Ask a Korean! Guest Blogger: Roboseyo - Why are Koreans Hypersensitive to Criticisms from Non-Koreans?

Soundtrack time: hit play and start reading.


Everything about You, by Ugly Kid Joe.

So, the next big question, and it's a biggie, is: When Expats, or other International voices, or basically, Non-Koreans DO criticize Korea,

Why do Koreans get so damn defensive?

Michael Breen, writer of a book every person should read in their first month in Korea, and Korea Times columnist, wrote an article criticizing Korea's beef protests, and was criticized in return for not understanding the true meaning of the protests, and/or for being too critical of Korea (I didn't read the letters to the editor, or possibly the avalanche of comments on the Korea Times website, to which he was obviously responding). responding to those who dismissed his criticisms of recent Korean protests as base K-bashing:

The other thing to remember is that people are extra-sensitive to what ``foreigners" say.



The Korean view of nationalism is race-based. In other words, the thing that you are taught in Korean schools and homes that distinguishes you, as a Korean, from other nations, is your race. Although the world is politically structured around the concept of the nation, few countries distinguish themselves by race. Korea is one and that means that when a bald white face such as mine leers at you from the pages of this newspaper, it is immediately recognized as foreign. Yes, it is a vision of beauty, you find yourself thinking, but no, it is not Korean. That means that, even though I've lived and paid taxes here longer than most Koreans, I am immediately perceived as an outsider commenting from my hotel room. Thus, any criticism is taken to be the rudeness of the visitor. 



And even when that is the case, it is never meant. OK? Group hug? 


Now, Breen's lived in Korea a long, long, long time, but as soon as he criticizes Korea, he is demoted to "an outsider commenting from my hotel room." Conversely, I've discovered, if I tell people how much I like Korean barbeque, and how much I enjoy Kim Kwang Seok, and name-check Korea's top five pop-stars, I'm told I'm practically Korean -- a blue-eyed Korean, if you will. I'm welcomed into the club. . . as long as I only have nice things to say. This kind of double-think reminds me of a movie I watched when I was a kid, where every time a father saw his son do something well, he'd say, "That's my boy. Look what my son did!" but whenever he stepped out of line or did something disappointing, the dear old man would point at his wife and say, "Look what your boy just did!"

(photo source)

Without the defensiveness, the expat complaining would be a non-topic -- the dynamic is what makes this interesting at all. I'm still not convinced that expats in Korea complain more than expats anywhere else, but there's a perception going around that they do, and that put-upon attitude is reflected in many, many comments all around the blogs about Korea (poke around yourself: won't take long to find them). As far as mentioning beefs and complaints in person, to Korean friends and students, I've had the full range of responses, from interested attention, to a surly, "if you don't like it, you should go home".

Myself, I don't mind a reasoned defense, I don't mind a discussion or a debate, but I DO mind being accused of hating something when I'm only trying to discuss it, and I DO mind attempting to learn somebody's views on something, only to have my questions or suggestions met with an emotional backlash, or a slogan, and I really mind the attitude, not that my complaints are incorrect, or formed upon false assumptions (which the debater is capable of pointing out to me), but that my non-Koreanness means I shouldn't be saying what I'm saying, like the Korean who suggested his netizen buddies try to "correct" Brian in Jeollanamdo's critical attitude.

So assuming I've expressed my complaint reasonably and fairly. . . whence the defensiveness, as if some people think we expats are not allowed to criticize?

Now I have to defer to The Korean on this topic, and acknowledge first that, not being a Korean myself, I'm sure there are nuances or points I'll get wrong, or miss completely, even as The Korean warned me in an early e-mail "you know, I'm only one Korean -- I can't REALLY speak for everyone -- just remember that, K?" (paraphrased) However, when I run into the attitude that I'm not allowed to complain, because of things about me which I can't change (for example, my race, age, birthplace, or mother tongue), there are a few things that I think to myself, to calm myself down. They're generalizations, but you know, looking for patterns is something we humans naturally do -- Grok, who notices patterns in animal tracks, is a more successful hunter, and has a better chance of surviving to reproduce than Throg, who just kind of goes into the forest and does whatever with a sharp stick in his hand, and hopes he lucks into some food for his wife (whose behaviour he is completely incapable of reading--which doesn't help him propagate, either, especially since she invented a couch for him to sleep on). I don't think making generalizations is wrong in and of itself-- if generalizations are used to try and understand otherwise mystifying phenomena, they can be useful. If they're inflexible agents of judgement, that's when they get hurtful instead of helpful.


Apologies and butt-coverings aside, let's acknowledge, first of all, that anybody gets defensive when you slag something they love. Let's be fair. If I talk smack about my buddy's wife, I'm gonna get what's coming.

So explanation number 1: It's just human nature, dummy.

And, as with my buddy and his wife, if I have some critique that's well-thought-out and carefully phrased, and especially if my buddy knows I have a long history of being respectful and kind to his wife, and I know her well, he'll listen to my critique a little better-- generally, the Koreans I've met respond much more positively to constructive criticism than to straight-out ranting (which expats really shouldn't lay at their feet, anyway).

Explanation 2:
As with the whining expats, it's the internet, remember? The complainers, the K-defenders and the uber-sensitive Kimcheerleaders are all noisier, and more surly online than anywhere else. If a hundred Koreans read my article, and ninety-eight agree, but two disagree enough to leave poisonous remarks in my comment section, I still come away feeling like Koreans can't take criticism, even though almost everyone actually argreed with my points. . . quietly. Surly k-defenders are much more likely to take the time to drop a little "just go home, jerk! Korea treats you well and you're an ungrateful turd" into the punchbowl. If Joe Expat is getting tired of them, I strongly recommend that he go hang out with some real Korean people (the other 98%), rather than taking his lumps from Korean netijens (who, like netizens of every nationality, often hide behind anonymity to act like jerks, because they can.)

(Soundtrack, part 2: hit play, and read. Patience - by Micah P. Hinson: warning: one bad word.)

Next soundtrack song will be happy.


Explanation 3:
Some expats are too critical, never offering Korea a shred of grace for the fact it's come a bloody long way, and managed (mostly successfully) to cram 200 years of development into 50 years. (This comment is a really good, emphatic look at that, as is Gord's Part Three on "Who's Complaining in Korea," here.) Korea's still a work in progress, and while I don't think it's fair to ask every expat commenter to praise unreservedly, nor to maintain some magic ratio of praise to critique, or add a disclaimer at the beginning of each post, it kind of behooves some of them to offer the benefit of the doubt from time to time. Because of Korea's 5000 year history, and because Kimchi cures SARS? Not really, no. Because 50 years ago Korea was poorer than Haiti? Heck yeah.

The pundits, bloggers, commentators, and general blowhards who are too ungenerous damage their own credibility, I think, and frankly, in the same way that I don't revisit many restaurants that serve me bitter food, an expat's blogging or conversation style will turn me off, and deter me from visiting their site or answering their calls, because I don't like doing things that bum me out, and that includes reading things and hanging out with people, that are graceless, tactless, ungenerous, compassionless, and just plain rude and condescending.

As I said before, if they're blogging to get it off their chest, I'm glad they did, in the same way I'm glad you feel better after barfing up that rotten egg-salad sandwich you ate for lunch, but in both cases, I'm not going to stick around and watch, thanks. If people are blogging or talking to draw attention to things, and contribute to the discussion, they ought to consider their tone and audience . . . all-bashing is just as one-sided a discussion as all-kimcheerleading, just as likely to venture into the realm of self-parodic hyperbole, and just as likely (and worthy) to be ignored.

From here on in, let's be very clear here that the rest of these are theories and guesses and generalizations; don't take this as the final word on the topic by any means. This next theory is kind of cumulative -- a lot of influences piling on top of each other, to provide a kind of context for the K-defending.


