The first Open Thread of 2010!
Open Thread #131
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{ 122 comments… read them below or add one }
First in 2010!!
w00t!
Happy New Year to all!
2010 marks my 13th year in Korea…how fast time has flown! My advice: Enjoy each moment, each day while you have them. Korea is a great place to be!
Thirteen years is quite long, indeed!
I note that the CCP has used its legal system to go after yet another problematic Tibetan monk: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8436865.stm
Happy New Year everyone!
First interesting bit of news…
http://news.donga.com/Politics/New/3/00/20091230/25126674/1&top=1
If there is any truth to this then it’s pretty significant news considering that this was one of the first steps that caused East Germany to collapse.
I’m new to car ownership and wondering if chains for the tires are a good idea. Nobody in Canada had them, but we did have prompt plow service and snow removal.
I have a Korando – I am also new to 4-wheel drive – if that matters.
Suggestions?
Oh, Wangkon? – The German Ambassador has explained that the German reunification isn’t a good model for Korea -I haven’t visited your link yet, though.
Yes KDB, I also believe that a sudden unification like Germany’s isn’t a good model for Korea.
Kim Hye-soo supposedly isn’t unattached anymore;
http://artsnews.media.paran.com/news/55952
http://ntn.seoul.co.kr/main.php?cmd=news/news_view&idx=22007
Also, the Marmot himself was interviewed for a Joongang Daily article regarding the difficulties expats here face when trying to buy an iPhone.
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2914731
From theotherkorean’s link:
Bahahahahahahahahaha!
Good news, the U.S. finally waking up in reference to their underdeveloped nuclear energy industry.
Maybe they will win the next big bid…
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=9436002
word, brother!
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2009/12/162_50741.html
I’ve been trying to get a university job, but no luck. I’ve been in Korea for about 4 years, teaching only college age and adult students, I was an ESL teacher in the States for about 6 years before that, and I have an MS.ED. in TESOL and a TEFL certification. What the hell is wrong with me? I interviewed a couple universities – one wouldn’t hire me b/c I’m not married. If I don’t find a new gig by the time my visa runs out at the end of Feb, I’ll have to leave. Any thoughts, comments, words of encouragement?
He emphasized, however, that the regulations regarding foreign customers are not particularly strict compared to other countries.
Compared to where? Every foreign resident I know here in my piece of SE Asia has found it easy to get themselves a smart phone, iphone or Blackberry, as is my choice.
Deauwand, what the hell kind of name is that?
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/special/2010/01/178_58328.html
“I interviewed a couple universities….Any thoughts, comments, words of encouragement?”
Let them do the interviewing next time!!
Get married!!
LOL.
But seriously, does Kim Hye-soo think that if she kisses that frog, he’ll turn into a handsome prince?
Deauwand Myers.
Hmm. . .who was that other angry, oddly-named blackfella who used to write similar screeds for the Korea Times?
The English in that KT piece hurt my eyes. The writer has about the same level of English as the average university student in an intermediate ESL composition course. If readers of the 미주 한국일보 had to read Korean written that poorly, they’d burn the paper.
Iwas referring to the KT story on Kim Hye-soo, not the angry Op-Ed.
KT writers are unskilled as a rule, of course, but I really, really want this to be what happened.
Me too. In my mind’s eye, Yu’s car could only be a 1985 Chevy Camaro IROC-Z, and Kim got up on the car after they consumed a case of Schlitz. Soundtrack by .38 Special. But again, I used to live in a mid-Missouri house formerly occupied by goats.
Sorry to hear that you lived in a state of ‘misery’, Brendon. You really ought to have joined us down in Arkansas.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
I certainly hope there’s a follow-up on article how the couple welcomed the new year.
‘follow-up on article’ -> ‘follow-up article on’
Or something to that effect.
Looks like the KT editors did a number on your comment #24, gbnhj. Gotta watch out for those guys!
