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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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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(”Lick Me Baby” by Renato Piereck)

Back on Wednesday I briefly discussed an advertisement for the Korean drink sansachul that confused me, for the drink had always been marketed towards women, but that particular ad was clearly aimed more at men. I wondered if it was just me that saw the ad that way, or if it was part of a new marketing strategy by the Baesangmyeon Brewery Company that made it, and promised to find press releases and translate them next week to find out. I’ve decided to begin now instead though, partially to practice Korean, and partially to displace the previous post about problems with a troll (still important, but it’s not good for first impressions to have it at the head of the blog).

I’ve also found much much more than I thought, and I’ve realised that the subject combines well with many books and journal articles on consumerism and women’s issues in Korea that I’ve read and had sitting around in my apartment for years, but never really had a chance to blog about. So then, practicing Korean vocab, a combination of light translations and serious academic posts (but easily less than 1500 2000 3000 words), the word “sex” easily insertible into most post titles…what more could a geekish, hit-seeking blogger want? Hence I’ve decided to run with the topic for a while, probably at least until my Korean test in 5 weeks. I’m looking forward to writing about it, but in passing I must apologise, for doing so marks the end to any pretence that I will eventually cover the subjects promised earlier in the year. Apologies to those readers interested in them, but in hindsight some subjects are simply not bloggable, either because of the dry subject matter or the length of the posts required.

Having said all that, tonight’s translation is rather short and easy, primarily to get the ball rolling. Apologies if some readers don’t like the format, but I’ve returned to including translations directly under each line or paragraph again. There will be the odd mistake, and I think that presenting them this way makes it much easier for myself and others to spot them and correct them. And please do let me know if you find anything or have any questions about the translations; even in the rare case that I’ve made a perfect translation in a technical sense, choices of the equivalent English words can still be very subjective.

정려원, 이효리 김아중과 ‘전쟁‘…‘산사춘‘ 9대 모델

War with Jeong Ryeo-won, Lee Hyori and Kim Ah-jung…Sansachun Announces it’s Ninth Model

(12th December 2007)

배우 정려원이 (주)배상면주가의 대표 브랜드 ‘산사춘’의 9대 모델로 발탁되었다.

A Baesangmyeon Brewery Company spokesperson has announced that the company has selected actor Jeong Ryeo-won to be the ninth model to lead an advertising campaign for its drink sansachul. 

배상면주가 측은 “정려원이 이미연, 신은경, 이효리, 김정은, 한고은, 한가인, 황보라, 윤진서 등에 이어 산사춘 광고 모델로 뽑혔다”고 밝혔다.

According to the spokesperson, previous models used in advertising campaigns have included, amongst others, Lee Me-yeon, Shin Un-gyeong, Lee Hyori, Han Go-un, Hwang Bo-ra and Yun Jin-seo. (James: you can see all of them here).

배상면주가 브랜드를 거친 모델 중에 이효리와 김아중(자청비)이 현재 소주 시장을 양분하는 ‘처음처럼’과 ‘참이슬’의 모델로 활동하고 있어 연말 미녀들의 주류 전쟁이 이어질 것으로 보인다.

Lee Hyori and Kim Ah-jung, previous models that have represented the Baesangmyeon brand (Kim Ah-jung was in ads for the drink jachungbi- see below), currently represent rival soju drinks ‘Like the first time’ and ‘Chamisul’ respectively, and have split the soju market (James: read more about that here)

정려원은 지난달 26일 포스터 촬영을 했고 12월 7일 TV 광고 촬영을 마쳤다.

New posters of advertisments featuring Jeong Ryeo-won started apprearing on the 26th of November, and the shooting of TV commericals finished on the 7th of December (James: here’s one of the commercials below).

이번 포스터 및 TV 광고 촬영에서 자연스러운 표정 연기와 부드러운 몸짓을 통해 밝고 명랑하고 스타일리쉬한 매력을 발산하며 주체적 여성의 모습인 산사춘의 캐릭터를 잘 표현해냈다는 평가를 받았다.

In the shooting of these posters and TV commercials, the company wants Jeong Ryeo-won to present a bright, cheerful and stylish image through natural expressions, soft gestures, and especially to express sansachun’s basic feminine character and appeal.

