The Grand Narrative

(Warning: This post started off with serious intentions, but rapidly degenerated into lots of pictures of attractive Korean women with not many clothes on. I’m terribly sorry. Back to more serious topics tomorrow)

With one of my closest Korean friend getting married on Sunday, then perhaps Korean weddings would be a more natural subject for a post the next day on a self-proclaimed Korea Studies blog. I admit, the subject can be interesting, as while modern Korean weddings certainly have the appearance and trappings of Western weddings at first glance, more than 5 minutes spent at a wedding hall reveals that the whole ethos of them is quite different really, and working out the origins of the eclectic mix of traditions can take some time. And knowing me I even have a thick academic tome called Getting Married in Korea: Of Gender, Morality and Modernity on the subject, and what’s more one that I’ve actually read (albeit a long time ago) and don’t just have on my bookshelf for appearances.

But while all that can certainly make your first wedding at a Korean wedding hall definitely quite an experience, once you’ve been to one there’s not much new to see at the next (a bit like Korean temples). True, being armed with all that knowledge meant that I did personally refuse to get married at a wedding hall, and so 3 years ago had a dignified traditional Korean wedding at this little oasis of peace and serenity in the heart of urban Busan called Chungnyeolsa/충렬사 instead, which I heartily recommend (give me a buzz if you want more details). But I’m not personally interested in Korean weddings at all anymore, academically or otherwise.

So while I’m very glad my friend is happy, even though it means that she will be moving to Ulsan with her new husband and hence that now all of my Korean friends have gotten married and left Busan, as a jaded and cynical old-Korea-timer I found this soju advertisement I saw in the restaurant after the ceremony to be…ahem…much more interesting than the ceremony itself.

Recognise her? She’s 고아라/Go Ara from this drink advertisement below that we all loved to hate, but which we couldn’t help but sing and dance to when none of our students were looking (if the youtube video doesn’t load, try this more reliable link instead).

It turns out she’s quite a chameleon, yes? Even more importantly, while looking for more pictures of her I found some at this ’Girl Monday‘ post on the excellent Korean and Korea Studies-themed About Joel blog, which I actually found ages ago but completely forgot the name of, and so had given up on trying ever finding it again. See? God moves in mysterious ways, and I’ve repeatedly said that great things about Korea are to be found on the internet not by googling “blogs written by bald pretentious Korea Studies scholar wannabes called James,” or words to that effect, but by searching for pictures of scantily-clad Korean women instead. So, it’s a dirty job, but if one does indeed have to lower the high tone of the blog with numerous pictures of stunning Korean women to get your arguments about the objectification of Korean women in the media and the Korean patriarchy noticed at all, then let it not be said that I don’t try my very best:

You should know who the woman in the first picture is. The woman in the next three is 신민아/Shin Min-a, not to be confused with the former “Miss World Cup 2002″ singer with the same name.

Having gotten that out of the way, I did seriously start today’s post with the intention of talking about what the following Korean soju advertisements may or may not reveal about Korean society. That’s because when I found the original ad of Go Ara’s above on this page of Jinro Soju’s homepage (watch out for the noisy automatic video when you click on the second link), next to it I first noticed this ad below with 김아중/Kim Ah-joong. If you don’t know who she is either then you probably haven’t been in Korea for very long, so if you’re interested see Wikipedia’s entry on her here, lots more pics and articles on her here, and finally my own personal take on the movie that made her famous here if you want.

Almost every Korean soju manufacturer has an innocent, virginal looking Korean woman in its ads these days, and this one with Kim Ah-joong only stood out because I’ve seen the video of her most recent commercial for Jinro at Mongdori here, or here on Jinro’s website again (her behavior in the video is sickeningly childish, but unfortunately all too typical for many young Korean women). Even though by the time I go back to Australia and NZ next month for a month’s vacation it will have been a crazy 5 years and 9 months(!) since I’ve been to a Western country, even I still remember that Western ads for alcohol are just as full of women who wouldn’t last one year as a model if they actually drank the products they’re advertising, but in the case of soju I’ve always found the discrepancy between the sweet, innocent, youthful women and the actual appearance of the odious middle-aged ajosshis who would be 95% of the drinkers of the product just too great to be even remotely swayed by the ads.

Sure, everyone’s entitled to drink what they hell they like, and if drinking pure ethanol mixed with water and flavoring is your tipple of choice, then I won’t make out that I’m all superior by mostly drinking Black Russians and Jack and Cokes, and I promise I’ll only look down on you on my way home from my own favorite bar (see here and then here) when I pass you vomiting in the gutter. But I can’t help it, every time I see those ads the first thing that comes in to mind are these anti-smoking ones:

I may be overanalysing the ads, but you would too if you saw a 3 metre version of this one of 이채연/Lee Chae Yeon’s (click here too) at 연산/Yeonsan subway station to and from work everyday. Seriously, it’s difficult to get soju ads off your mind when you pass breasts that are bigger than your head everyday (no pun intended). And this is at the very same station with pictures of rather minimalist female figures on the pillars promoting awareness of breast cancer, that had to be colored pink within 2 weeks or so to make it look more like they were giving themselves breast examinations fully clothed…presumably, someone complained at the moral depravity of it. This ad, in contrast, has been up for at least a year, and considering she’s wearing a negligee(!), then the ad reveals a lot more than those virtual cartoon characters ever did.

In case you’re not entirely convinced that Korean soju ads have attractive Korean women in them (hey, it’s possible), here are two with 김태희/Kim Tae-hee, whom you can find more information about at an earlier post of mine on her here. I admit, while she doesn’t look quite so virginal in the first, they overdid the look a bit in the second.

Despite the post’s title, I didn’t plan to focus quite so much on the ones with attractive Korean women in them…no, really…for when I wrote “revealing” I meant revealing of certain features of Korean society, which actually these following three advertisements, also from the Jinro homepage, do much better. Exhibit number one:

That Korean families are a lot “closer” (for want of a better term) than their Western counterparts (except perhaps Southern Europeans) isn’t some newbie myth about Korea that I’m going to claim all the books about Korea in my bookshelf, which you don’t have, demonstrate really isn’t the case, but which only Korea Studies geeks like myself know. While I will argue in a post soon that Korean 20-somethings stay at home until they’re married not so much because of some supposedly timeless Korean cultural feature, and more because the structure of the housing market here means that they can’t leave home until they’re about 25, and by then they’re used to it, in the meantime the familial nature of people’s lives is very pervasive here…just watch a dating program sometime, like weddings again ostensibly Western at first, but then the person selecting who to date brings mom and dad with them, and they form a integral part of the show. So drinking soju with Dad here is no big deal. Hell, it’s not even particularly Korean, as it reminds me of this old New Zealand Speight’s Beer Ad:

Watch it once, then watch the younger man’s expression 12 seconds before the end…has always made me want to kill him. But I digress.

So drinking with Dad, or your sheep-shearing mentor, sells beer even in homophobic New Zealand, but jeez…did the Korean ad have to be so completely and utterly gay? Now, you all know my feelings about Men in pink, and like I said diversity in clothing styles is to be applauded, and pink doesn’t necessarily mean gay. But why, oh why, do the Korean guys in ads invariably have to be so damn effeminate? In this case Dad can be forgiven, at least he’s procreated, but jeez, that kid looks like he’s two shots away from breaking out the baby oil and S&M gear. 

Self-explanatory. If not, check out this post and my comments to it at Gusts of Popular Feeling, and if you too feel I’m reading too much into it like some other commenters there thought, I challenge you to find one ad with a Korean woman - non-Korean man couple in it, whereas off the top of my head I can remember 5 with the opposite here, and I don’t even watch Korean TV except for the Starcraft channels on 34 and 58. (Edit: According to my friend, the guy on the left is clearly Caucasian. Maybe so, in which case surely I’ve lost all credibility with my readers. My friend thought it was significant that he was set aside from the rest of the group though) 

A little overkill perhaps, for you probably got my message about effeminate Korean men. If not, also check this image of the “ideal” Korean male (with thanks to Seoul Man). The ad above claims he’s an athlete, but jeez, I looked more butch when I was a teenager playing nothing but chess all day. But yes, he sure is pretty, I’ll give him that.

And on that athletic note, I’d better put this marathon of a post to bed.

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