In the Gwangju News writing about my site.

KoreaMaria asked me to put together some Top-5 lists about 2009. You can read the piece on page 9---click here and click again to get the .pdf file---but here's a taste of one:

Brian’s Top five personal favorite posts:
5) “McRefugees in Korea.” Looking at the differences between fast food cultures in Asia and the west.
4) “Another ‘ Foreigner’ fail.” One of the most commented-on posts of the year, looked at the use of the word “foreigner” by Koreans to refer to all non-Koreans,
even when those non-Koreans are actually in their native countries.
3) “Lee Charm being blamed for KTO’S old failures.” Two of my favorite topics: motels and bad journalism.
2) “Korean language evolves into Konglish?” Arguing that the overuse of English in Korea is a domestic phenomenon, and that, no, bad English is not an evolution.
1) “Watching test day.” Standing outside a local high school, watching as teachers and family cheer on students before they took the college entrance examination in
November.

I've had 1,145 posts this year, and it's hard to pick just five, but that's what I came up with. Actually, I was asked about maybe doing my five most-popular posts, but I don't really have a way of keeping track. Google Analytics does tell me what my most-visited posts of 2009 were, but not only do I think the numbers aren't accurate---the most-viewed page only had 6,173 visits in 2009?---but I don't really want to share with the fine citizens of Gwangju what my most-popular posts actually were:

1) my main page
2) "Google Korea is upsetting Victorian sensibilities again." - about Google making porn available to innocent Korean youths.
3) "Naked News anchors crying, still not naked."
4) The archive of August, 2008 posts.
5) "Table tennis not sexy enough." - I'm the #4 result for a Google image "table tennis upskirt" search (don't run that search at work).
6) "This delicious snack treat is a Korean-hater's wet dream." - The post about "Ricetard."
7) "'Boys Over Flowers' actress Jang Ja-yeon commits suicide." - The first English-language post on the news, I believe, so it was until that point my most-viewed post ever.
8) "Pretty hot Korean-American actress to star in ABC Family's 'Samurai Girl.'"
9) "'Naked News Korea' under review by standards council."
10) "Wonder Girls and Soulja Boy." - A post from December, 2007, is among my most-popular for two reasons: it was the first, I think, to be linked to by The Marmot's Hole, and it has a picture of the Wonder Girls wearing skirts.

I'm sure most bloggers in Korea find that their most-popular posts are ones with dirty language or sexy pictures, whether that's what their blog's about or not. On the topic of stats, I'll say that most of my hits come off Google searches for "Brian in Jeollanam-do" or something Jeolla- or Korea-related, so that's good. But if I check my stats when I wake up, when about the only visitors are people stateside, I see that most of my hits come off image searches that lead them to pictures of the Wonder Girls, or beach volleyball players, or upskirt table tennis players, or whatever.