Scribblings of the Metropolitician

Identity Consumerism Reigns

I smile every time I see this. I think it's hilarious as well as crazy fucking interesting to see traditional arts be so readily subsumed into identity consumerism. This commercial is as funny as was Im Kwon taek's horrid sequel to Sopyonje was an insult to that film's legacy. Pansori fits into Korean society now as a cheeky cellphone commercial--- no more. It's a mere punchline now, a snarky sales pitch. This is where traditional culture goes to die. And it's not KT's fault. They're just the messenger.

어 어 -어머 아이구야....

I'm not laughing about the fall per se, I am snickering at the folks represented by these three snide students who cornered me after a conference presentation, who couldn't stomach my claim that the Korean media was completely unprofessional and were still the lackeys of the government and kissed the Blue House's ass. 

What y'all think now? Obviously, this is my fantasy rebuttal, since I highly doubt they read my blog. Apparently, the Korean public is getting all pissed again at the government's heavy-handed attempts to corral in the local media.

Well, don't just blame the present president, but the entire relationship between government and the press, and the socio-legal structure that keeps the press' tail between its legs like an abused dog that's been beaten one too many times and Massa raises his hand in a moment of spite but doesn't hit. What's the dog do? cowers and whimpers, like the Korean media. 

In that kind of environment, you don't need much to embargo a video of your president tripping over her hanbok. 

If you want a healthy environment for critical journalis, there needs to be an undergirding culture of criticism, which is still pooh-poohed and derided here. Gotta have the social room to guffaw when your president trips. And not think "Our nation has fallen on its face before the entire worlf!" But rather that somebody tripped, which is...admittedly...kinda funny. 

 

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Korean Waving...

This isn't my first rodeo -- I've been saying the same thing for a long time.

Did a short opinion piece for tyhe Korea Times, wish I had been more careful about how
I talked about the origins of the term "Korean Wave," since that's become a bigger sticking point than the greater point of my argument that it's not about a sudden recognition of Korea in the West -- 'cause let's face it, that's what most important to the "Wave's" boosters -- it's about more, better Korean cultural products coming out in general, which is awesome, and I'm all for cheering that.

Good criticisms, factual errors on points taken.

In short, the point I'm making comes from sitting on that Branding Council watching the self-congratulatory back slapping in the media about how the "Korean Wave" was moving across the world. I should've reigned it in by saying "Sure, it's a trend in Asia, but the world? The chest thumping and boastiung, quite frankly, happens when something Korean comes out in Europe or America, not China or Japan as much. For the latter two countries, it's like "Yeah, we know." But if GG comes on Letterman or Psy makes it onto Ellen, it's a big deal that further adds to this idea oof there being a concrete "wave. Perhaps my point would have been better served with a food example, where Korean food is yes -- pretty well known compared to the old days. But people like it because it's goood, not because it's Korean. Hence, this goies against the idea that there is some active recognition -- especially in the West, which is where it's most valued as coming from -- of Korean culture for its own sake. The example of structural push-pull factors -- akin to immigration theory -- would be better explicated through rtalking about soon tubu on the Bay Area, which was pretty popular in Oakland Koreatown for a minute because it was there, good, and cheap , and because there are a lot of health-conscious and vegetaroian consumers in the Bay Area who astumbled across the dish and it snowballed in the local press because it's hard to find vegetarian food that is hearty and has a spicy punch. So non-Koreans were coming in hordes for a while. 

Structural and demographic factors align and we get trends and ideas becoming more popular. My point is that Korean things -- from sundubu to Psy -- are getting out there because they're good and WORTHY of the attention, and with Korea being a developed economy now, there's a lot more of that -- and there will be more. Hence my point about Korean cultural products showing up around the world stage more often is that it's commensurate with the increase in quality of Korean cultural products in general, and is to be expected. It;s not a fantastric phenomenon if you look at the structural factors, and which is why the "Han River Miracle" indeed ISN'T -- if you look at all the capital inflow and military protection that Korea received after the Korean War. It's a perfectly logical and foreseeable ouitcome, given the circumstances -- that's the point, and lesson to take from Korean history. Or in thjs case, the "Korean Wave."

The thing that bothers me about the term is that it encourages a very top-down, centrally-controlled,, Korean-style management relex that zctually stiflesthe production and dissemination of good aspects of Korean culture for international consumption. 

