The Grand Narrative

(”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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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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Given how much child abuse has become such a topical issue in the Korean blogosphere recently (see here and here for starters), naturally I assumed the worst when I saw the pictures and article below. Fortunately, the truth is completely benign, but…jumping ahead, let’s just say that I have mixed feelings about it.

중고생들 왜이러나? 졸업식 뒤 막장 ‘알몸 뒤풀이’ 2008-02-19

What on Earth are Middle School Students Doing? Naked Graduation Antics

[중앙일보 김진희] 최근 인터넷에 중고생의 ‘알몸 졸업식 뒤풀이’ 사진이 잇따라 올라와 충격을 주고 있다.

[Joong-Ang Ilbo Kim Jin-Hee] Recent Pictures of Middle School Student’s ‘Naked Graduation Antics’ Create Quite a Stir on the Internet

지난 15일 서울 중랑천변에서 남자 중학생 10여명이 졸업 기념으로 벌거벗고 물놀이를 하다가 경찰에 조사를 받은 데 이어 개인 블로그나 주요 커뮤니티에는 전국 곳곳에서 행해진 알몸 뒤풀이 목격담이 이어지고 있다.

On the 15th of February at Jungrang riverside in Seoul, about 10 middle-school boys were observed stripping themselves to celebrate graduating middle-school, prompting a nation-wide police investigation of personal blogs and internet communities with similar accounts of middle-school children stripping.

네티즌 ID’탄젠트’는 “최근 노원역 모 백화점 앞에서 졸업빵 후 교복이 찢겨진 여학생을 실제로 봤다”며 “팬티만 입고 가슴은 손으로 가리고 뛰어가더라”고 전했다. 그는 “밀가루 뿌리고 계란 던지는 일은 봤어도 옷을 찢는 것은 처음 봐 무척 깜짝 놀랐다”고 말했다.

One netizen with the ID ‘Tangent’ was very surprised at seeing some virtually naked female students running in front of a department store in the No-won station area. He or she said that ”their uniforms were ripped and torn, and they were only wearing panties while covering their breasts with their hands,” and added that “Of course, I’ve seen graduating students throwing flour and eggs at each other before, but never anything like this.”

인터넷에 올라오고 있는 사진에는 여학생들이 주로 속옷만 걸친 채 밀가루를 흠뻑 뒤집어 쓰고 있고 남학생들은 속옷까지 벗어 던진 모습이 담겨있다. 네티즌들은 “시대가 변해도 너무 변했다” “도를 넘어섰다”고 비난하고 있다.

Also on the internet are pictures of female students only wearing underwear and covered in flour, and some of boys completely removing their underwear and throwing it away. Netizens are saying that “times have definitely changed,” but criticised the students, saying that behaviour like that is “over the limit.”

문제는 일부 학생들의 일탈 행위가 자칫 유행처럼 번질 수 있고, 졸업식 후에 행해지기 때문에 학생들을 단속하기도 쉽지 않다는데 있다.

Although only a minority of students do things like this, this behaviour has the potential to become a new trend. Unfortunately it is difficult to prevent, as students do it after official graduation ceremonies, when they are unsupervised.

서울 교육청 관계자는 “알몸 뒤풀이는 요즘 들어 많이 나오고 있는 일탈 행위인데 학교 안에서 하지 못하니까 밖에서 하는 것 같다”며 “앞으로 졸업식에서 장학금 지원이나 참고서·교복 물려주기 등 건전한 방식으로 뒤풀이를 하도록 학생들을 지도해야 할 것”이라고 말했다.

According to a spokesperson for the Seoul Education Office, “These nude post-graduation antics are becoming very popular recently, and because they can’t be done at school then they must all be occurring in public,” and so “it is much healthier if we encourage students to give their books and uniforms to their juniors rather than ripping them up, perhaps by offering scholarships to those who set good examples.”

김진희 기자 (Kim Jin-Hee)

(Photo by Sunderban)

For readers not based in Korea, bear in mind that Korean students usually graduate middle school at 16, and so probably just the age difference alone means that graduating middle school is much more important to most Koreans and worthy of celebrating than, say, graduating from my own middle school in New Zealand was to me when I was 12. Hence the antics more usually associated with graduating high school students in Western countries, and my wife says that she got up to similar things at that age, albeit with clothes on, when she graduated herself over ten years ago.

My gut instinct is that this is merely good, clean, harmless fun - God knows Korean teenagers get precious little enough opportunities for that - and that it is pretty tame compared to what many of their Western counterparts get up to. Hell, any complaints from teachers and parents should focus on the risks of pneumonia more than anything else.