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
Ladron:
Well, looks like your resume is sharp enough to get noticed. Assuming that you’re not completely botching the interview (showing up in jeans, not smiling, reeking of soju, etc.), landing those uni jobs is as much a matter of serendipity as it is actual qualification. Right place, right time, right person doing the hiring (I knew a coordinator who I strongly suspect of deliberately not hiring anyone more qualified than himself, and he wasn’t terribly qualified). Keep your eyes open for the “teacher wanted” ads (all the time, not just when you think it would make sense for a university to be hiring), and send them exactly what they ask for. If they don’t specify whether they prefer digital or paper submissions, send both. Keep at it: it’s a numbers game. If you don’t get in this time around, don’t get frustrated – they’ll all be hiring again in just a few months, and surely you can find something to tide you over. Good luck!
Yes all that Lardon — it really shouldn’t be so hard, from what I know of it — especially with all the people who left due to our currency crashing — keep trying (although around November really was the hiring-season). But by the way, was that one place really explicit to you that they wouldn’t hire you because you’re not married…? Wow, that used to be kind of an unspoken criteria at some places, but i’d be surprised if it’s an open one these days, except maybe add a heavy Christian Univ or something… were you applying to Ehwa?
Aw’rite! Can’t Korea hire the jovial looking smiley ones? Like they have on the toothpaste.
Same for the Gulf. Have ‘em all. Just show the shop keeper your residence card to get a SIM. Can easily get officially unlocked iphones (grey market has ones from Italy and Australia), and most shops will unofficially unlock ones too. Did I forget to mention I can take my phone to other countries and use it there too?
28 & 29 – I’ve been sending resumes since November. Like I said, I had a few interviews but no hirings. I show up looking professional, do a demo lesson, whatever. One place said they had 50 applicants for 2 positions.
Not Married – Yes, I was specifically told that. Not Ehwa, but another woman’s college.
@Ladron:
I won’t ask how old you are, but I wonder if ageism is a factor. It is very difficult for foreigners over 40 to get teaching work in Japan, and those who start their careers younger are sometimes quietly let go in favor of fresh young faces who rank low on the pay scale.
Korean employers of foreign teachers are trending towards this, too. Jeffery Hodges was denied tenure in part because he was too old. A decade ago, Yonsei University’s FLI enacted a regulation mandating retirement for foreign teachers starting at 55. This regulation applied to FLI teachers only, not Korean KLI teachers. Some teachers who had worked at the FLI for over a decade were panicked about losing their jobs solely because of their age and having to compete against younger applicants to find another. Even with the new permanent residency options, I probably would not have stayed in Korea because most foreign teachers work under different titles and regulations than do Korean employees so that Korean employers can carefully control the situation to their advantage without impacting their “real” Korean employees. Korea is getting better at recognizing foreign nationals as part of Korea and regulating accordingly, but there is still room for improvement.
Yeah, being in the mid-forties made me so old. I was also irascible — I didn’t look kindly upon plagiarism.
There were other factors. I was American in a time of acute anti-American sentiment. Even worse, I was considered conservative for arguing that Al Qaeda had religious motivations for the 9/11 attacks when everybody knew that Islamism was simply a response to American foreign policy.
My case was also likely harmed by the fact that I was publishing more than the long-tenured faculty.
Mostly, though, my ‘tenure’ was taken away because a Chinese woman with similar ‘tenure’ was removed from her position so that her colleagues in the Chinese Language and Literature Department could give her position to a friend of theirs, and the university had to make this seem justified by claiming that Korean law forbade tenure to foreigners, which meant that I also had to go.
But I’m not complaining. My life has gotten better since moving to Seoul.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
@31, 32 – I’m in my mid-30′s.
Don’t get me started on the subject of “tenure” for foreigners. It’s truly the antithesis of Korea “sparkling.”
Although, to be fair, I should add that tenure practices in Korea suck an awful lot for Koreans, as well. They just suck slightly more for foreigners.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/01/03/technology/tech-us-samsung-tv.html
Wow. Are such high expectations normal in this industry or is this a Samsung version of aiming (super) high? If my math is correct, 10 mil units would be an year on year increase of around 380%!!
This is the work of an expat ghostwriting for the Korea Times “amusing” himself by pretending to be a Engrish-challenged Korean journalist.
The odds of that actually being true are roughly the same as your online persona being the work of an expat, ghostwriting at the Marmot’s Hole and “amusing” himself by pretending to be an over-the-top chauvinist KA adjossi with a Brooklyn-sized chip on his shoulder.