My whole thing is that if you let Korean cultural products alone, they'll speak for themsleves. THe Korean government has already done a good job at doing what governments can and should do to encourage the growth of so-called "culture industries" -- some of them quite by accident. Lifting government ceonsoship on films did more for Korean cinema than any other specfic policydesigned to suport the industry, just as not implementing upload caps on the broadband network the Korean government essenttially built from scratch in one of its many multi-year development plans helpeed create the possibility for a thriving gaming environment. Psy got big, in the end, not as the esult of government initiatives, or big production companies pushing him, but because he's amazing and because of Youtube. And by comparison, where are the much-vaunted Wonder Girls and Girls' Generation these days? Did any of the nationalist -- and frankly, somewhat dishonest boosterism ever help spread Korean culture abroad? The biggest cases of Korean cultural product success took place outside of the "Korean Wave" government-industry machine model, and are often products the government wouldn't want to support, or weren't popular back home, or are just things nationalists want to push for no reasons other than their own:

FOOD
"Korean Wave" booster favorite: Royal Korean court food, bibimbap
Real world winners, by dint of just being unequivocally awesome: Korean fried chicken, sundubu, galbi. 

FILM
"Korean Wave" booster favorite: Chunhyang and other crap like this
Real world winners, by dint of just being unequivocally awesome: Old Boy, The King and the Clown, The Host

MUSIC
"Korean Wave" booster favorite: The Wonder Girls and other slightly pervy, real-talentless dancing girl acts ad nauseum, Rain
Real world winners, by dint of just being unequivocally awesome: 2ne1, Psy

FASHION
"Korean Wave" booster favorite: Seoul Fashion Week (no one cares, yet)
Real world winners, by dint of just being unequivocally awesome: Korean street fashion, certain cool-ass, individual designers with crazy talent

Korean Photo Law and You (한국의 '초상권침해'에 대한 잘 못 된 생각) -- UPDATED!

See the end for an update!
Many of my students and colleagues ask me about the details of the Korean concept of "the right to the face" (초상권) and how it affects photographing people in the streets. In short, most Koreans' understanding of the law is wrong. Many Koreans think that the legal concept of 초상권 means it is illegal to take a person's picture without expressed permission. This is simply not true, and is a popular legal misconception similar to Americans who watch too many cop movies and think that a cop has to admit s/he's a cop if asked directly, meaning that you can simply ask an undercover that question, and if they bust you later, all the evidence is invalid. Sorry -- wrong.

According to the Korean Constitution, all citizens have a "right to privacy" that extends in particular to the "right to one's facial image." Violation of that right to privacy vis a vis publishing someone's face without their expressed permission (e.g. a couple sharing an ice cream cone in the park) is understood to be a "violation of the right to one's facial image" (초상권침해). The public has a very heightened awareness of this legal concept, in the same way that Americans are overly conversant in psychological terms such as "co-dependency" or "anal retentiveness" or a person being a "paranoid schizophrenic." But it doesn't mean a lot of people actually know what those things really mean, in the original terms of the field they come from.

Same with Koreans, who generally don't speak in such highly-specific jargon. So, the fact that people refer to this very, very specific legal concept should be a give that most people actually don't know what they're talking about. The right to privacy is a generally-protected legal right, just like the "right to one's facial image." However, the right to sue someone for damages for violation of said right is a part of CIVIL LAW (민법), where you can recoup damages for all kinds of violations to your person. There is no aspect of CRIMINAL LAW (형법) linked to the right to privacy or the right to one's facial image that says it is actually illegal to take someone's picture.

If damage results from the "printing or reproduction" of a picture, then you can be sued in a civil law case. And even there, according to further explications of that particular subject in civil law, the person has to demonstrate actual specific damages that resulted from the picture being printed. That's the key point -- not only must the case be argued in a civil case, there has to be more to it than just the fact you took the picture -- actual, concrete damages have to be shown to have specifically resulted from the picture you took.

And that almost never happens. Ever.