Explanation 4: The Explanation Pu-Pu Platter or, in Korean: 모듬 명분 (HT to Google Translate)

4.1. In forty years, Korea went from a country that needed aid, to a country that could offer aid. Countries that NEED aid are approached with a very different mentality -- look at how far backwards international aid organizations are bending/bent, to convince Myanmar and Sudan's leaders to allow relief workers into their countries. Look at the lengths to which countries are going to accommodate Kim Jong-il's ludicrous demands. When people need help, the international community approaches its leaders on its leader’s terms, in order to facilitate the helping of civilians. "We should understand their culture" or being "culturally sensitive" makes sense in that kind of situation.

However, when a country is trying to attract international investment or gain influence in geopolitics, the onus is no longer on the international community to suit THEIR needs; now, the onus is on a country to adhere to international standards. (Or, like China, to bend the rules by offering cheap labour and suppressing their currency's value, so that even though China doesn't meet international standards for working conditions etc., it remains extremely profitable to outsource there.)

Here in Korea, we're only a generation and a half removed from kids running behind US Army jeeps shouting for American GI's to throw them some chocolate. Some of my students remember days when silk-worm larvae was the closest thing they could afford to meat, and the oldest son was the only one in the family who got to drink pricey milk. Korea has gone from being helped to meet international standards, to being judged according to international standards in a very short time, so this whole "member of the international community" is still pretty new territory for Korean society as a whole, and they're still figuring out how to take their lumps.

4.2. Add to that the pride in having risen in the international community so quickly (as well as the heady feeling of all the good press Korea had during the early 1990s: "Here Comes The Asian Tiger!" -- “why can't the international media write stories like THAT about us anymore?”)

4.3. Add also a feeling of historical grievance from the perceived and actual humiliations Korea suffered during the Japanese Colonization, a period of much controversy to historians, and the still raw humiliation of having needed such extensive aid during the 1950s and 1960s -- that image of Korean kids running behind US Military vehicles shouting "Gimme chocolate" is an embarrassment to many of the older Koreans who used to do it.

(huge flag photo from expat jane's site)

4.4. Add to that, the fact many Koreans identify with their ethnic and national roots in a very strong, emotional, even visceral way -- many Koreans don't say "Korean" when talking about their language, they use a possessive -- and not just a possessive, but a PLURAL possessive -- say these three sentences out loud, to see the difference this makes:
"Does the DVD have Korean subtitles?"
"Does the DVD have subtitles in MY language?"
"Does the DVD have subtitles in OUR language?"

Pretty striking difference, eh? That's what "Urimal" means: "Our language."

Now try these three sentences:
"Why is he criticizing Korea?"
"Why is he criticizing MY country?"
"Why is he criticizing OUR country?"

Koreans often say "Our country" (Urinara) to refer to Korea. Again, striking difference.

Whether the use of "our language" and "our country" is a cause or an effect of this deep personal identification with country is moot to this discussion; however, the use of language provides a pretty clear illustration of how personally many Koreans connect their self-identity with their nation, and that helps to explain why criticism often meets such visceral reactions.

With that sense of ownership in mind, that familial pride, think again about how these Koreans think of criticism from outside:

(photo source)

Imagine a guest coming to your new house (the building of which almost killed you), running his finger along the mantle to check for dust, checking the brand labels on the china in your cabinet (hmm. Made in Pennsylvania? Not even from England?), noting loudly that your living room sofas are not Corinthian leather, unlike his sofas back home, and commenting under his breath, as you introduce your children, "Your daughter's a bit chubby, and your son has bad posture, and your other son speaks slowly . . . are you sure he's OK in the head?". . . it'd start to rankle, wouldn't it? Especially if he's constantly talking about all the virtues of his house and his family (and admit, in a moment of honestly, that we've all occasionally given the situation back home more credit than it quite deserves, especially in areas like social welfare and education, where Korea has shortcomings, and knows it). Right or wrong, like it or not, this seems to be how it feels to many Koreans when outsiders criticize.

Soundtrack 3: hit play and keep reading. If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out, by Cat Stevens.



4.5. On top of that, is the fact that the almost entirely homogenous society in Korea, along with the Korean language media, gives Korea the illusion that Korea can still operate like it did in the 1800s -- as an island shrouded in mystery (Korea didn't earn its 'Hermit Kingdom' moniker for nothing). Sometimes, reading a critical blog to Koreans is, as my commenter put it, "Like having my family's dirty laundry aired out" Part of the reaction to a critical K-blog is simply embarrassment that domestic issues are being presented in English (the international language) for anyone to read: "can't we keep our in-house issues in-house?"

This is a mistaken assumption, that it would benefit Koreans, and especially the Korean media, to realize: Korea no longer exists behind a shroud. The language barrier is getting porous, as more Koreans can read English, and now, more and more internationals can read Korean. When a Korean makes comments that play to the home crowd, those comments get translated into other languages now, where in 1970, probably they didn't, or nobody cared anyway, and Korea's leaders and media could pretty much say what they wanted, without much risk of being called to account, as long as they spoke in Korean.

Now, if a Korean factory owner rips off his Indonesian employees, thanks to the internet and the ease of world travel, Indonesians hear about it, where twenty years ago, they wouldn't have, and one ripped off factory worker returning to Indonesia broke, one English teacher cheated out of his severance pay, back in New Jersey complaining, one Vietnamese imported bride murdered by her Korean husband, damages Korea's international reputation more than half a million dollars of "Korea: Sparkling" newspaper and TV ads in Indonesia, Vietnam, and Jersey, can repair. Meanwhile, the ripped-off Indonesian’s uncle blogs about the dirty crooked jerk Korean factory owner, and again, a Korean READS that blog post, where in 1985 it would have been a hot topic around the Indonesian village, and no Korean would have known that Korea was being bad-mouthed somewhere in the world. Communication is better worldwide, Korea’s behaviour at home is reported worldwide, and Korea’s reputation is affected. The sooner Korea realizes this, the better it will be for everyone. As international communication increases, countries will increasingly get exactly the international reputation they deserve, whether they think they deserve it or not.

[rabbit trail: the Korean media will resist acknowledging this truth for as long as they can, because they will then have to come to grips with the fact that as more Koreans' English improves, they will need to improve their product to compete with Reuters, CNN and BBC, instead of just with each other, or they will lose their formerly captive audience.]

4.6 Add to this the fact Korea IS a major world player now (top fifteen economy and all), so Korea is attracting a lot more attention than back when it was mostly farmers and war amputees and beggars. This is good for Korea, but it's difficult taking criticisms, when within living memory (and that can’t be emphasized enough) Korea used to take humanitarian aid (which goes down much easier) instead.

(photo source)

Unfortunately, that's part of being at the top of the pile (a major playa): I'm sure Austria would have loved for that news story about the kidnapping/confining/rapist father to disappear into their own language media, and if that had happened in Burkina, maybe nobody would have heard about it, but instead it was covered on every network. Canada gets embarrassed by a serial killer who kept going for five years longer than he should have, because he was killing Vancouver prostitutes, and mostly First Nations ones at that, and nobody important cared enough about First Nations prostitutes -- the most disaffected, marginalized subsection of probably the most disaffected, marginalized group in all of Western Canada!. . . there's no hiding from that shame anymore, and everybody gets their turn in the spotlight, both for good (KJ Choi wins Sony Invitational) and for bad (PD Diary faces criticism by CNN for crap journalism).

Soundtrack 4: saved the happiest one for last. Be Joyful, by Rock Plaza Central


My question, then, for Koreans, is this, and this is a genuine question that I'd love to hear answered, by as many voices as possible:

While other posters and commenters have made the point that Koreans complain about Korea better than anyone else. . .