I dunno IHBB — better to believe anything is possible now that we are living in the After Mizar era.
The laptop industry is rapidly shifting to LED backlighting, and now every display, including the laptop displays, sold by Apple is LED-backlit. LED-backlit TVs look a thousand times better than standard LCD displays when it comes to dark scenes. I don’t think they are too off base with their estimates really.
“김혜수-유해진 열애…결혼계획 없어”
Let’s see… I wonder who’s the one that doesn’t want to marry who. (Come on, what are the chances that *both* of them don’t want to marry?) My money is on 혜수 being the bitch.
Oh FUCK! Michael Hurt was on “러브 인 아시아”!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dyOhB0QHTs&feature=related
I hope you don’t mind me posting this here Mike! But I’m a pretty big fan of this show.
I just got at xmas a 32” series 6000 Samsung LED tv for 729 euros (very good price in Italy) for my son, i was surprised to see prices plummeting so fast. Samsung sales forecast might even be accurate, what the margins will be is a different story
My Goodness that is expensive!!~
I purchased the same (32” series 6000 Samsung LED tv)
a couple of months ago – here in Korea.
I actually purchased two (2) of them – to use as Computer monitors.
They were brandnew – just came out of the factory 6 weeks-previous-to my purchase
and total cost for both was 1.3million Korean won (650,000won each)
You paid that much – just for one.
(729Euro = 1.3million korean won)
Are all TV’s in Italy that expensive? or was it 100% Import tax?
That price in Italy may include VAT; I visited Belgium as a tourist a few years back and impulsively bought a Mac mini thinking I’d get the 21% VAT refunded at the airport. The price was not so bad compared to the then-current price in Korea, once that VAT was deducted.
Then I broke down the box and packed it in my checked baggage, and found that the VAT refund guys at the airport wanted to physically see the product to make sure it was actually leaving Belgium. Seems that with a tax rate so high there are many schemes to evade it. And since I had checked the bag, the computer was not available for inspection. So no refund for me! Thanks a lot for scalping me, Europe. I hope the money was wasted on non-productive elements in Belgium — jihadists or something.
The VAT rate in Italy is 20%. There’s also apparently an 8% import duty on finished electronics, like one would pay here in Korea. The rest is simply “what the market will bear”, like £79 (W150,000) “inexpensive” dress shirts in London.
If that price was pre-VAT, well, it’s a super ripoff to live in Europe. But I think that’s gangpehmoderniste‘s thesis anyway.
The Obamunists have a national VAT in mind for Americans, too. Yippee. Another scheme to centralize everything.
good point from both of you guys, yes the price was vat included Brendon, sorry i forgot to mention it and yes the cost of life in the Eurozone is atrocious, even if overall i don’t find it worse than in the US (consumer goods are more expensive but the US is a rip-off for other things). Mind you the 729 euros was advertised as a great deal from a local chain of grocery stores, famous for being “consumer-friendly”
The biggest misconception about Eurpope is that it is a rich area, most Europeans really just get by. My girlfriend is actually shocked by how backward SWIITZERLAND seems to be.
The cost of life in Korea is indeed according to my estimate between 1/3 and 1/2 of what it is in Europe (i’d say 1/2 of Italy, 1/3 of the UK)
And Yes Brendon you can be sure your money was spent for highly valuable investments like paying the dole to third generation jihadi-wannabe Moroccan youth and local crackhead teen single mothers with 5 kids from 5 different men
forgot to add the tv was assembled in Slovakia so no import duty (Slovakia is part of the EU apparently), at least on the finished product
I went to Belgium needing a haircut. Imagine my surprise to find that €40,00 is the “cheap” haircut in Brussels. All the locals wanted to know why I cheaped out on the salon after I dared to complain about the cost.
Europe’s tolerable if the Euro trades at US$0.85 = €1,00 (not the haircuts, though — $35 is still too much) but really a shocker if the rate is where it is these days.
In Italy you would have paid for a standard cheap haircut 20 euros.
I was living in Chicago when the euro was at that level and honestly America back then seemed unbelievabley expensive.
