...Busan Lights

Brian Myers

2010-01-25T00:46:00.000-08:00

I really like reading Brian Myers, who I consider to be the world's foremost expert on North Korean culture (and perhaps thereby North Korea in general). He teaches at Dongseo University, speaks Korean fluently...well, I'll let you read his Wikipedia page. He's legit, and I highly recommend his A Reader's Manifesto -- An attack on the growing pretentiousness of American literary prose, which was originally printed in The Atlantic.

He's got a new book coming out, which means he's in the public eye a little these days. There's an article in today's Voice of America that's worth a read, since it does a nice job of summing up a lot of his ideas in a succinct way.

In his new book, Myers describes North Korea's core race beliefs as a legacy of Japanese colonial rule in the early 20th century.

"After an initial period in which they brutally tried to stamp out all Korean feelings of pride in their nation, the Japanese decided to co-opt it. They did this by saying 'you Koreans, and we Japanese, we are all part of a uniquely pure race, a uniquely ancient race, that goes back thousands and thousands of years, to the same divine progenitor," he explained.

The Japanese left when Tokyo was defeated in World War II, says Myers, but North Korea kept key pillars of their ideology.

"The Korean people, because they are so racially pure, because they are so homogeneous, are morally superior to all other peoples, not tainted by outside influences which, according to the North Korean world view, are inherently evil," he said.

This is the main reason I'm not really looking forward to a unified Korea. There's plenty of Korean pride and wacky ideas about homogeneity to go around in the South as it is. A post-North Korea Korean peninsula would be worse up in Seoul, and especially in Jeolla, where I'm assuming a lot of North Koreans would end up if they chose to move south, but I'm sure there would be a few in this part of the country as well.

Jesus and Tinkerbell

2010-01-23T00:13:00.001-08:00

Funny photo via One Free Korea via North Korean Economy Watch. This is a little girl wearing an "I love Jesus" shirt while visiting Mangyongdae in Pyongyang. The shirt also reads "Tinkerbell, Trust and Pixie Dust." Someone making t-shirts in China has a good sense of humor.

Good that the person who took the photo had the sense to block out the girl's face as she (and maybe the guy behind her) could have surely been dead by now had a North Korean authority seen this.

You'll notice the title of this category. I think it's getting to the point where it's relevant to speculate on such theories and I'll try to do some of that going forward. I'll probably take an irreverent tone and focus when I do so. That's my style to begin with, but I think in this case the more irreverent, the more truthful and interesting.

I haven't met any North Koreans aware of, but I think I've lived in South Korea long enough to have some grasp on what might happen should people from the North begin arriving in the South in droves. What strikes me about the above photo is that the girl's skin is very dark. She will be easily identified as a North Korean, or at least a person from the countryside, which, is first and foremost what North Koreans would be in South Korea.

The man behind her also looks like someone from the countryside. I like his grin, but again, and I might be reading a bit too much into this since I know where the photo emanates from, he looks a bit unassuming, which will also be a major theme of a united Korea. With nearly half a century of a western-style economy under their belts, South Koreans are fairly savvy when it comes to money. North Koreans are anything but.

How Did You Get Here?

2010-01-22T00:19:00.000-08:00

I've never seen a single pomegranate in Korea -- until recently. Oddly enough I didn't find them at a luxury Lotte grocery store or something of that nature. Rather, the little old guy who sometimes sells fruit at the corner outside of my apartment was had them.

I couldn't specifically remember eating pomegranate during my life, but I was somehow under the impression that I liked them, so my friend and I bought 3 for 5,000 won. A little pricey. I didn't think much about it...I assumed the guy got them by accident, or that they were in season in China or in one of the many countries Korea recently signed a free trade agreement with.

But actually, I think pomegranates might be here to stay in Korea. I've seen them several times since. Mind you, this is all within the span of about a month. Then today, while wandering through the pages of Naver, I found some publicity photos for something called POM Wonderful, which is apparently a drink company based in the U.S., that is now spreading it's wings in Korea.

The hook for Koreans, and more specifically, Korean women? Pomegranates are high in antioxidants ie. it's good for skin. It'll also help you give better head, as the woman in the background of this photo on the right is seeming to suggest.

Don't get me wrong, I'll bet Pom is delicious. Probably a bit more expensive than I'd like to spend on a drink, but if I got a box of it free -- like the family in this photo essay apparently did -- I wouldn't throw it away. I bet I'd enjoy it.

