Merry Christmas everyone!

Korea has a new president for the next five years: New York Times article

Ask A Korean! News: Violation of Rules 1, 2, and 3 of Fight Club

The Korean has not been talking much about it, but South Korean presidential election is actually just four days away. And whenever the presidential election is near, we have news like this -- suffice it to say that it involves a chainsaw and beating with a phone.

First, just a little bit of background. There are three major candicates in this contest: Lee Myeong-bak from Grand National Party (GNP), Jeong Dong-yeong from New Democratic Party (NDP), and independent candidate Lee Hoi-chang. A lot of Mr. Jeong's hopes rode on an investigation against Mr. M. Lee on a possible corruption charge. Unfortunately for Mr. Jeong, the national prosecutor's office of Korea (equivalent to Department of Justice in the U.S.) last week announced that Mr. Lee had no involvement in the corruption scheme.

Dismayed, Mr. Jeong mobilized his party to submit a bill to impeach the prosecutor in charge of that case, essentially arguing that there must have been some type of collusion between the prosecutor and Mr. Lee. However, the bill was pressed for time, given that it has to start before the presidential election. Uri Party did have the majority in the National Assembly (=Congress in the U.S., except there is only one house), but GNP minority was none to happy about the bill
, and vowed to stop it. And so follows the story....

(The Korean's note: the following is a direct translation from this article on Dong-A Ilbo, except for parenthetical comments. On the link, you can also see some awesome videos as well.)

Although roughly 100 of GNP Assemblymen, occupying the Main Chamber of the National Assembly, locked the door from inside, at approximately 5:20 p.m. roughly 100 of the NDP Assemblymen stormed the Main Chamber and took over the chairman's seat in 45 minutes.
....

At 5:20 p.m. this day, upon orders by Chairman Lim, deputies of National Assembly cut the steel wire that held the inside door knob with a chainsaw. As the Main Chamber doors opened, NDP Assemblymen rushed toward the chairman's seat occupied by GNP Assemblymen. (Steel wire! Chainsaw! Ladies and gentlemen, the National Assembly of Korea -- just as screwed up as U.S. Congress, but a whole lot more entertaining!)

NDP Asm. Seon Byeong-ryeol ran toward the podium and choked GNP Asm. Jeong Du-eon, and Asm. Jeong Bong-ju attempted to jump on the chairman's seat but pushed out by GNP Assemblymen's defense. (Defense! uh uh defense!) One NDP Assemblyman slapped Asm. Bak Gye-dong, causing him to fall off the podium. Asm. Bak chased after the NDP Assemblyman, but was blocked by NDP Assemblymen and failed to exact his revenge. (Way to protect your slap-back!)

NDP Assemblymen yelled "Come down you [expletive]," and GNP Assemblymen did not back down, responding "Apologize to the people." Both sides pushed and shoved, trying to occupy the chairman's seat. Asm. Seo Gap-wo was poked in the eye by Asm. Sim Jae-cheol during the pushing and shoving. (There is no holding back people!)

Around 5: 50, the defensive line began to crumble as Asm. Gang Gi-jeong hit Assemblymen Choe Gu-sik and Gim Yeong-suk, who were guarding the right side of the podium, several times with a phone, and as Asm. Jeong Bong-ju jumped on top of GNP Assemblymen. (The phone! The defense's only weakness -- how did he know? Also, note that Gim Yeong-suk is a woman. There truly is no holding back.)

Asm. Jeong Bong-ju was trying to push out Asm. Sim Jae-cheol, but was pushed by Asm. Sim's cane, which he carries to assist his walking. (The cripple did it! Get the cripple!) Despite Asm. Sim's resistance, Asm. Jeong pulled him out, and also pulled out Spokesman Na Gyeong-won, who was also guarding the chairman's seat.

Finally, NDP occupied the chairman's seat 45 minutes after the entrance to the Main Hall. At that time, as Minority Leader An Sang-su relayed the message by Chairman Lim to both parties' leaders, "Judiciary Committee shall deliberate on [the bill] until [Decenber] 17th," GNP Assemblymen retreated from the chairman's seat.

Asm. Cha Myeong-jin, who was guarding the podium, was carried to a nearby hospital's emergency room, as he hurt his back while being thrown down by NDP Assemblymen. However, NDP Spokesman Choe Jae-seong said "Asm. Cha fell because GDP Assemblymen pushed him" in a briefing shortly after the occupation of the chairman's seat.

In addition, GNP Asm. An Hong-jun was injured when Asm. Jeong Bong-ju bit his finger (Looks like Mr. Jeong was the top gun), and Asm. Ju Seong-yeong was treated at a hospital for chest injury. Asm. Gang Gi-jeong also received hospital treatment after suffering bruises on his neck. (Oh no! I had those two in my fantasy Korean Assemblymen Fight League!)

Previously on this day, Minority Leader An and other 100-odd GNP Assemblymen occupied the Main Hall and locked the door with a steel wire. They also piled on furniture in front of the door, blocking the entrance.

Majority Leader Gim Hyo-seok and other 100-odd NDP Assemblymen protested in front of the main entrance as they attempted to enter main hall since 2 p.m., when they decided to open the Assembly. By their side, GNP staffer heckled them by singing "na na na na, na na na na, hey hey, good bye~"

(Seriously, you can't make this stuff up.)

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

Guide to Year-End Gift-Giving Period

Dear Korean,

My boss is Korean. He, along with his wife and family, owns many formal/bridal dress shops. They fluently speak Korean and are very religious and proud. My co-workers and I are having an extremely hard time coming up with a Christmas gift for him/his family. Any suggestions?