But the average person's misconception of the "right to the face" is so off that during public performances in a private venue, like a digital film festival I once attended, an irate woman from the audience was forcing a camera guy who had been taking B-roll of audience reaction shots to the performance that she, as a private citizen attending a private event, paid money for a ticket to see. It would be pretty hard, even in Korea, to argue that she had any realistic expectation of her right to privacy being respected when she had voluntarily paid money to get a seat at a private event that involved performaces and cameras. Legally, it's like her actually paying money to come to my private house party, after which she claimed that party's activities harmed her privacy in some way. It's like going to a presidential rally -- an extremely public event --  and accidentally ending up in one of the shots of the President behind the podium, then expecting that one's "privacy" be respected. It's ridiculous, but that's just how warped the misconception of "privacy" is here -- I am not personally or ethically responsible for embarrassing acts that I take into what can be reasonably understood to be a public venue -- a street, park, or public event -- it's the PHOTOGRAPHER.

But actually, the only cases that really go through are ones related to using a person's image for commercial purposes -- but no one reading this is stupid enough to do that, right? That's another issue, for idiots. You should know that taking a picture of a young lady drinking a can of Coke can't be submitted as a stock photo to the Coca-Cola corporation, right? I mean, that's just plain stupid.

But don't get overzealous about things, as if the law is a shield here, because sometimes even cops can misunderstand the law. The 2-3 times it's ever gone to the cops with me, usually when someone says, "I'm calling the cops on you" and I say, "Go right ahead. I'll wait," the cops know better and just tell the person they're in the wrong and for us to go on about our separate ways. But know a few caveats:

-- If someone tells you to stop taking their picture, STOP. Not only are you being a rude asshole, you're HARASSING that person. No means NO, and if they call the cops on you, you might get stuck with a charge like that. Actually, the fact that you're using a camera is incidental -- if you behave in a way that causes a specific person distress and they specifically even asked you to stop, you are gonna get in trouble dude. STOP.

-- There is a new, astonishingly open-ended aspect of sexual harrassment law that basically says that any behavior that results in "embarrassment" to the woman is sexual harrassment. That's too open-ended in my opinion, and too subjective a definition to be a law. But they caught a few people up on that one, although I believe they were all dismissed upon closer inspection. A camera being used to sexually harass isn't any different from any other type of sexual harrassment, I think. If I stick a camera under a woman's dress, lift up her skirt without permission, or put my hand on her breast -- I'm violating a clear line of personal privacy. But now, we've got cases like the Pakistani guys on the beach who were photographing women in their bikinis on the beach (I see racial undertones to this) and we arrested. Or the guy on the bus (a school principal, actually) who took pics of the high school girl's legs sitting across from him. What bothers me in those cases -- whether they are actual "perverts" or not -- is the fact that they were arrested for taking pictures of something visible from a normal angle. This is, to me, a slippery slope, and technically defines a thought-crime. Why is it legal to look at it, but illegal to take a picture of it? And why should it depend on the judgement of some state official to determine your purpose in taking the picture, or someone else's subjective feelings? If I used that camera to peek under a skirt, or drilled a hole in a bathroom stall to get a shot of a woman peeing, this is obviously unreasonable. But this new stipulation is chilling. Tellingly, though, I think no one actually went to full prosecution on these cases.

For further reference, read up on what I've already written on the matter, and at the end, there's a copy of my "Korean Photo Law Card," which you can print up and have at the ready in your own camera bag to explain to any flustered subject what the hell you're doing. In 99% of the cases in which someone even noticed I took their picture, a simple, truthful explanation usually did the trick (i.e. "I'm teaching a photo class" or "I'm taking pictures of fashion trends" or whatnot), combined with a name card and an apology for the misunderstanding. If it escalates, I pull out the photo law card. But I never let another person touch my camera, and I usually refuse to delete pictures on my card.

UPDATE

The only major change is the addition of a sexual harassment law that is very subjective and can/will be used as a weapon against you if you are a man and can't talk the situation down if you get caufgt shooting a female subject and she's in a bad mood. Yiou can technically take any shot you want, but if it causes her "shame or embarrassment, " you might get hit with a sexual harassment charge according to a new provision of the special sexual harassment law -- I think this law goes to 2013, and the revision is even more recent... This is from the file I used to lecture on this:

성폭력범죄의 처벌 등에 관한 특례법
[시행 2013.6.19.] [법률 제11729호, 2013.4.5., 일부개정]
[SOURCE]

