Yeosu in the old news.

Man, sifting through Google and Naver for old stories about Jeollanam-do is fun. I wish I could do this all day. Wait . . . today is midterms . . . perhaps I will.

* This first story isn't old news, and is from yesterday's papers. Police caught a murder suspect in Seonwon-dong on the 28th.

* Oil company GS Caltex has introduced prize fighting into elementary schools and uses white people to officiate:



* In 2005 Ohmynews ran a two-part prison diary of an English teacher incarcerated in Yeosu's Immigration detention center. The diary's second part talks about a fire that was started in one of the cells:

Last night (April 22), there was a fire (I believe in cell 201). It happened around 3:30 a.m. I learned later that is was probably started by three Russian men (who are now in solitary confinement). Before this fire occurred I could hear people shouting downstairs, complaining and demanding that the TVs be restored. (I'm not sure if the people who started the fire were among their number.)

Luckily, the fire was contained. But what if it wasn't. Everyone, behind bars, have no ability to escape to safety. During the fire, the guards on our floor seems to be at a loss as to what to do (or rather, they were waiting to be told what to do.) One guard, if my memory is accurate, sat down at the office computer and played solitaire.

I have been told on more than one occasion that this facility is understaffed and under funded. There are not enough staff, guards or otherwise to safely run this prison. Which, in my view, cannot be lawful, let alone safe for staff or detainee. When a repairman comes to fix the phone or TV, he is locked inside with us. This is only because the guards trust us not to harm that person. (This is also the case whenever one of the staff enter our cells.)

* Gusts of Popular Feeling first brought up that small fire in his write-up of the bigger fire there in February, 2007, that killed 9 people. Take a look at his two posts here and here for a good summary and links to tons of news stories. Long story short, a Chinese-Korean started a fire that did so much damage because firefighters couldn't open the jail cells. It had no sprinkler syste because it was under 11 stories tall and, moreover, as the floor burned it emitted a toxic gas. The prison diary and the news stories on Matt's two posts provide a very grim picture of the plight of illegal immigrants in government detention centers. Certainly an important reminder that the foreigner experience extends well beyond the classroom, and that many foreign visitors and residents here face much bigger problems than shifty coteachers or lack of imported beer.



* I got word that for some reason people believed that elevator attack on a 10-year-old girl happened in Suncheon, not Ilsan. I hear that some foreign scholars around here believed it happened in our apartment complex. It didn't, but there was a similar case in Yeosu back in February, something I didn't find out until this morning. The Joongang Ilbo mentions it in passing in an article full of alarming stories:

In Yeosu, South Jeolla, police asked for help identifying suspects from an assault that happened at 9 p.m. on Feb. 14. Two young men tried to force an elementary school girl to the rooftop of her apartment building. She managed to escape when the elevator opened on the 13th floor. A surveillance camera captured a blurry image of the two suspects.

The story was in the Korean press a little, here and here for example.

* Here's a 2005 article about a local rock band chosen as publicity envoy for Yeosu's World Expo bid (which it eventually won). Copied and pasted from a registration site:

YEOSU, South Korea, Jan. 30 (Yonhap) -- South Korean's port city of Yeosu named a popular local rock band to serve as a publicity envoy to promote its bid to host the 2012 World Expo. Yeosu Mayor Kim Chung-seog invited the Yoon Do-hyun Band to his office on Sunday and asked the four-member group to take up the publicity mission for the city's bid, aides said. Yoon, the group's lead guitarist-cum-singer, accepted the offer, the aide said. The band is widely known for its hit song, "Oh! Pilseung (Victory) Korea," which became a theme song for South Korean soccer fans rooting for their national team during the 2002 soccer World Cup. South Korea advanced to the semi-finals in the World Cup, which it co-hosted with Japan. Yeosu plans to appoint more popular entertainers and social celebrities to promote the city's bid, aides said. Yeosu on the nation's south coast, some 400 kilometers south of Seoul, was unsuccessful in its earlier bid for the 2010 World Expo.

* Every now and then an article about the Yosu-Sunchon Rebellion, a bloody precursor to the Korean War, will turn up. Here's an interesting one from 1999 from the Chosun Ilbo, part of a series on something or other, I haven't figured out what. It transcribes a bit of a speech President Park Chung-hee made to assembled Yeosu citizens in 1963, explaining his involvement in the 1948 military rebellion:

My dear friends from Yeosu, it is an honor to meet you here. I came to meet the people of a city over which there has been so much controversy. I have come to explain about the rebellion. During the Yeosu-Suchon rebellion, I was a major serving as an instructor at the military academy. As you are well aware, when the 14th army regiment, which was stationed here, started a rebellion the leader was a lieutenant Kim Ji-hwae. He was instructed by communists to do this and started the rebellion the night before the regiment was to move to Cheju to put down the revolt there.

As soon as it occurred, general Song Ho-sung, the army commander called me before leaving Seoul and ordered me to accompanying him as an operational chief of the unit designated to put down the rebellion. So I arrived at Kwangju airfield with Song and served in that capacity. He was replaced by general Won Young-deok, who I also served under.

After this I was ordered to go back to army headquarters. At the time there were purges throughout the entire military as many communists had infiltrated it. All people who had had any contact with any person engaging in communist activity were investigated, and sometimes personal animosity was used to further other people's careers. Most were arrested and harshly interrogated.

I had a brother who was slightly involved in leftist activity after the liberation. As a result I was arrested and interrogated. I was questioned for two months on these suspicions and was cleared. I was released and went back to serve in the army, and was even promoted to major-general right before the May 16 revolution."

Park was arrested for his role in the insurrection and was sentenced to life in prison. He was released after, Wikipedia tells us, naming names of Communist sympathizers.

* Big strike in Yeocheon, formerly its own city, back in 2001.

* Jesus Christ, what a headline. An excerpt from the 2001 BBC report:

The South Korean government has apologised to China over an incident in which the bodies of 25 illegal Chinese immigrants were allegedly dumped at sea.

The group suffocated while hiding in the storage tank of a fishing vessel as they were being smuggled into South Korea on Sunday, off the south-western port of Yeosu.

Patrol boats have been combing the waters off the coast of Yeosu for the past two days, but have so far failed to make any recoveries.

The circumstances surrounding the incident have shocked the South Korean public. On Wednesday the government issued a statement expressing regret over what it called an inhumane and criminal act.

* Hahaha, cheap-ass, trifflin officials.

* South Korea sunk a North Korean submarine one mile off Yeosu in 1998.

* Replace "flags" with "is" and we're in business.

* According to a 2007 survey, Yeosu is better than Beijing. No shit. Copied and pasted from a registration article:

SEOUL, April 3 (Yonhap) -- Seoul ranked 87th in quality of living among the world's major urban centers, a survey by a New York-based human resource consulting firm said Tuesday. The ranking is a gain of two compared to last year's report by the Mercer Human Resource Consulting Group. Last year, the South Korean capital of over 10 million people ranked 89th on the list. The "2007 World-wide quality of living survey" examined conditions in 215 cities. Mercer's total index is based on 10 categories: consumer goods, housing, medical and health considerations, recreation, public services and transport, schools and education, and cities' economic, natural, political and social, as well as socio-cultural environments. Other Korean cities examined by the group were Yeosu, South Jeolla Province, which is bidding to host the 2012 World Expo, and the industrial city of Ulsan on South Korea's east coast. Yeosu ranked 110th, unchanged from the previous year, while Ulsan moved up two notches to place 113th overall. Of the cities examined, Zurich came in first, followed by Geneva, another Swiss city. Vienna and Vancouver tied for third, and Singapore and Tokyo came in at the top of Asian cities, placing 34th and 35th respectively. Beijing and Shanghai were ranked 116th and 100th, while the U.S. cites of Washington, D.C. and Chicago tied for 44th place. New York came in 48th. Iraq's capital of Baghdad came in last for the fourth straight year, with no halt to the sectarian violence in sight.

Polly don't wanna cracker, Polly wanna twinkie.

A couple generic Korean-American community leaders were talking in this evening's Korea Times about that plan to attract Korean-Americans to volunteer or work in Korea's rural areas (here and here for background information). They explained that the plan doesn't seem appealing to many Korean-Americans, and that South Korea needs to step up with more incentives to attract those of Korean descent. I have no idea what this guy's talking about with the "it" and "this" in the following paragraph:

``Actually, it is not our job. The Korean government should take this up and support more programs for young ethnic Koreans around the world. Still, many more young students are interested in learning about Korea,'' said former KAYAC President Ahn Yong-jin.

They said the government needs to learn from China, Japan and especially from Israel. ``The Jewish people work hard to embrace their kindred all around the world. There are about 850 Jews in the White House, for example, and they are the power and driving force of Israel,'' said Lee, who also served as president of the Korea-American Association of New York.

``We should do something for young Koreans overseas. If we don't, there will be no more chances and our children will have no roots,'' Lee added.

They also asked the Korean government to take care of Korean adoptees in the United States. ``Many adopted Koreans have bad feelings about their parents and mother country. Their motherland should embrace them,'' Ahn said.

They said a greater pool of ethnic Korean assets will be nurtured across the world in 15- 20 years. The government should invest in them so that it can attract them as driving power for Korea in the future. ``I hope President Lee suggests a vision and long-run plans for ethnic Koreans instead of just talking to us in `pragmatic' ways,'' Lee said.

And we wanna stay up late and eat ice cream with sprinkles and a cherry on top, and we wanna go on a pony ride every day, and we don't wanna eat the crust on the pizza. I already did a little write-up on the drive to attract more teachers to rural areas, the logistics involved in staffing these schools, the incorrect assumption that teachers are "shunning" these posts, an entry which you can read here. As for Lee and Ahn, their points can best be summarized with the following:



In all fairness, though, me and Google just snooped around a little and it doesn't seem like any of the organizations mentioned in the article actually mean anything. Actually, nobody mentioned in the article turned up on a Google search.

There's really not much point in debating articles like this but it's a slow news day. What really stands out to me is the vastly different valuations of Korean-Americans as English teachers. On the one hand you have people like shithead professor and KT columnist Jason Lim and many others who consider Korean-Americans an invaluable resource in a land full of white people. He writes:

Although private language institutes might have to cater to their customers' prejudices in order to maximize their profits, the government doesn't. The government is free to pursue the highest qualified native-English speakers who would adjust well to life in Korea without regard to their skin color.

Further, the government would have extra leverage in recruiting highly-qualified Korean Americans because they have a natural affinity and inclination to explore their parents' country.

This means that highly-educated Korean Americans, who would otherwise take more lucrative positions in the U.S., would come to teach English in Korea for lower pay just for the experience.

The gist of his article is the tired argument that Korean-Americans are more suited to teaching English in Korea because they will have an easier time adjusting and will, because of their ancestry and imagined ties to Korea, be extra motivated to both work hard and study hard . . . which kind of contradicts that "without regard to their skin color" line. Yet, of course, Korean-Americans are often paid less and, as we can see from the latest round of articles, are slated to earn considerably less money working out in rural areas. While they might gain some sympathy as they quote-unquote rediscover their culture *cough*, they generally lack any credibility as native speakers, and often face rejection by students, parents, and colleagues. But, when I read shit like how Koreans need to be more like Jews---really, really sick of that line of thinking---or shit like the following from the same Jason Lim article, my reaction is pretty much "well, fuck 'em":

I still remember being chewed out by the president of the language institute I worked for 10 years ago because I hired a Korean American UCLA graduate who was far more qualified than one of those 'Let's travel through Asia while earning money as English teachers and score some women at the same time, dude!" types of instructors that were so prevalent in those days.

Yet, the latter was considered a better hire than the Korean American because he was white and therefore a more authentic English speaker.

Such hiring practices have led to recent scandals in which some native-English instructors have been shown to be less than ideal teachers. Many lacked professional qualifications, lied about their academic training, and enjoyed less than exemplary lifestyle involving the proverbial sex, drugs, and rock n roll.

Korea was recently shocked to find out that one of them was a pedophile who had brazenly posted his pictures with the very Asian kids that he had sexually abused.

By the way, back in November I took Lim to task for his race-baiting and for his stubborn contention that Korean-Americans are better fits in the Korean TEFL scene. Anybody who has ever hung around with some of the Korean-American cliques around here won't be so quick to champion that demographic.

New clinic for foreigners in Suncheon. *May 1st Update*

Scroll down for an update.


Low-quality picture of a generic-looking building with a tree in the middle. Nice.

Man, what's the deal with so many male Korean English teachers acting as if they're reading for the part of Uriah Heep?