Quite frankly i don’t find the US a really cheap place to live, they just charge for different things but overall the cost of life seems to me absurd in both places.
same price in the US:
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-UN32B6000-32-Inch-1080p-HDTV/dp/B00208JBJQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=tv&qid=1262609731&sr=1-1
Actually i find electronics kinda expensive in the US, i wanted to get a laptop for my stepson birthday last summer and i couldn’t find anything with a 512 dedicated mb graphic acccelerator below 1100-1200 $ (when you factor in California sales tax), i got in Italy a Dell laptop like that for 600 euros (vat included)
Not to mention that in most places in the U.S. you NEED to have a car… so the extra expense of car payments, gas, maintenance, insurance, etc.
Nearly half of the world’s 50 most expensive cities are in Europe, with half of those clustered in the top 25. Seven of the top 50 are in the US (with most in the bottom 25), 8 are in Asia (5 of those in the top 10).
IHBB the Mercer index reflects the cost of life for expatriate corporate top brass hardly the cost of life for the locals, sure Milan is not the 11th or 10th most expensive city in the world for most people.
Wangkon said it correctly, i think life in the US have some amazing hidden costs, for instance, i calculated that if when i was living in Chicago i was driving the econobox p.o.s. clunker i’m driving now my gas bill would still have been higher than it is now, despite the lower price per gallon.
Ditto with energy: the cost of electricity is indeed lower in America but i had to waste so much of it (we rented a townhouse with no methane infrastructure) thanks to poor energy efficiency my utilities bills were enormous, with little or no improvement to my standard of living.
Another thing is real estate taxes (we abolished them here last year and they were already really low): shockingly high ! My ex-mother in law was paying for a decent, albeit not spectacular, house in upstate NY something like 9-10 grands a year in taxes…total insanity.
Well, well, well. Our heads (and faces) really are bigger…
http://www.femininebeauty.info/images/korean.3.gif
WangKon, i will sum all that science up in one short sentence: Korean women are SMOKING HOT
You’ve got plenty of anectdotes about costs gangpe, which are fine if you’re trying to convince your grandma, but I’m looking for something more substantial.
The Mercer and Economist cost of living data are the most comprehensive available, and both have European cities dominating the top 50/100 slots, far outpacing the American cities surveyed.
Besides, your argument about the data skewing toward the top applies to all. If the data for New York/LA/Honolulu is based on top corporate brass, then surely the locals there can live for less as well, pushing their rankings down in the same proportion as all the others.
WangKon #53, I clicked on the link but didn’t see any images of feminine beauty. Maybe I just lack the Matrix-bred skills . . .
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
IIHB mostly i try to convince myself as to this day i still don’t understand why i spend here 50% of the money i was spending in Chicago (and i spend much less when i travel to Asia) with pretty much the same standard of living (had a bigger car there vs. a bigger house here). I think these surveys are indeed pretty accurate in measuring the per unit cost of goods&services, but not the consumption patterns to achieve a decent standard of living (i.e. the gasoline and electricity example).
I heartily disagree with the arguement that the difference in the cost of life of top and normal people are the same everywhere: an extreme example would be Moscow, a city consistently ranked by Mercer as one of most expensive in the world and where most people still manage to survive with 300 euros a month. Admittedly this is not scientific but i have the impression major American cities, being gifted with a more developed business culture than Europe, offer more and cheaper amenities to corporate expatriate types…hey nothing wrong with that.
By the way i’m not trying to defend Europe (which i heartily despise) over America, actually i’d pick…Asia over both of them
arrrr me hearties….good to have a hearty person on this blog…..though I heartily disagree with you in that I still dig Europe….
more expat anger food:
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/special/2010/01/178_58414.html
pawi look at this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFjP-OJ7Bh4
13 million views and counting, it avergae a quarter a million a day, nothing will stop Hallyu !!!! (sorry got over excited)
PS
Big Bang are gaining cult status among Italian teen girls
Yuna we all have our own perversions
i i.e. think Seoul Olympic Park is one of the most beautiful places on earth together with the Hangang-gro street
thanks, gangpe. i remember when these young ladies put out their first title in the states. the expats were out in droves to tell us that they would be abssolute failures in america. of course, i understood that they were, in part, telling us of their own hopes. i’m glad to see the wonde girls meet some success, but i just can’t get into k-pop anymore. i like the stuff from the 60s, 70s, and 80s.
big bang in italy? really?
ps thanks for the info re anna oxa. the lady was a knock-out!