However, as a fruit, I think pomegranates are a pain in the butt to eat. I like the fruit part, but there's more seed than fruit when it comes down to it, yet each piece is about the size of a seed. In this sense I compare it to another very seedy fruit popular in Korea, known as muskmelon in English, but I only know it as 참외 (cham-ay), since I've never seen it outside of Korea. I also came across an advertising photo essay with some cuties holding cham-ay. The occasion is that Lotte Mart is selling the melon, despite the fact that it's currently out of season. Interestingly both pomegranates and muskmelon are from the middle east and were originally brought to Asia by the Persian Empire.

Cold Winter

2010-01-19T01:18:00.000-08:00

When I was a lad, my friends and I started making mix tapes and exchanging them in school. We called them Fresh Tunes. We continued to make these through college and in the years that followed, but then stopped.

But once file sharing took off, CDs became an utter pain in the ass to deal with -- let alone send them half way across the world. I don't ever want to acquire a CD again whether its from a friend or a female Korean pop star.

However, I knew that once there was a service that allowed users to quickly drop files into a shared spot, a box if you will, that the door to Fresh Tunes would be reopened again. Thank you Dropbox.

Here's my first Dropbox Fresh Tunes, entitled Cold Winter.

My Artistic Renderings Will Make You Weep as if You've Seen an Angel

2010-01-18T00:39:00.000-08:00

I know it's probably the case in just about any culture, but I love how other worldly Korean construction plan renderings look. I posted one here of the planned area surrounding the Cheonan/Asan KTX station and I come across them all the time in image searches. Today, while looking for a photo of a Korean apartment building in the winter, I found the following:

That would be Doosan's "We've The Zenith," which, according to the source of the photo, was started in 2007 in Busan's Haeundae area. I'm familiar with the area, but I honestly couldn't tell you if this has been built yet. If it has it doesn't look like the above photo, that's for sure. Straight outta Blade Runner, yo.

Here's another one that's been in the media a bit recently -- for a new sports complex in Ansan, which is up near Incheon.

Looks kind of cool. Although I've been out in that part of Incheon -- and it looks nothing like anything that would someday look like the photo above or below. Quite honestly it looks like some typical Korean apartment buildings that are being built on a drained river. Naturally, there are plenty of angelic photos that would make any martian a proud pappy drawn up in anticipation. This one is quite abstract.

I'll look forward to posting more of these in the near future.

Thirst

2010-01-13T19:12:00.000-08:00

I saw it a while ago, but I wanted to make mention of Thirst by Park Chan-wook. I enjoyed the trilogy including Oldboy, which is probably the most well-known and best reviewed Korean-made film ever (discounting Korean opinion). I've always counted Oldboy as my "favorite Korean film ever" when speaking with Koreans. But after a while, I started to question myself. It's a great movie, but it's needlessly violent, and is something that I dislike more and more as time goes by. I don't know that I'd even be willing watch Oldboy again, which is too bad.

Anyway, my point about Thirst is that most of the gore happens off camera. For whatever reason Park spares us of that, which is a welcome change. Sure there's a lot of biting into necks, but it's done in a fairly non-violent way.

The story is basically a priest, who happens to be in love with his friend’s wife, turns into a vampire though a failed medical experiment. His vampire properties, of which I'm familiar with in a generic sense, are of the classic variety -- he needs blood to survive, runs around at night, sleeps in a coffin etc.

Song Kang-ho is the lead actor. I know him from The Host, which is probably the second most famous and well-reviewed Korean film. I didn't like The Host at all, despite that a lot of people gave it the same classic of the genre tag that I'm giving Thirst. But I did like Song, he's got a way of projecting empathy that's probably one of those things you can't teach to an actor.

Song is also from nearby Gimhae, which is kind of cool, and he also went to Kyungsung University in Busan, which is right where I used to live when I first moved to Busan. On fairly unrelated note, part of Oldboy was filmed in a basement restaurant in the same neighborhood where I used to eat a couple times a week. The restaurant is called Kirin (Korean for giraffe).

I was just poking around for some odd photos involving Oldboy and I came across this, which is a side by side comparison of an image from Oldboy and Virgina Tech shooter Cho Seung-Hui. Here's a New York Times story on that topic. It's a clear emulation, and it's strange to me that anyone would try to deny the link. I'd be willing to bet that incident had something to do with Park toning down the violence in Thirst. My guess is it is a conscious move and good for him.