And so there you have it, straight from the horse’s mouth. But if you think I was over-analysing Jeong Ryeo-won’s advertisement I include in that earlier post, then let me present you with this one of Kim Ah-jung’s for jachungbi below, also supposedly marketed towards women:

You don’t need to have bought a body language book by Allan Pease (although it’ll easily be the best use of $15 you’ll ever make) to know that she’s standing in the female equivalent of the sexually-aggressive “Cowboy Stance.” The question is why? Is the drink, in fact, aimed more at men? Or is the idea that women would want to emulate the attractive, sexually-aggressive woman in the ad? I suspect (and wholeheartedly applaud) the latter, but my point made in earlier posts is that the latter is relatively new in alcohol advertisements here, although it has been around for many different products on TV for years, most notably in ads featuring Jeon Ji-hyun/전지현 (see here for examples). Does that trend now being replicated in print media mean that it’s becoming (relatively) socially acceptable for women to publicly (very many always did privately) assert themselves romantically and/or sexually in Korea? Or is it all just “porn-chic” transplanted from the West, where skin, simulated sex in music videos, and just general sluttiness is almost de rigeur for female celebrities now? If so, not even I would argue that it’s “empowering” somehow.

(Update: If anyone’s interested in the beginnings of the porn-chic phenomenon, the 1999 New York Times article “The Mainstream Flirts With Pornography Chic” is a good place to start)

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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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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:

While my interest in the ad in this post is primarily in getting more hits practicing Korean, the ad does tie in with this some observations I made in this November post about alcohol advertisements in Korea. In a nutshell, I learned that soju ads are primarily aimed at men and so have attractive women in them, and the opposite applies to beer ads, but at the end of that post I mentioned the recent ads below for “ass-beer” “S-beer”, which seems to buck the trend by using a woman to advertise the beer to women, the idea being that the extra fibre in it makes them slimmer and healthier than if they drink other beers. I’m not much of beer drinker, but I hear that ”S-beer” is not exactly going to take the world by storm, and I wondered in the earlier post if this syle of ad was a one-off or the start of a new trend.

As I type this, I’m about to translate this article about BoA’s ad, and hopefully it will place it into some kind of context (stop laughing). If not, then I apologise for not searching harder for one from the plethora available that did (it’s clearly a very important news story), but instead I chose not only the longest one I could find, but also one with a video of her dancing sluttily at the end of it (hope that’s okay). The former criterion, at least, is in line with my other 2008 Korean-study resolutions about only translating articles that may actually have something to say, and not only that I’m also going to try and figure out what she’s actually saying in the ad:

보아의 솔직한 맥주 이야기 #1 ((Written) BoA’s honest beer story #1)

아~. 나 오늘 지짜 수고했어. 그래…수고했으니까 이 정도는 해줘야지. 나를 위해서 뭐 이런거 있잖아요. (Ahhh~. Today I really did work hard and do a good job. Well…because I did a good job I deserve this, yes?)

솔직하게 Open up! 히트. (Honestly open up! Hite.)

I confess, nothing in that I didn’t understand, but it was so fast that I couldn’t make out half of it, and needed my wife’s help. Now for the article: 

보아, 첫주류 CF…’당당한 숙녀’

[백민재 기자/2008-01-14 09:42]

Boa, First Alcoholic Beverage Commercial…’Dignified Lady’

[Reporter: Baek Min-jae]

이제는 어엿한 숙녀가 된 가수 보아가 2008년 하이트 맥주의 새로운 광고 모델로 발탁됐다. 생애 첫 주류 CF인 것.

BoA, who has down turned into a respectable and decent lady in 2008 (James: Ahem…did the reporter even see the video at the end of his own report?) has been selected to appear in Hite Beer advertisements. This is the first time in her career that BoA has appeared in an advertisement for an alcoholic beverage.

이번 하이트맥주의 신규 CF는 모델의 솔직한 리얼 토크 형식의 촬영 기법을 시도했다.

In this new type of Hite Beer Ad, the models will try out a technique of giving honest “real talk” about their experiences.

이에 새로운 하이트 맥주CF에서 보아의 모습은 촬영을 위해 연출된 것이 아닌 취중 토크 상황. 보아가 CF안에서 맥주를 마시며 털어놓는 이야기들은 지금껏 한 번도 공개된 적이 없는 개인적인 이야기라는 후문이다.

