The Grand Narrative

 ( “Ignite Your Beauty” by yangkuo)

Introduction

As requested (and no, that wasn’t really me), here is the second part of my examination of Keiko Tanaka’s chapter entitled ”Japanese Women’s Magazines: the language of aspiration” in the book The Worlds of Japanese Popular Culture: Gender, Shifting Boundaries and Global Cultures, edited by D.P. Martinez (1998).

I’ll take up pretty much where part one left off, again underlining examples Tanaka gives to distinguish them from her commentary, but before I do, let me second the photographer’s suggestion that the above photo is much better viewed large (just click on it). I’m not really interested in Misaki Ito (安斉 智子), but it really is a very aesthetically pleasing shot. I was especially thrilled to find this news article via the notes to the photo too, especially after I wrote this, but unfortunately it’s no longer available.

The Prescriptive Character of Contemporary Women’s Magazines (Continued)

( “Kawaii” by yangkuo)

I think that part one’s examples of the authoritative, teacher-like language used in Japanese women’s magazines speak for themselves, but in hindsight Tanaka’s next point about how unique they are is much more important than I first thought. This is because Japan is well known as an authoritarian, rank and status-conscious, patriarchal society….yada yada yada…and so it would be natural to attribute the examples to that, and to think that all Japanese magazines use similar styles of language too. But actually, and very significantly, it’s only women’s magazines that do so. Like Tanaka says:

In their attempt to nurture young women readers, these magazines use imperatives and other prescriptive expressions in a way which is unusual in Japanese society. Even in situations where imperatives are commonly used in English, Japanese equivalents are not:

Whip the cream until it just holds its shape, then fold into the cheese with the caster sugar.

One thinly slices two onions. One chops two rashers of bacon into pieces approximately 1 centimeter long.

Or, again, as in a bilingual computer manual, in which the instructions “Expand the phrase…Press Return” become:

One expands the phrase…One presses the return key (p. 122, emphasis added)

I can’t speak any Japanese at all, but I do know that what Tanaka says of the use of imperatives in Japanese, that they are usually confined to family, close friends or, indeed, teachers, is true of Korean, as is the contrast between this “authoritarian and intimate” language of women’s magazines and that normally used in advertisements too:

[Whereas] the use of imperatives is frequent in English advertisements, notably seen in verbs such as “buy”, “choose”, and “get”….Japanese equivalents are hardly ever in the imperative, though imperative expressions crop up here and there; however, they tend to be vague when it comes to what the audience is urged to do, as in:

Those who are walking, stop for a while.

Oh, come and play.

It is September. Please find something good. (pp. 122-123)

It’s still tempting not to read this much into the prescriptive language used; it’s hardly surprising that young Japanese women, after being treated like children for most of their lives (just like in Korea) would gravitate towards magazines that used the authoritative, reassuring language that they were used to. Hence, in a kind of demand and supply snowball effect:

Japanese women’s magazines…seem to have developed a style which their audience takes to, or at least accepts, just as [it has been argued] that the American tabloid press has. While the latter achieves this “largely through its departures from official (correct) language” and has “a tone of disrespect running through it”, Japanese women’s magazines manage it by appropriating the language of the classroom and a prescriptive tone. (p. 123)

Does This Mean That Japanese Women Are Merely Weak, Passive Consumers?

( “Photo Technic” by yangquo. Also best viewed large)

Tanaka admits that the common thread of all the examples she gives is the way in which the magazines seem to “stand in for authority figures vis-a-vis their readers.” They also, to judge from the language used:

…treat their readers as pupils who aspire to achieve standards defined by the editors. Considering the popularity of these magazines, there appears to be no shortage of pupils who have failed to outgrow their school days. (p. 127)

I’m not sure if that is intended to be sarcastic or not, but it’s certainly true that doing nothing but studying for their entire adolescence leaves suddenly ostensibly “adult” Koreans with little knowledge of how to meet the opposite sex and/or even how to dress, and with virtually the same education system then I can’t imagine that young Japanese adults would be any different. With still living at home thrown into the mix too, then “failing to outgrow their school days” is only natural behaviour, if immature by Western standards. But more serious is the charge that Tanaka is:

…going along with the tendency to treat women as the weak, passive, and subordinate party, as opposed to the powerful, manipulative, and dominant publishing industry.