Anyway, in other news, came across a relatively new doctor's office in Suncheon advertising itself with "Clinic for Foreigner." It's in Geumdang, between the Lotteria and Paris Baguette over there. You can get a map of the area here, with the clinic's name---복음의원---pointed out. It's open from 8:30 to 6:30 during the week, and until 3:30 on Saturday, with lunch being from 1 until 2. The sign on the outside says it offers a variety of basic services, and the banner along the awning says it offers Botox and Calogen injections, too. Not sure if the quality of English is better than other doctors in town, or if this clinic offers anything the other clinics don't, but hey, at least they're advertising in English and making an effort to attract the customers many wish to avoid.



* Update (May 1, 18:20): By virtue of being sick for a fucking month I had an opportunity to try out the clinic today. I must say I was disappointed based on my higher expectations, and can't really recommend it as a "foreigner clinic," or whatever. The two receptionists seemed nice enough, but they didn't speak English. They were having a little discussion amongst themselves about my age and how to calculate it based on my birthdate. (Much more amusing to those who aren't in a great deal of pain, I can assure you). The doctor's English level was quite low, and I often had difficulty understanding him. Those comments aren't necessarily complaints that make this clinic worse than any others that may be in the area, but they just indicate that this doctor's office doesn't actually specialize in or cater to foreigners, in spite of the sign out front. And, like every other doctor I've seen in Korea, this one didn't do anything. He listened to my ailments, asked asinine questions, checked my breathing, and handed me a print-out. Didn't even check anything else until I asked him to. He did tell me that I probably didn't have cancer because I was too young. Not thorough whatsoever, but an exam we've come to expect here. Hell, I remember when I was getting my in-country phyisical for my first public school job. The packet of forms requested a battery of exams to check all my body's systems and major organs. The doctor told me that it'd be very time consuming and expensive to run these tests, so he just asked me if I had any problems with my stomach, liver, nervous system, etc. Anyway, this new clinic in Suncheon is pretty generic, and although one of the receptionists was kind of cute, to be honest I think you'd be better off trying the one above the Mini-Stop across from NC Department Store. But, actually, I'm not sure if I can fully recommend that doctor, since I was obviously not cured after two visits, but whatever. Living in Korea means learning how to deal with shit.

Hahaha, all look same.

Keanu Reeves at the "Speed Racer" premiere.

"How I Met Your Mother," now running on Korean TV as "아이러브프렌즈," has got to be the whitest show on television. In other news, Rain just got served. Interesting to know these things still happen to the most influential person in the world. *cough* From the Chosun Ilbo:

Singer and actor Rain had an embarrassing moment at the premier of his Hollywood debut film "Speed Racer" at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles on Saturday. The 26-year-old Korean superstar was introduced as Taejo Togokhan, the name of his character in the movie, instead of his real name Jung Ji-hoon, or his better-known stage name.

They get my name wrong all the time. Then again, I'm not overexposed on the vanguard of a heralded nationalistic pop culture takeover, and my fans aren't bringing me more international fame than my career ever did by stuffing online ballot boxes to have me named the most influential person in the world. I'm sure some of his maniacal fans will be more upset that ignorant white people confused with a Japanese man, and a fictional one at that. At least nobody ever mistook me for a Canadian.

English Towns in Jeollanam-do.

I know this isn't a topic any of my readers care about: this entry is mostly to feed Google. Even though every county and city in Jeollanam-do once aspired to open their very own English Towns, and even though more and more foreigners in the area end up working at them, there is just about no information available about them in English. This entry will do little to change that, but here you'll at least find as complete a list of them as I could make, with links to official websites, Korean news articles, and photo galleries.

From what I can tell, 17 of the 22 cities and counties in Jeollanam-do have opened English Towns. Suncheon doesn't have one, but one is apparently on the way. I couldn't find any information on Jindo, Shinan, Wando, or Hampyeong counties. You can find a lot of articles---here and here, for example---that talk about how every county and city planned to open them, and when they were set to debut, but often these predictions proved inaccurate.

English Towns are generally staffed by a couple of foreigners and a couple of Korean teachers, and aim to provide English immersion experiences. Students will visit for a day or two and will proceed through a variety of stations that require them to use "real-life" English: at a hotel, for example, or a restaurant, an airport, a bank, a taxi, and so forth. Many of the press releases, and even the titles of the schools themselves, talk about 체험 ("experience") and about exposing students to foreign cuultures. Teachers will see a new set of students every few days, and thus use the same lesson plans over and over for the entire semester.

When I was set to work in Gangjin's English Town, I was told I had to design all the materials for each station. That line of thinking didn't last long, though, because a little while later I was given a set of situational dialogues written by (and stolen from) a Korean teacher at an English Village in Gyeonggi-do, and told we would use these. I proofread them and made changes, although---hahaha, typical---my coteacher didn't apply any of these changes to the dialogues because the Korean teacher who made them didn't agree with my corrections. Didn't really matter, because a little while later I was given a book of dialogues and told to practice them with the students. These were based on a CD-ROM produced by another English Town in Jeollanam-do, starring a Canadian with an expression-less face and an inflection-less voice. Then, eventually, the idea of me working at an English Town was dropped, because its opening was delayed by 18 months.

Anyway, there isn't much firsthand information available about local English Towns. Sadly most foreigners are not interested in sharing their experiences or connecting with the foreign community down here so fuck 'em. Matter of fact, I haven't even heard from or seen foreigners from most of these counties, and it's kind of a let-down to know that there are folks "on the ground" in these rural areas who have no interest whatsoever in sharing what they know.

Here's what I could find, and I would encourage those with firsthand information to share it, either here or on the local message board Waygook.org. Some of the information is dated, but since nothing else has turned up, I've let it stand. I've included citations for the staff lists, although outside of reading the articles and checking the sites I have no way of confirming how accurate these figures are because I have no idea who any of these people are. Most of the external links are in Korean, and only a handful of these English Towns have their own websites. They all look pretty much the same, though, so have a look around the website for the one in Mokpo or Jangheung to get a sense of what these Towns entail.

Boseong English Town (보성영어타운)
* Located at Boseong South Elementary School
* Staff: 1 foreigner, 2 Koreans [here, here]
* Other links: 광주매일신문 article.

Damyang Foreign Language Center (담양외국어체험센터)
* Located at Damyang East Elementary School
* Opened February, 2008 [here]
* Staff: 1 foreigner, 2 Koreans [here]
* Other links: Naver news article.

Gangjin Foreign Language Town (강진외국어타운)
* Located on the site of the former Chilryang Elementary School
* Opened March, 2008
* Staff: 3 foreigners, 1 Korean
* Other links: My earlier blog entry.

Goheung English Town (고흥영어타운)
* Opened February, 2007

Gokseong English Town (곡성영어타운)
* Located at Gokseong Central Elementary School
* Opened December, 2006, apparently the 8th English Town in Jeollanam-do [here]
* Staff: 1 foreigner, 1 Korean [here]
* Other links: 나주영상강인터넷방송 article; 데이리NK article; photo (complete with arbitrary spacing).

Gurye Foreign Language Town (구례외국어타운)
* Located at Gurye Central Elementary School
* Opened 2005
* Evidentally also classes in Japanese and Chinese [here]
* Other links: 한국미래신문 article

Gwangyang English Town (광양용강영어타운)
* Official site
* Located at Yonggang Elementary School
* Opened 2004, among the first in the country.
* Staff: 1 American, 1 Korean [here]
* Other links: Photos of 옥곡초교's visit.

Haenam English Town (해남영어타운)
* Located at Haenam East Elementary School
* Opened October, 2005 [here]

Hwasun English Town (화순영어타운)
* Located at Hwasun Elementary School
* Opened October, 2007
* Staff: 2 foreigners, 4 Koreans [here]
* Other links: 화순신문 article; Yonhap article.

Jangheung English Town (장흥영어타운)
* Official site
* Located at Jangheung West Elementary School
* Opened January, 2006
* Staff: 1 Canadian, 1 Filipino, 3 Koreans

Jangseong Foreign Language Town (장성외국어타운)
* Located at Jangseong Central Elementary School
* Opened: February, 2008
* Staff: 2 Koreans, 1 Foreigner [here]
* Other links: 데이리안 article.

Mokpo English Village (목포영어체험마을)
* Official site
* Located inside Mokpo Central Elementary School
* Opened December, 2006
* Staff; 7 foreigners, 5 Koreans
* Other links: Korea Herald article.

Muan English Town (무안영어타운)
* Official site
* Opened November, 2006
* Located at Muan Elementary School
* Staff: 2 Koreans, 1 American

Naju English Town (나주영어타운)
* Opened September, 2006
* Other links: 희망교육 article; a few photos from a Canadian former employee; photos from a class trip here and here; 나주북초교 visits (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).

Suncheon English Town
There is no English Town in Suncheon, although one source says one will open in 2010. A meeting was held in February, 2006, among local English teachers and parents where 39.5% of those assembled said an English Town would be a good idea (있으면, 좋을 것 같다) and 37.6% said it is extremely necessary (매우 필요).

Yeongam Foreign Language Center (영암외국어체헙센터 / 영암영어타운)
* Located at Jangcheon Elementary School
* Opened: December, 2007 [here]
* Other links: Various .hwp files available on the 장천초교 bulletin board.

Yeonggwang English Town (영광영어타운)
* Located at Yeonggwang Elementary School
* Opened September, 2005 [here]
* Staff: 1 Caucasian, 1 Filipino, 1 Korean [here]
* More links: Yonhap article; a few remarks from Waygook.org.

Yeosu English Town (여수영어타운)
* Official site
* Located at Yeosu West Elementary School
* Opened December, 2005
* Staff: 2 Canadians, 3 Koreans
* Other links: Blog of two employees.

Police do it again.

Just wanted to point everyone to this post over on Korea Beat, a translation of an SBS news story, via Naver. Video here, in Korean. Here's an excerpt, which picks up after we learn about a high school girl who was repeatedly sexually assaulted and her mother went to the cops:

But when her mother filed a written accusation with the Seobu Police Department in Seoul on March 26th, the police said that they could not investigate or prosecute crimes outside their jurisdiction and waited three days before passing the case to the Ilsan Police Department.
[Mother: The Police said they couldn’t do anything. So I asked why and they said about jurisdiction, you know… it was clear to me that they wouldn’t, couldn’t.]

Embarrassingly half-assed police work is a very disturbing trend (see here and here and here and here and here and here and here). Oh, and I can't believe I forgot about the Miryang gang rape case from 2004 (see here and here) where the police rounded up only a few of the dozens who raped middle and high school girls and ended up insulting the victims for besmirching the name of their fair city. Said one officer:

“Weren’t you girls waving your asses around and [kept] going there because you liked it? My hometown is Miryang, and you’ve destroyed the reputation of the town.”

Wasn't but four weeks ago that President Lee Myung-bak had to pay a visit to the Ilsan police and kick their asses into shape after they made no attempt to catch a man who assaulted and tried to kidnap a 10-year-old kid in an elevator. And wasn't but six weeks ago that Korea Beat translated another story about how hospitals are shockingly ill-equipped to handle and treat rape victims.

Suncheon in the old news.

I've come across some news stories about Suncheon these past few months but never had a chance to use them. They're clogging up my "favorites" tab, so here they are.

* I found this while searching Dave's for doctors in Suncheon. According to this post, a foreign English teacher was murdered in Yeonhyang-dong in 1998. The only other mentions of this incident were in two comments by Sonagi on the Marmot's Hole in 2007, here and here, the second one saying an American EPIK teacher was stabbbed to death. If anyone has more information on this, please pass it along. Stuff like this and the following druggie story illustrate, both in what may of happened and the lack of information about these incidents, that anywhere outside of Seoul was pretty much a wild, untamed frontier for foreigners not too long ago. I maintain things have changed a great deal, in spite of the way some of my peers may act.

* Suncheon and other cities of its kind aren't exactly crime-free. Couple of excerpts from a 2005 Chosun Ilbo article:

The 2004 crime report issued by the Supreme Public Prosecutor's Office after reviewing statistics from all investigative bodies, the town with the highest rate of criminal activity was Jeju with 9,966 crimes per 100,000 residents, followed by Mokpo (6,117) Gumi (5956), Gangneung (5,701), Suncheon (5,634) and Pohang with 5,215 crimes.

. . .

The crime rate was lower in the big urban centers.

The piece points out that big cities have the most violent crime in Korea, thus contradicting the sensational headline, "Crime Rampant in Provincial Towns." The article does, though, point out that Korean women are stupid whores who deserve to be raped:

Sexual assault increased from less than 1,000 a month to between 1,000 to 1,100 cases between May and August, when clothing becomes more revealing.