If criticism of Korea by non-Koreans upsets or offends you, why does it? How could those views be expressed without upsetting you? Under what conditions ARE outsiders allowed to criticize Korea? (And is it just a tiny minority who feels that way, but they happen to leave a disproportionate number of comments?)


If you have an answer to that question, I'd sincerely love to hear from you. Write in to roboseyo[at]gmail[dot]com and tell me: why do YOU think Koreans take criticism of Korea so poorly? Is that a completely mistaken impression to begin with? When, under what conditions, WOULD criticisms of Korea be taken with an open mind, and judged according to the content, rather than the speaker? If your answer is interesting, I'll publish it on my blog. Throw it down in my comments section if you like, or publish it on your own blog, and send me the link.

(source)

I think this question is getting harder, because there are people with Korean blood living around the world, who can't speak the language and barely know anything about Korean culture, while at the same time, there are people from other countries who live in Korea now, who have invested a lot in Korea, in money, time, energy, and passion. Can we dismiss the opinion of a fluent Korean-speaking Ph.D. in East Asian studies, because he has no Korean blood? What about the Indonesian wife of a Korean farmer who's lived here for ten years? Is her opinion more valid if she's mothered children with her Korean husband? What about a Kyopo who has Korean blood but can't speak Korean? What about one who can't speak the language, but reads every book, and follows every news and opinion source he can? What about a pure-blooded transnational adoptee from Korea, who grew up in Denmark, and knows nothing about Korea except that she was born there?

I've given my thoughts; fill me in if I missed something!

Expat Bloggers as well: this question is for you, too. Whence all the negativity on the K-blogosphere, from both sides? Why do YOU think expats complain about Korea? Why do you think critiques are often taken so poorly? Is it just that the internet makes everything seem more extreme than it really is? Is there something I simply missed? Send me your thoughts, or post on your own blog, and send me the link. Let's have a discussion.


(p.s.: Where the hell is Burkina? Here)

A clip and a picture that didn't fit anywhere else:

"Duty Calls" from xkcd.com


Still feeling bummed? Watch this.

Anti-Fan Death is Real?

Dear Korean,

Ever since I got familiar with the Korean entertainment industry I’ve wondered why fans over there are so aggressive. They attack verbally and/or physically celebrities they hate, other fans, or anybody with negative or even different opinion about their favorite star. The first time I read about “antifans” was when I read news about Korean celebrities. It seems to me that in Korea being an antifan of one celebrity is just as popular trend as being a devoted fan of another. Why?

Nell


Dear Nell,

Excellent question. The intensity of the so-called "anti-fans" in Korea is exactly as you describe, and this phenomenon dates back to the beginning of the corporate-produced boy/girl bands in the late 1990s. Perhaps the most infamous case of anti-fans involves Gan Mi-Yeon, a member of a bygone girl group called Baby VOX. She was targeted with extra intensity because she was rumored to be dating a rather popular member of a boy band. In a recent interview, Gan said throughout 1999 she received scores of "fan mails" filled with razors, apparently so that she would hurt her hand as she opened them, along with pictures of her with her eyes taken out or letters written in blood.

Physical attacks against celebrities by anti-fans are relatively rare, but they do happen -- and this should be distinguished from a more common form of violence against celebrities, such as stalking or kidnapping for money. In 2000, Yoon Gye-Sang, a member of a boy band called G.O.D. (not kidding about the name of the band) received a soda injected with bleach. Yoon's mother drank it instead and had to be hospitalized. Similarly in 2006, U-know of Dongbangshinki received a soda injected with industrial glue and was hospitalized also.

Gan Mi-Yeon during her years at Baby VOX

(Source)

And then of course, there are the good ol' fashioned slams on the Internet. It seems like compared to the foregoing, bad things said on the Internet might feel like no more than a breeze. But they nonetheless cause real psychological damage. Recently a thesis written by actress Park Jin-Hee for her master's degree in social welfare caused a stir. In a survey of 240 actors, nearly 40 percent replied that they suffer from some level of depression, and have considered suicide. 20 percent took specific steps toward committing suicide, such as purchasing drugs. Park pointed to negative comments received through the Internet as one of the causes of stress suffered by those actors, along with more regular worries like career stability.

When the anti-fans are not attacking the celebrities they hate, they attack the fans of the celebrities they hate. The most infamous case would be the massive hair-pulling street fight between the fan club of H.O.T. and that of Sechs Kies, rival boy bands of late 1990s. Such actual conflicts have subsided since, but low-intensity versions of such conflicts happen to this day. For example, at a joint concert in 2008 featuring multiple boy/girl bands, the fan clubs of Super Junior and SS501 went quiet on purpose when Girls' Generation appeared on the stage. The concert organizers also paused the concert 20 minutes into the show because of potential clash between fan clubs.

How do anti-fans come to hate certain celebrities? As seen from above, it is often about rivalry and jealousy. But a worrisome number of anti-fans seem to hate celebrities "just because." When one reads the posts on the anti-fan sites (the Korean won't link them; he knows better,) the amount of blind hatred in the form of doctored pictures, baseless rumors and vile death wishes is simply stunning. There are some who attempt to give a somewhat rational reason (for example, one commenter at a Girls' Generation anti-fan site apparently hated the group because they were untalented,) but those people are few and far between, and the stated reasons are wildly disproportionate to the intensity of hate expressed on those sites.

To be sure, celebrities everywhere attract their fair share of hateration. As of this moment, 41,562 people "like" the "I HATE LADY GAGA" Facebook page. But the intensity of Korea's anti-fans and their willingness to do much more than quickly clicking the "like" button on a Facebook page are quite something else. What is it about Korea that contributes to this?

More after the jump.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

Confucianism and Korea - Part IV: Confucianism in Modern Korea

[Series Index]

So after three preceding parts, here we are now -- the most fun part of the series where we will look at Confucianism in contemporary Korean society and compare/contrast with what we know already. In fact, the Korean could have jumped straight to this post, but he opted to take a slower, more prodding route for exactly one reason -- to give context. And the reason for giving more context is because people who are unfamiliar with Korea overuse Confucianism to explain everything about Korean culture. Sometimes it works, sometimes it is misleading, and sometimes it is laughably ignorant.

An excellent example of such ignorance comes from back in 2008, regarding the earthquake in China. (Hopefully people still remember this.) In a Q&A with a New York Times reporter stationed in China, one of the questions was this:

Have there been any mentions of the earthquake as an example of the Chinese leadership’s ‘mandate of heaven’ being withdrawn?

This is freakin' hilarious. "Mandate of heaven" is a Confucian concept under which the ruler may proclaim his legitimacy, and natural disasters in the past were considered to be signs of the presence and departure of the mandate of heaven. While he is no expert on China, the Korean would daresay that few in modern China have thought about natural disasters in those terms in the last few decades. Accordingly, the Times reporter's response was a barely suppressed chuckle:

To tell you the truth, no one I’ve spoken to in the past week has mentioned the mandate of heaven. The survivors seem more concerned with getting by on a day-to-day basis and looking after the welfare of family and friends.

So in order to avoid this kind of situation, allow the Korean to give a couple of big caveats about how Confucianism operates in Korea.

1.  In modern Korea, Confucianism is a mode of thought, not a set of commands. Put differently, Korean people make Confucian-style thoughts, but that does not mean Korean people consciously try to follow Confucian laws. In fact, Koreans think without thinking about whether their thinking style is Confucian. It is very, very rare to find a Korean person who explicitly connects her code of conduct to Confucianism.

A similar example is America's libertarianism and Christianity. A lot of American libertarians expressly disavow Christianity. But they still generally subscribe to individualism, which is a Christianity-styled thought. This does not mean that all Christians are individualistic, nor does it mean that individualistic people think they are Christian. (In fact, often the opposite is true for both propositions.) But it does mean that major tenets of Christianity, if followed to their logical conclusion, lend themselves to individualism. (Yes, the Korean is aware that this is a broad example, but this is a broad discussion about a broad topic.)

