Scribblings of the Metropolitician

Who Owns Da Boots?

"These boots were made for walking..." Or were they? Leather? Buckles? Rope ties on the sides? And rhinestone bling on the heels, to boot? Ahem.

And just who owns these boots, anyway? Find out all this and more at you-know-where, where we just put up a new post.

Told You So, and a Rant

Beware – rant ahead.

As a reminder, here's an excerpt from this October 16 post, which some said was just me "jumping the gun":

Anyway, some predictions:

1) More calls for background checks on foreigners that won't ever happen, and won't affect anything, anyway.

2) More "stories" printed about the allegedly lower sexual mores of foreign men.

3) No actual stories of foreign teachers having been caught doing anything with a minor, unlike what you can hear about every day in the society section of any Korean newspaper.

You can read about what I think would improve the quality of teaching and life for foreign teachers and their students alike, but it's all fantasy, since it'll never happen in a Korea that treats foreigners, no matter what we do, like walking, talking dictionaries.

Well, the big one, #1, has already come to pass. Numbers 2 and 3 continue to be true, as the media sniffs for anything to blow into a scandal involving a foreign teacher, even as such cases hardly ever come up. To mbscuit:

OLD NEWS
My whole point is that articles and reports like this are nearly always built upon the most specious of evidence, and even fly in the face of facts. The 1995 media circus around the GI "harrassing" the woman on the subway. False. It was his wife and they were being attacked. Not only were there no retractions, the stories CONTINUED. [I have this in my files, and am searching for the interview, which came from the 조선월간. I am blanking on the site. Help?]

2002년 06월 >> "인물과 인터뷰"

[특별인터뷰] 孔魯明 (前 외무부 장관)의 통렬한 金大中 외교노선 비판

『일부 美軍 범죄가 국민감정에 좋지 않은 영향을 미칠 수 있겠지요. 그러나 3만7000명의 美軍이 주둔하고 있는데 범죄가 없을 수 없다는 것을 생각해야 합니다.

개중에는 과장되는 면도 있는 것 같아요. 제가 정부에 있을 때 지하철에서 美軍이 한국 여성을 性추행한 사건이 TV에 크게 보도된 적이 있습니다. 당시 美軍 측이 우리에게 알려 온 바로는 美軍이 性추행했다는 한국 여성이 바로 자기 부인이었다는 겁니다. 지하철 안에서 엉덩이를 만지고 한 것이 문제가 된 것인데 이것은 문화적인 차이 때문에 생긴 것입니다. 한국적인 문화에서는 자기 부인이라고 해서 남이 보는 데서는 그렇지 않잖아요. 그런 것을 모르고 TV에서 「美軍 性추행사건」이라고 대대적으로 보도한 것입니다. TV뿐 아니라 신문에 그러한 사실을 알려줘도 전혀 訂正 보도를 해 주지 않더군요』

I consider that a reliable source, since it was the transcript to an interview, and I trust even a major Korean news source enough not to fudge entire interviews. Also, the information there is corroborated by many sources I read at the time, specifically the letter written by the couple itself.

Any of the stories from 2002-2003. "No compensation offered" or "no apologies from military" or even "no apologies from Bush." THese are are patent mistruths, and were available on the US Embassy website in both English and Korean from day 1.

The foreigner who "gave his Korean girlfriend AIDS." Based on a Hotmail written in broken Konglish, contact by the jilted girlfriend herself. THis is a source?

Even the GI's in Hongdae who stabbed a Korean guy. Left out of the story was the fact that there was a KATUSA with the two GI's (but that fact would have made it inconvenient to market as a "two GI's go on a rampage against Koreans" story) and the three of them were in fact attacked by 5 Korean attackers, who were drunk and came out of nowhere. This is all information that is agreed upon in the case. The GI who stabbed the Korean man said he did so only after his KATUSA friend took off, and two men were holding his friend down and one was strangling him. He then reached into his bag, where he had a knife, and stabbed the man with his hands around his friend's throat. Whatever happened that day, it wasn't a case of "two GI's rampaging in Shinchon."