* A few years back an Australian and an Irish guy in Suncheon got busted on drug charges at Elvis, a local bar. The Australian on a local message board back in January, 2004, all sic:

Nobody said that we couldn't do the time. Inj fact we used the five weeks that we were locked up to great effect. 5 weeks without a beer or a cigarette, and I feel like I'm 21 again. Fuck Betty Ford. 100 sit ups and 100 push ups a day and I'm looking like a machine. Got to meet numerous interesting people, including the ex Mayor of Suncheon who is doing five years for accepting bribes. Read some great books, and also got a great reference from the Governer of the prison for the free English lessons we provided to the prison guards.

And in response to a guy who didn't approve:

Anyway, I suggest that before you continue with your
crusade to rid Korea of long haired hippy backpackers (could take a WHILE) you start with something a little easier. I suggest trying to ferret out all the 40 something American WANKERS who couldn't cut it in their own country so they go to Korea, and try and kid themselves that they're doing something useful and that teaching there is a real job, when all they are is eye candy for their school.

The Irish guy weighs in:

Ive heard a rumour that some fag scott went to the police, Alls i can say to this if it is true, that this guy is a complete prick, thanks for destroying my time in korea, the worst about it i dont even know this guy, and if you did go to the police, you are the lowest of the low and basically i hope you burn in hell, sooner rather than later. I heard this guys about 40 and hes one these pricks that had to come to korea to find a job and a wife. LOSER.

Yeah, y'all stay classy.

* Well, seems the above scholar in the hooscow wasn't an entirely worthless human being, since he passed along information about Suncheon's corrupt politicians. From a 2006 Dong-A Ilbo article on inaugurations around the country:

In Suncheon, South Jeolla Province, considering that three previous elected mayors were all jailed for charges such as bribery, an “oath of integrity” was taken at the end of the inaugural ceremony.

From a 2001 Korean Herald article on a roundup of 17 corrupt provincial leaders:

Among the accused provincial government heads are Sunchon City Mayor Shin Joon-shik, Ullung County Magistrate Chung Jong-tae and Sungju Country Magistrate Kim Kom-yong.

Mayor Shin was arrested last Saturday for accepting 120 million won (US$95,000) from a construction firm in return for allowing the firm to win construction projects.

* Nobody tells me anything. Last month two of the biggest pop groups in Korea these days came through Suncheon for a concert. F.T. Island and Girls Generation played the Suncheon Youth Festival at 팔마체육관 on March 22nd. I just spent, like, six minutes looking for pictures of two teen pop acts playing in Suncheon, so you'd better appreciate them (here and here). There are also some videos up on youtube and Naver. When I saw these thumbnails of FT Island at some museum in Seoul, I thought "aww, that's nice, they're walking around with their fans!" But those aren't middle school girls, they're the band.


Just need some pictures to break up the text.

* Scientists from Suncheon National University helped clone glowing cats last year. In fact one of the top cloning experts in the country, Kong Il-geun (공일근) was a professor there from 1998 to 2007, and currently teaches at 경상대학교.



* Hyocheon High School got no-hit last year.

* A guy set a fire to a distillery in 2003, killing three people. What guy? Which distillery? Where? Why? Thanks to Korean journalism, the world may never know. Copy and paste from a registration site:

A South Korean man set fire to a rice wine distillery in South Korea on Wednesday, killing at least four people, a police official said.

The man, identified only by his family name Bang, set the blaze at the distillery by using gasoline, a police official said on customary condition of anonymity. The factory is located in Suncheon, south of Seoul.

The distillery produces traditional Korean milky rice wine called "Makkoli." Bang was a customer who purchased wine there.

The motivation for setting the fire was not immediately known.

Police said the wine-producing factory was not destroyed. However, the local Yonhap news agency reported the death toll would likely rise.

* I mentioned this before, but a Suncheon native was one of the big names found getting rich off fake credentials in 2007. Lee Ji-young, a radio host for KBS's "English Pops," dropped out of Suncheon National University and never earned a college degree, but built her reputation on an overseas education that never took place.

* A year ago next month five middle school students from Maesan Middle School were killed in a bus accident on Jirisan during a field trip.

* A census from a few years back said that Suncheon, at the time, was the city with the greatest number of centenarians. Not sure how that works, since Seoul had more than all of Jeollanam-do, but whatever, I never ask questions. An excerpt from the article (requires free registration):

The oldest man alive is 107, while the census showed one married couple older than 100. The centenarians mainly worked in the agricultural sector. They also lived in a extended family structure made up of two to three generations living under the same roof. Reflecting the importance of healthy living habits, many ate moderately, did not smoke or drink and followed well-regulated daily activities. People who lived long usually had optimistic dispositions and enjoyed eating fruits and vegetables. Many lost their spouses to death, and very few through divorce. They also got married relatively young, with the average male taking a wife at the age of 21, while the women wed at 17.3. By area, 152 lived in Gyeonggi Province, followed by Seoul and South Jeolla Province. By city, Suncheon in South Jeolla Province had the largest number of centenarians with 18, followed by Jeju and Yeosu. The NSO report, however, said that of the 961 centenarians, 165 had been reported dead as of March 22.

2008 Jeonju International Film Festival, May 1 - May 9.

Hmm, saw ads for this on Daum the last few days. Didn't know such an event existed in Jeonju, and has since 2000. You can find a small article about the 2008 festival on Korea.net, a lengthy review of the 2006 festival here, and a lot of stuff I didn't read about the 2007 festival and the Jeonju movie scene here.

I'm pissed, I have two consecutive three-day weekends coming up.

Kinda pissed that I have two three-day weekends coming up in May. Three-day weekends are usually excellent, and I wish they were mandatory. The reason I'm a little pissed, though, is because up until a few hours ago those three-day weekends bookended a ten-day holiday. Last week I booked plane tickets and a hotel room for a four-day trip in Sinagpore, and I'm disappointed that I'll have to postpone it until next winter. Most of the teachers at my schools have had to cancel their plans because lots of parents are complaining about the May holiday. From the KT:

However, some parents showed concern. ``If parents cannot take time off work during the vacation, it could make things difficult,'' worried mother Bae Ji-won said.

Housewives also expressed concern. Lee Ju-young, a mother of two, said children always expect something ``interesting'' for the occasion.

She said her children talked about their friends' travels abroad. ``I cannot afford these trips and if this so-called mini vacation is meant for something like that, it's unfair,'' she said.

``It will clearly show who has the money and time to spend with children and who does not,'' she added, saying a vacation may not always be welcomed.

Some parents oppose the plan for other reasons. They said if students get to take time off too often, their academic performance could suffer. ``I think studying is about consistency. If they take time off from studying, they may have a difficult time getting back into the study routine,'' a concerned mother said.

My colleagues have said that many parents around here have complained because if schools are off all week there will be no one at home to supervise the children while the parents are at work. I wish they had thought of that before, when they were drawing up the school calendar, instead of waiting until late-April and dashing my glorious plans. Hahahahahahaha, "thought of that before." Well, looks like Hit Pizza and I will be spending some time together this May.

* Update 1: Damn, I found out that my one school is giving teachers May 8th and May 9th (Thursday and Friday) off. Too bad I'm at my other school on those days.

"Sexy Mong" battles drunk foreigners, interracial relationships.

As first reported by The Marmot's Hole, the first episode of the latenight softcore detective show 섹시몽리턴즈 (Sexy Mong Returns) dealt with foreign English teachers taking advantage of drunk Korean women in nightclubs. Mr. Koehler translated a paragraph from one of the Korean papers:

The first episode of “Sexy Mong Returns,” a four-part series to run every Wednesday and Thursday starting from April 23, is already drawing attention as its deals with an episode involving sexual assault by foreign English teachers, something that has been a social issue for some time.

I caught part of the episode tonight, and it featured a lot of groping and petting, a bit of nudity, and lots and lots of mangled Engrish. Actually, from what I can tell there was only one native English speaker. The other white guy was European and incomprehensible, and the other "American" was a Korean. The line "I only know about kimchi and Korean girls" belonged to him and his marble-mouthed gibberish. He ended up being the serial rapist, and admitted pretending to be a foreigner in order to pick up women, but wasn't "exposed" until the end, after he slapped around a topless Sexy Mong co-star. As for the white guy molesting a passed-out, topless woman in the club, I don't recall if he spoke at all. And of course we were treated to some of the worst bastardized English you'll find on TV.

You know, there aren't many examples of interracial relationships on Korean television between white men and Korean women---none, actually, that I can think of---and so this was a disappointing, degrading introduction. Ironic topic on a show that stars Djamilya, a shameless foreign woman who gained a small amount of fame in Korea via the TV show 미녀들의수다, a program that pretty much boiled down to Korean guys ogling foreign women. Establishing an Eastern European woman as a lead character, and giving her a nude shower scene and tons of opportunities to bend over and shove things in her mouth, while having a line of white people dry humping naked Korean women can't be construed as anything other than extreme disapproval of and disgust at interracial relationships between foreign men and Korean women.



I'd like to remind you, too, of 아냐, a 23-year-old Russian co-starring on the softcore porn show "5 Girls." I was called a racist for writing "she's just around for decoration and for poking," though I dare anyone to contest the roles of either women on these shows. They are softcore porn programs, after all, and so if they're not playing on these women's sex appeal, they're at least playing on their foreignness . . . oh, and on their exotic sex appeal.

So, yeah, a big fuck you to the foreign assholes who decided to flush the reputation of white people down the toilet for a few greenbacks. Cool, you got to feel up a Korean woman on TV, I hope it was worth it. In the meantime you helped perpetuate a very ugly, very common stereotype that does very real damage to a lot of us. Your faces are going up here if I get a screen capture because you deserve to be called out. A big fuck you to the foreigners who continue to go on Korean TV and make complete asses of themselves, our language, and our culture. Not that you give a damn. A big fuck you to those who make shows like these, and who can't seem to stay away from spicing up your programs with foreign women and foreign languages while slandering them at the same time.

This particular episode could have drawn its inspiration from any number of inflammatory sources. I suppose the most newsworthy was a YTN report from last year on "disgraceful foreigners" in Hongdae. But as Mr. Koehler rightly points out, and which is played out in the 섹시몽 episode, the real reason for this anti-foreigner sentiment is their imagined sexual immorality and the fear that strikes in the hearts of far too many. From a 2005 article titled "A one night stand paradise for foreigners," and kindly translated by The Marmot's Hole:

Hongdae is now an area hot with youthful passion that has degenerated from being mixed up with foreigners. As the recent act of indecent exposure by a punk band on live TV showed, the diversity and individuality of the area in front of Hongik University is nowhere to be found. As the number of foreigners with more of an interest in booking and one night stands than in the music increases, there are many women coming to the clubs in search of “blue-eyed men.”

Just a reminder that the show went ahead with this angle in the context of a city with wall-to-wall love motels and massage parlors, one in which prostitution is an accepted fact of life, and in a country that was named a "danger country" in terms of women's public safety by the OCED. I'm being facetious when I say that I don't think you can blame all that on unruly English teachers. Wasn't too long ago that we heard news of a middle school girl held captive and raped by 800 men, and it was last night's paper that taught us that you can beat a rape charge by folding her jeans when you're done.

Yes, I know it's just a latenight, softcore porn show, but that doesn't make its ugly stereotypes any less televised.

* Update 1: Otto has a write-up of Episode 2 here.

Bringing the Nazi ads to school.

A still from the edited Coreana commercial, the "Hitler" being replaced by "Nobody."

Well, a week ago the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the group that protested the Nazi-themed Coreana commercials in the first place, said they were "gratified" that the commercials were pulled. I didn't post anything on that at the time because I figured this entry would arrive sooner than it did, and I thought my Korea Times piece would have appeared last week rather than last night. I was also wary of posting anything because the SWC press release was a little vague, and it wasn't clear whether the ads were removed, or whether the Center was "gratified" that the word "Hitler" was replaced. Since I haven't seen the commercials in about a week, I'll assume that the ads actually were taken off the air. So, yeah, I guess that's good. To be honest, I was naively hoping for a little more: an apology, perhaps, or an acknowledgement that the ads were in extremely poor taste. Seems rather anti-climactic, and seems like the two companies responsible got off quite easy.

I talked about the commercials during two recent teachers' workshops, and here's a brief account of how one of them went. It's a one-sided account, obviously, but the thirty-five minutes weren't just me talking and being opportune and wise---far from it, actually---so please don't take that away from this entry. Anyway, to be honest, I went with this topic at least partly because these workshops go so poorly that I'm always looking for something, anything to talk about. I've found they go a little better when I do a chalk-and-talk lesson rather than hoping for discussion. I also felt it a good idea to talk about a Korea-related issue that was nowhere to be found in the Korean media. And, I thought it responsible as a teacher to try to educate my colleagues about something they, as teachers in turn, ought to know about.