Look Mom! I Gots Twigs For Legs

2010-01-12T18:00:00.000-08:00

I saw this photo on PopSeoul yesterday and it’s been stuck in my head ever since. On the left is Taemin from the boy band Shinee. On the right is Gu Hara, who I wrote about in a post here. She’s a very small woman by Korean standards (I wanted to say even by Korean standards, but the fact of the matter is that Koreans have grown in just the past decade), something you wouldn’t necessarily notice when she’s performing. When she appears on TV shows, as she and her Kara brethren have been wont to do these days, she kind of looks like a cute head on pencil -- I'm a little unsure if I'm actually attracted to her anymore.

But nothing really prepared me for ol twig legs here on the left. Initially I despised Shinee, but they must have changed songwriters or something, because the new tunes aren’t driving me to spit at the TV. They've got some hooks. Here's a link to their YouTubes most recent videos first.

I'm pretty sure that at least two of the guys in Shinee are gay, which is perfectly cool, but probably an uphill battle in the world of Korean pop music.

A Photo of Birds on a Frozen River and an Old Boat Restaurant

2010-01-10T18:15:00.000-08:00

I was out with my camera the other day. Normally when a blogger writes something like that it normally entails that some has a nice camera and some ability to take photos. That’s not the case with this blogger, but in return I won’t bore you with 30 photos at once. Just one or two per post. Deal?

I was in Ulsan recently and happened to be near the Tae-hwa River fairly early in the morning. These days it’s been cold everywhere in Korea, although less in Busan and Ulsan than most places. Anyway, here’s a photo of some birds standing on the edge of frozen water, doing some fishing. I liked that.

This other photo is of an agujjim restaurant that’s partially made out of an old ship. More about agujjim here -- it's basically a white fish (black angler aka goosefish) with hot pepper, garlic and scallions. I’ve walked by this place a few times. It’s hardly in a prominent spot -- it's down a back alley off a main street that's not all that main. It's also not very well kept and never open, which makes me unsure if I'd be willing to eat the food there. But I always like looking at it, and the other day I decided to take a few photos of it.

I thought the place had maybe closed down, but there were some covered fish tanks in the front that were still being used. I’ve seen a number of restaurants like this in the states…one that stands out in my memory is in Ballard, Seattle, but I can't seem to remember the name.

If this place were serving a dish I liked more I might give it a whirl, but agujjim isn’t one of my favorites. I’ve only eaten it two or three times ever, and I like it, but I find it very overpriced for what it is – bottom feeder fish in spicy sauce.

Haeundae's Red Light District

2010-01-04T23:50:00.000-08:00

That prostitution was made illegal in South Korea in 2005 is one of the biggest jokes and agreed falacies going in the country. That said, after six years of living in Korea, until recently I'd never seen anything like a red light district here. That changed a couple months ago when I was staying in a hotel in Yeongdeungpo, Seoul. I was out for a casual morning stroll, walked around to the backside of the brand new Shinsaegae Department Store, and saw what appeared to be some pink lights down the street.

More often than not, and very ironically so, windows with pink lights around the boarders are typically butchers, or stores selling meat. Whenever I see a butcher with pink light I inveitably, at least for a split second, think I'm coming upon a prostitute. This time was no exception, but as I walked closer I saw a woman sporting some cleavage, wearing white lace. I'm such a wimp, not to mention not all that attracted to your everyday hooker in Korea, I stopped on a dime, turned and walked away.

Funny that I'd come upon my second just a month or two later. I'd heard that a small red light district in Haeundae existed, but I couldn't imagine where. I've probably been to Haeundae some 100 odd times while living in Korea, and I know the area pretty well, especially the area down near the beach where all the hotels and motels are...where one would assume a red light district would be located.

But sure enough, right in the heart of the old hotel area was a little block of windows hidden (somewhat) carefully behind some high bushes. Granted, there aren't many high bushes in Haeundae, so maybe "carefully" isn't the right word. Again, I saw the pink lights and couldn't imagine I was seeing what I thought I was seeing, but sure enough, I saw a woman smoking a cigarette in some kind of silk neglige. She leaned out the window as a young man walked by. What a quintessential prostitution moment.

At right is a photo I snapped during the daytime:

There are warning signs next to the area telling kids that it's an adults only area. Ha. God forbid kids come across it. It's not as though each and every one doesn't live within 50 yards of a barbershop with two poles or a signing room where the owner will call some girls to come sing with you and fuck you if need be. But then, those places are for Koreans -- for fathers, sons and bosses. Not tourists. After all, prostitution was something that was left behind by Japanese colonizers and the U.S. Government.

