So, funny story. I drive my mother to work everyday. That's the extent of my responsibilities here in LA, other than to tutor my stoner 15 year old nephew 2X a week. I've lived in LA for four months now, after being away for 13 years.
Across the street from my mom's office is the Saban Theatre and for the last two months, every day I see on their Marquis -- Jerry Seinfeld April 8th in big letters. I want to go. I don't want to buy a ticket. I haven't worked since May 2009 and I don't have an income. Believe it or not, I'm still living on savings. I've 600 bucks left. I don't even really inquire about the show. I know it will be a lot of money. I haven't seen or heard any promotion for this show, as if it were kind of insider deal. Like, if I didn't drive by the theater M-F every day, I would not know about it. But last night...
I told my mother I'd pick her up from work and I drove to her office at around 7:30.pm yesterday April 8th. My mother often works late. She does a lot of things, has a lot of afflilliation with a lot of legal groups and my mom can get a lot done at her office, so she works late most nights. My mom is closer to 80 than 70. She looks 50ish on a good day.
Anywho, I go across the street and there's a ton of people all rich and well dressed lined up in front of the theater. Most have tix, some in line to buy or will call. We're basically in Beverly Hills, not 90210, but close enough. I walk right into the theater, right past the ticket takers who don't see me. I dressed in jeans, teeshirt, haven't showered or shaved in days, Kurt Cobain sweater. I walk straight up to the Mezzanine level and took a seat in the front row. The WHOLE THEATER filled up EXCEPT for my seat, which I kept warm. I even stood and ushed, with my handy little key light, folks, some old and slow to their nearby seats. My seat was mine. I witness some other seat stealers get popped and have to exit right next to me. Not me. I called my mom and told her to hang out.
Can you believe that? Today is my birthday, so I guess God graced me an encomium.
OOO Such big words.
You just a had a birthday, no? In March? AB...hey, are you listening to me? I'm drunk. I also quit smoking today. Not. My 15 year old stoner nephew has a lot more self control than I do. He knows it. But I'm a faster guitar player. He knows it. Not for long. He'll surpass everything I can do shortly.
The show was awesome. George Castanza opened the show and spoke for a few minutes, then introduced Jerry and he came out and was so funny for about an hour and 10 or 20 minutes. Then Jerry and George answered questions from the audience. Although I wanted to ask a question I didn't.
The question I would've asked, had I had the balls to yell out a question, was "I heard you are/were a Deadhead and that they have a Cherry Seinfeld flavor, like the Cherry Garcia one they have. Is that true?"
happy birthday to me. i saw a lot of cool people. Characters from soon to be released trilogy of books about youth in asia called youthinasia.
Eating regular healthy breakfasts can significantly improve your health and productivity during the day. It regulates metabolism, prevents obesity and is also the meal that you're most likely to eat fruit in. Since beginning my degree here last year, I've made an effort to eat large breakfasts each day. When I was in Busan, I'd often wake up at 11am, so breakfasts were out of the question.
Here at the Farrand household, Mrs F and I loosely take turns to prepare the morning meal. Sometimes we feel inventive, and sometimes it's the famous Bananas on Toast. Which, I might add, is a dish surprisingly more satisfying than one's hastily preconceived notions may conjure.
This is what I came up with recently. I guess it's a kind of fusion dish, with Malaysian fried rice, cheese and baked beans. Sounds funny eh? Well Heather liked it. And as Busan Mike will tell you, baked beans are not easy to come by over here.
Also, did you know that the humble baked bean is one of the main fillings in Malaysian curry puffs? You take them straight out of the can, wash the sauce off with water and mash them up with carrots, potatoes and spices.
And this is one of Heather's concoctions. It's a spicy shrimp bibimbap with 5-grain rice and liberally applied foliage. The judge's scores were as follows, Constitution: 6/10, Execution: 5/10, Nutrition: 9/10, Presentation 7/10.
It's hard to get nice fresh fruit juice in Korea. In Australia we have Crusta, Berri and The Daily Juice Company providing some pretty good stuff, but over here the equivalents are Minute Maid and Orion. Like most juices over here, they are not widely praised for their fruitiness, despite being present at every office refreshments layout, invariably served in paper cups.
One notable exception is this label, which translates to Morning Juice. It's made from Florida oranges and I quite like it. The price is over $3 per litre, but it's one of the few groceries that I don't mind paying a little more for.
I'd seen these little fellows around the market quite a few times before. Heather bought some recently and didn't know what they were called. Being the aspiring investigative journalist of marginal relevance that I am, I did a bit of poking around online and have determined them to be kumquats. They're like oranges but much smaller, and without much pleasant fleshiness inside. You eat them whole, without peeling them and they pretty much taste like a mouthful of citrus rind.
Which can be pleasant at first, but the sourness does make a belated appearance in the wake of the chew.