In both classes I explained the word anti-Semitism and asked them if they knew what it meant. I asked them if they knew anything about anti-Semitism in Korea, and they said no. About a month earlier I showed them pictures from Far Countries, Near Countries, and provided them with a Korean-language news article on the US's condemnation of the author and with Korea Beat's translation of it. I passed the articles out again and drew their attention to a few of the cartoons. When asked, the teachers mentioned a few Jewish stereotypes they knew---such as Jews being wealthy and powerful---and said that these were positive traits, so they weren't sure why some would take offense. Most of the teachers had read Far Countries, Near Countries, and said they had enjoyed it, and they felt it presented history in an interesting way. And my colleagues hadn't heard of the uproar Rhie's comics had caused in the US, or that they were deemed controversial or racist in any way.

I asked them if they had heard of Hitler or Nazism, and if so, what they knew about. I don't remember exactly what they said, but it was agreed that Hitler was a bad guy. Then I showed them the two commercials. Unfortunately, the sound on the computer in the language lab doesn't work, so they missed out on the gunfire and the German shouting. During the commercials the teachers were laughing. I asked them why they were laughing, and they said it was because it was funny to see a woman looking so serious while selling cosmetics. They said the uniform and her expression presented too strong an image. I asked them if they noticed anything that might be offensive about the ad, and they said no. I drew their attention to the background, to the setting, and to the "히틀러" scrawled across the screen. They didn't pick up on it, and didn't make the connection between the woman and Nazis. One said that the painting on the fireplace was of Hitler.



We talked a little about what Hitler represents to much of the outside world and why the advertisement would be considered offensive. We talked about what Hitler represents in Korea, too. The teachers said they figured Hitler was used in the ads because he represents strength, something a company would want to emulate. I showed them a few other pictures of Nazi imagery in Korea, of the Hitler bars (here, here, and here), for example, or the Nazi mural I found in Gyeongju. Then I showed them the letters sent to me by Coreana and KORAD. I talked about why I felt the response was unsatisfactory, saying that the two companies were skirting responsibility and shifting blame, and that they were being dismissive by simply changing one word without removing the ad or altering any of the offensive imagery.

I asked if they knew of any other advertisements or commercials that might be considered offensive to some people because my motives are always very transparent. When they said no I put up a few images from a 2004 Korean ad campaign photo shoot that featured a model dressed up like a comfort woman (brought to light by Gusts of Popular Feeling). I showed them a few images and then the dramatic, drawn-out apologies, and I compared and contrasted the responses to the two campaigns. I ended by showing them some of the articles in the Western media, and mentioned that---at that time---the story was not yet in the Korean press.

The teachers did mention that they found the 2004 campaign photos much more offensive than the Coreana one, and I can understand that. They said the issue of comfort women was a sensitive one, and they brought up how Japan never apologized for the war or for conscripting women. I did mention that Japan had apologized, numerous times, but the teachers believed that it was just "lip service."

It's not my place and it's not really an appropriate topic for a low-key teachers' workshop, so I didn't pursue that any further. But it was quite interesting the topic turned to Japan, and a little ironic that we were talking about apologies. We had just seen photos of the actress from the 2004 ad campaign photo shoot prostrating herself before a crowd of jeering comfort women, who had deemed her apologies unsatisfactory. If the local press and public would subject a couple of no-names to such humiliation over the depiction of comfort women, and would (to a laughable degree) deem their whole apology unacceptable, imagine to what lofty standards Koreans must hold the Japanese government. Now, it's their country and they're free to imagine their identity in any way they see fit, but taking liberties with history obviously has implications for the present. Operating from faulty assumptions---that the Japanese are cruel, sneaky, and unapologetic---that are accepted unequivocally without regard to truth or nuance has real consequences in how Koreans view outsiders today. But, that's a post for another day.



None of the teachers there or in my other workshop had ever seen the Coreana commercials before, so if nothing else at least eight people got an introduction to the commercials. A few of my colleagues saw my piece in the KT today and were curious about the advertisement, because they had never seen it and had never seen anything in the news about it. Quite a few teachers in the office watched the commercials for the first time today when I pulled them up off Daum. Admittedly I wasn't that satisfied with how the workshops went, in large part because of the language barrier that makes cross-cultural communication quite difficult---and also because I really hate having to possibly, maybe, sort of, a little, approach matters of Korean history as in that 2004 ad campaign spread---and I didn't feel like I made any impression whatsoever. But I was surprised when a few of the teachers sought the ads out of their own accord today, and when another colleague dug up a Korean-language article on the controversy.

But mostly I think they were amused to see me without my glasses. Sorry ladies, I've had my hair cut since that photo was taken.

(Update: Yeah, this entry comes across weird, too much of the unreliable narrator, but it's already in my feed so there's no sense deleting it. Anyway, just thought I'd share a little about my workshops. Curious to know if anyone else brought it up at school or among friends.)

"Welcome to Hallyuwood."

Came across this video about Hallyuwood, the Korean Wave theme park set to open in Gyeonggi-do. OK, all the talk about the Korean Wave is pretty lame, and I groan in pain when the papers or some quote-unquote academics gush over it, especially when the expansion of Korean culture is set up as something markedly different and to the Westernization of Asia. But the concepts in the video look pretty cool. Here's an article about the park from February, 2006. Read the whole thing, but here's an excerpt:

According to the province's plan, the monorail will stretch for 1.5 kilometers, starting from Jeongbalsan Station on Subway Line No. 3, passing through the complex to reach Daehwa Station, the final destination of the monorail on the same subway line. The new transportation system is expected to carry about 30,000 passengers every hour.

Ilsan, where the complex will be nested, is in the vicinity of the Korea International Exhibition Center or KINTEX, the biggest exhibition center in the country. Ilsan Lake, the largest artificial lake in Asia which attracts more than 2.5 million visitors a year, is on the other side of the planned Hallyuwood site.

Also located near the complex will be a China town, a new airport terminal, an aquarium and a sports mall, which are either under construction or planned to begin groundbreaking soon. Two international airports - Incheon and Gimpo which are within an hour's drive from the future complex site - are expected to strengthen the function of the complex along with nearby studios of SBS and MBC, major local broadcasters.

Taking advantage of the lake park, another scenic lakeside park will be built on a lot measuring 138,600 square meters inside the complex, and a central waterway will also be constructed, with the water flowing in from the Han River. The province plans to build a luxury hotel in this area with about 6,000 guest rooms, as part of its second-phase project of the complex.

Sounds neat. I often cringe when I see how Korean culture is marketed and presented to foreigners because, quite frankly, nobody cares about hanbok, kimchi, or samul nori. But the park, should it actually be completed according to the video and those 2006 plans, will highlight things far more interesting to outsiders: Korea's technology and modernization, to say nothing of Korea's entertainment industry, which is admittedly far more popular in Asia than in North America. It will be located in Goyang, named one of Newsweek's "Ten Most Dynamic Cities" in 2006.

I haven't been able to find much new information on the park, and the website given in that video's description is to an online shopping site. Looks like the official site is here, which introduces the park with:

Hallyuwood is a project to establish the infrastructure for cultural exchanges that would be the center for continued development and production of Hallyu cultural contents as well as the venue for distribution and consumption of these products.

So there you go. No word yet on when it will open. Older articles said 2008 and 2010. Elsewhere on the page:

Hallyuwood is a compound word between the Korean word 'Hallyu', which represents Korean tradition, with the English word 'wood', which represents universality around the world. It shows our vision to get away from nationalism and march into the bigger world.

*Cough* I'll save most of the links for a forthcoming post, but here's a bit more from the Hallyuwood Declaration, whose sentiments contradict what I just quoted above:

The cultural potential of Korea, which was scattered with grief and joy over the 5 thousand years of national history, is blossoming the long-yearned flower of 'Hallyu' (Korean Wave) with the cutting-edge digital technology o fthe 21st century.

TOPIK at Chonnam National University.

I was in the "City of Light and Art" last weekend for the Test of Proficiency in Korean and had a chance to visit Chonnam National University. I went up the day before and checked out the university, both because I really enjoy visiting college campuses and because I wanted to find the testing center in advance. Good thing, too, since they changed the location without, from what I can tell, posting any updates on the website or getting in touch with the test takers. Anyway, it's a pretty little campus, and I was pleased to spend some time there.


Fountain in the mall in front of the library, built in 2004 according to the placard and not seen in this photo dated 2004.

It was, according to some of the pages I've seen in a quick Google search, the site of the beginning of the 1980 Gwangju Uprising. A placard in front of the above-pictured fountain reads:

The historic movement for the democracy of Korea originated on May 18, 1980, here, on this campus. Our nation's heart was burning for democracy, and our beloved ones rose up. They marched for national democracy and justice, and they carried a torch of truth that illuminated the future of this land. This sculpture is a proud reminder of the greatness that was---and is---the spirit of this campus, and a further reminder of the great outcry and the reverened sacrifice of those who paid the ultimate price when the nation and its history asked them.

May 18, 2004
Sculptor _ Dae-Gil Kim

I don't know much about the Uprising and didn't know the university's role in it until I started putting together this entry. It's definitely something I'll have to look into further. Here's a mural painted on one of the College of Education buildings (B07) next to the library:



The TOPIK itself was an interesting experience, although I was a bit cranky. After a rough night I'm tempted to revoke my endorsement of the Hotel Noblesse behind the Lotte Mart. I had stayed there several times before and was really impressed, but I got to my room Saturday night to find the window was covered over with metal, and every few minutes it sounded like a train was roaring by. I nodded off for a couple of hours but was awoken at 1:30 a.m. by a heated discussion in the hall (about Dokdo, I'm sure), followed a little later by typical love motel sounds. Owing to the metal panel over the side of the building, what was happening in the room next door sounded like it was actually happening at the window. The train noises were going strong nearly all night long. When I went outside to investigate in the morning, I found out that my room was above one of those car elevators. Decent hotel, but shitty room, and I'm pretty pissed that they'd book an overnight guest there, rather than reserving it for two-hour guests. I should have complained.

Anyway, the test was an interesting experience, and as it was the beginners' exam was fortunately pretty easy. Out of about 45 test-takers I was one of three Caucasians and one of ten men. A lot of different nationalities were represented, including Mongolian, Japanese, Chinese, and Indonesian. You know, most of the time I forget that I live in a fairly multicultural part of the country because I hardly ever run into any foreigners. (That sentence contradicted itself, but you know what I mean.) A good reminder that there's more to the foreigner experience in Korea than what happens to white English teachers or what is written on whiny blogs and forums. I was very impressed by many of those women's spoken Korean, and felt quite stupid for being at such a low level in spite of living here for almost three years. They could communicate quite effortlessly with the proctors and with each other in Korean, and while I understood everything they said, the problem is that it just never occurs to me to use certain words or pieces of grammar in real life. The next exam is in September, and I will be studying for the intermediate level, which will kick my ass.

Anyway, I notice that from time to time I get some visitors to my site from Chonnam National University. Thus, I feel comfortable speaking frankly to you. I really was impressed with the campus, but there are a couple of areas that need improvement. You all really need to do something about your missionary infestation. I think there was some kind of flash mob at 4:05, because as I was sitting around the above-pictured fountain I was quickly flanked by two, and when I evaded capture I saw that there were pamphlet-toting missionaries all over the lawn. Next to the library I was approached by two Chinese-speaking missionaries, who were admittedly kind of cute, but who were I think more confused than I was. The other side of campus offered no refuge, either.

The other point is regarding the nice pond on the one edge of campus. Aside from a few Christians, it was a very pleasant scene. However, when I returned in the morning to walk off some jitters I was displeased by the amount of trash all over the place. Characteristic of Korea, I know, but still, why ruin such a pleasant area with garbage? I spent some time fishing trash out of the water, and am contemplating printing up some "don't litter" flyers to post for my next visit. Sounds ironic, but shut up.

Enough of that, here are a few pictures:







Strange how some parts of campus just succumb to neglect and disrepair.





I saw that bird playing in the water as I was about to leave. I'm not sure what kind of bird it is, and I couldn't get a good shot of it, but I took a video of it because that's what my life has come to. Not sure if you can tell, but it had red markings around the eyes and a greenish tint to the wings, plus those white stripes. Anybody know what kind of bird it is? Many other visitors to the pond were terrified of it. It was awesome. I should have used it against the missionaries.



It's kind of difficult to take pictures of trash. If you look at the bottom one you'll find lots of beer bottles poking up among the lily pads. It's not as if there weren't trash cans at regular intervals around the pond.

Faux-prah: Do you have a bank account, of IBK? *ugh*

Some Korean-Americans may hate Oprah Winfrey . . . or did four years ago, but her show is quite popular over here. She is recognizable enough that an ad campaign may reference her likeness for cringeworthy commercials for the Industrial Bank of Korea (기업은행).