This is how Confucianism works in Korean minds. Very few Koreans "obey" Confucianism. In fact, if you tried to justify something you did by quoting Confucius in modern Korea, you are more likely to be laughed at than seriously listened to. But Korean people's world view is often Confucian-styled, often themselves without realizing that it is Confucian-styled.

2.  In modern Korea, Confucianism is not the only mode of thought available. There is a tendency among non-Korean observers of Korea to attribute to Confucianism every mode of thought/action that appears remotely different from theirs. This is a big mistake. Influences of other major Eastern philosophies -- i.e. Buddhism and Taoism -- as well as Korea's traditional Shamanistic philosophy play a large role in guiding Korean minds. Christianity has been around Korea for 200 years also. In addition, much of Korean mode of thought is based on Hobbesian individualism, which is an outgrowth of Korea's recent historical experience of war and extreme deprivation. Do NOT try to explain everything about Korea with Confucianism. And please, no stupid questions like, "If Confucianism tells people to respect elders, why do I see so many Koreans not giving up seats to elders in a subway?"

Having said that, let's dive straight in. Here is a non-exhaustive list of how Confucianism operates in Korea today, after the jump.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

Everything is Super When You're Gay in Korea

Dear Korean,

Just want to say thank you for running this blog. I recently took an 18-year-old dongsaeng to meet a queer Korean friend of mine, and she asked a lot of questions similar to ones that frustrate you on Ask a Korean! When she asked, "do gay people hate straight people," I told her, "take anything you ask and replace 'gay' with 'Korean'. It's like asking, 'do Korean people want to be white?' Some Koreans hate white people while others want to be white people, and there's a whole range in between." It seems that we get similar questions all the time as Koreans (or Asians or blacks or queer or whatever) and it's great to see someone whose educated and thought about this on a deeper level to get people to think beyond lazy culturalism, and hopefully people get the deeper message about stereotypes and culture in general.

That all being said, I wanted to know your thoughts about the Margaret Cho anecdote about there being no gay people in Korea. Specifically, what are your thoughts as to the roots of this denial? Do you happen to know anything about the queer movement in Korea? It seems that homoeroticism has gained more acceptance in Korean media (i.e. the king and the clown, no regrets) but what about more mainstream Korean culture, as well as Korean American culture?

The Queerean


Dear Queerean,

Thank you for the kind words and the awesomest pen name submitted to the Korean so far.

This post will proceed in two parts: the Korean will first cover a little bit of historical background about this gay-denial, and Yeochin will follow by describing the current state of affairs of gay life in Korea.

First, the Korean would tip his hat to all the gay folks in the world. The Korean likes to talk about racial discrimination, but surely no discrimination can match homophobia as to its universality and vileness of its hatred.

Why the gay-denial? One must remember that a discussion about homosexuality requires a discussion about sexuality as a prerequisite. And there’s the first and foremost reason why any discussion about gays was completely buried until the last 10 years or so. Because Korea did not talk about sex, Korea does not talk about gays either.

There will be another time when the Korean will talk about Korean people’s attitudes towards sex, but suffice for the purpose of this discussion to say that it is extremely conservative. The word “Victorian” does not even capture it properly, because Korean taboo against discussing sex in polite company was stronger than any Victorian English standards. A quick example is the saying 남녀칠세부동석, which means: “Men and women, at the age of seven, should not sit together.” Yes, traditional Koreans were legitimately concerned about wild stuff going down at the age of seven. This uptight attitude about sex continued well into the very recent past. The very notion of sex education nearly caused a riot among Korean parents. Truly, the Korean remembers that as he was growing up, there were 16-year-olds who did not know what sex was. (This was early 90s.)

So there is the answer for the denial. Little by little, the news of the existence of homosexuality did trickle into Korean society. However, they were generally considered some type of disease that only foreigners carry, somewhat similar to (don’t laugh) divorce. The Korean himself did not even imagine the possibility of homosexuality until 1997, when he moved to the U.S. When the whole society pretends that sex does not exist, the more exotic type of sexuality is just as good as nonexistent.

It was not until about 10 years ago when honest public discussions about sex began to occur in Korea – and that was about totally legitimate sex between married people. But as everything in Korea goes, discussion about sex grew quickly, and since about 3 years ago, Koreans are finally beginning to talk about homosexuality, albeit still mostly tinged with ignorant curiosity of the grotesque (if you are lucky) or naked revulsion and bigotry (if you are unlucky.)

The two figures played a prominent role in finally exposing Koreans to the issues of LGBT: Harisu and Hong Seok-Cheon. Harisu is a model/singer/actress who showed Koreans for the first time in a meaningful way that yes, there is such as thing as a transgender. Following the universal truth that under our current system of vaginarchy, everything is forgiven if you are a pretty woman (see the application of this truth here) – even if you only recently turned into a woman! – Harisu by and large avoided a large-scale bigotry.

Although the circus-freak aspect of her gender partly propelled her celebrity, for the first time she was able to provide a genuine narrative about the issues that transgenders face in Korea through mass media. There is no doubt that she suffers private expressions of disgust; any corner of Internet gossip easily proves that point. Nonetheless, she has had a fairly successful career as a celebrity.

Hong Seok-Cheon is less lucky. He was once a young rising star, both as a capable actor and as a funny comedian. Yet when he came out in 2000 (and exposed the Korean public to the term “coming out” for the first time,) he became an instant pariah. He could not have been removed fast enough from his position as the host of a children’s show (similar to Sesame Street,) for fear that he might give children the gay.

He was undoubtedly in a more difficult situation than Harisu. With a transgender, the general public at least could justify it to themselves as some type of genetic disease. This is harder to do with out-and-out gayness. Hong was not a part of the vaginarchy, and his presence threatened traditional masculinity. His career was essentially left for dead for a few years.

Hong, however, courageously continued on, and as perceptions about homosexuality began to change recently in Korea, his career began to pick up as well. Hong appears to be aware that he is serving as the representative for all gay men in Korea in the eyes of the Korean public, and has lived his life accordingly. He kept his private life meticulously neat, and occasionally made headlines for his acts of charity, such as adopting his niece and nephew when their parents divorced.

So where is Korea now with respect to homosexuality? Certainly, there has been progress – if taking ten steps in Manhattan toward downtown counts as a progress towards eventually reaching Miami. As meager as it is, the Korean likes to see hope from the little things. But the remaining distance does appear vast, and any gains quite inadequate. Extreme ignorance, such as equating gays as pedophiles, reigns supreme. When Hong Seok-Cheon gave a special lecture on homosexuality in Seoul National University – the best university in Korea – he had to suffer through such ignorant question as “Do you want to be a woman?” Yeochin would provide further detail on this point.

What about Korean Americans? That entirely depends on the individual, because each individual Korean American has a different level of assimilation to the American society. But in general, since attitudes about sexuality tend to be the most deep-rooted and intractable cultural trait, the extremely conservative attitude usually survives. (Playboy’s Miss November notwithstanding.) Because homosexuality is more visible in the U.S., it is likely that an average Korean American may be at least more tolerant. However, whether more tolerance translates to more understanding and empathy for gays is doubtful.

[The following is written by Yeochin.]

Homosexuality has come a long way in Korea in the last few years. By this Yeochin means that some Koreans believe they do exist! In no way are they accepted members of society, but some are realizing that there are gay Koreans and it’s not just a myth. To give you a proper setting for the homo scene in Seoul, just picture a 1920s speak easy or cabaret. Everyone is loud inside drinking and wearing fishnets but outside its secretive, and underground. There is no Gay Pride here, only Gay Hide.