On the other hand, I can’t shake off a nagging suspicion that it’s more than just coincidence that these sorts of games start appearing so soon after 16 year-old girls in the bare minimum of clothes have started appearing on Korean TV. Not that I’ve been looking, but I’ve been here 8 years, and it’s the first time I’ve heard of any Korean teenagers doing things like that, let alone ones that young. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that seeing the Wondergirls in mini-skirts and suggestive poses has instantly persuaded formerly innocent and pure Korean girls (and boys) to imitate them. But I do think that although Korean social and sexual mores are quickly changing, and that Korean teenagers would have eventually starting doing things like this regardless (see this post at Gusts of Popular Feeling, for instance, to learn more about the increasing sexualization of Korean teenagers since the mid-1990s), nevertheless the appearance of Korean girl groups surely had some part to play in teenagers doing this in 2008 rather than say, 2010 or 2015? We shouldn’t forget how important they are as role models.

Again, for an excellent summation of all of these issues, see Michael Hurt’s recent post.

(Update 1: There’s a thread about this at Daveseslcafe here, and through that I found an English-language article about it here)

(Update 2: For some videos, see the next post)

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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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(Photo by Yume_Love) 

Blog Plans 

Like Aaron’s post over at East Windup Chronicle has reminded me, I’ve always had a strange mix of subjects on the blog, but I really do seem to have been all over the place recently, with posts like Lee Hyori’s taste in men at one extreme and others like my “Search for the Korean Fantastique” series and Lee Myeong-bak’s plans to disband the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family at another. The former post is light and fun, and - let’s face it - certainly does no harm with getting hits, but the latter posts aren’t some sort of compensation for it. No, really. Actually, it’s more the other way round: these days, I put a lot of time and effort into my long posts, and in the process of writing them I usually learn a great deal about the subject and sometimes even myself too, so much so that, to be honest, I’m really not all that concerned about their popularity. But after sometimes up to a week of writing and research spent on a single post, it’s sure good to unwind with Lee Hyori in a bikini. I’m “rested” now though, and despite this post’s sex-related subject, it marks a return to more serious posts for the next few weeks (hence I didn’t use this photo to accompany it instead). I could also mention that I’m applying for some editing jobs, and with this blog taking pride of place on my resume then that picture of Lee Hyori really needed to be shunted down the page a little, but I’d better not.

Article Choice

After my last choice of subject, I really wanted something more serious to practice Korean with today, and so I started by checking out the “Society” section of the Korean MSN news rather than the “Soft Porn and Smut” “Entertainment” section like I normally do. Unfortunately(?), just like everyone’s eyes are instantly drawn to anything with the word “sex” in it, mine are also drawn to “성” (pronounced “song”), which is the Chinese character “性” meaning “sex” or “nature,” and so I quickly plumped for the link which had “성매매” in the title, which strangely isn’t in any of my dictionaries but I know literally means “sex-buying-selling,” or prostitution. Seeing as I have the Bible of Korean Study in front of me as I type this, let me warm my brain up and offer something to readers beginning to study Korean by mentioning some sex-related words with “성”  in them:

• 성규육 - sex education
• 성기 - sexual organ
• 성욕 - sexual desire
• 성교 - sexual intercourse
• 남성 - man
• 여성 - woman
• 동성 - same sex
• 이성 - opposite sex
• 성병- …

(Photo by isto-ica)

And so on. I should note that the “성” in “성인,” or “adult” is a different Chinese character - (成) - which also has the “성” sound in Korean but means ” to complete,” and so you have “complete person” = “adult.” Also, many of the words above are only medical and/or legal terms really, Koreans usually saying “섹스하다,” or literally “sex do” instead of “성교하다” or “sex exchange” for instance, but you get the idea. If I’ve piqued your interest in this vocab-learning method, then then try to figure out what “성병” means for starters (hint: what’s a “병원”?) and then check the second half of this post out for more. Now for the more difficult stuff:

교육부, 중고생에 “성매매한적 있냐” 설문 물의

Controversy Arises as Education Department asks Middle and High School Students: “Have you engaged in prostitution?”

교육인적자원부가 학생 정신건강 관리를 위한 설문조사를 시.교육청에 하달하면서 학생들의 수치심을 자극하는 부적절한 설문을 문항에 포함시켜 물의를 빚고 있다.

A planned survey of middle and high school students by the HR Department of the Ministry of Education has aroused shame and controversy with it’s inappropriate questions.

11일 교육부에 따르면 ‘청소년 정신건강 및 문제행동 선별 행동지’에는 원조교제, 성폭력 경험 여부를 묻는 질문이 포함됐다.

Yesterday, the Department said that city and regional education offices will give a survey entitled “Teenage Mental Health and Behavioral Problems” to students which will ask, amongst other things, if they have experienced sexual violence and/or engaged in prostitution.

교육부는 이같은 내용의 설문지가 포함된 ‘2008학생정신건강관리방안’을 하달하고 이 지침을 기본으로 시ㆍ도교육청 여건에 맞게 구체적인 계획을 수립ㆍ추진하라고 지시했다.