Oooh, and the IBK site gave me another Faux-prah ad:



Man, google "Oprah Korea" and you'll get pages of results devoted to her remarks about Korean women. Tons of articles treating that minor blow-up as if it were current news. I wish people would stop criticizing her for an imagined slight that was buried until some Azn-pridesters dug the article up a few weeks ago. I wish people would get back to piling on Keanu Reeves for his imagined slight of Korean culture. You can see what the scholars at AsiaFinest have to say about that here (but please don't).

* Update 1: I got a message from a user on Youtube who says it's her in the ads. I thought it was a locally-famous foreigner or something. You can see her profile here and decide for yourself.

Woefully offensive "Horry Kow" shirt is a best-seller in Chicago.

Since I'm getting a reputation as someone unsympathetic to Asian-Americans and to slights on Asian culture in the US, I thought I'd share something I picked up from East Windup Chronicle this morning. For the sake of balance. Oh, and because this shirt and accompanying attitudes are incredibly offensive. Here's the picture and article from the Chicago Sun-Times:

A Fukudome T-shirt with a racist image is the hottest-selling item at a souvenir stand that sells unlicensed Cubs-related merchandise across Addison Street from the ballpark, according to Mark Kolbusz, who's in his fourth season operating the stand.

On the front of the shirt is the traditional Cubs cartoon bear face but with slanted eyes and wearing oversized Harry Caray-style glasses. It's accompanied by the words ''Horry Kow,'' scrawled in cartoonish ''Japanese'' script. Fukudome's name and number are on the back.

''That's the No. 1 seller this year, by far,'' said Kolbusz, who estimates one in 10 customers complain about being offended.

While Kolbusz was answering questions, two white guys stopped by the stand and pointed at the shirt, with one affecting a 1960s B-movie accent while reading aloud the words on the shirt.

His friend responded in a similar offensive accent, ''Oh, you tink dat funny?''

They walked away laughing.

It continues:

''I don't know what the creator of the shirt meant this to be, but they should make it right,'' Fukudome said through his interpreter after being shown one of the shirts Thursday. ''Maybe the creator created it because he thought it was funny, or maybe he made it to condescend the race. I don't know.''

Regardless, it's not funny. The image feeds not only ugly, arrogant and ignorant Japanese stereotypes, but also the stereotype of the obnoxious, profane, drunken, booing, garbage-throwing Cubs fan.

How much truth is there in either image? And how funny is either one?

Kolbusz said he's ''indifferent'' to the image on the shirt.

''I'm making money,'' he said. ''It doesn't offend me. If other people are offended by it, it's just a silly T-shirt. Nobody is trying to offend anybody.''

As the article and one of the EWC commentors point out, the shirt is unlicensed and was presumably just printed up by a vendor outside the stadium. But, let's not forget the advertisement the Cubs used back in January to advertise the arrival of Kosuke Fukudome to the team.



The Rising Sun Flag in the background of the above ad is one that'd be considered offensive to the Asians who were colonized under it, regardless of how cool the design may look to Americans. Clearly neither the ad nor the shirt are appropriate in the least, and people are quite right to be upset, either by the imagery or by the use of Asian ancestry as a marketing gimmick. Sad, in fact, that only one out of ten---according to the article---are offended. I'll leave the protests to Brian in Jeollanam-do's Chicago bureau. While I don't think the guy should be forced to stop selling his shirts, he could perhaps be shamed into stopping.

LMFAO.

I stole this from "Your Daily Shot of Soju." Definitely beats the Fucking Freezing shirts I saw around my hagwon in 2005.

One of these things is not like the other.

Funny portion and line of questioning from an otherwise good read in today's KT:

Let me point out a few things that Koreans do very often, which seem strange to foreigners. First of all, staring at white and black people may not seem like a big issue, but it does make them feel uncomfortable.

Furthermore, asking all kinds of personal questions such as, ``Are you married?'' ``How old are you?'' and ``Have you ever done drugs?'' is even more annoying to people from other countries.

Koreans simply ask strangers these questions without any bad intentions. They don't mean anything by it and are just trying to be friendly and ``break the ice.''

Yes, "have you ever done drugs?" is a rather annoying question, to say the least. "Are you on a three-day weekend?" is less annoying to me, mostly because the answer is frequently "yes." Hopefully my dumb ass won't ruin this one by bombing the beginner level of the Test of Proficiency in Korean on Sunday.

Waste of Tome and Money.

Some nice work by the Korea Times today. Still waiting to see if they'll print the letter to the editor I wrote last Thursday about the Nazi commercials.

I think I'll just share this here because I don't want to start a whole new post. As I mentioned earlier I see each class once every two weeks. I had a couple of my second grade classes cancelled today because of test preparation. They were cancelled last time, too, because they were in Jeju. I haven't seen those classes since March 21st, our first meeting of the year. The next time I am slated to see my Thursday group of second graders is May 1st. However, midterms are that day, and I'm not scheduled to see them again until May 15th, after the long holiday. I was told, though, that because of Teachers' Day we probably won't meet again until May 29th. I'm actually kind of eager to meet one of those classes because it turns out my coteacher's daughter is in there, and I want to see who she is so I can figure out who I have to be extra nice to.

Being so infrequently used does have its drawbacks, of course, and does make it a little harder to, like, teach stuff, but it's not as if having extra free time is all that bad. But, in case you were wondering, the e'er-mutable schedule is one reason why it's very hard to do lesson planning too far in advance. Kinda ironic then that they told me about all these cancelations ahead of time. Whatever, this is what a slow news day looks like.

* Edit: Okay, since this is under the "teaching" category, I'll add a bit of wisdom. Believe it or not, sometimes my students aren't interested in the textbook. I push through it, but if it's going excruciatingly bad I'll say, "okay, let's play a little game," and I'll set up a round of "hangman." Now, I dislike hangman for several reasons: I despise violence and I disapprove of the implications . . . implicit in the game, and I also don't find it very exciting. But the students like it. Anyway, I'll do it with _ _ _. The word is "fox." The students never guess it, haha, and start repeating letters before they even attempt "f," "o," or "x." It wakes the students up, though, and they think it's fun. Then, when they say "한번 더" or "one more time" (complete with snickers and gestures), I'll put up _ _ _ _. Jazz. They never get it. Hahaha.

Everything is funnier in Dutch.

Cracks me up every time.

Breaking News: Holy shit, Korea's English-language media actually writes something about Coreana ads.

I'm going to do another update on these ads, and how they went over in my teachers' workshops, today or tomorrow. But first I just wanted to pass this article from the Dong-a Ilbo along. A couple of days ago I saw somebody from the Dong-a Ilbo was on my site for a couple of hours so I figured something was up. Read the whole thing, it's short, but here's an excerpt:

The company had shot a commercial for a new product starring Korean celebrity Park Jin-hee. In one scene, Park showed up in a Nazi uniform with shell-firing sounds heard in the background. Behind her was the sentence, “Even Hitler could not get East and West at the same time.”

A Coreana source said, “Our new product has two main functions: moisturizing and curing. We just wanted to highlight this, and thus centered the ad on the concept of conquest and Hitler.”

After an internal review, however, the company pulled the word “Hitler” from the commercial and replaced it with “anybody.”

Well, I don't understand why they're still insisting that the ad was pulled after an internal review, or was voluntarily censored back in February (as was claimed in the AP article), but whatever. It's quite clear that nobody around here has a fucking clue why Nazis in a make-up commercial would be inappropriate. Just cutting out the word "Hitler" while leaving the unmistakably Nazi imagery does nothing to reduce the ad's offensiveness. In fact, it kinda makes it worse, and the ad should have just been pulled all together. But, like I said, I'm getting kind of sick about talking to myself about this. Obviously overseas protests won't do anything, since organizations like the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Associated Press have no teeth over here. The "fixed" ad still runs regularly on OnStyle, the smug grin on Park Jin-hee as infurating as ever.

Whatever. Like I said I'll do one more write-up in a day or two, to talk about my two teachers' workshops, then I think I'm done with the topic. The idiocy around here can be staggering.

Those poor Russians.

I can only conclude the papers are trying to make Yi So-yeon appear as foolish as possible. From today's Joongang Ilbo:

Along with conducting 18 scientific experiments during her 10-day stay in space, Korea’s first astronaut, Yi So-yeon, is raising Korea’s space profile with diverse ethnic items.
The traditional Korean items include banknotes, scarves, hanji, or Korean handmade paper, and stuffed dolls.
Of those items, a 10,000 won ($10.13) banknote will show Korea’s long history in astronomy because the back of the note is printed with the country’s 600-year-old astronomical chart. The chart is called Chonsang-yulcha-bunya-jido, which means “astronomical chart of stars, time and space.” The chart was made during the Joseon Dynasty in 1395 and features more than 1,400 stars. Yi will explain the astronomical chart and Korea’s history of astronomy using the 10,000 won note to other astronauts.
. . .
Yi will recite a Korean poem titled “The Starry Night,” written by Yun Tong-ju and introduce the excellence of hanji. “Since hanji paper absorbs moisture in the air and emits it again, Yi will test whether hanji could be used in space,” said Song Ha-jin, the mayor of Jeonju.
A Korean intangible cultural asset called a bokjoomeoni, or a silk pouch containing word blocks, was also sent into space. With the blocks Yi will make phrases such as “I love Korea,” and “Let’s go to space” in a state of zero gravity.

For the sake of the Russians I can only hope the media is inflating the significance of what could just as easily be small talk among coworkers. If not, it appears that not even the International Space Station can offer protection from the "enlighten the foreigner about Korea" impulse that characterizes so many company dinners. And TV shows. And newspaper articles. And meetings. And when I'm just sitting there doing nothing.

Does it make me a bad person to write that when I read the headline of the Joongang Ilbo article, "Yi will leave a little bit of Korea up in space," I thought of the last paragraph of this Chosun Ilbo piece?

Even answering the call of nature in space requires a unique device. Since urine and feces would be splattered in every direction without the force of gravity, a special vacuum tool is used to collect it.

In other news, the Joongang Ilbo is looking for a copy editor. The chief responsibility of the new hire will be to hit enter between the paragraphs.

So-yeon serves ramyeon and she can sing, too!

Gee, is that a certified space safety pin holding on that Korean flag? Pic from here.

When I saw this excerpt quoted on another site I thought the original poster had made them up. From yesterday's Korea Times on Yi So-yeon's space travels:

During Sunday's brief transmission to Seoul, a reporter from Yonhap news agency baffled Yi by asking her to name a TV star who she wants to travel the space with. ``None. But I wish I could have a buddy who can do experiments with me,'' she answered.

The reporter from Korea's dominant news agency then asked Yi to sing ``Fly to the moon,'' a jazz classic, which Yi reluctantly did.

Fortunately for the astronaut, the verbal torture ended as transmission went off right after the reporter's final question: ``How will you respond when an ET appears outside your window?''

Damn. I wonder if these requests would have been made had Korea's first space tourist turned out to be a man. Not that her flight is anything that warrants gravity (ha!) or overly serious treatment---more has been made of the Korean space food than of the planned experiments---because it is essentially a very expensive espioinage publicity campaign, but I would think the local media wouldn't work so hard to render her ridiculous. Strikes me as the same kind of "that a girl!" Korean journalism that made a mockery of women's achievements in golf a few years back:

What enables South Korean lady golfers to be so formidable in the U.S. LPGA Tour? It is nothing less than the Koreans' talent to make things skillfully with their hands, a trait handed down from generation to generation for thousands years. Celadon in Koryo and the Yi dynasty are world famous for blue and white china in quality, and you know that pottery involves the same skills as playing golf.

. . .

An editor golf fan of an English daily newspaper mentioned that one of the root causes for Korean ladies to play such great golf in the U.S. is closely connected to dexterity, which is also critical to preparing delicious Kimchi, a Korean side dish loved by the people around the world.

. . .

Of course, there are some other factors that make all the great achievements possible including tenacity and indomitability, two characteristics of Koreans, along with quite a lot of synergy among the South Korean golfers. But without the dexterity unique to Koreans their great success would be hard to imagine.

Now go read this. Man, do they even have journalism departments over here?

Korea Times: "Fake Wedding Guests Necessary Evil."

From today's Korea Times:

There are several reasons why people seek part-time guests at weddings ― the main one is they have few friends available.

``People don't want to look as if they don't have close ties with friends. Also, a bride seeks fake guests when the number of her guests is apparently smaller than the bridegroom's, and vice versa, as the number of guests is often regarded as the family's power,'' said Lee Mi-young, director of Hagaek Friends, one of dozens of such part-time wedding guest ``rental'' companies easily found on the Internet.

About 70 percent of the clients are for brides: Women tend not to have many friends if several years have passed since their graduation and if they have not had a job, while men, having jobs, have many colleagues at work, Lee said.