That was a nice two weeks moving around the homeland (and bonus tandem sleepovers in the Newark and Beijing airports because of blizzard-forced shutdowns)… Anyway, Happy New Year Marmot Holers.
Gangpeh, If you think the cost-of-living in the USA is high, move to the Midwest (places like Chicago excluded). You’ll live like a king, compared to say Korea, where you find the world’s most expensive beef, cars, and rice.
cmm,
Did you take your former Korean Air stewardess beau in tow with ya?..
WK-
no sir, but that’s because the one who went with me is the one worked for Qatar Airlines.
i looked at hideyoshi’s page at wiki and was surprised to see that the imjin war was won soley by the chinese. no mention of Yi Sun Shin and no mention that japan’s entire navy was destryoed by him. made me very suspicious that some japanese nationalist wrote the article. sure enough, going to the discussion page, you discover that primary writer is what i suspected- a japanese nationalist who contends koreans had nothing to do with defeating hideyoshi and his dream of world conquer. the man keeps deleting any reference to koreans actually doing anything to defend themsleves though he does mention that koreans harrassed the nipponese.
the discussion is a fascinating look into the inabilty of japanese people to think straight when it comes to koreans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Toyotomi_Hideyoshi#Regarding_Yi-Sunsin
welcome back, cmm. i was starting to wonder.
Good on ya cmm. Welcome baq.
Kettle, meet Pot.
Just read a KT story about an extradition request to re-open the Itaewon Burger King murder. At the end of the article, the writer refers to the murder as a “grizzly story.” Ha ha.
I didn’t see that movie, but I think it would have been a thousand times more awesome if the main character had been a bear.
#69: The Korea Times: Providing coffee editing humor to expats since 1950.
And to think that the authorities blamed that grizzly murder on innocent Gentle Ben!
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
Okay, a serious message now.
For those of you who know Kevin Kim (aka Big Hominid), this might be a time to visit his blog “Kevin’s Walk ,” for his mother is on the edge of death.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
Anyone see The Hangover?
Good Gawd. There was a comment about the film “Thirst” and how flagrantly gratuitous it is for Song Kang-ho to flash his peen on the screen. Well, Ken Jeong is in The Hangover and he’s completely naked in one its scenes. What’s bad is that it doesn’t seem as though Jeong has a penis. It’s like it’s either cosmetically covered up or he has one of those micro-peens. The scene would have worked 10 times better with Jeong in undies instead. WTF was Jeong thinking?
And WTF is going on with this latest cinematic trend involving males and full frontal nudity? It’s disgusting. Please make them stop.
Pawi, I’ll leave it up to you whether I rain on your Wonder Girls Billboard parade. Let me know if you’d like some reality in your cereal, or if you’d prefer your Korean media fed ignorant bliss.
An overnight star – a reporter called 박대기 .. his name sounds like “waiting/on call” Park.. and his email address is waiting@kbs
when he was phone interviewed by a radio program he said that he’d never been popular in his life and didn’t have a girlfriend.. now everyone wants to be his girlfriend..
“now everyone wants to be his girlfriend”
Even the guys? That is popular!
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
here he is slowly turning into a 눈사람(noonsaram-snowman)
you know, girlfriend, in the
“wants-to-wipe-his-runny-nose-for-him” sense, so I guess it doesn’t have to exclude guys – jefferyhodges, are you interested?
Nah, Yuna, I’m an incorrigible heterosexual, and very happily married (to a person of the female persuasion, natch), which explains my constant good mood and my charming persona on these threads.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
My PS3 is now a Netflix-ready device.
I can watch Anthony Bourdain comfortably on my couch in front of the big screen instead of uncomfortably at my computer desk. Yeah, baby.
Open request to Wangkon:
how does a rising won against the dollar affect an American investment in Korean stocks?