If you’re a lesbian:

There are several closed door clubs in the Hongdae neighborhood of Seoul. The girls have no features that distinguish them from a normal, heterosexual Korean girl. The behavior of girls holding hands and walking arm and arm is accepted in Korea as a straight thing to do, so when you see two lesbians doing it, you can’t tell. Yoechin’s lesbian friend -- let’s call her Canada -- is dating a Korean. This phantom Korean lesbian is 21 and lives with her parents. She has not come out to them. She has been in several gay relationships over the years without slipping up once to her parents. Canada wanted to come to her house once. Korean lesbian said “No, the day you come over to my house is the day I come out.” That day is scheduled for never.

There are also some gay clubs in Itaewon. Itaewon is known as a foreigner slum and right next to Hooker Hill is the fabulous Homo Hill. Both Hooker Hill and Homo Hill are English given names. Here Yeochin hangs out with her gay friends on the weekends and meets endlessly fascinating people with all sorts of sorted backgrounds.

One really tender girl -- Yeochin will call her Sweetie -- is in her first year of college at an all-girl school. She realized she was gay less than a year ago and has trouble dealing with it. Canada and her girlfriend took her under their wing to clubs and weekend trips trying to engage her. At the time she only knew of a couple lesbians and they were an hour away or more. She was very lonely. Then after several months of hanging out with us, she stumbled upon a girl she had never talked to before, but who she recognized from her University. She was so happy to find someone like herself. She wasn’t alone anymore. Finally, she had someone to talk to. A real friend.

If you are gay:

There really aren’t any gay clubs outside Homo Hill or Itaewon for men, although there is a notorious Gay Coffee Bean in Insa-dong. Korea doesn’t accept gays and this is a looming fear for those inside a gay club or coffee shop. There are attacks against gays that occur here. If you go to Homo Hill enough you will hear stories and maybe be unfortunate enough to see some shit go down.

Yeochin has not gone to Homo Hill enough to witness anything firsthand, but she has heard horrible stories of hate crimes. One of Yeochin’s friends had witnessed a girl getting her face smashed into a wall by a group of guys assuming she was a lesbian coming out of Homo Hill. My friend knew her and knew she was just there with a gay friend. These stories always make Yeochin nervous.

American Army fatigued guards march through Homo Hill every few hours looking for GIs out past their curfew. No one wants to get caught at Homo Hill at 3 in the morning. A lot of guys hide in jim jil bangs (saunas) or stay inside the club or bar for the remainder of the night. A gay club, called Pulse Two, recently opened outside the “hill” on the main strip of Itaewon, and it’s very popular.

Getting out of the “hill” is a huge step for gay acceptance and proves there are growing numbers of men coming to terms with their sexuality. Unfortunately there aren’t any gay clubs outside Seoul or Busan, which means that many of the men at Homo Hill travel an hour to two and a half hours to get there.

There is a Gay Pride parade in Seoul. Around this year’s Gay Pride Yeochin heard many complaints, mostly coming from foreigners who wanted a real Gay Pride celebration. The streets of Itaewon were filled with men and women wearing masks to hide their true identity and arm badges. The arm badges or chest signs said that no media could photograph, film or interview them. Korean gays are afraid of ruining their family life and losing their jobs if outted. Almost no foreigners participated complaining that this was more of a Shame festival then a Pride festival. Yeochin’s gay friend New York thought it was full on depressing compared to the Pride Parades in New York, Hollywood and San Francisco. Yeochin used to live in West Hollywood and Yeochin agrees.

There was a week long gay film festival at a club on the corner of Homo Hill, a small parade and then drinking at night wearing glow in the dark face paint and crazy costumes. A lot of gay Koreans went on and on about how far Korea has come in the past five years in accepting homosexuality. However, there is still plenty of room for improvement.

Some of the gay Koreans I have met have heartbreaking stories. This kid whose English name is Chris is only eighteen years old. He lives on the streets in Suwon. His family kicked him out of his house; he dropped out of school and was now jumping from one guy to the next for food and shelter.

Another guy Yeochin met was Korean American from Las Vegas. He hated it in Seoul and couldn’t wait to leave. He left for West Hollywood a few months later. Another guy was thirty and looking to open a bar in West Hollywood and get the heck out of Korea, but he is still working at his bar near the DMZ. He travels about two hours to get to Homo Hill so he can’t go there as often as he would like.

Yeochin’s favorite Korean gay man is Nine (as in the number) and he moved to Japan just a month ago. He says if he comes back to Korea it will be when his boyfriend is finally ready to grow up and accept himself. He will only come back when his boyfriend is ready to go to Canada and get married. His boyfriend is Korean Canadian and Nine is thirty two years old.

Yeochin believes the homophobic roots run deep in Korea. But change is taking place, albeit very slowly. One just needs to have hope and have heart.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

The Mexican Asks the Korean (Again)

All rise for today's honorable guest, the grandaddy of all "Ask" blogs:

Dear Korean,

Why is the word "rang" in so many Korean names for things? Sarang Community Church, Hwa Rang Do, Arirang Market--what's "rang"?

The Mexican

Dear Wab,

Very nice of you to visit this humble site, inspired directly by your greatness.

Actually, this is what Ask a Korean! is missing

compared to !Ask a Mexican! -- an awesome logo.

But as to your question, the Korean is afraid that his answer is a bit of a letdown -- the "rang"s that you identified are basically false cognates. They don't really have any meaning on their own, and even if they do, they have nothing to do with one another.

To be more specific, sarang is purely Korean word meaning "love," and it is not the case that sa means one thing and rang means another, like "lo" and "ve" in "love" do not have any independent meaning.

Hwarang-do is slightly different, because it is a Sino-Korean word. Sino-Korean words are basically Korean words derived out of Chinese, a lot like the way many English words are derived out of Latin. (More explanation about Sino-Korean words can be found here.) So in fact, hwa, rang and do in Hwarang-do actually mean something individually. Put differently, Hwarang-do is written in Chinese characters like this: 花郞道. Each Chinese character -- 花, 郞 and 道 mean something.

But this is not to say that the meaning of the composite word exactly equals the sum of the meaning of its parts. 花 ("hwa") means "flower," 郞 ("rang") means "young men" and 道 ("do") means "way." So the composite meaning is... "the way of the flower men"? (What the hell?) Actually, the actual meaning of 화랑 (= "flower men") is a group of young men in late 6th century in Korea, who were known for their mental discipline and a certain strain of martial arts (among other things.) So Hwarang-do is actually the martial art practiced by the Hwarangs.

(Quick side note: if you were thinking the term "flower men" sounds rather, um, alternative, you are not too far off -- there are some number of Korean historians who claim that Hwarang group is the first sign of homosexuality in Korean history.)

One thing to note is that rang here does not stand alone in the normal parlance. This is easy understand when compared to Latin-based English. For example, the word "circumspect" is Latin-based -- "around" ("circum") - looking ("spect"), i.e. "careful to consider all circumstances." But English-speakers use the part "spect" alone just to mean "looking." (Anglophones would say "Look at this," not "Spect at this.")

The last example -- arirang -- is actually very, very tricky. Arirang is a refrain in many of Korea's traditional folk songs. In fact, many of those songs are simply titled Arirang, and each region of Korea has a different kind of arirang. (Also, interestingly, the biggest propaganda show in North Korea is called Arirang Festival as well.) Arirang is a pure Korean word, so rang itself PROBABLY does not mean anything. But the reason why the Korean had to emphasize the word "probably" was -- no one knows for sure what arirang is supposed to mean. The speculations have gone all the way from a proper name of a valley to pain associated with childbirth. And those speculation tend to hyper-analyze each syllable in arirang, trying to extract any possible meaning that makes sense. In this context, some scholars contend that rang has an indepedent meaning, while other scholars disagree.

