** Gallery of Stupid came through with another of those horrid elementary school English videos, this one of the black kid using chopsticks. These are what elementary school teachers are required to teach as per the government curriculum. So we're not only trying to teach English but unteach all the garbage they've learned about foreigners and foreign cultures. The centerpiece of one of the lessons is a song about visiting a foreigner's house that goes "Don't take off your shoes / Don't take off your shoes / We don't take off our shoes in the house." If I thought anybody would have gotten it I would have reversed it to "Don't cover your mouth / Don't cover your mouth / We don't cover our mouths when we sneeze."
** Anybody get a Love Pot? No, that's not some bad English I saw on a shirt, a "Love Pot" is apparently a relatively big item this holiday season, if the non-stop commercials are anything to go by. At first I thought it was just a weird decoration, but it's an "aroma humidifier." You can get yours for 29,000 won, with proceeds going to a charity for underprivledged children.
** kimchi-icecream writes about his nightmarish adventure while getting the medical exam required for his E-2 visa.
** Another distasteful cartoon in the Korea Times. At this point it might be more efficient to point out when the cartoon isn't offensive.
** Quest For Cuteness's husband goes on a crappy hagwon interview.
** Otto Silver brings up some good points about all these introductions to quote-unquote Korean culture we get during orientations, meetings, and so on.
I’m not sure if it was the Gyeonggi Education Department or our city’s program, but yesterday we were treated to “Korean Culture”. 5000 years of history and all you have to show is kimchi and pottery?
No doubt the program was sincerely intended to show us more about Korean culture, and the whole day was quite fun, but sometimes I wonder if Koreans actually know what their own culture is all about. Do they not realize that watching TV on tiny screens on the bus/subway, playing games at the PC bang all day and boiling it up at the Jimjil Bang or Baths are as much part of Korean culture as kimchi is? Would it not be more useful for us to learn more about the history and use of these? Show me ONE teacher who has been here more than a month who has not heard about the whole history of kimchi. Now that I think about it, they never tell us that chili is a comparatively recent addition.
Would it not be more useful for the Provence to work on setting up language schools to teach us the Korean Language? Would we not learn more about Korean culture if we were able to experience it directly with the use of said language?
** God, Shelton Baumgartner is pleased with himself.
** The mayor of Suncheon was named the best in the nation by Economy Magazine. At least that's what I think it's saying. From the Suncheon city website, post 102:
The mayor of Suncheon tried to improve the quality of life in all areas such as education, welfare, environment, economy etc., and led the municipal government in establishing the strategic purpose "Korea's Ecological Capital, Suncheon", which is suitable for regional and distinct from other regions.
In addition, keeping the concept of the citizen at the top of the municipal administration, he sought to strengthen the competence of autonomy of the citizen, in particular, he performed, for the first time in the nation, the policy of public health and total welfare service, "Happiness 24 hours with generous people in Suncheon'', hence the high evaluation of the leadership of the administration for citizens was received. His philosophy of regional autonomy, which is managing the transparent administration based on the law and the principle, has also served as an example.
** An interesting discussion going in the comments to this ROK Drop post about the man in the Santa suit who killed eight people before killing himself. Killing people is bad, but the thread's trajectory is right that all the attention will be on the man who killed his kid, without looking at the greedy wife and the legal system that makes divorce---and thus by extension marriage---so ruinous for American men.
** Gwangju is going for the 2015 Universiade, a big international sports competition for college athletes. This May they lost out on the 2013 one, though you might remember Daegu hosted the 2003 Games, the Universiade that featured all those North Korean cheerleaders. Anyway, while searching for that first article I came across one I hadn't seen before: "Painful History Makes Gwangju Unique Candidate." The other two finalists were Vigo, Spain and Kazan, Russian, both located on a notoriously peaceful continent. When I become President of Foreigners, I'm declaring a moratorium on the use of "unique" and "sexy" by Koreans.
** I had planned a post about this year's school festival but I don't think I'll have time to get to it for a while. Suffice it to say I've heard this song way too many times.
Christ. And the English subtitles are driving me nearer the edge. Between them and the Wonder Girls you're raising a whole generation of kids to walk around talking about how pretty they are. Not in subtle terms, either, it's right in the damn refrain. You'll remember Kara began their assault on my sanity with "Rock U." I can't decide which single is worse.
** Ever since YouTube Korea came a lot of videos have been taken down, meaning if you have a blog you'll have to go through and double-check all the videos you've posted (especially music videos and commercials) to make sure they're still working.