Among other clients are those who hold weddings in a region other than their hometowns, or those who do not have many acquaintances in Korea due to long overseas stay.

Well, I don't know if they're actually "evil." Necessary expense, maybe. An interesting story, and I learned a new word: 하객 means "well-wisher." A quick Naver search turned up a few of these agencies: HagaekMake, YesGuest, NiceWedding, and the one mentioned in the article, HagaekFriends, to name but four. The article says that fake guests can earn 20,000 to 30,000 won per wedding, and the websites seem to charge about 40,000 won for your average provided guest. More evidence that if I ever get married here I'll need to put in lots of overtime.

The city of beauty, Romanticism, and Dream!

I finally made my first ever trip to Mokpo, one of the five cities in Jeollanam-do and probably the one with the biggest name recognition for those unfamiliar with the area. I'm still greatly under the influence of bronchitis and the packet of horse tranquilizers the doctor gave me, so I didn't spend too much time exploring, but it seems like a neat town. It's got a fair bit of stuff and has a nice set-up, with the city wrapping around Yudalsan, a small mountain on the southwestern side of town. I'm gonna save the museums and the islands for another time.

This weekend was the Yudalsan Spring Festival, so it was as good a time as any to visit. It was a nice, fairly leisurely few hours, but I will add a line that seems to creep into a lot of write-ups on Korean zoos: "the park was cool until I got to the animal displays." Reminds me of the time I went to Grand Children's Park and saw the polar bears with green hair thanks to their exhibit's chlorine. Anyway, near one of the Yudalsan's entrances there was a small 무빙주 ("moving zoo"), courtesy of your friends at Zoo Zoo. Sad reminder that Koreans usually aren't too good with animals (unless we're talking about 보쌈).


The small turtle is on its back because that guy flipped it and tossed it at the big one.


Wearing a trash hat! Hahahaha!


This dog was tied to the tent with a foot-long leash, so that when people tried to pick it up *slaps forehead* they nearly pulled the tent down.




They brought a monkey.


Not my hand.


Burying its face in its hands and feet. The Zoo Zoo employees in green (background) let passers-by wake up the animals by banging on the cages.








Anybody who has ever seen a donkey before knows why this is not a good place to pose with your baby.


To be fair and give Korea credit where it's due, if a display like this were set up in the US, with scores and scores of unsupervised baby animals, they'd all be stolen in about eight minutes.


Okay, when they put a baby rabbit on top of the baby human, that was really cute.

Russian woman co-starring on new "lingerie fashion show" . . . show.

A 23-year-old Russian woman "야나" is part of the new "lingerie fashion show" program "5 girls," airing on CGV since April 2. Her Korean is quite poor, but she's just around for decoration and for poking. As you can probably imagine, the picture above is about as classy as the show gets.


Her night is just getting started.

Another foreign beauty, in the most undiscerningly Korean sense of that phrase, will be on CGV this spring, too. Djamilya, from Uzbekistan, will be starring on 섹시몽, another softcoreish program that I don't really care about so I'm going to stop.

I hate when they do that.

And I'm not talking about how they stopped including fries or cheese sticks with the Hanwoo Bulgogi Burger Combo. But I'm pissed about that, too.

Lowering academic standards to lure teachers to the boonies?

I can't see how this can be considered a good idea at all. Especially since one of the favorite complaints made of foreign teachers here is that we're underqualified and overpaid, I don't see how hiring white people with two-year degrees makes any sense. The article is shit, and I'm sure nothing will come of the policies other than to provide weeks of sky-is-falling editorials from crusty, out-of-touch Korean teachers in the KT Opinion section. Nevertheless, here's an excerpt:

The government is considering loosening academic requirements for native-English speaking teachers as a means to meet growing demand in rural areas that are shunned by foreign teachers.

Currently, the jobs are only open to those with bachelor degrees at four-year universities. As education authorities in rural areas have had difficulty hiring native-English speaking teachers, they are now calling on the central government to ease the qualifications for English-teaching or E-2 visas to those who have completed 2-year courses at universities or colleges.

In response, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and other government agencies said they are positively considering accepting the demand for the relaxation of the academic requirements. The ministry has already asked the Korean Immigration Service to ease the English-teaching or E-2 visa.

Top educators in 15 cities and provinces recently asked the ministry to accept two demands regarding foreign English teachers ― lowering academic criteria and allowing the hiring of those from countries where English is spoken as one of the official languages.

I'm sure the real story is in the last paragraph there, and in parts of the article I didn't include here.

Anyway, a few days ago The Marmot posted a story which said overseas Koreans and Korean Studies students were being sought after for volunteer jobs in rural Korea. (HAHAHAHA.) As I said in response, I'm not convinced there actually is a dearth of foreign teachers that can practically be filled. I heard Korean English teachers make that complaint many times, but I figured that was, in part, projection and an inability to believe that some foreigners actually like living in the sticks. Every single Korean teacher I met in Gangjin last year told me that they didn't like it, that it was too small, that it was boring, and that the students performed very low academically. Few of them chose to go to Gangjin, but because Korean teachers are rotated every four years, they didn't have much choice. One of my coteachers took the position because he was desperate for a job just out of college, and another coteacher took the job thinking she'd work at the English Village, and thus earn more promotion points.

But anyway, there's a steady stream of replacement teachers to Jeollanam-do every year, and even the hagwon somehow get teachers too dumb to do their homework. As I mentioned on that Marmot's Hole post, which was actually talking about using volunteers to staff after-school programs, the problem with rural areas is that the schools are often too small and too far apart to have a foreign teacher visit. Rougly 75% of the elementary schools in Gangjin, for example, didn't have a foreign teacher visit during my last semester there (and I suspect that's down to 0% now). It's not uncommon to have rural schools with 200, 100, 50, (or 15) students, meaning there are too few classes to warrant having a native speaker there full-time. Four of the fifteen elementary in Gangjin have fewer than 40 students, nine have fewer than 100 students, and only two schools have more than 150. (Imagine trying to teach a class of four.) Teachers must travel to that school once or twice a week, then. Based on the stats I just linked, and based on my experiences there of teachers working at one large school and two smaller schools, at least four foreign teachers would be needed to staff every school in a county of Gangjin's size. That would mean, though, that at least two teachers would be at a different school every day, which may or may not be desirable. Looking at the small size of Gangjin's high schools and middle schools, it'd take probably another four native speakers to staff those. But that could be a moot point anyway since foreign teachers in a lot of rural areas are being phased out of the individual schools and are instead funnelled into English Towns.

Just seems a case of one hand not knowing what the other is doing. While foreigners are being pushed out of some areas---I taught 9 classes a week my first semester, in spite of so many schools needing and wanting a foreign teacher---others are apparently clamoring for them. Gangjin, and I presume other areas of Jeollanam-do, uses Filipino teachers for some of the after-school programs. They have advantages over other native speakers in that they usually have some Korean skills, they have their own homes, and they command less money. But they clearly aren't a preferred choice, given prevailing opinions of what an English speaker is imagined to look and sound like, and I must admit that given their often difficult accents and their awkward grammar, I usually don't find them much of an upgrade over Korean teachers (at least when dealing with rural elementary school students).

Coreana Nazi commercials pulled off youtube.

Looks like the Coreana Nazi commercials were pulled off Youtube this morning, not by me. I'm sure Korad and/or Coreana asked Youtube to take them down, after I ignored their letters. Other, Jew-friendly Coreana ads have not been taken off Youtube, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time. *cough* Anyway, they had generated roughly 9,000 combined hits, so it was clear that enough people saw them. You can still view them here and here via the original Naver blog, and I also saw them up on Daum. Naver took them down this afternoon, but they're still on Daum here and here. I have them saved on my computer, and I may repost them to Youtube, I dunno, seems like they'd just get pulled right back down. If anybody wants copies, please let me know and I'll pass them along.

* Edit: Go here and read the excellent summary of what happened a few years ago when a Korean company did an ad campaign a photo shoot with an actress made up to be a comfort woman. The difference in apologies then and now. Actually, there really wasn't an apology in this case. A few years ago, though, the series of apologies involved burning prints, shaving heads, and groveling on the floor in front of former comfort women and the media.

No wonder he went crazy! Hahahahahahaha!

Continuing the theme of old pieces of news, here's a video I came across today. It's from a Fox News talk show slash forum called "Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld," and it apparently aired on April 25, 2007. It talks about the link between psychopaths like Cho Seung-hui and sexual frustration, pointing out that Cho hired a prostitute a month before the Virginia Tech Massacre, and that some of the 9/11 terrorists visited strip clubs. Man, thank Xenu for people like this, who can help us laugh at our follies and our terrifying experiences. Actually, no, I found the tone pretty offensive and I'm surprised that the off-color segment didn't attract more attention.

"Seems to me the solution for all of this is basically to airdrop escorts into countries where there are lonely, sad men."
". . . We just need some dedicated whores, we need some serious hookers who are willing to fight the war on terror. Ameriwhore."

Things like this remind me why it's good to be away from home a lot of the time, and that my country has become a cultural and intellectual wasteland. Kerry Howley is really hot, though, and apparently really smart, too. She has a really great idea! She used to work in Rangoon, I know where Rangoon is, so I think I have a shot with her.

* Edit: Checked the wikipedia page and saw that this aired just nine days after the massacre. Bad enough to do something this tasteless well after the fact, but only nine days later? . . . really surprised nobody raised a stink about this back then.

Korean-Americans complained about Oprah (three-and-a-half years ago)

Damn, I did a write-up on this news article, only to realize it's three-and-a-half years old. It's the most-viewed story on the Chosun Ilbo site, which means that some Azn Pride forum just rediscovered it. I'm sure a bunch of Korean-Americans brought it up to deflect attention from the Korean Nazi commercial controversy and show that Americans are insensitive, too. (Update: Yep, a Korean-American forum brought up "Oprah Chimp-frey" recently here.) Anyway, since we're here, here's a couple excerpts:

During a recent episode of her talk show "The Oprah Winfrey Show," Winfrey was discussing women's image and fashion culture around the world when she disparaged Korean women, saying they have "an obsession with plastic surgery."

The program dealt with content that suggested Korean women have a unique preference from plastic surgery and an inferiority complex in which they would like to have Western features. It also described Korea as a plastic surgery superpower.

Because of this, the Korean-American community is harshly criticizing the program, and fallout is spreading as some Korean expatriate groups demand a public apology.

and

One Korean student studying in the U.S. said, "The Oprah Winfrey Show is a program with a lot of viewers worldwide, and for it to deal with Korea negatively like this is a big problem. Because of this, I worry if the nation's image won't take a big hit."

It's the first time I'd ever heard of it, and a google search didn't turn up much else, save for this blogger, who writes:

Elective plastic surgery is a growing cultural problem in Korea and many other countries, but to single out and demonize Korean women is wrong. If they wanted to be fair, they could have gained insight into the female Korean psyche by having an actual Korean woman on the show.

Seems a case of a few hypersensitive Asian-Americans attacking someone who dared make an opinion based on fact regarding the cultural practices of an Asian country. And seems a case of the Korean press not able to leave a story on perceived American racism alone. Of course the most notable case of an American talk show host who gained the ire of Asian-Americans is Jay Leno, who made a series of jokes (here and here) about Koreans eating dog. I get that some are upset because these talk shows perhaps perpetuate stereotypes that all Koreans eat dog, or all Korean women want to look white, but it's not as if Koreans don't eat dog or aren't obsessed with plastic surgery.

I'm curious where the Asian-American community went during the intense anti-American demonstrations in Korea in 2002. Curious also where the Asian-American community goes whenever the Korean press abuses foreign teachers in the media, or when Korean entertainers use blackface (here, here, and here). Curious where the Asian-American community is now, as a cosmetic company runs Nazi-themed commercials. Ah, that's right, I forgot that most only exercise the Asian part when complaining about white people, when choosing an evening's restaurant, or when filling out a college application. Damn, the fad of hyphenated-Americanism is extremely pathetic, and after spending a few days watching Sopranos reruns, I've had my fill for a little while.

New Coreana Nazi video pretty much the same as the old Coreana Nazi video.

Just saw the revised, Jew-friendly Coreana ad on OnStyle, and they did change the "Hitler couldn't even hold east and west" (roughly) to "Nobody could hold east and west." After getting their name dragged through the mud by CNN, ABC, USA Today, the Associated Press, and every other paper and blog that picked up the story . . . THAT'S how Coreana responds? By changing one word? How on earth can that be considered even remotely appropriate? After writing me to take down the youtube videos, and issuing a mess of excuses to the Associate Press, it's quite clear that they JUST . . . DON'T . . . GET IT and, as expected, have no idea whatsoever what all the fuss is about. As if that weren't apparent from the decision to shoot those ads in the first place. Here's how Seo Sang-hee, a representative from the ad agency who did the commercial and a woman who messaged me earlier, responded to criticism of the initial ads:

A Korad official, Seo Sang-hee, confirmed the ad was meant to invoke a Nazi soldier and Hitler, which she said symbolize "revolution" in keeping with the lotion's "revolutionary" dual functions.