"제14조(카메라 등을 이용한 촬영) ① 카메라나 그 밖에 이와 유사한 기능을 갖춘 기계장치를 이용하여 성적 욕망 또는 수치심을 유발할 수 있는 다른 사람의 신체를 그 의사에 반하여 촬영하거나 그 촬영물을 반포·판매·임대·제공 또는 공공연하게 전시·상영한 자는 5년 이하의 징역 또는 1천만원 이하의 벌금에 처한다.
② 제1항의 촬영이 촬영 당시에는 촬영대상자의 의사에 반하지 아니하는 경우에도 사후에 그 의사에 반하여 촬영물을 반포·판매·임대·제공 또는 공공연하게 전시·상영한 자는 3년 이하의 징역 또는 500만원 이하의 벌금에 처한다.
③ 영리를 목적으로 제1항의 촬영물을 「정보통신망 이용촉진 및 정보보호 등에 관한 법률」 제2조제1항제1호의 정보통신망(이하 "정보통신망"이라 한다)을 이용하여 유포한 자는 7년 이하의 징역 또는 3천만원 이하의 벌금에 처한다."

So, the mere act of taking the picture of a person on the street without their permission is not yet prohibited by any statute of criminal law that I have been aware of for the better part of a decade. However, I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure that I'm right, especially since I've argued this principle to cops, who have completely backed me up on this. Out of 3 times I've ever gotten into anything with the police, with someone threatening to call them on the, at which point I called their bluff, the officer came and simply asked what the problem was, at which point the overly excited complainant demanded I be arrested and all kinds of other ridiculous things, I would point the cops simply asked, “so all you did was take a picture?” At which point the cup simply told me to go on about my business and didn't even asked to look at my camera. The only caveat to this is the new special law against sexual harassment, which places the photographer in a position of danger based on the mental state of the person complaining. So, written into the law is the idea that if the person feels embarrassment or shame from the picture, and the picture is judged to be of a sexual nature by the officer, you might be brought up on charges of sexual harassment, which could mean a pretty hefty fine and even jail time, but I seriously doubt that anybody is going to the clinic over a picture, and even the cases I hear of near Pusan in the summer never involved in any of these supposedly criminal–photographers going to jail.

Some more links, which may or may not be more out-of-date than this one.

"A Note about Korean Law and Photography"

"Korean Photo Law, 초상권, and Legal Inexactitude"

"The Politics of Pictures and Privacy"

"On Respect for Photographic Subjects"

"OK, Now Send ME to Jail"

"Korean Photo Law Card"

And here's both the Word and PDF versions of that card.

 

 

 

Why You Should Always Do the Right Thing, or Why You Shouldn't Fuck the Bears

I've lived in this society for a long time and have come to understand a lot of things, adapted my behavior to others, and learned to define what I won't allow myself to change.

For example, I will never accept a bribe, especially since they usually require one to do something quite odious, like change a grade, accept something deemed unacceptable, do something harmful to the greater good. That's why you're being bribed, right? And that's an active choice I made.

Some things you just become inured to. When I was first placed in a Korean boy's middle school on Cheju Island in 1994, horrible beatings of students by teachers was an everyday matter. The first time I saw a boy being slapped, punched, and kicked while he was on the ground, I teared up. As violent as people think America is because of highly public (but relatively rare on the everyday level) gun shootings and whatnot, I'd never experienced such levels of violence on a nearly daily level. And the verbal abuse that accompanied this attitude towards discipline was just par for the course.

I began thinking -- what does this do to the group being forced to accept this? What is this doing to me?

The fact that I didn't tear up anymore, or even get interested enough to want to react anymore, meant that something, some part of my humaneness, no matter how small, had died. And that is what saddened me after a year of working in that school. And even into my second year, in a co-ed and much less hard-hitting middle school, another member of my program had a student she knew die as a result of extreme beatings. He was forced to run around the school, and at the end of the lap, was beaten with several blows. Another lap, another beating. No water for several hours. When he was finally sent home in the evening, he died of massive heart failure. A 17-year-old kid. In the end, the parents tried to do something, they were shunned and ostracized, the teacher was moved to an administrative position. Welcome to Korea, foreign teachers.

At that time, before YouTube and there being no foreigners around in this particular institution, our program collectively saw one kind of Korea's dirty little secrets and how they are dealt with. We lived in host families, sat in the teachers' room, went on the school field trips, and saw everything because we were small enough to be ignored. When one friend of mine saw male teachers bringing female high school students into a hotel room and giving them soju and other hard liquors, and reported it to her vice-principal, she was brushed off because she apparently didn't understand that this was a "Korean custom." (Hmm. I wonder if the girls parents would agree.)

