The Grand Narrative

Bet you didn’t see a post like this coming. Not that there’s much to the blog by way of actual posts per se right now, but given all the hours put into the several half-finished posts in Word files on my desktop, then I definately need something light-hearted. Plus, a healthy reminder of what I’m doing all this for.

Much of the “Korean Drinking Culture (Part 2)” post, which I will put up eventually, ends up talking instead about the images Westeners have of Korea and why, and how this can influence studying it. I mention that Koreans haven’t given much thought to foreign perceptions of Korea until recently, and this is obviously related to the fact that there were very few foreigners other than US soldiers in Korea until the mid-1990s (no, I’m not ignoring illegal immigrants from third world countries in DDD industries, but I suspect that until the mid-1990s it was all Koreans that were doing the DDD work). This means that many Koreans still have very little direct experience of foreigners, and so given that I’m paid a great deal of money to spend a grand total of 50 mins a week with different groups of students, then talking to them and showing them that foreigners are normal people is the one of the only things of value that I can possibly teach them in the time available. But older Koreans, lacking the benefits of my esteemed presence earlier in their lives, often simply have no idea of what to say or do to be friendly. Instead, many almost inexorably drift into a set routine of questions and points of discussion involving your feelings about kimchee, your chopstick skills, your ability to read and write Korean and, when all that runs out, good things you didn’t know about Korea, like the fact that it has four seasons, all regardless of if you’ve been here 7 days or 7 years. You soon notice that things get ackward when you don’t say the desired responses, and it all gets a bit tedious in your first few months here. And after 7 years? Don’t get me started.

This isn’t just a Korean thing, although its more pronounced in this hermit kingdom than in most places I think. I remember reading in John Pilger’s 1986 book Heroes about Australia for instance, where in the 1950s and 1960s American film stars and celebrities would arrive in Australia and be ambushed by journalists as soon as they got off the plane. Regardless of the fact that all they’d seen of Australia was stewardesses spraying them with insecticide once the plane landed (they did that to me in NZ when my family emigrated there in 1987), they were asked what they thought of it, and were obliged to wax lyrical about how wonderful the beaches were and what a lucky country it was. I think (the book’s in storage in NZ) that it was Joan Collins who quite rightly said that the question was “a pile of shit”, and the response was 2 weeks of unflattering photos in all the media and gloating about her latest divorce.

I’ ve only ever learned English in Australia in one year of high school there, so I can’t say how this psyche affects ESL learners there :) , but in the Korean case this mild myopia means that Korean books on the Korean language all assume that non-Koreans came to learn about the joys of kimchee-making, or to watch traditional dances like this:

Both are definately Korean and unique, but after half an hour of either I’d personally rather watch paint dry. Don’t get me wrong, I feel exactly the same way about Maori Kumara cooking and dances too. Ergo, maybe I’m not that into unique, native ’stuff’, although I can see why and still think that governments should promote them. But my problem is that they are almost the only aspect of Korea covered in books on the Korean language, which in turn leads to an overemphasis in national image-making.

In books on Australian immigration I was into as a student in the mid-’90s, I often read the refrain that for some reason Australians, when called upon to present themselves to the world at an expo or something, always chose to do so with a mock-up of a sheep-shearing shed, and complete with unshaven tanned men in hats with corks dangling from them. Lots of “G’day Cobber”s all round were de rigeur. As the books pointed out, a 35 year-old accountant and mother of two, indistinguishable from her American or English counterparts, would be much more accurate, Australia being a very urban country. I don’t know how much things have improved since then, although the “Where the Bloody Hell are you?” campaign is definately a step in the right direction.

Korea too, is finally making amends. After kimchee and strange dances have stangely failed to bring in the tourists, the government hired an expensive marketing consultant to come up with its first delibrate brand, “Korea, Sparkling”. Universally vilified by expats at first, including myself, because dirty filthy stinky Korea is the exact opposite of the clean pure image that “sparkling” conjures up (”Korea: Land of phlegm” was a good alternative I read), the intention of the sparking was to show the young, dynamic, exciting side of Korea in addition to the traditional ones usually emphasised. Listen to the Metropolitician’s podcast here, and read his post here for more details, it’s actually quite clever. And here’s the first ad, which some of you may have seen on CNN:

(Update 9 Feb 2008: This original CNN version of the ad is good but features the Korean singer 비/Rain, which kind-of defeats the ad’s purpose because most English speakers not already in Korea would never have heard of him. But now there is another version where he doesn’t appear until right before the very end, and what’s more it has just won a prestigious advertising award in New York. You can see the new version and read the details at the Marmot’s Hole here)

It’s not high art, but it hints at my Korean fantasy world aspects of Korea that I’m interesting in, that keep me here, and I’m using more as materials for study. Yes, that’s right, for Korean girls in tight-fitting clothing are definately a subject that gets me up and raring to study Korea and Korean in the morning.