I'm not going to try and describe where this place is, but here's a You Tube video that might give you a decent idea. The video is by a blogger living in Japan (he may have lived in Korea previously) and after some kind of boring stuff about love motels he takes you right down the street pictured above.

He also makes mention of the film Bad Guy by Kim Ki-duk, about a Korean woman forced into prostitution. It's probably in my Top 20 Korean films of all time.

Visiting the House I Used to Live in (But Do Not Remember)

2010-01-04T22:48:00.000-08:00

I don't want to bore people with too much dream recall (although you're free to skip it). What follows is what I dreamed last night. I'm going to try to make this a regular feature if I can, and I'll likewise try to keep the summaries succinct. Although I've learned (and found) in the past that if you write down your dreams your ability to recall them expands. Like I said...succinct.

I was walking down a street that looked to be somewhere in Northern California. The street was a little old and the houses of the suburban Berkeley/Oakland 1940s/50s ilk. I found a house with a community theater inside. I went in and looked around, bought a ticket for a performance. As I entered the theater I seemed already to know I wouldn't actually go to the performance. As it turned out, I used to live in the house, and in the dream I realized that, although the house itself is not familiar to me now. I went into what was "my old room," and sat down at the desk. I began to look at things on the internet -- something that looked like a Van Gough painting and a few other "artsy" things.

Later, I began to gather my things up. I had spent quite a bit of time there...I think I even took a shower. I packed my bag, then unpacked it because I had too many things. Just as I finished re-packing the person living in the room came home. She entered the room. She was an older woman, possibly in her 50s or even 60s. Since she lived alone a room inside a house-share I assumed she was not married. She asked me what I was doing there, and as a defense I told her that I used to live in the room. As the conversation went on I told her I was still on the lease, a fact that she disputed.

She began to change clothes in front of me, revealing out of date underwear, and an old and saggy body with rolls of fat. There was nothing to her undressing -- she was merely being casual. She ambled into the bathroom as we chatted, and when I sensed she was going to talk for a while, I slid out the door and out into the street. As I left I debated my move, worried that I could get caught and make the situation much worse than it already was. I also worried that I scared the woman. I imagined her talking to her roommate, telling her "that guy" that broke into her room, said he was still on the lease, but then left mid-conversation for no apparent reason.

The dream continued after I left the house, but it didn't seem to be connected in theme or scope, so I'm listing it on it's own. It's worth mentioning because animals die horrifically, which I can only assume is significant.

As I walked I tried to think of items I might have left in the room. Clues that would get me in trouble. I seemed to have everything in my backpack. As I approached my current house (or whatever the destination was) I saw two kittens, one that looked exactly like one that belonged to me. There was a lot of traffic on the street. The kittens were wild and as I crouched down to walk under a big rig, I tried to pet one. The truck began to move and I got out of the way. The kittens were still under the truck. As I turned around to see if the cats were ok, I saw that one had been run over and that the other was quickly devouring its dead body.

It's Snowed Everywhere in Korea Today...

2010-01-04T02:36:00.000-08:00

Except where I live.

I have mixed feelings about it. As I sat in my living room looking out into the parking lot of my apartment complex I did think "some snow would be kind of cozy." I didn't need to leave the apartment for anything, and the idea of some gently falling snow had its appeal.

Alas, no.

Might be just as well. Seoul had its heaviest snowfall in 70 years (whistle sound). It's amazing, that in a country roughly the size of Indiana, that it wouldn't snow here, but would snow 10 inches just 1 hour away (via plane).

Here are some of the highlights

Here's one of my favorite photos of the day -- a montage of people snowboarding and skiing in public places.

File this one in the glad it didn't snow here category:

Although I don't drive in Korea and I didn't go out...so what do I care?

The other day I downloaded a discography of Cluster with Brian Eno. I'm not always in the mood for this sort of thing, but in this kind of weather -- count me in. I woke up at 3 a.m. yesterday, and after going to the bathroom, I slipped back into bed and put this in my ears...I was asleep within 20 seconds. This is "Ho Renomo" from the 1977 self-titled album. I wonder if the title is Japanese.

Actually, I think the title is Japanese. In doing a quick search I came up with a homemade You Tube video for the track, which is a very cool old timey video of a Japanese woman doing a fan dance. Good stuff.