These survey questions will be included as part of the Ministry’s 2008 ‘Student Mental Health Care Plan,’ and aimed to obtain concrete data about each city and region’s individual circumstances.  

학년, 반, 번호, 실명이 기재되는 이 설문지는 (지난 한달간)’여자(남자)친구와 성행위를 하고 있다’, ‘원조교제나 성매매를 한 적이 있다’, ‘성폭력을 당하거나 한적 있나’ 등을 물었다.

Completion of the survey will be mandanatory for students, and they will have to include their year, class, student number, and real name. The questions will ask if students have, in the last month: engaged in a sexual act with a boyfriend or girlfriend; had a “compensated date”; and if they have engaged in prostitution.

(”원조교제” is the Korean term for “compensated dating,” which refers to teenage girls having sex with an older men for money. If you’re interested, I wrote two posts about it last year here and here, and more recently I discussed some news about this phenomenon in Japan here. As for today’s translation, I have no idea why the survey makes a distinction between it and “성매매,” which like I said just refers to “prostitution”?)

(Photo by Suzÿ_Quzÿ)

교육부는 이들 문항을 ‘위험문항’으로 분류하고 원점수 총점이 기준점수 이하라도 위험문항에 대한 긍정반응(2점이상)을 보였다면 심층면접이나 정밀점진이 필요한 학생으로 포함키시라고 지시했다. 설문결과 정밀검진이 필요한 학생의 정신전강정보는 반드시 가정에 통보해 정신보건센터, 병.의원을 통한 치료를 받도록 했다. 선별검사결과를 통보할 때는 반드시 담임교사가 직접 방문하거나 유선으로 통보하도록 했다.

If students answer “yes” to 2 or more of these and similar questions, then teachers will be obliged to notify the student’s parents, and then contact a medical health center, with the aim of ensuring that students that need an examination will receive one. When notifying parents, teachers will be under strict instructions to do so face to face or by phone if necessary.

교육부는 오는 3월까지 학생정신건강 실태조사 실시학교를 선정하고 5~6월 학생.학부모.학교관계자에 대한 교육을 진행한 뒤, 전국 245개 학교를 대상으로 선별검사를 실시할 예정이다.

245 schools to be surveyed will be selected by March, and then the survey will be carried out in May or June.

이에 대해 교사 A씨는 “이 설문의 실효성이 있을지 의문”이라며 “성관계, 원조교제 여부를 묻는데 누가 사실대로 응답하겠느냐”고 지적했다. 국가청소년위원회 청소년성보호팀 천상기 팀장도 “실명으로 이같이 물으면 본인의 인권에 문제가 있다고 보여진다”며 “보통 소속이나 반 같은 것은 공개하지 않고 설문을 하지 않느냐”고 말했다.

Of the planned survey, one anonymous teacher complained: “If students have to give their real names, who on Earth is going to answer that they have engaged in prostitution?” Cheon Sang-gi, the head of the National Teenager Committee’s Teenage Sexual Health Protection Team (James: hell, you come up with a better translation!), agreed, saying that “having to reveal their names is a violation of students’ fundamental human rights,” and that “if their answers are going to be revealed to teachers and parents, then the questions simply should not be asked.” 

한편 지난달에는 국책연구기관인 한국직업능력개발원(원장 이원덕)이 전국 전문계고 학생 등 수천 명을 대상으로 ‘성폭행(가담)과 부모 이혼 여부’ 등을 물어 물의를 빚은 바 있다.

Meanwhile, this planned survey comes on top of a similar one recently conducted by the Korean Industrial Development Center (Head: Lee Won-dog), which asked several thousand students nationwide if they had participated in sexual acts and if their parents were divorced.

And there you have it. On the one hand, it is ludicrous that so much time and money will be going into what will be a completely useless survey, but at least some teachers and individuals have the sense to notice this and the gumption to point it out. Meanwhile, please focus on the gist of the translation and not specific terms I’ve chosen, as the ”National Teenager Committee’s Teenage Sexual Health Protection Team” for instance, rolls off the tounge very well in Korean, but that monstrosity will hopefully never been seen again in English. And the connotations in one language, lacking in another? Please don’t bring that up either, otherwise the only translations I’ll do will be of the “See Spot Run” variety!

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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:

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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Despite sunning myself in Perth, Australia for the last two weeks, I’d like to point out to my doubting friends that I have indeed been using the Korean textbook I brought with me: it’s been just great for swatting flies and placing cold bottles of beer on. Not only that, but once I even opened it, albeit merely to protect my face from the sun while the rest of me tanned.