In response, she quotes Dominic Strinati from page 217 of his book An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture, who says:

…the view of women as passive consumers manipulated into desiring commodities and the luxuries of consumption by the culture industries has begun to be challenged by feminist theory and research. Within the context of the emergence of what has been termed “cultural populism”, it has been argued that this notion of the passive consumer undervalues the active role of they play, the way their appreciation and interpretation of cultural consumption may diverge from that intended by the culture industries, as well as the fact that consumption cannot simply be understood as a process of subordination.

( Photo by plynoi )

 Strinati concludes that:

…consumption does not simply represent “the power of hegemonic forces in the definition of women’s role as consumer”, but rather “is the site of negotiated meanings, of resistance of appropriation as well as of subjection and exploitation”…(p. 218)

Strinati wrote that in 1995, and if anything, I imagine that the internet especially has made all consumers much savvier and more assertive since, which I give examples of here. Writing in 1998, Tanaka does say that it is important to keep in mind the strength the growing influence of young Japanese women as their disposable income rises, and with the benefit of ten years distance I can personally say that their spending habits did prove crucial to Japan’s ultimate economic recovery too. But ultimately Tanaka is still relatively dismissive of this:

While these caveats are all worthy of attention, it remains the case that these powerful consumers seem to be highly insecure in some respects. (p. 218)

And because of their lack of life-experience like I mentioned, then it is little wonder that young Japanese women:

…crave authority figures to instruct them as to how they should cope with this new unsettling new world of choice. Further research might concentrate both on the roots of this insecurity and on the multiple ways in which [magazine] writers attempt to maintain the loyalty of their target audience through the use of a tone of authority.

I too think that, so long as the practice of sending sleepy teenagers to study for long hours after school continues, then young Japanese and Korean women too will continue to prefer magazines like this. Like I said, it’s only natural that they would, and I want to re-emphasize that, lest I’ve ever inadvertently implied that I consider them stupid and/or immature for doing so. Moreover, as Michael Hurt says, not coincidentally the source of the photo underneath, there’s plenty of evidence that Korean women at least are beginning to reject the dictates of fashion magazines and be much more assertive and individualist in their fashion choices, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find the same of Japan too.

( Photo by feetmanseoul)

And the implications of this change? Hell, they make studying Korean society fascinating just by themselves!

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

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

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

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

랭킹! 남녀 섹시부위

Which, word for word, means:

Ranking! ManWoman SexyPart.

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

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

Women’s SexyBeauty as for

Firmly Chest Exposure The Maximum.

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

出

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

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

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

最

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

God Works in Mysterious Ways

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

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

Who is Wax?

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

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

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

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

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

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

이기찬 윤건 리쌍, 왁스 7집 쇼케이스에 다 모여

‘왁스‘ 앨범에서도 실력발휘 [ 2008-01-15]

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

가수 왁스가 7집 앨범 ‘여자는 사랑을 먹고’를 공개했다.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Click on the thumbnail. Hat tip to Brian for finding it for everyone.

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A reader just emailed me with the following questions, and because other readers might also be wondering about the same things I thought I’d answer him here: 

1. Are the TOPIK study books actually text books or are they just full of previous exams?
2. Is there also a book for the B-TOPIK exam?

(Click on the thumbnail)

Okay, the three bottom books are only previous exams and answers, going from tests 2-7, one book each for each of the six levels. This coming test will be the 13th, but as far as I know there has only been one change to the format of the test since the books were written: previously the whole exam was multi-choice, but now a few questions in the writing section involve, hell…having to actually write a few sentances for some answers, and then a short composition. Other than that, the format is exactly the same.

I haven’t visited a bookstore in a while I’m afraid, but I do know that a book with all 6 levels of the 12th test is available, and maybe even has explanations (in Korean) too, but I’m not sure. Previous tests are also available to download for free in the “Data Room” of the TOPIK website, but I don’t know if they have audio files for the listening sections. Does anyone else know? I haven’t looked myself because I’m quite content with my books and tapes for now.

As for the Business-TOPIK, sorry, but unless something has come out recently I’ve never seen any old test papers or study materials. But again, there may be something on the website.

Finally, the vocab book and grammar book at the top are technically study books, with explanations, examples, and previous test questions, but rather dry and entirely in Korean, so I wouldn’t even bother if you haven’t passed Level 3. Hell, I have, but the amount of vocab in the former makes me despair of ever learning enough to pass the advanced levels.

Like I said, I haven’t visited a bookstore in a while, so my information may be out of date. Apologies if it is, and I’d really appreciate any readers that put me up to speed. Meanwhile, I’m damn well going to pass level 5 this time round, so until the day of the test I’ll be off to Starbucks 9-12 every morning to study Korean, I kid you not. You’ll be simply amazed at how I’ll can get done once I’m away from the internet.