Accordingly, this new “real talk” style of Hite Beer ad was not set up deliberately, but was just shot while she was relaxing over drinks (James: Yeah, right). In this ad, BoA, who until now has never publicly revealed anything about when she’s drunk beer, gives some personal anecdotes.

술을 못 마시는 편은 아니라고 주량을 밝힌 보아는 리얼한 모습을 카메라 속에 담아내기 위해 6시간 가까이 진행된 촬영에도 “연습으로 쌓인 스트레스를 풀며 맥주도 마실 수 있어 좋다”며 촬영장 분위기를 화기애애하게 만들었다.

In order to get a real talk style from BoA, a camera followed her closely for 6 hours. By revealing that she’s not a heavy drinker, but drinks quite often and thinks it is good to relieve stress and unwind after singing and/or dancing all day, BoA produced a relaxed atmosphere on the set.

하이트 관계자는 “이번 신규CF는 스타의 화려한 모습 이면에 숨겨진 당당하고 솔직한 인간적인 면모를 보여줄 수 있는 모델을 선정하기 위해 고심을 거듭했다”며 “이에 첫 번째 광고 모델로 아시아를 넘어 글로벌 스타로 끊임없이 도전하고 노력하는 보아를 모델로 선정하게 됐다”고 밝혔다.

According to a Hite spokesperson, “for this new style of advertisement, we took great pains to choose a star who could bring forth a magnificent and refined image on the one hand, but also an honest and human one.” The spokesperson added that “for the first ad in this new series, BoA was chosen because she is a star that ceaselessly craves new challenges, and whom can appeal to a global rather than just an Asian audience.”

한편, 보아의 솔직한 모습으로 시청자의 눈길을 사로잡은 새로운 하이트 광고 ‘보아의 솔직한 맥주 이야기 편’은 지난 1월 12일부터 첫 전파를 탔다.

This new honest side of BoA is expected to captivate viewers. This first ad in the series was released on January the 12th.

Jolly good. Not a penetrating examination of Korean social mores, but I did get some new Korean vocab out of it.

That’s my one hour of Korean study for today done then, yippee, but now I have to continue with something else to make some inroads into my minus-nine hours deficit! I’ll get stuck on that, but in the meantime the original article did have an extremely relevant video of BoA performing at the end of it, and I would be doing the original journalist and my readers a great disservice by not presenting it myself:

(Edit: I did originally have the article’s video of BoA dancing up here, sorry, but it started automatically (and very noisily) every time I looked at the blog, and I didn’t want that hanging around on the blog forever (it always really puts me off sites myself). I couldn’t break my promise of a video though, so I’ve included this video of a song of hers I like instead, and may even use to study Korean sometime. But if you feel that she isn’t dancing sluttily enough in it that doesn’t do justice to the orginal article’s high journalisic standards…then, well, I’m terribly sorry, but don’t despair, for the original video is a mere click away)

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Well, actually I’ve just spent all day updating my About page, but if you can think of a more interesting but not completely misleading post title, then please let me know. And in my defence, I am a geek as you know, it was a very cold, dreary and foggy day out there today, and seeing as how my I last wrote it when the blog was at 11 posts, and this one makes 98, then a revamp was waaay overdue. The last one was also…ahem… 3137 words, but the new one is only 1550, still much too long I’m sure, but I did try to follow some blogging advice when I wrote it, so hopefully it won’t scare off too many new visitors. Sure, a picture of me in there may ultimately defeat that purpose, but wisely one of Alice and my wife comes first, and mine is towards the bottom.

Before I forget, thanks to everybody who left comments in the original, and I do still have them stored on my C-drive, but it didn’t really seem appropriate to transfer them over to the new page sorry.

Other than that thrilling stuff, I have found something readers might be interested in. If you enjoyed my post on the way women are presented in soju ads in Korea, and then my update, then I highly recommend you check out this much more thorough post on critically analysing Korean advertisements by Michael Hurt, which I wish I’d found before I started writing myself.

(Update 4th December: I’ve just found this post on the ads in the blog East Windup Chronicle too, and another from a Korean’s perspective, with more pictures, here). 