Bo-peep Me Hard From Behind

2010-01-02T00:57:00.000-08:00

I wouldn't say T-ara is my favorite girl group of the moment, but they're up there on a short list. I thought the song T.T.L. (Time to Love) was actually pretty good (despite the dudes). It's got a classic late 80s/early 90s dance pop (in Korea) sound to it.

"Bo Peep Bo Peep" on the other hand is pretty weak and is currently your #1 song in Korea. Basically they took the image, look and dance from Brown Eyed Girls "Abracadabra," put it to a much inferior song, then added some inexplicably stupid touches to said dance. Viola, #1. I don't so much mind the fact that it nicks Abracadabra -- if I got caught up in that I'd be hating on every K-pop song in existance. I don't even mind that the song isn't very good.

What bothers me mostly is the video, which is so over the top sexed-up it's embarrasing. Yeah, I just wrote that. Abracadabra, with it's also embarrassing faux-almost lesbian kiss at the end, was also dumb and out of character for Brown Eyed Girls, but at least that group has a hip-hoppy, at the club, leathery, sexed up image to begin with. "Bo Peep" doesn't sound sexy, and Tiara has always struck me as more of a pure-n-white kind of group, not a take-me-in-the-back-room-at-the-club-and-fuck-me kind of group.

It's sort of like if you're watching pro wrestling (I don't) and a villian emerges from the locker room spreading rose pedals in the crowd. It doesn't fit. I guess, since I feel I'm already demanding very little from Korean pop groups, I at least desire some consistancy in image. On this song T-ara isn't even consistant week to week -- here's a post New Year's live version where they're back to pure-n-white, which followed a bizzare sexy Hanbok thing that even the normally uber-positive Roboseyo found weird. Here's a video of a loser elementary school teacher doing the Bo Peep dance. Trust me, this song isn't that popular and not many people are doing the lame dance. In another two weeks everyone will have forgotten this song ever existed.

Here's the 19 and over version of Bo Peep and here's the 15 and up version.

More from Amur

2009-12-30T23:49:00.000-08:00

An adendum to the last post (short blog posts always deserve adendums) -- I came across this essay in the Dec. 17 economist, called The Amur's Siren Song. It's a decent read, more of slightly politicalized, historical review travel log than anything.

No mention of any North Korean loggers, but it gets into the history of the region, some of which is also reflected in this piece on Foreign Policy, a piece of a five part series called Where Russia Meets China. The FP essay (called "Don't Call Them Twin Cities") concerns Blagoveshchensk and Heihe. I'll let you guess what city is in what country.

The comments on The Economist piece are also worth a look. Two commenters have been to remote Amur, and another is complaining about the author's us of "The Sea of Japan/East Sea" to describe the body of water east of Korea and west of Japan.

North Korean Loggers

2009-12-28T03:10:00.000-08:00

In the days after reading about the North Korea loggers that that recently defected to the South I found myself drawn to one particular aspect of the story.

North Korea sends its people to work in a number of overseas countries to try to secure valuable foreign exchange. In the Amur region, nearly 1,500 North Korean workers are employed at a series of remote logging camps, according to a BBC report earlier this year.

Conditions are grim, with winter temperatures usually some 30 deg Celsius below zero. Apart from two holidays a year, the North Koreans are said to work year-round whatever the weather. The North Korean state takes 35 per cent of the proceeds from the logging, about US$7 million (S$9.8 million) a year, the BBC reported.

Here's where Amur is. I think of logging as a pretty grim occupation anyway -- I'm imagining freezing cold temperatures, numerous injuries, missing fingers, slivers. But 30C below zero? That's extreme cold. I've been chipping away at Raymond Carver -- A Writer's Life by Carol Sklenicka, and by virtue of him having lives in Yakima, Washington, and other places down the Oregon/Northern California cost, there are a number of references to people working in the logging industry during the early half of the 20th century.

Also came across this interesting gallery of logging photos, most of which are from the same period of time. Here's to hoping those loggers have some peace of mind in their new country.

Kara Bakery -- Sweet-n-Flaky

2009-12-27T21:32:00.000-08:00

I do like music, as the first post on this here blog somewhat indicates. I have a funny relationship with Korean pop music. When I first moved here I thought it was insipid and beneath contempt. Then I started to view it as more of a sport -- you have your favorites, your heroes and villians, you root for the ones you like and against those you don't like.

I tend to like girl groups. That is to say, I like Korean girls doing Korean pop music as opposed to the guys. So sue me. That's not to say I don't like any male K-pop artists or songs. But it's probably something like 80-20%, and I'm much more likely to dispise male K-pop artists. At least I'm in touch with my feelings on the matter.

