Scribblings of the Metropolitician

The Ultimate Guide to Chungmuro!

For those of you who have been asking, I've put together a pretty cool guide to the Chungmuro area over at the Marmot's Hole. As many of you already know, Chungmuro is ground zero for photo stuff in Korea, especially when it comes to doing high-end stuff requiring people who know what the heck they're doing. 

DO go check out the post -- remember to blow up the image and follow along. And good hunting over there in the 'ro!

Bomb English #16 - Mad about Mad Cow!

In this 16th episode of Bomb English, Jennifer and Michael talk about mad cow madness. Have we eaten too much American beef? Are we crazy? Or are we just the only ones remaining calm? Wait -- did they say they ate American beef? Run! Run!

SeoulGlow #10 - Dinner With Soyeon (Part 3)

It's done. Now you can see the much-promised, much-delayed, final interview with Soyeon. I think that when you watch it, you might be able to see why I held onto it for so long -- one reason was that I thought it would be most relevant around the time she went up, and the other reason was because I didn't want to help publicly pigeonhole her into being the backup astronaut well before the decision was made.

For a long time, the video seemed particularly fitting because she indeed became the backup; now that she's sitting in the first chair, it's even more interesting. Enjoy, Marmot's Holers... I posted it there first. I haven't even upped it to YouTube yet, and KBS is coming to my house to interview me and get the original DV files of the vids for broadcast in 40 minutes. But I wanted you guys to get it first. I'll wax wordy and wise about all this on my own blog later.

Enjoy!

Podcast #33 - That Guitar Kid: Unplugged!

I first posted this at the Marmot's Hole.

Ah, Pachabel's Canon in D. Done by a Korean kid on YouTube. To the tune of 38 million view and counting.

Oh, yeah. I remember watching that video and just thinking, "You rock, kid." Then The New York Times did a piece on him, his true identity unmasked (or un-hatted?), and he rocked all the more. He then made the rounds on Korean television, spoke and performed around the world (and he still is), and then I met him as a panelist in the YouTube Korea rollout that they inexplicably invited me to attend.

[source]

Then...came this podcast.

Well, OK, I'm sure Jay (Jeong-hyun Lim) isn't thinking "score!" as when a NYT reporter contacted him, but we had a good lunch and great talk at Shinchon's On the Border nonetheless. This is also the first actual English-language audio interview with Jay that you'll hear. Jay is frank, cool, and tells the WHOLE story behind the YouTube video that's now in the 38 million views range. He also tells us his REAL motivation for playing the guitar..

And the real reason for this announcement – the kid's got his own band and he's playing tonight in Hongdae at 7PM, at the Sapiens7 LiveHouse. Sorry for the late notice, but if you can get out there, it should be an experience! Here's the map:

Also, Paris Hilton

It's a bit late, but FeetManSeoul offers a photographer's breakdown of the Korean press corps' onerous omission of any decent shot of Paris Hilton in a hanbok. But they seemed to be pretty good at upskirt shots. Come on – it's Paris Hilton! Is there really anything left to the imagination? At least the press photographers should be able to focus on something besides that, especially given that we've seen it already, right?

Susan Eats MORE Jokbal!

Finally! The saga is complete. And the ending is brutal.

Susan finally finishes the jokbal she started in the previous episode. And no, she has not been continuously eating for weeks. And judging from the reactions to the first part of this feeding frenzy, I feel it my duty to warn you: don't watch this unless you have reasonable access to a dead pig of some type.

I'm going to go find some jokbal for lunch. Editing this stuff, as you can imagine, has been killing me.

Shooter is South Korean

[This was originally a Marmot's Hole post, but I saw too late that my news was already running behind. I post it here while I write something more substantive. I've been thinking about this issue for years.]

[Update #1: My more recent post, representative of my opinions, is here, to those being linked in from my immediate reaction to the revelation of the shooter's ethnicity, which I did suspect was Korean as soon as I heard he was Asian. The cultural contextualization is just that; it's not a causal argument, as you'll see in my full post. But I always leave my posts and comments as is, even when I sometimes post rashly or in a flurry of fingers on the keyboard. Thanks for reading.]

[Update #2: I'm closing comments for this page, because people seem to be skipping over these updates and going off before even reading the full post. So if you'd like to respond, do so at the link indicated above, which is the very next post after this one. I guess my mistake here is not erasing my posts or comments, even if I didn't contextualize things adequately, or even when I make a mistake. What I write stays up. That's my policy. I'd appreciate a little leeway in the fact that my reaction to this incident is poured out all over the Internet. At least take the time to read my complete thoughts on the matter, as opposed to a placeholder post that contains only a fraction of my thoughts on the matter.]

The original post:

I'd been waiting for it.

The shooter is South Korean.