I encourage Heather to eat more of them, just so that I can see her make this face.
We usually wake up around 7am and finish eating before 8. It appears that our customary ritual after devouring the morning meal is to sit and stare at the empty plates for a while. This is due to a condition known as sleep inertia, which is characterised by the eyes being open but the brain still being somewhere in dreamland. Recently though, we've become a little more productive in our post-breakfast stage. For example, I have sometimes been known to select which socks I will wear for the day, even though sock-selection time usually isn't until 8:30am sharp. This extra flurry of activity may have inspired Mrs F to be equally as productive.
Last week she used the time to repair her ornamental plant with a band-aid. The flowering stem had been accidentally bent over and it was looking a little under the weather.
Although a newcomer to the world of emergency plant-repair, Mrs F successfully performed a flowering stem reattachment with surgical precision. We may well be pursuing the speedy recovery of Subject X here at Lee's Korea Blog over the coming weeks and months.
In excruciating detail.
As far as ornamental plants go, I don't think I've ever seen one as thrilled as Subject X, especially after being introduced to his specially-built recovery bay.
If only all botanical dramas had an outcome this heartwarming...
As they say, first impressions are everything. And so, with apologies to those of you unwise enough to read this blog at work, let me share mine of girl group T-ara (티아라) from their music video of Like the First Time (처음처럼) before proceeding: namely, that they were confident, sexy women, not at all embarrassed to perform risqué dance moves like the above in front of large audiences.
However, it was difficult to square that impression with their shyness in the following brief interview forEntertainment Tonight (연예가 중계) last month, conducted while making (rather bizarre) commercials for a mobile phone, and I would interested in hearing your thoughts on possible reasons for the differences, and how representative the interview is as whole of the way 20-something women especially are portrayed in Korean entertainment programs.
The most important point first: from roughly 1:00 t0 1:30, the interview focuses on group leader Ham Eun-jeong (함은정) feeling embarrassed about repeatedly hugging actor Yoon Si-yoon (윤시윤) for their commercial, despite having just met in the studio. In particular, at 1:10 below she says “어떡해”, or “How” as in “How can I do this?” while making an exaggerated expression of embarrassment, about which the reporter comments “굉장히 부끄러워하죠?”, or “She’s very shy, yes?”. Note also the addition of “근심” and “걱정” on the screen too for added context and atmosphere, (a habit of entertainment programs picked up from Japan), although rather confusedly they both mean anxiety, or worry.
Then at 1:25, she’s asked how she feels from hugging Si-yoon for so long, to which she replies “솔직히말해도…떨려요!”, or “To be honest…I’m shaking/trembling!”.
Natural feelings? Of course. But then recall her music video, in which she – not to put too fine a point on it – repeatedly bends over and thrusts out her bottom, jiggles her breasts, and runs her hands over her breasts and crotch while singing about how her body was on fire. Indeed, even the interviewer herself later (3:08) highlights the complete contrast:
Moreover, while I’ve never personally strutted my stuff on stage like Eun-jeong, I am actually quite comfortable – nay, somewhat notorious for – acting in front of large groups of adult students (I’m tempted to mention faking an orgasm in class once in my first year of teaching, but I’d better not), and doubt that I’d be embarrassed repeatedly hugging an attractive woman in front of others. Yes, I would be if I ended up having a large visible erection as a result, but that’s besides the point: if Eun-jeong was embarrassed, it wasn’t because she was visibly turned on.
And I stress “if”: my wife, for instance, also watched the interview, and at first told me her embarrassment was perfectly natural, but then readily conceded it was rather strange in light of her performances in music videos and on stage. Which leads me to my first question: do you think Eun-jeong was genuinely embarrassed?
…Eunjung lost her composure while filming a hugging scene with Yoon Si Yoon….It’s funny how Eunjung was so flustered and shy around a guy because she exudes such a powerful and charismatic presence on stage. I guess we are all prone to weakness in front of the opposite sex.
And I do remain open to the possibility. However, I’d argue that either subconsciously or deliberately, she’s much more likely to be playing to expectations and norms of the Korean media that she present herself as cute and innocent, regardless of her true personality; well illustrated, I think, by this 2007 commercial with Kim Tae-hee (김태희):
She acts all sugar and spice in wide-eyed innocence as she sips her drink carefully, but as soon as her date turns away, she lets loose her inner diva to strike a pose for the camera. Her date discovers the saved pictures on his Olympus and accuses her of being “nae-soong”.
…inconsistency between a girl’s true personality (i.e. extroverted), and external (i.e. introverted, shy and innocent) personality. In other words, trying to hide your true intentions self by acting sweet and innocent.
