Pronounced 에이치-로직, I'm not sure it's much better than the last one: Hyorish. A reader brought up on my Facebook page something amusing about that pronunciation:
Ecchi (or Etchi, from the Japanese エッチ ecchi) is derived from a Japanese word meaning "lewd", "sexy", or "lascivious" when used as an adjective, or sexual intercourse when used as a noun.
Very interesting.
Lee Hyori is really hot, and is very charming on all her TV shows, but now at nearly 31-years-old---217 in K-pop years---she's twice as old as some of today's stars. The jumble of styles in the 티저 is in reference to all the chameleon K-pop groups who change their "concepts" every six months, usually in imitation of one another, and at 0:24 she looks almost exactly like the latest version of Suh In-young.
She'd be a lot hotter if she didn't attempt English though. She has long enjoyed bringing the nonsense and random English, so that clip is nothing unusual. Probably best known for her refrain "just one ten minute," her last CD, in 2008, gave us "You go gull" and the overuse of "ok." This is her "come back"---one of 2009's worst pieces of English---even though the ubiquitous advertisement and television star never went anywhere.
I'll repost a little of what I wrote about weird English in K-pop the last time Lee Hyori was on the radio, a paragraph brought up recently by Extra! Korea on his post about a boyband's hit single "Mazeltov":
Yes, I know it’s entertainment and not a test, and that pointing out their mistakes makes me look like a crotchety old English guy. But, if a singer—whether Hyori or the Wondergulls, or Jewelry, or whomever—wants to use English to market themselves and make themselves look sophisticated and hip, I don’t think it’s that out of line to point out that their efforts have the opposite effect on those who actually use the language. Language ownership is a heady issue, and one way over mine, but I don’t see anything wrong with showing a little pride and being a little protective. It’s wrong to shake your head and sigh at a student struggling with pronunciation, or to stubbornly insist there’s one “right” way to use English, but when a singer or marketing team decides to push it into popular culture and shamelessly profit off it, they become fair game.
The use of Gibberlish in K-pop---one of the requirements of a hit single, along with a dance and a rap in the middle---is a deceptively complicated issue, and something I won't explore too much here. For native speaker English teachers in Korea the overuse of English in Korea paradoxically creates a lot of problems, and makes it harder to teach the actual language when students get more input about the language from domestic pop culture and Korean English teachers than from actual English speakers. But for some reason
I don't think many Hyori fans will mind.
13 comments:
A commenter on the "Brian in Jeollanam-do" Facebook page brings up something amusing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecchi
Nothing slutty about that shower photo. Carry on.
There are a lot of good ones to pick from. That was my favorite of the ones I hadn't seen before.
Yikes!
WORD VERIFICATION: honisma, the charisma of honeys.
My issue with that "mazeltov," song is the fact that the Black Eyed Peas came out with their horrible song where they said "mazeltov" and then listed the days of the week, only to be copied by some upstart Korean boy group. If you are going to copy someone copy someone better than the Black Eyed Peas.
I had an experience last week where I was talking about doing something "After School," and all of the kids thought I was talking about the girl group.
I'm glad Lee Hyori is coming out with a new album. A lot of people think that she is the last of her kind. That is a hot Korean solo act, besides she actually dances, and doesn't just walk around in a circle flipping her hair around or pointing at the camera.
Damn, you beat me to it! (Revenge for this, I suppose.)
When I saw that teaser video, I thought, "Somebody's been smoking that made-in-Korea-imitation-marijuana." But it was late and I decided to go to bed.
||"A lot of people think that she is the last of her kind. That is a hot Korean solo act, besides she actually dances, and doesn't just walk around in a circle flipping her hair around or pointing at the camera.""||
Actually, BoA can dance Hyori out of her candy-coloured shoes, but she spends more time outside of Korea than in, so maybe she doesn't count.
Kahi (of After School) and Hyo-yeon (of Girls' Generation) can both dance very well (though they often don't show it). Not surprisingly, they're both former background dancers for BoA. To keep pace with BoA, you have to be good.
Why doesn't my Gravatar show up?
Yeah I discounted Boa, because Korean people don't really seem to like Boa any more. (That's the impression I get from middle school students, when LHR came out with you go girl and Mr. Boy, middle school kids would say "Hey Mr. Boy," all of the time. This is opposed to nobody really ever saying "I'll eat you up.") For the most part though, I agree Boa is super talented. I wish she would release something in Korea soon.
Kahi, and Hyo-yeon are both members of girl groups, that's why I made the distinction of solo artist. If Kahi or Hyo-yeon release a full length mini album, and become as popular as Lee Hyori is then that would be something. But still I think that Lee Hyori is on the level of Madonna in Korea, in that no one in her era can really touch her success, and there aren't many who have the potential to match her.
korea is slowly becoming japan in the 80s..wait for the next two generations to die out.i lve lived in japan in ther 90s, and its felt like korea does now..
but the people here are a bit more...um..spicy!
girls r hotter there though :) I SAID IT! gak
I knew Mazeltov was copied from the BEP song. I have to teach my high schoolers what it means...oi
That's a good point, 3gyupsal, about her being the last of her kind.
Sorry, jay, but I think Korean women are way hotter than Japanese on average. But Japanese women have style, whereas Korean women dress like a middle school teacher from 1991, or a Japanese teenager from 1986, and are far too into selka shit than I can handle.
Her new song is out. It sounds pretty cool except for some rapping in the middle. It's called "Swing." It sounds like it could easily go on one of the Kill Bill soundtracks except for the rapping, the rapping really kills a lot of it.
Very sultry
everyones weelcome to the POV, Brian, all good.
Ill trade a bit of sexiness for some style. I grew up around the fashion industry, Im dying here....
If I hear one more thing about Japanese girls teeth from my students while theyre all watching japanese porn on their pmps....lol'd
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