Finally, the post seemed lacking without a picture, so when I first put up this post last night I presented this nice one of Lee Hyori in a summer dress, I think the first time I’ve ever seen her wearing one. But in the cold light of day I remembered that I’m beginning to get many links saying things like “Read this, it’s good, but it’s NSFW,” which I think is a bit of an exaggeration, at least the NSFW part, but to be fair a new visitor coming to the site would definitely get the impression that it’s just about Korean women in bikinis…not quite the scholarly image I wanted to present. Don’t worry, I’m not getting all puritanical, and pictures like that will always have a special place in my heart on the blog, just much less often in future, and I’ll no longer be putting up random ones almost completely unrelated to a post’s content anymore. Sorry, but if you knew that 80% of the visitors to your blog looked for less than 5 seconds, then you would get a little less enamoured of the hits that the pictures generated too!

If pictures are what you’re after, I recommend you check out my posts at ZR5 Asian News. Sure, there’s only two at the moment, but I write one more each week. Meanwhile, time to get more serious on this blog then, just like Song Hye-gyo/송혜교:

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(Update 6th December: When I heard that Lee Hyori had signed an advertising contract with Doosan Soju, I never expected ads like this!)

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about the way Korean women are portrayed in soju advertisements here, curious as to why the cheap national paint-stripper otherwise known as “soju” was usually advertised with such innocent and virginal images of women, like this one of Kim Ah-joong’s above. But some of the ads I looked at were more of the “drink this and this gorgeous girl will want to have sex with you” type, and I’ve personally noticed that restaurants in university districts in particular will have much more of these. From an…ahem…feminist perspective, I think the change is great: sure, women’s bodies are still being objectified, but 5 mins looking at the rest of the blog will demonstrate that I don’t have too much of a problem with that, and like I just explained in my last post, if Korean society expects women to remain virgins until they’re married, but not men, then that begs the question of whom exactly the men are supposed to have sex with. Ergo, it’s not the reality at all, unmarried Korean women like having sex too (or so I’ve heard), so my point here is that surely virtually any acknowledgement of that in the Korean media is a step in the right direction?

Bearing all that in mind, while Lee Hyori wouldn’t be the least virginal and innocent female “talent” in the Korean public imagination, she’d be up there (if in doubt look below, and if you’re still not entirely convinced, here and here too). So, is this a watershed in Korean feminism, or nothing more than a great excuse to put up some more pictures of Lee Hyori on the blog? Having made my preconceptions and biases clear, let me translate the article comparing the two ad campaigns and see:

이효리 vs 김아중, 소주대전 ‘후끈’

Lee Hyori vs Kim Ah-Joong: An Intense Rivalry

소주 브랜드 ‘참이슬’과 ‘처음처럼’으로 맞붙고 있는 진로와 두산의 소주대전이 미녀 광고모델전으로 번지고 있다.

Jinro’s “Chamisul” soju’s intense rivalry with Doosan’s new variety “Like the first time” is spreading to the models and stars used in advertisements.

두산 주류(대표 한기선)는 소주 브랜드인 ‘처음처럼’의 3대 모델로 ‘이효리’를 기용했다고 20일 밝혔다. 계약기간은 6개월이다. 이효리는 앞으로 처음처럼의 모델로 주요 광고와 프로모션에 활동을 전개하게 된다.

On the 20th of this month, Doosan’s representative Han Gi-seon announced that Lee Hyori had signed a contract to appear in Doosan advertisements, promotions and other activies for the next 6 months, the third high-profile star to do so for the company.

지난해 처음처럼 출시이후 소주시장 내 돌풍을 일으켰던 두산주류는 1대 ‘이영아’, 2대 ‘구혜선’에 이어 이번에 ‘이효리’를 모델로 선정해 내년 마케팅 활동에 박차를 가할 예정이다.

After “Like the first time” was suddenly introduced onto the soju market last year, Doosan first signed a similar contract with Lee Yeong-ae and then Gu Hye-seon. This third contract with Lee Hyori will further accelerate this new trend of using high-profile stars in soju marketing campaigns.

두산주류는 이번 광고계약으로 최고의 인기를 구가하고 있는 이효리를 활용해 처음처럼의 부드러움을 소비자들에게 각인시킨다는 전략이다.

Through this contract with Lee Hyori, the most popular star in Korea, Doosan wants to present a softer image to consumers while continuing its new star-based adverstisment strategy. 

두산 관계자는 “최고의 주가를 올리고 있는 이효리를 모델로 기용해 처음처럼의 부드러운 맛뿐만 아니라 활기차면서도 밝은 이미지로 젊은 층은 물론 폭넓은 연령대의 소비자들에게 좋은 반응을 얻을 것으로 기대한다”고 말했다.