Laura

Dear Laura,

The Korean would like to note that your email arrived on Nov. 16, before Thanksgiving! For God’s sake, can people just wait until Thanksgiving to start thinking about gift giving? What’s the rush? Right about now is a good time to think about it, so the Korean waited until now.

(Of course, now is also a time where the Korean has a little bit of break from work as well.)

The Korean will go a little off-tangent here: The Korean does not take kindly to all this “Happy Holidays” thing. It’s not because the Korean is a psycho “Christian” who thinks “Merry Christmas” is the only possible year-end greeting. It’s because thanks to Christmas, which involves gift-giving, people are forced to dig up relatively obscure holidays (e.g. Chanukah) or make one up (e.g. Kwanzaa) in order to join in the commercialism without being involved with the Christian faith.

Truth is, virtually every culture (on the Northern Hemisphere) has a year-end celebration, and Christmas is just one of them. Why does every culture have a year-end celebration? It’s the winter solstice! The sun is the most vital source of life before the advent of electricity, so the shortest-sunlight-day was very significant. Koreans are not an exception either. Winter solstice for Koreans is called dongji, and Koreans celebrate it by having red bean porridge (patjuk), because the color red repels evil spirits that occupy the long night. So tracking the day’s length, Jesus happened to be born near winter solstice and resurrected near spring equinox – how convenient is that?

Just like dongji is a relatively obscure holiday for Koreans, so was Chanukah for Jews. The most important Jewish is NOT Chanukah – it’s Yom Kippur, in which a year’s worth of sin is atoned in one day. (Or as Jon Stewart puts it, “the best deal in all of religion.” Note that Yom Kippur generally falls around autumn equinox too.) Chanukah only gets the attention it currently gets because it happens to fall about the same time as Christmas – start getting them gifts!

The Korean is sick of learning the names of 25 different winter holidays, not because the Korean doesn’t care about other culture – quite the opposite is true – but because those holidays are relatively unimportant in any given culture, and are only dug out of obscurity so that we can step away from Christianity while buying into one true religion of America – Commercialism. This actually stops people from learning different cultures – the Korean would wager that Chanukah is the only Jewish holiday that many folks know, while Yom Kippur or Rosh Hashanah dwarf Chanukah in terms of their relative importance. So from now on, the Korean will call this holiday season thusly: the “Year-End Gift-Giving Period”.

Okay, tangent over. What is to be given to Koreans in the 2007 YEGGP? First of all, there is no set Korean gift for YEGGP. (In fact, there is no set Korean gift for ANY occasion, except maybe for a gold ring for a baby’s first birthday, seaweed soup on birthdays, and a large party on the 60^th birthday. Please stop asking the Korean questions like “What do Koreans give each other for birthday/Valentine’s Day/anniversary/etc.?”)

Actually, middle-aged Korean men are very difficult to give gifts to – even Koreans themselves (usually the children of these men) have a lot of trouble buying gifts. There is one universal hobby for all Korean men – drinking. So a very common gift for Korean men is fine wine or scotch, because Koreans simply love scotch. But Laura’s boss might be the devout Christian type who may not drink, so that might not be good. Golfing is a very common hobby for Korean Americans, so something golf-related is a solid gift as well. Other good generic gift ideas are usually good for Koreans as well – that may include sweaters, tie, gift cards, and so on.

Anyone have a better idea? Please tell the Korean. He still needs to do his Year-End Gift-Giving Period shopping for everyone.

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

Ask A Korean! News: Slabs of LA Times Articles

How interesting that 3 of the top 5 emailed articles on LA Times today have something to do with immigration or Koreans! But that's what happened today.

First, a nice summary of all the craziness currently going on in Korean society (with a nice pic of a hot belly dancer): In South Korea, it feels like a scandal a day

Highly interesting article about a town in Alaska that has a cabbie per every 62 residents, a lot of the cabbies being Koreans: America's taxi capital: Bethel, Alaska

And finally, another blow against paranoid xenophobes, as a study confirms what all of us already knew: Immigrants' children grow fluent in English, study says

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

Ask A Korean! News: Race Riots in France

Seems like there are more race riots in France, and apparently this time it's more violent than the riots in 2005. According to this New York Times article, police officers are being shot at by shotguns.

High unemployment rate in France is a huge contributor to the riots; French society's generally racist attitude is also a big factor. The Korean complains often about living as a minority in America, but let there be no mistake about it. The Korean sincerely believes that if you have to live as a minority somewhere, there is no better place than the good ol' U.S. of A.

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

Korean Language Lessons - Particle I (Classificational Particles)

See the past Korean language series here: Methodology Reading and Writing

WARNING: You should be able to see typed Korean language in order to fully read this post. If you are a Windows user, you can go to Microsoft's website and download the "East Asian Language Support". Ask your local computer nerd. Entice him with a woman and it will be easy. If you are a Mac user, enjoy your cute commercials.

MORE WARNING: The Korean never received formal education as to how to teach Korean to non-Korean speakers. Therefore, all the technical terminology that the Korean uses in this post (as well as in other Korean Language Series) are made up by the Korean. Additionally, the Korean will often be wrong about things. But hey, that’s the price you pay if you try to learn a foreign language from an amateur off a blog.

Dear Korean,

Why do Koreans add an "ah" sound to the end of a name? For example, "Hee Jin-ah," or “Kyung Min-ah”. I know that "si" is used like a Mr. or Miss, but why add the "ah?"

JR

Dear JR,

I bet you didn’t expect a Korean language lesson for your question, but the answer for your question has directly to do with one of the most important and difficult features in Korean language – particles.

The Korean must give this warning: Particles are pretty difficult. It is a very unique grammatical tool, and often adds the subtlest nuances in speech. The good news? The only two very tough things in Korean language are particles and verb conjugation. So once you master particles, you are halfway there.