Some people out there who come across this blog accuse me of some kind of cultural imperialism because I refuse to budge on certain moral points that I refuse to cross. And that I use these moral boundary lines as the launching points for some criticisms of the culture. What these people usually don't realize is that one doesn't live here, learn the language, successfully make a living, and maintain social relations without doing some serious adaptation to this culture. And having lived here off and on since the early 1990's, back then, before Internet and cable TV, before ubiquitous "air-con" and the days of having to teach class in a winter coat with students competing to sit nearest the gas heater in the center of the class, when I lived in the countryside and the big bookstore only carried 3 copies of international Newsweek that I was rarely quick enough to catch -- Korea was a lot harder to get used to. I put in my time, baby. And I'm as culturally adjusted as I can get. I've given ground on just about every aspect of my life and personality, adapting to the Korean condition.

But on a few things, I won't budge. To some people, me criticizing the mental (and formerly, physical) violence of the school system, or the ubiquitousness of prostitution, turning a blind eye to obvious and clear human rights abuses in the North, or the fact of the massive corruption that continues to eat away at Korea's own values of equality of opportunity -- makes me some kind of cultural imperialist. To me, these are either people who just don't like me and will attack me anyway, or they assume that I haven't thought about the fact that these values are shared by many Koreans themselves. The "right thing to do" is often clear and obvious, actually -- the only thing that makes certain issues huge contestations is the fact that on one side stand people who want to do what everyone agrees is the right thing, and on the other side stand those who simply stand to use their power to exploit others.

To return to my question -- what does living in an environment that forces you to make huge moral concessions to to a person -- this society has huge moral and social problems that one either accepts or fights against. Take corruption, for example. Right now, Samsung is a company whose very structure depends on corruption, whose success often relies on unfairly clearing obstacles and clearing the playing field, whose government connections give it protection even the mafia couldn't touch. And it's been exposed in great detail by a whistleblower whose acts should be commended and praised to the hills. But instead, his name is cursed. And not just by the expected corporate types who obviously want his head on a platter, but by the society in general.

In the distorted version of Confucianism that this society follows, a notion of morality is not at the center. It is not the fulcrum around which things find balance. Morality is secondary -- the maintenance of social rules, the sanctity of the hierarchy, of relative social positions -- this is priority number one. This is why I say that Korea is not really a "Confucian society" in the sense that a full set of Confucian-based moral values dictate how things go; no, for post-Chosun Korean society, it is a merely a rulebook mostly designed to maintain a rigid social structure.

And traditional Korean society only cares about whether or not one violates the rules, not with what moral/ethical values the rules are designed to preserve or actively foster.

That's Korean style. Take the typical Korean ajussi. He simply wants respect and deference because he is older, might have a higher place in the hierarchy, has put in his time as a junior for a long time. And those junior to him are supposed to defer and kowtow. But what is he supposed to do? In the typical Korean way, you da younger, you da bitch. Period.

But traditionally, the Ajussi the Older also has an obligation. He is obligated to stand as a living example of virtuous behavior for the Youngers; he is supposed to use his power to help deserving Youngers advance in life; the Older has a moral obligation to earn the respect he is given. Contrary to common Korean social practice, the Older does not deserve automatic respect, especially when the Older has clearly stepped outside of agreed-upon social/legal bounds. Hence, the Confucian justification for standing up to unjust rulers, resisting social oppression, etc. Because that's in there. 

So, am I supposed to respect a drunk ajussi cursing at me on the subway? Or an administrator who is altering the rules to take bribes? Or, closer to home -- a supervisor in my school who wants to change my grades after the fact, which tacitly involves me in their bribe-taking and the unfair altering of the life paths and life-chances of dozens of students? Or how about just sitting and listening to the screams of a middle school boy being kicked in the face and chest? By doing nothing, I am tacitly participating in his abuse. That's the only way to cut it. And why I teared up -- by following the accepted social rules that gave this teacher the right to be a monster, I was, even though it was to the tiniest extent possible, becoming a monster, too. Because he was a student, and I was a teacher who did nothing.

