Lee Hyori Turns 30
(Update 4: A good 2 days and 7 hours more research than I expected, my post on Go So-young/고소영 is finally up at ZR5 Asian News. Hope you appreciate all the effort that went into it!)
(Update 3: A big hello, but apologies to all readers from the Marmot’s Hole wanting more information about the fire at Namdaemun. After I made the link, I realised that it wasn’t really relevant to this post and so decided to remove it, but the trackback is still showing up there. Sorry)
(Update 2: Watched the videos. Completely slapstick and childish like most Korean comedy, but then I’ve been here so long that I was grinning through most of them. They’ll more than do in lieu of a promised second translation today (Sunday). Anyone that doesn’t believe I watched them, then you can see the first screenshot below for yourself at 7:59 of part 1, and the second one at 6:14 of part 2. Hyori also gets asked her favorite male body part at 4:27 of part 2, and from about 6:30 onwards starts feeling up the male contestants…no wonder she’s such a popular show host)
(Update 1: Following Brian in Jeollanam-do’s lead, I’ve just found videos of the show I mention here, and will watch them tomorrow to try to make some sense of the article I’m sure I badly translated review the Korean I’ve just learnt)
(Photo from here, with a title that literally says that although Hyori is now 30, never fear, for not only has her body not “died,” but her S-line still “lives.” Sincere apologies to readers for being so out of touch with the news, but I confess I had no idea that either were in imminent danger?)
Korean Study Plans
As you can see, I’m back from my short trip to my parents-in-law’s place over 설날/Solnal. My wife is staying on with my daughter until next Tuesday or so (I miss the latter both of them already), and if 추석/Chuseok from last year is anything to go by that will most likely mean that I won’t be showering, shaving, leaving the house, eating three good solid meals a day…you get the idea. I’m a little tired of that (and look and smell it), so until she gets back I’ll force myself into the shower every day and go down to Starbucks to study Korean, starting this afternoon.
Until now, my one hour a day of Korean study this year was no small achievement for me, but it’s still inadequate to get level 5 or 6 in the coming TOPIK test, and I’m increasingly embarrassed at not speaking Korean fluently after nearly eight years here. So, the test is 70 days away, and I’ll be studying three hours a day until then, I kid you not. Skeptical? Sure, I would be too, so I’m going to use this blog to make sure that I do. But don’t worry, I don’t mean by posting the entire minutiae of my study progress like last time, which I’ll be the first to admit was probably rather boring for readers (sorry). Instead, one of those three hours each day will involve translating a Korean article for the blog, which I’ll post in addition to my normal schedule of fascinating blog posts on other subjects. Conveniently for me, not every one will be short and merely say that some piece of eye-candy has great breasts, but longer ones that actually say something worth reading will probably take longer than an hour for me to translate, so I have a ready-made excuse if you don’t see a translation up here every day from now on.
Women Turning 30 in Korea
I’m not going to pretend that I didn’t choose this article because I like looking at Lee Hyori and because it’s short and easy, but by coincidence I’ve just about to finish writing a post about 36 year-old Go So-yeong/고소영 for the blog ZR5 Asian News that I guest post on (Update: here it is), and her age naturally led me to briefly discuss the ajumma/아주마 stereotype and link that to what I consider Korea’s relative lack of 30-something female entertainers. So with Lee Hyori turning 30 (in Korean age) and all, I was also hoping that the article below would mention something along those lines, although I should have known better.
ZR5 isn’t quite as pretentious academic as this blog, and it’s audience mostly lives outside of Korea, so let me ask readers here instead: was it too much of an exaggeration for me to say that there isn’t a 30-something female entertainer who wasn’t much more popular in her 20s? I’ll be happy to be proved wrong, but I couldn’t think of any. Also, are there really any Korean women hitting 30 who are so embarrassed about it that they pretended to be 29 for several years, or is it all a figment of my imagination brought about by the incisive social commentaries in Lonely Planet Korea? I would call my Korean female friends to ask, but it’s late and they have babies, and besides which we probably wouldn’t be friends if they were those sort of women anyway.
(Photo and article below from here)
Please forgive the mistakes in the translation, and feel free to point them out. My wife didn’t feel like spending half an hour on the phone with me explaining it word for word, although my 20-month old daughter did her best:
이효리 “서른이면 선 볼 나이? 아직 괜찮은데” (2008-02-09)
Lee Hyori: “If I’m 30, it’s time to be set up? It’s not time yet!”