One of the more popular groups going these days is Kara, who, say what you will, produced one of the catchiest songs of the year called Honey. I don't know what other foreigners think about Kara, because we don't talk about this sort of thing. By virtue of being Korean, all Koreans like all K-pop songs and artists, which is probably more the way it ought to be. But I'm a critical guy. I gots me opinions.

Kara are super cute. Sometimes the music jives with me and sometimes it doesn't. Honey is a great song, mostly because of the instrumentation, specifically the synth-washes. I also love the white/purity image they were running with at the time (note the sports metaphor). I say running because Kara changes it's image often, much to the dismay of some foreign bloggers.

So the big news is that Kara has opened its own bakery. As I understand it, the bakery is a TV show concept, but the bakery itself is real. It's part of the Crown bakery chain, the Wondergirls did a similar show/campaign a bit back. As far as Korean bakeries go, I'd place Crown at No. 4 or 5, which isn't very good considering there are about six in total.

So why is this worth posting about? Well, because they each did promotional videos and in this one you get to watch Hara dance around with a phallic, shake her 언덩이 and lick what looks like, um, frosting, off her fingers.

I suppose I could put myself on the couch and really get at my perceptions of gender, the hidden symbols of women in Korean pop music, and how this will play out in the Korean society of tomorrow, but frankly...that would be boring.

Cham Jinju

2009-12-26T06:45:00.000-08:00

The Korean government recently flew some former Peace Corps volunteers that served in the country during the 1960s. I've come across a few stories in the last week regarding this, so I'll bite and give it time here on my blog (audience of two, including myself).

This particular story is by a columnist based in Everett, Washington, writing about a guy who served in Jinju, a city I visited for the first time only recently. You'll find all the latest news on Jinju linked at the bottom of this page. I'm sure the man, William McCloy, was blown away at the changes. He met a Korean woman while here and ended up marrying her and taking her back to the states.

The 64-year-old Edmonds area man served as an English teacher in South Korea. He met wonderful friends and students, but also saw great need. He remembers struggling to stay warm, and teaching Korean health workers about basic hygiene.

Jinju is another one of those scary cities I mentioned a few posts ago, and I did meet a guy at the bus station who was mentally ill and told me he was in town to pick up his meds. Probably a case of a small sample size. It's just a backwater town, very industrial, with several clusters of smokestacks that have got to be pouring something very evil into the air at a high rate. I know a guy who was born in Jinju, but was adopted by an American family shortly after birth. He moved to Jinju to teach English for a few months, I'm sure in part, to reconnect with his hometown if not find his parents outright. He lasted about two weeks before moving up to Seoul for the duration.

Like Cheonan, Jinju gets the "historical city" tag due to the fact that ~~there's not much there~~ there's a castle there. I took a quick look at the Jinju Wikipedia page. Sounds like someone who works for the city of Jinju has been doing a little work on it:

The Nongae Festival, held in May each year commemorates and celebrates the sacrifice of the beautiful and patriotic gisaeng (professional Korean entertainer) Nongae's suicide-assassination of a Japanese general together with the 70,000 Koreans who lost their lives in the battle of Jinju Castle during the Imjin War.

Actually, there's a link in the above quote that goes to this page, which is a very nice photo essay (possibly written by the same person that wrote the wiki) on a blog detailing the Nongae Festival. I'm even half tempted to go back and check it out.

Slight tangent here: while doing a search for the Peace Corps folks revisiting Korea I came up with this goofy story about a local-boy-makes-good from Rhode Island who teaches English in Korea and does photography as a hobby. Basically, the story is an interview with him about Korea. Nothing wrong with that. Everyone gets 15 minutes and all that. He's thinking of joining the Peace Corps by the way. Hopefully he'll have a blog. The world needs a few more. A-hem.

And in case you're wondering, Cham Jinju, or really Charm Jinju is the tourist slogan, which gets a few points, in the great contest of dorky Korean city slogans, because it works in both English and Korean -- 참 (pronounced "cham") means true or genuine. Close enough to charm.

Korea to Employ English Teaching Robots

2009-12-23T18:38:00.000-08:00

You (as in myself, the only reader of this blog thus far) might have noticed at the bottom of the page here is a newsfinder contraption that will pull in different stories related to cities in the Busan area. I'm sure I'll get into further topics concerning Masan later, but the city is one of two (the other being Daejeon) that next year will introduce English teaching robots at local schools.