For all those who sit on the sidelines, criticize those who criticize Korean society -- you all have the luxury of truly being outsiders. This is obviously the case. Because my social criticisms aren't rooted in some abstract, America-based objection to the way things are in Korea because of the ways I think they should be in my own country -- I'm not that fucking stupid. But I've been here long enough to see bright-eyed, eager children chewed up by the system and become the sad and cynical teachers who abused them; I've seen kids beaten within an inch of their lives and known of one who was literally murdered by the teachers who are supposed to love and nurture them; I've been forced to sit and accept a policy that would make me an accomplice in such huge corruption that I could scarcely feign moral innocence, even if I didn't stand to get any of the money; when you're deep enough within the system, you don't have the luxury of choosing whether or not to take a position, or to be on one side of the fence or the other. You're already there, and you make the choice whether you sit on your ass or standing up for what you believe in. For those who think it's wrong to do anything, you're deluding yourselves.

Or, you're "fucking the bear," as a good friend put it, in jest. Like the anthropologist so invested in simply following the ways of the natives that even recording their sense of morality becomes secondary to the simple and superficial aping of their "ways," or the animal behavior scientist who lives with gorillas (or, more comically, bears) and studies their ways, lives among the animals, forgets to be human -- and starts "fucking the bears."

That cracked us both up at the bar, but my friend was dead serious. You learn to survive here, then truly adapt, and then -- you truly become inured to things here to the extent that things that should bother you, and which even bother a good percentage of the people here, don't anymore. Because you've become used to it, because you're dependent on some aspect of it, and maybe you've even become a party to some of the thing you once found morally detestable.

Because you've been "fucking the bears."

The point is, if you're part of the society, if you've developed meaningful human ties here, if you do work that emotionally and materially affects others -- how the hell can you feign non-involvement? Or on the flip side, assert the fiction that you either aren't or shouldn't "get involved?" I mean, anyone here teaching English, for example, is part of the same soul-crushing system that we criticize. And don't say you're not -- you fucking get paid to teach this Language of Power. I get paid to teach in it. We've all been been fucking the bear since we got here; or at least, we've been doing a slow dance and copping a feel. 

My point is that standing up for what is right isn't that hard to do, isn't that complex, isn't as fraught with issues of "cultural imperialism" or power dynamics or "problematics" as you would think. Because if you've done your due-diligence here, if you've put in your time, if you've figured yourself out vis-a-vis the many, but superficial cultural differences you observe -- you know that refusing to participate in a bribery scheme, or watching your boss openly and crassly put his hands repeatedly all over the new girl's thighs, or not stepping in to tell the Korean teacher kicking a student in the face, "That's ENOUGH!" isn't some cultural faux pas.

People use the word "culture" like its some magical invocation, as though, once named, it becomes a thing of religious significance, as though it's some kind of blasphemy to "interfere." But it's not that fucking complex. In fact, once you've figured out how things generally work here, it's not hard to figure out what's culture and what's just plain wrong.

I guess you could say whipping "nigger" slaves in the South was "culture." I mean, it's what people did, right? Not educating women was "culture" in Chosun Korea, especially amongst the yangban, which makes Mary Scranton an ethnocentric bitch, right? Fucking Underwoods, too. Establishing universities and shit, trying to educate women and people from the lower classes. How dare they?

Or calling the South the Uncle Tom, money grubbing hypocrite that it is for so wanting cheap North Korean labor and economic concessions from the North that it actually downplays or even bans reporting on clear human right violations in North Korea because that might piss them off.

Or disturb relations enough to mess up things for the Kaesong slave wages camp, oops, I mean "industrial complex." I mean, they DO make $42 a month for 52-hour work weeks. That's $.20 per hour! My bad.

Again, there's nothing wrong with standing up for what's right, even (and especially) in another place. And if a lot of people agree with you, or are already standing up for something, and you're part of the society, too -- you can't act like you're not involved.

So, power to the whistleblowers who take a baseball bat and chainsaw to the machine of corruption and abuse of power. These people, in the end, make our lives better, even if it hurts. And it doesn't matter whether you're an American or Korean or whatever. If you live here, you are an insider enough to know right from wrong. You didn't leave that cognitive power at the Incheon immigration desk. 

