A couple of Chuseok photos from the news I found particularly impressive:
The Zayitun squad in the northern Iraqi region of Arbil took part in a traditional ceremony to celebrate Chuseok on Tuesday. Soldiers played traditional games such as shuttlecocks and flying kites, and ate rice cakes with sesame and bean, steamed on a layer of pine needles. They also distributed gifts of biscuits and rice cakes to homes in the region. /photograph by Ministry of Defence (via the Chosun Ilbo)
Happy Chuseok, guys. Good luck, and thanks. The Korea Times has a piece on the Zayitun’s Chuseok celebrations here.
Next, we have this:
Marking Chuseok, soldiers from the U.S. and South Korean air forces jointly hold a “charae,” a traditional Korean ritual to pay homage to ancestors, at Gwangju Air Base, Tuesday./Yonhap (via the Chosun Ilbo)
I guess it’s kind of nice to see USFK making the effort to be culturally sensitive (and nice to see Yonhap and the Chosun appreciate that effort), and it’s refreshing to see another white dude in a hanbok. At the same time, it’s a ceremony that’s supposed to pay homage to dead ancestors, which I have no problem with whatsoever, but I wonder if it would be entirely appropriate to have USFK personnel participating in that kind of ceremony for public relations’ sake.
Lastly, but certainly not least, we have this:
Actress Rachel Han, wearing hanbok designed by Park Sul-nyeo, wishes everyone a happy Chuseok./Korea Herald
Well, happy Chuseok to you, too, Rachel. Rachel, of course, is better known by her Korean name of Chae-yeong, and is a favorite here at the Marmot’s Hole, as well as at Oriental Redneck. In fact, she really should be a favorite of just about any heterosexual male on the planet. Anyway, what’s impressive about this picture is that we can see how splendidly the traditional Korean dress, the hanbok, performs its function. The hanbok is supposed to hide a woman’s figure, or as this guy at the U of Hawaii rather indelicately explains:
Very short top and long skirt that flows down from the chest covers the bad figures of Korean women. Usually Asian women have shorter lower parts of the body than American women. Korean women is no exception and Hanbok brings out the most beautiful side of Korean women by covering bad body figure.
And cover up the figure it does, which in Ms. Han’s case, is simply not that easy a thing to do (links are WORK SAFE, but should be avoided by those with heart trouble. Photos ripped off from here).
7 Comments
It is entirely possible that some American ancestors are buried in Korea.
You know, she really looks different in the above picture. Maybe I need stronger glasses, but doesn’t her face look a bit different as well?
Is it just me, or does anyone else find traditional women’s clothing from east Asia generally a complete turn off? Kimonos look kind of ridiculous, especially the way they constrain a woman’s legs. The Hanbok is perhaps even more unflattering to the female form. Only Chinese qipao dresses are the least bit sexy (thank god for the manchus) but even then, they aren’t exactly traditional as the contemporary design of them (thin fitting, long slit up the legs) is from the early 20th century. The original Qipao were also long, but they were loose fitting and no slits, hence much like a rather conservative night gown. The pre-Qing era dresses were very similar to Hanbok, if not as boxy.
Sorry to disagree with you Jing. I would take a woman in a hanbok over a woman in a bikini any day. Maybe it is just me, but I find it more visually appealing than anything in Victoria’s Secret. All women look as good in handbok. Not always a ravishing beauty (considering ajumma and grandmas) but always uniquely stunning.
Tony, it’s her. BTW, if you think she looks different in that pic, Hamel was able to track down some pics of her back from her days at DePaul. Still a very pretty girl, regardless.
Many personalities are surgically-assisted.
Note Catherine Zeta-Jones (`a legend in her own mind’, sniped a British writer) whose lips have gone from thin in Mask of Zorro to pouty in Intolerable Cruelty.
American/Australian rags have run picture spreads of stars like Halle Berry and Nicole Kidman, who’ve transformed themselves from goodlooking women into goddesses.
Miss Nigeria,who won Miss World 2000, is truly ravishing.
Everybody is beautiful. (I take that back. It sounds so…MICHAEL JACKSON)
My kung fu is stronger than your kung fu.