There are three types of particles: classificational, conjunctional, and auxiliary. The first one is relatively easier to understand, so we will deal with particles in two parts. This part will be about classificational particles, and the next part will be about conjunctional and auxiliary particles.

Universal Grammar: How to Learn Any Foreign Language.

Given this is the first grammar lesson, it would be useful for the Korean to map out how exactly he will approach Korean grammar. In short, the Korean plans to teach Korean language along the lines of the universal grammar.

What is universal grammar? It’s what made Noam Chomsky famous. Chomsky theorized that all human languages, no matter how different they may appear, share the same essential features. Chomsky’s work is extremely abstract and theoretical, but for our practical purposes it suffices to say that there are only seven components to any human language. They are:

- Subject: Made up of noun phrases (S)
- Predicate: Made up of verb phrases, either active or stative (P)
- Object: Made up of noun phrases (O)
- Adjective phrases (AjP)
- Adverbial phrases (AvP)
- Conjunctions (C)
- Exclamations (E)

That’s it. Really, that’s it. Even the most complex sentence in any language in the world in any historical period can be broken down into these seven parts. For example, here is the first sentence of the Gettysburg Address, broken down into the parts:

AvP:[Four score and seven years ago] S:[our fathers] P:[brought forth] AvP:[on this continent] O:[a new nation,] AjP:[conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.]

For another example, here is the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence, made by Korean leaders against the Japanese rule in 1919, broken down:

S:[吾等(오등)은] AvP:[玆(자)에] AjP:[我(아) 朝鮮(조선)의] O:[獨立國(독립국)임]C:[과] AjP:[朝鮮人(조선인)의] O:[自主民(자주민)임을] P:[宣言(선언)하노라.] (“We hereby declare that Korea is an independent nation and Korean people are sovereign people.”)

This is such a significant discovery that it bears repeating in caps: ALL HUMAN LANGUAGES ARE MADE UP OF THESE SEVEN PARTS OF SPEECH.

Then what makes languages different? The only difference is the way the seven parts are organized. So learning any grammar is basically about how the seven parts of language are marked and organized. This is where we are going to begin.

Classificational Particles: Man bites dog, in three different languages.

To understand the function of classificational particles, let’s start from what we know first, i.e. English. Consider the following two sentences.

- Dog bites man.
- Man bites dog.

English speakers don’t have to think very hard to know that they mean two different things. One sentence is newsworthy, and the other is not. But step back and think about it. “Dog” in the first sentence is the same as “dog” in the second sentence. So how do we know the first “dog” is the biter (i.e. subject), while the second “dog” is the bitee (i.e. object)? In other words, how does English language note the fact that the same word is used for different parts of speech?

Answer: English speakers know by the placement of the noun with respect to the verb. If a noun comes before the verb, it is the subject of the sentence. If a noun comes after the verb, it is the object of the sentence. In other words, English sentences are “order-sensitive.”

(Aside: The king of order-sensitive language is Chinese, where even certain adverbs like time and place have to be in a certain place, or the sentence doesn’t make sense. In English, it doesn’t matter if you say “I will meet you in the building at 9 a.m.” or “In the building I will meet you at 9 a.m.” But in Chinese, only “At 9 a.m. in the building I will meet you” is correct – if you translate it strictly, it’s more like “9 a.m. in building I meet you.”)

But consider the same two sentences in Latin, which is not an order-sensitive language.

- Canis hominem mordet. (Dog bites man.)
- Homo canem mordet. (Man bites dog.)

Here, both “canis” and “canem” mean “dog”, and “homo” and “hominem” mean “man.” Do you see how in Latin, the order of the word does not matter? It does not matter because the noun is conjugated to show whether it is a subject or an object. If a noun form ends in “-em”, it is the object. No conjugation, and it is the subject. So take the second sentence, and switch the word order around, and they still make perfect sense. “Homo canem mordet” and “canem homo mordet” mean the exact same thing.

(Aside No. 2: This is all directly from The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker. It’s the best book to read if you were ever curious about languages.)

Korean is essentially the same with Latin, but with this difference: Instead of conjugating the noun, Korean language adds a “particle” at the end of the noun to show which one of the seven parts of language it belongs to. So in Korean, just like Latin, the word order does not matter. Here are the same two sentences in Korean.

- 개가 사람을 물다. Gae-ga saram-eul mulda. (Dog bites man.)
- 사람이 개를 물다. Saram-i gae-reul mulda. (Man bites dog.)

Recognize the nouns first. “Gae” is “dog”, and “saram” is “man/person”. You can see that in the first sentence, the particle “ga”, attached to “gae” shows that “gae” is the subject; the particle “eul” attached to “saram” shows that “saram” is the object. So “gae-ga saram-eul mulda” and “saram-eul gae-ga mulda” mean the exact same thing, just like Latin.

Let’s go back to what we know. English has something pretty similar to particles: prepositions. Nouns in a sentence, except subjects and objects, need a preposition to explain what the noun is doing in the sentence. For example, consider the sentence: “She walked to the park”. This is different from “She walked the park.” – in fact, that sentence makes no sense, because there is no preposition telling us what “the park” is doing in that sentence. The “to” in front of “the park” tells us that “the park” is functioning as an adverb – it is describing the manner of the verb, i.e. “walk”.

English has a similar feature as Latin as well, because you can actually conjugate nouns in English. To show plurals, we generally conjugate the noun by adding “s” or “es”. “Cup” can be changed to “cups.” Noun is also conjugated to show possessives by adding “’s”. So a cup belonging to Mary is “Mary’s cup.” (You can also say that this is not really a conjugation, but a form of particles in English.)

In Korean, all the above-named functions—showing the function of a noun in a sentence or showing a certain feature of the noun—are done by particles. So remember: In correct Korean grammar, A NOUN CANNOT STAND ALONE WITHOUT A PARTICLE.