And finally, to the Daewon Foriegn Language High School principal and administration with whom I last worked in 2005, with whom I did not cooperate when they tried to use my US History grades (which had the largest weight in the GPA at the time) as monetary leverage to adjust class rankings, after which I was harrassed by the Korean teachers to the point where even students were coming to warn me of the things other teachers were saying in their classes about me, actively encouraging students to file complaints about me, for simply asking to be left out of their corruption scheme -- BOOYAH!

Now accused criminal, former Daewon FLHS Principal Choi Won-ho

You got caught! Principal Choi, remember when you said you were "going to get me" and "destroy my life" in our last conversation? Well, karma's a bitch, ain't it? Who done gone and got got? You were and are an evil man, and you simply got what you deserved. And I continue to be eminently proud of the fact that I'd rather turn down a $100-per-hour teaching job there than continue to work with you and your mostly-evil administration. And now, you can't sue me for defamation any more than you can The Korea Times, because I'm just asserting I saw the same corruption as documented in a national newspaper. And this issue definitely lies in the realm of "the public interest."

And if anyone wants to talk to me about what I saw there, I'd be MORE than happy to cooperate.

And this post is gonna live on in Google FOREVER. And hey, Won-ho, I'm not even publishing your face -- it's on The Korea Times' server! Whoo hoo! I love it!

Still gonna "destroy me," Won-ho?

I guess it's really true that sometimes the universe simply does unfold as it should.

Facebook Taking Over Korea, as Predicted!

Back when it seemed unbelievable and everyone guffawed at me, I made a bet with my "Korean Wave and Media" class that I teach at Myongji University that Facebook would inevitably take over the Korean Internet.

Whoa, they said. That's crazy. Nothing can beat Cyworld. Because nothing ever changes on the Internet, right?

Or alternatively, as is always quoted when it comes to new things, "Facebook is not right for Koreans."

Yeah, just as pundits predicted Koreans would NEVER take to pizza because of unfamiliarity with cheese, or eat Western-style cereal with milk, or how YouTube Korea would be humbled and die a quick and dirty death (the Korea Times was yelling this to the hills, but all their links are dead) because some domestic portals had higher resolution at the time. Umm, right. (I think I remember saying something like, "It's the content, stupid!" at the time). From that list given in the Mashable link, MNCast and Pandora.TV are out of commission, and even from the beginning, most of the content on all those portals were videos from YouTube. Something the "pundits" would have gotten had any of the Western reporters actually navigated around any of the Korean sites. It's the content, stupid. And everyone in the world uploaded and uploads to YouTube. Not some idiotically-named site called "Mgoon." Sorry -- that name's just fucking stupid. And all the world's content is on YouTube. Oops!

I also remember very publicly saying back in 2006, when UCC was first rolled out, that it would fail. And booooy, did it ever, so fabulously, FAIL. ("It's the structural and cultural barriers to making diverse and sustainable amounts of content, stupid!" Said that in 2007.) All the "UCC cafes" and UCC-based marketing to sell camcorders and cameras is noticeably absent. That campaign went down here in Korea worse than Sony's Mini-disc format did in America. And that's bad.

My actual bet with my Myongji students was that, by the time Winter 2009 finished (and I made the bet at the end of spring semester 2009, just before summer), most of what I call "domestic Koreans" -- the bulk of everyday, non-overseas connected Koreans who don't have foreign friends, haven't lived abroad, prefer kimchijjigae over cream sauce spaghetti for lunch, and largely use Cyworld -- would at least have heard of Facebook and at least 1/2 of them would have accounts.

At the time, when I started the course, most of my Myongji students hadn't even heard of Facebook, as shows of hands in several classes showed, and using the site to introduce the problem of Korean media and Internet showed. The problem was this: Facebook was (and is) the most accessed site in the world, but the vast majority of Koreans had never even heard of it. This went to show what is a pretty typical Korean pattern: major ideas, trends, and sites that are used in the rest of the world never make it over the barriers put up around the "walled garden" that is the Korean Intranet (which is really what it is), and the major portal sites that all Koreans use (Naver, Daum, Cyworld/Nate) act like the hard industry conglomerates (chaebeols) that dominate the Korean formal economy (Samsung, Hyundai, etc.) Korea always seems cut off from the rest of the world, to an extreme degree, and is always running 3-5 years behind -- in 2006, most "domestic Koreans" had never heard of a "blog" in Korea.