올해 서른을 맞은 미녀스타 이효리가 나이에 대한 고정관념에 반기를 들었다.
Lee Hyori, who turns 30 this year, will challenge the prejudice against women her age.
이효리는 8일 방송된 MBC 설 특집 블라인드미팅 대격돌 ‘스타의 친구를 소개합니다’에서 MC로 이휘재와 호흡을 맞췄다.
On the 8th, Lee Hyori cohosted a special Solnal (Chinese New Year) MBC dating show called “Introduce a Star’s Friend” with Lee Hui-jae.
‘소개팅 하고 싶은 여자 연예인’ 1위로 선정된 바 있는 이효리는 “제 소개팅 제의인 줄 알고 출연한 건데..”라고 너스레를 떨었다. 하지만 “이젠 서른이면 선 볼 나이가 아니냐”는 이휘재의 기습 발언에 당황한 표정으로 그녀는 “아직 괜찮지 않냐”고 응수해 웃음을 자아냈다.
Lee Hyori, who was chosen as the “female entertainer you’d most want a blind date with,” casually talked about what she would do if a blind-date proposed to her, and said that, now, 30 was not a marrying age. But Lee Hui-jae laughingly remarked on her flustered and embarrassed appearance when she said that.
이날 이성을 보는 신체부위를 묻는 질문에 이효리는 “얼굴을 먼저 본 뒤 손과 팔이 연결되는 라인을 본다”며 “옷 뒤로 살짝 보이는 팔뚝 라인이 가장 섹시한 것 같다”고 고백했다.
Lee Hyori was also asked which body parts she focuses on in a man, to which she replied “first the face, then I look at the line between where the hands and arms meet,” and confessed that “seeing a man’s ‘wrist line’ from behind, normally hidden under clothes, is really sexy.”
연예인 대 연예인, 일반인 대 일반인 등 기존 데이트 프로그램의 틀을 깨는 신개념 미팅 버라이어티 ‘스타의 친구를 소개합니다’는 연예인이 각각 자신의 친구(남자)를 데리고 나와 주선배틀을 벌이는 형식으로 진행됐다.
The standard for dating programs is to have entertainers with entertainers and normal people with normal people, but “Introduce a Star’s Friend” is part of a new, more varied show concept in which entertainers bring along a male friend, introduce them, and then help them in the matchmaking games.
이날 이효리는 출연자로 등장한 연예인의 친구들을 인터뷰하기 위해 블라인드 뒤로 들어가 실수를 가장한 채 스킨십을 유도하는 과감한 진행으로 웃음을 이끌어 냈다. 망가짐도 불사한 이효리의 솔직 털털한 면모에 파트너 이휘재는 “서른이 넘어가더니 사람이 달라진 것 같다”고 혀를 내두르기도 했다.
In order to interview the other entertainer’s friends properly without knowing who they were, she went behind them and spoke in the dark to the backs of their heads. Her biggest mistake while interviewing them was admitting that she prefers to initiate “skinship,” or being intimate with a date. Lee Hui-jae jokingly said that her carefree but daring honesty showed that “people really change when they turn 30!”
Stirring stuff. She really is turning 30 though, and like I (will) imply in my post for ZR5, if Korean men suddenly lose all interest in Lee Hyori merely because she’s hitting 30, then I officially give up on ever understanding the enigma that is the ajosshi/아저씨. But I’m quite confident that basic instinct will trump culture in her case, and who knows? However unlikely-looking now, she might be inadvertantly become a standard-bearer for the way women that age are perceived in the media, just like back in 2000 Baek Ji-yeong/백지영 became a feminist symbol via a sex video of all things. For more on that, see Time magazine here, and I place it into some context here.
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Ah, so I guess that explains the Hyori marathon on TV. She’s still really hot. What does she do nowadays? I admittedly haven’t followed her career, but the last time I saw her singing was in the video for Gitcha a while ago.
I confess, for all the times she’s appeared on the blog, I don’t really know either. I’ve taken your suggestion on your blog and will watch videos of the show over lunch tomorrow. It’s not exactly a sophisticated show, but it sure beats the Starcraft channels and endlessly repeated news on CNN that I’d normally watch instead.
only female stars I can think of that’s more popular in her (Korean age) 30s than her 20s is Kim Hye Soo, Kim Jung Eun, Lee Young Ae and possibly Kim Suh Ah.
Other than Kim Hye Soo, you could easily make arguments against my picks since the latter actresses got really famous in their late 20s or at 30. Lee Young Ae and Kim Suh Ah seemed to have stopped acting once they finished their signiture roles.
Does it not frustrate you, this whole Korean age thing. After all Lee Hyo-ri, isn’t infact turning 30 but is merely 28years of agae, turning 29 on May 10th!
If Korea wants to become more westernized surely they have to abandon this ancient practice of counting your birthday based on the stars.
I mean, let’s face it. Sitting with friends the other night at dinner, and I was introduced to some Koreans with children. I asked them if they had children, the answer was yes, they have a happy 2 year old girl.
This girl wasn’t infact two years old but more like 6 weeks old. She had been born on December 17th 2007. So to say that she is one year old at birth is false! She was born 1 month premature, at 8months old. And to cap it off, on Jan 1st she turned another year older 2 years old at this point, but only realistically 2 weeks old.
Crsandus, thanks, and I’ll check them out. But at least getting famous in their late-20s or early-30s counters the ajumma stereotype I mention.
Shimshim Lee, I quite agree. The Korean system does have some logic, like a foetus being 1 month old at conception because of the woman’s missed monthly period for instance, but it’s really quite useless and so rightly disregarded for any situation in which a person’s age is important, like laws and passports.
I’m surprised that your friends said that their daughter was two, because like you explain, it seems particularly non-sensical for babies and children. Which is why my wife (who is Korean) and I say our daughter is 20 months, and all other Korean parents we know and Korean parenting books too also use months from the birthdate, just like Western parents.
My wife suggests Hyun Yeong as someone who has become relatively famous after turning 30… my impression is though that the Korean entertainment industry is run like a company with an annual “intake” of new staff and therefore it may be relatively difficult to break through at a later age.
Thanks, and here’s a link to her bio and to a picture if anyone doesn’t know who she is. And what the hell, here’s some to Kim Hye Soo, Kim Jung Eun (4 days older than me it turns out!), Lee Young Ae and Kim Suh Ah too.
Sometime in the future, I’ll watch some of the movies and programs of all the actresses everyone’s mentioned and make some conclusions for myself, then write a big post about them.
In the meantime, I’ve started meeting my favorite tutors once a week again to get some much needed speaking progress, and this topic is certainly much better for small talk than Lee Myeong-bak’s plans for MOGEF! More seriously, it’s also made me realise how essential in any country it is to be familar with it’s TV programs, movies and actors to have normal conversations with people.
I was wondering if Korea in fact was really filled with beautiful girls as seen on this blog. I have not been to South Korea and judging by some of the pictures seen here are girls in South Korea really this pretty? After scouring through some of your blogs here, it seems as if the Korean population resents sex, yet their media covers it like their life depended on it.
Furthermore, some of the pictures posted of those Middle-High Schools girls all look the same in my opinion. This in my opinion makes me doubt whether girls like Lee HyoRi are truly common in Korea or is she one in a million?
Well, of course the pictures of Korean women on this blog would be the cream of the crop. I’m completely generalising of course, but if I had to sum up average Korean women I’d say their positives are:
- They generally eat very healthily. Obese Koreans are very rare, even men.
- They tend to dress much more stylishly then Western women, and will rarely just throw something on if they’re leaving the house. It’s no exaggeration to say that an hour in a Starbucks here can feel more like watching a fashion show than simply having a coffee.
But the negatives are:
- An extreme lack of confidence about their bodies, teachers regularly telling students that they’re too fat, and common border-line anorexia. I’ve given up telling women with fit and attractive bodies that they’re not fat as they claim, because they never pay any attention to me.
- The corollary of not being able to just throw something on means an excessive amount of time and money spent on their appearances. They might even wear make-up to go to the gym. Given that you can’t really exercise with make-up on, not enough do, despite the number of gyms here.
- And their use of make-up is just bizarre. Whiter skin is considered more attractive, even though Koreans aren’t, well…white…so many will cake on whitening creams to the extent that they look like corpses. Considering that and their thinness, I serisouly can’t imagine ever getting some of them in the sack…their skin and bodies would simply break.
Women naturally look more attractive when they’re ovulating, their skin is redder and fuller, and make-up is primarily used around the world to make women look this way when they’re not actually ovulating. Instead, korean women use make-up in a way that makes them look less fertile and/or sexually available. Like I said, just bizarre.
As for sex and the media…things are slowly changing, for the better. Like I say in some other posts, there are plently of good Korean sex programs and/or translated foreign ones on TV now, albeit in the early hours of the morning, and I have personal experience of the very gradual but definite improvement in sex education here since I first came in 2000.