According to interested parties, this news of the new contract with Lee Hyori has “pushed Doosan stock prices to new highs, and through her ad campaigns Doosan aims not only to show that ‘Like the first time’  has a soft mellow taste (!?!!?- James) but expects that they will also help to present a fresh, bright image to young consumers.”

이에 앞서 진로는 지난 9월 ‘참이슬 후레쉬’의 광고모델로 영화 ‘미녀는 괴로워’의 배우 김아중을 캐스팅했다.

In the meantime, before Doosan’s announcement Jinro has already been using Kim Ah-Joong, the star of 200 Pound Beauty, in its ad campaigns for its “Chamisul Fresh” brand of soju.

이로써 진로와 두산은 각각 이효리와 김아중을 모델로 내세워 연말 소주 판촉전을 치열하게 벌일 전망이다. 진로와 두산은 지난해부터 저도주 출시와 함께 소주시장 점유율, 첨가물 등을 놓고 치열한 공방을 벌여왔다.

In light of these developments in the soju industry, Doosan and Jinro are now intensively engaged in a “soju war.” This rivalry comes on top of an already fierce competition for market share in low-strength alcohol beverages that they began last year. 

(My personal favorite. Many more pictures like those available here)

As you can see, I’ve decided to go back to my original format for translations of articles. It does make the English a little more tiring to read, sorry, but as a good proportion of people who actually read the blog are interested in learning Korean, then I think the line-by-line format makes it much easier for people to keep track of things. Especially of mistakes (please don’t be shy to point them out), and I have to admit that I paraphrase roughly 95% of the time am sometimes prone to paraphrase things, partially because I often find the exact meaning of some Korean text very different to pin-down, and so could easily translate it many different but similar ways, but also because I’m usually finishing posts when I should be in bed, so errors can creep in that way too.

(I could also mention that all the above is really BS, and I’m actually writing this way again because it makes translations infinitely easier for me to type up, but that would be much too candid)

Now, all of the above was written on Sunday morning before I left to go to Seoul, and I took my laptop up with me thinking I could finish it while I was there, but in my friend’s cramped apartment it proved impossible. But the delay turned out to be good timing in the end though, because today Korea Beat has translated an article from the Hankyoreh about why men are featured in beer ads here and women in soju ads, something I’ve never noticed in 7 years here and despite all my recent attention on the subject. If you’ve read this far then I’m sure you’ll be interested in that one too, so I recommend you check it out, and it actually adds a few more details to today’s topic. To reciprocate, I should point out that while men are featured in beer ads here to to increase beer’s appeal to women, like Korean Beat says, if you go out drinking these days it’s difficult not to miss this ad which is still aimed at women but which has an attractive woman in it, the idea presumably being that if you drink the “fiber beer” you won’t get as fat as if you drink normal beer. Thanks to Max Watson for the poster and links.

That’s the first women’s body-focused beer ad for women I’ve ever seen here, so it’s too early to say if it will be one-off or a new trend. Personally, when I first saw the TV ad it reminded me of the shampoo advert/soft porn in What Women Really Want of a voluptuous blonde running in the sand, and Mel Gibson turning off that crap that clearly some guy had come up with (not that that automatically makes it bad, but you get the idea). Although I don’t think I have many female readers (I can’t imagine why), I’d be really interested in hearing their opinions on the above ad, but if I may hazard a guess I think some women out there may well be persuaded to buy the drink: since I bought the brilliant book An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture by Dominic Strinati in 2000, amongst other reasons, I can’t say I’ve consciously bought a product because I wanted to be just like the guys in the ads in maybe 10 years, but I can recall several occasions in which I did before then, and of course we are all still influenced by ads, even Korean ones. So I’ll be interested to see how popular this “women’s beer” does become.

And as for my original question on the significance of somewhat less than virginal-looking Lee Hyori in soju advertisements? I think my original take on it is still correct, and in 20 years time Korean sociology students may well be taught that the ads were a watershed in the portrayal of Korean women in the media, in turn being either a spur to or reflection of changes to notions of women’s sexuality in Koreans society…or they may not. Even I should end further speculation at this point, and get back to enjoying the pictures go to bed.

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(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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