Seo said the commercial was not designed to promote Hitler, but rather the idea that the cosmetics will succeed in both East and West, which Hitler failed to do.

And here's what I don't get. From the same CNN article:

However, company spokesman Kim Yoon-oh said the slogan has already changed to: "No one has ever had the East and West." The phrase was meant to boast of the product's dual moisturizing and calming effects.

The company said it had not received the Wiesenthal Center complaint, but Kim said concerns of potential controversy prompted the slogan change before the ad began airing in February.

The commercial still features the same militaristic imagery, but Kim said Coreana was not aware of the Nazi-style logo on the model's cap. He said the costume was selected by a stylist affiliated with Korad, a Seoul-based firm that produced the commercial.

The ad was clearly not altered back in February, and the use of "Hitler" is only part of the problem. The uniform, the background noise, the German language, and the, um, bombing campaign are all in extremely poor taste, and make the setting almost instantly recognizable as Nazi Germany. As to whether the company received the Simon Weisenthal Center complaint, who knows. Somebody obviously tipped them off to the videos on youtube---though I wonder if Coreana has moved to take them off Naver and Daum---so somebody obviously must have been aware of the media hoopla, and somebody must have been saavy enough to navigate English-language websites. Coreana does have an English-language portion on its site, but I have to wonder if they were even capable of interpreting the Simon Weisenthal Center complaint letter. And if they did understand the words, would such a motion even translate culturally to compel them to drop an ad campaign? A single letter doesn't seem very persuasive, and as I said before, as a primarily domestic company, they are fairly insulated against a little bad press overseas. A letter from an unknown foreign entity probably carried as much weight to Korad and Coreana as their Korean-language letters did to me.

And here's another thing. If you watch the "making" video for another Coreana commercial featuring actress Park Jin-hee and the 녹두 line of cosmetics, you'll see a white woman in some position of authority, and you'd wonder who was behind the cameras for these latest ads.

Well, whatever, fuck 'em. Spread the word to whomever you were complaining to before, and let them know that nothing has really changed. Get the Simon Wiesenthal Center back on the phone. If anybody finds a new version of the commercial on Naver, please put it on youtube and pass it around.

You can tell that I'm still pretty much bed-ridden because I have time enough to stare at Park Jin-hee write so much these days.

"Turtle Man" died on Wednesday.

Rapper Im Seong-hoon (임성훈), known as "Turtle Man," of the group "Turtles" died a few days ago of a heart attack at age 38. "Turtles" (거북이), a trio featuring Im and two kind of annoying women, are best known for the song 비행기. They also did the song 싱랄라, the video for which I cited as evidence that Koreans are obsessed with each other's asses. Matter of fact, their song "Bingo," a staple of middle school festival dance numbers, was my ringtone for a while (not my fault), and they do have some catchy songs. I like this one. More on this from KBS World:

Turtle Man had collapsed in April 2005 after complaining of chest pains and difficulty in breathing. He was rushed to a hospital and underwent an emergency heart surgery. He was released after a month-long stay in the hospital, but had to receive another surgery in October 2005.

Nonetheless, the group Geobugi came back in 2006 with their fourth album “Buy a Turtle” and earned wide recognition with their hit “Airplane.” Geobugi’s other hits include “Bingo” and “Four Seasons.” Turtle Man’s funeral will take place on Friday and his remains will be rested in the same place where the remains of actresses Lee Eun-joo and Jung Da-bin are kept.

Coreana wants the ads removed from Youtube.

Got back from work yesterday to find a couple of messages to my youtube account, regarding the two Nazi-themed cosmetic commercials. I wasn't sure what they were, although they did seem rather formal-sounding. A couple of posters on Dave's gave them a read through and told me that the gist of the messages were that in response to the Simon Wiesenthal Center protest and the media coverage, the ad will be changed from "Hitler couldn't hold east and west" to "Nobody could hold east and west." Thus, they would like the old advertisements taken down.

One of the messages was from Seo Sang-hee, a Korad representative who appeared in the CNN.com article that ran on this topic. An excerpt:

A Korad official, Seo Sang-hee, confirmed the ad was meant to invoke a Nazi soldier and Hitler, which she said symbolize "revolution" in keeping with the lotion's "revolutionary" dual functions.

Seo said the commercial was not designed to promote Hitler, but rather the idea that the cosmetics will succeed in both East and West, which Hitler failed to do.

Are you kidding me? Why not just use Rain? *cough* Anyway, here are the two messages I received. They are in Korean, so they're off limits to a lot of us. They refer to "Solitary" or "SolitaryThrush," the name I used on youtube (from Whitman). I've taken out cell phone numbers, but that's it. Editorializing to follow.

From Seo Sang-hee:

안녕하세요,
Solitary님께서 올리신 동영상 <코리아나 화장품 -- 녹두 28앰플> 광고를 대행하고 있는 광고대행사 KORAD에서 본 동영상과 관련하여 Solitary님께 아래와 같이 협조를 의뢰 드리고자 합니다.

Solitary님께서 올리신 동영상 <코리아나 화장품 -- 녹두 28앰플> 광고 파일과 관련하여
해당 기업인 코리아나 화장품의 기업 이미지에 부정적인 영향을 미칠 수 있는 소지가 있음을 알려드립니다.
먼저, Solitary님께서 올리신 광고는 현재 방영되고 있는 광고물 제작 이전에 만들어진 제작물입니다. 방송 광고로 온 에어 하기에는 부적합한 부분이 있어 사전에 이를 수정한 광고물로 현재 방송되고 있음에도 불구하고 현재 온라인 상에서 유포되어 있는 해당 동영상으로 인해 현재 광고주가 곤란한 상황이 발생하였습니다. 구체적으로, 이스라엘 대사관으로부터 '독일군의 유태인 학살'과 관련된 부정적 이미지의 역사적 인물을 광고에서 표현 대상물로 활용함으로써 유태계 국민들의 정서에 부정적 영향을 미치는 결과를 초래하였다는 항의를 받고 있습니다.
이는 광고의 본 제작 의도와는 전혀 다른 방향으로 광고를 해석하는데 따른 결과이며, 이로 인하여 특정 기업(코리아나 화장품)의 이미지에 매우 부정적으로 작용할 수 없음을 알려드리는 바입니다.
Solitary님의 의도와는 무관하여 올리신 동영상으로 인하여 발생되는 이와 같은 문제가 확대되지 않도록 혜량하여 주실 것을 부탁드립니다.
더불어 이와 관련하여 자세한 사항에 대해서는 아래 연락처로 문의하여 주시기 바랍니다.

문의) KORAD 서상희 부장

And from one of the folks in charge of the ad campaign:

안녕하세요?
저는 코리아나화장품의 '녹두28앰플'광고를 대행하고 있는
광고대행사 코래드의 원현정입니다.
죄송한 말씀입니다만
SolitaryThrush님께서 4월3일 올려주신 코리아나 화장품의
'녹두28앰플' TV CF와 관련하여 삭제를 요청드립니다.
카피 내용중 부적절한 문구가 있어
현재 수정된 카피로 CATV에서 방영중에 있습니다.

문제가 된 카피는 '히틀러도 동과서를 다 갖지는 못했다'로
현재는'그 누구도 동과서를 다 갖지는 못했다'로
변경되었습니다.
이와 관련, 유태계 관련 단체로 부터 항의가 접수 된바
신속히 해당 동영상을 삭제하여 주실것을 부탁드리오니
협조하여 주시기 바랍니다.

문의)
코래드 캠10팀
[number deleted]
원현정

I've decided to post them because I find them timely and newsworthy, and because I find some disconnect between the uproar and the response. The "uproar" isn't happening in Korea among Koreans, or even in Asia, but rather among a small minority of foreigners here, a special interest group, and overseas media outlets. Haven't seen any mention yet in the media over here. I suspect that most Koreans would find nothing wrong with the ad at all, and simply rewording the text, which is splashed over a woman clearly made up to resemble a Nazi officer, is not a satisfactory response in the least. Moreover, has there been any response made in English---to reach a global audience---aside from the translation provided in the CNN article?

I don't recall much change happening after the protests of the Nazi bars and the bestselling comic book "Far Countries, Near Countries." Nazi bars are still around, and the comic books are still in circulation and as popular as ever. And those are bigger and more flagrant displays of National Socialism and anti-Semitism than these 30-second ads. All the while, Koreans criticize textbooks sympathetic to Japanese occupation, or become furious whenever a Japanese politician visits the Yazakuni Shrine, or get involved in massive campaigns to alter maps or "correct" history. Not to belittle those first two issues---I totally belittle the third---but how about a little perspective, and a little awareness that the man who failed in the cosmetics business is the same one who was allied to those cursed Japanese. But in all seriousness, the lack of perspective and the extreme lack of sensitivity to world history is staggering. I wish I could say this was an isolated bout of ignorance, but as we've seen, this is something that comes up again and again and again. Whether it is anti-Semetic and racist comic books (here and here), or likening the burning of a national treasure to the September 11th attacks, or running a humorous advertisement with bin Laden's likeness shortly after 9/11/01, or the use of blackface to emphasize the ugliness of a singing group, or the relentless scapegoating of foreign English teachers, or more "run of the mill" racist jabs found in the newspapers with regularity (like this or this or this), the negative views held by some Koreans toward foreigners and foreign cultures is something that needs to be examined in earnest.

But, I'd be very surprised if anything comes of this. Coreana serves domestic customers primarily, just like the Hitler bars and those comic books, so worldwide outrage will have little effect on the company itself, but would rather sully (perhaps) the image of the country that produces and condones such material. Moreover, nothing usually happens when foreigners---who "don't understand Korean culture" anyway---have anything negative to say about Korea. All the more bizarre an attitude considering how hypersensitive South Korea is to its image overseas. These types of headlines aren't good for anybody over here . . . I just wish Koreans didn't have to be guilted into being more historically or globally aware, or always had to be explicitly told that things like the Holocaust and slavery were terrible things and are kinda sensitive issues for a lot of people, or that things like nigger, black face, or the stereotype of the powerful, omnipotent Jew aren't things you really should be playing around with.

Anyway, the ads will stay up until somebody takes them down.

Different worlds.

So I took a sick day on Wednesday, and got up quite early on Thursday because I had to get to my primary school and recover my textbooks before I went to my Thursday-Friday school. I got to my second school and was sent home as soon as I walked into the office. Turns out it was school picnic day. Surprise! You know, even though I felt like shit on Tuesday and Wednesday, I might have toughed it out had I known that I'd have no school on Thursday, and that 75% of my students would be in Jeju on Friday. My coteacher's daughter goes to my Thursday-Friday school, and I guess she's aware that kid is in Jeju this week, I dunno. Still, reflects kinda poorly on me for taking a busy day off when I would have two easy ones ahead.

Anyway, I'm sitting on a few longer posts, but I don't have the energy to get into them right now. I'm up to here (motions with hand) in lesson planning, and it's quite a challenge to keep these kids in line sometimes, and that's something I still don't think Korean teachers quite get. I feel like a dumbass when one class is the best in the world, and the next is used as evidence for why foreigners should be sent back to Cuba. But I've spent an inordinate amount of time lately thinking about teachers' workshops, these weekly "duties" of mine in which I have to occupy the teachers' time. Like I said before, they're really not into it. They no-show a lot, they cancel whenever it suits them, they don't talk, and they make little effort to show behavior befitting an English teacher. Whatever, I've decided to get into a little more chalk-and-talk and a little less indulging their silence, so I've been thinking of things to do in class.

I took some time last week to talk about trying to, like, take English seriously, and I talked a little about stereotypes held of foreigners and foreign teachers. I'm in a streak of no-shows and cancellations right now, but I'm going to pick up on that theme a little the next time I see them. They aren't at all interested in what goes on in my classes, but I'd like to try and harness some of their influence in order to get to work in some stuff that's a little more useful. In spite of intensive grammar classes, for example, the students have no idea what a verb does, or how adjectives work, or how to build a sentence, or how to transform a question into a complete-sentence answer. It kills me that the teachers aren't taking any time to address these deficiencies, especially with six hours to my one, and so I've had to take time out of my classes to hit on some grammar basics. And you can imagine how well the students like that! I just don't get how so much teaching can take place with so little learning.