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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 starting to get lots of hits from people looking for information about the Test of Proficiency in Korean again, and I’d be shirking my duty as a Korea Studies Guru™ if I didn’t tell people what I know about it. But after confidently predicting how well I’d do last time, and then only achieveing Level 3 (out of 6) again, this time I’m not going to make a song and dance about it and am slowly but surely…ahem…actually studying for it instead, and by the 31st will have managed a whole 31 hours so far this year. Still not enough for sure, but the first time in my entire life I’ve ever been so disciplined. Kudos to me.

That aside, in Korea the test is on Sunday April the 20th, but you have to apply between February the 21st and March the 11th, and it costs 40,000 won. The red dates at the bottom of the poster below actually refer to when you can print out your application form, which you have to bring with you when you do the test.

If you’ve never heard of the test before but are interested, you can read more here, or by clicking on the English section of the TOPIK website here. You have to apply online at that site anyway.

It’s 83 days away, if you’re into that sort of thing.

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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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(Photo by Hiromy)

Yes, I know that picture is actually from Japan: I’ve started…ahem…to pay attention to the copyright of photos I find on the internet, and beggars can’t be choosers sorry. As for today’s post, some very quick blog/personal stuff first, but if you’d rather skip that, fuck off scroll down to the next photo.

Given the increasing geekiness of this blog, I don’t think readers will need me to defend my claim that I find Korea to be a fascinating place to study, but I’ve noticed that until recently most of my posts seem to highlight some negative aspect of Korean life, point out what should be but isn’t being done about them…and, well, that would be that. There’s nothing wrong with that per se, but surely it can get a bit repetitive after a while, and although there’s definite limits to the political activism a non-Korean can do here, merely blogging about Korea’s problems ultimately leaves me open to the charge that I’m no better than the Itaewon-dwelling expats I denigrate so much, claiming to know so much about Korea but never doing anything but complaining about it.

(Sinfest) 

No don’t worry, I’m not going to swing completely the other way to compensate and give happy, clappy stories about Korea that would not be out of place on the government propaganda channel otherwise known as Arirang, but when I get back to Korea in a few weeks I do mean to see if there’s any proactive environmental, rights-watchdogish…hell, even feminist clubs and/or organizations I can join. Sure, I have fiendish ulterior motives, one of being that all my Korean friends have now left Busan and I’m lonely I need Korean friends to bounce ideas and opinions off, and the other is that translating short newspapers on the blog in noooo way implies Korean fluency, so yeah, I’ll also be joining to get Korean practice.

Having said all that, I’m in Australia at the moment and about to go off and hang out with kangaroos and emus for a couple of days, so the actual joining will have to wait. To prepare though (for coming back I mean, not the kangaroos) I’ve been checking out the excellent and self-explanatory blog TwoKoreas: Labour, Social Movements, Politics to learn more about the dirty, stinking, hippy, lesbian communists I want to get to know better in 2008, and in the process I came across the site LabourStart which gives regular, recent information about the scum of the Earth’s strikes, demonstrations and general activities in Korea and around the world. Seriously, regardless of your political orientation it does present a side of Korea rarely shown on Korean TV, but still absolutely necessary to understanding it, so from now on I’ll be checking it out pretty regularly myself.

(Photo by e-chan. Also from Japan…I’m terribly sorry)

But having said all that, I clicked on the LabourStart link in the first place because I noticed its links to the following news stories from the OECD’s “Policies for Balancing Work and Family” report. Normally I’d hate to just copy and paste the articles, but they’re all from the Korea Herald, which means they’ll only be available to subscribers after a few days…so it’s, well, paste it or waste it really. I’ll probably be referring back to them a lot in the future, but if anyone from the Herald has a problem with them in the meantime, let me know (update: the English ChosunIlbo has a similar short report that will be online for much longer)

First, this one from Wednesday:

Korea has most unfriendly work conditions for women in OECD: report

Korea Herald 12.12.07

Korea has the most unfriendly work conditions for women among the world’s more advanced economies, said a report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) which was quoted by Yonhapp News Agency.

The report cited by the National Statistical Office (NSO) showed that South Korean women work more hours that others in the 30-member OECD, while getting paid less than their male counterparts.

The findings showed that 77 percent of women workers put in more than 40 hours a week at their jobs in 2005. This, the report said, is much higher than the average 49 percent tallied for the whole of the OECD in the same year.

I can’t speak for the accuracy of the statisti