And indeed the interview is full of demonstrations of how sweet and innocent they are. For instance, at 1:47 Park Ji-yeon (박지연) is embarrassed to learn that she is Si-yoon’s favorite of all the T-ara members (although you may be surprised to learn that she’s only 16, and hence her embarrassment arguably the most likely to be genuine):
And at 3:17, Eun-jeong feigns (I don’t think anyone would dispute this!) being upset at the other group members selecting her as looking the most different (read: uglier) before putting on make-up:
One music video and and one interview are by no means sufficient to get an idea of their true personalities however (to the extent that one sees any celebrities’ true personalities in front of a camera at all that is), and so I also briefly looked at some episodes of T-ara Dot Com (티아라닷컴), a quasi-reality show about them setting up an internet clothes shopping mall of that name. Here’s a brief segment of one episode, with English subtitles:
And in which their behavior is no different to that in the interview. Hence, while I do still feel that Eun-jeong’s embarrassment at hugging Si-yoon at least was completely feigned, I concede that T-ara’s cutesy behavior overall probably wasn’t an act, and not unrepresentative of Koreans their age either (for reasons explained here).
If that behavior is still a definite expectation or norm of Korean entertainment programs however, depends on such factors as how other women are portrayed in them; if there’s a large difference between men and women; and to what extent such programs offer opportunities for entertainers to present alternate, more serious sides of themselves if they wish to do so.
Unfortunately, I can’t personally say: even when I first arrived in Korea at the tender age of 24, I soon chose never to watch these sorts of programs because I had better things to do than seeing grown men and women acting like children on them. Now, at 34, I’m more concerned about the influence they will have on my own daughters, and to be frank would consider myself a failure as a father if they grew up to behave like members of T-ara do when they reach the same age.
However, in contrast to when I was 24, in fact there’s also some things I like about the Korean media which are on display in the interview, and which I’ll devote the remainder of the post to.
First, in a meta-sense, the practice of providing subtitles and/or commentary on them is simply great for studying Korean, especially considering the huge gap in real-life learning material for Korean learners, let alone intermediate level material. And if dramas aren’t your thing, then studying a 10 minute segment of an episode of T-ara Dot Comeveryday is probably quite a tolerable alternative:
More to the point of this post however, there is the very human side of stars presented, a stark contrast to the pedestals Western medias tend to place their own celebrities on. For instance, not only does the interviewer ask at 3:39, which member of T-ara farts the most:
But at 3:49, we even get to watch the evidence:
And, lest he feel left out, Si-yoon is asked if he also farts, to which he replies at 3:57 that yes, he enjoys it:
Compared to that, watching him pick his nose and examine the contents at 2:30 was nothing. And hey, a guy’s got to do what a guy’s got to do, but in any other country I’d be surprised his agent didn’t want that cut out:
But not that showing that celebrities fart and pick their noses like the rest of us mere mortals are the only positives of course. I also love how the interview highlights Ji-yeon stuffing her face with strawberries at 2:57 for instance, and particularly from a basket that looks like it was bought from the back of a food truck, to be found in literally every Korean neighborhood at almost any time of day (for instance, selling salt at 5:30 in the morning). You see, something that looks like it could have been bought in my wife’s home village in 1970 is somewhat incongruous on the set of a commercial for probably one of the most technologically sophisticated products on the planet, and reminds me that constantly seeing such juxtapositions is one reason I love living here:
Finally, there’s the standard happy, bubbly ending of such shows, usually accompanied by cries of Hwaiting! (화이팅); if you’re not smiling yourself at least a little when you see one on TV, that’s probably because you’re being carried out of the room on a stretcher with blanket over your head:
To recap, I would love to hear: your own opinions on how genuine Eun-jeong’s embarrassment was; how representative of young women’s behavior on entertainment shows T-ara’s was; and whether they were simply being themselves or if they were fulfilling expectations and norms of how 20-something women should act on them (I realize that the last is a bit of a false dichotomy though, and should be considered more as a feedback loop). Are there any Korean entertainment shows where women don’t have to be cute? And how about 20-something men, or older women?
Alternatively, do you have any more pet peeves about Korean shows not covered here, or reasons that you really like them?
(For all posts in the Korean Sociological Images series, see here)
In my hometown’s weekly newspaper, a summer-resident or cottager is upset that some people don’t like cottagers.
My hometown has around 15,000 residents through the winter and 150,000 in the summer. These summer-residents do pay taxes that help run our town, but they also vote for things that affect them to the detriment of year-long residents. I didn’t live in town as an adult for long enough to have a strong opinion of the cottagers, but i do recall cottagers voted for an official who would prevent a new resort from opening up, thus denying locals a new source of jobs.
Even if I were strongly in the pro-cottager camp (I am, in fact, a fence-sitter), I wouldn’t be too upset about free speech. If Mr Wilson wants everyone to publicly agree on everything, he should move to the very rural country just north of the one I currently live in.