This story is from Xinhua, which is a Chinese source, so lets account for the fact that there might be some baiting going on here, but I'm intrigued by this idea. The story specifies that the robots will be introduced "in an attempt to better serve students in provincial cities." So that kind of follows along the lines of the Vietnamese women that are being introduced (probably into similar areas) to better serve men in provincial cities.

I might also suggest the introduction of robots as English students in Korea. That might solve a few problems as well.

Mass Weddings in Chunan

2009-12-23T18:19:00.000-08:00

The other day when I was poking around for info on Chunan (as opposed to Cheonan) for the previous post I came across some photos of a mass wedding that happened there on August 1, 2005. The photo caption reports that 4,600 couples from 186 countries around the world participated in the event.

When I first moved to Korea and taught at an English language school for adults I met a Korean guy that had married a Japanese woman. At the time I was just becoming aware of the fact that Koreans typically went to great lengths to marry other Koreans, and also that Koreans and Japanese people hated one another. You can certainly fiddle with those two accusations -- today Koreans are marrying foreigners more than ever and the Japan vs. Korea rivalry is currently at a low ebb -- but I'm simply trying to represent the two conclusions I was starting to make at the time.

I liked the guy, and what I'm getting at is that I liked the fact that he'd married a Japanese woman. We talked about it in class a fair amount, and only toward the end of the class month did I realize he was a Moonie.

I don't have any big beefs with the Unification Church. I will say that was one of the few things I knew about South Korea before I moved here, and so it's always surprised me that the church isn't more visible within Korea. That student is the only Moonie I've ever met here, and I don't typically see advertisements, churches, or much of anything Moonie-related in Korea. That said, Koreans are pretty good at sweeping image-encroching things under the rug -- the Moonies being no exception, I guess.

I haven't spent much time looking into this, but one thing that's always struck me about the Moonies, mostly the idea of mass weddings, fits into modern-day Korean culture pretty well. As far as I can tell most post-war marriages in Korea up into the late 80s were arranged, and arranged marriages are still happening today, under the guise of the Buddhist-based ma-sun, for which people basically go to a fortune teller (with their parents) who then suggests partners based on numerology compatibility. I think most of the arranged marriages back in the day followed a similar route, with the cavait that today's Koreans (in most cases) have more choice in the decision.

Today, most Korean weddings occur at wedding halls that have as many as two or three weddings happening at the same time on the same floor, with a number of other weddings going on other floors in the same building. This is changing too as people have more money to spend, and spend it on more private wedding affairs where you'll see just one wedding at a time. But that costs money of course.

Frankly, I don't have a big problem with arranged marriage. I'm guessing more good marriages happen due to the fact that the couple is willing to make it work rather than the fact that they both put the cap back on the toothpaste tube or both like science fiction movies. Again, I'm not going to back this up with any hard evidence, but I think it's safe to say the Korean divorce rate is a lot higher today than it was 30 years ago, despite the fact that people have more freedom to choose partners. This probably has more to do with people being less willing to just stick it out in a bad marriage. But if you feel like you have fewer options, chances are you'll make it work one way or another.

Unfortunately, I only taught that student for a month. I'd be curious to know what he's up to now, several years later. I'd like to know if his marriage is still together (bet it is) and how he's managed to keep it going.

Photos from www.life.com.

Cheonan and Chunan

2009-12-22T16:51:00.000-08:00

The title is the same word for 천안, a city about an hour south of Seoul. The first is the newer romanized spelling, and the second the olde, postwar way.

I've been to Cheonan a few times now. Ordinarily I'd put it into my list of "scary" Korean cities. Scary isn't necessarily a fair description, and I doubt it's all that scary, actually. But there are places in Korea where there aren't many foreigners, where the buildings are a little old and run down, and where I see what seems to be a disproportionate number of drunk men during the daytime.

Put the above three together and you have the makings for a "scary situation," which is essentially a drunk, old man chasing me down a rundown street. In reality, this has only happened to me a couple times, and only when I've had a Korean woman on my arm, but from time to time I still worry.

At any rate this trip to Cheonan was perfectly pleasant and it ended, as it has before, with me killing time in the Cheonan/Asan KTX station for more than 90 minutes. The station itself is somewhat isolated, on the edge of what was Cheonon. Was, because like a number of Korean cities it's being transformed into something else entirely, using the KTX station as the center. This Korean blog actually has a photo essay of the transformation process, with the "before" photos, in which the area is nothing but countryside, saved for the end.