OMG, you gotta be fucking kidding me!
http://www.examiner.com/x-31586-Miami-Green-Technologies-Examiner~y2010m1d5-130-turbine-offshore-wind-farm-project-might-be-cancelled-due-to-conflicts-with-tribal-culture
The Cape Wind Energy LLC project at Horseshoe Shoals within the Nantucket Sound will be either delayed or cancelled with this determination. The proposed project in development since 2001 includes 130 wind turbines, 400 feet tall, spread over a surface of 25 square miles in the ocean between Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket Island. The 130 turbines will generate 420MW of electricity or about 75% of the energy needs for Cape Cod and the islands. The estimated cost of the project is $1B.
The “People of the First Light” tribes oppose the project because the proposed wind farm will interfere with their sacred rituals by obscuring the sunrise and because it will impact their burial grounds at sea. Other groups of people opposing the construction of the offshore wind power plant argue that it will affect the environment and navigation.
News about the fate of this project is expected by March 1st, 2010, or before.
More signs of the coming apocalypse and the Fall of the American Empire…
US public pensions face $2,000bn deficit
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bd1c2552-f966-11de-8085-00144feab49a.html
“The Ladies of Tiger Woods Get a Calendar”
http://www.patspapers.com/story_stack/item/the_ladies_of_tiger_woods_get_a_calendar/
Brilliant, just brilliant!!
Not well? But man, KOSPI has been on a tear lately.
#84
Not well? But man, KOSPI has been on a tear lately.
It’s bad because a strong won makes Korean exports less competitive in the US market. It’s also good because as a general rule if a foreign currency weakens against the dollar, the gains from that country’s stock market is reduced, or the losses increased, when they are translated back to dollars.
So from the perspective of the US investor, the currency risk of investing in South Korea is confusing. However, I think the Korean export engine has diversified significantly away from the US market. I think Chinese consumer demand will drive Korea growth this year. Also Korea is on the verge of signing free trade deals with Peru and six Gulf nations.
who’s laughing now?
http://money.cnn.com/2010/01/04/autos/hyundai_competition.fortune/?postversion=2010010508
money shot:
‘Years ago Toyota used to say that Hyundai was the company it feared most. Today those fears have grown into a nightmare.’
I hate to be so immature, but there’s got to be a caption contest with the first picture of that article…
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/2010/01/04/autos/hyundai_competition.fortune/gsegal_hyundai_01.top.jpg
I did not realize that there were that many Korean teriyaki deli owners in Seattle…
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/06/dining/06unit.html
as a current seattle native i can attest to the abundance of teriyaki shops. unfortunately, once you taste the food and see the kitchens in a few of them, you quickly learn to avoid them. that being said, great sundubuchigae and fried mackerel can be had just south of the city. as well, there are some great omakase houses.
did someone say mackerel? (you mean grilled..)
i really think more korean joints abroad should include this simple meal as a standard menu. yum yum. 고등어 백반.
incidentally i am sure it was Kodung-uh-gui I had at one of those dirty little places in 피맛골..
A collision between a Japanese whaling ship and a boat from an environmental group sponsored (in part? 5 million) by a former gameshow hosthere funny thing – the food culture. It’s almost like a soft form of currency, somehow tied to the cred of a nation.
yuna,
That was messy… sounded like you ran it through babelfish…
Humbug! All it lacks is a full stop in between the link and the new sentence, My commenting style is conversational like the babbling of a stream of consciousness. I am saving the properly structured sentences for my thesis.
Funniest review of a Korean movie I’ve ever read…
http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/reviews/foreign-objects-tidal-wave-2009-robhr.php
Wangkon: I will second that. Very funny review!
Also somewhat insightful about K-cinema in general:
“There are scenes of real loss here, often surprising and occasionally moving, but you need to remember this is a Korean movie. They never met a dramatic scene they couldn’t manipulate into pure melodrama”
and
“In addition to the melodrama the Koreans are also prone to uneven tones and this is no different… slapstick comedy is found moments before tragedy strikes and serious scenes of physical abuse can be immediately followed by goofy expressions and one-liners.”