JR, here is the answer to your question before we go any further. Why do Korean people attach “ah” to people’s names? Because people’s names are nouns, and they cannot stand alone without a particle. “ah” or “ya” are called “Exclamatory Particles” – they attach to a noun to show that this noun is an exclamation. The full list of all classificational particles are in the later part of this post.

(Aside No. 3 – Interesting thing about the Korean language, because of the existence of particles: Often, Korean sentences would be complete without a subject, just like Spanish. This is because even without the subject, all the particles in the sentence make the functions of all parts really clear.)

Advanced Stuff: Read Only If You Are Hardcore

The Korean's Note: No matter how hard the Korean tried, it was really difficult to come up with a neat chart of particles like the Korean made with Korean pronunciation, mostly because each particle has different nuances, which would require too many example sentences, and also because there are a ton of adverbial particles compared to others. Honestly, if you came this far into learning Korean, the Korean recommends buying an actual Korean grammar book written by professionals. But for a quick reference, the list below would work. The Korean also welcomes questions, as always -- but don't expect him to do your homework.

Note on the Following List: The choice of many particles depends on whether the preceding noun ends in a batchim or not. For example, the particle to indicate that a noun is a subject is either “i” or “ga”. “i” is used with a noun that ends in batchim, and “ga” is used with a noun that ends without batchim. So if you want to say “I did it”, it’s nae-ga haetda. But if you want to say “Jane did it”, it’s jae-in-i haetda. If you see particles divided by a slash, assume that the first one is used for nouns that end in batchim, and the second is for ones that do not.

Complete List of All Classificational Particles

a. Subjective particle: 이/가. Attach these things to show that a noun is a subject of the sentence. See the “dog bites man” sentences above for an example.

b. Objective particle: 을/를. Attach these things to show that a noun is an object of the sentence. See the “dog bites man” sentences above for an example.

c. Adjective particle: 의. Attach it to make a possessive or an adjective out of a noun.
E.g. 메리의 컵 ( “Mary’s cup”)

d. Predicatory particle: 이다/다. Attach these things to a noun in order to form a predicate. This actually has the same function as “be” in English.
E.g. 내가 범인이다. (“I am the criminal.”)
Beomin means “criminal/perpetrator”, so ida attached at the end of beomin makes the noun into a predicate, which explains the subject. This particle is special because it conjugates like a verb. We will deal with verb conjugation in a later post.

e. Exclamatory particle: 아/야, 이여/여. These particles attach on a noun to turn the noun into an independent exclamatory phrase. See the question of the day for an example.

f. Adverbial particle: Adverbial particles are roughly equivalent to prepositions in English, because many prepositions make an adverbial phrase out of a noun. There are a lot of these, so be ready.

1. destination – 에 (place+), 에게, 한테 (person+). Shows that the attached noun is the destination of the object. These are similar to “on”, “to”, or “toward”.
e.g. 그가 너에게 연필을 주었다. (“He gave a pencil to you.”) 내가 공을 벽에 던졌다. (“I threw the ball on the wall.”)

2. aspiration – 에, 으로/로 (place+), 에게로, 한테로 (person+). Shows that the attached noun is the eventual destination of the subject. Similar to “toward”.
e.g. 컵이 바닥에 떨어졌다. (“Cup fell on the floor.”) 그녀가 그에게로 갔다. (“She went to him.”)

3. origination – 에서 (place+), 한테서, 에게서/게서 (person+), 으로부터/로부터 (place, person+). Shows that the attached noun is the starting place of something. These are similar to “from”.
e.g. 내가 연필을 그에게서 받았다. (“I received a pencil from him.”), 그는 낸터캣에서 왔다. (“He came from Nantucket.”)

4. transition – 으로/로. Shows the attached noun is the end product of a transformation. Similar to “to” or “into”
e.g. 밤이 낮으로 바뀌었다. (“Night turned into day.”)

5. means – 로, 으로서/로서. Shows that the attached noun is a means to an end. These are similar to “with”.
e.g. 그녀가 사과를 칼로 깎았다. (“She peeled an apple with a knife.”)

6. capacity – 로, 으로써/로써. Shows that the attached noun is operating in a certain capacity. Similar to “as”.
e.g. 그가 친구로써 말했다. (“He spoke as a friend.”)

7. cause – 으로/로. Shows that the attached noun is the cause of something. Similar to “because of"
e.g. 그는 감기로 고생했다. (“He suffered because of a cold.”)

8. companion – 와/과, 하고, 랑/이랑. Shows the attached noun is a companion of something. Similar to “with”
e.g. 그가 학교에 친구와 갔다. (“He went to school with a friend.”)

9. direct quote – 라고. Shows the attached noun is a direct quotation.
e.g. 그가 “가자”라고 말했다 (“He said ‘let’s go’.”)

10. indirect quote – 고. Shows the attached noun is an indirect quotation.
e.g. 그가 가자고 말했다. (“He said let’s go.”)

11. comparison – 와/과, 만큼, 보다, 처럼. Shows the attached noun is greater than, less than, or the same as another noun.
e.g. 그의 키는 나의 키보다 크다. (“His height is greater than my height.”)

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

"What's his name? I don't know, I can't read his neck."

Dear Korean,

I'm planning on getting a tattoo in Korean. I'm Korean so its legit, but I just want to know why most Koreans find tattoos so offensive. My mom is totally against it and will kill me if she finds out.