I walked around the station several times. The Asan station is part of the Seoul Subway network. The KTX station was built onto that, so now the city/cities are connected to Seoul in two ways -- one which takes about 30 minutes and costs 19,000 won, and the other which takes about 90 minutes (I'm guessing) and probably costs 3-4,000 won. About a year ago the Cheonan/Asan station looked like spaceship landed in the countryside. Now, a number of apartment building projects are going up nearby. But the grand plans, which are showcased in drawings around the station, are a sight to behold.
In the states, we might label something an "up and coming" neighborhood if it's being rejuvenated. Ft. Greene in Brooklyn is one area that while I was living there, was being transformed from a dump, to a hipster hangout, and finally to an expensive neighborhood that attracted young moneyed couples looking to start families.

In Korea this works a little differently and it all has to do with modernization. Usually, in the middle of nowhere, a subway line with be built, and then 15-20 apartment buildings, each 20 stories tall, with pop up. This is happening in Cheonan, but on a larger scale. There are 10 apartment complexes going up, as well as a number of malls (the one at right here is the Y-mall, currently being built near the train station) and skyscrapers being planned. It's going to look something like the photo up top. Dig the Dubai hotel-style thing in the background. Also in the photo you can see the KTX line running though the center.

I know these architectural renderings look a little like someone's wet dream, but it's all still impressive. I believe the square looking building in the foreground is going to be some kind of city government center. If I was looking to move somewhere in Korea and start a family I'd probably give serious consideration to this area, and not only because of the spastic "golf resort," which looks less golf-y and more waterslide-like. I'm a fan of waterslides. I'd love to bring a special someone here one of these days...

Spastic is the right word, no?

Cheonan is known as a "historical city" in Korea, which means it has nothing else going for it but historical sites and temples, most of which you could find anywhere else in Korea. Famous food? Sundae soup, which is a kind of blood sausage made from cow or pig intestines. I'll pass, thanks.

But once all this other stuff is built Cheonan is going to be a nice livable city, and I'd even say it'll be one of South Korea's fastest growing cities. "World's Best City"?, as the city's English page so humbly proclaims? Hmm...maybe I'll wait a bit before designating it that. I'll stick with "livable," and no longer "scary."

Grown' Up

2009-12-22T12:01:00.000-08:00

This kind of story always blows me away, partially because I've watched it happen before my very eyes. Koreans are taller than when I got here. I had a girlfriend once tell me that if we had kids she'd "know how to make our kids tall." I had no idea. I'd always thought hanging for hours on the swingset in the backyard was the way to go about that.

From the New York Times:

A growing conviction that tallness is crucial to success has prompted South Korean parents to try all manner of approaches to increase their children’s height, spawning hundreds of “growth clinics” that offer growth hormone shots, Eastern herbal medicine and special exercises to ensure that young clients will be the ones looking down, not the ones looked down upon.

“In our society, it’s all about looks,” said Ms. Seo, 35. “I’m afraid my daughter is shorter than her peers. I don’t want her to be ridiculed and lose self-confidence because of her height.”

I don't mean to oversell this. I don't think I saw many Koreans taller than 6'3 when I arrived here, and plenty of guys around 5'0. Now the site of a 6'3+ fella is commonplace, and while the little guys are still running around, bein' cute and everything, the number of tall young people in this country -- both men and women, as the story says -- is startling.

...Shhh

2009-12-22T04:12:00.000-08:00

Starting this blog has become such a non-preoccupation that the test post has been sitting here for two weeks. Off to a good start.

I live in Busan, Korea. I've been here a few years. I travel around the country quite a bit for my job, so I'm thinking I might have a few interesting things to say. Maybe not.

Tonight I was walking home listening to Miles Davis Shhh Peaceful. I used to have it on record a decade or so at home in Oakland, but I don't think I really got it until tonight as I was walking home from the bus stop. I was walking really fast, to the point that I wondered if I was looking foolish. I must have been. But the beat on this song had me walking in this cathartic walk-jig, and next thing I knew I was catching the eyes of a few women. Might have been my hat. Might have been the music they couldn't hear. I like that. I jutted into a crosswalk on a red light. I live next to it and I know how to time it. But the intersection after, that's a different animal -- the traffic is unpredictable and the cars faster. But I jutted right into that too and danced across the street.

Whipped past the mandu restaurant that's not all that great and then peered into the hairdressing shop where the beautiful woman works, but never looks at the passing eyes outside (mine aren't the only eyes...believe you me).