that makes Nazi allusions to sell beer, makeup (here, too), and even as symbols in children's board games, while teaching that the international Jewish conspiracy™ is running the world. Isn't this par for the course?

Actually, I shouldn't be surprised at this ridiculousness. This isn't the first time (or the last) Koreans have misused history out of an exaggerated sense of victimhood.

Perhaps before stringing up the fairly-elected 2MB, they should finish the job they bungled by not executing the still-living mass murderer Chun Doo Hwan? He's the only standing or former president still around who actually WAS a dictator, ordered the mass murder of civilians, and deserves to die.

Why doesn't HE grace the cover of Hani 21?

I'm On Arirang TV

UPDATE: You can get to the episode and watch it online -- it's Episode #385 and should be in the archives.

Well, I'm gonna be on Arirang TV today, on the show "Korea Now", and will be aired on domestic TV from 8PM Korean time. I think it will repeat at 11PM, and a few times after that, according to the domestic Arirang schedule listed in one of these links. You can also see it on the internet from the links above. In any case, it should be at the top of the list, the one having aired on August 27.

The show will be about "Expat Bloggers" and they're going to be covering my photography and blogging for my part, as well as the thoughts of other major namely ExpatJane, FatManSeoul, Roboseyo, and ZenKimchi. I can't stand seeing myself on TV -- and actually don't own one -- so I'll be relying on you, faithful readers, to give me the lowdown.

"Seoul Kiss"

A couple draws a long kiss -- as well as a sharp gasp from behind me as I swiveled to take this shot -- as they loved each other down at one of the most crowded times of the evening in front of Myeongdong Station.

I'm sorry for the pun -- but you have to admit that it works, right? Come on. Admit it. I'm a really punny guy!

The Hit Was Hard, But I Bounced Back

430,000 won to get me back up and running, but I am.

BOTH my lens and 40D were blitzed, actually, since my 40D failed right after taking pictures of this woman for FeetManSeoul.

[For the full post about girly dresses, go here]

I was literally taking a picture of her with her friend to give her a thanks-for-posing souvenir, when the shutter just locked up. "Error -99." Doh!

It wasn't much of a mystery, since the camera had taken a nose-dive the night before. I guess it had just taken a few hundred shots before it locked up. Sort of like the story I heard in a class once from a visiting paramedic who talked about a guy who'd been in a serious car accident the day before, but had been, quite miraculously, completely unharmed, even though he had wrapped his front end around a tree. He declined to go to the hospital, and just went home. The next morning, when he got out of bed, he apparently had collapsed in front of his mirror in the bathroom. Autopsy later showed a hairline fracture in his back, but one that had completely severed the vertebrae. He had completely broken his back, but the bones just hadn't shifted yet -- after sleeping and waking up, the fracture completely snipped his spinal cord. Good night.

Moral of the story: always go to the hospital after a traffic accident. Metaphorical moral: don't be surprised when you recently-dropped camera bites the dust the day after.

Silver lining? Around $200 for each ain't that bad. Apparently, the repair guy decided to try and to actually fix the shutter instead of the identify-replace-the-part way of doing things through the company. Canon Korea would have just changed the entire shutter assembly and charged me like hundreds more. Korean service centers generally just try and actually FIXING the problem.

I had the same thing happened with my iBook, which technically should have been totaled a long time ago, since I had actually broken a part on the motherboard. But the tech told me the deal: you can do the official repair and essentially pay $700 for a new motherboard, which would fix the problem, but be half the cost of the computer, or he'd try something non-sanctioned, but which would probably work for less than $100. It was ridiculously obvious, and the repair actually ended up being $50 and my computer worked again, and has ever since. Yay, for fixing the problem!

We'll see if things go OK after some real time with a couple thousand shutter cycles under my belt. Hopefully, this will be the end of my camera repair saga!

"Fear Me!"

Indeed, without the Joker around, the Batman's gonna look pretty heavy. He needs some super-baddies to balance him out.

My Shower, Circa 1990

The Spatial Economy of the Hamburger

Now, that's a haughty blog post entry. Trying to get back in academic mode -- that would sound like a sexy paper title to present at a conference, since people would come just to hear what the hell this is about.