OK, that's summer 2009. Most domestic Koreans hadn't heard of Facebook, and I predicted by winter 2009/10, most students and young people would have, and even have an account. Lo and behold, when I started my new semester in March, when I asked the same question about Facebook, more than half the students raised their hands. And most had accounts, with the question of whether they used them or not being a separate issue.

Now, I know this isn't scientific, and since I was the force that had introduced a good number of students to Facebook in the first place at Myongji (although I doubt 20+ students started any kind of wave there), I couldn't just use that as evidence. But all around me, I noticed my domestic Korean friends -- not my more international crowd of acquantainces from UNESCO Korea, or foreign language high schools, or students from more affluent and international schools such as Yonsei University -- were adding me to Facebook.

Tick. The girl I gave a business card to at the makkoli bar. My Korean aunt. Tick, tick. The girl I had gone on a few dates with some months ago, who works as a civil servant and has no foreign friends. The photographer I had shared the photo pit with in a previous Seoul Fashion Week. Tick, tick, tick. People who were very, very domestic Korean were hearing about Facebook, and it wasn't from me. And all of them were using their names in the Korean script, not English.

Tipping point? Yeah.

It was just like me, back in 2008 or so, and I had signed up for Facebook at some point, had heard of it before that point from some college kids, hadn't thought much of it. But then, somewhere in the late spring/early summer of 2008 EVERYFRICKIN' BODY WHO I KNEW FROM BACK IN THE DAY, IN THEIR 30'S LIKE ME, WAS ADDING ME AS A FRIEND. It was literally like several random add requests a day, from an 8th-grade girlfriend, high school prom date, buddies from my freshman dorm in college, grad school friends -- it was ON, and seemingly instantaneously.

And here we go again. Tick, tick, tick. And then there were other x-factors: the iPhone had come in, and Twitter has already become the de facto standard for instant social messaging. One random reason? Kim Yeon-ah, the champion Korean figure skater, was a twitter, tweeter, a twitterator -- whatever. Best publicity Twitter ever had here, besides being the default standard in the rest of the world and getting mentioned in the news all the time. And now, we had the iPhone.

iPhone, with standard Facebook and Twitter apps around from jump, was something that would help. Even now, I had a domestic Korean contact, a model, try to show me her pics from Cyworld on her Korean "smart" phone. Epic fail. Cyworld -- get your shit together. Oh, too late.

The "tick, tick" of my Facebook-o-meter is really starting to pick up, anyone remotely hip I now meet has an iPhone, wants to "Bump" me, and often tells me to become a "Facebook friend" with them, and many people now make the corny joke/literal translation of FACEBOOK (얼굴 책) in Korean, just like they did with HOT MAIL (뜨거운 메일).

Facebook's here in Korea, and for the same reasons that YouTube took over the market (being the international standard and possessing an international database of users, as opposed to merely being limited to domestic users, and despite refusing to cooperate fully with Korea's real-name system), for the same reason that UCC failed (the paltry amount and types of content could not support the full weight of the service, and like a dying star whose internal energies cannot support its own weight, collapsed), and because Korean sites/sights are so short-sighted (why couldn't Cyworld have simply internationalized its single portal, like Facebook always has, instead of trying to launch its lame-ass Japanese and US versions, while of course adding real functionality) -- Facebook is going to become the de facto standard here.

With a little help from friends who are already international, in terms of being open-source and standards unto themselves -- iPhone and Android. Because Samsung is lame and won't be able to compete in terms of the lame OS it has put onto their phones, they're going to do the smart (and only) thing and simply make kickass hardware for Android. And those two standards are going to have up-to-date and varied Facebook apps and options.

Again, leaving Cyworld, a Korean domestic company, alone to battle the full force and power of a platform that is international, has a huge head start in making apps open-source on their own site, as well as battling against the tendency to become the de facto standard on two international phone OS's.

Good fucking luck, Cyworld.

I feel the huge mass of the mainstream starting to quiver and creak, as it starts the slow tip over the other way. And how do you stop the slow-but-massive force of everyone-else-in-the-world, even if you are an island in the stream?

YouTube, check!
Twitter, check!
Facebook, checkmate!

And that's game.

By the end of the year, Koreans will be Facebooking, while Cyworld becomes the new MySpace. 

Cyworld, buh-bye.