Or the YTN story about foreigners "rampaging in Hongdae" and then being miraculously "clean and safe" a week later.

Or yes, the silly fake degrees stories that are given out of context of the fact that the vast majority of foreigners here, no matter how stupid or rude or what have you, at least did graduate from where they said they did. And now that it's found that there are apparently huge numbers of Koreans with fake degrees, do we call Koreans the "fake degree society" or paint the entire group with the brush of a minority?

And for all the talk of "pedophile teachers", that single case of the guy teaching in Korea was 1) a single case, and 2) he STILL wasn't accused of doing anything IN KOREA. In fact, the irony is he was obviously making his money HERE to go THERE and do his dastardly deeds.

Tell me, are you one of those people who just believes everything he sees on TV? So because it was ON KBS, it's true? And according to what statistics are crimes rising? And is the raw number of crimes rising commensurate with the rising number of foreigners overall? Is the ratio changing? And the real question is whether that ratio is becoming large enough to warrant making laws to stop it.

Do you even ask questions when you watch TV? So based on a news media that has a clear record of extreme bias against this group, in order to sell newspapers, and a single case, you feel it's right to make a policy that will in fact increase the numbers of foreigners working underground, while encouraging the legal ones to leave?

Because of ONE guy and a handful of idiots?

I don't just attribute this to KBS, but to MBC, YTN, and all the other racist and journalistically irresponsible news media. It's because of low standards such as these that YTN actually reported Bill Gates as having been murdered because a single news source reported it, whereupon YTN reported it as fact. It's called DOUBLE-CONFIRMING reports, with at least two separate sources, a basic journalistic standard. But these, most Korean media outlets 대충 away. Who needs facts when it sells newspapers or keeps people on our channel?

One of the reasons I don't talk to Korean reporters is that in every single case of the several times I have been in the news, the reporter has conducted interviews without taking any notes, or making any recordings, and completely misreports basic facts and dates – and this is even without BIAS. This just comes from mere laziness. I have never had a reporter from a Korean domestic daily report even my basic biographical information correctly, let alone attribute quotes.

FOR EXAMPLE
In a 2003 interview with me, the Kyunghyang Shinmun did a report on me as a foreign photographer in which they mispelled my name, got all the dates wrong, had me doing jobs I never did, and attributed extensive quotes to me that I had never said (and I remember, since they used vocabulary words I hadn't learned yet, and had to look up in order to understand what *I* had apparently said), and couldn't have remembered since they didn't take notes nor record me. And this is not just here – this is standard procedure in Korean journalism.

As is harrassing subjects, re-posing pictures after the event, or even asking event organizers to write the story themselves, which the reporter will just write up later because s/he is too lazy to attend.

By contrast and as a good example, the AP reporter who interviewed me for the piece they did on me – she is a Korean national, by the way, and a good inoculation against the accusation that I am "racist against Koreans," since this isn't about biology but about standards in a journalistic community – was good. She accurately conveyed what it was I had said, gave it the proper context, and got all the pertinent facts dead on right, except for the fact that I was 6'2", which I'm not.

She even included a piece of information I gave her, but then later regretted, but I understood her decision to run it, since she's not my public relations officer, but a reporter. She's not going to alter the story for the sake of my convenience. I respect that, and I respect that she had to consult an alternative viewpoint to mine, even if that guy's response was idiotic.

Point is, were I a Korean citizen, with my knowledge of the Korean media's record of being formerly a propaganda tool for a government that worked hard to repress information, as well as the many problems evident in reporting to the present day, I'd trust a Korean newspaper's account of something, especially on a subject filled with such obvious and blatant bias, as far as I could throw it. So refuting my claims with mere quotations from the problematic news sources I am criticizing does nothing for me.

Getting Anthropological with the Wonder Girls

Thanks to Gusts of Popular Feeling for the lengthy, well-thought write up. For another sendup on the Wonder Girls, I think it's a smart piece. And I do like the fact that we can have a conversation here, building on each other and adding, helping the thought processes move along. Two related posts:

"Reading too much into the Wonder Girls"

"Perceptions of teens in the mid-1990's"

I am especially glad that Matt went and did the latter write-up, since he explicitly found a lot of the stuff I had read and heard about back in the 1990's and from working in alternative and youth education in the 2000's. That's where a lot of my apparent anger and disgust with the Wonder Girls marketing and reception by older men is coming from, since there are some pretty significant reasons in Korean society for alarm bells to be going off here.