Actually, they’re difficult to avoid. Every morning, when Windows Live Messenger comes up when I turn on my computer, its version of “Windows Live Today” looks something like this. Sure, you may have to go Saudi Arabia or somewhere to find a case of a supposedly conservative country that doesn’t in fact have its media completely saturated with T&A, but in Korea you may be amazed at the sheer numbers of narrator models/나레이터 모델 (a bad video here) for instance, promoting everything from toothpaste to politicians, and mandatory for the opening day of a new business. And then there are the increasing number shows which are nothing more than Korean women in bikinis dancing around sluttily (TvN, every Monday at midnight by the way), or ‘comedies’ where they have to dress as schoolgirls, all of which is resulting in aspiring actors and singers having to show more and more skin to get noticed.

I sound like I disapprove. Yes and no. No, because until recently about 18 out of 20 Korean women would wear swimsuits or bikinis at the beach, but then cover themselves up with a t-shirt for instance. But after extensive study at Haeundae for the last 3 summers, I can confidently say that the ratios have completely switched. I have made the odd sighting of tank-tops too in University districts too, unheard of before 2004. If the Korean media has had a role in rectifying this ridiculous lack of confidence in their bodies, then bring it on I say. It was simply absurd.

Does all of this sound like Japan? Completely, although there its much more pronounced, and Korea is still not quite at the stage where its perfectly acceptable for salarymen to look at hardcore pornography on the subway while sitting next to someone who looks like their grandmother (the joys of my first visa trip to Tokyo).  But there’s a crucial difference here. In Japan, sexual laws and mores can lead to extremes like the legality and popularity of 11 year-old bikini models like Saaya Irie (hey, it’s all about the hits folks), but on the whole they are refreshingly frank and liberal, with none of the vestiges of Victorian-era bullshit that still pervade some American states for example.

But yes I also dissaprove, because the crucial difference is that Korea lacks this liberalness. There is still bullshit in Japan of course, with the abortion industry successfully avoiding legalisation of the pill until 1999 for instance, but I strongly suspect that the consequences of the Korean pretence that no-one has sex before marriage, that there are not love-hotels absolutely everywhere, and that Korea has one of the biggest sex industries in the world are far more dire. There are many many other factors of course, but I’m sure that the above play a role in Korea’s pitiful ranking on the Gender Empowerment Index (Japan was at 44 by the way, also nothing to be proud of). See here for a very comprehensive discussion of the topic.

I’ll give my own hopefully much more nuanced and backed-up arguments on that subject in many more posts on the subject to come, so please don’t flame me too much until then. In the meantime I’m straying too much off the original topic (you should already be used to that though), but I’m man enough to admit that no matter how much I can see the negative aspects of the above, I have absolutely no problems with seeing Korean women wearing progressively smaller and tighter clothes, and indeed they are very much the reason why only about 1 in 10 long-term expats here are women. For various reasons, which I won’t get into right now, Westen women do not seem to find Korea as attractive a destination as men: I’d say that the ratio of Western men to women here is about 7 to 3. It eventually drops down to 9 to 1 because, as I shall demonstrate, you can not help but fall in love with the local women. Whoever said that this happens in every country, obviously never came to Korea. Other countries (except perhaps Taiwan, China, and Japan) just can’t compare. Eventually, we end up falling in love and marrying them. I’m a guy, so I won’t waste time pretending to talk for women (on this occasion anyway) on why Korean men just don’t have the same appeal to most of them, but with that, the patriarchal nature of the society, and the abysmal ESL industry, there aren’t as many reasons to stay.

So, I’m lucky enough to have married the most beautiful women in Korea (big awwww), and if I’m having a bad day I just need to think of my daughter or her, or…ahem…watch the girls in my local Starbucks for an hour, and it suddenly feels good to be alive and in Korea again. Let me show you what I mean:

Okay, technically I haven’t seen her at my local Starbucks, but this is the commercial that made Jun-Ji Hyun/전지현 famous. Even if you’re a women, please watch it to see if you can try to work what it’s advertising: you’ll never guess.

Since then, she’s been in a movie called Sassy Girl/엽기적인 그녀, which every Korean has seen. It’s definately funny, but after the third viewing you begin to see that a great many of the jokes you laughed at are non-sensical, one of which I think is accidentally a good summation of Korean sexual mores…bit of a jump yes, but let me explain: its the scene when she convinces her boyfriend to wear her high-heels, and then lewdly tells him that she doesn’t wear panties on test days, and today she had a test, so catch me if you can. All risque and well and good so far. What’s wrong with it is that this ‘couple’ hadn’t even kissed yet, after many months of dating; what exactly was going to happen if he did catch up with her?

Unfortunately he didn’t, and so this (I’ve got to admit) very sweet movie wasn’t ruined by forcing Koreans to admit the absurdity of all the platonic couples here. That’s what’s so interesting about sex in Korea: on the one hand you have friends of my wife’s who are (supposedly) a couple, together for 8 years but never having kissed (true, an extreme case probably), or others (girls) that have never ever had an orgasm in their entire lives and think that that’s perfectly normal, but all happily making lewd jokes with the best of them; and on the other hand, you have a greater number of apparently innocent and virginal 20 and 30-somethings who are shagging in love hotels as often as they can. I digress, of course, but that post will be going up soon too.

This is of course Lee Hyori/이효리, and the picture is from a 2004 article about how the good citizens of Hong Kong absolutely loved her large breasts, or “왕가슴” in Korean, literally meaning “King (sized) breasts”, which doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. This picture will always have a special place in my heart, because back in March 2004, when I was studying Korean all by myself because the wonderful Korean institute KLIFF hadn’t opened yet (2nd biggest city in Korea, 4 million people, and nowhere to study Korean until 2004!), I decided, what the hell, let’s translate this article. Took me three hours (10 mins today!), albeit with many breaks and coffees, and taught me 3 important things: that in the future, if I find I’m spending half my learning time physically flicking through my dictionary, then my subject matter is obviously too difficult and should be abandoned; that I shouldn’t buy an electronic dictionary to help me remember this (I finally succumbed a few months ago); and finally, and here we are back to my original point, that there’s more interesting things than fucking kimchee to study Korea and Korean with.

Here’s Lee Hyori a few years later:

Makes you want to come to Korea and buy a phone, yes?

So, with all that background, I hereby present today’s Korean (language) study topic. Unfortunately the translation will have to wait until tonight, as after 6 hours on this thing I think I’m justified in putting this post up now, and translating later. Here’s a preview:

이효리, ‘비키니 몸매’ 공개 ‘섹시미 철철’

[스타뉴스 2007-06-20 10:28] 

톱스타 이효리가 바캉스 화보를 공개했다.

최근 월간지 쎄씨 7월호에 ‘바캉스 화보’를 공개했던 이효리는 이번에는 화보에 실리지 않았던 미공개 컷을 공개했다.

이효리는 이번 화보에서 청순하면서도 섹시한 매력을 한껏 보여줬다.

자신이 모델로 활동하는 캘빈 클라인 진을 입고 화보에 촬영에 임한 이효리는 물기를 촉촉히 머금고, 그린 컬러의 캘빈클라인 언더웨어와 다크 그레이 캘빈클라인 진 탑을 매치해 많은 노출이 없더라도 눈빛과 분위기만으로 청순과 섹시를 넘나들어 촬영 당시 베스트 컷으로 인정받았다.<두번째 사진>

촬영을 담당한 포토그래퍼 권영호 작가는 “이효리만이 표현해낼 수 있는 섹시함이 담겨져 있다”고 말했다.

한편 이효리는 지난 18일 이디오피아로 봉사활동을 떠났다. 경희대 언론대학원에 합격한 이효리는 올해는 연예활동 없이 충전기를 가질 예정이다.

모바일로 보는 스타뉴스 “342 누르고 NATE/magicⓝ/ez-i”

(make sure to study and translate it yourselves, and then you can judge my own translation later. Get cracking!)

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