One more occasion you might hear rang in Korean is when it is used as a classificational particle indicating companionship. (More about classificational particles here.) For example, a sentence that says: 나는 영호랑 식사를 했다 [na-neun Young'ho-rang siksa-reul het-da] means "I dined with Young'ho." The rang in that sentence is attached to the person's name ("Young-Ho", a Korean boy's name that transliterates rather unfortunately) to signify companionship with the person. In other words, rang in that sentence means "with", but note that particles only carry a meaning when attached to a noun. (This is more fully explained in the link above.)

-EDIT 11/22/2010- The Internet, as the endless echo chamber, brings back the Mexican's coverage of the Korean's coverage of the Mexican's question, which was prompted by the Mexican's comments on the Korean's coverage on CNN. That's a lot of covering.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

Best of the Worst 2015

It's that time of the year--the season where we all gather around and wallow in the Interweb's swill of stupidity! Despite seeing the examples of dumb questions from 2008,2009, 2010 (in Parts I, II, and III), 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014, people simply do not learn.

The rules are the same as always: these are all real emails that TK really received from real people in the past year. Below, among all the shitty emails that TK has received, he has selected the douche de la douche, the crap de la crap. Other than redacting personal information, not a single thing about the email is changed or modified in any way. TK's comments and thoughts on the emails are highlighted in blue.

Onward!

*                        *                        *

You Are Not Going to be a K-Pop Star, Stop Fucking Asking

re: Please Help

Hello,

I'm 15 years old am thinking to go join the k-POp world after a graduate . I want to be a dancer and model. What company would I go for . I want a company that treats people well. Also I'm from Australia and am not Korean at all nor have any Korean background . I have green eyes and do not look Like a korean . Will that affect how I will do? Please help me . Is joining k-POp worth leaving my family and life behind?( my parents don't approve )

Is it worth being a model ? Can I be a model without wearing revealing clothes ? Do I have to speak Korean in order to be a be a k-pop idol?

I just want an answer via email. If I can get the answer faster that would be awesome.

ThankYou.

Yes, yes, "joining k-POp" is totally worth leaving behind everything you have ever known. Because all the best Korean talent management companies will line up for you, and you can pick and choose the best one among them. 

re:  KPOP

Dear Korean,

So I am well aware that these are commonly asked questions, but I would like to clarify on my own.

I am a huge KPOP fan, and hoping (maybe) to become a KPOP star in the future.

I am Canadian/Russian/Jewish, and none asian blood, or at least as far as I know, and quite obviously not at all asian to the eye. I do not speak Korean, but I will be learning soon (like next year or something), but I am guessing that I will have a large accent seeing as this is not one of my well known/practiced languages. Will any of this matter, or affect becoming a KPOP star?

Also, I am slightly shy, though working on it, but I do feel better in a group, so what happens to become a solo or group act? How do you get into the KPOP music industry, or more specifically, what must you do to get noticed, get a manager, get a group, or whatever is required?

I’m guessing that I have to live in Korea, but what part? I know that right now living in South Korea isn’t the best, especially for someone of my background (I do not mean to be racist), so would North Korea be just as successful?

Now, I do plan on finishing school first, so I’ve still got to finish grade 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12, so I am guessing that things will change quite a bit by then. Are there any expectations? So, height, weight, language, body type, looks, teeth, and so on and so forth, and can girls be in the same group as guys, because I recall seeing that once, but very rarely. Basically, what are the expectations, procedures, scheduling, etc.

This one may appear to be strange, but makeup and hair-wse, what is required? Because I have naturally red-copper hair, and am not a fan of dying my hair, as well as makeup.

Now onto dancing and singing. I consider myself a good singer, and so has one of the best vocal teachers in Calgary, but, I do not do theory, learn piano (I quit a while back, and have forgotten everything I learnt) or anything of the sort. Is this something I need to know?

And dancing is not really a forté of mine. I want to learn, but free-styling is absolutely not something I can do well, but with a given dance, it takes me quite a while to learn, and I’m not that great in the end. I know KPOP really concentrates on it’s dancing as a factor of the performance, but if I can’t dance, does this impact me severely?

This is one of a few emails. I tend to forget details, so I will include others in a series of emails spread throughout the years.

Thank you either way,

[NAME REDACTED]

Definitely try making it as a K-pop star in North Korea. Seriously. You will be making history. Group act sounds good--"Gulag Girls" has a nice ring, doesn't it?

(More ridiculousness after the jump.)

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com. But no stupid questions please. TK may have to kill himself soon if this keeps up.

Psycho Mass Murderer Edition

Thank you for waiting folks, the Korean is back after the busiest three-week stretch of his life. The Korean must say that every time he tries to get some rest from the Korean-American world, something always happens to pull him back in.

First, the Korean’s sincerest condolence and regret to the families of the Virginia Tech shooting. These are the times that the Korean is glad being a Christian, so that he can pray for the people; it’s also satisfying to believe that Cho Seung-hui will be in hell for eternity.

Honestly, the Korean does not think Adam Cho have put the Korean American community in danger. (“Adam” is the psycho killer’s English name by the way. If Cho was like most Korean Americans, there would be less than three people in the world – his father, mother, and maybe his sister – who called him Seung-hui when he was alive. On the other hand, it is funny and annoying to see people mangling that name that no one used when he was alive. Back to the topic.)

This is not another 9/11, where there is a sense that America was under attack by foreigners, and that foreigner might be that guy wearing a turban. Cho’s actions were so clearly psychopathic that possibly no one who is halfway non-stupid can entertain the thought that being a Korean had something to do with propensity for mass murder.

Yet the world is full of stupid people, and they try their best acting stupid. So we would have such news report from New York Times and ABC that Cho’s picture of holding a hammer looks just like scenes from Oldboy. The Korean can see the thought process as if it’s displayed in a glass case: Let’s see, the psycho killer is Korean, so something Korean must have turned him psycho… what’s the first psychotic Korean thing I can name? … I know, Oldboy! Let’s reverse this thought process: Hmm, the psycho killer lived in America since young, so something American must have turned him psycho… where have I seen double handguns? … I know, Gary Cooper from High Noon! It’s gotta be the old Western films that turn people into mass murders! Give me a break.

The thing that makes the Korean most disappointed is that even with this, Second Amendment will live on. As long as someone lives in Virginia, he can buy any number of handguns and go on a rampage. The Korean cannot believe that it is not a bigger deal. Look, murderous psychos will always be there. Then why isn’t it more efficient to take the methods of killings away? It makes no sense. Follow Korea’s lead for once: criminalize gun possession, and lock up hunting guns during non-hunting season.

What is more interesting is the Korean people’s reaction to this. Koreans, in short, completely flipped out. The guilt trip about the fact that Cho was a Korean was simply enormous, and they desperately tried to find a way to apologize to America. Apparently, the Korean ambassador at D.C. even suggested fasting as a show of condolence and regret.

The Korean can try to somehow explain Korean’s people’s reaction through something about Korean culture – how it’s like every Korean is a family, and you take responsibility for actions of family members, not just yourself, and all that garbage. But that’s simply untrue, and saying such a thing is dishonest. Korean people flipped out because they are racists; there can be no other explanation. Only thing that Korean people can see about Cho is his race, and they reacted accordingly. They desperately try to apologize to Americans because, if the situation was reversed and 32 Koreans died in the hands of a deranged American, all Americans in Korea will be lynched.

In making this point, some Korean commentators have been giving the example of the two girls who were accidentally run over by American tanks, and how Korean people reacted strongly to that. The Korean thinks that’s a bad example, because American army represents the American government. More relevant is a case that happened a few months ago, when a Chinese man was arrested for killing his Korean girlfriend and dismembering her body. That prompted an Internet firestorm of how Chinese people in Korea are all crazy killers and they need to be driven away.

Readers, please don’t let anyone try to convince you otherwise. America is the least racist country in the world, and you should be grateful that you live here.

Ask A Korean! News: Open Letter to Non-Asian People

(Sorry about the unannounced absence, folks. The Korean hosted three little Korean Nephews from Colorado Springs for a whole week, and then the Korean visited the Korean Girlfriend at Aspen for a week. Hope all of you have enjoyed some nice vacation time.)

Dear Black, Hispanic, and White People:

My name is the Korean, the host of a popular blog of Ask A Korean! The Korean keeps the blog in order to edify non-Koreans, and more generally non-Asians. That means you. The Korean had been thinking that he was making good progress, but visiting a region in America mostly populated by you people made the Korean realize that more direct approach is necessary. Therefore, the Korean presents the behavioral guide of interacting with Asian Americans.

- When you meet an Asian person in America, listen to the person's English. If it's fluent, assume the person is American. Do not say "Oh, your English is so great!" unless you want a punch in the face.

- Do not ask "Where are you from?" to an Asian person unless you are reasonably certain that s/he is outside of his/her American hometown. If the Asian answers, say, "Los Angeles", do not follow up with "where are you originally from?" or "where are your parents from?" Our precise ethnicity is none of your fucking business. Do we ever ask you whether you are from Dominican Republic, Ireland, or Ivory Coast?

- Do not holler any Asian celebrity name at any Asian person. The Korean is 6'1", and plays basketball frequently. If the Korean hears one more "Yao Ming!" from one of you, he will shove a basketball up your ass.

- Do not say "gonnichiwa" to an Asian person in America, unless you are absolutely positive that the Asian person is a Japanese tourist, or you are a host/hostess of a Japanese restaurant greeting an Asian customer. (Although if you are a host/hostess, the proper greeting would be iratsaimashe.) There are relatively few Japansese Americans in America compared to Chinese or Korean Americans, so you are most likely wrong; and if you had been reading the blog, Korean people really don't like being mistaken for a Japanese. Chinese people are not all that different either.

- On second thought, don't say any Asian phrase to any Asian person, unless you are at least conversational in the language. It's the 21st century, people. We are no longer impressed by your amazing ability to say "hello".

- As a corollary, especially don't say any Asian phrase to an Asian American woman in the hopes of hooking up. Your schemes are as transparent as they are idiotic.

- While we are on the subject, although equal opportunity dating is to be encouraged, blatant yellow fever is disgusting. Nothing drives Asian women away faster than your submissive girl fetish. Plus, if you really think Asian women are domestic and submissive, you obviously haven't dated one.

- Let's change the subject a bit. Stop patronizing expensive Asian restaurants with shitty food and fancy decoration. (Way too many of them in New York.) You are just as stupid as the Russian people who wait in line for hours to eat at McDonald's. Recognize which Asian food is rightfully fancy, and which one simply has a fancy name and a $30 price tag.

(True story: The Korean went to this one chic Korean restaurant in SoHo, where they made every effort to make it seem trendy and, well, not Asian, down to 100 percent non-Asian waiting crew. We had barbecue, and one of the waiters offered the Korean a platter of "Seng Shew". It took about 10 seconds to realize that he pronounced "sangchoo", i.e. red leaf lettuce, as if he was reading French. The Korean broke a soju bottle on his head, and never returned.)

- Do not use chopsticks if you are going to make a fool of yourself and spray food all over the place. Use a fork. No one cares.

- On the other hand, if you are at a Thai restaurant and don't have chopsticks, do not act all high and mighty and ask for chopsticks. Thai people don't use chopsticks.

- On a broader topic, stop fetishizing Asian culture, like its movies and cartoons. Like everything else in the world, some Asian movies and cartoons are fantastic, and some are just plain shitty. As the Korean mentioned before, he cannot believe the number of people who liked Bicheonmu on imdb.com, which is generally considered the worst Korean movie of the decade, perhaps all-time, on the same level as Battlefield Earth.

- However, stop copying excellent Asian movies/TV shows, replacing Asian actors with white actors, and sell them in America as if you came up with that brilliant idea. Martin Scorsese, the makers of The Ring, The Grudge, and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, the Korean is looking at your direction.

- Do not make an Asian person around you a representative of his/her race. Do not ask questions like "Why are Korean girls so slutty?" or "Why are Chinese people so loud?" because the answers will be either wrong or incomplete. Do you know all there is to know about your heritage? Neither do we, for the most part.

- But if you must ask, send an email to askakorean@hotmail.com

p.s. Asian people, anything else that annoys you? Please email.

-ADDENDUM: 2:37 p.m. Sept. 11, 2007- One more thing the Korean thought of (because some idiot just pulled this): If you meet a Korean anywhere, never ask "North or South?" North Koreans have no freedom to travel outside of their country -- that's what it means to have a communist dictatorship. The only place that you will likely meet a North Korean is within North Korea; at that point, you wouldn't really have to ask. Everywhere else, all Koreans are South Koreans.

SXSW Day 4 Notes

Day 4 was Friday. Most of the day was spent chasing around Korean bands at off-site venues. As much fun as it is to see Korean bands in the big showcases like K-Pop Night Out or Seoulsonic, the off-site performances will give the more realistic glimpse of the bands' potential for international success. I end up seeing the off-site performances of Jambinai and Crying Nut, and an SXSW official show by Big Phony. Another post will cover those performances.

At other times, I roamed the streets of Austin for something interesting. There was a large compound in which a number of food trucks gathered. There, I spot this abomination.

I am an irrational Korean food purist. To me, most Korean food in Seoul is not authentic enough. Regardless of my preferences, this Korean-Mexican fusion truck is popular in Austin, as is the case with most cities in which Korean-Mexican fusion appeared. This truck sold "Korean tacos," "kimchi fries" and the like. I hate-stand in the line, hate-order a rice bowl and hate-eat the fucked up glop of long grain rice, cilantro, some cabbage that pretended to be kimchi and grated cheese. Then I hated myself for a while.

Walking around the famed Sixth Street in Austin, I spy a familiar name: "Seoul." Turns out, Seoul was a name of a band from Montreal. How could a Korean not step inside to see what that was about? Inside, the band called Seoul was playing a soft, dream-like ballad on the stage. (As to the linked music video: I don't why a band called "Seoul" would film its music video in Tokyo, but whatever suits them, I suppose.) The music was not half bad. I tried to find someone who was with the band to get an explanation for the name, but no luck. I briefly thought about buying the band's shirt for the irony value, but I could not even find anyone to give my money in exchange for the merchandise. I leave the venue with unresolved intrigue.

Earlier that day, I heard there was a Japan Nite showcase. Since I had enough time to catch one set before I had to head over to Big Phony's evening show, I stop by. There, I see this:

This is a Japanese idol group called Starmarie. As you can see, there are dressed like 12 year old children. They are billed as "space idols." I wish I had enough words to describe the full horror that I saw.

To be sure, I have read enough Japan's idol market and its pedophilic aesthetics, but seeing that aesthetics in person was another matter. It is common for the idol girl groups in Japan to debut around age 13, and peak around 17~19. But the physical age matters less than the images that the Japanese groups projects. After all, it is hardly unheard of in K-pop to have idol girl group with the membership in early teens. GP Basic, for example, had the average age of around 13 when the group began in 2010. But in the K-pop idol market, young girls act like fully grown women. It is still problematic that young girls are projecting a sexual image, but at least the object of desire is a grown woman.

