I’ve been dying a slow death in front of my Mac. But it’s been worth it.This episode has actually been in the works for the longest of any of them, from all the way back in the summer of last year, when my friend Soyeon was still busy surviving the major elimination rounds of the Korean Astronaut program. Remember that? Well, I’ve lucked into an inside scoop, and have been trying to apply the particular and peculiar power of what is called “UCC” in Korea – User Created Content – and try to do some cool stuff with the possibilities that platforms like YouTube and the others have created.
So I just decided to do some purposely casual, relaxed interviews with my friend, whom I know from us both having shared a common friend while at Berkeley. Who knew she was one day going to be an astronaut? Who knew I’d be doing a video podcast in Seoul? Who could have seen any of this even a couple of years back?
I especially think that, for a Korean audience, this video will have a particular impact. Korean media and journalism is particularly stiff when it comes to national figures and patriots-of-the-hour, and this is particularly the case with Soyeon. Some Korean netizens have been particularly brutal in their comments to her, I guess because for some, if a woman goes to space, she had better look like a fashion model or otherwise fit the role of sultry celebrity; what, and I thought that an engineer in spitting range of her Ph.D. might be a better choice to conduct scientific experiments in space, which is what either Soyeon or her partner will be doing for the ten days. Silly me.
Anyway, I think it’s a good set of interviews, and she says so many things in each of the three, it broke my heart to edit them out. Each interview has its own personality, and you can kind of see her personality change over time. It’s pretty interesting, and something I’d always wanted to try, but who usually gets such an opportunity?
So please bear with me as I try out this ongoing experiment in doing interesting stuff on video, and link that with the new ability to publish on nearly all types of media, especially in the Internet petri dish that is Korea. This is what makes publishing fun. It still makes me marvel that just 3 years ago, when I was involved in an international media exchange program here, we were Fedexing mini-DV tapes internationally.
I certainly can’t get you a mini-DV version of the video, but click on the small image of Soyeon here on the right for a much higher-quality version of the video, hosted on Revver.
Times change with a quickness.
Anyway, I’d love some more feedback as to show ideas and other stuff you might want to see, but which I haven’t thought about. For more details about the video, or to see more episodes, travel on over to SeoulGlow.com to catch them all. Enjoy the series, and don’t forget to let your Seoooooooul glow!
29 Comments
Wow, she has got a great personality and a great outlook on life.
“Some Korean netizens have been particularly brutal in their comments to her, I guess because for some, if a woman goes to space, she had better look like a fashion model or otherwise fit the role of sultry celebrity; what, and I thought that an engineer in spitting range of her Ph.D. might be a better choice to conduct scientific experiments in space, which is what either Soyeon or her partner will be doing for the ten days. Silly me.”
I blame it on those who thought it would be a good idea to subject the applicants to a ‘reality show’, thus dumbing down the whole selection process.
PS. She is an attractive woman. In any case, she’s obviously doing it for the right reasons, which most certainly played a role in her being selected.
Great interview. Look forward to the next 2 parts.
The entire culture equates appearance with “talent,” and when faced with a person of actual talent, their brains tend to explode while attempting to fit a square into a circle.
Dollars to donuts says that if you polled the average Korean, they’d much prefer to have Boa as their next astronaut. It would be “cute” to see the current lip-synching tartlet of the day get dressed up in a space suit and ask “What’s gravity?” while shooting an epic music video in space. No question the public would view that investment as far wiser, seeing as how it would set the stage for the Korean Wave rolling through the last frontier, and guarantee great DVD sales of Korean dramas to aliens.
While it may be viscerally-entertaining to see a Russian cosmonaut slap the crap out of BOA before pushing her out an airlock after getting too fed up with inane questions, somehow I don’t think it would be very good for Russia-South Korea relations.
I think the one thing you can always rely upon, when it comes to netijens, is that the most vocal ones are always that ones that want to shit upon whatever they’re commenting on. For the rest of society, I’m sure Soyeon is proving to be a wonderful role-model and hopefully an inspiration to the next generation of potential scientists, engineers, and astronauts.
Looking forward to parts 2 and 3…
I wish her luck, seems like she has the right stuff.
On the ROK funding space exploration; I have a feeling that a few years down the road they’ll wish they’d invested/banked more to have on hand for reunification, cuz it ain’t gonne be cheap, and you can’t eat spacecraft. Unless they make it out of ramyun or kimchi or something.
Put me in the “Soyeon’s hot” column. There is something seriously wrong with the netizens (but we already knew that).
many times in korea you think you have already landed on another planet!!!!!
Great subject for an interview. For the sake of her commercials I hope the US doesn’t put a gyopo into space before the Russians send up one of the Koreans.
Consolidate the subtitles.
“many times in korea you think you have already landed on another planet!!!!!”
Yeah, this one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferenginar
I predict the development of vacuum-sealed, freeze-dried kimchi in the near future.