At least, from one perspective.

Great job, and as always, great blog.

The 63 Building Abandoned! Mapo Bridge Destroyed!

In the fictional world of 2012, as depicted in the upcoming blockbuster I Am Legend, starring Will Smith.

I've been waiting for this flick to arrive for a while, and I'm glad to see it getting the same rollout as most any Big Willie blockbuster. HT to ZenKimchi for letting me know about the international marketing campaign, which uses specialized posters depicting post-apocolyptic landscapes of locales around the world very effectively to raise interest.

The last Will Smith film to depict the destruction of major cultural object was Independence Day, but we've come a long way since 1996. It's a global film market (for example, Japan is the world's #2 largest movie market outside of the US, which made a huge difference in how the film Pearl Harbor became pap), and marketing a film depicting a global event with the local effects of it seems like a brilliant move.

[A poster I saw in front of the Shinchon Artreon.]

[The American version of the same poster.]

Now, you get the feeling that everyone's more a part of the story. [HT to Movie Poster Addict for the other American international posters here.]

One thing that is true for me, as an American watching American action/disaster films is that the emotional ante has always been based on the fictional desctruction of sacred objects that American holds dear, e.g. the White House, Empire State Building, etc. In Independence Day, watching the aliens blow the Capitol Building apart like a matchstick house was "thrill" in the true sense of the term, in that this was unimaginable at the same time it was so realistically depicted on the screen.

[Taipei.]

Were I not American, I would find the scene shocking, since these buildings are symbols for the world as well, since they are so familiar, like watching the Eiffel Tower buy it in Deep Impact. You just go "wow."

[Paris.]

But I also like the fact that there are buildings, in the local versions, that are obviously significant, but as an average American, I wouldn't know much about. Hence, my American friends might scratch their heads at the Taiwanese poster, or the Korean one. And they might just end up going online and finding more about the campaign and the banners. Very cool.

[Tokyo.]

But Americans have always enjoyed a home-field advantage when it comes to the thrill of aliens blowing "our" stuff up and getting pissed about it such that you really, really want to see them buy it in a bad way in the end. The White House is indeed a symbol and "ours" when it comes to aliens invading, but for Americans, it is obviously more specificially "ours" than it is for other people.

[Sydney.]

That's why I like the way the marketers up the ante for the international audience by making it "hit home" in the marketing campaign, forcing Koreans, say, to localize the mayhem by looking at the 63 Building in ruins with the signs of failed attempts at controlling the disease. Now, a Korean person can more vividly imagine how that might go down, where they might flee, which highway one might take to beat the masses trying to escape, where a safe haven might be, etc.

Thanks again to Movie Poster Addict, where you can see even more banners than the ones I've managed to bogart and put up here.

The Wonder Girls = Kiddie Porn?

Seriously. People are actually wondering why rates of "wonjo kyojae" ("compensated dating" with minors) seem to be on the rise. Oh, I don't know – watching 14 and 15-year-old girls do violent pelvic thrusts to lyrics such as this, as when you get to 7:30 of this video [huge H/T to Popular Gusts]:

Dont cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me
Dont cha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me
Dont cha, dont cha
Dont cha wish your girlfriend was raw like me
Dont cha wish your girlfriend was fun like me
Dont cha, dont cha

And I thought Britney Spears was risqué.

Call me old-fashioned, but perhaps it's because I teach girls this age that I find it disgusting to so blatantly make sex objects out of girls the same age. We're talking middle school, people.

But we can go younger if you want – go to MNCast and type in "섹시 댄스" and "꼬마". Took me one try. God knows what you can find out there if you're actually LOOKING for it. If you are easily creeped out, I advise you to skip.