Still, tomorrow the family leaves for Auckland, New Zealand for two weeks (life is tough), and even though we’ll be staying in a downtown yogwan/여관-cum-motel just next to my old university, this time round there really will be nothing to do but stay in and study once my 18 month-old daughter is asleep at 8:30…hmmm, except posing roller-blading along the 20km-long water-side cycle track starting from downtown while my wife stays at “home”…hmmm again…but seriously, we’ll be there during New Years, and one of my resolutions is to study Korean like a maniac for the first 12 weeks of 2008 and pass an advanced level (5 or 6) of the TOPIK test in March. Career-wise, Korean life-style wise, nothing else really matters.

But not having studied in so long, I’d better start with translating something simple, but motivating:

쥬얼리 새멤버 하주연 김은정 사진 전격 공개

New Members of Jewelry Ha Ju-yeon and Kim Eun-jeong Reveal Racy Photos 

[뉴스엔 김경민 기자], [Newsen, Kim Gyeong-min reporting]

4인조 여성그룹 쥬얼리 2기 멤버들의 모습이 최초로 공개됐다.

Four girl-group Jewelry reveal that they have two new members (James -well, I guess two had already left, so now it’s four again).

쥬얼리 소속사 스타제국측은 24일 오후 싸이월드 타운홈피(http://town.cyworld.com/starempire)를 통해 기존 멤버 박정아 서인영을 포함한 쥬얼리 2기 하주연 김은정의 모습을 전격공개했다.

Starempire, to which Jewelry are closely affiliated, on the afternoon of the 24th revealed through it’s cyworld site (http://town.cyworld.com/starempire) that Ha Ju-yeon and Kim Eun-jeong will be joining remaining existing members Park Jeong-ah and Seo In-yeong.

특히 하주연은 중견 탤런트 하재영의 친딸로 서인영의 솔로 타이틀곡 ‘너를 원해’활동 당시 랩 피처링을 맡아 세간의 이목을 끌기 시작했다.

Ha Ju-yeon in particular will start to receive a lot of attention from the public, because she is the daughter of the middle-aged celebrity Ha Jae-yeong and has already provided background rap vocals to the Jewelry singer Seo In-yeong’s solo work entitled “I want you.”

김은정은 86년생으로 얼굴이 전혀 알려지지 않은 신인이다. 노래, 춤과 함께 빼어난 미모까지 갖춘 것으로 전해진 김은정은 스타제국 오디션을 통해 선발된 순수한 새내기인 것으로 전해졌다.

Kim Eun-jeong meanwhile, was born in 1986 and is a completely new face. But her dancing and singing skills made her really stand out to Starempire executives at her audition, and will help convey a very fresh, new image to the group.

하주연 김은정을 전격영입한 쥬얼리 2기는 2008년 1월 중순 5집 앨범을 발매하고 본격적인 활동에 나설 예정이다.

This Jewelery “version 2.0″ with Ha Ju-yeon and Kim Eun-jeong plan to actively promote Jewelry’s fifth album once it goes on sale from the middle of next month.

Yes, I know I said I wanted a more serious look for the blog, but I may have gone overboard recently, and besides which if any future employers have any problems with me putting these pictures up on a Christmas Day, then I don’t particularly want to work for them anyway. With that caveat out of the way, I think that this ”article” really works for me is good for studying Korean with too:

이효리, 깜찍한 산타로 변신

Lee Hyori Transformed into a Saucy Santa

이효리가 크리스마스를 앞두고 산타로 깜짝 변신했다.

For the time being (James- this was from the 13th), Lee Hyori has been transformed into a saucy, precocious santa.

이효리는 자신이 전속 모델로 있는 KB카드의 성탄절용 온라인 광고를 위해 최근 화보 촬영을 했다.

Lee Hyori has produced photos exclusively for use in advertisements for a special KB credit card to be used in the Christmas season.

이효리는 이번 화보에서 어깨를 드러낸 빨간 산타 복장과 모자를 걸쳐서 섹시함을 과시해 눈길을 끌었다.

In these photos, Lee Hyori has exposed her shoulders in a red santa suit, and with her red hat thrown on shows off a look full of sexiness.

Sorry, I would look for more of Lee Hyori’s photos mentioned, but the 45 degree heat here seems to have slowed down the internet down a lot (sure as hell has slowed me down) and strangely pictures of women in bikinis things from Korea in particular seem to take forever to load up here. Hopefully things will be quicker in New Zealand from Thursday.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy your Christmas, and be grateful that you get the day off - it’s not a holiday in Japan. And if you’re jealous of my 4 week vacation in the sun…well, so you should be…but remember that I hadn’t been back in 6 years, and rest assured that I will be back in cold, freezing, grey Busan in mid-January. After all, on what other line of longitude could you fly 7500km north and find women wearing exactly the same short skirts and hot pants, despite a 40 degree temperature difference between your departure and arrival points?

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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,