“Great subject for an interview. For the sake of her commercials I hope the US doesn’t put a gyopo into space before the Russians send up one of the Koreans.”
http://english.chosun.com/w21d.....90019.html
http://xemin.tistory.com/
For those who think she isn’t up to the appearance standard, I often wonder what these self-loathing trolls actually look like? I imagine quasimoto types whose heads swivel continually commenting about each woman who passes by, “I wouldn’t kick her out of bed”. These guys are eating chips and drooling over their keyboards, criticizing every woman who doesn’t adhere to their warped, Madison Avenue injected fetishes.
I think more access to her in casual interviews would help. She is so personable and seemingly undaunted by it all. I see her as brainy and beautiful, but part of that beauty stems from how obviously intelligent she is and that she has a quite reasonable set of priorities.
What an excellent interview. How fortunate for us. I really wish her all the best. She’s my new favorite astronaut.
Naw Maddlew, these nutizens all carry man-bags and have wet dreams about “Bi.” They’re just jealous
Just in case anyone misunderstood my “She has got a great personality” comment, let me clarify it by adding that I think she looks hot, too.
Brains, looks, personality–it is hard to imagine their finding a better person to represent Korea.
Smart, pretty, personable - what’s not to like?
All the more reason not to risk her life by shooting her into space. Let her stay on earth and be a television news show anchor or something.
Hey, isn’t “Seoulglow” the name of the hair product featured in the Eddie Murphy/Arsenio Hall classic film “Coming to America”?
It is! And with that intro tune it even touches on the commercial for that stuff. No, wasn’t it a Barry White sounding guy? Hey, maybe a mix of the two. Damn, you should get Barry to do an intro to the web-mag.
Damn, you should get Barry to do an intro to the web-mag.
Barry White is rolling over in his grave right now.
What?!
That’s a fine looking lady right there. These web-chimps need to get the nonsense smacked oout of their heads.
In her closing remarks she refers to her goal to make the final 300 and you put 30 in the subtitles. In case you wanted to fix that.
The way this thread is turning out, I’m surprised none of you have said she makes your ‘Seoul Grow’.
:) 
I’m actually sorta surprised Baduk hasn’t stopped by, mentioned that she needs more plastic surgery, and then implied that once she has said surgery, men would be lining up to pay (insert sum of money here) to perform (insert degrading pseudo-sexual act Baduk gets off on i.e. foot licking here). We’re really slipping.
I notice that she talks a lot with her hands. It makes it easier to understand her. She reminds me — and this is a compliment — of really good language teachers who know how to keep things simple and clear for low-level students.
I wonder if she is aware that everytime she mentions a number she puts up the same number of fingers, and that she uses her hands to act out the verbs she mentions.
I’m curious if that’s her natural style, or if she made a conscious choice to explain things that way in order to help foreigners’ understanding.
Quote:
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gbevers
Posted February 21, 2007 at 2:47 am | Permalink
Wow, she has got a great personality and a great outlook on life.
—————————————————
Nice to know you’re still alive.
As for her looks, She’s not that bad, little bit of
make-up, weight loss…
Space Station:
This whole space station thingy is complete waste of money. Spending billions of dollars into a spinning garage in a middle of nowhere is doing nothing for space exploration. They really should pour more money into exploring the solar system.
In other news,
Aso calls sex slave resolution in U.S. groundless
Tuesday, February 20, 2007 at 07:35 EST
TOKYO — Foreign Minister Taro Aso expressed displeasure Monday over a U.S. House of Representatives resolution condemning Japan for acts of sexual exploitation during World War II. “It is extremely regrettable and definitely not based on facts,” Aso said during a House of Representatives Budget Committee session.
http://www.japantoday.com/jp/news/399476
[They haven't changed!]
That “spinning garage” is considered the necessary step to manned exploration of the solar system, including a permanent base on the Moon and a manned expedition to Mars.
If you consider all of it a waste of time, then that’s a different debate to be had, but if you just think “the rest of the solar system” is more important, then everyone behind the ISS would agree with you. That’s a major reason it’s been built, besides the pursuit of pure scientific research itself.
And thanks for the many comments - Soyeon’s read them all, and normally she’d reply to some (she’s quite the blogger, actually - check her out over on http://www.daeso.net), but she barely has time to pee by herself these days.
Working hard on Episode 2, although I went crazy on some chicken the day before and was down for a day, whcih is delaying things.
On to more editing!
Metro, My understanding is that there really isn’t much of a connection between the space station and the rest of the Solar System stuff. They seem connected but the whole issue is really leaving the Earth.
Is “went crazy on some chicken the day before” code? If it isn’t code, then …? Which would be better/worse? Hang in there.
Origami, you think she needs to lose weight? She just beat out thousands of competitors, both men and women, in tests which include, I’d imagine, health. Extremely rigorous health tests. You see, they don’t want people dying out in space. Tough to replace them out there. And you still think she needs to lose weight?
Good luck finding the right skele…errrr, woman.