I liked the picture of Ha Ji-won giving the stank eye… well… I just like pretty much any picture of Ha Ji-won…
I like this one where she’s trying to sound smart to the New Zealand PM:
http://thegrandnarrative.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/ha-ji-won-and-helen-clark.jpg
Nevermind… I like this one better.
http://thegrandnarrative.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/ha-ji-won-jinro-chamisul.jpg
“마음까지 Fresh” right above her wonderfully shaped….things.
These koreans are brilliant.
JW,
I think the word you are looking for are mammaries…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammary_gland
As the great Barbara Streisand sang, “Mammaries, may be beautiful, and yet . . .” but I forget the rest.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
“misty water colored mammaries… of the way we were…”
Sounds dirty.
since wk brought up a review by a foreigner re ‘haeundae’, here’s another take from a canadian or american guy who knows next to nothing about korea. his take on the film is an interesting read. have a look:
http://www.bigandsmallscreen.com/2009/10/movie-review-haeundae.html
Interesting review, Pawi, and it makes me want to see the film.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
i wanna see the movie too, jeff. however, i suspect the movie is going to turn out like other korean blockbusters ie boring.
@ #41,
Michael Hurt is half Korean? I never knew that.
#105
Yep, but you’d never know it, though. Never acknowledges his Korean side in his blog.
Cablinasian.
Yeah, but I don’t think he gets as much ass as TW.
#108
If he were white (in Korea) though, prolly be a very different story. It’s funny how these sort of things work out, huh?
NK (#106), I think that I learned it from his blog some years ago . . . but I don’t quite recall which post.
Jeffery Hodges
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Half Koreans who grew up with a Korean mom are a mixed bag. A lot of it depends on where they grew up (i.e. if they grew up in a heavy asian american population or heavy white population). But there are exceptions. Someone like the singer Priscilla Ahn who grew up in Western Pennsylvania in a mostly white small town acts and thinks quite Korean according to her cousins (whom I know).
Mostly, when they come to Korea one of two things happen. They are either reminded how Korean they are or how American they are. I can’t say for sure, but it appears that for Michael it’s more the latter rather than the former.
Jeffery (special care taken to spell that right), please don’t confuse NK’s self-serving “reality”…we want to keep him as chilled the f out as possible. Anyway, I think Metro-P’s mixed heritage is one of the first things that I learned about the him when I first went to his blog years ago.
Pawi, just curious, who’s the left person on your new avatar? It looks vaguely like a picture of 이건희 that I see everyday on the wall to me, but I doubt it. Happy New Year.
The character on Pawi’s gravitar looks to me like Israel’s current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. But perhaps you’re referring to a different figure?
Jeffery Hodges
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when president obama visited sk last year, he brought up korean education versus american education implying the us should be more like sk. quite a few expats came out the woodwork to tell us obama wasn’t praising sk, he was disparaging it. no, he wasn’t. word to the little guy in cholla.
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2010/01/07/26/0301000000AEN20100107000200315F.HTML
cmm: yes, that’s lee kun hee. hard to put two figures in the same avatar because of space. i hope folks don’t think i’m making fun of lee and park since they’re my heroes. lee with minister hat and pak behind him with scholar’s hat. have a good day, cmm.
‘pawi, what makes you proud of sk?’ reporter
‘that they have enough to eat.’ pawi
@100: Is that from the same noribang song book as “Peelings”?
I thought that was “Pee Rings.”
Jeffery Hodges
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And the line “misty water-colored pee rings” is finally understandable!
Jeffery Hodges
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노래방. not 놀이방 (unless you mean you sing in a creche)
필링 = peelings. if it were pee rings it would have been written 피링.
i like it when they re-romanize it in the way it sounds in Korean – it’s funny the other way. my personal favourite was Tears in Heaven by that other famous old crooner, *Eric Crapton* (it was written in English)
Oops . . . that’s a different song. Well, I never claimed to have a mammary like an elephant.
Jeffery Hodges
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Lest there be some misapprehension, I was referring in 119 to my error in 117, not too Yuna’s remarks in 118.
Jeffery Hodges
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“not to Yuna’s remarks”
I’d better call it a day.
Jeffery Hodges
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It’s OK Jepuri Hojisu. We got what you meant.
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