Lina

Dear Korean,

I recently earned my Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do. I am very proud of my accomplishment, and was also considering getting a tattoo to commemorate the years of perseverance and hard work it took to acheive that goal. I thought it would be fitting for the symbol to be in Korean, as I understand Tae Kwon Do originated in Korea. I don't, however, want to be one of those fools who has 'dumbass' tattooed on their body when they think it means 'indomitable spirit'!! What are your thoughts on this trend, and do you think it would be offensive or shocking to a person if Korean heritage? I don't mean to be a Korean 'wannabe', just proud of my accomplishment. The tattoo definitely won't be on my neck!!

C

Dear Lina and C,

This post about Prince Fielder's neck tattoo in Korean is really what made this blog take off (and not any of the Korean's erudite and well-reasoned observations on culture -- sad, but the Korean will take whatever he can get.) "Korean tattoo" is one of the most common Google search terms for this blog, along with "ask a korean", "korean men" and "korean porn."

First, a little bit about tattoos in Korea generally. Simply put, tattoos are just not a Korean thing to do. Traditionally (starting from 15th century or so), Korean people strictly followed this Confucian teaching: "Keep your body whole, for it is given to you by your father and mother." Even cutting hair or shaving was forbidden in an effort to keep your body whole. (Women put their hair in various decorative braids; men put their hair in a single knot that was tied at the top of their head, and wore a headgear that kept the knot in place.)

Korea was modernized eventually, but attitudes about making marks on one's body did not change much. (Except, of course, for plastic surgery lately.) Yet tattooing was in fact fairly common in a nearby country that all Koreans hate more than anyone else -- you guessed it, Japan. Organized criminals in Japan used extensive tattooing in order to mark the "families" to which they belonged, and organized criminals in Korea began to mimic such practices. As a result, until very recently, only people who had tattoos in Korea were thugs. Below is a picture of freshly arrested organized criminals in Korea.

So it really should not be surprising that Koreans have a very negative attitude toward tattooing. How negative is it? Being of a non-doctor tattooist is actually illegal in Korea, and carries roughly $3,000 of fine because tattooing is "unlicensed medical practice." (This law is not very often enforced, but it's in the book.) Excessive tattoos on a body is one of the ways to get out of the mandatory military service for men, along with torn ACL, missing index finger and schizophrenia, because excessive tattoos "create disharmony in the unit."

But like everything, attitude toward tattooing in Korea is changing recently. Henna tattoos are very available near any college campus, just like the U.S. It is not difficult at all to find tattooists in the middle of Seoul -- although they still mostly operate in the shadow. Fashionable tattoos are generally accepted among the young generation of Korea -- but don't expect older Korean folks to like you if you got sleeves.

What about Korean tattoos in the U.S.? Would a tattoo in Korean on a non-Korean person be offensive? In the Korean's opinion, probably not. For Koreans, non-Koreans operate in a separate plane of reality -- "our" rules don't apply to "them". After all, these foreign barbarians don't bow to their elders and keep their shoes on in a house -- who cares if they want to look like criminals? If anything, a tattoo in Korean would be mildly amusing to an average Korean, since Korean people don't expect non-Koreans to know anything about Korea. A Korean tattoo would signal your interest in Korean culture, however minimally, so it would not necessarily be a bad thing.

What does the Korean think about all this? That's a tough question. The Korean himself has no objection to tattoos in general. The Korean hates it when people get Asian letters just for the sake of their "exotic" appearance, because that's the precisely the type of attitude that keeps Asian Americans from feeling comfortable in America. But recently, like C, tattoos in Asian lettering often show a genuine attempt in understanding more about Asian culture -- the Korean welcomes that.

And then there's the "gut reaction" problem. Americans generally don't get a tattoo in plain English because plain words are not cryptic enough -- it's just not interesting. The gut reaction of an average American, if she saw the words "perseverance" tattooed on one's chest in Times New Roman font, would be that it looks silly. Well, the Korean can read Korean and Chinese, so tattoos in Korean and Chinese are not cryptic at all. So the Korean's gut reaction toward such tattoos are that they just look stupid. This is what the Korean wrote when he first saw Prince Fielder's neck tattoo: "It is as if some regular Korean dude was hanging out and drinking with Prince Fielder one night, then Fielder passes out, and the Korean dude picked up a marker and wrote it on his neck as a joke." The Korean can never shake that feeling whenever he sees a tattoo in Asian characters.

At any rate, what the hell do you care about what the Korean thinks? If you want a tattoo in Korean, go nuts. Just make sure it doesn't say "dumbass".

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

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Korean wishes everyone a happy Turkey Day. It's a crying shame that nowadays, Thanksgiving is getting buried over the 2-month prelude to Christmas. The Korean personally loathes the trend.

If you are like the Korean, Thanksgiving should be your favorite holiday. It's a holiday for immigrants. The Pilgrim's dinner with the Native Americans symbolize our ideals as a nation of immigrants: newcomers and the natives, on the same table, merrily enjoying themselves.

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

Ask A Korean! News: Transplants

Another series in the New York Times that the Korean has been following carefully is Relative Choices, a blog dedicated to the topic of adoption. At some point, Korea was the leading exporter of adoptees, mostly to the U.S., and that fact is strongly reflected in the blog. It's a nice window to look from the perspective from an unusual set of Korean Americans.

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

Ask A Korean! News: Those Web-Addicted Koreans

This NY Times article was the second most emailed article of the day, so how can this not make the Korean blog? It's something that the Korean already knew, but might be interesting for those who did not know how advanced Korea is with respect to its Internet culture.

C'oup de Grace of the article? The pictures of pasty sun-deprived Korean kids, and the hysterical foblish at the end of it. Check it out.

The Korean has been busy, but with Thanksgiving coming up, there will be some posts forthcoming.

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

Korean Women -- Fixer-Uppers?

Dear Korean,

My father is an avid Korean drama/soap watcher. I've noticed that most of the young actors and actresses get nose jobs and double-eyelid surgery. What ever happened to keeping your unique Korean look -- the slanty eyes, flat nose, and rabbit cheeks? Did you guys lose pride in your physical characteristics? I understand the "Western"/Caucasian look has been a beauty standard for as long as they've influenced the world but still...

-- Viet Living in Korea Town (that's Garden Grove for you)


Dear Viet,

It's not just young actors and actresses -- it's everyone. The statistics about plastic surgery in Korea (particularly with respect to women) cannot be described by any other words than FUCKING ASTOUNDING. Consider the following:

- 76 percent (!) of Korean women in their 20s and 30s have undergone plastic surgery. Most of them were epicanthoplasty (i.e. the "double-eyelid surgery".) (So does this mean that 24 percent of Korean women are naturally hot? Something to think about.)

- 25 percent of Korean mothers who have daughters between the ages of 12 and 16 suggested plastic surgery to their daughters. (In the Korean's "Pantheon of Fucked-Up Statistics", this figure has to be the king -- or is it queen?-- slightly leading the figure that nearly 30 percent of South Africa is HIV-positive.)

- 27.4 percent of Korean college graduate job seekers (19 percent of men, 34.1 percent of women) thought they did not fare well in the interview because of their looks. 28.5 precent of job seekers have already undergone plastic surgery or have planned plastic surgery in order to perform better in the job market.

Personally, the Korean thinks the plastic surgery craze in Korea is a disgusting national disease. Nevertheless, the cause of this madness is fairly straightforward and understandable -- it's a blend of conformity, sexism, and a hyper-competitive society.

First, the ever-present Korean conformity. The Korean covered this topic long, long ago, back when it was only the Korean's friends sending in the questions for the blog. In the older post the Korean gave a quick-and-dirty answer, but this is really the true cause of the Korean conformist culture: that Korea went from pre-modern to post-modern, a process that took other countries about 150 years, in about 40 years.

Truth is, all pre-modern, agriculture-based socities are conformist. Such societies usually consist of tight-knit communities, whose members must all cooperate in order to earn a living. (Think of the Amish community for an American example.) Homogeneity is a natural outgrowth of such societies.

The Korean will say this point again and again until everyone understands this - ONLY 40 YEARS AGO, KOREA WAS POORER THAN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA. So although the miraculous economic growth took Korea to the forefront of modernity, Korea continues to drag its cultural baggage from the pre-modern, agricultural era.

Practically, this baggage-carrying resulting from compressed economic growth means that Korean people constantly care about what other people think about them. It doesn't help that Koreans tend to live very close to one another in massive cities, therefore never having a chance to get the hell away from everyone else.

So if a popular trend develops in Korea, Koreans follow that trend without thinking twice about it, because other people do it too. At times, this is a source of great national strength. When there is something that demands a truly national-scale cooperation, like the Olympics or the World Cup, there are no better people than Koreans to extract that cooperation. However, infuriatingly, a trend often makes many Koreans lemmings.

Unfortunately, the trend of beauty in Korea became this Westernized face, so people follow it without thinking twice about it. Once the beauty trend is established, every Korean starts demanding something that conforms that trend. What is an actor/actress to do? In order to become and stay popular, they all go through plastic surgery to conform the goddamn trend.

But this is not enough to explain the whole plastic surgery madness, especially regarding the general population. The second part of the trend is old school sexism. Simply put, Korean women get plastic surgery because they are being judged only on their looks. This is not all that different worldwide, so no further explanation would be necessary.

But what makes the sexism particularly devastating is that it operates within a hyper-competitive society. Right now, the unemployment rate among young Korean workers is around 12 percent -- and that's not counting those who are staying longer in colleges and graduate schools because the job market is too tough. And Korean resumes always have a place for you to affix your picture (something that is legally prohibited in the U.S.) Given that one's appearance is a large (often the only) factor in one's ability to find a job, what crazy person would not get plastic surgery?

Nonetheless, the Korean will maintain his stance - this plastic surgery craze, and the current standard of female beauty as a whole in Korea, are sickening. Eventually, Korea will get out of its conformist culture, and its standard of beauty will change accordingly. Until that day, enjoy the wonders of modern medical science, on display on AZN Network every night.
-EDIT 10/29/2009 6:43 p.m.- According to a survey by Chosun Ilbo, 90 percent of Korean women in their 20s and 30s said they would get plastic surgery to feel better about themselves.
Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

Ask A Korean! News: Position Open in Asia, Asians Need Not Apply

If there ever was a question about whether U.S. is more or less racist compared to the rest of the world, L.A. Times has a fantastic article that affirms the Korean's previously stated answer. The article is about China, but the situation is the same throughout Asia, definitely including Korea.

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

"All o'Y'all Look Alike!!"

Dear Korean,

This is a question about something I've heard in various forms from a lot of non-Asian Americans. Simply put, people tend to say that "all Asians look alike." That's an obvious exaggeration, but I'm wondering whether you think East Asians really do look more alike than people of European descent. After all, most East Asians have dark eyes and dark hair of a similar texture, whereas Europeans have many different eye colors and hair colors/textures. (Of course, I'm not counting perms, dye, and contact lenses.) Asian body types also seem to be more uniform than European ones. Is it just American stupidity or do Asians really look more alike than other groups?

Andrew T.

Dear Andrew,

You do have a point: All East Asians have dark hair and dark eyes. But really, that's all. Outside of hair and eye color, there is a whole lot more variation in East Asians than you might think. The point is illustrated by Isabella Byrd Bishop, a British woman who traveled Korea in 19th century. She visited a Buddhist temple in Korea whose claim to fame was its statuettes of 500 disciples of Buddha, and this was her impression: "Among the infinite variety, one figure has deeply set eyes, an aquiline nose, and thin lips; another a pug nose, squinting eyes, and a broad grinning mouth; one is Mongolian, another Caucasian, and another approximates to the Negro type. Here is a stout, jolly fellow, with a leer and a broad grin suggestive of casks of porter and the archaic London drayman..."

In other words, all other bodily features of East Asians could be radically different. The skin complexion can go anywhere from very dark to very light, roughly going from a slightly light-skinned black person's complexion to completely pasty. The hair curls and texture range from very straight and fine to very curly and coarse, almost to the level of jewfro. Eye size, nose size, lip size, height, build, you name it; East Asians are hardly uniform. If you think all Asians are short and have slight build, the Korean has 25 sumo wrestlers who would prove otherwise by sitting on you.

This then begs the question: Why do people think all Asians look alike? "Because people are stupid" is never a good answer. The answer has to do with heuristics. (The Korean covered it once here. Read it if you'd like a more detailed explanation.) To recap quickly: heuristics is a mental shortcut. People engage in heuristics by extracting the most prominent information out of a certain situation; if people encounter a new situation that shares the same prominent information, they conclude that the new situation is the same as the previous situation. Heuristics is useful because it enables quick decision-making with little information.

So suppose you are a person who has never seen an Asian person. You meet your first Asian man in your life; not very well met, just a random encounter at a party or something. What would you remember about his looks? Unless he has stunningly good looks, the only prominent thing you would remember about his appearnce a few days later would be his dark hair and his general Asian-ish looks. Then you meet your second Asian guy -- and bingo, the second Asian guy has dark hair and general Asian-ish looks. They both look the same!

(This is, in fact, one of the mechanisms through which deja vu can happen. Even though you are in a new place, for example, it feels like you have been there before. It's because some time in the past, you only remembered certain features of a place, and this new place shares the same features.)

This process happens to any race of people who are considered "exotic". A lot of white people thought black people looked all the same, until discussing race became the powder keg that it is right now. Here's a confession: the Korean himself, for some years after he moved to the U.S., had the hardest time distinguishing Danny Glover and Morgan Freeman. They are both slim, distinguished-looking black men who have some gray hair -- at least, those were the only things that stuck in the Korean's head whenever he saw Mr. Glover or Mr. Freeman. So even though they look nothing like each other, the Korean's mind just jumped the gun, until he consciously tried to remember every single facial feature of the two men.

As you might have noticed, this process definitely works the other way around as well. Europeans are more of a mix, but they can be broadly divided into light-haired, fair-skinned types and dark-haired, swarthy types. So if you are a white person traveling in Asia, you will definitely hear comments like "You look just like [insert the representative movie star here.]" It's pretty flattering to hear, but just remember that such a statement is the same ilk as "All Asians look alike."

In that case, how can one distinguish different Asians by looks? (i.e. Korean, Japanese, Chinese, etc.?) Well, that's for another, highly interesting post.

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

The Korean is Featured on the Mexican!

A while back, the Korean sent a question to the Mexican, and he responded this Thursday. Check it out: http://www.ocweekly.com/columns/ask-a-mexican/ask-a-mexican/27908/ (It's the second question.)

Ask A Korean! News: Koreans Know How to Cheer

The Korean's favorite sports blog Deadspin (link on the right) put up something about Koreans, so how can the Korean not link it? Check it out.

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

Culturalism: Racism of the 21st Century

Dear Korean,

At the time of the 1992 Watts riots, I heard a commentator on NPR say that one source of tension between Korean shopkeepers and blacks was that in Korean culture, a shopkeeper isn't expected to be chatty with customers. Is there any truth in this?

Andrew B.

Dear Andrew,

No, there is zero truth to it. Korean shopkeepers are not different from any other shopkeepers in the world. If anything, they tend to be friendly with the neighbors so that they can boost the sale. The Mama Hong case in Los Angeles that the Korean wrote about earlier would be a good example. (It's towards the end of the post.)

But the Korean wants to point out a larger problem suggested by your question: It's the impulse to explain minority people's behavior with a "cultural difference", real or imagined. For the sake of convenience, let's call this "culturalism".

Culturalism started in a benign way. It started as "multiculturalism", in which people are supposed to understand and accept the differences of other people from a different culture. For example, a multiculturalist would not recoil at the fact that Korean people eat rancid kimchi. Instead, a multiculturalist would ask and learn about the history and the significance of the food in Korean culture. Multicuturalist would make the link between kimchi and other rancid, fermented food that she loves, such as cheese. She might even try it out herself, suppressing the gag reflex.

What does a culturalist do in contrast? He sees that strange-looking people are eating strange-smelling food, and thinks to himself, "Well that's odd, but I guess it's their culture," and walks away without doing more. Essentially, culturalism is a lazy multiculturalism; culturalism sees the cultural difference, and stops there. (For a typical culturalist attitude, see this post.)

The "acceptance" in multiculturalism comes from the fact that the more you learn about a different culture, the more you realize that it is not too different from your own after all. A friend of the Korean, after having lived many years in Japan said this: "Japan is exactly like America, except just the opposite. If you understand that, you understood Japanese culture." The Korean could not agree more.

It seems like there is "acceptance" in culturalism as well, but it's more like neglect. Instead of understanding the fundamental similarities between a different culture and that of its own, culturalism simply throws on the label of "cultural difference" -- the label might as well be "exotic", "mystical" or "incomprehensible"-- and calls it a day.

Culturalism is at least better than some alternatives. In Europe, people want immigrants to entirely lose any hint of their home country and essentially become 100 percent French or Italian, only with different skin tones. (If you'd like, refer to this as "assimilationism".) No foreign food, no foreign garb, and definitely no foreign language. Some lawmakers in France, for example, tried to require Muslim girls to take off their headscarf when they attend public school, because the hijabs were un-French. Compared to that, culturalism at least leaves the minority people alone.