Here's an excellent example of that from last week. The chapter was on jobs, and one of the target dialogues was "What does your (father / mother / uncle / etc.) do?" and "S/he is a ______________." That was the theme of one of the chapter's dialogues, one of its speaking activities, and its reading and writing portions. The Korean teachers, in their seven classes devoted to the chapter, went through and translated the dialogue:

"Look at this picture"
"Who is this?"
"This is my father."
"What does your father do?"
"He is an engineer."
"Who is this?"
"Oh, this is my uncle."

And translated the reading, and had the kids listen and repeat, listen and repeat, listenandrepeatandlistenandrepeat to the drills a bunch of times. The teachers translated the reading into Korean, dissected the grammar, gave the students a bunch of substitution drills, worksheets, puzzles, vocabulary lists, and writing homework. So for my class I planned to have them write down what each family member does, and then interview their partner.

Now, when things go terribly wrong in class, it's not necessarily for a lack of preparation. See, when I envision something will be tricky for my students, I spend some time thinking of easy ways to explain or demonstrate the task, and I come equipped with lots of back-up ideas in case my original one is too difficult. No, when things go terribly wrong, it's usually because something I think should take 5 minutes ends up being the hardest thing in the world, and ends up killing any sort of flow or momentum I imagined having.


If only I were that effective.

In this particular class, I figured it'd take them a few minutes to write down each occupation, then they'd interview their partners for five minutes, then we'd move onto something else. Well, in spite of having taught this chapter over seven different class periods, the Korean teachers *slams face against desk* didn't teach the students the names of their own family members' occupations and didn't bother plugging these into the role plays. They used farmer, and engineer, and doctor, and college student in the dialogues, because those were the terms in the dialogues. So what should have been a simple exercise turned into a clusterfuck of students trying to go through dictionaries, asking me questions, and leaving the worksheet blank. If the sheet wasn't blank, they ended up writing things like "My father is a mart" or "My mother is a employee."

And because I had five minutes to kill at the end of class, since the students couldn't interview each other, I went through one of the dialogues the students did with their Korean teacher. Hahahahahahaha. Well, I should say they listened to the CD-Rom with their Korean teacher. It involved saying "This is my friend ________, s/he is from ________." So they went through all the examples, Marco from Rome, Sophia from Paris, whatever, but when I asked them to introduce their neighbor, they struggled. "This is my friend Minsu. He is from Korea." Didn't occur to the Korean teacher to teach them that.

Now, I know I'm a shitty teacher most of the time, so I'll admit some fault. I should have been prepared for such a catastrophe, and should have had a worksheet ready to give students who didn't know their family members' profession. As silly as it sounds, I also shouldn't have assumed the slightest bit of preexisting knowledge, because my students are remarkably indifferent toward English. It's also tough for teachers because most students' parents don't have sexy jobs like fireman, astronaut, or pilot. Nearly every family member in class was an office worker, a public servant, or a housewife. And some of the job titles translate awkwardly, and present many opportunities for misspelling, mispronunciation, and confusion. Didn't help that my colleagues told my students to use "salaryman" instead of businessman, but whatever. Maybe I shouldn't have even touched on their family members' jobs, and just stuck to the sexy ones, but since it was one of the chapter's targets, it seemed like a natural activity.

And, I know it reads insensitive and arrogant of me to complain about what goes on in somebody else's class. A way to cover up my own deficiencies, some would say. My point isn't to complain to no end, but to highlight some really huge differences across the Korean teacher - English teacher divide, and to call attention to something that might deserve . . . attention later. I konw it definitely gives me something to think and talk about.

But, anyway, why on earth would teachers pass up such an easy opportunity to make English real for their students? If they have to memorize something on pain of beating, why not make it something pertinent to their own lives? Why spend class time on substitution drills with different occupations---drills that explicitly say "What does your uncle do? / He is a farmer"---without bringing in their own students' experiences? Jesus Tapdancing Christ, who the fuck does that?

Just represents a radically different way of viewing language education. When I go through a textbook during my lesson planning, I'm looking for something, anything that I can make remotely useful. Normally that means choosing a particular sentence pattern and hitting it from a bunch of different angles in the hopes that it will stick (never does). That's an alien view to some, I know, and the idea that language ability is measured in production is one not shared by all. But I really have no idea what most of my colleagues see in a book. It's hilarious when they ask me questions about an obscure grammatical point that appears as an afterthought in one of the stories. Can't even build the smallest sentence, so why are you worrying about complementizers? Haha, one teacher brought up that, on the CD-ROM, one of the characters says aCAdemic rather than acaDEMic and that students might get confused. I was gonna say "the students might get confused when the character uses the word academic, yes," but I didn't think of it until now.

Like I said, I know I suck as a teacher, but I do feel a little better when I consider what some of my colleagues are doing. I attend a free "intermediate" Korean class once in a while downtown, run by local Korean English teachers. One the first day of our intermediate class we learned hangeul for an hour, and then learned simple words based on simple consonant-vowel combinations. So we'd learn ㄱ, then practice 가구 and 고기. For example, here's a rough transcript of a few seconds of class. "가구. Do you know 가구? Furniture. Like a desk, chair, table. All 가구." Should point out that this transpired in English. "고기. 고기 is meat. Fish is 고기, pork is 고기, beef is 고기." The next class was time for some reading, but every few syllables I'd do the teacher would stop me to harp on my pronunciation. Now, my Korean sucks, but my proununciation is pretty good for a white man. More frustrating than being berated by an English teacher who can't pronounce "th" or "f," is to have a teacher so tuned out to our needs as learners. When one of my classmates suggested free talking after we finished the half-assed grammar section, the teacher diagrammed Korea and started talking, in Korean, about regionalism in politics and the rivalries between Seoul, Jeolla, and Gyeongnam. Jesus Tapdancing Christ. I can barely talk about my weekend plans.

Anyway, was reminded of all this when I saw this post from the Marmot's Hole, "Seoul to Train Foreign Teachers." Has to be an April Fools' Joke. An excerpt of the KT article:

University professors and supervisors in charge of English education, as well as other excellent Korean English teachers, will lead the teacher training programs. “Although some of the selected foreign teachers have English teaching certificates, they need to learn about the Korean education environment for better cooperation with teachers,” he added.

Very true that foreigners have to adapt to Korea. So much so that I wonder how useful qualifications like certificates and advanced degrees even are. I'm a little not ashamed to admit that a lot of listen and repeat occurs in my class, as does a lot of group work with the teacher, and a lot of choral repetition. Really no room for hippy bullshit. Workshops also provide a good opprotunity for foreign teachers to acclimate their Korean colleagues to their own expectations . . . or at least their own wants, pretty please. They do, after all, have at least six times the facetime with students I do, and they do share a common language with the students, and in this respect they are a resource that ought to be utilized. When it comes to students' low abilities, the buck gets passed a lot, from teachers who say they never learned how to speak English, or never had the opportunity to meet foreigners, down to students who are "so shy" or back to teachers who lack confidence or who feel threatened by English, or to Lee Myung-bak and his unreasonable policies, or to white people who are unqualified and overweight anyway. I guess the frustration does mount a little bit because there is, actually, no interest whatsoever in what happens in my classroom, in spite of English education being such a hot-button issue. Well, just seems like these mandatory meetings are a good place to put my foot down, and who knows, maybe the students will actually start to learn a little grammar in their grammar classes. Maybe not, but saying my peace is half the battle.

Nazis and cosmetics go well together.

Ads pulled off youtube on April 7, but you can still find them here and here here and here.

Scroll down for updates (latest April 23, 8:00 pm).

Found a couple of commercials for Coreana, a cosmetics company over here. According to some of the scholars on Dave's ESL Cafe, the text in the commercials says something about Hitler's inability to fight a war on both fronts, and relates that to the make-up's strength. Okay, there are no blood flags flying, but nevertheless I'm not sure why Nazi imagery and Hitler references are considered appropriate in 21st-century Korea. Anyway, I finally figured out how to capture and embed them, (update: but they got pulled).

You can watch them where I found them, here and here. They got pulled from Naver on the afternoon of April 7, but for the time being they're available on Daum here and here. And if that doesn't work, you can find them by navering 코리아나히틀러, which is how they're labeled on the Naver blogs I found.

And, welcome visitors from Planet Dave's. You might also be interested in the Nazi mural I found in downtown Gyeongju.

* Update 1: One Free Korea has an excerpt of a letter from the Simon Wissenthal Center to Coreana. I don't recall previous campaigns against Hitler Bars or anti-Semetic comic books having any impact, so we'll see if anything comes of this. Hitler Bars or best-selling comic books were much more prominent targets, and have survived in spite of a little negative publicity in the English-language world, whereas I've never even seen these month-old commercials run on TV, and am not sure a company like Coreana will feel any pinch from Western protests. All about raising awareness, though, and collecting evidence on Korea's bizarre race ideology, which was the whole point of this post anyway.

I'm sure this will all be explained away with a half-hearted apology, and no action will come of it. If the ad executives even understand why what they did was wrong, I'd be very surprised. This is a part of the world very ignorant of world history, and a part of the world that likes Nazis for, among other reasons, their sense of style.

* Update 2: In the German news now, on Netzeitung.de. An excerpt from an article on the protest by the Simon Wiesenthal Center:

Zudem habe man deutlich machen wollen, dass die Creme sowohl im Osten als auch im Westen Erfolg haben werde — was Hitler nicht geschafft habe.

There's also mention on the Simon Wiesenthal Center site here.

* Update 3 (April 4, 22:24): On the front page of CNN.com.

* Update 4 (April 5, 14:30): Coreana wants the ads taken down because they have decided to change the wording from "Hitler . . . " to "Nobody . . . "

* Update 5 (April 5, 19:15): In Belgium.

* Update 6 (April 6, 18:30): Still no mention in the Korean press yet. Not surprising.

Unrelated, but I came across an interesting write-up of one of the Nazi bars from six years ago. An excerpt:

The symbols outside bothered me, though. In a city where businesses adopt seemingly random English words for their businesses (such as CIA bar, CNN bar or Goopy Fried Chicken restaurant) was it inevitable and harmless that a Hitler bar should appear?

I asked my advanced English students what they thought. Many seemed surprised I even thought the bar worth discussing. Its name wasn't for lack of knowledge: according to my student Mey Shin, Koreans were aware that Hitler and his Nazi followers had killed millions of people, Jews in particular. Many Koreans also have seen big Hollywood movies like Schindler's List that might familiarize them with Hitler and his cronies.

An older businessman named Mr. Park, who was registered in my class, explained it to me: Hitler has about as much relevance to modern-day Koreans as the Mongolian warlord Ghengis Khan, or even one of the more recent Korean dictators (Gen. Kim Young Sam has a bar dedicated to him in the same Pusan downtown neighborhood, I later discovered). The images are intended simply as a unique and innovative, if offensive to some, method of attracting customers. In short, there's no such thing as bad publicity.

This conclusion struck me as odd, since many Koreans are still very bitter about their own disastrous colonization experience at the hands of the Japanese Empire from the 1920s to the mid-1940s. The Japanese occupiers attempted to assimilate the Koreans into the empire, used conscripted Korean labor on a mass scale, tortured nationalist leaders, bloodily put down insurrections and turned thousands of Korean women into sex slaves. Some of my students seethed when I mentioned Japan even in passing. At the time the Hitler bar opened, Korean president Kim Dae Jung was leading his country in denunciations of revisionist Japanese history textbooks.

Therefore, the complacency of my students toward the Hitler bar was strange. A suggestion by me that one of them might open an Emperor Hirohito bar was seen as beyond the pale by all of them, who almost universally claimed that there was not a direct parallel.

No direct parallel betweeen Hirohito and Hitler. Shouldn't surprise me that such an opinion is held. I'll find out for myself at the next teachers' workshops. Where's the rolly-eye smiley?

* Update 7 (April 7, 18:00): Ads were pulled from Youtube and Naver today. They're still available on Daum for the time being, and other foreigners in Korea are working on getting them on other sites.

Anyway, please go here and read the excellent summary of what happened a few years ago when a Korean company did an ad campaign with an actress made up to be a comfort woman. The difference in apologies then and now. Actually, there really wasn't an apology in this case. A few years ago, though, the series of apologies involved burning prints, shaving heads, and groveling on the floor in front of former comfort women and the media.

* Update 8 (April 23, 20:00): The Simon Wiesenthal Center said last week that they were "gratified" by Coreana's response in pulling the ads. For those who hadn't seen it, here's an image from the revised commercial that had run for a couple of weeks. Everything was the same, but "Hitler" was replaced with "Nobody":

Hell, you like cussin. Who the hell don't?

My condition has been upgraded from dead to dying. I had to take a blasted sick day, so add that to my mediocre volleyball skills and my extreme dislike of soju, and my coworkers are probably convinced I'm a complete pussy. In other news: