The Grand Narrative

(Update2: Those technical problems in turn mean that I can’t reply to a notorious troll over there, but fortunately his comments don’t really deserve a reply. Still, he’s no ordinary troll, and you have to admire his skill in trying to goad me into a response)

(Update: I’d like to thank bumfromkorea over at the Marmot’s Hole for telling me about Time and Cinderella, two movies that deal with the Korean plastic surgery industry. I would thank (probably) him there, but for some reason every time I write a comment on that post it just disappears)  

(“Liberty Leading the People“ by Eugène Delacroix)

Introduction

Today’s post is a bit of a light-hearted break from all the intense and/or very academic posts I’ve been writing recently, but I think that the points I’m making are still quite valid. Sure, if I’d wanted to convey that impression more effectively then probably I should have used a different title instead, but then I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t usually choose them with SEO in mind (Search Engine Optimization to non-bloggers). Sorry if that sounds a little cynical, but then consider this internet classic on the differences between what people say they read and what they actually do read on the internet. Meanwhile, if pictures of Lee Hyori are what you’re really after, then you’ll find plently to choose from here.

Korean Celebrity Culture 1: Different Standards

(Photo by lej pics. Yes, I know Lee Eun-ju/이은주 on the right committed suicide in 2005, but rather than making my choice of picture tasteless, actually I think that that illustrates my points all the more)

The original motivation for this post was my volunteering to translate this ”news” article about Lee Hyori’s recent chest X-rays for readers over at Dave’s ESL Cafe (I guess I’m a real glutton for punishment). I did last night, but PopSeoul! has already translated something very similar here, saving me the trouble of putting it up.

The article I translated is stupid, as is the endless speculation about whether or not Lee Hyori has received breast enlargement surgery: for one, you can see the before and after evidence for yourself here, and I discuss that in more detail here. Of course she has. Like I say there, I think she was very attractive without them, but they certainly didn’t harm her career, and while I may often sound critical of plastic surgery, I’m not against it per se. But why then, this endless, repetitive speculation? Because she refuses to admit it. Or rather, ironically, being a celebrity means that she’s not allowed to admit it, at least in Korea.

(Photo by mona)

I’ve already written a great deal about the differences between Western and Korean celebrity culture, so let me just give the briefest outlines of them here.

Discounting the big differences between Western countries, to a greater or lesser extent Westerners almost expect their celebrities to live hedonistic lives, and the public and the justice system as a whole gives them a great deal of leniency to do so that is not granted to ordinary mortals like ourselves. But Korea is the exact opposite, and female celebrities in particular are held to impossibly higher standards. Hence when it is revealed that they have taken drugs or had sex before marriage, for instance, then the public reaction is swift and severe, even if they didn’t actually do the heinous crimes of which they’re accused.

And so while Korea has one of the largest plastic surgery industries in the world, and a majority of women have had some form of operation or another, Koreans seem to want to keep this a secret from non-Koreans, and celebrities in particular definitely can’t admit to having received it themselves (with exceptions for aspiring stars).

I think that the movie 200 Pounds Beauty/미녀는 귀로워? is one of the rare popular Korean movies that draws attention to this (I discuss it here); if readers know of any others, please let me know. I also think that the dichotomy between the Korean public’s standards for themselves and for celebrities also partially plays a role in the their toleration of sexually-suggestive dancing and provocative clothes from the Wondergirls/원더걸스 too, because many parents, say, that regard both as innocent and cute would never tolerate the same from their own daughters. But after all the virtual ink I’ve already spilled on that, I’ll wisely stop there and let readers make their own judgements.

Korean Celebrity Culture 2: Promotion of the Mundane

(D-War/디워)

Amongst non-Koreans living in Korea at least, the both the Korean and especially English-language Korean media is notorious for portraying any cultural product destined for overseas consumption as world-class, on a par with Hollywood productions (if it is a film), and enthusiastically received by non-Korean audiences, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Gordsellar describes it as a “standard, near-universal conviction among Koreans that a positive image of Korea must be presented to the world”, and I myself (somewhere amongst these posts) have interpreted the effects of this on the Korean media to be its portrayal of the Korean Wave/한류 as Koreans would like it be received rather than it actually is, and even if this was the only problem the Korean media had, then it would be in a very sorry state indeed. Unfortunately, it’s not, as this and the following case reveals.

By this stage, you may well be asking how on Earth the Korean Wave is related to Lee Hyori’s breasts? Are they a cultural product? Well…yes. Consider this article about her trip to Hong Kong in 2003, but before you do, let me provide some background:

• Men like women’s breasts
• There are some men in Hong Kong
• Lee Hyori has breasts
• Lee Hyori went to Hong Kong

Therefore, even before the big event I would have bet money on some men in Hong Kong liking her breasts while she was there. An article about the test of that hypothesis is not news, and of course the fact that it was in a Korean tabloid also means that it wasn’t news too. But ironically, this celebration of Hong Kong men’s interest in Lee Hyori’s breasts is news precisely because it was in a Korean tabloid.

The mainstream Korean news media is amongst the most populist, unprofessional, racist and xenophobic in the world, and is more than happy to portray all non-Korean men as perverted, pedophilic sexual predators whenever it suits them, so you can imagine what the tabolid press is like. Not unsurprisingly, this means that many Korean men (but by no means all) are resentful of Korean women in relationships with non-Koreans. Hence KoreaBeat points out that it was simply bizarre that a Korean tabloid newspaper would revel in non-Korean men ogling one of “their” women, and I’m suprised that I didn’t notice the incongruity myself when I read it at the time.

Now, I’d be the last person to describe Lee Hyori’s breasts as mundane…but sorry, at the end of the day, they’re still just breasts. So considering all the above, is there any other explanation for the positive spin of the article other than the desire for self-promotion overriding the xenophobia, which, after all, is usually just a mere convenient device to use when Koreans want to deflect attention away from their own problems?

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Or so says the Chosun Ilbo, in the third most widely read “news” story in the digital version of the paper today:  

Actress Kim Tae-hee has become the talk of the town with a commercial in which she appears with no make-up. The commercial for Olympus Korea emphasizes Kim’s natural side. Sporting a mane of untidy hair as if she just woke up, she curls her lips, plays with a teddy bear, frowns, and sucks a lollipop.

It reads like Playboy magazine (or so my friend tells me). A few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have given a second thought to this mindless trash weekend space-filler, but actually I found it indirectly via checking out the most read story “Oprah Winfrey’s Negative Remarks about Korean Women Spark Storm.” Naturally, after writing about 7500 words worth of posts recently on Korean women and the Korean plastic surgery industry, I was in like Flynn, but then I realised that the article was actually from 2004.

That date got me thinking: maybe, just maybe, that four-year old story is indeed the most widely read story at the Chosun Ilbo (Why?). But the other four out of the five are all recent, so is it too much to think that the rankings may be manipulated? Sure, it probably is too much. But then consider the rest of number three:

The commercial has received a strong response because it shows another side of the actress, who has used the fact that she is intelligent and refined as a graduate of the prestigious Seoul National University to appeal to the public.

…

Internet users responded favorably, saying it’s good to see the “ordinary side” of the normally more polished actress. “The commercial makes Kim look like one of the people around us. I suddenly came to like her,” a user wrote.

(Photo by…er… Amber Dorko Stopper)

At first, I was happy to find an article about an ad that seemed to challenge the prevailing Korean opinion that women must put heavy make-up on and be immacuately dressed before leaving the house, even if it’s just across the road for some milk. But then I realised that the newspaper regards netizens as a reliable news source - never a good sign - and that in every single “news article” I’ve read about Korean advertisements, the reporters have always claimed that Koreans are responding to the ads, well, pretty much exactly as the advertisers intended. And this isn’t just a feature of the abysmal English-language media in Korea either, which seems to operate under the assumption that Korea must always be presented as a veritable Shangra-la to all non-Koreans; the same was said of many advertisements in this piece I translated last week for instance, and many before that too. Not once have I read that, say, “Koreans think ad sucks,” or “Women react angrily to patronising ad.” At least, not a Korean ad that is.

Yep, the obvious conclusion is that companies probably pay Korean newspapers to write such reports. It’s just common-sense…sorry if you were expecting something more profound. But what is my common-sense isn’t always yours, and sure as hell isn’t many Koreans’ either. I’m going to try and ask some Korean aquaintances (not friends, they’d agree with me) and see if they think the same.

In the meantime, I think it’s debatable whether the ad indeed shows off Kim Tae-Hee’s “more natural side”? And even if I did, I’m not sure I’d feel compelled to wax lyrical about it on internet message boards.

Update: Brian in Jeollanam-do has quite a convincing reason for why that old article about Oprah Winfrey was suddenly so popular.

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Introduction/Recap 

If you’ve lived in Korea for more than a couple of years, then you’ll probably have noticed that many Korean alcohol companies - and those that sell soju in particular - have recently gone from presenting innocent and virginal women in their ads to in-your-face sexual images instead. Hell it’s hard not to notice, and you certainly didn’t see ads like the above even in 2005, let alone when I first came in 2000. And I wrote that before I realised how see-through Lee Hyori’s clothes were.

I already have strong academic interests in Korean consumerism and feminism (see here and here for my most recent work on both), and I also happen to be a normal, albeit extremely virile, heterosexual male too, and the combination has meant I’ve already written a lot on the changes, most recently here and here. In those posts, I mentioned that I was puzzled by a recent ad (below) of Jeong Ryeo-won’s for the medicinal wine sansachun/산사춘, as the ads for that drink hadn’t explicitly been “sexualized” yet, and so my plan for my next posts on the subject was to find and translate articles about the Baesangmyun Brewery Company’s decision to hire her. Was the the ad still the exception, or was it part of the new rule?

I did quickly find some on that here and here, and most importantly found a series of four on alcohol advertisements as whole here, but most were either devoid of any real information and/or repeated similar articles that I’ve already translated. I was placed in a bit of an impasse, and realised that what I’d really like to do is look at more academic analyses of the recent changes, rather than repeated announcements of which companies have hired which stars for their new advertising campaigns. But unfortunately there’d be very little in Korean on those yet, let alone in English, and my Korean isn’t quite at that level yet anyway.

A New, More Sophisticated Narrative

But the impasse made me realise that there’s actually little more to say on the subject, other than:

• Yes, of course alcohol advertisements are becoming more sexual, starting with those for soju.
• You like them? Yes, me too. We should totally hang out sometime.
• Yes, they may signal and/or prompt a new social acceptance of sexual assertiveness by Korean women, but it’s too early to tell.

Did I miss anything out? I doubt it. So, I apologise, but I don’t think there’s really anything more to add. Sure, I won’t pretend that I wouldn’t like the hits that putting more posters of girls would bring, but would they bring actual readers?

The impasse was fortuitous really, as not putting posters up for the sake of mere popularity is in line with a direction I’d already been taking the blog in anyway. In a nutshell, I’ve written some damn good things on the blog recently, some of which I’ve spent weeks on and is at least at postgrad level, and I want them to be taken seriously. Hence it’s already been a good month since the last ever bikini graced my blog.

I was partially propelled in this direction because a female blogger recently singled me out and objected to some (unspecified) pictures of mine too. Seeing as she not only links to a blog with regular links to porn, but links to and recently met the owner of one that has porn (nothing against either blog though!), then I won’t lose any sleep over her hypocritcal comment (although I wish I hadn’t replied to it so politely). But I’ll admit that still she touched a nerve.

But having said that, this post, for instance, is about way women are presented in Korean advertisements, and that they’re not wearing much in them these days is the whole point, so I’m not going to, say, link to the ads instead of posting them to somehow pretend otherwise. True, the same can’t be said of some slightly risque pictures accompanying my last (academic) post on consumerism, but it’s a blog, dammit, not a textbook. What am I supposed to break the otherwise monotonous-looking text with? Puppies?

With that outline of my new blogging ethos out of the way then, onto the main subject of today’s post. 

Translation

While I have already covered most of the contents of the above articles like I said, the fourth one of that series of four is a actually quite a good summation of things, and so I’ve decided that I will translate it.

Because the article is longer than normal, I’ve changed the format of how I usually put translations up to make it easier to read, and because it mentions so many Korean actors that I’ve never mentioned before, I’ve provided links to their biographies when their names first appear too. But because I’ve written so about the subject already, I won’t be linking to earlier posts of mine as I go along; instead, if you’re a new reader and are interested, visit this category to find those.

[미녀스타와 술(酒)④]/Star Beauties with Alcohol ④

22 January 2008 

[이데일리 SPN 박미애기자] 주류 광고로 뜬 스타를 찾기란 쉽지 않다. 당대 톱스타들이 주류CF의 히어로 또는 히로인 자리를 차지하는 경우가 대부분이기 때문이다.

[E-Daily SPN, Park Mi-ae Reporting] These days, it is difficult to find a new star becoming famous through first appearing in advertisements for alcoholic drinks. This is because so many already famous stars appear in them now.

그런 점에서 주류 광고 메인 모델로 발탁된 연예인은 당대 톱스타 또는 유망 신예로 가능성을 인정받은 차세대 스타로 볼 수 있다.

This has a snowball effect, as alcohol companies react to each other’s star-based advertising campaigns by using already established stars and/or those that are most likely to become even more famous in the future in turn.

그러나 광고는 트렌드에 민감한 까닭에 모델 역시 그때그때 다르지만 주종에 따라서 선호하는 스타일에는 다소 차이가 있다.

Advertisements are still sensitive to trends however, and while alcohol advertisements may all look the same today there are slight differences between those for different kinds of alcohol.

일반적으로 소주는 맑고 깨끗한 이미지의 여성 스타를, 맥주는 젊은이들이 즐겨 마시는 술인 만큼 성별에 관계없이 트렌디한 스타를, 전통주는 제품의 특성을 효과적으로 나타내는데 적합한 스타를 선호해왔다.

In general, soju advertisements want to give off a clear, clean and bright image using female stars, beer advertisements use trendy stars of both sexes, and advertisements for traditional alcohols like to present their alcohol’s unique effects, and prefer stars appropriate for the individual drink.

◇  이영애에서 이효리로…소주에 부는 새로운 바람 / From Lee Young-ae to Lee Hyori…A Fresh Breeze in Soju Advertisements

▲ (L-R) Lee Young-ae, Kim Tae-Hee, Kim Ah-jung

대표적인 주류인 소주의 경우 참이슬 후레쉬는 이영애 박주미 김태희 성유리 남상미 등이 모델로 발탁됐으며 처음처럼은 이영아 구혜선 등이 모델 계보를 이었다. 소주의 깨끗하고 투명한 이미지와 어울리는 모델들을 기용해온 셈이다.

In the case of soju, Jinro has previously has previously hired stars such as Lee Young-ae, Park Joo-mee, Kim Tae-hee, Nam Sang-mi and so forth to advertise its well known brand “Chamisul Fresh“, while Doosan has hired stars such as Lee Young-a and Ku Hye-Sun to advertise its brand ”Like the First Time“. Stars that go well with soju’s clean and transparent or clear image have tended to be hired. 

그러다가 참이슬 후레쉬는 영화 ‘미녀는 괴로워’로 스크린 스타 반열에 올라선 김아중을, 처음처럼은 트렌드 아이콘 이효리를 모델로 발탁해 주류광고에 새 기운을 불어넣었다. 단아하고 정적인 이미지에서 벗어나 밝고 동적인 이미지로 변화를 준 것이다. 이러한 이미지 변신이 젊은 소비자들의 눈길을 끌며 제품에 긍정적인 반응을 불러일으키고 있다.

However, Jinro has recently hired rapidly rising “200 Pounds Beauty” star Kim Ah-jung to represent Chamisul Fresh and inspire a fresh, new image for it, and Doosan has hired has hired trend icon Lee Hyori to do for same for Like The First Time. In the past, these brands presented an elegant, warm image, but this has been changed in favor of a bright and active one. Young consumers have reacted positively to the new ads and confirm that they draw their attention to the products. 

◇  박지성 보아…성별 관계없이 당대 톱스타 / Park Ji-sung, Boa…The Present Generation of Male and Female Stars for Beer

맥주는 소비층이 비교적 젊은 편이다. 그래서 광고 또한 타깃 소비층이 선호하는 스타나 트렌디한 스타를 모델로 두는 경우가 많다. 맥스 모델은 장동건이며 하이트 맥주 역대 모델들은 원빈 전도연 이병헌 고소영 박지성까지 성별에 관계없이 당대 톱스타들이 활동해왔다. 특히 박지성은 2002년 월드컵 4강 신화로 축구 열풍이 불면서 이러한 분위기를 광고에도 반영, 모델로 기용하게 된 경우다.

Compared to those that drink soju, beer consumers tend to be young, and so there are many cases of beer ads using trendy stars to target these consumers. In addition to the current model for Max Beer Jang Dong-gun, Hite has also used male and female stars such as Won-bin, Jeon Do-yeon, Lee Byung-hyun, Go-so Young, and Park Ji-sung. For instance, when Korea reached the semi-finals of the Football World Cup in 2002, Korean National Team player Park ji-sung was hired to reflect Korea’s new football craze.

이후 톱스타 기용에서 소극적이었던 하이트 맥주는 최근 ‘아시아의 별’ 보아를 모델로 발탁함으로써 다시 톱스타에게 눈길을 돌렸다. 이번 하이트 맥주 광고는 솔직하고 시원한 맥주라는 컨셉 아래 보아의 취중진담 형식으로 풀어나가고 있다. 맥주를 마시면서 속내를 털어놓는 톱스타의 솔직담백한 모습이 친근함을 불러일으키며 눈길을 끌고 있다.

From that point on, Hite Beer, which used to be so passive in its hiring of stars for its marketing campaigns, now actively seeks “Asia’s Stars,” recently hiring the singer Boa to turn people’s heads. Her ads are the start of a new concept for Hite whereby the stars appear slightly tipsy and present a fresh, honest image of themselves while drinking the beer, and Hite hopes to draw consumers with this friendly, more human side of the stars.

◇  이미연 송강호…신뢰할 수 있는 스타 통해 제품 부각 / Lee Mi-yeon, Song Kang-ho…Boosting Advertisements’ Effectiveness by Using Trustworthy, Friendly Stars

▲ (L-R) Lee Mi-yeon, Kim Jung-eun, Jeong Ryeo-won

대표적인 전통주 브랜드 ‘산사춘’과 ‘백세주’는 제품의 특성 및 신뢰를 높이는데 적합한 모델들을 기용해왔다. 산사춘이 1대 모델로 이미연을 쓴 것도 그러한 이유에서다. 이전까지 주류 광고의 대부분은 남성 위주로 만들어져온 것이 사실이다. 산사춘은 당당한 이미지의 이미연을 모델로 발탁한 덕분에, 여성들의 술이라는 컨셉을 부각시킬 수 있었다. 이후 신은경 이효리 김정은 한가인 등이 산사춘 모델로 활약했으며 현재 20, 30대 여성들이 가장 닮고 싶어 하는 여성 스타 정려원을 9대 모델로 발탁해 좋은 반응을 얻고 있다.

Meanwhile, in recent years representative traditional Korean alcohol brands Sansachun and Baekseju have emphasized using stars that consumers consider particularly trustworthy, warm and friendly, starting with Lee Mee-yeon. Until then they had actually mostly used male stars, but after using such an elegant and commanding model, women started drinking Sansachun in much greater numbers. After Lee Mi-yeon, other stars and models hired have included Shin Eun-kyung, Lee Hyori, Kim Jung-eun, Han Ga-in, and the latest, Jeong Ryeo-won, is the ninth. Ryeo-won has in particular received a favourable response, and many women in their 20s and 30s report that they want to be like her.

(I realise that it may be difficult to believe that Lee Hyori was ever considered a trustworthy, homely, warm and friendly girl, but actually she only started her hypersexual image in the last few years or so. For more on that old, not unattractive image of hers, see here)

또 하나의 전통주 브랜드 백세주는 송강호 김상경 지진희 송일국 조승우 등이 모델로 활약했다. 백세주가 기용해온 모델들의 면면을 살펴보면 트렌디한 스타보다는 안정감 있는 연기로 신뢰를 쌓은 배우들이 주로 활동해온 것을 알 수 있다.

However, the Baekseju brand has continued to use only men, including Song Kang-ho, Kim Sang-kyung, Song Il-gook, and Cho Seung-woo. Rather than using trendy stars, through them Baekseju wants to give off a strong, stable, and reliable image. 

(Which I’m not entirely sure the company managed to do with that ad!)

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(Bigger version available here) 

On the way home from my local university district last week, I noticed this Chamisul/참이슬 soju advertisement of Kim Ah-jung/김아중’s being put up outside all the bars and restaurants:

(Better versions of this and similar posters available here)

For those that don’t know, Kim Ah-jung is a front-line soldier in Korea’s ‘Soju Wars,’ and a few months ago I wrote a post about what soju advertisements largely featuring innocent, virginal looking women and those for beer featuring “manly” men say about drinking culture here, and especially societal notions of “appropriate” expressions of sexuality. Those earlier posts cover those issues in a lot of detail; today’s post is mainly just about some things I’ve noticed since.

First up, I agree, “innocent and virginal” wasn’t the first thing that came to mind when I saw that poster either. But that is precisely what makes this ad so interesting, as all of her previous ads in the series had been up until now - in a way, hers had been the last bastion of male-targeted ads that had presented women like that. New readers might justifiably argue that I’m reading too much into that one ad, but then compare these (mostly) older, more traditional ones still hanging up inside those bars as it was going up: 

True, not all of those are for beer or soju, and given that the decidedly non-virginal Lee Hyori/이효리 was in the third picture, working for a rival company, then the new emphasis on Kim Ah-jung’s “S-line” and the placement of her hand in response was pretty predictable.

In the meantime, the third picture from the bottom is for the medicinal wine Sansachun/산사춘, something also very much on my mind recently. Judging by past commercials, it appears to be primarily marketed towards women, but then I only started thinking about it in the first place because of this now ubiquitous poster with Jeong Ryeo-won/정려원 in it:  

The TV commercials are still definitely aimed towards women, but surely it’s not just me thinking that something’s amiss in that ad? A female friend thought nothing of it, but I still can’t help but think that that particular one would appeal more to men…it certainly works on me. Is the idea that men would like women who drink it? What do readers think?

I’m also tempted to talk about Bronwyn Mullen appearing in so many idiotic beer commercials recently too (example below), but I’ve only just started watching Global Talk Show/미녀들의 수다 to study Korean with, and besides which, Matt at Gusts of Popular Feeling is better qualified then I to write about the subject of non-Koreans on television (see here and here for why). I’ll concentrate on Jeong Ryeo-won instead then, and will find and translate some “news” articles about the new Sansachul ad campaign next week.

Finally, I’d like to refocus on Kim Ah-jung, because less than half an hour after I saw those soju posters of hers, I saw these pictures of her from her school days on the internet:

No, I’m not going to laugh at her for her decidedly unglamorous high-school looks (I can hardly talk), nor lambaste her for (clearly) having had a lot of plastic surgery, which is pretty routine for average Koreans, let alone celebrities. But having watched 200 Pounds Beauty/미녀는 괴로워, like most people enjoying it despite myself, “art imitating life” can’t help but spring to mind after seeing the pictures?

By coincidence, I recently read over at Dramabeans that she’s considering starring in a sequel, which revolves about her regaining the weight. But although the soju ads may arguably have been her most successful “project” since the original movie, I personally predict that a sequel would be a disaster. After all, fat jokes weren’t the reason why so many people liked the first one…but a sequel that probably concentrates on them? Sounds like it would be a Korean version of The Nutty Professor, and about as successful.

If you’re interested in images and the media treatment of women in Korea, and if you’re still reading this despite the unflattering pictures above then you probably still are, then I recommend that you also read Dramabean’s post about real life “200 pounds beauty” Kim Mi-Ryeo/김미려. Unfortunately, real life didn’t quite imitate art in her case.

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My wife has had “morning” sickness all day, much worse than during her first pregnancy, so I’ve been looking after my daughter for most of it, leaving me little time and energy for deep and meaningful posts. Sorry. On top of that, a friend’s inflamed eye has just meant that she has had to suddenly go to hospital rather than meet me for dinner, the fiend, so I’ve decided to relax with some gratuitous shots of Korean women in revealing clothing light posting instead.

Seriously though, I deserve some fun after the monster epic I spent the last week on. It’s also a good excuse to get rid of some links in my favorites folder that I’ve been unable to do anything with, either because they’re just to pictures, or alternatively are to interesting, eminently bloggable articles, but ones about subjects I’ve exhaustively covered already, and don’t feel like returning to at the moment. But my readers may still be interested in those subjects, so I’ll provide those links in the next post. For now though, here are some pictures of Kim Hye-Su/김혜수 and Lee Hyori/이효리 to study Korean with:

These pictures don’t do justice to…er…the originals, more of which you can see here. Why, oh why, is Korea is still described as a “conservative” country by the likes of Lonely Planet and CNN?

As for today’s Korean lesson, all the screenshots are from Mnet, the Korean music channel. number 32 in my part of Busan. It’s a little small, but at the top left they say:

랭킹! 남녀 섹시부위

Which, word for word, means:

Ranking! ManWoman SexyPart.

Your guess is as good as mine. Much more interesting is the Korean writing at the bottom, in what could have been a considerably smaller font I feel:

Still, big enough to see clearly though, the writing I mean, so at least I don’t need to write it out again here. Word for word, it says:

Women’s SexyBeauty as for

Firmly Chest Exposure The Maximum.

No wonder Asian porn sites translation programs sound so strange. Personally I’d translate it more naturally as: “The best part of a woman’s sexiness and beauty is definitely when she exposes her breasts.” I think that’s a bit open to debate myself, as we can’t make an objective judgement until Kim Hye-su and Lee Hyori expose other body parts too…more data points and all. Meanwhile, although readers will be probably be more motivated to study now, I doubt that anyone will have learned too much Korean from the above, so to justify this post’s title I want to concentrate on two parts of two of those words: the “출” in “노출” and the “최” in “최고.”

出

The above is the 한자/hanja, or Chinese character, for “출.” If you don’t know what that means and/or how to memorise Korean vocab this way, click on my “Learning Korean” category and work backwards to number one. Assuming that you have done at some point, then this one has always been one of my favorites: not only is it one of the few ones that actually vaguely looks like the “exit; come out; appear; produce; put forth” that it’s supposed to represent, even in Korea you’ll see it at, well, exits everywhere, let alone in China, Japan, or Taiwan. Here are some words with it in them that you learn pretty quickly if you memorise vocab this way, because the other parts of them derive from other hanja too, some of which I’ve covered in previous posts:

• 출구 - exit
• 출입* - exit/entrance (verb)
• 출국* - leave a country
• 출발* - depart
• 출동* - set off, mobilize
• 외출* - go out
• 출근* - go to work
• 수출* - export
• 출산* - deliver a baby
• 출생* - be born
• 진출* - advance, launch
• 대출* - lend, loan

And so on. And here is the hanja for “최,” which means “the most,” and some sample words:

最

• 최상 - the best
• 최대 - the largest, maximum
• 최소 - the smallest, minimum
• 최하 - the lowest, the most inferior
• 최선 - one’s best
• 최악 - the worst
• 최초 - the very first
• 최후 - the last
• 최신 - the newest
• 최근 - the latest

Finally, I admit that it has nothing to do with learning Korean, but back in September I mentioned that my Korean male colleagues had pictures of Korean women on their laptops at work, and wondered what readers thought of that, considering that it would be completely unacceptable in most mixed-sex Western workplaces. I didn’t know the name of the women on my immediate neighbour’s laptop though, and he didn’t either, but I just happened to come across a picture of her today. Her name is 김준희/Kim Joon-hee, but unfortunately I can’t find anything in English about her, and I really need to work on grammar now rather than surfing the Korean net for biographical information about her. Can any readers help out?

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When I saw this “Internet DJ” video over at Mongdori, I was hooked in…well, in about 10 seconds. Sometimes I really do worry that I’ve been here too long.

In my defence, I did have my incredibly cute 2 year-old daughter singing and dancing to it on my lap when I watched it, and looking after her during the day definitely means I’m not quite as masculine as I used to be. Hell, these days I’m so cute and idiotic myself, I should be on Korean TV teaching English. But seriously, remember that you’re the ones that clicked on a post entitled “the epitome of cute,” so what did you expect? Chicks with Guns? Let those of you without sin cast the first stone and all.

I should also point out that the woman in the video is singing a song by Lee Jung-hyun/이정현 (pics here and here), in whom every red-blooded heterosexual male in Korea had a big interest in back in 2003. I used to watch her music videos to study Korean with:

Sure, that first one was probably the gayest music video ever produced, but this is Korea and all, and I was always too busy looking at Lee Jung-hyun myself to pay much attention myself. If anyone else would like to study Korean via her shaking booty in a very short sailor-moon skirt, let me know (anonymously if you like), and I’ll dig up my notes and write a study-song to the song. I’m thinking I could do with some revision myself.

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(Photo from here, with the caption “Wax 너무 이뻐졌다!! 못알아보겠어” or “Wax has become very pretty! She’s unrecognisable”)

God Works in Mysterious Ways

I would have written this post last night, but for the entire English department failing to tell me (as per usual) that the winter schedule had changed, meaning that I turned up at 1pm, expecting to teach from 2 to 4:30, only to find that the classes were now from 7 to 9:30 instead. Yep, 6 hours to kill, with only a copy of  한국어 일기 4급 to keep me company. If you have any of those books in the series of 6 (here’s level 5 below) then you’ll know that they’re not bad resources per se, they just have a monochrome format and inane topics, typical of Korean study books published around 2000, that mean that they tend to get very tedious after more than an hour spent on them at any one time. Yesterday I managed three, albeit with very lengthy breaks in between.

On the negative side, not studying at Starbucks after work as planned meant that I forgot to refill my coffee supply (Fair Trade of course). Apologies in advance for any mistakes and typos my withdrawal symptoms will cause.

Who is Wax?

Well, if you don’t know the answer to that question, then you probably haven’t been here very long. In 2000, she released “오빠/Oppa,”and culturally speaking it has become to Koreans like Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” to Westerners has. If you’d rather not think about that, then let me do it for you: it was a good song…admit it…but it was played to death at the time, and ultimately turned even the most dedicated fans off it. But whether you loathed it from the beginning, or came to loath it after listening to ad nauseum on the radio for 5 months, 11 years later all of us know the song off by heart, and will hum it when no-one’s watching. And so in a way, it’s become a defining song of our generation. Same with Oppa for Koreans, such a staple at 노래방s or karaoke rooms that it should be included in any university Korean course. But if the song still isn’t ringing any bells, try watching it:

See? Even if you’ve only been here a month, you have heard it before, yes? If you want to know more about the song and Wax herself then read here, and sorry in advance to disappoint, but I already know that it’s based on “She-bop” by Cyndi Lauper (I’m a big fan), and yep, I even know the original risqué subject matter too. If I’ve inspired you to learn Korean through it, then I provide a very detailed guide to the song here.

Her first 3 albums were a mix of stuff like that and some simply…ahem…beautiful ones too, albeit very mellow. This one from the 2nd album called “화장을 고치도” is my favorite, although it’s unfortunate literal English title of “Fixing my Make-up” doesn’t help with accusations that I have completely gay tastes in music. I should let you listen to it yourself, because there’s little point in reading more if you don’t also instantly fall in love with it:

When I typed that I intended to load up my own audio file from the CD, but WordPress is having issues (again), so I found a video on Youtube instead. The number of different videos of it available there surely indicates how popular the song is, but actually that was the first time I’ve seen one, and although I think this one’s okay, in my mind it ultimately detracts from the song. Still, better than nothing.

Unfortunately, all the songs in her 5th and 6th albums were even more mellow, so I’ve been put off listening to any of them for a good 6 months or so. But not too much: watching that has persuaded me to complete my collection with her 4th album and now and her latest 7th album too, and in a few weeks I’ll write a comprehensive study guide to the song: it’s always good to revise after all, and will definitely be a welcome alternative to the…ahem…fourteen practice TOPIK tests I plan to do in the 9 weeks before the test, taking 3 hours each time. As you can see, I really want to stop teaching English pass level 5. In the meantime, you can see a version of the song with the Korean lyrics here, albeit a very wanky “love-themed” one by a fan.

And now for the news about her 7th album, taken from here:

이기찬 윤건 리쌍, 왁스 7집 쇼케이스에 다 모여

‘왁스‘ 앨범에서도 실력발휘 [ 2008-01-15]

“Wax’s Singing Goes From Strength to Strength” - Lee Gi-chan, Yun-gon, Leessang and Wax Announce the Release of Her 7th Album.

가수 왁스가 7집 앨범 ‘여자는 사랑을 먹고’를 공개했다.

The singer Wax has released her 7th album, entitled “Women Eat Love.”

14일 서울 압구정 클럽에서 진행한 ‘쇼케이스’에서 왁스는 ‘눈물만 눈물만’, ‘그랬으면’, ‘그 사람’ 등을 연이어 부르며 변함없는 보컬 실력을 선보였다.

On the 14th of January at the “Showcase” nightclub in Apgu-jeong, Seoul, Wax performed the songs “Only Tears, Only Tears,” “If So,” and “That Person” from her new album, demonstrating that her extraordinary vocal talent has not changed with age.

왁스는 “이번 작업을 할 때는 유난히 재미있게 녹음을 했다”며 음반에 참여한 가수 이기찬과 윤건, 리쌍 등을 호명했다. ‘눈물만 눈물만’을 작곡, 왁스에게 선물한 이기찬은 “앨범이 잘 됐으면 좋겠다”며 7집 성공을 기원했다. 보사노바 풍의 ‘그랬으면’을 선물한 윤건도 “꼭 대박 나길 바란다”고 말했다.

According to Wax, the “recording of this album was exceptionally interesting and fun for me,” and mentioned that singers Lee Gi-chan, Yu-gon, and Leessang had participated in the making of some songs. Lee Gi-chan said that the song “Only Tears, Only Tears” was a gift from him to her and that he was praying for the album’s success. Yu-gon also gifted the song “If So” to her and hoped that it would become a big hit too.

힙합 비트가 녹아있는 ‘그 사람’을 선물한 리쌍은 “발라드 가수에게 곡을 준 것은 처음”이라며 녹음 과정 중 일화를 소개했다. 리쌍은 “녹음할 때 술을 조금 마시고 하는데, 왁스와도 그렇게 했더니 결국 그날 녹음은 할 수 없었다”라고 털어놔 좌중을 즐겁게 했다.

Leessong gifted the song “That Person” to her, which has a hip-hop beat, and the first time he has worked with a ballad singer. He jokingly revealed that he and Wax sometimes drank a little before recording it, but that she would get so tipsy that they were unable to proceed with the recording.

왁스는 “1~6집까지는 가족 같은 분위기에서 늘 같은 분들과 작업했는데 7집은 새로운 분들과 새로운 노력을 해봤다”며 “즐겁게 들어주셨으면 좋겠다”고 말했다.

Wax said that “The styles of the songs in my first six albums were ones that you could very much enjoy with other family members, but I’ve tired to do something new in this album,” and that she hoped listeners would enjoy the change. 

왁스가 1년 만에 발표한 7집 앨범 타이틀 곡 ‘여자는 사랑을 먹고’는 히트 작곡가 박근태가 맡아 여성의 섬세한 심리를 표현했다. 뮤직비디오는 탤런트 김선아와 조한선이 맡아 바닷가를 배경으로 아름다우면서 슬픈 사랑 이야기를 담았다.

The title song of this new album, which took only a year to make, was written by the hit composer Park Gun-tae, and hopes to express women’s more subtle, fine, and delicate feelings about love. The music video was shot at a beach and made with rising talent Kim Son-ah and Jo Han-son, and represents a beautiful but sad love story.

Despite my obvious interest in Wax, actually the motive for today’s translation was getting listening practice but with a sort-of transcript I could refer back to. Hence I found the above article via searching for this interview of her:

And while doing those video searches, I also found this one of her performing a song from the new album.

I’ll let you know more once the CDs arrive, and possibly edit some of the English names I’ve given them.

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(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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(Update: For anyone further interested in Bae Doo-na after reading this, you can find out more about her here, and read a review of Take Care of my Cat here) 

I have a spare hour to study Korean, but am in a bit of a funk and having difficulty getting started. Translating the title to this photo is admittedly not much study-wise, but it’s certainly preferable to giving up and watching Starcraft on TV:

배두나 가슴만 살짝 가린 과감한 의상

Okay, “배두나” is obviously the lovely Bae Doo-na above, who not only starred in the critically acclaimed 2001 Movie 고양이를 부탁해/Take Care of my Cat, but who also is Exhibit A in the argument that small-breasted women don’t automatically need implants to be sexy, a quality which all too many Korean women don’t realise is about attitude more than anything else: if you still don’t believe me, then check out this pre-surgery picture of Lee Hyori too.

But…ahem…this post was about studying Korean:

• We all know that the following word “가슴” literally means “chest,” but it substitutes for “breasts” just like in English. You probably think you’re pretty smart (I did) if you know that “유방,” literally derived from the Chinese characters for “milk” and “room,” also means “breast”, but really that’s just a medical term, rarely used outside hospitals.
• Then, “만” means “only,” and “살짝”  could mean “secretly” or “stealthily,” but because of the context and the next word I think it’ll mean “skillfully, deftly” or “lightly, softly” instead.
• After that, “가린” is the relative pronoun of “가리다,” which has 3 meanings in my electronic dictionary but I’m pretty sure that the “hide, conceal, cover” one is correct.
• Next, “과감한” is the relative pronoun of “과감하다,” which can mean “resolute, determined,” or “bold, daring.”
• Finally, “의상” means “clothes” or “costume.”

Please forgive the pretty but irrelevant avatar, which I’ve inserted because of the formatting issues my WordPress theme is having again. In the meantime, there you have it: Bae Doo-na wears a bold costume that skillfully covers only her breasts.

Hardly Shakespearean prose for sure, but not only am I now officially out of my funk, but I’ve learned 3 new Korean words, relearned one, and have even been inspired to download buy a completely legal copy of the movie I mentioned. Not just for the sake of studying Korean: I’ve been meaning to watch it ever since…well, since I heard how good it was 7 years ago. All in all, not bad for 30 mins work, yes?

Meanwhile, if you feel that the first, resized photo lacks the artistic qualities of the original, then you can download it for yourself here, or alternatively 3 similar photos here. And finally, if you’ve been getting a little demotivated studying Korean yourself, then you can do worse than also checking out the (much more detailed) Parts 1, 2, and 3 of my official Studying Korean Vocab with Hot Korean Women™  series by clicking here, here, and here respectively. After all, there’s little point studying something if you don’t enjoy it.

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I’m already nine hours behind on my resolution to study Korean for an hour a day in 2008, but I can be forgiven for being lax while on vacation. But today is the first Monday since I got back, so it’s high time to start catching up, and can think of much worse ways to practice my Korean skills than checking out the breaking news that 21 year-old BoA has apparently become an adult by, well, appearing in a beer commercial: