* The "Korean Taekwondo National Demonstration Team" will start its US tour in Noblesville, Indiana, of all places.
* Korea doesn't have a home-grown luxury brand.
* Sports columnist Don Hunsburger looks at the "three-pronged attack that threatens [the LPGA's] very existence," one of which is Korean golfers. An excerpt:
45 South Korean golfers hold membership in the LPGA and last week, of the 72 players who made the cut at the US Women's Open, 20 were from South Korea. Five finished in the top 10, including the eventual winner, Eun-Hee Ji.
What's worse, when Ji headed to the interview tent, she came bearing an interpreter. When that happened, you could hear the click of TVs being switched off all over America.
Bivens tried to deal with this by instituting an English-only policy early last season. But the media pushback was instantaneous. The commissioner was accused of being insensitive at best and racist at worst. Within weeks, there was no more talk of such a policy.
But Bivens was reacting to real complaints in the real world - primarily by sponsors that it was difficult to play a pro-am event with golfers who couldn't speak English.
This problem affects not only the Tour, its players and its sponsors, but also its fans. Comments like this one are common on Web sites devoted to the LPGA: "The LPGA is on life support. Nobody will turn on the TV to watch 20 players named Kim, unless one of them is named Anthony."
Australian golf pro and former LPGA cover girl Jan Stephenson assessed the situation in early 2007: "Asians are killing the Tour," she said. South Korean standout Se Ri Pak seemed to agree, when she said last year that "it's going to be the Korean Tour pretty soon."
And names are part of the problem.
"When I look at a leader board and can't figure out how to pronounce most of the names, my eyes glaze over," one disgruntled fan posted on a blog devoted to the Tour.
But South Koreans are proud of their heritage and age-old traditions make it difficult for some to make the transition to American culture and American lifestyles.
I still get quite a few hits from Google searches looking for information on why Korean women are such good golfers, and I'm happy that to direct my visitors to the answers on this post.
* Some features of the Bay Area's Koreatown, including a Paris Baguette and The Face Shop.
* Three Kunsan Airmen saved the life of a local man last Sunday.
Master Sgt. Robert Parks and staff sergeants Donald Weber and Sandy Bates were headed back to Kunsan Air Base, ROK, when they noticed a vehicle traveling past them at a high rate of speed.
"We had taken a wrong turn and decided to drive a little further up, when we noticed a vehicle fly past us going about 120 to 130 kph," said Sergeant Weber.
"All I could think about when we saw the car fly past was who speeds like this in the pouring rain?" said Sergeant Parks.
As the speeding vehicle went to take a turn it hydroplaned, lost control and slammed into the signal light pole.
"Immediately everything just clicked into place," said Sergeant Weber.
* "New York Hot Dog & Coffee," a Korean chain, finally has a location . . . in New York. And there's kimchi on the bulgogi burgers.
* As far as Girls' Generation songs go, their new one "소원을 말해봐" is pretty catchy. Why they insist on saying "I'm genie for you boy, I'm genie for your wish" is unknown at this time.
* The Chosun Ilbo wonders "What's the Best Way to Promote Korean Studies Abroad?."
* The city of Changwon in Gyeongsangnam-do got 307 millimeters of rain on Saturday. Suncheon hardly got any.
* Busan has been hit hard lately, too, though some took advantage of the beach today. I had to lol at this picture of young women in bikinis at Haeundae, though.
* And, there was a
Yes, I know the Hanja is different, but it's a funny joke.
12 comments:
For what it's worth, I do like your joke at the end.
Hey Brian, first time reader, long time commenter. I was just wondering what the chances are the the 소원 in 소원을 말해봐 might mean 'indefinite article'.
Perhaps its just a really high-concept song.
What's up with the male golfers of Korean descent? Are any on the leaderboard of the British Open? Where's AK? And what kind of real sport has a geezer on top of the leaderboard after three rounds?
So Korean girls in bikinis get pixelated, but foreigners in bikinis don't? *sigh*
The golf story... just Wow. I'll have to write a full post on that, because I missed the chance when the English-only LPGA requirements popped up earlier.
Oh, and I think Korea would be better off without a luxury brand if the general level of quality of perceived as quite good.
That is, Korea Inc will be better off if it's perceived as Honda or Toyota than a mixture of Lexus and Daihatsu.
I didn't cover that story much, either. It was summer vacation, I was back in the US, and was busy getting my ass kicked by netizens and other foreigners for things I had written. Here's what I had to say on the topic, though, at the time:
* http://briandeutsch.blogspot.com/2008/08/koreans-lpga-english.html
I'll be interested to see what you come up with.
In the first story you seem a bit surprised that the Korean national demonstration team would start a U.S. tour in a mediocre location. This kind of thing is actually quite common. In this type of situation alumni from that team tend to support each other. That was evident in this case too, reading captions next to the photos. That guy master Yoo, seems to used to have been a member of that team and then he started his own school in America.
One of my tkd teachers back in America was a member of the national demonstration team back in the 80's. Her friend went on to captain that team and became the chief demonstration professor at Yong In university. I have met him a few times from doing demonstrations in the states, in the unlikely location of a small town in Western Michigan.
Yeah, I was a little surprised. Nothing against small towns or rural America, I just thought the team would make a bigger entrance. Thanks for adding some insight, though.
Well TKD is a dying fad, it was more popular back in the 70's when it was new. Back then my old boss, who has to be like 72 now would do some stupid human tricks to promote TKD. He would do these mind over matter demonstrations where he would hang buckets of water from his skin and walk on broken glass. He also had a car drive over him one time, then he pretended to be dead for a few minutes and then he jumped up and did a kick. Back then he also had the chance to meet Elvis, and he danced with Priscilla Presley. But nowadays that kind of thing isn't very novel as it was. Folks are more interested in doing the Brazillian Jiu Jitsu and Kickboxing. Also there are a lot of home grown American athletes who can do the same things that the Korean National team can do, or even better, so in big cities it just isn't even interesting anymore.
Taekwondo is "a dying fad"? Do you mean to watch it or to do it?
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