In contrast, in their garb, speech and demeanor, Starmarie was a team of fully grown women acting like young girls. Here, the object of desire is a child, which is far more unnerving. They are wearing a pink dress and a tiara; their voice are deliberately high-pitched and "cutesy"; their choreography, while performed well, more properly belongs to pre-teens at a talent show. The fact that I actually liked their music was even more disorienting. If one looked away, one would hear speedy rock music with high-energy guitar riffs, which is typical of the Japanese rock of the 1990s. I loved listening to Japanese rock music in the mid-1990s; I would have loved to Starmarie's music sung by a rocking front woman. It was as if I was recognizing an unexpectedly beautiful, abstract pattern from a horrifying train wreck.

I furiously text all of my acquaintances who knew a thing or two about the Japanese pop scene to get more information about Starmarie. Apparently, it is a mid-major group who are considered a bit old as they are in their early 20s. The group's target audience was japanophiles outside of the country. That made sense, as the orientalism was on full display. Switching to Japanese language at the right moments, Starmarie definitely looked and acted like the imaginary Japanese women that dirty old men would dream up.

Speaking of dirty old men, the venue was full of them. The venue was actually the same one as K-Pop Night Out, but the difference in audience could not have been more striking. The size of the crowd for K-Pop Night Out was at least double. KPNO's crowd leaned toward young, energetic girls who were ready to charge the stage, screaming their lungs out for Jay Park. Japan Nite's crowd leaned toward older, quiet men with gleaming eyes as they kept their distance from the stage.

As someone whose pop music staple growing up included a healthy dose of Japanese music, I knew that Japan has better music to offer. I left the venue, hoping that the scene would improve over time. It did not, according to a person who worked the venue that night. The high point of Japan Nite was Starmarie, and the audience count went even further down thereafter. Pity; Japanese pop deserved better at SXSW.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

Best of the Worst 2013

It is yet another installation of AAK!'s year-end tradition: the worst emails of the year 2013! This year has been another reaffirmation of the eternal truth that, on the Internet, the supply of stupidity is infinite. Despite seeing the examples of dumb questions from 2008, 2009, 2010 (in Parts I, II, and III), 2011 and 2012, people simply do not learn.

As usual, these are all real emails that the Korean really received. Other than redacting personal information, not a single thing about the email is changed or modified in any way. The Korean's comments and thoughts on the emails are highlighted in blue.

--------------------------------------------

re: question

Kiseung had an initiation of the" Chignon",the putting up of hair.
What was the significance of that…?

Why a burial mound?

I'm sorry, who's Kiseung? And what does "chignon" mean in ancient Korean?

re: (no subject)

I DON'T GET WHY I ASIAN'S DON'T LIKE BLACK GIRL I MEAN IM REALLY DIFFERENT FROM OTHER BLACK GIRL. I DON'T HANG OUT WITH A LOT OF BLACK PEOPLE BECAUSE THEY ARE TOO LOUD RUDE AND GHETTO I REALLY DONT LIKE PEOPLE LIKE THAT I USAALY HANG WITH SPANISH AND I HAVE ABOUT 10 ASIAN FRIEND BUT THEY ARE CHINESE AND VIETNAMESE AND 1 KOREAN BUT SHE IS MIXED WITH BLACK I MEAN IM NOT FULLY BLACK BECAUSE MY MOM IS BLACK AND VIETNAMESE IM JAMAICAN AND VIETNAMESE.MY FAMILY DON'T REALLY GET ALONG WITH BLACK THAT MUCH IM INTO KOREAN MOSTLY AND JAPANESE I LOVE K-DRAMA AND THE CULTURE. I SPEAK IT A LITTLE BECAUSE ON MY FREE TIMES I ONLY WATCH THE DRAMAS OH AND THE GUYS ARE REALLY CUTE BUT IM NOT BEING RUDE BUT THE GIRLS ARE HARD TO TRUST I LEARNED FROM EXPERIENCES GUESS DRAMAS SRE RIGHT BUT YEAH

Right. But, yeah. Right. Right.

re: question for a korean

I was just curious if a korean and an american have children. considering when whites and blacks have children they are called maloto or millato or something so what would a korean white baby be called  just curious as i live with one as a roomate.

They would be called, "Please just shut the fuck up."

re: (no subject)

I've been living here for several years now, grew up in Europe, but this country has the highest percentage of dumb, selfish, egocentric people I've ever experienced. Just hard work and discipline doesn't cut it. Moral, ethics and sincerity are equally important.

Regards,

Glad to be a non-korean

So, your question is...?

More stupidity, after the jump.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com. But no stupid questions please. I just can't take it anymore.

Spin That Pen, DJ Korean

Dear Korean,

A friend of mine, a former U.S. Marine, was stationed in Korea and he once asked me why all Korean guys are able to spin pens with their fingers. Unfortunately, I do not have this ability even though I’m Korean and wasn’t able to give him an answer. However, I did attempt to do the pen-spinning trick for him, but I nearly took out his eye.

Anyway, I have noticed that many of my Korean friends can do this and I’m wondering where it stems from. Is this a sign of our incredible finger dexterity (which I’m apparently lacking) or do we just get bored easily?

The Other Korean

Dear Other Korean,

How dare you rip off the Korean’s name? We will have to settle the superiority of our Koreanness at some point – it will probably involve a drinking competition.

There are several types of pen-spinning tricks that young Koreans do. (It’s not just guys, by the way.) The Korean himself can only do the simplest one, the 360-degree turn. Other more difficult ones include the 180-degree turn and the climber. (The pen is initially held between middle and ring fingers, and the pen flips up into its normal position between index and middle fingers. Double-climber is also possible, flipping up twice starting from ring and pinky fingers.)

A 360-degree turn is really primitive compared to the difficulty and the visual effect of a double climber, but the Korean was able to amaze a lot of Americans while he was mindlessly spinning his pen, thinking about something else. Then the Korean was surprised because Americans, no matter how they tried, couldn’t do the simplest spin.

Why is that? One possibility could be the famous “chopstick dexterity” theory. The theory was that because Asian Americans are trained to manipulate chopsticks since very young, they are good at precise digit controls. In fact, this is one of the theories of the 1980s that explained why Japan could make such amazingly precise electronics.

But this theory is just too hokey to be true. If that were true, what are the equivalent theories for precise German optics or precise Swiss watches? That good-quality beer actually helps hand-eye coordination?

No one knows for certain, but the Korean’s own theory is that pen-spinning is developed in the same way as chip-shuffling by poker players develop. On an average poker table at a casino, there would always be a select few who put on a show without playing any hands. They would get two or more stacks of chips and bring them up into a single tower, roll multiple chips from one hand to the other, and so on and so forth. How can they do it?

First, of course, they have digit dexterity (which one does not need to master chopsticks usage to have.) But more importantly, they are in a similar situation as young Koreans – namely, they have to sit at a table/desk for a very, very long time.

The Korean will devote a post to the life as a student in Korea, but for the purpose of this post it suffices to say that the student life in Korea is pretty miserable. Until very recently, Korean students went to school six days a week, including Saturdays. High school students still have classes on Saturday. Some high schools begin very early and finish extremely late. The school that the Korean went began at 7:30 a.m. and finished at 11 p.m. No joke. The school also averaged one suicide per year. In most cases, students of all levels attend private tutoring every day for hours.

(As a side note, this makes it pretty difficult for the Korean to listen to the whining of American high school students. Whatever effort that American high school students put in to get into a good college, on average, has nothing, absolutely nothing on what average Korean high school students do.)

All this means that Korean students spend an inordinate amount of time sitting in front of a desk, easily 10 hours a day at least. But human attention span has its limits, so there has to be different ways to entertain yourself. Some students doodle, some students pass notes, and some practice spinning a pen, the only thing that can legitimately be on the desk. (The Korean supposes there could be books on the desk as well, but spinning a book is too noticeable.)

By the way, as of 2008, the Korean has lived in America for more than 10 years. The Korean heard that the way schools are in Korea has undergone some drastic changes, but doesn’t have the full details yet. Any update would be more than welcome.

Got a question or comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.