Somehow, I don't find the Wonder Girls as skirting the edge of appropriateness – when you're doing the same dances that you can find in any Deja Vu, for which you'd put a dollar in a g-strong for, I think it reaches a whole new level – especially when the girl is 14 and hasn't even finishing growing her secondary sex characteristics yet.

Over on FMS, I did post on The Wonder Girls before I really knew who they were. I did kind of like their 80's nostalgia marketing and the 80's pop revival style that could work – if they were able to actually sing. But I kind of regret my first post on them, because I had no idea they were so young. Seriously, they looked a lot older in those 80's pics. And after learning more about them – it's kinda gross, to put a fine point on it. After some time, my second post on them was far less charitable.

Come on, JYP – do you really have to recruit so young? And if they can't even sing and dance, umm...what's the point of recruiting so young, again? Unless...?

'Cause they really can't sing to save their lives. And the "dance?" Funny thing is, the thing they do with their shoulders is really, really, popular amongst boys, as are the Wonder Girls themselves. I am seriously starting to think that part of the appeal is the cracking voices of pubescent girls themselves. Perhaps, given what the market is apparently looking for, JYP is smarter than us all.

Hey, the Wonder Girls are at the top of the charts and queens of the pop world right now. Who am I to argue?

"Nam saaaaan" (Full)

Thanks to reader Max for finding this for us.

Definitely interesting stuff – Latino in da 집. I do fail to understand, however, why these super-innocent-looking, vanilla girls are like the be-all and end-all in pop culture. That heavily plastic, generic-looking girl just doesn't work at all in this video, its style, or at all look right next to a guy named "Tyfoon."

I know she gets all "Tyfoonized" in the end, but she still looks funny. Hehe. Maybe it's just me.

Anyway, I don't know much about this group, but from the looks of their production quality, they're still breaking out. So it looks like their use of UCC to get this video out there (I was passed that intro link left and right by Korean friends) is pretty successful. And that song made me want to get up off my sofa.

Nice!

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.

"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.

SeoulGlow #8 - Goodbye, Teacher

Join special guest Melissa Yasinow, a fellow Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (ETA) who is completing her year in Naju – her last day at school is today – and the note that she enlisted my technical help to make. The content and love is all hers, since I'm just working the camera this time.

While Melissa wanted to make a simple note to her school, I thought it might be a good opportunity to pose the question of why we don't see any foreigners like her in the Korean media, which seems to be bending as far as possible backwards to show the worst possible stereotypes of foreigners in the media.

That said, enjoy one American woman's tribute to a positive experience that has changed her life, and I'm sure she has touched the lives of her students, teachers, and friends as well.

"UCC Cafe"

I'm inaugurating a new kind of content here call "SeoulGlow QuickCuts." To me, these are like snapshots, except everything's moving. I think of them as slices of life, Seoul, what have you – stuff that's not quite SeoulGlow episode material, but needs to be seen/heard in motion. No real editing, intros, in-depth interviews, but just pleasant little slices of life.

I came across this place called a "UCC Club" called "Drunken Memory" in Hyehwa, where culture and the Internet come together (in the club, not Hyehwa, although maybe there's some of that going on, too). These two young folks are "UCC Stars," the latter of whom is apparently vocal group Big Mama's vocal trainer.

More on them later – I don't have links or anything, but I sure will in the future. I think both the girl is pretty good, along with the trainer guy, who seems less of a performer himself than someone who understands the theory and can technically deliver the notes, especially in this song that seems designed for a female vocalist. Remember Dream Girls? That's it.

So – a "UCC club," where you can get your drink, dance, and digital debut on, all at the same time. Seems like an interesting adaptation of "UCC" to the particulars of Korean way of socializing and showing off; perhaps offering a stage, recording equipment, and a venue where socialized drinking and acts of creating stronger group bonds – which seems to me pretty Korean style – will be a popular way to get down on video.

And perhaps you might even be "discovered." Who knows?

And another "perhaps" – as Acts of UCC™ become more bold, perhaps we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel of over-sensitivity about cameras and a perceived (and overblown) sense of permanent peril to one's reputation related to the "right to one's image."

Is the age of Dog Poop Girl paranoia Hongdae Honey Horror finally coming to an end?