But culturalism is dangerous, in the exact same way racism is dangerous. Both culturalism and racism only look at a single character about an individual or a group, and purport to know something about that individual or a group. That knowledge, of course, is either false, misleading, or unrepresentative.

(In fact, because discussing race in America became such a stroll-through-a-minefield-leading-to-easy-social-suicide, "culture" became the new code word for talking about race. There is no more discussion about "what black people do." Instead, the discussion starts with "In urban culture" or "In hiphop culture".)

The most fundamental danger of culturalism should be plain: it continues ignorance under the guise of tolerance. This is exactly how Asian Americans continue to feel that they are forever foreign in the only country that they have known and lived. The moment a culturalist senses that he is speaking to a person from a different culture, the culturalist simply stops trying to understand that person, because the "cultural difference" gives a dead end to an understanding. The "shutting down" from the culturalist is what makes Asian Americans feel foreign -- all of a sudden, the common ground between the two has disappeared.

Another danger of culturalism is that the "culture" that culturalists have in mind may be completely distorted. This is because culturalists often rely on one or two minority persons' word for what minority culture is. But often the minority people themselves do not know the full extent of their own culture. The Korean has seen many cases of the following: A second-generation Korean American, who grew up in a small town with no other Koreans and very few Asians, attributes every quirk and oddity of her parents to the Korean culture. Invariably, such a person's perception of Korean culture is completely distorted, because she is unable to sort out what is attributable to Korean culture, and what is attributable to her own parents' personalities. (See this post for an example.)

So any non-minority person hearing about a different culture by a minority who doesn't have the full grasp of his own culture will end up having the same distorted view of that culture. The trouble gets worse because of the fact that there is no good way to verify even the strangest cultural differences, since minorities are by definition not too many, so asking another minority is difficult. (And that's the reason why the Korean started this blog.)

A related problem is that a culture has many different aspects, often self-conflicting. Furthermore, in the case of a conflict, a culturalist simply chooses the most foreign aspect and writes it off as "cultural difference," without trying to understand the aspect and make it un-foreign. For example, who defines black culture -- the articulateness and strength of Colin Powell or Condoleeza Rice, or thugged-out, pimp-smacking Tupac or 50 Cent? The Korean doesn't know, but he knows this much: When most people talk about "black culture", they sure as hell are not talking about being articulate.

Lastly, culturalism is harmful for minorities themselves, because it gives an excuse for them to cover up their own shortcomings. Why can rappers go on calling women bitches and hos? Because it's the hiphop culture! Korean shopkeepers in 1992 were not in tension with black folks because their culture made them to; they were because they were racists and they hated black people. But hey, Koreans could make some shit about cultural differences, and dumb white people would buy it, just like they buy an overpriced dish at an exotic Korean restaurant that tastes like vomit.

Managing this blog has been a daily struggle against culturalism. Every day, the Korean's inbox is flooded with people who ask typically culturalist questions. What in Korean culture makes my co-worker rude? What is it about Korean culture that makes my boyfriend act in a certain way? Please, stop and think for yourselves for a change. Stop looking for a quick "cultural" answer so that you can write the question off without getting the right answer. Realize that we are all humans, and in the end, we are all the same.

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

Announcement: The Korean has a job

Dear readers:

The Korean is trying out this newfangled thing called "having a job". This is a tough place with long hours, so updates will be farther between. The Korean is still working on a few drafts, so there will be updates, at some point.

Thank you all for reading!

Ask A Korean! News: Presidential Race and a Collective Fob Moment

This is somewhat old news, but this is the first time the Korean had heard it from a reliable insider source.

Couple of weeks ago on Sept. 14, Sen. Hillary Clinton visited Los Angeles Koreatown in order to host a fundraiser for her presidential campaign. She was not the first presidential candidate to host a fundraiser in Koreatown -- Sen. Sam Brownback and John Edwards already hosted one in Koreatown as well.

Nonetheless, Clinton was the biggest name politician who ever had a fundraiser in Koreatown, and the Korean Americans in LA were excited about the visit, since it shows the growth of the Korean community's political clout. The fundraiser was held at Oxford Palace Hotel in Koreatown, and roughly 100 Korean community leaders attended it.

The big moment came when Clinton entered the hall, whereupon all attendees respectfully stood up and applauded. But a genuine Korean moment happened when, very soon as Clinton was sitting down, the claps broke into a rhythm, and the hundred people gathered into a chant:

"Hil-Luh-Li! Hil-Luh-Li!"

If you get it at this point, you are a Korean. If you don't, just try saying to yourself a brisk "one-two-three, one-two-three", while clapping at "one" and "three". Remember, most Korean names are three syllables. So it is natural for Koreans at a political function to clap and chant the name of the candidate in that manner.

However, Clinton is not Korean, and she was clearly puzzled by this. So she leaned over to her interpreter, while maintaining her smile:
"What are they chanting?"
"Um, that's your name, Senator."
"That's not my name."

On the plus side, the dinner raised about $350,000 for her campaign, and it did show that Korean American community is growing as a leal poritical folce. ;)

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

Announcement: New Rule

If you have a comment about a post, please comment. If it's response-worthy, the Korean will respond on the comment. But after one round of initial exchange and you want a further discussion on the topic, please email the Korean. If you weren't there initially, weigh in with your email.

This is because often, back-and-forth arguments degenerate into dumb screaming match. The writings are too short to explain anything of substance, and only invites more distortion of the initial argument. Nothing annoys the Korean more than two people who completely miss each other's points.

So the New Rule: If you want longer argument with me, argue with me over email. Any comment that attempts to do otherwise will deleted. Thanks for reading.