I'd been suspecting it all day, for a lot of reasons, which is why I was sitting by the computer. Not the least of which was because a group of American university administrators whom Fulbright hosted nearly 10 years ago, when being a tour of Korean universities, asked the staff, "Why is it that out of all our international students, Korean males have so much trouble?"

To my surprise, all of the university officials cited incident after incident of Korean male graduate students who seemed to have trouble adjusting, often got into fights with other students in the living spaces, and were often the source of trouble in dealing with romantic relationships gone bad or women in general, especially when they involved Korean females dating non-Koreans.

Anyway, my little bit of uninformed analysis will be just the beginning. I'm sure we'll see all sorts of explanations from the Korean media. And for what it's worth, perhaps now the South Korean media and people will be faced with the question of stereotyping, media, and how treating individual incidents as evidence of various "national characters" leads down roads we don't want to travel.

All in all, a tragic story. But the conversation will prove...interesting, I'm sure.

Let the shitstorm – and social experiment – begin.

There. If you want to yell at me, then do it after reading my complete post on the matter.

"Korea, Sparkling!"

OK, the cat's officially out of the bag and I don't have to hold my tongue anymore, even though it had been leaked already by others. But not even wild horses got it out of me, a fact of which I am very proud.

So, Korea's official tourism brand is fresh out the box from the Korean Tourism Organization, and ready for your comments.

A key excerpt from the press release:

For the first time in its history, Korea has officially adopted national a tourism brand to nurture the tourism industry. Many countries, in fact, have already developed tourism brands to promote various aspects of their tourism resources and leverage them effectively to entice global tourists. Examples include, 100% Pure New Zealand (New Zealand), Yokoso Japan (Japan), Visit Britain (the U.K) Keep Exploring (Canada), Uniquely Singapore (Singapore), Truly Asia (Malaysia). It is expected that “Korea, Sparkling” will similarly serve Korea’s tourism industry in communicating the country’s redefined image around the world.

Okie dokie. To explain the logo:

The word “Sparkling” is synonymous with shining and dazzling. Additionally, it conveys a sense of revitalizing energy and freshness. In sum, “Korea, Sparkling” intends to denote the concept of “vital refreshment,” – a unique experience available to tourists traveling to Korea and being exposed to the incredible passion of both Koreans and Korean culture. The brand also delivers the message that experiencing Korea offers unique emotional rewards unlike any other.

I'm gonna leave it at that. So, what do you all think? Chime in with your comments.

ADDENDUM: Here's the guy who masterminded the campaign, info about which was on the Korea ESL Cafe, and linked in from Dogbertt at the Marmot.

He seems none too "sparkling" himself. Kind of somber looking for a publicity shot. In any case, his bio reads:

Simon Anholt is an independent policy advisor to the governments of numerous countries, cities and regions on the branding aspects of public diplomacy, economic development, public affairs, cultural relations and trade, tourism and export promotion.

He has written many books, papers and articles on the image and reputation of places and is a well-known public speaker, editor and broadcaster.

He is Editor of the quarterly journal, Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, published by Palgrave Macmillan Journals.

He is the founder and author of three major global surveys of the reputations of places - the Anholt Nation Brands Index, City Brands Index and State Brands Index. These surveys are carried out quarterly on his behalf by Global Market Insite, Inc., in Seattle and are used by many national and city governments to monitor their international standing.

He's an expert, I guess. And apparently, really expensive. Apparently, he didn't spend so much on his 1998-era web site.

SeoulGlow #5 – The Art of Daechuri

Sorry for the lull last week – the video project had taken a bit of a toll. But I'm getting back into the swing of things, have a new monitor to stop the headaches, and have our first user submission for you here, done by Bum Lee, the creator of the SeoulGlow animation intro, no less. The final part of the "Dinner with Soyeon" series will be up in the near future, by the way. From Bum:

"The farming village of Daechuri is being evicted by the Korean government for the expansion of a nearby U.S. military base. For several years, the villagers and activists have resisted the forceful eviction, but the residents of Daechuri recently signed an agreement with the government to leave their village by the end of March.

I visited Daechuri on Saturday March 3. Behind the perimeter of fences guarded by police, many of the homes had been demolished and the unharvested fields were trenched off with barbed wire. But there was art everywhere amidst the ruin – murals, sculptures, junk art, and a gallery filled with paintings. The villagers held their nightly candlelight vigil in a hall surrounded by painted portraits, and in the evening they sang songs around a bonfire.

This video is a tribute to the art of Daechuri."

"South Korea Reviews Its Dark Past, But the Pace Is Slow"

An interesting piece from the The New York Times about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the fact that with the hot potato politics of late, neither an agreement on "truth" or coming to "reconciliation" seem possible soon. (HT to Vacilando)