The decision, made this March, has upset many, according to Lake Rosseau cottager and Muskoka Lakes Association board member Phil Harding.
“People are coming to the cottage now and … welcome again to the way the district and the township do things. They make all the changes when no one is here to hear about it,” said Harding.
The small lock used to be open 24 hours a day. Now it will close at 8 p.m. during the peak season. The large lock will be open longer hours to compensate, but cottagers will be stranded if they want to use the locks past midnight on the weekend. The locks opened on April 15.
The change in hours comes after the small lock began to malfunction and was out of operation at times beginning in the fall of 2008 and in 2009.
My favorite part is “They make all the changes when no one is here to hear about it”. Yes, there were people around to hear about it. The people who actually live there, you pompous ass!
Local people, people who may need the locks to work, need the locks to function consistently. Should the locks be used 24 hours a day and break down, who would Harding blame then?
One of the great things about my wife's pregnancy is that she's been getting cravings for Western food, which normally she can happily live without. This prompted her to start searching for Heinz beans, or 'Beanz' as they prefer to call them these days for the benefit of Generation-Y.
Here, far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of Busan, I've only seen an actual can of baked beans once - it was allegedly the product of an Italian brand I'd never heard of, and it was too salty. So I didn't think my wife's quest specifically for Heinz beans was going to be successful, but she found some on the Internet. Considering that, as far as I recall, a pack of four tins of 'Heinz Beanz' in the UK used to sell for around £1.40 (2,402 won/$2.13), at 13,660 won for six (£8/$12) delivered, the Korean price was not cheap, although since they were not quite the classic product but instead 'ham sauce' and 'sweet chilli' flavour, it wasn't exactly comparing like with like. Clearly though, it was very expensive, but for the sake of the craving and that little reminder of home, we ordered them.
This being Korea, the beans turned up the next day, by which time my wife's few-day old craving had passed. The spiciness of the sweet chilli beans made wonder how they hadn't yet caught on in modern-day Korea, given that Koreans actually eat a lot of beans of the non-baked variety. Then again, the red beans which are so popular in Korea are believed to cast out bad spirits, but I don't believe Heinz Beanz have the same effect.
Later, friends of ours reported discovering the same product in the Busan branch of Costco, which unfortunately is too far away from us to shop at. The cost there is 9,990 won (£6/$9). They bought some for us and we gave them a tin of the sweet chilli beans guessing that these would be best suited to the spice-craving Korean palate. It proved to be a hit.
I've been feeling blue lately. Some people are amazingly creative and productive artistically when they are down. I am not one of those people. I need to be happy or at least vaguely content to be productive. Otherwise, I tend to sit around my apartment and reread books for the 125th time. Mainly, I'm missing my family which is unusual for me. I mean, sure I'd like to see them more often but usually I'm content with being able to calling them. It's just that I have a brand new nephew who I'd love to meet and play with...and won't get to until he's nearly a year old.
Basically, this means I have zero desire for original content. Thus, I have yet another story that the Cragon told me.
I called Cragon to see if he was in for going out with the Yangsan crew for a night on the town in Busan. As I was hashing out the details he suddenly exclaimed:
Cragon: "OH MY GOD! I just watched a car crash!" Me: WHAT?? Are you serious? Is anyone hurt?! Cragon: No....~starts laughing~ Me: Wait, why is this funny?
The driver was a new teacher at his school, who upon seeing the principal walking toward her down the street, gave a deep bow of respect. In those few seconds, she somehow lost control of the car and veered onto the sidewalk. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, after all, Korean drivers often use the sidewalk as parking area. However, in school zones they are fenced off (to help keep the children safe I imagine) with pretty sturdy metal poles. The poor teacher managed to completely crunch the front end of the car AND pop a tire.
Sometimes, a quick head nod really will suffice. For instance, when in charge of a moving vehicle.
Update/Edit/Reminders from Cragon on things I forgot about: The principal kept on walking after she crashed the car...and didn't stop to ask if she was okay. Apparently he mainly had a 'what on earth?!' look on his face. Cragon claimed that because she was a very new teacher he might not have realized that it was her/recognized the car so he might have just thought it was an incredibly spastic woman.
Also, in an attempt to get her car off of the main road (roads are very narrow here...so she was blocking traffic) she had to drive it about 500 feet in Cragon's direction...with the popped tire making lovely thumping noises the whole way. And probably ruining her axle. Though, to be fair, with the crunched front end of the car a ruined axle was probably the least of her worries.
*Perhaps I need a blogpost on a definition of a bad student. For this post, let me simply say that ‘bad student’ could describe any student, at least temporarily, who has interrupted the flow of class to the detriment of his/her classmates. The ‘temporarily’ part of the definition is important; any student could be a ‘sleepy’ student in one class and shine through the rest of the semester and I would hope the same is understood by the teacher doing the describing.
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