Well, starting with ExpatJane, people are talking about the politics of bad service, especially around getting a burger, which is getting increasingly easier to get here. There are better options, Koreans have figured out how to make a good one themselves (Kraze Burger is good -- just relatively expensive), and I think people are going to take less and expect more. I remember being here in 1994 and paying the equivalent of $20 for "hamburger steak" accompanied by a dollop of corn from a can and an equal helping of macaroni salad -- but try to pawn that off on the Korean populace now -- ain't gonna happen.

Things change fast in Seoul, and food culture, like every other aspect of the culture, has been no exception. FatManSeoul has done a great writeup of some of this stuff, and brought up some of the fascinating issues that have come up when different food cultures and expectations collide. One excerpt, which reminded me of many of the anecdotes from the late 80's and the quirkiness of life in Korea that have been largely worked out in the much more cosmopolitan Seoul of today, was particularly interesting:

Bak’s article recalls the time when McDonald’s was new to Korea. Ah, back in the day when there wasn’t an 오곡 (ogok: five grain) shake to be had! Nowadays Mickey D’s is a shining example of successful integration into the Korean fast food scene, but in the beginnings were troubled times. Cash was flowing out, but not back in and it was all because of those pesky kids! And college students. And office workers. And pretty much every patron who came in the door.

You see, long ago Korean people weren’t yet trained in the ways of the fast food warrior, and they thought you could just come into McDonald’s and sit for hours chatting with your friends as you linger over fries. Because to Koreans, the 500원 ice cream cone wasn’t just money for ice cream, but a ticket to a place to sit and hang out. Which they did. But McDonald’s revenues depend on fast turnover, and every customer taking up space is costing the corporate headquarters moola. Something had to be done! For a more detailed and utterly fascinating discussion of this transition, FatMan strongly recommends Watson’s book.

Back in the day, McDonald’s had to hire young women to act as greeters - but the job description didn’t end there. According to Bak, a major part of the womens’ role was to subtly (or overtly) pressure customers to get the hell out of Dodge by standing behind them, pointedly asking them if everything was ok, and even seating customers at tables that were already occupied. Koreans eventually learned different eating behaviors for fast food restaurants, but at the time it was a major battle with the future profitability of the company at stake! The idea of eat-and-run in any place that wasn’t serving off the streets is a relatively new one.

Even now, Koreans conceptualize their bill as not just a payment for food, but also for time. Service is way down on that list.

Good stuff -- I remember other such interesting conversations from discussions over the entrance of Starbucks into Korea when editing a paper for the Korea Journal a while back called "From Strange Bitter Concoction to Romantic Necessity: The Social History of Coffee Drinking in South Korea." It's very, very interesting stuff, and you can download the compete PDF below, as well as from the link above.

The short version? Here's the abstract:

This paper explores the notions of Korean, American, and global identities as shared among Koreans by examining coffee drinking practices and the meanings associated with them. This research shows that coffee drinking is a useful window through which to view the diverse dimensions of contemporary Korean society, and produces and represents various identities of Koreans in the global world. As this research into the case of the Starbuck espresso chain demonstrates, the expansion of multinational business as part of the process of globalization and global business` interaction with indigenous cultures clearly show us how "universalization of particularism" and "particularization of universalism," respectively, operate in the border-crossing of food cultures. Furthermore, the Korean consumption of Starbucks coffee is not only a simple or passive adoption of American consumption products but an active process of selecting and creating their own modes of consumption, and participating in constructing a "global modernity." But the "globality" that is put together and constructed in an American way, as is the case with Starbucks, is already quite familiar and powerful for many Koreans.

More fascinating stuff can be downloaded from my workplace at the Korea Journal site, where you can search their database and out pops a complete journal article, with a database indexed all the way back to 1961. You don't get many free resources like that. Bookmark and remember it! We'd be happy to know people were using the database more.

Paper titles of interest from the same issue:

"Reinventing Korean Food: National Taste and Globalization"

"Colonial Modernity and the Social History of Chemical Seasoning in Korea"

"Rice and Koreans: Three Identities and Meanings"

Way to get things going, fellow K-bloggers. From ExpatJane to me to ZenKimchi and FatManSeoul, hopefully this conversation about food and culture can continue to reveal more fascinating things worth thinking about when it comes to the politics of what we eat and where.