** The Party Pooper noticed something that I didn't in those photos of "sexy Santa" Lee Yuri; the dress was clearly designed for someone quite, um, bigger.
Remember, if you vote me President of Foreigners there will be no more "sexy Santas." Jesus Tapdancing Christ, you run a Naver image search for 섹시산타 and it looks like a gallery of animitronics gone bad.
11 comments:
Now there's a post that would be an interesting, and quite potentially hilarious, to read.
"Brian's Presidential Manifesto"
Come on Brian, you know ya wanna write it . . .
Happy New Year,
J
...nobody, nobody, nobody but you, Brian. Another great post. Have a Happy New Year!
I don't find the comic with Israel insulting. Next--who the fuck is Venus and that asshole Baumgartner? Who gives a fuck if he is "someone" in Korea? Someone in Korea is no-one anywhere else. Last, I love the eye candy. If I were president of Korea, I would make the eye candy wear Santa and elf costumes, lounging on couches with their mouths open. Yum.
Shelton . . . he used to guest post on The Marmot's Hole a few years ago, and everybody hated him for it. He was also an editor of a local paper I think. He was listed as the editor of the little English newspaper made for students that they read at the old hagwon. He would write columns in there from time to time about shit like kimchi and Korean movies. I don't mean to be a total dick in case he reads my site---probably not---but he's not the kind of person who can talk about being a celebrity. His stuff produces far more eyerolls than The Metropolitician ever did.
Killing people is bad, but the thread's trajectory is right that all the attention will be on the man who killed his kid, without looking at the greedy wife and the legal system that makes divorce---and thus by extension marriage---so ruinous for American men.
None of the media stories I read cited any data to support your presumption that the wife got a large divorce settlement. THE legal system? Each state has its own divorce laws. Some recognize community property while others don't. Some states consider fault in dividing property while others don't. On average, the higher wage earner ends up with about 2/3 of the property and the remaining 1/3 goes to the lower wage earner.
Brian, you usually write thoughtful stuff, but your presumption about the man being taken to the cleaners by his dead wife was just ignant.
Can people please leave off the Shelton bashing? At least he has better manners than a lot of the sour-pusses in the expat K-blogosphere. And for the record, he did not claim to be a celebrity, but a "microcelebrity" (like everyone else) which is the theme of the story expressed right there in the title.
In fact. he got slammed pretty hard in the story he mentioned that was written about him, so it's hard to say he's bragging when he's writing about being seen as a "weird expat."
He may not always be terribly profound but if all the non-profound commenters in the K-blogosphere were censored, the silence would be deafening.
It would be nice if expats in Korea could be more tolerant of each other, and more forgiving of each other's foibles. It would be nice if there was more of a sense of community, which would certainly help considering all the BS expats in Korea have to deal with every day.
I personally think Shelton catches so much grief just because he's so vulnerable and lays himself open so much. Is that really such a crime? Is the opposite course really so much better?
I'll just say this and then stop because I don't want a big debate over a guy who isn't here.
Scott, you're probably right that he attracts attention because he puts himself out there so much. Not only personally but professionally, because it must be said---and I don't know the guy---that he likes to attract attention to himself. It's difficult when you put your real name out there because people often blur the line between disagreeing with your ideas and disagreeing with you as a person(ality). What struck me was how the article came out of left-field. Anyway, whatever.
The quote-unquote community is divided along professional lines more than anything else. People who aren't teachers don't want anything to do with the EFL cretins, who are considered beneath the quote-unquote white collar workers. Yet since we're the ones who are the most vocal about the issues foreigners face, we do all the heavy lifting with the least amount of strength/influence. Just the way it is.
Brian, fair enough and I tend to agree with you.
I just feel obliged to undertake damage control here since I'm the one who published the story about Shelton, and don't want things to get too out of hand. Perhaps we should not have used his real name, but the problem was that he has such a great name!
Anyway, you raise an interesting point about his KT story coming out of left-field. Perhaps his failure to address the story more fully and explain the context for the uninitiated would have helped, and perhaps his more solipsistic tendencies account for his inability to do so -- as well as explain much of the ire he seems to attract.
Keep up the good work, and happy new year!
I mentioned about the Santa suit's unfittedness for 이유리 back when you first posted it. I also mentioned then I wanted to see who it was really made for. I still do.
Ah, oops, I see you did ROK Hound. My apologies. Good eye. Yahoo must love Lee Yuri because that whole slideshow is of her.
Okay, I deleted the last exchange. Quit the bickering.
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